The necessity to seek alterity conflicts with the tendency, ever more pronounced as one ages, to be more one’s own self. The range of materials to which one is open diminishes in scope. One’s reactions become more predictable. Take the case of the late José Angel Valente, who proclaimed aesthetic openness as a matter of principle but, like everyone else, became more and more rigid. Can openness be a founding tenet of any doctrine? Or can one only commit to something in particular? Stanley Fish argues that any liberal claim to openness, tolerance, is entirely hollow. Perhaps so. Then why do I expose myself to hip-hop beats or drum ‘n’ bass?

I am often accused of dogmatism, because I won’t make purely rhetorical gestures in the direction of “tolerance.” In this case I would like to use the Fishian argument, although I distrust it. I’d like to say, “you too are committed to your own point of view, but make empty claims of respecting others.” On the other hand, I believe that there is such a thing as a commitment to a “negative capability,” and believe, in fact, that I have developed this capability more than most. This would make me more, rather than less tolerant, in the true sense. How convenient for me! I can hold fast to my dogmatism while still believing myself to be superior in my tolerance. I’m not that different in this respect from Valente, whom I also admire BOTH for his intransigeance and for his explorations of alterity.

“The reader” is used as an alibi to promote a certain kind of “easy” poetry. In Spanish the set phrase is “buscar la complicidad del lector.” But the reader in such a sentence is never anyone like me.