After several failed attempts to find an online copy in English of Theodor Adorno's 1949 essay, "Cultural Criticism in Society" in which he asserts that "to still write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric," I write this post with the knowledge that I am terribly uninformed about the actual meaning behind Adorno's words. I am also ignorant to the history of the discussion which has taken place about poetry after Auschwitz, but I will foolishly forge on in an attempt to further reflect upon the question that was raised in class.
In "A Defence of Poetry," Shelley asserts that, "The presence or absence of poetry in its most perfect and universal form has been found to be connected with good and evil in conduct and habit." Shelley believes that when a people are unethical, it is because they are not reading poetry. Poetry innately has the ability to enlarge and awaken the mind, "rendering it a receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought." Shelley grants to poetry the enormous responsibility of being the barometer by which we measure the health of a society. Since poetry teaches us to use our imagination, it essentially teaches us to live, giving us a new ethical foundation.
Yet, the Nazis, the executors of one of the most horrific genocides in the 20th century, were men "enlightened" by poetry (that which, according to Shelley, "makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world"). How is it that men of high class cultivation, exposed to the classics and the refining, redemptive words of poetry, could commit unimaginably atrocious acts against humanity? How is it that these people, the ones which Shelley trusts are subject to the majestic, transformational power of poetry to develop and inspire, have exemplified evil and depravity? In this sense, Adorno's assessment that it is nothing less than "barbaric" to seek out meaning in the reading and writing of poetry seems validated.
In another sense, I don't think that poetry has to be abandoned after Auschwitz for falling short of its understood aim of bettering humankind and expressing "the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds." We only need to reevaluate the lofty societal role that Shelley places upon poetry. While poetry may ultimately still have the potential to save the world, reflect the condition of a civilization, and inspire in us an imagination which leads to critical thinking and ethical living, it is not the sole medium which can achieve these things. The shortcomings of poetry cannot be held responsible for the horrific atrocities of the holocaust. The problem of evil, and the question of why good people can be led to do evil things, surpasses the power of poetry to provide our moral compass. I believe that poetry still possesses the potential for good and is not immoral, as others would suggest, but that it does not govern the health of a society. By all means should we continue producing and studying poetry for some of the very reasons that Shelley points out, but in pursuing the truth and beauty of poetry, we must not mistake poetry's role. It leads us to enlightenment, it enlarges our minds, and it develops imagination, but it does not solve or account for the problem of evil. It is not the sole measure of the goodness of a society. It cannot save us from ourselves or from the manipulable human condition.
In another class I am taking this semester, we read the introduction to a book by Philip Zimbardo, the famous psychologist behind the Standford Prison Experiment, entitled The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. I thought immediately of this text when we began discussing the notion of "After Auschwitz: No Poetry," and I believe that the situational forces that Zimbardo identifies behind evil do more to diagnose the health of a society than the presence or absence of poetry. In this introduction, Zimbardo lies out his thesis that people are motivated to do evil often times because of situational, rather than dispositional, forces. Whereas the traditional view assumed in order to understand the reasons behind evil acts has focused on "genetic makeup, personality traits, character, free will, and other dispositions," Zimbardo emphasizes the strong situational forces at work that may compel anyone to do evil. These forces include the transmission of powerful, top-down, dominant ideology through corruptive systems and the creation of an imagined "enemy" or "other" through stereotypes and dehumanizing techniques. While it may seem strange to mention Zimbardo while discussing Shelley's "Defence of Poetry," I think that it is important to acknowledge that even if poetry fulfilled the grandiose, essential societal role that Shelley ascribes to it, it alone could never overcome human weakness and susceptibility to manipulative situational forces. Poetry still might indeed have been "[adding] beauty to that which is most deformed", in Shelley's words, in the educated and elite Nazi society which produced the unthinkable evils of Auschwitz. Yet, the presence of poetry was not an adequate reflection of that society's health, let alone the sole, most important barometer which Shelley suggests. Any ethical foundation or imagination that poetry instills us with is subject to change under the correct combination of corruptive situational forces.
In "A Defence of Poetry," Shelley asserts that, "The presence or absence of poetry in its most perfect and universal form has been found to be connected with good and evil in conduct and habit." Shelley believes that when a people are unethical, it is because they are not reading poetry. Poetry innately has the ability to enlarge and awaken the mind, "rendering it a receptacle of a thousand unapprehended combinations of thought." Shelley grants to poetry the enormous responsibility of being the barometer by which we measure the health of a society. Since poetry teaches us to use our imagination, it essentially teaches us to live, giving us a new ethical foundation.
Yet, the Nazis, the executors of one of the most horrific genocides in the 20th century, were men "enlightened" by poetry (that which, according to Shelley, "makes immortal all that is best and most beautiful in the world"). How is it that men of high class cultivation, exposed to the classics and the refining, redemptive words of poetry, could commit unimaginably atrocious acts against humanity? How is it that these people, the ones which Shelley trusts are subject to the majestic, transformational power of poetry to develop and inspire, have exemplified evil and depravity? In this sense, Adorno's assessment that it is nothing less than "barbaric" to seek out meaning in the reading and writing of poetry seems validated.
In another sense, I don't think that poetry has to be abandoned after Auschwitz for falling short of its understood aim of bettering humankind and expressing "the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds." We only need to reevaluate the lofty societal role that Shelley places upon poetry. While poetry may ultimately still have the potential to save the world, reflect the condition of a civilization, and inspire in us an imagination which leads to critical thinking and ethical living, it is not the sole medium which can achieve these things. The shortcomings of poetry cannot be held responsible for the horrific atrocities of the holocaust. The problem of evil, and the question of why good people can be led to do evil things, surpasses the power of poetry to provide our moral compass. I believe that poetry still possesses the potential for good and is not immoral, as others would suggest, but that it does not govern the health of a society. By all means should we continue producing and studying poetry for some of the very reasons that Shelley points out, but in pursuing the truth and beauty of poetry, we must not mistake poetry's role. It leads us to enlightenment, it enlarges our minds, and it develops imagination, but it does not solve or account for the problem of evil. It is not the sole measure of the goodness of a society. It cannot save us from ourselves or from the manipulable human condition.
In another class I am taking this semester, we read the introduction to a book by Philip Zimbardo, the famous psychologist behind the Standford Prison Experiment, entitled The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. I thought immediately of this text when we began discussing the notion of "After Auschwitz: No Poetry," and I believe that the situational forces that Zimbardo identifies behind evil do more to diagnose the health of a society than the presence or absence of poetry. In this introduction, Zimbardo lies out his thesis that people are motivated to do evil often times because of situational, rather than dispositional, forces. Whereas the traditional view assumed in order to understand the reasons behind evil acts has focused on "genetic makeup, personality traits, character, free will, and other dispositions," Zimbardo emphasizes the strong situational forces at work that may compel anyone to do evil. These forces include the transmission of powerful, top-down, dominant ideology through corruptive systems and the creation of an imagined "enemy" or "other" through stereotypes and dehumanizing techniques. While it may seem strange to mention Zimbardo while discussing Shelley's "Defence of Poetry," I think that it is important to acknowledge that even if poetry fulfilled the grandiose, essential societal role that Shelley ascribes to it, it alone could never overcome human weakness and susceptibility to manipulative situational forces. Poetry still might indeed have been "[adding] beauty to that which is most deformed", in Shelley's words, in the educated and elite Nazi society which produced the unthinkable evils of Auschwitz. Yet, the presence of poetry was not an adequate reflection of that society's health, let alone the sole, most important barometer which Shelley suggests. Any ethical foundation or imagination that poetry instills us with is subject to change under the correct combination of corruptive situational forces.
1 comment:
I love the links you put together here, Heather. Just very nice. Things I've heard of before, but never thought to bring together. To some degree Shelley the Romantic wants to believe in the essential integrity of the individual human spirit over and against the sway of the crowd. This is a nice thing to believe in, but does it work in practice. A lot of stuff shows that mob psychologies are very hard to turn aside when you are in the midst of them. I especially like the example in Reading Lolita in Tehran where Nafisi talks about getting caught up in the mob emotions surrounding the death of the Ayatolla Khomeini, a man toward whom she felt no allegiance, but whose death she mourned uncontrollably in the midst of the mob. Interestingly, Nafisi posits literature as something that creates us as individuals apart from this kind of mob psychology, but I wonder if her own example doesn't suggest something otherwise.
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