Howard Zinn, Ideology, and Faulty Scholarship

It's a day (and night) for grading papers, so I'll put this here: part review of a biography of Howard Zinn, and part critique of Zinn's career, David Greenberg's "Howard Zinn's Influential Mutilations of American History" in The New Republic (hardly a bastion of traditionalism or of conservatism). I appreciate Greenberg's approach to revisionism such as Zinn's: he calls out Zinn's willingness to castigate the USA's actions and ideologies while ignoring or minimizing other nations' cruelties--his silences on the brutalities of Soviet Russia, and so on.

Of Zinn's scholarship in A People's History of the United States, Greenberg says:

Zinn rests satisfied with what strikes him as the scandalous revelation that claims of objectivity often mask ideological predilections. Imagine! And on the basis of this sophomoric insight, he renounces the ideals of objectivity and empirical responsibility, and makes the dubious leap to the notion that a historian need only lay his ideological cards on the table and tell whatever history he chooses.

Lord, but I have heard this methodology set forth by undergraduates in courses past: "as long as I identify my point of view and find sufficient quotes that seem to lend authority, my work is done." Rather than reasoning and sound evidence that reflects a thorough consideration of the issue, support becomes a quote-hunt, the results of which are often cherry-picked, redefined, and decontextualized.

Don't such arguments (aligned with specific ideologies, supported with cherry-picked evidence)  become non-arguable? Rather than dealing with reason, we deal with emotion and belief--and one can't really (fairly) argue with feeling or faith.

It's tempting to go on and to develop, somewhat, these initial thoughts, but I have yards of paper to read before I sleep.

Aside: Apparently Ralph Ellison didn't think much of Zinn's scholarship. Who knew?

An Opportunity to Kvetch

That, apparently, is what Courage and Consequence is all about.

I'm not planning on reading Karl Rove's memoir (seriously, I'm just not interested), and, according to David Frum, there's a reason to avoid it: Rove either rewrites history or evades it. Frum tries to be generous to Rove but ultimately decides that he's still "Waiting for Rove's Memoir."

Read The Monster of Florence?

So you haven't read Preston and Spezi's big bestseller?

Do so. It's quite a story. Probably not the best prose, but it sure beats those Dan Brown-style thrillers-and this one is a true story: an American novelist and an Italian journalist investigating the murders committed by the "Monster of Florence," but they attract the attention of the local police, who decide that the two men might just be involved in the murders (for a synopsis of the book's events, see this Boston Globe article from 2006, or this piece from The Atlantic).

Anyway, it's an easy, fast read, and it's certainly an intriguing tale.

Aside: You might recall the moniker "Monster of Florence" from the novel Hannibal; the monster was in action while the good doctor was hanging out in Firenze.

Stephen King, The New York Times, and Kulchur

As much as I love my Ulysses, my Bleak House, and my Eliot, I love my Stephen King. Indeed, I’ve a thing for the horror genre (oh, sure—I’ve probably got some dysfunctional psychological mechanism that prompts this taste, but what the hell). I’ve just finished King’s most recent novel, Duma Key, which was fine. It wasn’t overwhelming in characterization, in atmosphere, or in thrills, but it was King. I’m mighty fond of his plainspoken, intertextual, pop-culturally literate storytelling that focuses on quirky, but often quite normal folks. King reflects and recreates contemporary Americana much as Dickens did with Victoriana (and not the frilly, silly kind). Are his works “lowbrow”? At this time, many would say “yes.” In the future? Well, who knows how readers of 2042 will view King. Y’all know that Dickens was a pop culture writer, correct? And yes, the term “pop culture” is a fairly recent invention, as is the distinction between “high” and “low” culture (see Huyssen, After the Great Divide, for just one text that deals with the categorization of “high culture” and “mass culture” as a modern phenomenon). The latter point brings us back to Duma Key, and a response I’ve been itching to make for the past month.

The novel received an “iffy” review from James Campbell in a March 2^nd New York Times book review. It was an average review (and I’d qualify the novel as “average.” Sorry SK. I did enjoy Lisey's Story though); Campbell neither damned nor celebrated the novel. What I found interesting, however, was Campbell’s discussion of the high/low divide, which essentially branded King, and other popular writers, as contributing little more to culture than commercial revenue.

In 2003, King was awarded with National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In his review, Campbell draws on King’s acceptance speech (in full here), specifically, King’s references to those who “‘make a point of pride’ of choosing not to read John Grisham, Clive Barker, or Mary Higgins Clark: ‘What do you think? You get social or academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture?’” (King qtd. in Campbell). Campbell cites King’s reprimand to those who resist pop lit (several of whom, apparently, resisted the NBF’s decision to award King the medal). Fair enough. Unfortunately, Campbell then distorts and inverts King’s argument so that it becomes a sort of reverse-snobbery as he suggests that King supports a culture defined by commercial interests: “[l]eaving aside the discourtesy of suggesting that his listeners’ reading habits were directed by snobbery rather than taste, the remark posits a view of a culture based not on the best that is thought and said, but on the highest returns at the cash register” (Campbell). Firstly, King targets readers who “make [it] a point of pride” to reject popular fiction out of hand, not people who simply don’t enjoy it. I think it’s safe to say that the former type indeed practices cultural snobbery. Such behavior brings to mind some of my more smug acquaintances who assert “I never watch reality shows because they’re for the sheep. No one of any intellect would watch American Idol or Survivor [etc.].” I’m not saying that people should watch reality shows if they’re sincerely uninterested in them, but taking pride in the wholesale rejection of said shows speaks volumes about the insecurities of the person who must appear culturally superior (which smacks of the poseur).

Moreover, culture is more than Matthew Arnold’s definition of “the best that is thought or said”; culture is, if the Oxford English Dictionary is to be trusted, “The distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, products, or way of life of a particular society, people, or period. Hence: a society or group characterized by such customs, etc.” This prosaic, rather than romantic or idealistic, definition is inclusive and involves all members of society as they both consume and contribute to culture, be it the jazz connoisseurs or the hip-hoppers, the opera supporters or the Celine Dion fans (okay—maybe that’s stretching it, but you get the point), the Stephen Kings or the William Faulkners.

Despite complaining about King’s complaints, Campbell narrows his argument by returning his focus to Duma Key. However, he tries to have it two ways in qualifying the novel’s cultural status: first, he attempts to measure Duma Key against a definition of “literary fiction”—a standard that the novel fails to meet (and a criteria King has never claimed of his work). After Campbell negates the novel’s “literary” value, he judges the book on its merits as pop fiction by noting (in a modification of a Wildean epigram) that “there is no such thing as popular or literary fiction. ‘Books are well written or badly written. That is all.’” And while this remark might target Duma Key, questioning its status as “well written,” which is fair, this concluding statement’s generosity in resisting a divide between “literary” and “popular” rings false, for Campbell has, indeed, re-inscribed the difference between “literary” and “popular” fiction, explicitly and implicitly, several times in the body of his review.

King doesn’t claim to write great literature; the man consistently refers to himself as a storyteller. It’s interesting that others insist on making the distinction between “high art” and King’s craft as though he’s presuming to be an artiste and intruding on “proper writers’” literary space. Ah, well. So goes the neverending kulchur war. Cheers, Mr. “sweetness and light,” you old tastemaker you.

Update, 09 April: I've just discovered a review of Campbell's review over at The Seated View. It's a treat.

"Plagiarizing Other People's Trauma" ?

A middle class white female, Margaret Seltzer (a.k.a. Margaret B. Jones), was raised in a California suburb. She attended an Episcopalian school, and went on to spend some time at the University of Oregon. At some point, she decided to assume a new identity. She claimed Native American ancestry, that she grew up in South Central L. A., that she was passed from foster family to foster family, that she was a drug-runner for a notorious gang, and so on. Then Seltzer publishes her “experiences” as Love and Consequences.

This last week, Seltzer’s sister revealed that the story is fraudulent. Seltzer concocted everything she related as lived experience; she even made up an anti-gang foundation that she claims to be associated with (and publicized on the book’s jacket). And no, she did not graduate from the University of Oregon with a degree in Ethnic Studies.

People are outraged--but for differing reasons. I offer two opinion pieces of the work (there are hundreds available, of course--see Google--but I found these intriguing):

“Stolen Suffering," by Daniel Mendelsohn at The New York Times, argues that Seltzer has appropriated people’s pain for psychological and financial benefit (this blog post's title comes from Mendelsohn's article).

“Fine Line Separates Memoir, Novel” by Gordon Sayre, at The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), argues that what matters is whether the work is well-researched, that Selzter communicates on behalf of excluded voices, and that we might consider why we want to read about other people’s pain.

So then, is it only a matter of marketing here? Or has Seltzer done more than misfire in presenting Love and Consequences as an autobiography? Has she committed some great intellectual, social, or cultural sin? Is authenticity important?
More on this later.

Reviews of Raine's Monograph on T. S. Eliot

I must admit I've not read Raine's work yet, and I probably won't get around to it for a while, but I found the following reviews fascinating in their foci.

“Raine’s Sterile Thunder” by Terry Eagleton for Prospect Magazine.
Eagleton's review, which dismisses Raine as an "acolyte" bearing offerings to the "high priest," seems rather peculiar. Eagleton takes Raine to task for neglecting to address TSE’s misogyny, anti-Semitism, purported homosexuality, etc., but then he reminds us that the poetry itself is what matters.

and a review by Tom Paulin for The Guardian.
Paulin also wonders why Raine doesn't investigate Eliot's private life or socio-political views.

Both reviews evoke, to me, the flamethrowing years of the 1980s and 1990s when any critic worth his or her salt (Gilbert & Gubar, Pinkney, Ellman, etc.) took a potshot at Eliot. Studies of Eliot's misogyny, racism, anti-Semitism, sexuality, psychology, etc. triumphed over rather moderate, less-politicized explorations of his work. The tide has, of course, shifted, and scholars are publishing critiques that study Eliot's poetry, drama, and social criticism that illustrate the man's complexity rather than casting him as a strictly reactionary figure.

The impetus for this shift, I believe, lies in the extreme positions that several critics maintained in the latter half of hte 1990s. For example, Suman Gupta wrote an essay for The Times Higher Education Supplement in 1996. Gupta he argued against a “liberal consensus” that admitted Eliot’s numerous personal faults “[did] not make him a bad poet.” Gupta disagrees, for the as the aesthetic remains tightly bound with the social, and “all evaluative acts are social,” then a writer's personal politics should affect his or her literary status. Consequently, Gupta maintains, the canon requires a re-evaluation of “great” writers.

Gupta’s argument focuses on modernists (including Joyce, an author typically excluded from charges of racism and anti-Semitism), and he asserts that their works “should not be given to any students as 'great’ any longer--they provide neither social-cultural nor aesthetic-literary models.” On other words, get rid of 'em.

I found it curious then--and now--that Gupta's critcism focsed on racism alone. Why not misogyny? homophobia? Like I said, curious.

Furthermore, how far back should we take such revisions? Should we eliminate Shakespeare, Chaucer, Swift, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston? If you apply it to one author, you should apply it to all. If we're going to trace out negative stereotypes, we might as well dismiss the canon altogether. Yes, it's a slippery-slope argument, but I do think that Gupta's suggestion crests such a slope and begins a downward slide.

This is not to say that readers should ignore such issues; instead, we might consider how questionable portrayals of human beings--be it a "simple" stereotype (Lydia Languish) or blatantly racist (Bleistein)--informs a work. What socio-cultural or historical context permitted or encouraged such views? And how can we use these works to shatter still-extant myths about human beings? This seems to be the current of contemporary scholarship, and long may its course run.