Strawson once said that Grice was wrong about
i. The king of France is bald.
For Grice, this is false; while
ii. The king of France is no bald.
is true. For Strawson, neither (i) nor (ii) have truth-value; they display,
rather, to use Quine's jargon, 'truth-value gaps,' which Grice thought
metaphysical monsters. But Strawson gives a different scenario:
"Of course, it would be different, were I to utter, as per a fiction:
iii. I'll tell you a little story, if that will make you sleep. We are in
France, during the monarchy. The poor king is bald.
"Surely my son will take my voice as appropriating a fictional narration -- or
something." Strawson implicates that the implicature of the 'existence' of the
denotatum of "the king of France" in "The king of France is not bald" can be
cancelled -- but Grice knew that: "The king of France ain't bald; in fact,
France is a republic." It's more difficult, but perhaps not impossible, this
being Strawson's point, to cancel the ENTAILMENT of the existence of the king
of France in "The king of France is bald" unless it's within the context of,
er, a fiction. (Bosanquet indeed introduced monarchy in this type of scenario
with his "The king of Utopia did not die today.")
In "Safe Spaces," McEvoy gives a link:
As Lionel Shriver made light of identity, I had no choice but to walk out on
her | Yassmin Abdel-Magied
which mentions the word 'philosophical' (which I read to implicate, "Griceian,"
of course). It all reminded me of Currie's work on Griceian implicatures to
fiction (drawing from J. L. Borges!). In any case, McEvoy comments:
"The below the line comments have some choice moments: everything from the
"hive mind" to the person who explains that _Alien_ is a flawed act of cultural
appropriation being written by humans who don't know what it's like to need to
plant your embryos in the stomachs of other species."
I guess that would depend on who the narrator in "Alien" is -- the script, I
mean -- for films don't count. Is _it_ based on a novel? Films may be said to
be 'fiction', too -- but there is a current debate as to whether "Sully" (being
"based on facts" can change things a bit -- and the names of the people in
Sully's committee have been changed into fictional ones).
The piece McEvoy quotes, being from The Guardian, makes for intellectual,
Griceian, reading of sorts -- as opposed to pieces from The Telegraph, which
make for light, Griceian, reading of sorts (and still different from pieces
from The (London) Times, which make for boring, Griceian, reading of sorts.
So I append the full piece in the ps.
It reminded me of of a new novel by McEwan (of "Atonement" fame), a review of
which I append in (A) below -- with one running comment about the reviewer's
use of 'preposterous' -- and its implicatures.
"Appropriation" is in fact used in the complex Guardian piece, I believe, and
while "Alien" is not mentioned, I take McEvoy's point.
A more precise subject line would be "Griceian appropriation in fiction" -- or
not.
Cheers,
Speranza
*******
(A) McEwan appropriates the voice of a fetus.
With “Nutshell,” Ian McEwan has performed an incongruous magic trick, mashing
up the premises of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” and Amy Heckerling’s film, “Look
Who’s Talking,” to create a smart, funny and utterly captivating novel. It’s a
tale told by a talking fetus who’s a kind of Hamlet in utero — a baby-to-be (or
not-to-be, as the case may be), who bears witness to an affair between his
mother, Trudy, and his uncle Claude. This adulterous pair are plotting to kill
the baby’s father, John. Can the narrator prevent this murder — or later exact
some sort of revenge? What will happen to the narrator should his father be
abruptly dispatched to heaven, and his mother found out and sent to jail? And
what do these depressing developments portend about the world into which he is
soon to be born? McEwan’s narrator is one well-spoken, highbrow baby (a kind of
less diabolical Stewie from “Family Guy”), who possesses all the verbal gifts
of his creator (Mr. McEwan, not Trudy or John) and the sophistication of a
21st-century member of London’s chattering class — thanks to eavesdropping,
from the womb, on the podcasts and “self-improving audiobooks” his mother is
fond of. He is thrilled by Joyce’s “Ulysses,” prefers Keats to most modern
poets (“Too much about the self, too glassily cool with regard to others”) and
worries a lot about things like climate change and nuclear proliferation.
Thanks to Trudy’s love of fine vintages, he’s also something of a wine
connoisseur with a taste for Sancerre. Like his novel, “Amsterdam,” “Nutshell”
is a small tour de force that showcases all of Mr. McEwan’s narrative gifts of
precision, authority and control, plus a new, Tom Stoppard-like delight in the
sly gymnastics that words can be perform. The restrictions created by the
narrator’s situation — stuck inside a maternal nutshell — seem to have
stimulated a surge of inventiveness on Mr. McEwan’s part, as he mischievously
concocts a monologue for his “almost child” that plays on “Hamlet,” even as it
explores some of his own favorite themes (the corruption of innocence, the
vulnerability of children and the sudden skid of ordinary life into horror),
familiar to readers from such earlier works as “The Child in Time,” “The
Children Act” and his masterwork, “Atonement” [set to film with Vanessa
Redgrave and Keira Knightley -- Speranza]. The narrator understands – or thinks
he understands — the three legs of the adulterous triangle around him in very
clear terms. John is a not-very-successful poet and small-time publisher —
kindly, impoverished and eager to please, persuaded by his pregnant wife to
move out of the ancestral manse because she needs a little “space.” Trudy is a
manipulative green-eyed beauty who has fallen out of love with John and fallen
in lust with his “priapic, satanic” younger brother, Claude — a dimwitted real
estate developer and first-class dolt who “knows only clothes and cars.” As
time passes, however, the narrator begins to wonder if things might not be a
little more complicated than he first surmised. Has his father been having an
affair with Elodie, a pretty young thing who writes poems about owls? And why
does his dad seem to have so little regard for him, his soon-to-be-born son?
For that matter, what does Trudy plan to do with him once he is born; will he
simply be given away or put in foster care? “Nutshell” cleverly takes its title
from a line in “Hamlet”: “Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count
myself a king of infinite space — were it not that I have bad dreams.” And the
novel is brightly studded with allusions not just to “Hamlet” but also to
“Macbeth,” “Lolita,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” Montaigne’s essays, Dante,
Nietzsche and Kafka. Mr. McEwan’s little homunculus is, by turns, earnest,
mocking, sarcastic, searching and irreverent, especially when his mother has
had several glasses of wine and he’s reeling from a contact high. He worries
about being contaminated by Claude’s sperm when his uncle is having sex with
Trudy. And he tries giving his mother a strong kick when he wants to remind her
of his existence. When he isn’t trying to piece together Trudy and Claude’s
nefarious plans, the narrator spends a lot of time musing about the state of
the world outside “the bouncy castle” that is his temporary home. How can
commentators declare that it’s “dusk in the second Age of Reason,” he wonders,
when there are “commonplace miracles that would make a manual laborer the envy
of Caesar Augustus: pain-free dentistry, electric light, instant contact with
people we love, with the best music the world has known, with the cuisine of a
dozen cultures”?On the other hand, “Europa’s secular dreams of union” are
threatening to dissolve “before the old hatreds, small-scale nationalism,
financial disaster, discord.” While poverty and war are “driving millions from
their homes, an ancient epic in new form, vast movements of people, like
engorged rivers in spring, Danubes, Rhines and Rhones of angry or desolate or
hopeful people, crammed at borders against the razor-wire gates, drowning in
thousands to share in the fortunes of the West.”"
The reviewer notes:
"It’s preposterous, of course, that a fetus should be thinking such
earthshaking thoughts,"
I never understood the implicatures of 'preposterous' (I don't care for words's
senses, just implicatures -- but it seems the reviewer is abiding,
superficially, by Grice's maxims -- and it would be preposterous to have a
fetus's implicature -- but this is fiction -- and while the fetus's thoughts
may be mere appropriations by McEwan, seeing that McEwan does it with that sort
of humour which is very English and Celtic -- not the Irishness of "McEwan"), I
guess that's ok.
The reviewer concludes:
"but Mr. McEwan writes here with such assurance and élan that the reader never
for a moment questions his sleight of hand. At the same time, his unborn
Hamlet’s soliloquy leaves us with a snapshot of part of London that’s as
resonant as the portrait of the post-9/11 world he created in his “Mrs.
Dalloway”-inspired novel “Saturday,” a snapshot of how a slice of the
privileged West lives — and worries — today."
********
(B) The Guardian piece McEvoy is referring to reads:
"As Lionel Shriver made light of identity, I had no choice but to walk out on
her" and it is written by Yassmin Abdel-Magied. The byline reads: "Lionel
Shriver’s keynote address at the Brisbane writers festival was a poisoned
package wrapped up in arrogance and delivered with condescension."
The caption to the photo reads: "Lionel Shriver’s real targets were cultural
appropriation, identity politics and political correctness. It was a monologue
about the right to exploit the stories of “others”, simply because it is useful
for one’s story.’". The piece begins: "I have never walked out of a speech. Or
I hadn’t, until last night’s opening keynote for the Brisbane writers festival,
delivered by the American author Lionel Shriver, best known for her novel, "We
need to talk about Kevin." We were 20 minutes into the speech when I turned to
my mother, sitting next to me in the front row. “Mama, I can’t sit here,” I
said, the corners of my mouth dragging downwards. “I cannot legitimise this
..." My mother’s eyes bore into me, urging me to remain calm, to follow social
convention. I shook my head, as if to shake off my lingering doubts. As I stood
up, my heart began to race. I could feel the eyes of the hundreds of audience
members on my back: questioning, querying, judging. I turned to face the crowd,
lifted up my chin and walked down the main aisle, my pace deliberate. “Look
back into the audience,” a friend had texted me moments earlier, “and let them
see your face.” The faces around me blurred. As my heels thudded against they
grey plastic of the flooring, harmonising with the beat of the adrenaline
pumping through my veins, my mind was blank save for one question. “How is this
happening?” So what did happen? What did Shriver say in her keynote that could
drive a woman who has heard every slur under the sun to discard social
convention and make such an obviously political exit? Her question was — or
could have been — an interesting question: What are fiction writers “allowed”
to write, given they will never truly know another person’s experience? Not
every crime writer is a criminal, Shriver said, nor is every author who writes
on sexual assault a rapist. “Fiction, by its very nature,” she said, “is fake.”
There is a fascinating philosophical argument here. Instead, however, that core
question was used as a straw man. Shriver’s real targets were cultural
appropriation, identity politics and political correctness. It was a monologue
about the right to exploit the stories of “others”, simply because it is useful
for one’s story. Shriver began by making light of a recent incident in the US,
where students faced prosecution for what was argued by some as “casual racial
and ethnic stereotyping and cultural insensitivity” at a Mexican-themed party.
“Can you believe,” Shriver asked at the beginning of her speech, “that these
students were so sensitive about the wearing of sombreros?” The audience,
compliant, chuckled. I started looking forward to the point in the speech where
she was to subvert the argument. It never came. On and on it went. Rather than
focus on the ultimate question around how we can know an experience we have not
had, the argument became a tirade. It became about the fact that a white man
should be able to write the experience of a young Nigerian woman and if he
sells millions and does a “decent” job — in the eyes of a white woman — he
should not be questioned or pilloried in any way. It became about mocking those
who ask people to seek permission to use their stories. It became a celebration
of the unfettered exploitation of the experiences of others, under the guise of
fiction. (For more, Yen-Rong, a volunteer at the festival, wrote a summary on
her personal blog about it.). It was a poisoned package wrapped up in arrogance
and delivered with condescension.As the chuckles of the audience swelled around
me, reinforcing and legitimising the words coming from behind the lectern, I
breathed in deeply, trying to make sense of what I was hearing. The stench of
privilege hung heavy in the air, and I was reminded of my “place” in the world.
See, here is the thing: if the world were equal, this discussion would be
different. But alas, that utopia is far from realized. It’s not always OK if a
white guy writes the story of a Nigerian woman because the actual Nigerian
woman can’t get published or reviewed to begin with. It’s not always OK if a
straight white woman writes the story of a queer Indigenous man, because when
was the last time you heard a queer Indigenous man tell his own story? How is
it that said straight white woman will profit from an experience that is not
hers, and those with the actual experience never be provided the opportunity?
It’s not always OK for a person with the privilege of education and wealth to
write the story of a young Indigenous man, filtering the experience of the
latter through their own skewed and biased lens, telling a story that likely
reinforces an existing narrative which only serves to entrench a disadvantage
they need never experience. I can’t speak for the LGBTQI community, those who
are neuro-different or people with disabilities, but that’s also the point. I
don’t speak for them, and should allow for their voices and experiences to be
heard and legitimized. So access – or lack thereof – is one piece. But there is
a bigger and broader issue, one that, for me, is more emotive. Cultural
appropriation is a “thing”, because of our histories. The history of
colonisation, where everything was taken from a people, the world over. Land,
wealth, dignity … and now identity is to be taken as well?"In making light of
the need to hold onto any vestige of identity, Shriver completely disregards
not only history, but current reality. The reality is that those from
marginalised groups, even today, do not get the luxury of defining their own
place in a norm that is profoundly white, straight and, often, patriarchal. And
in demanding that the right to identity should be given up, Shriver epitomised
the kind of attitude that led to the normalisation of imperialist, colonial
rule: “I want this, and therefore I shall take it.” The attitude drips of
racial supremacy, and the implication is clear: “I don’t care what you deem is
important or sacred. I want to do with it what I will. Your experience is
simply a tool for me to use, because you are less human than me. You are less
than human…” That was the message I received loud and clear. My own mother, as
we walked away from the tent, suggested that perhaps I was being too sensitive.
Perhaps … or perhaps that is the result of decades of being told to be quiet,
and accept our place. So our conversation then turned to intent. What was
Shriver’s intent when she chose to discuss her distaste for the concept of
cultural appropriation? Was it to build bridges, to further our intellect, to
broaden horizons of what is possible. Her tone, I fear, betrayed otherwise.
Humility is not Shriver’s cloak of choice. The kind of disrespect for others
infused in Lionel Shriver’s keynote is the same force that sees people vote for
Pauline Hanson. It’s the reason our First Peoples are still fighting for
recognition, and it’s the reason we continue to stomach offshore immigration
prisons. It’s the kind of attitude that lays the foundation for prejudice, for
hate, for genocide. The fact Shriver was given such a prominent platform from
which to spew such vitriol shows that we as a society still value this type of
rhetoric enough to deem it worthy of a keynote address. The opening of a city’s
writers festival could have been graced by any of the brilliant writers and
thinkers who challenge us to be more. To be uncomfortable. To progress. A
Maxine Beneba Clarke, who opened the Melbourne Writers’ Festival by challenging
us to learn how to talk about race in a way that was melodic and powerful. A
Stan Grant, who will ask us why we continue to allow our First People’s to
wallow in inhumane conditions. An A.C. Grayling, if you really want the
international flavour. Anyone who will ask us to be better, not demand we be OK
with worse. Asking to be respected – is that asking for too much? Apparently,
in the world of fiction, it is."
