Busting Myths: Preaching to the Choir
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There are a number of myths in American journalism and history. Some of them are based on a central truth about how life works. Some are false myths designed for a few publishers to make a lot of money and avoid criticism.
Part of the fun and power of publishing online without having to answer to corporate publishers is the ability to tell the unvarnished truth and reach around the bureaucratic publishing world - which is still by-and-large controlled in New York - and find an audience.
Myth One: People do not like to be preached to. Most American journalists take this tenet on faith. Editors will often say something like this: "Don't be preachy. People don't like that."
But the fact is, it's a false myth. Where's the evidence? Count the number of churches in your community versus the number of bars. Case closed.
Myth Two: It doesn't matter where you come from. In America, if you work hard and play by the rules you can do anything you want.
This myth makes for a great fairy tale about the American dream. And it may work on very rare occasions. But by-and-large, it is false.
There are a limited number of spots available in the NBA and the NFL. Not everyone who wants to play professional baseball for a living will grow up with the requisite physical skills and get the breaks. And while there are a number of incredibly talented musicians in the world, very few of them will ever become rich and famous by devoting their lives to playing in a rock 'n' roll band.
There are also a number of talented writers in the world. But not all of them will be lucky enough to write a memoir that makes it big on the Oprah Winfrey Show.
Ditto with politicians. As the song goes, "Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
As we know from studying evolution, chance and luck and timing matter. There is very little evidence that praying matters much, except perhaps to focus the power of the mind on a goal.
All those suicide bombers who think they are destined for a heaven filled with vestal virgins, well, let's just say they will find another phrase from scripture to be true: "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."
None of this is to say it is impossible to succeed at anything. Far from it.
Just take the example of Tom Wolfe. He's a great Southern writer who made it big, and not just by writing about himself.
If you have a propensity to watch C-SPAN, check him out tonight. He will be speaking to the North Carolina Festival of the Book today, or at least Book TV will be showing the program today at 1:30 and 7 p.m.
The blurb?
Author Tom Wolfe presents a lecture entitled "What's Southern Today?" Mr. Wolfe argues that southern Americans have a much more common sense approach to life than other Americans. He recounts his experience growing up in Richmond, Virgina and describes what he has observed traveling through the southern states. Mr. Wolfe also talks about the influence the region has on his writing.
Personally, I think the South had more to do with how he talked and dressed than how he wrote, but that's just my opinion. Would he have been as successful if he had worn blue suits instead of white? You decide.
Several things Wolfe said last night became the inspiration for this column, in part because some of the points he made are the perfect counter to some of my critics.
In trying to make the case that place matters, some people don't seem to get these central facts: Where you come from matters. And where you write from matters - in the material you produce.
Myth Three: In every literary journalism program in the country, Wolfe says, professors will tell you to "write what you know." This myth comes from an old story about William Faulkner, who failed at being a newspaper reporter in New Orleans at the Times-Picayune. An editor there reportedly told him to go back to Mississippi to write about something he knew about.
It worked for Faulkner, but who in their right mind would spend a lot of time reading Faulkner today? His writing is the modern equivalent of trying to read Beowulf.
You would be better off reading Wolfe. He made an early name as a writer by injecting himself into his stories and, as a result, he became known as one of the early practitioners of "New Journalism."
Today he advises young writers to look outside themselves and where they come from for great stories. In fact, if it is possible to attribute any great theory to Wolfe's philosophy of life and success, this might be it.
He likes to quote the German philosopher Hegel on the "spirit of the age" or the "zeitgeist," an idea that each era has a moral tone that influences the life of every person living in that period - whether the person wants to be influenced or not.
It is not clear that Wolfe's interpretation of this idea is totally correct, but he's onto something.
Here's my interpretation of how this works, going beyond what Wolfe says about it. And you can quote me on this.
A person's psychology is determined by the intersection of three things: Where they come from, where they go and what they experience, and events that take place in their time.
I believe it is an absolute fact of life today that it is damn near impossible for any creative person to succeed by staying where they come from, especially if they come from the South.
Even musicians in New Orleans know they have to go to LA or New York to break out and become a real success, unless their ambition is to play all their lives in bar bands.
Today musicians might try to "make it" on "American Idol." But guess what? There's only one winner. The rest get booted off the show.
Tom Wolfe did not stay in Virginia. He moved to New York.
Willie Morris of Yazoo City, Mississippi, once wrote: "My town is the place which shaped me into the creature I am now."
But he also said this:
I have always found a close, beguiling parallel between Southern writers and Northern Jewish writers. I spent a lot of years in New York, and living up there, I knew a lot of really fine Jewish writers.
I always detected a parallel there. In the case of both Southern writers and Jewish writers there is a profound sense of history and of the past and of time passing, a mutual sense of loss and a belief in words....The Jews have this same sense of place.... I have always felt that.
Some of the best journalism I've done in my life came out of New Orleans. Some of the worst has come since I've been back in Alabama. It's not just the place. It's events happening in our time. Wolfe and Hegal were right about this.
While I would rather be writing about science and nature, politics has taken over - because of George W. Bush and the policy failures of his administration. There's no escaping it.
Until he is gone from the nation's landscape, trying to educate people about the evils of the Bush administration is inevitably my fate. Due to other events beyond my control, I am forced to preach to the choir from where I was raised, right here in Alabama.
If there is a future out there beyond these wars we now fight, I will one day escape again and find another voice - in another place.
Links of note
Hegel's theory of the Zeitgeist
Editor's Note: If everything goes as planned, we will be reporting from New Orleans, again, next weekend.