WEDNESDAY MARGINALIA

The Prospect looks at Beijing Coma and talks to its author, Ma Jian ... At The Atlantic, Megan McArdle has some advice for you guys who want to share your sci-fi jones with the wife: "Those of you who pitch science fiction to wives and girlfriends who do not enjoy it are probably saying something along the following lines: "Space ships! Alien monsters! Men in tights!" Instead, for women who find that sort of thing distasteful, talk about it as a fairy tale--only a fairy tale with science instead of magic. The basic emotional space it taps is the same." ... Thank you to the many readers who wrote in to alert us to sightandsounds.com's report on a new interpretation of Godot. (Scroll down to Die Welt 20.06.2008); Tom Teicholz has a bit more at his place ... UK publisher Hamish Hamilton has launched on an online literary magazine called Five Dials ... A report on the recent literary festival at Shakespeare & Co ... Ted Hughes's holiday home is open as a writers' retreat (insert Bell Jar joke of your choice) ... Sam Jordison, the literary luminary whose resume includes the masterwork Crap Towns, decides that Disgrace would be at home in one of his towns ... An inscribed presentation copy of a first edition of Emma is about to go on sale ... The International Herald Tribune considers "Egypt's Balzac," (their formulation, not ours) Naguib Mahfouz ... Like most of you, we rue the closing of Cody's Books ... Oh, and finally, we're still irritated by Ian McEwan's recent outburst, especially his contemptible assertion that "American Christians don't want to kill anyone in my city ... " Real Big Picture thinking, sir.  Barnett Slepian thanks you for your concern. 

Comments

[Nav]

I'm with you on Amis these days, but what was so wrong with what McEwan said?

[Steven Augustine]

"Those of you who pitch science fiction to wives and girlfriends who do not enjoy it are probably saying something along the following lines: 'Space ships! Alien monsters! Men in tights!' Instead, for women who find that sort of thing distasteful, talk about it as a fairy tale--only a fairy tale with science instead of magic.The basic emotional space it taps is the same."

Women are such cute little fluffy-brained creatures, aren't they? Remember always to smile when speaking to them, and to speak slowly and clearly, and to buy them shiny things, or things that smell good, and always compliment their bouffant hairdos and shapely figures!

[Anglofille]

As an American living in London, I think your comments about McEwan are rather simplistic. Islamism is a real threat in Britain and in Europe -- a threat to women, homosexuals, writers and democracy in general. I'm glad that writers like McEwan have the courage to speak out. If writers don't do it, who will? There is a climate in Britain, as McEwan says, that anyone who speaks out against Islamism is branded a racist. This is a form of societally induced censorship that closes down all debate and I applaud any writer who doesn't bow to this. I agree with you that Martin Amis's comments crossed the line, though he is perfectly entitled to make them. But you seem to think McEwan's comments are racist, though you did not explicitly state this. I think these ideas are much more complex than that and I don't think you can simply compare Islamists to anti-abortion Christian terrorists in the US. While both situations involve religious fundamentalists, the situations are not analogous in the way you've portrayed it.

[Nigel Beale]

I agree with Anglofille about the complexity of this issue. Perhaps in your 'big picture' condemnation of McEwan you are equating the activities of Islamist terrorists with those of George Bush the Christian responsible for the invasion of Iraq? Some clarification please Mark?

[Sam Jordison]

Are you suggesting that Crap Towns isn't a masterwork? I sweated blood over that little book, you know, etc.

[Steven Augustine]

"As an American living in London, I think your comments about McEwan are rather simplistic. Islamism is a real threat in Britain and in Europe -- a threat to women, homosexuals, writers and democracy in general. I'm glad that writers like McEwan have the courage to speak out. If writers don't do it, who will?"

You're banging your head against a wall here; take it from a guy with a virtual concussion. In a comment thread at the blogspot "This Space" I tried to post information about and from a Turkish lawyer (woman) who was on the front line in this debate, risking her life here in Berlin for many years, but the comment was blocked: her POV is of no use or interest.

I think Americans, living in America, should learn how to *listen* on global subjects they only have abstract or passing acquaintance with, and "Western" White Males (however many of them are taking sides in this), specifically, should learn that their default positions are not overridingly correct in every debate they happen to be peeking over the fence at.

Well-intended or not, that post-colonial arrogance is problematic.

[Frank Wilson]

Is there any evidence that American Christians do want to kill people in his city? As I noted recently, had he said such things about Christianity there would be little controversy. It seems to me it is hard to ignore the historical reality that Islam's spread during the Seventh Century was effected through violence not suasion. All religions have problems, often very serious ones, caused by the human failings of their adherents, but Islam's problems seem peculiarly acute. I am a Catholic who is often dismayed by my church's views on homosexuality, for instance, but at least the church does not think homosexuals should be stoned to death. And I am unaware at the moment of any Evangelical Christian suicide bombers.

[Steven Augustine]

"Is there any evidence that American Christians do want to kill people in his city?"

No, but if you reframe the question as, "Have Christians been connected, directly or implicitly (politically or by extension of cultural aims in the expansion of hegemony) to millions of deaths in *other* cities, over the past few centuries," the rational response would have to be: "most assuredly." Christians have killed *far* more non-Christians (and fellow Christians) in the past two centuries than Muslims (until the point a Muslim regime uses the A-bomb) have since the beginning of time.

This is the inevitable, and highly regrettable, branch of this important debate: Christians vs Muslims. That's not the issue. The issue is about whether it's as hideously absurd as it seems to give a free pass to a physically violent and/or lethal Gender Apatheid in an effort to respect diverse cultures.

I'll repeat this metaphor because no one has yet bothered to respond: The Boers were also an example of the world's cultural diversity; why no respect for *them*?

Doing something about women being stoned to death in Iran for "adultery" (with the weight of the Law of the Land behind this grotesque throwback) is tricky, obviously. But one should think that "we" could all unite against the same mindset as it threatens lives, and quality of life, in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, etc?

How is it that default bien-pensant "ideals" (The Brotherhood of Man: yay) weigh more than black, white and olive-skinned human lives?

Easy to unite against that moth-breathing monster Bush; why so hard to unite against monsters of other complexions?

[Steven Augustine]

(ahem: keyboard malfunction: "mouth-breathing", not "moth-breathing"... though I like the image the error conjures)

[Frank Wilson]

'No, but if you reframe the question as, "Have Christians been connected, directly or implicitly (politically or by extension of cultural aims in the expansion of hegemony) to millions of deaths in *other* cities, over the past few centuries," the rational response would have to be: "most assuredly." Christians have killed *far* more non-Christians (and fellow Christians) in the past two centuries than Muslims (until the point a Muslim regime uses the A-bomb) have since the beginning of time.'

This is to equivocate. Nominally Christian societies engaged in warfare that caused immense numbers of deaths, yes. But it wasn't to spread Christianity. And the lion's share of the deaths came in a war against fascist aggression.
It is also beside the point, since we are in agreement on the issue raised by McEwan's criticism.

[Michael O'Donnell]

Banging your head against a wall is right. I'm a big fan of this site, but I'm getting good and tired of posts with throwaway accusations that this or that writer is a racist or a bigot. Those posts are invariably followed by outcry in the comments section, including at least *some* cogent, sober, well-reasoned counter-arguments. These comments are usually simply ignored. At one point TEV challenged them in a brief, terse post in which he cited, in his words, "sound-bytes," and failed to make any real argument except to say something along the lines of, "[This or that statement] is just obviously racist."

Look: branding someone a bigot in a public forum (even one you created) is serious business. If someone did that to you, you'd take notice pretty quickly. So when you take that step, you'd better be prepared to back it up--especially when there's wide room for disagreement on the matter.

[TEV]

Sorry folks, did not intend this one to be such comment-bait. I merely found McEwan's sentiments rather disgustingly self-centered - and the notion that London is any more vulnerable to attack than America is sure to strike most Americans as insensitive at best, utterly idiotic at worst. I'm also not prepared to categorize McEwan a racist (Amis is another story), though I do feel his recent statements bear the rotting whiff of racism to them. I suppose what prompted my ire here was merely wondering if it's inevitable that when white, male, British writers reach a certain age, they go off the deep end. But Michael, I don't brand anyone anything - McEwan's statements do all the work by themselves, as the widespread public coverage proves.

[Steven Augustine]

"It is also beside the point, since we are in agreement on the issue raised by McEwan's criticism."

That's just it, Frank. I'm not sure that we *are* in agreement. I strongly oppose any component of this argument that posits the totality of Christianity as a more clement, or less destructive, belief system than the totality of Islam.

In my opinion, it's fairly obvious that wherever, in the "West", that's more humane, *in the ways under discussion*, than in Islamic societies, is more humane *because* Christianity has waned in influence there (despite recent conservative efforts to roll back the clock by smashing it).

18th century England was fairly close, in tone, to Mullah-run Iran (I seem to remember reading that Jane Austen's mother almost took a trip to the gallows after being falsely accused of thieving some lace). To this day, you're more likely to find more Fundamentalist Christians, than educated Muslims, disdaining the Enlightenment.

Arguably, to the extent that the "West" is still willing to treat women as breeding chattel, the impulse devolves from patriarchal Christianity (think the abortion issue).

And be very very careful about invoking Christianity's presence in WW2:

"On November 1933, A Protestant mass rally of the Deutsche Christians, which brought together a record 20 000 persons, passed three resolutions:

"1. Adolf Hitler is the completion of the reformation, 2. Baptized Jews are to be dismissed from the Church, 3. The Old Testament is to be excluded from Sacred Scriptures. Adolf Hitler converted to Protestantism and joined the German Christians, according to the National Secretary Klundt on April 25, 1933 in Königsberg, Eastern Prussia. An official confirmation or denial was not issued by the Chancellor."

[Steven Augustine]

"...and the notion that London is any more vulnerable to attack than America is sure to strike most Americans as insensitive at best, utterly idiotic at worst."

What you keep missing, Mark, is that a substantial chunk of this argument is not about "terrorism" (to which every city on earth is vulnerable, from any brand of terrorism: look what happened to Iraq): it's about a culture clash with everyday, neighborhood casualties; it's also about a shift in demographics which may well threaten secular humanism in places it had *just* started taking root.

The complexity of the matter has something to do with the fact, for example, that many people of the Muslim faith who've ended up in LA are *worlds* apart from many of those in Berlin, or Amsterdam, or even London. Different dynamic of emigration altogether. A second-generation American Muslim is far more likely to be integrated in the culture (for better or worse) than a German Muslim who's been here for three generations.

As I've stated before, this debate needs to be broken down into its various segments. And, in my opinion, the mere fact that one "side" of the debate keeps clinging to statements made by Martin Amis, in anger, more than a year ago, and long-since retracted, points to the logical banktrupcy of the position you're defending by clinging to it.

[Stephan]

Whenever we start talking about racism or sexism or whatever ism, we always seem to tread the same ground ourselves. That's what this sounds like at least: "... wondering if it's inevitable that when white, male, British writers reach a certain age ..." Isn't that what Amis did, wonder if Islamists, when following a certain strand of the faith ...

As for Christianity and WWII, I always find it laughable when people try to align Hitler with Christianity. The man had no religious feeling whatsoever; if he did anything religious, it was for appearances. The man wanted National Socialist party buildings taller than churches for a reason. He wanted political ideology to replace theology, but he knew he'd need the priests and pastors to help him bring that about, as there was 2000 years of myth and tradition built up in the church, whereas National Socialism had just begun.

As for Stalin, well, he dropped out of the seminary, so I think the WWII had at least two atheists on the front lines.

[Nigel Beale]

Those who brand Amis racist are similar to those who call Bush stupid: intellectual thugs with little interest in airing and/or discussing important issues.

[Steven Augustine]

"As for Christianity and WWII, I always find it laughable when people try to align Hitler with Christianity."

Stephan, it matters little what Hitler thought in private about the front he presented to his nation; the fact remains that the Germany of the Third Reich was a fervently Christian country, and Adolph Hitler didn't kill 11 million people with his own bare hands, or with the help of a few atheist chums.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm

[stephan]

"Around 1937, when Hitler heard that at the instigation of the party and the SS vast numbers of his followers had left the church because it was obstinately opposing his plans, he nevertheless ordered his chief associates ... to remain members of the church. He too would remain a member of the Catholic Church, he said, although he had no real attachment to it." Inside the Third Reich, Albert Speer (95-96).

You can argue that as a fervently Christian nation, Germany can tie its war crimes to Christianity. But that's painting in a very broad brush (and requires overlooking the sizable number of nuns and clergy who spoke out against Naziism; many didn't, most remained silent; but a good number did label Hitler's policies anti-Christian).

The US is fervently secular, so can we blame the Iraq War on that? It's more complicated, obviously, and while I don't doubt that certain Christians saw a religious component to the war, I think the cult of personality around Hitler, and how he contributed to renewed national pride, to say nothing of avenging Versailles -- I think all that played into things just as much if not much, much more.

But now I'm going on far too long for the internet, and dinner is ready.

[The Girl Detective]

Could someone help me pitch sci fi to my husband? Because that's the problem I'm having (although I did get him into BSG).

[Paul]

(((Those who brand Amis racist are similar to those who call Bush stupid: intellectual thugs with little interest in airing and/or discussing important issues.)))

Those who take issue with describing an intellectual thug who articulates a belief that innocent Muslims should be collectively punished for the crimes indivdiual extremists, as Amis did, are full of nothing but blowhard whining and the beaters of big strawmen set up by those pleading special priveliges for the words uttered by a writer who uses his status as 'public thinker' to articulate such vile suggestions, then claims to be being persecuted when people take issue with it.

You're not a racist for criticising an ideology like Islamism. You are a vile, loathsome bigot for articulating the collective punishment of innocent people on the basis of their religion, and then whining about being misunderstood and being persecuted rather that disowning and clarifying your 'thought experiment'

Intellectual thuggery by intellectual thugs -- good phrase for Amis and those who refuse to see what instigated all of this in the first place. It's really very pathetic.

[Steven Augustine]

Paul:

"It's really very pathetic."

No, it's just that you don't know how to debate a point rather than merely express an opinion, and don't seem to understand that the very real issues that Amis addresses are not invalidated by whatever mistakes (moral or diplomatic) the man makes in articulating them.

Martin Amis's goodness/badness is not the heart of this debate; the fact that you think it is underscores how out of your depth (and others like you) are. This debate is not a referendum on Martin Amis's, or Ian McEwan's, personality traits. Pointing and screaming "he is a bad, bad man!" settles nothing; illuminates nothing; furthers a broader understanding of nothing.

Where would you be if Amis hadn't uttered that one paragraph in that one interview in 2006, were the rest of his argument to remain unchanged? You'd be without a rhetorical leg to stand on; again: harping on this ill-advised outburst from Amis proves, to any thinking person (intellectuals and intellectual thugs alike), that you're incapable of addressing a complex and pressing issue in anything other than the simplest, reflexes-wired terms. You've been watching too much Oprah.

The Truth isn't decided by how many boos versus how many claps come from the audience; the Truth is not, automatically, the nicest or most uplifting version of reality.

Ranting against "intellectual thugs" with so much passion and so little thought seems more like the behaviour of an *anti-intellectual* thug.

As for the original comment:

"Those who brand Amis racist are similar to those who call Bush stupid: intellectual thugs with little interest in airing and/or discussing important issues."

A) GW Bush is possibly the most well-documented idiot in history: from hours of taped footage of gaffes and blitherings to his moronic destruction of US moral credit, the US economy and the bonehead mishandling of the requisite manufacture of a pretext to plunder and control Iraqi oil. Of course, Bush is too dumb to have pulled off all that stupidity on his own: he was the perfect figurehead (with the IQ of a ventriloquist's extraordinarily smirky dummy) for a cabal that's been creeping around, behind the scenes, since before the Nixon administration.

Obviously, even idiots are smart enough to have a few brains working for them, but that's just how the world functions. The Alpha Dogs are never the smartest (is "cunning" an intellectual trait?), they're simply the most brutal. GW Bush is the dumbest Alpha Dog on record.

B) You just called Philip Roth an "intellectual thug".

[Michael]

"But Michael, I don't brand anyone anything - McEwan's statements do all the work by themselves, as the widespread public coverage proves."

Not so fast. In your June 23 gathering of links, entitled, "The Heat Breaks,” you wrote: "Ian McEwan infected by Amisism ... Speaking of racists..." That sure sounds to me like branding McEwan and Amis racists. If you positively reviewed a much-maligned book, and a blogger, linking to your review and mentioning both you and the maligned author by name, pivoted with, "speaking of morons," I bet you’d take offense. Perhaps your cute transition was only meant to label AMIS a racist. If so, you’re still wrong, but I'd suggest a bit more precision in language and a few less scattershot incendiaries.

And you say "the widespread public coverage proves" ... something? Well, what? That McEwan's statements are racist? That they speak for themselves? This is EXACTLY what’s wrong with your posts on this issue: you call someone a bigot, and then when called upon to explain yourself, you totally punt. “See, other people think so too. Now let’s move on.” Rather than short-handing to some vague consensus of public opinion as measured by shrill newspaper columnists most of whose pieces aren't worth the paper they're printed on, I prefer to make up my own mind.

‘“As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist,’ [McEwan] said in an interview in Corriere della Sera.”

Is this the point at which you detect "the rotting whiff of racism"? Are you really so culturally sensitive that you believe it is not possible to criticize hateful aspects of an Eastern or Middle-Eastern religion or values system without being racist? Is it racist of me even to ask you that question? Does the “rotting whiff” of homophobia and misogyny (not to mention misanthropy) that undeniably typifies extreme Islamism simply get a free pass from you? Well, I’ll tell you how that homophobia and misogyny makes ME feel. It makes me so angry and disgusted that I’m willing to forgive Amis’s nasty and wrong-headed outburst against the religion that inspired it, because I fervently believe that stoning adulturesses and torturing gays and covering women in burqas and murdering apostates (oh, and slaughtering as many innocents as possible) is much, much worse than, on one occasion, going too far in condemning same.

I do not think that Muslims should be collectively punished for the crimes of Islamists. And if some of us would tone down the sanctimony and read beyond the sound bytes, they’d see that Amis (not to mention McEwan) doesn’t think so either.

[steve mitchelmore]

"In a comment thread at the blogspot "This Space" I tried to post information about and from a Turkish lawyer (woman) who was on the front line in this debate, risking her life here in Berlin for many years, but the comment was blocked: her POV is of no use or interest."

I wish to point out that Steven Augustine's comment was rejected because it was a copy&pasted news story which had only indirect relevance to the blog under which it was posted. I would have allowed it had it been summarised with a link.

Of course, one only has to read the occasional Guardian book's blog to recognise that tiresome verbosity is Mr Augustine's modus operandi.

[Steven Augustine]

Play to your claque with ad hominems as you will, Mitchelmore; makes no difference in the end.