On Monday I gave a talk to a couple of senior high school classes as part of National Poetry Month. The title of my talk was "Hyper-Conflation", and what follows is a transcribed excerpt from its middle-section.
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Among the questions I've been asked by [your teacher] to speak on today is: If poetry is important to me, if I want poetry to be part of my life, can I make a living from it?
The long answer is Yes. An unqualified Yes. Unqualified, in part, because it runs counter to my own experience, plus I no longer believe in "a living." What I have to offer you who are growing up in a world so different from the one I grew up in is an authoritarian approach. An authoritarian approach because that is the path to making a living of anything these days. Even soldiering. Especially soldiering, which includes police work, convoy riding and espionage. And by espionage I'm speaking of it in its most informal form. Like when your parents ask you to do something and you say you don't want to because every time you bend over to pull a weed the neighbour peeks over the fence to get a better look. Telling your parents that, regardless of whether it is true or not, has a name. Does anyone know the name of this method? Hands? Yes.
Counter-intelligence?
Exactly. Counter-intelligence. You are looking for a particular result or results, and in order to get it or them you put in motion something of your own invention, in the hope that what results from that result or results can produce a favourable outcome or outcomes. This is -- and it has been this way for some time now -- the operative mode of neoliberal political economy and its hands-on equivalent when it comes to ruling not just the page or the skatepark or the yoga studio, but the masses, the land they live on, pay taxes on, even the land that has been stolen from them. I'm speaking of expansion. Expansion. E-X-P-A-N-S-I-O-N. Expansion. Also known as Growth. Or in its most covert form: Networking.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. We can't forget the poem, right? Even if we don't know where it is we can't forget it. Right? Anyone want to take a stab at where the poem is? Hands? Yes, you in the maroon hoodie.
The poem begins with the invention, then the result or results, and ends with the outcome or outcomes.
Everyone agree? Hands? Hands up those who agree. Almost half the class. Forty-six-point-eight percent. Well, you lost the election. You're not wrong, you just lost. Any questions? Again in the maroon hoodie.
They didn't lose.
Okay, elaborate.
I will, but do you know why?
I do. But do you? And please bear in mind that I'm not satisfied with your previous response. I am not satisfied because though the elements are right, the order is wrong. You begin -- the poem begins -- with the outcome or outcomes, then the invention, and then the result or results. That is the narrative.
You're right. I got the order wrong.
Getting the order wrong can turn a bad poem into a great software tutorial, and we don't want that!
[laughter]
The result is finding a way of never having to weed the lawn again. A second result is an opportunity to disgrace someone who you and others important to you have deemed unworthy, and that is a neighbour who happens to be a principal in an oil and gas exploration company. The invention is an action designed to activate an unspoken anxiety your parents have about the purity of your mind and body -- in this instance, your neighbour making an effort to look every time you bend over and, because you notice this effort, are horrified by it, if not permanently traumatized. The outcome is no more weeding the lawn. The second outcome is an aspersion cast on someone who is contributing to the death of the planet.
[applause]
But you got another thing wrong. You got another thing wrong when you admitted that you got the order wrong. The poem is never wrong: it is simply too difficult for those who don't know how to experience it. Remember that. The poem is never wrong. If it comes out as you said -- in public -- you have to stick by it, work with it. And the best way to do that is to recognize that the best way to extricate yourself, to move forward, is the introduction of a new outcome, and a second outcome that could well be taking me down as a subversive in my attempt to radicalize you. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The equation I wrote on the board during [your teacher]'s introduction is a Theory of Counter-Intelligence. But before I go through it with you, I'm going to write down another theory -- a Theory of Charisma -- which I will, with your help, endeavour to discuss with you as to why the two are related. This is what I'm calling the FIRST INSTANCE OF HYPER-CONFLATION.
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