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A review by halschrieve
The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning by Maggie Nelson
4.0
Maggie Nelson is smart and I like her takes on the Christian and Buddhist literature she analyzes along with popular media in questioning the role cruelty and expressions of cruelty have in the modern Western world. I think she is a smart person. She has good and interesting commentary on reality tv, on horror, advertising, propaganda. I do think her frame of reference limits her analysis.
she’s talking about pornographers and Sade as puritan / the difference between seeing suffering in a Christian way through the lens of redemption and an “atheist” way of seeing suffering people like they are “animals on their way down and so are we” .
Is this actually the divide? Is that what characterizes Christian approaches to suffering really? how on earth does one talk about Kafka and “In The Penal Colony” without thinking about Jewish suffering despite mentioning nazis like eight times? also how do you talk about the import of the suffering and death of a body that is god without touching on say Hindu thought or even thinking about other mythologies ?
where is the caveat !!
she’s talking about pornographers and Sade as puritan / the difference between seeing suffering in a Christian way through the lens of redemption and an “atheist” way of seeing suffering people like they are “animals on their way down and so are we” .
Is this actually the divide? Is that what characterizes Christian approaches to suffering really? how on earth does one talk about Kafka and “In The Penal Colony” without thinking about Jewish suffering despite mentioning nazis like eight times? also how do you talk about the import of the suffering and death of a body that is god without touching on say Hindu thought or even thinking about other mythologies ?
where is the caveat !!