[Mark McDonnell]

Hi Matt,

Yes, I'd like to read her whole speech too. Thanks for the story about the YA Twitter storm. I think it's very depressing, though it doesn't surprise me. Certain sections of the left seem intent on fighting the pettiest of battles motivated by a self-righteous censoriousness which is now having a genuine, though at present minor, effect on actual artistic expression. Often that of other people on the left. That can't be good. The Carlson-Wee thing has been covered here in detail, mainly by me and Andrew going at it at some length, with me no doubt going over the top at some points. But that's why I like the Sphere: length and nuance are allowed and people remain friends (usually! )

https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showt...light=Atlantic

I've never done Twitter. I don't think it's for me.

[Julie Steiner]

I've been thinking a lot lately about attitudes toward duality, especially with regard to us-vs.-them thinking, which of course relates to identity.

Certain strands of Western thought distinguish between contrasting things in terms of polar opposition--good vs. evil--while certain strands of Eastern thought tend to see contrasting things in terms of balance: Everything yang has some yin in it, and vice versa, and the purity of an extreme is to be avoided, not sought.

This splitting of good and evil comes up again and again in Western thought. One example that a friend and I were recently discussing, in a poetic context, was the mortification of the flesh (self-flagellation, anorexia, sleep deprival, etc.) that some Roman Catholic saints and poets thought was the way to achieve spiritual purity. They rejected and controlled and battled against the body, which they characterized as inherently sinful. Because if the soul is good, the body must be evil, right?

Other examples of that mindset of polar opposition would be political extremism, racism, misogyny, and homophobia (the latter two being similar in their idealization of a certain definition of maleness as the only possible example of goodness).

That sort of psychological splitting of everything into rigid dichotomies, between which compromise is undesirable, is characteristic of a lot of mental disorders, too. Including narcissism, which is of course all about identity.

Yesterday I was listening to an hour-long interview (you can click on the link below to hear the audio or read the transcript) with author Iain McGilchrist, in which he discussed why our brains have two hemispheres which process reality differently; why every individual needs both of them; and why Western society's glorification of the left brain (focus, fine detail, literality, logic) over the right brain (big-picture context, abstraction, nuance, empathy, emotion--except for anger, which seems to be located in the left brain) is problematic. Apparently his book has been available for almost a decade, but this was the first I'd heard of it.

One Head, Two Brains: How The Brain's Hemispheres Shape The World We See

If you don't have time for the longer interview, here's an 11-minute version on YouTube. (My own brain can't process what he says while the distracting visuals are going on, but it's definitely worth listening to.)

As a pretty stereotypically left-brain-dominant person myself, who definitely struggles with handicaps due to my inability to do certain right-brained things well (facial recognition and reading others' emotions both seem like superpowers to me), I was sorry to see the left-brain/right-brain model discredited in the early 2000s, because I found it useful in many ways. That model really does explain a lot, both on a personal and a societal level. I'm glad to see that model rehabilitated (with some important caveats), in a more balance-between-yin-and-yang sort of way.

[John Isbell]

My brother has a theory that frying pans are typically Western - they attack the food - whereas woks cooperate with it.

Cheers,
John

[James Brancheau]

Hahahaha, Christ, John. It is also how one handles the pan. Pans don't kill food. People kill food.

I'm not opposed to identifying as a group~ there's real empowerment there. It's a political necessity sometimes. But it doesn't mean that expressing that identity is what makes it art. There seems to be a bewildering, to my mind, confusion in that regard. We (us lefties who also fancy ourselves artists) must be held to a higher standard. Write an opinion piece, protest, write a speech if you want. They are not necessarily mutually exclusive, of course, but, imo, when the individual voice is lost, the poet is fatally compromised.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Posted as new thread for more discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th92...yagTm2F2zI4ugY

[Erik Olson]

One experience cannot be assumed for a group entire; since any group will compass as many experiences as individuals.

[James Brancheau]

Yeah, Julie, "certain strands" kinda qualifies that into oblivion. I'm not sure wars prove a difference in thinking, only that we're all guilty. I would agree that believing the West, or America, is at the root of all evil is its own kind of arrogance.

* I would like to add, that after meeting an American from upstate NY (it would have to be upstate), a person who had the temerity to debate the wall with me, I realized that I may be arguing less than essential points. He went on about "white" statistics, whites addicted to drugs, whites in prison (which I believe are still the minority).We have a real problem here. Even in Taipei, they are misinformed and militant.

[R. S. Gwynn]

Michael F, old Walt builds his arguments out of anitheses. So did Blake, who had four of them.

[Julie Steiner]

The point I was trying to make was "Must every set of contrasting identities be treated as if one is good and the other is bad?"

If people thought my point was "East good, West bad," that's a very discouraging answer to my question.

[James Brancheau]

I probably did misunderstand that, Julie. I'll blame graduate school (the classes the poetry professors warned us not to take). I think the correct way to look at it is that there's beauty and ugliness in every culture. As cheesy as that sounds, it's true. At least from my experiences. (Maybe I became too aware of the ugliness of American (US) culture, which prompted me to leave. But, also, Koreans, for example, can be extraordinary xenophobic. Actually, worse than that, depending on where you live. Which has a lot to do with being invaded 1000 times, probably. Doesn't make me more likely to live there...) I think there's a hesitation to be frank, honest, about "culture" and, as I've mentioned, I think, a real confusion between race and culture. Which confounds me. Some of that was most likely off-topic, but, that's me.

But, yeah, the short response is that I probably jumped too quickly on your post. Carry on.