Where the life of the mind is concerned, totalitarianism has already triumphed, and its benefactor has been American-style democracy. This is reflected widely in the “literature” that is most praised and consumed in our culture, a literature that can no longer be considered an art. Enough cynicism, enough irony-coated “minimalism,” enough anti-intellectual hipster posturing. Up with the anarchy of the signifier, with the creation of new myths, with momentary lapses of cognition, with an embrace of psychoses, with an outpouring of unmitigated sexuality—in short, with the freedom that can only be found in the realm of the imaginary. The imaginary, as forged through a “mimetic exacerbation” (again, Hal Foster) of the real.

“Itchy Homo, or Why I am So Terrible” appears in the “Failure” issue of the Review of Contemporary Fiction, which can be ordered here.