October 25, 2012

I continue to figure why I find the works chosen for the autobiography class so disappointing. None of them is good; no part of any of them is particularly good (though they’re beautifully bound).  Finally I realize that the mediocrity is not accidental. These texts represent the apotheosis of post-modernism, which is to say the theory that there is no “better” or “worse,” but only a community of witness, all perspectives and levels of achievement being essentially equal. My opinion formed in the last five minutes is as good as that of a scholar who has pondered the same question through his life. The most witless poem is valuable if someone values it, and the reasons for the valuation are irrelevant. This includes, of course, the author, whose ineptness or error is validated if he buts avows ineptness and error were his intentions. No one has the courage to say that this is boring and that idiotic, for if one observation passes through the refiner’s fire, so must they all. Art becomes a circle jerk. Politics becomes just what we have seen during this campaign, an orgy of ignorant convictions based on the apparently inalienable right to have ignorant convictions, and the belief that all convictions, ignorant or sublime, are on exact par. My ignorance is as good as your wisdom. My sloppy crap is as good as your elegant, skilled and well-considered prose– even better, for am I not “keeping it real”? To their credit, my class is having these same reservations, if expressed more tentatively. They seem to be astonished that, given the opportunity of free expression, some clearly choose to slur or babble or profane.