While rereading the poetry of William Blake recently, I realized very little had changed between the 18th century and today. Of course, the media would like us to believe that the zeitgeist spins madly, producing “eras” as if they were products being readied for the next marketing season (which is exactly what they are). The media doesn’t want you clinging… return to article
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Reader Comments (10)Page 1 of 1 pagesWhat a great piece! Does White not wake every day thanking a divinity of some kind for his wonderful powers of ratiocination? Ah, what a golden intellect! I wish I had more friends like Curtis White. If I did, I would invite them over often to discuss myriad things over good food and wine. Curtis, if you’re reading this, will you come over? I’m starving. I await your response, and in the meantime, I look forward to your next article in Harper’s
Posted by Daniel Luke on Jan 3, 2005 at 9:03 PM It reminds me one thing, that to be contemporary means to be old-fashoined. Thanks.
Posted by Ivan Shevnin on Jan 7, 2005 at 1:42 PM How great to find Curtis White on this site! One year ago I found “The Middle Mind,” a rather controversial book that appeared to me to be one of the key social critiques of our American society. He seems to me to be a mixture of Theodor Adorno and H. L. Mencken, with a bit more poetry added to leaven the prose. WEheter you agree with him or not, he does set fire to our brains. His critiques of American films (Private Ryan in the book) are outstanding and highly recommendable. Also, his critique of critique. There is an article he wrote called Whatever, Dude, that is pricelss (find it on the web).
I, for one, equivocate Imagination with Hope, and Hope with the all-pervading Hunger of our existence on this planet, and White supplies that hope by “keeping the conversation going.” And paradoxically, he does that by taking very strong positions on all sorts of topics. White is balm for the intelloect and the soul.
Posted by Talleyrand on Jan 9, 2005 at 4:20 PM This article is really fascinating and mostly true.
I wonder though if the final point about utilitarian
(journalistic) writing is viable. Does writing that has utility and accessibility automatically become “utilitarian” in the ironic way that Mr. White describes? The idea of a division between utilitarian writing and that which is more creative (or artistic?) is itself a product of a relatively modern society under the sway of “Ratio.” After all, the earliest writers in ancient cultures did not make such distinctions, and much of their most creative and beautiful work possessed a high level of utility as well.
Posted by Eric B on Jan 10, 2005 at 6:02 AM In the reply section to Curtis White review of Ratio Nation, a reply by Talleyrand(1/9) contained the following statement:
“I, for one, equivocate Imagination with Hope” this doesn’t make sense to me, nor does it agree with the tone of the rest of the paragraph. I believe it should read: “I,for one,EQUILIBRATE Imagination with Hope”Equivocate means to avoid making an explicit statement.
Equilibrate means to bring into equilibrium.
Posted by al pedant on Jan 10, 2005 at 8:27 AM The comments about White suggest raging hormones. Is this a cyber site?
Posted by tJp on Jan 10, 2005 at 8:29 AM Thanks pedant! Not equilibrate either, equate (Middle of the night after a day of heavy work, sorry)… but hope and hunger are related,…
tJp.. Not hormones… hunger for someone with a standpoint that goes beyond the traditional leftwing rightwing duality without falling into the gap between the two, where there is no real opinion, and everything is the same, be it Beethoven, or Elvis. That is precisely what White calls the Middle Mind in his book. “What the Middle Mind does best is flatten distinctions,” he writes. “It turns culture into mush.” White makes us use our brains again, and that is very pleasant. That’s what a brain is for.
Posted by Talleyrand on Jan 10, 2005 at 9:41 AM I was astounded by the opening sentences of this article. Our present age is unprecedented, and our reality like nothing ever known to mankind before. The present generation of human beings has developed techniques of human reproduction which may seriously undermine the human condition. The rush to the post- human in the biotechnical realm takes many different forms and forces us to ask what is really essential to our humanity. The power of self- destruction given to mankind today is now being extended to states and groups that are wholly irresponsible. I could go and on with a long list of ‘ transformations’ mankind has gone through in the past century alone which make our situation so unprecedented, difficult and in my opinion, more threatening than challenging. Blake’s Industrial nightmares are innocence itself before the kinds of Doom and Disaster we remakers of ourselves and our environment may bring about.
Posted by Shalom Freedman on Jan 12, 2005 at 4:48 AM I think there have always been thos three classes of persons, more or less. Each person or type of person just learns to accomodate themselves to the domnant way of thinking of their time. Unfortunately, there are always fewer poets than there should be.....
Posted by a bard on Jan 12, 2005 at 10:07 AM My 1995 Escort wagon is more useful to me than a covered wagon- but soon useless if we were transported back to 1849. A knife would still have utility.
Faith in God may lead me to produce more children. There’s time-tested utility for ya! Until we’re wiped out by the disease we never saw coming…
Poets simply need to breed more prodigiously!
Posted by Lancaster on Jan 21, 2005 at 2:43 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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