[ilds] Re all gone mainstream?

Sun May 3 14:40:36 PDT 2015

Robin, good points. Hitchins is much missed, at least by me. The scene in Europe will be interesting, and England too after the election. I have a piece planned on post Charlie Hebdo Europe. What I see here though is often avoidance of controversy, efforts to stifle debate and an art world that is cautious or supports the politically correct status quo. Moral outrage and righteous indignation have new garments and yes, new barricades, but I don't see too many poets, painters and novelists, at least here, attempting to storm them. If anything they are sitting behind them, maxim guns ready.

David 

Sent from my iPad

> On 4 May 2015, at 6:50 am, Robin W Collins <robin.w.collins at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I'd have to disagree. Maybe the barricades have changed as have the debates, but there's a pretty good contemporary divide that rivals that of the 30s and 40s. It's not reds vs fascists or reds vs anarchists or quite the same Left vs Right split or a the itentical split within the Left but it's a pretty good fight. Free speech, religious dogmatism, blood and identity politics. 
> 
> On one side Rushdie and McEwan and Amis (and the deceased Hitchens) and many nervous nellies on the other side. The current split within PEN over Charlie Hebdo recognition is part of the same and is as good as it gets, maybe even more complex than yore. Read Katha Pollitt's piece in The Nation in support of the PEN award. A good old fashioned fistacuffs.  And on we go...
> 
> Robin 
> 
> 
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Sun, 3 May 2015 07:48:10 +1000
>> From: "Denise Tart & David Green" <dtart at bigpond.net.au>
>> 
>> 
>> Bruce
>> 
>> Ha, the artists have all gone mainstream. They are on the public payroll (arts grants) or sustained by university tenure (nothing against unis, when there once meself)
>> Either that or they are all on Twitter or Facebook. It is all very bourgeois and many do not have much to say in case they offend someone BUT you can write about climate change, or evil capitalists or governments being mean to migrants or indigenous people or you can write clever little poems to be read by your friends and softly applauded. When the Australian poet Les Murray countered this in 'Sub Human Redneck Poems' he was cast into outer darkness which doesn't really bother Les as he feels better when people are not around. WE live in a depoliticized world, at least in the west. The corporations and the Institutions have taken over. The fascist communist polarity as been replaced by the beige pursuit of cars with GPS, superannuation funds and the wellness industry. Where are today's Celines, Henry MIllers, Lawrence Durrells, Charles Bukowskis??? aye, where are they? There was this French guy, Houllebeck or something, but they ran him out of town. He's hiding in Ireland!
>  d!
>> rinking Guinness. So here's to Larry and the lads (and Lasses) they did good back then. Who's writing today's Air-conditioned Nightmare or Justine?? maybe you know James?? In the meantime I am going to buy a racing bike and start...
> 
> 
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