Month / November 2004

by DrMabuse

In Defense of Fucking the South (And the Red States Too, For That Matter)

“In swearing, as a means of expressing anger, potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous. By affording the means of working off the surplus energy of the emotion induced by frustration, the tension between the emotion and the object of it is decreased and the final dissolution of the tension is expressed in a feeling of relief, which in its place is a sign of the return to a state of equilibrium.” — Ashley Montagu The Anatomy of Swearing

The new political correctness has arrived, and it cuts across a much broader swath than Berkeley. It all started with an election, unearthing a long fragmented nation of reds and blues, followed by purples that tried to underplay the division. Some folks, understandably, didn’t buy into this. Before too long, people were fucking the south, letting their frustrations simmer over the linguistic saucepan.

It was all good fun. Because how many of us either thought or expressed these words just after the election? We were able to view the rant, recognize the angry voice, and move on. Because for many of us, the election was really tantamount to crying “Shit!” when stubbing a toe, or “Fuck you, you fucking fuck” to an inanimate object that either failed to function or caused a lasting bruise. An immediate expression of relief (considered strangely profane in some circles), followed by relative equanamity and a determination to get through the day.

Unfortunately, where the reasonable person can comprehend how frustration funnels into curses and profanity (after all, they are just words), the oversensitive idealist can’t. The oversensitive idealist (represented these days by Neal Pollack, whose latest persona is a strangely sanctimonious theologist of expression) views a world where one must say “love the south” instead of “fuck the south,” never considering that in expressing a momentary curse, one might be, as the great Ashley Montagu suggests, converting short-term negative energy into a greater goal of long-term peace and cohabitation. In this sense, the Pollack view is very much like the JesusLand caricature: a place where human expression is unrealistically hindered, where anger isn’t allowed, and where the very idea of allowing one’s fleeting negative emotions to suffuse, whether in conversational or Web form, is verboeten.

As far as I can tell, nobody is painting black Xs on doors. Vigilantes aren’t heading to a red or a blue state to string up a few dissenters. While there are certainly a lot of silly stereotypes being promulgated on both sides, the silent ban on expression is perhaps even more damaging. Because how can anyone on either side “reach out” when they can’t purge themselves of their negative feelings?

If fucking the south, or fucking the red states, or transforming California or Texas a joke (both very easy to do) leads to national healing, then I say let loose. Theodore Roosevelt famously decried politically motivated journalists as “muckrakers” in 1906, but the term developed beyond its pejorative meaning to classify and understand a specific pursuit still quite active today. Sometimes disparagement helps people come to terms with a concept and create the very unity desired.

It wouldn’t be human to do otherwise.

by DrMabuse

Confidential to Some Sexy Correspondents

Folks, folks, folks, folks. I should point out that just because some of us may disagree on minor points (and, boy, they sure are minor), this does not mean that I’ve stopped respecting you. Particularly since you’re good enough to offer a reasoned and impassioned argument along with your thoughts and you’re willing (much more than that!) to weigh in on subjects literary and cultural, and offer the Good Doctor some contrarian food for thought.

This is the cornerstone of democracy, I think. If I don’t respond to your emails within 24 hours, it is because I am busy with research and preparation on a few projects. It is not because I don’t love you or value your thoughts. You are all incredibly sexy. The fault here is entirely mine, because I’m a slacker, I can only do so much, and I don’t get back to people as quickly as I’d like. But trust me on this one, folks. You’re all hot mommas.

by DrMabuse

Anthropology Awaits

Thankfully, circumstances have made us unexpectedly busy for the next four days. So our recently misinterpreted fury (not directed at James in general, who for the most part is a competent critic, save for the piece in question) has been siphoned into more productive conduits. Please visit the fine folks on the left in our absence. We’ve got work to do.

In the meantime, we leave you with the following personality test. Between these two actresses, who do you prefer?

zelllinney.jpg

I’ll keep the lips sealed on my choice until the ballots are in. But from a sociological standpoint, I’m decidedly curious.

by DrMabuse

The Girl Who Cried Julavits

OGIC has weighed in on the Caryn James piece, as has Galleycat. OGIC suggests that the James piece is honest criticism. Meanwhile, Galleycat (inter blogia) has stated her reasons why James has attacked. Rather than ape Galleycat’s able analysis, I thought I’d respond to OGIC’s notion that we all leaped into some touchy-feely Julavits antiseptic tank.

If James had stated specific examples in her profile, then her huffing and puffing would have had more validity. But I perceived this piece as an “assault,” not because of the piece’s intensity, but because it was the worst of assaults (the spineless passive-aggressive tone) available in the human repertoire. But more than that. James was fundamentally dishonest about her sensibilities in the following ways:

First off, James complains about a chapter being composed of one sentence and then inveighs against “bite-size fragments” (and, no, she’s not talking about those bags of tiny Snickers bars, but books, believe it or not!). This is certainly an interesting position to take. I’m genuinely curious to understand why anyone would be so hostile about a book merely because its spine failed to stretch out at least three inches or a single sentence carried over to another page. But the most we get from James is some vague quibble about “the tyranny of white space” and then a logical fallacy (and thus dishonest argument) that employs a backwards Chewbacca defense, suggesting that anyone interested in an abbreviated book inherited this interest from watching too much MTV. (And since Terry Teachout himself has confessed that his attention span has shifted towards shorter books, I get this wonderfully comic image of Teachout sitting through a Real World marathon on the weekend.)

Having failed to reference a single example to support her argument, James then badgers not the similarity of the books, but the close proximity and gender of the authors! How dare this quintet have vaginas or dine in Manhattan from time to time! Why, those two simple facts alone are enough to corrupt literature as we know it! Never mind that within the Bloomsbury Group, you couldn’t get any more disparate than Lytton Strachey’s crisp satire and Virginia Woolf’s baroque paeans to consciousness. No! In the Caryn James universe, if you have at least two personal attributes in common with another person, you will live similar lives and make similar choices. Does that mean that all male writers living in San Francisco put together prose like Dave Eggers or Daniel Handler or Andrew Sean Greer? I couldn’t name three more local writers whose work contrasts more sharply.

Then, after all this flummery, James throws us a frickin’ bone. She likes the Silber. But not so fast, kids! Because all five books are “built on compressed observations that easily veer into precious writers’ program language, too woozy and poetic for its own good.” And not a single example of what these “compressed observations” might be (what a writer sees while diving in the deep sea perhaps?) or the “woozy and poetic” MFA stuff that James takes offense to.

Again, this is unreasonable and dishonest. If you were a lawyer trying a case in court, you’d tell a jury that the defendant raped and murdered 32 squirrels, but you’d point to the police report, the testimony of witnesses, the laboratory tests, and the like. In short, you’d rely upon evidentiary support and ensure that the depraved squirrel killer would pay for the 32 small lives in blood, currency, or imprisonment of the judge’s choosing. It might give the hypothetical attorney a cheap thrill to call the defendant “woozy and perverted,” but without hard evidence, it’s nothing more than silly ad hominen.

Then James offers a valid point about award ceremonies offering variety, only to drift back into the “claustrophobic sameness” of the five books that represents a still as yet unestablished style that she objects to. James turns to the books themselves, but again and again seems confused. Instead of citing examples, she attacks story structure as a “trendy gimmick.” She then tells us, “Trendy gimmick bad, illuminating strategy good,” which is the same thing that a marketing manager once told me. Then there are the handicaps and yet another unfair assualt on Bynum not because of the writing, but because she is 32. (And, by the way, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission is being cc’d on this post.) And still no hard examples.

By then, the James profile ends and the anger across the blogosphere begins. But in rereading James with a more careful eye, I take back my initial assessment. Her article isn’t an “assault.” It’s simply dishonest and incompetent criticism.