A Quote by Henry Adams
I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.
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I am NOT an anarchist. Never have been, never will be. Just because Crimethinc put out two of my poetry books, I am labeled everywhere as an anarchist poet. I am a poet, yes. Not an anarchist. I have no formulated political philosophy other than a general feeling of disgust for the majority of the human race.
I think what it really means is a recognition that Donald Trump has the potential to take over the Republican Party and change it into something that`s very different than what it`s been in the past. I don`t just mean in terms of tone. I mean in terms of policy, I mean in terms of every respect.
It is not nearly so important how well a message is received as how well it is sent. You cannot take responsibility for how well another accepts your truth; you can only ensure how well it is communicated. And by how well, I don't mean merely how clearly; I mean how lovingly, how compassionately, how sensitively, how courageously, and how completely.
There is in fact no such thing as art for art's sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics. Proletarian literature and art are part of the whole proletarian revolutionary cause.
I read whenever possible, and I buy books all the time, sometimes online, but mostly from bookshops. I love literature. If you want to understand art, it's important to understand what is also happening in literature, in music, in science, in architecture.
Take the time to discover how African-Americans have had a great impact on this country. In science, education, literature, art, and politics.
A work of (whatever) art can be either 'received' or 'used'. ...'Using' is inferior to 'reception' because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves or palliates our life, and does not add to it ... When the art in question is literature a complication arises, for to 'receive' significant words is always, in one sense, to 'use' them, to go through and beyond them to an imagined something which is not itself verbal.
Clearly, I am not an anarchist. Philosophically, I might be, but I think in practical terms.
In terms of the principles of politics, I think I understand well. Thailand needs someone who has leadership, who has the management skills to help the country.
What an artist does, is fail. Any reading of the literature, (I mean the literature of artistic creation), however summary, will persuade you instantly that the paradigmatic artistic experience is that of failure. The actualization fails to meet, equal, the intuition. There is something "out there" which cannot be brought "here". This is standard. I don't mean bad artists, I mean good artists. There is no such thing as a "successful artist" (except, of course, in worldly terms).
Politics is a part of life and art is about life. It doesn't mean that all the art has to be about politics - in fact, heaven forbid. But politics is a totally legitimate area of focus for any art, whether it's painting or songwriting or anything else, as much as sex is, as much as spirituality is, as much as any other behavior of people is.
But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.
It's an honor putting art above politics. Politics can be seductive in terms of things reductive to the soul.
I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over - first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.
I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization.
But then people don't read literature in order to understand; they read it because they want to re-live the feelings and sensations which they found exciting in the past. Art can be a lot of things; but in actual practice, most of it is merely the mental equivalent of alcohol and cantharides.
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