What is being said here is major, thank you Elif Batuman, and I feel like a door has just been opened, rather, we are collaboratively figuring out how to get out of this 'cage' of Postmodern creativity...
I really see the evolutionary tension in her critique... the need to understand how we got here, feeling stuck, but committed to moving forward. Furthermore, I think she points to the Creative Process that is a collaborative responsibility!
I've always felt this sense of being marketed an idea in creative workshops, and have also been drawn to academe... a desire to understand the human condition so as to serve it in a way that does not coddle it–Writer's should want to feed it, to contribute to something more and new. Postmodern narcissism (yes I know you're sick of hearing that term by now) tells us "POOF, and we appeared!" with no historical reference, no trajectory-only a set of rules that enforce ideals, thinking that suggests you must abandon history, in order to create something new! Well, that experiment has fizzled, I'll never read David Sedaris, I'm keeping my darlings, 'Go Tell it on the Mountain'! Click the link and read on.
I've always felt this sense of being marketed an idea in creative workshops, and have also been drawn to academe... a desire to understand the human condition so as to serve it in a way that does not coddle it–Writer's should want to feed it, to contribute to something more and new. Postmodern narcissism (yes I know you're sick of hearing that term by now) tells us "POOF, and we appeared!" with no historical reference, no trajectory-only a set of rules that enforce ideals, thinking that suggests you must abandon history, in order to create something new! Well, that experiment has fizzled, I'll never read David Sedaris, I'm keeping my darlings, 'Go Tell it on the Mountain'! Click the link and read on.
-Douglas
