hullo my english major fem'nists. what d'ye say?

This Nick Carr is a wily one.
Carr’s post responds to this Adam Kirsch article. Kirsch proposes Google as a tool for breaking down the elitism of literary allusion by making information easily accessible.

Carr acknowledges that it’s a “dicey proposition” to speak against a “culture democratizer” like Google, though he does it anyway. In fact, he warns against the “hegemony of the Google view.” Fair point. He’s good at those. For instance, I’d also concede his point that allusion doesn’t have to be elitist. Exclusionary, yes, but not restricted to the “choice part of society” as per the OED definition. I would say it has been appropriated to great effect by minority artists (Think Kara Walker).

So why’d I call him wily? Because he uses the terms “allusion” and “literary allusion” so interchangeably that we lose sight of the qualifier: literary. He almost manages to throw us off the scent when he invokes filmmakers, painters and composers, but don't be fooled: it is literary allusion that he sees in danger (allusion is alive and kickin. See 30 Rock, or following my Professor's example Girl Talk).

“Literary” refers to a canon historically determined by mostly white, patriarchal standards that you betcha are elitist. Allusion is not necessarily elitist, literary allusion in the style of Yeats and Shelley sure has a history of being inaccessible. And if both of these dudes broadened what qualifies as literature they’d see the tradition of biblical allusion thriving in the works of Stephenie Meyer.