I read this thing in the NYT today, and the comments... http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/make-me-worry-youre-not-o-k/
So many angry, disdainful comments. I know I'm on the 'dumb' side, but this teaching method aside, I don't mind confessionalism or therapeutic writing or tragic memoirs. Sometimes I like them. I like to applaud when people who struggle tell their story. I don't see the decline of culture. Culture as fortification will keep doing its thing, endorsing itself.
" Where will it end? Not in the rebirth of great literature, in the incarnation of a James Joyce or a W. B. Yeats. How will it end? With these people in charge of "creative writing"? -- Badly, and for a long time, until the geniuses emerge again. Until then, we have this . . ."
Oh, where will it end! Joyce and Yeats aren't going to stop being Joyce and Yeats because someone taught confessional memoir writing. Only difference is dummies who were never going to be Joyce or Yeats got to write about their lives, other dummies got to read them, some money changed hands, maybe somewhere in there someone felt something was shared. Maybe something important, and sharing made someone feel more human. Or it was a cynical trade, exploitation and lies about life, although it seems a bit too convenient to paint it ALL that way... I know some of it is that, but -
"The confessional memoir is a symptom of an affluent culture expiating its guilt and frustration. Laying bare flaws and scars is to claim suffering as a badge of honor, as dues paid, something soft people need to do to claim legitimacy."
Yeah soft people... fuck soft people and their 'claim' to so-called legitimacy...
*
I suppose this is the view of someone seeing 'an affluent culture' as a total object, with a single sequential operation: have affluence, become soft, lay bare/claim suffering, claim honour, pay dues, legitimise whole, buy further affluence with legitimation....
And it means the commenter's identification with the sufferer and the affluent is total, because in her formulation those roles are indivisible from each other and from the rest of the culture. All contempt is self-contempt, I read somewhere.
So many angry, disdainful comments. I know I'm on the 'dumb' side, but this teaching method aside, I don't mind confessionalism or therapeutic writing or tragic memoirs. Sometimes I like them. I like to applaud when people who struggle tell their story. I don't see the decline of culture. Culture as fortification will keep doing its thing, endorsing itself.
" Where will it end? Not in the rebirth of great literature, in the incarnation of a James Joyce or a W. B. Yeats. How will it end? With these people in charge of "creative writing"? -- Badly, and for a long time, until the geniuses emerge again. Until then, we have this . . ."
Oh, where will it end! Joyce and Yeats aren't going to stop being Joyce and Yeats because someone taught confessional memoir writing. Only difference is dummies who were never going to be Joyce or Yeats got to write about their lives, other dummies got to read them, some money changed hands, maybe somewhere in there someone felt something was shared. Maybe something important, and sharing made someone feel more human. Or it was a cynical trade, exploitation and lies about life, although it seems a bit too convenient to paint it ALL that way... I know some of it is that, but -
"The confessional memoir is a symptom of an affluent culture expiating its guilt and frustration. Laying bare flaws and scars is to claim suffering as a badge of honor, as dues paid, something soft people need to do to claim legitimacy."
Yeah soft people... fuck soft people and their 'claim' to so-called legitimacy...
*
I suppose this is the view of someone seeing 'an affluent culture' as a total object, with a single sequential operation: have affluence, become soft, lay bare/claim suffering, claim honour, pay dues, legitimise whole, buy further affluence with legitimation....
And it means the commenter's identification with the sufferer and the affluent is total, because in her formulation those roles are indivisible from each other and from the rest of the culture. All contempt is self-contempt, I read somewhere.
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