On J. D. Salinger: Holden Holds In

Permit me to preface this essay with a quote from Ambrose Bearce's amusing The Devil's Dictionary:

DISTANCE, n. The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor to call theirs, and keep.

I did not initially write at Contratimes about J. D. Salinger's death because I did not think there really was all that much to say. Surely there were others with analysis to offer, and mine, should I offer any, would be aptly inferior.  But I did draft a note right after Mr. Salinger's death, posting it on my Facebook page; perhaps those words are a fitting start for what follows:

Though I was not a big fan of The Catcher in the Rye, I remain an avid fan of Franny and Zooey. A legend has died; may J.D. Salinger finally be at peace.

_________________

Let's take a look at a passage or two from the Wall Street Journal essay about Salinger's death, "J. D. Salinger's Long Goodbye":

How can you grieve for a writer who has been, for all practical purposes, dead for half a century -- one defined by his refusal to publish or even to appear in public?

As the WSJ astutely suggests, if only by implication, there is really nothing to say about Mr. Salinger's work that has not already been said, precisely because the man stopped writing a long time ago. Salinger has given us nothing new; he has been utterly invisible for half a century. The WSJ continues:

Salinger, uniquely among major writers, seemed to go in the opposite direction, from public storytelling to private, until he reached the point where it was unnecessary to admit any readers into his fictional universe.

The purpose of "Franny and Zooey," with all its Zen exhortations, was partly to predict and justify this development. When Salinger declared that he was writing for himself, not for the world, he was echoing the words of the Bhagavad Gita that Seymour and Buddy Glass posted on their wall: "Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender." Yet this philosophy seems incompatible with the writing of fiction, which is nothing if not an engagement with the world and the self. It seems highly unlikely that the books Salinger wrote for his own pleasure—if they exist—could be as lovable as the books he wrote for the pleasure of his readers.

Really, what more can be said? Salinger's pen turned inward, too inward, apparently, for him to share with the world what it was in the literary life that he found so lovely, so wonderfully freeing and instructive.

When I first read The Catcher in the Rye my sophomore year in high school, my teacher told all of us in class that the easiest way to remember the essence of The Catcher in the Rye was simply to pronounce the narrator's first name -- "Hold In". Our teacher would note, "Just notice what Holden has had to 'hold in', and note what remains 'held in' even after he completes his plaintive confessional at the story's end." It was an easy hook, a helpful if incomplete mnemonic device, to share with listless and distracted sophomores, though perhaps too easy for purposes here. But it makes some sense, as does a college professor's observation that the family Salinger seemed most interested in writing about was the Glass family -- a fragile, lucent collection of souls (Seymour Glass = see more glass). Holden Caulfield was always holding something back, and it seems J. D. Salinger was, too.

_________________

Permit me to talk a moment about envy. Envy is a very subtle, pernicious vice. It is hard to descry as it silently wends through the grasses, through the reeds, thistles and thorns. Envy is sly, and always well-camouflaged.

And let me like others observe that both J. D. Salinger and his Holden Caulfield came from privileged backgrounds. So, too, does Salinger's Glass family. And now that I've made an observation of the rank obvious, I will delve into some of envy's psychology.

Sometimes the privileged don't like to be envied. They see it in the eyes of those they pass; they see it in the doorman or cab driver, or the young children who live in the "mean houses" at the end of the estate's driveway. They hear it in voices -- "You live there?!" -- "You went to Exeter?!" -- "You work in that building?!" -- and what they hear often makes them feel ashamed. Also, sometimes they worry that if they are not charitable enough, or earthy enough, or "authentic" or "common", they risk losing their wealth, their privilege; that the gods or the masses will smite them for being selfish and rich.

Of course the rich and privileged are not exempt from envying each other; when I traveled around the Hamptons, perhaps America's only truly super-rich enclave, I could not help notice how massive and imposing were the hedges circling each estate. But these, or so I felt, were not merely to keep the riff-raff at a distance, they were designed to keep the Vanderbilts from noticing that the Dupont's house was a bit ostentatious, or too big, or impractically small. There is profound envy among the rich; let us not be fooled.

Salinger fell into this whole game, or so I believe. His Holden Caulfield was doing one thing, and one thing only: he was sabotaging the image of wealth and privilege because of envy. On the one hand, he envied all those who still had more -- whose Christmas recess was celebrated not at Stowe, but at St. Moritz. He envied all those who had not just second homes on a lake in New Hampshire, but third and fourth homes in exotic lands; and he damned them. On the other hand, in venting -- in letting out what he held in -- he was also sabotaging the riff-raff's perceptions: he was saying to all the riff-raff out there that "we, the privileged, are not to be envied. We're as phony and unhappy as..." (As whom, everybody else?)

But notice, too, what the benefit of an attack on the life of the privileged has on those who live such a life: it keeps it out of reach. Recall the Bearce quote above, that the wealthy like to give away distance -- liberally. Don't descriptions of the privileged life showing it to be as empty and meaningless and vain and phony as any other type of life protect the privileged life?

Let me put it this way: If you have a friend who recently bought a huge, imposing mansion, and you say, as you tour the estate, "It is so lovely here, it is so beautiful! What a blessing to live in such a place. I am so happy for you," will he not respond with something like this: "Why thank you, but I have to tell you, the taxes are murder"? Might he not say, "We're happy, but boy, the upkeep is absurd"? Yes, he will say something like that, and his intent is this: "Please, don't envy me." And he responds this way because he fears that if he says merely "Thank you," the gods and the mobs will strike him with cancer or take away his wealth, or that he will be judged "greedy" or "avaricious" or "careless"; or that outsiders will declare,  "He thinks he's better than everyone else."

My sense is that Salinger's work was partly this sort of thing: Don't envy me. And yet, as a member of the privileged class in which much was expected of him, perhaps too much, he wrote what he did in part to set for himself what he perceived life's all-consuming goal: an enviable life.

For some people, when faced with the competition inherent in living, they rise to the occasion and they compete. Others, fearful, perhaps, of failure, runaway altogether. Envy is at work even in competition; it could be said that all competition is fueled by envy. But envy's most devastating act is this: feeling that it can't compete, that it can't live the most enviable life of the family or win father's love, envy rejects the idols of the family. So, James' older brother went to Harvard, and James, fueled by envy, rejects his own acceptance to Harvard and thus declares his brother's success as being beneath him; James chooses something more authentic, or earthbound, or domestic; he becomes a writer. But this is not James acting nobly but ignobly: his envy metes out justice on his family by rejecting the family's expectations. And yet, even in so doing, James finds success in that very act; he flees the good life and chooses a life of hidden letters in the remoteness of some wilderness. There he thinks, finally, he has created one of life's most enviable lives: A man from wealth and fame, who rejects it all for a life in the hills, alone, sickened by the phonies who want his attention.

And what does he really get? He lives a life of privilege, in the hills, with the riff-raff and even the muckety-mucks kept at a suitable distance, leaving his family and their privileged neighbors,"talking."

In other words, J. D. Salinger appears to this writer to have written a life with envy's pen solely to carve out a niche in the world of privilege that stands out from the phonies who live in the Hamptons or the Upper West Side. When I hear Holden Caulfield speak, I hear envy's whine, and little else.

It seems to me Salinger created Holden Caulfield merely to be the vicar of envy's ugliest machinations.

_______________

Granted, Salinger may have left us two lifetimes' worth of work in his Cornish, NH home. Perhaps he will explain everything, showing that envy had no hand in his work, his eccentric silence. Perhaps. But there is no doubt he seemed a man who had little peace. May he finally find the peace he was looking for.

_______________

Lastly, I must blame this essay on the very engaging essays of Contratimes reader, Randall Sherman, who wrote two interesting pieces on Salinger, which you can read here and here. 

Also, if you want to read a short story that I think exactly captures the struggle the wealthy have with envy, please read "The Garden Party," by Katherine Mansfield. She ably describes the anxiety the wealthy feel not only about their wealth, but about the gaze that comes from the "mean houses" (I borrowed this as shown above). And just note the irony in this line of hers when you read it in context: "Don't be so extravagant."

Blessings, from my little house in New Hampshire.


©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved. 

Barack Obama And The "False Choice"

In Mr. Obama's inaugural address we find this statement:

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

It's a stunning bit of vapidity: safety is one of our ideals.

And in Mr. Obama's speech regarding the use (and destruction) of human embryos for scientific inquiry, we find this statement:

But in recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent.

The stunning vapidity apparently never ends: No one in the Bush administration ever created the false choice described by Mr. Obama. For President Bush, science informed his ethics, and vice versa: It is science that shows us that life begins at conception, and it is our ethics that draws a clear moral line between the willful destruction of human life for unknown medical gains and research that is not so inhuman. Mr. Obama even acknowledged the "unknown" in his speech the day he repealed Bush's ban:

At this moment, the full promise of stem cell research remains UNKNOWN, and it should not be OVERSTATED. But scientists believe these tiny cells† MAY have the POTENTIAL to help us... [emphasis added]

Of course, lost in Mr. Obama's emptiness is the unavoidable fact that the Bush administration PERMITTED embryonic stem cell research to continue; President Bush only limited the number of embryonic lines that could be generated (and the administration funded stem cell research as well).

In other words, only Mr. Obama has created the false choice: the choice between his false-choice straw man and the actual facts. There was no false choice save the one in his own imagination.

A REAL FALSE CHOICE

Lastly, the capstone: Here is what Michelle Obama said of her husband on the campaign trail; this was meant to sell him to us as something special. Check out this skewed logic:

The first major decision he had to make in his life, after college - "Do I go to Wall Street and make money, or do I work for the people?" - Barack worked as a community organizer in some of the toughest neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago.

Here, finally, we have evidence of a legitimate False Choice. Mr. Obama's alleged quandary is utterly manufactured. He is alleged to be unbelievably bright, and yet apparently not quite bright enough to see his false either/or. For there is no evidence that a man going to "Wall Street" to "make money" does not "work for the people." In fact, a good case could be made that a Wall Street job is far better for "the people" than community organizing in Chicago. Regardless, the point is clear: Michelle and Barack Obama presented themselves as better people than those who they falsely believe don't "work for the people"; and if Ms. Obama's testimony regarding her husband is to be trusted, then she and her husband have either fallen prey to their own false choice, or they've pandered to the envious masses by giving themselves props concealed in a false choice: We are for the people, and our refusal to work on Wall Street -- though we could have! -- proves this.

And yet, somehow, as workers for the people who rejected the allure of Wall Street, they've still managed to become millionaires.

It is now quite clear, I should think, that a colossal false choice was made some time around November 4, 2008.

Perhaps this also makes clear why Mr. Obama looks with such disdain on those who've been more successful than he. Envy nearly always poses as social justice -- for the good "of the people." In fact, it seems perfectly obvious that the whole of Mr. Obama's economic policies rests upon his most fundamental false choice.

_________________

†In the third Obama quote above, I placed a †. I wanted to draw your attention to the Orwellian diminution Mr. Obama provides: he uses a reductionistic euphemism to distract you from the fact that these are HUMAN EMBRYOS that are being destroyed; that these cells are the very rudiments and foundations of each and every human life that has ever existed or ever will exist. Each of us IS one of these "tiny cells", and each of us WAS one of these "tiny cells." This "great man" believes the weakest among us are strictly here to serve those who happen to have the privilege of walking around, you know, the advantaged; the strong. The embryos in power.

And why DID he repeal the executive order? You know why. The answer is almost genomic: $.

Mr. Obama is so disturbing precisely because he has been presented as anything but.

Peace through dissent.

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Gospel Of Guilt: The Wright Way To Preach

I can't resist writing a few theological responses to Rev. Jeremiah Wright's speech and subsequent comments at yesterday's National Press Club. Of course, I would not be interested in Rev. Wright if he were not undermining what I initially took to be a noble goal in the campaign for the presidency of Barack Obama. That goal was not racial harmony. It was that America would transcend race; that our politics and related discourses would get us past the bitternesses of our fathers. But Rev. Wright has sabotaged all that. Now, like a bad LSD flashback into the heart of the 1960s, race is everything. According to Rev. Wright, God is on the side of the oppressed -- solely. According to Rev. Wright (who cites, in passing, white "evangelical" Jim Wallis) America has not even repented of its sin of slavery. America, be damned.

Let me be the first to assert that "America be damned" is not one whit inaccurate. I say this for the simple reason that both blind nature and Christian eschatology admit that everything is damned, damned by the great cosmic implosion or God's building of a new heaven and new earth. This point may seem glib and even silly, but it isn't, as it points to a very leveling moral and social principle: death equalizes us all. And at the very least Rev. Wright is all about leveling, about equality.

Also, I would not be pursuing Rev. Wright had Mr. Obama not given his permission, as he himself believes that Rev. Wright's religious views are fair political game.

THE BIBLICAL HISTORY QUESTION

I think it wise to quote Rev. Wright's remarks about the Holy Bible which he offered during the press club's Q&A period following his speech. Note that he is defending the black liberation idea that God is the God of the oppressed:

"In biblical history, there's not one word written in the Bible between Genesis and Revelations that was not written under one of six different kinds of oppression, Egyptian oppression, Assyrian oppression, Persian oppression, Greek oppression, Roman oppression, Babylonian oppression. The Roman oppression is the period in which Jesus is born. And comparing imperialism that was going on in Luke, imperialism was going on when Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that the whole world should be taxed. They weren't in charge of the world. It sounds like some other governments I know."

Those of us who possess some biblical literacy should immediately see the falsehood of Rev. Wright's assertion. It is NOT TRUE that every word of the Bible was written under some form of political oppression. Many of the words of the Torah (or Christian Old Testament) were penned during relative political and social calm. The words of Solomon -- the wildly rich king and revered "wisest man on earth" -- drafted proverbs and poems that were written while he and his kingdom were, in effect, in charge of a whole region. King David's famous psalm of contrition, Psalm 51, was penned while he was in power, despite the fact that he might have been at war. Ecclesiastes appears to have been penned during a period of relative ease, and I think it clear that Job, arguably the oldest of the biblical texts, was not penned by someone under political oppression. And even some of the New Testament is arguably penned by men who were not under oppression either, men like Luke, a Greek physician, or Paul, a Roman citizen of rather high standing. In the end, just one exception, and there is more than one, devastates Rev. Wright's sweeping and dogmatic assertion. (It should be noted that Rev. Wright does not acknowledge that much of the biblical record was written under brother-on-brother or Israel-on-Israel oppression.)

Hence, it is safe to conclude that Rev. Wright is flat-out wrong, and is seeing Christianity through a sieve, one not justified by either Christian tradition or its sacred texts.

But I would like to highlight one absolutely essential point, one that debilitates much of Rev. Wright's liberation theology, and it is this (I have written about this here): Jesus Christ, who was indeed born as a Jew living under Roman oppression, NEVER mentions that He or His disciples live under occupation. OK. That might be extreme. But it is not extreme to assert, with all due confidence, that Jesus clearly ignores the Roman occupation. And He clearly ministers to those occupiers without once asking them to denounce either their Roman citizenship or their positions.

Hence, Rev. Wright is not only wrong about the biblical record, He is wrong in averring that Jesus came to emancipate ANYONE from social oppression. Jesus's concerns, made clear in statements that His kingdom was not of this world and that "the poor you will always have with you," were not political or even societal concerns. They were concerns of the heart, soul and mind of individuals. He was not a social liberator, nor was He revolutionary in any political sense. His political influence was accidental (I mean this philosophically) to His message. His intent was to free humanity from sin, primarily the pervasive, ubiquitous sin of envy.

THE EXCLUSIVITY QUESTION

Here's another excerpt from yesterday's Q&A at the National Press Club:

MODERATOR: Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father but through me." Do you believe this? And do you think Islam is a way to salvation?

WRIGHT: Jesus also said, "Other sheep have I who are not of this fold."

(APPLAUSE)

I have to inject here that Rev. Wright's body language, tone, and countenance showed utter contempt for his interlocutor during much if not most of this exchange. To me, Rev. Wright was thuggish, condescending, arrogant and -- immature.

But let us note the problem. Rev. Wright has been asked if he believes whether Jesus Christ, the Man He purportedly believes is the Savior of the whole world, is the only way to God. Alas, acting like some pompous smart ass, Rev. Wright, in a most self-satisfied manner, replied that Jesus referred to "sheep ... not of this fold." With that, Rev. Wright pulled away from the microphone, satisfied that he has shown not only his superior wit but that his sense of irony has no bounds: he, too, can make Jesus say whatever he wants Him to say. Of course, the real irony is lost on the smug Rev. Wright, as his obscene citation of the "other sheep" only supports Christ's claim as being the exclusive Savior of the world: Jesus is the Shepherd of the other sheep who still must come to God through Him. Jesus, only to augment His point, also argues that He is the Gate of the sheepfold, so no one enters that fold -- irrespective of whether they are OTHER sheep or not -- unless they pass through Him.

Rev. Wright's inanity is indicative of his fear of estranging his black Muslim friends, who share his identity politics. Muslims, who deny that Jesus IS the Christ, the gate-keeper, or the "way and the life," are the other sheep to which Rev. Wright refers. And this from a man described even by Barack Obama as a "renowned" biblical scholar. Rev. Wright's curt reply merely avoids the question by obfuscating simple Christian passages. Jesus claims to be the way for ALL sheep, irrespective of whether they are of the Jewish fold. Rev. Wright intimates, utterly and completely erroneously, that there are "other sheep" who do not need Christ.

And let us put this in boldest relief: Rev. Wright, or so it was reported yesterday, is getting security help from the Nation of Islam.

THE SOCIOLOGY PROBLEM: Standing Black Liberation Theology On Its Head

Let us again return to something that Rev. Wright said in his speech. Here he is talking about how our ideas of God influence us:

"Dr. Jones, in his book, God in the Ghetto, argues quite accurately that one's theology, how I see God, determines one's anthropology, how I see humans, and one's anthropology then determines one's sociology, how I order my society. Now, the implications from the outside are obvious. If I see God as male, if I see God as white male, if I see God as superior, as God over us and not Immanuel, which means "God with us," if I see God as mean, vengeful, authoritarian, sexist, or misogynist, then I see humans through that lens. My theological lens shapes my anthropological lens. And as a result, white males are superior; all others are inferior."

Let us review the sequence: God-ideas influence our views of mankind, and our views of both influence how we order society.

Rev. Wright goes on:

To say "I am a Christian" is not enough. Why? Because the Christianity of the slaveholder is not the Christianity of the slave. The God to whom the slaveholders pray as they ride on the decks of the slave ship is not the God to whom the enslaved are praying as they ride beneath the decks on that slave ship.

How we are seeing God, our theology, is not the same. And what we both mean when we say "I am a Christian" is not the same thing. The prophetic theology of the black church has always seen and still sees all of God's children as sisters and brothers, equals who need reconciliation, who need to be reconciled as equals in order for us to walk together into the future which God has prepared for us.

Now, look at what Rev. Wright says about black liberation theology, a theology he gladly espouses:

Now, in the 1960s, the term "liberation theology" began to gain currency with the writings and the teachings of preachers, pastors, priests, and professors from Latin America. Their theology was done from the underside.

Their viewpoint was not from the top down or from a set of teachings which undergirded imperialism. Their viewpoints, rather, were from the bottom up, the thoughts and understandings of God, the faith, religion and the Bible from those whose lives were ground, under, mangled and destroyed by the ruling classes or the oppressors.

Liberation theology started in and started from a different place. It started from the vantage point of the oppressed.

I hope you can see the problem. Rev. Wright tells us first that we should start our theology from the top: how we view God informs not just our theology, but our anthropology and sociology. In sharpest Christian terms, it is asserted by all orthodox Christians that God defines for us Who and What He is and What He is like. To God, our relation is responsive: He reveals, we respond. He is Who He Is, or so even Moses reported thousands of years ago. Christianity's starting point is the God Revealed.

But according to Rev. Wright's own words, he actually inverts the paradigm: black liberation theology begins in sociology, the sociological status of the oppressed. The oppressed, beginning in the mire, see God from the pit, defining Him as their liberator and the judge and damner of those who have enslaved them. God, then, is defined not by His own fiat, but by the conditions of the lowest social group. God is coming to judge, and the top social group shall be tossed down and the bottom elevated: the last are now first, the oppressed are now the judges.

That is why Rev. Wright can say, essentially, that the oppressors pray to a different God, even if those oppressors are Christians.

But the FACT IS THIS: All people are prone to manufacture God in their OWN IMAGE! And Rev. Wright has done EXACTLY that!

Alas, this is what passes, at least in Rev. Wright's world, as the prophetic voice. Curiously absent is any sense of proportion. Yes, Rev. Wright concedes that God loves the whole world, as he remarked in his talk, but this concession seems almost reluctantly offered. It even smacks of elitism, as it suggests that God prefers to love the oppressed but, almost despite Himself, He can love, well, "others" too.

Let me say with all due candor: this stuff is preposterous.

THE GOSPEL OF GUILT

In the end, we are left not with a gospel of liberation preached by Rev. Wright, but one of oppression, even extortion. Despite the fact that Rev. Wright is supposed to represent a faith that proclaims that Christ has paid our debts, that He forgives with abandon (assuming folks want forgiveness), that He absolves us of our guilt, Rev. Wright brings the glad tidings that Americans are still guilty, still reprobate, still WRONG. He has not forgiven, nor has he offered that forgiveness. Instead, he brings the gospel of extortion, of indebtedness: America, you still OWE! America, you still must pay! And this is not merely directed at institutions, as institutions cannot be divorced of their constituents. This is aimed at people, individuals.

This is not the gospel. We are not hearing the voice of Christ. We are hearing the voice of envy, resentment, anger, entitlement. This, believe it or not, is imprisonment dressed as liberty.

It is not the gospel at all.

Peace to you.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.