Hazel Motes (in Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood), searches for God by railing against organized religion. But in doing so, he prophesizes the authoritarian end-state pushed by today’s cancel culture: ‘Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.’
O’Connor had it right, and is now a victim of her own perspicacity. This reign of terror is destroying us all!
Ernie Hutton
Sent from my iPhone Ernest W Hutton Jr. FAICP Assoc AIA Hutton Associates Inc. New York/ Westhampton 917.836.7902
17 Woodbridge Lane, Quiogue Westhampton Beach NY 11978 On Aug 6, 2020, at 4:55 AM, Plemmons, Gregory <gregory.plemmons AT vumc.org> wrote:
Patrick Connelly, a Percy scholar, spoke on Percy and race at one of the former Walker Percy Weekends. He commonly referenced a quote from Percy (I wish I knew the original source) about the eternal “problem of human frailty trapped in historical
circumstance”. That quote has stuck with me. It has echoes of Pompeii, especially as we seem to be entering a whole new era of cancel culture. The extreme left’s iconoclasm frightens me almost as much as that of the Knotheads. I wish people could devote more
energy inward toward themselves and the current state of things. While dissecting the past will always have some merit, what are we ourselves going to be judged on, fifty years from now? Even five years from this pandemic? Percy was imperfect as the best of
us, but he and his family also slept in their attic for two weeks after a bomb threat from the local Klan in 1969, after defending the removal of the Confederate flag from the principal’s office of the local high school.
Zadie Smith took a stab recently attempting to answer the question of the purpose of fiction. “Does it seem at all surprising in 2019...that we should have this hypersensitivity?... Whereas many more material issues—economic inequality, criminal
justice reform, immigration—prove frighteningly intractable, language becomes the convenient battlefield.”
Apologies for the long-winded rant. I read the New Yorker article. It taught me nothing new. Flannery was trapped as anyone. Her poor physical health is often overlooked. Lupus is a horrible disease and there were little options for treatment
or even simple relief in her time. Again, “historical circumstance”. I like to think if her disease hadn’t claimed her at 39, her views might have evolved, too. I guess we’ll never know.
Gregory Plemmons, MD
On Aug 5, 2020, at 7:17 PM, Charles Cowherd <charlescowherd AT hotmail.com> wrote:
Just to weigh in on the Flannery O’Connor/ Paul Elie scrum.
At the seminary (Episcopal) that I attended, a professor had included the short story “The Artificial N____” in his compendium of short stories matched up to the preaching lectionary. (Flannery O’Connor fiction is VERY popular in Episcopal circles.)
A draft copy somehow was made available to my fellow students, who opposed the inclusion. There was a big townhall meeting, a student petition, eventually the professor/author agreed to remove the story.
This was about 3 years ago.
I offer that up merely as another tiny data point in whatever this particular moment is all about. I know that Walker Percy spoke on that short story specifically but cannot find it, it’s in CONVERSATIONS with WALKER PECY.
I do think that it’s a topic that we can discuss on this forum with care and concern and kindness for one another.
Also, I have been reading THE NEW YORKER all my life (“a wonderful Yankee magazine”- my Dad always would say!). Only with this article the magazine it reveal how detached it is, as a source of journalism, from the world. It reminded me of Percy’s dislike (too
soft a word?) for Descartes. Instead, Percy believed we are all embodied creatures, fallen and stumbling in the world. Whereas the New Yorker writes an article with the title: “How Racist was Flannery O’Connor?” without any source of social location of time
and place.
All my best,
Charles Cowherd
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