Chris wrote:
>As for class, we've been here, but I still don't think this classification
system works. What class are those in communes, those in disabled, those
non-working, those unemployed, those who own their own business, those who
run cyber-companies, the homeless, travellers. But we'd need another thread
for this. I'd say that there are people who legitimately regard themselves
as classless in exactly the same way we are saying that poetry cannot be
classified -- or are people simpler than poetry?<
What a tangled web this is! I think it would be rather difficult for anyone,
other than a person with the mind-set of an Iraqi Minister of Information,
to visit, say, the slums of Nairobi or Rio and deny that something called
'class' doesn't exist. Admittedly the vocabulary for its description is
crude and if one considers Britain laden with the tones of the past, but
even here the difference between a council housing estate and a 'nice'
dormitory village is blatant even to the most Poteminkinised of eyes. The
relevance to the dissemination of poetry is that the webs of contacts etc
are predominantly appropriated by the bourgeoisie, that isn't to make a
blanket condemnation of middle-class people, there are many many fine poets
from that social category, nor is it to make a simplistic claim that only
lower-class poets are good, most of them are crap in my experience, but from
the nature of the 'system' of dissemination arises a predominant tone, it
has a fluidity that alters with generations, the tone of the 50's hegemonies
is not identical to that of now. It's quite amusing that simultaneously we
are wrangling here over classification of types of poetry and social
stratifications: I'm heading full-tilt towards total agnosticism on almost
everything!!!
All the Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Hamilton-Emery" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 7:50 PM
Subject: Re: Subject categorisation
Hi Jeremy
> I'm bemused by "right wing presses like Faber" (after you claimed that the
> left/right distinction was bankrupt!)
Sorry I meant this historically, I don't think Faber under Eliot could
possibly have been construed as left wing, surely it was fascist and
anti-semitic?
As for class, we've been here, but I still don't think this classification
system works. What class are those in communes, those in disabled, those
non-working, those unemployed, those who own their own business, those who
run cyber-companies, the homeless, travellers. But we'd need another thread
for this. I'd say that there are people who legitimately regard themselves
as classless in exactly the same way we are saying that poetry cannot be
classified -- or are people simpler than poetry?
We've fragmented to the extent that no one regards themselves as part of a
society, it can no longer be defined. Even community has been eroded. Even
neighbourhood has been eroded. Most people don't know the people two houses
down from them. Even family is of no real significance. Few would now
prioritise family over the adult choices of "friends".
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