i think a lot of american writers (probably artists but its more clear in narrative art) are dishonest about their class origins right now and that its translating into the work in ways we wont understand until we get though this phase of american art.

im not an essentialist and i dont think we can only write about our immediate experience but i think the general refusal to be "out" about your class origins is having a strange effect on the sentences a lot of people are writing.

i mean this in the sense that if you dont completely own your origins then that refusal shows up in everything you do. and that included the sentences you write. theres a class hierarchy in this country and we are simply not talking about it.

and i dont even mean this in the typical "burn the system down!" (im blackfeet i know what happens when a system gets burned down; its not fucking pretty and art is the last of your concerns if this happens) but just in the sense of...when i read austen or james...

or melville or hawthorne or even faulkner i see a clear understanding of the economic realities of the lives of their characters which i think can only happen if the writer it equally as honest about their own standing. but i simply dont see that in a lot of contemporary work.

my gut feeling is hemingway is in part responsible for this not so much in his work but because of his persona and how he presented himself. but i havent given it a ton of thought at least re: him. theres just an everyman/toughman thing he did that seemed to transcend class.

but independent of the historical origins (america was built on a lie, so its in everything) it has everything to do with whats happened to the middle class in the past 40 years and the way making art has become less and less affordable for anyone who doesnt come from money.

this is also the reason its so important for art programs to make sure they consider the class origins of the applicants and not just race or ethnicity. there is a whole demographic of people that can get cut out / are being cut out.

and this is not subtweet for white people lol. this is saying people who do not come from money are getting fucking buried in this country, and until we start talking about class we are only solving 1/2 the problem and actually exacerbating the other 1/2. sorry not sorry etc.

which is another way of saying, given that writers and artists historically are some of the first people to talk about these problems, where are we if our artists cant even talk about their own class origins, let alone anothers.