“All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.”

The two things that come to mind when the word ‘strategy’ comes to mind are war and chess. And though, in it’s own way, chess is most likely the more noble pursuit, chess is simply a symbolic representation of war (though not the ‘asymmetric’ style of warfare that exists today).War trumps chess in worldly relevance. The Art of War, therefore, seems like a decent place to begin to discuss the notion of strategy and tactics. Sun Tzu (quoted above) provide some of the first insight on this idea. He stated, “what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy’s strategy.” Unfortunately, though the man was wise, he overlooked one simple face. You don’t need to attack a self-defeating strategy. More importantly, any strategy adopted cannot be self-defeating.

Sun Tzu

I have a strong aversion to talking on my cell phone while driving. Unless I am lost and unable to pull over, I will not be on my phone while driving. While many of my classmates entertain themselves by talking or texting while making their commute on the holidays, I listen to the radio. I do not particularly care for the mainstream sounds of Clearchannel, and the battle for imaginary space that those companies bring with them. I listen to 88.1, KVSC (St. Could State radio) for about the first 23 miles, then I tune in to 89.3 (The MPR owned Current) for the last 55 miles. Unfortunately, the drive is 80 miles back to Minneapolis, and there are two miles in which neither KVSC nor The Current come in clearly during my drive. I fill that gap with Cities 97.1, owned by Hubbard Broadcasting (the Target to Clearchannel’s Wal-Mart. Less evil, but not by much). Anyway, this long preamble is leading up to the following story:

I tuned into 97.1 midway through an artist interview, missing the name of the artist. Apparently, he was invited to join the 2005 Live 8, the continuation of the movement of benefit concerts called Live Aid 20 years before. He turned the organizer down, simply stating that he did not feel that a bunch of teenage and young adult hipsters who already agree with the cause sitting around and listening to music (he insinuated the likely use of marijuana) would bring about change. This major movement was supposed to bring awareness and raise money for the various plights of African regions, and the impact of poverty on third world nations. Oddly enough, the performers and those attending were disproportionately white. Today, the event is considered by many to be a failure. The G8, brought through the event to make pledges, shortly abandoned them.

Where did this event go wrong? There are many aspects to look at. Specifically, it catered only to those already in agreement with the dire nature of the strifes of poverty at the time. Those who were not seemed largely passive and simply exposed themselves only to the entertainment portion. This is the same problem that political writers and movie producers find themselves in—people will not actively seek it out unless they agree the subject already, or disagree and will use it as fodder. It’s like the oversimplified explanation of Bush’s policy on negotiations with Iran and Palestine: “We won’t negotiate with states that don’t already agree with us.” Once again another poor strategy. Outreach, a notion discussed by both Naomi Klein and Jane Juffer, is necessary in strategy to promote any given cause. You cannot simply start at the base and try to get the work done from there (that’s why politicians are always reaching towards the middle). A self-defeating strategy really isn’t at all. I guess Will Ferrel’s Bush satirization, “strategery,” may be a more appropriate term.

I grew up knowing George Carlin as Mr. Conductor, my parents knew him as the dark and controversial comedian. It wasn’t until my early college years that I came to know him beyond those roles, not just as a satirist and observationist, but as a philosopher.

Those familiar with Carlin’s work knew that his favorite subject matter was the excesses, oddities, and hypocrisies of human life (though he was also big on the use language, both everyday and profane). The man once described the human condition saying, “If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.” In the course of his life-long career, he brought forth the notion of “stuff” repeatedly. Consider this joke:

“So stuff is important. You gotta take care of your stuff. You gotta have a place for your stuff. Everybody’s gotta have a place for their stuff. That’s what life is all about, tryin’ to find a place for your stuff. If you didn’t have so much stuff, you wouldn’t need a house. You could just walk around all the time. A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.[…] So, now you’ve got a houseful of stuff. And even though you might like your house, you gotta move. You gotta get a bigger house. Why? Too much stuff! And that means you gotta move all your stuff. Or maybe, put some of your stuff in storage. Storage. Imagine that! There’s a whole industry based on keepin’ an eye on other people’s stuff.” <!–[endif]–>

I apologize for the length, but that pretty well summarizes a large portion of the fixation with property that we have in the United States. The United States (as discussed briefly in the last posting) was founded in part due to the right to taxation only with representation (the principle the ‘tea party’ protesters of last week may or may not have possibly sorta kinda understood and maybe somehow been trying to state that they wanted to revert to because they were in a sorta kinda repressed or underrepresented minority maybe?). The US version of capitalism, differentiating itself from the English version, involves the right to not have property taken away without just cause. Carlin commented, “Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.”

And the American dream? “You have to be asleep to believe it.” (Video below. Worth watching. Contains strong language.)

But why is all this important, this fixation with stuff? Stuff has one distinct property: It goes somewhere. It’s physical. And though it may be just as real as abstract concepts such as love, “stuff” takes space. It goes somewhere. Space and stuff have a dynamic relationship. Anything that occupies space? Stuff. Anything that can be classified as “stuff” inversely occupies space. As Naomi Klien notes, the wars of businesses fight is the fight for space, the space of billboards, the space for store fronts, the space on store shelves, the space in factories, the ad space on the newspaper page, the space in the kitchen cupboards and bedroom closets, and market territory. Even beyond, the fight for space is so embedded in the business culture that when no space is left, more space is made—space that is essentially imaginary, the airwaves, the sound waves, traveling across television and radio. These wavelengths are theoretically unlimited, but government and industry place standards and regulations, making the unphysical—and therefore limitless—limited. The same method of limiting the limitless occurs in the human mind. Infinite in capacity, the human mind is capable of nearly anything. However, the battles for physical space as also battles for space of mind, recollection, and fixation. In terms of ads, product connotations, experiences with the corporate world, our limitless minds are limited to the most relevant and strongest stimuli, gleaned from the available space. It’s just that important to our corporate America that we buy “stuff.”

For me, the word representation can never be pulled from the political sense. The first sentence I can think of hearing the word is the revolutionary sentiment of “no taxation without representation.” Likely, it’s the first use of the word most Americans can recall.

“Representatives,” then, as we know, are elected officials who serve the people by representing a median moral and ideological amalgamation of that of the constituents. Or at least the significant minority of them.

There’s a distinct problem with this. Our democracy is a watered down version, a “representative democracy.” My representatives, regardless of party and whether or not I voted for them, do not share my views. I’m lucky if I agree with half the decisions they make. The problem is, their views, or their expressed views, are that which they think will get the votes. They just have to appeal more than the other guy. So there is a 50% chance they appeal less than the other candidate, and even then they only align with my views sometimes. This is the problem–- a representative does what they think the constituent wants.

I think this pessimistic look of representation is similar to that which occurs in literature. The author creates a representation or something– for the purpose of this conversation, we’ll go with a particular type of people, like the representative’s constituent, the authors immediate character is representative of a greater subject– a synecdoche of sorts. We can take an example, we’ll go with the blanket idea of Aesop’s fables. They include in and of themselves a character or characters, and a story with a plot. But they have greater significance beyond the page, they convey a moral or norm. The stork that invites the wolf to dinner is representative of all hosts. This is a simple example, with no great social significance. But let’s take a look at a greater example, one that, by now, we’re all familiar with.

Hester, from Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” Hester is representative of many greater things. Through metonymy, Hester is representative of women, but not only women. Additionally, Hester represents the mother, the single mother, and the adulterer. Hawthorne conveys the greater social structure represented through the interactions between Hester and her setting. Representation is always open to a degree of interpretation. Hawthorne was considered a feminist by some and a misogynist by others. (I might note that this is the same plight Sigmund Freud was subject to. Though many considered him a chauvinist, Emma Goldman was among the ranks that thought he was a great feminist). Hawthorne’s representation of the cultural situation in regards to women personified the greater plight in an emotional and connectable way. However, like the politican, the author is subject to the same criticism. No doubt, there were many women in Hawthorne’s time who were complacent and content with the status quo [“Status quo, that’s Latin for ‘The mess we’re in.’” –Ronald Regan]. They were being represented in a way that they may not have agreed with, not wanting to be represented by such a woman as Hawthorne’s Hester. The author’s view and biases are similar to the politicians in the actually application.

The notion of representation, though, has been at the root of much of the most significant American literature: “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and so on and so forth. Representation gives work a greater value. Oh, the joys of allegory.

To begin with, I have a silly little question: When was the last time you bought French bread, celery, and broccoli when you were at the grocery store? Why do I ask? I was thinking about cultural acceptance of images, clichés, etc. Watching “Family Guy” (It’s a guilty pleasure), I noticed Lois was carrying groceries, and that was what was in the bag. I opened up the funny pages of the last couple days and found the same thing– an obscenely healthy set of vegetables and French bread. It’s completely atypical when compared to the actual grocery bag of an American (frozen dinner, a box of cereal, milk, soda, frozen vegetables, a hunk of meat, tampons, paper towels), but nobody bats an eye when they see it.

That was a crude introduction, but the point is that the simple desensitization to literary deviations from the norm of reality is present and plays an active role in the deconstruction of a work. When we look at a story, we could say a fairy tale for simplicities sake, but I’ll go with the example of the modern fairy tale: the romantic comedy. The male lead always gets the female lead (or the reverse). Always (except when he doesn’t). But we don’t bat an eye at the absurdity of it all. Now, the work doesn’t necessarily have message, I stand by the fact that most romantic comedies have no social agenda (besides possibly pushing the notion forgiveness). But we get to look at the dichotomies present in the film.

Attractive – Unattractive

Forgiveness – Punishment

Committed – Single

Love – Apathy

Wealthy – Not wealthy

All these binaries come down to what essentially comes down to:

Fantasy – Reality

In the real world, not everyone is pretty, or at least not like Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey Couples rarely forgive major conflicts. Most men are not fully devoted to their female counterparts above all else, and lastly, most people cannot afford an apartment in Manhattan. These are the modern day princesses and princes, living the life we glorify today, as opposed to the princess in days past. So when we look at these fairy tales, or romantic comedies, we get an insight into the ordinary world by examining what is extraordinary. It’s a simple application of the deconstructions we’ve been discussing, but it works in a simple way.

DETECTIVE: So, what’s the symbology there?
SMECKER: Symbology?…Now that Duffy has relinquished his king bonehead crown, I see we have an heir to the throne. I’m sure the word you were looking for was symbolism. What is the sssssymbolism there?

In watching a rather bad action movie, I got in an argument with a friend. He rather liked the film. Though I can’t recall the exact series of claims, assertions, and defenses that lead up to this topic many segues later, but he stated that a movie doesn’t have to have “deeper meaning” or “symbolism” to be good. He continued that those are just ways for pretentious people to assert superiority derived from liking (or pretending to like) obscure things (films, movies, books, etc.) that rely on an abstract concept of “deepness” rather than tangible action, streamline plot and overall prettiness.
Now, here was my problem with the discussion. I knew he was wrong. I knew there was a reason why The Graduate was better than There’s Something About Mary, why The Godfather was better than Sin City, why Reservoir Dogs was better than The Inside Man, why Boondock saints was better than Spider-Man 3. But I couldn’t put it into words. Here I was, knowing I was right, at a complete loss of words as to why.
Like many problems and puzzles, a good night’s sleep is sometimes all that is needed to figure it out. “Relevancy,” and “signficance.” Movies that are “good,” rather than simply “entertaining,” are movies that have greater significance beyond the world created in 90 minutes on the screen. V for Vendetta has to do with corrupt government. To Kill a Mockingbird with racism. But it’s not the fact that the films approached these issues that made them valuable. It’s the fact that they do so subtly. They aren’t necessarily preachy. They don’t explicitly say “this is the problem, and this is what you should do” like some slightly less subtle films do. For example, The Day the Earth Stood Still– the old one, not Keanu Reeves version– had greater significance in regards to the development of nuclear energy, but did so in a very blunt manner.
The manner by which subtle films gain their significance is by playing on the unconscious. The external significance of the images and symbols is found due to the previous encounters with related images. The is found in what Carl Gustav Jung referred to as the “collective unconscious.” Social psychologists today understand the “collective unconscious” to not be a definite thing, but a culmination of the cultural experiences a person has had. Essentially, this is the connotations related to a word or object that are common across a culture or particular cohort. Especially of note is the notion of the flashbulb memory: events such as the JFK assassination, the Challenger explosion, or 9/11 are all remembered, and create common images which artists can work with. The collective allows a message to be received across the collective. Again, this gives a work cultural significance.
In studying Freud, both last semester and this one, I have read several of his writings having to do with literature and art. He discusses the meanings of a work, but doesn’t seem to make mention as to what significance the meaning plays, and whether a “deeper meaning” brings about quality to a work. It is important to note that Freud was one of the most well read individuals since Gutenberg brought the printing press.
The notion of “psychoanalyzing” a text cannot really reveal significant understanding of the author, seeing as the Freud’s methods (and most subsequent methods) of psychoanalysis required direct response of the patient. Typically, the therapist was simply a guide while the patient analyzed themselves. However, a text can be given signficance by applying the greater cultural unconscious to it, though not in a methodological way, like in which a key or dictionary of symbols could be used.

On a side note, I think It’s important to bring up something that came up in class. A few people mentioned “repressed memories.” The repressed memories discussion is like the global warming discussion of psychology. Like 99% of scientists think global warming is real, probably 99% of psychologists thing repressed memories aren’t. I hope I’m not offending anyone who thinks they’ve uncovered a repressed memory, and it’s not that they’re impossible, but highly unlikely. Traumatic experiences are perpetuated. The mind has a tendency to bring a persistency to those memories. They are the hardest to forget. Most of the repressed memories “recovered from the unconscious” in therapy, especially during hypnosis, were planted by a psychologist. When in hypnosis, people are in a very suggestive state, and any potentially leading question is taken as fact. A question like “did you see your dad hit your mother” will get an answer of “yes,” whether it is true or not, and the mind will fill in the blanks and create the memory. Even Freud abandoned his efforts in hypnosis and repressed memories after realizing that he was doing more harm than good by creating traumatic memories. I just wanted to throw that out there. Until next time, peace.

…got the heavy-duty political intent
got the worm farm free-form diamond noodle content
I got breezy ways & boppin’ rays
when the word explodes the mother lode is where I’m at
-Bob Holman

I first came across the word “Weltanschauung” when studying Freud last fall. It’s a funny word, because it doesn’t translate well into the English language. The direct translation is “world view”, but the approximate connotations would require including the word “comprehensive”, and an exact English equivalent is too difficult to pin down.

Ideology is similar to Weltanschauung, though ideology typically represents an approach to a specific issue, situation, or realm. Ideology is, in essence, the application of a Weltanschauung. When someone attempts to incorporate their “ideology” in a work, it seems that what they are doing is approaching it from their Weltanschauung and conveying that application as best they can.

In Orwell’s essay, “Why I Write”, as one of his (and by his assumption, all writers’) four reasons to write is “political purpose”. Essentially, what he communicates in his description of political purpose is that it is simply the presentation of a world view, an attempt to communicate one’s view (though not necessarily to convert the reader’s view).

When I had the opportunity to listen to Brenda Hillman speak about her poetry, she mentioned that she been told, and consequently believed, that politics had no place in poetry. Orwell mentions this view in essay, “The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.”

Orwell continues that, “no book is genuinely free from political bias.” This theory is in strong contrast to the views of the New Critics. It suggests that the artist cannot be separated from the work. Also importantly, for those who approach work from a historical standpoint, the artist’s world, as seen though his eyes, is demonstrated in his work.

Using the classic example of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, we can see this apparent. Though not to diminish the work through over-simplification, it is clear that the work conveys an appropriate understanding of the era– that it was a time of racial prejudice– as well as the ideological notion that a man should not be judged my his race.

Explicit ideology may not always be an improvement to a work. Clearly, an overly-ideological work can be described as “preachy”. An explicitly political work in contrast to the reader’s view would be off-putting and potentially offensive. Excessive politics may detract from the value of the narrative, or cause a work to come off as bland, like one of Aesop’s Fables.

Still, the value of ideology evident in some of literature’s most famous works, from Shakespeare to Orwell. Without a “message”, many works’ value is lost entirely. 1984 was not especially a good novel if it wasn’t for the fact that the fear of big government was a legitimate concern. “To Kill a Mockingbird” was a great book, but in large part due to the message it conveyed and the social realities it faced. Bob Dylan was not a particularly talented singer, and only a moderately talented musician. Still, his songs, musical poetry, were good for the value of the lyrics, and his lyrics derived their value from the ideology involved.

It is hard to imagine literature without ideology and politics in it’s place. The stories would be overly simplistic, bland reproductions of the Scooby-Doo style narrative. In short, the incorporation of ideology, representative of the author’s greater world view, seems to give a work its value, and help the reader relate to the work, the author, and the world.

Over the winter holiday, visiting my brother, I had a chance to catch up on some reading. Among the works read were biographies of a then-president-elect and a punk rocker long past his prime, a novel, a short story by Fitzgerald recently made into a movie, two books I’d claimed I’d read but never had, and hundreds of pages of newsprint. And then there was a book that I never knew existed, that my brother loaned me to read on the plane back from Vancouver: Endgame, Vol. 1: The Problem of Civilization, by Derrick Jensen.

Jensen worked for years as a geologist, with a degree in mineral engineering physics, or some other earth-based scientific specialty I couldn’t pretend to know the first thing about. He also has an M.F.A. in creative writing.

The book centered on a few rather pessimistic topics, discussing the complete unsustainability of human life, and the impossibility of civilization as we know it to ever be sustainable. Last year I had a chance to read another of his works, As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial, mocking the classic 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save the Earth.

It is hard to acknowledge any legitimacy to a large portion of what Jensen says. His words go against everything I’ve been taught in my formal education, and everything I’ve been told by not only politicians (though I wouldn’t let that surprise me too much), but also environmentalists, scientists, journal articles, and even my parents. Jensen is an anarcho-primitivist. His main theses are contradictory to many of the most famous works ever, placing themselves opposite the works of Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes, Freud, and even more ancient philosophers such as Plato and Socrates. They discussed, directly or not, that human society developed in a fashion that involved the weak joining in strength to protect themselves from the violence of the strong. Even Marx acknowledged this, though convinced that we needed to reorganize again to reempower the oppressed. Jensen, in contrast, states that all civilization, in the way we understand it, is wrong because it is fundamentally founded in violence and is fundamentally unsustainable and flawed. His theory is that the best thing humans could do for themselves is to revert to the old ways, before government and industry, back to the way things were when humans had basic agriculture to supplement hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

My reaction when reading Jensen was one of disbelief. Surely he had to have read these philosophers. Because what he was saying was contradictory to these great men, surely he was wrong. Or maybe I had already let my mind be shaped so heavily by classic works, given further strength and legitimacy since they are “classics”, that I couldn’t accept anything to the contrary.

Sitting there on the airplane, I took a deep breath. I cleared my head. I decided that maybe Jensen had a point. Maybe there was truth in his writing. I looked around me, and saw a man reading a copy of Men’s health, another man ordering a miniature bottle of vodka, and a child being fed from a bottle. This was all happening several thousand feet in the air. I was hit by the surrealness of the fact that this incredible feat of human ingenuity has become so engrained in us that we take it as so commonplace that the only concerns we hold are in regards to the ticket price (usually too high), whether or not there will be a meal (they charge you now, and it’s hardly worth it), and if the movie will be any good (it won’t be).

The culture I am immersed in can convince me that traveling at 400 mph in a tin can should be accepted without question. I’m sure that it can convince me of many other things as well. Thinking about my “conditioning history” (as psychologists would call it), the range of things I’ve come to accept as normal is massive. In literature, that is often used to the advantage of the author. Even if the reader doesn’t think about it, we have expectations in works. We want stories to turn out a normal way, and expect them to, finding ourselves uncomfortable if they don’t. Writers play off this, using it to their advantage, meriting the use of words like “irony” and “juxtaposition.”

Even beyond widespread beliefs, those universal across one or more cultures, we have a basic intuition, to believe and align with whatever half of an opposing dichotomy we are presented with first. Given two books stating the exact opposite thing while holding the same merit, we’ll side with the first one we read (likely a simple heuristic). Beyond that, as we read a single work, we begin to engrain its message into our understanding of the author and text as well as the theme and the issue. If we were to take the information given on page 2 without having read page 1, we see it in a different light, and not just for lack of context.

The reader is in a continual process of development which is essential to the understanding and appreciation of a work. After all, we’ve noted that the meaning of a text changes over time. Fiction or non-fiction, the understanding of a work is dependent on what has come before it.

“Hello world.” It seems appropriate for the default title for the first post. I remember that phrase from the first time I opened up a C++ compiler. It’s the first thing people do when they’re learning a computer programming language –  they create a program, that, when run, displays text that says “Hello world!” Face it, if you can’t get that much down, there’s not much else you’ll be able to do.

It’s like trying to be a writer, but not being able to get the ink on the paper. If you’ve got an idea you want to share, a way to communicate it is the first essential thing. You need a medium. Setting aside any philosophical Marshall McLuhanisms, this is key to the message. For the professional writer, it’s not just getting the ink to the page. Rather, it’s getting the ink to a few thousand copies of the page, for several pages, and getting them bound together. Not necessarily an easy process, and by the time it’s done with, the author may well have lost creative control in the work.

You hear about it in the music industry, “So-and-so signed with a major label and lost creative control,” or similarly, “They stopped making music that was good to make music that would sell.” I’ve been on the receiving end of the same conversation maybe a hundred times. Some artists perpetuate this notion of selling out by criticizing those who do, perhaps out of jealousy, perhaps out of legitimate concern that the action was detrimental to the rights of all artists. But can a band really sell out? Even if they have to sacrifice part of the message to get it across, if they get it across to more people, even if only semi-intact, is that less noteworthy?

The band Rage Against the Machine faced this criticism years back. Their response was, “We’re not interested in preaching to just the converted. It’s great to play abandoned squats run by anarchists, but it’s also great to be able to reach people with a revolutionary message, people from Granada Hills to Stuttgart.” I think they put it well. Maybe the notion of selling out is just the term for accepting this trade off (as well as some cash). It’s not a right or wrong, it’s a balanced list of pros and cons that can apply differently in different situations. But what about authors?

I’ve rarely, if ever, heard the term “sell out” applied to an author, unless it’s referring to the fact that the shelves are empty. But, take into consideration the fact that, for a book to be read, it (with few exceptions) has to be published by a publisher. Publishers get to commission author’s writing of books, as well as search through submissions and pick which manuscripts they publish. They often can force the author to make changes, and take away a portion of the author’s control in what they right. In addition to the ability to impose changes to texts, the selection process involves a certain censoring on the part of the publisher. Nearly everything we’ve read on paper has been put there at a publisher’s discretion. This surely has narrowed the breadth of written literature, by only exposing us to that which sits nicely within the non-controversial, mainstream, first standard-deviation from the mean, politically correct, self-serving, able to make sales, and often downright uncreative, bland, and unoriginal category. I don’t want to understate the author’s role in the creation of the text, but it is up to the publisher to determine if we see it.

The author’s role in creating a text is a philosophical discussion. They can be the “medium” which inspiration, divine or otherwise, is seen to work through. They can be the catalyst, added to an equation to put word on page. They can be the expresser, conscientiously presenting a message. A simpler view might say they just write, taking the complexities out of it. But the role of the author is directly related to their motivation.

I can think of several reasons to write, and try and share written work by means of making it public, often through a publisher. These strike similar to Orwell’s thoughts on the matter, though I add some smaller ones as well. Among these are expression political messages, self-expression, desire to create, financial compensation, cravings of fame, desire to be witty (and subsequently have that wittiness recognized), to be controversial, to become a part of something, or to simply contribute.

Take for example the popular website Wikipedia. It is nearly entirely user-generated, people have the opportunity to contribute to encyclopedia-style articles. However, they gain no financial compensation or recognition. There is very little room for witticisms and self-expression or controversy, and political messages are often removed before many people have chance to stumble across theme. However, they get to create, they get to be part of something, and they get to contribute. They do it for the sake of doing it, and nothing more. I would speculate that many authors start out that way, writing poems and short stories intermittently between their class notes in their class books. They other behaviors are likely reinforced as they share their creations. That is not to say they are not equally valid motivations, but simply that those motivations are likely secondary in origin. But how do we apply these motivations to the concept of the author in order to establish intent or derive meaning from a work?

I’ll make a bold criticism and go directly against the New Critics. The author’s biographical information, as well as the body of their other works, matters. They do not matter in every instance, but I’m sure they do. Take, for example, The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. Had Bill O’Reilly (for example) gone written that same book, word for word, after 9/11, it would have certainly been bashed for being politically incorrect. However, if someone criticizes their own culture, such as in the instance of Mr. Rushdie, it is not politically incorrect (at least in the eyes of another culture. There was that whole fatwa thing). The author is relevant in determining whether the work is satire or allegory, or an expression of how things should be. The author is relevant in determining the “political correctness” of a work. The author is relevant in telling if the work is filled with hope or filled with hate. The author is relevant if his own biographical past conflicts in his writing in way that has demonstrated an ability to “overcome.” I realize that this discussion is often in regards to non-fiction, but there is also the area in which the line blurs. Take, for example, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (who is known for little more than writing A Million Little Pieces… and being a complete tool).  This work was taken as a memoir. It was expected to be true. It was later revealed that it was not, and the outcry was significant. The ability to overcome presented in this book was apparently no longer applicable. The reader’s relationship with the character in the book was apparently dependant on the reader’s relationship with the author.

The notion that the reader needs to have the author’s story validated to take something away struck a little odd for me. I tried to compare it to To Kill a Mockingbird. If I had been told that that book was factual, and subsequently discovered that to be a falsehood, I’m sure I would feel some outrage. But the message of the book, the instruction for living in a community and the cautioning against racism, would still be intact. Reflecting on this idea a while ago, I looked back at A Million Little Pieces. I got it from the library, and gave it a read. Okay, that’s a lie. The book was a steaming pile. It was poorly written, contained little character-development. I got about 5 pages in and returned it to the library, because I was afraid that if I ran out of toilet paper, I might find the book to be best used as such. That was where the outcry came from. It was the fact that the only thing the book had going for it was that it was presumed to be true, when it was in fact fiction. This is not to say the author’s role isn’t important in fiction. It is just abundantly clear that the author’s role is entirely important in non-fiction.

Reconsidering To Kill a Mockingbird, what impact would it have, how would the book be different if it were entirely intact, word for word, but written by the Grand Wizard. It would be read with a sickening sensation in the stomach. Clearly, the exact same message would come across as “I think this is okay,” similar to the Rushdie example.

All things considered, the author cannot be separated from his work. To an extent, many of the criticisms presented by the New Critics would likely go away if we focused on good literature, no matter the author, while keeping the author relevant. When literature “stands the test of time” and makes it way into the anthological pantheon, it had best be good literature, and should not be found there for the author’s other works, or simply because he was black or a woman, or for that matter white or a man. Great books are not defined by sales. Dan Brown best not be read a century from now, lest we want the next century to think ours brought with it a decline in culture… which is another discussion altogether.