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Strom Cuzewon posted:Gotcha. No, the point is that there's no need to read anything "as a study in" in the first place. There can be value in taking background knowledge into account while reading, but unwillingness to move past that information during, or not reading at all because of it - while it might not even be relevant to both your enjoyment of the novel as well as its cultural worth at large - is restricting in a way that offers no value at all. e: beaten by miles mb
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Feb 2, 2020 02:21
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Remember that guy in the other thread who got on his high horse about authors who had been "subjected to Catholicism"? He should have tried reading Frederick Rolfe's failson fantasies about becoming the pope and owning the socialists
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Feb 2, 2020 02:27
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I went to the museum of modern art and closed my eyes when passing by a painting done by Gino Severini just to make sure I wasn't supporting him.
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Feb 2, 2020 02:30
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I don't know why you guys are bothering to reason with Internet Brain because the average Twitter user's take on racism in media is incoherent. I'm going to pivot to RPGs for a bit here because it's an example of my point. Scroll down to the content warning Now leaving aside that I think Ruthanna Emrys' take on the Lovecraft Mythos is your standard "genetically superior protagonist whines about persecution" that so much of modern fantasy devolves into, you cannot separate Lovecraft's racism from his work. This isn't because of the monsters-as-black people analogy people love to trot out, it's because at its core The Call of Cthulhu is ultimately about a white man sitting in the basement and deciding that he needs to hide from the scary black people forever. This is in the text, yet nerds fall all over themselves explaining that their use of Cthulhu and friends is like, totally progressive and stuff despite the fact that the bad Cthulhu cults are usually...black or mixed-race people in conflict with the heroic white men fighting to defend civilization. It's pretty racist poo poo. Alternatively, take Harry Potter. Before Rowling shot her mouth off on Twitter about stupid poo poo, people generally accepted Harry and his friends as heroic everymen fighting the evil Lord Voldemort who was pretty obviously modeled off Hitler with his obsession about blood purity. What people don't notice is that Voldemort's enemies are defined by having the same amount of divinely-granted power as he has. Harry Potter is a wizard not because of his hard work but because his parents were wizards. The oppressed Muggle-Born wizards are ultimately the same as Harry not because of their shared humanity, but because of their inherited power. Voldemort is ultimately evil not because of how he treats people born without magic - whom all characters, even the otherwise virtuous Hermione Granger,* treat with contempt as second class citizens and playthings - but because he treats people who are born nobility the same as he treats peasants. Nevertheless, nerds will defend these as high art worthy of praise - despite the art directly advancing some pretty horrific poo poo - and then refuse to read Ezra Pound. I am not saying Strom Cuzewon does this. It is, however, funny that the greater nerd community didn't pick up on this theme in Rowling's work but immediately turned on her when she posted crap on Twitter.
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Feb 2, 2020 02:39
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I looked up Mishima and apparently he committed suicide during an ill-fated attempt to restore the Emperor and also he may have been gay? The summaries of his book make them sound pretty mediocre and also he was apparently satirized in Persona 5. Who was this dude, what was his deal
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Feb 2, 2020 02:55
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He may have been gay.
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Feb 2, 2020 03:00
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I read one of his books. It was good and weird and I enjoyed it. I also didn't turn into a fascist. Still as socialist as ever.
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Feb 2, 2020 03:09
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HIJK posted:I looked up Mishima and apparently he committed suicide during an ill-fated attempt to restore the Emperor and also he may have been gay? The summaries of his book make them sound pretty mediocre and also he was apparently satirized in Persona 5. Who was this dude, what was his deal no poo poo a book doesn't sound good from a wikipedia plot summary lol
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Feb 2, 2020 03:44
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HIJK posted:The summaries of his book make them sound pretty mediocre HIJK posted:The summaries of his book HIJK posted:summaries come on man
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Feb 2, 2020 04:38
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Genre readers only care about what happens next. so naturally a summary can determine if a book is good or not.
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Feb 2, 2020 04:40
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I'm legit confused about what this guy's deal is and why he's problematic or whatever especially since he's primarily writing about reincarnation and intergenerational friendships and how this may be problematic Like I'm curious but I'm also hesitant about investing too much attention into an author if they're a fascist or not I'm not trying to ascertain if he wrote quality lit or not -- that would only be possible if I was fluent in Japanese and could read his original works. That way I could figure out his style and all that stuff. But I'm not so I can't, and translations aren't always reliable since you're reading what the translator considered important. So until I know what the deets are I'll stick with summaries
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Feb 2, 2020 04:45
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The fascism accusation has literally nothing to do with his writing; it's about his failed gay samurai cult. It's the stupidest thing in the world to be afraid of.
Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 05:14
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I've been trying to stay out of this because I probably know less about Mishima than I know, but FINE. Have some tidbits. All I really studied was some of his photography and modeling during a lecture in a 20th Century Asian art history course, in particular his St. Sebastian being pierced by arrows work, which is basically, "And this is super duper homoerotic. Any questions? Cool, moving on." Also, dude was crazy for A E S T H E T I C before it was even a thing. I can't speak to his fascism, but he was hella nationalist. He thought the emperor abdicating and the overall modernization/Meiji Restoration path Japan was on was sacrilegious. He also felt, like a lot of the cosplaying fash scum in our modern day, that fighting and war activities were the best and highest goal for a manly man's man (yes, also, the gay, but whatever). His goal in trying to take over the military base was arguably meant as a suicide mission from the start. Some reports say he was disappointed by the soldiers ignoring his rousing speech, and others say he was doing it to get attention by having an excuse to commit traditional ritual suicide and hopefully become a martyr. Instead, his second in command took 3 hacks to chop his head off while his guts spilled out, and in shame, also cut his own belly and had to have the 3rd in command cut his head off. It's all tragicomic as gently caress. Such a weird life.
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Feb 2, 2020 05:21
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Dirt Road Junglist posted:Also, dude was crazy for A E S T H E T I C before it was even a thing. 
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Feb 2, 2020 05:27
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Sham bam bamina! posted:The fascism accusation has literally nothing to do with his writing; it's about his failed gay samurai cult. It's the stupidest thing in the world to be afraid of. nah his books are very much obsessed with an aestheticisation of death that comes from much the same place as it does with other fascist authors. mishima's not just a fascist who wrote good things, his works are the product of the kinds of obsessions that dominate fascism. the idea that reading an author is implicit support of the ideas present in their work or that you might get fascism from reading mishima are the stupid things being argued here, that mishima's work fits into a kind of fascist canon is inarguable
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Feb 2, 2020 08:26
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That's a fair point, and I overstated mine with "literally nothing", but I strongly doubt that this discussion would be happening if not for the Tatenokai. Plenty of authors have been marked by romanticism and nationalism without being labeled with fascism.
Sham bam bamina! fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 08:35
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HIJK posted:Like I'm curious but I'm also hesitant about investing too much attention into an author if they're a fascist or not lol
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Feb 2, 2020 12:18
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:I don't know why you guys are bothering to reason with Internet Brain because the average Twitter user's take on racism in media is incoherent. I'm going to pivot to RPGs for a bit here because it's an example of my point. All adult Harry Potter fans are bitter creeps who think that the rest of mankind are unenlightened subhuman muggles and that they themselves are better than other people.
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Feb 2, 2020 13:35
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Lit fic dudes over-emphasising Mishima so nobody will notice how much the Child thread loves Celine
fez_machine fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 14:53
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Lex Neville posted:No, the point is that there's no need to read anything "as a study in" in the first place. There can be value in taking background knowledge into account while reading, but unwillingness to move past that information during, or not reading at all because of it - while it might not even be relevant to both your enjoyment of the novel as well as its cultural worth at large - is restricting in a way that offers no value at all. I feel like not associating with the fruits of fascism is a value in itself, but I'm clearly not gonna get an understanding of what that's like until I try. Starting with the Sailor who fell from Grace witht he sea, that looks like one of his more accessible ones (and also I cant find a kindle edition of Confessions of a Mask)
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Feb 2, 2020 15:54
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I feel like not associating with the fruits of fascism is a value in itself, but I'm clearly not gonna get an understanding of what that's like until I try. Starting with the Sailor who fell from Grace witht he sea, that looks like one of his more accessible ones (and also I cant find a kindle edition of Confessions of a Mask) once ur done ill add you to the atomwaffen mailing list
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Feb 2, 2020 15:58
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I feel like not associating with the fruits of fascism is a value in itself, but I'm clearly not gonna get an understanding of what that's like until I try. Fascism isn't the Dark Side: you can't be corrupted by it through brief contact or whatever. If your underlying personal ideology is so spotty that you're going to switch to advocating for an ethnostate the moment you finish something by Knut Hamsun, that's on you. Terrible people can and often do produce great art, and an avoidance of anyone you consider terrible because you think it endorses or otherwise spreads their ideology or supports them personally is a common belief now, but one so obviously hollow (especially since so many of these people are dead, and that piracy of works is so easy now that you can readily do it without financially supporting the living) that I don't know how it's spread so far these past few years. You can read the Father Brown mysteries without endorsing anti-Semitism. You can read Lovecraft without embarking on questionable pet naming practises. You can read Commentaries on the Gallic War without picking up a desire to enslave the French. Xotl fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 16:16
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don't pirate books 
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Feb 2, 2020 16:21
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It's bizarre to me that people are somehow not understanding that reading a book written by a Christian writer isn't going to somehow infect you with Christianity. Ditto for any other absurd or even not absurd ideology. If you read a book that's specifically meant to argue for that ideology, then yeah you might be more at risk. You could be tainted by reading Mein Kampf, or something really vile like the Bible. But looking at young A. Hitler's paintings isn't going to somehow cause you strap on jackboots.
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Feb 2, 2020 16:34
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I read the queer horse book and now im gay for horse fuckin
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Feb 2, 2020 16:44
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pseudanonymous posted:If you read a book that's specifically meant to argue for that ideology, then yeah you might be more at risk.
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Feb 2, 2020 16:47
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I feel like not associating with the fruits of fascism is a value in itself There is no point in endlessly repeating what plenty of posters have tried to make clear at this point, but I do want to add that you really should stop coming at this from a perspective operating in terms of "support" and "association".
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Feb 2, 2020 16:49
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Lex Neville posted:There is no point in endlessly repeating what plenty of posters have tried to make clear at this point, but I do want to add that you really should stop coming at this from a perspective operating in terms of "support" and "association". What is the correct perspective then?
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Feb 2, 2020 16:59
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Sham bam bamina! posted:Even this is ridiculous. If anything, you're just going to hate the book. A leftist's reaction to reading Atlas Shrugged isn't up to some roll of the dice; it's pretty clear how that's going to turn out. I said more at risk. And I mean, yes, nobody is really at risk of being persuaded of anything by reading Atlas Shrugged, but I mean come on. It's possible to write more persuasively and better than that in defense of ideologies less absurd.
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Feb 2, 2020 17:04
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I think this pov probably comes from the genre reader's inability to understand or enjoy a book where the 'protagonist' isn't a hero that they cheer for.
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Feb 2, 2020 17:04
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Strom Cuzewon posted:What is the correct perspective then? Interaction with any work of art does not inherently lead to any kind of internalisation of its or its creator's morals, to any extent. Your choice of words consistently implies that it does and it precludes you from grasping what everyone's been telling you.
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Feb 2, 2020 17:06
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Lex Neville posted:Interaction with any work of art does not inherently lead to any kind of internalisation of its or its creator's morals, to any extent. Your choice of words consistently implies that it does and it precludes you from grasping what everyone's been telling you. Because he can't interact with our forum art without being infected with "not-stupid" so he has to stay morally pure, by refusing to even read it and just robotically responding with his cancel culture take on dead writers.
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Feb 2, 2020 17:10
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pseudanonymous posted:cancel culture I wasn't going to go there, but yeah...
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Feb 2, 2020 17:11
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A human heart posted:I'm going to read GK Chesterton as a study of catholic pathology, everyone. Same but Eco Real Ecoist here
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Feb 2, 2020 18:36
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I feel like not associating with the fruits of fascism is a value in itself God this is so dumb and it's very widespread among a certain kind of online leftist. experiencing a work of art is not a moral act. it does not, though some arcane metaphysical process, validate or perpetuate the politics of whoever created it. you are not a better person because you don't read books by people with x politics. you are not a "supporter" (a highly politicized term showing the union, in this mindset, between experiencing a work of art and voting for a candidate) of an artist if you find value in his or her art. this is at best empty pearl-clutching; at worst philistinism masquerading as conspicuous morality. chernobyl kinsman fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 19:38
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anyway speaking of the unabomber my class is reading his manifesto alongside benjamin's the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction for next week
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Feb 2, 2020 19:40
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Strom Cuzewon posted:I feel like the onus is on his supporters then. The unabimber has some interesting poo poo to say - as an insight into pathology. If one were to say that he should be part of the western canon, that's a much bolder claim. Strom Cuzewon posted:Wtf does supporter even mean then? I kind of want to get back to this because I skimmed over the page and you were the person who first used the term "supporter" with regard to this. It's a very misty use of the term since you could interpret it as "supporting" as in "I support Mishima because I agree with his politics," which is meaningless when reading him as a Westerner, as an American having an opinion on a Japanese nationalism 70 years removed from what informed it is foolish. It could mean I support him as an artist, which is something entirely different from supporting his coup or his ideals in the abstract, which is something again from appreciating them as informing his art. Which is something again from saying I think people should read Mishima on the basis that I am a fascist and feel that I should boost fascist art for the abstract fascist cause, and not because I feel Mishima has value independent of his political opinions.
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Feb 2, 2020 20:00
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Heath posted:I kind of want to get back to this because I skimmed over the page and you were the person who first used the term "supporter" with regard to this. It's a very misty use of the term since you could interpret it as "supporting" as in "I support Mishima because I agree with his politics," which is meaningless when reading him as a Westerner, as an American having an opinion on a Japanese nationalism 70 years removed from what informed it is foolish. It could mean I support him as an artist, which is something entirely different from supporting his coup or his ideals in the abstract, which is something again from appreciating them as informing his art. Which is something again from saying I think people should read Mishima on the basis that I am a fascist and feel that I should boost fascist art for the abstract fascist cause, and not because I feel Mishima has value independent of his political opinions. Yeah, I think I've working on the incorrect idea that wanting to read someone is synonymous with thinking that they have something worthwhile to say, and by that logic of course I'd be nervous reading someone with extreme nationalist views. But I'm seeing how that's a really loving limited way to look at literature.
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Feb 2, 2020 20:18
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chernobyl kinsman posted:God this is so dumb and it's very widespread among a certain kind of online leftist. experiencing a work of art is not a moral act. it does not, though some arcane metaphysical process, validate or perpetuate the politics of whoever created it. you are not a better person because you don't read books by people with x politics. you are not a "supporter" (a highly politicized term showing the union, in this mindset, between experiencing a work of art and voting for a candidate) of an artist if you find value in his or her art. this is at best empty pearl-clutching; at worst philistinism masquerading as conspicuous morality. While I agree that reading or otherwise consuming a given piece of art is not an endorsement of the political views expressed in that art or by the artist, I don't know that experiencing a work of art can never be a moral act. To bring us back to the initial example, much of the criticism levied at American Dirt isn't about the prose or the theming or the literary quality of the work, but rather the systems and processes that allow a middle aged white woman to publish and widely promote a wildly successful book about poor Mexicans while Mexican and Mexican American authors struggle to get published at all. Whether participating in those processes by purchasing or reading the book is itself immoral is very much an open question.
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Feb 2, 2020 20:24
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The other aspect of this, and something I've seen quite frequently is the "X is an inspiration" when it comes to particular writers (especially from other writers.) They're never talking about their writing, their work. It's always because it's a particular person with particular traits who has become a success despite Y. I could find it, when it happens at this broad level, incredibly demeaning to be celebrated because of your success as a woman, trans woman, gay person, whatever, and not because your writing is particularly good, or because you put forward an insightful understanding of something in your short story or book. You, the celebrity who succeeded is important, not your writing, the loving thing you do, is important. It reminds me of Rupi Kaur talking about "He's the best!" And pointing at a cover on a Kafka book, meaning the graphic designer provides the best look in the market, and not that Kafka wrote anything particularly well.
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Feb 2, 2020 20:30
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