INDG 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Totalitarianism, Opiate
9 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Opium and Hitler
- Hitler as an ethical opiate
- Giving a universal alibi
- Giving the allies their claim to have won freedom which justifies their own excesses
- “It Uses Us!” ethically evacuated world
- How does this show us authoritarian psychology?
o “festered kiss”
▪ Promise of fascism or Hitler but darkness that underlies it
o Imagination that’s governing the whole volume
o Rot that underpins monuments and institutions
- What precipitates the second-last stanza where he screams and reaches for his history fix?
o Way towards totalitarian government
▪ If one law can be broken all can be
o There are no boundaries now since we found one can be broken
o Reaches to history dose to reassure him
o Unfolding narrative he cannot change
▪ History dose makes him feel he can mold things
▪ Best met with a dose of history
o Other opiate is the negress with an appetite who makes him think he isn’t white
o Positioned in this discourse of a subject under totalitarianism who doesn’t want to
think about his ethical responsibilities
- How can we bridge from these post-modern poems one of which is a discourse on
language failing us to another on ethical discourse?
- How can we bridge from these poems which have urgent historical questions and to
others that most consciousness that can be put into is momentary?
I Had it for a Moment
- What did he have for a moment?
- What is “it”?
- More applicable question: Who is the audience? Who is the “you”?
- Need to register in the poem the breakdown of the paradigm
- Knows there’s something he needs to be saying but it’s gone
- One part that is gone can be thought of in terms of his earlier poetry
- Now he seems to want to derail the project
- The speaker doesn’t know what to say
o Insufficiency of language
- It as any sufficient statement of outrage
o Total message he wishes his book could deliver but that the poem acknowledges
the vast distance between the statement he wishes to make and the words he has
to use
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Document Summary
Giving the allies their claim to have won freedom which justifies their own excesses. It uses us! ethically evacuated world: festered kiss , promise of fascism or hitler but darkness that underlies it, imagination that"s governing the whole volume, rot that underpins monuments and institutions. What precipitates the second-last stanza where he screams and reaches for his history fix: way towards totalitarian government. Need to register in the poem the breakdown of the paradigm. One part that is gone can be thought of in terms of his earlier poetry. Now he seems to want to derail the project. The speaker doesn"t know what to say: insufficiency of language. It as any sufficient statement of outrage: total message he wishes his book could deliver but that the poem acknowledges the vast distance between the statement he wishes to make and the words he has to use.
