[Martin Elster]

From: The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity by Douglas Murray

We are going through a great crowd derangement. In public and in private, both online and off, people are behaving in ways that are increasingly irrational, feverish, herd-like and simply unpleasant. The daily news cycle is filled with the consequences. Yet while we see the symptoms everywhere, we do not see the causes. Various explanations have been given. These tend to suggest that any and all madnesses are the consequence of a Presidential election, or a referendum. But none of these explanations gets to the root of what is happening. For far beneath beneath these day-to-day events are much greater movements and much bigger events. It is time we began to confront the true causes of what is going wrong. Even the origin of this condition is rarely acknowledged. This is the simple fact that we have been living through a period of more than a quarter of a century in which all our grand narratives have collapsed. One by one the narratives we had were refuted, became unpopular to defend or impossible to sustain.

The explanations for our existence that used to be provided by religion went first, falling away from the nineteenth century onwards. Then over the last century the secular hopes held out by all political ideologies began to follow in religion’s wake. In the latter part of the twentieth century we entered the postmodern era. An era which defined itself, and was defined, by its suspicion towards all grand narratives. However, as all schoolchildren learn, nature abhors a vacuum, and into the postmodern vacuum new ideas began to creep, with the intention of providing explanations and meanings of their own. It was inevitable that some pitch would be made for the deserted ground. People in wealthy Western democracies today could not simply remain the first people in recorded history to have absolutely no explanation for what we are doing here, and no story to give life purpose. Whatever else they lacked, the grand narratives of the past at least gave life meaning.

The question of what exactly we are meant to do now – other than get rich where we can and have whatever fun is on offer – was going to have to be answered by something. The answer that has presented itself in recent years is to engage in new battles, ever fiercer campaigns and ever more niche demands. To find meaning by waging a constant war against anybody who seems to be on the wrong side of a question which may itself have just been reframed and the answer to which has only just been altered. The unbelievable speed of this process has been principally caused by the fact that a handful of businesses in Silicon Valley (notably Google, Twitter and Facebook) now have the power not just to direct what most people in the world know, think and say, but have a business model which has accurately been described as relying on finding ‘customers ready to pay to modify someone else’s behaviour’. Yet although we are being aggravated by a tech world which is running faster than our legs are able to carry us to keep up with it, these wars are not being fought aimlessly. They are consistently being fought in a particular direction. And that direction has a purpose that is vast. The purpose – unknowing in some people, deliberate in others – is to embed a new metaphysics into our societies: a new religion, if you will.

Murray, Douglas. The Madness of Crowds (pp. 8-9). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.
. . . . .

When Martin Luther King Jr addressed the crowds from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, on 28 August 1963, he appealed not only to foundations of justice in the founding traditions and principles of America; he also made the most eloquent defence anyone has ever made about the right way in which to treat other human beings. He spoke not only after centuries in which black Americans had been first slaves and then second-class citizens, but in an era during which racist laws were still on the statute books in American states. Racial segregation laws including anti-miscegenation laws were still in place, able to punish couples from different racial backgrounds who had fallen in love.

It was Dr King’s great central moral insight that in the future about which he dreamed his children should ‘one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character’. Although many people have attempted to live up to that hope and many have succeeded, in recent years an insidious current has developed that has chosen to reject Dr King’s dream, and insist that content of character is nothing compared to the colour of someone’s skin. It has decided that skin colour is everything.

—Murray, Douglas. The Madness of Crowds (p. 142). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

[Julie Steiner]

Martin,

Suggesting that race doesn't or shouldn't matter, or wouldn't if racial, ethnic, and gender minorities weren't making such a big deal about it, overlooks the fact that these identities usually ARE noticeable and DO matter, a lot, both to others and to ourselves. They are central to our first impressions of others and to our sense of belonging within a wider community, through bonds sometimes strengthened by cultural factors like religion, language, music, dance, food, etc.

Claiming that people are somehow doing something wrong when others choose to identify them as Other and choose to treat them differently because of that, rather than judging them by the content of their character, seems unrealistic at best, and victim-blaming at worst, if that treatment is negative.

Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

I don't want to labour this point, but in her original article, where she had time and space to clearly state her position, Deul doesn’t specify that she is talking only about this one particular poem. She writes about who should get the job of translating "The Hill We Climb And Other Poems". Now, I think the commission was just for an edition of the single poem (the full collection is not coming out till autumn, I believe) but Deul clearly and specifically writes and other poems.

No, you're not wrong, Mark. I was wrong. The Hill We Climb and Other Poems is the name of the collection due out in September. (An edition of "The Hill We Climb" is being released as a single poem in March.)

There goes my thesis that the commissioned translation project was for a single poem. (Although the March release will be of a single poem.) And that Deul was only talking about a single poem.

I also disagree with your suggestion that "Rijneveld's lack of experience in this field is (Deul’s) main objection. Race and gender identity are secondary to that". Deul mentions all three things (spoken-word experience, race and gender) but the bulk of her focus seems centred on Gorman's youth, beauty, fashion sense and status as a role model for black women and girls. [...]

Okay, you've persuaded me of that, too. Thanks for taking the time to construct a solidly evidence-based argument.

I don't have any issue with Deul expressing these opinions. Whether I agree with them or not, they’re reasonably expressed. I don't agree that "Most people are upset NOT about what Janice Deul actually said, but about bad-faith characterizations of it". It isn't what she did or didn't say, or whether she has been misinterpreted, that has "upset" people. People are free to express any opinion they like (within reason) and they do on social media every day. People wouldn't be "upset" about it, or even have heard much about it, if she hadn't been successful. That's the point. It's the increasing power of social media outrage in forcing publishers and artists to capitulate to its whims that disturbs people.

Oh. Thanks for the correction.

I agree there's some straw-manning in the Barrios article. Deul doesn't actually say that she thinks only black writers should translate other black writers etc. But I think it’s unfair to suggest that the reasons for Barrios’ possible hyperbole are “in order to enlist others in battling a perceived threat to her own livelihood as a translator”.

Barrios is a successful, widely published writer and poet and I give her the benefit of the doubt that what she is writing is sincerely felt rather than motivated by her bank balance. I also think it unlikely that she would genuinely fear that her income from translating would be massively affected if it suddenly became the norm that she could no longer translate black writers. If anything, putting her head over the parapet to criticise this decision is more likely to lose her work.

Aw, dang it, I was straw-manning Barrios, wasn't I?

Well, this is awkward.

Thanks for calling me out on it in such a calm, kind way. Not that I would have expected any different from you, but it's a rare gift to receive such courteous correction these days. ​

Also, that slippery slope Barrios alludes to is already being slid down. The notion of "staying in your own lane" regarding what is acceptable subject matter in literature is increasingly commonplace among ID politics inspired social media users. It's what led The Nation to apologise for publishing a poem for the first time in its 80 year history when Anders Wee dared to write a persona poem from the pov of a homeless black man.

Roxane Gay had a helpful, nuanced series of Tweets (since taken down, but it was quoted in a blog here) on the concept of "staying in your own lane":

The reality is that when most white writers use AAVE [African American Vernacular English, as in Anders Carlson-Wee's homeless POV poem] they do so badly. They do so without understanding that it is a language with rules. Instead, they use AAVE to denote that there is a black character in their story because they understand blackness as a monolith. Framing blackness as monolithic is racist. It is lazy. And using AAVE badly is lazy so I am entirely comfortable suggesting that writers stay in their lane when it comes to dialect. The great thing about writing is that you can develop new lanes through research, immersion and…effort. There was none of that in this poem.

Mark, I know that you have very strong feelings on this point with regard to the creation of characters in drama and comedy, as well as in personal poems. You see possible empathy-building through those portrayals, while I see only the perpetuation of cartoonish stereotypes rather than of genuine understanding. We've already failed to persuade each other on that point.

But I still think that people in privileged groups should not try to speak for people who have traditionally not had opportunities to make their voices heard, but who may be perfectly capable of speaking for themselves now. However well-intentioned the White person is who tries to speak on their behalf, they still don't get to speak while he or she is speaking. And wouldn't firsthand witness be more accurate, anyway?

That was the problem (as I see it--after having just gotten the above problem wrong) with the 40-page poem in Poetry, by the white poet whose white narrator occasionally quoted the banal racism of his white grandmother. White guys, collectively speaking, have had plenty of opportunities to have their views heard on everything, and when they are given 40 pages in which to blather away on race, no one else can get a word in edgewise.

I also wonder if Rijneveld really "voluntarily stepped down after sympathising with Deul's position" as you say, or if in fact they felt they had little choice after the social media outpouring of "pain, frustration, anger and disappointment" at their having got the job. To stubbornly dig in could risk them being labelled at best unfeeling and at worst racist. Given the nature of social media mob pressure, it's naive to think this was a completely free choice. I do also wonder if feeling "anger" and "pain" at the idea of a young, non-binary, Booker Prize winning author translating Amanda Gorman, simply because they have the wrong skin colour, or are not part of the spoken word scene, is a reasonable response. I'm aware this might not be a fashionable opinion.

Now, I could be very wrong here but I've started now so in for a penny...I find the notion of "The Hill We Climb" being “sacred to many Americans, but particularly to Black Americans” a bit hard to swallow. I have a problem with sacred texts in general, and I find the idea that all black Americans, or even the majority, see it like this to be a little patronising. Certainly it was a powerful and iconic moment, but is "sacred" pushing it? I’m sure many Americans, white and black, now look back at the inauguration with affection but see the moment for what it was beyond the symbolism: a talented, ambitious young woman getting a big stage with a crowd-pleasing poem and an incumbent administration disassociating itself from the previous, horrendous one in a very media savvy, striking way with a young, black, “modern” voice. The whole idea that there is something special, something sacred, in Blackness, or in any part of a person’s identity over which they have no choice, so that their inner essence and experiences can only be apprehended by someone sharing that identity, is the racial equivalent of the idea that there is something mystical in femininity. And where femininity is dogged with the Madonna/whore dichotomy, white notions of Blackness can be dogged by the sacred/profane dichotomy. I think it’s time we realised we are all just people, equally flawed and pained and bumbling through life and equally capable of the very best and worst of humanity. Art should be about recognising this common humanity and frailty. Again, very unfashionable opinions no doubt and probably informed by my privilege as a straight, white man. And I do mean that genuinely, even though it probably sounds sarcastic.

No worries, Mark. Maybe I am being patronizing and presumptuous by saying Black Americans may be more likely than Americans of other races to feel a special connection to this poem, but I don't think so. If your objection is only to the word "sacred," these essays don't use that word, but they sure come close:

Her cadence steady, so sure yet measured, a sort of melodic sermon like Maya Angelou. [...] Amanda was a theologian in the truest sense of the word — she was making divine possibilities intelligible and offering an alternative world of love, freedom, hope and joy. Theology is not just speaking or wrestling; it is also helping us dream a little bit of the future God has for us. It is pondering the actual, imagining the possible.

(Danté Stewart in Religion News)

“Only that which has form can snatch one up into a state of rapture,” wrote the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. “Only through form can the lightning-bolt of eternal beauty flash. Without form, in any event, a person will not be captivated and transported. To be transported, moreover, belongs to the very origin of Christianity. The Apostles were transported by what they saw, heard, and touched.”

Amanda Gorman transported me. I believed in the light and the goodness and the vision of holiness Ms. Gorman laid out because she offered it to me as music and image and breath. I would not believe in what is good and true if it were shouting at me, deadpan, no color or image in its offering.

Erika Rasmussin in America Magazine

Granted, this kind of language is not entirely unexpected in venues like Religion News and America Magazine (a Jesuit publication).

As to the hypothetical question of whether Rijneveld would have been a good translator of Gorman’s poem, when I read their “response poem” after they stepped down I was struck by two things. The first was how ambivalent it was. The way I read it, they seem to spend the first four stanzas of the six stanza poem expressing their deeply held belief in the notion of empathy in art, of being “able to put yourself / in another’s shoes, to see the sea of sorrow behind another / person’s eyes”, of decrying (in the first stanza) “pulpit preaching…the Word that says what is / right or wrong”, of the need to “face up to all the bullies and fight pigeonholing with your fists raised” and “all of humankind’s boxing in”. This, along with the telling title, reads to me like someone very much of the mind that translation in poetry is an art that transcends racial boundaries and embraces the common humanity of the human race. That having a young marginalised white woman translate the words of a young, marginalised black woman would actually be a positive thing and the deluge of social media criticism was not something they instinctively agreed with. It’s only in the last two stanzas that the poem turns and begins to sound like more an “apology”. And the poem is at its weakest and most prosaic here, like it was written under some form of mental duress. And tellingly, they end on the unifying, defiant note that people should “straighten together our backs”. I felt quite sad reading it.

I think your assessment is reasonable, and I, too, sensed sadness and loss in the poem, along with the desire to unify.

I found the link to the Rijneveld's poem just after having posted, and although I realized that it torpedoed many of my conjectures, I thought it would be helpful to the discussion to include it. But I didn't have any more time to spend, so I just cut it, pasted it, and turned it red so people wouldn't miss it.

The second thing that struck me was how easily I could hear the poem in my inner ear with the recognisable rhythms and cadence of spoken word poetry, with its long, flowing, incantatory sentences and rhetorical repetition of “Never lost that”. I think they would have been a fine choice.

I don't know. Maybe your ear is better than mine. I'm still not quite convinced that Rijneveld would have done as good a job or better.

Over the past twenty years, I've posted any number of really cringeworthy attempts at translating rhymed, metered poetry to the Translation Board here. And a handful of decent ones. And two or three good ones.

I know that in large part, my verse translation failures have been due to unique personality and processing flaws that make it difficult for me to perceive what the original poet was thinking and feeling. Which in turn makes it nearly impossible to convey the same with any degree of success. And also I am often reluctant to sacrifice things like perfect rhyme, when doing so might be the only way to preserve another aspect of the poem that is more important. But I am vain enough to think that for the most part, my failures have been due to the fact that rhymed, rhythmic translations are just really difficult to do well. Such a high-visibility performance poem, or set of poems, doesn't seem like an ideal learn-on-the-job opportunity for someone who almost never works in form.

But maybe I'm wrong, and Rijneveld's translation would have been brilliant. it seems that no one will ever know.

All I know is that whoever the substitute or substitutes are will now have a nearly-impossible-to-please audience judging their work.

Ultimately, I see this as another example of art being forced into bad, anti-art decisions via the dictates of fashionable notions of identity politics which have zero impact on the actual lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged in society, of which people of colour make up a significant number.

I don't quite follow your gist about identity politics having zero impact on the lives of the poorest and most disadvantaged in society. Or do you mean that the "anti-art decisions" make no difference to these people's situations?

Thanks again for your time and thought, Mark, and if you don't have the time or energy to engage with this right now, feel free to take a break and come back to it in a few days or weeks.

I think you added another paragraph in the middle after I started replying, so apologies if you've changed other things that I didn't notice. I'll go back to look at what you said in the morning.

Sheesh, it's 3am here now. I keep telling myself not to do stuff like this. I'm sure you know the feeling, Mark!

[conny]

Appropriation is most harmful to minorities, which is mostly why it’s
so offensive. And anti-art, no question. No black Hamlet maybe?
not many minority roles in Shakespeare. No openly gay people
Allowed either I suppose. Even no women come to that, considering
all the female roles were originally played by men.

what worries me most is that if that’s the game its only a matter of time
Before some English fascist will try and plant his big, white fascist flag
on the English language itself. We own the language: It’s ours: and no
One else can play with our ball. If you’d like to go and find your own
Language then fine, but we own this one because, well, we’re English....

[Julie Steiner]

Dave, if someone were to claim the English language as English-only, would they have to give all the loanwords and calques back? Heh.

And if we're getting technical, the casting of Hamlet wouldn't be just restricted to Whites, but to Whites of Danish ancestry, in which case a lot of White English actors would still be out of a job.

Seriously, though, I don't see why no Black Hamlets would be allowed. There's a long tradition of resetting Shakespeare in modern times, the 1920s, etc., in which multicultural casts make sense. And also a very long history of women playing Hamlet, including women of color. It's way too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

I'm pretty sure we won't be seeing any more blackface White Othellos for awhile, though. However long that tradition is. Current casting and costuming decisions are less a matter of whether a White actor can do justice to the role, and more about the troubling history of blackface. And to a lesser degree, about giving non-White actors Shakespearean leading role opportunities, which have not been available to them until relatively recently.

Speaking of cultural appropriation, there's a reason we've yet to hear Danes complain about exaggerated ethnic stereotypes in Hamlet, or Scots complain about them in Macbeth. Or Greeks about depictions in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Etc. And that reason is that exaggerated ethnic stereotypes of Danes, Scots, Greeks, etc., aren't there. The anti-Semitism in the depiction of Shylock is, but so is Shylock's humanizing speech. Whether those two things really offset each other is debatable, of course.

In recent years, I've attended two productions of Mozart in which the libretto's sexism and/or cultural appropriation was obvious. Both productions chose to present those depictions as in the original had had them, but with significant pauses added for the audience to softly hiss or throat-clear after the now-offensive lines. I thought that this expression of solidarity by the audience made these productions far more meaningful and engaging experiences for everyone, including the women and the members of the appropriated culture, than censorship or tinkering would have.

Mark, here's the bit I missed in your post--probably due to an editing error on my part rather than a later addition:

You sidestepped Roger's hypothetical about Gorman translating Rijneveld, calling it Bizarro World because Gorman doesn't speak Dutch.

I called Roger's hypothetical a Bizarro World situation not because Gorman doesn't speak Dutch, but because Whites in both the United States and in the Netherlands are pretty much the default, and Blacks in both are the exception. Or one kind of exception. Definitely not the default, anyway.

What about a more generalised hypothetical. Following a social media campaign, a black, Dutch translator is pressured to step down from translating a collection by a white Midwestern farmer poet. Some campaigners claim it's because the poet wrote mainly in form and the translator mainly in free verse but the original essay prompting the uproar mainly focuses on the poet's status as a role model for working-class Mid-westerners and his strong white identity which no other group could possibly identify or empathise with. What do you imagine yours and the general response would be? Quite rightly, one of upset and indignation I would imagine. Because investing whiteness with quasi-mystical properties is something that only neo-Nazis and white supremacists do. Of course, I understand that historically oppressed and marginalized groups will justifiably be invested in a sense of their identity more than historically privileged groups, but I don't think it is something that should reasonably begin affecting editorial decisions.

In order to engineer a truly equivalent situation, you'd first have to reverse which race is the majority and minority in each country, and then reverse the races of the poet and the two translators. But reimagining the racial composition of two entire countries is so unwieldy that at that point the thought experiment ceases to be a meaningful exercise at all.

BTW, in my view, there is absolutely nothing wrong with White people taking pride in their own race or ethnicities or religions or other cultural signifiers. It's only when they feel the need to sneer at, suppress, exclude, or discriminate against other people's races or ethnicities in order to feel secure about their own--which is what neo-Nazis and White supremacists do--that I have a problem with White pride.

[conny]

Yes, exactly. I was kinda joking obviously, in poor taste, but
All that is true.

As a serious point though my worry is things being seen as
One thing or the other. Appropriation works both ways, which I
don’t think anyone has said yet. Yes, we claim something as our
Own: but...we also decide that something else is yours. That’s the
Dangerous bit imo.

Things are kind of at that point now. Everything with a little flag
on it. novelists, poets, acting roles, plays. I think the phrase is...
stay in your lane....which is a goddam depressing thought.

[Julie Steiner]

Personally, I think the following factors should be considered when determining whether getting out of one's lane is acceptable, or even commendable:

1. Goodwill vs. Selfishness. Does the artist's main motive in attempting this representation seem to be that of promoting deeper or broader understanding? Or does the artist seem to be more motivated by a desire to exploit a trendy or exotically novel theme for profit (monetary, political, or notoriety/publicity-wise)?

2. Enough Respect to Do One's Homework. Has the artist done the proper research to make sure that the depiction does not mis-represent any aspects of the other culture, gender, etc.? Or is the artist simply relying on readymade clichés and unexamined stereotypes?

3. The Fairness of Any Implied Broader Implications. Are the strengths and flaws of these fictional characters--and yes, all fictional characters must be flawed in order to have any verisimilitude or interest--likely to be taken as applying to others with the same cultural or gender traits? And if so, is that a fair implication?

4. Quality of the Resulting Work. Obviously it's much easier to look kindly on a depiction if it is part of something excellent.

An example of an artist who has successfully gotten out of his lane is Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel-prizewinning author of books with unreliable narrators who are obviously different from himself in various ways, such as the painfully repressed English butler in The Remains of the Day and the eventually stoic Kathy H. in Never Let Me Go. Even Ishiguro has had some misses along with his lane-changing hits; some of his choices definitely work better than others. But when he gets it right, it's great.

And there are of course many other such artists. Wally Lamb's eerie inhabitation of an obese female narrator in She's Come Undone comes to mind. And yes, body size is an identity.

Perhaps others can add to this list of successful lane-changers, or add to (or subtract from) this list of guidelines.

The factors are somewhat different when evaluating a publisher's or producer's decisions. But I've yammered on long enough and will let others discuss those if they wish.

[Martin Elster]

Perhaps others can add to this list of successful lane-changers ...

Outside of literature:

Aaron Copland, who wrote Billy the Kid, Rodeo,, the music for the film The Red Pony, and other well-known works (including Appalachian Spring and El Salón México). Much of his music had the flavor of cowboy music, even though he was not a cowboy but a Jewish boy from Brooklyn. “The open, slowly changing harmonies in much of his music are typical of what many people consider to be the sound of American music, evoking the vast American landscape and pioneer spirit.” (Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Copland

George Gershwin, who wrote Porgy and Bess, and was another jewish kid from Brooklyn. “Porgy and Bess was first performed in Boston on September 30, 1935, before it moved to Broadway in New York City. It featured a cast of classically trained African-American singers—a daring artistic choice at the time. After an initially unpopular public reception, a 1976 Houston Grand Opera production gained it new popularity, and it is now one of the best-known and most frequently performed operas.” (Wikipedia)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gershwin

And these 9 Black composers who changed the course of classical music history:

https://www.classicfm.com/discover-m...music-history/

[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Perhaps others can add to this list of successful lane-changers

William Styron, The Confessions of Nat Turner.

Successful? It was controversial even at the time. But many felt it was successful. I should probably reread it before weighing in, but I remember being moved and impressed, as I have been with most of Styron's work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Co..._of_Nat_Turner

We might also include Sophie's Choice, as Styron wasn't personally touched by the Holocaust.

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Perhaps others can add to this list of successful lane-changers.

Charles Harrison, 87, Designer Who Reshaped the View-Master, Dies
Dec. 5, 2018

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/o...ison-dead.html

George Washington Carver

https://www.history.com/topics/black...hington-carver

[Martin Elster]

Originally Posted by Julie Steiner

Martin,

Suggesting that race doesn't or shouldn't matter, or wouldn't if racial, ethnic, and gender minorities weren't making such a big deal about it, overlooks the fact that these identities usually ARE noticeable and DO matter, a lot, both to others and to ourselves. They are central to our first impressions of others and to our sense of belonging within a wider community, through bonds sometimes strengthened by cultural factors like religion, language, music, dance, food, etc.

Claiming that people are somehow doing something wrong when others choose to identify them as Other and choose to treat them differently because of that, rather than judging them by the content of their character, seems unrealistic at best, and victim-blaming at worst, if that treatment is negative.

I wrote something in response to this and thought I may post it, but then I found this talk on YouTube, which I think answers what you wrote better than me.

Coleman Hughes on The Case for Color-blindness S2 [Bonus Episode]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq6xJ2vFlaA