Has anyone made a legitimate assertion against the claim that all reading (and in fact everything) is political?

has anyone made a legitimate assertion against the claim that all reading (and in fact everything) is political?

well lets define politics then we can start

stop shitting up my fucking board with this teenage, stoner talk-tier crap.

The everything is political meme is one of the worst shitlibs concocted

What postmodernists tend to mean when they say politics. This is a claim almost exclusively made by postmodernists and identity politic kids.
I’m not a Peterson hurr durr postmodern basher but I have my issues with it as well.

You stated absolutely nothing.

How come every reading is political? Is a poem aboutyour early years political also? That's bullshit.

the claim has never proven to have been valid, its not my place nor am i inclined to adress a logically invalid and unsound argument like that.

you still haven't really defined what politics are in this case, and passed the referential buck so to speak

i mean, on one hand reading which is predicated on a language system is a product of culture, but we have to define politics before we can say anything useful about their relationship

>you still haven't really defined what politics are in this case, and passed the referential buck so to speak

He stated absolutely nothing and instead tried to make it a them vs us kinda thing.

Jesus christ

I guess you’re not wrong.
Let me try again. Political in the sense that there are power structures and if one reads without a critical eye they are reinforcing that power structure. alternatively, reading in a “woke” mode will make everything better blah blah.
Am I making better sense now?

>generic power structure
mate there is a reason the cream rises to the top

Libcucks hate losing arguments so they attempt to ban political thought. The board is meant for literature so it should be moderated as such, strictly political literature and philosophical literature are perfectly fair game and noone will ever get rid of it and the cucks should stop crying.

wouldn't that imply that all thought is political?

How tf is linear algebra political ?

Hard to do when politics is defined as literally everything to do with society and thought.

no

>mate there is a reason the cream rises to the top
Sometimes turds float.

The burden of proof is on the claimant, and I can just as easily nakedly assert that all reading is not political. The fact is that there are multiple views of what the function of literature is.

Those who assert that all reading is political tend to hold an instructional view of literature, where literature is meant to teach us how to think and behave, and they think they can be a form of cultural bureaucrat capable of changing the world if they can just ensure that the correct politics manifests in all literature(/comics/film/video games). Many religions also have an instructional view of culture, and for a number of reasons it's really unsurprising that literary theorists (and in particular Marxists and Critical Theorists) would carry this on in a secular manner.

The fact that someone can disagree with the idea that all reading (and everything) is political is alarming to these sorts of cultural bureaucrats, because it implies a passive or active resistance to their social engineering projects. Is it any surprise that people who genuinely believe in revolutionary politics are upset and even angry at escapists, aesthetes and formalists who are indifferent or even hostile to the politicisation of the fantasy, beauty, and mastery they seek? If only they could all be awoken from their slumber and turned into the soldiers of the gender/LGBT/race/fat/etc. revolution. =(

you're not even actually responding to the posts you're quoting, you're just finding some excuse to blather on about your bullshit

whats your deal man, say something of substance or relevance

How is a poem about a sublime experience had walking through the mountain woods political?

Those who assert that all literature is political do not necessarily think any of the things you just said they think.
Fucking hell.
Those who assert some sort of isolated aesthetic domain for art appreciation are the ones who need to make compelling arguments as far as I'm concerned. It seems uncontroversial that language is a political structure, and since all literature is linguistic there's no way to write something apolitical, or to read something apolitical.
But the point that you miss, i think, is that recognising language to be inescapably political doesn't mean that i think the literature the inherent politics of which i personally prefer is the best literature. Politics doesn't exhaust literature. There are probably no christians alive today for example who would subscribe to Milton's politico-religious agenda, and yet he's still read and admired everywhere by readers of all political colours.
Nor do i think literature should advance manifesto-like the political views i hold. I dunno why you'd think there's some conspiracy going on. Obviously we wanna burn your sacred cow, aesthetics, but that's just good theory, not politics.

Everything.
Your move.

if everything is political nothing is political
totally meaningless

How is language certainly political?

>bad user, why are you strawmanning people?
>*strawmans*

The main point I made is that there are multiple views of literature. I think perhaps the two big ones are, yes, an instructional view and an aesthetic view. To be sure, they both have their pros and cons.

And yes, I take the opportunity to indulge my distaste for a particular kind of instructional view of literature, which was wildly dominant, suffocating, and inept when I studied English at the top university in my country. I think it is doomed, misguided, captured by the growth/capital/neoliberalism it claims to fight, is generating divisions that help maintain a cosmopolitan/imperial society while being crowned as a unifier, and will result in terrible things. But lets put that aside.

>Those who assert some sort of isolated aesthetic domain for art appreciation are the ones who need to make compelling arguments as far as I'm concerned. It seems uncontroversial that language is a political structure, and since all literature is linguistic there's no way to write something apolitical, or to read something apolitical.

You are making some big leaps here. Language itself is not inherently political, it can be subject to political interpretation - because one can read power into any social exchange and any social construct. The idea that we should or must do this, always, incessantly, reductively, with a view to enacting particular forms of social change, and without regard to the other uses of language and literature... is what is most objectionable about the idea. The comprehensive interpolation of politics into the entirety of human experience is actually the definition of totalitarianism. Why should I spend my short life enduring, participating in, etc. a social existence that is an endless political conflict with an abstract power structure inside language whose alleged ill effects are spurious, driven by partisan interpretations, and will not really benefit anything (make people happy, make people better off, genuinely overturn the ills of the world rather than policing/shadowboxing bigots while completely ignoring contemporary robber barons and billionaires)?

>But the point that you miss, i think, is that recognising language to be inescapably political doesn't mean that i think the literature the inherent politics of which i personally prefer is the best literature. Politics doesn't exhaust literature. There are probably no christians alive today for example who would subscribe to Milton's politico-religious agenda, and yet he's still read and admired everywhere by readers of all political colours.
I'm not really accusing you of anything. Sorry if you took it personally.

Well the central question seems to be whether language is necessarily political or not. It's necessarily social, co-operative, there's no 'private language' as wittgenstein says, there's no 'meta-language' as derrida says: there's no way to eliminate the political aspect of language and still have a language left over. It's not 'political' in the sense of flagrant partisanship or perceptible policy agendas. The useful word is power, yes. But again, seeing power dynamics in all linguistic usage is not to pursue any overt political agenda, to claim that institutions must be dismantled, that the oppressed must be raised up, that literature must be a vehicle for political agitation - it's a use of 'power' in the nietzschean sense. It's descriptive, like analysing flows in thermodynamic systems. It doesn't necessitate this 'instructional' view of literature you inveigh against, and which seems to have injured you personally.
So, yes, all literature is political, but no, this doesn't mean you can't enjoy 'art for its own sake'
Of course, your desire for aestheticism is politically telling - and this is why personally i've begun to find that tracing out the politics of literature i read, the ideologies it supports, is one of the more satisfying pleasures.
Also, the interpolation of politics into all human experience is not the definition of authoritarianism, except you presuppose politics mean wielding power authoritatively. Man is a political animal, and politics can be collective, democratic, pleasurable, fulfilling. On the contrary, trying to carve out some conservative region for the undiluted a-social, autonomous individual is a dangerous misapprehension of the nature of the self, politically motivated of course, that can lead one toward support for authoritarian policies.

>Well the central question seems to be whether language is necessarily political or not. It's necessarily social, co-operative, there's no 'private language' as wittgenstein says, there's no 'meta-language' as derrida says: there's no way to eliminate the political aspect of language and still have a language left over. It's not 'political' in the sense of flagrant partisanship or perceptible policy agendas. The useful word is power, yes. But again, seeing power dynamics in all linguistic usage is not to pursue any overt political agenda, to claim that institutions must be dismantled, that the oppressed must be raised up, that literature must be a vehicle for political agitation - it's a use of 'power' in the nietzschean sense. It's descriptive, like analysing flows in thermodynamic systems. It doesn't necessitate this 'instructional' view of literature you inveigh against, and which seems to have injured you personally.
Not an unreasonable perspective but not really the sense in which "everything is political"/"literature is inherently political" is applied in practice. You say the idea is (or can be) merely descriptive. My response to this is that the more common version of the idea of "politics in everything"/"literature is inherently political" are prescriptive in nature. Hence "instructional view of literature". If we all agreed that politics/power is basically meant in the Nietzschean sense, and is just some observable movement in a linguistic system or structure, there would be no problem.

But observing power in language is not the end point. Observing power dynamics requires observing the wielders of that power, and the identification of "who wields power" and how this is done is really where we end up - and it is also where the biggest mistakes are made. In other words, it is senseless to observe power in language - that necessarily social thing - without conceptualising the wielders of power.

>So, yes, all literature is political, but no, this doesn't mean you can't enjoy 'art for its own sake'
Again, this is really just one provisional view of a political literature that is descriptive rather than prescriptive. Feel free to enjoy a descriptive view of power in literature, but consider that your descriptions might not be as objective and systematic as you think they are.

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Why is it wrong, though?

>Of course, your desire for aestheticism is politically telling - and this is why personally i've begun to find that tracing out the politics of literature i read, the ideologies it supports, is one of the more satisfying pleasures.
Well in fairness, I have not anywhere expressed a strong desire for aestheticism. Only that there are other ways of viewing literature besides one that is inherently political, which does include the aesthetic. It might, by the way, be politically telling that you think a desire for aestheticism is politically telling.

I have expressed revulsion and "injury"? about what I call an instructional view of literature. I do think it has lost its way, that it is bad for the study of English, for the humanities, for culture. And that it should be diminished or disappear, at least for a while. Perhaps to be replaced by a formalist moment of the "digital humanities" where new metrics, abstractions, and ways of reading "the text itself" emerge. I hope that the ensuing conflict and pants-shitting could motivate the various political causes to begin to stand on more than hermeneutics and politically motivated eisegesis (or "creative reading"). Although I don't think this is necessarily likely. More likely those things will be deployed unscrupulously for the same ends.

>Also, the interpolation of politics into all human experience is not the definition of authoritarianism, except you presuppose politics mean wielding power authoritatively. Man is a political animal, and politics can be collective, democratic, pleasurable, fulfilling.
I don't presuppose this though. I describe, unflatteringly, the specific personal politics that has flourished in colleges/universities/academia. One that is indeed read into everything possible with extreme prejudice. I reject this. If you have an alternative definition that is descriptive, that's fine. If you have a plethora of diverse worldviews and notions of politics to share, great. But maybe we are not talking about the same thing.

>On the contrary, trying to carve out some conservative region for the undiluted a-social, autonomous individual is a dangerous misapprehension of the nature of the self, politically motivated of course, that can lead one toward support for authoritarian policies.
I dunno why you'd think there's some conspiracy going on. Obviously "we aesthetics" are waiting in the wings for the next Fascist regime... right?

The same can be said of "trying to leash people into diluted, social, interdependent collectives". Neither of which I care to advocate, by the way. But I do think your pursuit of the phantoms of ideology through the pages of literature (and my posts) is a bit sad. Not because I am an aesthete =), but because there are so many other readings to imagine.

[2/2]

What does Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica has to do with politics at all?

I think only the intentional can be reasonably considered political. If you fart in your sleep, then that's hardly a political act.

wait - you said my view was 'not an unreasonable perspective' but then say 'consider it might not be as objective and systematic as you think they are.'
which is it? am i right or wrong? is there an ineradicable political dimension to literature or not?
and speaking of applications to 'practice', to the public political domain, that of those instructional indoctrinating professors at your university, this analytic of power structures has to come before, has to underlie, any effective political action.
okay a particular person you encounter doesn't literally have to understand the critical theory of writers like foucault or spivak or butler (or whoever from whatever particular field) in order to hold the opinions they hold and advance the politics they advance, but when you attack that movement this critical theory is what you have to engage with.
I don't know - maybe there is a problem in the university you attended (which one btw? in the uk?). but i'm often sceptical when i hear this expressed on this board. my lecturers talk about marx and freud and the post-structuralists and barthes all the time, but never uncritically, and never in a dogmatic fashion, and they never make the simple interpretative mistakes people on this board make. for example they would never knowingly lead us to believe that 'you can make any text mean anything,' or even that there are very many valid interpreations of any text, because, well, they're not stupid. And YET there are people I know who hear the words 'death of the author' or whatever and apply their own false-grasp of the theory to some 'political agenda' they believe exists in the faculty.
but hey, maybe your professors were just stupid identitarian agitators. from my experience, this is never the case, and we would get slated for submitting work along those lines.
sorry that was a bit of a rant - but i get really fed up with the accusations (jp mainly) that humanities dptmts are corrupt.

also - ideology as phantom is a little bit concerning
ideology determines your thoughts and behaviours in a very real, physical way

Why is it concerning?

if marxists had their way, you would only be allowed to read focus group drivel designed by behavioural psychologists and gender studies freaks for the explicit purpose of 'empowering' the politically correct victim classes and flattering their identities. Fiction as we know it would be over.

Explain to me how something like the Iliad is political

the common argument would be something like because it is viewed as a classic and held in high esteem in society it promotes the views expressed and displaces other views you could say it normalizes the marginalization of women or eurocentric thinking

>literal Greek propaganda affirming the core values of their society
>"how is this propaganda"
Cmon, at least do something more difficult like trees, photons or spoons

im 95% sure anyone who casually uses the word postmodern as a catchall for "people i disagree with" is a teenager and knows nothing about politics, art, or philosophy. i read your meager post, grudgingly, and only to confirm my hypothesis

How are black people supposed to learn it?

>Everything being political is wrong!
>Stupid libs made it up.

Jokes.

Veeky Forums is for the discussion of literature, specifically books (fiction & non-fiction), short stories, poetry, creative writing, etc. If you want to discuss history, religion, or the humanities, go to Veeky Forums. If you want to discuss politics, go to /pol/. Philosophical discussion can go on either Veeky Forums or Veeky Forums, but ideally those discussions of philosophy that take place on Veeky Forums should be based around specific philosophical works to which posters can refer.

Fuck off over to /pol/ with this shit.

You forgot a few thinga.

>thinga