1940s Communists and the Soviet Union

When news of the Soviet Union’s forced-labor camps broke out to the larger world, communists and Soviet sympathizers needed to work out their cognitive dissonance. This excerpt is about an article by Merleau-Ponty, signed by Sartre, that attempted to do that.

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The “decadence of Russian communism does not make the class struggle a myth, ‘free enterprise’ possible or desirable, or the Marxist criticism in general null and void.” What was most important for Sartre was his support of two popular claims. First, the article reasserted Marxism’s “humane inspiration,” meaning that he and Merleau-Ponty had “the same values as a Communist.” Second, “whatever the nature of the present Soviet society may be, the USSR is on the whole situation, in the balance of powers, on the side of those who are struggling against the forms of exploitation known to us.” The labor camps marred, but did not cancel, the Soviet Union’s progressive place in the world.

-- Ronald Aronson, “Camus and Sartre”

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The Work Behind Art

We have an article about little reference work titled "Daily Rituals: How Artists Work" by Mason Currey. I grabbed a couple of quotations for myself.

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“All serious artists, no matter how they work — whether at dawn or midnight, whether indoors or out, clothed or naked, intoxicated or sober — share one trait. They work.”

-- Anthony Doerr

“Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.”

-- Chuck Close

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[Source: Anthony Doerr, "A Year in Reading"]

My Life

So much for the morning writing! Or for the post-nap afternoon writing, for that matter. Maybe you just cannot really routinize such a thing. Motivation is key, and if you are not feeling it, then the music just isn't going to happen. Or am I just rationalizing? If you are really serious about it, maybe you just have to bring a professional-level of self-discipline to the enterprise: treat it like it is your job and meal-ticket. You start at seven or eight in the morning, sitting at your keyboard and looking at the page, shutting everything else out of your life - not even books for reading should be on hand, much less e-mail or websites, and no TV or radio either - and you just tap-tap-tappity away for a few hours or till lunch. I am not that serious about it. Yet, such an idea still has a certain sway of temptation for me, as I continue to feel as though there is something inside of me that is worthy of being let out, if I will only give it a chance and work at it, but I probably need to have something more in mind than just writing about my stagnant, rancid life in journal entries.

I am making only one concession to my desire to write more seriously. Instead of writing a journal entry in one sitting, I am keeping it open for a couple of days, maybe longer, so that I can build on it as well as shape and polish it, as if to make it a more finished piece of writing. I do not know if it is worth this kind of time and trouble. Is "tap-tap-tappity" the best I can come up with? One can see how it might be better, if only for my own sense of dignity, to simply refrain. Leave it to the pros and don't try this at home!

When it comes to writing, maybe I should stick to grocery lists and reminder-notes, but writing is as close as I have ever come to feeling artful and smart. What else can I do with myself? Just reading books leaves me feeling a little empty. Getting a job still seems to be out of the question, even though this is probably my greatest error, since a job means money, which, in our world, is even more important than art. All my life I have wrapped up my self-identity around the curious notion that I am a writer, albeit without a publication or a byline or even a manuscript, and now that I am turning fifty years old in a few months, it feels too late to change now. I cannot see myself spending my days bagging groceries or washing restaurant dishes, not in a world of plutocratic millionaires and billionaires. I have walked this fool's path long enough that I suppose I will just have to die as a fool.

I find myself exclaiming, yet again, "What a joke I have made of my life!" It is a nice, warm feeling to give way to humility in a self-abasing confessional, with that sense of coming clean, clearing the way for a fresh start. But this is not entirely fair to myself. After all, if I had it to do over again, I still cannot imagine doing anything differently. I am not a success and this is not happiness, but there is a soulful satisfaction in my unrewarded reading and writing. I was always too feo - too ugly and too much injun - to find satisfaction in a regular life with a basic job and such friends. Even though I do not have a first-rate brain in my skull, the only road left to me was to pursue the life of the mind. I had parents that were willing to let me do that, and although this road has its own bumps and ugly sights, I believe I made the most of my meager opportunities, and in the end, I do not truly feel all that bad about my life. It is just very lonely and there is not a lot of respect in it.