“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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