Monday, March 6, 2006
The Aura of Modernism
Marjorie Perloff's podcast , The Aura of Modernism, was injected with energy and paternalism. She is a critic of contemporary poetry, a consumer of culture — loving culture the way a materialist would love and play with their “things”. She loves the high display of theory and argumentation. She sounds as though she is double-parked in this podcast — she rushes through things; but she has a lot to say — a lot of knowledge and opinion falling over one another — certainly worth a listen. She argues sensibly that “art matters”. She argues on behalf of modernism — the slogan name of art theorists for a group of artists (although the theorists would dispute — which is their main preoccupation — who belonged to their artificial categorizations.) Theorists lump into groups that most individual of activities, the creation of art, then aggrandize and dismiss the groups (“pigs at the pastry cart” is the way Updike described it) to further their careers; with only rare exceptions do they provide true appreciation, helping the public understand and gain insight.
Perloff's grandiose dismissal of Eliot's anti-Semitism, her uncritical, warm embrace of Duchamp's nascent anarchism, leaves you wondering if there is any substance to be found in her obsessive chattering. Cultural opinion can reduce itself to little more than a new dress to wear to the public debate. Aesthetics and morality are deeply intertwined — it is shallow to ignore that connection.
(Post-modernism attempted to connect the creation of art with the deep flaws [colonialism, imperialism, racism] in the societies that witnessed the creation of that art and called the judgment morally based— but that isn't a moral connection, rather, it is itself a shallow understanding of the dynamic of individual creativity, speaking to all human experience, and the society in which it exists.)
Perloff reads with enthusiastic condescension the commentary provided @Amazon by “amateurs”. She is amused by their naivete; she is dismissive but appreciative, as one would be with a child.