Maggie's Farm

AP, I was party to the convo just referenced, but didn’t see what I wrote way back then (ancient history) as engaging in deconstructing western canon or impugning the good character of those soldier/poets. But looks as if I’m being deconstructed just when I offered not to comment, anymore.

How is mention of an artist’s or politician’s personal life as an aside or as how it relates to literary image or public policy an exercise in deconstructing western canon? Is it only talk about a person’s homosexuality that undermines the foundational work of our civilization, or will discussion about great figures’ heterosexual philandering, pederasty, gambling, tax cheating, wife and child beating, misogyny, gluttony, or just general meanness take away from their work and its contribution for good or ill to our history, tradition and idea? Does this restriction against mentioning personal life details also apply to writers and pols with whom we don’t agree, ‘cause the center-right sphere absolutely goes to town on both historical and current enemies of the right?

Is our appreciation of certain predecessors’ lives and work so tenuous that we must airbrush away their differences, preferences, foibles and sins, IOW their real lives, when we write and study their biographies? Who oversees the censorship or rewrite? Sounds a bit Stalinish to me, or gauzy, like the blurry cam focus Doris Day insisted upon in her later movies. Isn’t there an argument to be made for age-appropriate biographical discussion of artists and leaders, so as not to lay too much on grade schoolers who might become disenchanted for the wrong reasons versus informing university students as to the realness of a person they study? To me, it’s almost inspiring to hear of great people who were not necessarily perfect or conventional in their personal or even professional lives- gives the rest of us more hope and less excuse. Of course, the saints and angels are more inspirational.

Anyway, I, for one, don’t like to read or look at art with blinders on and very much enjoy knowing about creators’ lives, experiences, outlooks, loves and times to try to see into the genesis process. And then I like to pull back from the particulars and circumstance and read/ view for a piece’s transcendent offerings. Or, sometimes the process gets reversed, but there’s good learning and knowing from both approaches.

Academic studies that force re-interpretation of the greats, their work and policy, through today’s PC -isms are engaged in distortion in the opposite direction. They err and distort by not grounding study and understanding of history and lit in the context and milieu of an individual’s (or movement’s) time and place and by distracting from, more than extracting, any sense of universality. Revisionist/ deconstuctivist critique is often a travesty, as it dishonors an artist’s truth by having it serve a current social-political agenda- Buddy’s perfectly on target there, per his usual. For this reason I usually recommend to my kid analysis from critics who predate modern PC.

But, back to why this discussion here and now, and why such hostility all the time? Everybody is not the enemy. I am on your side, but too often I see people on this side who, instead of enjoying fair academic debate, chip at, pull down, push away, insult, snub, demean and attack those who mean well and who ARE ON THEIR SIDE. It’s as if certain people would rather be angry and uber-right in ever shrinking circles of the exactly perfectly right-minded pals and allies in little club-blogs, than to spread their constructive opinion and influence. At heart it’s ungracious, self-destructive and a betrayal of one’s cause. “Yikes” is right.

And I’m sorry (but not responsible!) for your Episcopal Church. I grew up Presbyterian but joined a high Episcopal Church as a teen, which turned me off of religion for a long while. It was only a place to be seen by the right people, in the right clothes and, boy, were those pews filled with unrepentant, gossipy, social-climbing hypocrites. Pulpit, too. PC didn’t ruin that particular church, just the human condition. Bleh. Am not looking forward to that life, again…

Technically, this was not a violation of the no comment pledge, since the above is more like a monograph on why it’s silly to pin civilization’s problems on little ol’ me, especially when I’m not supposed to be here to defend myself! Also wish to say that I always enjoy your and Buddy’s comments, so will continue to read the site. We should all remember that good people can disagree on the little things without the claws coming out. I tell that to my cats all the time, but do they listen? Noooo---

so, if you must, "skim" away and blood-lust for some "battle" past, if that does it for you. Sigh.

Thanks, Buddy, and I’ll pretend to believe you :) You really are a mighty force for right, even if your biggest fans have to kick you in the shin once a year. I will go with you on Lincoln, but when it comes to poetry and art appreciation and analysis, sex is embedded in a lot of imagery- intentionally and subconsciously, hetero and homo, etc. This I know, but am too lazy to come up with a good explanation- you could, if you thought about it. That said, though, image and device are not the sum of a piece’s work, and you sound as if you prefer the thematic and lyrical over mode of conveyance, which is all valid and good, and no Philistine you. I like it all, but that’s me. Late Roman? Urban Texan?

AP, the convo here was just idle poetical analysis. A few WWI poet/soldiers were very probably "differently oriented", and still loyal, true soldiers and incredibly talented artists. We all focus on what they gave us- their service to country and moving words. But I made the mistake of acknowledging their personal realities and impact on poetical image :(

Am not at all convinced that John Wayne's sexuality, either way, colored his acting, so it doesn't seem germane in the least--

And, BL, :)

AP,

I mean this in the best of ways-- Do you know any real-life homosexuals, or do you believe fem-nazis victimize certain heteros by calling them so? Do you believe gays exist in the human experience, or is homosexuality a manufactured PC calumny and that, certainly, no sensitive artists were ever gay?

I personally don't get gayness- am not attracted to same gender in any way. I don't even like how gay politics have taken over personal style, tradition and our national debate. Abhor the idea of lifestyle "choice" and any equivalence between hetero child-producing units and gay unions. BUT, I do know gay people and realize they're not a figment of my imagination :) and that most of them are irredeemably homo, from either birth or early childhood experience.

We gotta deal and not deny, imo. I don’t like denying their personhood, experience and contributions, myself.

I'm not a fem-nazi, btw, if that's what you meant by getting it "out there". If you were to research the few of the poet/ soldiers in question, you'd quickly realize that their education and verbal precosity were not one and the same with their quietly professed sexuality, tho' one clearly impacted the other. They were who they were, and who are we to deny that, as if who they were in their personal lives was such an abomination as to besmirch their art, when it fact their loves and affections most likely contributed to it in particular and profound ways?