[Reader-list] The noisy nativist crowd

[Vivek Narayanan]

This is from "Leaving Prague: A Notebook" by Alexei Tsvetkov, who is 
widely considered one of the most important Russian poets writing today:

"When I first came here [Prague], it had been years since I’d written a 
poem. I stopped writing poetry without a clear explanation of why it 
happened. Later on I came up with lots of convincing reasons: one of the 
best, as I recall, was the turmoil in my erstwhile homeland, Russia. In 
some way poetry, no matter how private, is always addressed to an 
audience, and when a level of noise in that audience exceeds a certain 
value, the exercise becomes pointless. It is possible to imagine an 
opera star performing to an empty hall but not to a full and noisy 
one. There’s an old saying: when guns talk, the Muses fall silent. But 
that’s wrong: Cicero was talking about laws, not Muses. When people 
talk, especially when they talk feverishly, the Muses definitely shut up.

"I remember at the time I could not figure out who it was that Joseph 
Brodsky was addressing in his late verse—it still seems to me driven 
largely by inertia. Brodsky’s best poetry is the voice of someone who 
deliberately positions himself between and above two mighty empires: 
it’s a running commentary on their perceived decline. When one of those 
empires suddenly collapsed, he was left groping. We will never know how 
he would have regained his internal balance.

"When I lost mine, I came to Prague voiceless. Brodsky died soon after 
and, however shocking, the news seemed fitting: the last universal voice 
fell silent, leaving the stage in full possession of the noisy nativist 
crowd."

I bring this thesis up not as some kind of advice from the gods, but 
because I am not certain if it is true. Tsvetkov himself presents it 
only as a possible theory, and of course I'm still puzzling around that 
example (metaphor?) of the opera singer. I'd be curious to know what 
readers on this list think about-- am eager to hear both philosophical 
and pragmatic responses-- how to bring the muses back to this list. In a 
way this is to explore the inverse, positive side of the anti-censorship 
debate: what are the conditions for speech, what makes speech possible, 
how does one revive rich conversation?

The essay is from the February issue of Poetry magazine from the US 
which, by the way, has now gone entirely online. (Except for the Beckett 
poems in this issue--that upload was most likely blocked by the Beckett 
estate, which probably did not give permission out of concern for 
copyright. Fools.): http://www.poetrymagazine.org/ .

Thanks
Vivek

S.Fatima wrote:
> Dear Vivek
> You have a knack of making a hill of out of a mole -
> and all in the wrong direction. In my analogy of a
> limousine going through filth, the filth is not at all
> supposed to mean the economic status of people writing
> high-volume hate-mails. But by calling someone's views
> as "bullshit", it is you who is demeaning them. (Ok,
> I'd like to take back the word "slum" - I apologize
> for it). My problem with your mail was that as long as
> you apply those filters and send the unwanted mails to
> whatever insulting folder quietly, it is fine. But by
> being sarcastic about it (as in your original message)
> we are only infuriating them further. Will that help
> in breaking any ice? Or maybe we do'nt want to break
> any ice.
>
> I don't think I'm playing into the hands of these
> propagandists - I'm only complicating this issue a
> little further, because I believe that ignoring them
> and and not answering their simplistic questions is
> not a long-term solution. If you read some of my
> earlier mails, I have mostly been advocating DIALOGUE
> between the two-parties. Now your immediate reaction
> would be: "huh, these guys don't deserve an ear - you
> can't have a dialogue with them". Yes I know it is
> very irritating to read through most of those
> hate-mails. But the point is that all their rigid
> stereotypes and biases are a reality and most of us
> don't have the time, patience or inclination to sit
> with these folks and talk. An email discussion in any
> case doesn't lead to anything fruitful, especially
> when it comes to such a topic. So, the least we can do
> is to ignore them. But being sarcastic is worse.
>
> Another point : you say that since those folks are
> using broadband to send that many mails, they must be
> rich enough to be called elite. Well then, what
> happened to the claim that internet/broadband is
> supposed to be empowering and democratizing the thrid
> world, and so on. You seem to be defining the access
> to internet still in caste/class terms!
>
> cheers
>