Greatest Danger Redux
Can moderates write manifestos? It strikes me that so much of our discourse these days is nothing more than shrill extremists shrieking at each other while laying claim to vast majorities that really don’t belong to them. And I’m not just talking politics here. I see it everywhere… music, science, philosophy, religion, and, especially recently, in art; it’s all the same dialectic. But then I look around and it seems that if you put all the pieces together you can assemble a reasonable, if difficult to articulate, third way.
Without getting terribly preachy, I just have to get this thought off my chest: un-self-critical work in service of the dominant ideology, whether that ideology is supply side economics or abstract oil painting, is nothing more than propaganda. If you’re going to work in the dominant framework, you had better be aware of the power structure that props it up or you’re really nothing more than a shill and we know, deep down, that’s not where you want to be.
The flip side is, of course, the dominant structure is most likely not in place because it completely sucks. There must be (or have been) some value there or it would never have existed in the first place. I’m not saying you must rebel gently, but insurgents needn’t throw out the baby with the bath water; tyranny begins, after all, with the will of the people.
So today, just as I’m getting the urge to say “screw it all, other people have said this better” the good people at Lantana are kind enough to link to this. It’s not exactly Critical or even revelatory, but at least it mostly seems thoughtful. I particularly liked Hari Kunzru and Jeanette Winterson and not so much Matthew Collings. Note to Matthew: water is no less important to the individual because there is lots of it. (Better writers than him have made this same mistake, of course.)
Regardless, I’m going to have to grab a copy of the book.
*****
Also, from the I’m-not-just-some-pontificating-asshead department: I found while blog surfing today a nifty DIY project for anybody into photography. I wish I’d had one of these while shooting slides for Amber.
