Poshlust

What is Poshlust? I've narrowed it down to either: (a) A fixation on David Beckham's wife or (b) Deriving erotic pleasure from the performance of Peterborough United FC

Poshlust means kitsche, "bad art" except that it is applied to conventional art, as opposed to avant-garde bad art. 50's commercials would be poshlust. George Orwell is poshlust. Good ideas but bad art. It's a term coined by Nabokov to describe bad art posing as socially valid art. "Sea Biscuit" the movie would be poshlust. "The Mona Lisa Smile" would be poshlust. Stanley Kubrick's movies would be considered to be good art, in Nabokov's view. With George Bush in the White House, our art has become worse and worse. Michael Moore's movies are sheer, home-grown poshlust in the style of a moderate South Park episode.

I spy a first year student.

David: those are examples of Poshlost. If you turn to page 100 of the Vintage Edition of "Strong Opinions" by Vladimir Nabokov a.k.a. Vivien Darkbloom, you are given this definition of poshlust or poshlost by the master of 20th century prose himself: Anyone who says first year student gives away the ivies. *looking down on the page, rather amused, but smirking with a contemptuous sense of superiority* "Poshlust" or in a better transliteration poshlost, has many nuances and evidently I have not described them clearly enough in my little book on Gogol, if you think one can ask anybody if he is tempted by poshlost. Corny trash, vulgar cliches, Philistinism in all its phases, imitations of imitations, bogus profundities, crude, moronic and dishonest pseudo-literature-- these are obvious examples. Now, if you want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing we must look for in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic passages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know. Poshlost speaks in such concepts as "America is no better than Russia" or "We all share in Germany's guilt." The flowers of poshlost bloom in such phrases and terms as "the moment of truth," "charisma," "existential" (used seriously), "dialogue" (as applied to political talk between nations), and "vocabulary" ( as applied to a dauber). Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost. Belonging to a very select club (which sports one Jewish name--that of the treasurer) is genteel poshlost. Hack reviews are frequently poshlost, but it also lurks in certain highbrow essays. Poshlost calls Mr. Blank a great poet, and Mr. Bluff a great novelist. One of poshlost's favorite breeding places has always been the ART EXHIBITION; there it is produced by so-called sculptors working with the tools of wreckers, building crank... and of course "Death in Venice." Of course, I do not necessarily agree with Nabokov. Gem, I am a first-rate businessman and a second-rate poet and writer. As for you, I don't know if I can really say anything at all.

"Listing in one breath Auschwitz, Hiroshima, and Vietnam is seditious poshlost." So 'poshlost' means having a different political viewpoint to Nabokov. "Now, if you want to pin down poshlost in contemporary writing we must look for in Freudian symbolism, moth-eaten mythologies, social comment, humanistic passages, political allegories, overconcern with class or race, and the journalistic generalities we all know." Unavoidable then, unless you're fortunate enough to be a pretentious tosser.

I have not read/seen any Michael Moore (and don't intend going out of my way to do so)... but having heard him on various radio shows and on the TV agree that in essence he is no much different to those who he proffeses to attack... stupid white man indeed (a racist phrase I intensely dislike: I know perfectly well that there are stupid black men around too, why single out the stupid white men as being special?) Over time I have come less to differentiate people on the views they happen to hold at a particular moment in time, and more in the way they approach the aquisition of new opinions... and that ties in with self reflection and humility and the understanding that perceived truth is not a means to an end but a continual process of (self) discovery. No doubt you have some interesting things to say Steve, but if you wish to engage a wider discussion around your thoughts then I suggest you temper down your rarefied language so that us lesser mortals have a chance to understand what you are on about. I did like reading the Nabokov quote above...

Understood, llegspider. All I'm trying to say is that you can be as specific as you want to be, and yet, ideas are generallizations based on experiences, even abstract ideas are generalizations based on experience. We can surmise that a pink donkey exists because we have seen the same animal with different coloured skin (dogs). The pink donkey may simple exist in another universe or perhaps we are simply speaking of a donkey who has made a different lifestyle choice. It is sheer poshlost to suppose that everything is the same, same, same as Marxists presuppose. Everything does not have a economic basis, everything is not cause by class tensions, everything is not the result of an unequal social structure, ideas of exclusivity or anything else. A democracy is not where everyone agrees on an issue based on flimsy and even doctored evidence. I suppose that is poshlost. I don't know if Nabokov would have considered it poshlost to simply agree with his opinions. Nabokov admired Salinger, Borghes, and Beckett. He doesn't say anything about Saul Bellow, Virginia Woolf (who is into moths if not butterflies... moths are two steps removed from angels according to Woolf), Nadine Gordimor, Jayne Anne Phillips or any other writer. I suppose that Tolstoy could be considered socialist poshlost, but he regards him as the great Russian Writer, on par with Pushkin or even better. Lermontov, he skips over, and Dostoevsky who is certainly not poshlost, he considers to be an ideological socialist writer although much of Kafka (whom he considers a great genius) and Beckett are very much derivative of Dostoevskian emotions and themes. He himself writes his own version of the "Double" by Dostovesky. As for Sartre, he labels him a poor, masturbatory writer, an "emigre" writer who likes to toot his own torment, his own guilty conscience. It cannot be denied that Nabokov writes in a specific existential vein, and yet, he finds problems in exploring a non-ideological existentialism... he sees the world heading toward pornography and being, and the intellect can do nothing to stop this strange paradise from arriving. He wrote "Lolita" in a pre-hippy era, after Salinger came out with his infamous "Catcher in the Rye." Brando would soon rock the world with his performance in "Streetcar Named Desire" and the hipsters were arriving right on time, Malcolm X etc., Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs... all inspired by the more democratic Nabokov, Henry Miller.

I kind of see what you're saying, especially when it comes to Orwell - you mean art that seems to offer simple formulas for how to live, instead of facing the reality of experience? Comfort art? But David has a point. People talk in the language of ideas - what Nabakov would regard as bastardisations of experience are ways of transmitting ideas over narrow frequencies. If you insist on avoiding all the common languages - those of class, symbolism, mythology, allegory etc. - you will simply be received as 'a pretentious tosser'. Or, as Celan put it: "Should should a man should a man come into the world, today, with the shining beard of the patriarchs: he could, if he spoke of this time, he could only babble and babble over, over againagain" Language isn't language unless you can communicate meaning. Now, I'm well aware, as a poet, that there is no wholly common language - no way you can make everyone understand what you mean all the time. Writing poetry is like sending out messages in a bottle, because you avoid everyday terms and explore new ways of saying things. Similarly, Nabakov must have known that there was no way his theories could successfully be communicated to everyone - he sacrificed exposure for clarity. But you must admit that there is a use for what you term as 'poshlust' - we need broad but unprecise terms, and broad but unprecise art, in order to remain in contact with one another. Moore, for instance, stimulates thought and discussion on the topics he rants about. Because we all recognise him, and his relatively simple theories, we can come together on this messageboard and discuss them, perhaps in more complicated terms. The other thing is that the rendering of experience as ideas is an art in itself - it might not be as close to the truth as Nabakov wanted - but to create shared meaning through symbolism, dystopia etc. is still an act of creation, and there is no need to be snobbish about it.

An idea exists in a hypothetical reality (the reality of semantic constructs in the human mind) until it becomes actualized. So in one sense, in speaking (oral speech), we take the first step toward the actualization of an idea. General unprecise art, like the art of Orwell, is good in the sense that people can see any political system in his 1984... but what is the meaning of a metaphor when the metaphor becomes infinite (totalitarian states are metaphors for communist states are metaphors for capitalistic states and these are all states, therefore the state must be destroyed in order for the individual to become actualized... but, consider this, that is precisely what a conservative civil libertarian would say, privatize all things and expand all our liberties, make everything specific, contextual. The general idea, then, is dead.... and the state is nothing but an idea and a set of people who believe in those ideas.

I've thought that about Orwell for a long time. He's become a 'first base' for anyone trying to sound intelligent when they go on a rant - any law or system they don't like becomes 'Orwellian' because, as you say, the world of '1984' serves as a metaphor for any situation where one feels alienated or oppressed by the powers-that-be. It doesn't relate to a specific kind of state, so people see signs of it wherever there is disagreement with authority. *But*, and this is a big 'but', consider the value of Orwell as language. When people cite Orwell or '1984', they are usually trying to argue that something is tyrannical. The argument itself is unconvincing, but still the Orwell reference allows the communication of a feeling. What the person is actually saying is, "I feel like Winston in '1984'." Now, because most of us have read '1984', or know the gist of it, we know exactly what he means. We can imagine how he's feeling - the signal is crystal clear. Remember, of course, that the way the population are oppressed in '1984' is through the reduction of language - Newspeak. Feelings are not given credence because there is no way of describing them. So in providing us with a way of describing so clearly the way we feel about something, Orwell's '1984' has helped everyone make some progress against totalitarianism. And *that* is the value of poshlust art.