>> As soon as people start talking about 'realism' you can be >> sure that a really disgraceful performance is about to >> ensue. > > I agree, but it's also striking how much fantasywork, to create a Germanic > neologism, goes into these engagements with "realism."
Yes. I've always been struck by the central role the subjunctive mood plays in the structure of liberal self-justification. The entire apparatus is shored up with confident assertions about what 'would happen if' or what 'would have happened if'. Question these assertions and you're promptly ordered to predict the future yourself, or narrate past events in a parallel universe. It's a real asylum conversation: "Hello, I'm Napoleon Bonaparte." "No you're not." "Oho! I suppose YOU are Napoleon Bonaparte, then? Hah! A likely story!" _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
