Uncritical thought (was: Unintelligentsia (was: Re: Spider...))
Dan'l DanehyOakes
as your use of "intelligentsia."
I don't want to imply that you're anti-intellectual, and didn't even
really mean to imply that originally. You've been bamboozled by the
Great Anti-Intellectual Conspiracy.
(Do I believe there is such a thing? Not as such: but I _do_ believe,
deeply, that there are a large number of people who have a great deal
invested in making "intellectual" a bad word: people who know that
dumb people won't see through them, or who know that by pointing at the
"intellectuals" as the cause of everything bad, or everything that seems
bad, they can maintain their own personal power bases -- whatever those
may be. Note that I do not specifically mention Republicans, Democrats,
or televangelists. . .)
Words like "intelligentsia" and "critic" are frequently used disparagingly
by people who either don't know what they mean. . . or who don't like what
they really stand for in our culture.
"Intelligentsia" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't
want to believe that an intelligent, educated person is better equipped
to make a decision than an ignorant dolt.
"Critic" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't want to
believe that there can be any absolute standards of quality in the arts.
What's a critic? Just someone who writes or speaks in an evaluating
manner about art. It is most emphatically _NOT_ someone who subscribes to
a particular "hye stile" of writing and considers all else worthless.
(Some critics _do_ do this, but they are _bad_ critics.) (Bad critic.
No complimentary review copies.)
A good critic is capable of judging a work on its own terms: that is,
an entertainment book on terms of how well it entertains, etc.
Note that there are many bad critics. There are also a great many people
acting like critics who aren't, especially in academia: the law of
publish-or-perish always puts Sturgeon's Law into notrump, redoubled.
One side effect of this is that a critic, because she has spent a great
deal of time learning to do this, is likely to spot and be annoyed by
flaws that a casual reader may miss. . . for example, failures of
plot logic that a casual reader, barreling through the novel, might not
notice.
If the reader noticed it for himself, he'd be offended by it, would feel
that the writer was cheating. But when the critic points it out, many
readers get offended.
Why?
Several reasons pop to mind.
First, because the critic has, unwittingly, made the reader feel stupid.
When the critic notices that Ace Speckley _can't_ pull his .45 and shoot
the bad guy in the climactic scene, because the bad guy had tossed Ace's
.45 in the river two scenes previously, the reader feels that he should
have noticed this himself. But he _didn't_. So it's not important, and
the critic is picking nits. She's just a damn prissy aesthete. Hey, the
book was entertaining, wasn't it? (Yes, but if you'd noticed that for
yourself, you'd have thrown it at the wall.)
Second, because the critic has attacked something that the reader has
enjoyed and, to some extent, identified with. (But Ace Speckley is my
_hero_.)
Third, because the reader is, through the ill offices of the Conspiracy
above mentioned, prepared to dislike critics and regard them as elitists.
Critics _are_ elitists, but only in a vague sense: it's an elite that
all are invited to join. All you have to do is read carefully and
intelligently. What the hell kind of elitism is that?
Sigh.
You get the idea.
Honestly, a critic performs a service to the reader who bothers: not
just by pointing out a shitty book and calling it for what it is, but
by pointing out books that reward more involved reading, and giving
clues as to how to get the most out of a reading.
Have you met the poor? You ought to. They're
delightful people. Of course, they haven't got
two coppers to rub together. . .
--Robin Hood, in TIME BANDITS
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
Professional Development, or anyone else.
But I'm willing to share.
Jim Puckett
Intelligentsia" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't
>want to believe that an intelligent, educated person is better equipped
>to make a decision than an ignorant dolt.
As I recall, Heinlein used the word to describe folks who specialized
in the 'fuzzy studies'. I remember a scene in _The_Moon_is_a_Harsh_
Mistress_, where 'the intelligentsia' were incapable of understanding
how rocks could cause mushroom clouds 8-)....
jim p.
--
Jim Puckett NTI puc...@freedom.msfc.nasa.gov
Huntsville,AL (205)544-8457
*****!Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty!*****
Eric S. Raymond
> What's a critic? Just someone who writes or speaks in an evaluating
> manner about art. It is most emphatically _NOT_ someone who subscribes to
> a particular "hye stile" of writing and considers all else worthless.
> (Some critics _do_ do this, but they are _bad_ critics.) (Bad critic.
> No complimentary review copies.)
>
> A good critic is capable of judging a work on its own terms: that is,
> an entertainment book on terms of how well it entertains, etc.
>
> Note that there are many bad critics. There are also a great many people
> acting like critics who aren't, especially in academia: the law of
> publish-or-perish always puts Sturgeon's Law into notrump, redoubled.
Daniel, it seems to me that you're pulling a fast one, here, by trying to
redefine `critic' to mean `good critic in Daniel Danehy-Oakes's terms'.
Happens I agree with your terms. All the same, I think Alfvaen is nearer
right than you are on this one, which is why I call myself a `reviewer'
and never a `critic'.
The way I've always understood the terms, `critic' implies the judgement
that there are objective standards that can be applied repeatably, whereas
`reviewer' admits the subjectivity of the process. Usually, the `objective
standards' are those of 20th century `art literature' fans, a crowd I
personally want as little to do with as I can possibly manage.
I think a large part of the reason `intelligentsia' has acquired negative
connotations is because it's associated with this particular *kind*
of intellectual, and this kind's usual politics (the word was originally
Russian, a term of art in Leninist theory used to describe that part of
a society's intellectual elite that could be co-opted into the `revolutionary
vanguard').
Potted history of the 20th-century `intelligentsiya' (to give the word its
original form) follows:
The art-literature crowd may be slowly letting go of Marxism, but they haven't
lost their fundamental, damning arrogance. Ever since the creation of the
`bohemian' concept of the artist's role and the rise of Modernism, fine arts
has been dominated by a self-conscious elite which legitimized its control of
the arts by its claim to be an aesthetic and/or political `revolutionary
vanguard'. Thus, `great art' had to be redefined away from that which
*communicated* with the masses to that which teased, agitated, upset and
indoctrinated them. The `fine artist' was locked into a stance of perpetual
alienation from and confrontation with his/her surrounding society.
As a category, the `fine arts' crowd had to persuade everyone (not least
themselves) that between `fine art' and `popular art' there is a great
gulf fixed; that the ordinary person's perceptions are of account only
in popular art (which a `true artist' approaches only with irony and
implicit disdain), and that to appreciate `true art' one must cross over
into a rarefied realm in which the agendas of `fine artists' themselves
define what is good.
You can see this happening in music after Schoenberg and Stockhausen; in
architecture with the Bauhaus group; in literature after Henry James and
especially James Joyce and T.S. Eliot; in visual arts after Symbolism and
Surrealism. It dominated the art scene for more than fifty years, creating
for many people the perception that artists had always been like that.
This could only go on so long before the whole self-conscious `art world'
condemned itself to sterility and irrelevance, and the rest of the
surrounding culture caught on and stopped buying into the con.
Today, most of the people who call themselves `critics' and make a big
deal out of critical theory are still servants of the con. We have them in SF,
too; Samuel Delany is maybe the best known. Scan any issue of `The New York
Review of Science Fiction' to find others.
Mr. Alfvaen may only half-know it, but *this* is the cultural complex he is
reacting against. And *you* are still allowing them to set the terms of the
debate, by accepting the equation of `intellectuals' with `intelligentsiya'.
--
Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews)
Barry Wise
> djd...@pbhyc.PacBell.COM (Dan'l DanehyOakes) writes:
>
> Intelligentsia" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't
> >want to believe that an intelligent, educated person is better equipped
> >to make a decision than an ignorant dolt.
>
political vanguard or elite
The disparaging use of the term refers to ignorant dolts who have
pretensions of intelligence because of social position and superficial
knowledge of worthless subjects. The so called "elite" who are society's
drones.
--
Barry Wise
(bw...@hemlock.mitre.org)
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" really should be
"Immunity corrupts and absolute immunity corrupts absolutely"
Alfvaen
> Unfortunately, Alfvaen, your definition of "critic" is almost as naive
> as your use of "intelligentsia."
>
> I don't want to imply that you're anti-intellectual, and didn't even
> really mean to imply that originally. You've been bamboozled by the
> Great Anti-Intellectual Conspiracy.
Yes, that seems to me just as likely as the fact that all men are subliminally
oppressing women...;-} (no flames, please...please?)
> Words like "intelligentsia" and "critic" are frequently used disparagingly
> by people who either don't know what they mean. . . or who don't like what
> they really stand for in our culture.
>
> "Intelligentsia" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't
> want to believe that an intelligent, educated person is better equipped
> to make a decision than an ignorant dolt.
>
> "Critic" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't want to
> believe that there can be any absolute standards of quality in the arts.
I don't think that there are any absolute standards of quality in anything...I
think that it's all opinion. I will concede that there are standards of
quality applicable to large subsets of people, though, which is close enough.
> What's a critic? Just someone who writes or speaks in an evaluating
> manner about art. It is most emphatically _NOT_ someone who subscribes to
> a particular "hye stile" of writing and considers all else worthless.
> (Some critics _do_ do this, but they are _bad_ critics.) (Bad critic.
> No complimentary review copies.)
>
> A good critic is capable of judging a work on its own terms: that is,
> an entertainment book on terms of how well it entertains, etc.
My problem is this: There are many books that I still enjoy, written by such
hacks as Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Jack L. Chalker, Marion Zimmer Bradley,
Barbara Hambly, etc. On this newsgroup, the people who tend to speak
disparagingly about these writers and their works, dismissing them as
unoriginal hacks, etc.(I'm sure they can fill in appropriate comments) are the
same ones who recommend other works which I have seen recommended by critics.
(Real critics, now. Baird Searles, Algis Budrys, Ordon Scott Card, and a few
others I can't remember right now.) I thus get the impression that these
people believe in a hierarchy of style, even if only at the level of this is
hackwork, this is innovation.
My point about critics being jaded is something I have also observed on
occasion...it's a real cliche in the visual arts, which may affect my
observations, I admit, but let's face it. If you read all(or even a random
subset)of all SF published today, you're going to get a lot of trash. It's all
going to start looking the same. Anything that looks like a rehash of what
you've seen before is going to have two strikes against it from the start, and
will have to be correspondingly better to make a good impression. Anything
that is definably different from the start will have an advantage, and is more
likely to make a good impression.
> Note that there are many bad critics. There are also a great many people
> acting like critics who aren't, especially in academia: the law of
> publish-or-perish always puts Sturgeon's Law into notrump, redoubled.
Another cliche about academic critics, that I have also found to contain a lot
of truth, is dismissal on the basis of genre. "This is science fiction, so it
can't possible be any good." Within SF itself, we get "This is quest fantasy,
it can't possibly be any good." I don't like to dismiss anything out of hand.
One of the worst books I read(or, rather, failed to read)was by Keith Laumer.
But I still read the occasional Keith Laumer book. (I just steer clear of
Retief, is all.)
Something else that seems to me to be a prerequisite of being a critic is high
standards. I have fairly low standards--a book doesn't have to do too much to
entertain me. But many critics seem harder to please. (Orson Scott Card may
be an exception--but then, he just doesn't tell us about the books he doesn't
like.) I've found more than one author I liked(M.A. Foster and Sheri S.
Tepper, off the top of my head)from bad reviews of their books. (Admittedly,
the books they were reviewing were not the best by those authors, but the name
stuck in my head.)
> One side effect of this is that a critic, because she has spent a great
> deal of time learning to do this, is likely to spot and be annoyed by
> flaws that a casual reader may miss. . . for example, failures of
> plot logic that a casual reader, barreling through the novel, might not
> notice.
>
> If the reader noticed it for himself, he'd be offended by it, would feel
> that the writer was cheating. But when the critic points it out, many
> readers get offended.
>
> Why?
>
> Several reasons pop to mind.
>
> First, because the critic has, unwittingly, made the reader feel stupid.
> When the critic notices that Ace Speckley _can't_ pull his .45 and shoot
> the bad guy in the climactic scene, because the bad guy had tossed Ace's
> ..45 in the river two scenes previously, the reader feels that he should
> have noticed this himself. But he _didn't_. So it's not important, and
> the critic is picking nits. She's just a damn prissy aesthete. Hey, the
> book was entertaining, wasn't it? (Yes, but if you'd noticed that for
> yourself, you'd have thrown it at the wall.)
>
> Second, because the critic has attacked something that the reader has
> enjoyed and, to some extent, identified with. (But Ace Speckley is my
> _hero_.)
>
> Third, because the reader is, through the ill offices of the Conspiracy
> above mentioned, prepared to dislike critics and regard them as elitists.
> Critics _are_ elitists, but only in a vague sense: it's an elite that
> all are invited to join. All you have to do is read carefully and
> intelligently. What the hell kind of elitism is that?
I don't derive enjoyment from reading carefully and intelligently, though.
That's the main thing that distinguishes critics from other readers--a desire
to read carefully and intelligently. I have tried to do this--mostly as a
result of taking University English courses. I never enjoyed it to any great
extent. So I don't think I'll ever really become a critic.
> Honestly, a critic performs a service to the reader who bothers: not
> just by pointing out a shitty book and calling it for what it is, but
> by pointing out books that reward more involved reading, and giving
> clues as to how to get the most out of a reading.
When I read book reviews, normally I haven't read the book in question.
(Unless I'm reading back issues of magazines.) And usually all that registers
is the name of the book and the author, if that. The opinion of the critic I
may not even remember when I see the book next. So I guess I just don't take
advantage of critics' services.
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
> My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
> Professional Development, or anyone else.
> But I'm willing to share.
--
---Alfvaen(and no, I don't speak Swedish!)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The more things change, the more they remain things.
Current Album--Dire Straits:Brothers In Arms
"I don't know how it happened; it was faster than the eye could flick.
And all I could do was hand it to you, and your latest trick."
Kenn Barry
>My problem is this: There are many books that I still enjoy, written by such
>hacks as Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Jack L. Chalker, Marion Zimmer Bradley,
>Barbara Hambly, etc. On this newsgroup, the people who tend to speak
>disparagingly about these writers and their works, dismissing them as
>unoriginal hacks, etc.(I'm sure they can fill in appropriate comments) are the
>same ones who recommend other works which I have seen recommended by critics.
They're called "guilty pleasures". Everybody has 'em. Read 'em,
enjoy 'em, don't worry about it. Just understand that, when someone says
it's hackwork, they're right.
Kayembee
Mike Farren
>
>Yes, that seems to me just as likely as the fact that all men are
>subliminally oppressing women...;-} (no flames, please...please?)
Why should I flame you? The statement speaks for itself :-)
>My problem is this: There are many books that I still enjoy, written by such
>hacks as Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Jack L. Chalker, Marion Z. Bradley,
>Barbara Hambly, etc. On this newsgroup, the people who tend to speak
>disparagingly about these writers and their works, dismissing them as
>unoriginal hacks, (I'm sure they can fill in appropriate comments) are the
>same ones who recommend other works which I have seen recommended by critics.
>(Real critics, now. Baird Searles, Algis Budrys, Ordon Scott Card, and a few
>others I can't remember right now.)
I hate to break this to you, but of that group, only Budrys remotely qualifies
as a critic in any sort of academic sense.
>I thus get the impression that these
>people believe in a hierarchy of style, even if only at the level of this is
>hackwork, this is innovation.
Of course we do. Don't you? Are you seriously trying to maintain that
Chalker is a better writer than Delany? Or that Anthony is superior to
LeGuin? I've got nothing against hackwork per se - I just finished
rereading a bunch of Alan Dean Foster, with pleasure. But it's pretty
evident to me that there are writers who are hacks, and there are writers
who are artists, and that there is a difference there. The only thing that
bothers me are the people who stand up and shout very loudly that their
favorite hack "IS AN ARTIST! HE WOULDN'T SELL IF HE WEREN'T AN ARTIST!
WHO ARE YOU TO SAY WHAT'S ART, ANYWAY?". I have nothing against anyone's
taste, but do have things to say about their powers of discernment :-)
>Something else that seems to me to be a prerequisite of being a critic is
>high standards.
No, just *consistent* standards. I know a person who qualifies, in every
respect, as an academic critic of the first degree. He also happens to
love pulp detective novels - especially the ones from the fifties with
the half-dressed babes on the cover. He can do a critical analysis of
those with no problem at all - on their OWN terms.
>When I read book reviews, normally I haven't read the book in question.
But you're talking about reviewers, not critics. There is an enormous
difference, as you know.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Farren - no longer employed by Commodore. Still only my opinions,
and not those of any organization.
Mike Farren
>
>The disparaging use of [intelligentsia] refers to ignorant dolts who have
>knowledge of worthless subjects. The so called "elite" who are society's
>drones.
And who, for the most part, do not exist, no matter how much Hollywood
and certain anti-intellectual types (not to mention disgruntled hack
writers :-) want to convince you that they do. The majority of the
so-called "intelligentsia" are, in fact, capable and discerning people,
just like you are. If, at times, their opinions seem to be a bit
disconnected from the "real world", you can be sure that to them,
your opinions are just as disconnected, and for the same reasons.
Doug Merritt
>>(Real critics, now. Baird Searles, Algis Budrys, Ordon Scott Card,
>
>as a critic in any sort of academic sense.
Explain to me why you exclude Card?
>favorite hack "IS AN ARTIST! HE WOULDN'T SELL IF HE WEREN'T AN ARTIST!
>WHO ARE YOU TO SAY WHAT'S ART, ANYWAY?". I have nothing against anyone's
>taste, but do have things to say about their powers of discernment :-)
:-) Agreed!
Doug
--
Doug Merritt Preferred: do...@netcom.com (or: do...@eris.berkeley.edu)
Professional Wild-eyed Visionary Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow
Alfvaen
What if I say that I don't feel guilty when I read them? That I don't feel
guilty to admit that I enjoy them? I have guilty pleasures, but reading the
above-listed authors isn't among them. Flaming people on talk.bizarre is a
guilty pleasure. Reading pornographic books is a guilty pleasure. Eating
cheesecake is a guilty pleasure.
And I don't have to agree with anybody who calls anything hackwork if I don't
want to. I wouldn't say that none of the above has ever written hackwork. But
I would say that the majority of each of their bodies of work has not been
hackwork.
I have enjoyed the last few Xanth books; although it did reach a nadir with
Golem In The Gears, the Xanth series has picked up since then, IMHO. I enjoyed
reading the Author's Notes at the end of the Incarnations of Immortality books.
I am waiting impatiently for the second and third Quintara Marathon books to
come out in paperback. Many Jack L. Chalker books are on my reread list.
Barbara Hambly is one of the best writers I know at breathing new life into
cliched fantasy situations. I always enjoy her books.
As for Anne McCaffrey and Marion Zimmer Bradley--well, they have each written
some pretty bad stuff in their time. But they also have books that are among
my favourites.
Any other writers doing hackwork out there? I'll see how many of their books I
like.
--
---Alfvaen(and no, this isn't my real name!)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
The more things change, the more they remain things.
Current Album--The Pukka Orchestra
"Might as well on Mars...I'm already that far away from you."
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>In <1992Mar23.1...@pbhyc.PacBell.COM> Dan'l DanehyOakes wrote:
>> manner about art. It is most emphatically _NOT_ someone who subscribes to
>> a particular "hye stile" of writing and considers all else worthless.
>> (Some critics _do_ do this, but they are _bad_ critics.) (Bad critic.
>> No complimentary review copies.)
>>
>> A good critic is capable of judging a work on its own terms: that is,
>> an entertainment book on terms of how well it entertains, etc.
>>
>> acting like critics who aren't, especially in academia: the law of
>> publish-or-perish always puts Sturgeon's Law into notrump, redoubled.
>Daniel, it seems to me that you're pulling a fast one, here, by trying to
>redefine `critic' to mean `good critic in Daniel Danehy-Oakes's terms'.
Grump. That's "Dan'l." NOT "Daniel." You get one mistake on that; do it
again and I'll borrow Chuq's friend Guido. . .
No, though, I'm not "redefining" critic. Pardon me a moment while I
consult the AMERICAN HERITAGE. . .
critic 1. One who forms and expresses judgements of
the merits, faults, value or truth of a matter. 2. A
specialist in the judgement of the worth of literary or
artistic works, esp. one who does this as a profession.
3. A person who finds fault; a severe judge.
Of these three, only the second is relevant to our little discussion
here (though I suspect the third has heavily colored the popular
conception of the critic). Note that while being a "specialist"
implies the use of some standards, it does _not_ imply the critic's
subscription to any _particular_ set of standards.
At most I can be accused of describing "critic" in terms that more
easily favor what I want a critic to be; but I think I can reasonably
claim that my description above is roughly equivalent to the #2
AHD definition.
>The way I've always understood the terms, `critic' implies the judgement
>that there are objective standards that can be applied repeatably, whereas
>`reviewer' admits the subjectivity of the process. Usually, the `objective
>standards' are those of 20th century `art literature' fans, a crowd I
>personally want as little to do with as I can possibly manage.
Contrariwise, the distinction I would make is that a "reviewer" is
essentially a "consumer guide" -- a help to the reader deciding how to
spend his book money. A critic is free to assume that you have read,
or are planning on reading, a given work; her function is to provide
information, interpretation, suggestions, etc., that will enrich your
reading of the work, or reading in general.
This excludes "technical criticism," which isn't really the same thing
at all. Technical criticism is discussion of (surprise) technique. It
is in the real of technical criticism that "absolute" standards become
relevant, and here's where I want to demur on my use of the word
"absolute" as follows: any "absolute" standard can be broken or
ignored for sufficient (artistic) reason.
Given that, the concept of an "absolute" standard becomes much clearer.
Such standards extend well beyond the realm of grammar to those of
character (characters should talk and behave the way someone in that
situation really would), plot logic, etc. The "rules" Mark Twain set
out in his famous essay on the "Literary Crimes of Fenimore Cooper"
are a good starting place.
Let's take an example, and one that will show how "absolute" the
standards should or should not be.
If in one scene of a film, a character is shown losing an important
article into (say) a gorge, then that character had better not have
that same article again later in the film unless there's been some
intervening explanation of how it was retrieved.
In the old serials, this "rule" was commonly ignored. This was bad
filmmaking.
In the Indiana Jones films, this "rule" was similarly ignored (e.g.,
Indy's hat and whip) -- and yet that was _good_ filmmaking.
Why?
Because in the serials, the hat/whip/whatever prop would reappear
out of simple sloppiness. In the IJ films, it's done deliberately,
and for a "sufficent (artistic) reason" -- it was an homage to those
old serials which, however sloppy they were, were often a great deal
of fun.
In those same serials, they would invariably end each chapter with a
scene of apparently inescapable doom: heroine strapped to a runaway
mine car, hero trapped in a burning dynamite shack, etc. At the
beginning of the next chapter the hero/heroine would avert doom by some
means.
When this was done "fairly" -- e.g., the heroine manages to struggle
her arm into a position where she can grab the brake lever and, hauling
with all her might, stop the mine car millimeters short of disaster --
it was good (if still somewhat cheap) filmmaking. But if, as all-too-often
happened, the beginning of the next chapter "showed" that what we had
seen at the end of the previous chapter hadn't really happened -- e.g.,
the heroine, whom we'd plainly seen going over the cliff in that mine
car, is now shown to have jumped out moments before it plummetted --
then that was bad filmmaking and no excuses.
Pointing out that this was bad filmmaking would be technical criticism.
Pointing out (in fiction) that an author has dropped plot threads and
never picked them up again; that his "world-famous scientist" has blithely
ignored simple scientific fact, or scientific method; that the planet
he's put into orbit around a certain type of star would be warm enough
for life but receive enough microwaves to prevent life; etc., etc. --
in short, pointing out simple boneheadedness -- is technical criticism.
And so, I hasten to point out (well, I don't really hasten; I've been
at great length about the negative side before getting around to it),
is pointing out what makes a good story work. Pointing out the rhythms
of the language in a Theodore Sturgeon story, or the marvellously-
reproduced mountain dialect in a Manly Wade Wellman "Silver John"
adventure, or the intricately looping timescheme of Heinlein's
"All You Zombies--" or Delany's EMPIRE STAR: all these, too, are
technical criticism.
Technical criticism can be a great deal of fun to read, especially the
negative sort; Twain's above-mentioned essay, or the chapters on Van
Vogt and "Chuckleheads" in Damon Knight's IN SEARCH OF WONDER, are
delightfully vicious dissections of bad writing which I recommend to
anyone with a mean streak whose wideth is greater than that of a
geometric line.
And so forth. Et cetera. I'm not trying to write the Young Person's
Guide to Criticism, here; but I'm just fucking sick'n'tired of seeing
a perfectly good and pleasurable activity (for writer and reader) treated
as if it were the intellectual equivalent of spreading cholera.
>Potted history of the 20th-century `intelligentsiya' (to give the word its
>original form) follows:
Feh. If you want to give it _that_ form, you'll have to use Cyrillic
characters. If you really want to use the _original_ form, however,
you'll have to use the Latin, which simply meant "intelligence."
>The art-literature crowd may be slowly letting go of Marxism, but they haven't
>lost their fundamental, damning arrogance.
. . . neither has the know-nothing crowd, I hasten (really this time) to
point out. . .
>Ever since the creation of the
>`bohemian' concept of the artist's role and the rise of Modernism, fine arts
>has been dominated by a self-conscious elite. . .
This is nothing new. Check out, for example, the history of the French
Academy (which nearly trashed Moliere).
Historically, it comes from the Catholic Church's censors; as the power
of the Church in the arts faded, the power vacuum was filled (as vacuums
always will be filled), in this case by a combination of wealthy arts
patrons and "critics"/academics. The current "academic" prejudices are
pretty much the degeneracy of a revolt against stifling classicism on
the part of the previous version of the academic establishment; the immediate
effect was to free the academic community, so that non-"classical"
writers (e.g., Joyce, Beckett, Kafka) could be discussed. The pendulum
has now completed that swing, the former freedom is now a stifle -- and
many young academics are revolting against it. Plus ca change, plus
c'est le meme chose. . .
>Thus, `great art' had to be redefined away from that which
>*communicated* with the masses to that which teased, agitated, upset and
>indoctrinated them. The `fine artist' was locked into a stance of perpetual
>alienation from and confrontation with his/her surrounding society.
Um.
Not really.
The "fine artist" doesn't gotta tease/agitate/upset/indoctrinate the
masses. Indeed, a number of artists who have been quite popular with
the critical crowd have also been quite popular with the "masses" --
Dali comes to mind. And, yes, there is and remains a significant "mass"
which hates surrealism, but they're far from a majority. The real
mass reaction was against abstractionism and its descendants: because
that art _does_ require an intellectual involvement, without which it
"looks like a child's scribbling." (Not true; no child ever drew anything
remotely like it. What they mean is that, like a child's scribbling,
it doesn't bear an immediate and obvious representational relationship
to the "subject.") The surrealist's _paintings_ were generally taken
in stride; it was their _behavior_ that offended the masses.
>As a category, the `fine arts' crowd had to persuade everyone (not least
>themselves) that between `fine art' and `popular art' there is a great
>gulf fixed; that the ordinary person's perceptions are of account only
>in popular art (which a `true artist' approaches only with irony and
>implicit disdain), and that to appreciate `true art' one must cross over
>into a rarefied realm in which the agendas of `fine artists' themselves
>define what is good.
The first two are bushwah propounded by those who never bothered to find
out what the 20th-century art scene was actually doing.
The last is true, anywhere in the arts. If the artist's own agenda
doesn't define quality, what does? That is: what is the measure of
quality in art, except how well the artist achieves what she is striving
for?
>You can see this happening in music after Schoenberg and Stockhausen; in
>architecture with the Bauhaus group; in literature after Henry James and
>especially James Joyce and T.S. Eliot; in visual arts after Symbolism and
>Surrealism. It dominated the art scene for more than fifty years, creating
>for many people the perception that artists had always been like that.
I don't know architecture very well. Of Schoenberg and Stockhausen; of
James and Joyce and Eliot; of the symbolists and surrealists; of all these
"modernists," one basic statement can be made: they demanded more of
their audience, in terms of direct engagement with the work, than their
predecessors. The works of any of these can be "understood" and enjoyed
without the intermediary of a critic -- some would even say better so.
All of them reinvented their art, in the sense that they rejected the
traditional semantic structures as unable to convey what they were
attempting to do, and devised new ones that would do the job. The
audience has to learn the new "language" to enjoy the work. For many,
indeed, learning the semantics of these artists _is_ a large part of
the pleasure of the work.
The next paragraph will come across pejorative. I don't really want
it to, but I'm pissed off and don't feel like revising it.
Many people are lazy. They want their "art" spoon-fed to them, with
little or no engagement on their part: the literary, musical, or
painted equivalent of television sitcoms. And most popular art does
precisely this.
Out of offpissed mode:
I have no problem with this type of art, or this type of laziness.
I feel like that sometimes myself, and that's when I read a Piers
Anthony novel or a cheap murder mystery. But a steady diet of
pabulum weakens the mental jaws and dulls the mental teeth, and
that's what a majority of people seem to want. Fine. Sturgeon's
Law applies and there's plenty of predigested pap out there for
'em.
Where I get pissed, is when they seem to be telling me that I can't
have the harder stuff I _also_ want at times. When anti-intellectual
dweebs tell me that because I _enjoy_ reading James, listening to
Varese, looking at Picasso, I'm a snob.
And sometimes I want to try something new. I'm not a rich dilettante;
I can't always afford the time to puzzle things out for myself. A
good critic who's done some of the work for me can give me the clues
I need to get started.
(An excellent example of this is Anthony Burgess's book RE:JOYCE, which
gave me all the clues I needed to penetrate ULYSSES without giving away
the whole show the way Stephen Gilbert's book does. Highly recommended
as a fun book in its own right, RE:JOYCE is dedicated to the proposition
that Joyce wasn't an aesthetic snob but a writer of and for the masses
whose reputation for difficulty comes largely from those very academic
critics I referred to in an earlier post.)
>This could only go on so long before the whole self-conscious `art world'
>condemned itself to sterility and irrelevance, and the rest of the
>surrounding culture caught on and stopped buying into the con.
You don't like something, so it's a con. Feh.
>Today, most of the people who call themselves `critics' and make a big
>deal out of critical theory are still servants of the con. We have them in SF,
>too; Samuel Delany is maybe the best known. Scan any issue of `The New York
>Review of Science Fiction' to find others.
I've read many issues of NYRSF; I know precisely one regular contributor
who I'd regard as a con artist. For the rest, they're doing exactly
what I said in the first place -- writing evaluatory essays on the art
of SF. Delany in particular is me main man; in his books of criticism,
he does *not* judge absolute values. He writes, as he does in NYRSF,
about the language of SF -- that is, how words work together to produce,
in the reader's mind, multisensory images of worlds that never existed;
and how the same words implicitly critique the world that does exist.
>Mr. Alfvaen may only half-know it, but *this* is the cultural complex he is
>reacting against. And *you* are still allowing them to set the terms of the
>debate, by accepting the equation of `intellectuals' with `intelligentsiya'.
I neither accept nor reject this equation. I observe that "intelligentsia,"
used as a pejorative, is generally synonomous (for those who use it) with
"pointy-headed intellectuals." If you haven't noticed this, you haven't
been paying attention. I prescribe listening to the Rush Limbaugh show
for two or three weeks.
Have you met the poor? You ought to. They're
delightful people. Of course, they haven't got
two coppers to rub together. . .
--Robin Hood, in TIME BANDITS
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>Dan'l DanehyOakes writes
>> I don't want to imply that you're anti-intellectual, and didn't even
>> really mean to imply that originally. You've been bamboozled by the
>> Great Anti-Intellectual Conspiracy.
>Yes, that seems to me just as likely as the fact that all men are subliminally
>oppressing women...;-} (no flames, please...please?)
No flame. I would claim, though, that many of the structures of society
"oppress" (NOT a term I would actually use: rather, "denies certain rights
to") women, among other groups (including, in fact, men, in very different
ways), and that many people, including men _and_ women, either consciously
or unconsciously contribute to this "oppression" by adding their support,
active or passive, to the structures in question.
>> "Critic" is frequently used disparagingly by people who don't want to
>> believe that there can be any absolute standards of quality in the arts.
>
>I don't think that there are any absolute standards of quality in anything...I
>think that it's all opinion. I will concede that there are standards of
>quality applicable to large subsets of people, though, which is close enough.
See my long posting to Eric Raymond.
Short answer:
1) I admit I abused the term "absolute." Essentially I was using it
where I meant, and should have found a word that meant, "rules that had
better not be broken unless you've got a damn good reason."
2) Examples of such rules: The most obvious are grammar and spelling.
You can get away with ignoring those (for examples see FINNEGANS WAKE,
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, or THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS) if
you have a good reason -- though generally you're merely substituting a
different set of grammatical and spelling conventions, which must be
adhered to the same way you would ordinarily adhere to "standard" grammar
and spelling.
Other examples might be: Characters should act and speak in
character, and appropriately for their situation; six-shooters shouldn't
fire seven bullets without reloading; the author shouldn't lie to the
reader (though the narrator may).
>> A good critic is capable of judging a work on its own terms: that is,
>> an entertainment book on terms of how well it entertains, etc.
>
>My problem is this: There are many books that I still enjoy, written by such
>hacks as Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Jack L. Chalker, Marion Zimmer Bradley,
>Barbara Hambly, etc. On this newsgroup, the people who tend to speak
>disparagingly about these writers and their works, dismissing them as
>unoriginal hacks, etc.(I'm sure they can fill in appropriate comments) are the
>same ones who recommend other works which I have seen recommended by critics.
>(Real critics, now. Baird Searles, Algis Budrys, Ordon Scott Card, and a few
>others I can't remember right now.) I thus get the impression that these
>people believe in a hierarchy of style, even if only at the level of this is
>hackwork, this is innovation.
If you enjoy those writers, what's the big deal?
Yes, I'll probably sneer at Piers Anthony occasionally, and Chalker more
than occasionally, but so what? Does that spoil _your_ enjoyment of them?
By the way -- who told you Scott Card was a critic? He isn't. He's a
book-reviewer, and a self-serving one at that.
Question: have you tried reading some of the "critic-recommended" books
you refer to? If so, what did you think? If not, why?
>My point about critics being jaded is something I have also observed on
>occasion...it's a real cliche in the visual arts, which may affect my
>observations, I admit, but let's face it. If you read all(or even a random
>subset)of all SF published today, you're going to get a lot of trash. It's all
>going to start looking the same. Anything that looks like a rehash of what
>you've seen before is going to have two strikes against it from the start, and
>will have to be correspondingly better to make a good impression. Anything
>that is definably different from the start will have an advantage, and is more
>likely to make a good impression.
As near as I can tell, this comes out to: "The problem with critics is
they've read more than I have." Awww, poor baby.
Forgive the sarcasm, but what the hell kind of complaint is this? There
are an awful lot of people out here who've read (literally) thousands of
sf books. Should we submit to boredom because you haven't read this stuff
before? It's still out there, in the library and the used-book stores,
and even, a lot of it, in print. Why should _we_ wade through the eighteen-
dozenth rehash of Tolkien just because _you_'ve only read a few? The
previous seventeen dozen and eleven are still out there if you really
want them, and maybe a dozen of 'em are even well done.
A desire to see a writer do something new rather than rehash the same-old
isn't necessarily "jaded"; it can arise from the very impulse that brought
many of us to SF -- a love of the new, an excitement with invention.
>Another cliche about academic critics, that I have also found to contain a lot
>of truth, is dismissal on the basis of genre. "This is science fiction, so it
>can't possible be any good." Within SF itself, we get "This is quest fantasy,
>it can't possibly be any good." I don't like to dismiss anything out of hand.
But you do! Or do you buy and read every damn book that comes out?
Every time you buy (or read) only some books, you've dismissed the others.
Dismissal based on genre, with the possible exception of snuff movies,
is boneheaded. Selection based on genre isn't necessarily.
You happen to prefer certain genres. Tell me, how many romance novels
have you read lately? What? None? You mean you dismissed them on the
basis of genre?
Gasp!
Nope. You _selected_ on the basis of genre.
Similarly the "academics" have a preferred genre. Arrogantly, they've
chosen to call their genre "literature," a designation they've been
able to make stick primarily because they _are_ academics and control
a large part of the means of communicating about, well, literature in
the broader sense. Many readers dismiss "literature" in the narrower
sense based on genre -- see Eric Raymond's comments on it, for example.
>One of the worst books I read(or, rather, failed to read)was by Keith Laumer.
>But I still read the occasional Keith Laumer book. (I just steer clear of
>Retief, is all.)
That's your problem. Have you considered getting professional help for
your masochism?:*)
>Something else that seems to me to be a prerequisite of being a critic is high
>standards. I have fairly low standards--a book doesn't have to do too much to
>entertain me. But many critics seem harder to please. (Orson Scott Card may
>be an exception--but then, he just doesn't tell us about the books he doesn't
>like.) I've found more than one author I liked(M.A. Foster and Sheri S.
>Tepper, off the top of my head)from bad reviews of their books. (Admittedly,
>the books they were reviewing were not the best by those authors, but the name
>stuck in my head.)
If they're forming judgements of the type you seem to be implying, then
they're not being critics, they're being reviewers (as Searles and Budrys
are, generally, in their columns -- though Budrys over time did less
reviewing and more criticism). See my reply to Eric for my take on the
difference.
>I don't derive enjoyment from reading carefully and intelligently, though.
That is also your problem. If you prefer to read sloppily and stupidly,
that's your prerogative; please don't complain when the more evolved
do their thing.
>That's the main thing that distinguishes critics from other readers--a desire
>to read carefully and intelligently.
Nonsense. Most SF fans do this to a greater or lesser extent; that's how
you play the game of "spot the scientific boner," for example. Though
most readers, in or out of SF, don't actively engage a story the way a
critic does, most also don't want to be talked down to. If they get
the feeling the writer thinks they're idiots, the book hits the wall.
>When I read book reviews, normally I haven't read the book in question.
Quite reasonable. That's who book reviews are for: people who haven't
read the book in question. Those who _have_ don't need them.
Jim Puckett
would someone please _define_ hackwork?
Kathleen DeAnn Hazelton
after Flame in Byzantium, but I heard there were more. Is it true?
Any suggestions on where I can find them?
PLEASE reply by e-mail, I'll post a summary if there's interest. TIA.
--
Kathy Hazelton "But, that's not fair!"
"You say that so often. I wonder what your
kha...@owlnet.rice.edu basis for comparison is?" --Labyrinth
Kenn Barry
>Kenn Barry writes
>> They're called "guilty pleasures". Everybody has 'em. Read 'em,
>> enjoy 'em, don't worry about it. Just understand that, when someone says
>> it's hackwork, they're right.
>
>guilty to admit that I enjoy them?
Then, praise Bob, you've got slack!
>I have guilty pleasures, but reading the
>above-listed authors isn't among them. Flaming people on talk.bizarre is a
>guilty pleasure. Reading pornographic books is a guilty pleasure. Eating
>cheesecake is a guilty pleasure.
Ah, well, keep working on it.
Kayembee
Doug Merritt
>would someone please _define_ hackwork?
Since (if I recall correctly) Damon Knight said, "Science fiction is what
science fiction writers write", therefore it follows that "hackwork" is
what "hack writers" writer.
:-)
It's the usual problem: it's almost impossible to define things involving
subjective judgements in an airtight way. However, if you really want
an imperfect starting point, I'd say that works that are highly derivative
and/or aim purely at popular appeal with attempting even implicit treatment
of deeper philosophical or social issues is a pretty good candidate.
I will probably not attempt any defense of critiques of this, though
(unless I get the whim :-) for the aforesaid reasons.
Michael Qvortrup
>
>would someone please _define_ hackwork?
>
That which the critics don't like or feel is not worth their attention :-)
(In case you overlooked it, here are some more :-) :-) )
Greetings,
--Mike
-
--
#include <std-disclm.h>-----------------------------------------------------
Real Life: Michael Christian Heide Qvortrup A Dane ETH, Zuerich
e-mail : qvor...@inf.ethz.ch abroad Switzerland
Institut fuer wissenschaftliches Rechnen / Inst. of Scientific Computation
Alfvaen
> aa...@space.ualberta.ca (Alfvaen) writes:
> >I thus get the impression that these
> >people believe in a hierarchy of style, even if only at the level of this is
> >hackwork, this is innovation.
>
> Of course we do. Don't you? Are you seriously trying to maintain that
> Chalker is a better writer than Delany? Or that Anthony is superior to
> LeGuin? I've got nothing against hackwork per se - I just finished
> rereading a bunch of Alan Dean Foster, with pleasure. But it's pretty
> evident to me that there are writers who are hacks, and there are writers
> who are artists, and that there is a difference there. The only thing that
> bothers me are the people who stand up and shout very loudly that their
> favorite hack "IS AN ARTIST! HE WOULDN'T SELL IF HE WEREN'T AN ARTIST!
> WHO ARE YOU TO SAY WHAT'S ART, ANYWAY?". I have nothing against anyone's
> taste, but do have things to say about their powers of discernment :-)
I can say that I like Chalker's work better than Delany's, on the whole...I
never cared for Tales of Neveryon, or most of Dhalgren, but I've reread most of
Chalkers several times, enjoying them each time... Le Guin is somebody I've
seen a lot of controversy over even among critics(or 'reviewers' if you prefer,
since they're probably the same people I mentioned earlier). And I wouldn't
say that Anthony is superior to Le Guin, but I wouldn't say the converse,
either. I like reading both of them, about equally. And I don't claim to know
which writers are artists and which are not. I've given up trying, because I
don't seem to agree with the accepted list. So I don't discriminate on the
basis of whether an author is an artist or not. And I certainly don't
denigrate too many authors as hacks, either.
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Mike Farren - no longer employed by Commodore. Still only my opinions,
> and not those of any organization.
--
---Alfvaen(and no, this isn't my real name!)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
Current Album--Royal Canadian Air Farce:To Air Is Human, To Farce Divine
"Now synchronized swimming--that's a real man's sport."
Mark Rosenfelder
> Other examples might be: Characters should act and speak in
>character, and appropriately for their situation; six-shooters shouldn't
>fire seven bullets without reloading; the author shouldn't lie to the
>reader (though the narrator may).
On the whole I agree with your point of view; but here I think
it should be pointed out that preferred styles change over time.
This business of characters speaking and acting appropriately is a good
example: it's a modern taste. People didn't really speak in blank verse
and high poetry in Shakespeare's time, but they expected characters in
tragedies to do so. As another example [which I take from C.S. Lewis],
a medieval reader would not have cared (or, probably, noticed) that
in a story about giants the hero is at one point small enough to walk
around in the giant's glove as if it were a cavern, and at another point
big enough to drink from a giant's beer mug.
Mike Farren
>far...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Mike Farren) writes:
>>>(Real critics, now. Baird Searles, Algis Budrys, Ordon Scott Card,
>>
>>I hate to break this to you, but of that group, only Budrys remotely qualifies
>>as a critic in any sort of academic sense.
>
>Explain to me why you exclude Card?
I haven't seen a lot of Card's work in this area, but that I have seen
contained very little in the way of analysis of the stories he was
talking about - just reviews.
Mike Farren
>>For us Unintelligentsia -
>>
>>would someone please _define_ hackwork?
>>
>
>That which the critics don't like or feel is not worth their attention :-)
>
>(In case you overlooked it, here are some more :-) :-) )
Not bad :-)
However, without the smileys: there are a number of definitions of
"hackwork". Historically, a "hack writer" was someone who wrote stories
only on the basis of how many words they could produce - their stories
were used to fill out the many pulp magazines that used to exist, whose
concern was not at all with quality, but simply to fill out the issue
as cheaply as possible. Hack writers of this school might write as
many as ten or fifteen stories *a week*, without any thought about
whether the stories they were turning out were credible, well-crafted,
or innovative. They couldn't - they produced too many to worry about
issues like that, each of which takes time.
In the modern sense, a "hack writer" is someone whose work partakes of
those same characteristics, to one degree or another. Generally, it's
someone who appears to be writing for the sake of the income, rather
than the sake of writing. Even when this isn't exactly the case, a
"hack writer" often doesn't have, or refuses to use, the skill to create
a high quality story, preferring to rely on formulae or vocabulary to
make their stories work, rather than using creativity and craft.
Doug Merritt
>since they're probably the same people I mentioned earlier). And I wouldn't
>say that Anthony is superior to Le Guin, but I wouldn't say the converse,
>either. I like reading both of them, about equally. And I don't claim to know
>which writers are artists and which are not. I've given up trying, because I
>don't seem to agree with the accepted list.
You're missing a key point; what we like is not the same subject as what
is good. As a matter of psychology, people tend to think, by default, that
what they like equals what is good, but this completely overlooks issues
of craftsmanship.
Matters of taste are completely subjective, but matters of craftsmanship
are not. Not entirely, anyway. And that is why you sometimes hear comments
like "I liked it even though it's hackwork" or conversely "It was very well
written but I just didn't like it".
Here's a definition of a critic: (or "intelligentsia", if you prefer :-)
Someone who only likes what is "good" in the above sense. (Or is only
willing to admit to that.)
You often seen professional critics arguing about the aspects of craftsmanship
that *are* subjective. In the case of amateur critiques, there may be
arguments about criteria judged subjectively that *could* be judged
objectively, given more skill. This all clouds the issue somewhat, but
in Western culture's consensual reality, some of these things are
considered objective, regardless of how particular individuals feel about it.
(Some random person could be a Solipsist, which tends to break down all
arguments on all subjects, thus my reference to consensual reality.)
Most of us are willing to forgive flaws in craftsmanship if a story
gives us other things we like. Some people don't know what all the issues
*are* in such areas, and therefore forgive very easily indeed.
>So I don't discriminate on the
>basis of whether an author is an artist or not. And I certainly don't
>denigrate too many authors as hacks, either.
That's very polite of you. And your personal tastes are up to you. That
doesn't mean these issues don't exist, though.
Doug Merritt
> People didn't really speak in blank verse
>and high poetry in Shakespeare's time, but they expected characters in
>tragedies to do so.
Actually I have the strong impression that doing so has been a fad
at no small number of times in various European royal courts.
But since obviously not everyone who happens to be at court would necessarily
be able to do so, and since even more obviously the common man would
not even have the means to learn to do so, your point still stands.
>As another example [which I take from C.S. Lewis],
>a medieval reader would not have cared (or, probably, noticed) that
>in a story about giants the hero is at one point small enough to walk
>around in the giant's glove as if it were a cavern, and at another point
>big enough to drink from a giant's beer mug.
Willing suspension of disbelief. The exotic is expected to happen in exotic
tales, both modern and ancient. It's just a question of which particular
things are expected to require explanation of some sort. At all points
in the past, it would presumably have been necessary to explain or imply
where a sailing ship came from; it wouldn't just pop out of nowhere without
at least an implicit source.
The modern day example might be FTL. In a story with FTL, quite frequently
issues of time travel or communication to the past and future are completely
ignored, all without disturbing the reader, despite the fact that FTL
implies these things and logically demands an explanation, or at least
an implicit nod. But the average reader isn't in the habit of demanding
an explanation on that particular subject.
In the future that may change. But in none of these cases do I see a
qualititative change over time, merely a question of in which particular
micro-topics readers of a given era expect some explanation in order
to avoid crashing the willing suspension back down to earth.
Alfvaen
> Alfvaen writes:
> >My problem is this: There are many books that I still enjoy, written by
such
> >hacks as Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, Jack L. Chalker, Marion Zimmer
Bradley,
> >Barbara Hambly, etc. On this newsgroup, the people who tend to speak
> >disparagingly about these writers and their works, dismissing them as
> >unoriginal hacks, etc.(I'm sure they can fill in appropriate comments) are
the
> >same ones who recommend other works which I have seen recommended by
critics.
> >(Real critics, now. Baird Searles, Algis Budrys, Ordon Scott Card, and a
few
> >others I can't remember right now.) I thus get the impression that these
> >people believe in a hierarchy of style, even if only at the level of this is
> >hackwork, this is innovation.
>
> If you enjoy those writers, what's the big deal?
>
> Yes, I'll probably sneer at Piers Anthony occasionally, and Chalker more
> than occasionally, but so what? Does that spoil _your_ enjoyment of them?
If I like a book, and I enjoy reading it, and someone else sneer at it and
calls it trash and hackwork, then, even though I may know that it's more a
comment on his opinion than mine, I still can't help but feel, at least a
little bit, like he's denigrating my personal taste in books. If the sneer is
in direct response to a comment of mine on the book, then it comes across as
being even more personal. It's not a question of disrupting my enjoyment of
the book, it's a question of indignation at someone else insulting your choice
of books. And no matter how many times I tell myself that someone saying "this
book is bad/trash/hackwork" means "I don't like this book," it still hits at a
gut level.
> By the way -- who told you Scott Card was a critic? He isn't. He's a
> book-reviewer, and a self-serving one at that.
<shrug> He writes a column that talks about books. So my definition of critic
was a bit vague. All I meant. My definition of "album" is probably much
different from yours, too. If I said to you, "Look at my new Bruce Cockburn
album," you'd probably say, "That's not an album. That's a tape." When I say
album, I mean a collection of songs, on whatever medium--LP, tape, cassette,
8-track, whatever. Most people(and I'm assuming you do too, for the sake of
argument)use album as a synonym for LP. What you call a reviewer may to me
still be a critic. Or we may draw the line at a different point. So what?
> Question: have you tried reading some of the "critic-recommended" books
> you refer to? If so, what did you think? If not, why?
Let me think...seeing as 'critic' means different things to us...the only such
books I can think of offhand are Gene Wolfe's New Sun books, the first two of
which I have enjoyed immensely. But his book "Free Live Free", for instance,
which I enjoyed equally, was considered a disappointment by some critic(don't
recall which one--not Card, of course). Delany's Tales of Neveryon I disliked,
which I also recall seeing recommended; Dhalgren had me bored to tears for
about the last 300 pages. That section of the book(The Plague Journal, or
whatever it was called)took me a week to read(the same length of time as the
first 300 pages of The Sword of Shannara, for reference). But I guess, more
often, I like books they recommend than I dislike books they denigrate.
It's not that I dislike innovative works. It's that I don't dislike works that
aren't innovative. I can get as much enjoyment, of a different kind, out of
reading a rehash of Tolkien as I can out of something innovative. It's kind of
a security thing, I guess: I can venture out into the perilous frontiers of
the field, but I always enjoy coming home to something warm and secure. And I
feel no urge to search always along the frontier.
> >Another cliche about academic critics, that I have also found to contain a
lot
> >of truth, is dismissal on the basis of genre. "This is science fiction, so
it
> >can't possible be any good." Within SF itself, we get "This is quest
fantasy,
> >it can't possibly be any good." I don't like to dismiss anything out of
hand.
>
> But you do! Or do you buy and read every damn book that comes out?
>
> Every time you buy (or read) only some books, you've dismissed the others.
>
> Dismissal based on genre, with the possible exception of snuff movies,
> is boneheaded. Selection based on genre isn't necessarily.
>
> You happen to prefer certain genres. Tell me, how many romance novels
> have you read lately? What? None? You mean you dismissed them on the
> basis of genre?
Okay--I used to dismiss romance novels on the basis of genre. But who's to say
I do anymore? My wife reads a lot of romance novels(and a lot of SF&F, too),
and I can't help but become interested in some of them. I recently read a good
SF novel that was 9/10 romance, too.
> Nope. You _selected_ on the basis of genre.
I also admit that I used to do that, and still do, to some extent. Within the
SF&F genre, I'm inclined to be a bit less discriminating than I am with other
genres. Outside SF&F I need a clear recommendation, usually. But if I find,
say, an author, whether in or out of SF&F, and I enjoy his/her work, I'm more
inclined to try that author again. I tend to select on the basis of author.
When I go into bookstores these days, it's more like "check SF for any good
books, check Dick Francis, check Robertson Davies." I agree than I'm more
likely to try a new author within SF&F than outside. Is the genre-based
selection?
> Similarly the "academics" have a preferred genre. Arrogantly, they've
> chosen to call their genre "literature," a designation they've been
> able to make stick primarily because they _are_ academics and control
> a large part of the means of communicating about, well, literature in
> the broader sense. Many readers dismiss "literature" in the narrower
> sense based on genre -- see Eric Raymond's comments on it, for example.
That's another genre I've started selecting on the basis of--not as many as in
SF&F, but I've made a commitment to myself to start reading "classics," which I
regard as similar to literature--perhaps "pre-20th century literature" is more
proper. There I search for novels I've heard mentioned as classics before, and
read them. It's very enlightening.
> >I don't derive enjoyment from reading carefully and intelligently, though.
>
> That is also your problem. If you prefer to read sloppily and stupidly,
> that's your prerogative; please don't complain when the more evolved
> do their thing.
>
>
> >That's the main thing that distinguishes critics from other readers--a
desire
> >to read carefully and intelligently.
>
> Nonsense. Most SF fans do this to a greater or lesser extent; that's how
> you play the game of "spot the scientific boner," for example. Though
> most readers, in or out of SF, don't actively engage a story the way a
> critic does, most also don't want to be talked down to. If they get
> the feeling the writer thinks they're idiots, the book hits the wall.
I don't play "spot the scientific boner." I had problems in English classes,
too, with "spot the dominant symbol" and "spot the leitmotif." I don't derive
enjoyment from that. That's what I mean.
> Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
> My opinions do NOT represent Pacific Bell,
> Professional Development, or anyone else.
> But I'm willing to share.
--
---Alfvaen(and no, this isn't my real name!)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
Current Album--The Housemartins:The People Who Grinned Themselves To Death
"And even when their kids were starving, they all thought the Queen was
charming..."
Pete Hartman
>Mike Farren writes
>> Of course we do. Don't you? Are you seriously trying to maintain that
>> Chalker is a better writer than Delany? Or that Anthony is superior to
>> LeGuin? I've got nothing against hackwork per se - I just finished
>> rereading a bunch of Alan Dean Foster, with pleasure. But it's pretty
>> evident to me that there are writers who are hacks, and there are writers
>> who are artists, and that there is a difference there. The only thing that
>> bothers me are the people who stand up and shout very loudly that their
>> favorite hack "IS AN ARTIST! HE WOULDN'T SELL IF HE WEREN'T AN ARTIST!
>> WHO ARE YOU TO SAY WHAT'S ART, ANYWAY?". I have nothing against anyone's
>> taste, but do have things to say about their powers of discernment :-)
>I can say that I like Chalker's work better than Delany's, on the whole...I
>never cared for Tales of Neveryon, or most of Dhalgren, but I've reread most of
>Chalkers several times, enjoying them each time...
You are defining art in terms of taste, and I think the previous person
has some other definition of art. I like lots of things that I don't think
are art. In some cases more than similar things that I do think are art.
That doesn't mean that the stuff I like is art.
--
Pete Hartman Bradley University p...@bradley.bradley.edu
That's why I like this machine: it's stupid, it doesn't believe, it doesn't
make me believe, it just does what I tell it. Stupid me, stupid machine.
An honest relationship.
Lynn Alford
>If I like a book, and I enjoy reading it, and someone else sneer at it and
>calls it trash and hackwork, then, even though I may know that it's more a
>comment on his opinion than mine, I still can't help but feel, at least a
>little bit, like he's denigrating my personal taste in books. If the sneer is
>in direct response to a comment of mine on the book, then it comes across as
>being even more personal. It's not a question of disrupting my enjoyment of
>the book, it's a question of indignation at someone else insulting your choice
>of books. And no matter how many times I tell myself that someone saying "this
>book is bad/trash/hackwork" means "I don't like this book," it still hits at a
>gut level.
I believe that you are taking the words 'hack' and 'hackwork' far too
seriously. I was once surprised by Lawrence Watt-Evans describing
himself as a hackwriter. I think it was in part that I couldn't believe
anyone voluntarily describing their work that way. Then I read some of
his books (_Wizard and the War Machine_, _The Misenchanted Sword_, and
_With a Single Spell_ among others.) After that, I realised that it was
perfectly accurate to call Watt-Evans a hack. The stories are pleasant,
the writing is acceptable, and the plots utterly and completely
predictable. It is that last quality, I believe, that makes them
hackwork. No surprises in the plots or the characters. You can
probably guess the end by page 20.
Now does calling them hackwork mean to insult them or people who like
them? No, not at all. Most people like to read fluff sometimes. So if
I call something hackwork, I am not trying to say you shouldn't read it.
I am trying to warn you not to expect anything new or different in the
book.
Trash is how I would describe something where the writing or plotting is
poor. A much more serious charge, and one more open to personal
opinions (though hack is pretty open too).
BTW You might want to cut your lines down just a bit. They wrap
strangely when I try to quote them.
Lynn
--
Because this is also a story about sex, although probably not in the
athletic, tumbling, count-the-legs-and-divide-by-two sense unless the
characters get totally beyond the author's control. They might.
Equal Rites by T. Pratchett
Doug Merritt
>contained very little in the way of analysis of the stories he was
>talking about - just reviews.
Hmmm. I haven't paid any attention to his reviews; I was thinking of
his Writer's Digest books. I won't argue.
Doug
--
Doug Merritt Preferred: do...@netcom.com (or: do...@eris.berkeley.edu)
Professional Wild-eyed Visionary Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow
(Actually I'm a contractor; generalist/Unix/C/C++ systems programming)
Eric S. Raymond
> Grump. That's "Dan'l." NOT "Daniel." You get one mistake on that; do it
> again and I'll borrow Chuq's friend Guido. . .
Sorry, it won't happen again.
> At most I can be accused of describing "critic" in terms that more
> easily favor what I want a critic to be; but I think I can reasonably
> claim that my description above is roughly equivalent to the #2
> AHD definition.
I think the dictionary definition is too vague and inclusive to discriminate
between our interpretations. Thus, most of your comments about technical
criticism are, while interesting in themselves, not really germane.
> This is nothing new. Check out, for example, the history of the French
> Academy (which nearly trashed Moliere).
Interesting historical analysis follows, with which I have no serious disagree-
ment. However, it sounds as though you're arguing that because this sort of
twit is always with us, we shouldn't bother criticizing the present bunch.
> Indeed, a number of artists who have been quite popular with
> the critical crowd have also been quite popular with the "masses" --
> Dali comes to mind.
There will always be those who are clever and talented enough to work
both sides of the street. Your cite of Dali doesn't address my thesis.
To do so, you'd have to show that the modern art establishment is more
interested in addressing the masses than in displaying at itself and the
critics and a few wealthy patrons. I don't think you can do that.
> And, yes, there is and remains a significant "mass"
> which hates surrealism, but they're far from a majority.
I know. That's why I said "after" Surrealism.
> >As a category, the `fine arts' crowd had to persuade everyone (not least
> >themselves) that between `fine art' and `popular art' there is a great
> >gulf fixed; that the ordinary person's perceptions are of account only
> >in popular art (which a `true artist' approaches only with irony and
> >implicit disdain), and that to appreciate `true art' one must cross over
> >into a rarefied realm in which the agendas of `fine artists' themselves
> >define what is good.
>
> The first two are bushwah propounded by those who never bothered to find
> out what the 20th-century art scene was actually doing.
I think not. I think they're *characteristic* of the 20th-century art scene,
and have formed that opinion not from ignorance but from wide knowledge of
it, including quite a bit of interaction with people who are part of it.
> The last is true, anywhere in the arts. If the artist's own agenda
> doesn't define quality, what does? That is: what is the measure of
> quality in art, except how well the artist achieves what she is striving
> for?
That is *one* measure of quality. The art-intelligentsia's conceit is to
make it the *only* measure, ignoring several others which are equally
important, or of *more* importance. A paranoid schizophrenic may achieve
your notion of `quality' in scribbling down his delusions, but that
`quality' is sterile and useless if his inner world is inaccessible to
anyone else.
> I don't know architecture very well. Of Schoenberg and Stockhausen; of
> James and Joyce and Eliot; of the symbolists and surrealists; of all these
> "modernists," one basic statement can be made: they demanded more of
> their audience, in terms of direct engagement with the work, than their
> predecessors. The works of any of these can be "understood" and enjoyed
> without the intermediary of a critic -- some would even say better so.
True, but evasive. I speak not against `high art' of the sort you're
championing (I'm fully capable of enjoying it on its own terms) but against
the delusion that `high art' is the only true art; that its methods and
standards are the only appropriate ones by which to judge art; and that
you have to buy into those and a whole bunch of incidental historical
baggage (like leftist politics and the bohemian stance and wearing lots of
black) to be a `true artist'.
*These* delusions *have* been characteristic of the 20th-century art
establishment. And they're what give the Rush Limbaughs of the world
the tiny bit of truth and justification they need to make their crusade
appeal to the masses.
The art-world intelligentsiya wouldn't be vulnerable to the Jesse Helmses
of the world if they hadn't worked so hard to cut themselves off from, anger,
and oppose the popular culture. John Q. Public resonates with those `anti-
intellectual' appeals because he senses --- rightly --- that the `art
establishment' holds him in contempt.
Even I, quite secure about my ability to grok `high art' and no friend
to fascist, pro-censorship cultural reactionaries, often feel that
it would be no more than the art establishment deserved if the conservatives
really got going and trashed them. They've brought it on themselves.
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>> Other examples might be: Characters should act and speak in
>>character, and appropriately for their situation; six-shooters shouldn't
>>fire seven bullets without reloading; the author shouldn't lie to the
>>reader (though the narrator may).
>On the whole I agree with your point of view; but here I think
>it should be pointed out that preferred styles change over time.
>This business of characters speaking and acting appropriately is a good
>example: it's a modern taste. People didn't really speak in blank verse
>and high poetry in Shakespeare's time, but they expected characters in
>tragedies to do so.
Fundamental misunderstanding here. I didn't say that characters should
speak realistically (or, at any rate, the way real people talk); I said
they should speak and act "in character, and appropriately for their
situation."
Fiction is an artifact. Despite phrases like "slice of life," "mirror
held up to reality," "illusion of existence," etc., etc., the fundamental
fact of fiction is that it is an art form, and, like any art form, exists
because someone has created it.
The artifact itself is not the illusion of reality; that is something
the reader creates in her own head, using the written words as a guide
or script. The writer's job (as I, in my high-and-mighty role as fledgling
writer and net.critic, perceive it) is to produce an artifact that will
guide the reader to produce an illusion as close as possible to the one
the writer had in mind.
The conventions for doing this have changed over the years; so have the
kinds of similarity writers strive for between their illusions and the
reader's.
In speaking of Shakespeare, it's important to remember that he was
writing for stage and not for reading; but even so: he was dealing
with a convention that said 'noble-born characters speak in blank
verse.' This convention could as easily have been used in fiction,
and in fact _has_ been used in fiction on occasion (see Poul Anderson's
A MIDSUMMER TEMPEST for an example).
Neither the writer nor the audience was under the illusion that noble-born
people really spoke this way. However, its use helped Shakespeare's
audience identify a character's social stratum. Remember that Shakespeare's
theatre did with an absolute minimum of stage props, including costumes.
Modern "realistic" dialog conventions are no different. People in most
modern fiction speak (unless excited or interrupted) in complete and
usually grammatical sentences. They don't fill their conversation with
the meaningless noises (both verbal and nonverbal) which make up a very
large percentage of real conversation.
This is no less artificial than Shakespeare's carefully-contrived
blank verse, and a heck of a lot harder to memorize.
>As another example [which I take from C.S. Lewis],
>a medieval reader would not have cared (or, probably, noticed) that
>in a story about giants the hero is at one point small enough to walk
>around in the giant's glove as if it were a cavern, and at another point
>big enough to drink from a giant's beer mug.
Again: a matter of the conventions of the storytelling genre. You can
still do that in a fairy tale, even one for adults.
The basic principle holds. The characters should speak and act in
character and appropriately.
Have you met the poor? You ought to. They're
delightful people. Of course, they haven't got
two coppers to rub together. . .
--Robin Hood, in TIME BANDITS
Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, Net.Roach
Alfvaen
> You're missing a key point; what we like is not the same subject as what
> is good. As a matter of psychology, people tend to think, by default, that
> what they like equals what is good, but this completely overlooks issues
> of craftsmanship.
>
> Matters of taste are completely subjective, but matters of craftsmanship
> are not. Not entirely, anyway. And that is why you sometimes hear comments
> like "I liked it even though it's hackwork" or conversely "It was very well
> written but I just didn't like it".
>
> Here's a definition of a critic: (or "intelligentsia", if you prefer :-)
> Someone who only likes what is "good" in the above sense. (Or is only
> willing to admit to that.)
Ah...
I see that you mean, and what we're talking about here. What makes a book
hackwork or not is a judgement of writing quality, which, although nebulous, I
think I can understand, if not always detect. What makes it good in a
particular person's opinion may depend on the quality of the writing to varying
degrees.
I think I agree.
> --
> Doug Merritt Preferred: do...@netcom.com (or: do...@eris.berkeley.edu)
> Professional Wild-eyed Visionary Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow
--
---Alfvaen(and no, this isn't my real name!)
Canadian Network For Space Research, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
If you stand on your head, you will get footprints in your hair.
Current Album--Midnight Oil:Blue Sky Mining
"Still it aches like tetanus...it stinks like politics"
Alfvaen
> I believe that you are taking the words 'hack' and 'hackwork' far too
> seriously. I was once surprised by Lawrence Watt-Evans describing
> himself as a hackwriter. I think it was in part that I couldn't believe
> anyone voluntarily describing their work that way. Then I read some of
> his books (_Wizard and the War Machine_, _The Misenchanted Sword_, and
> _With a Single Spell_ among others.) After that, I realised that it was
> perfectly accurate to call Watt-Evans a hack. The stories are pleasant,
> the writing is acceptable, and the plots utterly and completely
> predictable. It is that last quality, I believe, that makes them
> hackwork. No surprises in the plots or the characters. You can
> probably guess the end by page 20.
Hmmm...I guess I just haven't read any of Watt-Evans' novels. But he's
written two of my all-time favourite short short stories. One of them is
called "Real Time", and the name of the other one escapes me, but they were
both published in IASFM...I also like his Harry's All-Night Hamburgers
stories.
What about _Nightside City_? Is that predictable, too?
George Martin
>In article <29...@cbmvax.commodore.com> far...@cbmvax.commodore.com (Mike Farren) writes:
>>I haven't seen a lot of Card's work in this area, but that I have seen
>>contained very little in the way of analysis of the stories he was
>>talking about - just reviews.
>
>Hmmm. I haven't paid any attention to his reviews; I was thinking of
>his Writer's Digest books. I won't argue.
> Doug
Jumping late into a thread! And opening my keyboard without a
reference at my fingertips!
If you are refering to Card's colums in F&FS he has said that it is
not his intention to do critical analysis of the books he mentions
in his column. These are books that have made an impression on him,
in general positive, which he thinks the reader of his column should
consider reading. The name of his column is "Books to Look For".
After all his column follows Algis Budrys's. (Well most months,
sometimes one misses, and sometimes the other does.)
--
George Martin
Systems Analyst NRAO/VLA Socorro NM
Internet: gma...@zia.aoc.nrao.edu
"Skating away on the thin ice of the new day." (Ian Anderson)
Eric S. Raymond
>>The art-literature crowd may be slowly letting go of Marxism, but they haven't
> Another blatant assertion on your part,Eric. Not every "art-lit" critic is
> a Marxist. T. S. Eliot was anything _but_ one.
I'm well aware of this. Nevertheless, the art-lit crowd was for a long time
predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller. My description stands.
> >lost their fundamental, damning arrogance. Ever since the creation of the
> >`bohemian' concept of the artist's role and the rise of Modernism, fine arts
> >has been dominated by a self-conscious elite which legitimized its control of
> >the arts by its claim to be an aesthetic and/or political `revolutionary
> >vanguard'. Thus, `great art' had to be redefined away from that which
> >*communicated* with the masses to that which teased, agitated, upset and
> >indoctrinated them. The `fine artist' was locked into a stance of perpetual
> >alienation from and confrontation with his/her surrounding society.
>
> I'm getting nothing but a broad paintbrush in the face from assumptions like
> these. With logic like this,you could assert that Surrealism and Social
> Realism are identical,as they both "seek...to agitate and indoctrinate"
> the masses. Never _mind_ that the purposes of both schools/movements were
> at cross-purposes (and Surrealism was viewed as "decadent" by most sycophantic
> Stalinist art-dogma mouthpieces),but if you're going to play around with
> broad definitions,expect them to bite back occasionally.
The fact that those schools had different political goals (though not that
different; both were Marxist) is completely irrelevant. The *relevant* fact
is that both viewed art explicitly as a tool of indoctrination and
"conscousness-raising".
> Incidentally,you also set up a hidden political argument that artists have
> to be subservient (as opposed to at odds with) society. Funny,but that's
> exactly how Stalinist and Nazi "art critics" looked upon art....as a propa-
> ganda tool,not as a (potential) form of criticism against the society they
> sought to set up.
Nonsense. Criticizing the art-literature crowd for being locked into an
alienated stance does not imply that they ought to be "subservient". In
fact, if "fine arts" were healthy I'd expect to see a Gaussian distribution
on that axis, with a few "alienated" artists at one end, a few "subservient"
ones at the other, and a large middle hump that simply did their own thing
without any political agenda at all. And in fact that *is* what you see if
your drop the intelligentsiya's blinders and look at popular and folk art
without sneering or filtering it for political correctness.
> Primarily because artists tend towards showing _subjective_ of what their
> art should be,and not yours or mine. Would you prefer they do paintings
> of Elvis on black velvet,if that's what society supposedly demanded of
> them?
Hardly. I *would* like to see the decadent modern attitude that the
artist is the only arbiter of what `art' is consigned to the scrap heap
where it belongs.
> Art-and literature (and SF is no exception)-is not static as a arena of
> creation,Eric. It has to change due to the possibility of extinction through
> uncreativity. Once again,there were more than a few critics ("fossils" might
> be a better word) who failed to comprehend the abilities of the artists and
> writers you've conveniently name-dropped above,as they were "purveyors of
> the destruction of real art",or some similar appellation. Are you insisting
> that since those critics abhorred the aforementioned artists/writers' works
> that they were _justified_ in their sterile view as past art as some un-
> changing "golden mean"?
No. Heck, I *like* Surrealist and Dadaist art. But the *attitude* that came
in with it --- the ideological baggage, the elitist rejection of common
experience, the "revolutionary" arrogance --- *that* has got to go. And *will*
go, no matter how hard you cling to it or how furiously as you deride its
critics for alleged "know-nothingism". The times, they are a'changin'....
> >This could only go on so long before the whole self-conscious `art world'
> >condemned itself to sterility and irrelevance, and the rest of the
> >surrounding culture caught on and stopped buying into the con.
>
> Why do museums featuring modern art exist,Eric? Why don't they go totally
> backrupt due to the surrounding culture's refusal to "buy into the con"
> of modernist art? Sheesh.
Why are they screaming in distress, "de-acquisitionining" to meet their
operating expenses, and perpetually running desperate campaigns to pull in
more visitors that have only slight and transient effects?
If we had a healthy arts subculture, art would have something to say to
the average Joe and art museums would be as popular as baseball games. And
they were, in the last century. Only part of this change can be linked to
the emergence of mass visual media. Most of it predates that emergence, and
can be clearly laid to things artists did to themselves.
Tom Maddox
>I'm well aware of this. Nevertheless, the art-lit crowd was for a long time
>predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller. My description stands.
I can't imagine what you mean by this. If you mean literary criticism
in the 20th century, Marxism has had at best a minor role, particularly in
the English speaking world, where, for instance, Eliot and Leavis, the
New Critics, and other, similarly conservative types dominated the
discussion of literature considered as a high art. In fact, we have more
genuine Marxist critics now than at any time this century, largely through
the gradual coming to respectability of Continental philosophy and criticism,
where Marx is a much more commonplace influence.
If you're going to make sweeping statements, at least give them
some basis in fact.
One other thing : Surrealism was not Marxist. Though some
Surrealists were, others held a wide variety of political views (think of
Dali, for instance).
--
Tom Maddox
tma...@u.washington.edu
"Writing is reading and reading is writing."
A. S. Byatt
David Stein
|> predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller. My description stands.
You really do make very sweeping and vague statements yet provide no
evidence.
What do you mean by "a long time"? Since the 60's? This century?
Who is the "art-lit crowd"? Only academia type people? Writers and
artists? Would someone like Ginsberg qualify or is he out?
And does "predominantly" also imply "thoroughly"? If yes, could you name
ten most influential art/lit critics from the period you referred to? And
then indicate which ones are Marxist and which ones are "fellow-travelers"
(whatever that means when applied to art criticism).
I'm not trying to be picky, I would just like to see if you can reduce
your assertion/proof ratio to a finite number.
[On Surrealism & Socialist Realism:]
|> The fact that those schools had different political goals (though not that
|> different; both were Marxist) is completely irrelevant. The *relevant* fact
|> is that both viewed art explicitly as a tool of indoctrination and
|> "conscousness-raising".
|> Hardly. I *would* like to see the decadent modern attitude that the
|> artist is the only arbiter of what `art' is consigned to the scrap heap
|> where it belongs.
|> No. Heck, I *like* Surrealist and Dadaist art. But the *attitude*
that came
|> in with it --- the ideological baggage, the elitist rejection of common
|> experience, the "revolutionary" arrogance --- *that* has got to go.
And *will*
|> go, no matter how hard you cling to it or how furiously as you deride its
|> critics for alleged "know-nothingism". The times, they are a'changin'....
You know, I lived in a communist country for most of my childhood, and I
think people there would find your opinion naive and funny on both political
and artistic grounds.
First, the way you throw in Marxism, Socialist Realism, and "decadent
modern attitude" smacks of the way many on the in the U.S. refer to
Socialism (as in Social Democratic/Welfare/Liberal) as essentially
identical to Communism of Bolshevik type. Such deliberate blurring
of differences may be profitable politically, but also insults all
those who paid with their lives for their refusal of subservience to
Communism.
Go and live 10 years in the very mild Czechoslovakian oligarchy of the
70s/80s and then live for the same time in Sweden. If you can't tell
the difference, you are beyond hope.
The connection to art is that, of course, all those movements and schools,
which you dismiss on ideological grounds, have indeed clashed with the
communist power (_real_ power, not a "cocktail crowd").
And about half of the artists who actively and vocally opposed the regime
in Czechoslovakia would probably fit well into your "Marxist" register.
Even on artistic grounds alone your opinion is funny if viewed from Prague.
I don't know about the U.S., but in Bohemia the only time that the majority
of the art community were consciously Marxist or Communist was during the
20s. This ended in 1927 (or 1929) when the communist party had a pro-Stalin
coup which put off most of the writers/poets etc.
Surrealism itself was seldom actively political as far as I know, unless you
mean that Cubism is Communist because Picasso was. In Bohemia, Surrealism
has been criticized by the Communists since its inception, and I have not
heard it being associated with a political movement after WW2.
And hasn't Dada been dead, as a movement or a school, for longer than your
lifetime? Sure, its elements pop up here and there, like in the Sex Pistols
kind of punk, but there you could make a case for it being anti-Marxist, not
to mention anti-Communist.
[On moder art museums:]
|> Why are they screaming in distress, "de-acquisitionining" to meet their
|> operating expenses, and perpetually running desperate campaigns to pull in
|> more visitors that have only slight and transient effects?
|>
|> If we had a healthy arts subculture, art would have something to say to
|> the average Joe and art museums would be as popular as baseball games. And
|> they were, in the last century. Only part of this change can be linked to
|> the emergence of mass visual media. Most of it predates that emergence, and
|> can be clearly laid to things artists did to themselves.
|> --
|> Eric S. Raymond = er...@snark.thyrsus.com (mad mastermind of
TMN-Netnews)
When I traveled extensively around the U.S., museums of both modern and
classical art were on my schedule, and I noticed no difference in how
popular they were.
Your statement that decline of interest in art museums predates
"the emergence of mass visual media" seems to miss the fact that cinema
has become a "mass media" right after WW1 in most of Europe. You could
indeed make a good case for the effect of visual technology on both
artists' styles and on public interest in painting exhibitions (of any
style what-so-ever).
Again, more clarity and some evidence would be most welcome.
- David
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David (the metamathician) - ===
U19...@uicvm.uic.edu
In article <1g11jx
>In <92092.120...@uicvm.uic.edu> U19...@uicvm.uic.edu wrote:
>>>The art-literature crowd may be slowly letting go of Marxism, but they t
>haven'
>> -------
>> Another blatant assertion on your part,Eric. Not every "art-lit" critic is
>> a Marxist. T. S. Eliot was anything _but_ one.
>I'm well aware of this. Nevertheless, the art-lit crowd was for a long time
>predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller. My description stands.
Maybe so-but is this such a crime? It could be said that if being a Marxist
or a former Communist is cause for alarm,then SF writers such as Fred Pohl,
Mack Reynolds,Terry Bisson or countless others could be called "avant-garde"
simply due to the fact that they hold (or held,as in the case of Pohl and
a few others in the Futurians) political views you seem to dislike.
>> >lost their fundamental, damning arrogance. Ever since the creation of the
>> >`bohemian' concept of the artist's role and the rise of Modernism, fine
>arts
>> >has been dominated by a self-conscious elite which legitimized its control f
>o
>> >the arts by its claim to be an aesthetic and/or political `revolutionary
>> >vanguard'. Thus, `great art' had to be redefined away from that which
>> >*communicated* with the masses to that which teased, agitated, upset and
>> >indoctrinated them. The `fine artist' was locked into a stance of
>perpetual
>> >alienation from and confrontation with his/her surrounding society.
>>
>> I'm getting nothing but a broad paintbrush in the face from assumptions like
>> these. With logic like this,you could assert that Surrealism and Social
>> Realism are identical,as they both "seek...to agitate and indoctrinate"
>> the masses. Never _mind_ that the purposes of both schools/movements were
>> at cross-purposes (and Surrealism was viewed as "decadent" by most c
>sycophanti
>> Stalinist art-dogma mouthpieces),but if you're going to play around with
>> broad definitions,expect them to bite back occasionally.
>The fact that those schools had different political goals (though not that
>different; both were Marxist) is completely irrelevant. The *relevant* fact
>is that both viewed art explicitly as a tool of indoctrination and
>"conscousness-raising".
But were they that identical? By your standards,both are "improper" art in that
they seem to "indoctrinate",but Surrealism is held by quite a few (including
myself,and I have no training as an art critic) to be totally superior to
social realism as a school of art.
>> Incidentally,you also set up a hidden political argument that artists have
>> to be subservient (as opposed to at odds with) society. Funny,but that's
>> exactly how Stalinist and Nazi "art critics" looked upon art....as a propa-
>> ganda tool,not as a (potential) form of criticism against the society they
>> sought to set up.
>Nonsense. Criticizing the art-literature crowd for being locked into an
>alienated stance does not imply that they ought to be "subservient". In
>fact, if "fine arts" were healthy I'd expect to see a Gaussian distribution
>on that axis, with a few "alienated" artists at one end, a few "subservient"
>ones at the other, and a large middle hump that simply did their own thing
>without any political agenda at all. And in fact that *is* what you see if
>your drop the intelligentsiya's blinders and look at popular and folk art
>without sneering or filtering it for political correctness.
"Political Correctness"? You must be kidding. I merely pointed out that since
you tend to lump all modern art into one huge pile in which a "them versus us"
(i.e.,"aesthetes" vs. "Joe Public") battle must be waged against "Avante-garde
elitism",you're making a point that art must _not_ criticize society or even
examine it in such a fashion that Joe Public (whoever the hell _he_ is) can't
understand it.
Likewise,I find your definition of "popular art" nebulous. Are those Camel
cigarette ads with the Camel with penis-surrogate noses "popular art" simply
because some people stoop to buying lighters with those same camels em-
blazoned on the product?
Another point: Back in the (your) good old days,"popular" (read: pre-avant-
garde,or whatever bugaboo you wish to call it) art was backed primarily by
wealthy patrons (the Dutch _burghers_ shopping at galleries during the Dutch
Republic's early years is a good example-works commissioned by royalty is
another),and fine art-whether of an "avant-garde" nature or not-is still fi-
nanced by the wealthy...as are museums,museum wings,galleries,and the like.
This has _not_ started with the Modern Art era-it's been like this all the
time.
>> Primarily because artists tend towards showing _subjective_ of what their
>> art should be,and not yours or mine. Would you prefer they do paintings
>> of Elvis on black velvet,if that's what society supposedly demanded of
>> them?
>Hardly. I *would* like to see the decadent modern attitude that the
>artist is the only arbiter of what `art' is consigned to the scrap heap
>where it belongs.
You're playing conspiracy theorist here again,Eric. Even _artists_ tend to
dice each other up over distinctions of what is real art and what is not,and
it's ridiculous when you make the argument that you wouldn't like public
opinion-even if uninformed and prone to manipulation by demogogs _a_la_
Jesse Helms (and I'm not talking funding here,I'm talking judging art by
a moral yardstick)-to determine what is art and what isn't,after you've
stated something all too similar to exactly that.
>> Art-and literature (and SF is no exception)-is not static as a arena of
>> creation,Eric. It has to change due to the possibility of extinction through
>> uncreativity. Once again,there were more than a few critics ("fossils" might
>> be a better word) who failed to comprehend the abilities of the artists and
>> writers you've conveniently name-dropped above,as they were "purveyors of
>> the destruction of real art",or some similar appellation. Are you insisting
>> that since those critics abhorred the aforementioned artists/writers' works
>> that they were _justified_ in their sterile view as past art as some un-
>> changing "golden mean"?
>No. Heck, I *like* Surrealist and Dadaist art. But the *attitude* that came
>in with it --- the ideological baggage, the elitist rejection of common
>experience, the "revolutionary" arrogance --- *that* has got to go. And
>*will*
>go, no matter how hard you cling to it or how furiously as you deride its
>critics for alleged "know-nothingism". The times, they are a'changin'....
I didn't call them know-nothings. You're confusing me with Dan'l,actually. >:)
Incidentally,just about every school has had a revolutionary mind-set of want-
ing to overthrow an art "establshment". Go back far enough,and the Encycloped-
ists wanted to trash the feudal regime for its (political as opposed to artis-
tic) support of stale intellectual and artistic ideas. Why does this only
seem to begin with the _current_ era in your opinion,Eric?
>> >This could only go on so long before the whole self-conscious `art world'
>> >condemned itself to sterility and irrelevance, and the rest of the
>> >surrounding culture caught on and stopped buying into the con.
>>
>> Why do museums featuring modern art exist,Eric? Why don't they go totally
>> backrupt due to the surrounding culture's refusal to "buy into the con"
>> of modernist art? Sheesh.
>
>Why are they screaming in distress, "de-acquisitionining" to meet their
>operating expenses, and perpetually running desperate campaigns to pull in
>more visitors that have only slight and transient effects?
Groan....because fine arts has _always_ been underfunded,no matter the era.
Van Gogh died virtually broke,and Rembrandt (to bring up a perfectly sound
non-"Modern" example) didn't exactly end up prosperous,either. This is gonna
sound quite repetitious,but fine art has _never_ been widely patronized by
the populace at large. This didn't start recently,Eric. It's inaccurate for
you to say it did,as it would be a case of the historical tail wagging the
dog,to use a particularly cliche.
>If we had a healthy arts subculture, art would have something to say to
>the average Joe and art museums would be as popular as baseball games. And
>they were, in the last century. Only part of this change can be linked to
>the emergence of mass visual media. Most of it predates that emergence, and
>can be clearly laid to things artists did to themselves.
"Mass visual media"? This sounds disturbingly similar to Television,Eric-unless
you're talking comic books. And you know how dismal most TV has ended up since
_its_ inception....
** Chris Krolczyk,esq. * DISCLAIMER: My opinions are in **
** Maniac-at-Large * no way endorsed by the Univer- **
** U19...@UICVM.BITNET * sity of Illinois at Chicago. **
** u19...@uicvm.uic.edu * So there. Nyaah. **
Dan'l DanehyOakes
>In <92092.120...@uicvm.uic.edu> U19...@uicvm.uic.edu wrote:
>> Another blatant assertion on your part,Eric. Not every "art-lit" critic is
>> a Marxist. T. S. Eliot was anything _but_ one.
>I'm well aware of this. Nevertheless, the art-lit crowd was for a long time
>predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller. My description stands.
What is this? Red-baiting in the '90s?
"Fellow-traveller," for heaven's sake?
Your continued concern for the ideological purity of the "art-lit crowd,"
Eric, calls your entire point-of-view into _serious_ question. You have
made an accusation -- whether or not it is a damning one is irrelevant;
you obviously believe it is.
But you have coupled this accusation with the classic McCarthyist tactic
of simply making, and repeating, it without a single shred of evidence.
Can you provide some evidence, statistical or otherwise, that the "art-lit
crowd" was "predominantly Marxist or fellow-traveller," rather than a few
prominent blowhards?
Or is this simple (if, in the '90s, pointless and even ludicrous) smear
of an intellectual discipline you've made your antipathy toward clear
in the past?
>Nonsense. Criticizing the art-literature crowd for being locked into an
>alienated stance does not imply that they ought to be "subservient". In
>fact, if "fine arts" were healthy I'd expect to see a Gaussian distribution
>on that axis, with a few "alienated" artists at one end, a few "subservient"
>ones at the other, and a large middle hump that simply did their own thing
>without any political agenda at all. And in fact that *is* what you see if
>your drop the intelligentsiya's blinders and look at popular and folk art
>without sneering or filtering it for political correctness.
. . . well, in fact, you generally see that the "fine" arts (a term devised
specifically to exclude the homely, which in this culture have tended to
be the female, arts) have a tendency toward the extremes -- both left and
right -- of the spectrum. Primarily because these arts exist as expression
of self, whereas the homely arts exist as expression of society. (Odd,
that: while disenfranchising women from expression of self, society also
encouraged them to participation in expression of society; making it
easier to understand how long rebellion was kept to a minimum, and how
even _today_ so many women reject the women's movement -- every form
of expression they have been permitted is essentially _conservative_!)
The sort of "expression of self" encouraged by the "fine" arts is possible, ]
or necessary, only when the self is perceived as _different_ from society.
While this difference is not necessarily political, it is always felt as
present, which is why the emphasis on "alienation" in "fine"-art criticism.
Those with "no political agenda at all" are not centrists; they're simply
off the political spectrum completely.
>No. Heck, I *like* Surrealist and Dadaist art. But the *attitude* that came
>in with it --- the ideological baggage, the elitist rejection of common
>experience, the "revolutionary" arrogance --- *that* has got to go. And *will*
>go, no matter how hard you cling to it or how furiously as you deride its
>critics for alleged "know-nothingism". The times, they are a'changin'....
They are indeed. And you are clinging to an idealized, and historically
false, past in which the "fine" arts in some way reflected "common
experience" -- which really means the experience of a non-alienated
person in the mainstream of (white, patriarchal) culture. There have
been artists -- commercial artists -- who have done this at all times.
There have _never_, despite Aristotle's pronunciamenti to the contrary,
been "fine" artists who did.
>If we had a healthy arts subculture, art would have something to say to
>the average Joe and art museums would be as popular as baseball games. And
>they were, in the last century.
Well, no.
Art museums were as well-attended as baseball games, in the last century
-- but only because baseball games were far less well-attended. "Art"
has always been, and will always be, an "elitist" activity in the limited
sense that only a limited segment of society will be interested in it;
the rest will consider it something to decorate with at best.
Lord! Here comes the flood,
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood.
If again the seas are silent, and any still alive,
It'll be those who gave their island to survive.
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry. . .
-- Peter Gabriel
Eric S. Raymond
> One other thing : Surrealism was not Marxist. Though some
> Surrealists were, others held a wide variety of political views (think of
> Dali, for instance).
I base my characterization on the writings of Andre Breton, commonly regarded
as Surrealism's spokesman and major ideologue (have you read "The Surrealist
Manifesto? --- great stuff!).
As for your more general statement --- look, I realize the Left has done a
pretty good job of running for cover in the wake of the Communist collapse.
But has everyone's perception of 20th-century literary history already warped
enough to forget the tendency that runs straight from Jack London and Sinclair
Lewis to the Che-Guevara-worshiping "radical chic" crowd of the Sixties and
early Seventies --- and to much of the academic establishment today?
There's a *reason* Podhoretz and Novak and the neoconservative intellectuals
of the late Seventies were considered "revolutionary" back then, before the
Reaganistas. They had something to revolt against; the leftist orthodoxy
of most of their peers. That battle is still going on; only the labels
have changed, see any of today's debates about "political correctness"
(no accident that PC was originally a term of art in Leninist revolutionary
theory).
(Disclaimer: I loathe the Left and Right impartially -- they're all statist
thugs to me.)
--
Eric S. Raymond (er...@snark.thyrsus.com)
Mark Rosenfelder
>They are indeed. And you are clinging to an idealized, and historically
>false, past in which the "fine" arts in some way reflected "common
>experience" -- which really means the experience of a non-alienated
>person in the mainstream of (white, patriarchal) culture. There have
>been artists -- commercial artists -- who have done this at all times.
>There have _never_, despite Aristotle's pronunciamenti to the contrary,
>been "fine" artists who did.
This paragraph is hard to parse, but it sounds like you're saying no
great artists have ever fit within the system. Would you really maintain
this of Virgil, Corneille, Shakespeare, Trollope, Milton (under Cromwell),
Jane Austen, Ariosto, Chaucer, Donne, and Lope de Vega? If these folks
were alienated, everybody is alienated.
Or are you saying that because artists tend to rebel against the mainstream,
Western art does *not* in general reflect a "white, patriarchal" point of
view? Boy, that's a relief!
If you want to make the lesser claim that there were "alienated" artists
in every time period, go ahead.
>. . . well, in fact, you generally see that the "fine" arts (a term devised
>specifically to exclude the homely, which in this culture have tended to
>be the female, arts) have a tendency toward the extremes -- both left and
>right -- of the spectrum.
Here I agree with you. People who disapprove of the current system rail
against it. People who approve of it rail against those they think are
ruining it. Everybody likes to feel like they're surrounded by enemies.
Eric S. Raymond
> You really do make very sweeping and vague statements yet provide no
> evidence.
What would you accept as `evidence'?
> What do you mean by "a long time"? Since the 60's? This century?
I'd date the period of strong Marxist influence from around 1910 and the
activities of the Fabian society in England.
> Who is the "art-lit crowd"? Only academia type people? Writers and
> artists? Would someone like Ginsberg qualify or is he out?
Ginsberg would qualify, if you mean the author of "Howl". The culture I'm
pointing at is more or less coextensive with the use of the term "avant-garde".
> And does "predominantly" also imply "thoroughly"? If yes, could you name
> ten most influential art/lit critics from the period you referred to? And
> then indicate which ones are Marxist and which ones are "fellow-travelers"
> (whatever that means when applied to art criticism).
That's more detail than I can go into without going back to primary and
secondary sources; I don't keep all this information swapped in. Sorry, but
this discussion isn't high enough on my priority list right now for me
to do that. If that means I `lose', so be it.
> You know, I lived in a communist country for most of my childhood, and I
> think people there would find your opinion naive and funny on both political
> and artistic grounds.
And quite possibly they'd be right, if I were making statements about communist
countries. I actually think the political consciousness of artists living
under communism was different, and in many ways healthier, than that of their
counterparts in the West. The presence of *real* oppression tends to
concentrate the mind wonderfully about the humbug and pomposity of most
artistic *claims* about oppression (one of the things I admire Vaclav Havel
for most is his wry, understated way of making this point in public).
> First, the way you throw in Marxism, Socialist Realism, and "decadent
> modern attitude" smacks of the way many on the in the U.S. refer to
> Socialism (as in Social Democratic/Welfare/Liberal) as essentially
> identical to Communism of Bolshevik type. Such deliberate blurring
> of differences may be profitable politically, but also insults all
> those who paid with their lives for their refusal of subservience to
> Communism.
I don't understand why you think I merit this criticism. I have not claimed
that the Western `art-lit' culture was all Bolsheviks, that's obvious nonsense.
I have merely observed that for a long time, its politics was dominated by
Marxist assumptions and ideas. Some members were `hard-left' some were
socialist, some were social-democratic. It's not making any judgement about
these ideas to call them Marxist.
> The connection to art is that, of course, all those movements and schools,
> which you dismiss on ideological grounds, have indeed clashed with the
> communist power (_real_ power, not a "cocktail crowd").
You're mistaken in your belief that I "dismiss these schools on ideological
grounds". I criticize them on grounds of arrogance and deliberate rejection
of the communicative function of art, but I don't see this as having been
*caused* by their politics, only *correlated* with it.
> And about half of the artists who actively and vocally opposed the regime
> in Czechoslovakia would probably fit well into your "Marxist" register.
What conflict is there between this fact and any of my previous claims?
Actually, I think I'm beginning to get it. I'm using "Marxist" in an
objective, historical sense, and you're hearing the term "Marxist" the way it's
used by conservative American politicians, as a club.
> Even on artistic grounds alone your opinion is funny if viewed from Prague.
> I don't know about the U.S., but in Bohemia the only time that the majority
> of the art community were consciously Marxist or Communist was during the
> 20s. This ended in 1927 (or 1929) when the communist party had a pro-Stalin
> coup which put off most of the writers/poets etc.
Sure. Actually *living* under "scientific socialism" was wonderfully
enlightening, I'm sure. An experience I wish our vanishing Western breed
of parlor Marxist could have.
> Surrealism itself was seldom actively political as far as I know, unless you
> mean that Cubism is Communist because Picasso was. In Bohemia, Surrealism
> has been criticized by the Communists since its inception, and I have not
> heard it being associated with a political movement after WW2.
If its chroniclers are to be believed, Surrealism went through an intensely
Bolshevist phase in the late '20s and early '30s under Andre Breton's
influence. It shed the Bolshevism but never lost a debt to Marxist
revolutionary theory (cf. the emphasis on using art to challenge the false
consciousness of the middle class).
> And hasn't Dada been dead, as a movement or a school, for longer than your
> lifetime? Sure, its elements pop up here and there, like in the Sex Pistols
> kind of punk, but there you could make a case for it being anti-Marxist, not
> to mention anti-Communist.
Yes, Dada is long dead. Sigh. And you could "make a case" for Dada's being
damn near *anything*; that was part of its charm...
> When I traveled extensively around the U.S., museums of both modern and
> classical art were on my schedule, and I noticed no difference in how
> popular they were.
That's because both are in deep trouble --- ask any museum director. Modern
art for the reasons we've discussed, and older forms because the museums
have largely botched the job of commmunicating their virtues to the public.
Before anyone flames, I hasten to add that I'm not sure how anyone could
have done better --- it may be that TV and movies really have irreversibly
changed what we can hope for in this regard.
Jim Puckett
>> modern attitude" smacks of the way many on the in the U.S. refer to
>> Socialism (as in Social Democratic/Welfare/Liberal) as essentially
>> identical to Communism of Bolshevik type. Such deliberate blurring
Is this saying that Bokshevik == Marxist? Hmmmm?
--
Jim Puckett NTI puc...@freedom.msfc.nasa.gov
Huntsville,AL (205)544-8457
*****!Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty!*****
David Stein
|> > You really do make very sweeping and vague statements yet provide no
|> > evidence.
|>
|> What would you accept as `evidence'?
Examples, references, or at least breaking down the general assertion
into more specific statements -- that would suffice.
|> That's more detail than I can go into without going back to primary and
|> secondary sources; I don't keep all this information swapped in. Sorry, but
|> this discussion isn't high enough on my priority list right now for me
|> to do that. If that means I `lose', so be it.
If it were a serious discussion, I would not suggest that type of an
argument.
But if I say "The 60's rock generation was a bunch of drug addicts,"
I should
be able to name 10 leading rock musicians who were heavily into drugs at the
time. (And I could :-).
So I was hoping at least for a superficial evidence from you.
|> > First, the way you throw in Marxism, Socialist Realism, and "decadent
|> > modern attitude" smacks of the way many .... [cut for brevity]
|> I don't understand why you think I merit this criticism.
I admit I should not have drawn the parallel so closely.
|> I have
not claimed
|> that the Western `art-lit' culture was all Bolsheviks, that's obvious
nonsense.
|> I have merely observed that for a long time, its politics was dominated by
|> Marxist assumptions and ideas. Some members were `hard-left' some were
|> socialist, some were social-democratic. It's not making any judgement about
|> these ideas to call them Marxist.
But there's a hell of a difference between saying that some ideas are
influenced by Marx and saying that someone or some movement is/are Marxist.
Marx was rather prolific, and used/popularized many ideas which absolutely
didn't originate with him.
|> You're mistaken in your belief that I "dismiss these schools on ideological
|> grounds". I criticize them on grounds of arrogance and deliberate rejection
|> of the communicative function of art, but I don't see this as having been
|> *caused* by their politics, only *correlated* with it.
Arrogance might be an integral part of Dada, but I fail to see that often
repeated "deliberate rejection of the communicative function of art."
Isn't the whole purpose of Surrealism and Dada and Expressionism, etc., to
*communicate?* Why do you think it is not so?
And are there any modern artists who DO care about communication?
Who are they?
|>
|> > And about half of the artists who actively and vocally opposed the regime
|> > in Czechoslovakia would probably fit well into your "Marxist" register.
|>
|> What conflict is there between this fact and any of my previous claims?
It indicates that your "register" is too big. Many don't think they are
Marxists, but you might call them so because of their art or beliefs.
(Assuming you'll apply your stated labels.)
|> Actually, I think I'm beginning to get it. I'm using "Marxist" in an
|> objective, historical sense, and you're hearing the term "Marxist"
the way it's
|> used by conservative American politicians, as a club.
Forget the "objective" part -- you are haphazardly calling movements or
artistic tendencies "Marxist" simply by historical association of people
or ideas.
|> Sure. Actually *living* under "scientific socialism" was wonderfully
|> enlightening, I'm sure.
The break came *before* the communists took power -- twenty years so.
|> If its chroniclers are to be believed, Surrealism went through an intensely
|> Bolshevist phase in the late '20s and early '30s under Andre Breton's
|> influence. It shed the Bolshevism but never lost a debt to Marxist
|> revolutionary theory (cf. the emphasis on using art to challenge the false
|> consciousness of the middle class).
Breton was no more Surrealism then Picasso was Cubism. I think you tend to
overestimate political foundations of an artistic movement.
|> Yes, Dada is long dead. Sigh. And you could "make a case" for Dada's being
|> damn near *anything*; that was part of its charm...
Not in political terms. Make an argument for it being anything else then
anarchistic.
Surrealism, is deeply individualistic. Maybe you are confusing style and
content, if the distinction can be made, when you accuse Surrealism of not
caring about communication. Expressing one's dreams, in the way you have
actually experienced them, is hard.
Artistic movements will have political implications. Dada will never be
liked by order worshiping ideologies. Surrealism will be suspect in any
"serve the masses" society.
And Democracy will like any art movement -- once it's dead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not a native speaker of English, so I'm not sure what I wrote.
Flames will be ignored unless you post them in perfect Czech.
================================ - David - =======================
David Stein
puc...@lambda.msfc.nasa.gov (Jim Puckett) writes:
|> er...@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) writes:
|> >> First, the way you throw in Marxism, Socialist Realism, and "decadent
|> >> modern attitude" smacks of the way many on the in the U.S. refer to
|> >> Socialism (as in Social Democratic/Welfare/Liberal) as essentially
|> >> identical to Communism of Bolshevik type. Such deliberate blurring
|>
|> Is this saying that Bokshevik == Marxist? Hmmmm?
The quotation is from me. And I wrote it in order to criticize the
placement of too many equal signs between labels.
|> *****!Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty!*****
You are half done.