Neues Altes

The Desire to Depart is Redoubled

Nice interview with Ben from The Indistinct Judgement.

Brilliant photos, too.

NYWF WTF?

The National Young Writers’ Festival is on again.

It’s hard not to be a little despondent at what’s on offer, let alone at the poncy tone in which it’s advertised:

We all love writing, right? So why do we treat it so bad? If you’ve ever abused an intern, stolen stationery, or passed your frenemy up for promotion, then come on down and hear the pros explain how not to let it happen to you.

This kind of writing is actually an excellent example of what I have elsewhere termed ‘menacing lightheartedness’, but that’s not what interests me here, at least not immediately.

Of greater concern is the distinct lack of any kind of critical discussion of “The Industry” and its antagonistic, cut-throat nature. On offer instead are lessons in strategic self-marketing, jovial back-stabbing (don’t let it happen to you!), and adaptation to the fetid state of things more generally.

Come on, NYWF. Just one serious panel. That’s all I’m asking.

On Two Kinds of Laughter

In The Odyssey, Odysseus is given instructions by Tiresias as to how to placate a pissed-off Poseidon. He is to venture inland carrying an oar until he comes “to a race of people who know nothing of the sea, whose food is never seasoned with salt.” There he will meet a fellow traveller, who, knowing nothing of ships, will mistake the oar for a “winnowing fan”. Struck by the absurdity of this judgement, Poseidon will laugh and all will be forgiven.

Laughter here is redemptive, a way of neutralising conflict. Laughter reveals the ultimately petty nature of the dispute. As such, it points to something beyond antagonism. A state of reconciliation where what matters is not winning, or being right, or exacting a price, but in something better. If you’ve ever been locked in an argument with a friend or family member — and had that argument end in laughter — you’ll know what I mean.

But not any old laughter will do. Poseidon’s pleasure is in something quite specific. He is not simply laughing at the traveller’s stupidity, though that is part of it. He is laughing at the contingency summoned by the oar’s defamiliarisation. The oar is shown to be more than what it is. It is transformed. And in the process, both Poseidon and Odysseus are likewise transformed. For a split second, they step outside themselves and the roles in which they are cast. Like the oar, they are more than what they are. And here they are able to come together, united in laughter and in knowledge of the non-identical.

But again, not any laughter will do. There’s a form of humour and of laughter that is almost the exact opposite of the above, emancipatory kind; a form of humour characterised by a certain menacing lightheartedness. This is by far and away the most prominent form of humour in circulation today. It manifests itself in places like the overuse of exclamation marks, or in the phony smile of the tv presenter. It is the kind of humour that masks suffering by pretending that everything is OK. It likes to abbreviate words and to go out for drinkies. Above all else, however, it likes to shut down thinking. That’s because it is a humour born of fear, a tool of pure self-preservation, and will do anything to avoid knowing itself.

Title Essay

If feeling listless, you could do worse than check out these two interviews with Robert Hullot-Kentor.

I’ve heard at least one prominent Adorno scholar express disdain for Hullot-Kentor’s work. But I just don’t see it.

True, his peculiar style can seem forced and pretentious; but that’s the price of refusal.

What I admire about Hullot-Kentor’s essays, especially an essay such as ‘Adorno Without Quotation’, is the manner in which he approaches his subject matter. Preferring the minute to the macro, Hullot-Kentor would rather concentrate on what it feels like to read Adorno (there’s a “narrowness in the closely muffled clowning of the syntax”) than provide yet another summary of the culture industry.

At one point Hullot-Kentor describes Adorno’s thought as having “exactly enough room for one person.” This is a mysterious formulation. But it’s no mere gesture. Anyone intensely familiar with Adorno’s work will recognise its truth at once.

To turn the words of Hullot-Kentor on their author, I would say that his is a work that shows what intelligence can do when it does not spend all its time trying to get the latch on the front gate to click shut.