tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/mark-twain-32057/articles
Mark Twain – The Conversation
2024-01-11T13:24:37Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/220520
2024-01-11T13:24:37Z
2024-01-11T13:24:37Z
Sellout! How political corruption shaped an American insult
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568059/original/file-20240105-15-op8mrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C55%2C4034%2C2967&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alf Bruseth, 'Politician Coin Bank' (1938).</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.20772.html"> Index of American Design</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you follow politics, sports, Hollywood or the arts, you’ve no doubt heard the insult “sellout” thrown around to describe someone perceived to have betrayed a core principle or shared value in their pursuit of personal gain. </p>
<p>The term has recently been hurled at a range of well-known targets: Donald Trump’s former chief of staff Mark Meadows for <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/watch/-hail-mary-attempt-fails-appeals-court-rules-mark-meadows-cannot-move-case-out-of-georgia-200487493763">cooperating with</a> a special counsel investigating election fraud in 2020; Kim Kardashian for advertising <a href="https://time.com/4314413/modern-feminism-is-selling-out/">her personal brands</a> as a form of women’s empowerment; even former NFL great Deion Sanders, for leaving Jackson State, a historically Black university, <a href="https://theconversation.com/calling-deion-sanders-a-sellout-ignores-the-growing-role-of-clout-chasing-in-college-sports-196792">to coach</a> at the University of Colorado.</p>
<p>Most people, I find, are familiar with this accusation. But few people really know the full story of “selling out” – when and where the term originated, how it spread across so many different sectors of American culture, and just why this insult hurts so much. These are the questions I set out to answer in the book I’m currently writing, tentatively titled “Sellouts! The Story of an American Insult.” </p>
<p>Through my research, I found that the idea of selling out originates with American politics — and more precisely, with the scandals of the Gilded Age.</p>
<h2>Gilded Age origins</h2>
<p>This era, which gets its name from Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner’s 1873 satirical novel “<a href="https://www.loa.org/books/178-the-gilded-age-amp-later-novels/">The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day</a>,” spans roughly from the 1870s to the 1900s. These <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25144440">decades saw the rise</a> of industrial capitalism in the United States: people moving to cities, technologies transforming industries like the railroads, growing unrest and activism by workers, and crises erupting from an economy built around banks, stocks and corporations.</p>
<p>Until this time, the phrase “selling out” had largely <a href="https://www.oed.com/dictionary/sell_v?tab=phrasal_verbs#23525421">been used to describe</a> the sale of one’s stock or holdings – cattle, steel, grain, real estate. But <a href="https://www.oed.com/dictionary/sell_n2?tab=meaning_and_use#23522487">by the 1870s</a>, the term had quickly gained a new meaning as an insult for public figures — especially politicians — who had compromised their morals, and the needs of the community, in pursuit of illicit personal gain.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cartoon of obese men representing various industries looming over senators." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568056/original/file-20240105-19-bjst1t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘The Bosses of the Senate’ by Joseph Keppler, published in the Jan. 23, 1889, issue of Puck.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Bosses_of_the_Senate_by_Joseph_Keppler.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
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<p>Of course, political scandals were hardly a novelty of the 1870s. What changed in the Gilded Age, <a href="https://networks.h-net.org/node/20317/reviews/21375/burg-summers-gilded-age-or-hazard-new-functions">historians suggest</a>, was not the frequency or severity of unethical behavior by politicians, but rather the public’s awareness of the corruption plaguing the U.S. political system. </p>
<h2>The Tweed Ring</h2>
<p>Party politics has always involved graft: skimming off the top of budgets, directing contracts to favored firms, and securing offices for friends. But <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/07/02/george-santos-william-boss-tweed-tammany-hall/">William Tweed, widely known as “Boss Tweed,”</a> took this corruption to new heights.</p>
<p>In the 1860s, Tweed ran New York’s Democratic Party. His circle of influence extended to dozens of city and state offices. The Tweed Ring would provide someone with a job, and then the beneficiary would provide the ring with a kickback.</p>
<p>Whenever contracts were issued for services like carpentry, the ring inflated costs and skimmed off the extra — at first, adding a mere 10%, but later exaggerating these expenses wildly. One carpeting bill from a Tweed contractor ran to US$565,731, a cost high enough for a carpet in New York City to get “<a href="https://kennethackerman.com/books/boss-tweed/">halfway to Albany</a>.” </p>
<p>The ring would also buy up large chunks of city real estate, especially plots they knew were about to receive development projects. Estimates on the total wealth they siphoned through such graft <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Boss_Tweed/ipAxruFk54AC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">range from</a> $20 million to a staggering $200 million – or around $5 billion in 2024, when adjusted for inflation.</p>
<p>Tweed’s cronies also fixed elections with a boldness that’s unthinkable today; one drunken accomplice <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Rise-Fall-Tammany-Hall/dp/020162463X">confessed he had voted</a> at least 28 times on Election Day.</p>
<p>In 1870, The New York Times began an unprecedented journalistic exposé of Tweed and his ring. Their editorials used the phrase “selling out” to capture how city and state politics were <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1870/11/26/archives/the-tammany-ring-and-its-agents.html">manipulated by a corrupt few</a> who lined their pockets and kept a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1871/10/16/archives/the-democratic-circus.html">chokehold on elections</a>. </p>
<p>The Times also attacked other newspapers, like the New York World, which took large “advertising revenues” from Tweed, as evidence that these papers would “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1870/11/23/archives/the-mission-of-the-democratic-party.html">sell out to the highest bidder</a>.” In a <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/American_Journalism/eatZAAAAMAAJ?hl=en">major coup</a>, the Times eventually published complete records of the city’s finances, proving the ring’s corruption and landing Tweed inside the Ludlow Street Jail. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Cartoon of men standing in a circle pointing their fingers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568057/original/file-20240105-27-m5onvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Thomas Nast’s cartoons in Harper’s transformed the public’s perception of William ‘Boss’ Tweed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/55200970-dc40-0130-375d-58d385a7bbd0">New York Public Library Digital Collections</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Times’ crusade against Tweed pioneered a new, activist form of journalism, while also helping establish “selling out” as a recognizable idea in American life. </p>
<p>Later journalists, known as muckrakers, would launch their own famous investigations, such as Lincoln Steffens’ writing on <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822043023084&seq=7">political machines</a> in other U.S. cities, David Graham Philips’ coverage of the <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100646108">widespread misdeeds</a> of U.S. senators, and Ida Tarbell’s exposure of Standard Oil’s <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004490918">illicit business practices</a>.</p>
<p>All used the newly popularized phrase “selling out” to describe the corruption of a democratic society. The “corrupt government of Illinois sold out its people to its own grafters,” <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Struggle_for_Self_government/EYYmAAAAMAAJ?hl=en">wrote Steffens</a>, whereas “the organized grafters of Missouri, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island sold, or are selling, out their States to bigger grafters outside.” </p>
<h2>A contested concept</h2>
<p>Over the next century, the idea of selling out spread from politics to numerous other corners of American culture: <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/pmla/article/abs/on-the-literary-history-of-selling-out-craft-identity-and-commercial-recognition/2AA296CB7FEA8768D1F944CF88F7DBDB">Novelists chastised peers</a> who went to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01956051.1984.10661963">write for Hollywood</a> as sellouts, while <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/810368/summary">Black intellectuals</a> debated what, if anything, Black elected officials had to do to be seen as <a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/bibliography/sellout-the-politics-of-racial-betrayal/">“authentic” racial representatives</a> and not sellouts. </p>
<p>For all its many uses in American culture, however, selling out remains a contested concept. For virtually any action that some people view as a betrayal, others will see as a rational choice. </p>
<p>Consider Bob Johnson, co-founder of Black Entertainment Television, who became the first Black billionaire when <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Billion_Dollar_BET/aF_LAgAAQBAJ?hl=en">he sold the cable channel</a> to Viacom in 2001. Some applauded his historic sale, but <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2000/11/04/but-has-the-network-sold-a-bit-of-its-soul/2c7ef34b-7c04-451b-8239-74f34a2c998b/">others accused</a> Johnson of “selling out” this unique platform for Black voices. </p>
<p>Trump supporters may similarly see Meadows as a traitor — a sellout who abandoned his party’s leader to save his own skin. But Democrats may see him as a Republican who has chosen the values of the country over protecting his party’s standard-bearer. Each side follows its own logic.</p>
<p>Selling out, then, is not always a clear-cut transgression. When a group feels like one of its own has betrayed some shared values, there are often meaningful questions to be asked about what that group’s values ought to be in the first place.</p>
<p>Some critics have <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/ibram-x-kendi-hasan-minhaj-and-the-question-of-selling-out">wondered whether</a> selling out is an <a href="https://mumbrella.com.au/is-selling-out-no-longer-a-concept-for-gen-z-356761">obsolete notion</a> in <a href="https://lithiumagazine.com/2020/05/22/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-sell-out-in-2020/">an age when</a> so many people aspire to be an influencer or entrepreneur. But as long as this term gets used to scold public figures like Meadows, it means Americans still believe some form of loyalty — to a community or a shared principle — matters more than personal gain.</p>
<p>But what does it say that so many Americans share the concern that success and integrity are in conflict, as if one comes at the expense of the other? Is it an increasingly unavoidable moral contradiction in a capitalist society?</p>
<p>“Selling out” evokes a widespread fear that anyone who pursues success will corrupt both their morality and their community. Some people – say, billionaires in their private jets – can perhaps suppress this fear more easily than others. But everyone knows its name.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220520/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Afflerbach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Why do so many Americans share the concern that success and integrity are in conflict, as if one comes at the expense of the other?
Ian Afflerbach, Associate Professor of American Literature, University of North Georgia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/202694
2023-04-05T20:11:09Z
2023-04-05T20:11:09Z
ChatGPT’s greatest achievement might just be its ability to trick us into thinking that it’s honest
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518896/original/file-20230402-18-waw378.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7566%2C3556&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">AI chatbots are designed to convincingly sustain a conversation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In American writer Mark Twain’s autobiography, he quotes — <a href="https://www.york.ac.uk/depts/maths/histstat/lies.htm">or perhaps misquotes</a> — former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli as saying: “There are three kinds of lies: <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199237173.001.0001/q-author-00001-00000992;jsessionid=803566FB1E7E09971F668F6310F0E5DA">lies, damned lies, and statistics</a>.” </p>
<p>In a marvellous leap forward, artificial intelligence combines all three in a tidy little package.</p>
<p>ChatGPT, and other generative AI chatbots like it, are trained on vast datasets from across the internet to produce the statistically most likely response to a prompt. Its answers are not based on any understanding of what makes something funny, meaningful or accurate, but rather, the phrasing, spelling, grammar and even style of other webpages. </p>
<p>It presents its responses through what’s called a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32967-3">conversational interface</a>”: it remembers what a user has said, and can have a conversation using context cues and clever gambits. It’s statistical pastiche plus statistical panache, and that’s where the trouble lies.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/unlike-with-academics-and-reporters-you-cant-check-when-chatgpts-telling-the-truth-198463">Unlike with academics and reporters, you can't check when ChatGPT's telling the truth</a>
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<h2>Unthinking, but convincing</h2>
<p>When I talk to another human, it cues a lifetime of my experience in dealing with other people. <a href="https://www.erasmatazz.com/library/the-journal-of-computer/jcgd-volume-7/fundamentals-of-interactivi.html">So when a program speaks like a person</a>, it is very hard to not react as if one is engaging in an actual conversation — taking something in, thinking about it, responding in the context of both of our ideas.</p>
<p>Yet, that’s not at all what is happening with an AI interlocutor. They cannot think and they do not have understanding or comprehension of any sort. </p>
<p>Presenting information to us as a human does, in conversation, makes AI more convincing than it should be. Software is pretending to be more reliable than it is, because it’s using human tricks of rhetoric to fake trustworthiness, competence and understanding far beyond its capabilities.</p>
<p>There are two issues here: is the output correct; and do people <em>think</em> that the output is correct?</p>
<p>The interface side of the software is promising more than the algorithm-side can deliver on, and the developers know it. Sam Altman, the chief executive officer of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, admits that “ChatGPT is incredibly limited, but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1601731295792414720"}"></div></p>
<p>That still hasn’t stopped a stampede of companies rushing to integrate the early-stage tool into their user-facing products (including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/microsoft-bing-openai-artificial-intelligence.html">Microsoft’s Bing search</a>), in an effort not to be left out.</p>
<h2>Fact and fiction</h2>
<p>Sometimes the AI is going to be wrong, but the conversational interface produces outputs with the same confidence and polish as when it is correct. For example, as science-fiction writer Ted Chiang points out, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/chatgpt-is-a-blurry-jpeg-of-the-web">the tool makes errors when doing addition with larger numbers</a>, because it doesn’t actually have any logic for doing math. </p>
<p>It simply pattern-matches examples seen on the web that involve addition. And while it might find examples for more common math questions, it just hasn’t seen training text involving larger numbers. </p>
<p>It doesn’t “know’ the math rules a 10-year-old would be able to explicitly use. Yet the conversational interface presents its response as certain, no matter how wrong it is, as reflected in this exchange with ChatGPT.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>User: What’s the capital of Malaysia?</p>
<p>ChatGPT: The capital of Malaysia is Kuala Lampur.</p>
<p>User: What is 27 * 7338?</p>
<p>ChatGPT: 27 * 7338 is 200,526. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s not.</p>
<p>Generative AI can blend actual facts with made-up ones in a <a href="https://futurism.com/chatgpt-bios-littered-with-fabrications">biography of a public figure</a>, or cite plausible <a href="https://teche.mq.edu.au/2023/02/why-does-chatgpt-generate-fake-references/">scientific references for papers that were never written</a>. </p>
<p>That makes sense: statistically, webpages note that famous people have often won awards, and papers usually have references. ChatGPT is just doing what it was built to do, and assembling content that could be likely, regardless of whether it’s true. </p>
<p>Computer scientists refer to this as <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/technology/ai-chatbots-hallucinations.html">AI hallucination</a>. The rest of us might call it lying.</p>
<h2>Intimidating outputs</h2>
<p>When I teach my design students, I talk about the importance of <a href="https://www.frankfranco.com/design/hyper-realistic-renderings-vs-architect-hand-sketching/">matching output to the process</a>. If an idea is at the conceptual stage, it shouldn’t be presented in a manner that makes it look more polished than it actually is — they shouldn’t render it in 3D or print it on glossy cardstock. A pencil sketch makes clear that the idea is preliminary, easy to change and shouldn’t be expected to address every part of a problem. </p>
<p>The same thing is true of conversational interfaces: when tech "speaks” to us in well-crafted, grammatically correct or chatty tones, we tend to interpret it as having much more thoughtfulness and reasoning than is actually present. It’s a trick a con-artist should use, not a computer.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a hand holding a phonescreen showing a livechat with the text HI HOW CAN I HELP YOU?" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519031/original/file-20230403-26-u2yt8v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chatbots are increasingly being used by technology companies in user-facing products.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>AI developers have a responsibility to manage user expectations, because we may already be primed to believe whatever the machine says. Mathematician Jordan Ellenberg describes a type of “<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/312349/how-not-to-be-wrong-by-jordan-ellenberg/9780143127536/excerpt">algebraic intimidation</a>” that can overwhelm our better judgement just by claiming there’s math involved. </p>
<p>AI, with <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/03/14/1069823/gpt-4-is-bigger-and-better-chatgpt-openai/">hundreds of billions of parameters</a>, can disarm us with a similar algorithmic intimidation.</p>
<p>While we’re making the algorithms produce better and better content, we need to make sure the interface itself doesn’t over-promise. Conversations in the tech world are already filled with <a href="https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=mrktngmngmntfacpub">overconfidence</a> and <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/10/22/11619868/the-arrogance-of-tech">arrogance</a> — maybe AI can have a little humility instead.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Lachman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The user interfaces of AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, are designed to mimic natural human conversation. But in doing so, AI chatbots present as more trustworthy than they really are.
Richard Lachman, Director, Zone Learning & Associate Professor, Digital Media, Toronto Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/183814
2022-07-06T19:56:23Z
2022-07-06T19:56:23Z
COVID changed travel writing. Maybe that’s not a bad thing
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472244/original/file-20220704-12-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=143%2C95%2C7705%2C5164&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Swiss conceptual artists Frank and Patrik Riklin pose in their 'idyllic' hillside suite, part of the project 'Null Stern Hotel' ('zero star hotel'), in Saillon, Switzerland. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jean-Christophe Bott</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2019, international travel and tourism was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jul/01/global-tourism-hits-record-highs-but-who-goes-where-on-holiday">a $1.7 trillion global industry</a>. A new cruise ship with space for <a href="https://www.cruisecritic.com.au/articles.cfm?ID=3443">6600 passengers</a> was launched. And dog friendly holidays in the French Riviera were seen as the next big <a href="https://www.luxurytravelmag.com.au/article/these-are-2019s-top-travel-trends/">tourism trend</a>. </p>
<p>On social media, travel influencers and bloggers vied for commissions and audiences, while the more “old school” travel writers and journalists continued to report from all corners of the world. The grey area around ethics and sponsorship was murkier than ever – and there was of course, an environmental cost: from the carbon footprint of frequent flyers to the social and cultural impact on <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona">over-touristed destinations</a>. </p>
<p>Still, the industry was booming. </p>
<p>Then, along came COVID-19. </p>
<p>For more than a decade, I had made my living as a travel writer, contributing to publications in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and the UK. I’d visited 72 countries on the job. I’d paddled a kayak across the <a href="https://www.traveller.com.au/alone-in-the-isle-seat-auou">Tongan Vava’u archipelago</a>; written about Myanmar’s temples and <a href="https://meanjin.com.au/essays/borderlands/">Tijuana and the Mexican border</a>; been hosted on numerous “famils” (familiarisation tours) around the world and met the woman who would become my wife in a Buenos Aires bar while on an assignment to write about the <a href="https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2012/07/the-new-australians-of-south-america/">“New Australia”</a> utopian colony in Paraguay. </p>
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<span class="caption">The author in Sikkim, north-east India in 2008.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick Stubbs</span></span>
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<p>When news of a virus emerged from a wet market in Wuhan in early 2020, all that stopped. As I slipped into the first of many lockdowns, initially I mourned for the travel life I couldn’t live anymore. Once upon a time, my editor would ring on a Friday afternoon to ask if I could fly to Vietnam on Tuesday. </p>
<p>But during my enforced time at home, I realised the travel writing genre I was part of needed some serious re-thinking. The warning signs of a hubristic industry were hard to ignore. In 2019, for instance, the relaxation of regulations for climbers of Mount Everest had resulted in a <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/mount-everest-chaos-at-the-top-of-the-world">“conga line in the death zone above 8,000 metres”</a> of people waiting to summit the peak. </p>
<p>The image went viral.</p>
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<p>The notion that the genre might have finally reached its nadir after thousands of years of exploration, exploitation and discovery is not a new concept. But the sheer volume of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-ways-travel-listicles-are-ruining-travel-writing_b_5a2d9455e4b04e0bc8f3b5f2">listicles</a>, luxury reviews and Instagram journeys masquerading now as legitimate travel writing is alarming. </p>
<p>Pandemic enforced lockdowns got me thinking about how the experience of immobility wasn’t unique. Wars, pandemics, shipwrecks and even prison walls had prevented others from travelling in the past, yet many still managed to travel internally through their own <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Creative-and-Non-fiction-Writing-during-Isolation-and-Confinement-Imaginative/Stubbs/p/book/9781032152516">isolation</a>. </p>
<p>More than two and a half years later, I now believe that despite the angst borne from lockdowns and closed borders around the world, this pause due to COVID-19 has ultimately been a good thing for travel writing – and perhaps the broader travel industry. It has allowed us time to stop and take stock.</p>
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<span class="caption">Travel influencers are everywhere.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<h2>A history of re-thinking and re-imagining</h2>
<p>Travel writing is one of the most ancient and enduring literary forms. Evidence of the travels of Harkuf, an emissary to the pharaohs, is written on tombs in ancient Egypt. Indigenous Dreaming stories <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-travel-writing/introduction/4CF0BFA6F65A206D5CEBCC35F3AD2A5F">“spoken or sung or depicted in visual art”</a> date back thousands of years.</p>
<p>As Nandini Das and Tim Youngs write in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40165322-the-cambridge-history-of-travel-writing?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=UjsOKwdkaJ&rank=1">The Cambridge History of Travel Writing</a>, </p>
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<p>Travel narratives have existed for millennia: so long as people have journeyed, they have told stories about their travels.</p>
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<p>In a literary sense, travel writing can be traced to the emergence of commerce and movable print technology in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. It went on to flourish in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanticism">Romantic Era</a> of travel and exploration, from the late 18th century to mid 1850s. </p>
<p>During this time, western travel writing was embroiled in the colonial project. The journals of Imperialist explorers such as William Dampier and James Cook were enormously popular, along with writers such as Richard Francis Burton and James Bruce who recounted their fantastical journeys to the public back home as they sought to conquer lands for “the mother country”. </p>
<p>Travel writing continued to shift, changing forms and attracting different readers. The Grand Tour pilgrimage increased in popularity. Mark Twain’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocents_Abroad">The Innocents Abroad</a> (1869), about his voyage on the “Quaker City” cruise ship, was the century’s best selling travel book. </p>
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<p>“People have been asking the melodramatic question, ‘Is travel writing dead?’ for the best part of a century,” notes contemporary travel writing scholar Dr Tim Hannigan. </p>
<p>During the first world war, British travel literature seemed a requiem for a distant era. The war, observes cultural and literary historian Paul Fussell, “effectively restricted private travel abroad. The main travelers were the hapless soldiery shipped to France and Belgium and Italy and Mesapotamia”. </p>
<p>But the end of the war, in fact, led to a significant re-thinking of the travel writing genre. Borders reopened, new countries and alliances had formed. People emerged from the isolation of war curious to see, hear and experience what this “new world” was like.</p>
<p>This golden era of travel writing in the 1920s and 1930s was chracterised by a new inquisitiveness. Modernist and experimental styles emerged and, as literary scholar Peter Hulme writes,</p>
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<p>travel writing could become the basis of a writing career – perhaps because those who had just fought a war felt the need for the kind of direct engagement with social and political issues that travel writing and journalism seemed to offer.</p>
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<p>After the second world war, travel writing became more questioning of authority, with a quality of restlessness. Notable works incuded Eric Newby’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/118141.A_Short_Walk_in_the_Hindu_Kush?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=GkIrolRIA7&rank=1">A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush</a> (1958), Wilfred Thesiger’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/825419.Arabian_Sands?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Js8VkeOG67&rank=1">Arabian Sands</a> (1959) and John Steinbeck’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33617956-travels-with-charlie-in-search-of-america?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=fwygWdt9sG&rank=1">Travels with Charlie in Search of America</a> (1962), about his three-month journey across the US.</p>
<p>In 1960s and 1970s, new books showed how travel writing could evolve again while still displaying the “wonder” central to its appeal: presenting narrated inner journeys, adventure and a richness and complexity that had not been seen before. </p>
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<p>Peter Matthiessen’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/764165.The_Snow_Leopard?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=MfFMUKo9xS&rank=1">The Snow Leopard</a>, Robyn Davidson’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/78895.Tracks?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=Ky3md4s1Az&rank=4">Tracks</a> and even the creative voice embodied in Bruce Chatwin’s controversial In Patagonia, (a postmodern blending of fact and fiction), showed how travel narratives, rather than offering insular and superior perspectives, could be subjective, creative and affecting. </p>
<p>This new era of travel writing post-COVID, I’d argue, has the potential to adapt to a changing world in the same way the genre changed after the first world war. </p>
<p>Environmental concerns, Indigenous presence, awareness of the “other” (and of being the “other”) and an acknowledgement of benefits and pitfalls of technology are all central concerns to travel writing today.</p>
<h2>New ways to think about travel writing</h2>
<p>The work of South Australian based literary academic Stephen Muecke is an interesting example of a different kind of travel writing. Muecke has had a long career of adopting co-authorship practices, embracing Indigenous and diverse voices within his narratives to highlight that there is always more than one perspective worth considering.</p>
<p>In Muecke’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13645145.2007.9634820">Gulaga Story</a> he writes about an ascent of Gulaga, or Mount Dromedary in southern NSW. Local Yuin Aboriginal people take him up the mountain to learn aspects of its Dreaming story and the totem of the Yuin. </p>
<p>Muecke’s writing includes interviews with anthropologist Debbie Rose and sections of Captain Cook’s journal, from when Cook travelled along the NSW coast in the 18th Century. The latter offers a contrast between Cook’s initial surface appraisal and the deeper meanings of Indigenous knowledge.</p>
<p>Muecke writes:</p>
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<p>Travelling whitefellas tend to think in lines, like the roads they eventually build and drive along, like the chronological histories they tell. Yet there are alternatives: being multiply present, for instance, as if by landing up in someone else’s somewhere, you still remain somewhere else. Maybe other people have been where you come from too; you arrive in their place and they tell you they have seen your city or your country.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-country-have-you-walked-why-all-australians-should-walk-an-indigenous-heritage-trail-162519">'What country have you walked?' Why all Australians should walk an Indigenous heritage trail</a>
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<p>In <a href="https://re-press.org/books/reading-the-country/">Reading the Country: Introduction to nomadology</a>, Moroccan artist Krim Benterrak, Muecke and Nyigina man Paddy Roe demonstrate how a co-authored, overlapping narrative from three distinct perspectives allows us to appreciate travelling along the northwest coast of Western Australia. Paddy Roe was from Roebuck plains, an area once inhabited by Indigenous people, though now it is silent except for the vast cattle studs.</p>
<p>The three examine the different meanings of place in Roebuck Plains and how different people see and interpret it. Central to the book is the premise that their method is not <em>the</em> way of interpreting Roebuck plains. Their nomadology is an “archive of fragments”.</p>
<p>Another more reflexive writer of place, English author James Attlee, wrote the book Isolarion while merely travelling along his street in Oxford. His is an example of <a href="https://theconversation.com/great-time-to-try-travel-writing-from-the-home-134664">vertical travel</a>, where the travel writer focuses on the close-at-hand details, rather than far-off experiences.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=917&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470481/original/file-20220623-51865-m2624w.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1152&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such books acknowledge the fraught nature of the travel writer who arrives from a western country or culture to write about other people and their sophisticated cultures. Attlee’s book is also a creative response to travel writing’s long carbon footprint.</p>
<p>Will it still be appropriate for future travel writers to fly around the world on junkets (“famils”) racking up carbon miles amid a climate crisis? I think writers and editors should “go local” much more, as Attlee has, not just from an environmental point of view, but also from an authenticity standpoint. Of course, that doesn’t mean writers can only write about their home cities and states, but it would be a logical place to start. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/472250/original/file-20220704-22-4ilal7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Should travel writers avoid carbon miles too?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Armando Franca/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The new travel writing – 5 of the best</h2>
<p>Encouragingly, there are already many recent examples of travel writing that can further engage readers in this shift. Here are 5 of the best.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The Granta travel edition: <a href="https://granta.com/products/granta-157-should-we-have-stayed-at-home-new-travel-writing/">Should we have stayed at home?</a> presents a diversity of modern voices and stories, ranging from Taipei alleyways, the history of postcards and an Indigenous perspective of South Australia.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/zero-altitude-helen-coffey-book-review-emma-gregg/">Zero Altitude: How I learned to fly less and travel more</a> by Helen Coffey explores the world without stepping inside a plane. Coffey uses bikes, boats, trains and cars to seek unexpected adventures while deliberately addressing the impact of how we travel.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://www.bradtguides.com/product/minarets-in-the-mountains-1-pb/">Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey into Muslim Europe</a> by Tharik Hussain explores a “different” Europe to that of most travel writing of the past. Hussain travels through Eastern Europe with his wife and daughters encountering the region’s unique Islamic history and culture.</p></li>
<li><p>Cal Flyn’s <a href="https://www.calflyn.com/nonfiction-books/islands-of-abandonment-nature-rebounding-post-human-landscape">Islands of Abandonment</a> doesn’t look for places or experiences that might fit in a top listicle of summer holiday experiences. Instead, it explores the “ecology and psychology” of forgotten places such as uninhabited Scottish islands and abandoned streets in Detroit to observe the slow movement of nature when unchecked by human intervention.</p></li>
<li><p>In <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/wanderland-9781472951953/">Wanderland</a> Jini Reddy, an award winning travel writer who was born in Britain, raised in Canada, and whose parents are of Indian descent, decides to “take her soul for a stroll” away from office job in London in search of wonder, meaning and magical travelling on a random journey of inspiration “ricocheting” through Britain. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>In much the same way that we’ve adopted little things like keep cups at coffee shops, and an awareness of ethical food and fashion choices, it is much easier today to find travel writing challenging the genre and exploring diverse perspectives. We’ll just have to do this writing alongside the Instagram influencers. </p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: this article originally stated that travel writer Jini Reddy was raised in South Africa, attended university in Canada and is of Indian heritage, however Jini has informed us that a more accurate description is that she was born in Britain, raised in Canada, and her parents are of Indian descent, so we have amended the text to reflect this.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Stubbs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
After visiting 72 countries as a travel writer, COVID forced Ben Stubbs to reassess the genre in an age of climate change and mass tourism. It’s time, he says, for a new kind of travel writing.
Ben Stubbs, Senior Lecturer, UniSA Creative, University of South Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/147625
2021-09-02T16:17:01Z
2021-09-02T16:17:01Z
‘Fifty Shades of Grey,’ 10 years later: Self-publishing wasn’t novel then, but now it’s easier to reach a niche audience
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418761/original/file-20210831-27-18rird9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C305%2C4778%2C3413&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Substantial cultural commentary and numerous studies addressed how the 'infamous' novel influenced both readers and the publishing industry. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It has been 10 years since E.L. James decided to self-publish her first novel, <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em>. The plot of the story centres on a <a href="https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/love-sex/sex/a44875/bdsm-bondage-beginner-information/">college student who enters a relationship with a wealthy businessman involving BDSM practices — bondage, dominance/submission, sadism/masochism — </a> and becomes his submissive. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A standing woman in an evening gown is accompanied by a man in a suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417870/original/file-20210825-13-145m84y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some critics commend author E.L. James, pictured here, for enticing more authors to experiment with self-publishing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The story was first developed as a fan-fiction project in 2009 based on the <em>Twilight</em> series, originally titled <em><a href="https://fiftyshadesofgrey.fandom.com/wiki/Master_of_the_Universe">Master of the Universe</a></em>. However, after being reprimanded for the mature content by the administrators of a fan fiction website, James decided to <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-twenty-first-century-popular-fiction.html">self-publish the book in 2011 with the help of an online publisher, The Writers’ Coffee Shop</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-18547252">James’s book and</a> its sequels — <em>Fifty Shades Darker</em> and <em>Fifty Shades Freed</em> — became a global sensation. The trilogy sold more than 65 million copies after James signed a contract <a href="https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/people/article/54956-e-l-james-pw-s-publishing-person-of-the-year.html">with a traditional publisher, Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House</a>. </p>
<p>Substantial cultural commentary and numerous studies addressed how the “infamous” novel influenced both readers and the publishing industry. </p>
<p>Some people critiqued the book for <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2015/02/consent-isnt-enough-in-fifty-shades-of-grey/385267/">linking sex and violence without delving into the level of communication required to make BSDM safe and truly consentual</a>. Others discussed how it harmed women’s already fragile role <a href="https://rowman.com/isbn/9781498585514">in a patriarchal world, or commended it for starting dialogue around BDSM — and enticing more authors</a> to experiment with niche topics and self-publishing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/violence-dressed-up-as-erotica-fifty-shades-of-grey-and-abuse-37589">Violence dressed up as erotica: Fifty Shades of Grey and abuse</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Role of gatekeepers has shifted</h2>
<p>This is an interesting time in publishing and other areas of the cultural industries, because the roles of gatekeepers are changing. Today, <a href="https://www.wired.com/2004/10/tail/">it is much easier to appeal to a niche audience than it was 10 years ago</a>. Self-publishing is here to stay. </p>
<p>Some people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12109-017-9505-8">commend self-publishing</a> as a great way to ensure that audiences can access a diversity of genres and voices that have traditionally been marginalized by mainstream publishers. Others <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/90898/the-cult-of-the-amateur-by-andrew-keen/">condemn it because of the lack of gatekeepers</a> to assess the content being produced. A few consider it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088310377863">a get-rich-quick-scheme</a>. </p>
<p>However, these assumptions are based on a limited knowledge of contemporary self-publishing practices. </p>
<h2>Self-publishing isn’t new</h2>
<p>The phenomenon of self-publishing is often linked to online book production methods, which allow authors to produce an ebook with a few strokes of the keyboard, making their work available to a global audience. However, there is a much richer history of self-publishing that goes further back than its digital counterpart. </p>
<p>A number of prominent authors started off by privately printing their work. For instance, <a href="https://austenauthors.net/jane-austen-self-publisher/">Jane Austen privately published <em>Sense and Sensibility</em> in 1811</a>, and <a href="https://indiereader.com/2016/10/6-famous-authors-chose-self-publish/">Mark Twain self-published <em>The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</em> in 1885</a>. Although self-publishing might appear as the new buzzword, it is not a novel phenomenon in the publishing industry. </p>
<p>Even though self-publishing was a practice some authors adopted in the 18th and 19th centuries, <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/How_to_Self_Publish_Your_Own_Book_and_Ma.html?id=4nfgAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">the distribution methods and number of copies were often limited</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A stack of Jane Austen books" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=468&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418771/original/file-20210831-27-1xrec2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=588&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yes, Jane Austen’s ‘Sense and Sensibility’ actually has something in common with ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’: self-publishing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Amazon & self-publishing</h2>
<p>In the past 10 years, the phenomenon of self-publishing grew massively with the help of Amazon, Wattpad and other online publishing tools. </p>
<p>The real game changer to self-publishing was Amazon when it introduced Kindle Direct Publishing in 2007. It became possible for authors to share their work worldwide through a convenient global distributor. </p>
<p>Amazon can be linked to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/23/20991659/ebook-amazon-kindle-ereader-department-of-justice-publishing-lawsuit-apple-ipad">popularization of electronic books (ebooks) through its promotion of the Kindle — also introduced in 2007 — which prices literary works as low as 99 cents</a>. </p>
<p>In 2012, a year after its publication, <em>Fifty Shades of Grey</em> was the <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2164886/Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey-best-selling-Kindle-online-book-time-Amazon-sales-topping-1m.html">best- and fastest-selling series ever on Kindle</a>. </p>
<h2>Self-publishing on the rise</h2>
<p>It is difficult to trace the actual number of self-published books because platforms like Amazon assign their own classification, making the ISBN unnecessary. However, Bowker, a company that assesses and reports bibliographical information (such as ISBN data), provides reports showing that self-publishing has been on the rise. </p>
<p>In 2011, the company registered <a href="https://www.bowker.com/en/news/2012/self-publishing-sees-triple-digit-growth-in-just-five-years-says-bowker/">148,424 printed self-published books with an additional 87,201 ebooks</a>. Only six years later, in 2017, the registered number of self-published books was more than a million. The numbers kept rising the following year, with over <a href="https://www.bowker.com/en/news/2019/self-publishing-grew-40-percent-in-2018-new-report-reveals/">1.5 million self-published books registered in Bowker’s system</a>.</p>
<p>In the past 10 plus years, self-publishing has kept growing as an industry potentially due to ebook adoption and online publishing companies, which indicates that it certainly has the possibility to have a permanent place in the publishing ecosystem. </p>
<h2>Wattpad: virtual library of the future?</h2>
<p>In 2006, Kevin Kelly, former editor of <em>Wired</em> magazine, proposed <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/magazine/14publishing.html">the idea of “liquid books” all housed in a universal library, which anyone could access freely</a>. A year after Kelly’s proposal, a platform emerged that made the idea of a universal library a viable possibility. </p>
<p>Wattpad was originally a start-up <a href="https://company.wattpad.com/press/">founded in Canada by Allen Lau and Ivan Yuen in 2007</a>. Originally a website, the company launched a mobile app in 2008, which is now easily accessed from any hand-held device. </p>
<p><a href="https://company.wattpad.com">At first, the founders of the site uploaded books in the public domain</a> to attract users. Once enough people became aware of Wattpad, writers started to upload their own stories to share with an online audience. Now Wattpad has a range of categories of books and stories for all types of readers, ranging from traditional romance and mystery to spiritual genres and the paranormal. A virtual library of user-generated content, both mainstream and niche, emerged that supported the self-publishing boom.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1430561046553636869"}"></div></p>
<p>Wattpad <a href="http://business.wattpad.com/studios/">takes prides in the fact that it presents its authors with opportunities to obtain worldwide recognition by working with global media companies</a>. For instance, the self-published novel <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fifty-shades-of-grey-publishing_b_3109547?guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_cs=SRSQDw19T-xJFYlKtS8-Ow&guccounter=2"><em>The Kissing Booth</em> </a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fKn0Dhj64w">became a <em>Netflix</em> original movie</a> after it found success and a loyal audience on Wattpad. Hence, Wattpad became a place for traditional industries to browse for new content. </p>
<p>Arguably, this signals that self-publishing isn’t going anywhere, and that traditional media companies are quick to take advantage of this new model of production.</p>
<p>After more than 10 years in the industry, Wattpad has developed ties to traditional media outlets that can potentially only get stronger. </p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>Self-publishing could be a solution to a number of problems authors face — from trying to reach a niche market to producing controversial content, as was the case with the work of E.L. James. </p>
<p>Something else to keep in mind when evaluating the usefulness of self-publishing is the possibility of <a href="https://theconversation.com/self-publishing-may-be-the-answer-to-shakeups-in-the-book-world-amid-covid-19-157098">producing and purchasing books and ebooks from home during a pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>Could the pandemic contribute to a shift that potentially makes self-publishing accepted as a viable and legitimate form of book production? Maybe we’ll get an answer in another 10 years.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147625/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizaveta Poliakova does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The controversial fantasy novel and its sequels enticed more authors to experiment with self-publishing, but the latter has a history that long predates the steamy bestseller.
Elizaveta Poliakova, PhD Candidate, Communications and Culture, York University, Canada
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164988
2021-08-12T12:26:05Z
2021-08-12T12:26:05Z
Amid calls to #TaxTheChurches – what and how much do US religious organizations not pay the taxman?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415517/original/file-20210810-21-1rbd2q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=30%2C0%2C5061%2C3389&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Megachurches can be megarich.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/first-batpist-megachurch-in-dallas-at-night-royalty-free-image/528409655">Allan Baxter/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23TaxTheChurches&src=typeahead_click">#TaxTheChurches</a> began <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/joel-osteen-rich-taxes-wealth-ferrari-twitter-2021-7">trending on Twitter</a> in mid-July.</p>
<p>The spark was allegations about the wealth of celebrity pastor <a href="https://www.thethings.com/pastor-joel-osteen-criticized-for-his-vast-fortune-as-he-drives-325k-ferrari/">Joel Osteen</a>. But it wasn’t the first time that “tax the churches” has circulated. In fact it is slogan that long predates social media – Frank Zappa was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gydA6tPF5xI&t=0s">singing it</a> back in 1981 and Mark Twain <a href="https://archive.org/stream/MarkTwainsNotebook/TXT/00000233.txt">expressed similar sentiments</a> many decades before that.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.ut.edu/directory/cragun-ryan">sociologist of religion</a>, I’ve long been interested in why religious institutions are exempt from certain taxes and what that means in potential lost revenue for the U.S. In 2012, I examined this issue and estimated that in total, churches in the U.S. get out of paying around <a href="https://centerforinquiry.org/press_releases/u-s-_loses_over_71_billion_in_religious_tax_exemptions/">US$71 billion</a> in taxes annually.</p>
<h2>Auditing the house of God</h2>
<p>Most religious organizations are exempt from a variety of taxes that individuals and businesses are required to pay, like income and property taxes. These exemptions began formally in <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/tehistory.pdf">1913 at the federal level</a>, though there is a much longer history of exempting charitable, educational, scientific and religious institutions from taxation.</p>
<p>It is important to note that faith organizations can be exempt from paying taxes solely based on their religious work, not for any other charitable endeavors. Churches and religious organizations – which the <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/atg_religious_orgs.pdf">IRS loosely defines</a> as entities organized for “religious purposes” or for “advancing religion” – <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-religious-organizations">are listed separately from other tax-exempt entities and charities</a> and can be subject to different rules. Some religious congregations do engage in relief efforts for the poor and needy, but many do not. And of the ones that do, many give a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pf.3504">very small amount of their revenue for such charitable purposes</a>.</p>
<p>Additionally, unlike charities, churches and other places of worship are <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/annual-exempt-organization-return-who-must-file">not required to report any financial information</a> to the IRS. The IRS encourages churches to do so, but they are not required to. And it can be an onerous process for the IRS to gain approval to audit places of worship, requiring <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-religious-organizations/special-rules-limiting-irs-authority-to-audit-a-church">prior evidence of abuse of tax exemptions reported by a high-level Treasury employee</a>.</p>
<p>In many places in the U.S., income is taxed at the local, state and federal levels. Religious institutions do not pay any income tax at any level of government. Additionally, <a href="https://theconversation.com/whats-the-charitable-deduction-an-economist-explains-162647">individuals and corporations that donate</a> to religions <a href="https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/charitable-contribution-deductions">can deduct those expenses</a> – once they are above a specific amount – from their taxable income.</p>
<h2>Heavenly bank accounts</h2>
<p>Religious organizations also pay no taxes on their investments, whether it be interest they earn on their investments or in capital gains – the increased value of stock from when the stock was purchased. As such, they are able to invest excess revenue in the stock market or other investment instruments but pay no taxes on the corresponding earnings. One Fortune 500 company, <a href="https://www.thrivent.com/about-us/">Thrivent</a>, originated as a financial services organizations for Missouri Synod Lutherans in 1902, and then for all Lutherans in the 1960s. It was called Thrivent Financial for Lutherans up to 2014, but it now manages the investments of members of many religious congregations as well.</p>
<p>Religious endowments and investment accounts total in the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mormon-church-amassed-100-billion-it-was-the-best-kept-secret-in-the-investment-world-11581138011">hundreds of billions of dollars in the U.S.</a>. Just how much money religious organizations have is hard to tell, as churches are not required to report such information. However, <a href="https://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/christianity/8-richest-pastors-in-america.aspx">the net worth of some well-known pastors</a>, like <a href="https://www.ibtimes.com/kenneth-copeland-net-worth-evangelist-richest-pastor-world-2951331">Kenneth Copeland</a> and <a href="http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/pat_quotes/palst.htm">Pat Robertson</a>, are estimated to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.</p>
<p>Religious organizations pay <a href="https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/sales/pub843.pdf">no sales tax</a>. This means that, when representatives of a religious entity make a purchase – office supplies, cars or travel, for example – they are exempted from whatever the local sales tax is in that area. <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf">They also pay no income taxes for businesses they own</a>, if they can show that the business furthers the objectives of the religion. For example, a bookstore that sells religious books would be exempt.</p>
<p>Religious organizations may pay employment taxes for their employees. However, there are exceptions built into the tax code here as well. Clergy and members of religious orders are the only citizens who can opt out of paying <a href="https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/self-employment-tax-social-security-and-medicare-taxes">Self-Employed Contributions Act taxes</a>, which are 15.3% taxes on income for self-employed individuals that pay for Social Security and other federal benefits.</p>
<p>If religious clergy opt out of the SECA tax, they cannot receive Social Security benefits. Clergy can also <a href="https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-types-of-income/ministers-compensation-housing-allowance">deduct the upkeep costs of their “parsonage</a>” – their home or apartment – from their taxable income.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Joel Osteen launches Joel Osteen Radio at SiriusXM Studios" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415519/original/file-20210810-17-wq7aui.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reports on Joel Osteen’s wealth led to the trending of #TaxTheChurches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/joel-osteen-launches-joel-osteen-radio-at-siriusxm-studios-news-photo/456343642?adppopup=true">Taylor Hill/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Finally, religious organizations <a href="https://www.tax.ny.gov/pit/property/exemption/index.htm">pay no property taxes</a>. Property taxes are primarily used in the U.S. to fund local services like firefighting, emergency medical services and police departments, as well as schools and other infrastructure, all of which religious organizations use.</p>
<p>Some municipalities make information on property taxes publicly available, so it is relatively easy to work out the cost of this tax exemption to local communities.</p>
<p>I looked at <a href="https://www.mymanatee.org/">Manatee County in Florida</a> as an example. Manatee County is a midsize county in Florida with just over 300,000 citizens living in a mixture of rural and urban areas. <a href="https://www.prri.org/research/2020-census-of-american-religion/#page-section-1">Recent data</a> suggests that Manatee County is close to the national average when it comes to the religious makeup of its residents. Finally, Florida property values and the cost of living rank almost exactly in the middle of all U.S. states, making Manatee County a fairly representative illustration of the nation generally.</p>
<p>Manatee County’s <a href="https://www.manateepao.com/">public portal</a> indicates which properties are classified as churches and are therefore exempt from “ad valorem” taxes – those based on the assessed value of the property – and other property taxes. By downloading the “just market values” for the 360 properties classified as having a religious exemption, I was able to work out that their combined value was $406.7 million. If they paid the standard property taxes required of both commercial and residential properties in Manatee County, they would add $8.5 million to the tax revenue of the county annually. With the county’s budget at $740million, an additional $8.5 million works out to be about 1.1% of the total. This, <a href="https://www.mymanatee.org/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=17765969">according to the 2022 Manatee County budget proposal</a>, would be enough to cover the building of all three newly proposed emergency medical services stations in the county, along with upgrades of EMS equipment and its 911 service.</p>
<p>[<em>3 media outlets, 1 religion newsletter.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/this-week-in-religion-76/?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=religion-3-in-1">Get stories from The Conversation, AP and RNS.</a>]</p>
<h2>Taxing the ‘infidel and the atheist’</h2>
<p>Projecting those numbers out to the entire U.S. population is tricky. The number and proportion of religiously exempt properties varies by county; property values and tax rates vary across the country, and the value of religiously exempt properties varies as well. </p>
<p>But if one assumed that the exempt taxes are uniform across the country based on the information derived from Manatee County – which, to be clear, they’re not – local and state governments forgo roughly $6.9 billion in tax revenue annually by exempting religions from paying property taxes.</p>
<p>This is just an estimate – it is nearly impossible to know the actual amount, and it may be that the true figure is even higher. If churches and other places of worship were required to file annual financial reports, researchers could use that information to evaluate the financial health of religious entities in the U.S.</p>
<p>It would also give a clearer understanding as to how much, in <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.uidaho.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1194&context=idaho-law-review">Twain’s words</a>, “the infidel and the atheist and the man without religion are taxed to make up the deficit in the public income” caused by the exemption for churches.</p>
<p>With such information more readily available, the public would find it much easier to discuss the merits of a hashtag campaign like #TaxTheChurches.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164988/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ryan Cragun does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Megachurches and the men who lead them can be superrich. So why don’t the IRS and local authorities see a cent in taxes? A scholar explains.
Ryan Cragun, Professor of Sociology, University of Tampa
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132306
2020-02-27T14:03:10Z
2020-02-27T14:03:10Z
Calling someone a ‘jackass’ is a tradition in US politics
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317153/original/file-20200225-24664-1u1pj1g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2591%2C1943&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What did you call me?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/donkey-jackass-domestic-animal-1588339153">emka74/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Virginia Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine called President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/live-blog/trump-impeachment-trial-senate-votes-articles-impeachment-n1130646/ncrd1130896#liveBlogHeader">a “jackass”</a> in early February, Kaine engaged in a political practice that is as old as the nation. </p>
<p>Probably no animal is used more as an object of ridicule and derision in U.S. politics. Kaine’s epithet was hurled because Trump hadn’t shaken hands with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi before his 2020 State of the Union address. </p>
<p>Yet jackasses are so entangled in American political history that I must ask: Where would politics be in this country without jackasses?</p>
<h2>Object of ridicule</h2>
<p>While researching our forthcoming book, “<a href="https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/the-art-of-the-political-putdown">The Art of the Political Putdown</a>: The Greatest Comebacks, Ripostes, and Retorts in History,” my late collaborator Will Moredock and I found several references to politicians who responded to a rival’s insult by comparing them to the <a href="https://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/mules-arent-burros">jackass, which is a male donkey</a>, or sometimes the closely related mule.</p>
<p>The word <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/jackass">jackass, or “male ass,”</a> according to one etymologist, goes back to 1727. By the 1820s, it was commonly being used to describe a “<a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/jackass">stupid person</a>.”</p>
<p><a href="https://www.chroniclebooks.com/products/the-art-of-the-political-putdown">This was the intent of a retort</a> in the 1820s by Kentucky congressman Henry Clay to Massachusetts Congressman Daniel Webster.</p>
<p>Clay was sitting outside a Washington, D.C. hotel with Webster when a man walked by with a pack of mules. “Clay, there goes a number of your Kentucky constituents,” Webster said.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Clay replied, “they must be on their way to Massachusetts to teach school.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317161/original/file-20200225-24664-1cypg7b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Henry Clay, left, and Daniel Webster served in Congress in the 1820s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Clay_1848_restored.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A connection with Democrats</h2>
<p>In 1828, Andrew Jackson ran for president as the candidate of the new <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/us-politics/democratic-party">Democratic Party</a>, which had been created from splintered factions of the Democratic-Republican Party. </p>
<p>Jackson, the blunt-spoken backwoodsman and war hero, was <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/political-animals-republican-elephants-and-democratic-donkeys-89241754/">widely criticized as a “jackass”</a> for advocating populist reforms. </p>
<p>He responded by using the image of the jackass <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/15/this-day-in-politics-jan-15-1870-339085">on his campaign posters</a>.</p>
<p>“Jackson embraced the image as the symbol of his campaign,” <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/political-animals-republican-elephants-and-democratic-donkeys-89241754/">Jimmy Stamp wrote in Smithsonian magazine</a>, “rebranding the donkey as steadfast, determined, and willful, instead of wrong-headed, slow, and obstinate.” </p>
<p>Jackson won the election, and the jackass first became associated with Jackson and the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>More than 40 years later, after the Civil War, a political cartoon really popularized the image of the jackass as the symbol of the Democratic Party. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/316888/original/file-20200224-24701-11rtb8k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A popular political cartoon helped people connect the image of a jackass with the Democratic Party.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Nast, Harper's Weekly</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1870, Harper’s Weekly <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/political-animals-republican-elephants-and-democratic-donkeys-89241754/">published a Thomas Nast cartoon</a>, “A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion.” It depicted Northern Democrats, nicknamed “Copperheads,” attacking the recently deceased former Cabinet member Edwin Stanton, a lion of Radical Republicans.</p>
<p>The donkey – a more polite and gender-neutral word for “jackass” – became the symbol of the Democratic Party. </p>
<p>The word “jackass” remained a term of ridicule.</p>
<h2>Twain defends the jackass</h2>
<p>Critics such as Mark Twain thought comparing men and politicians, in particular, to jackasses was unfair to jackasses. </p>
<p>“Concerning the difference between man and the jackass: some observers hold that there isn’t any,” <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Jackass.html">he said</a>. “But this wrongs the jackass.”</p>
<p><a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Jackass.html">Twain also defended jackasses</a> in his 1894 novel “Pudd’n’head Wilson.” </p>
<p>“There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless,” he wrote. “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/102/102-h/102-h.htm#link2H_4_0001">Observe the ass</a>, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.”</p>
<p>The jackass, however, remained a term of derision in American politics.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/317165/original/file-20200225-24659-1nrauxb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=987&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Speaker of the House Champ Clark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ChampClark_(cropped).jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, when Democratic Congressman Champ Clark of Missouri was speaker of the House of Representatives during the 1910s, an Indiana congressman interrupted the speech of an Ohio congressman by calling him a “jackass.”</p>
<p>Clark ruled the expression in violation of protocol, and the Indiana congressman apologized. </p>
<p>“I withdraw the unfortunate word, Mr. Speaker, but I insist the gentleman from Ohio is out of order.”</p>
<p>“How am I out of order?” the Ohioan asked.</p>
<p>“Probably a veterinarian could tell you,” the Indiana congressman responded.</p>
<h2>The jackass revisited</h2>
<p>Donald Trump’s presence in American politics has brought a resurgence in the word “jackass” – or at least the two things have happened simultaneously. </p>
<p>In 2015, then-presidential candidate Trump <a href="https://time.com/4993304/john-mccain-donald-trump-feud-remarks/">ridiculed the characterization</a> of Arizona Senator John McCain as a war hero. McCain served more than five years in a prisoner-of-war camp during the Vietnam War. </p>
<p>In reply, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who also was seeking the GOP presidential nomination, called Trump “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-gives-out-lindsey-grahams-cell-phone-number-120414">the world’s biggest jackass</a>,” adding that even “jackasses are offended” by Trump. </p>
<p>Trump responded by making public <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2015/07/donald-trump-gives-out-lindsey-grahams-cell-phone-number-120414">Graham’s private cellphone number</a>.</p>
<p>During the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign, MSNBC aired an interview with a conservative voter who said she would vote for Trump and the GOP – even if Trump was at the top of the ticket. </p>
<p>“I am voting for the conservative party,” she said. “<a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ohio-voter-gets-msnbc-laughs-by-calling-trump-a-jackass">And if this jackass</a> just happens to be leading this mule train, so be it.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/V2ojOvJD6vc?wmode=transparent&start=145" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">An Ohio voter declares her intentions in the 2016 election.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The connection between Trump and the jackass appeared in greeting cards, too. The Canadian company OutLayer sold a Christmas card that said, “Trump is a jackass. <a href="https://outerlayer.com/products/trump-is-a-jackass-holiday-card">Merry Christmas</a>.” </p>
<p>One 2020 bumper sticker, however, uses the Democratic donkey to tout Republicans in the November election. “<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200224150831/https://www.amazon.com/Republican-President-Election-Conservative-American/dp/B07BGCGGMX">Don’t be a jackass</a>,” it says. “Vote Republican.”</p>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132306/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Lamb does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For more than two centuries, one particular epithet has resonated through US politics – and even helped inspire the unofficial mascot of a major political party.
Chris Lamb, Professor of Journalism, IUPUI
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/128478
2019-12-06T13:07:15Z
2019-12-06T13:07:15Z
Brexit Britain: was Jane Austen an original little Englander?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305614/original/file-20191206-90580-10a3zbi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C767%2C664&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jane Austen based on a portrait by her sister Cassandra.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In revealing the charms and follies of genteel English society, Jane Austen has few competitors. Yet as Britain limps towards Brexit, I can’t help wondering why there are no foreigners in her major fiction. Many thousands of continental Europeans <a href="https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/immigration/">settled in Britain</a> after the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic wars. Couldn’t just one of the Bennet sisters have fallen in love with a charming Belgian or a wealthy German? Wouldn’t the well-travelled <a href="https://janeausten.fandom.com/wiki/Frederick_Wentworth">Frederick Wentworth of Persuasion</a> have a dear friend from Spain or Italy?</p>
<p>Such questions may seem trivial, but they gain significance at a time when we expect a lot from Austen. In the past few decades, scholars have regularly turned to her novels for insights into the larger issues of her era (<a href="https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/female-education-reading-and-jane-austen">women’s education</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1403991219/ref=rdr_ext_tmb">slavery</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1403991219/ref=rdr_ext_tmb">war</a>) and our own (<a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030162405#aboutBook">climate change</a>). Some even want to see her <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Austen-Secret-Radical-Helena-Kelly/dp/1524732109">as a radical</a>. </p>
<p>I’m not so convinced by this progressive – or even subversive – Austen. She was unquestionably sensitive to the epoch-defining events taking place around her. Two of her brothers were <a href="https://www.janeausten.co.uk/jane-austens-brothers/">officers in the Royal Navy</a> during the Napoleonic wars; another was a banker who was ruined in the post-war financial crisis. Certainly, there are moments in the novels when these larger events make an appearance. How could they not?</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/jane-austens-curious-banking-story-makes-her-an-apt-face-for-the-10-note-80579">Jane Austen's curious banking story makes her an apt face for the £10 note</a>
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<p>But are such moments enough to make Austen’s works a source of great insight into the social issues of her era? In matters of love, friendship and the societal expectations of the landed gentry, Austen is always astute and entertaining. But consider all the elements of her society that Austen left out.</p>
<p>Are there, for instance, any Catholics in Austen’s novels? Any Jews? <a href="https://www.vqronline.org/essay/barkeeper-entering-kingdom-heaven-did-mark-twain-really-hate-jane-austen">Mark Twain wrote</a> that Austen’s novels made him feel like a “barkeeper” surrounded by “ultra-good Presbyterians” – but are there any actual Presbyterians in her novels? So far as I can tell, all of her principal characters are Anglican.</p>
<p>Are there any foreigners – a Frenchman, say, or a visiting Spaniard? Nope. Northanger Abbey mocks the English affection for gothic novels set on the continent, but no one from the continent appears in the novel. In a <a href="http://jasna.org/publications/persuasions-online/vol37no1/zionkowski/">scene from Emma</a> that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/13/priti-patel-demonisation-gypsies-prejudice-bigotry">Priti Patel might applaud</a>, Frank Churchill rescues Harriet Smith from a group of “loud and insolent” Romany children.</p>
<p>How about representatives from other parts of the UK? In Austen’s novels, Scotland is mainly a place to which giddy young women elope. As for Wales, well, there’s a “<a href="http://jasna.org/publications/persuasions-online/vol37no1/jones/">Welch cow</a>” in Emma. Ireland does a little better: in Pride and Prejudice, Mary Bennet annoys her sister by <a href="https://austenauthors.net/ireland-irish-jane-austens-novels/">playing Irish songs on the piano</a>; and in Emma, an honest to goodness Irishman, one Mr Dixon, plays a minor role – though, like so many other male characters in Austen’s novels, he isn’t important enough to earn a first name.</p>
<h2>Home and away</h2>
<p>Austen is deservedly recognised for bringing greater realism to the Anglophone novel and for presenting a new psychological depth in her characters. Yet this position should not be confused with the idea that Austen somehow tells us more about Regency England than any of her contemporaries – or that her works contain all the complexities of her era if only we look closely enough. They tell us very little about the way the English looked on their British and European neighbours.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=381&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305616/original/file-20191206-90574-aj2cra.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=479&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Jane Austen could hardly be more English.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Sutherland via Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>I hear you ask, well come now, you don’t really expect a Regency-era author to include foreigners, revolutionaries and exiles in her novel, do you? Well, yes, actually I do. Many of Austen’s forgotten contemporaries – writers like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Charlotte-Smith">Charlotte Smith</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fanny-Burney">Frances Burney</a>, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Maria-Edgeworth">Maria Edgeworth</a> – did just that. Another more famous contemporary, Mary Shelley, created the era’s greatest study of an outsider ostracised by society, <a href="https://theconversation.com/eight-things-you-need-to-know-about-mary-shelleys-frankenstein-93030">Frankenstein</a>. If we imagine that Austen provides a complete picture of Regency life, these authors prove us wrong with their more international and political perspectives.</p>
<p>This is not to say that they are better writers than Austen. Reading Austen’s contemporaries illuminates what makes Austen a great (in many ways superior) writer. Austen is utterly in command of the order and organisation of her best narratives – every character, every encounter, every character foible is there for a well-planned purpose. </p>
<p>Similarly, Austen’s protagonists are true to themselves. It is rare indeed for a reader to feel that her characters act in ways that were not foreseeable from the start. Her narrators keep a respectable distance from the action of the story: they provide enough information to leave readers feeling secure, but they rarely call attention to themselves or comment at length on the unfolding action. In all of these aspects, Austen has no Regency-era peer.</p>
<h2>Doing the continental</h2>
<p>Nevertheless, some of these forgotten works illustrate the storytelling pathways that Austen never attempted. If I were to choose one work from Austen’s time that speaks most clearly to our own moment and showcases all that Jane left out, it would be Jane Porter’s novel from 1803, <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-jane-porter-thaddeus-of-warsaw.html">Thaddeus of Warsaw</a>. Porter’s novel was a great success when it first appeared, and it remained in print for most of the 19th century.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/305621/original/file-20191206-90592-bs9c0i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Thaddeus of Warsaw, by Austen’s contemporary, Jane Porter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Worthopedia</span></span>
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<p>Thaddeus – an early 19th-century forerunner to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/jul/07/sir-walter-scott-fiction">Walter Scott’s Waverley</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Vanity-Fair">William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair</a> – tells the story of Count Thaddeus Sobieski, who escapes to Britain after his homeland falls to Russian invaders. Penniless, he hides his identity and makes his way among the rich and poor of London, finding work where he can, and coming to the aid of those less fortunate than he. He is befriended by a group of women, who assist or punish him, according to their impulses.</p>
<p>Imagine a Jane Austen novel with a Polish protagonist. Imagine an Austen novel where British women welcome an immigrant into their lives. Imagine an Austen novel where a character goes looking for <em>work</em>.</p>
<p>The passages in Thaddeus that resonate the most today, however, are the commentaries by British characters who are troubled by the presence of Polish exiles, like Thaddeus, among them. One character announces, “it is our duty to befriend the unfortunate; but charity begins at home … and, you know, the people of Poland have no claims upon us”. Another declares, “Would any man be mad enough to take the meat from his children’s mouths, and throw it to a swarm of wolves just landed on the coast?” No question that these characters would have voted “Leave”.</p>
<p>Today there are almost one million people living in the UK <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/ukpopulationbycountryofbirthandnationality/2017#poland-remains-the-most-common-non-uk-country-of-birth-and-non-british-nationality">who were born in Poland</a>. No matter what happens with regard to Brexit, these people have already changed their adopted homeland. While writers like <a href="https://www.openpen.co.uk/tag/agnieszka-dale/">Agnieszka Dale</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/06/swallowing-mercury-by-wioletta-greg-review">Wioletta Greg</a> create a new body of <a href="http://anglopolishsociety.org/our-book/">Anglo-Polish literature</a>, Thaddeus of Warsaw reminds readers of the long links between the two countries.</p>
<p>It also reminds us that a satisfying romance, whether it concerns Emma Woodhouse or Thaddeus Sobieski, needs to please its readers. It won’t be giving too much away to note that, at the conclusion of Thaddeus of Warsaw, the meeting of wealth and love allows for a happy ending. That was one lesson that Jane Austen taught us a long time ago.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128478/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas McLean’s work on the Porter family was funded by the Royal Marsden Fund of New Zealand.
</span></em></p>
When her contemporaries were engaging with European themes in their novels, Austen remained rooted in her home country.
Thomas McLean, Associate Professor, English and Linguistics, University of Otago
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90731
2018-02-13T11:44:52Z
2018-02-13T11:44:52Z
In the DACA debate, which version of America – nice or nasty – will prevail?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206002/original/file-20180212-58312-ofpe1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">DACA supporters march to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office to protest after the September 2017 announcement that the program would be suspended with a six-month delay.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump-Immigration-Arizona/3da67535ce0c4b49a1e98c76c50e65fa/49/0">AP Photo/Matt York</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Toward the beginning of my new book “<a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976498">American Niceness: A Cultural History</a>,” I recount Cuban writer José Martí’s 1894 essay “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=HWdaNYx_OygC&pg=PA329&lpg=PA329&dq=jose+marti+%22the+truth+about+the+united+states%22&source=bl&ots=PLMk40o5rI&sig=V_PqWBHmJ7_FgtfrSRYHUZ0J3Rk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNz_jilpLZAhUGQ60KHaWVBAsQ6AEIOzAD#v=onepage&q=jose%20marti%20%22the%20truth%20about%20the%20united%20states%22&f=false">The Truth About the United States</a>.”</p>
<p>In it, he argues that polarities shape all nations, the United States included. There are “generous Saxons” and “generous Latins,” as well as egotistical and cruel ones. Consequently, history is an ongoing duel between generosity and greed, he says. </p>
<p>In his 1869 comic sketch “<a href="https://twain.lib.virginia.edu/wilson/siamese.html">The Personal Habits of the Siamese Twins</a>,” Mark Twain used the metaphor of conjoined twins to describe the duality of the country’s character. One is belligerent, aggressive, and fought for the Confederacy; the other is angelic, amiable, and fought for the Union. </p>
<p>Both writers describe two competing national types: the vulgar American (later known as the “Ugly American”) and what could be described as the “nice American.” Since the early 19th century, the pairing of the nice with the nasty has encapsulated the contradictions at the nation’s core.</p>
<p>Today, the topic that brings this duality into sharp relief is immigration – and especially the polarized national debate on the fate of nearly 800,000 young immigrants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. </p>
<h2>The Jekyll and Hyde of U.S. immigration policy</h2>
<p>The nice and nasty side of U.S. immigration policy is not only seen in terms of this polarized debate, but also in the split personality of President Trump himself. The same day in September 2017 when he decided to suspend DACA, <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-41170097/trump-i-have-great-love-for-daca-dreamers">he announced</a>, “I have a love for these people.” </p>
<p>Twain’s conjoined twins are an apt metaphor to describe the Jekyll and Hyde history of U.S. immigration policy. </p>
<p>Is the U.S. a nation of immigrants? Or is it a nation that shuts out, expels and criminalizes immigrants through walls, surveillance and deportation? </p>
<p>This tension between hospitality and exclusion has defined the nation from its beginning. The origin of American niceness occurred three months after the Pilgrims arrived in Plymouth, when an Abenaki named Samoset greeted the strangers in English <a href="https://archive.org/details/samosetanappreci00sylviala">by saying</a> “Welcome, Englishmen.” </p>
<p>The desperate Puritans had witnessed nearly half of their group die. Concerned about their own survival and safety, they were anxious to establish friendly relations with the natives, and they showered them with gifts. The Puritans quickly signed a peace treaty with the chief sachem, Massasoit, and the Native Americans taught them how to grow corn and catch eel. </p>
<p>But as the Puritans grew in strength and their settlements expanded, they no longer needed Indian hospitality. They eventually <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Metacom">killed Massasoit’s son Metacom</a> in King Philip’s War, put his head on a spike and took it to Plymouth, where it remained for over 20 years.</p>
<p>This origin story of the nation illustrates the complexity of American niceness, which appears here in two competing forms: Native American hospitality toward the stranger, and the mercenary “niceness” of the Puritan settlers. </p>
<p>The tension between these two opposing forms can be traced etymologically in the word “hospitality,” which derives from the Latin root “hostis” – the same root of the word “hostility.” </p>
<h2>From Indian hospitality to nativist hostility</h2>
<p>This tension between hospitality and hostility surfaced again <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/immigrants-conspiracies-and-secret-society-launched-american-nativism-180961915/">during the first major wave of migration</a> to the United States in the 1830s and 1840s, which consisted primarily of Irish and German immigrants.</p>
<p>Following the Panic of 1837 and a subsequent recession, jobs were scarce. This – combined with anti-Catholic sentiment and fears that Rome would undermine republicanism – resulted in a nativist movement that aimed to curtail suffrage for immigrant men while stopping the “foreign invasion.” </p>
<p>This nativist rage – which blamed Europe for sending their crime-ridden and poor masses to the United States – crystallized into the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=rhA2cqYGMOAC&pg=PA14&dq=%22Americans+should+rule+America%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwifs6C236DZAhUJ5oMKHUSlDe8Q6AEIMDAC#v=onepage&q=%22Americans%20should%20rule%20America%22&f=false">whose slogan</a> was “Americans should rule America.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=362&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206009/original/file-20180212-58352-ys0c1f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A 19th-century flag warns Americans to ‘beware of foreign influence.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/u/us%7Dnap1.jpg">CRW Flags</a></span>
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<p>Seeing in nativism’s political rhetoric the same hatred that inspired racism, abolitionists directly challenged the Know-Nothing Party.</p>
<p>An anonymous 1844 article in the anti-slavery newspaper The Pennsylvania Freeman referred to nativism as a “narrow spirit of selfish patriotism” that portrayed foreigners as “intruders.” According to the article’s author, such toxic patriotism would only lead to a situation where hatred would “beget more hatred.” </p>
<p>In 1855, Abraham Lincoln identified the connection between nativism and racism.</p>
<p>“I am not a Know-Nothing,” <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/speed.htm">he wrote</a> to his close friend Joshua Speed. “That is certain.” Lincoln noted that if the Know-Nothings got control of the government, the Declaration of Independence would read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics (sic).” </p>
<h2>The battle over American identity</h2>
<p>In his 1984 book “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=KmacyPZa5XAC&q=john+higham+send+me+to+these&dq=john+higham+send+me+to+these&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDndT8nZLZAhUICawKHVObCFYQ6AEIJzAA">Send These to Me</a>,” immigration historian John Higham observed that many of these nativist feelings persisted in 20th-century America. He noted that the only thing that seems to change is the level of emotional intensity. </p>
<p>What struck him was how quickly mild indifference toward immigrants could morph into xenophobic fury. Although Higham’s claim was made nearly 20 years before the 9/11 attacks, it nonetheless describes what happened to Muslims in the U.S. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/?utm_term=.04bfeafddd01">FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports program</a>, hate crimes against Muslims before 9/11 ranged between 20 and 30 per year. After the 9/11 attacks, the number rose more than tenfold to nearly 500. Since then, hate crimes against Muslims are approximately five times higher than the pre-9/11 rate. </p>
<p>Today, we see both aspects of American character on display in the deserts from California to Texas, where undocumented immigrants risk their lives to cross into the United States. While some Americans fill water stations, others – from <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/17/us-border-patrol-sabotage-aid-migrants-mexico-arizona">ICE agents</a> to armed civilian militias – will empty them.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206008/original/file-20180212-58322-wyua7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A member of Arizona Border Recon, a group of armed volunteers who dedicate themselves to border surveillance, checks a motion-sensing camera he set up along along the U.S.-Mexico border.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/America-Divided-American-Moments-Photo-Gallery/1586e34bd87c411c8de1f3d23effd61d/66/0">AP Photo/Gregory Bull</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scott Warren, who works with the Tucson-based aid group No More Deaths, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/22/arrest-no-more-deaths-border-patrol-water-sabotage-migrants">was arrested in January</a> and charged with harboring two undocumented migrants in a humanitarian aid outpost, where they were given water and fed. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a15898207/ice-border-patrol-trump/">In a recent article</a>, journalist Charles Pierce wondered, “It’s a felony to leave water for thirsty people? This is not America.” </p>
<p>As Congress debates the future of DACA recipients, the meaning of this word – America – continues to be a point of conflict. </p>
<p>The outcome of this conflict depends on which legacy of American niceness the nation wants to honor. Is it the unconditional and accepting niceness exemplified by Native American hospitality? Or the self-interested niceness of the Puritan Separatists that evolved into nativist exclusion? </p>
<p>At stake is not only the fate of the Dreamers, but also how the country and the rest of the world understands the idea of America.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90731/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carrie Tirado Bramen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Throughout America’s history, a duality has existed: On one side, there has been the belligerent, aggressive America. On the other, the generous, amiable one.
Carrie Tirado Bramen, Associate Professor of English, University at Buffalo
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/90739
2018-02-12T11:40:25Z
2018-02-12T11:40:25Z
Mark Twain’s adventures in love: How a rough-edged aspiring author courted a beautiful heiress
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205737/original/file-20180209-51694-inx5sh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The wife and daughters of Mark Twain.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Boys'_Life_of_Mark_Twain_024.jpg">Albert Bigelow Paine</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>One of the great courtships in American history is the wooing of an unenthusiastic 22-year-old Olivia Langdon by a completely smitten 32-year-old Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.</p>
<p>As I first learned while visiting Twain’s hometown of Hannibal, Missouri in preparation for teaching “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/76/76-h/76-h.htm">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</a>,” the contrasts between the two were indeed stark, and the prospects for their eventual union exceedingly poor. Olivia Langdon, known as Livy, was a thoroughly proper easterner, while Sam was a rugged man of the West. Livy came from a family that was rich and well-educated, while Sam had grown up poor and left school at age 12. She was thoroughly pious, while he was a man who knew how to smoke, drink and swear. </p>
<p>On Valentine’s Day, their story is a reminder of the true meaning of love. Despite many challenges, once united, they never gave up on each other and enjoyed a fulfilling 34 years of marriage.</p>
<h2>The young Olivia</h2>
<p><a href="http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/applebaum/olivia.html">Olivia Langdon</a> was born in 1845 in Elmira, New York to a wealthy coal merchant. Her father, Jervis Langdon, was deeply religious but also highly progressive: He supported Elmira College, which had been founded in 1855 as one of <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Feminism_s_Founding_Fathers.html?id=xznaDAAAQBAJ">the first in the U.S.</a> to grant bachelor’s degrees to women. He was also an ardent abolitionist who served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, which offered shelter and aid to escaped slaves from the South. He even offered sanctuary to a fugitive <a href="https://www.biographyonline.net/writers/frederick-douglass.html">Frederick Douglass</a>, one of America’s greatest abolitionists, who became a lifelong friend.</p>
<p>Her mother, also Olivia, was active in many civic organizations and served as a strong advocate for her children’s education. The younger Olivia suffered from a delicate constitution her whole life. As a teenager she was bedridden for two years after a fall on the ice.</p>
<h2>Mark Twain and love at first sight</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19987">Born in 1835</a> and raised on the Mississippi River in Hannibal, the young Samuel Clemens worked as a typesetter, a riverboat pilot, a miner and a writer. His first national literary success came in 1865 with “<a href="http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/price/frog.htm">The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County</a>,” a story about a frog and a man who would bet on anything.</p>
<p>He soon moved into travel writing, filing dispatches from Hawaii (then the Sandwich Islands) before embarking in 1867 for Europe and the Middle East aboard the steamship Quaker City. Clemens would later cobble together his dispatches from the voyage into a book that became a 19th-century bestseller, “<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3176">The Innocents Abroad.</a>” </p>
<p>It was aboard the Quaker City that Clemens first laid eyes on a photograph of Livy. Her younger brother, Charles, who would later add to his father’s coal fortune, befriended Clemens on the voyage and showed him a picture of his sister. Clemens later claimed that it was love at first sight.</p>
<h2>Wooing the ‘dearest girl in the world’</h2>
<p>Back in the U.S., Clemens accepted an invitation from Charles to visit his family in Elmira. Within days of meeting Livy in 1868, he proposed marriage. She rebuffed him. Clemens later <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Mr-Clemens-and-Mark-Twain/Justin-Kaplan/9780671748074">wrote</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“She said she never could or would love me – but she set herself the task of making a Christian of me. I said she would succeed, but that in the meantime, she would unwittingly dig a matrimonial pit and end by tumbling into it.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although Livy refused Sam’s proposal, she did offer to enter into a correspondence with him as “brother and sister.” He wrote to her the very next day and kept on writing for 17 months, a total of over <a href="http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/mark-twains-letters-complete/">180 letters</a>. One of them reads as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Livy dear, I have already mailed today’s letter, but I am so proud of my privilege of writing the dearest girl in the world whenever I please, that I must add a few lines if only to say I love you, Livy. For I do love you … , as the dew loves the flowers; the birds love the sunshine; as mothers love their first-born… .</p>
<p>P.S. – I have read this letter over and it is flippant and foolish and puppyish. I wish I had gone to bed when I got back, without writing. You said I must never tear up a letter after writing it to you and so I send it. Burn it, Livy, I did not think I was writing so clownishly and shabbily. I was in much too good a humor for sensible letter writing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Livy’s parents had good reason to be skeptical about the relatively uneducated and uncivilized Clemens, and they asked for references from his friends out west. As Clemens later <a href="http://marktwainstudies.com/a-disturbing-passion-mark-twain-the-angelfish/">reported</a>, his friends did little to ease their mind, reporting that he was wild and godless, an unsettled rover “who got drunk oftener than was necessary.” But Sam had already told them as much, which seemed to confirm his honesty. Plus, he tried to reform himself, for a time giving up drinking and attending church regularly.</p>
<h2>Marriage, lavish home and love’s travails</h2>
<p>Despite the Langdons’ initial objections, Jervis Langdon took a liking to Sam, who soon won Livy’s heart. On the couple’s first outing together, they attended a reading by <a href="https://www.biographyonline.net/writers/charles-dickens.html">Charles Dickens</a>, and in an effort to elevate her beau’s character, Livy began sending him copies of the <a href="https://archive.org/details/sermonsofhenrywa00beec">sermons</a> of one of America’s most famous preachers, Henry Ward Beecher.</p>
<p>They announced their engagement in February of 1869. A year later, they were married.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205733/original/file-20180209-51710-gqw6df.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mark Twain with his family.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To Clemens’s surprise, his father-in-law provided lavishly for the newlyweds, purchasing for them a beautiful home in Buffalo, New York, staffed with servants. He also provided Clemens a loan with which to purchase an interest in a local newspaper. “<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3176">The Innocents Abroad</a>” was soon published, and Clemens rocketed to fame and fortune.</p>
<p>The Clemens’ <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2988/2988-h/2988-h.htm">life</a> was not always happy, however. Soon after their marriage, Jervis Langdon died of stomach cancer, and their first child, a son, was born premature and died of diphtheria at 19 months. Years later, their daughter Susy died at age 24 of meningitis, and another daughter, Jean, died of epilepsy at 29. Only one daughter, Clara, survived. She married a musician and lived to age 88.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=623&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205736/original/file-20180209-51710-vpo7m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=783&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mark Twain with his wife, Olivia, and daughter, Clara.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP photo</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Clemens’s brilliance as a writer was nearly matched by his financial ineptitude. His enthusiasm for new technology led to investments in a money-losing <a href="http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/yankee/cymach6.html">typesetting machine</a>. His publishing investments met initial success with the publication of the <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4367/4367-h/4367-h.htm">memoirs</a> of Ulysses Grant, but soon failed. Eventually the family had to shutter their house and move to Europe. Finally he turned over control of his financial affairs to a <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B02E3D8153EE733A25753C2A9639C946897D6CF&legacy=true">Standard Oil baron</a> who persuaded him to file bankruptcy before ensuring that his creditors were paid off.</p>
<h2>A lasting love affair</h2>
<p>Sam and Livy’s marriage was remarkable for its day, and perhaps any day. When they later built a mansion in Hartford, Connecticut – where they were next-door neighbors to another of the 19th century’s best-selling American novelists, <a href="https://www.harrietbeecherstowecenter.org/">Harriet Beecher Stowe</a> – the deed was in Livy’s name. Clemens also transferred the copyrights to some of his works to Livy, to avoid seizure by creditors.</p>
<p>More importantly, she became proofreader and editor of all his manuscripts. Without her, he believed, his most important works, such as “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” would never have been written. Of her role he <a href="https://www.delphiclassics.com/shop/mark-twain/">recalled</a>,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I never wrote a serious word until after I married Mrs. Clemens. She is solely responsible – to her should go all the credit – for any influence my subsequent work should exert. After my marriage, she edited everything I wrote.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>At home their children would listen as their mother read his stories. When she came to a passage that she thought needed more work, she would turn down the corner of the page. Clemens later claimed that he occasionally inserted passages to which he knew she would object simply to enjoy her reaction.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=577&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205742/original/file-20180209-51694-w6cwvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=725&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mark Twain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/with/14763660772/">Internet Archive Book Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sam and Livy remained deeply devoted to one another throughout their marriage, which ended only with Livy’s death in Italy in 1904 from heart failure. Clemens himself lived until 1910, devoting his last years to his autobiography. When the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/20/books/20twain.html?pagewanted=all">uncensored version</a> was finally published – at his request, 100 years after his death – it sold unexpectedly well, making him the author of best-sellers in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.</p>
<p>After Livy’s death, Sam found it difficult to live. One of the chroniclers of their lifelong love affair finds perhaps his most poignant testimony in 1905’s “<a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/8525/8525-h/8525-h.htm">Eve’s Diary</a>,” in which the character of Adam says at Eve’s graveside, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Wheresoever she was, there was Eden.”</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It was aboard a steamship that Mark Twain first laid eyes on a photograph of Olivia Langdon, known as Livy. It was love at first sight. In their marriage of 34 years, they remained deeply devoted.
Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/79569
2017-11-01T10:14:39Z
2017-11-01T10:14:39Z
Imagining the ‘California Dream’
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/178291/original/file-20170714-7354-ta5io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Is the California Dream still alive and well?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/vintage-california-view-oil-painting-526016404?src=oiGDFrNPr3v9ETEZq1Km2w-1-0">Ivan Aleshin/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who gave the world the idea of the California Dream? </p>
<p>One way to answer this question is: “Who didn’t?” Millions of people today and in the past imagined California before ever going there – or without ever going there at all. Their collective vision of this place, what it means and how it might make, or remake, those who come here is one way to think about the California Dream, writ large.</p>
<p>But there’s also a person, a single thinker, in another answer to this question. </p>
<p>Kevin Starr, the prolific historian of California, died in January 2017. His passing took from the Golden State its most important scholarly interpreter and the one person most closely identified with chronicling the California Dream as a dynamic vision of a place and its possibilities. Across 40 years, Starr built a body of published work that put him in the most distinguished company of California commentators: <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/488109">Carey McWilliams</a> and <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/291675">Joan Didion</a> in the 20th century; <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/882088301">Richard Henry Dana</a>, <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/223807026">Mark Twain</a> and <a href="https://archive.org/details/bancrofthistcal01bancroft">H.H. Bancroft</a> in the 19th.</p>
<p>The loss feels especially poignant, even raw, just now. With California poised to flex more of its considerable clout across many stages, largely in antagonistic environmental, cultural and legislative response to the current presidential administration, it would be comforting to have Kevin Starr’s booming voice and clever opinions as narration and context to what is happening out here on the West Coast.</p>
<h2>West to East and back</h2>
<p>Born and raised in San Francisco in hardscrabble circumstances, Kevin Starr spent time as a boy in a Catholic orphanage, went to college at the Jesuit-led University of San Francisco and joined the Army. He then went to Harvard in the mid-1960s and ran headlong into American civilization. That meant the constellation of brilliant Harvard humanists shaping understanding of American intellectual and cultural history in books still consulted, and it meant steeping in the hothouse of Ivy League presumptions about just where American civilization existed and where it surely did not. Boston was in, of course, and so was Philadelphia. New York? Maybe. New Haven counted for something. </p>
<p>“I am going to write a dissertation on the West,” I said once to one of my own Ivy League historian mentors, who responded with an immediate and knee-jerk “West of what?” I went on to study the West, and have done so for the last 30 years. Over this entire time, I was fortunate to count Kevin Starr as mentor, friend and colleague. </p>
<h2>Inviting scholarly scrutiny</h2>
<p>Starr loved his time at Harvard. He marinated in the seminars and in the libraries. He felt at home. The old-school courtliness of Harvard matched his own bearing and respect for institutions. He also felt very much a Californian, and he chose to bring his home state to scholarly scrutiny. Starr wrote a doctoral thesis under the supervision of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/03/arts/alan-heimert-70-professor-and-expert-on-early-america.html">Alan Heimert</a>, the brilliant scholar of 18th-century American religion who had just brought out his masterpiece, <a href="http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;idno=heb01364">“Religion and the American Mind: From the Great Awakening to the Revolution</a>,” on the religious enthusiasms of pre-Revolutionary America. Under Heimert’s close mentoring – they were only about a decade apart in age – Starr wrote on a Great Awakening of a different sort: California’s sudden and imaginative hold on the American psyche. The thesis became <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/americans-and-the-california-dream-1850-1915-9780195042337?lang=en&cc=us">“Americans and the California Dream, 1850-1915</a>,” which Oxford University Press brought out in the early 1970s. </p>
<p>In one big book, Starr made the California Dream mean and stand for so much more than the mid-19th-century search for gold nuggets in Sierra streams and rivers. The dream took that adventure in, to be sure, but Starr expanded our understanding of it well beyond the expectations of so many inexperienced miners trying their luck. Though initially conceived as a one-off monograph, the book launched an intellectual pilgrimage sparked from a deceptively simple query. What is the meaning – and the condition – of the “California Dream” through time? </p>
<h2>A West Coast civilization</h2>
<p>Each of the <a href="http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Kevin+Starr+Dream&qt=results_page">more than half-dozen books that followed</a> is another illumination of the history and culture of California. Starr broke through much of the nonsense of California studies – the “Old West” school of daring days of yesteryear – by taking the place, its people and the ideas they generated seriously. </p>
<p>Each successive volume is pinned, across eras or single decades, to the state and well-being of the oft-elusive California Dream at this or that moment in time. A redemptive California, a West Coast civilization made of the best hopes and dreams of the young nation, embodies the first book, and this idea animates the full series. Californians, Starr insists, can rise above the worst impulses of greed, violence or racism and, in so doing, render the state exemplary to the rest of the nation and the world. Starr knew his William Bradford, he of the obligations of an American “city on a hill”; he knew his Alan Heimert; he knew his <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674261556">Perry Miller</a>, another of Harvard’s brilliant scholars of American mission and destiny. He brought them all with him to California. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=879&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/186677/original/file-20170919-22657-1my2iaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1105&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, right, and Kevin Starr unveil the California Quarter in 2004.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stacked end to end, Starr’s dream series does not describe a straight line of hope or success. California is not so regenerative a place as to avoid the worst of human impulses and actions, and Starr knew that – despite his impressively irrepressible hopes that it might. California is always more parts hope than promise in Starr’s reckoning, and it has ever been thus. Woven into his lofty prose are indications of darkness and disappointment. “Old in error,” he noted as he closed the best of his books on this place, “California remains an American hope.” </p>
<p>What he did brilliantly was to temper faith with realism, realism with faith. That trait is what makes his absence especially painful right now. California is resurgent these days, even in its many imperfections. Feisty, even smug about its considerable power, the state – its political leadership and wide swaths of its population – is <a href="http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-ed-california-fights-back/">boldly going against the national zeitgeist</a> in such arenas as environmental, social and immigration policies and perspectives. Given his erudition and the bully pulpit he so enjoyed opining from, Kevin Starr would have much to say about how the nation might not only learn from California examples, but how, as it has for two centuries, California might take the nation forward and not back.</p>
<p><em>Read more about the past and future of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/california-dream-39642">California Dream</a>. This series is published in collaboration with KQED.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79569/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Deverell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Millions of people have imagined California, but only one man was its historian.
William Deverell, Professor of History, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/75770
2017-04-06T01:18:19Z
2017-04-06T01:18:19Z
#ThanksforTyping: the women behind famous male writers
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163985/original/image-20170405-6699-1g0z6np.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vladimir and Vera Nabokov in 1969.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vladimir_and_Vera_Nabokov_1969.jpg">Giuseppe Pino, Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It started when an American academic noticed how frequently the acknowledgements sections of weighty academic tomes featured a male author thanking his nameless wife for typing.</p>
<p>The academic, Bruce Holsigner, began sharing the screenshots on Twitter under the hashtag <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ThanksForTyping?src=hash&lang=en">#ThanksforTyping</a>.</p>
<p>And the response was stupendous. As the screenshots flooded in, a veritable army of unpaid women suddenly became visible. Not only were they typing, and retyping, but translating and editing and – um – doing the actual research.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"846046080030564353"}"></div></p>
<p>Of course #ThanksForTyping is not a practice that’s confined to academics. A considerable portion of the western canon is built on the unpaid labour of women.
So here’s my top ten list of the male writers who thanked – or failed to thank – their long-suffering wives.</p>
<h2>1) Leo Tolstoy</h2>
<p>Sophia Tolstaya not only gave birth to Leo’s 13 children, she also published his books and took care of the family’s financial interests. She acted as her husband’s secretary, famously copying out <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/656.War_and_Peace">War and Peace</a> – including multiple revisions – seven times. In the age before the typewriter, the writing was all done by hand. Leo, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alexandra-popoff/sophia-tolstoy-not-the-wo_b_576632.html">as scholars have established</a>, was a lot less than grateful. At age 82, following the legendary act of renunciation in which Leo gave away significant amounts of the couple’s property to roam the country with a begging bowl, his family was left impoverished.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"847219307750805505"}"></div></p>
<h2>2) Fyodor Dostoyevsky</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163979/original/image-20170405-24768-xm8boq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=999&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Anna Grigoryevna in the 1880s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A._Dostoyevskaya_in_the_1880s.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Stenography, or writing in shorthand, was a popular occupation for writer’s wives. In 1866, Fyodor Dostoyevsky employed a stenographer named Anna Grigoryevna to help him finish his novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12857.The_Gambler">The Gambler</a>, for which he had signed a risky contract. If he did not deliver by November his publisher F. T. Stellovsky would acquire the right to publish Dostoyevsky’s works for a further nine years without any compensation. Fyodor dictated The Gambler, and Anna wrote it down in shorthand, then copied it out neatly. Fyodor proposed to Anna within eight weeks, and married her two months later. Anna took over her husband’s financial affairs, made Fyodor give up gambling, and stopped him from signing further dodgy contracts.</p>
<h2>3) T.S. Eliot</h2>
<p>As well as being the most influential poet of his time, T.S. Eliot was a director of Faber & Faber, in which capacity he employed a typist named Esme Valerie Fletcher as his assistant. Towards the end of 1956, the 68-year-old poet proposed marriage. He wrote the poem A Dedication to My Wife, which is filled with lines like “To whom I owe the leaping delight” and other adoring phrases which are almost un-Eliot-like in their warmth and sentimentality. After his death, Valerie became the editor and annotator of Eliot’s works.</p>
<h2>4) Vladimir Nabokov</h2>
<p>Nabokov’s wife, Vera, was her husband’s sternest critic and biggest fan. Vera acted as his typist, editor and literary agent, and did all the driving. Vera was vigilant in making Vladimir rewrite his fastidious prose if it wasn’t up to scratch. There’s also a story that she <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/silent-partner-books-judith-thurman">saved Lolita from the flames</a>, when the manuscript was abandoned in a bout of frustrated rage.</p>
<h2>5) William Wordsworth</h2>
<p>Not only did William Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy produce the fair copies of her brother’s work, but his wife and sister-in-law also helped out with the transcribing. Rumour has it that Dorothy did far more than simply transcribe: she also acted as his literary executor after his death, and edited his unpublished works.</p>
<h2>6) F. Scott Fitzgerald</h2>
<p>Fitzgerald was more indebted to his wife Zelda than he ever let on. As Zelda scathingly <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1094387-it-seems-to-me-that-on-one-page-i-recognized">announced</a>, after the publication of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/46165.This_Side_of_Paradise">This Side of Paradise</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I recognize a portion of an old diary of mine which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that is how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In a recently published book <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30227607-the-subversive-art-of-zelda-fitzgerald">The Subversive Art of Zelda Fitzgerald</a>, by my colleague Deborah Pike, you can finally read some of these stolen passages and their sources side by side.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=946&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1189&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1189&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163982/original/image-20170405-6699-10q94zd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1189&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The French novelist Colette, 1890.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>7) “Willy” aka Henry Gauthier-Villars</h2>
<p>“Willy” was the pen name of the once famous but now forgotten writer Henry Gauthier-Villars, a tremendously successful self-promoter and author of 50 novels penned by a stable of ghostwriters, including his wife. The apocryphal story goes that Henry would go so far as to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/02/14/reviews/990214.14martint.html">lock his wife in a room</a> until she had produced the desired quantity of prose. One day his wife, deciding she had finally had enough, left. She published the rest of her work under a surname you might recognise: Colette.</p>
<h2>8) Peter Carey</h2>
<p>Alison Summers was Peter Carey’s wife and editor for 20 years. She’s been thanked for a lot more than typing in all of Carey’s best known books, such as <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/110090.True_History_of_the_Kelly_Gang">The True History of the Kelly Gang</a>, where he thanks Summers for her “clear literary intelligence and flawless dramatic instinct”. This all changed following their famously acrimonious divorce, after which Summers claimed she had been <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/careys-exwife-comes-out-swinging/2006/05/12/1146940732798.html">transformed into a minor character</a> – described as the “Alimony Whore” – in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40215.Theft">Theft: A Love Story</a>. Carey denied the link. </p>
<h2>9) Mark Twain</h2>
<p>On a happier note, Samuel Clemens – better known as Mark Twain – met Olivia Langdon in 1867, and took her to a reading by Charles Dickens. They married, and Olivia almost inevitably became her husband’s editor, assisting him with his books, and also with his journalism, until her death in 1904.</p>
<h2>10) John Stuart Mill</h2>
<p>Of course, if you want to thank your wife, and do the job properly, there’s no better example than John Stuart Mill. His effusive thanks to his wife Harriet is exemplary. Mill wrote, in the dedication to <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/385228.On_Liberty">On Liberty</a>, that Harriet had been responsible for all of the “great thoughts” he ever had. More than a few churlish critics have taken issue with Mill’s claim, arguing that more than a few of these thoughts got published before John and Harriet even met.</p>
<p></p>
<h2>A tale of one’s own</h2>
<p>Of course, there have been times when the hard work has also run in the other direction. George Eliot’s portrait of Dorothea Brooke in <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19089.Middlemarch">Middlemarch</a>, slaving away as an assistant for her strikingly untalented husband, Edward Casaubon, writing his unfinished book Key to All Mythologies, is not a portrait of her own relationship. Her soulmate George Henry Lewes never faltered in his admiration for his far more famous partner, and even, legend has it, went to fetch her library books.</p>
<p>Leonard Woolf, husband to Virginia, the author of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18521.A_Room_of_One_s_Own">A Room of One’s Own</a> – perhaps the most famous argument for a space for women writers in a male dominated tradition - also gave up much to comfort his finally inconsolable wife. He took her on trips to Harley Street, and long cures in the country. As Virginia wrote in her <a href="http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/virginia-woolfs-handwritten-suicide-note.html">fateful suicide note</a> of 1941, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>You have been entirely patient with me, and incredibly good … I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Camilla Nelson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
From Tolstoy to Mark Twain, the most famous writers owe many words of thanks to their long-suffering wives.
Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor of Writing, University of Notre Dame Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/73044
2017-03-03T02:11:41Z
2017-03-03T02:11:41Z
What would Mark Twain think of Donald Trump?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159203/original/image-20170302-14706-11eclga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Twain was an opinionated, prolific commentator on the personalities and political issues of his day.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/terryballard/10498071004">Terry Ballard/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thanks to the criticisms they’ve leveled in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/21/aftermath-sixteen-writers-on-trumps-america">articles</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/philip-roth-e-mails-on-trump">interviews</a>, <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/heres-how-famous-writers-are-reacting-to-trumps-inauguration?utm_term=.itwYeD0MG#.hhdO23aYR">tweets</a> and <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2017/02/ursula_leguin_on_fiction_vs_al.html">letters to the editor</a>, we know that many contemporary authors, from Philip Roth to J.K. Rowling, have a dim view of Donald J. Trump. </p>
<p>But what would leading writers of the past have made of him? </p>
<p>We can only speculate (well, until someone invents a Rowling-like potion capable of bringing long dead writers back to life). But if I could ask one dead writer what he thinks of Trump, it would be Mark Twain, my favorite American author and someone whose <a href="http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-04/no-03/wasserstrom/">travel articles</a> I’ve written about in the past. While Twain is best-known for his novels, he was also an opinionated, prolific commentator on the personalities and political issues of his day. </p>
<p>I suspect Twain would have found Trump the showman – the pre-2016 version – a fascinating figure. He would have been appalled, however, by much about Trump the president. </p>
<h2>A champion of irreverence</h2>
<p>I have no doubt about two things that Twain would find objectionable: the way that Trump has <a href="http://www.salon.com/2017/01/16/not-funny-donald-trump-and-his-team-condemn-saturday-night-live-and-its-mean-spirited-jokes/">lashed out at TV sketches that mock him</a> and <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39015559">his use of the phrase</a> “enemy of the American people” to describe news organizations that criticize him. </p>
<p>Twain felt that no one was too grand to be satirized. </p>
<p>“Irreverence,” <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Newspaper.html">he wrote</a>, “is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.” </p>
<p>In America’s press, he admired its tendency to be “irreverent toward pretty much everything.” Even if this led to the newspapers laughing “one good king to death,” it was a small price to pay if they also “laugh a thousand cruel and infamous shams and superstitions into the grave.” </p>
<p>But pondering what, beyond this, Twain would make of Trump is an apt, tricky and timely exercise. </p>
<p>It’s apt because one of Twain’s novels, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” features a man who <a href="http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/yankee/cyhompg.html">travels through time</a>. </p>
<p>It’s tricky because Twain’s views on many issues, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/teachers/huck/essay.html">including race</a>, changed during his lifetime. Hence there are different Twains – as well as different Trumps – to consider. </p>
<p>Finally, imagining how Twain would view Trump is timely because when some have tried to look to history for an equivalent political moment, they’ll sometimes point to two decades – the 1880s and the 1900s – that happened to also be important in Twain’s life and career. </p>
<h2>One of these Trumps is not like the other</h2>
<p>The Twain of the 1880s would have probably found the Trump of a decade ago – a brash, self-promoting businessman known for his candid comments and penchant for media attention – fascinating. He may have even befriended him. </p>
<p>But the staunchly anti-imperialist Twain of two decades later would have been as disdainful of Trump now as he was of the man <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-mcfarland/mark-twain-and-americas-w_b_1683103.html">he once called</a> “far and away the worst president we have ever had” – the muscular nationalist Teddy Roosevelt.</p>
<p>My basis for the first claim comes from Twain’s friendship with a flashy, boastful Trump-like showman: Buffalo Bill Cody. Among the most successful entertainment impresarios of his day, Cody founded and starred in a traveling Wild West Show, which drew large crowds in America and Europe and was famous for its reenactments of legendary battles. </p>
<p>In 1884, Twain <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/2016/08/20/points-west-mark-twain-buffalo-bill-cody-pt1/">sent a letter to Cody</a> praising his Wild West Show as a realistic, “distinctly American” form of entertainment. In Cody’s spectacle – as in “The Apprentice” – the emcee was a famous man who played up a version of himself, capitalizing on the audience’s awareness that he had done things in real life that he did in the show: firing guns, in one case; firing people, in the other. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159183/original/image-20170302-14721-kwdaxn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An advertisement for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, a circus-like show that toured the nation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/20942641@N07/8490692570">NPGpics/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During this period, Twain wrote <a href="http://mark-twain.classic-literature.co.uk/">four of his best-known books</a>. It was also a time of intense nativism in the United States. Many white laborers, especially in western states, became convinced that Chinese laborers, who had crossed the Pacific in large numbers during the Gold Rush, were unfairly depriving them of jobs that rightfully belonged to them. </p>
<p>This prejudice triggered several violent outbursts – such as the <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/148259">1871 Los Angeles riot</a>, which cost 18 Chinese men their lives – and led to the <a href="https://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=47">1882 Chinese Exclusion Act</a>, which forbade the entry of Chinese workers to the United States. </p>
<p><a href="http://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2015/05/mark-twain-the-chinese-boxer.html">Twain mocked the hypocrisy</a> of the Exclusion Act: Just as the U.S. government was preventing Chinese from coming here, American traders and missionaries in China were denouncing the Chinese government for hindering their pursuit of profits and converts in the Middle Kingdom. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/01/chinese-american-lesson-trump-170130123606142.html">Some critics</a> of Trump’s executive order on immigration <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/opinions/muslims-are-new-chinese-ngai-opinion/">say</a> it “eerily recalls” the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. <a href="http://www.startribune.com/immigration-crackdowns-led-to-regrets-say-university-of-minnesota-experts-launching-new-website/413108563/">In both cases</a>, we see fear, stereotypes and prejudice fomenting an environment in which some groups are deemed less worthy of rights and protections – indeed, less human – than others.</p>
<p>In one of his early works, 1872’s “Roughing It,” <a href="http://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/presentationsandactivities/presentations/timeline/riseind/chinimms/twain.html">Twain was already castigating</a> those who bullied and abused Chinese immigrants as the “scum of the population.” His disdain for xenophobia and prejudice only grew later in life. </p>
<p>He would be a fierce critic of Trump’s nativist rhetoric even if – perhaps especially if – he had previously praised Trump the entertainer.</p>
<h2>Twain targets Teddy</h2>
<p>By the early 1900s, Theodore Roosevelt was in the White House. Trump – whom <a href="http://www.vox.com/2016/12/1/13811204/donald-trump-theodore-roosevelt">some have compared</a> with Roosevelt – has said that when he speaks of trying to “Make America Great Again,” one period he has in mind is <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/26/politics/donald-trump-when-america-was-great/">around the turn of the 20th century</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=672&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/159180/original/image-20170302-14709-y5nhs5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1904 New York World cartoon criticizes Teddy Roosevelt’s militaristic and imperialistic impulses.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Militarist.JPG">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around this time, Twain was not just a celebrated author but a leading figure on the lecture circuit. As both a speaker and an essayist, he was known for his satirical jabs. A key target of his became American expansionists, whom he skewered in, among other works, the 1901 essay “<a href="http://shsamstud.pbworks.com/f/To+the+person+sitting+darkness.pdf">To the Person Sitting in Darkness</a>,” which lambasts Americans for committing violence across the Pacific under the guise of “civilizing” backward peoples.</p>
<p>In 1900, there were two U.S. military campaigns underway in China and the Philippines. In China, U.S. soldiers joined forces with a host of other countries to fight the anti-Christian Boxer militants and the Qing dynasty. In the Philippines, American troops brutally suppressed Filipinos who sought independence. </p>
<p>Teddy Roosevelt was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/books/review/true-flag-stephen-kinzer.html">an enthusiastic supporter of these campaigns</a>. The main goal in the Philippines and in China, <a href="http://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/theodore-roosevelt-free-silver-trusts-and-the-philippines-speech-text/">Roosevelt insisted</a>, was not enrichment but defeating “barbarous” enemies. </p>
<p>Twain disagreed. In his caustic “<a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Salutation.html">Salutation Speech from the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth</a>,” Twain dismissed the military campaigns as “pirate raids” that “besmirched” Christianity’s reputation. </p>
<p>Where Roosevelt saw the Boxers as just the latest wave of savages to be suppressed, Twain <a href="http://stanfordpress.typepad.com/blog/2015/05/mark-twain-the-chinese-boxer.html">viewed them as</a> patriots defending their threatened homeland, spelling out his position in essays, personal letters and public lectures.</p>
<h2>Sticking to his guns</h2>
<p>The anti-imperialist Twain would likely have criticized other recent presidents. He wouldn’t have approved of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, nor of the way Barack Obama employed drones. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, the writer would find Trump’s disparaging of Muslims and various other groups on the campaign trail – in addition to the immigration ban – particularly distasteful. </p>
<p>He wasn’t afraid to change his mind, and to admit that he had been wrong (as Trump is loath to do). He briefly supported the Spanish-American War, for example, but then spoke openly about how jingoism had blinded his moral concerns. And as American studies professor John Haddad <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40930395?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">has detailed</a>, Twain’s previous praise for Cody didn’t stop him from walking out of a Wild West Show performance in early 1901. Cody had performed a reenactment of a 1900 Chinese battle, uniformly depicting the foreign invaders as heroes and the Boxers as barbaric villains. Twain thought his old friend was deeply misguided – and he let him know. </p>
<p>In 1901, Twain wasn’t alone in holding and expressing fervently anti-imperialist views. But he was in a minority. Most Americans felt that allied actions in China and U.S. ones in the Philippines were completely justified. So did many famous writers of the time, from Rudyard Kipling to “Battle Hymn of the Republic” lyricist Julia Ward Howe. </p>
<p>That’s one difference from today: Twain would find himself firmly in the literary mainstream – and would be far from alone in saying that a president who wanted to govern a truly “great” America should not look to the country at the turn of the 20th century for inspiration.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73044/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Wasserstrom does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
He probably would have been amused by – and maybe even befriended – Trump the entertainer. Trump the president? Not so much.
Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Professor of Chinese and World History, University of California, Irvine
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/70126
2016-12-11T19:07:09Z
2016-12-11T19:07:09Z
Review: the fine art of scorn from Twain to Trump
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149194/original/image-20161208-31405-184t4d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are contemporary insults as witty as the scorn of the past?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/pic-94237012/stock-photo-beautiful-woman-with-angry-expression.html">Ollyy/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned with a moron. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149161/original/image-20161208-18059-gnviwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1165&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://profilebooks.com/scorn.html">© Profile Books Ltd</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This astonishingly prescient insult by HL Mencken (1880–1956) is included in Matthew Parris’s new book, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32936835-scorn">Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History</a>. Well, not exactly new, and not all the insults are witty or wicked in this “updated and expanded” version of a book that he compiled more than 20 years ago.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.readings.com.au/search/results?query=Matthew%20Parris&author=1&books=1&music=1&film=1">Parris</a>, ex-MP, ex-press secretary to Margaret Thatcher, and prize-winning journalist who contributes to The Spectator and The Times, has attempted to protect himself from carping critics like me when he states in his introduction to the book that it is a “whimsical and quirky collection, not a comprehensive dictionary.”</p>
<p>He says that for a “short book” (400+ pages!), “one must leave out most” and that his “utterly and unapologetically idiosyncratic selection” includes “much that’s politically incorrect” in its “bucketful of misery and spite”.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=907&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149177/original/image-20161208-18039-10gpeum.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1139&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">American journalist, satirist and critic, H. L. Mencken.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H-L-Mencken-1928.jpg#/media/File:Mencken-Nathan-1928.jpg">Theatre Magazine Company, Ben Pinchot, 1928/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Parris ranges over vast cultural and geographical arenas in the book, as he explores the way in which the “dark side of language” can be used to express “anger, hatred or disapprobriation”. He sees terms such as wit and put-down as part of scorn; however, many other terms came to my mind without recourse to a dictionary: bile, disdain, invective, malice, rancour, ridicule, spite, spleen, verbal venom, vitriol, scurrilous diatribe, and so on.</p>
<p>Parris laments the “potency of real cursing between ancient times and our own” when he says that we see “not true curses, just snarls”. I would categorise his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/mar/26/matthew-parris-boris-johnson-london-mayor-times-attack">controversially coruscating attack on Boris Johnson</a> in The Times in March this year as way more than a snarl, as did many of the <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4721862.ece">hundreds of responders</a> to his verbal shin-kick.</p>
<p>I would argue that Parris should have left out much more of the book than he has, because, while many of his quotes constitute the witty or wicked insults promised in his title, many of the contemporary ones don’t. Can we assume that the scorn arises from their inclusion rather than their content?</p>
<p>Kanye West says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My apartment is too nice to listen to rap in. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Kim Kardashian says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When someone asks me ‘What do you do?’ I want to say, ‘Ask my fucking bank account what I do’.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Taylor Swift hardly sounds menacing when she threatens:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>If you’re horrible to me I’m going to write a song about it, and you won’t like it!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>They could all learn from the wit of the late George Melly who, when told that the wrinkles on Mick Jagger’s face were laughter lines, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Surely nothing could be that funny!</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149342/original/image-20161208-31385-1h9g03c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mick Jagger: a life of laughter?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Segar/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Parris claims that he canvassed 500 people in public or academic life to contribute jibes (including ones directed at himself) and raided many other collections and libraries to cover his cornucopia of topics.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/149185/original/image-20161208-31402-zdyeht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amy Schumer: gets one quote.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://one.aap.com.au/#/asset/20160118001219616535">Nina Prommer/AAP</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All the usual male suspects are represented and outnumber the female contributors by at least five to one in the more than 1,000 entries: George Bernard Shaw has 18 entries, Woody Allen 9, Samuel Johnson 13, Winston Churchill 15, Noel Coward 8, Clive James 5, Christopher Hitchens 5, Mark Twain 13, and Oscar Wilde 16. </p>
<p>Dorothy Parker is the most cited woman with nine, though many other singular quotes by women such as Hannah Arendt, Nancy Astor, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Joan Rivers, Amy Schumer, and Gertrude Stein are included.</p>
<p>Pariss missed some insults that would more appropriately fit under the banner of his title than some of his inclusions. He quotes Paul Keating’s warm lettuce and soufflé put-downs, but missed Keating’s cruel jibe to the prime minister Malcolm Fraser:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You look like an Easter Island statue with an arse full of razor blades.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Parris quotes several of Christopher Hitchens’s cutting bon mots, but misses his scathing description of George W Bush as:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He quotes from an irate email sent in 2002 by that well-known curmudgeon Giles Coren, but this was a much milder attack than the expletive-laden missile that Giles launched on his sub-editors at The Times in 2008 when they changed the final sentence in a restaurant review by removing the indefinite article “a” in front of the final word “nosh” and thus much of the article’s punch.</p>
<p>Parris says in his introduction that his material encompasses the insults generated during this year’s British referendum and the American election, although he must have signed off on the manuscript several months ago; there would be piles of extra ordure that he could rummage through now, particularly relating to the American election.</p>
<p>He could compile an entirely new collection out of the vituperation poured by Trump and on Trump. </p>
<p>The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair editors and contributors were merciless in their scorn of Trump. As were Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Alec Baldwin and the Saturday Night Live crew.</p>
<p>Not that Trump’s vituperative contributions are exactly witty. A tweet to Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, who had consistently hounded him as “the short-fingered vulgarian” as the election campaign progressed was as follows: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dummy Graydon Carter doesn’t like me too much… great news. He is a real loser.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>HL Mencken was right, come January 2017.</p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="https://profilebooks.com/scorn.html">Scorn: The Wittiest and Wickedest Insults in Human History</a> is written by Matthew Parris, and published by Profile Books Ltd.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roslyn Petelin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Scorn has a long and humorous history. But a new book on the subject, featuring quotes from Kanye West, Christopher Hitchens and of course, Donald Trump, rather lacks contemporary wit.
Roslyn Petelin, Associate Professor in Writing, The University of Queensland
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64156
2016-10-20T19:16:51Z
2016-10-20T19:16:51Z
Friday essay: why literary celebrity is a double-edged sword
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142285/original/image-20161019-20333-u5msmz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A wax model of Ernest Hemingway at Madame Tussauds in New York.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anton_Ivanov/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1967, French theorist Roland Barthes famously <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/barthes.death.pdf">declared</a> the metaphorical “death of the author” in his essay of the same name. Barthes rejected the Romantic idea of the author as a unique figure of genius. Still, despite his best efforts, this romantic notion of the heroic, solitary wordsmith lives on today. </p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1319.html">Medieval times</a>, authors were seen as nothing more than craftsmen. But the Romantic poets – Byron, Coleridge, Blake, Shelley – singled out the writer as a figure of “spontaneous creativity”. As academic Clara Tuite <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/210888">has noted</a>, </p>
<blockquote>
<p>the Romantic period saw the birth of the literary celebrity, a figure distinguishable from the merely famous author by his or her status as a cultural commodity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Romantic writer was seen as either a solitary hero, a tragic artist, a melancholy genius - or all three. In the centuries since, famous authors have been both celebrated and panned, adored and ridiculed. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=781&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142299/original/image-20161019-20316-e1o1li.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lord Byron (1788-1824), engraved by H.Robinson.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Georgios Kollidas</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since Romantic times, we have often expected writers to be detached from the trappings of celebrity culture, aligning their integrity with an anti-commercial attitude. There is, <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Star_Authors.html?id=QFcqYIHCfgAC">argues author Joe Moran</a>, a “nostalgia for some kind of transcendent, anti-economic, creative element in a secular, debased, commercialised culture” that we commonly attach to writers.
Indeed theorist Lorraine York <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Literary_Celebrity_in_Canada.html?id=_5HhaFex8BsC&redir_esc=y">has asked</a> if we can even use words like “fame” and “celebrity” to describe writers, “those notorious privacy-seeking, solitary scribblers”. </p>
<p>One of the first to question the idea of literary celebrity was the 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who found his own fame something of a burden.
More recently, authors such as Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace, and Dave Eggers have struggled with the desire for popularity and credibility. In today’s internet culture, reaction to a famous writer’s actions or utterances is quick and merciless. Next week, a new author will be thrust into the media spotlight, with the announcement of <a href="http://themanbookerprize.com/fiction">the Booker Prize winner</a>. </p>
<p>Yet interestingly, discussions about the difficulties of being a famous writer rarely include women. The notion of the solitary genius is usually attached to men. A notable exception is the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante – who is famous, ironically, precisely because of her reluctance to engage with literary celebrity. Ferrante writes under a pseudonym, in her words, to “liberate myself from the anxiety of notoriety”. </p>
<p>Ferrante’s recent unmasking by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/03/elena-ferrante-anita-raja-unmasking-publisher-outing-my-brilliant-friend">a literary journalist</a> has unleashed a torrent of condemnation. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"784869671145054208"}"></div></p>
<p>The extent to which her true identity has been picked over shows how our society craves constant closure, often at the expense of creativity and imagination. As Michel Foucault once <a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/Gustafson/FILM%20162.W10/readings/foucault.author.pdf">noted</a>, literary anonymity is “of interest only as a puzzle to be solved”. </p>
<p>Such is the nature of contemporary celebrity culture that many cannot tolerate the idea of writers who prefer anonymity over fame. So those such as Thomas Pynchon, J.D. Salinger and Ferrante, who have evaded the limelight, have been scrutinised as much for their personal lives as their actual works. </p>
<h2>A short history of famous (male) writers</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=833&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142289/original/image-20161019-20330-15h0a68.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1047&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Russian stamp showing Charles Dickens on his 150th birth anniversary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Olga Popova / Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 19th century writers Charles Dickens (hero of the working class) and Mark Twain (America’s most beloved humourist), were plagued with aspects of their fame. While Dickens was often criticised for appealing to the lower classes, Twain <a href="http://www.twainquotes.com/Celebrity.html">likened</a> celebrities to clowns. Celebrity, he said, “is what a boy or a youth longs for more than for any other thing. He would be a clown in a circus […] he would sell himself to Satan, in order to attract attention and be talked about and envied”.</p>
<p>Yet Dickens and Twain also enjoyed their fame. Dickens was renowned for engaging his audiences at public lectures; Twain also went on speaking tours. </p>
<p>If we fast forward half a century or so, we come to Ernest Hemingway – another author who felt imprisoned by his fame. As theorist Leo Braudy <a href="http://leobraudy.com/the-frenzy-of-renown-fame-and-its-history/">puts it</a>, Hemingway was caught between “his genius and its publicity”. In an undated writing fragment, Hemingway <a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/%22Glow-in-the-dark+authors%3A%22+Hemingway's+celebrity+and+legacy+in+under...-a0246955529">wrote</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have reached the point where we are ruled by photographers and agents of publishers and writing is no longer of any importance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He also called fellow writer F. Scott Fitzgerald a “hack” for writing Hollywood screenplays.</p>
<p>Yet Hemingway nevertheless helped promote the “Hemingway myth”, built around ideals of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7096913-all-man">masculinity</a> and genius. He was frequently photographed outdoors, fishing and hunting, or attending bullfights. </p>
<p>Then there was Norman Mailer, the pugnacious, Jewish author of The Naked and the Dead and Advertisements for Myself. In 1960, Mailer <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/24/arts/adele-mailer-artist-who-married-norman-mailer-dies-at-90.html?_r=0">stabbed and seriously wounded his then-wife, Adele Morales</a> with a pen-knife at a drunken party. (After pleading guilty to a charge of third-degree assault, he received a suspended sentence.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142282/original/image-20161019-20324-fg6cqb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Norman Mailer receives an Austrian decoration for science and art in 2002.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Leonard Foeger/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mailer cultivated a public persona that certainly boosted his fame, but did little for his literary reputation. Many critics accused him of wasting his talents by shamelessly promoting himself; he did frequent TV interviews, including a particularly notorious <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw">appearance</a> on The Dick Cavett Show, where he and Gore Vidal famously butted heads over Mailer’s public profile and ego. </p>
<p>Indeed, Mailer once <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674005907&content=reviews">called himself</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p>a node in a new electronic landscape of celebrity, personality and status.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Theorist John Cawelti suggests that unlike Hemingway, who lived out to the end an ambiguous conflict between celebrity and art, Mailer “tried to make his public performances themselves into a kind of artistic exploration”. Mailer frequently wrote about himself in the third-person, in an effort to “perform” himself as a character. </p>
<p>Interestingly, at the same time as all this was happening, <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/jd-salinger-9470070">J.D. Salinger</a>, author of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5107.The_Catcher_in_the_Rye">The Catcher in the Rye</a>, famously was living as a recluse. </p>
<h2>Franzen and Oprah</h2>
<p>In 2001, Oprah Winfrey put Jonathan Franzen’s sprawling family saga <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3805.The_Corrections?from_search=true">The Corrections</a> on her <a href="https://static.oprah.com/images/o2/201608/201608-obc-complete-list-01a.pdf">book club list</a>, encouraging her audience to read it. Franzen was invited onto Oprah’s show. He declined, <a href="http://www.powells.com/blog/interviews/jonathan-franzen-uncorrected/">saying</a> he didn’t want his novel placed alongside “schmaltzy, one-dimensional [books]”. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142297/original/image-20161019-20308-1fntotq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wolf Gang/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Franzen was widely panned for being a snob. Andre Dubus III, for instance, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/29/books/oprah-gaffe-by-franzen-draws-ire-and-sales.html?pagewanted=all">criticised</a> Franzen’s assumption that “high art is not for the masses, that they won’t understand it and don’t deserve it”. </p>
<p>Media scholar Ian Collinson <a href="https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/everyday-readers-reading-popular-culture-ian-collinson/">sees</a> Franzen’s reaction as a symbolic attempt to separate the television celebrity from the novel, an act of “cultural decontamination”. Franzen, he writes, feared his position within the high-art tradition “would be compromised if his novel were subject to such blatant commercialism”.</p>
<p>Yet nine years later, Franzen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/16/oprah-winfrey-jonathan-franzen-freedom">apologised</a> to Oprah. He was again invited onto her show, this time to promote his 2010 book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7905092-freedom">Freedom</a>. He did not refuse a second time. Ironically, many criticised Franzen for succumbing to the allure of popularity. The old assumptions regarding the incompatibility of literature and celebrity resurfaced, with one critic, Macy Halford, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/franzen-meets-oprah">suggesting</a> that “Oprah and Franzen are not terribly compatible personalities”. </p>
<p>This whole saga attests to what Tessa Roynon <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/literature/american-literature/cambridge-introduction-toni-morrison-1">has called</a> the “damned if you don’t, damned if you do” mentality of literary celebrity. Authors are often seen as having to choose between respectability amongst fewer critics, or widespread popularity at the expense of their reputations. (<a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/06/literary-celebrity">One article</a> about a speech Franzen gave to students in 2011 was memorably titled, “Touching the hem of Mr Franzen’s garment.”)
Like Mailer, Franzen’s career has been marred by the troubled union between mass media presence and desire for literary acceptance. </p>
<h2>Celebrity and Sincerity: Wallace and Eggers</h2>
<p>One of Franzen’s peers, the late David Foster Wallace, was an author in the Romantic mould; he is associated with the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/11/sincerity-not-irony-is-our-ages-ethos/265466/">“New Sincerity”</a> literary movement, and his 1996 novel <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6759.Infinite_Jest?from_search=true">Infinite Jest</a> has been judged by many as a work of genius. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=897&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142298/original/image-20161019-20336-13tkw4i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1127&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A hand-drawn tribute to David Foster Wallace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Rhodes/flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2008, Wallace took his own life. Before his death, Wallace was known to have suffered from depression, and he projected an image of the melancholy genius. His opinion of celebrity was less than favourable. His widow Karen Green once <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/10/karen-green-david-foster-wallace-interview">noted</a> in an interview that all of the media attention given to Wallace “turns him into a celebrity writer dude, which I think would have made him wince”.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/16/reviews/wallace-v-profile.html">1996 New York Times piece</a>, Wallace claimed that the “hoopla” of celebrity made him want to become a recluse. The cult of celebrity was something he consistently mocked in his work, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/365145-the-paradoxical-intercourse-of-audience-and-celebrity-the-suppressed-awareness-that">calling</a> celebrities “symbols of themselves” rather than real people. As with Rousseau and Salinger, the logic went that Wallace “deserved his celebrity”, journalist Megan Garber <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/08/david-foster-wallace-the-end-of-the-tour/400928/">writes</a>, specifically because he had not sought it.</p>
<p>Dave Eggers is also part of the “New Sincerity” movement. A writer of serious, sentimental fiction, his books include his debut memoir <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4953.A_Heartbreaking_Work_of_Staggering_Genius?from_search=true">A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius</a>, and <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4952.What_Is_the_What?from_search=true">What is the What?</a>, the fictionalised story of the life of Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng. Eggers also opened the writing centre <a href="http://826valencia.org/about/">Valencia 826</a> in San Francisco, which helps children develop their writing skills (and inspired the <a href="http://www.sydneystoryfactory.org.au/our-inspiration/">Sydney Story Factory</a> and Melbourne’s <a href="http://www.100storybuilding.org.au/">100 Story Building</a>.)</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142291/original/image-20161019-20302-1xjeoh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=707&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dave Eggers in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elliot Margolies/flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early in his career, Eggers often spoke of wanting to retreat into anonymity. Instead, he <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">seized</a> the reins of literary celebrity. Some then accused him of hypocrisy – in criticising fame while also inviting it. He has also been criticised for “excessive sincerity”, while journalist David Kirkpatrick <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/14/books/ambivalent-writer-turns-his-memoir-upside-down-denouncing-profits-publishers.html">called</a> Eggers “agonizingly ambivalent”. </p>
<p>Journalist James Sullivan <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Eggers-Surprised-By-Success-Author-to-read-from-2935959.php">notes</a> that Eggers</p>
<blockquote>
<p>treats his celebrity like a gold lamé suit: It’s amusing, absurd and, in his mind, not quite appropriate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, in her reading of Eggers’ 2003 book <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4954.You_Shall_Know_Our_Velocity_?from_search=true">You Shall Know Our Velocity</a>, Caroline Hamilton <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">suggests</a> that the central characters “resemble the credibility-obsessed younger Eggers torn between longing for celebrity and legitimacy”. </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html">2000 email interview</a>, Eggers referred to himself as a sellout for having sold many books and appeared in various magazines. As Hamilton <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/one-man-zeitgeist-dave-eggers-publishing-and-publicity-9781441117373/">writes</a>, the term sellout has less to do with wealth, and more to do with “the popularity that comes with it”.
Celebrity, then, remains a problem for those authors wishing to appear genuine and serious. </p>
<h2>Where are all the women?</h2>
<p>It is striking that female authors are, for the most part, excluded from all these agonised discussions about inner turmoil and perceived loss of prestige. This suggests that women are not often thought of as having substantial reputations in the first place. </p>
<p>Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, for instance, has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jw0Fu8nhOc">frequently appeared</a> on Oprah’s program to discuss her complex, poetically written, novels. In contrast to Franzen, however, Morrison’s credibility was never seen to be compromised in doing so. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142294/original/image-20161019-20330-gdzkaa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toni Morrison after being awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Philippe Wojazer/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the number of talented women writing today for large audiences – Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, Joan Didion, and Toni Morrison just to name a few – critics do not often think of female authors as having the kinds of monumental reputations that their male peers possess. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byronic_hero">The Byronic hero</a>, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5771776/Remembering_Hemingway_The_Endurance_of_the_Hemingway_Myth">the Hemingway legend</a>, and the <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/09/13/behind_the_david_foster_wallace_myth/">Foster Wallace genius</a> are larger-than-life men. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142305/original/image-20161019-20333-y1kpvb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Margaret Atwood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Blinch/Reuters</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Women are seldom discussed in such a way – with the possible exception of Gertrude Stein and Virginia Woolf. Yet this may actually be a blessing for them. Avoiding the expectations that go along with literary celebrity can be an advantage. Female authors may be better able to breach certain boundaries – of genre, style, content – in ways that certain male authors cannot. </p>
<p>Ferrante, for instance, said she explicitly needed anonymity to write honestly. While some may see it as a bizarre sort of compliment to her that she is so intriguing that an Italian journalist spent weeks combing financial and property records to unmask her, she surely deserved the right to her privacy to focus on her own work. </p>
<p>Some of the most interesting genre-defying authors writing today are women such as Morrison, Atwood, and Emily St. John Mandel. Perhaps, then, female authors can more seamlessly defy stringent boundaries that continue to define the literary world when they are not hailed as heroic geniuses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64156/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan Lyons does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Bob Dylan is now a literary celebrity. And next week, the Booker Prize judges will anoint another. The tag is still chiefly attached to men but women authors shouldn’t despair: fame and good writing can be uneasy bedfellows.
Siobhan Lyons, Tutor in Media and Cultural Studies, Macquarie University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/66230
2016-10-11T18:03:21Z
2016-10-11T18:03:21Z
The verdict is out: Ghana’s jury system needs urgent reform
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/140732/original/image-20161006-14709-o1n2h9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Independence Square in Accra, Ghana. The country is indeed free but must improve at delivering justice.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1872 Mark Twain wrote that juries were “the most ingenious and infallible agency for defeating justice that human wisdom could <a href="http://www.classicreader.com/book/1407/49/">contrive</a>”. More than 140 years later his statement unfortunately holds true for Ghana. </p>
<p>Ghana is one of only a handful of African countries that still use juries. Prior to British colonialisation criminal offenders were usually judged and punished by local chiefs and their advisers. The jury system was introduced under British <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/jury">colonial rule</a> and is still used for the prosecution of the most serious criminal offences.</p>
<p>Ghanaian juries are composed of seven individuals randomly selected from a list composed mainly, if not exclusively, of civil servants. Their responsibility is to decide, based on evidence presented in court, whether a defendant is guilty of the offence for which they have been charged. They are not involved in sentencing.</p>
<p>A key argument in support of the jury system is that it is a valued form of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/21/juries-work-best-research">citizen participation</a> in democracies. Supporters argue that juries minimise state oppression by having an unbiased group of one’s peers, instead of a judge, decide the fate of an accused person. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the jury system in Ghana faces serious challenges. Inefficiency, infringement of human rights and wasteful use of resources results in a bad deal for everyone – the accused, the victim, the courts and society.</p>
<h2>Why the system is flawed</h2>
<p>There are a number of reasons why the jury system doesn’t work well in Ghana. </p>
<p>The main one is the alarming frequency with which criminal cases are adjourned due to the <a href="http://ghanabar.org/statementb.php">absence</a> of one or more jury members. This significantly delays the trial process, often while the accused is on remand. </p>
<p>Ghana has <a href="http://www.parliament.gh/assets/file/Acts%202016/CRIMINAL%20PROCEDURE%20CODE.pdf">provision</a> for a fine or imprisonment to be applied to jury members who fail to attend court without a “reasonable excuse”. But this is rarely, if ever, applied. </p>
<p>Where non-attendance is persistent, as it often is, an absent juror can either be replaced or the entire jury discharged. In either case the law requires the trial to commence afresh, no matter how far along it has progressed. This obviously causes significant inconvenience for all involved. It also has implications for the right to a fair trial and the right to trial within a reasonable time as guaranteed by Ghana’s <a href="http://www.ghana.gov.gh/images/documents/constitution_ghana.pdf">constitution</a>. </p>
<p>One option would be for trials to continue with the judge acting alone. Alternatively, trials could continue with the remaining jurors. In England and Wales for example, although 12 individuals are initially assigned to a jury, the law permits the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/23/section/16">trial to continue</a> with as few as nine members.</p>
<p>Also of concern is the anecdotal evidence that jurors sit in several cases during the same period of service or are selected for jury duty several times in a short time frame. These individuals are known as “<a href="http://ghanabar.org/statementb.php">professional jurors</a>”. It is not unreasonable to assume that their effectiveness could be compromised because of “juror fatigue”. </p>
<p>There are also problems with restrictions on who can serve on a jury. </p>
<p>In Ghana, the Criminal Procedure Code prevents a significant number of individuals from serving on a jury, mainly professionals and high-ranking civil servants. This effectively reduces the pool of potential jurors who are capable of understanding the gravity and nature of criminal court proceedings. This is worrying for a country with a <a href="http://www.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/glss5_report.pdf">40% literacy rate in rural areas</a>. The literacy rate in <a href="http://www.statsghana.gov.gh/docfiles/glss5_report.pdf">urban areas</a> is higher at 70% but still poses a problem. </p>
<p>The current law also bars those below the age of 25 and those above the age of 60 from being jurors. This too unnecessarily excludes a useful segment of society from the jury pool. </p>
<p>In addition, jury selection is complicated by the fact that outside Ghana’s large cities – Accra, Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi – the country is made up of many small villages and towns. The comparatively small local populations, in conjunction with the small pool of eligible jurors, means that those selected often reside or work in the same vicinity as the defendant. This heightens the chance that a juror will either know, or know someone who knows, the defendant. This may undermine impartiality. </p>
<h2>What needs to be done</h2>
<p>It is crucial that these problems are adequately addressed. This should include legislative and administrative reforms. </p>
<p>Some solutions, for example, could include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>allowing jury trials to be converted to bench trials in restricted circumstances,</p></li>
<li><p>widening the category of eligible jurors, </p></li>
<li><p>imposing sanctions for unwarranted jury absenteeism, and </p></li>
<li><p>repealing the requirement for a re-trial due to discharge of a juror.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These steps would considerably assist in modernising the Ghanaian jury system in criminal cases. It would also, importantly, minimise the negative impact that jury trials are having on the rights of the accused.</p>
<p>The changes would bring the jury system in line with international standards of good governance and contribute to increasing the legitimacy of the criminal justice system and the public’s respect for it. </p>
<p>Some have advocated for the <a href="http://www.edition.myjoyonline.com/pages/news/201008/50266.php">abolition</a> of jury trials in Ghana. This may be worth exploring. But if it is to be retained it must operate in a way that seeks to achieve the optimal level of justice. </p>
<p>Ghana needs faster, safer and less expensive criminal verdicts. This must be done urgently, as every day the status quo is maintained is another day that justice and constitutional rights are whittled away.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/66230/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Selman Ayetey has been involved in projects funded by local and central government in England & Wales. She is a lawyer qualified to practice in England & Wales as well as Ghana. </span></em></p>
A key argument in support of the jury system is that it is a valued form of citizen participation in democracies. But the system has led to human rights abuses in Ghana.
Julia Selman Ayetey, Lecturer in Law and Criminologist, University of Cape Coast
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.