When the Devil Really is in the Details (or, How the Internet Fulfills a Chesterton Quote)

People on the internet often seem unable to focus on the big picture. Someone writes an article arguing that ADHD should be treated more holistically, and happens to mention that the young Michael Phelps used exercise to cope with his ADHD. Someone else immediately rants, “I exercise and I still have ADHD! You are a horrible person for suggesting that I shouldn’t take meds!” as if this invalidates the article.

In fact, we seem as a culture to be obsessed with trivia. We know the names of celebrities’ dogs and the color of their shoes (both the celebrities’ shoes and the dogs’ shoes) but not, say, the history of drama. We make lists of things that students ought to memorize and provide bullet points of qualities that they should acquire, but we provide no overarching intellectual or moral framework (even proponents of classical education can fall into the error of thinking that students are classical just because they can provide a lot of details about Latin grammar or ancient Greek armor).

G.K. Chesterton saw this phenomenon in his own day.

“We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man’s opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters—except everything.”  From Heretics.

Perhaps this focus on details is not surprising. After all, details about the ball game or the weather (or even Botticelli) are the kinds of things that people typically discuss with strangers and acquaintances. Arguments over details are safe enough for public consumption because they touch on nothing fundamental. They will not anger, inspire, move, or challenge anyone. We focus on details in the modern world because even on the internet, we are a nation of strangers.

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John Henry Newman Critiques "Love of Reading"

Novels are a relatively new form of writing, even though to many readers, such fiction has become the definition of "classic literature." There was a time when novels were the low-brow entertainment of the educated class; merely a recent innovation that did not belong in the same category as history, biography, science, essays, and especially the (Greek and Roman) Classics. Voracious novel-readers were as little admired then as are consumers of reality T.V. today. Civil War general Robert E. Lee felt that novels "weakened the mind." Even the characters in novels expressed concern over excessive novel-reading (in Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins, a diet of unrealistic adventure stories is compared to the habit of smoking and drinking as an unhealthy way to pass the time).

Yet since the genre's appearance, great and worthy novels have been written. Such books do not "weaken the mind" (check out THIS COOL STUDY: reading literary fiction was observed to make participants more empathetic and better at interpreting nuances in people). However, I wonder if novels have contributed to the way we often treat literature as something to consume.  Unlike essays on morality or love, novels provide a format that is utilized by pop fiction (popular novels did not improve social skills in the study mentioned above). Pop fiction is meant to be enjoyed once, quickly, and tossed aside. Perhaps it has made us forget how we ought to read. In Of Other Worlds, C.S. Lewis remarks, "There is hope for a man who has never read Malory or Boswell or Tristram Shandy or Shakespeare's Son­nets: but what can you do with a man who says he 'has read’ them, meaning he has read them once, and thinks that this settles the matter?"

Now that even more consumable forms of entertainment compete with pop writing, I wonder if our culture has swung too far in our encouragement of any reading at all and our eagerness to praise whatsoever printed pages can hold the attention of an electronic generation. In our eagerness to encourage reading, perhaps we forget the differences between engaging with texts and consuming them. Perhaps we romanticize the consumption of books. John Henry Newman's critique of reading in his own, nineteenth-century context is food for thought (Newman was an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism, was made a cardinal, and wrote The Idea of the University): 

“Nothing is more common in an age like this, when books abound, than to fancy that the gratification of a love of reading is real study….Such minds cannot fix their gaze on one object for two seconds together; the very impulse which leads them to read at all, leads them to read on, and never stay or hang over any one idea. The pleasurable excitement of reading what is new is their motive principle; and the imagination that they are doing something, and the boyish vanity which accompanies it, are their reward….they will have no consistency, steadiness, or perseverance; they will not be able to make a telling speech, or to write a good letter, or to fling in debate a smart antagonist….They cannot state an argument or a question, or take a clear survey of a whole transaction, or give sensible and appropriate advice under difficulties, or do any of those things which inspire confidence and gain influence, which raise a man in life, and make him useful to his religion or his country.” John Henry Newman, 1852. 

The Humility of History: Barzun’s Perspective

My sister’s history professor focuses on a wealth of anecdotes that all involve white Europeans behaving badly. Either they are killing slaves and forcing raped Indians to convert to Christianity, or they are biting into wasp nests under the mistaken notion that they have found a pineapple.

This mockery is just as bad as ignoring humanity's overall time on earth in order to give students the impression that America is God's Chosen Land (in which everything was peachy and godly until the Civil War). If we use historical anecdotes merely as morality tales intended to buttress some modern argument, we are not teaching history at all. If we do not teach history, we are giving up one of the civilizing effects of education. 

Taught in isolation, either of these scenarios fails to show the true scope of humanity in history.

In Teacher in America (1955), Jacques Barzun speaks insightfully of the result of a proper education in history.

 “When broadly based on a good knowledge of western European history (including that of the United States), the historical sense is a comforter and a guide. The possessor understands his neighbors, his government, and the limitations of mankind much better. He knows more clearly not what is desirable, but what is practical. He becomes ‘practical’ in the lasting sense of being taken in neither by panicky fears nor by second-rate Utopias. It is always some illusion that creates disillusion, especially in the young, for whom the only alternative to perfection is cynicism. The historical sense….is a moderator which insists on knowing conditions before passing judgments…. It suggests that in the struggles of men with one another, no virtue implies the possession of any other; the motives are mixed, and that no evil is absolutely perverse. For these reasons, the study of history tends to make men tolerant, without on that account weakening their determination to follow the right: they know too well the odds against it. Even when history does not equip the student mind to the extent that I have shown, it induces a little humility and prevents those fits of sudden misplaced moral indignation for which Macaulay so roundly ridiculed the British public.”

Strong Woman Who Punches Hard

The portrayal of female characters in modern books and movies, especially genre fiction, is a narrow one. It is seen as morally imperative that these ladies fulfill a specific role: that of the “Strong Woman Who Punches as Hard as a Man.” Yet isn’t it rather Victorian to require that all heroines must be role models? Why are we so afraid that if all the women in action movies don’t wield fists of iron, the girls of American will become repressed maidens who faint at the sight of math?

Sophia McDougall has an interesting article in the New Statesmen, in which she points out how demeaning this role actually is. A few quotes (not all of it in the most delicate of language):

“Sherlock Holmes gets to be brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, a polymath genius. Female characters get to be Strong.”

“The Strong Female Character has something to prove. She’s on the defensive before she even starts. She’s George from The Famous Five all grown up and still bleating with the same desperate lack of conviction that she’s ‘Every Bit As Good as a Boy.’ ”

“Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They're still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same. They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way.”

“I want a wealth of complex female protagonists who can be either strong or weak or both or neither, because they are more than strength or weakness. Badass gunslingers and martial artists sure, but also interesting women who are shy and quiet and do, sometimes, put up with others’ shit because in real life there’s often no practical alternative.”

 

Would any mainstream action movie allow a heroine to be as "weak" as Sherlock Holmes? 

McDougall’s critique is fascinating. It highlights the way that unctuous moralism in stories often backfires. Personally, I want my daughters to be strong and courageous. I also don't want them to be robbed of their femininity by modern feminism or pressured to behave according to our culture's narrow definition of "strong" (essentially, the idea that strong = aggressive). Our modern era doesn't seem to "get" that femininity is a varied, healthy, human thing. On the other hand, the Victorians did not get it 100% right either-- their popular fiction also took certain aspects of womanhood, exaggerated them, and portrayed that exaggerated version as the ideal female. Perhaps the real solution is to read stories from many eras, instead of limiting ourselves to the wisdom of only one.

This issue is all the more interesting because many cultural conservatives and Christian families gravitate toward "hero movies" (especially those made from classic comic books) as demonstrating the clash between good and evil, and as providing masculine role-models. If conservative Christian families feel that it is helpful to young men to identify (albeit in a limited degree) with Captain America or Superman, what of the young women? Can there be any inspiration in this kind of movie for them? 

What do you think? Does the narrow role of modern heroines cause harm, or is it merely irritating? 

Tom Gauld. 

Somewhat Related Reading:

- An interesting take on the rather sad decision of a gender studies professor.

- A post of my own on fantasy warfare and gender realism.

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