‘Malign culture’ vs. ‘individual choice’

Since I’ve written quite a bit about the proposed mosque or community center near Ground Zero (here and here), I felt compelled to mention this insightful column by literary critic Stanley Fish, in which Fish compares the actions of “21-year-old knife-wielding Michael Enright,” who allegedly and recently attacked a New York City Muslim cab driver, to that of Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. On McVeigh, Fish begins thusly:

In the brief period between the bombing and the emergence of McVeigh, speculation had centered on Arab terrorists and the culture of violence that was said to be woven into the fabric of the religion of Islam.

But when it turned out that a white guy (with the help of a few of his friends) had done it, talk of “culture” suddenly ceased and was replaced by the vocabulary and mantras of individualism: each of us is a single, free agent; blaming something called “culture” was just a way of off-loading responsibility for the deeds we commit; in America, individuals, not groups, act; and individuals, not groups, should be held accountable. McVeigh may have looked like a whole lot of other guys who dressed up in camouflage and carried guns and marched in the woods, but, we were told by the same people who had been mouthing off about Islam earlier, he was just a lone nut, a kook, and generalizations about some “militia” culture alive and flourishing in the heartland were entirely unwarranted.

This switch from “malign culture” talk to “individual choice” talk was instantaneous and no one felt obliged to explain it. Now, in 2010, it’s happening again around the intersection of what the right wing calls the “Ground Zero mosque” (a geographical exaggeration if there ever is one) and the attack last week on a Muslim cab driver by (it is alleged) 21-year-old knife-wielding Michael Enright.

Like McVeigh, Enright is regarded as a lone (alleged) perpetrator and is not, as Fish said,

the product of what Time magazine calls a growing “American strain of Islamophobia.” Instead, The New York Post declares, the stabbing is “the act of a disturbed individual who is now in custody,” and across the fold of the page columnist Jonah Goldberg says that “one assault doesn’t a national trend make” and insists that “we shouldn’t let anyone suggest that this criminal reflects anybody but himself.”

The formula is simple and foolproof (although those who deploy it so facilely seem to think we are all fools): If the bad act is committed by a member of a group you wish to demonize, attribute it to a community or a religion and not to the individual. But if the bad act is committed by someone whose profile, interests and agendas are uncomfortably close to your own, detach the malefactor from everything that is going on or is in the air (he came from nowhere) and characterize him as a one-off, non-generalizable, sui generis phenomenon.

The only thing more breathtaking than the effrontery of the move is the ease with which so many fall in with it. I guess it’s because both those who perform it and those who eagerly consume it save themselves the trouble of serious thought.

Milton’s matchlessness diluted?

In Stanley Fish’s most recent New York Times blog post, we read about a new modern, reader-friendly translation of one of, if not the, greatest epic poems of all time.

John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” in all its didactic complexities and hidden poetic treasures, recalls, in extended form, “Of man’s first disobedience, and the Fruit” and how Adam and Eve, once God’s seemingly unblemished creations, fell and eventually, thousands of blank verse lines later, “hand in hand with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way” out of paradise.

The new adaptation, called, “Paradise Lost: Parallel Prose Edition” by Dennis Danielson “unpacks” the poem, as Fish notes, so that it is more coherent to modern readers. During a lengthy analysis, Fish takes several examples from the new translation and attempts to show how the new version changes the meaning from Milton’s original, tightly packed verse.

To take one example:

When Adam decides to join Eve in sin and eat the apple, the poem says that he was “fondly overcome by female charm.” The word that asks you to pause is “fondly,” which means both foolishly and affectionately. The two meanings have different relationships to the action they characterize. If you do something foolishly, you have no excuse, and it’s a bit of a mystery as to why you did; if you do it prompted by affection and love, the wrongness of it may still be asserted, but something like an explanation or an excuse has at least been suggested.

The ambiguity plays into the poem-length concern with the question of just how culpable Adam and Eve are for the fall. (Given their faculties and emotions, were they capable of standing?) “Fondly” doesn’t resolve the question, but keeps it alive and adds to the work the reader must always be doing when negotiating this poem.

Here is Danielson’s translation of the line: “an infatuated fool overcome by a woman’s charms.” “Infatuated” isn’t right because it redoubles the accusation in “fool” rather than softening it. The judgment is sharp and clear, but it is a clearer judgment than Milton intended or provided. Something has been lost (although as Danielson points out, something is always lost in a translation). — Stanley Fish, The New York Times, Nov. 30, 2008

Critics of Milton’s verse have said that the difficulty of the original text, according to Fish, rests in the self-centric nature of the poem. Quoting F.R. Leavis, he said the poetry “calls pervasively for a kind of attention … toward itself.”

Roadblocks, in the form of ambiguities, deliberate obscurities, shifting grammatical paths and recondite allusions, are everywhere and one is expected to stop and try to figure things out, make connections or come to terms with an inability to make connections.

Thus, a different sort of reading is required than the standard gathering of basic plot details. One is forced to, of course, follow the plot, but one is also invited to seek out the hidden complexities of the very words and letters on the page. Well-placed sonnets appear within its framework. Poignant acronyms, spotted by scanning the beginning letter of each line, are darted throughout. A prose-only reading of the text, then, would conceal these findings and, further, would exempt the reader from the possibility of finding them.

Clearly, Danielson’s love for Milton is palpable or else, he would not be a Milton scholar. And as Fish points out, Danielson includes the original verse right alongside his new translation.

I would agree with Fish on most counts. Danielson is providing a fine tool to introduce readers to Milton’s greatness. Fish says of Danielson:

He knows as well as anyone how Milton’s poetry works, but it is his judgment (following [John] Wesley and [Harold] Bloom) that many modern readers will not take their Milton straight and require some unraveling of the knots before embarking on the journey.

I’m not sure he’s right (I’ve found students of all kinds responsive to the poetry once they give it half a chance), but whether he is or not, he has fashioned a powerful pedagogical tool that is a gift to any teacher of Milton whatever the level of instruction.

Are scholars beginning to translate Beowulf or Chaucer or Shakespeare? If they are, I’m not aware. Regardless, I, having read the entire poem “straight,” as Fish notes, with no help from study aids or the like, found it quite understandable with the help of a good old dictionary and the simple textual notes provided with most Milton readers. So, while Fish says the edition is a “gift to any teacher of Milton,” I would have to disagree on that count. I don’t think we can allow our greatest writings to be watered down into modern prose, when prose was quite an opposite intention of the writer. Not only is “something” always lost in translation, much is lost in translation.

As early as 1763, John Wesley noted of “Paradise Lost” that “this inimitable work amidst all its beauties is unintelligible to [an] abundance of readers.” Much later, Harold Bloom, with a hint of fatalism for the direction of modern education, noted readers today “require mediation to read ‘Paradise Lost’ with full appreciation.” But reading “Paradise Lost” with mediation is not reading “Paradise Lost.” It’s reading or being fed someone else’s thoughts on the poem. Has Bloom and Danielson simply “given in” and acknowledged that it’s beyond modern readers’ capacity to read complex literature without assistance from other translations, study guides, etc?

If that’s the concession, and even when academia is acknowledging this much, it’s a sad day. I’m thankful that
I had a lit professor who dictated to us exactly what we would do when approaching Milton: Sit down with the original text, read the annotations for clarity if necessary, have a dictionary handy and let the poetry speak for itself. Was it difficult? Yes. But it was worth it. Danielson’s edition, while admirable in its attempt to make Milton more digestible to a new generation of readers misses the point.

“Paradise Lost,” as Fish begins with Danielson’s own reference to Wesley, is inimitable, or matchless. And for that reason, it should retain its luster; anything less is lazy and fatalistic teaching. It is the responsibility of the teacher or professor’s job to make Milton, Shakespeare and the like interesting to students, to make them understand just why it’s matchless, to help students take the text as it was meant to be taken. It’s not inimitable just because it tells a good story. It’s inimitable because it tells a good story in one of the most finely crafted, well-thought out, epic creations of poetry the world will ever see. To see it or study it as anything else is a true loss.

Obama in McCain’s words: ‘Disciplined and careful’

So it is with Obama, who barely exerts himself and absorbs attack after attack, each of which, rather than wounding him, leaves him stronger. It’s rope-a-dope on a grand scale.

And McCain knows it. Last Wednesday, campaigning in New Hampshire, he spoke sneeringly about Obama’s campaign being “disciplined and careful.” That’s exactly right, and so far the combination of discipline and care — care not to get out too far in front of anything — along with a boatload of money is working just fine. Jesus is usually the political model for Republicans, but this time his brand of passive, patient leadership is being channeled by a Democrat. — Stanley Fish, Oct. 26, 2008

I don’t know at what point Fish became a columnist for The New York Times, but in college, I simply knew him as a literary critic. Lately, I’ve been enjoying some of the pieces he’s offered The Times. This one, I feel, is spot on.

We know John McCain, through various episodes, as a bit of a hot head (I reference this source, but by all means, google it for yourself.) His temper explosions are no secret. But against him, and in stark contrast, is Barack Obama, who, as Fish points out — or should I say, McCain — is “disciplined and careful” in his campaigning and has carried a more presidential demeanor along the way. I would argue that, as president, that discipline and carefulness will go along way in healing our fractured relationship with many of our now-Bush-weary detractors.

I will say this, and here is my argument about the election: McCain is an able leader. I don’t necessarily agree with the fundamental reasons for being in Iraq (and continuing to stay there), but McCain, at the least, could maintain this country and keep the boat afloat. But of his running mate, I can’t say the same, and Sarah Palin’s folksy approach to addressing some of the most confounding issues this country has seen literally in decades, with a wink and a smile, will simply not do. To vote for McCain as president (given his age and health) is to vote for Palin as president, and that’s not a jump I can, in good conscious, make. If McCain had made a smarter choice, and less politically fueled one (another reason to question that camp’s judgment … I think Giuliani would have been a decent VP pick — his efforts to help New York shake off the throws of the terrorist attack were noble) the choice might be more difficult.

Now, as Fish (I can only suspect his motives), I refuse to be a hack for anyone. I advertise for no one. But, I do supply my summation of how I see this election breaking down. Obama, in all his inspiration and yes, erudition, has taken all that McCain and political machines could throw at him (from Jeremiah Wright, to Bill Ayers, to ACORN), and while crossfiring with attacks of his own, has maintained in debates and on the stump, a presidential poise that will, in the end, win him the White House.