It is very true that the media has infected us than the actual SARS virus. This is certainly even more apparent in countries like Canada and Singapore where the percentage of people affected by SARS is actually less than 1%. In Toronto, there are only about 200 people affected, tops! Same for Singapore which has a population of about 3.6 million, so if you do the maths it is less than 1%. Moreover, my parents who live in Singapore told me that only about 33 people remain in hospital in Singapore.
The media frenzy surrounding SARS has impacted our global-economy. The situation has rippled into Australia affectign Australia’s economy.
In a way the SARS thing is indeed very McLuhanite whereby, almost reductively speaking, our fears are founded in the headlines and bold typeface on newspaper than the actual scientific analysis of the situation.
I think David Cronenberg should make a movie about this SARS thing. About how Torontonians caught a disease off the media. A disease without a model virus, a true simulacrum. Blatant, yes… but that’s how it is now too.
Thank you so much for Barney F. McClelland’s essay on the ludicrous pretentions of illiterate would-be poets to “self-expression” in print. As a philosopher and lecturer in the subject, I find that my students have begun to think of philosophy also as a form of self-expression, burdened as they seem to be with the legacy of New Age mysticism. I will make use of Mr. McClelland’s article to combat the virus.
Thank you for McClelland’s essay on the proliferation of that awful “solipsistic prose”. Although I do not really expect a reply, I was wondering what B&W, and Mr McClellands’ thoughts were about the affects of this scurge upon the genuine few who strive to achieve something worthwhile, be it traditional or modern, whilst avoiding the short-term thrill of electronic publishing/vanity press etc. only to be lauded over by these fools who have been “published” all over the net? Is there any future for the authentic writer and poet, who loves and bleeds over every word rather than regurgitate them en masse at the mearest thought and call it poetry? God help me if what you describe is the culmination of three millennia, of so many lives and words…
>>Sometimes those institutions and practices and customs are in Third World countries, and then attempts of First World people to reform or abolish them will conflict with the laudable goal of not being a cultural imperialist or Eurocentric or self-righteous or intolerant. And then one has to choose.<<
So the choice is either barbarism or cultural imperialism? And no mention of Third World reformers addressing their own practices, much less of Third World reformers struggling with the laudable goal of reforming or abolishing First World barbarities, from racism to the IMF.
>>Have the women, servants, slaves, child soldiers, Dalits, ten-year-old carpet weavers in these cultures ever even had the opportunity to decide what their culture might be?<<
You have got to be kidding me. Can someone really be so uninformed as to be totally unaware of the long history of Dalit criticism, or Third World women’s feminism?
And the discussion of affirmative action in education does not at all consider alumni preferences or other kinds of affirmative action for the wealthy.
I’m aware that some of the above is discussed in the external links, but I find the selection of links themselves to be narrow. Not only narrow, but narrow in precisely the ways predicted by people who are cultural relativists and pro-affirmative action! I would have preferred defenses of universal values that were more robustly developed against the obvious critiques.
It was about ten years ago, more or less, that I noticed the feminists’ concern with such horrid practices in other countries beginning a tentative two-step with the multicultis.
Female genital mutilation is bad, but so is saying so. Hmmm.
One can get self-contratulatory multiculi pats for being tolerant of various things going on in the Third World we would never tolerate here. But to get the maximum score, you have to tolerate the real, real, bad stuff.
Nobody gives you any toleration points for letting the French eat snails in peace.
It’s tolerating, say, suttee that runs up the totals.
From which we can conclude that almost everything the multicultis want us to tolerate in the name of cultural relativism has one thing in common.
Victims.
Dead, raped, mutilated, enslaved.
Victims.
What’s the point in being all tolerant if you can’t tolerate the intolerable?
And if we are supposed to tolerate various practices happening around the world now–call it lateral tolerance, why are we not supposed to tolerate things that happened in the past–call it vertical tolerance?
What gives us the right to judge the whites’ treatment of Native Americans, or slavery in the good ol’ USA?
“I have questions regarding the nature of scientific truth.
Is not all of science based on assumptions? Furthermore, these assumptions are untestable and consequently unprovable? ”
Not at all – they are testable. Of the many examples: Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity postulated that light is affected by gravity (the assumption). In 1919, an eclipse expedition, which included Arthur Eddington, measured the position of a star whose location was close to the sun. Its apparent location was different than when the sun was not nearby. The measured results and the calculated results were almost exactly the same: assumed, tested and proved.
“For example: science assumes that the laws of nature as we now see them have operated the same way throughout time and space;”
To assume anything else is to make a hopeless retreat into chaos and magic.
“science assumes that the human mind is infinitely capable to perceive and understand nature;”
Not at all. ‘Science’ assumes that the minds God gave us are capable of unravelling the mysteries of the universe, but we have no idea how long that will take, nor if we will find them all. Any scientist of any repute realizes that there is a lot more that we don’t know than that we do.
“science assumes that there are no supernatural agents at work in nature;”
Of course. Ghosts, goblins and banshees have yet to be seen.
“science assumes that the simplest explanation that accounts for the obsreved data is the correct one, et al.”
It is almost invariably true. Crop circles, for example, can be made either by clever lads or by alien beings, who have travelled countless light-years to this obscure planet, with the single aim of confusing rural farmers. Which explanation is simplest; which more likely to be correct?
“So in the end does it not come down to each individual’s level of acceptance of these unprovable assumptions?”
Unlike religion, science is not a matter of belief, or of personal choice. The Earth goes round the Sun for me as well as for you, and nothing either of us can say or do can change that fact.
“If I accept the assumptions made by science as true then I should accept all the proven theories that rest on those assumptions. But if I doubt any of those assumptions, even if others do not, then I will doubt the theories that depend on them.”
See above. You can doubt what you will, but as Galileo is said to have said, “But still, it moves.”
“Furthermore, any criticism from those who believe in the assumptions is futile as there is no way to obectively establish the truth of their belief or the falseness of mine.”
See above. Most assumptions (theories) can be proven. So we have the Law of Gravity (not just a guess), the Theory of Relativity (the best explanation so far for the observed phenomena), and the Theory of Evolution (ditto).
Note that when a scientist says “theory” he does not mean “current guess”. That word has a specific meaning.
“I do believe in absolute truth apart from the perception of it, but I simply do not accept that science is the ultimate authority when it comes to knowing truth.”
In science, “truth” is not relative. The Earth went round the Sun in prehistoric times, in Aristotle’s time, in Newton’s time, in Einstein’s time, in our time, and in the entire foreseeable future. Science’s perception of the truth may change as new facts are seen and measured, but it is always a result of observation, measurement, test, and confirmation. No other discipline can take us down that road. Certainly not religion, whose aim is our relationship with God, certainly not philosophy, whose aim is our relationship with each other; certainly not poetry, music, or art, all of which aim to bring us closer to Beauty (whatever that is).
Why the difference between Kenyans and Zimbabwans? Well, Kenya is a poor African country in the middle range of poverty by African standards,fairly stable one; whereas Zimbabwe is on the brink of mass starvation, and suffering from strong oppresion by a wild and mad Communist leader: Robert Mugabe. That makes it quite easy to understand why the differences in outlook of both populations.
Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sind, had my favorite statement on multiculturalism. (I paraphrase.)
A Brahmin told him that suttee was the custom in India. “In my country, too, we have a custom,” Napier replied. “We hang men who burn women. Let each of us act according to his custom.”
Curiously enough, I notice some people who are painstaking in avoiding anything that might possibly cause offense to, say, American Indians, don’t seem to show much cultural sensitivity to, say, fundamentalist Christians.
While I agree that there’s some merit in keeping human bones and burial objects for study, I find that in America, at least, the bones of thousands of Native Americans lie neglected in drawers of the Smithsonian. If they’re so valuable, then why isn’t anybody studying? A shard from each skeleton holds a wealth of information, can be stored in a smaller space, and allows the rest to be reburied according to the religious practices of the tribes involved.
You clearly have no grievance; you are neither in denial nor in recovery; you are not anybody’s victim; you do not qualify for any affirmative action; no quota will leg you onto a faculty; you belong to the ethnic majority; you are not entitled to state-supplied counselling; no syndrome excuses you, not even post-traumatic stress nor post-natal depression; you have not been discriminated against; you have not been selected for special educational opportunity – how on earth are you going to make it?
What is it that so offends you about bad poetry? Or secondary school English teachers who encourage their students? God, it might be annoying, but it’s hardly a big deal.
You’re another one of these guys ready to conjure up the mythical beast of political correctness so folks can sit around and watch you tear it to shreds.
Funnily enough, I’ve been to hear a number of wonderful poets, including heavy smackers I’m sure you’d love like Geoffery Hill, and never once have I heard or seen them work up into a froth over bad poetry the way you have here.
Christ, you’re still the one getting the laurels. One Ms. Abiyah and an anonymous internet poem can’t hurt you that much — can they?
STRAIGHT AHEAD BABY. You have hit the nail on the head. The degradation of art by our educational system and society at large is something we should all be ashamed of! And don’t think this applies only to poetry….music too has suffered. Every little sniffling, whiny ass thinks they are born being just as valid as Mozart. Give these losing second-handers a wake-up call.
O hear, hear, Mr. McClelland, and again, hear! In my youth, the basic purpose of education was to make us feel justly inferior to the great minds of the past – mostly dead white males – in the hope that we might strive mightily to reach higher. If we convince our young that they are already perfect, why should they bother to bestir themselves? Bless you, and your cigarettes too.
I too have pimped for poetry, misleading innocent ghetto youth away from its perfectly realistic lifestyle and into the realm of write-it-instead. I even took government money to do it. Currently I am trying to set the obsessive repetitions of autistic children to a beat. I’ll make a fortune, but will I be happy?
Barney F. McClelland’s precious, arrogant rant about bad poetry was boring. Yes, hip hop sucks. Yes, bad poetry sucks. Yawn. I wanted to agree with you, I really did, but that smug and petty nonsense was even more embarrasing than the amatuer poetry it was railing against. After reading his BS, I was convniced that a poorly-written essay is more cringe making than poorly-written poetry.
wow, somebody woke up grumpy! yes, it’s maddening to see all those krazy kids with their zines and open mics and bad poetry just begging for an edit-daddy with a cruel streak. but why don’t you just take out a personal?
Thank you Mr. McClelland. I agree with every word you wrote and wish that more persons would learn the craft of poetry before they insist on having their self-indulgent, undisciplined spewing of barely coherent thought and feeling praised as art.
Re “Shiva the Destroyer?” … cute title, but a labored and belabored critique. An unsympathetic and, obviously, uncomprehending reading of Shiva makes for a great straw (wo)man, but not great criticism. You write: “Shiva’s argument in essence is that one can grow plants without nutrients….” Puh-leeze. Being a physicist, Shiva is quite conversant with the laws of physics, and is clearly more familiar with Asian agriculture than the reviewer (as am I). I could go on and on, but haven’t the space. To conclude: You want to beat up on post-modernism, greens, environmentalism, feminists, and all else whose politics you find threatening, fine. Go ahead. But don’t pretend your views are “true” or “objective” or “without spin.” Fox News has already patented that one.
What Mr. McClelland ignores in his entertaining but one-sided rant against poetic incompetence is that some of the worst poetry in the world is written not by ignorant, but by the educated. A knowledge of poetic history and technique alone does not enable an author to write good poems. It does enable an author to write bad poems disguised as good ones.
Poor teenage poetry at least has the virtue that it can be immediately recognized as such. Poor poetry written by university professors is a much more insidious pollutant.
I have lived for 81 misguided years. I passed Mensa many years ago and thought I could get by with bright brains. Without an education, I threw away what I might have achieved. I wish I had read and understood these words of yours:
“Talent is a funny thing. Well-honed and practiced, it can delight and enrich the human experience in ways very few things can, while ill-prepared, undisciplined talent can only aspire to disappointment and eventually, tragic waste.”
I agree with your comments. However, to haul out an old saw, you are definitely preaching to the choir here. The people you are criticizing do not read articles like this—if they read at all. And if they did, I doubt they would understand what they are reading.
It’s too late: Hip Hop IS in the universities. Just returned from an academic recruitment session yesterday at a Big 10 university. At one point we were addressed by a “Civil Rights” major who had been granted the opportunity to shape her own unique degree program (maybe future employers will grant her a similar freedom to shape her own job description). Among other classes she mentioned as having been particularly enjoyable was one titled “Hip Hop and Spirituality.” I shuddered at the time and just did so again, recalling the moment. The inmates are definitely running the asylum.
Mr. McClelland has written one of the bravest and most insightful editorials of 1992. I only wish the editors of this journal hadn’t kept it in the drawer for so many years. Read eleven years after the fact, McClelland’s attack sounds like an off-the-cuff collection of anti-p.c. clich�, dusty anecdotes, and blustery exaggeration. (“Did you hear the one about the janitor who thought he art was garbage?”)
I also regret that the editors ill-advisedly snipped out all of McClelland’s evidence, replacing his well-reasoned argument with this clearly ghosted line: “Within half an hour I could find dozens of these screeds, but for the sake of brevity I shall present [this twenty-one word excerpt].” I only worry that uniformed readers will think that McClelland himself is responsible for the kind of writing that would earn my freshman Persuasive Writing students a C-plus.
A colleague of mine has tried to convince me that I am mistaken — that this article is as new an original as any article that one might find in today’s New York Times. But I refuse to believe it. No one would construct an argument for poetry, revision, and craft entirely out of second- and third-hand thought and language. Am I right?
RE: David Stanway’s article on SARS in Shanghai.
It is very true that the media has infected us than the actual SARS virus. This is certainly even more apparent in countries like Canada and Singapore where the percentage of people affected by SARS is actually less than 1%. In Toronto, there are only about 200 people affected, tops! Same for Singapore which has a population of about 3.6 million, so if you do the maths it is less than 1%. Moreover, my parents who live in Singapore told me that only about 33 people remain in hospital in Singapore.
The media frenzy surrounding SARS has impacted our global-economy. The situation has rippled into Australia affectign Australia’s economy.
In a way the SARS thing is indeed very McLuhanite whereby, almost reductively speaking, our fears are founded in the headlines and bold typeface on newspaper than the actual scientific analysis of the situation.
I think David Cronenberg should make a movie about this SARS thing. About how Torontonians caught a disease off the media. A disease without a model virus, a true simulacrum. Blatant, yes… but that’s how it is now too.
Thank you so much for Barney F. McClelland’s essay on the ludicrous pretentions of illiterate would-be poets to “self-expression” in print. As a philosopher and lecturer in the subject, I find that my students have begun to think of philosophy also as a form of self-expression, burdened as they seem to be with the legacy of New Age mysticism. I will make use of Mr. McClelland’s article to combat the virus.
Thank you for McClelland’s essay on the proliferation of that awful “solipsistic prose”. Although I do not really expect a reply, I was wondering what B&W, and Mr McClellands’ thoughts were about the affects of this scurge upon the genuine few who strive to achieve something worthwhile, be it traditional or modern, whilst avoiding the short-term thrill of electronic publishing/vanity press etc. only to be lauded over by these fools who have been “published” all over the net? Is there any future for the authentic writer and poet, who loves and bleeds over every word rather than regurgitate them en masse at the mearest thought and call it poetry? God help me if what you describe is the culmination of three millennia, of so many lives and words…
>>Sometimes those institutions and practices and customs are in Third World countries, and then attempts of First World people to reform or abolish them will conflict with the laudable goal of not being a cultural imperialist or Eurocentric or self-righteous or intolerant. And then one has to choose.<< So the choice is either barbarism or cultural imperialism? And no mention of Third World reformers addressing their own practices, much less of Third World reformers struggling with the laudable goal of reforming or abolishing First World barbarities, from racism to the IMF.
>>Have the women, servants, slaves, child soldiers, Dalits, ten-year-old carpet weavers in these cultures ever even had the opportunity to decide what their culture might be?<< You have got to be kidding me. Can someone really be so uninformed as to be totally unaware of the long history of Dalit criticism, or Third World women’s feminism? And the discussion of affirmative action in education does not at all consider alumni preferences or other kinds of affirmative action for the wealthy. I’m aware that some of the above is discussed in the external links, but I find the selection of links themselves to be narrow. Not only narrow, but narrow in precisely the ways predicted by people who are cultural relativists and pro-affirmative action! I would have preferred defenses of universal values that were more robustly developed against the obvious critiques.
It was about ten years ago, more or less, that I noticed the feminists’ concern with such horrid practices in other countries beginning a tentative two-step with the multicultis.
Female genital mutilation is bad, but so is saying so. Hmmm.
One can get self-contratulatory multiculi pats for being tolerant of various things going on in the Third World we would never tolerate here. But to get the maximum score, you have to tolerate the real, real, bad stuff.
Nobody gives you any toleration points for letting the French eat snails in peace.
It’s tolerating, say, suttee that runs up the totals.
From which we can conclude that almost everything the multicultis want us to tolerate in the name of cultural relativism has one thing in common.
Victims.
Dead, raped, mutilated, enslaved.
Victims.
What’s the point in being all tolerant if you can’t tolerate the intolerable?
And if we are supposed to tolerate various practices happening around the world now–call it lateral tolerance, why are we not supposed to tolerate things that happened in the past–call it vertical tolerance?
What gives us the right to judge the whites’ treatment of Native Americans, or slavery in the good ol’ USA?
Hmm?
Garry MacGregor asks:
“I have questions regarding the nature of scientific truth.
Is not all of science based on assumptions? Furthermore, these assumptions are untestable and consequently unprovable? ”
Not at all – they are testable. Of the many examples: Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity postulated that light is affected by gravity (the assumption). In 1919, an eclipse expedition, which included Arthur Eddington, measured the position of a star whose location was close to the sun. Its apparent location was different than when the sun was not nearby. The measured results and the calculated results were almost exactly the same: assumed, tested and proved.
“For example: science assumes that the laws of nature as we now see them have operated the same way throughout time and space;”
To assume anything else is to make a hopeless retreat into chaos and magic.
“science assumes that the human mind is infinitely capable to perceive and understand nature;”
Not at all. ‘Science’ assumes that the minds God gave us are capable of unravelling the mysteries of the universe, but we have no idea how long that will take, nor if we will find them all. Any scientist of any repute realizes that there is a lot more that we don’t know than that we do.
“science assumes that there are no supernatural agents at work in nature;”
Of course. Ghosts, goblins and banshees have yet to be seen.
“science assumes that the simplest explanation that accounts for the obsreved data is the correct one, et al.”
It is almost invariably true. Crop circles, for example, can be made either by clever lads or by alien beings, who have travelled countless light-years to this obscure planet, with the single aim of confusing rural farmers. Which explanation is simplest; which more likely to be correct?
“So in the end does it not come down to each individual’s level of acceptance of these unprovable assumptions?”
Unlike religion, science is not a matter of belief, or of personal choice. The Earth goes round the Sun for me as well as for you, and nothing either of us can say or do can change that fact.
“If I accept the assumptions made by science as true then I should accept all the proven theories that rest on those assumptions. But if I doubt any of those assumptions, even if others do not, then I will doubt the theories that depend on them.”
See above. You can doubt what you will, but as Galileo is said to have said, “But still, it moves.”
“Furthermore, any criticism from those who believe in the assumptions is futile as there is no way to obectively establish the truth of their belief or the falseness of mine.”
See above. Most assumptions (theories) can be proven. So we have the Law of Gravity (not just a guess), the Theory of Relativity (the best explanation so far for the observed phenomena), and the Theory of Evolution (ditto).
Note that when a scientist says “theory” he does not mean “current guess”. That word has a specific meaning.
“I do believe in absolute truth apart from the perception of it, but I simply do not accept that science is the ultimate authority when it comes to knowing truth.”
In science, “truth” is not relative. The Earth went round the Sun in prehistoric times, in Aristotle’s time, in Newton’s time, in Einstein’s time, in our time, and in the entire foreseeable future. Science’s perception of the truth may change as new facts are seen and measured, but it is always a result of observation, measurement, test, and confirmation. No other discipline can take us down that road. Certainly not religion, whose aim is our relationship with God, certainly not philosophy, whose aim is our relationship with each other; certainly not poetry, music, or art, all of which aim to bring us closer to Beauty (whatever that is).
Why the difference between Kenyans and Zimbabwans? Well, Kenya is a poor African country in the middle range of poverty by African standards,fairly stable one; whereas Zimbabwe is on the brink of mass starvation, and suffering from strong oppresion by a wild and mad Communist leader: Robert Mugabe. That makes it quite easy to understand why the differences in outlook of both populations.
Sir Charles Napier, the conqueror of Sind, had my favorite statement on multiculturalism. (I paraphrase.)
A Brahmin told him that suttee was the custom in India. “In my country, too, we have a custom,” Napier replied. “We hang men who burn women. Let each of us act according to his custom.”
Curiously enough, I notice some people who are painstaking in avoiding anything that might possibly cause offense to, say, American Indians, don’t seem to show much cultural sensitivity to, say, fundamentalist Christians.
While I agree that there’s some merit in keeping human bones and burial objects for study, I find that in America, at least, the bones of thousands of Native Americans lie neglected in drawers of the Smithsonian. If they’re so valuable, then why isn’t anybody studying? A shard from each skeleton holds a wealth of information, can be stored in a smaller space, and allows the rest to be reburied according to the religious practices of the tribes involved.
Poor P. McClelland, bless his heart,
Wants poetry to sing, not fart.
Dear Mr McClelland,
You clearly have no grievance; you are neither in denial nor in recovery; you are not anybody’s victim; you do not qualify for any affirmative action; no quota will leg you onto a faculty; you belong to the ethnic majority; you are not entitled to state-supplied counselling; no syndrome excuses you, not even post-traumatic stress nor post-natal depression; you have not been discriminated against; you have not been selected for special educational opportunity – how on earth are you going to make it?
Dear Mr. McClelland,
What is it that so offends you about bad poetry? Or secondary school English teachers who encourage their students? God, it might be annoying, but it’s hardly a big deal.
You’re another one of these guys ready to conjure up the mythical beast of political correctness so folks can sit around and watch you tear it to shreds.
Funnily enough, I’ve been to hear a number of wonderful poets, including heavy smackers I’m sure you’d love like Geoffery Hill, and never once have I heard or seen them work up into a froth over bad poetry the way you have here.
Christ, you’re still the one getting the laurels. One Ms. Abiyah and an anonymous internet poem can’t hurt you that much — can they?
STRAIGHT AHEAD BABY. You have hit the nail on the head. The degradation of art by our educational system and society at large is something we should all be ashamed of! And don’t think this applies only to poetry….music too has suffered. Every little sniffling, whiny ass thinks they are born being just as valid as Mozart. Give these losing second-handers a wake-up call.
O hear, hear, Mr. McClelland, and again, hear! In my youth, the basic purpose of education was to make us feel justly inferior to the great minds of the past – mostly dead white males – in the hope that we might strive mightily to reach higher. If we convince our young that they are already perfect, why should they bother to bestir themselves? Bless you, and your cigarettes too.
I too have pimped for poetry, misleading innocent ghetto youth away from its perfectly realistic lifestyle and into the realm of write-it-instead. I even took government money to do it. Currently I am trying to set the obsessive repetitions of autistic children to a beat. I’ll make a fortune, but will I be happy?
i don fink/ your a poetic/ modle yerself/ yer vindicative raceist/showvynistick/ nekrofilliac/ tabacco freak
Barney F. McClelland’s precious, arrogant rant about bad poetry was boring. Yes, hip hop sucks. Yes, bad poetry sucks. Yawn. I wanted to agree with you, I really did, but that smug and petty nonsense was even more embarrasing than the amatuer poetry it was railing against. After reading his BS, I was convniced that a poorly-written essay is more cringe making than poorly-written poetry.
wow, somebody woke up grumpy! yes, it’s maddening to see all those krazy kids with their zines and open mics and bad poetry just begging for an edit-daddy with a cruel streak. but why don’t you just take out a personal?
Thank you Mr. McClelland. I agree with every word you wrote and wish that more persons would learn the craft of poetry before they insist on having their self-indulgent, undisciplined spewing of barely coherent thought and feeling praised as art.
Re “Shiva the Destroyer?” … cute title, but a labored and belabored critique. An unsympathetic and, obviously, uncomprehending reading of Shiva makes for a great straw (wo)man, but not great criticism. You write: “Shiva’s argument in essence is that one can grow plants without nutrients….” Puh-leeze. Being a physicist, Shiva is quite conversant with the laws of physics, and is clearly more familiar with Asian agriculture than the reviewer (as am I). I could go on and on, but haven’t the space. To conclude: You want to beat up on post-modernism, greens, environmentalism, feminists, and all else whose politics you find threatening, fine. Go ahead. But don’t pretend your views are “true” or “objective” or “without spin.” Fox News has already patented that one.
What Mr. McClelland ignores in his entertaining but one-sided rant against poetic incompetence is that some of the worst poetry in the world is written not by ignorant, but by the educated. A knowledge of poetic history and technique alone does not enable an author to write good poems. It does enable an author to write bad poems disguised as good ones.
Poor teenage poetry at least has the virtue that it can be immediately recognized as such. Poor poetry written by university professors is a much more insidious pollutant.
I have lived for 81 misguided years. I passed Mensa many years ago and thought I could get by with bright brains. Without an education, I threw away what I might have achieved. I wish I had read and understood these words of yours:
“Talent is a funny thing. Well-honed and practiced, it can delight and enrich the human experience in ways very few things can, while ill-prepared, undisciplined talent can only aspire to disappointment and eventually, tragic waste.”
I agree with your comments. However, to haul out an old saw, you are definitely preaching to the choir here. The people you are criticizing do not read articles like this—if they read at all. And if they did, I doubt they would understand what they are reading.
It’s too late: Hip Hop IS in the universities. Just returned from an academic recruitment session yesterday at a Big 10 university. At one point we were addressed by a “Civil Rights” major who had been granted the opportunity to shape her own unique degree program (maybe future employers will grant her a similar freedom to shape her own job description). Among other classes she mentioned as having been particularly enjoyable was one titled “Hip Hop and Spirituality.” I shuddered at the time and just did so again, recalling the moment. The inmates are definitely running the asylum.
Mr. McClelland has written one of the bravest and most insightful editorials of 1992. I only wish the editors of this journal hadn’t kept it in the drawer for so many years. Read eleven years after the fact, McClelland’s attack sounds like an off-the-cuff collection of anti-p.c. clich�, dusty anecdotes, and blustery exaggeration. (“Did you hear the one about the janitor who thought he art was garbage?”)
I also regret that the editors ill-advisedly snipped out all of McClelland’s evidence, replacing his well-reasoned argument with this clearly ghosted line: “Within half an hour I could find dozens of these screeds, but for the sake of brevity I shall present [this twenty-one word excerpt].” I only worry that uniformed readers will think that McClelland himself is responsible for the kind of writing that would earn my freshman Persuasive Writing students a C-plus.
A colleague of mine has tried to convince me that I am mistaken — that this article is as new an original as any article that one might find in today’s New York Times. But I refuse to believe it. No one would construct an argument for poetry, revision, and craft entirely out of second- and third-hand thought and language. Am I right?
Signed,
Another reader who wanted to like this article