Solid stuff. The trick of political writing as an art form is that a political novel always runs the risk of falling into a homily (see, for example, everything published in last ten years.) 1984 is just about the best a person can do it.
I still maintain that I would have had such difficulty if I had majored in English in more recent times than when I did. How different my life & career would have been. You do an excellent job highlighting how fast that train has sped to another direction. Also, if I may add to a reason to read Othello in addition to the artful language: it's to examine the human condition. To find our tendency toward jealousy. A faulty trust in a "friend" when our thinking is clogged with envy. What we might do in desperation. At least that's what I might have discussed with my students back in the day.
The ego question aside (for who can evaluate that element of their own motives fairly), my motivation for writing is the desire to ask the question, do you see it too? Is life really like this?
I often argue with my Catholic colleagues that art is prior to morality. In order to act morally, you need two things: sound moral doctrine and a correct assessment of the situation. Art is about the latter. It is about learning to see straight. You can't act correctly if you can't see straight. Much evil is done by those with good intentions who don't understand what is really going on.
The same argument applies to politics. Art is prior to politics. To act correctly in politics, you must have sound doctrine and a correct assessment of the situation. Art is about the latter. It is about learning to see straight. Much harm is done in politics by people with good intentions who don't understand what is really going on.
If you insert politics into your art, you will not help people to see straight. Indeed, you will make them see crooked. That's often the point, of course: to create useful idiots.
The reason to keep politics out of art is that we need art to correct our vision so we can do politics better.
The Berghof sanatorium is there to display the politics of pre-war Europe as isolated, introspective, and teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Its Bergsonian timelessness symbolises the political inertia and cultural decadence of the time. Hans Castorp’s prolonged stay there is to show how easily individuals and societies can become detached from reality and lulled into passivity by politics.
The patients from various nations embody the conflicting political ideologies of the time. Settembrin, the Italian humanist guy, is in the story to champion Enlightenment values, liberal democracy, and reason; Naphta in contast is a radical Jesuit who is in the story to defend authoritarianism and revolutionary violence, a weird blend of religious dogma with Marxist totalitarianism. Their debates are in the story to reflect Mann’s own evolving political stance.
The whole thing ending with Castorp marching off to World War I is a deliberate reminder of how unresolved political tensions can erupt into violence.
Your professors were correct. All writing (not literature as an abstract) is political for the simple reason that the state of having ‘no politics’ cannot exist.
I'm wondering how, for example, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, or Gerald Manley Hopkins' poems that celebrate the beauty of nature, are taught now. It would be hilarious to hear them talked about in political terms.
I think it's up to the pro-political stance to make its argument, if that's what they believe, not for the anti to defend itself against a position that hasn't been articulated.
“I don’t have to defend my position” is conveniently self-serving…
You posited that nature poems are not political. I am challenging you to defend that by explaining how “celebrating the beauty of nature” is not self-evidentially taking a political position on nature.
The thing is Orwell wasn't liked by academia, who are the ones who move the goal post. So I would say the few most responsible for this are Walter Benjamin and his cronies that did it from within. Orwell was a warning to all that, and his times, that nobody took seriously enough because he did it in fiction form, so people thought it was literal fiction and not something that could happen in reality. So his mistake was maybe doing a political allegory in novel form, even though I love them. He's also banned as reading material in woke circles. I've seen videos and testimonies here of people naming him as an absolute no-no when you enter those types of cults. So he's also an antidote in that regard. I just don't think people read him and want to do the same, it's harder than it looks.
If you read his collected letters and essays, you find that while in the abstract, he argues for the difference between agreement and art, in his actual reviews, he often slips into the error. For instance, he reviews one of Koestler's works and downgrades it on the grounds that it argues that real revolution is impossible. That is, for disagreement with him.
Politics apply to the interrelationship of a citizen/member and a group, so if a writer shares work with a group, then by definition it's political. Personally, I prefer my politics to be as subtle as possible, both in reading and writing, but verbal flatulence happens. 😏
I’m curious about your thoughts on the relationship between medium and politicization. It seems to me that as the medium becomes more visual and shaped by a specific creative mind, the art tends to become more political. Whereas written art leaves a certain gap to be filled by the reader’s imagination, thus allowing for a greater margin of interpretation, visual art forms like plays and movies have a greater proclivity to be politically influenced. This may be no fault of the director or screenwriter, but rather a consequence of a civilization that has devolved morally and intellectually, to the point where politics have taken precedence over transcendent qualities. I might be way off the mark here but I would love to hear your thoughts.
Totally agree. Political writing addresses the everyone as being all the same or should be considered all the same. Writing concerning one person caught in their own condition is individual and particular. The hornets nest is that anyone can be the same or different from any other person. And is it more important to be so much the same as everyone else or be different from them? One makes their choice and suffers the consequences. It is easier to be like everyone else but more difficult because you always have to be busy appealing to everyone else but otherwise being an empty shell. It is more difficult to be yourself because you may end up being yourself alone 24/7. Of course that might feel really good, because you are very independent, which would make anything political entirely unnecessary.
Thanks for the link. I think this is the third time I've read this over the past 5 decades. I have many thoughts, but I must say that I'm increasingly surprised how much the US fits into his description of totalitarianism. Current literature indicates a world power must be authoritarian, so perhaps it's just a slippery slope.
Solid stuff. The trick of political writing as an art form is that a political novel always runs the risk of falling into a homily (see, for example, everything published in last ten years.) 1984 is just about the best a person can do it.
I still maintain that I would have had such difficulty if I had majored in English in more recent times than when I did. How different my life & career would have been. You do an excellent job highlighting how fast that train has sped to another direction. Also, if I may add to a reason to read Othello in addition to the artful language: it's to examine the human condition. To find our tendency toward jealousy. A faulty trust in a "friend" when our thinking is clogged with envy. What we might do in desperation. At least that's what I might have discussed with my students back in the day.
The ego question aside (for who can evaluate that element of their own motives fairly), my motivation for writing is the desire to ask the question, do you see it too? Is life really like this?
I often argue with my Catholic colleagues that art is prior to morality. In order to act morally, you need two things: sound moral doctrine and a correct assessment of the situation. Art is about the latter. It is about learning to see straight. You can't act correctly if you can't see straight. Much evil is done by those with good intentions who don't understand what is really going on.
The same argument applies to politics. Art is prior to politics. To act correctly in politics, you must have sound doctrine and a correct assessment of the situation. Art is about the latter. It is about learning to see straight. Much harm is done in politics by people with good intentions who don't understand what is really going on.
If you insert politics into your art, you will not help people to see straight. Indeed, you will make them see crooked. That's often the point, of course: to create useful idiots.
The reason to keep politics out of art is that we need art to correct our vision so we can do politics better.
All you wrote is very helpful. I agree. This should be a discussion/article for everyone. So needed. Thank you.
The Magic Mountain is very political!
The Berghof sanatorium is there to display the politics of pre-war Europe as isolated, introspective, and teetering on the edge of catastrophe. Its Bergsonian timelessness symbolises the political inertia and cultural decadence of the time. Hans Castorp’s prolonged stay there is to show how easily individuals and societies can become detached from reality and lulled into passivity by politics.
The patients from various nations embody the conflicting political ideologies of the time. Settembrin, the Italian humanist guy, is in the story to champion Enlightenment values, liberal democracy, and reason; Naphta in contast is a radical Jesuit who is in the story to defend authoritarianism and revolutionary violence, a weird blend of religious dogma with Marxist totalitarianism. Their debates are in the story to reflect Mann’s own evolving political stance.
The whole thing ending with Castorp marching off to World War I is a deliberate reminder of how unresolved political tensions can erupt into violence.
Your professors were correct. All writing (not literature as an abstract) is political for the simple reason that the state of having ‘no politics’ cannot exist.
I'm wondering how, for example, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, or Gerald Manley Hopkins' poems that celebrate the beauty of nature, are taught now. It would be hilarious to hear them talked about in political terms.
How is being a proponent for the beauty of nature not a political stance?
I think it's up to the pro-political stance to make its argument, if that's what they believe, not for the anti to defend itself against a position that hasn't been articulated.
“I don’t have to defend my position” is conveniently self-serving…
You posited that nature poems are not political. I am challenging you to defend that by explaining how “celebrating the beauty of nature” is not self-evidentially taking a political position on nature.
The thing is Orwell wasn't liked by academia, who are the ones who move the goal post. So I would say the few most responsible for this are Walter Benjamin and his cronies that did it from within. Orwell was a warning to all that, and his times, that nobody took seriously enough because he did it in fiction form, so people thought it was literal fiction and not something that could happen in reality. So his mistake was maybe doing a political allegory in novel form, even though I love them. He's also banned as reading material in woke circles. I've seen videos and testimonies here of people naming him as an absolute no-no when you enter those types of cults. So he's also an antidote in that regard. I just don't think people read him and want to do the same, it's harder than it looks.
If you read his collected letters and essays, you find that while in the abstract, he argues for the difference between agreement and art, in his actual reviews, he often slips into the error. For instance, he reviews one of Koestler's works and downgrades it on the grounds that it argues that real revolution is impossible. That is, for disagreement with him.
Alas, principles are hard to maintain.
Politics apply to the interrelationship of a citizen/member and a group, so if a writer shares work with a group, then by definition it's political. Personally, I prefer my politics to be as subtle as possible, both in reading and writing, but verbal flatulence happens. 😏
I’m curious about your thoughts on the relationship between medium and politicization. It seems to me that as the medium becomes more visual and shaped by a specific creative mind, the art tends to become more political. Whereas written art leaves a certain gap to be filled by the reader’s imagination, thus allowing for a greater margin of interpretation, visual art forms like plays and movies have a greater proclivity to be politically influenced. This may be no fault of the director or screenwriter, but rather a consequence of a civilization that has devolved morally and intellectually, to the point where politics have taken precedence over transcendent qualities. I might be way off the mark here but I would love to hear your thoughts.
Speaking as someone who generally likes Orwell, I nonetheless believe Orwell is massively overrated.
Totally agree. Political writing addresses the everyone as being all the same or should be considered all the same. Writing concerning one person caught in their own condition is individual and particular. The hornets nest is that anyone can be the same or different from any other person. And is it more important to be so much the same as everyone else or be different from them? One makes their choice and suffers the consequences. It is easier to be like everyone else but more difficult because you always have to be busy appealing to everyone else but otherwise being an empty shell. It is more difficult to be yourself because you may end up being yourself alone 24/7. Of course that might feel really good, because you are very independent, which would make anything political entirely unnecessary.
See also Orwell's essay, "The Prevention of Literature" (1946):
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/the-prevention-of-literature/
Thanks for the link. I think this is the third time I've read this over the past 5 decades. I have many thoughts, but I must say that I'm increasingly surprised how much the US fits into his description of totalitarianism. Current literature indicates a world power must be authoritarian, so perhaps it's just a slippery slope.