[-empyre-] creative powerlessness, expressive violence, performance

[Alan Sondheim]

On Mon, 17 Nov 2014, Christina Spiesel wrote:

  As testimony to the importance of feeling and the emotions as guides to 
value -- something very much devalued at the moment as humanities and arts 
budgets are slashed and education is increasingly thought of as training.

-- Can you elaborate on this? This, in the United States, is a crisis of 
conscience and citizenry that is ongoing and worsening; humanities, arts, 
music, and even phys ed programs are being cut out of K-12 schools - not 
to mention artschools themselves, which are increasingly becoming 
vocational feeds for the tech industries. I do think this plays into our 
inordinate fear of ebola, our magnification of crISIS in general, and our 
deep ignorance of conflict and violence (although we practice both with 
impunity). Comments appreciated, and thanks, Alan