‘Lecture’/Class Notes

Spring English

Navigating a Post-Truth World: Charles Sykes

• “What did you give us?” Benjamin Franklin: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
• Do we really believe in warnings of the end of the republic?
• We are not immune to history.
• Most Americans are not sure they have faith in democracy.
• Historically, Constitutional democracies/republics are not the norm.
  • Tribalism, authoritarianism, oligarchy, monarchy, tyranny were the default settings of human culture.
• Liberal democracy is the antidote and the answer.
  • Needs the rule of law, checks and balances, respect for the minority.
  • Responsible citizenship.
• Crisis with democracy stems from a crisis of citizenship.
  • More than a third of Americans cannot name a single right in the First Amendment.
• Being a citizen, though, is more than just knowledge.
  • A respect for truth; truth is the oxygen of democracy.
  • Democracy requires a functioning maketplace of ideas; the truth is knowable and we live in a shared reality.
  • The glue of democracy is trust in one another.
• Politicians who lie and rely on propaganda are not new; what is new is a citizenry that hears lies, knows they may be lies, and don’t care.
• If we don’t have a shared reality, politics becomes about brute force and there is no discourse.
• The first casualty of win-or-lose politics is truth.
• Prior, we did have guardrails in politics, but they limited the impact of the most reckless voices in our politics.
• Now, we are awash in conspiracies, doctored videos, lies, propaganda, sometimes from the highest areas of American life.
  • What do we do about this?
• Fake news is completely fabricated news: lying works.
  • Generates clicks, ratings, votes.
  • Lying can be a very profitable business model.
• George Orwell wrote extensively about the relationship between truth and democracy.
• Gary Kasparov: the point of propaganda is not just to mislead, but to attack your critical sensibilities in an effort to annihlate truth.
  • Make you question who you believe and what truth is.
• When no-one know what is true or real, people look towards the state.
• Truth is essential to our politics these days.
• Everything is possible and nothing is true: the public gets to a point where they will believe the worst, regardless of if they are being lied to.
• In a silo, a fake story is impossible to refute: alternative reality silos are safe spaces in which they are protected from information that challenges their premises.
• We deligitmize much of the fact-based media and destroy immunity to hoaxes.
• It is not fair to completely blame the media; tweaking human nature is difficult.
• A lot of us assume that humans use their minds to determine what is true.
  • If you understand the tribal nature of human beings, you will understand people strengthen their bond to their tribe.
  • A hyperpartisan that hears information about their party or candidate will get dopamine, meaning it is addictive.
  • If humans want to believe something, they only need one piece of information.
• In a world where we ar eone click/swipe away from having all of our biases confirmed.
• We are paying a tremendous price for our failure to educate young people in media literacy and civics.

The Politics of Fiction: Elif Shafak

• Strasbourg, France - born to Turkish parents.
• Raised as a single child by a single mother.
• Two different kinds of womanhood: mother and grandmother.
  • Spirituality, education, rationality
• If you want to destroy something, all you need to do is surround it in thick walls.
• We are born into a certain cultural circle.
  • If we have no conneciton with other worlds, we will dwindle inside our cultural circle.
• It’s not healthy for a human being to spend too long in front of their own reflections.
• We form clusters based on similarity and produce stereotypes about other clusters of people.
• Storytelling can allow us to transcend these walls.
• Writing fiction - less of an autobiographical manifestation as it is a transcending.
• “Representative foreigner” - each person seen as a representative of their nation.
• Imagination - the only suitcase you can keep; stories keeps one centered.
• In the face of death and destruction, differences evaporate.
• If you manage not to be frightened by the gap between the mind and the tongue, it can be stimulating.
• Stories lose their magic when a story is seen as more than a story.
• Many want to see a manifestation of identity in stories; the world of identity politics affects the way stories are circulated.
• Non-Western authros feel identity politics the most; writers are seen as representatives of their background.
• Freedom of imagination is in danger by idnetity politics - multicultural literature, all non-Western literature is lumped together.
• Multicultural writers are expected to tell “real stories”; function is attributed to fiction.
• Fiction - “just a story”; the language of fiction is not the language of daily politics.
• Identity politics divides us; fiction connects.
• Stories cut across boundaries.
• “Knowledge that takes you not beyond yourself is far worse than ignorance.”
• Problem is not knowledge; it is knowledge beyond ourselves.
• Fiction is both local and universal.
• Imaginative literature not necessarily about writing what we “know”, but instead writing what we can “feel”.

Remembering Rachel Carson with Kaiulani Lee

• Silent Spring was published in 1962; an alarming story of pesticides.
• The chemistry industry hit back against Silent Spring.
• Carson opened a ferocious debate.
• Our technologies come with destructive effects.
• Kaiulani Lee’s mission - bringing Rachel Carson to life. Performs a play, called “A Sense of Wonder”.
• The backlash allowed for much more publicity than the book would have gotten.
• Immersion into nature - what are the voices that you hear? What is the sense of wonder?
• Carson was very poor, unbelievably poor; yet, she changed the course of history.
• Carson was an aspiring writer that later fell in love with science; Carson worked for the wildlife service.
• Biologist by day, writer at night; it is the study of science that makes the literary career possible.
• Rachel Carson had already become one of the most recognized scientific writers before the publication of Silent Spring.
• Science does not belong only to a few; we live in a world of science, and the aim of science is to discover the truth, as is literature.
• Write as a merging of poeticism and science; science will discover the poetic qualities.
• No one can write truthfully about the sea and leave off poetry.
• Not a muckraking journalist as an observer and poet of the natural world. In her life, she changed.
• Atomic energy horrified Carson.
• Science promised the people of the 1940s chemicals to kill domestic pests.
• Carson did not want to write Silent Spring but needed to; setting out to look for any information that may help.
• Carson was alarmed by the indifference of many; citizens assumed that there was some guardian of these operations.
• No publisher would publish an article for fear of retaliation from chemical advertisers; Carson decided to write a book.
• Carson’s mother was dying and Roger needed Carson’s attention, but she decided to write the book. No one else would write the book - this was an urgent matter.
• Only years as a government scientist gave Carson the knowledge to understand the severity of the use of chemicals.
• The public was unknowingly being asked to take the risk - the public must make the choice, and they cannot make the choice if they do not have the information.
• “A Fable for Tomorrow” - the future American town in which all the sounds of Spring have been silenced. The Silent Spring.
• Silent Spring was a phenomenal success - the public was riveted; Silent Spring also became the target of political controversy.
• Argument against Carson: we would return to the dark diseases, with vermin and diseases. Carson was accused of Communist sympathies, “mystical”, and being a “peace nut”. There is an initial irritation, but perhaps it will become amusing.
  • Interesting use of “science” and portraying Carson’s work as “mystic” and kooky.
• The book incited a very small but rich portion of society; Carson became a publicity problem.
• Rachel Carson, to the public, was calm and confident in her convictions.
• Carson was also dying of cancer; every month is precious.
• The nature of responsibility and of life. “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men.” -Lincoln
• One more trip into the public arena.
• Silent Spring had awakened the public; President Kennedy set up a special panel to study pesticides, and their report vindicated Silent Spring’s thesis. Followed by Congressional hearings examining legislative action
• A new consciousness was formed in our balance with nature.
• Carson died in 1964.
• Natural beauty has a necessary place in the development of any individual. Destroying natural beauty degrades some part of man. Earth is exceedingly beautiful; in it, we can find calmness and courage.
• Mankind has tread into an artificial world; away from the realities of Earth. (Reminiscent of Shafak)
  • Intoxicated by his own power; experimenting with his destruction.
• But, the more clearly we understand the realities, the less we will destroy it.