Sherry Chandler

from Peter Gay. Modernism. The Lure of Heresy. From Baudelaire to Beckett and Beyond (W. W. Norton, 2008)

What made Les Fleur Du Mal a founding document of modernism was, even more than its explicitness, Baudelaire’s ability to merge formal clarity and licentious subject matter, the strictest rule-bound sonnets and the grossest metaphors. …A conventional versifier may excel in his control, a libertine in his freedom; it was Baudelaire’s gift of joining technical control to emotional scope that made him so extraordinary a model for modernist poets. …

Through the decades, Baudelaire’s admirers would say over and over that his voice was the voice of poetry pure and simple. It offered no political, ethical, or religious program; it did not try to impress its readers with rhetorical flourishes; it emerged from feelings, not ideas. For Baudelaire, form was a vessel that receives substance to mold into an appropriate shape. He found, to borrow a phrase from one of his most consistent admirers, T. S. Eliot, an “objective correlative” for whatever he wanted—or perhaps better, needed—to express. It followed … that the morality or immorality of a poem depends not on its subject matter but on its treatment. (pp 39-40)

I know a lot of you all reading here think I’m in the tank for Hillary Clinton, and it’s true that I prefer Hillary on the issues (Obama has apparently made it a policy not to have policies). But —

Oh just read Joan Walsh:

Throughout this long campaign the Clintons have been turned into a vile caricature: amoral, power-mad narcissists who are not beyond using racism and even worries about Obama’s safety to press their political cause. I’ve criticized both Clintons repeatedly in the pages of Salon for over 10 years, but it’s really time to say: Enough.

For several months I’ve found myself bothered by a double standard in both the behavior and the media coverage of the Obama campaign, as supposedly representing a new kind of clean, post-partisan politics, by contrast with the dirty old win-at-any-cost Clintons. Hardball Obama campaign tactics — David Axelrod partly blaming Clinton for Benazir Bhutto’s death; the intimidation of Clinton voters by a pro-Obama union in Nevada (to be fair, some Obama supporters claimed intimidation by Clinton forces, too); the campaign’s infamous South Carolina race memo (prepared before Bill Clinton made his dumb Jesse Jackson remark); the multiple “Harry and Louise” mailers distorting Clinton’s healthcare proposal; not to mention ties between Obama, Axelrod and the Exelon Corp., even as Obama is touting his lobbyist-free campaign. Nothing seems to stick to Obama; he’s Teflon.

This episode was worse than many but not entirely atypical: After his staff helped whip up a frenzy about Clinton’s remarks, Obama himself said he accepted Clinton’s statement that she had been misunderstood, and Axelrod tried to act gracious and insist that it’s time to move on. But the damage had been done. Obama has run a better campaign than Clinton, there’s no doubt about it, but he’s had a lot of help from a fawning media. (Here’s a great piece making a point I made months ago about how such coverage may ultimately hurt Obama.)*

*Hint: backlash.

And then read Redstar. I’m not sure that I agree with everything she says here, but I have come to respect her intellectual integrity and she makes me think we might all need to step back and take a deep breath (emphasis added):

Part of the reason for last night’s insomnia has been my growing frustration from the Clinton RFK remarks skirmish. It began in earnest when I read Kevin’s response at Slant Truth, in which he stated that regardless of her intent, it was his personal associations of the assassinations of black leaders that mattered to him. He added that he was further troubled by the racially segregated - and polarized - link networks he was seeing in response to her comments; i.e., whites were linking to other whites in support of their perspectives, and bloggers of color - including many African-Americans - were linking to one another in opinion solidarity. When I read this, I thought Duh! Obviously. Anyone following this election, especially since early ‘08, has seen this cultural fracturing around the blogosphere, as we all interpret the candidates’ actions, statements and alleged motivations and intent based on our personal and/or collective experiences and identities.

Then I read a compelling analysis from Latoya at Racialicious, which I found to be strongly undermined by her strident vocabulary that “hell no…there is no way Hillary was talking about herself when referencing the RFK campaign.” Latoya’s voice is one I really respect in the ’sphere, yet so is Pocochina’s, who just as convincingly argues that of course Clinton is thinking of herself in referencing RFK, because it’s a) a defining (generational) moment for her in her political development, b) she faces her own threats of assassination, and c) and this is my elaboration of Pocochina’s point - that she has arguably come to represent for millions of moderate- to low-income Americans (mostly white, but not exclusively) the underdog candidate fighting for them. Just because this vision of her is routinely derided in many pundit circles does not mean that it does not ring true for countless Clinton supporters (if those I read on-line are any indication).

So who’s right, here? Who’s interpretation is valid? Hopefully you realize these are trick questions - obviously all of them are, as they are grounded in experience, identity, and each blogger’s situated knowledge. …

I remember last fall at the Congressional Black Caucus Conference wearing a Clinton pin and an Obama button. I remember my cynical detachment about the two of them, centrists not remotely interested in challenging the status quo other than via their own historic candidacies and the legitimately new perspectives they would bring to the Oval Office: the first serious female contender with her gendered and generational whiteness, modern marriage and professional career working with women and children, and the first multi-racial, cosmopolitan, almost-not-a-Baby-Boomer, black-middle-class Presidential candidate. Yet, as the months have passed since Iowa, I’m getting more and more narrow-minded in my support of Clinton, mainly in response to her unparalleled opposition. My emotionalism is seriously challenging my more “rational” preferences for her policy positions, campaign platform and professional experience.

…

What I think has been the real issue in this campaign - in the politics waged from both sides that have employed or capitalized on systemic sexism and racism - is that both campaign[s] have condescended to the other. …

All of this is getting to my long-drawn-out conclusion: that for most of us this primary has ceased to be about the two candidates, and all about ourselves - in all our complicated beauty. Which of our multiple identities is elevated consciously or otherwise in feeling drawn to the candidates, what our biases or privileges really are, what our core personal networks really look like, what we feel we’re owed by society personally or collectively, and what we’re projecting onto these two figureheads who are similar triangulating centrists - one with most of her dirty laundry exposed, and the other with his soon to come out to dry.

I feel like I’ve lost a lot of virtual allies in this primary (hopefully temporarily), but gained a plethora of new ones. At my old blog I wrote I how I tended to identify with middle- and moderate-income white ethnics and women and men of color I meet because our life experiences are often quite similar. Who I have met in numbers on-line via supporting Clinton are many new young outspoken working-class and middle-class Asian-American and white ethnic feminists. I have purged many middle-class and upper-middle-class mostly white male and female bloggers who I felt marginally about to begin with. Good riddance. They don’t speak for me. I’m not sure who does these days…

And from the Online Etymology Dictionary, tribe:

from O.Fr. tribu, from L. tribus “one of the three political/ethnic divisions of the original Roman state” (Tites, Ramnes, and Luceres, corresponding, perhaps, to the Latins, Sabines, and Etruscans), later, one of the 30 political divisions instituted by Servius Tullius (increased to 35 in 241 B.C.E.), perhaps from tri- “three” + *bhu-, root of the verb be.

We are dividing ever more strongly into our tribes in this country. It’s dangerous.