Dear Amy

This blog is for Amy.

Hi. Now Amy, I have to inform you of some things since we have never been formally introduced, but if you comment on my blog, you should probably be aware of a few things about me.

First of all, chances are that I will also comment on your blog. This can be a bit unsettling, I'll admit, because much like my dear friend Avram, I write a lot, especially if I like what you've said. This is to say, that if you've said something interesting, don't be surprised if I write a Bible length response. Take this as a compliment. I found your blog entry on subjective language in the academy as a support system for totalitarian ideology to be very good. Thus my long winded response. Admittedly, I should have linked over to your site and written my response on my own damn blog. I'm sorry for that breach of ettiquette. Mia Copa (sp?).

Secondly, Amy I am a post-modernist. I don't mean that in a "I read and use post modern theory" sort of way." I've read and detest post-modern theory. When it isn't crap, it's overwriting only conceals its obviousness. Joy of joy, both Fuck-olt and Deride-a are dead. Take that, you rat bastards! What I mean when I say that I am a post-modernist is that I read post-modern fiction. You might say it's my specialty. Therefore, it's sort of a sore point for me when people read post-modern criticism, assume it to be holy scrit, and never read its most harshest critics--the post-modern writers themselves. I'm not saying you did this, only that your post seemed to be about the fact that academics authenticate this new way of thinking, without questioning its implications. I agree. Were they to read DeLillo as seriously as they read Said, they would not have that problem.

Thirdly, I have no great belief in reform. I think that people are who they are, especially after they've spent enough years to graduate with doctorates essentially cementing who they are, and that there is little chance that we can turn them around and let them know what's at stake, the implications of what they're doing, or even systems that have worked in the past. The academy of literature has become a place where no one talks about good books because no one can agree what constitutes "good." It is now impossible to read Hawthorne without wondering why we are reading Hawthorne. I believe that our attention should be focussed on the lessons inside these books (which over the centuries has proven an adequate demonstration of what it is to be human) rather than why we have to learn these lessons--which in the end, only makes us jaded and confused about what constitutes decent behavior towards our fellow men and women. But I don't expect these arguments to end until better teaching and criticism come forward to show them for the sham that they are and have always been.

The hard part for this is that there is an illusion of speciality in literature. For my own part, I believe that literature tells us what it is to be human, to experience the lives of human beings. We can only live through our own skins, but in literature, we are asked to try on the skins of others for awhile and to walk around in them. This isn't escapism, except from the limitation of the form of having only one life time, and that life time rarely escaping certain parameters of experience. That's what I believe literature to be.

Now, there are those who disagree. Literature becomes a sort of stockpile of cultural evidence. It is almost as if they are expecting someone to say, "that class of individuals over there isn't human." In which case, they'll show them the pile of books written by that class of individual and it will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are, in fact, human. It's a ridiculous oversimplification of what literature is about, and in many cases, promotes the liberal versions of sexism, racism, and fascism. Nonetheless, there is a lot at stake in choosing to talk about the literature, rather than talking about the way we choose the literature to talk about, or talking about the way we choose to talk about literature. The first of that list is, for me, the most imperative in our post-modern time of uncertainty. Sadly, it is the last two in this category that get the most attention from the literary academy, and so by extension the language of the academy must devolve into arguments about defining and definition--Zeno's paradox must, of course, be ignored.

Is there hope? Yes, I think so. The majority of "smart people" up and coming in literature are jaded enough with theory to finally turn back to the books themselves. The old guard is either dead or dying and are being replaced by people like you and me. Remember, before his death, I believe it was Said who complained that none of his grad students had read Milton. If Said can realize the problem with his, and his fellow cronies, system, then there must be hope for us.