Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com>]

Though I have not read Elie's New Yorker article, it sounds inexcusably irresponsible, starting with the title: "How Racist Was Flannery O'Connor?" Give me a break. How opportunistic is Mr. Elie?

But on another level, the author of the Commentary article, Angela O'Donnell, has set the stage for this. If you write a whole book about Flannery O'Connor and race, and you title it Radical Ambivalence, what do you expect? And if you write an article in Commentary trying to defend against the misrepresentation of your book, but you say that "O’Connor’s inner war between her best (anti-racist) self and her worst (racist) self is the same war that all white people who are born into and (mal)formed by a racist culture fight," then you are inviting more of the same.

In that one sentence, O'Donnell is conceding several things: 1) that O'Connor's best virtue (i.e. the highest good she gives us) is her anti-racism, 2) that her worst vice is her racism (which assumes as a matter of course that she was in fact racist), and 3) that all white people in a racist culture are the same. In other words, O'Donnell is from the outset handing her opponents everything they need by agreeing implicitly with their basic assumptions and their narrow range of interest.

Janet, I agree that this topic belongs on the Percy list--at least in part because of what David suggests: that Percy could come under the same crosshairs. Joe, thanks for the interesting comments about Elie's article. Good stuff.

ML

On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 2:14 PM <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: O'Connor (Joseph Francisco)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2020 15:12:45 -0400
From: Joseph Francisco <joe.francisco4591 AT gmail.com>
To: "janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com" <janetcantor37 AT yahoo.com>,  "Percy-L:
        Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] O'Connor
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With regards to what I have said about intellectuals, present company is,
of course, excluded. Long live Percy-L. And I would add that, in a positive
sense, I read her overall message as one of humility; that we are all
flawed and broken, and only God is perfect. I believe that she has this in
common with WP. And finally as Percy notes, (after Kierkegaard), knowing
this is half the battle.

Joe


On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 1:47 PM Joseph Francisco <joe.francisco4591 AT gmail.com>
wrote:

> Janet,
>
> Well, I guess what I think about that is that if we're going to name a
> hall after a writer, it should be based on the quality of her writing!
> Sure, that could be cancelled out if the writer had committed some heinous
> act, but...a letter that she wrote when she was 18?
>
> After reading Elie's piece (also disappointed with him, I think he has
> lost my respect as well), here are my reflections:
>
> A prime consideration when reading and interpreting her work should be (in
> my opinion) that the chief subject of her work is often the prideful
> intellectual who has forsaken God (repentance and return still possible
> though). From this subject matter follows her more well known subject
> matter, namely: Grace. You need to emphasize the prideful qualities of the
> character in order to later show the intervention of divine Grace.
>
> It is my belief that some full-time innerlektuals are blind to this
> consideration. Now, before I proceed, let me say that no doubt, Flannery
> saw that quality in herself (probably following the MFA school maxim "write
> what you know"), and no doubt, those of us (self included) who are drawn to
> her work are probably at least partly drawn because of the same in
> themselves! Hah! Mea culpa...
>
> All good literary stories contain a hierarchy of values, i.e. the
> conclusion of the story will show us that X is better than Z; or it is
> better to be X than Z, etc... I think that the conclusion in a lot of her
> stories is that what is often taken for virtue today, is, in her view, in
> fact the vice of pride. Main example: That story where the do-gooding
> recreation director takes in the club-footed boy with the hope of, shall we
> say, civilizing him or even...fixing him. Result of story: his own son
> dead. Moral of story: we have enough on our hands with fixing ourselves;
> but often pride causes us to try to fix others (to our, and sometimes
> others, demise).
>
> Which brings me to Elie's misinterpretation of "The Enduring Chill." He
> reads the moment where the son (a failed and self-pitying intellectual home
> from his apartment in New York, sick with...something) offers a smoke to
> the two black farm hands as "trying to affirm equality with the black
> workers on his mother's farm." Let's think about the end of the story for a
> minute: (IIRC) part of the reason he was sick was because he drank milk
> while he was in the factory, trying to gin up another [forced] 'moment of
> equality' with the farmhands. Drinking the milk was THE THING that his
> mother told him not to do (along with smoking in the factory)!!! (READ:
> Pride, disobedience; goes before the Fall). And exactly what the farmhands
> say at the end: "That THE THING she don't like" (something like that).
> Therefore, we should read the act of offering a smoke in the factory as a
> prideful act of disobedience, rather than as a 'beautiful transcendent
> moment of equality.' ...and don't you see what is happening here? The boy
> is NOT to be lauded, even from a liberal perspective! This is because to
> him, the black men exist only to affirm something about himself!!! His own
> tolerance, munificence, transcendence, wokeness...
>
> I could go on here, as I have found a few other things that struck me as
> false in Elie's essay. But it is getting rather long, and I prefer to keep
> things brief. My closing comment is that the misreading of O'Connor in fact
> reveals to us the very nature of the modern age as Flannery saw it: (I
> can't remember the exact word, but something like frightening, distorted,
> etc...).
>
> --Joe Francisco
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 4, 2020 at 10:44 PM janetcantor37--- via Percy-L <
> percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:
>
>> I think this is very relevant to the Percy List and I found this decision
>> distressing and disgusting.
>> How about others?
>> Janet Cantor
>>
>> On Tuesday, August 4, 2020, 09:13:59 PM EDT, Beck, David A <
>> dabeck AT iupui.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>> While I know this is a Percy list, I wanted to send this article and see
>> what others thought. I was saddened by an article on Flannery O'Connor, by
>> Paul Elie, a writer I used to respect and met at a Percy conference. I'm
>> wondering if this treatment will happen to Percy at some point. Sad.
>>
>>
>>
>> https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/cancelling-flannery-oconnor?utm_content=buffere0f78&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&fbclid=IwAR3JFBpjo4b7KsRAK8eaR2vg035SMSon5aqM1EYvXa4yyRh6sZN5T0Pu_7k
>>
>>
>>
>> David Beck
>> Senior Lecturer
>> English Department
>> Indiana University and Purdue University at Indianapolis
>> 425 University Boulevard, CA 343-E
>> Indianapolis, IN 46202
>> 317-278-2550
>> ------------------------------
>> *From:* Percy-L <percy-l-bounces+dabeck=iupui.edu AT lists.ibiblio.org> on
>> behalf of RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>
>> *Sent:* Sunday, August 2, 2020 3:49 PM
>> *To:* Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion
>> *Subject:* [External] Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 162, Issue 1
>>
>> This message was sent from a non-IU address. Please exercise caution when
>> clicking links or opening attachments from external sources.
>>
>> Gentlemen,
>>
>> I am enjoying eavesdropping on your discussion so much. While my brain is
>> too tied up with other Percy matters at present to match the level of
>> discourse y?all have going, I am avidly following along and appreciating
>> Percy being discussed as the philosopher he was.
>>
>> Write on,
>>
>> Rhonda
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On Aug 2, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ?
>> Tom,
>>
>> Thanks for the post.
>>
>> I think I am using the term "rhetoric" in a broader sense than you are.
>> That is to say, I am not using it as a synonym for "persuasion," though
>> persuasive effect would certainly be a component of rhetoric. Then again,
>> so would critical thinking--as well as the use of logic and grammar, to
>> round out the classical trivium--and several other skills. The rhetorical
>> act involves everything, from start to finish, that goes into the eventual
>> communication of what one believes to be true. It is possible to be very
>> skilled in many or all of those components and still to misapprehend the
>> objective truth of the thing being examined. That was the point I was
>> making. It follows, then, from my use of "rhetoric" that "critical
>> thinking," especially in the way that you have defined it (i.e. as a
>> conscious attempt to discover truth, often in consultation with the
>> arguments of others) cannot be, or at least should not be, divorced from
>> the art of rhetoric. If it is divorced, it is more likely to be sophistry
>> than rhetoric.
>>
>> My use of "elegance" and "cohesion" was merely the naming of two specific
>> elements of rhetoric, not meant to be comprehensive but rather to
>> illustrate how portions of a skill set might be differentiated from the
>> objective truth toward which the skill set is being employed.
>>
>> The following statement of yours is interesting:
>>
>> "... regardless of how sure we may be that we've tp what's true, it never
>> flips over into The Truth once and for all. Every conclusion, having better
>> or worse reasons for believing it is true, is open to debate. This is, I
>> think, is the inescapable predicament of finite bodies that think in an
>> infinite universe."
>>
>> What you describe here is definitely accurate with regards to the
>> individual who is attempting to perceive a truth that cannot be proven
>> deductively. Lacking infinite knowledge, we must always make our assertions
>> in the framework of what is more or less probable. Aristotle explains this
>> well in his discussion of inductive reasoning in the service of rhetoric.
>> However, from the side of whatever is actually true (about whatever is
>> under consideration), the once-and-for-all-ness is not subject to human
>> error or ignorance or blindness. In other words, the objective truth
>> doesn't need an escape clause, like we do, to change positions based on new
>> information.
>>
>> Let's take the Catholic Church's claim to be the divinely appointed
>> authority (and consequent protection from error) in matters of faith and
>> morals. That claim is either objectively true, or it is not. Individuals
>> can examine the claim, as Percy did, and decide it is more or less probable
>> and make their decisions accordingly, but the reality of the situation just
>> is what it is, regardless of the finite mind's ability to assess the odds.
>>
>> When you say this, "If that's Lance's confession, it sounds more like a
>> kind politician's unapologetic 'apology' to me. I really don't see how it
>> could warrant any kind of absolution or release," I am in complete
>> agreement with you. And the rest of your analysis in that paragraph seems
>> spot on to me as well. That's why I said, in the very beginning of this
>> discussion, that Lance is surely not about to be "absolved" by Percival
>> when the novel ends. Yes, of course, his "confession" has been cathartic,
>> and he believes he has found the means of a restart, as you call it. But
>> that is not how Percival sees it. He has something more to tell Lance. The
>> whole novel has been leading up to this moment where Lance feels finally
>> purged of his side of the story and is now ready to move on and live (self)
>> righteously in defiance of a world gone mad. And now Percival is finally
>> ready and willing to speak. Brilliantly, his words will occur off camera.
>>
>> In your final paragraph, you seem to be saying that Percy himself is,
>> through the novel, changing the notion of sacramental confession into
>> existential confession, as Lance perhaps does. But this is to ignore the
>> role of Percival, who, in the final pages of the novel, could not be more
>> clearly distinguished from Lance. And your speculation that Percy is
>> rejecting "the illusions of an objective moral code or truth" seems
>> entirely unfounded, given that neither Lance nor Percival makes such a
>> rejection. In fact, they are united in their opposition to the modern
>> world, which has indeed abandoned the notion of objective truth. Their
>> solutions to that problem, however, are quite different.
>>
>> Best,
>> Mike
>>
>> On Sun, Aug 2, 2020 at 11:00 AM <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to
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>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 25 (Thomas Gollier)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2020 15:25:03 -0700
>> From: Thomas Gollier <tgollier AT gmail.com>
>> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
>>         <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>> Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 161, Issue 25
>> Message-ID:
>>         <CAMVPF1Ftj_55BrafJ6MSB5V8iabcLuU_1AYdDhzum9yAj=
>> hSdg AT mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Mike,
>>
>> Good to hear from you.
>>
>> You brought me up short with your reference to me teaching a "rhetorical
>> skill set," since I'm adamantly opposed to
>> mixing rhetoric, in the sense of persuading others, with critical
>> thinking.
>> However, the standard of "consistent and
>> complete" ? I not sure where "elegant and cohesive" came from ? is the
>> basis of persuading others, but critical
>> thinking, while it uses the same standard, is more concerned with
>> persuading oneself as to what one should believe
>> is true. Critical thinking, at its best, is a self-conscious
>> back-and-forth
>> collective effort toward discovering
>> truth. While "consistent" may be deductive, however, "completeness" is
>> inductive, so regardless of how sure we may be
>> that we've tp what's true, it never flips over into The Truth once and for
>> all. Every conclusion, having better or
>> worse reasons for believing it is true, is open to debate. This is, I
>> think, is the inescapable predicament of
>> finite bodies that think in an infinite universe.
>>
>> What I found more interesting, though, and that you find, presumably on
>> the
>> basis of an objective moral code, both
>> "Lance *and* Margot to be untrustworthy in serious ways." If that's
>> Lance's
>> confession, it sounds more like a kind
>> politician's unapologetic "apology" to me. I really don't see how it could
>> warrant any kind of absolution or
>> release. At first, their relationship was "transactional." He offered the
>> Southern aristocracy; she offered Texas
>> money. And, they did seem to share the common objective of refurbishing of
>> their house. But when the house was done,
>> he remarks, she seemed to be done too. If the relationship were purely
>> transactional, the transaction was completed,
>> and each could have simply moved on. But no, the confession consists in
>> the
>> explanation or recounting of how
>> something more had formed in their marriage, what I am calling a "moral
>> bond" between them, and that she, not Lance,
>> had betrayed it. He even seems to try to convince himself that the sexual
>> infidelity should not be such a big
>> deal, but it is, and it irrevocably broke that bond between them with such
>> finality that he must have video evidence
>> of the act itself. His "confession" is a matter of coming to understand
>> the
>> causes and consequences of what had
>> happened, the crimes he had committed, so as to find the absolution or
>> release that would allow a restart to his
>> life. Is that even possible after such crimes?
>>
>> Personally, what I really like about this novel is that it sharpens the
>> contrasts and contours of Percy's
>> existentialism, and in the process it, somewhat paradoxically, makes his
>> personal Catholicism more comprehensible to me.
>> He seems to take the "confession" ? the thing that apparently attracted
>> him
>> to Catholicism in the first place ? and
>> makes it into something different from the repentance and forgiveness
>> (that
>> is not forgiveness) it is within the
>> Church. I would argue more generally that he rejects the
>> depersonalizations
>> of abstract Gods and Churches, the
>> illusions of an objective moral code or truth. Perhaps that's a bit
>> speculative? But he does, I think, try to the
>> bring or give what truth those things can have for us to bear on our
>> actual
>> existence.
>>
>> Thanks
>> Tom
>>
>> On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 1:35 PM Michael Larson <larsonovic AT gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Tom,
>> >
>> > You're not annoying me. I appreciate the dialogue. I'll try to respond.
>> >
>> > I'll start with your question: " How does the notion of a 'hierarchy of
>> > subjectivity' come from the possibility of infinite subjective
>> > interpretations and the fact some of those interpretations are better
>> than
>> > others?"
>> >
>> > It comes contained in the last part of your question itself: "... the
>> fact
>> > that some of those interpretations are better than others." If some
>> > interpretations are better than others, a hierarchy is by nature already
>> > established and an objective standard is likewise already implied.
>> >
>> > When you speak of how you grade student writing, you are talking about
>> > evaluating their display of a rhetorical skill set, not about their
>> grasp
>> > of the truth. Those are two different things. Either one can be judged
>> > hierarchically. Elegance and cohesiveness of communication make a scale
>> > that is independent of what is true. One person may offer an elegant
>> > defense and plenty of cohesive reasoning as to why the earth is flat.
>> > Another person might stumble through a weak defense of the spinning
>> globe.
>> > We might rank the former ahead of the latter in the skill set of
>> rhetoric,
>> > but we might rank the latter ahead of the former in his apprehension of
>> the
>> > truth as to the physical nature of the earth.
>> >
>> > The same is true when we look at a piece of literature: one person might
>> > write beautifully about something that goes quite astray of what the
>> story
>> > means while another person might struggle in attempting to articulate
>> what
>> > is essentially a deep understanding of that same story. Of course, we
>> are
>> > most pleased when the two skills--communication and apprehension--are
>> > joined in a single work. Take, for example, Tolkien's marvelous essay (a
>> > lecture, actually), "The Monsters and the Critics." Prior to that
>> lecture,
>> > many well-known scholars had failed to grasp both the artistic genius
>> and
>> > the deep layers of meaning in *Beowulf*. In fact, they disdained many of
>> > the very things that Tolkien was able to rescue--and not because his
>> > subjective interpretation was more popular. It wasn't. In fact, it
>> wasn't
>> > fully known until he put it into words, but when he did, many objective
>> > truths about the poem were made manifest to anyone who cared to see them
>> > and especially to those who had always had a sense for them but lacked
>> the
>> > articulation. In short, Tolkien's interpretation was better than that of
>> > prior critics, and people knew it. They knew it because it is possible
>> for
>> > humans to recognize when something is objectively true, especially when
>> it
>> > provides relief against that which has been less than fully true.
>> >
>> > What I am asserting here seems in direct opposition to what you say a
>> > little later in your post: "I propose to my students that the reason for
>> > objectively seeking out different interpretations is not to pick the
>> right
>> > one." My first thought about this is that there might not be a "right
>> one."
>> > The presence of several interpretations is no guarantee that any of them
>> > has a good grasp on what is being interpreted. Alternatively, they might
>> > all be basically "right," more or less, though perhaps with differing
>> > levels of rhetorical effectiveness. In any case, I would always
>> encourage
>> > my students to compare and contrast, to evaluate arguments, to measure
>> what
>> > they read against reality, insofar as they have access to it. When the
>> > object is truth, then everyone--critics and readers--is essentially
>> working
>> > together toward the same goal, though some with more success than
>> others.
>> >
>> > But it sounds like, for you, the object is not so much truth as it is to
>> > work out a kind of subjective *average *in one's own mind. You say,
>> "[The
>> > reason for seeking out different interpretations] is to get a
>> non-objective
>> > sense of the center and most comprehensive comprehension of all those
>> > various interpretations." There is nothing wrong, of course, with
>> > understanding a variety of interpretations, but if the end of that
>> > understanding is merely to find the center of that variety, then we have
>> > diverted our gaze from the object under consideration and shifted it to
>> the
>> > amalgamated opinion of the considerers. This is not exactly pure
>> > subjectivism, which would be interested only in one's own opinion, but
>> it
>> > is a kind of preoccupation with potential means rather than the use of
>> > those means toward their natural end: to arrive at truth regarding the
>> > object under consideration.
>> >
>> > In your paragraph about morality, I'm not sure I follow the shift from
>> > moral code to moral bond. To recognize a moral code, whether subjective
>> or
>> > objective, is a different mental act than to trust a neighbor not to
>> harm
>> > you. The former is concerned with classification (i.e. this is good,
>> this
>> > is evil) while the latter is concerned with prudential judgment (I
>> predict
>> > that you will not burn my house down). So once again, both acts can be
>> > present: I can judge (whether accurately or not) that someone's burning
>> > down my house would be an evil act even as I also judge (whether
>> accurately
>> > or not) that I do not think you will commit this act. Then if you do
>> > actually burn down my house, I will know that my trust was misplaced;
>> the
>> > house will go up in smoke, but the classification of arson as evil will
>> be
>> > quite untouched by those flames.
>> >
>> > It's true that if this happened, I would no longer trust you not to burn
>> > my house down. And yes, it's also possible, depending on how much I
>> trusted
>> > you to begin with, that I might start to doubt, in general, my judgment
>> of
>> > who is trustworthy and who is not. But to lose trust in others or in
>> one's
>> > ability to assess the trustworthiness of others is not the same as
>> losing
>> > the sense that some things are moral and that other things are immoral.
>> >
>> > I too find Lance and Margot to be untrustworthy in serious ways. The
>> acts
>> > that reveal their untrustworthiness are also acts I understand to be
>> > objectively immoral. I would argue further that to even speak of trust
>> and
>> > distrust once again implies an objective sense of morality in the one
>> who
>> > trusts or distrusts. What makes us trust someone are typically things
>> > understood to be morally good: honesty, forthrightness, patience,
>> > stability, etc.. What makes us distrust someone are typically things
>> > understood to be morally bad: lying, deception, short-temperedness,
>> > fickleness, etc.. We know these things. Deep down.
>> >
>> > Mike
>> >
>> >
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