tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966360.post1945588787479751589..comments2024-01-26T14:21:13.102-05:00Comments on HG Poetics: Conceptualism.... blah threeHenry Gouldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06763188178644726622noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966360.post-11717046359128261892013-05-15T11:45:55.299-04:002013-05-15T11:45:55.299-04:00Thank you, Joseph. Yes, there's an underlying...Thank you, Joseph. Yes, there's an underlying contest for freedom & humane values, where & when Mandelstam always speaks up. & if, to the contrary, your logic, the "realism" of your worldview, must deny the substance of these values, and demean the human image... But I would like to avoid mockery, I guess, since it seems so prevalent everywhere, & recent art & literature are already so bloated with self-mockery.Henry Gouldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06763188178644726622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3966360.post-22247577948696700672013-05-15T11:18:39.175-04:002013-05-15T11:18:39.175-04:00Henry, I follow your blog silently because I like ...Henry, I follow your blog silently because I like the way you "think out loud," subjectively, humanistically. I'm posting a comment just to say that your antipathy (and mine) toward Conceptualism springs, I think, from its being anti-humanistic and anti-intellectual. It's all about systems, really the <i>failure</i> of systems, rather than individual creativity (both of which realities—individuality and creativity—it manages to deny). Mandelstam, in one of his notebook poems, responded to the system that was about to murder him: "Ah. I am I. Reality is reality." To which the Conceptualist says, "I am a side-effect of outside forces. Reality is a projection of my meaningless desires." Now seriously, who in his right mind would embrace this kind of crap? It's as if a taste for irony led one to cut out and eat one's own heart. Conceptualism deserves more than annoyance: it deserves unremitting mockery of the kind we generally reserve for "reality" TV stars and politicians—the tribe Conceptualists represent in academe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com