Posted on 10/21/2018 2:27:09 AM PDT by Rocky
So, here's a story. You probably saw it in the news, in the dueling op-eds, in the outrage that swirled around it. But the story is still worth revisiting as a microcosm, a little diorama, of our cultural situation. This past July, The Nation published a poem by Anders Carlson-Wee called "How-To," narrated by a panhandler offering advice to other panhandlers, explaining how to gin up sympathy among the passers-by.
As a poem "How-To" was, meh, just about average: one of those not-particularly-good-but-not-particularly-bad productions by authors and editors well versed in the mechanisms taught by writing schools. We have a system for much of American poetry, as dominant and strict as the Academie Française ever was, and it dictates a liberal politics, an indulgence of sentimental situations while rejecting sentimental phrasings, the dominance of a theme, and a sense that a single good metaphor makes a poem. All of which adds up to a new formalism, even while it generally rejects the old formalism of meter and rhyme.
But the power of social-media outrage has not yet found its heights, and the fearfulness of those who respond to it has not yet found its depths. Complaints began to appear on Twitter about the poet's appropriation of a black narrator's voice and the language used to name disabilities. Which led others on Twitter to add their complaints. Which led yet others to add their complaints. It's a question whether many of these complainers were readers of poetry in any context other than going to Carlson-Wee's poem primed to be outraged. For that matter, it's a question whether many of these complainers were subscribers to The Nation. But within a few days, the editors had run through various deletions and apologies to arrive at leaving the poem online while attaching an editors' note, longer than the poem, that apologized for the "disparaging and ableist language that has given offense and caused harm to members of several communities."
Carlson-Wee eventually apologized as well, groveling that he had been insensitive and the Twitter objections were "eye-opening." Not that it did him much good. As Thomas Chatterton Williams notes in the New York Times, the very first reply to his contrite tweet lambasted him for yet more abuse of people with disabilities, since the phrase "eye-opening" offends those who cannot see.
I love this story—you should love this story—because it's a jewel, a perfect diamond, catching in its facets and unifying into a single brilliancy the light of many apparently different fires in our current cultural disputes. One thing the story shows, for example, is that we have no clear way back, no sufficiently defined penance, for those subjected to public shunning. Another aspect is the mimetic power, the increasing competition for outrage, that our Internet connections fuel—as though the Web had become a laboratory for testing René Girard's theories of social contagion.
An underappreciated aspect of the story, however, is the tribal identification allowed by the outrage over The Nation‘s minor poem. We know who we are by the upsets we share. Carlson-Wee is only an incidental victim; he clearly intended to write a poem empathizing with poor panhandlers and sneering at the middle-class Christians walking by. But he allowed an opening for complaint, and the complaint escalated—to the point at which the poet and his editors, the objects of the complaint, ended up joined the complainers—mostly since the outrage took on the shape of identity: Because the good are objecting to the poem, the poem must be bad.
The clearest analysis we've had of this phenomenon came last week in The Atlantic with a strong column called "The Idioms of Non-Argument" by Conor Friedersdorf. The analysis is not yet complete; this was just a magazine column that set out to examine a single book review. But Friedersdorf has pointed us down the road toward understanding the process of tribal identification that bedevils us.
Perhaps more immediately he helps us understand why so many book reviews these days grate on the reader's soul. Ever get the feeling that you don't have to read a book review to know its basic line—the argument predetermined by the reviewer's political identification, the political reputation of the publication, and the political stance presumed to be held by the book's authors? Everyone who reads book reviews suspects that the window for eccentricity is closing. We must like—or even engage in actual argument—only the books by our kind, feeding us talking points for our politics.
The book Friedersdorf takes up is The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff (which began as a 2015 article in The Atlantic). Looking at the ways in which the culture—especially the middle-class, college-educated elements—are overprotecting their children, the authors note the emergence of an entire generation of college students and young adults who are both overly fearful and far too easily offended.
"Whatever your identity, background, or political ideology," Haidt and Lukianoff suggest in what is, in essence, a self-help book and parenting guide, "you will be happier, healthier, stronger, and more likely to succeed in pursuing your own goals" if you (1) stop "eliminating or avoiding everything that ‘feels unsafe,'" (2) stop "always trusting your initial feelings," and (3) stop "assuming the worst about people within a simplistic us-versus-them morality."
Friedersdorf notes that some of the recent reviews have commended The Coddling of the American Mind, while others have been more negative. But what caught his eye was a piece in the Guardian by Moira Weigel, praised on Twitter as the definitive review that "eviscerates with ease" and "systematically demolishes" the book. Unfortunately, as Friedersdorf discovered when he read the actual review, Weigel hardly engages the text of the book. Her review is, in essence, a long series of ad hominem attacks on the authors, rendering Haidt and Lukianoff sufficiently beyond the pale that the book they wrote, the arguments they make, should be rejected by readers.
Weigel is engaging in the "Idioms of Non-Argument," Friedersdorf suggests, observing her use of vilification, guilt by association, and misrepresentation through a kind of willful misunderstanding of the authors' prose. But the key comes when Friedersdorf identifies the rhetorical technique of "reduction to privilege anxiety."
It's generally thought a failure of literary interpretation to seek too deeply into, say, a novelist's motives for writing a particular novel. How is A Christmas Carol damaged by the knowledge that Dickens wrote it because he needed money for a good vacation? A common pattern in the corrupt modes of book-reviewing these days, however is to impute a politics to authors, deploy the names of the worst examples of those who hold vaguely similar politics, do a bit of socio-psychiatry to identify motives for those worst examples, and then declare such motives the reason that the authors wrote their book.
Thus, for example, Haidt and Lukianoff are defenders of free speech, and free speech has become (incredibly recently, as cultural trends are measured) a slogan on the conservative side of the political spectrum. So Haidt and Lukianoff must be conservatives, just as white supremacists are conservatives. And white supremacists are presumed to hold their psychotic views because of the anxiety they feel about their declining privilege, so that must be the reason that Haidt and Lukianoff wrote The Coddling of the American Mind. And the reason we don't have to read it.
With his description of the Idioms of Non-Argument, Friedersdorf has identified some of the techniques by which our cultural arguments are debased. But we need more, if we are to correct the problem. The point of Weigel's review isn't simply that the book's authors are bad guys so the book must be bad. The point is also that the book must be bad because the good guys are objecting to it—and, in the perfect circularity of such things, the good are objecting to the book, so the book must be bad.
In other words, there's a deep tribal purpose to reviews like Weigel's—and to many other book reviews these days, on both the left and the right. Like the Twitter users who gained both confirmation of tribal identity and increased rank within their tribe by deciding to be outraged by Anders Carlson-Wee's little poem in The Nation, so reviewers like this are both asking us to confirm them in our sociopolitical tribe and elevate them within the tribe for their demonstration of right feeling.
How could we not see the ground here for what René Girard called mimetic rivalry and social contagion? Poetry, book reviewing, and the literary life may form only a minor facet of the culture wars that are starting to spill into bloody encounters, but they remain a clear example—a microcosm, a little diorama—of all the trouble we face.
1) we have no clear way back, no sufficiently defined penance, for those subjected to public shunning
2) social media fuels mimetic power, the increasing competition for outrage
3) the outrage allows "tribal identification" - We know who we are by the upsets we share. Because the good are objecting to the poem, the poem must be bad.
4) "the window for eccentricity is closing" - I take that to mean that we are all being forced to choose sides, and to categorize everyone else's ideas into one or the other of the predefined camps. There is no opportunity for outside-the-box thinking.
5) Those who "pile on" in social media gain both confirmation of tribal identity and increased rank within their tribe. They are asking us to confirm them in our sociopolitical tribe and elevate them within the tribe for their demonstration of right feeling.
The anger and rage that we see on various internet sites and in social media is spilling over into violence on the streets. It's no longer just a battle of words. I fear that if we don't fix this problem, we are headed for increasing violence on both sides, with a lot of damage to our country.
Yes, I’m guilty of it, too.
We can’t fix everyone else, but we can try to be better ourselves.
The one point I don’t agree with: We have no clear way back.
There is a way back. As the shunning gets worse and worse, more and more people fall into the deplorables camp. Eventually, there won’t be anyone left on the left: they will all be excommunicated.
The cure is critical thinking.Basing judgment on facts rather than what your preferred group is saying. Don’t become a NPC, a non player character . Plenty of real dissent and debate here on Free Republic. Not much on the other side .
Agreed. The way back is to return to an age of reason. Classical philosophy, logic, truth and beauty, belief in God, family, and country, these are foundational to wholesome and healthy living.
Deplorables united is saving our country.
While everyone may eventually be shunned for one thing or another, it may take a long time for all of them to see that they have this in common with others. Some very bad things may happen in our country before people come to this realization.
However, when the author says there is no way back, I think the he is talking about the individual person who gets shunned, not a group of outsiders who have this in common. There is no forgiveness in the world of political correctness. There is no acceptable atonement, no matter how much the person grovels.
These Catholic college students don’t seem like snowflakes:
Catholics React to Trump Winning the Presidency
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3PEyOvaIgk
While there is a lot of debate and critical thinking on this forum, there are also a lot of replies that just spout venom at the opposing side. And there are a lot of nasty reactions to people who step even a little outside of the accepted thinking.
It is possible to feel “shunned” on Free Republic. It’s happened to me, but it doesn’t drive me away. I’m not a millennial; I don’t believe that we are guaranteed any safe spaces. Still, it would be nice if people could voice their disagreements without hate, anger, or disrespect.
A long read and too intellectual for me to understand........
Yes, thankfully not all millennials are snowflakes.
That video cheers me up.
The main takeaway is that we need to apply critical thinking instead of just choosing sides.
It’s harder work than just choosing sides and piling on. But it is better for us and for society.
I stopped giving to pan handlers a long time ago. I know too many people (including relatives) who milk the system and pan handlers who have two or three cars, cell phones and live in nice places.
Now pan handling has moved into stores where they ask if you would like to donate to this or that cause. It makes you feel creepy but I tell them no.
Quite correct. I've been observing this for some time (ever since Bush v. Gore in 2000).
We are in for some hard times.
It never makes me feel creepy to politely say no thank you. I never see a donation cup for the poor white boy fund.
“A long read and too intellectual for me to understand...”
Your malicious slight to Millennials is apparent in your biased use of “long read!” Also notice the disparaging use of the elitist term “intellectual”—a triggering phrase stemming from your white privilege in the racist patriarchal educational system. Finally, your insinuation of intellectual superiority through the use of the loaded term “understand,” proves your ableism with regard to those who are not so mentally able.
Continued promoting of such alt-right, ageist, racist, ableist content will result in a permanent ban from all acceptable social media platforms such as google, Twitter and Facebook.
Orange man bad.
NPC 7686U
I understand. But the article is about how people reacted to the poem. Political incorrectness and appropriation of minority or oppressed people - these are today’s unforgivable sins.
The faux rage is intended to establish the reviewer’s bona fides as a member of the “good guys,” and to increase the reviewer’s standing among the “good guys.”
Yes, it has been building for some time. Good observation.
I hope there is still time to turn it around.
“I never see a donation cup for the poor white boy fund.”
Good point. When we’re hit up for that stuff we just say that all of our charitable giving is through our local church. Which is true, except for the no-kill cat shelter and some political groups. They never question the “church” thing.
language that has given offense and caused harm to members of several communities.” If
can’t take language you can’t take freedom.
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