[lit-ideas] The evil that we do
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas " <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2011 11:51:35 -0700
On page 11 of Consciousness and Society, The Reorientation of European
Social Thought, 1890-1930, H. Stuart Hughes in declaring his presuppositions
prior to moving ahead into his discussion, writes, "It is extremely
difficult to assess with any accuracy what the dominant ideas at any given
time actually are. The most reliable indicator is not what people say but
what they do - and thus we are led directly back to the history of action
rather than of thought."
I am rereading Hughes book but don't recall stopping at this point. Of
course Hughes isn't going to be able to deal with anyone's thought unless it
is transformed into action of some sort. Intellectuals are going to have to
teach, preach, or write their ideas out in order for them to have any sort
of effect.
At this point I veered off on a mental tangent. I recall that Harold Bloom
some place wrote that he had read all the poets in English (if not in all
languages) that were worth reading. There was no "great" poet out there
that he hadn't read or heard about. Bloom is here saying something very
like what Hughes is. A poet may write out his poems and put them in a
folder in his desk. He may even post them on some forum with a limited
membership, but unless Bloom has read them they don't, for all practical
purposes, exist.
Bloom is no Robert Burns who believed that many a poet bloomed and died
unheard in the backward villages of Scotland.
And a question beyond that is should a poet seek to be published if the road
to publication involves catering to and genuflecting for Bloom and the other
critical lights?
I've been reading Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22, A Memoir. Hitchens isn't
a poet, but has followed the sure road to success of any writer, associating
himself with influential people who got him jobs that involved publishing
his writings. Also, Hitchens loved meeting important and powerful people.
He frequently describes what a "great honor" it was to meet someone or shake
someone else's hand. There was never any chance that Hitchens would bloom
and die unheard.
We might also ask whether it is personally "valuable" to have ideas if we
don't "teach, preach, or write" in such a way that they comprise "action" of
some sort. I take Hughes here to mean "action" that affects great swaths of
people and their leaders. Many of us well along on the road to dying
unheard wouldn't want that responsibility. What self-critical devices, what
set of presuppositions can we stand upon with such confidence that we are
willing to act upon others in the way that Hughes implies?
My impression of Hitchens is that he was an actor long before he was a
thinker. Eric Hoffer in The True Believer wrote that men of ideas precede
men of action, but in a single individual such as Hitchens a pattern of
action seems to be independent of the ability to think great thoughts. If
Hitchens ever managed the latter it was because he could look back on what
he had done and reflect upon it with superb rhetorical ability which may or
may not qualify him as an important thinker.
Lawrence
Other related posts:
