The Inspector-General of Misconception

by Frank Moorhouse

She says that although his discoveries are often breathtakingly ingenious, it is ultimately a limited story that he has to tell.

  To quote de Man himself, ‘The intention of art is to give knowledge neither of empirical reality nor of transcendental Being, but of its own particular being.’

  No great truths in little old novels, for Paul de Man.

  As frightening to the imaginative writer as these statements may sound, the Inquiry feels that they show a limited intellectual understanding (by the critics who speak like this) of the complexities of the readers’ involvement with the works of the imagination.

  These Old Lefties are anti-deconstructionist because of deconstruction’s preoccupation with art (rather than politics and economics).

  They see it as a ‘throwback … to the dandyist aestheticism of the 1890s, a displaced religion of art.’

  Deconstruction does try to spin a theoretical narrative in competition with the imaginative work and in doing so, as many have noted, at its best, spins its own beguiling imaginative work.

  At its most common, it spins jargon which has as its purpose the testifying to the academic writer’s claims to be a member of the cult.

  The Inquiry identifies the following Five Great Bogeys of Deconstruction:

  a) that it says there is no fixed meaning of a book and that everyone reads it differently thus diminishing the traditional mastery of the author (and, presumably, the theorist as well).

  Ruling: There is empirical evidence in reviews and discussion that a consistent set of meanings can be conveyed by a book and that, at the same time, every reading is a private and unique reading. This is not contradictory. We all bring the same and different things to a book – our shared socialisation and our highly personal experiences.

  b) that deconstruction, by analysis of ‘those things the imaginative work cannot know itself or teach itself’ destroys beauty and frustrates the appreciation of artistry.

  Witness McKenzie Wark answers: ‘What is beauty? A philosophically trained mind responds to such a question by reasoning about it.’

  McKenzie points out that the aware person both enjoys the sensation of exposure to what they perceive as beauty as well as being able at times to inquire into the nature of beauty and to ponder the disagreements about the nature of beauty.

  That is, the aware person has Proust on his shelves and Roland Barthes.

  Ruling: We rule that the book can be read both for the pleasure of the pure entrancing power of storytelling and its use of language and it can also be read as a social artefact revealing much about the author and the society which produced it and its times, and read as an example of the philosophical dilemmas of ‘art’ (which is not to deny that some critics do not know how to enjoy the game of art; that some critics ‘hate’ art and can only enjoy theorising about art, including perhaps de Man himself, as, in turn, some who enjoy art cannot enjoy theorising).

  Marxist critics such as Jameson and deconstructionists who hold to this position are unable to chew gum and play the yo-yo at the same time. And they mistake the cheque book for the money.

  It reminds the Inquiry of the fear that once existed that Freud, by enabling us to study sexuality in a new way, would take away the pleasure of sex. We have evidence that it didn’t. And he was another theorist who is used in attempts to ‘unmask’ art.

  c) that deconstruction reduces all written work to the same level – Shakespeare to the level of a bus ticket.

  We call Rosemary Sorenson, former editor of Australian Book Review. ‘The point of the early structuralist theorising was not that there is no difference, but that it would be helpful for people who are trained and committed to language study to develop theories that could be applied to all kinds of writing, whether it’s a bus ticket or a legal document, a novel or a cave painting … we know there’s a difference … the theories of the deconstructionists … are attempts to further our knowledge, not to destroy our pleasure.’

  d) that the literary theorist will emerge as more important than the imaginative creator of a literary work.

  We rule on proposition (d) without further discussion:

  Our Ruling: Fat chance. The power of the imagination is forever illustrated by the variety of critical theories thrown up in efforts to come to intellectual terms with the imaginative works (and the Inquiry wishes to state that theorising itself sometimes creates fascinating intellectual narratives and speculations).

  It should also be pointed out that those who studied with the great theorists did not themselves all become disciples. Wendy Steiner studied at Yale under de Man and did not herself become a deconstructionist nor did others who studied under de Man and who went on to teach literature.

  Deconstructionist theory is not a universally compelling nor convincing theory before which all students fall down and worship.

  Good academic teachers are able to present a cultural overview rather than being simply disciples of someone else’s theories.

  Good teachers have the special talent of teaching all sides of a critical theory. They can do the full circle.

  They see and teach the history of intellectual fashions and movements knowing that their own favoured theoretical explanation of reality is just as likely to sink into the chasm of the history of ideas.

  The Inquiry has found that the Fear of the Professors is common among writers and it goes back some distance in time.

  The Inquiry has before it an earlier example of the Fear of the Professors.

  At the outbreak of World War One, there was a theory ‘that the transformation of the German people from a beneficent moral force to an evil one is all the work of false philosophy advocated by a few professors and writers … the war has but one basic and fundamental cause: the false theories of the professors, the false ideals of the ideologues. Nietzsche, Treitschke and their school …’

  Of fearing the critic’s power, more later.

  e) that at its extreme, deconstructionism argues that there is no universality in art.

  The Inquiry feels that this is so obviously true that it hardly needs proving (a person from the stone age is hardly going to enjoy Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’) and nor is most of the population of either contemporary London or Eliot’s London.

  The Inquiry would have thought that it is of even greater interest that some imaginative works continue to have power both with the intelligentsia and wider readerships across centuries and across cultures if not universally.

  We now turn to the fear of being destroyed by the Professors experienced by imaginative writers.

  The felt fragility of a work of the imagination and the likelihood of it being misunderstood or failing is a torment of great agony. That much imaginative work is created in isolation over a long period also places the creator at the prey of demons.

  Most writers wish to be treated in the way described by Jonathan Swift in his ‘defence’ of Gulliver’s Travels and his argument that the work is ‘critic proof’.

  And so, in conclusion, we now call the former lackadaisical Dean of St Patrick’s, Dublin, and iconoclast, Jonathan Swift.

  Swift said of his work Gulliver’s Travels:

  … what objections can be made against a writer who relates only plain facts that happened in such distant countries? I write without passion, prejudice, or ill-will against any man or number of men whatsoever, I write for the noblest end, to inform and instruct mankind, over who I can, without breach of modesty, pretend to some superiority from the advantages I received by conversing so long among the most accomplished Houyhnhnms [the wise horses in the Land of the Houyhnhnms, pronounced whinnyims]. I write without any view towards profit or praise … So that I hope I may with justice pronounce myself an author perfectly blameless, against whom the tribe of answerers, considerers, observers, reflectors, detectors, remarkers, [the deconstructionists of Swift’s day] will never be able to find matter for exercising their talents.

  Well put. Thank you Dean. The dream of every writer.

 
Quite unusually, the public gallery and the staff of the Inspectorate broke into applause of appreciation of the delicious irony of this now quite elderly writer who has survived many waves of critical theory since 1726 to arrive again before us, this time in a television adaptation of Gulliver’s Travels.

  However, we rush to state that the Inspectorate is not resting in the false security of Ho Hum, as in ‘ho hum, it has all happened before’.

  The Inspectorate acknowledges that at some times there are real and serious threats to the freedom of the imagination and readers may rest assured that we will continue to pursue such enemies relentlessly.

  The Inquiry believes that it is important that arts education does two things: To preserve, appreciate, explicate and provide for the orderly communication of our arts heritage; and to teach students to think critically so as to be able to test any claim or assumption of any authority using any method that human intelligence and reason can devise.

  Art, along with theories, has to be able to withstand any testing or contest.

  But in this controversy we fear that the demons are within.

  Final Ruling: Calm down, everyone.

  SHOWING AND TELLING THE OLYMPICS: THE ORAL ART OF THE SPORTS COMMENTATOR

  Hello mother, hello father

  Who’s idea was it to go up to our successful competitors (and not so successful competitors) immediately after an Olympic event and ask the puffing and panting sportsperson whether they had ‘anything to say to the people back home’?

  We do not wish to hear polite and commonplace private messages broadcast on the public airwaves. We have no interest in ‘Hello Mum and Dad, hello to my school friends at PLC, hello to all the people in the street, hello to my dog, Andy.’

  Firing squad.

  How would sports programmers handle a reply from one of our woman athletes if it went something along the lines of, ‘I would like to say a big juicy hello to Likka, that lovely little dyke gymnast from Belarus I met last night at the village spa. Likka, same time; same place.’

  It would at least be a little more grippingly life-like.

  Or, ‘Yes, I would like to say only one thing – “get stuffed dad”.’

  Take aim.

  Then there is the ‘What was going through your mind during the last 25 metres?’ Swimmers, especially, have to invent things to say. At least, silver medallist Scott Miller once replied that he couldn’t remember anything – which is what we suspect of most sports.

  Gold-medal shooter, Michael Diamond, in his reply to this question, ‘Always the same thing. I think, “Holy shit, there it goes and it looks like an aspirin. I’d better get it”.’ This was not reported by television.

  Which is why the question is really not worth asking.

  Fire.

  Happy, happy happy-talk for the sake of national pride

  Being let down lightly in defeat.

  One of the favourite euphemisms is, ‘Not the result we were looking for in this heat.’ That is, we have come second last in the race.

  ‘Australians were prominent in the day’ – that means no medals at all.

  We don’t have losers: we have ‘frustrations’ (a euphemism adopted also by the ABC in their Olympic Games news).

  One commentator told us, ‘She finished in seventh place but was not far behind!’

  Happy lies

  It is downright perplexing to be told that we are seeing something that we are not seeing – ‘the swimmers are thrashing ahead in a straight line’. They weren’t. ‘Australia is putting in a fine performance.’ They weren’t. They were coming second last.

  ‘Sell-out audiences here today at the weightlifting’ when the camera shows empty sections of the stadium.

  Stereotyping

  Although we have found remarkably little national stereotyping, we have heard of the ‘methodical Germans’ (hockey), ‘good tumblers, these men from the Ukraine’, and the information that ‘Chinese have very nice body lines’.

  We-have-to-earn-our-money commentator babble

  We have the commentators tell us what we ourselves can see is happening on the screen – ‘that one is straight in the basket’ (basketball). Maybe this is comforting for some, like rain on an iron roof.

  Silence is usually more dramatic.

  Perhaps some TV viewers like to think they are with someone at the game, and the commentator is like a talkative friend.

  All the stock-in-trade sports commentator words are dead meat but are used day-in, day-out:

  outstanding performance,

  amazing race

  quality line-up

  looked great

  should be a terrific race

  and so on and so on.

  And it doesn’t help to be told that judo is ‘a combination of chess and advanced physics’.

  Sports commentators should be required by law to refurbish their vocabulary annually which, of course, requires changing their intellectual furniture. That may mean reading books. They should be chosen for their mental alacrity and richness of language as much as for their knowledge of the sport. Especially for the Olympic Games.

  We didn’t think we would hear the expression ‘poetry in motion’ again since it was banned on the weekly Riverina Express in Wagga Wagga in 1959 after over-use by the sports editor, Jim ‘Pappy’ Sullivan.

  However, Our Office wishes to record a use in the commentary on the artistic gymnastics men’s team options.

  And the great over-used word of sports commentary – and currently an over-befriended word generally in the English language – is ‘focused’. You are focused, I am focused, we are all focused.

  Who wouldn’t be focused when competing in the Olympic Games? Or any competition? We would’ve thought that, as when facing execution, it must surely ‘focus’ the mind.

  Babble comes in all the familiar forms:

  She will sense she’s in front and will want to stay there.

  I get the feeling that he’s in very good form at present.

  Her family sitting at home must be very nervous.

  Everyone would love to see her do very well.

  She will have to perform well to get into the finals.

  I wonder what is going through his mind now?

  These Games have been dominated by outstanding

  individuals (when have they not?).

  The oral tradition of sport has been known in the past for its originality and colour.

  No longer.

  We have noted forced sentimentality manipulated by the use of the expression, ‘It’s terrific/nice to see’ (meaning heart-warming) as in, ‘It’s nice to see the Chinese men here’ (in the gymnastics).

  We, ourselves, don’t know why it is ‘nice to see the Chinese men here’. Maybe the commentator had personal arrangements with the Chinese men gymnasts.

  Much of the problem comes from the use of professional weekend sports commentators and retired former sportspeople who are accustomed to speaking to the regular weekend sports couch-potatoes familiar with the game and the players and who are sport statistics buffs.

  They should keep in mind that, especially during the Games, even sports-buffs are watching sports about which they know nothing.

  We get knowing remarks such as, ‘They will now have to go through to the repechage’ (rowing) which does not necessarily make any sense to Our Common-and-Garden Variety Olympic Games Spectator who is interested in the Games as Games, and may well only watch sporting events every four years (yes, hard as it may be for the sports commentators to believe).

  The great disaster is always the coverage of the swimming and running. It is useless to Our Games Spectator to call races by competitor names and not by nationality.

  How many viewers know the names and nationalities of the competitors, even from their own country?

  Swimming lanes are not numbered on the floor of the pool (could they be supered in the studio?) and therefore it’s useless for the commentators to direct attention of the viewer to ‘la
ne five’, especially if not all lanes are in shot. By the time we have counted to lane five, the magic moment has passed.

  Mindless sports lore, jargon and superstition abound, as in ‘the domino effect’ – that one win will cause other wins. Why not one loss then causing a domino effect of further losses? Can’t the morale domino fall either way? And if so, how would it then ever be reversed? And what is ‘swimming tough’?

  And we are told again and again that a certain performance or other is ‘what the Olympics are really about’.

  During the women’s hockey, it was about ‘coming back from being behind’ but there have been other more banal assertions: ‘it’s about racing’, ‘it’s about the unexpected’, ‘it’s about winning’.

  Technical sporting terms when explained are fine. But in a new sport such as beach volleyball, why should the commentator talk blithely about ‘spikes’ and ‘reverse gigs’ and ‘hustles’ without explanation?

  What could they say and who should say it?

  It would be good to have a physiologist and a sport psychologist as commentators so that when a swimmer comes out of the water and is interviewed pool-side and says that he had ‘the lactic acid taste’ in his mouth, we get to hear about lactic acid and its place in the body and in sports (lactic acid comes from the sugars and starch which release energy but when breathing is wrong, lactic acid accumulates and the muscles tire and, presumably, the swimmer was referring to this, but there is much more to be said about it by a commentator).

  It would be good to hear about the role of adrenalin other than in the colloquial sense (it stimulates heart action, raises blood pressure, releases glucose, relaxes the air passages, and prepares the body for physical action; but there are many questions to be asked about it and how it is managed and exploited by professionals).

  We hear much about the alleged ‘tactics’ and ‘game plans’ of the teams but we are never shown charts or outlines of these alleged game plans and how they are applied.

  Neil Brooks once asked gold-medal swimmer Susie O’Neill what had been her ‘plan’.