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I just read a lengthy review in the Times Literary Supplement of a book that, according to the review, advances the quirky notion that fiction--all fiction--somehow is a paean to the free marketplace. The book is called Fiction Sets You Free, by Russell Berman. I haven't read the book. For one thing, it costs $42.50, and I doubt it will show up many places besides university libraries.
Berman's thesis appears to be that the human act of writing down a story, even the first ones millennia ago, is one of the foundation stones of free market capitalism. Primitive oral literature, recited to a group, apparently is a sort of socialistic enterprise. In contrast, the individual act of composing a written story represents a key foundation of the notion of individual freedom. Eventually this kind of individualism leads inexorably to capitalistic free markets. He even states that the market economy is "most definitely the precondition for artistic freedom." (What?)
Now, this hypothesis seems preposterous when laid out this way. On the other hand, I think I do see Berman's point buried in his hyperbole. That is, a lone individual creating a story and writing it down is akin to somebody beginning any other sort of risky enterprise--risky because the author never knows how it will be received.
Here are some additional tidbits from the review:
"[Berman] insists that cultural trends are epiphenomenal reflections of economic interests [that actually sounds kind of Marxist to me]. Anti-Americanism is “really” anti-capitalism, and in Fiction Sets You Free, Berman suggests that anti-capitalism is the true source of an intellectual anti-humanism which opposes imagination, enterprise, even literature itself. His argument is based on the thesis that literature assumes, and thus helps to create, a capitalist mentality in the reader. He is convinced that, by its very nature, literature “contribute to the value structure and virtues of a capitalist economy”, and to “the dissemination of capitalist behavior”, because all fictional writing “cultivates the imaginative prowess of entrepreneurial vision”. It does this, Berman suggests, simply because it is not true. By describing situations other than those that actually pertain, “literature imposes an economic choice on the reader”. All fictional texts are thus “indispensable sources for capitalist psychology” because they address themselves “to entrepreneurial risk takers who have the will to imagine”.
Anyway, I suppose it's about time that we had right-wing literary criticism. And the review did make me think about fiction in new ways. I recommend you give it a look.
Berman's thesis appears to be that the human act of writing down a story, even the first ones millennia ago, is one of the foundation stones of free market capitalism. Primitive oral literature, recited to a group, apparently is a sort of socialistic enterprise. In contrast, the individual act of composing a written story represents a key foundation of the notion of individual freedom. Eventually this kind of individualism leads inexorably to capitalistic free markets. He even states that the market economy is "most definitely the precondition for artistic freedom." (What?)
Now, this hypothesis seems preposterous when laid out this way. On the other hand, I think I do see Berman's point buried in his hyperbole. That is, a lone individual creating a story and writing it down is akin to somebody beginning any other sort of risky enterprise--risky because the author never knows how it will be received.
Here are some additional tidbits from the review:
"[Berman] insists that cultural trends are epiphenomenal reflections of economic interests [that actually sounds kind of Marxist to me]. Anti-Americanism is “really” anti-capitalism, and in Fiction Sets You Free, Berman suggests that anti-capitalism is the true source of an intellectual anti-humanism which opposes imagination, enterprise, even literature itself. His argument is based on the thesis that literature assumes, and thus helps to create, a capitalist mentality in the reader. He is convinced that, by its very nature, literature “contribute
Anyway, I suppose it's about time that we had right-wing literary criticism. And the review did make me think about fiction in new ways. I recommend you give it a look.
It's highly likely that adults three generations from now will be able to replace diseased organs with those grown from their own stem-cells, but much less likely that any of us will -- if our lungs fail today, for instance, we die. I know plenty of people who can never lead the country I live in because of their spiritual beliefs, and I can't drive a car without the use of spectacles.