It was not a question of knowledge...but of alertness, a fastidious transcription of what could be thought about something, once it swam into the str… - Susan Sontag
""
It was not a question of knowledge...but of alertness, a fastidious transcription of what could be thought about something, once it swam into the stream of attention.
The fear of becoming old is born of the recognition that one is not living now the life that one wishes. It is equivalent to a sense of abusing the present.
What the overemphasis on the idea of content entails is the perennial, never consummated project of interpretation. And, conversely, it is the habit of approaching works of art in order to interpret them that sustains the fancy that there really is such a thing as the content of a work of art.
Interpretation must itself be evaluated, within a historical view of human consciousness. In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling.
