Wednesday, May 2, 2007
BOOKS IN QUANTITY ARE NOT DANGEROUS; A SINGLE BOOK IS
Brace yourself, cos this goes deep.
Milli Vanilli: Girl You Know It's True
Last night I mentioned Jonathan Chait's fantastic piece (reg req'd; bugmenot) in The New Republic on the good, bad, and the queen of the liberal netroots. Now, predictably enough, the bloggers are striking back. OMG ITZ TOTALLY ON.
Round one, Eric Alterman: "The main argument I want to have with Chait concerns what he deems to be the netroots' purposeful intellectual insularity with regard to the idealized platonic cosmopolitanism of establishment journalists and policy wonks."
Yes, Eric, we know what those words mean, thanks. ESCHEW OBFUSCATION.
Chait wins this one in a KO. The netroots are a useful thing, and it's true that journalists' presumptions of objectivity are always inherently flawed, BUT: If you don't at least accept the possibility of an objective truth outside your own mind, or if you choose to ignore same (as the netroots apparently sometimes do), then there's no reason *I*, the reader, need to believe your subjective truth. What's true in my mind might be different, after all.
The netroots, like the conservative movement, have as one of their enemies (consciously or not) the idea of an objective truth that exists outside whatever DailyKos or Grover Norquist decides. This is yucky. And it's inimicable to democracy. (Nor does it square well with Alterman's self-serving feints about "empiricism." Yeesh.)
An aside: Pop music criticism has a more confusing relationship with objective truth, but it doesn't obviate the need for such a concept. Because enjoying/appreciating music is in itself a highly personal, subjective experience, it can be important for critics to communicate the most personal, subjective aspects of their own experiences. However, because readers obviously have no way of verifying the personal, subjective experiences you say you had to an album, it's important not to be objectively full of shit. If you're just making up your personal experiences, pulling your opinions out of the air, you might still be doing interesting writing, but you're not a critic. Objectivity may not be required, but credibility-- a reader's assurance that there *is* some objective truth behind your subjective experiences-- is paramount.
Sorry, that was probably Kerry-esque in its tortured complexity, but it's important. Anyway Matthew Yglesias, predictably enough, acquits himself much more honorably, re-examining Chait's interpretation of Yglesias's independence (and the reasons Yglesias doesn't deviate from the netroots line more often, given the apparent financial benefits of doing so):
"All that said, Chait provides an admirable reconstruction of the intellectual origins of the netroots movement, its love/hate relationship with the conservative movement, and the logic of its objections to the 'centrist' political strategies that seemed so appealing in the 1990s--by far the best account by a true outsider that I'm aware of. He has attached to this, however, an over-complicated account of the netroots' relationship to the left-of-center pundit establishment, since the main story, in my view, is simply that liberal activists want to see liberalism represented on the country's op-ed pages and chat shows by liberal pundits who like liberals and treat them respectfully. The interesting question on this front isn't why this is what liberals want to see, but how it ever came to be the case that it was (and, indeed, continues to be) seen as de rigeur for the left side of the political spectrum to be represented in the MSM primarily by people who don't see the world this way."
UPDATE: What happens when you get a media cohort disinclined to care about objective truth? You get, years after the fact, a press corps still smilingly accepting explanations about Iraq that simply defy the chronological facts-- with most of the liberal netroots just as blissfully ignorant. And only Bob Somerby seems to care. [UPDATE UPDATE: And only Bob Somerby seems to correct his mistakes.]
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19 comments:
If you're just making up your personal experiences, pulling your opinions out of the air, you might still be doing interesting writing, but you're not a critic.
Now I know you don't really believe this. Aren't you the guy who wrote "Self Portrait" for Pitchfork Media colon online internet magazine for web browsers?
The problem with objective/subjective is that they're vague terms: sure, I could say that something is "my personal taste," but I haven't de facto made whatever argument or opinion I've given "objectively" unassailable. But "objective" isn't a necessary concept here at all -- neither is "subjective."
I think of Simon Frith's arguments about the roots of the general conception of African-derived music being more "of the body," and its derivatives, "sexual," "passionate," etc. He establishes a social framework in which these ideas are constructed; so, to say "this music is sexy; this beat makes me wanna get it on" is not necessarily JUST one guy's/girl's opinion, end o' story, even if it might be true. It can't be excluded from all further criticism because it's "subjective" and "based on my personal experience" (as if you could verify that), nor can it be "objectively" disproved.
Now I know you don't really believe this.
The fact that a person can write a sentence like this gets at my point. As a total hypothetical, if you tell me you love teen pop, but you actually don't (you merely love writing about teen pop), then you are pulling your opinion out of the air. What you are writing is not even "subjectively" true to you; it is, in any sense of the word, false.
You bring up my "Self Portrait" feature. The reason why it is OK with me for non-true, fictive elements to be part of a pop artist's persona is because we are talking about ART (or, if you prefer, entertainment). That's different than criticism, and even more different than journalism, though many people like to conflate the two. (You should read The New Republic's expose of David Sedaris... It's disheartening that so many writers choose to label their work as "nonfiction"-- because that's where the money is-- but are too lazy when it comes to the nuts and bolts of nonfiction to report actual facts.)
You're speaking my language when you get to Frith's arguments. No, you can't verify "my personal experience," nor can you "objectively" disprove it-- which is exactly my point. If I'm claiming to relate to you my personal experience, e.g. the way a record makes me think and feel, and I'm full of shit, then you might never know. But I'd still be abusing your trust.
It's probably always going to be more fashionable to oppose the idea of writing things that are actually true, because of the artistic avant-garde. But even though nonfiction can and sometimes should be considered art in its own right, it differs from fictive art in a very specific, crucial way: DUH, it's nonfiction.
Just to re-emphasize, I am not at all saying the example in the first paragraph actually applies to you! Maybe I should have written it in a different verbe tense; read it in the conditional or something if you prefer.
Yes, there CAN be a nuts-and-bolts to nonfiction. There can also be fabrication. There can also be "truthiness." (Does it matter whether or not W.G. Sebald, who uses personal journeys as a starting off point for long interconnected musings/meditations on countless thoroughly researched historical moments/ideas, actually experienced the personal journey sparking these ideas?)
Fact and fabrication are both tools that are applied to an argument; what I'm saying is that even the most "subjective statement" about music, e.g. the one that says "this is my personal taste and just you try to refute it," is making an argument. Some arguments are better, truer, or more credible than others.
Actually, let me just go back to Frith and take it down a notch from argument to value judgment. It's impossible to avoid making these listening to music, and any attempt to vocalize like/dislike results in value judgments. If we were to take this even a teensy step beyond the judgment itself (i.e., "I like it/I don't like it"), NOW we're dealing with an argument.
So for me, it's pointless to speculate ("you don't REALLY like it") when I can just find the argument in the text. This can apply to music itself, too; instead of focusing on what I think, e.g., teenpop represents (common tropes: hyper-captialistic somethingorother, Svengalism, cynical manipulation of poor defenseless lil' girls boo hoo hoo) I can try to listen to it and enjoy it (or not) on its own terms, make or shape the terms, analyze my relationship to the music, the music's audience, and on and on and on.
None of this precludes "fiction" from entering the picture for any argument I make to work. In fact, it's impossible for (some) fiction NOT to enter the picture; and sometimes more fiction is better for making your argument than less. (If I'm Borges and my argument is that we can imagine every book that could ever be written, I can create a fictional library housing any book imaginable to illustrate my point, and through fiction find the nuance in the idea where just stating it would probably seem insufficient.)
Which isn't to say you can't get facts wrong (i.e. nuts-and-bolts), but that this has relative importance to the argument itself, and some "facts" don't MATTER. E.g., it doesn't matter if I don't "really love" teenpop (which I do, nyah nyah), because my arguments about teenpop don't simply amount to "I really love this stuff!" Once you get past that simple (and insufficient for criticism longer than one sentence, though yes, that is technically criticism, just not GOOD or helpful criticism) judgment, which is hiding a slew of more complex ones, you're now grappling with my ideas.
Now, if I'm lying to put forward an argument that depends upon the lie to function (e.g. "Ashlee Simpson played every instrument on her album, therefore she is the best multi-instrumentalist in indie rock"), you can call bullshit. But note in that example, you can only reasonably call bullshit on the FIRST part -- if she doesn't play the instruments, she doesn't play the instruments. But more interesting (in that example) is the second part. I've just called her (1) indie rock and (2) "the best." Neither of these things can be disproved, only argued against. True/false doesn't really enter into it in any clear cut way.
And I wrote "I know you don't believe this," but what I should have written was "I believe you've more effectively argued the opposite of what you're saying here in a piece that was more interesting and valuable to me than this blog post."
Imagine me saying it with more sass, wagging my finger. Even though that would be pure fiction.
But Dave, the reason people are actually read nonfiction is because it's supposed to be true. The reason people read a music review is, like it or not, to find out whether the music is worth their time. If we tell them we like something, and we don't, our ideas may still be awesome and interesting, but we're utterly failing them as critics.
(Does it matter whether or not W.G. Sebald, who uses personal journeys as a starting off point for long interconnected musings/meditations on countless thoroughly researched historical moments/ideas, actually experienced the personal journey sparking these ideas?)
It doesn't matter-- as long as he's comfortable with being filed under fiction!
I fully believe in blending fiction and nonfiction, as in the works of author Aleksander Hemon. But once there's fiction in your story or review or book, then your work is fiction, not nonfiction. Period.
But we're sure more likely to get more readers, money, etc., if we label your pieces as nonfiction, aren't we? Imagine people lining up to read the true ramblings inspired by my made-up opinions on, say, Super Furry Animals.
Nonfiction is more lucrative, so writers can always come up with ways to justify claiming their "fiction" is actually nonfiction. I'm just saying this is wrong.
Another example: Political cable TV programming. A bunch of people saying stuff they don't actually believe, but which serves a broader point they do actually believe. And it's been terrible for the discourse, because telling the truth is a lot more valuable than many more avant-garde people think.
As an aside: I was arguing completely different ideas in my Pitchfork piece, because I was talking about pop music, NOT nonfiction writing. Apples and oranges, etc. These are different conversations.
P.S. Yes, your point about fiction being useful for your argument as in Borges is good, but if you were writing a nonfiction piece you wouldn't be claiming such a library actually EXISTS, only describing what it would be like if it does.
And yes, of course, "I like it" is the least interesting level of argument, but it's also the one that's most important to readers. It's crucial that we don't skip that step and just get to coming up with the most compelling argument. I could argue convincingly, I think, on behalf of plenty of music I hate because it has the right influences, context, etc.
P.P.S. By political cable TV programming I'm of course referring to the "Crossfire" variety, not more recent "Daily Show" and "Colbert" type stuff, which is clearly labeled as satire.
the reason people are actually read nonfiction is because it's supposed to be true. The reason people read a music review is, like it or not, to find out whether the music is worth their time.
This doesn't necessarily describe why I read nonfiction OR why I read music reviews; at least not all the time; that is to say, it doesn't go without saying.
Imagine: "People read nonfiction because from their own experiences, they like the books categorized under 'nonfiction' more than those under 'fiction.'"
"People read nonfiction because they enjoy pointing out its many factual inaccuracies and feeling generally superior."
Now, obviously, the second point won't apply to most people who read nonfiction. But to avoid further belaboring the point, there are plenty of reasons why people read books that are categorized as nonfiction. But the category itself isn't as clear-cut as "true" or "not true." The privileging of "fiction" (versus "non-") is a generic construct with historical roots, i.e. the rise of the novel, and to start with these two categories (I hate dividing literature into fiction and non-, btw) is to oversimplify a more interesting argument to be made about specific texts. Categories can be useful, but there's nothing essential about them; "non-fiction" isn't just "non-fiction" because it's true (just as something isn't nec. "true" because it's non-fiction). Degrees, shades, whatnot. Book by book, song by song.
(Filing Sebald under fiction doesn't make a lick o' difference to me, because I'll find him wherever he wants to get himself filed. But if "fiction" generally undermines the potency of his historical observations and arguments by suggesting to potential readers that he's lying, I might object.)
I hate dividing literature into fiction and non-, btw
Well, there's why you disagree with me. All your points are well taken about the lack of specificity of my argument about why someone would read nonfiction; obviously, there are many reasons.
Clearly, nonfiction can and is used to mislead. If people read an article expecting someone's best honest account of facts and are instead treated (unbeknownst to them) to something disingenuous, that is misleading. You may not think this is bad, but I do.
I sense we may be coming at this from different angles. Yours seems to have more in common with the academe, where the concept of truth is, appropriately, something that always seems to be in question. My background is in journalism school, where none of these lovely theories would save your grades or your job if you're caught fabricating. Facts matter.
I agree that generally we are coming at this from different angles (though I'd hesitate in calling my "academic" per se, still point taken). But where I'm interested is when it becomes about criticism, which is where our interests in literature and journalism and theory sort of meet, or maybe more simply where the two of us meet in this equation.
I guess I'm sensitive to this because your own hypothetical example of "not really liking ____" is actually fairly pervasive (I discussed it briefly in one of my Stylus columns), and I think it's a generally harmful (or at least unproductive) approach to criticism.
The difference illustrated (maybe):
(1) I opened a Pfork review about Spongebob with an anecdote about a teamster stopping us from taking a free pic with Spongebob. Had this been fabricated, my resulting argument (this is about tha $$$, corporate tie-in, etc.) would be pretty much invalidated. (Of course even with that anecdote, issues of "fact" come into play: was this sanctioned by Nickelodeon or some random thugs on the street w/ Spongebob costume?)
(2) On my best albums of the 00's list, I listed several albums that, a few years later, I don't particularly like -- or certainly don't listen to very often. At the time, I felt as if I should include some of these albums more than I ("truthfully") liked them. However, knowing that I didn't particularly care about The Blueprint at that time, or Max Tundra, or a few others I had little personal experience with, doesn't fundamentally undermine how the list represents me. That's my own baggage to deal with, and deal with it I did/am, just as reconciling personal experience with writing is an issue for every writer to deal with. But if there's something dishonest about it, you need to find it in the writing -- and this doesn't necessarily equate to an "abuse of trust" of any kind. At the same time, "I don't believe you like this" is only valid if it's there in the text.
(One of the reasons I like teenpop so much is that I have a lot to say about it -- it provokes me, challenges me to say interesting things, helps me push myself and sometimes pushes me when I wouldn't otherwise push myself. And regarding issues not just about teenpop exclusively. I am using the music for my own purposes, certainly, and occasionally there's even a contrarian element (though I try to be honest about this -- Paris Hilton's an excellent example, but I won't go into that here) but the music's relationship to my personal experiences and set of basic like/dislike reactions is vague, never a straight "like it" --> "good review" type equation, so I could never make "pulling opinions out of the air" a criterion for evaluating criticism not because I don't think it's dishonest, but because I don't even know how this could be possible. And I do think most blowhards on cable news believe what they believe. I also believe that they really are big fat pompous idiots that don't deserve the attention.)
Great post, Dave! Can't see that I disagree with anything here. I guess I'm thinking of reviews, where the readers have clearly defined expectations of what they're getting. Your opinions might evolve, but as long as you do your best to be honest at the time you're writing them, I think you're living up to your responsibilities to your readers.
(That "do your best" clause also gets me out of one of your potential rebuttals: the inherently arbitrary nature of a 101-point rating scale, and the risk of pulling scores from the air. I do my best to come up with the right number for an album based on my feelings about it and the ratings we have given to other albums, but as with your albums and list-- and, god, mine!-- my opinion could certainly evolve by a couple of tenths of a point, or more, over time.)
Funny, because I actually think we're opposed in directly the opposite way...i.e., I think a ten point grading scale can say a lot about what you think about an album (esp. if you have history with said scale, the readers have expectations of the scale, etc.) and can be an integral part of a review. Certainly giving something a 0.0 or a 9.7 can say more about an album than any of the words surrounding it can, and I don't think this is inherently bad, though it's frustrating when you took some time coming up with the words yerself. (But then how bout this: a 7.4 tells me a lot about an album; it often means download it if you're already interested but don't rush out to waste your money; if you don't have any clue what I'm talking about in the first place, you'll probably be bored to tears. (Granted, I might disagree with this, and a 7.4 might be my album of the year, but often that's what a Pfork reviewer is saying with 7.4.) (It's like how I'm usually fascinated by films which Roger Ebert awards 2 1/2 stars. Something about this star number signals 'worth checking out/possibly glorious train wreck' to me. I just watched AI over the weekend, and it might actually be one of my favorite films, because it's such a glorious, glorious trainwreck. Shoulda gotten 2 1/2 Ebert-stars, tho I think he gave it less.)
But as for "it's honest if you're honest," well, I disagree, and this is where I turn into a ranty jerk most of the time. Because I actually can sense that someone is bullshitting me re: "my personal opinion of how it sounds" or whatever within a review (again, Paris being a good example -- whether or not someone liked it is almost a side issue, made to fit into whatever conception they have of Paris herself and why she's so disgusting/evil/etc.). "I like this album OK, but still, there's something disconcerting about Ashlee and Robert Smith working together. All in all a mixed bag." Fair enough, I believe the "like it OK part and the "mixed bag" part, but the more complicated argument happening is having a major influence on the "honest" appraisal; so fuck honesty, CONVINCE me. I could give a shit about at least a half of the albums in Chuck Eddy's Stairway to Hell (this is possible, I mean; I don't know, never having heard plenty of them before), but damned if I'm gonna pass up a single one of 'em or $3 at a used record store.
*FOR three bucks
yeah, but if Chuck were transparently dishonest, he wouldn't convince you! chicken, egg, blah
(I think we're reaching our Slow Friday post-coital phase here, but I doubt too many writers are "transparently dishonest" -- dishonesty's a tricky thing to spot, esp. by the dishonestee, and harder to "prove." Like, it's HARD for me to justify what I mean by, say, "I think Idolator is fundamentally [not transparently] dishonest," but it's also easy for me to (nit)pick on them for saying dumb things. I've been trying to avoid the latter but they keep giving me reasons.)
(yes, that's my point! that's why it's unethical for us nonfiction writers to be dishonest -- because it's hard to spot, so we'd be playing a trick on our poor readers!)
(Nah, y'all aren't THAT good at it. Important point about David Sedaris very pertinent here: he sucks, so who cares? <--look at me baiting you with my dishonesty. I've never wasted my time on him!)
((ok i think i can keep my mouth shut on this one... oh no, i've already started typing... um, um, um... have a great weekend!))
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