Comments 3: Matt said...
(See Reply #3, posted separately in this thread)Matt Koeske
June 8, 2008 2:56 PM
Matt said... Regarding being banned from forums, although I have never been banned from a poetry forum, I have been banned from a Jungian psychology forum and for reasons much less contentious even than those surrounding Christopher's banning (in my opinion). I simply voiced three things that these particular Jungians could not collectively tolerate: 1.) I dared to disagree and criticize some of Jung's ideas and writings that I saw as dated and in need of modernization, 2.) I voiced my own tendency toward atheism and my criticism of the spiritualism and religiosity that many Jungians took for granted and I worried was a wrong-turning (as it came with the dismissal of science), and although I did not do this with any kind of evangelism at all, it evoked a great deal of anger in the true believers of the community, and 3.) I argued for the value of dissenting opinions in any intellectual community, because without them, no progressive discussions could occur. Part of this arguing for the value of dissidents and contrary opinions included a protest against the personally abusive attacks some of the moderators made against me . . . and in lieu of any actual response or counterarguments to my initial arguments.
I was eventually banned immediately after writing a PM to one of the admins in which I brought a grievance against a couple of the moderators who had issued personal attacks publicly against me for ideological reasons (where I never instigated or engaged in any personal attacks of them). I merely asked that this sort of thing cease, as it was both hurtful and made the community look bad. The banning was never explained or justified to me. No discussion with the admins took place. I merely was informed in one sentence via e-mail that I was banned. No mention of my banning or any explanation was given publicly on the site.
Shortly after this (and taking a somewhat different approach than Christopher has taken), I started my own Jungian psychology forum. Perhaps fearing that their mistreatment of me could no longer be silenced and swept under a carpet, the admin who banned me quickly reinstated me (I had not asked for such a reinstatement). But, I had no interest in returning to a community that would ban me for ideological reasons . . . nor any interest in waging a war with them. My interest was in pushing Jungian thinking into the 21st century . . . and that is what my forum has been dedicated to doing.
From the very beginning of the conflict between Christopher Woodman and Poets.org, I recommended to him that he not waste his time on fighting with them, because I felt that he only sullied himself in the act. But I have to admit that Christopher's persistence (although not something I would personally choose to emulate) and outrage, although somewhat martyrous, has continued to shine a light on a wrong that was done to him and which was essentially advocated by the Academy of American Poets, if only indirectly. In this battle, there has been a bit too much of the "if it bleeds it leads" approach for my taste . . . but if that is what gets people's attention and brings them to consider the nature of PoBiz society and its problems and dangers, so be it.
What I like about Christopher's outraged approach to this injustice most of all is his self-presentation of utter innocence. One can scrutinize this, of course. It is a persona, in my opinion, but not a lie. That is, we might speculate about whether or not this Woodman fellow is really as innocent as he presents himself, but what is, I feel, true is that such innocence and outrage should live and live furiously within all of us and be as shocked and offended by the dehumanizing treatment of poets (especially aspiring poets) in the PoBiz as Christopher's voice has been. Still, what makes his voice most compelling and perhaps universal is that this Christopher Woodman is an old, ex-pat who has no real ties to PoBiz indoctrination. He is like an utter alien who stepped into this sordid system with the "naive" expectation of being treated with normal, humane respect. He is expressing the outrage of what it feels like to be an intelligent and self-respecting human being who is "handled" in conventional PoBiz ways. We may think that he protests too much or exaggerates, but his voice on these matters is, I feel, a distillation of the human, unindoctrinated poet that has suffered so severely under the PoBiz "regime". This is a reflection of the voice in all of us that has been shamed into obedience and silence. So if Christopher cries out louder than we might find "seemly", good for him and good for us. This shamed human poet in all of us, the one that thinks big ideas and feels powerful emotions and embraces romantic and dire ambitions, deserves its all too rare champions more than anything else in poetry today. This is the poetic voice and self that has been exiled and stomped out by the current PoBiz, academic system that commodifies and specializes the art form of poetry out of public existence. I think that the way we, as individuals, react to this voice is a reflection of the sense of valuation for our humanness and vision that we yet retain, even if it is ailing under the influence of PoBiz indoctrination.
For me, the skirmish with Poets.org and the Academy of American Poets is the smaller issue. What is most important about Christopher's protests and persistence is the championing of the disparaged and neglected innocent poetic and human voice which I feel is the most essential sun and gravitational mass around which the real poet's planetary system revolves. Without this voice and without its cultivation and championing, one is not, cannot be a poet . . . but only a scholar of poetry, an academic specialist divorced from the reality, burden, and drive of being a true individual creator and artist.
-Matt
June 8, 2008 3:11 PM
Anonymous said... Many who love poetry look at ‘foetry politics’ and say, ‘but what’s this got to do with poetry? If editors and poets use creative marketing and fund-raising methods which are not pure as the driven snow, if coteries exist in which friends support each other, so what? This has always been done and always will be done, and there are enough honest platforms out there for poetry, so what’s the big deal? If I really love poetry, why should I care about this nonsense? It’s trivial to me.’
Poets.net probably needs to answer this question.
Corruption is more wide-spread than anyone realizes.
Po-biz is very, very small and almost all the coteries are connected, and if you don’t happen to belong to one of these coteries, you really will lose out on a slice of the pie.
'Group-think’ permeates po-biz, due to the existence of coteries. This is a subtle point, because it is true that coteries and ‘group-think’ which arises due to coterie behavior is normal and there is nothing wrong with it, per se.
However, since poetry does suffer from a severe lack of open markets (because poetry doesn’t sell on its own and requires university subsidy and fees collected from contests which are run and won and judged by a relatively small group, consisting largely of these defined coteries) this ‘group-think’ does stifle free discourse, not from any conspiracy, but simply from the nature of coterie group-think, which, again, is quite normal.
“Group-think’ is really a misnomer, because ‘thinking’ isn’t really what occurs; it’s really a non-thinking gesture which prevails, an irritation with lively and original investigation; any ‘thinking outside the box’ is viewed with suspicion, since the insularity of 'group-think' is unconsciously rewarded and defended for the survival of what is essentially an entity which exists accidentally, not out of any necessity.
Coteries exist for themselves, not for the sorting and processing and development of new knowledge, and too much activity in the ‘knowledge’ area sends out warning signals to the coterie or club. Coteries always appear ‘innocent,’ precisely because they are ‘accidental’ (they contain persons X, Y, and Z for various social reasons, and most, if not all, are perfectly healthy reasons).
Coteries are ‘innocent,’ because they exist, not abstractly, but socially; they have no agenda beyond, ‘these are my friends and we together doing what we love.’
These ‘innocent persons’ are the first to protest when ‘necessity’ is introduced: “You are nothing but a coterie, you are not helping poetry, per se, poetry requires a more systematic investigation of…” These sorts of comments are those which immediately send up the flags, and this, in a nutshell, characterizes the current struggle between “Foets and anti-Foets” in poetry, today.
The coteries react with ‘innocent’ indignation (‘you hate us merely because we exist’) and the outsiders reply, ‘yes we hate you because you exist (for yourselves) merely.’
What gives the debate outlined above even more momentum is the following: The coteries become more and more enamored of the 'friendly' nature of the coterie-process and gradually become less enamored with intellectual debate and process, while the outsiders continue to become more enamored with intellectual debate and process, resenting more and more the friendly nature of the coterie process.
The rift widens, and the two sides become more and more irritated with the signals given off by either side. The coteries can smell the type who is ‘desperate for argument,’ while the outsiders feel they are quickly labeled a ‘troublemaker’ for daring to argue about anything substantial. The ‘anti-argument’ and the ‘argument’ sides solidify into their respective identities, and the end result is that the coteries grow more and more anti-intellectual while the outsiders grow more and more ferociously intellectual and argumentative; but even worse, the status quo of the coteries, in order to secure intellectual respect, will strive to be intellectual in highly bizarre and technical ways, while the outsiders, striving to appear friendly, to make up for a lack in that regard, turn timid and acquiescent--thus both the outsider’s passion AND the inquisitive intellectuality of the insider’s coterie-status quo become diminished to such an extent, that poetry loses even the minor edge it once possessed.
A great dishonesty finally prevails, with coteries pretending to be intellectual in more and more Byzantine ways, scaring more and more laypersons away, while poetry outsiders fall into toothless and ‘out-of-touch’ impotency.
Since poetry is ‘market impotent’ in general, coteries come and go fairly quickly, even occasionally receiving new blood from the quarrelsome, anti-social outsider.
So the rift exists in the first place, then becomes diminished, and sometimes disappears, but in a process, as described above, which damages poetry as a social entity and as an art.
Discussion within poetry loses effectiveness, for no one is talking to each other about poetry with an independent spirit; fashionable theories and ideas are repeated and shallowly discussed, everyone looks to each other, attempting to get clues as to what to say next, radical anti-intellectual statements are allowed to pass, since no one is prepared, to defend, in any substantive manner, any intellectual idea or principle, the whole of this idea having been eroded by groups staking out positions in the manner described above.
So here we are back to where we started: “for no one is talking to each other about poetry” and this was the initial complaint upon which I launched this commentary. It may be pointed out that I am guilty of the same thing, since here, at some length, I am demonstrating the problem of which I complain: verbosity which has nothing to with poetry; but the careful reader will see that I am clearing ground so that discussion of poetry might exist in a more fruitful manner; and also I would remind the reader that poetry can not be boiled down to ‘itself;’ the structure of po-biz will always matter, just as who writes the canon and the textbooks and the reviews and who writes the poetry, will always matter, beyond ‘the poetry’ itself.
Monday Love
June 9, 2008 12:25 PM
Anonymous said... Socrates and Christopher are golden souls who provoke in a selfless manner: martyrs who die for others.Oh, get a grip.
June 9, 2008 11:03 PM
Anonymous said... Anonymous,
Don't like Socrates?
Christopher did not literally 'die;' it's a metaphor. He 'died' on Poets.org for trying to speak the truth.
It doesn't sound like you read the whole post.
Monday Love
June 15, 2008 8:08 PM
Anonymous said... • Have you ever felt stifled on a writing forum? If so, how? (Feel free to name names and specific writing forums).
I don’t know that I’ve “felt” stifled—in that I generally say whatever I want to say, even knowing that it won’t be popular. But I have been stifled. (see next question)
• Have you ever been banned from a writing forum? If so, why? (If you're not sure why, offer your best guess.)
I have been banned from one poetry workshop forum for defending another poster who had also been banned, without warning, for being too “harsh” with critique.
• On some forums, does the application of forum rules/guidelines seem to offer more leeway for administrators, moderators, and forum "pets"? If so, offer some examples. (Feel free to name names and specific writing forums).
Sure. I'd say it's probably almost universally true for a writing forum in which the administrators/moderators are also forum participants. You're just not an equal participant in the conversation when you make the rules, carry the stick, and are the one to offer the carrot.
The biggest issues that I see resulting from this are:
1) Moderators/administrators receive unduly positive, focused attention on their own posts/opinion/work because there is pressure to "kiss-up" to staff.
2) The moderator's social group receives preferential treatment in the application of forum guidelines. Other participants are punished for doing/saying the same kinds of things as the In Crowd.
3) The moderator's opinion may unreasonably influence the tide of comments. More a problem of weak constitution in posters than moderators, probably.
• In your opinion, should some forum topics be off-limits? If so, what topics should writing forums avoid altogether?
Nope. That's like saying some topics should be off-limit for poetry.
• Should forums allow for anonymous (for example, with no name or alias) discussion? Why or why not?
We go back and forth on this all the time, don’t we? Yes, probably they should. The biggest reason cited for forbidding anonymity is that it lessens personal responsibility and increases the tendency for virulence. Using the same name on a forum that you use to report to your boss, speak to your family, or publish your work does, obviously, mean that you are more conscious of a general public eye judging your behavior. So you’re probably less likely to act in a socially reprehensible manner.
But it also means less information. Working poets posting under their real names will surely be less likely to share honest criticism about journals, contests, editors, and peer poets. They’ll be less likely to post honest thoughts about published books of poetry (if they feel this criticism will in some way hurt them professionally). If the poster is using his “real life name,” he may be less likely to post politically or socially radical work, to post biographical narratives, or to write openly about topics which might impact his family or employment (sex, crime, abortion, whatever). If you tell someone they must create a permanent “persona” associated with their name, it seems likely that you will get a whitewashed version of the true, flawed human.
However, I do think that it is STRONGER and possibly more ethical to speak from a named position, to identify yourself openly. It’s just tough!
• Should forum members be allowed to discuss the policies and behaviors of other forums? Why or why not?
Yes. Self-criticism is always vital to growth and change. As participants in a broad arena of critical community and poetry-based discourse, we ought to engage in broader discussions about how and why we do the things we do.
• Should forums that accept government funds be required to follow at least a limited "Public Forum Doctrine" policy*? Why or why not?
I think they should be held to some standard regarding free initial access—although violation of forum policies could still result in termination of free access.
• How would you define "libel"?
Yeah, right.
June 16, 2008 1:38 PM
