From: "cwright" <cwright-AT-21stcentury.net>
Subject: Re: AUT: Fwd: Amiri Baraka poem
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2002 20:03:56 -0500


Hey Nate, et al

> Hey all-
> I'm with Thomas on this one. I think the poem sucks. I'm not a poetry
expert
> by any means, but I know what I like and what I don't Also, it's political
> content is crap in my opinion.

IMO, not all of it is 'crap'.  The point, the main point I think, that for
workers in the US, especially workers of color, the real enemy is the United
States, is a worthwhile point.  This is directed at the threat of war now,
emanating from here.  And again, I think this poem would perform better than
it reads.  At the same time, its not Baraka's best poem.  Nor did I say I
liked the poem, which I thought was irrelevant compared to the use of it as
a political medium directed at a specific audience, and therefore that we
might learn from it before making tart quips, and that it might strike a
chord in a different audience and that we should be attentive to how and why
it might do so.  Much like a minister's sermon, which is always in a 'call
and response' mode that engages the audience to express themselves, it would
probably get a mixed response, somethings that people don't like would get
no response and others that they do would get a lot of response.  I can
hear, especially in his attack on the Black 'leaders' in the Bush
administration, the kids I know yelling 'Aw naw!!!' and 'Treated!!' very
appreciatively.

> Chris your points about the importance of style and not falling into a
> language ugly, awkward, and ossified are well made (as opposed to the
snide
> remarks about Negri).

Actually, I was making a point, not critiquing Negri.  Thomas, IMO, posted a
few really unhelpful, overly tart comments lately, starting with the
comments on a flyer posted here a while back by Peter J. and this one and
the follow up reply to Lowe.  Its not that the point itself might or might
not be correct, but that the comments have seemed holier-than-thou, rather
than his normal thoughtful posts.  If this did not merit 'thoughtful', why
even waste the energy?  <I did not send this before you posted your direct
reply to Sean, which was much more thoughtful, helpful and made sure he
understood you were not shooting the messenger.  Of course, the slam was
implicit, since if someone sends out something voluntarily, and without
comment, they therefore appear to endorse what they sent.  I am leaving the
sentences in because I want to explain why I said what I said.>

Nate, what you picked up on in this was exactly my point.  I made the
comment as I did, if anything, to highlight that even if it offered some
formally correct point, it did so in a way which was too self-satisfied for
its own good and really useless beyond making me feel good (which it did,
solely cuz I thought it was kind of zingy and melodic.)  So you got the
feel, but not the message.  I would not be likely to reduce my critique of
Negri to verse, though I admit to the temptation, since I am not at all
taken by Negri politically, to say the least.  However, even if I did, it
could only be an ironic moment, a punctuation mark, in a larger critique
that would, and does, take Negri deadly seriously (as was the intent of the
little pseudo-Shakespeare Ode to the Multi-Dude I did.)

Parody and irony and satire and sarcasm are worthy but dangerous styles,
which can degenerate into smug snottiness.  I can speak on that from both
the successful and failed sides of that sword.  My intent was not to be
smug, but to use a style to critique that style.

> I think I can agree w/ everything you have to say about speaking multiple
> vernaculars (which I will admit in my limited experiences Negri isn't so
hot
> at) while still holding Baraka low on my list of laudables.

Sure, its a poem.  I don't think that you have to like it.  I am not certain
if I 'like' it.  And I agree that Baraka's politics as a whole suck wind
(not as bad as Earl Ofari Hutchinson's, on the same web site, however.)  But
we do have to register who it is aimed at, its main point, and maybe see
what the response from the intended audience is.  I could be very wrong and
the kids might think it sucks, too.  I am actively going to try and find
out, however, instead of taking cheap shots at Sean or Lowe, neither of whom
did anything to merit those responses.

> It's particularly interesting to me Chris that you're so vehemently
> anti-Nietzschean (sp?) given that N was engaged in and influential in
> matters stylistic, both in his own work and in subsequent work, both
marxist
> and otherwise.

I like Nietzsche's attention to style and his willingness to make the reader
work, though that by itself would in no way mean I would have to like his
politics or philosophy, right?  I also like that in Marx, Debord, and
others' styles, but I like something else there too.  That 'something else'
comprises a gulf of massive proportion between the former and the latter.  I
don't like Nietzsche's politics because they stink of class venom, of
aristocratic or even Athenian, rather than bourgeois, venom, however.  I
can, unwillingly since I am working on something larger here, spend the time
to site chapter and verse in Beyond Good Evil for examples, if you would
like, and not out of context, but tying in well-separated sections in what I
think is a coherent argument.  I think I have even grasped what dear
Nietzsche means by 'life affirming', and the attempt to attach a Left
reading to it makes me nauseous.  I am interested in Nietzsche's critique of
metaphysics, and I actually think that he develops some lines of thought
that are genuinely akin to stuff done by Marx and Hegel in that direction.
I also appreciate deeply Nietzsche's hatred of the massification of life, of
the trading of everything singular and special for assembly-line, mass
produced schlock.  I also see in Nietsche's desire to go beyond good and
evil a move somewhat akin to Marx's critique of moral and utopian critiques
of capital because I think that Marx also sought to go beyond good and evil.

But (and this is a very brief, schematic condensation of a much richer and
much more impoverished body of work) Nietzsche ascribes to the idea that
massification is catering to 'the herd' and that 'the herd' (which is not
reducible to 'the proletariat' and/or the peasantry or any other class, but
which certainly is largely composed of us) is inevitably crude, vulgar,
unclean, soft (don't get me going on the psychological implications of a man
who is obviously a compulsive neurotic on cleanliness and hardness; it
reminds me of my skinhead ex-roommate), while Masters are the source of
everything 'noble', worthwhile, magnificent, 'life affirming', hard, clean,
brilliant and virtuous.  Instead of a critique of the commodity-form and the
capital-labor relation and political economy, we have that vision turned on
its head, with the crudity of mass society, of commodity society, of the
spectacle, as being the fault of 'the herd', of the rise of Slave Morality
to predominance and the elevation of the Slave through 'democracy' (and
therefore of the capitulation of many an elite to Slave Morality, making
them, in fact, part of 'the herd'.)  In that, I find a bit of a problem for
a Marxist or for any communist or anarchist.  I find a 'just so' story that
the weak slave morality (and the bad slaves, too, which Nietzsche makes no
bones about) threatens to destroy Life, while the healthy Master morality
(and the Masters willing to be real Masters, too), for a long time hidden
within the shell of the Ascetic Ideal, can elevate Life through those
precious few worth elevating (the new philosophers) and insure the proper
exploitation of 'the herd' as the proper pre-requisite for the creation of a
new, free, unhindered race of Masters bold enough to do away with, NOT slave
morality among the slaves, but of the Ascetic Ideal among Masters, and
thereby fashion a world appropriate to the Masters' greatness of spirit.  Am
I the only one who finds it not coincidental that the son of a Lutheran
minister and a philologist should reproduce a Platonic call for new
philosopher (kings)?

Nietzsche is not worthless, but his worth is exceedingly circumscribed, to
me, by his defense of 'slavery' (the existence of the Master/Slave
dialectic) as inevitable, inescapable, and not only that, but necessary,
beneficial, and at the core of human beings and how they relate to the
world.  And I don't see any meaningful way to separate the philsophical
limitations and the political limitations because Nietzsche at least
understands that his views on both are related.

So that is a little much for a short comment, but I felt that it might help
to flesh out a small part of my critique of Nietzsche.  And that, in itself,
is a work in progress (I have the post-BGE work on my plate right now) and I
could say much more, but I don't think it is immediately relevant.  On a
positive note, it is refreshing to read someone with the courage of his
convictions; who will say, thoughtfully, forcefully, and stylishly why the
critique of metaphysics in fact involves the promotion of slavery and
subordination for the mass of human beings for the sake of a few, very few,
Masters.  He is, as one of the Aufheben folks said to me, a 'pushy thinker',
and no lily gilding, bush beating hypocrite, and for that, I appreciate him.
In so far as he is the photographic negative of Marx, I loathe him.  In
either case, he cannot be treated as simply either/or, in binary fashon.  In
this, Nietzsche is correct, but not all that new, in demanding that we get
beyond good and evil.

Cheers,
Chris




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