Because art cannot survive the banal disfigurements of want, it has to throw off the burden of pity

Sentimental novels, which depict human beings lifted out of misery through virtue and the generosity of others, or ruined through vice, assuaged the consciences of readers who wanted to solve political problems through tricks of perspective and scale. Modernist novels, on the other hand, which are sometimes accused of abandoning politics in favor of subjectivism, actually brought to full flower the unsentimental novel, which is based on the extrapolation of crime. From the standpoint of crime, the beggar has the potential to become a thief, and to revenge himself freely on his oppressors, by doing so excessively, far beyond the sympathetic limit of need. The ruling class is revealed to be dependent on the underclass, not only in the acquisition of wealth, but even through its defining pleasure in philanthropy and vicarious criminality.

The unsentimental novel has no need for pity because it is revolutionary. An absolute commitment to art announces, in its moments of lucidity, its nature as crime. (It also reveals, where it becomes intentionally confused, the victim to be the missing term.) Because art cannot survive the banal disfigurements of want, it has to throw off the burden of pity by becoming monstrous. It follows its own laws by transgressing against love and retreating into an unfeeling solitude. Thus it pierced the veil that separates the subjective experience of alienation from its sources in hideous poverty, hideous ugliness, and hideous starvation. Thank you very much. Filed under: Philosophy, pop culture, The Valve, Literature, Politics, Art, Movies, Music