MCLC: Censorship and salesmanship at US book fair (11)

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Censorship and salesmanship at US book fair (11)
Oof, I guess I asked for this.
So, there are *way* too many issues getting confused here. First of all, and most importantly, I need to admit that the rhetorical device in the first paragraph of the NYT piece was cavalier, and crucially did not note the fact that members of China's ethnic minorities are essentially still operating in a Cultural-Revolution-era political environment, in which plain speech (be it poem or blog post) can very much carry physical consequences. This was sloppy argument, verging on callousness, and I apologize.
As for the art vs political speech discussion... I don't know why we're suddenly talking about Guernica and Les Miserables. Let me back up.
I was originally objecting to a romanticized view of Chinese dissident artists on the part of observers outside of the country, and a concomitant suspicion of any artists *not* targeted by the state, as though they were automatically patsies. I have seen much of this over the years. The article was an attempt to describe the conditions under which most Chinese writers do operate, in which heroism rarely figures, but the spirit of political opposition does exist in certain muted ways.
Whatever I had to say about the quality of the poetry of Liu Xiaobo et al was simply an addendum to this, an attempt to get people away from the seductive but frankly inaccurate concept of the poet-hero. It was a flippant (seven-word) aside in the quote, and not really the point of anything.
I was asked to elaborate on the idea of how art and politics mix, and I did so, outlining what was to me the aesthetic basis for my own judgment of what makes for good political art. How this resulted in A. E. Clarke's frankly overheated response I do not know. Why would I think that politics doesn't belong in art? Or that it should only be introduced in a polite or veiled fashion? Why would I be condoning any of the government's actions or arguments? I am not in a position to condone anything. All I said was that political art should also be good art (for instance, say, Guernica or Les Miserables), and if it can't be good art, I'd prefer it if the speaker just came out with a pamphlet.
"Good art"?! "You'd prefer"?! Arrogance!
Yes. Again, I was asked my opinion (an opinion which was only barely expressed in any public forum), and I gave it.
To return to the point of the article itself (if I may), it seems that only Nick Admussen actually addressed it. Apparently there was some miscommunication, though, as most of the objections in the latter part of his message work, from my point of view, in support of my argument. I was in no way saying that the government does not exert a chilling effect on artistic production, but that the effect is mixed with many other corrosive influences, and delivered to authors via the medium of their peers. I will allow plenty of exceptions to the general trend, but everything I have seen and heard supports this. I began my conversation with Yan Lianke assuming he had been involved in many direct political clashes. He corrected me: the hardest struggles have been personal ones, within the literary establishment. Yes, the government is ultimately behind much of it. But not all of it. I wrote in the article that if theChinese government were removed tomorrow this establishment would still be in place, still choking China's literary production. I believe thatcompletely. Yes, it would gradually get better, in some regards, but not in others. The government is not the problem, it is an extreme symptom of the problem. Authoritarianism is a sickness that goes all the way down to the ground. It finds its most naked expression in the political violence that serves the vestiges (and new offshoots) of China'simperial nature (most directly its ethnic minorities), but it is expressed constantly, at all levels of society. The article was an attempt to illustrate that effect from the point of view of Chinese writers.
Lastly (I promise), Nick's question about Pathlight is a good one. I started off the conversation with the NYT editors with this element included, and the piece wavered between the personal and the impersonal, eventually arriving in its present form mostly out of exhaustion on all sides.
I do get paid for producing Pathlight, in conjunction with People's Literature Magazine, the funding coming from the Writers Association. It would have been good to note that in the article, but I don't know how I would have done that without making it the focus of the article. Someday I'll write about the experience, but not yet. There's plenty more to say here, but this has already gone on too long, and I'm tired.
Lastly (oops), let me thank the list for the civil tone of discussion. It was one of the gentlest dogpiles I've ever had the pleasure of being at the bottom of.
Yours,
Eric Abrahamsen <eric at ericabrahamsen.net>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on June 23, 2015
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