McEvoy's link reads:
"As Lionel Shriver made light of identity, I had no choice but to walk out on
her."
"Lionel Shriver’s keynote address at the Brisbane writers festival was a
poisoned package wrapped up in arrogance and delivered with condescension."
"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.’"
"I have never walked out of a speech."
"Or I had not, until last night’s opening keynote for the Brisbane writers
festival, delivered by the American author Lionel Shriver, best known for the
novel, "We need to talk about Kevin."
Made into a film with Tilda Swinton.
"We were twenty minutes into [Shriver's] speech when I turned to my mother,
sitting next to me in the front row. “Mama, I can not 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?"
This 'interesting' question is possibly philosophical. I think it's more of a
Cambridge rather than an Oxford philosophical question, since I can think of
Wisdom's "Other Minds". I think in Oxford, the problematic ("problematique," in
French) was brought by Anita Avramides. The problem of other minds was possibly
a pseudo-problem for Witters, unless it wasn't.
The writer goes on:
"Not every crime writer is a criminal, Shriver [says], nor is every author who
writes on sexual assault a rapist. “Fiction, by its very nature,” she said, “is
fake.”"
This seems to be the point of Mary Louise Pratt in what Coulthard regards as
the first Griceian attempt to apply Griceian conversational maxims into
fictional theory. "Fake" would of course be a 'blatant violation,' or "flout,"
as Grice prefers, of this or that conversational maxim, notably, his principles
of candour and trustworthiness (When in a Kantian manner, Grice would refer to
the conversational category of QUALITAS: try to make your conversational
contribution one that is true." And a fake does not try to make one's
conversational contribution as it is true.
The author goes on:
"There is a fascinating philosophical argument here. Instead, however, that
core question was used as a straw man."
-- or a strawson as I prefer. Strawson I identify with 'fascinating
philosophical arguments,' so there.
The author goes on with the line that McEvoy is commenting on -- with his
dropping of the hivemind -- or McDougall's group mind -- and "Alien":
"Shriver’s real targets were cultural appropriation, identity politics and
political correctness."
I wonder if 'cultural' is necessary for the Guardian writer's argument --. I
would think NOT, in that 'culture' tends to be, to use Timothy Williamson's
wording, a 'fuzzy' or 'vague' concept. There may be appropriation which is NOT
cultural, per se. There's also sub-cultures, so one has to be careful.
"Identity" politics is usually regarded as 'essentialism,' by theorists who
prefer to speak of identity as 'fluid' concepts, where 'fluid' is used
metaphorically.
The writer goes on:
"It was a monologue about the right to exploit the stories of "others”, simply
because it is useful for one’s story."
C. L. Stevenson, whom Grice admired ("Ethics and Language," Yale UP, 1944)
would say that 'exploit' is an emotive verb, so that the whole utterance
becomes itself 'emotive' -- as in Malcolm Bradbury's debut novel, "Eating
people is wrong." (Only Bradbury was quoting from Flanders's and Swann's "At
the drop of a hat").
The author goes on:
"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 ... “that these students were so sensitive about the
wearing of sombreros?” The audience ... chuckled."
Well, H. L. A. Hart, qua lawyer, would focus on the 'casual' -- not 'causal'
(vide his "Causation in the law", with Honore). "Casual" seems to implicate
'implicature-free', unless it does not. What is sensitive is that Shriver
prefers to use 'sombrero' while she could have used 'hat', but I guess these
two lexemes trigger different implicatures.
The writer goes on:
"I started looking forward to the point in the speech where Shriver was to
subvert the argument. It never came. On and on it went."
Grice loved subversion of arguments. Consider the argument:
i. I have 2 hands.
If I had 3 more hands, I would have 5 hands.
If I were to have double 5, I'd have 10 hands.
If 4 hands were removed, 6 hands would remain.
Ergo I would have 4 more hands than I have now.
One subversion of that argument would be:
ii. I have 3 hands.
If I had 4 more hands, I would have 7 hands.
If I were to have the triple 7, I'd have 21 hands.
If 8 hands were removed, 13 hands would remain.
Ergo, I would have 11 more hands than I have now.
The writer goes on:
"Rather than focus on the ultimate question around how we can know an
experience we have not had,"
where the focus is on 'know' as used by Professor Cook Wilson -- that Grice
loved --
iii. What we know we know.
("Cook Wilson was a genius." -- Grice)
"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."
There are lots of qualifications here, and seeing that this happened in
Brisbane, I am reminded of M. L. Stedman's novel, "The light between oceans,"
i.e. the lighthouse between the Indian and the Grand Southern Ocean. Margot
Stedman writes, as a contemporary Australian who was born and raised in Western
Australia -- "where loads of lighthouses like the fictional one I described on
Janus Rock in my novel exist" -- is able to write the experience of what the
NYT critic described as a '[Great] war-weary sceptic', meaning "Tom," the
protagonist of the novel -- now a major film featuring Michael Fassbender.
The author goes on:
"It became about mocking those who ask people to seek permission to use their
stories."
"Mock" has many uses. My favourite must be Alice's:
-- B: We're going to see the Mock-Turtle.
-- Alice: Mock-Turtle? Never heard of such a critter.
-- B: You heard of mock turtle soup, right?
-- Alice: I have.
-- B: Well, the mock turtle is what mock turtle soup is made of.
-- Alice: I see.
The writer goes on:
"It became a celebration of the unfettered exploitation of the experiences of
others,"
Oddly, Grice gives the illustration of 'unfettered' in his discussion of 'do
not multiply senses beyond necessity'. "It may mean "loose," but not as in
"loose liver". In fact, I would go on to suggest that "loose liver" has many
uses but just one sense."
Grice is making an extreme point since, 'liver', as a noun derived from the
verb, 'to live', has a different etymology from 'liver', as the body organ. But
he was teasing his Harvard audience.
The writer goes on:
"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 realised.
It IS NOT ALWAYS okay"
The implicature seems to be that it is SOMETIMES okay.
"if a white guy writes the story of a Nigerian woman because the actual
Nigerian woman can not get published or reviewed to begin with. It is not
always okay 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?"
This IS philosophical. It reminded me of Shakespeare and his "Merchant of
Venice". Is Bill the Quill culturally appropriating stuff -- since we assume
that the said merchant did not write in Shakespeare lingo.
The writer goes on:
"It is not always okay for a person with the privilege of education and wealth
to write the story of an 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 not speak for the LGBTQI community",
where QI stands for queer and intersex.
or the writer goes on:
"those who are neuro-different"
This may relate to McEvoy's "Alien" example -- something, in McEvoy's words,
"written by humans who don't know what it's like to need to plant your embryos
in the stomach of other species."
The author goes on:
"or people with disabilities, but that’s also the point. I do not 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."
Intersting the writer uses Stevenson's favourite word!
The writer goes on:
"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?"
The use of identity here is not Leibniz's
iv. a = a
but some other one.
The writer goes on:
"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:"
Perhaps the writer means, "the implicature" is clear -- unless the writer means
logical implication, i.e. entailment alla G. E. Moore.
The writer quotes:
" “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."
Or too human? :)
The writer goes on:
"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."
which is good -- it means it turned to Grice.
The writer goes on:
"What was Shriver’s [m-] intent[ion] 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 [is] melodic and powerful. A Stan Grant, who [asks] 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 okay with worse. Asking to be respected – is that asking for
too much? Apparently, in the world of fiction, it is."
The writer makes a good point -- but it seems the final paragraph lays the
blame on the Brisbane committee, not so much on the writer's topical author --
Shriver herself --. Or something.
But I like how the author ends the piece with "the world of fiction". What a
world!
