I am enrolled in a philosophy seminar this semester titled "Aesthetics and Politics." As the name of the seminar suggests, the discussions focus on the possible convergences between aesthetics (in the broad sense, as both the contemplation of artforms and a particular kind of sensory 'experience') and politics (in an even broader sense - political form itself as well as our capacity for thoughtful resistance against totalizing politics). The readings for the seminar stem from a popular critical tradition known as the "Frankfurt School of Critical Theory" which began with iconic figures like Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno who were concerned with the fate of art during a period of mass totalitarian politics (Fascism in Germany, Stalinism in Russia, even the burgeoning 'mass' culture within US democracy).
The seminar to date has been full of provocative and disturbing conversations. One of Theodor Adorno's more provocative theses, which, troublingly in my opinion, many of his contemporary admirers still uncritically ascribe to, is that the explosion of technology since the beginning of the twentieth century has so totally subsumed our culture that we no longer have access to 'experience.' For Adorno, technology and its totalizing effects mediate life to such a degree that our 'lack of access' to experience has actually become a total 'incapacity' for experience.
I have had to trim the fat of Adorno's argument for the sake of brevity here, of course. But I want to relate this provocative claim to the internetization of everything that other LL bloggers have been talking about since the summer, and, more recently, with Dean's post. As producers of a "new" online literary culture, should we only be concerned with issues of distribution and accessibility or is it the technology itself that should also preoccupy us? That is, do we really understand how this technology operates and what its mediating affects might be on our literary production? Does the form of the medium so totally subsume the content of our product that we are, on some level, conceding an incapacity for literary 'experience'? (I'll throw in my two cents by saying that I don't think Adorno is entirely right on this one, but what do you all think? Can we access "literary experience" despite the mediating effects of technology?)
A Response
jhcanel — November 5, 2011 - 20:27Let's take this down from the theoretical and frame the final question in experiential terms. Reading literature online is, without doubt, different than reading literature from a book. Despite the notable quality of some online publications (such as LL), online literature simply feels different... more distant, more transient... almost cheaper.
That said, I have read and enjoyed many of the classics in digital form (iPad). Though I felt something of a nostalgia for the pages my fingers couldn't flip, I do not believe I lost that much. I continued to interact with the texts with an intellectual vigor akin to that I bring to any printed book.
I suspect that many of our value judgments concerning online or digital literature that is new stem from the fact that it is cheaper and easier to publish digitally. Physical publication carries something of a mystique, though given my perspectives on the condition of contemporary literature, I question whether such a mystique is deserved.
Still, to return to your question. Experience is still possible. If I did not experience, I would not write poetry. I would not run a literary journal. I would not critically engage my life, constantly questioning who I am, if I am, and how I wish to be.
It would seem to me that the greatest enemy of experience is in fact art. Great works of art possess a sense of endurance and composure that belies our actual experience of time. We exist in a constant state of flux... the work of art may be subject to the vicissitudes of interpretation, but it remains unchanged. Great art is beautiful and remains beautiful. No living object can claim to do the same.
Artistic media can affect the way we experience art. Authentic experience, however, requires an ability to maintain an autonomous conscious. How many people are so substantially conditioned by the parts they see on television that they persist through life merely mimicking a fiction?
We were not meant to be Prince Hamlet.