USES OF THE POSE: Was thinking more about the Twain/Borges post below, and realized that I’d overlooked one of the major benefits of the human love of poses. A pose can be a stance we take on while we’re trying to work out the kinks in a worldview. We often intuit some kind of connection between seemingly disparate* positions–especially in the realm of aesthetics. Political and philosophical movements often have some style of art associated with them–socialist realism, romanticism, the Fugitive poets, etc. The connection between the politics or the philosophy and the style often seems strained or arbitrary at first, but when you dig deeper, you discover that the aesthetic choices usually do signal something about the corresponding philosophical stance. People developing a response to the world often begin with inchoate longings, guesses, leaps in the dark, and stylistic quirks, which come together to form a pose–which may or may not be the beginnings of an actual coherent worldview.

I think rock’n’roll conservatism is in this stage right now. Lots of guesswork, lots of attempts to reconcile seemingly opposed stances or elements through sheer force of personality; but ultimately, I think coherence will emerge…. Watch this space!

* Extra points if you know why I associate the phrase “reconciling the seemingly disparate” with the phrase “Get tough with Sugar Puff!”