newyorker--2020-09-28--Can Podcasts Improve Our Well-Being?

Can Podcasts Improve Our Well-Being?

Doris Lessing hated recorded music .
She feared it .
She thought that music might addle people ’ s brains so much that it would drive them to kill , to torture , to maim .
“ Is it possible—and I know this mad hypothesis is asking for ridicule—that we are poisoning ourselves with music ?
” she wrote , in 1994 .
Lessing recognized that making such a powerful , intoxicating substance—one that shamans use to create magical moods , that generals use to inspire soldiers to go to war , that priests use to rouse their congregations to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be , at the least , a very big deal in the course of human history .
What would Lessing have made of the podcast revolution ?
We walk around with plugs the size of shelled peanuts in our ears , listening to the people we invite to live inside our heads .
The power of the medium is immense .
It used to be that in order to preach you needed a pulpit or a TV or radio show , or at least a soapbox .
Now all you need is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ support of one of the well-funded companies that have sprung up to develop the genre , like Pineapple Street Media or Pushkin Industries , which was founded , in 2018 , by Jacob Weisberg and Malcolm Gladwell .
Only a few years ago , Alex Blumberg , a radio producer who was a regular presence on “ This American Life , ” made a podcast , “ StartUp , ” whose first season followed him as he tried to found his own podcasting company .
In an early pitch to an investor , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the room .
The show featured Blumberg ’ s agonized conversations with his wife about his decision to potentially flush their family ’ s financial future down the drain .
He is currently sitting pretty as the C.E.O .
of Gimlet Media , which he sold to Spotify , last year , for two hundred and thirty million dollars .
There is a prospecting feel to the podcast industry , a rush to mine the gold of our thinly stretched attention before it runs out for good .
Podcasts these days are rife @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Anyone can be a podcaster : novelists , journalists , comedians , professors , actors , scientists , plus a nice smattering of conspiracy theorists and self-appointed demagogues .
It ’ s like starting a garage band , but without the element of cool .
I have listened to podcasts for a number of years , but I usually come back to the same half-dozen .
The hosts are my friends now , though they don ’ t know it , and every so often I get sick of indulging their banter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the hope of inviting some new people into my mind , I went looking for podcasts on a very podcast-y subject : happiness .
Self-improvement is big in the podcast world , which makes sense for a medium that is supremely conducive to telling other people what to think and do .
There are well-being podcasts galore , but the ones that seemed most worthy of consideration for limited listening time are hosted by psychologists and neuroscientists who have professional purchase on the subject .
Laurie Santos , the host of “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ produced by Pushkin , is an upbeat Yale psychologist whose course Psychology and the Good Life is the most popular class in the college ’ s three-hundred-year history .
( When it was first offered , in 2018 , nearly a quarter of the school ’ s undergraduates enrolled . )
One reason for such popularity is obvious : like the rest of us , but more so , undergrads are under-rested and overworked , and need help making their lives more of a joy and less of a misery .
Another reason @ @ @ @ @ @ @ podcast : the class is a gut .
Santos started her podcast last year ; before that , she taught similar material on Coursera .
( Some of her students ’ parents may find their happiness levels dipping when they realize that a version of the instruction they are paying for is widely available for free . )
In each segment , she employs the magazine writer ’ s time-honored strategy of opening with a sharp , specific story that introduces the general theme .
In the show ’ s second season , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neuroscientist Abigail Marsh ’ s experience of being rescued by a stranger from a near-death incident on a highway leads to an exploration of altruism and its inverse , psychopathy .
An encounter with an exterminator inspires an examination of what makes a job worthwhile ; a mother ’ s horrified realization that she has been gazing at her phone rather than at her newborn ’ s face raises the question of distraction , and how to avoid it .
Along the way , we are taught various happiness techniques—better to put your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it lying face down on the table , where it can still tempt you with its siren call—and told about studies in the field of hedonics , like one in which subjects were handed money and told to either keep it or give it away .
( The givers turned out to be happier , at the end of the day , than the keepers . )
I have now heard this study referred to on other podcasts about happiness , with its results invariably presented as counterintuitive .
Didn ’ t the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t buy love ?
Recent episodes of “ The Happiness Lab ” feature an ad for Chanel ’ s J12 watch , the price of which can run as high as fifty thousand dollars .
If you ’ d like to experience true happiness , try giving one of those away to me .
“ The Science of Happiness ” is hosted by Dacher Keltner , a psychologist who runs Berkeley ’ s Greater Good Science Center , which co-produces his podcast with PRX .
The show , currently in its sixth season @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; episodes have alluring titles like “ Do You Want to Be More Patient ?
” and “ How to Love People You Don ’ t Like.
” The answer , to these and other conundrums , seems to involve becoming more mindful , which Keltner ’ s guests accomplish through a range of meditation techniques available on the Greater Good Web site .
Keltner ’ s show has a looser format than Santos ’ s mainly scripted one ; he invites subjects to choose a happiness practice , kibbitzes with them about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fifteen minutes , and then does a skim of the science involved .
The conversations go on a little too long , and you get the feeling that these people—who have spent a few minutes of their day observing a tree , in an effort to relax enough not to kill their whiny children—are being polite .
In one episode , the interviewee , the disabled violinist Gaelynn Lea , describes her distress at being put at risk of contracting the coronavirus by people who refused to wear a mask .
She tried @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the happiness of the people you love , and of those you really don ’ t .
One day , as she approached the second category , Mitch McConnell popped into her head , which should be enough to put anyone off loving-kindness meditations .
I prefer a strategy for coping with the stress of “ time famine ” that was suggested on “ The Happiness Lab.
” The guest , Tom Hodgkinson , a writer who somehow makes a living by encouraging people to be more idle , told Santos to remove @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Listen to the birds sing ; take a nap .
I followed his advice , and did not regret it .

Doris Lessing hated recorded music. She feared it. She thought that music might addle people’s brains so much that it would drive them to kill, to torture, to maim. “Is it possible—and I know this mad hypothesis is asking for ridicule—that we are poisoning ourselves with music?” she wrote, in 1994. Lessing recognized that making such a powerful, intoxicating substance—one that shamans use to create magical moods, that generals use to inspire soldiers to go to war, that priests use to rouse their congregations to devotion—instantly available to anyone and everyone had to be, at the least, a very big deal in the course of human history.
What would Lessing have made of the podcast revolution? We walk around with plugs the size of shelled peanuts in our ears, listening to the people we invite to live inside our heads. The power of the medium is immense. It used to be that in order to preach you needed a pulpit or a TV or radio show, or at least a soapbox. Now all you need is an Internet connection—and, preferably, the support of one of the well-funded companies that have sprung up to develop the genre, like Pineapple Street Media or Pushkin Industries, which was founded, in 2018, by Jacob Weisberg and Malcolm Gladwell. Only a few years ago, Alex Blumberg, a radio producer who was a regular presence on “This American Life,” made a podcast, “StartUp,” whose first season followed him as he tried to found his own podcasting company. In an early pitch to an investor, he was all but laughed out of the room. The show featured Blumberg’s agonized conversations with his wife about his decision to potentially flush their family’s financial future down the drain. He is currently sitting pretty as the C.E.O. of Gimlet Media, which he sold to Spotify, last year, for two hundred and thirty million dollars. There is a prospecting feel to the podcast industry, a rush to mine the gold of our thinly stretched attention before it runs out for good. Podcasts these days are rife with brightly voiced ads for other podcasts. Anyone can be a podcaster: novelists, journalists, comedians, professors, actors, scientists, plus a nice smattering of conspiracy theorists and self-appointed demagogues. It’s like starting a garage band, but without the element of cool.
I have listened to podcasts for a number of years, but I usually come back to the same half-dozen. The hosts are my friends now, though they don’t know it, and every so often I get sick of indulging their banter without being asked what I think. In the hope of inviting some new people into my mind, I went looking for podcasts on a very podcast-y subject: happiness. Self-improvement is big in the podcast world, which makes sense for a medium that is supremely conducive to telling other people what to think and do. There are well-being podcasts galore, but the ones that seemed most worthy of consideration for limited listening time are hosted by psychologists and neuroscientists who have professional purchase on the subject.
Laurie Santos, the host of “The Happiness Lab,” which is produced by Pushkin, is an upbeat Yale psychologist whose course Psychology and the Good Life is the most popular class in the college’s three-hundred-year history. (When it was first offered, in 2018, nearly a quarter of the school’s undergraduates enrolled.) One reason for such popularity is obvious: like the rest of us, but more so, undergrads are under-rested and overworked, and need help making their lives more of a joy and less of a misery. Another reason becomes clear when you listen to the podcast: the class is a gut.
Santos started her podcast last year; before that, she taught similar material on Coursera. (Some of her students’ parents may find their happiness levels dipping when they realize that a version of the instruction they are paying for is widely available for free.) In each segment, she employs the magazine writer’s time-honored strategy of opening with a sharp, specific story that introduces the general theme. In the show’s second season, which began in April, the Georgetown neuroscientist Abigail Marsh’s experience of being rescued by a stranger from a near-death incident on a highway leads to an exploration of altruism and its inverse, psychopathy. An encounter with an exterminator inspires an examination of what makes a job worthwhile; a mother’s horrified realization that she has been gazing at her phone rather than at her newborn’s face raises the question of distraction, and how to avoid it.
Along the way, we are taught various happiness techniques—better to put your phone away during dinner than to leave it lying face down on the table, where it can still tempt you with its siren call—and told about studies in the field of hedonics, like one in which subjects were handed money and told to either keep it or give it away. (The givers turned out to be happier, at the end of the day, than the keepers.) I have now heard this study referred to on other podcasts about happiness, with its results invariably presented as counterintuitive. Didn’t the Beatles figure out that you can’t buy love? Recent episodes of “The Happiness Lab” feature an ad for Chanel’s J12 watch, the price of which can run as high as fifty thousand dollars. If you’d like to experience true happiness, try giving one of those away to me.
“The Science of Happiness” is hosted by Dacher Keltner, a psychologist who runs Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, which co-produces his podcast with PRX. The show, currently in its sixth season, is straightforward about its self-help proposition; episodes have alluring titles like “Do You Want to Be More Patient?” and “How to Love People You Don’t Like.” The answer, to these and other conundrums, seems to involve becoming more mindful, which Keltner’s guests accomplish through a range of meditation techniques available on the Greater Good Web site. Keltner’s show has a looser format than Santos’s mainly scripted one; he invites subjects to choose a happiness practice, kibbitzes with them about their experience of it for ten or fifteen minutes, and then does a skim of the science involved.
The conversations go on a little too long, and you get the feeling that these people—who have spent a few minutes of their day observing a tree, in an effort to relax enough not to kill their whiny children—are being polite. In one episode, the interviewee, the disabled violinist Gaelynn Lea, describes her distress at being put at risk of contracting the coronavirus by people who refused to wear a mask. She tried a loving-kindness meditation that involved wishing for the happiness of the people you love, and of those you really don’t. One day, as she approached the second category, Mitch McConnell popped into her head, which should be enough to put anyone off loving-kindness meditations. I prefer a strategy for coping with the stress of “time famine” that was suggested on “The Happiness Lab.” The guest, Tom Hodgkinson, a writer who somehow makes a living by encouraging people to be more idle, told Santos to remove her earbuds once in a while. Listen to the birds sing; take a nap. I followed his advice, and did not regret it.
Listeners seem to enjoy these podcasts. Their iTunes ratings are high. They have similar strong points; both hosts are accomplished and likable, and you tend to learn a little something, even if you already knew it. (You probably understood that too much of a good thing reduces your pleasure in it; now you can call that the “hedonic treadmill.”) And they have similar flaws. The main one, I’m sorry to say, is that they are boring. An oddity of the scientific approach to happiness is that it can seem, to the laypeople among us, to be reinventing a wheel that has been turned, for thousands of years, by the world’s great religions, philosophers, novelists, and poets. Santos recognizes this; the show is currently in a “mini-season” that deals with thinkers such as Aristotle, Plato, Epictetus, and the Buddha. (There is some kind of hello-fellow-kids pact among podcasters to use only the cheesiest contemporary jargon. Wisdom from the ancients translates, in Santos’s words, to “old-school tips”; the journalist Dan Harris, who hosts the podcast “Ten Percent Happier,” refers to Buddhism’s Four Noble Truths as a “listicle.”) In fact, Buddhism, with its acknowledgment of the reality of suffering, seems to be what is often missing from these podcasts’ evaluative, quantitative view of happiness. They could use a little sand in their oyster—an appreciation of life’s rougher qualities which brings its beauty into relief.
This is the point of the highly enjoyable first episode of the novelist Hari Kunzru’s new podcast, “Into the Zone,” which proposes, in the sweeping, vague language of podcast promotion, to be about “opposites.” The opposites, in this case, are the Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor Adorno, and Norman Vincent Peale, the “Power of Positive Thinking” guru. The theme that ties the two together is California, the positive-psychology capital of the world, where Adorno lived as an émigré during the Second World War. That this story has been told before doesn’t make it any less of a pleasure to hear Kunzru, together with a fellow-Brit, the writer Geoff Dyer, knock around Venice Beach, trying to understand how the sober, dialectically minded author of “Minima Moralia” (subtitle: “Reflections from Damaged Life”) could have taken such pleasure in being chauffeured around the West Coast by his wife, Gretel, in a Ford they called their “Little Aladdin.” Adorno, it turns out, was, like Lessing, suspicious of popular music. He considered it a tool of power—as Kunzru says, “something that lulled the listener, urging them to consume instead of provoking a genuine emotional or intellectual response.” We should be careful what we listen to, Adorno thought. He was right. ♦


newyorker--2020-09-28--Joseph O’Neill on Mentors and Perspective

In “ Rainbows , ” your story in this week ’ s issue , Clodagh comes to the U.S. from Ireland and makes a life here .
She pursues a master ’ s degree and meets Paola , who becomes a kind of mentor , for a time .
Fast-forward a few decades and Clodagh is a settled woman with a husband and a teen-age daughter , Aoife , who runs into trouble at school when she believes a boy is harassing her .
The story is told in first person—do you feel any hesitance about writing from a female @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you find it changing or challenging your prose ?
There ’ s a formal argument that writers produce their most idiosyncratic and truthful work when they favor experiences and materials that are uniquely theirs .
I theoretically agree with this argument ( which is to be distinguished from the ideological notion , which I think is very problematic , that it ’ s wrong for writers to adopt a standpoint that ’ s not recognizably their own ) .
But a story offers itself to one ’ s imagination without regard to theory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ migration across supposed borders of gender or class or culture or what have you , then you have little choice but to set off .
Writing from Clodagh ’ s perspective didn ’ t involve a challenge to my prose , in part because I don ’ t accept the essentialist position that men and women have separate prose bathrooms .
I hesitate to write from any perspective , I should add .
Aoife accuses a boy named James of pestering her with unwanted attention .
Only after Clodagh involves the school administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wang , the son of the operators of their laundromat , with whom Clodagh has friendly relations .
How do the issues of class and race complicate this accusation of harassment ?
Or do they cede importance merely to Clodagh ’ s familiarity with the family ?
Accusations of harassment are , I would think , subject to the general rule that the power of the law replicates the distribution of power in society .
In this instance , Aoife ’ s power as a white , well-to-do young woman is greater than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a working-class immigrant family , has access to .
Clodagh understands this—and is still connected to traditional , family-based methods of resolving conflicts such as the one between Aoife and James .
Indeed , it seems that her connection to Ireland is in some way revived by this incident .
Soon afterward , Clodagh runs into Paola on a train .
Decades earlier , she had confided in her the details of what we ’ re led to believe was an incident of sexual trauma , and now she tells her about Aoife @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Clodagh accords Paola ’ s wisdom the same respect that she once did ?
What ’ s changed ?
Clodagh ’ s fantasy is that Paola will be there for her , as before—still magnetic , still sagacious , still interested .
The passage of years undoes this fantasy , of course .
The encounter on the train is not governed by the old rules : Paola is no longer Clodagh ’ s professor and no longer bound by a pastoral duty to listen sympathetically and carefully .
This cuts both ways @ @ @ @ @ @ @ light—even as Paola remains as opaque to her as ever .
Have you had mentors in your life and career ?
Do you think there ’ s a possibility you could gain a new one ?
When I was a young barrister in London , I was fortunate to receive a lot of instruction and encouragement , notably from my first pupil-master , Patrick Elias .
No writer has taken me under their wing , nor have I wanted that , perhaps because I never studied writing in an institution and in any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out manuscripts or letters of self-introduction .
My high-school English teacher , Philip Warnett , voluntarily cheers me on .
That—and the love of my parents—is more than plenty .

Photograph by Graham Haber
In “Rainbows,” your story in this week’s issue, Clodagh comes to the U.S. from Ireland and makes a life here. She pursues a master’s degree and meets Paola, who becomes a kind of mentor, for a time. Fast-forward a few decades and Clodagh is a settled woman with a husband and a teen-age daughter, Aoife, who runs into trouble at school when she believes a boy is harassing her. The story is told in first person—do you feel any hesitance about writing from a female perspective? Are there ways in which you find it changing or challenging your prose?
There’s a formal argument that writers produce their most idiosyncratic and truthful work when they favor experiences and materials that are uniquely theirs. I theoretically agree with this argument (which is to be distinguished from the ideological notion, which I think is very problematic, that it’s wrong for writers to adopt a standpoint that’s not recognizably their own). But a story offers itself to one’s imagination without regard to theory, and if the offering involves a migration across supposed borders of gender or class or culture or what have you, then you have little choice but to set off. Writing from Clodagh’s perspective didn’t involve a challenge to my prose, in part because I don’t accept the essentialist position that men and women have separate prose bathrooms. I hesitate to write from any perspective, I should add.
Aoife accuses a boy named James of pestering her with unwanted attention. Only after Clodagh involves the school administration does she learn that James is James Wang, the son of the operators of their laundromat, with whom Clodagh has friendly relations. How do the issues of class and race complicate this accusation of harassment? Or do they cede importance merely to Clodagh’s familiarity with the family?
Accusations of harassment are, I would think, subject to the general rule that the power of the law replicates the distribution of power in society. In this instance, Aoife’s power as a white, well-to-do young woman is greater than whatever power James, a boy from a working-class immigrant family, has access to. Clodagh understands this—and is still connected to traditional, family-based methods of resolving conflicts such as the one between Aoife and James. Indeed, it seems that her connection to Ireland is in some way revived by this incident.
Soon afterward, Clodagh runs into Paola on a train. Decades earlier, she had confided in her the details of what we’re led to believe was an incident of sexual trauma, and now she tells her about Aoife’s situation. Would you say that Clodagh accords Paola’s wisdom the same respect that she once did? What’s changed?
Clodagh’s fantasy is that Paola will be there for her, as before—still magnetic, still sagacious, still interested. The passage of years undoes this fantasy, of course. The encounter on the train is not governed by the old rules: Paola is no longer Clodagh’s professor and no longer bound by a pastoral duty to listen sympathetically and carefully. This cuts both ways: Clodagh sees Paola in a new light—even as Paola remains as opaque to her as ever.
Have you had mentors in your life and career? Do you think there’s a possibility you could gain a new one?
When I was a young barrister in London, I was fortunate to receive a lot of instruction and encouragement, notably from my first pupil-master, Patrick Elias. No writer has taken me under their wing, nor have I wanted that, perhaps because I never studied writing in an institution and in any case wouldn’t dare to send out manuscripts or letters of self-introduction. My high-school English teacher, Philip Warnett, voluntarily cheers me on. That—and the love of my parents—is more than plenty.


newyorker--2020-09-28--Biden’s Moral Imperative to Safeguard Civil Rights

The Trump era has been a golden age for forces hostile to the civil rights of African-Americans , women , Latinos , Muslims , and members of the L.G.B.T.Q .
community .
The racial conflagrations of the past year seem like the logical product of Donald Trump ’ s brand of belligerent leadership .
At the same time , these events have galvanized Black voters , whose support is the very reason that Joe Biden was able to win the Democratic Presidential nomination .
During the primaries , Biden also benefitted from his proximity to President Barack Obama , yet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been equally shaped by what has followed Obama ’ s tenure .
The current climate of brazen racism , which , on more than one occasion , has turned violent , is , in part , a direct reaction to the simple fact that a Black man held the Oval Office for two terms , and Biden has consistently criticized Trump for his role in inciting the hostility .
As President , Biden would not give comfort to white nationalists , encourage intolerance , or further inflame racial animosities .
But , to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , his Administration would need to immediately confront white-nationalist terrorism and work to disrupt the networks that enable it .
Both the Trump White House and the Republican Party have largely ignored the problem .
After Trump ’ s election , the House of Representatives ’ Committee on Homeland Security did not hold a hearing on domestic terrorism until May , 2019 , shortly after the Democrats regained control of that chamber .
Earlier this month , Politico reported on a draft Department of Homeland Security report that predicted that white supremacists will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ threat ” in the United States for at least the next year .
That threat warrants a coördinated strategy from the D.H.S.
, the Treasury Department , and the Department of Justice , including the F.B.I .
Biden would need to appoint a Secretary of Homeland Security who would make this kind of interagency coöperation a priority .
A broad landscape of other policies and laws affecting civil rights and equality must be addressed .
Biden has promised to sign a new Voting Rights Act , and , if the Democrats gain control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for its quick passage .
He should also urge the Senate to pass the For the People Act , which has cleared the House and would , among other things , guarantee voting rights for former felons , establish safeguards against partisan gerrymandering , and restrict voter-roll purges , all of which would remedy inequities that disadvantage minority voters disproportionately .
These actions would be politic as well as morally correct , insuring that the Democratic Party ’ s most reliable base will be able to vote unimpeded in the 2022 midterms .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ criticized for his authorship of the 1994 crime bill , which contained provisions , such as the onerous three-strikes rule for violent-felony convictions , that have most deeply affected people of color .
But that liability could become an opportunity .
Biden should call for Congress to repeal the crime bill , a suggestion that Senator Elizabeth Warren made part of her campaign .
The more useful provisions , such as the Violence Against Women Act , parts of which expired last year , and the federal consent-decree program , which empowered the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ police departments—and which Jeff Sessions effectively ended just before he stepped down as Attorney General—should be reauthorized and updated to reflect what we ’ ve learned about these issues since 1994 .
And that needs to happen soon : the coronavirus pandemic is reportedly contributing to an increase in domestic violence ; and the absence of Justice Department oversight of the police , along with Trump ’ s explicit endorsement of excessive police force , factored into the circumstances that led , in May , to the death of George Floyd .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in addition , had an unequal impact on communities of color .
Between January and April of this year , the unemployment rate for white Americans rose from three per cent to fourteen per cent ; for African-Americans and Latinos , whose previous unemployment rates were six per cent and five per cent , respectively , the numbers surged to sixteen and almost nineteen per cent .
Biden has proposed investing thirty billion dollars in a small-business program , which would alleviate job losses .
But such a measure should acknowledge the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by recognizing those who live and work in the hardest-hit Zip Codes .
Considering that the Payroll Protection Program turned into a corporate giveaway , a Biden Administration would have a degree of cover in arguing for such a new approach .
The coronavirus crisis has also revealed the high-risk , low-reward nature of much essential work in this country .
This spring , cities were sustained by frontline health-care workers , who have been widely , and justly , hailed as heroes .
But those cities also relied on the efforts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ warehouse employees , and many others .
In August , the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union reported that there had been more than thirty-six thousand cases of COVID-19 and two hundred and fifty deaths among food workers .
According to a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research , frontline industries are disproportionately represented by women and African-Americans .
The federal minimum wage should be raised to benefit those workers , who continue to risk their lives to do jobs whose value we are only belatedly acknowledging .
For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of millions of other Americans , Biden must also fight to defend the signature legislation of his term as Vice-President , the Affordable Care Act .
The past six months have made it painfully clear that there is no such thing as a discrete crisis .
A health-care emergency can quickly become a recession , which can engender crises of unemployment and domestic violence .
The cumulative effects of the Trump Administration ’ s revanchist public policies have not only exacerbated these problems but also assured that they would fall most heavily on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
Electing Biden would not be a panacea , but doing so is the only practical and moral option to start solving our gravest issues .
♦

The Trump era has been a golden age for forces hostile to the civil rights of African-Americans, women, Latinos, Muslims, and members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community. The racial conflagrations of the past year seem like the logical product of Donald Trump’s brand of belligerent leadership. At the same time, these events have galvanized Black voters, whose support is the very reason that Joe Biden was able to win the Democratic Presidential nomination. During the primaries, Biden also benefitted from his proximity to President Barack Obama, yet his understanding of race seems to have been equally shaped by what has followed Obama’s tenure. The current climate of brazen racism, which, on more than one occasion, has turned violent, is, in part, a direct reaction to the simple fact that a Black man held the Oval Office for two terms, and Biden has consistently criticized Trump for his role in inciting the hostility.
As President, Biden would not give comfort to white nationalists, encourage intolerance, or further inflame racial animosities. But, to undo the damage that has been done, his Administration would need to immediately confront white-nationalist terrorism and work to disrupt the networks that enable it. Both the Trump White House and the Republican Party have largely ignored the problem. After Trump’s election, the House of Representatives’ Committee on Homeland Security did not hold a hearing on domestic terrorism until May, 2019, shortly after the Democrats regained control of that chamber. Earlier this month, Politico reported on a draft Department of Homeland Security report that predicted that white supremacists will be the “most persistent and lethal threat” in the United States for at least the next year. That threat warrants a coördinated strategy from the D.H.S., the Treasury Department, and the Department of Justice, including the F.B.I. Biden would need to appoint a Secretary of Homeland Security who would make this kind of interagency coöperation a priority.
A broad landscape of other policies and laws affecting civil rights and equality must be addressed. Biden has promised to sign a new Voting Rights Act, and, if the Democrats gain control of the Senate, he should push for its quick passage. He should also urge the Senate to pass the For the People Act, which has cleared the House and would, among other things, guarantee voting rights for former felons, establish safeguards against partisan gerrymandering, and restrict voter-roll purges, all of which would remedy inequities that disadvantage minority voters disproportionately. These actions would be politic as well as morally correct, insuring that the Democratic Party’s most reliable base will be able to vote unimpeded in the 2022 midterms.
Throughout the campaign, Biden has been criticized for his authorship of the 1994 crime bill, which contained provisions, such as the onerous three-strikes rule for violent-felony convictions, that have most deeply affected people of color. But that liability could become an opportunity. Biden should call for Congress to repeal the crime bill, a suggestion that Senator Elizabeth Warren made part of her campaign. The more useful provisions, such as the Violence Against Women Act, parts of which expired last year, and the federal consent-decree program, which empowered the Justice Department to provide oversight for troubled police departments—and which Jeff Sessions effectively ended just before he stepped down as Attorney General—should be reauthorized and updated to reflect what we’ve learned about these issues since 1994. And that needs to happen soon: the coronavirus pandemic is reportedly contributing to an increase in domestic violence; and the absence of Justice Department oversight of the police, along with Trump’s explicit endorsement of excessive police force, factored into the circumstances that led, in May, to the death of George Floyd.
The recession brought on by the pandemic has, in addition, had an unequal impact on communities of color. Between January and April of this year, the unemployment rate for white Americans rose from three per cent to fourteen per cent; for African-Americans and Latinos, whose previous unemployment rates were six per cent and five per cent, respectively, the numbers surged to sixteen and almost nineteen per cent. Biden has proposed investing thirty billion dollars in a small-business program, which would alleviate job losses. But such a measure should acknowledge the disparate impact of the crisis, perhaps by recognizing those who live and work in the hardest-hit Zip Codes. Considering that the Payroll Protection Program turned into a corporate giveaway, a Biden Administration would have a degree of cover in arguing for such a new approach.
The coronavirus crisis has also revealed the high-risk, low-reward nature of much essential work in this country. This spring, cities were sustained by frontline health-care workers, who have been widely, and justly, hailed as heroes. But those cities also relied on the efforts of grocers, cashiers, food-delivery people, warehouse employees, and many others. In August, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union reported that there had been more than thirty-six thousand cases of COVID-19 and two hundred and fifty deaths among food workers. According to a study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, frontline industries are disproportionately represented by women and African-Americans. The federal minimum wage should be raised to benefit those workers, who continue to risk their lives to do jobs whose value we are only belatedly acknowledging. For their sake, and that of tens of millions of other Americans, Biden must also fight to defend the signature legislation of his term as Vice-President, the Affordable Care Act.
The past six months have made it painfully clear that there is no such thing as a discrete crisis. A health-care emergency can quickly become a recession, which can engender crises of unemployment and domestic violence. The cumulative effects of the Trump Administration’s revanchist public policies have not only exacerbated these problems but also assured that they would fall most heavily on those with the fewest resources to shoulder them. Electing Biden would not be a panacea, but doing so is the only practical and moral option to start solving our gravest issues. ♦


newyorker--2020-09-28--“We Are Who We Are” and “The Comey Rule,” Reviewed

The luggage of a stylish New York City boy of fourteen has been sent to the wrong destination .
The airline may as well have run off with one of his limbs .
In the pilot of Luca Guadagnino ’ s HBO drama , “ We Are Who We Are , ” Fraser Wilson , played by Jack Dylan Grazer , is already jumpy , in designer leopard-print fleece shorts , but now his behavior builds to a tantrum in an Italian airport , as he combs his painted nails through a lock of bleached hair .
His mother , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her wife , Maggie ( Alice Braga ) , are vaguely embarrassed but unfazed .
Sarah , knowing her son , nurses him with the nip of alcohol he demands .
“ Thank you , Mommy , ” he says .
Should we be disturbed ?
A viewer might ready herself for a study of the out-of-control American male .
Fraser , withdrawn and pouty , moves with an exaggerated physical unease .
There is something unnerving about him , the way he digs his dirty fingers into a cake given to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Italian home , and leans against a wall at his new high school , mouth half open , surreptitiously photographing another student .
The object of his curiosity , Caitlin Poythress ( Jordan Kristine Seamón ) , shoots him a knowing look—and , in that teasing moment , the true subject of “ We Are Who We Are ” comes into focus .
Guadagnino ’ s affecting adaptation of André Aciman ’ s gay coming-of-age love story , “ Call Me by Your Name , ” made him an unlikely favorite among American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ television revisits similarly languorous terrain .
Like Timothée Chalamet ’ s Elio , Fraser is filmed with an elegiac appreciation for his youthful , gangly limbs and pale skin .
Guadagnino , a location fetishist , has set “ We Are Who We Are ” on a U.S. Army base in Chioggia , where Sarah has been named commander .
It is both America and not .
The year is 2016 ; at times , we glimpse , on television screens in cafeterias and living rooms , news reports of Hillary Clinton and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But the first four episodes of the series display an almost swaggering lack of interest in military politics .
Instead , the sun-drenched grounds of the base—a zone at once foreboding , charmed , and humming with sex—are a metaphor for the predicament of the American teen-agers who live there with their parents .
The show is thinly plotted .
Gulfs of silence open between characters , punctuated by clipped , sweetly evasive dialogue ; too much chatter would spoil the atmosphere of discovery and experimentation .
The opening episodes are a garland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ actors plunge into the sea , strap themselves into harnesses for a verboten turn on the base ’ s zip line , and decorate one another with paintball guns .
A scene in a discoteca recalls a similar melancholic night in “ Call Me by Your Name.
” The attention to young bodies feels almost dangerous ; the matriarchal presence of Chloë Sevigny , who made her début in Larry Clark ’ s unsettling 1995 film , “ Kids , ” is fitting .
In one sequence , Caitlin quietly reads a book @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hear a group of soldiers laughingly discuss what seems to have been a gang rape .
Guadagnino ’ s sumptuous tastes fold naturally into the obsessions of Fraser , who , far from home , doubles down on his identity as an aesthete .
When his lost luggage finally arrives , he screws up his face in frantic joy at the sight of his clothes .
The classical-inspired score , by Dev Hynes , rustling with wind instruments and synth , is so hip that it hurts .
In one scene , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a young soldier at the base library commends Fraser for choosing a collection of poetry by Ocean Vuong .
Fraser finds a kindred spirit in Caitlin , who , after asking whether he had a girlfriend back in New York , immediately calls him out on his lie .
She has her own secret .
Grazer and Seamón are lovely to watch as their characters enter what seems to be a platonic relationship premised on their gentle recognition of each other ’ s nascent queerness .
The terrain of the show expands , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Fraser ’ s first days on the base from the perspective of Caitlin , the daughter of Richard ( Scott Mescudi , a.k.a .
Kid Cudi ) , a brooding military man , and Jenny ( Faith Alabi ) , a Nigerian-American who eases her homesickness by watching Chicago weather reports .
Caitlin frequents a bar in town , where she hides her long hair under a cap and deepens her voice .
Fraser tends to her self-discovery , sending her packages of men ’ s clothes .
When he tells her what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at first confused and then awed .
The other kids , unable to comprehend the intimacy between the two , dismiss them as lovers .
The writing of this relationship is spare but confident ; by contrast , the secondary story lines are sometimes attenuated .
As a commander , Sarah is enigmatic , charismatic , and a little blank ; as a mother , she is needy and desirous .
At one point , Fraser slaps her ; another time , after she accidentally cuts herself while opening a moving box , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on it .
What are we to make of this Freudian intensity ?
Race plays a role in the series , too , albeit a familiar one .
I felt queasy about the characterizations of Richard and his son , Danny ( Spence Moore II ) , as repressed and angry .
The fourth episode , a modern twist on an age-old wartime plot , features an unexpectedly moving bacchanal .
The strapping teen-ager Craig ( Corey Knight ) , Danny ’ s best friend , has recently joined the Army .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he impulsively asks a local Italian girl , Valentina ( Beatrice Barichella ) , to marry him , and she accepts .
Fraser delights in dressing the boys according to the wedding ’ s theme , although he pretends to be annoyed : “ How do you expect me to pull off this level of Hawaiian-ness on such short notice ?
” A minister at the base conducts the nuptials , before the kids break into the villa of a rich Russian in town , wrecking the place and , under purple lights @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s a transportive panorama of sexual exploration , frank but not caustic , voyeuristic but not leering , innocent and provocative .
“ Yo , I don ’ t even know how to dance to this , man , ” Danny murmurs , as Frank Ocean ’ s “ Nikes ” plays .
“ Hey , ” Craig says , encouraging his friend .
“ This is my wedding.
” Danny heeds him ; after all , his friend will be gone in the morning .
Another period piece débuting this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ regurgitation of an American nightmare .
In Showtime ’ s two-part series “ The Comey Rule , ” based on the former F.B.I .
director James Comey ’ s 2018 memoir , “ A Higher Loyalty , ” and written and directed by Billy Ray , loyalty is part of the problem .
The show is an ornate table read of the book .
It follows Comey as he belatedly realizes the ramifications of his investigation into Hillary Clinton ’ s e-mails and attempts to do his job under the new President , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the White House , in the series ’ climactic scene , demands , yes , his loyalty .
The chief irritant of the show is the knee-jerk splicing of the dramatic action with cable-news footage documenting Comey ’ s no-good , very bad time in the Administration .
( As Stephen Colbert says in one clip , “ I just don ’ t know what to think about James Comey .
First , he seems like the good guy , then he seems like the bad guy.
” ) The technique , apparently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fidelity to real life , ends up feeling like a failure of imagination .
Rather than letting loose a little , crafting an original psychological portrait of this inscrutable , high-ranking functionary , Ray gives us a series of labored impressions .
There is Jeff Daniels as Comey , a true-blue bureaucrat who would never think of skipping the line at the office cafeteria , and who says things to his wife like “ Tracy , I wanted to stop the bad guys ” ; Kingsley Ben-Adir ’ s robotic Barack Obama ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Yates , Diet Coke in hand .
The list goes , almost interminably , on .
Brendan Gleeson ’ s totally ridiculous Donald Trump , performed down an octave , is arguably the strongest performance for being less oppressively accurate .
Even when Comey stars in his own drama , he is outdone .
♦

The luggage of a stylish New York City boy of fourteen has been sent to the wrong destination. The airline may as well have run off with one of his limbs. In the pilot of Luca Guadagnino’s HBO drama, “We Are Who We Are,” Fraser Wilson, played by Jack Dylan Grazer, is already jumpy, in designer leopard-print fleece shorts, but now his behavior builds to a tantrum in an Italian airport, as he combs his painted nails through a lock of bleached hair. His mother, Sarah (Chloë Sevigny), and her wife, Maggie (Alice Braga), are vaguely embarrassed but unfazed. Sarah, knowing her son, nurses him with the nip of alcohol he demands. “Thank you, Mommy,” he says.
Should we be disturbed? A viewer might ready herself for a study of the out-of-control American male. Fraser, withdrawn and pouty, moves with an exaggerated physical unease. There is something unnerving about him, the way he digs his dirty fingers into a cake given to his family as a welcome to their new Italian home, and leans against a wall at his new high school, mouth half open, surreptitiously photographing another student. The object of his curiosity, Caitlin Poythress (Jordan Kristine Seamón), shoots him a knowing look—and, in that teasing moment, the true subject of “We Are Who We Are” comes into focus.
Guadagnino’s affecting adaptation of André Aciman’s gay coming-of-age love story, “Call Me by Your Name,” made him an unlikely favorite among American teens, and his first foray into television revisits similarly languorous terrain. Like Timothée Chalamet’s Elio, Fraser is filmed with an elegiac appreciation for his youthful, gangly limbs and pale skin. Guadagnino, a location fetishist, has set “We Are Who We Are” on a U.S. Army base in Chioggia, where Sarah has been named commander. It is both America and not. The year is 2016; at times, we glimpse, on television screens in cafeterias and living rooms, news reports of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump on the campaign trail. But the first four episodes of the series display an almost swaggering lack of interest in military politics. Instead, the sun-drenched grounds of the base—a zone at once foreboding, charmed, and humming with sex—are a metaphor for the predicament of the American teen-agers who live there with their parents.
The show is thinly plotted. Gulfs of silence open between characters, punctuated by clipped, sweetly evasive dialogue; too much chatter would spoil the atmosphere of discovery and experimentation. The opening episodes are a garland of short ballets in which the young actors plunge into the sea, strap themselves into harnesses for a verboten turn on the base’s zip line, and decorate one another with paintball guns. A scene in a discoteca recalls a similar melancholic night in “Call Me by Your Name.” The attention to young bodies feels almost dangerous; the matriarchal presence of Chloë Sevigny, who made her début in Larry Clark’s unsettling 1995 film, “Kids,” is fitting. In one sequence, Caitlin quietly reads a book while, in the background, we hear a group of soldiers laughingly discuss what seems to have been a gang rape.
Guadagnino’s sumptuous tastes fold naturally into the obsessions of Fraser, who, far from home, doubles down on his identity as an aesthete. When his lost luggage finally arrives, he screws up his face in frantic joy at the sight of his clothes. The classical-inspired score, by Dev Hynes, rustling with wind instruments and synth, is so hip that it hurts. In one scene, which roils with tender, unspoken kink, a young soldier at the base library commends Fraser for choosing a collection of poetry by Ocean Vuong.
Fraser finds a kindred spirit in Caitlin, who, after asking whether he had a girlfriend back in New York, immediately calls him out on his lie. She has her own secret. Grazer and Seamón are lovely to watch as their characters enter what seems to be a platonic relationship premised on their gentle recognition of each other’s nascent queerness. The terrain of the show expands, in the second episode, to reconsider Fraser’s first days on the base from the perspective of Caitlin, the daughter of Richard (Scott Mescudi, a.k.a. Kid Cudi), a brooding military man, and Jenny (Faith Alabi), a Nigerian-American who eases her homesickness by watching Chicago weather reports. Caitlin frequents a bar in town, where she hides her long hair under a cap and deepens her voice. Fraser tends to her self-discovery, sending her packages of men’s clothes. When he tells her what “transgender” means, she is at first confused and then awed. The other kids, unable to comprehend the intimacy between the two, dismiss them as lovers.
The writing of this relationship is spare but confident; by contrast, the secondary story lines are sometimes attenuated. As a commander, Sarah is enigmatic, charismatic, and a little blank; as a mother, she is needy and desirous. At one point, Fraser slaps her; another time, after she accidentally cuts herself while opening a moving box, he tends to her wound by sucking on it. What are we to make of this Freudian intensity? Race plays a role in the series, too, albeit a familiar one. I felt queasy about the characterizations of Richard and his son, Danny (Spence Moore II), as repressed and angry.
The fourth episode, a modern twist on an age-old wartime plot, features an unexpectedly moving bacchanal. The strapping teen-ager Craig (Corey Knight), Danny’s best friend, has recently joined the Army. On the last day before his deployment, he impulsively asks a local Italian girl, Valentina (Beatrice Barichella), to marry him, and she accepts. Fraser delights in dressing the boys according to the wedding’s theme, although he pretends to be annoyed: “How do you expect me to pull off this level of Hawaiian-ness on such short notice?” A minister at the base conducts the nuptials, before the kids break into the villa of a rich Russian in town, wrecking the place and, under purple lights, drunkenly grinding on one another. It’s a transportive panorama of sexual exploration, frank but not caustic, voyeuristic but not leering, innocent and provocative. “Yo, I don’t even know how to dance to this, man,” Danny murmurs, as Frank Ocean’s “Nikes” plays. “Hey,” Craig says, encouraging his friend. “This is my wedding.” Danny heeds him; after all, his friend will be gone in the morning.
Another period piece débuting this month is, by contrast, a regurgitation of an American nightmare. In Showtime’s two-part series “The Comey Rule,” based on the former F.B.I. director James Comey’s 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty,” and written and directed by Billy Ray, loyalty is part of the problem. The show is an ornate table read of the book. It follows Comey as he belatedly realizes the ramifications of his investigation into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and attempts to do his job under the new President, who, over a shrimp dinner at the White House, in the series’ climactic scene, demands, yes, his loyalty.
The chief irritant of the show is the knee-jerk splicing of the dramatic action with cable-news footage documenting Comey’s no-good, very bad time in the Administration. (As Stephen Colbert says in one clip, “I just don’t know what to think about James Comey. First, he seems like the good guy, then he seems like the bad guy.”) The technique, apparently meant to convey the show’s fidelity to real life, ends up feeling like a failure of imagination. Rather than letting loose a little, crafting an original psychological portrait of this inscrutable, high-ranking functionary, Ray gives us a series of labored impressions. There is Jeff Daniels as Comey, a true-blue bureaucrat who would never think of skipping the line at the office cafeteria, and who says things to his wife like “Tracy, I wanted to stop the bad guys”; Kingsley Ben-Adir’s robotic Barack Obama; and Holly Hunter’s erect Sally Yates, Diet Coke in hand. The list goes, almost interminably, on. Brendan Gleeson’s totally ridiculous Donald Trump, performed down an octave, is arguably the strongest performance for being less oppressively accurate. Even when Comey stars in his own drama, he is outdone. ♦


newyorker--2020-09-28--How to Misread Jane Austen

How to Misread Jane Austen

“ What would Jane Austen say ?
” is a fun game to play , but the truth is that we have no idea .
For a writer of her renown , the biographical record is unusually thin .
No notebooks or diaries survive .
After Austen died , in 1817 , her sister , Cassandra , destroyed or censored most of Jane ’ s letters to her , and after their brother Francis ’ s death his daughter destroyed all of Jane ’ s letters to him .
The letters that remain are not especially “ Austenian , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and judgy , which does not match very well the image of Austen in the pious biographical sketch written by her brother Henry , shortly after her death , or in the memoir by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh , published more than fifty years later , which is mainly family oral remembrance , and in which she is “ dear Aunt Jane.
” The novels are not much help , either .
Besides the usual difficulties involved in trying to extract a moral from works of literature , there is the problem @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is not just representing characters in her novels ; she is representing the discursive bubble those characters inhabit , and she almost never steps outside that bubble .
She is always ventriloquizing .
Virginia Woolf compared her to Shakespeare : “ She flatters and cajoles you with the promise of intimacy and then , at the last moment , there is the same blankness .
Are those Jane Austen ’ s eyes or is it a glass , a mirror , a silver spoon held up in the sun ?
” Instead of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us , we might ask what she ’ s trying to show us .
But the answer to that seems to be : It depends on who ’ s looking .
In her lifetime , Austen was popular with a certain class of readers , the fashionable and well-off , who enjoyed her novels , particularly “ Pride and Prejudice , ” as comedies of manners .
They got the jokes , and you always feel good about an author when you are in on her jokes .
But Austen was hardly a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ books were often out of print .
The critical line on her , even from admirers like Sir Walter Scott , was that she was a miniaturist specializing in an exceedingly narrow sector of British society , the landed gentry .
Everyone agreed that she captured that world with astonishing precision ; not everyone felt that it was a world worth capturing .
“ A carefully fenced , highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers , ” Charlotte Brontë described “ Pride and Prejudice ” to a friend .
“ I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.
” Queen Victoria was a fan ( a taste , possibly the only one , she shared with B .
B .
King ) , and after the publication of Austen-Leigh ’ s memoir , in 1869 , Austen enjoyed a revival .
What had put off readers like Charlotte Brontë now became the basis of her appeal .
Her books transported readers to a simpler time and place .
They were escapist fiction .
Winston Churchill had “ Pride and Prejudice ” read @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from pneumonia during the Second World War .
“ What calm lives they had , those people !
” was his thought .
“ No worries about the French Revolution , or the crashing struggle of the Napoleonic Wars .
Only manners controlling natural passion so far as they could , together with cultured explanations of any mischances.
” The suggestion that Austen might have had anything critical to say about those people would have spoiled the illusion .
“ She is absolutely at peace with her most comfortable world , ” Virginia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , explained .
“ She never even hints at a suspicion that squires and parsons of the English type are not an essential part of the order of things.
” Still , there were readers who detected an edge .
Woolf was one .
“ I would rather not find myself in the room alone with her , ” she wrote .
The British critic D. W. Harding , in 1939 , proposed that Austen ’ s books were enjoyed “ by precisely the sort of people whom she disliked ; she is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attitudes like hers , held widely enough , would undermine.
” The title of his essay was “ Regulated Hatred.
” Lionel Trilling , in 1955 , called Austen “ an agent of the Terror , ” meaning that she is merciless in forcing us to confront our moral weaknesses .
Today , there are two Austens , with , probably , a fair amount of overlap : the recreational reader ’ s Austen and the English professor ’ s Austen .
For the recreational reader , the novels are courtship stories , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ characters who , despite the best efforts of rivals and relations to screw things up , always succeed in making the catch .
“ Boy meets girl , girl gets boy ” is the bumper-sticker version .
This category of reader presumably makes up a big part of the audience for the movie and television adaptations , a steady stream of entertainment product that shows no signs of slowing .
Since 1995 , there have been at least one screen adaptation of “ Northanger Abbey , ” two of “ Sense and Sensibility @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” two of “ Persuasion , ” three of “ Pride and Prejudice , ” and four of “ Emma.
” “ Lady Susan , ” a short epistolary novel Austen wrote when she was eighteen , was made into a movie by Whit Stillman in 2016 , and last year Andrew Davies adapted Austen ’ s last novel , “ Sanditon , ” into a miniseries , even though she had finished only eleven chapters of it ( about a fifth ) before she died .
The English professor likes the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the adaptations ( with a learned and critical eye ) .
But the professor thinks that the novels are about things that people like Churchill and Leslie Stephen thought they leave out : the French Revolution , slavery , the empire , patriarchy , the rights of women .
Those subjects might not be in the foreground , but that ’ s because they were not inside the English gentry ’ s bubble .
The slave trade was not something that ladies and gentlemen talked about—particularly if they had some financial connection to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s characters seem to .
There are plenty of hints in the books about what is going on in the larger world .
Those hints must be there for a reason .
But what is the reason ?
Do the novels have a political subtext ?
Since there are few signs of unconventional political views in the biographical record , one approach is to separate Austen from her novels—what she believed from what she wrote .
In “ Jane Austen : Writing , Society , Politics ” ( Oxford ) , for example @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the University of Toronto , explains that Austen was a novelist “ in whom an implicitly Tory world view is frequently interrogated or disrupted by destabilizing ironies and irruptions of satirical anger that are no less real for the elegance and wit of their expression.
” Literature professors love the notion of texts “ interrogating ” things ; I am a literature professor , and I have certainly used that line .
But , in this case , it feels like fence-straddling .
It asks us to accept an Austen who is somehow @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a writer .
Keymer says things like “ The courtship plot that structures all six of Austen ’ s published novels , though sometimes held to imply her endorsement of a patriarchal status quo , is equally a means of exploring themes of female disempowerment.
” It ’ s hard to see how the novels can be “ equally ” endorsements of patriarchy and criticisms of it .

“What would Jane Austen say?” is a fun game to play, but the truth is that we have no idea. For a writer of her renown, the biographical record is unusually thin. No notebooks or diaries survive. After Austen died, in 1817, her sister, Cassandra, destroyed or censored most of Jane’s letters to her, and after their brother Francis’s death his daughter destroyed all of Jane’s letters to him.
The letters that remain are not especially “Austenian,” and they can be a little hard-hearted and judgy, which does not match very well the image of Austen in the pious biographical sketch written by her brother Henry, shortly after her death, or in the memoir by her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh, published more than fifty years later, which is mainly family oral remembrance, and in which she is “dear Aunt Jane.”
The novels are not much help, either. Besides the usual difficulties involved in trying to extract a moral from works of literature, there is the problem of Austen’s irony. She is not just representing characters in her novels; she is representing the discursive bubble those characters inhabit, and she almost never steps outside that bubble. She is always ventriloquizing. Virginia Woolf compared her to Shakespeare: “She flatters and cajoles you with the promise of intimacy and then, at the last moment, there is the same blankness. Are those Jane Austen’s eyes or is it a glass, a mirror, a silver spoon held up in the sun?”
Instead of asking what Austen is trying to tell us, we might ask what she’s trying to show us. But the answer to that seems to be: It depends on who’s looking. In her lifetime, Austen was popular with a certain class of readers, the fashionable and well-off, who enjoyed her novels, particularly “Pride and Prejudice,” as comedies of manners. They got the jokes, and you always feel good about an author when you are in on her jokes.
But Austen was hardly a best-seller, and by the eighteen-twenties her books were often out of print. The critical line on her, even from admirers like Sir Walter Scott, was that she was a miniaturist specializing in an exceedingly narrow sector of British society, the landed gentry. Everyone agreed that she captured that world with astonishing precision; not everyone felt that it was a world worth capturing. “A carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden with neat borders and delicate flowers,” Charlotte Brontë described “Pride and Prejudice” to a friend. “I should hardly like to live with her ladies and gentlemen in their elegant but confined houses.”
Queen Victoria was a fan (a taste, possibly the only one, she shared with B. B. King), and after the publication of Austen-Leigh’s memoir, in 1869, Austen enjoyed a revival. What had put off readers like Charlotte Brontë now became the basis of her appeal. Her books transported readers to a simpler time and place. They were escapist fiction. Winston Churchill had “Pride and Prejudice” read aloud to him when he was recovering from pneumonia during the Second World War. “What calm lives they had, those people!” was his thought. “No worries about the French Revolution, or the crashing struggle of the Napoleonic Wars. Only manners controlling natural passion so far as they could, together with cultured explanations of any mischances.”
The suggestion that Austen might have had anything critical to say about those people would have spoiled the illusion. “She is absolutely at peace with her most comfortable world,” Virginia Woolf’s father, Leslie Stephen, explained. “She never even hints at a suspicion that squires and parsons of the English type are not an essential part of the order of things.”
Still, there were readers who detected an edge. Woolf was one. “I would rather not find myself in the room alone with her,” she wrote. The British critic D. W. Harding, in 1939, proposed that Austen’s books were enjoyed “by precisely the sort of people whom she disliked; she is a literary classic of the society which attitudes like hers, held widely enough, would undermine.” The title of his essay was “Regulated Hatred.” Lionel Trilling, in 1955, called Austen “an agent of the Terror,” meaning that she is merciless in forcing us to confront our moral weaknesses.
Today, there are two Austens, with, probably, a fair amount of overlap: the recreational reader’s Austen and the English professor’s Austen. For the recreational reader, the novels are courtship stories, and the attraction is the strong women characters who, despite the best efforts of rivals and relations to screw things up, always succeed in making the catch. “Boy meets girl, girl gets boy” is the bumper-sticker version.
This category of reader presumably makes up a big part of the audience for the movie and television adaptations, a steady stream of entertainment product that shows no signs of slowing. Since 1995, there have been at least one screen adaptation of “Northanger Abbey,” two of “Sense and Sensibility,” two of “Mansfield Park,” two of “Persuasion,” three of “Pride and Prejudice,” and four of “Emma.” “Lady Susan,” a short epistolary novel Austen wrote when she was eighteen, was made into a movie by Whit Stillman in 2016, and last year Andrew Davies adapted Austen’s last novel, “Sanditon,” into a miniseries, even though she had finished only eleven chapters of it (about a fifth) before she died.
The English professor likes the strong women, too, and watches the adaptations (with a learned and critical eye). But the professor thinks that the novels are about things that people like Churchill and Leslie Stephen thought they leave out: the French Revolution, slavery, the empire, patriarchy, the rights of women. Those subjects might not be in the foreground, but that’s because they were not inside the English gentry’s bubble. The slave trade was not something that ladies and gentlemen talked about—particularly if they had some financial connection to it, as several of Austen’s characters seem to. There are plenty of hints in the books about what is going on in the larger world. Those hints must be there for a reason.
But what is the reason? Do the novels have a political subtext? Since there are few signs of unconventional political views in the biographical record, one approach is to separate Austen from her novels—what she believed from what she wrote. In “Jane Austen: Writing, Society, Politics” (Oxford), for example, Tom Keymer, who teaches at the University of Toronto, explains that Austen was a novelist “in whom an implicitly Tory world view is frequently interrogated or disrupted by destabilizing ironies and irruptions of satirical anger that are no less real for the elegance and wit of their expression.”
Literature professors love the notion of texts “interrogating” things; I am a literature professor, and I have certainly used that line. But, in this case, it feels like fence-straddling. It asks us to accept an Austen who is somehow simultaneously conservative as a person and subversive as a writer. Keymer says things like “The courtship plot that structures all six of Austen’s published novels, though sometimes held to imply her endorsement of a patriarchal status quo, is equally a means of exploring themes of female disempowerment.” It’s hard to see how the novels can be “equally” endorsements of patriarchy and criticisms of it.
Keymer doesn’t mention Helena Kelly’s “Jane Austen, the Secret Radical” (2016), but, in some respects, his little book, which is a somewhat cautious introduction to reading Austen, rather than a full-dress critical appraisal, could be thought of as a response to hers. Kelly, as her title suggests, has no trouble naming Austen’s politics. Austen lived, after all, in an age of revolutions, and Kelly thinks that her novels are “as revolutionary, at their heart, as anything that Wollstonecraft or Tom Paine wrote.” They just have to be read “the right way.”
“The right way” means treating the brief glimpses Austen gives us of life outside her characters’ social circles—and, once you start looking, you see them all over the place—as pieces of a puzzle that, when assembled, reveals what is really going on. Kelly makes a case, for example, that passing references in “Emma” to ditches and hedges, along with a scrap of conversation about relocating a public path, are meant to signal to us that Emma’s neighbor and future husband, Mr. Knightley, is engaged in an aggressive campaign to enclose his land—that is, to fence it off in order to prevent local people from exercising the “rights of common.”
This was the right to enter private land for specified purposes, such as grazing, fishing, foraging, gathering firewood, and so on, and for many people in rural England it helped make ends meet. Kelly cites the scholar Ruth Perry as calculating that access to private lands (as virtually all lands in England were) essentially doubled the income of farming families. Once those lands were legally enclosed, however, it became a crime to trespass on them. Kelly thinks that the poultry thieves who steal Mrs. Weston’s turkeys at the end of “Emma” are meant to show us the economic damage being caused by Mr. Knightley’s enclosures. Why else would Austen have put them in her story? The plot does not require turkey thieves.
Kelly’s Mr. Knightley, in short, is a heartless landowner intent on building a private fiefdom. She thinks the reason he marries Emma is that he wants to absorb her property, one of the few parcels of land around Highbury he does not already own, into his estate. Keymer would not object to this line of interpretation, presumably—“implication, not explication, was Austen’s way,” he says—but would be reluctant to conclude that it means that Austen was a revolutionary.
In “30 Great Myths About Jane Austen” (Wiley Blackwell), two eminent Austen scholars, Claudia L. Johnson, from Princeton, and Clara Tuite, from the University of Melbourne, take on some of the characterizations of Austen in general circulation: “There is no sex in Jane Austen’s novels,” “Jane Austen was unconscious of her art,” “Jane Austen’s novels are about good manners,” and twenty-seven more.
The book is not an exercise in pure debunking (as entertaining as that would have been), because Johnson and Tuite hold the view that although some of these myths—“Jane Austen disapproved of the theatre,” for instance—are demonstrably false, many have become inseparable from the way Austen is read and received. The scholars’ point is that even mistaken assumptions about Austen reveal something in her work that is worth digging into.
The belief that Austen was hostile to the theatre comes from “Mansfield Park,” whose plot turns on a private theatrical that the novel’s prudish protagonist, Fanny Price, considers objectionable, because it permits people to simulate passions that, in real life, would be illicit. And Fanny proves to be right—one of the amateur actors later runs off with another man’s wife, a woman he had flirted with when they were rehearsing, ruining her reputation.


The Mail

Alex Ross , in grappling with the role that white supremacy has played in music theory , asserts that the “ whiteness of classical music is , above all , an American problem ” ( A Critic at Large , September 14th ) .
He argues that the “ racial and ethnic makeup of the canon is hardly surprising , given European demographics before the twentieth century , ” and that classical music took on dimensions of racism and élitism when the “ tradition was transplanted to the multicultural United States , ” where it meshed with already existent racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ minimizes the role that the art form has played in European imperialism and its incessant quest to “ civilize.
” One need only read the introduction to Edward Said ’ s “ Orientalism ” to see that fine art has been a linchpin in white European hegemony .
The supremacy in classical music may have been more quickly laid bare in the United States , but the form ’ s role in Europe has been anything but innocent .
Ross elegantly confronts the issues raised by Philip Ewell ’ s paper “ Music @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” published in Music Theory Online .
Ross explains the “ poietic ” and “ esthesic ” methods of drawing meaning from music : the former emphasizes the study of a composer ’ s cultural context and intentions ; the latter , the perceptions of the listener .
Today ’ s work on esthesic methods in music owes much to elements of feminist theory .
Scholars such as Suzanne Cusick , Marion Guck , Marianne Kielian-Gilbert , Fred Maus , and Susan McClary argued for adopting a subjective perspective that privileges one ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over a received , and likely patriarchal , set of analytical priorities .
This work has allowed researchers , including me , to develop new approaches to issues like listener experience , embodiment , and identity—aspects of music that are obfuscated by traditional methodologies .
Work remains to be done on how we teach music theory , but the field is growing , and so will the breadth of music welcome in concert halls , conservatories , and classrooms .
Mark Singer ’ s wonderful tribute to the New Yorker writer and editor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his hundredth birthday , evoked a special memory for me ( The Talk of the Town , September 14th ) .
I earned my master ’ s degree at Cleveland State University , and my thesis , “ Roger Angell and Baseball Prose : A Stylistic Analysis , ” was an effort to objectively explain why Roger Angell is the greatest baseball writer of all time .
When it was finished , I mailed a copy to Angell , to express my gratitude and with the hope of hearing back .
He replied @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paragraphs were these words : At the end of the letter , Angell mentioned Cooperstown ’ s request for his baseball files , and said that he would include a copy of my thesis for the National Baseball Hall of Fame library ’ s archives : “ You can tell your friends you ’ re in Cooperstown now.
” Letters should be sent with the writer ’ s name , address , and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail @ newyorker.com .
Letters may be edited for length and clarity , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we can not reply to every letter .

M.L.K. Meets Mozart
Alex Ross, in grappling with the role that white supremacy has played in music theory, asserts that the “whiteness of classical music is, above all, an American problem” (A Critic at Large, September 21st). He argues that the “racial and ethnic makeup of the canon is hardly surprising, given European demographics before the twentieth century,” and that classical music took on dimensions of racism and élitism when the “tradition was transplanted to the multicultural United States,” where it meshed with already existent racial hierarchies. But this line of thinking minimizes the role that the art form has played in European imperialism and its incessant quest to “civilize.” One need only read the introduction to Edward Said’s “Orientalism” to see that fine art has been a linchpin in white European hegemony. The supremacy in classical music may have been more quickly laid bare in the United States, but the form’s role in Europe has been anything but innocent.
Nicole Collins
Brookline, Mass.
Ross elegantly confronts the issues raised by Philip Ewell’s paper “Music Theory and the White Racial Frame,” published in Music Theory Online. Ross explains the “poietic” and “esthesic” methods of drawing meaning from music: the former emphasizes the study of a composer’s cultural context and intentions; the latter, the perceptions of the listener. Today’s work on esthesic methods in music owes much to elements of feminist theory. Scholars such as Suzanne Cusick, Marion Guck, Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, Fred Maus, and Susan McClary argued for adopting a subjective perspective that privileges one’s emotional and intellectual reactions to music over a received, and likely patriarchal, set of analytical priorities. This work has allowed researchers, including me, to develop new approaches to issues like listener experience, embodiment, and identity—aspects of music that are obfuscated by traditional methodologies. Work remains to be done on how we teach music theory, but the field is growing, and so will the breadth of music welcome in concert halls, conservatories, and classrooms.
Gabriel Lubell
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music
Jacobs School of Music
Bloomington, Ind.
Roger Angell’s Centenary
Mark Singer’s wonderful tribute to the New Yorker writer and editor Roger Angell, on the occasion of his hundredth birthday, evoked a special memory for me (The Talk of the Town, September 14th). I earned my master’s degree at Cleveland State University, and my thesis, “Roger Angell and Baseball Prose: A Stylistic Analysis,” was an effort to objectively explain why Roger Angell is the greatest baseball writer of all time. When it was finished, I mailed a copy to Angell, to express my gratitude and with the hope of hearing back. He replied within the week. Among the four paragraphs were these words:
Thanks a lot for your surprising letter, and its amazing enclosure. I had no idea that master’s theses had moved into this area, or that what writers do could be explained by means of lexical analyses or data on verb clusters. I’ve read the whole thing but have tried consciously not to pay much attention to it (if you’ll forgive me), because I’m deathly afraid I’ll start thinking in these patterns when I write my next piece. If I began counting words per sentence or syllables or native-vs.-borrowed words, I’d be in big trouble.
At the end of the letter, Angell mentioned Cooperstown’s request for his baseball files, and said that he would include a copy of my thesis for the National Baseball Hall of Fame library’s archives: “You can tell your friends you’re in Cooperstown now.”
Mark Hodermarsky
Olmsted Falls, Ohio
An earlier version of the first letter misidentified the magazine issue in which Alex Ross’s article appeared.
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Letters should be sent with the writer’s name, address, and daytime phone number via e-mail to themail@newyorker.com. Letters may be edited for length and clarity, and may be published in any medium. We regret that owing to the volume of correspondence we cannot reply to every letter.