Gregory Seth Harris's Blog
January 19, 2021
A Perfect Mirror for our times
One comment I’m constantly getting is how apropos THE PERFECT STRANGER is for these times. Yet I started and finished the novel long before Trump took office.
That's because I'm lampooning how people reason based on what they desire. As one of my characters puts it: human beans (sic) have a limitless capacity to twist language and alter definitions so as to justify whatever they desire.
Thus we have ‘patriots’ trying to overthrow the government. Debate doesn't work because their logic is based on passion not reason. They gravitate to whatever argument justifies what they FEEL to be true. Language is so malleable, we human beans can justify anything -- burning Jews in concentration camps, owning slaves in a country that promises liberty and justice for all.
A second theme imbedded in my novel, is the need for a sizeable portion of human society (in my novel they are called Brittlebaums) to always have someone they can look down on, which is to say, to perpetually create an enemy.
“What’s the point in being superior, if there’s no one to look down on?” one of my Brittlebaums quip. Without an enemy, he argues, we will fight among ourselves, those arguments growing bitter and personal. But give us an enemy and we will unite under the twin banners of God and country. . .only to be at each other's throats again when the war ends. Thus the cycle repeat ad nauseum.
Welcome to 2021.
That's because I'm lampooning how people reason based on what they desire. As one of my characters puts it: human beans (sic) have a limitless capacity to twist language and alter definitions so as to justify whatever they desire.
Thus we have ‘patriots’ trying to overthrow the government. Debate doesn't work because their logic is based on passion not reason. They gravitate to whatever argument justifies what they FEEL to be true. Language is so malleable, we human beans can justify anything -- burning Jews in concentration camps, owning slaves in a country that promises liberty and justice for all.
A second theme imbedded in my novel, is the need for a sizeable portion of human society (in my novel they are called Brittlebaums) to always have someone they can look down on, which is to say, to perpetually create an enemy.
“What’s the point in being superior, if there’s no one to look down on?” one of my Brittlebaums quip. Without an enemy, he argues, we will fight among ourselves, those arguments growing bitter and personal. But give us an enemy and we will unite under the twin banners of God and country. . .only to be at each other's throats again when the war ends. Thus the cycle repeat ad nauseum.
Welcome to 2021.
November 17, 2020
The Colorado Poet Interviews SETH
The Colorado Poet, #23, Summer 2013
Interview with SETH,A Black Odyssey (Mercury HeartLink Press, 2013)
Bob King: In your acknowledgements you say this collection is your attempt “to cram 30 years of poetry into one volume.” To structure this, you arranged them in subheadings referencing stages and places of Odysseus’ journey in The Odyssey. How difficult was this process? Did it have ups and downs? Runs and halts?
SETH: I wouldn’t use the word difficult. Nothing is difficult when you enjoy ...
