Major Studio | INTERFACE : Final Project, Further Research

http://kenyonreview.org/blog/?p=438

This blog brings up the interesting issue of the difficulty in writing well without an element of meanness.

“We all can sympathize with a sentimental (read: sincere) gesture—but such earnest gestures often account for terrible writing. It isn’t hard to imagine a writer’s attempts to get a particularly lovely sunset into line breaks; sunsets just aren’t easy to write about well. Such is the paradox of art. I cried when the dogs die at the end of Where The Red Fern Grows—but I recognize that move now as formulaic and grossly over-engineered, and that my emotions were more automatic than surprising.”

http://www.aprweb.org/issues/mar03/hoagland.html

This essay (referenced in the above article) goes even further to discuss the role of meanness in art, literature, and truth.  “Because the willingness to be offensive sets free the ruthless observer in all of us, the spiteful perceptive angel who sees and tells, unimpeded by nicety or second thoughts. There is truth-telling, and more, in meanness.”