>>Where, for instance, did I say anything about Anny 'cursing' anybody? Why
>does she introduce that term?<<
>I don't see any suggestion by Anny that you were 'cursing' anybody.<
No, quite so, Anny suddenly brings in a statement that she doesn't curse
people and I have no idea why she brings it in.
>As I read this section of her mail, Anny is asking you (by extension
of my question) to distinguish the tone and content of your original
mail from, among other things, 'victimism'. Though that is her
extension of the terms of the question rather than my own, I can see
her point of view.<
It's somewhat transparent from the tenor of her post that Anny's remarks
+are+ personalised,:
>To which one could add increased victimism, blind criticism, selfish
accusation of others, ...
David, didn't you say that I sent advances to you, and when I asked you for
an explanation it was never given?<
To which I can only say: huh? What advances? And where does selfish
accusation of others come, my original post contains no specific references
to anyone, it does talk about things being unwittingly released by people.
As for paranoia, well I could crack the old joke: just because you're
paranoid it doesn't people aren't out get you. But, seriously, there's a lot
of stuff around that is psychologically dangerous, someone I know has of
late developed an interest in the Necromicon, I rapidly change the subject
if it comes up in conversation. This individual, as curses have been
mentioned, believes he has revenge killed three members of the West
Yorkshire Police by placing curses on them. Unpleasant, yes, but obviously
deluded. But the power of language to project hate is undoubted. A
sorcerer's curses of course work if the victim believes them but the same
psychology, but backed by physical force, lies behind the maledictions of
the law. Mal-edicts, mal-diction. Which where poetry falls into dangerous
terrains at a time when mal-dictions are rife, I continually notice here in
Leicester, a city which has long had a reputation for racial tolerance, how
the demonising of others that has risen since 'global terrorism' has altered
the language of the streets, people say things more and more that are so
right-wing as to have the whiff of proto Nazism about them, it also applies
to perceptions of the homeless or the less well-off so:
>On the other hand, your attempt here to deflect that question by
rhetorically aligning yourself with "the poor" <
would leave say Neruda or Vallejo defenestrated well and true!
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Spectare's Web, A Chide's Alphabet
& Painting Without Numbers
http://www.chidesalphabet.org.uk
----- Original Message -----
From: "Trevor Joyce" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2004 2:44 PM
Subject: "attracting attention" (was Re: Great Works website)
David:
>Trevor, neither of my posts contain any personal remarks about people on
the
>lists, yours and Anny's do about me:
>
>>How would you distinguish this analysis from supertitious paranoid
>self-pity?< by Trevor
This is a question. I was, and would still be, interested in a
relevant answer. Further, the terms of the question refer to a
specific email, not to yourself.
> >To which one could add increased victimism, blind criticism, selfish
>accusation of others, ..< by Anny
>
>>And besides that it is not my style to curse anybody, as I said above and
>translate in better terms here, I only think of you when one of your mails
>appears, without which I would rather do,< by Anny
Though I interpret Anny to be "add[ing] increased victimism, blind
criticism, selfish accusation" to the terms in my question, and hence
equally open to you for reply, I immediately wrote her b/c to ask her
to keep the tone down and to avoid personalities.
>Where, for instance, did I say anything about Anny 'cursing' anybody? Why
>does she introduce that term?
I don't see any suggestion by Anny that you were 'cursing' anybody.
>The language Anny employs in the first quote
>is a perfect example of what is going wrong - 'victimism' - the very kind
of
>terminology the right-wing use to deny the rights of the poor, I'm not
>saying Anny is doing that herself, but the words she is using can. This is
>the path that leads to 'There is no such thing as society' with its denial
>of human commonality.
As I read this section of her mail, Anny is asking you (by extension
of my question) to distinguish the tone and content of your original
mail from, among other things, 'victimism'. Though that is her
extension of the terms of the question rather than my own, I can see
her point of view.
On the other hand, your attempt here to deflect that question by
rhetorically aligning yourself with "the poor" I find extremely
dubious. Any of the words which any of us use can be employed for
repressive purposes, but to accede to your line of argument would
render us all speechless.
>Trevor, by attracting attention I mean attention of the wrong kind and I
>mean it in the very widest sense of who is drawn to one. The last serious
>poem I wrote was called 'Ch'ien', this back in November, it appears in the
>next issue of 'Moria'. Ch'ien is the first hexagram of the I Ching and is
>usually translated as The Creative. But it also means power, force,
>authority and the poem is about negotiating this matter. I remain at the
>point at which it concludes, and until its waiting is over I can't write
any
>new work.
Yes.
I'm still curious as to how you would distinguish your original
analysis from "supertitious paranoid self-pity."
Perhaps you consider you've already answered that, but you may
understand a certain difficulty on my part in seeing how the
technical problems concerned with your website (which is what Peter's
mail referred to) can usefully be described in terms of malign forces
being unloosed on society, which you intend to address by ceasing to
write poetry, "keeping [your] head down," and "not attracting
attention," (a course which you announce on an open-access list-serv).
Since what one might take as the substantive content of your analysis
appears so confused and self-contradictory, only the tone of it is
left, and I suspect it is that which prompted Anny's addition of
'victimism' to my question.
Trevor
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http://www.soundeye.org/trevorjoyce
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