[Max Goodman]

Poetry can be about the natural world or about the man-made world. This is similar to John Updike's distinction between light verse and other poetry, the light verse being about the man-made world. Human beings, of course, are part of the natural world. Much as I love light verse, it's clear to me that I and others can be touched more deeply by poetry about humans and/or other parts of the natural word than by poetry that's strictly about language, say, or about existing poetry. This makes some sense of the claim that separation from the natural world would prevent us from writing poetry--at least the type of poetry that we most value.

But now I may have something of a tautology. Of course being separated from nature would prevent us from writing good poetry--because I've now defined nature as including us. Luckily, there's no need to worry, because we can never be separated from ourselves.

Or can we? Does the way we use computers not in some sense separate us from ourselves? This is probably not something anyone can be convinced of, but for me, as I look at the way I and my kids and my friends and strangers I see in public places use technology, as I ponder what's happened to radicalized relatives, and as I worry about what online conspiracy theories have done to our self-governance and public safety, I can't help but feel that our technology is pulling us progressively further and further from ourselves.

So pondering Walther's overstated and poorly supported proposition has led me to a related proposition:

We are moving toward a world in which we might be too separated from ourselves and the rest of the natural world to create or appreciate the sort of art that humans have traditionally most valued. (Of course, if we reach that world, the lack of art will only be a symptom of the much deeper problem.)