[lit-ideas] Re: Marxism and Political Correctness [some reflexions on Mr Speranza's latest paper]
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:59:58 -0800
JL:
"Whatever "good art" is, it is not achieved by being or teaching that
which is politically correct.Someone might argue that being Politically
Correct
in belief (?) trumps "good art.”
I don’t understand what belief’s got to do with it. Is it that
avegetarian might say
that a graphic painting of a slaughterhouse was not ‘good art,' that it
didn’t move him;
and that indeed it repelled him, so that he couldn’t, short of being
subjected to the
psychological techniques used in /A Clockwork Orange/, ever come to see
through the veil
of his convictions and find it ‘good?’
Maybe the reason he cannot find it good is that it tries to make artby
depicting the
suffering of animals, and he can find no ‘good’ in that. Yet, suppose he
finds himself
attracted to a woman who wouldeat Kobe beef morning, noon, and night and
who’s sickened
by the merethought of nasty carrots under the filthy earth. And
seductress that
she is, she brings him to give up his vegetarianism. Will he thensee the
merits of the
‘slaughterhouse painting,’ or will they continueto be invisible to him?
But is vegetarianism a fair analogy to Marxism, when it comes to
evaluating art?
I don’t see why not. They both exemplify the critical maxim that
ideology trumps all…
…which is a silly view; that critics and intellectuals thought it
worth discussing is strange. It leads to such idiocies as ‘That
would be a great novel, if only it weren’t so politically incorrect,’
or, ‘It’s ideological correctness is what makes it so powerful.’
There’s nothing, though, about a painting of a Stakhanovite that makes
its colors or its contours or its balance or its striking form
undergo a change depending on whether its viewer is a True Trotskyite
or a Stalinist.
Niagara Falls will be Niagara Falls, even if Santorum wins the election.
JL says some things about ‘morals’ and about Philippa Foot’s thought
as it might pertain to them. I’ll try to comment on them someday.
Robert Paul
EndFragment
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