This was a great post, Julia; sorry that it took me such a long time to get around to reading it.
I was introduced to the poetry of Charles Reznikoff in one of my several poetry classes that I took in the late 1970s at The Cooper Union. (St. Mark's church was on my walk to school for my last two years there.) I was studying engineering and the three (I think) poetry classes I took were a welcome respite from the rigors of the engineering curriculum.
But we didn't spend much (probably not enough) time studying the work of established poets; these were mainly poetry-writing workshops. Because of that I didn't retain a lasting memory of Reznikoff's work.
I, too, ponder the mystery of people thinking Communism is cool. I think it must be partially because they've never had to live under it. I used to think it was because they were lazy, and desperately wanted the wealth of others distributed to themselves. But some of them that I've known are not lazy at all. Many seem to loathe American culture and I think are simply trying to find something as far from that as possible. Too, I think that there is something of what G. K. Chesterton described thusly:
"The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”
I think it’s because communism is part of the sort of catch-all ethos of resistance to the tedium of bourgeois cultural norms. I sincerely believe that the original “true believers” like my grandmother were just that. Later generations of self-professed communists have very little in common with her cohort, though, and most of them are from insanely privileged backgrounds.
This was a great post, Julia; sorry that it took me such a long time to get around to reading it.
I was introduced to the poetry of Charles Reznikoff in one of my several poetry classes that I took in the late 1970s at The Cooper Union. (St. Mark's church was on my walk to school for my last two years there.) I was studying engineering and the three (I think) poetry classes I took were a welcome respite from the rigors of the engineering curriculum.
But we didn't spend much (probably not enough) time studying the work of established poets; these were mainly poetry-writing workshops. Because of that I didn't retain a lasting memory of Reznikoff's work.
I, too, ponder the mystery of people thinking Communism is cool. I think it must be partially because they've never had to live under it. I used to think it was because they were lazy, and desperately wanted the wealth of others distributed to themselves. But some of them that I've known are not lazy at all. Many seem to loathe American culture and I think are simply trying to find something as far from that as possible. Too, I think that there is something of what G. K. Chesterton described thusly:
"The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.”
I think it’s because communism is part of the sort of catch-all ethos of resistance to the tedium of bourgeois cultural norms. I sincerely believe that the original “true believers” like my grandmother were just that. Later generations of self-professed communists have very little in common with her cohort, though, and most of them are from insanely privileged backgrounds.