Comments on: Canon Fodder

By: john

john — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:04:08 +0000

Michael,
OK, to cases. You’ve claimed that “goosestepping” was not an allusion to Naziism. I refuted your claim. You rolled your eyes. Not really a rebuttal, but I don’t suppose you have one.
Zizek (sic!). I honestly thought you knew that homophobic remarks (and homophobic murders) and sexual harassment occurred in lower class milieus and non-capitalist regimes as well. The literature on this is ubiquitous, deep, and irrefutable. I find it hard to believe that you live such a sheltered life where you might not be aware of this, but some white cultural workers really are that sheltered, I suppose.
I can find sources for you on homophobia and sexual harassment in non-capitalist regimes and lower class milieus if you really are that removed from social conditions. Please let me know.
Your condescending tone is really misplaced. But if it’s all you got, you better go with it. It doesn’t hurt my feelings, though, so don’t worry — I think it’s funny!

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:28:18 +0000

“Hey, if all else fails, imply that your interlocutor is a Nazi!” If that’s what you call “debating,” then I can only roll my eyes.
As for Zizek, I don’t know what you want me to do: I think he’s right, & his arguments are spelled out for all to see. You claim his views are “astoundingly ignorant.” Congratulations on thinking that — you’ve definitively refuted him, as far as I can tell.
Not sure what “insults” you think I’ve been dropping; what you seem to object to is my tone, which is sarcastic, to be sure. That seems to get under your skin — I guess I’m sorry you’re so upset, but if it’s insults you’re interested in, I’d check out the thread that all but accuses me & Kent of being agents of white suprematism.
I’ve said more than once that I’m finished responding to your baiting, but I keep coming back for more. If you’d like to do more than imply that you have an argument to make while accusing others of not having arguments, perhaps we could have, um, a debate. If not, not.

By: john

john — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:58:55 +0000

Michael,
Schoolyard tactics? You mean debating?
You mean pointing out the nastiness of your rhetoric? (Your defense of your analogy is pure weasel-ism. To argue no connection between the poem and person is ridiculous; likewise to say that you intended no Nazi allusion. Language doesn’t work that way; astounding to see a poet arguing for a limitation on the allusive and suggestive power of language, especially when the allusion is a cliche used in the stereotyped manner.)
You mean condemning Zizek (sic!) for having a poor grasp of social conditions as people actually live them? “sexual harassment, homophobic remarks . . . are the problems of the American upper middle classes.” That’s an astoundingly ignorant remark. You put it out there. Defend it if you can; or, you can keep dropping insults and whining about it when you get called on it. I’m good with it either way.
Kent,
Is this atavistic enough for you?

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:50:46 +0000

Loathe as I am to respond to John’s continued schoolyard tactics, I will note only that der Stechschritt is not unique to the Wehrmacht, & that the poems are the ones doing the goosestepping in the analogy, not my interlocutors.
I saw The Dark Knight yesterday, & quite enjoyed most of it. But my favorite part of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns was always Clark Kent’s recollection of Bruce Wayne’s testimony before the congressional committee convened to address the superhero menace: “Of course we’re criminals. We’ve always been criminals.” (It’s been some time since I was fourteen, so I might be misremembering that slightly.) Although the new movie retains Batman’s vigilantism, it forces a heavy dose of obvious moralism down the viewer’s throat: a growly Christian Bale responds to corpsepainted Heath Ledger’s cookie-cutter Nietzscheanism à la Leopold & Loeb with cookie-cutter sentiments about “the good” & the need for heroes. Tendentiousness is one thing; to be lectured at by caricatures about caricatures is a higher order of intellectual tedium. A comic-book version of reality, to be sure.

By: john

john — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:24:11 +0000

Michael,
“goosestepping . . . liberal values” — Hey, if all else fails, imply that your interlocutor is a Nazi!
(Although, I have to say, I’ve never seen the connection between geese and marching. I’ve seen a lot of geese, and I’ve never seen a Nazi that looked like any of them.)

By: Kent Johnson

Kent Johnson — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:35:32 +0000

Gee Michael,
Thanks for asking that. I’ve been thinking kinda the same thing.
In fact, I’ve been thinking about how righteously retro this whole attack on Wright’s poem is– as if culled from instructions in some papyrus fragment unearthed from a time capsule buried in 1988 behind the Student Union at Stanford.
Well, not papyrus, obviously, that’s silly. And the cute anachronism is unfair, really, to latest developments in post-Tel Quel Maoist-inflected theory… Thank the gods the Alexandria library got burned down. Who knows *how* many pollacks and pullets were rolled up in those backward tube books?
What is to be done now is rid the radical canon of that fake cuddles-bear WCW, once and for all. Remember how he snickered to his pal Pound (I think it was Pound–Weinberger has the quote somewhere in an old Sulfur) about Hiroshima? “Those poor Japs, they’ll never know what hit ‘em.” Something like that. Damn…
And what the hell is Poetry Magazine doing publishing this special portfolio of the anti-Semite Spicer?
Well, I’ve got a number at the NEH, and I’m going to call it.
Kent

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 02:52:28 +0000

Hey, I just realized no one’s asked the important question: even if Wright’s poem is racist & sexist — SO WHAT?
Anyone can come up with a wearisome personal canon of their favorite racist, sexist, capitalist, warmongering, fascist, &c. poems — poems of power & beauty &c. Right? Or do we insist that our art be pure & blameless, goosestepping humorlessly with our precious liberal values?

By: john

john — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:33:31 +0000

Posted my retort before your mea culpa had appeared . . .

By: john

john — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:21:54 +0000

Dictionary says, the noun form is acceptable as an adjective. With no disparaging “informal” or “slang” or “sic” or “whatever.”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cliche
I hereby sic a “sic” upon your “sic,” sir!

By: Michael Robbins

Michael Robbins — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 16:00:07 +0000

actually, I’m wrong. mea culpa. lesson: consult the OED before getting all pedantic on Harriet (of course, then we’d be here all day).