I fear I was unclear about my earlier post on politics and poetry. My position is that teaching Proust in a purely formalist way in a small bible college is a worthwhile activity, even if is judged a mostly "conservative" activity. Or that teaching literature badly in a Marxist-Leninist educational system still has value. That there is a residue not accounted for by simply analyzing the ideological implications of 1) the literary works themselves 2) the context in which these works are taught. I am too lazy to demonstrate this. It's more of a conviction or prejudice I have than a theoretical position.