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not to harp on it
Jul. 9th, 2020 02:07 amSo, Harper's Magazine published an open letter with a bunch of signatories, and many people are discussing it, its phrasing, its context, its impact, and so on.
What I'm ruminating on is the signatories, and the effect of an open letter signed by (at current count) 152 people, some fraction of which are major or minor celebrities in academic/literary/policy/arts/something circles. I went through the list and found 47 names that I recognized, 36 of which I could confidently describe with a sentence (what they do/what they're known for) even if I don't know that work (like, I haven't ever really listened to Wynton Marsalis or read the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides).* For those I know, I have different opinions of many of their bodies of work! Like, Atul Gawande, Zephyr Teachout, Dahlia Lithwick, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Steven Pinker, David Brooks, Salman Rushdie, John McWhorter, Margaret Atwood, and Anne-Marie Slaughter -- my assessments vary.
And it's interesting how this affects how people read and react to it. Like, I don't follow a lot of sports, but one reason an All-Star Team is appealing to watch because people who follow various different regular teams can watch the same game together. And so, similarly, people from a bunch of different fandoms and hatedoms, people who eagerly follow Zephyr Teachout and people who think David Brooks has the right idea, people who are already upset with Steven Pinker and people who have never liked the work of Greil Marcus, all can find a common conversation (and possibly shout at each other). I would love for someone else to make a "Infinity War Is The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" visual joke about this.
* I think I have met 4 of them, and one of them would recognize my name. In one case I took the photo that is on the French Wikipedia page about that person. In another, back when I worked at a Berkeley bookstore 18 years ago, I remember I sold them a copy of American Psycho. I bet you neither of them would remember me.
Edited the next day to say: I should have foreseen that this entry would lead people to want to comment to talk about the content of the letter itself! Whoops. Am freezing some comment threads & screening all comments here so I don't have to moderate those particular political conversations in the comments here; really I just wanted to joke about the "Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" observation. No hard feelings, I hope.
What I'm ruminating on is the signatories, and the effect of an open letter signed by (at current count) 152 people, some fraction of which are major or minor celebrities in academic/literary/policy/arts/something circles. I went through the list and found 47 names that I recognized, 36 of which I could confidently describe with a sentence (what they do/what they're known for) even if I don't know that work (like, I haven't ever really listened to Wynton Marsalis or read the fiction of Jeffrey Eugenides).* For those I know, I have different opinions of many of their bodies of work! Like, Atul Gawande, Zephyr Teachout, Dahlia Lithwick, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Steven Pinker, David Brooks, Salman Rushdie, John McWhorter, Margaret Atwood, and Anne-Marie Slaughter -- my assessments vary.
And it's interesting how this affects how people read and react to it. Like, I don't follow a lot of sports, but one reason an All-Star Team is appealing to watch because people who follow various different regular teams can watch the same game together. And so, similarly, people from a bunch of different fandoms and hatedoms, people who eagerly follow Zephyr Teachout and people who think David Brooks has the right idea, people who are already upset with Steven Pinker and people who have never liked the work of Greil Marcus, all can find a common conversation (and possibly shout at each other). I would love for someone else to make a "Infinity War Is The Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" visual joke about this.
* I think I have met 4 of them, and one of them would recognize my name. In one case I took the photo that is on the French Wikipedia page about that person. In another, back when I worked at a Berkeley bookstore 18 years ago, I remember I sold them a copy of American Psycho. I bet you neither of them would remember me.
Edited the next day to say: I should have foreseen that this entry would lead people to want to comment to talk about the content of the letter itself! Whoops. Am freezing some comment threads & screening all comments here so I don't have to moderate those particular political conversations in the comments here; really I just wanted to joke about the "Most Ambitious Crossover Event In History" observation. No hard feelings, I hope.
