At 1999-05-03 12:11:22, "K.M. Sutherland" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
#
# 2. As Marx said of philosophy: poetry should not describe the world, it
# should change it. And of course it should, since anyhow this is
# inevitable; the modal 'should' is purely decorative. What does this imply
# about criticism? About reportage? About the gangsterism of repute?
# Similarly I feel: in writing about poetry (and of course about poets) we
# should not attempt merely to -describe- what it achieves, how it may
# perplex or elucidate, how it appeals or does not, since anyhow this is
# merely a propaganda prescribed by the belief that a positivist objective
# critical attitude is a testimony of rational 'political' consideration. I
# consider quite rationally that we ought rather to see propaganda for what
# it is. When Roger described Lee Harwood's shirt, this was a piece of
# propaganda, albeit the slightest sliver: the aspect is gerundive, what is
# reported -ought to be- recognised as the disinterested observation of one
# for whom the fact of a simple detail (and the small comedy of this) has
# not been obliterated by some tyrannical and programmatic interest in
# -evaluating-. This is evaluative inherently. It presents a
# self-image characterized by negation of an -undesired- interest of another
# writer. It is all propaganda: not in the sense ruined by eg Goebbels, not
# in that we are straightforward conduits for an official enlightenment.
# Some degrees of bending -are- in evidence. But it is propaganda LATENTLY,
# we can (and MUST) anticipate a time at which retrogressive appeals will be
# made to what we are saying NOW, and at which the propagandistic core of
# our overt or not-so-overt prescriptions will submit to a new complex of
# theoretic sanctions. To overlook this or wish it away incredulously is
# most irresponsible. The question we have is this: with what power of
# veracity is our propaganda more than an advert? I do not want to
# advertise the assumption that 'reading around', the kind of prolific
# delight and regard that is so favourably mentioned on this list, has
# anything whatsoever to do with any real political concern outside of the
# ambit of literary criticism. On the strength of itself, it does not.
My intention in writing that line was pure whimsy - it harks back to the last
time I wrote about Lee, and I ask his forebearance here, when I mentioned his
gorgeous blue shirt. The g. word was purely personal, valuatative statement.
Versimilitude was all that sentence craved for then, and all it craves for now,
although admittedly badly placed and ill-written. How you get from whimsy to
propaganda is beyond me. I could equally have said he wore a nice smile or a
pair of jeans. Why aren't your CCCP writings propaganda? Or have you already
said that they are...my brain hurts...
Roger
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