interesting essay. kind of fucked up, but interesting all the same. several
of the generalizations don't quite make it; the author has mistaken his own
experience for the general case, perhaps. still, it's important subject
matter to attempt to address. the relations of capital and poetry, i mean,
mainly.
ja
http://vispo.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeffrey Side" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 07, 2010 8:12 AM
Subject: “Entitlements: Post-Modernity, Capitalism, and the Threat to
Poetry's History” by Adam Filed at The Argotist Online
“Entitlements: Post-Modernity, Capitalism, and the Threat to Poetry's
History” by Adam Filed at The Argotist Online:
http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Fieled%20essay%204.htm
Excerpt:
The flimsy history created by post-modernity contrives to impose an
intimidating veneer; but a lack of real engagement with history creates a
sense of the ephemeral which, if not embraced, (and post-modernists do
express consonance with the “ephemeral” as such) must be rejected
absolutely. Many post-modern equations are simple: “incorporate or perish”
is one. What, beyond creating an imposing veneer, constitutes post-modern
“incorporation”? Nothing. Post-modernists, for what’s often an obvious
reason, feel entitled to stop at the surface; the reason is that a
persistent sense of entitlement inhibits and destroys human depth.
Deprivation often engenders depth— if you have never been deprived, it is
difficult to imagine a need for depth. And if you espouse and embrace
Marxist levels of material engagement, but fail to connect them to your own
existence and begin to take some personal responsibility for it, you become
a kind of sham factory owner. Anyone in the arts who has not inherited funds
the way that you have becomes an underling. Underlings can be brushed aside;
what begins as warped Marxism becomes straightforward Darwinian obduracy.
Simply put, the arts aren’t fair, and they never have been. What
post-modernity imposes is a context in which there is not only no justice in
who “gets in,” there is no justice in what they feel they are entitled to do
when/if they do get in. What do they feel entitled to do, more often than
not?
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