DUH!

Don’t know this writer, but the passage cited is in a two-century-old tradition – that of epater’ing the bourgeoisie. It seems a little stale to me at this point. Some of the great figures in that tradition were pretty compromised in any event: William Wordsworth (alluded to in the passage above) ended his days as a pillar of the establishment. Byron and Shelley were aristocrats and hated the middle-class from the lofty pinnacle of their inherited privileges and incomes. Baudelaire received the benefits of a trust fund all his life. Rimbaud tired of the charade of being a seer and deranged poet and at the age of 17 went off to run guns and trade in slaves in Africa. –All this hypocrisy and snobbery is redeemed if you’re a really fine writer. No one cares then about how you treated people in your daily life or how you supported yourself. Actually, the same can be said of writers and artists who one might call middle-class – Dickens, Twain, Shakespeare himself. If you’re an artist, all is forgiven. If you’re not, well, live honorably by your own lights and call it a day. Above all avoid the moral hazard of sitting in judgment on whole classes and ways of life. It’s enough of a job to make one’s own life work.

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