Not Even Once…Upon a Time
Something occurred to me today, and I wonder if any of you have had a similar experience.
Many years ago, I was writing a paper in college. I don’t even recall what the paper was for, but I remember a bit of instruction that I received for it. One of my older cousins wanted to look over my paper as I was writing it. It was some sort of creative writing. My cousin, Joel, was a pretty good writer, and I was glad to have his advice…until he started telling what he actually thought.
As he started reading, he said, “no.” He continued reading and then said, “no” again. Then he said “no” a few more times and put the paper down and looked at me.
I was a little shocked because I thought the paper could be whatever I wanted it to be. It was my invention, and he was telling me no before he even asked me a question. Then he just said to me, you are telling me all about what this paper isn’t. Why don’t you just tell me what it is?
So, to explain that, I was doing exactly as he stated, but not entirely consciously. I started the paper tearing down premises. I don’t recall my words, but I hope you can understand what I am saying. I was using language like, “I don’t know this”, and “this isn’t exactly that…”, etc. And just as he said, I went through a few paragraphs of saying what it wasn’t…before I got around to saying what it was.
That observation shocked me a little. It has stuck with me for many years. I have wondered, is there something wrong with the way I think about things, or was I just in some sort of a rut. Did I do this while speaking? I wondered. Over the years I was careful not to do it…much. I did feel the tug of starting out with what something wasn’t. And I could not gauge how much other writers were doing it because I could not see their edited thoughts. I never even raised the subject really, until now.
I raise the subject today because I saw a writer, and radio and television journalist that I have a great deal of respect for, and she does it. Her name is Jemelle Hill, formerly of ESPN. She was a sports columnist, I think their best by the time she left, who ventured into politics and life a little too often for ESPN’s conservative white male audience. She is still a bit of a lightning rod, and she has leaned into it. Her new blog is called “Stick to Sports”. And there it is. She doesn’t stick to sports. She is saying what it isn’t, and highlighting something that should not be.
I could question whether or not I was stupid, but I don’t question her. She’s brilliant. And that made me wonder. Is this a minority perspective function? Is this like syncopation in music? Is this like names that begin with an unstressed syllable? Is the ripping down of the unwanted premise to start a paper something from within my soul that seeks creative destruction? I kinda think it is.
I’m curious to know what you people think, not about me, but about it. Do you do this? Have you seen this? I am asking you because I respect you. If I didn’t, I would not be asking.
(By the way, “Stick to Sports” can be seen on @VICETV at 11:30 eastern).
11/18/2020 @ 3:46 pm
Hmm. Gonna have to think about this a bit. I’ve been recently carping about how people think they *know* stuff when they and all of us actually KNOW very little. It would behoove us to do more don’t-know, not-sure, not-this (but I’m not sure this is the same thing as you’re talking about – also, another thot: black people encounter so much negativity, probably even within the community (“don’t do that, it’ll get you in trouble” – ?) that it must have an effect on consciousness. Walking in the world as it’s said to be and how it really is – a lot of us can ignore that, tho it’s true for all of us in many ways.)
Another thought is that holding contradictory ideas is the product of a flexible mind – so many people, again, *know* stuff, and not knowing, yet having to navigate the unknowable world is unsettling/painful/disorienting, and so they have to think they KNOW. (This damned virus has brought out this – also the reign of Trump.)
Living is hard – we humans have created a world so big, complex, contradictory, threatening and yet letting individuals live grandly on the work and ingenuity of others…as a species we have outsmarted ourselves. We were “made” to know everybody and everything, and then we proceeded to make a world far beyond individual grasp. (Thus the anti-science attitude that is poisoning the atmosphere – haha, literally too.)
My friend I mentioned in today’s post brings this out in me. She’s so smart and capable – and completely gullible. She’s good with hands-on, but when she extends her thinking to the Great World Beyond, it lets her down.
Not saying I’m so much better, but every so often a doubt, no bigger than a man’s hand on the horizon, brings itself to my attention.
(As a P.S. to the foregoing – I sometimes marvel at the experience of reading a book … here I am in the middle of it and have only the vaguest over-all notion of what has gone before. Ditto living my life. [Except I’m now much closer to the end than the middle.]
Am I in your ballpark at all? Or just wandering in my own WTF wilderness?
11/18/2020 @ 5:16 pm
Right down main street. I share your value for challenging our premises. What you described is how I got where I was. This post is kind of like that, actually, so that is a big help. And, it helps to explain how someone like Jemelle Hill does it too.
11/18/2020 @ 7:53 pm
I have contended for ages that the biggest deterrent to human progression is the tendency to stop thinking as soon as opposition to cherished beliefs rears its head.
11/19/2020 @ 12:38 am
Bitey,
What you’re talking about sounds to me like it’s preemptive. You anticipate getting shot at for what you’re about to say so you deal with the objections before you say it in the hope that when you do say it your audience won’t immediately fall into the expected misperceptions.
Not that it helps. A lot of people read for general position, then answer the general position without ever figuring out what you’re actually saying and what you’re not saying. Are you for it or against it? I think the Why is important; they often don’t. Choose sides. Well, no, I don’t work that way. I do what I do for my reasons, if you want to know them I’ll probably compulsively tell you, and then there’s a chance I won’t be believed. This, by the way, isn’t entirely a minority thing, though it often is a group identification thing, meaning if you’re in the majority you will be assumed to have your views for majority reasons, so you kind of lose either way from people not paying attention.
You and I have a very similar aspect to our writing: we both mean things very literally. People reading between the lines is frustrating as Hell because what we have to say is deliberately in the lines, not between them. We’re not trying to hide, we’re trying to reveal. Face value is exactly how to take it because that’s how it’s written.
Art,
That’s because most people are more afraid of looking wrong than of being wrong. Personally, I’m way more afraid of being wrong. If I’m not listening I might miss something that changes my mind. Vitriol may make being wrong harder to admit, but I’ll still do it, not out of courtesy but out of a love for accuracy.
11/19/2020 @ 6:26 am
You know, Kosh, I have thought about that divide between looking or being wrong when you have mentioned it before, and in this context that I find myself immersed in lately, there is a fascinating social/power aspect to it. Looking wrong involves being aligned with the perception of what group has power. Popularity, if you will. Conversely, being wrong involves a debt to justice. Operating on the notion that reality is democratic, and facts and reasoning are available to all who seek to negotiate through it, truth, honesty, and reason are the currency of credit, credibility and credence.
More and more these days I find that power and justice are at odds. Our current national condition involves not just being indifferent to facts, but rather using them as a lever to determine loyalty. Facts and often decency are turned inside out to make the “base” visible. The notion of viruses and public health should not be controversial in this century, but the visible nature of masks makes them a useful lever in this herding of the fact less followers.
11/19/2020 @ 9:16 am
Power and justice being at odds is an integral part of both our heritages. Pursuing justice to me is not only a social imperative – in two senses: as an American and as a Jew – but a religious imperative.
I am not courageous physically. I am intellectually. You wouldn’t think that would be a thing, but it is. You wouldn’t think that facing the possibility that you’re wrong would be scary to people but it’s apparently terrifying. People run screaming from truth. People want to find comfort in their truth. That’s why being in denial is a thing. My father’s biggest moral lesson, though he wasn’t always good at it (he was for a lot of his life) was Don’t Lie To Yourself.
By the way, what’s the difference between credibility and credence? Credence isn’t a word I use. I agree wholeheartedly with your statement, though. “Facts and reasoning are available to all who seek to negotiate through it.” The most frightening thing is how many don’t seek to negotiate through it. They want to find a source they trust and depend on it. That doesn’t work. You can’t just delegate that and expect truth. To do that is to be a Dittohead, one of the worst insults I can imagine but a sobriquet people display proudly, which instantly tells us we’re in trouble.
The New York Times is a pretty credible source. They really vet their stories. And yet, I think most of a year ago, I read something awful said by one of their senior editors, and it had to do with their editorial policy. They were, like a lot of the press, trying to figure out how to balance impartiality and objectivity at a time when they’re nearly unrelated to each other. Their credibility (unless you’re Fox) depends on both things. The solution he chose was something he called “sophisticated objectivity.” Sophisticated Objectivity is newspeak for impartiality. The very thing it isn’t is objective. It’s a lie. It meant weighting the two political sides so as not to seem partisan. This never works morally because it always gives assistance to the less moral side. That’s one reason 2016 happened, because they weren’t alone. The press in general wasn’t saying These Are Our Standards and we’re going to hold both sides to them equally. They handicapped the race, probably because one of the competitors had fantastic political experience and the other had none. The problem is that their idea of fairness in a competition was irrelevant. The point wasn’t a fair race, the point was choosing the best President. As I’ve said before, political writing has often turned into scorekeeping. I’d rather the sports division took over, particularly guys Ike Bryant Gumbel who have experience in both. Not only are they better scorekeepers but they have one critical quality that political punditry has in part lost: Their highest priority is the integrity of the game. That is often not true of political writers and that’s very scary because our game is so much more critical. People live and die by the integrity of our game.
11/19/2020 @ 10:12 am
I understand credence as received credibility. Credibility seeks credence. Credibility is the throw, and credence is the reception.
Obama made reference to a thing he called “truth decay” in our current state of affairs. I dont kn ow if he invented it, but I like it. He said, it is not just avoidance of telling the truth, it is the loss of value in truth or reality. In our discussion, and the strategy of the outgoing administration, power doesn’t only sidestep facts, it inverts them, and uses them as a cudgel to determine loyalty or belief. It worries me a great deal because democracy absolutely depends on process, and processes depend upon competent execution. This new nihilism is frightening. We can’t even agree to fight a virus with a 19th century invention. It is the most alarming backward march that I can recall. It is even more backward than state violence because we have never moved beyond state violence.
11/20/2020 @ 8:00 am
Thinking is painful which is why most people don’t….
A significant component of the consumer market involves things that are designed to assist people in their quest to avoid and evade the process of thinking and the consequences of living with their thoughts…
You raise one of the most fundamental of the most fundamental questions of existence…
A great question, the answer to which might very well be blowing in the wind….
11/20/2020 @ 8:14 am
I saw this recently on Twitter: Banal phrases you need to stop using immediately
– let that sink in
– think about that
– asking for a friend
– just saying
– thanks for coming to my TED talk
– I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…
– full stop
– at the end of the day
I said, I agree with most of those, but the top two are asking people to think about something. She had said that that should be assumed by the fact that they are reading it. I said, and I think that that is not necessarily so. In fact, some things take some pondering to reveal meaning. It stuns me that people actually, actively argue against thinking.
Think about that.
11/20/2020 @ 10:18 am
I think she was arguing against cliches and, like, fillers. You know, like someone who says, reflexively, “is it?” when you say something. Many years ago I had a customer who kept saying that as a sort of tic. Just for the Hell of it, one time when he said “is it?” I said “no.” He was not expecting that.
11/20/2020 @ 11:12 am
She was. I just dont agree on the “think about it” one. Granted, this is not a huge pressing problem for the English speaking world, but I do think that there is a lack of thinking. And with regard to justice versus power, power does not necessarily require thought. It is a brain stem motivation. Justice take empathy. I support an extra line for awareness and empathy.
11/21/2020 @ 2:37 am
‘This new nihilism is frightening’
a) …sensory inundation…
b) …my0my
c) …hypochondria
d) …claustrophobia
e) …Russian Literature
f) …pack a small bag
g) …over and over again
h) …standing in the rain
i) …whatsamadda4you
j) …night nurse enters: her tray laden with champagne flutes
k) …lipstick on her collar
l) …87 minutes of shooting stars
m) …i’m no aphorist and i love the thesaurus
n) …zen what r they solar plexus breaths between puffs
0) …too close to me
p …perfection
q …quit
r …1. Mathematics Abbreviation of radius
2. or R Electricity Abbreviation of resistance
s …stewpendulum
t …trillion: # that depresses mathematicians
u …boat, tube, (see d above or is it below)
V …black dog barking…Winnie where are you my best old friend?
w …hurt on paper
x …on swaying barn door?!
y …young soldiers on a yellow bus
z …I close my eyes
02/03/2021 @ 6:03 pm
{health} *…The notion of viruses and public health should not be controversial in this century, but the visible nature of masks makes them a useful lever in this herding of the fact less followers.*
Good readin good writn. One other day Sage M ‘evidenced’ we are, ‘all across the street and gone downhill’ … the combat boot hOWLever … my own 1,000 pager … dispersed sucked into the particle collider each symbol a sarcoma … hence less pence tense … see the tree how big it grows
tactile tech LO;} word spin as Guttenberg rolls: *VASK* : vaccine in mask … $old American …
ubiquitous & the VASKS ought have blithesome readin lights … may I please get back to my
symphony … It is NOT my fault that Jim Morrison* smit the EASTER HAM 2 the floor offthewall
Champ Bitey: I need to know … do you hear from Michael Cheeseman? (Lima, Ohio) Friend of a friend has a magic certified check raring to go for Michael’s GTO … Hey ladies & gentlemen! We’ll all be DOCTORS in a semester or two!
jp
{BIG ROCK
SINGER}
HART
*Jim Morrison Died: July 3, 1971