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In his Letters from the Earth Mark Twain found human beings rendered defective by their Moral Sense. He [man] is the only animal that has it. It is the secret of his degradation. It is the quality that enables him to do wrong. It has no other office. It is incapable of performing any other function. It could never have been intended to perform any other. Without it, man could do no wrong. Since writers are hardly a species of their own they possess the said Defect as well and therein is the very core of the problem. Possessing has remained the only predominant mode of dealing with the world. Something is either in our possession or it is not. We are either in someone's possession or not. But once a thing is acquired it no longer has any value, the value gets transferred to the next thing we covet. And what possessing a thing means is that nothing is done with it. Same has happened with the Moral Sense. Yes, we have it, but the fact is that we don't employ it, we don't do anything with it. So, having has come to be the same as not doing and it's the passivity, the inactivity that is corrupting and degrading. Thus when it comes to literary creation and Moral Sense we believe Mr. Twain would agree with us - use it or lose it. A silent writer who doesn't let his voice be heard against tyranny, against social injustice, against war and corporatocracy, against falsification of democracy and deceitful presidents, against esthetics of greed; a writer who doesn't cry out when books are taken off the shelves because they speak of alternative; a writer who takes refuge in the comforts of academic life, who doesn't curse and spit and yell and burn with rage in times when innocent die with no voice of their own, in these times when weak are being tortured by the arrogant and the powerful; he who doesn't raise his voice so that the Universe trembles, he doesn't deserve to be called a writer. Instead he should claim another name, one that better suits his behavior, a name for those who have a share in the dividend of shame and guilt. He should be called an accomplice. American writers, where are you? They already came for the Muslims, they came for homosexuals, for women and for the poor, they already assassinated free press, free speech and free thought. If you refuse to speak now who will speak for you? Use your Moral Sense, don't merely have it. Or as Mr. Dylan Thomas had put it: Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. NG&OR |
AdmitTwo, No. 3, January, 2005.
Art/Fiction/Poetry (take your pick):
by Cynthia Daffron & Neil de la Flor & Mario Matus
"When I was at Trinity College, 2 women and I dubbed ourselves for a time the Unholy Trinity, the Crone, Mother & Virgin (I was the mother, I believe, which amuses me now). Anyway, it was a reaction, of course, to the Father Son & Holy Ghost. Which brings up the religious cultural aspect. Do we all have some Catholic background? N, I know you went to Catholic school, and I'm thinking you did too M. I have almost no religious background, but technically, I am Catholic, as I was christened. My father was an altar boy (back when he went to church, well before I was born)." (from Process) - - -
Fiction:
The
Work Of Art In The Age Of Digital Reproduction (part
two)
"I
walked down the stairs of the subway. The Berlin underground was cold
and dead and felt like a conveyor belt in some huge factory, pushing the
sausages to their final destination. And they all followed this
direction in an ashen trance like blind turds."
- - -
Poetry:
by Rheana Rafferty & one hundred years of medical writing
"Strawberry life-blood (from The Heart, 1899)
- - -
Essay:
Few Thoughts on the Condition of Literature by Natalija Grgorinic & Ognjen Raden
"So
whom does literature belong to? Our contention is that it does not belong to
those who produce it any more, same as it does not belong to those who consume
it. It belongs to those who market it, the publishers, the booksellers; it
belongs to those who live of it, the reviewers, the professors. It is they who
have abducted the literature, made it their own. It is they who have thrown the
author and the reader out of the relationship, or better yet reduced them to
abstractions that figure only in calculations of market analyses or equations of
literary history and theory.
What's new? What's new is that nothing is new Everything's old What's new is that you're older too And you do what you're told b What's old? What's old is that nothing is new Everything's done again and before you do what you do and when you can do no more you get away from the cold you get paid and get sold
NG&OR
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