>MS: You have always been an advocate of the primacy of the aesthetic: “To read in the service of any ideology is not, in my judgment, to read at all,” you have argued. Is it still possible in our post modern age to prioritize the aesthetic values of a work over the considerations of race, class and gender?
>HB: In my view, all these ideologies have destroyed literary study in the graduate schools and in the academies. Whether you call it feminism, which is not really feminism, has nothing to do with equal rights for women, or whether you call it transgenderism, or ethnicity, or Marxism, or any of these French manifestations, be it deconstruction or one mode of differential linguistics or another, or whether you call it — what I think is mislabeled — the new historicism, because it’s neither new nor historicism, but simply a dilution of Foucault, a man whom I knew and liked personally, but whose influence I think has been pernicious, just as Derida’s, with whom I also shared a friendship until eventually we broke with each other. All these “isms” are preposterous of course; they have nothing to do with the study of literature or with its originality. As I’ve said before, the esthetic is an individual and not a social concern.
Does this mean that the reader should not subject the work to anything but his own taste?
My problem with Bloom is that, as far as I can tell, he is solely focused on a work's aesthetics. It's a bit like Oscar Wilde, I guess; he seems to believe that only a work's pure artistic value gives it merit. This gives him pretty good taste, but I wonder if this means he doesn't value literature for its moral and philosophical dimensions.
>>8155105
>My problem with /lit/ is that, as far as I can tell, you shitters are solely focused on a work's aesthetics
A revelation
>>8155086
>meminism
>one's personal aesthetic taste
YES WHAT A FUCKINGnot falseDILEMMAat all
>>8155086
Bloom is right. How the fuck is a different reading of Shakespeare going to give transgender people more rights? Why are people in academia getting paid to shill their ideologies?
>>8155086
This would trigger a shitload of people in my Politics seminars.
>>8155086
How many days per week do you think he wanks? What about when he was in his twenties?
>>8155105
>he seems to believe that only a work's pure artistic value gives it merit.
But that's true, only a pseud would say otherwise.
>>8155339
I cant imagine being in school right now
t. class of 2005
>>8155763
Sure you can, /lit/ is a very similar experience.
>>8155772
your class is generally reactionary except for a smattering of pseuds and classical marxistsstalinists?
>>8155339
consider doing a school shooting
>>8155780
No, my class is full of social justice fucks. Being told that:
>In my view, all these ideologies have destroyed literary study in the graduate schools and in the academies. Whether you call it feminism, which is not really feminism, has nothing to do with equal rights for women, or whether you call it transgenderism, or ethnicity, or Marxism
Would probably make their heads explode.
>>8155784
Nah, I just poke holes in their arguments for fun.
How do I become a professional fanboy?
>>8155325
There exists an entire apparatus of people who are terrified of manual labor and will say and do ANYTHING to avoid it.
Enter academia.
