Alison

it is almost 2 in the morning here so my limited brain-cells are no doubt
not at their best but my response to your post wasn't a 'reproof' of what
you were saying but rather a string of thoughts that came from what you
said. As I keep on chuntering about, e-mail is highly 'spoken' although
'written' in nature, for the most part people aren't composing essays in it,
although there are some more cautious creatures than me who do limit
themselves to the calculated piece.

I agree with the general tenor of both your posts, except to say that I do
have doubts about Said's theory on Orientalism in that it does suggest a
general application rather than a specific, he implies somewhere that Bach
and Mozart are connected, in a very vague way, although he enjoys them, if
you want to read sexist writing have a look at Moorish poems about Spanish
women, they conform exactly to Said's vision of European culture's attitudes
towards the East. Not that I disagree with Said's points about certain
specifics of European culture.

As for sexism, racism, class-prejudice, my point is that they are all forms
of power relationships. I confess that on a personal level I am rather fed
up with having sexism imputed to me, yet again today I was going around
women friends and asking if they thought me so, 'No, don't be ridiculous',
was a typical answer. So I am finding this side of things distressing. This
does not mean I have any block on the discussion of sexism, it certainly
does exist and I abhor it. I think in a way we yet again up against the
problem of rhetoric, I recall we've briefly discussed this before, what I
mean is that a vocabulary of genuine injustices can become employed to
perpetuate both further injustice and a mental fog, I've got no idea if I'm
making myself clear there, but does some of my attempt at meaning come
through?

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: "Alison Croggon" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 1:27 AM
Subject: Re: resignations


At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>I agree with the general tenor of the piece but what I
>question is whether enslavement, or consumerisation, of the Other can be
>presented as an exclusively male on female or for that matter Westerner on
>foreigner process.

I was commenting specifically on Sondheim's piece, which was about an
oriental slave girl.

At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>I have no doubt about the prevalence of sexism or racism
>in our societies but do think they are limited to say the stereotype of
>white male right-handed and middle-aged. I for instance inhabit that
>category, for which I have the joy of being jobless, without any family,
>living in social housing and generally lost. Prejudice can come from any
>quarter, women are just as capable as sexual discrimination as males,
>against other women as well as men, so too are black people capable of
>discrimination against others of the same colour, Jamaicans against
>Barbadians is a notorious example.

I don't think this has anything to do with what I'm saying!  How does
the existence (or absence) of sexism in white middle class males mean
that blacks, women and so on are not capable of prejudice themselves?
This is so often brought up as if it meant that sexism of the first
kind needn't be discussed at all.  And it ONLY happens when feminism
is discussed; people don't say, in discussing racism, oh, but women
are discriminated against too, so race doesn't matter.

At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>Said's thesis on Orientalism works as
>long as you restrict consideration to a certain strand in Western society
>but falls to pieces if you start examining historical strands in Arab
>history,

I don't get this at all - Said is _only_ analysing Western
perceptions of the Oriental.

At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>The points about representation
>are interesting, a similar argument could be mounted against 'Heart of
>Darkness' for example or 'Sweeney Agonistes', in that they may confirm the
>very things they condemn. I wouldn't agree with that and feel that such a
>viewpoint falls into self-righteousness, I have a very strong distaste for
>any form of censorship, regardless of whether the matter presented may be
>something for which I have a dislike. Whether Sondheim's piece falls into
>cliché is a different matter though, that's a genuinely artistic
>consideration.

This is the nub of the matter; but I think you are misreading me
badly.  My question _is_ an aesthetic question, not a form of
censorship or a dragging on non-artistic questions like social
worthiness (why are you parsing it in this way? did anyone say that
such work should not be written or that realities should not be
faced? it was a issue of whether the poem was in fact achieving what
it superficially aimed for, and a suggestion that, for various
reasons, I thought that was questionable).  I evaluate art on a
potency which for me is rooted in complexity and uncertainty, maybe
something like a quotient of negative capability; and art which
actually does not activate that sense successfully does not, for me,
work.  This matters to me far more than, say, technical virtuosity,
although I believe that the more capable an artist is technically,
the wider her range of expressiveness.   But technique is, as Celan
said, something you should take for granted, like hygiene.  Poetry
very often is capable of transcending the poet's own blindnesses, by
reaching deeper into consciousness; Derek Walcott, I remember, has an
interesting and uncomfortable discussion of Frost's racism, in which
he precisely argues that.  But it has to be very potent and
intelligent poetry to do so.  Eliot is capable of it, for instance.
Or Baudelaire.  And it's also why I can read Nietzsche without
flinching.  But less supple and self questioning works can, by not
maintaining that tension of doubt and complexity, simply fall into
the traps that continually threaten these writers (and which trap
them too, when they are not at their best - Wallace Stevens is maybe
the best example of that).    For me, it's a question of the level of
consciousness (and self consciousness) within the writing itself.

Best

A
--


Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/

Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/