In that truest portrait yet of the struggles of the aspiring writer, Jack London's Martin Eden, the eponymous protagonist, in the course of receiving one form rejection letter after another, begins to wonder if he is dealing not with human-staffed organizations, but with a machine that returns form rejections for submissions in exactly the same manner that a vending machine would give a stick of gum in return for a coin.
If there is any difference between that experience and the writer's experience of today it is that, especially these last few years, the process probably has become genuinely more automated--and continues to become more so all the time. For many years it has been common for writers to submit work to publishers through online forms.
Given what we know about how employers automate the sifting of job-hunters' résumés to weed out much before there is call for any human to look at anything, and indeed job interviews now seem to be handled by artificial intelligence it is very, very easy to picture publishers turning over the low-priority work of dealing with the slush pile that turns the interns who deal with it into nasty little trolls pouring forth their abuse on aspiring writers in publications whose editors ought to know better (Salon, Guardian) over to algorithms and chatbots--which then dutifully arrange the dispatch of yet another copy of that e-mail saying "Please excuse the impersonal nature of this reply . . ."
Friday, April 19, 2024
"Please Excuse the Impersonal Nature of the Reply": What Rejection Letters Really Say to Those Who Get Them
It is a truism that those pursuing a career as a writer, and submitting their work for publication, experience a great deal of rejection, overwhelmingly by way of form rejection slips. Those who acknowledge the fact commonly wear on their faces that "smelled a fart" expression that stupid people think conveys gravitas and say something like "Rejection? Yes, terrible that," as if the emotional wound of a "No" in reply to one piece of their work was all that they suffered.
Of course, that is not at all the case.
There is the fact that submitting that work was a time-consuming, sometimes costly, never pleasant process--and the time, effort, money that went into that submission was completely wasted.
There is the reminder, not least by way of that "impersonal" reply, that the other party has all of the power in the relationship, they have none, and the other party makes the fullest use of its advantage in controlling the terms of the exchange so completely--with that impersonal rejection letter that rendered no satisfaction whatsoever peremptorily cutting off the conversation. ("Don't call us. We won't call you.") Because they are of no account whatsoever in the eyes of those who sent that form letter, and it matters not in the slightest if they do not excuse the impersonal nature of the reply.
And there is, for those who have been at the activity of collecting such rejection letters for a while, the way that each and every one of those letters affirms them in the increasing suspicion that those rejection letters are all they will ever get--because, contrary to the Big Lie that keeps alive that vast industry living on the hopes of aspiring authors (the books and workshops and courses and the rest), publishing is not some big meritocracy, the slush pile is in fact exceedingly marginal within the publishing world's release schedules, and, as Jack London's Martin Eden began to wonder amid his own struggles, he was not dealing with human beings, just a machine that took in submissions and returned rejections the way a vending machine takes coins and gives out sticks of gum.
The wastage, the humiliating treatment to which they are subjected as inferiors, and the impression of fraud and futility--all that is also conveyed by the rejection letter, and it is all the more devastating when trying to get published was not some whim, but their sole hope of a life they would find worth living, as it was for Eden.
But of course, this is more than the sort of person whose idea of expressing gravitas is pulling a "smelled a fart" face can wrap their small mind around.
Of course, that is not at all the case.
There is the fact that submitting that work was a time-consuming, sometimes costly, never pleasant process--and the time, effort, money that went into that submission was completely wasted.
There is the reminder, not least by way of that "impersonal" reply, that the other party has all of the power in the relationship, they have none, and the other party makes the fullest use of its advantage in controlling the terms of the exchange so completely--with that impersonal rejection letter that rendered no satisfaction whatsoever peremptorily cutting off the conversation. ("Don't call us. We won't call you.") Because they are of no account whatsoever in the eyes of those who sent that form letter, and it matters not in the slightest if they do not excuse the impersonal nature of the reply.
And there is, for those who have been at the activity of collecting such rejection letters for a while, the way that each and every one of those letters affirms them in the increasing suspicion that those rejection letters are all they will ever get--because, contrary to the Big Lie that keeps alive that vast industry living on the hopes of aspiring authors (the books and workshops and courses and the rest), publishing is not some big meritocracy, the slush pile is in fact exceedingly marginal within the publishing world's release schedules, and, as Jack London's Martin Eden began to wonder amid his own struggles, he was not dealing with human beings, just a machine that took in submissions and returned rejections the way a vending machine takes coins and gives out sticks of gum.
The wastage, the humiliating treatment to which they are subjected as inferiors, and the impression of fraud and futility--all that is also conveyed by the rejection letter, and it is all the more devastating when trying to get published was not some whim, but their sole hope of a life they would find worth living, as it was for Eden.
But of course, this is more than the sort of person whose idea of expressing gravitas is pulling a "smelled a fart" face can wrap their small mind around.
On Not "Quitting Your Day Job"
It is, of course, the case that the artist endeavoring to make a career for themselves but not yet making it pay, and at the same time not independently wealthy or supported by other people, usually holds a "day job" to support themselves until they can make a living from their true vocation.
Most people see no great difficulty in that--and react to any suggestion that there may be difficulty with glib dismissals such as "T.S. Eliot was a banker!"
Those people, of course, are quite stupid--as they demonstrate by speaking such non sequiturs.
Not only is it the case that a day job automatically leaves less time, energy and freedom for artistic activity (for which those trying to make a real start are likely to find there are never enough hours in even the best of circumstances), but, while Day Jobs are not all the same, they are especially unlikely to be Dream Jobs. Few are the positions that are secure and pay well and yet open to someone whose real interest is elsewhere. Many are in fact insecure, ill-paid, unpleasant--and in the process take a lot more from the artist than the hours they consume.
A day job one cannot stand, the material hardship they may have to endure as a result of low pay with its additional toll on their time and energy, etc., have their effect on artistic output--and contrary to stupid remarks about how "The artist must suffer!" (a lame excuse for society's denying aspiring artists support, if not sadistic punching down at a low-status group), not a positive one. In the worst cases the day job may make the night job an empty pretension--the artist only hoping to create, rather than actually doing so because after a long day's work at that day job they are simply too run down to do anything more (as Martin Eden finds when he tries juggling a day job with his authorial efforts). Even if they do have some opportunity to create left, with the day job having the first claim on their time and energy, and their time chopped to bits by its demands, and learning the hard way that their creative faculties do not necessarily obey the clock (they may be readiest to produce just when they have to run off to work, least productive when they do have the time, etc.), there is just less of them to put into the work as, fighting for hours and even minutes in which to get something done, everything but the day and night jobs gets squeezed out--outside interests, social life, all those things that all people need, and which are also indispensable to enriching the work of the creative (the writer will find they no longer have time to read!), as they go about overtaxed all the time, exhausted all the time, rushed all the time, doing far from their best all the time, and maybe miserable all the time, especially if there is not much to buck up their hopes. Indeed, in the absence of what David in Lost Illusions called a "sublime cynicism" toward their hardships (a matter of saintliness rather than artistic genius), they are likely to find themselves aiming for low-hanging fruit rather than the masterpiece that may be the work of a lifetime, while an emotional and intellectual impoverishment is apt to produce work to match.
Grinding and frustrating as this all is it might be tolerable if it goes on for only a little while--the artist finding some alleviation of their situation, some encouragement, some practical relief after the initial hardships. But many are likely to find the hardships simply going on and on, themselves living this way for years--decades--of giving everything and getting nothing in return, perhaps not even a piece of work they can be proud of, as they look down to find themselves still standing on "square one." A particularly cruel irony for those who had thought that following an artistic career would permit them a broader, richer, freer life than the narrow existence they could expect (and most people get) from the workaday job, they are likely to feel they have wasted their lives--the more in as whoever is left in their life is likely to say to them "I told you so" at any and every opportunity (empathy and sympathy from even their nearest and dearest, as Balzac and Jack London candidly acknowledged, not something an aspiring artist is likely to have in their lives).
Given the economic realities that mean so few artists have any opportunity to gain any recognition at all, things would likely go the same way for many of them even if they did not have to hold down a day job. But there is no denying that it made the road harder, that it meant less realization of their potential than would otherwise have been the case, and all the hand-waving of the unsympathetic does nothing but advertise their essential meanness whenever anyone points out any of the less pleasant facts of life.
Most people see no great difficulty in that--and react to any suggestion that there may be difficulty with glib dismissals such as "T.S. Eliot was a banker!"
Those people, of course, are quite stupid--as they demonstrate by speaking such non sequiturs.
Not only is it the case that a day job automatically leaves less time, energy and freedom for artistic activity (for which those trying to make a real start are likely to find there are never enough hours in even the best of circumstances), but, while Day Jobs are not all the same, they are especially unlikely to be Dream Jobs. Few are the positions that are secure and pay well and yet open to someone whose real interest is elsewhere. Many are in fact insecure, ill-paid, unpleasant--and in the process take a lot more from the artist than the hours they consume.
A day job one cannot stand, the material hardship they may have to endure as a result of low pay with its additional toll on their time and energy, etc., have their effect on artistic output--and contrary to stupid remarks about how "The artist must suffer!" (a lame excuse for society's denying aspiring artists support, if not sadistic punching down at a low-status group), not a positive one. In the worst cases the day job may make the night job an empty pretension--the artist only hoping to create, rather than actually doing so because after a long day's work at that day job they are simply too run down to do anything more (as Martin Eden finds when he tries juggling a day job with his authorial efforts). Even if they do have some opportunity to create left, with the day job having the first claim on their time and energy, and their time chopped to bits by its demands, and learning the hard way that their creative faculties do not necessarily obey the clock (they may be readiest to produce just when they have to run off to work, least productive when they do have the time, etc.), there is just less of them to put into the work as, fighting for hours and even minutes in which to get something done, everything but the day and night jobs gets squeezed out--outside interests, social life, all those things that all people need, and which are also indispensable to enriching the work of the creative (the writer will find they no longer have time to read!), as they go about overtaxed all the time, exhausted all the time, rushed all the time, doing far from their best all the time, and maybe miserable all the time, especially if there is not much to buck up their hopes. Indeed, in the absence of what David in Lost Illusions called a "sublime cynicism" toward their hardships (a matter of saintliness rather than artistic genius), they are likely to find themselves aiming for low-hanging fruit rather than the masterpiece that may be the work of a lifetime, while an emotional and intellectual impoverishment is apt to produce work to match.
Grinding and frustrating as this all is it might be tolerable if it goes on for only a little while--the artist finding some alleviation of their situation, some encouragement, some practical relief after the initial hardships. But many are likely to find the hardships simply going on and on, themselves living this way for years--decades--of giving everything and getting nothing in return, perhaps not even a piece of work they can be proud of, as they look down to find themselves still standing on "square one." A particularly cruel irony for those who had thought that following an artistic career would permit them a broader, richer, freer life than the narrow existence they could expect (and most people get) from the workaday job, they are likely to feel they have wasted their lives--the more in as whoever is left in their life is likely to say to them "I told you so" at any and every opportunity (empathy and sympathy from even their nearest and dearest, as Balzac and Jack London candidly acknowledged, not something an aspiring artist is likely to have in their lives).
Given the economic realities that mean so few artists have any opportunity to gain any recognition at all, things would likely go the same way for many of them even if they did not have to hold down a day job. But there is no denying that it made the road harder, that it meant less realization of their potential than would otherwise have been the case, and all the hand-waving of the unsympathetic does nothing but advertise their essential meanness whenever anyone points out any of the less pleasant facts of life.
Getting Superhero Fatigue Before it Was Cool: My Early Case
As my blogging here shows, I had anticipated a collapse of interest in the superhero film genre long before the annus horriblis of 2023 that saw The Flash, Captain Marvel 2 and Aquaman 2 all crash and burn at the box office, throwing WBD and Disney-Marvel into crisis.
I guess that part of it was my taking a deeper interest in the genre than the general audience--familiarizing myself with the history of the form, not only picking up a comic now and then but actively trying to get to know the classics (reading my way through many a volume of the Marvel Essentials, etc.), and looking at it with the same critical gaze I had grown accustomed to applying to science fiction (for instance, thinking about whether there was any room for meaningful innovation left within the framework of the genre). It seemed to me that by Alan Moore's time the superhero comic book was already fairly late in its life cycle as a genre, and that impressive and significant as his work was, it just testified to the genre's approaching the end, rather than offering any source of renewal. (In art as in other things "deconstruction" is an end, not a beginning.)
However, there was also the fact that long before the twenty-first century boom in big-budget features about A-list Marvel and DC superheroes I had already seen plenty of the genre, and much of that stuck with me. There was the original 1978 Superman: The Movie and its first sequel (Superman II)--against which every other screen incarnation of the character would be measured and found wanting, precisely because later filmmakers failed to respect the spirit of the original vision as they indulged their pretensions to "adult" and "dark" and "gritty" matter, not that we had not already seen plenty of that before 2000. (Recall Tim Burton's Batman? Recall the '90s-era feature films depicting the Crow and Spawn and Blade?) And there were all those memorable small-screen versions, of which I have tended to grow more appreciative with the years--the old Adam West Batman, the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series, and of course, the animated X-Men series (testimony to the lingering cultural presence of which is this X-Men '97 thing).
Of course, in spite of that I did enjoy many of the twenty-first century films--especially the first two of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films, while if I became less impressed with them over time, I was also appreciative of the first two of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies. I was in fact favorable to many a film that the common run of opinion treated fairly brutally--like the 2008 Hulk film, and the 2009 adaptation of Moore's classic Watchmen.
But it was, like everything else, part of a broader body of work that extended further into the past, all as I had developed likes and dislikes and standards the way everyone does when they see a lot of a thing. This left the offerings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe thin and flat and trite from the start. Meanwhile the X-Men movies, if increasingly dazzling visually, were far along the path of diminishing returns narratively, the reboot of Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield retreaded the same path far too soon, and Deadpool's ostentatious postmodernism (its self-awareness, its edgelordism) were wearisome. I still managed to have some positive words for 2015's Fantastic Four--but if there were some interesting elements there was no denying that taken as a whole it was a misfire, and amid a growing sense of creative exhaustion and sameness and desperation in arguing for the novelty of the newer offerings, it seemed less and less worth my while to try and catch every single new movie the way I once had done, as I wondered just how long all this could go on.
The financial catastrophes of last year, alas, answered that question--though it remains to be seen how the people in Hollywoodland will respond to that.
However, there was also the fact that long before the twenty-first century boom in big-budget features about A-list Marvel and DC superheroes I had already seen plenty of the genre, and much of that stuck with me. There was the original 1978 Superman: The Movie and its first sequel (Superman II)--against which every other screen incarnation of the character would be measured and found wanting, precisely because later filmmakers failed to respect the spirit of the original vision as they indulged their pretensions to "adult" and "dark" and "gritty" matter, not that we had not already seen plenty of that before 2000. (Recall Tim Burton's Batman? Recall the '90s-era feature films depicting the Crow and Spawn and Blade?) And there were all those memorable small-screen versions, of which I have tended to grow more appreciative with the years--the old Adam West Batman, the Lynda Carter Wonder Woman series, and of course, the animated X-Men series (testimony to the lingering cultural presence of which is this X-Men '97 thing).
But it was, like everything else, part of a broader body of work that extended further into the past, all as I had developed likes and dislikes and standards the way everyone does when they see a lot of a thing. This left the offerings of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe thin and flat and trite from the start. Meanwhile the X-Men movies, if increasingly dazzling visually, were far along the path of diminishing returns narratively, the reboot of Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield retreaded the same path far too soon, and Deadpool's ostentatious postmodernism (its self-awareness, its edgelordism) were wearisome. I still managed to have some positive words for 2015's Fantastic Four--but if there were some interesting elements there was no denying that taken as a whole it was a misfire, and amid a growing sense of creative exhaustion and sameness and desperation in arguing for the novelty of the newer offerings, it seemed less and less worth my while to try and catch every single new movie the way I once had done, as I wondered just how long all this could go on.
The financial catastrophes of last year, alas, answered that question--though it remains to be seen how the people in Hollywoodland will respond to that.
Of Old Genre Fans
Reading my way through their books I was often surprised, and not pleasantly, by how negative those writers often were about their field, not least in their constantly trashing its classics.
Later I ceased to be surprised. The eager fan new to a genre is likely to be very open to different kinds of material, and comparatively uncritical about what they look at, and respectful of received opinion. But as they get to know a genre better they form preferences--and develop antipathies. It also takes more to impress them, because they have something by which to judge what they see. And as a result they can get a lot more questioning of the "conventional wisdom." By the time they are in a position to write a book they are likely to be well past that point--and indeed many seemed simply cantankerous.
However, they often had plenty of insights to share, too, insights I often came to appreciate a good deal later--and which in hindsight seemed to me to make the cantankerousness well worth bearing with.
Gripes of an Old Science Fiction Fan
I may as well admit it--I read, and watch, a lot less science fiction than I used to, with this especially going for new stuff.
To some extent this is because I pay less attention to new stuff in general, as I no longer review books regularly, as my research concerns again and again direct my attention back to older material--and as, certainly in the media world, new production is ever more dispersed among a plenitude of streaming services with which no one can keep up.
However, there is also the reality that, as is commonly the case with longtime fans of anything, I have developed distinct likes and dislikes, and so much of what is abundant these days falls into the "dislike" category.
At this point I have absolutely had it with Frankenstein complex stuff about rebellious artificial intelligences and the like. If I want disaster drama and apocalypse and dystopia I will just look at the news instead. Superheroes? I was already feeling superhero fatigue back in 2010. And I never really found zombies all that interesting, or "young adult" stuff, while I never really got hooked on urban fantasy . . .
I can go on and on, but I think it is easy to see how all this automatically leaves many of the most popular themes less than appealing, even before I get to my broader wariness of the misanthropy, Luddism, irrationalism, edgelordism and the rest of the tones and shades in which today's "artistes" tend to work--all as the "literature envying" middlebrowness and bulkiness of today's more respectable work leaves me only the more appreciative of, alongside the brisk and dash and freshness of yesteryear's "idea men," also the good old-fashioned pulpy storytelling of a Smith or a Howard or a Dent.
Might I be induced to give something a chance in spite of that? Of course. Conceptual originality may get me to take a look--but having read and seen so much my bar for what I would regard as original is pretty high these days, and there seems to me to be no more originality about than there was back when I penned "The End of Science Fiction?" back in 2007. Humor might also get me to take a look, but the truth is that comedy is very hard to do well--and what passes for comedy these days is not often to my taste (all as, admittedly, the obscenities and absurdities of the era we live in make satire particularly difficult to pull off).
Still, if something is to get my attention that would be the way to do it.
To some extent this is because I pay less attention to new stuff in general, as I no longer review books regularly, as my research concerns again and again direct my attention back to older material--and as, certainly in the media world, new production is ever more dispersed among a plenitude of streaming services with which no one can keep up.
However, there is also the reality that, as is commonly the case with longtime fans of anything, I have developed distinct likes and dislikes, and so much of what is abundant these days falls into the "dislike" category.
At this point I have absolutely had it with Frankenstein complex stuff about rebellious artificial intelligences and the like. If I want disaster drama and apocalypse and dystopia I will just look at the news instead. Superheroes? I was already feeling superhero fatigue back in 2010. And I never really found zombies all that interesting, or "young adult" stuff, while I never really got hooked on urban fantasy . . .
Still, if something is to get my attention that would be the way to do it.
The Interaction of Identity-Making and Stereotype
Not long ago I had occasion to remark the stereotype existing in many American minds of the Japanese initially, and later as nations like South Korea, Taiwan and China achieved Japan-like successes, other East Asians, as conservative, ultraconformist, overachievers--and the mixed feelings it produces in them. If they see East Asia as other and oppressive, those Americans also seem to envy that conservatism, that conformism, and very ready to chalk up that overachievement to those qualities.
In considering those images I tended to focus on one side of the matter--American misapprehension. Yet there is also, arguably, the way in which those cultures' elites tried to make their countries fit that model, and portrayed them that way to the outside world. Identity is a fundamentally conservative game, after all, and conservative elites define their countries in those terms they find desirable.* In Japan's case this was especially easy given that, in contrast with China, it never went Communist, or even had anything Westerners have been prone to recognize as a genuine bottom-up revolution. (Indeed, the highly conventional George Friedman and Meredith LeBard, in offering their analysis about Japan in Psychology Today, made much of this fact.) Thus they slight the history of dissent in Japan (a Bernd Martin in his comparison of Nazi Germany with World War II-era Japan, for example, pointedly doing so), figures like the novelist Takiji Kobayashi (tortured and killed by the country's secret police in 1933) simply not part of even relatively informed observers' image of the country.
The result is an interplay between the conservative prejudices of elites in one country, and in others.
* In considering the vision of Japanese society then prevailing in the United States it is well worth remembering that Japanese far rightist Shintaro Ishihara's book The Japan That Can Say No, which in many ways played into the prejudices discussed here (on both sides of the cultural line) was a New York Times bestseller in English translation.
In considering those images I tended to focus on one side of the matter--American misapprehension. Yet there is also, arguably, the way in which those cultures' elites tried to make their countries fit that model, and portrayed them that way to the outside world. Identity is a fundamentally conservative game, after all, and conservative elites define their countries in those terms they find desirable.* In Japan's case this was especially easy given that, in contrast with China, it never went Communist, or even had anything Westerners have been prone to recognize as a genuine bottom-up revolution. (Indeed, the highly conventional George Friedman and Meredith LeBard, in offering their analysis about Japan in Psychology Today, made much of this fact.) Thus they slight the history of dissent in Japan (a Bernd Martin in his comparison of Nazi Germany with World War II-era Japan, for example, pointedly doing so), figures like the novelist Takiji Kobayashi (tortured and killed by the country's secret police in 1933) simply not part of even relatively informed observers' image of the country.
The result is an interplay between the conservative prejudices of elites in one country, and in others.
* In considering the vision of Japanese society then prevailing in the United States it is well worth remembering that Japanese far rightist Shintaro Ishihara's book The Japan That Can Say No, which in many ways played into the prejudices discussed here (on both sides of the cultural line) was a New York Times bestseller in English translation.
Conservative Identity-Making and the Politics of Our Times
Since the Enlightenment what we think of as progressive, "liberal," "left," has stood by belief in a common humanity and the essential universality of the human--the idea that what people have in common is more important than the comparative superficialities of "culture." (Not nationalism, but internationalism, is the cry of the left.)
It is those who opposed them--the conservative, the reactionary, the right--who placed the stress on difference between one group and another, who defined their group against others, and conventionally did so in line with their desire to shore up existing social hierarchies and the elite privilege they undergirded. Thus those elites defined their countries in terms of what they wanted it to be, rather than what it actually was--their vision of its supposed age-old identity a demand they made of their "lower orders" rather than how things had always been, as reflected in the plain and simple rewriting of history to make it conform to their project.
Consistent with this, in one way or another they all ended up arguing that all that talk about reason and individuals and rights and freedom was a noxious alien import that had nothing to do with them. "Faith, each individual in their place, obligations, subordination--these things are who we are," they say, and if a foreigner proves skeptical, they add "You Others just cannot understand the profundities of our national soul."
Ironically, the "difference"-singing conservatives proved surprisingly universal in their answer to universalism--while it is a demonstration of the essential character of postmodernism that, in contrast with the left that treated such claims as self-serving exercises in obscurantism, they defer to them completely, to the point of presenting the most nihilistic and brutal of the Counter-Enlightenment as gentle hippie multiculturalism, the high-handed imposition of an identity on a people for the sake of a reactionary elite agenda as a glorious recognition of some group's supposedly innate specialness, and the most vicious act of Othering of another group as an embrace of "diversity."
It is those who opposed them--the conservative, the reactionary, the right--who placed the stress on difference between one group and another, who defined their group against others, and conventionally did so in line with their desire to shore up existing social hierarchies and the elite privilege they undergirded. Thus those elites defined their countries in terms of what they wanted it to be, rather than what it actually was--their vision of its supposed age-old identity a demand they made of their "lower orders" rather than how things had always been, as reflected in the plain and simple rewriting of history to make it conform to their project.
Consistent with this, in one way or another they all ended up arguing that all that talk about reason and individuals and rights and freedom was a noxious alien import that had nothing to do with them. "Faith, each individual in their place, obligations, subordination--these things are who we are," they say, and if a foreigner proves skeptical, they add "You Others just cannot understand the profundities of our national soul."
Ironically, the "difference"-singing conservatives proved surprisingly universal in their answer to universalism--while it is a demonstration of the essential character of postmodernism that, in contrast with the left that treated such claims as self-serving exercises in obscurantism, they defer to them completely, to the point of presenting the most nihilistic and brutal of the Counter-Enlightenment as gentle hippie multiculturalism, the high-handed imposition of an identity on a people for the sake of a reactionary elite agenda as a glorious recognition of some group's supposedly innate specialness, and the most vicious act of Othering of another group as an embrace of "diversity."
The Japanaphobic Thrillers of the 1980s and 1990s: Why All the Two-Bit Sociology About Japan?
Reading the Japan-themed thrillers of the '80s and '90s I was struck time and again by how, more than in the case of thrillers about other countries, the authors postured as experts on the culture of their villains and presumed to educate their readers about it--in the main, retailing the clichés then in vogue among Establishment experts. Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novel Dragon was no exception, my own review of the book finding it to have repeated the standards
Looking at the Soviet Union, even in that period in which seemed to them most dynamic (the years surrounding the launch of Sputnik), Anti-Communism meant that they were sure they had nothing to learn from, or admire in, the Soviets. By contrast the Japanese in the '80s, if practicing a form of capitalism that seemed distastefully statist to many commentators (the main source of skepticism about Japanese success in those years), was still a conservative, capitalist, country they feared was beating America at its own game. And that drove them to try and make some sense of the country--if with the meager results that have many of those picking up these books today appalled by what it was common to write then, just as, in relation to many a different culture, many will similarly be appalled by the two-bit sociology standard in the early twenty-first century.
about how the Japanese have always been and always will be a closed, culturally homogeneous, individuality-stifling society of ultra-conformists who "know their place"; follow harder, more ruthless leaders who brook no nonsense about rights, egalitarianism and democracy; and cheerfully sacrifice themselves on demand at their leaders' behest; in contrast with open, free-wheeling, diverse, tolerant, liberal, democratic America.However, as was also common to such commentators, whose sensibility tended well to the right of the center of the political spectrum, much as they saw the Japanese as "Other and threatening," they all too plainly envied them that social model--the respect for elites, the deference of inferiors--in part because of the reason why there was so much comment about Japanese culture in the first place. Such persons, as conservatives inclining toward a stress on difference over similarity between societies, have also been prone to explain the hugely important matter of a country's economic success or failure in terms of culture, particularly as it makes for individual qualities. Except when banging on about the necessity of society pandering to "entrepreneurs," regarding itself as owing them everything and they as owing it nothing in return, they brush aside such matters as geography, institutions, the spillover effects of others' actions (and of course, the matter of exploitation) in favor of, for example, chalking up a success or failure to their people being more or less "hard-working," etc..
Looking at the Soviet Union, even in that period in which seemed to them most dynamic (the years surrounding the launch of Sputnik), Anti-Communism meant that they were sure they had nothing to learn from, or admire in, the Soviets. By contrast the Japanese in the '80s, if practicing a form of capitalism that seemed distastefully statist to many commentators (the main source of skepticism about Japanese success in those years), was still a conservative, capitalist, country they feared was beating America at its own game. And that drove them to try and make some sense of the country--if with the meager results that have many of those picking up these books today appalled by what it was common to write then, just as, in relation to many a different culture, many will similarly be appalled by the two-bit sociology standard in the early twenty-first century.
Did Margaret Thatcher Actually Say That Any Man Riding the Bus After the Age of Twenty-Five Was a Failure?
The remark that "If a man finds himself a passenger on a bus having attained the age of twenty-six, he can count himself a failure in life" has been widely attributed to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher--and at the same time the attribution widely contested.
Considering the resulting debate it seems worth saying that those skeptical Thatcher ever made that remark point out that the quotation has been worded differently in various reports, that documentation of any one of those statements has been elusive, and that a very similar remark has been attributed to other figures long before Thatcher was Prime Minister, among them "socialite" Loelia Ponsonby ("Anyone seen in a bus over the age of thirty has been a failure in life"), who is herself suggested by some to have merely repeated someone else's words (with poet Brian Howard identified as that person by one investigator).
However, it is also worth pointing out that the various forms of the quotation do not disprove that there was an original form of that statement; the absence of documentation does not mean that she did not say it, only that no one has yet found a possible form of the statement on the record; and that others had said it before does not mean that she did not repeat it herself, either exactly or in some form.
The result is that one can regard the claim as "unproven," rather than "debunked," but many rush to the latter conclusion. (Thus did a writer for the Guardian, in a piece all about said writer's softening attitude toward Thatcher, hasten to declare it a "bogus story.") Indeed, considering this attribution that is awkward for Thatcher's sympathizers--like her very well-documented utterance that "There is no such thing as society," which all too obviously means what it seems to no matter how they deny it--I am struck by the burden of proof laid on those who would claim that Thatcher actually made the remark about bus riders being failures. It is a rather selective exercise in historical sticklerism that, as such selectivity demonstrates (compare it with how you can make up any cynical remark, put the words in the mouth of a Communist leader, and never be questioned), demonstrate of the force of the political biases in favor not just of Thatcher but the political philosophy, the program, the economic and social model, the societal vision she championed, and from which her political legacy has since been inextricable, rather than a principled insistence on getting the facts rights.
Considering the resulting debate it seems worth saying that those skeptical Thatcher ever made that remark point out that the quotation has been worded differently in various reports, that documentation of any one of those statements has been elusive, and that a very similar remark has been attributed to other figures long before Thatcher was Prime Minister, among them "socialite" Loelia Ponsonby ("Anyone seen in a bus over the age of thirty has been a failure in life"), who is herself suggested by some to have merely repeated someone else's words (with poet Brian Howard identified as that person by one investigator).
However, it is also worth pointing out that the various forms of the quotation do not disprove that there was an original form of that statement; the absence of documentation does not mean that she did not say it, only that no one has yet found a possible form of the statement on the record; and that others had said it before does not mean that she did not repeat it herself, either exactly or in some form.
The result is that one can regard the claim as "unproven," rather than "debunked," but many rush to the latter conclusion. (Thus did a writer for the Guardian, in a piece all about said writer's softening attitude toward Thatcher, hasten to declare it a "bogus story.") Indeed, considering this attribution that is awkward for Thatcher's sympathizers--like her very well-documented utterance that "There is no such thing as society," which all too obviously means what it seems to no matter how they deny it--I am struck by the burden of proof laid on those who would claim that Thatcher actually made the remark about bus riders being failures. It is a rather selective exercise in historical sticklerism that, as such selectivity demonstrates (compare it with how you can make up any cynical remark, put the words in the mouth of a Communist leader, and never be questioned), demonstrate of the force of the political biases in favor not just of Thatcher but the political philosophy, the program, the economic and social model, the societal vision she championed, and from which her political legacy has since been inextricable, rather than a principled insistence on getting the facts rights.
A Word on Loelia Ponsonby
The first place I ever encountered the name "Loelia Ponsonby" was in the novels of Ian Fleming. The character made little impression--almost nothing of her but the name lingering in my mind afterward, I suppose because first and last name were fairly unusual.
Later I was surprised (though by that point I ought not to have been given Fleming's borrowing from acquaintances) to find out that Fleming knew a real-life Loelia Ponsonby--Ponsonby the maiden name of Loelia Mary, Lady Lindsay. Surprised, too (though by that point I ought not to have been given the circles in which the ultra-privileged Fleming moved), to find out that she was prominent enough to rate her own Wikipedia page (styling her Loelia Lindsay).
Far and away the most interesting thing about Ms. Ponsonby (to me these days, far more interesting than what inspiration she may have provided Fleming in creating James Bond's universe) is that she popularized the phrase (apparently beloved by collectors of nasty little aphorisms) that "Anyone seen in a bus over the age of thirty has been a failure in life."
Margaret Thatcher, of course, has been reported to have spoken a variation on that statement: "'If a man finds himself a passenger on a bus having attained the age of twenty-six, he can count himself a failure in life'" (in one version of the story, at any rate).
The discussion about whether Thatcher actually did so is exceedingly contentious, and I will not presume to settle the matter one way or the other here (or anywhere else). However, it seems that one can at least say something about how Thatcher's alleged comment has been interpreted--as an expression of disdain for the working people who depend on public services, and indeed as evidence that, while she promised her policies would help the whole country she really expected nothing of the kind, the claims for their beneficent character pure bad faith on the part of a right-wing ideologue, kicking the interests of those she contemptuously dismissed as "failures" to the curb as she pursued her ideological bias against the public sector and her political interest in pandering to business at working people's expense, while feeling a good deal of Schadenfreude toward the victims as she went about it. This is all the more the case in as the pattern really did extend specifically to bus service by way of the Transport Act 1985, which has had exactly the consequences her opponents predicted and feared for the country's transit riders.
The circumstances and implications of Thatcher's supposed utterance makes for an interesting contrast with the spirit of Ms. Ponsonby's statement. Certainly as could be expected given her social origin Ms. Ponsonby's mode of life, personal connections (like her marriage to Hugh Grosvenor), and the outrageous snobbery known to have gone with them, seems to have had utter contempt for "the plebs." Indeed, the comment was even nastier in the '40s than in the '80s, when as yet only a small minority of British households had automobiles. However, there was also the fact that Ponsonby was now in the same boat, or bus, as them, after her 1947 divorce, following which, according to at least one account I have encountered, she was herself riding the bus in the rain. The daughter of a baron who had been a godson to the Emperor of Germany and courtier of Queen Victoria, who as an adult married a duke counted among the world's wealthiest men (the aforementioned Grosvenor), and through it all lived it up in a manner that can almost seem a parody of the lives of the idle rich (as a "bright young thing" in the '20s, later as the wife of that duke-real estate millionaire), the now far past thirty Lindsay/Ponsonby would seem to have been speaking of herself when she spoke of "failure" in a display of what, were writers prone to judge the rich as harshly as they do the poor, they would call self-pity.
Later I was surprised (though by that point I ought not to have been given Fleming's borrowing from acquaintances) to find out that Fleming knew a real-life Loelia Ponsonby--Ponsonby the maiden name of Loelia Mary, Lady Lindsay. Surprised, too (though by that point I ought not to have been given the circles in which the ultra-privileged Fleming moved), to find out that she was prominent enough to rate her own Wikipedia page (styling her Loelia Lindsay).
Far and away the most interesting thing about Ms. Ponsonby (to me these days, far more interesting than what inspiration she may have provided Fleming in creating James Bond's universe) is that she popularized the phrase (apparently beloved by collectors of nasty little aphorisms) that "Anyone seen in a bus over the age of thirty has been a failure in life."
Margaret Thatcher, of course, has been reported to have spoken a variation on that statement: "'If a man finds himself a passenger on a bus having attained the age of twenty-six, he can count himself a failure in life'" (in one version of the story, at any rate).
The discussion about whether Thatcher actually did so is exceedingly contentious, and I will not presume to settle the matter one way or the other here (or anywhere else). However, it seems that one can at least say something about how Thatcher's alleged comment has been interpreted--as an expression of disdain for the working people who depend on public services, and indeed as evidence that, while she promised her policies would help the whole country she really expected nothing of the kind, the claims for their beneficent character pure bad faith on the part of a right-wing ideologue, kicking the interests of those she contemptuously dismissed as "failures" to the curb as she pursued her ideological bias against the public sector and her political interest in pandering to business at working people's expense, while feeling a good deal of Schadenfreude toward the victims as she went about it. This is all the more the case in as the pattern really did extend specifically to bus service by way of the Transport Act 1985, which has had exactly the consequences her opponents predicted and feared for the country's transit riders.
Of Swagger in International Politics
Writing of the "Machiavellian" Renaissance princes and their advisers, not least Niccolo Machiavelli himself, H.G. Wells remarked in The Outline of History that these were all "scheming to outdo one another, to rob weaker contemporaries, to destroy rivals, so that they might for a brief interval swagger"--no more.
Reading that I am not sure Wells' assessment was altogether fair, not least in regard to Machiavelli, whom he characterizes as having presented his vision of a united Italy in The Prince as simply "a great opportunity for a prince" rather.
Still, there is no denying that the stupid desire of heads of government and the elites behind them and the courtiers of all these to swagger plays its part in international politics--a frighteningly, distressingly, large part, especially in this era in which self-satisfied vulgarian clowns delighting in their own offensiveness to others increasingly seem to hold the highest offices, as the world media indulges the absolute worst of their behavior; and that same media, among much, much else to its absolute discredit, increasingly treats the Unthinkable as the Very Much Thinkable (to such a degree that it lavishes Oscars on movies about it While Completely Missing the Point).
Reading that I am not sure Wells' assessment was altogether fair, not least in regard to Machiavelli, whom he characterizes as having presented his vision of a united Italy in The Prince as simply "a great opportunity for a prince" rather.
Still, there is no denying that the stupid desire of heads of government and the elites behind them and the courtiers of all these to swagger plays its part in international politics--a frighteningly, distressingly, large part, especially in this era in which self-satisfied vulgarian clowns delighting in their own offensiveness to others increasingly seem to hold the highest offices, as the world media indulges the absolute worst of their behavior; and that same media, among much, much else to its absolute discredit, increasingly treats the Unthinkable as the Very Much Thinkable (to such a degree that it lavishes Oscars on movies about it While Completely Missing the Point).
Of "Swagger"
The word "swagger," according to Google's Oxford Language-based dictionary, denotes a person's conducting themselves in a "typically arrogant or aggressive way."
Basically, someone who swaggers acts like an "asshole."
Yet one finds that the word "swagger" tends to be used much less pejoratively than "asshole"--indeed, used admiringly in regard to such behavior.
Where does that come from? Quite simply there is the way that people are relentlessly encouraged to identify upwards, with those who have power and status. To think what they do necessarily commendable and worthy of emulation, to try and do it themselves when they can, to fancy themselves doing the same thing in their position when they cannot--to vicariously live through their supposed superiors, and in this case, swagger vicariously through them.
It all betrays the delusions of men who are little in every sense of the word--and in this failing all too commonplace.
Basically, someone who swaggers acts like an "asshole."
Yet one finds that the word "swagger" tends to be used much less pejoratively than "asshole"--indeed, used admiringly in regard to such behavior.
Where does that come from? Quite simply there is the way that people are relentlessly encouraged to identify upwards, with those who have power and status. To think what they do necessarily commendable and worthy of emulation, to try and do it themselves when they can, to fancy themselves doing the same thing in their position when they cannot--to vicariously live through their supposed superiors, and in this case, swagger vicariously through them.
It all betrays the delusions of men who are little in every sense of the word--and in this failing all too commonplace.
Remembering H.G. Wells' "The Land Ironclads"
A century on it can seem that many, especially among those situated in high places and with very public platforms to express their views, have yet to learn that lesson--in just one more testament of how it is not those who think as Wells did who triumphed in the battle of ideas this past century.
The Appropriation of the Nerd Image as Meritocratic Propaganda
Not long ago I remarked the class overtones of the stereotypical image of the "nerd" and the disdain for those adhering to it--the upper-class resentment of those who challenged their entitlement by trying to get ahead on the basis of diligence and education. Belonging to a world of aristocratic privilege and its defense, the ways of rationalizing inequality have long since changed to claims for society as meritocratic--and unsurprisingly, attitudes toward the "nerd" have changed in some ways. Especially with the neoliberal era seeing the exaltation of the self-made inventor-businessman--the tech billionaire as usually presented to the public--as the supreme example of the meritocrat, there has over recent decades been much talk of the "revenge of the nerds," "nerd pride" and so forth.
It is all quite silly, really, as silly as any of the other neoliberal propaganda out there, the true stories of these things not usually what they are made out to be. (Indeed, looking at many a "self-made" fortune today, as much as in any other time, one constantly finds Josiah Bounderby-like distortion of the facts, not least regarding the share of that critical feature of technical ability in the making of a billionaire.)
Meanwhile, given all the baggage attaching to the term "nerd," so-called attempts to "reclaim" nerdiness and "take pride" in nerdiness ring hollow indeed, with this exemplified by how those who can seem the very faces of the propaganda actually act in real life. Far from embracing their nerdy image, many seem to go to great lengths to discard it--not least by in middle age deciding to enter martial arts tournaments in which they are publicly humiliated by abler opponents.
It is all quite silly, really, as silly as any of the other neoliberal propaganda out there, the true stories of these things not usually what they are made out to be. (Indeed, looking at many a "self-made" fortune today, as much as in any other time, one constantly finds Josiah Bounderby-like distortion of the facts, not least regarding the share of that critical feature of technical ability in the making of a billionaire.)
Meanwhile, given all the baggage attaching to the term "nerd," so-called attempts to "reclaim" nerdiness and "take pride" in nerdiness ring hollow indeed, with this exemplified by how those who can seem the very faces of the propaganda actually act in real life. Far from embracing their nerdy image, many seem to go to great lengths to discard it--not least by in middle age deciding to enter martial arts tournaments in which they are publicly humiliated by abler opponents.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
