Posted by Dan Gunter on July 16, 1999 at 09:43:01:
I feel some personal responsibility for the recent politically based hostilities that have made this board something of a free-fire zone. Long ago (in BBS terms), in a thread far, far away, I made a rather loose statement about "conservatism," for which I subsequently offered a half-hearted (or half-some-other-and-lower-portion-of-the-anatomy'ed) apology. But my loose statement appears to have let slip the dogs of war, and so I apologize again, with all of my heart and any other pertinent fragments of my anatomy.
I was away for a few weeks in an uncomputered country (well, actually just visiting my aged mother) and returned to find many long and somewhat interesting threads reflecting politics, xenophobia (which may be a redundant term), and mere personal dislike. Others have spoken well of the need to be civil to one another on the board; I will add only my support to that plea.
But I would like to add another plea, and I'll start it with a story. Lo these many years ago, I took a Melville seminar with one Howard Webb, a wonderful (and now retired) professor at Southern Illinois University. Professor Webb was a daunting fellow in the classroom. He knew Melville (and Melville scholarship) thoroughly, which was daunting enough; but he taught the course in quasi-Socratic fashion. He usually proceeded by pointing us toward a passage from, say, "Moby-Dick" (the hyphen is correct; the quotes are a sorry alternative to underscoring) and then saying, "Mr. Gunter [or some other hapless graduate student], what do you make of this passage?" A stammered exegesis would follow. Professor Webb would look at the exegete for a moment, look at the ceiling, perhaps stroke his Melvillean beard, and then either ask another student to respond or fire the most dreaded question of all: "Where do you find that in the text?"
That question was (and remains) wonderful. It necessarily brings criticism back to its necessary starting point: the text of the work. One can go on from text to biography, history, politics, science, whatever: but if one is saying something about a text, one should be able to find support for that statement in the text (or at least some reasonable point of application of the statement).
In later years, I fell from the clouds of English departments and the like into the angular (yet sometimes yielding) world of law. In law school, I took great comfort in Professor Webb's statement and in the habits of thought that he beat into me. I use that statement (tacitly) in practice every day. I try always to ask myself, "Where do you find that in the text?"
I would recommend that habit of mind to persons (or Dirdir, Chasch, Star Kings, or whatever) posting messages on this board. Obviously, Vance's political, ethical, moral, and aesthetic "theories" (beliefs, notions, whims--whatever) are of great interest to all of us. We have a great blue world of Vance works to swim in; and that blue world is indeed inhabited by Krakens. (Those familiar with the Melville-Hawthorne correspondence will spot the allusion in that sentence.) I suggest that we all ground our statements concerning Vance's works in the works themselves, with thorough analysis of the works. For example, the suggestion that Vance is conservative because he attacks the Peefers in "Araminta Station" has to be tempered by the fact that he supports the Chartists, who are conservationists as well as (in some sense) "conservatives." A consideration of that other textual "fact" necessarily complicates our reading of Vance.
I might also add that we have more to talk about than just Vance's politics. My posting that inspired Nick Edwards' rather angry salvo contained a great many other comments regarding Vance's style, characterization, and plotting. I was fairly harsh on Vance in some of my comments. Surprisingly, no one responded to my comments on those aesthetic matters. But I suppose that aesthetics does less than politics to raise heart rates and blood pressure.
Enough commentary. Let's get some good threads going about Vancean issues connected more directly to his texts--e.g., the threads on Maastricht, Sandusk, etc.