OK, so now we're back to poetry, in Clinton's and apparenty your
sense of it. I have an author who's given me a manuscript that I
think has some serious flaws, though I'll probably publish it anyway.
She says she can't adjust it, because she writes "instinctively." We
most of us mostly write instinctively, in those adulterous
afternoons, and it's hard to put aside self-rapture and look at the
product dispassionately, but instinct has to retreat a bit--we'd
better revise with the head, not the heart, or we're likely to
produce a lot of treacle.
Mark
At 10:13 AM 1/9/2008, you wrote:
>Roger Day wrote:
>>I don't understand your point, above derision.
>Governing from the heart means governing capriciously. Human emotion
>is an extremely unreliable guide to reality - just 'cos you feel it,
>doesn't mean it's there - and almost always wrong about issues of
>any complexity whatsoever. Policymaking should be done by people who
>have learned to control their emotions (that is, "in prose"). That
>isn't the only qualification, but it's an important one.
>
>How you then justify your policy to people who have not learned to
>control their emotions is another question, but one that only arises
>because collective self-control of that kind would seriously hinder
>existing methods of maintaining hegemony and is discouraged
>accordingly. An emancipated polity would be a rational* one, and vice versa.
>
>Dominic
>
>* that is, emotionally continent. Everyone would spend the first
>thirty minutes of every day doing algebra exercises and practicing
>being a cold motherfucker. Serious business would be conducted in
>the morning. In the afternoon, everyone would get to relax and watch
>soap operas, write poetry, conduct adulterous affairs, etc.
>> In any case, you
>>mistake me. I speak not of policy but of the connection of politician
>>to person. I did not like Thatcher, I did not like her policies. But -
>>and interestingly this is the bit you elided - Thatcher had a
>>*connection* with people, she spoke to them in the way that connected
>>her to a huge chunk of the electorate, partially rational.
>
>
>
>> Which is
>>probably why she was elected so often. You could, if you had looked
>>above the parapet, seen the personal differences between Gore and
>>Bush. Over and above the dodgy Florida elections, there is a way in
>>which Bush spoke to people that Gore, or HRC did not until recently.
>>
>>Roger
>>
>>On Jan 9, 2008 11:01 AM, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>>>Roger Day wrote:
>>>
>>>>A lot of politics is from the heart, but isn't that how it should be?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>"And when he cried the little children died in the streets".
>>>
>>>On the other hand, "The Infant and the Pearl" by Douglas Oliver is a
>>>tremendous vindication of a particular politics of the heart, contra a
>>>Thatcherism which was widely reviled for its heartlessness. I'm still
>>>not certain that its heartlessness was particularly the worst, or even a
>>>particularly bad, thing about it, although she and her followers had a
>>>way of speaking about people that was intolerable. But that may itself
>>>have been emotionally driven; class contempt is no more a rational
>>>attitude than brotherly love.
>>>
>>>Dominic
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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