Literature? What's in it?

photo by sean, © 2009

Introduction by Sean@iNoodle.com:

The below popped into my inbox this morning from Eric Larsen, prize-winning novelist, non-fiction author, critic, retired English professor, and topnotch friend and correspondent.

And here's a related post which Rebecca published on our Mindful Living Guide site earlier today. The topic and the post itself are inspired by Anne Frank: Why writing ( ... and literature) matters!

*****

by Eric Larsen
February 13, 2009

Dear Readers, Reviewers, Editors, Publicists, Fellow Writers, Patriots, Friends,

Here for your perusal is a piece that will doubtless seem purely literary, lacking any element, content, or implication whatsoever that might touch on today's politics. In short, by clicking here, you'll find a short story that I published in 1971, again in 1975, and that then, I thought, had for the next thirty-five years slept in the same unmarked grave where it would surely fade away to dust.

But if you do decide to go inside and have a look, you'll find that the story has been resurrected. A Professor of English by the name of Elizabeth Hodges has given it new life by introducing it to her students who, in turn, have sent me questions, twenty-one in all, that they found themselves interested in hearing the answers to.

Inside, you'll find everything: The story, the questions, the answers – and then something more.

The "something more" will be my "conclusion," in which I announce that I'm signing off on political writing – for now, maybe, maybe for good. I'm returning to literary writing. But I'm doing it with a very, very serious project in mind.

I'm proposing that this piece – containing the little story "Feast" along with Elizabeth Hodges' students' questions and my answers – I'm proposing that it take its place as the first in a series. This series will make a strenuous effort to answer this question: "Can the Literary Life Still Exist in a Post-1984 Nation?"

Our own poor and dying nation is without the least hint of any doubt whatsoever a "post-1984" nation. I've spent the last two and a half years or more hammering at the door of 9/11 truth, thinking all along that exposure of the truth of what really happened on that day would be a powerful tonic in helping set the U.S. back, say, to 1948 instead of 1984, at least insofar as truth versus lies in the governance and freedoms of its people might be concerned. Now, I'm not so sure. I myself know more than perfectly well what really happened on 9/11, as do many, many others. And yet, not even on the basis of that knowledge will the nation act. Even with the truth evident and obvious and plainly placed in front of it, the nation either will not or can not act in meaningful response to that truth.

So I'm not going to bang on that door any longer, at least not for now, but I'm going to propose another approach. As I've said elsewhere many more times than once, any nation that lacks a genuine, living cultural life is by default and by necessity a dead nation. The question now is whether ours is dead or not dead. If it is in actuality dead, then we, too, are all dead along with it, every one of us, looking forward to a future of noting more than hollowness and ruin.

On the other hand, do you think it's remotely conceivable that I could prove that there still is – say – a LITERARY LIFE inside the United States, a life that a person could LIVE and that many, many others could live WITHIN?

My proposal is this: I'm going to set about, however vastly against the odds, trying to prove exactly that. If I can do it, maybe there's hope for us, for our children, for our nation, for our future. If I can't? If I can't, we're goners, all of us.

Stay tuned. Pray fervently, daily, hourly.

With my hopes and every best wish,

Eric Larsen

House of Lords: Rise of CCTV is threat to freedom

Britain leads the world in the use of CCTV, says report published today.
(Photograph: Getty Images)

Introduction by Sean@iNoodle.com:

Note that while the Lords appear to be critical on this issue their report serves as a limited hangout (or smokescreen) which leaves the most egregious surveillance practices untouched, unaccounted for.

*****

World's most pervasive surveillance undermines
basic liberties, say peers

by Alan Travis
The Guardian
February 6, 2009

The steady expansion of the "surveillance society" risks undermining fundamental freedoms including the right to privacy, according to a House of Lords report published today.

The peers say Britain has constructed one of the most extensive and technologically advanced surveillance systems in the world in the name of combating terrorism and crime and improving administrative efficiency.

The report, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, by the Lords' constitution committee, says Britain leads the world in the use of CCTV, with an estimated 4m cameras, and in building a national DNA database, with more than 7% of the population already logged compared with 0.5% in the America.

The cross-party committee which includes Lord Woolf, a former lord chief justice, and two former attorneys general, Lord Morris and Lord Lyell, warns that "pervasive and routine" electronic surveillance and the collection and processing of personal information is almost taken for granted.

Although many surveillance practices and data collection processes are unknown to most people, the expansion in their use represents "one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the second world war", the report says. The committee warns that the national DNA database could be used for "malign purposes", challenges whether CCTV cuts crime and questions whether local authorities should be allowed to use surveillance powers at all.

The peers say privacy is an "essential prerequisite to the exercise of individual freedom" and the growing use of surveillance and data collection needs to be regulated by executive and legislative restraint at all times.

Lord Goodlad, the former Tory chief whip and committee chairman, said there could be no justification for this gradual but incessant creep towards every detail about an individual being recorded and pored over by the state.

"The huge rise in surveillance and data collection by the state and other organisations risks undermining the long-standing traditions of privacy and individual freedom which are vital for democracy," he said. "If the public are to trust that information about them is not being improperly used there should be much more openness about what data is collected, by whom and how it is used."

The constitution committee makes more than 40 recommendations to protect individual privacy, including the deletion of all profiles from the national DNA database except for those of convicted criminals and a call for the mandatory encryption of personal data held by public and private organisations that are legally obliged to hold it.

But the report is silent on proposals from Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, for a "superdatabase" tracking everybody's emails, calls, texts and internet use and from Jack Straw, the justice secretary, to lower barriers on the widespread sharing of personal data across the public sector.

But the peers are critical of whether local authorities should continue to exercise their surveillance powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. They say examples of local councils using covert surveillance operations to stop fly tipping, reducing dog fouling, and investigate fraudulent school place applications led them to question how they acquired such powers. Ministers should examine whether local authorities, rather than the police, are the appropriate bodies to mount surveillance operations, the peers say. If they are, then their use should be confined to crime investigations that carry a minimum two-year prison sentence.

The peers say individuals targeted by such operations should be informed when it is completed, as long as no investigation is prejudiced.

Deborah Orr: A Tribute to the Propaganda Box

ADDENDUM (31 Jan 09):

In good conscience, and beyond satire, I would like to write and archive an addendum to this iNoodle.com post – not a retraction as there is no inaccurate fact to retract – but, rather, a heartfelt addition to my glib references concerning Deborah Orr and her husband.

My opinion concerning the article itself stands as, likewise, being heartfelt.

However, my closing suggestion – immediately following the close of Orr's article – that "she and her husband get a life" (left intact, below, for the record) was, in retrospect, careless. Of course, social critics with public platforms, like Deborah Orr and her husband Will Self, should not, themselves, be beyond reproach. However, when I wrote the piece I had no idea, or cared, who Orr's husband was.

It was not until yesterday, the morning after I published this post, that I looked up Orr's Wikipedia entry and learned that she is married (since 1997) to Self. And given Self's life – his body of work (e.g., fiction, journalism, criticism), his wealth of experience, and his philosophy education – it is ludicrous, in retrospect, that I suggest, even satirically, that he get a life and, by extension given their shared lives together, Deborah Orr, as clearly their off-the-couch lives are rich, and their respective sources of knowledge existing well beyond television.

I, therefore, offer a sincere apology to them both.

*****
Introduction by Sean@iNoodle.com:

Is there anyone left out there who hasn't been sucked into TV Land – British (or American) style – who can still attest to life devoid of the culturally (politically) requisite 3.75 hours of daily TV watching, or 26.25 hours per week? It's worth noting that Deborah Orr tells us within her below article, published in today's Independent newspaper, that these figures only include broadcast television, not watching DVDs, films in cinemas, YouTube or other internet-broadcast content.

According to Al Gore the American equivalent of this knucklehead phenomenon is "an average of four hours and thirty-five minutes every day," or "almost three-quarters of all the discretionary time that the average American has."

Like many things transatlantic, there exists little difference, despite what many Britons blindly believe, between the two criminal-war-waging nations and the complicit cultures they breed.

Once upon a time parents used to be so parental as to limit their kids' TV watching in order to avoid their offspring turning into pliable goo instead of developing as physically, intellectually and emotionally engaged children. Nowadays you're a social pariah if as a grown adult you choose not to hook up along with the kids' grandparents and the kids, of course, to passively imbibe the prescribed daily dose elixir of mindrot, propaganda and advertising. Three generations melded into one brainless heap in one fell swoop! This is the stuff of advertisers' and criminal politicians' wet dreams. Four generations – can you imagine four generations hooked up, hypnotized and in sync!?! – should qualify the head of any such household for an OBE. (Americans might one day have OAEs bestowed upon them should the US political elite ever decide to come out of the closet and embrace imperial language and hierarchy with the same vehemence as they do empire-building in practice.)

And why stop at the prescribed (minimum) dose required to demonstrate good (nominal) citizenship? Whether the corporate land you couch in – or on behalf of which you might be willing to commit war crimes – is the cutting-edge-in-conformity UK or US, the more boob tube you watch, presumably, the better brainwashed citizen you will be.

In my experience as an American living in England, the UK wins hands down (and the US is, it needn't really be emphasized, a tough act to follow) in the production of homogenous nonthinkers who would be at a loss for words (and nonthoughts) without the previous night's, let alone the previous season's, programming having been uploaded, via TV, to their cerebral cortices. Britons even pay a TV licensing fee for the privilege, in a very real sense funding the corporate-government's propagandizing of their own, and their childrens', minds. Now that's good, indeed superb, (nominal) citizenship!

Social optimists (and the propagandists whom they tend to be unable to see as propagandists, incapable as they often are of distinguishing between fact and fiction, the two having been stirred into one war-on-terror solution) like to refer to this mutually imbibed TV experience as the social glue which keeps us stuck to one another so that we can do culturally crucial things like chatter empty phrases at "the apocryphal water-cooler". In other words, to keep us from the dangerous society-splintering activity of having – and sharing – serious, meaningful thoughts.

Anyway, without further ado, here's Deborah Orr singing the Sirens' call for more of that which ails us, and who seems as shameless in her glorifying all things TV as Bush, Blair and Brown (Obama too?) were in spreading freedom and democracy. To check in with how the latter benevolent pursuit is going, click here for the latest Iraqi death count. I'm afraid, however, that you'll have to look elsewhere for evidence which gives a sense of the literally countless deaths in Afghanistan, to say nothing of Gaza, Pakistan and the various other places where our Anglo-American lifestyle apparently requires continual mass murder.

Do yourself, your family, and democracy (an as yet far-from-attained vision; don't let Obama, his Israeli chief of staff, or the compliant US/UK press convince you otherwise) a favor and pull the plug on your TV. Far better yet, throw the damn thing away. Whatever you do don't give it as a hand-me-down gift to someone you love. Consider sending it, instead, to Deborah Orr and her husband. I'd much rather they continue to dummy themselves down, not you.

By the way, the below headline and subheading come directly from The Independent. As the saying goes, I couldn't make this stuff up.

*****
Suddenly, we are all taking television more seriously

There is a desire for TV that can be shared around the apocryphal water-cooler

by Deborah Orr
The Independent
January 29, 2009

For me, one detail in the messy, horrible death of the rock star Jimi Hendrix at 27 years old, has always stood out. Early in his distress, he left a message asking for help on the answering machine of his agent. An answering machine! In 1970! How modern.

No one really needs answering machines any longer. In fact, if you leave someone a message on an answering machine, particularly at their home, they are likely to call you back weeks later, explaining that they are dreadfully sorry, but they have got out of the habit of listening to their messages. If you need to impart some significant information to someone these days, then you call them on their mobile or email. I don't even have an answering machine any longer.

I am not, in the parlance, an early adopter. I can – and have – resisted technologies until they have been overtaken by obsolescence. Perversely, I take some pride in this. So I felt only mild shame last Sunday, when it became apparent that my husband and I didn't have the technology we needed to be able to watch Generation Kill on FX.

Generation Kill is a drama about the invasion of Iraq and is written by the team that made The Wire, which was also broadcast in this country by FX. The Wire is lauded by many as one of the finest television drama series ever to have been created, and it is a pity that it was initially seen, communally, by such a small number of viewers.

Yet while my husband and I had been quite happy to watch the The Wire on DVD, we surprised ourselves this weekend by making an urgent call to our supplier, asking for our cable package to be immediately updated, because we just didn't want to wait to watch at our own leisure.

Yesterday, the reason for our sudden shift in viewing priorities became crystal clear. It's a reaction to the recession. A report this week from the TV marketing organisation, Thinkbox, confirmed that 2008 has been a record year for television watching, with British viewers watching an average of 26-and-a-quarter hours of broadcast television each week.

The report suggested that the popularity of the X Factor, which reached ratings highs last year, had been a contributing element, along with bad weather. But other statistics, such as BSkyB acquiring 171,000 new customers over Christmas, are being explained as the consequence of a heightened reliance on television for entertainment during the economic downturn.

For Sky, this is great news. The satellite broadcaster announced a 26 per cent increase in first-half profits, and also said it planned to recruit 1,000 engineers and call centre staff in a push to get more people to sign up for high definition TV. So, jobs for people to do, things for them to buy with their wages, and healthy audiences for advertisers to target their wares at. It makes a change from news of unremitting gloom on all these fronts.

Certainly, there are many people who might query the idea that more people at home on their sofas slumped in front of the telly could ever be a cause for celebration. But there are signs that the trend might turn out to be culturally beneficial as well as economically positive. The chief executive of Thinkbox, Tess Alps, is mainly interested in numbers. "The broadcast audience may not always be watching the same programme at the same time, as it did when there were a handful of channels," she says. "But viewers haven't gone anywhere."

Alps also noted that the huge growth in viewing online and on-demand, through services such as the BBC's iPlayer, has been in addition to traditional viewing habits, usually to catch up on programmes that have been missed. The effect of digital video recorders, such as Sky+ was the same. The technology increased TV viewing, rather than just moving it about.

All this evidence conspires to suggest that viewers might be taking their television more seriously. Early on in the rise of satellite and cable television there was a sense that viewing had become atomised, and conditional. Trawling though pages and pages of listings seemed like a fag, and people tended to plan less what they wanted to watch. The habit of knowing when notable new shows were being broadcast became so unusual, that some newspapers dropped their television review pages completely.

Less serious viewing, one could argue, led a demand for less serious programming. For a long time, when I wanted to watch TV, I would just plonk myself down, pick up the remote, and surf until something appealed to me. Usually, this would mean watching something that was already familiar – like a repeat of Friends – or something that was easy to get into – like a conventionally formatted makeover show. The tailend of documentaries I'd missed the start of, or a drama in mid-series, anything that looked, at a glance, hard to get into, was rejected.

Gradually, though, as the media itself has got to grips with multi-channel telly, and has started to run features about upcoming shows, such as Generation Kill, that are being broadcast on relatively obscure channels, I've begun tailoring my viewing again, and it makes for a more satisfactory relationship with the medium.

This might be part of a more general trend. It is acknowledged that one of the things that people love about the X Factor, or Strictly Coming Dancing, is that the whole family watches it, and enjoys the fact that this communality spills over into other aspects of life. Sure, it was a bit barking that John Sergeant's resignation from Strictly was urgently discussed on Newsnight. But the frenzy around this one story might also speak of a more general desire for television that can be shared and discussed round the apocryphal water cooler.

Teenagers, for example, insist that the real must-see appeal of late-night comedy-drama Skins is not the sex and the drugs but the experience the next day, of having a cultural reference point that everyone can enjoy talking about. Presumably, the online or digital recorder viewing allows those who missed out on the night to slide seamlessly back into next week's conversation.

Yet the move towards more committed viewing is not confined to the young. The trend is reported among all ages. It would be good, for example, if the flurry of interest in Generation Kill that was fanned by widespread advance exposure in the press, persisted through the series in the form of week-to-week commentary.

I don't believe that listless channel-surfing is going to disappear, any more than the answering machine has disappeared. But the response to multi-channel TV, when it was a novelty to be tackled with the help only of a remote control and the baffling Videoplus, might be tempered as our brief reliance on the answering machine was, by further technologies that make targeted or sustained viewing less complicated. Perhaps the recession will give us time to get to grips with it all, and perhaps quality television that offers something valuable to the general debate will be the beneficiary

d.orr@independent.co.uk (Please feel free to write and suggest to Deborah that: 1) she and her husband get a life and 2) she stop trying to convince the rest of us to give ours up to the propaganda box.)