Writers driving a wedge into society

"In 2004, philosopher and literary critic Kojin Karatani declared, in his essay "The End of Modern Literature," that Japanese literature had lost its privileged position within national consciousness while embracing minor subcultures ... thus becoming a mere commodity. As a consequence, literature had lost its power to affect social or political change."

However a writer "Tomoyuki Hoshino indirectly expressed his disagreement with Kiratani's bleak vision. According to him, "we cannot expect literature to directly effect change in a clearly observable form. At best, it is a tiny wedge the writer can drive through the social and cultural status quo. Still, it is exactly literature's ability to allow readers and writers to inhabit minor (...) worlds that allows literature to affect society as a whole, one story, one reader at a time. ...

In the end, by refusing to passively accept conventional truths regarding sexual, cultural and national identity, and inciting in both his characters and readers this revolutionary desire to change, Hoshino's work becomes more political than any open social criticism or ideologically charged novel."

More: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fb20121021a1.html



Presidents are chosen, but not elected. The Black Vault. www.SPYWRITER.com

No Society without Literature

"Literature is all-encompassing: it ranges from societal utilitarianism of the didactic through to the celebration of individualism embodied in post-modern work. Literature, as part of a larger cultural body, is both instructive and entertaining, and has the power to facilitate personal understanding and encourage social cohesion. The society depicted in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 is disillusioned with literature: the populace has forgotten its potential to educate and entertain, and has become sceptical of the intellectual elitism it is seen to represent. People are now captivated by the possibilities of non-discriminatory media such as television and popular music. The focus of education and recreation has shifted away from the intellectual and towards the instant gratification of physical stimulation. Initially this is seen as a solution to short-term societal problems, and as a means of promoting the happiness of the greatest number of people. However, in the long term, the removal of literature from society distances people from each other, stunts communication, and eventually effects mass isolation, dehumanisation and the collapse of all societal structure. Although this may seem unrealistically dystopian, there are elements in our society that have been developing since before Bradbury started writing – television, film and radio – that may have the potential to instigate the social collapse Bradbury foretells. Indeed, Adorno and Horkheimer, writing in the forties, argued that this potential had already been realised in the mass-production of film, and feared that television would further degrade society until the individual ceased to be defined without the general ‘society’ of which it was an element. The parallels between this view and Bradbury’s are significant. Most importantly, these commentators share the notion that truly artistic, intellectual culture is essential to society. Figures like Matthew Arnold, Victorian poet and spokesperson for education reform, have been prominent in shaping this understanding of culture. Arnold’s notions of cultural education as promoting the best aspects of society and discouraging the worst illuminate the groundwork behind Bradbury’s own fears about the loss of culture in society."

More: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/606/literature-as-a-social-tool-education-and-cohesion-or-class-domination

Pick up a book and ditch your TV!



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A World Without Books

Le Clezio, recipient of Nobel prize for literature: "books have played an essential role in the development of the world, by granting universal access to knowledge and turning it from the privilege of dominant classes into ordinary people's rights a role it performed especially well during Enlightenment.

Without printed books we would be living in a totally different world. It may prosper as well, but it will be a closed world resistant to progress, desperately imbalanced, filled with unfairness and injustice." He cites the ancient Mayan civilization as an example. What was once illuminating and ripe disappeared for want of print: "There was no democracy and hardly equality before the law while the quality of citizen dwelled on a relatively low level.

In such a world, knowledge would not serve interaction or social progress, but only draw a new line between those who have knowledge and those who don't There can still be marvellous wonders like the Pyramid, but the people will only build them like slaves, not understanding the meaning of their labor.

The book, however old-fashioned it may be, is the ideal tool. It is practical, easy to handle, economical. It does not require any particular technological prowess, and keeps well in any climate."

More: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-08/31/content_13224456.htm

Support literature for a better society

"Literature is about social liveliness, it's a life-blood [...] It enriches life. Culture enriches people, it makes for a better society, it makes for a better educated and more cultivated and humane society. Literature is part of that [...] It was hugely important for corporations, such as banks, investment firms, construction companies and property developers to support literature as part of the arts, and for us to say to them: You can't just develop properties, you have to let people develop as well" SOURCE

Network Culture

Most of the changes in network culture are subtle and only appear radical in retrospect. Take our relationship with the press. One morning you noted with interest that your daily newspaper had established a website. Another day you decided to stop buying the paper and just read it online. Then you started reading it on a mobile Internet platform, or began listening to a podcast of your favourite column while riding a train. Perhaps you dispensed with official news entirely, preferring a collection of blogs and amateur content. Eventually the paper may well be distributed only on the net, directly incorporating user comments and feedback. Or take the way cell phones have changed our lives. When you first bought a mobile phone, were you aware of how profoundly it would alter your life? Soon, however, you found yourself abandoning the tedium of scheduling dinner plans with friends in advance, instead coordinating with them en route to a particular neighbourhood. Or if your friends or family moved away to university or a new career, you found that through a social networking site like Facebook and through the every-present telematic links of the mobile phone, you did not lose touch with them. Read More

European Anti-Americanism in Literature

What's missing in this yet another overly-dramatic cry is the question "Why do they hate us?":

Despite its cultural prominence, anti-Americanism is the last European chauvinist discourse not to have fallen into general disrepute. While first emerging during the Romantic period, European anti-Americanism reached a peak during the interwar years; literature of the period represented the United States as the quintessence of a traumatic, unbridled modernity that presaged the destruction of Europe. [...]

Thus, a literary history of anti-Americanism has yet to be written. Such a work would prove a valuable contribution to the historical processing of the discourse, for it is often in literature we find the European fantasies about the United States – the dreams as well as the nightmares – in their most unadulterated and seductive versions.

SOURCE