1. I hate it when, in order to make a case about some perceived Western failing, people compare prosperous nations to other, putatively dismal, ones. This happens all the time in health care journalism. "The United States is ranked 40th in the world when it comes to low infant mortality rates. This puts us below Bosnia." "Britain is ranked 50th in the world in terms of intrusive government surveillance. This means it's worse than Singapore." These are two examples that I've come across recently, the first from the NPR and the second from the Guardian. If you look for it, this kind of strategy is used all the time. No story about failing American education can resist the temptation to compare our math scores to other countries of which he have bad impressions, or by which we feel threatened.
It goes without saying that this is not an argument but a rhetorical tool. We're asked to think, "The United States [or Britain, or whatever] is a good Western country. Yet we are worse at [whatever] than these third-world hellholes. The idea that these places could outrank us in any statistic whatsoever is outrageous and points to flaws in the system." It's just annoying that "The West is obviously better than the rest" still works as persuasion. Of course, the rhetoric says on the face of it, "In this case the West is worse", but the ploy is only effective if we implicitly follow this up with, "And that is an assault on the natural order."
2. I hate it when books or movies have nameless protagonists. This seems so common at this point that it's almost refreshing to read a book in which people have names. This struck me as I've recently seen "Antichrist" and am reading "The Invisible Man" (Ellison, not Wells). I also read "Breakfast at Tiffany's" a few weeks ago, and just read a review of Colson Whitehead's "Apex Hides the Hurt" in The New Republic. All of these books/films feature unnamed protagonist(s). I propose that this is almost always a bad idea. In "Antichrist" there is no reason to leave them unnamed; it only adds to the mythological pretensions, which turned a possibly interesting movie into something stupid. In "The Invisible Man" it makes sense. In "Breakfast at Tiffany's" it is pointless. I haven't read the Whitehead novel, but it sounds pointless there, too. Every Everyman has a name.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I v much agree with point no. 1, but surely the rhetorical point being made by that kind of comparison is not "this system ranks a third-world nation ahead of us and hence must be flawed," but rather, "look how shameful it is that we are being outranked by x nation." In other words, the point is to highlight how bad, say, American health care is, and to do so by way of a comparison that makes one feel ashamed.
ReplyDeleteMore to the point though, how was Antichrist? That deserves a post all of its own! I want to know if its as terrible/disgusting as everyone says. Answer me!
Yes, that's what I mean about pt. 1. I worded it badly, I guess.
ReplyDeleteAntichrist was really intense. Like, I was physically quaking when I left the theater, and my bike ride home was horrifying. Once the shock and awe left my system, I was kind of underwhelmed. Although last week I made the mistake of thinking about it when I went to bed, and I could not sleep (it was not even one of the gory parts). It's worth seeing. It's a spectacular something, at least, although perhaps a spectacular failure.
Right, and the true implication and purpose is ethnocentric in nature: isn't a shame we're as sucky as Estonia! GRR. Jingoism.
ReplyDeleteIt works both ways, of course. But recently I've felt this from much more center-left sources: the tendency to appeal to a certain righteous indignation at being less-than-Estonian on the scale of world percentages seems to be a "Liberal with a capital L" thing. I attribute this largely the the fact that blind jingoism, a la Rush Limbaugh, would never deign to compare the US to Estonia.
I think it works in Invisible Man (Ellison). That first chapter (the boxing match) is intense.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I'd say that using a first person narrator is more forgiving on the nameless protagonist, probably because the constant mention of [my] name would sound arrogant, or annoyingly self-referential.
To me, Joseph K of Kafka's The Trial works better than most. This is because Kafka has a conceptual basis for the partial anonymity. And while copied endlessly since, it worked for Kafka.
I agree that in general "west is best" is an obnoxious rhetorical strategy, but I also think these arguments sometimes point to an actually important point. We think we're hot shit over here because our top 10%(or whatever) are getting fat ruling the world, and yet if you look more carefully, we are content to let the bulk of our society struggle for basic rights (education, health care, living wages.)
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I don't disagree with you so much as I do agree with the "we're pathetic" sentiment behind the annoyingness.