The clarity of Jon's defence of a Confucian position is very helpful, as all
clarity is.

To clear up one misunderstanding (which I thought I'd already cleared up), I
did not attack Chomsksy's argument that an artist ought to speak the truth
about injustice to an audience who can do something about it.  OK, providing
the truth is being spoken.  And if it is not being spoken, then may the artist
think it is. (Can we ignore for the moment the whole business of what truth
is, please -- this list has run that one through the mincer already?  It may
be more helpful to think of some pretty obvious injustice, such as apartheid,
as otherwise one can chop logic so fine it clogs the throat). 

"I mean turn it around," Jon says, "are we to believe that it is the moral and
political obligation of the artist to speak the truth about injustice to an
audience who can't do anything about it?"  Well turn that around again: if the
audience really is so powerless (and the point is at least questionable), then
yes, the artist still does have the obligation to speak about injustice, etc.

At minimum, it's a question of what an ethical life might be. An alternative
to Confucius would be Kant, whose definition of ethics was behaving as you
think everyone ought to behave, no matter what the response or consequences.
Artists did, for example, play a role in the changes in South Africa,
especially the poetry and drama associated with the trade union movement, as
far as I understand the moves that led to the fall of apartheid.

I didn't bring my list of political poets up to date (and thanks for the
lexicography on Vergil -- no wonder I got confused) because I thought the
point proved.  This was careless.  The trouble is that when we get a poet who
has truly had an effect on politics we fail to recognise him/her.  It would be
parochial of us to assume that because we Brits hadn't heard of Amiri Baraka
(Leroi Jones, as was), the Black community in the US hasn't: or to forget
that, for example, he went head to head with Spike Lee in a famous argument
about Malcolm X.  I'm not sure all of Amiri's attitudes have been helpful, but
his effect has been widespread in his "nation", in which he one of the most
famous members.  Similarly, I have seen for myself that Allen Ginsberg had a
tremendous effect on young people, for good or ill, in the States, Italy,
France, Britain, Germany, Bangla Desh (!), etc. -- but, of course, Allen
wasn't "literary" enough for the language-obsessed Brits: our snobbiest
critics couldn't see that a poet's whole life might be poetic as well as
his/her language.  Anne Waldman, with lesser fame, has played a role in US
life, Diane di Prima, and Kathy Acker, also, provided people with writing-life
style influence (not especially desirable, perhaps, but there). Iain Sinclair
and his cohorts currently has an influence of some sort on the punk-style
following. And, alas, Philip Larkin had an effect on how people perceived
poetry and life in general (a lot of arty journalism in Britain remains
influenced by his attitudes because they match the worldview of many
journalists -- no nonsense, no pretention -- and, I'd argue, helped to affect
the tone adopted by Private Eye, with its anti-feminism and public school
manner of throwing ink blots from the back of the classroom).  Seamus Heaney,
to his credit, formed part of the movement that at once asserted political
principle and peaceful solution in Northern Ireland.

We are often blind to the effect of poetry because we are so obsessed with
poetry's being clever on the page and have an relatively modern concentration
on the innovation possible at the lexical and syntactical level.  As if that
were enough. I am not against that concentration in itself; but I believe
poetry to be very various.  That's why I've kept tub-thumping in recent years
about the necessity for a variety of genres and styles and have attacked any
avant-gardist attempts to restrict them.  My own poetic practice seeks this
variety -- I must say sometimes to my cost, for I'm only too aware when I am
offending against certain critical canons and have received the expected
brickbats occasionally.  It's so much easier to be modish, but when our guns
are so few we need all the ammunition we can get.  As far as performance
poetry, for example, manages the multi-cultural it, too, can prove a force --
and the huge fuss about Karen Finlay and NEA grants in the States shows the
potential there. Adrian Rich, again for all her flaws, has affected many a
woman's life.

I don't want to confuse "art" with "spectacle", but I will not divorce it from
the artist's whole life in society and history.  I just don't think Confucius
is right to recommend withdrawal when circumstances aren't favourable.  The
opposite could be argued: when circumstances aren't favourable, the artist of
courage comes forward.  Although the wise person who withdraws may also,
oddly, have an effect -- rather as a monk is supposed to have, I suppose. As I
say, various . . .

Doug


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