"...what can be saved from the ruins"
What ruins would this apply to now? I see that the mission statement of the magazine is "defending Western civilization". Erm...
Why T.S. Eliot still matters
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a shallow dismissal, snarky, and a non sequitur, for starters.
Should I find all the other comments that mimic mine in the past week to see if you’ve singled them out? There’s twitter threads full of them.
Never long dang you’re right. I won’t comment or submit anything again. I clearly don’t understand the criteria. Cheers.
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#23He wrote a whole collection about cats. Cats are like 56% of the internet right? Definitely still matters.
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should I find all the other comments that mimic mine in the past week to see if you’ve singled them out? There’s twitter threads full of them.
Never long dang you’re right. I won’t comment or submit anything again. I clearly don’t understand the criteria. Cheers.
You're entirely welcome to participate here, and it's not hard to understand the criteria, if you read the guidelines and take the intended spirit of the site to heart. Basically, we want to have a place on the internet that's good for curious conversation and manages to escape the default outcome of internet forums, which is to decline and eventually destroy themselves.
If you take a look at these links maybe the reason why we do things this way will get a little clearer, and if not, we're happy to answer any questions from users who sincerely want to use HN as intended.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is a shallow dismissal, snarky, and a non sequitur, for starters.
Should I find all the other comments that mimic mine in the past week to see if you’ve singled them out? There’s twitter threads full of them.
You will certainly find lots of comments that should have been moderated but weren't. That's because we don't come close to seeing everything here.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#26The Waste Land might be the most pretentious thing I've ever read. It just oozes self-importance. I've never seen any work that could be described as great that has an overt peacocking quality to it.
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#27"...what can be saved from the ruins" What ruins would this apply to now? I see that the mission statement of the magazine is "defending Western civilization". Erm...
Law of the jungle's where it's at.
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#28In the public forum, Eliot’s stature does seem to be high. Yet I wonder how many people celebrating him are under the age of thirty. Readers over thirty are likely to have discovered him in decades past when, firstly, there was more of a culture of actual print books (Eliot’s long and intricate verse works best on the physical page), and secondly, much of the canon (and the whole idea of a canon) had not yet been so…
> for readers who believe that favoring female and minority voices is a moral and ethical issue A strange morality indeed that mandates sexism and racism...
What is strange about it? The male only canon is result of morality that mandated sexism. If that was not strange, adding some women into mix is not strange and existence of some (apparently minority) people who prefer women should not be strange either.
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#29In the public forum, Eliot’s stature does seem to be high. Yet I wonder how many people celebrating him are under the age of thirty. Readers over thirty are likely to have discovered him in decades past when, firstly, there was more of a culture of actual print books (Eliot’s long and intricate verse works best on the physical page), and secondly, much of the canon (and the whole idea of a canon) had not yet been so…
> and for readers who believe that favoring female and minority voices is a moral and ethical issue, Eliot’s male and privileged background works against him.
I find it strange that you suggest younger readers would pass over Eliot given his race and background. If one is going to mix ethics and art, surely the fact that Eliot was an adamant anti-semite would be considered long before Eliot's race or background.
Even when Eliot was alive, there were calls from those in the currently "over thirty" crowd to discard Eliot (or fellow anti-semites like Ezra Pound) from literary study.
My own impressions of "under thirty readers" is far more favorable than yours. They seem as thoughtful as ever and take a very nuanced view of such issues. I think one can recognize the brilliance of Eliot's work, but also argue that time for literary study is limited at every level, so making cuts is inevitable. If we are making cuts anyway, arguing that diversity and ethical considerations are worth considering seems quite reasonable.
Re: Why T.S. Eliot still matters
#30In the public forum, Eliot’s stature does seem to be high. Yet I wonder how many people celebrating him are under the age of thirty. Readers over thirty are likely to have discovered him in decades past when, firstly, there was more of a culture of actual print books (Eliot’s long and intricate verse works best on the physical page), and secondly, much of the canon (and the whole idea of a canon) had not yet been so…
Thus, while Eliot’s stature is momentarily high because readers of an older generation with older values are presently in a position of authority and can celebrate him, I suspect a critical backlash in the years to come.
"Older" values like an appreciation of brilliance, originality and beauty? In your ageist dismissal, you inadvertently do the young wise (who won't be so easily misled by similar prejudice) a disservice!
There will only be a critical backlash by people whose screwed-tight political blinkers do not permit them to see genius, whatever their age.