No Straw MenEnlightened discourse proscribes arguments that are weak or imaginary, like straw, set up only to be confuted summarily.

Dead Man Walking

Sophie’s Choice (1976) by William Styron is perhaps my favorite book. The author’s way with words, including foreign tongues, his wit, including many sexual suggestions, and ultimately the profound moral dilemmas he invokes make the book intensely indelible. Yet another memory one may recall are Styron’s strange and frequent references to esoteric medical conditions; his autobiographical protagonist travels nowhere without his dog-eared Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. Similarly, Styron’s first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), tells the story of a star-crossed Southern family whose failures drive the sensitive daughter to insanity and suicide. It is thus somewhat predictable that in 1985, Styron would be hospitalized for acute clinical depression—and that this Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist would chronicle his struggle three years later in his seventh book.

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness began as a lecture at a symposium on affective disorders at Johns Hopkins University in May 1989. Greatly expanded, the text became a 15,000-word essay published in the December issue of Vanity Fair. In 1990, the essay hit bookstores as a monograph. The title comes from John Milton’s description of hell in Paradise Lost, and it’s worth noting that Styron uses the word “madness” not to mean anger, but in its proper sense of insanity.

The story begins in October 1985 in Paris, where Styron travels with his wife to receive the Prix Mondial Cino del Duca, a prestigious prize of $25,000 given annually to an artist or scientist whose work embodies the principles of humanism. The past few months, during which he turned 60 and quit alcohol cold turkey, have increasingly left him floundering helplessly. His nights pass sleeplessly, while malaise and restlessness consume his days. He believes the trip abroad should occasion celebration and upend his dejection, and when it has the reverse effect, he recognizes something is wrong.

He consults a psychiatrist, a so-called Dr. Gold, who prescribes him high doses of the controversial tranquilizer Halcion (triazolam) for his insomnia. But this, too, only exacerbates his edginess and misery. Finally, in early December, Styron rewrites his will and prepares a suicide note. A few days later, as he had planned when the unmistakable urge finally struck, he destroys his notebook-diary. After his wife goes to bed, he sits in his living room watching a nondescript film, biding his time. Suddenly, a passage from Brahms’s Alto Rhapsody pierces his brown study, and in a flood he recalls all that life has to offer. He wakes up his wife, and admits himself to a hospital the next day, where he spends seven distasteful but convalescent weeks.

How do things get this bad? In keeping with a diagnosis of major depression, Styron shows at least four symptoms, in addition to loss of interest in usual activities, for at least two weeks. Physiologically and behaviorally, his voice wanes and his libido vanishes. Emotionally, he loses his ambition and suffers from anhedonia. Cognitively, he experiences hopelessness and ideates about suicide.

Freudians, or proponents of psychodynamics, would explain such agony by way of Styron’s traumatic childhood; after a long, painful siege with cancer, his mother died when he was 13. Styron agrees, by way of Tony Kushner’s Destruction in the Promised Land: A Psychocultural Biology of American Suicide (1989), which holds that incomplete mourning contributes to depression and suicide. Styron does not cite any other psychodynamic notions, like anger turned inward, dependency or self-punishment.

Biological theories would attribute Styron’s depression to genetics or abnormalities in the brain. And, in fact, the author’s father battled the disease throughout his life and was hospitalized during his son’s boyhood. Further, although Styron does not mention any chemical imbalances, his abrupt withdrawal from his old friend of booze might have impacted his neurotransmitters, the biochemicals that transmit nerve impulses across a synapse. Ditto for his addiction to Halcion, in dosages three times the normal quantity—a particularly suicidal combination for someone Styron’s age.

Cognitive theorists argue that depressives distort certain stressful situations in negative ways. Although Styron does not evince this pattern, the circles in which he travels include many artists who also fell victim, sometimes fatally, to depression. Indeed, one writes what one knows, and, as previously noted, themes of gloom run throughout Styron’s oeuvre. The result is an almost obsessive concern with morbidity, suffering and the vulnerability of the flesh.

Nor does it help that Dr. Gold, an adherent of the biological and hence drug-based school, turns out to be incompetent and negligent, a symbol of the dehumanizing approach to medicine that treats the disease rather than the person. First, he misprescribes Halcion. When Styron complains of fantasies of self-destruction and suggests checking into a hospital, Gold discourages him. Then, at a critical juncture, Gold prescribes another antidepressant—which takes several weeks to kick in. Group therapy in the hospital (Styron does not discuss individual treatment after Gold) is no better. Drawing pictures and molding clay, this man of letters feels, infantilizes him.

Accordingly, it is neither pharmacology nor psychotherapy—the classic pillars of mood-disorder treatment—which Styron credits as his savior. Rather, it is the simple seclusion of a sanatorium, wherein one spends all day, every day, focused on recovery, as well as the loving patience of his wife Rose.

Depression is as old as man, but only in the past decade or so, especially with the advent of Prozac, has it become a topic of mainstream conversation. We now recognize it is a disease, so it is easy to forget that not too long ago people considered depression a mystery or even self-inflicted. To this end, Darkness Visible is a gem of homespun honesty that destigmitizes what was once known as “the blues,” which brings knowledge thereof to an audience the textbook for my Abnormal Psychology class simply cannot do.

Indeed, if understanding breeds acceptance, then Styron’s memoir renders a great public service: articulating the ineffable. For only an artist can convey the sense that suffering melancholy is like being buried alive, or, in Styron’s words, “despair beyond despair” (63). Darkness Visible confirms the role of the writer in articulating the darkest secrets of the human psyche.

One secret, however, the book does not address is whether depression can be useful as a means to gain insight and spur creativity. On one hand, we can point to the great works of such depres-sives as Hemingway, Silvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. Surely descending to the depths of despair played some role in their genius? On the other hand, such romanticization is easy because it is not one’s own. Second, while depression may intensify one’s mind, an artist must first possess talent and passion. Third, while it is true that creativity often follows depression (Toni Morrison and The Bluest Eye, Philip Roth and American Pastoral), it is usually an escape from, not an entrance to it.[1]  Fourth, and above all, as the psychiatrist Peter Kramer recently observed, “Facing a man in great pain, headed for self-mutilation and death, who would withhold a potentially helpful treatment?”[2]

Ultimately, then, Darkness Visible makes me appreciate that depression today, like myriad ailments, is quite preventable. And although I am healthy and vigorous, should I become otherwise, I will remember this book as a testament to the ability of the human spirit to triumph in the face of severe adversity.

Footnotes

1. Paul Gordon, “You Don’t Have to Be Suicidal to Be an Artist, and It Doesn’t Help,” Independent (London), February 28, 1999.

2. Peter D. Kramer, “There’s Nothing Deep About Depression,” New York Times Magazine, April 17, 2005.

“A Small Group of Thoughtful, Committed Citizens”

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that has.”

So said the anthropologist Margaret Mead. At least that’s what most of us have been led to believe.

But according to the Institute for Intercultural Studies, this quotation cannot be verified. “[W]e have been unable to locate when and where [this quote] was first cited . . . We believe it probably came into circulation through a newspaper report of something [Mead] said spontaneously and informally. We know . . . that it was firmly rooted in her professional work and that it reflected a conviction that she expressed often, in different contexts and phrasings.”

Related: “The Duties of Educated Young People.”

The Duties of Educated Young People

Submitted for the Pruyn Essay Prize (Hamilton College).

The duties of educated young people are nothing short of shaping the future. Indeed, the influence one person can command is extraordinary.

Of course, to direct the course of human events, it helps first to direct oneself. I propose a two-part method. First, identify and integrate your convictions. This way, you transcend hesitating, noncommittal language, and achieve clarity of purpose and strength of mind. Second, make your convictions concrete, specific, and definite. This way, you can communicate them to others with ease. Take as your guide the principle to say what you mean, and to mean what you say.

But you need not launch into debates. Do not force arguments on those uninterested or unwilling. It is not your job to save everyone’s soul.

It behooves you, however, never to keep silent when silence implies your sanction. This is one of the tragic lessons of the 20th century: evil flourishes by the moral agnosticism of good people, because the good is not self-sustaining, but needs eternal vigilance. Make yourself heard on those issues that personally matter most. Opportunities abound; you can e-mail newspapers and magazines, TV and radio commentators, and your political representatives.

For the orally inclined, try the following. On any given day, note how many times people articulate ideas as if they were indisputable. Why not then challenge such comments—again, not to give a lengthy speech, but merely to register disagreement? Eureka moments are rare, since changing our beliefs is a process. Yet it is of such informed activism that public opinion is ultimately molded.

To be sure, events greatly affect history; but it is a relative handful of humans with concrete convictions and the drive to pursue them who gives the world shape and purpose. As the anthropologist Margaret Mead reportedly said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that has.”

Perhaps the most famous example is that anonymous Chinese bystander, who in 1989 posted himself before and blocked a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square. In a moment, this otherwise unexceptional student may have impressed his image on the global memory more vividly, more intimately than even May Zedong did. Then there’s Rosa Parks, whose mere refusal, in 1955, to change seats on a bus dramatically humanized the struggle to end Jim Crow. More recently, we can point to Tim Berners-Lee. Don’t recognize the name? Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web.

Yet such obscurity only reinforces the point: to shape the future, you don’t need money, you don’t need looks, you don’t need fame. What you need is an opportunity. And no combination to create opportunity is more potent than an educated mind atop the vigor of youth.

Some might argue that these notions are simplistic or fanciful. To the contrary, as Thomas Edison of all people understood, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. So few people attend town-hall meetings, observes the filmmaker Michael Moore, that if you go with a group you can virtually institute your agenda. And in a country where only half of eligible voters exercise that sacred right, it’s increasingly evident: decisions are made by those who show up and those who speak up. In such a milieu, we educated young people should guide those decisions—not as philosopher-kings who brainwash or dictate, but to ensure that the flame that is the human mind burns bright always.

The Morning-after Pill and Property Rights

Here’s a letter I recently wrote to the New York Times. Since it hasn’t run yet, I figure it’s safe to publish it myself.

The New York Times editorial board says it’s “intolerable” that anti-abortion pharmacists refuse to dispense birth control pills. I am as staunch a supporter of abortion rights as they come, but for the same reason I equally champion property rights: both represent the inalienable right of human autonomy. Just as no one should tell a woman how to dispose of her body, so no one should tell a businessman how to conduct his practice.

If one of his employees disagrees, that is between employee and employer, and if necessary, a court, to determine if a contract was breached. If outsiders disagree, we can disseminate local lists of where not to shop, and are perfectly free to shop elsewhere ourselves. The answer is not legislation, forcing our morals on others, but patronage, noncoercively using our principles to induce change.

Addendum (4/29/05): See this debate between David Boaz, Executive Vice President of the Cato Institute, and Judy Waxman, Vice President and Director of Health and Reproductive Rights at the National Women’s Law Center.

State-Sponsored Disinformation

In the 16 months between Sept. 11, 2001, and the Iraq war—despite considerable efforts to entangle Saddam Hussein in the former[1]—hawks came up seriously short. Consequently, neither of the Bush administration’s two most publicized arguments for the war—the President’s State of the Union address and Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the U.N. Security Council—even mentioned the evidence allegedly implicating Baghdad in our day of infamy. Lest we misconstrue the subtext, on Jan. 31, 2003, Newsweek asked the President specifically about a 9/11 connection to Iraq, to which Bush replied, “I cannot make that claim.”

And yet, seven weeks later, a few days before the war began, the Gallup Organization queried 1,007 American adults on behalf of CNN and USA Today. The pollsters asked, “Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the Sept. 11th (2001) terrorist attacks (on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon), or not” Fifty-one percent of respondents said yes, 41% said no, and 8% were unsure. What accounts for this discrepancy between the American people and their government

Many blame the media; indeed, it has become a cliché, in the title of a recent book by Michael Massing, to say of antebellum reporting, Now They Tell Us (New York Review of Books, 2004). Such facileness, however, confuses coverage of Iraq’s purported “weapons of mass destructions”—which as some leading newspapers and magazines have since acknowledged was inadequately skeptical[2]—with coverage of Iraqi-al-Qaeda collaboration, which was admirably exhaustive.

Instead, two answers arise. First, the current White House is perhaps the most disciplined in modern history in staying on machine. Although the President denied the sole evidence tying Saddam to 9/11—an alleged meeting in Prague between an Iraqi spy and the ringleader of the airline hijackers in April 2001—the principals of his administration consistently beclouded and garbled the issue. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Robert Novak in May 2002, “I just don’t know” whether there was a meeting or not. Or as George Tenet told the congressional Joint Inquiry on 9/11 a month later (though not unclassified until Oct. 17, 2002), the C.I.A. is “still working to confirm or deny this allegation.” Or as National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told Wolf Blitzer in September 2002, a month before Congress would vote to authorize the war, “We continue to look at [the] evidence.” Or as Vice President Richard Cheney told Tim Russert the same day, “I want to be very careful about how I say this. . . . I think a way to put it would be it’s unconfirmed at this point.” Indeed, a year later—even after U.S. forces in Iraq had arrested the Iraqi spy, who denied having met Mohammed Atta—Cheney continued to sow confusion: “[W]e’ve never been able to . . . confirm[] it or discredit[] it,” he asserted. “We just don’t know.”

A second hypothesis is that while Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, it did have a relationship with al Qaeda. Never mind that at best the relationship was tenuous, that there was nothing beyond some scattered, inevitable feelers. That Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden had been in some sort of contact since the early 1990s allowed the Bush administration to shamelessly conflate their activities pertaining to 9/11 and those outside 9/11.

In this way, as late as October 2004, in his debate with John Edwards during the presidential campaign, Dick Cheney continued to insist that Saddam had an “established relationship” with al Qaeda. Senator Edwards’s reply was dead-on: “Mr. Vice President, you are still not being straight with the American people. There is no connection between the attacks of September 11 and Saddam Hussein. The 9/11 Commission said it. Your own Secretary of State said it. And you’ve gone around the country suggesting that there is some connection. There’s not.”

Two months ago, CBS News and the New York Times found that 30 percent of Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was “personally involved in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.” Sixty-one percent disagreed. This is certainly an improvement; yet the public is not entirely to blame. Nor is the Fourth Estate.

Rather, the problem lies primarily with the Bush administration. Andrew Card, George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff, explained it best. “I don’t believe you,” he told Ken Auletta of the New Yorker, “have a check-and-balance function.” In an interview, Auletta elaborated: “[T]hey see the press as just another special interest.” This is the real story of the run-up to the Iraq war: not a press that is cowed or bootlicking, but a government that treats the press with special scorn and sometimes simply circumvents it.

Indeed, now that we are learning more stories of propaganda from this administration—$100 million to a P.R. firm to produce faux video news releases; White House press credentials to a right-wing male prostitute posing as a reporter; payolas for two columnists and a radio commentator to promote its policies—the big question isn’t about the supposed failings of the press. The question is about the ominously expanding influence of state-sponsored disinformation.

Footnotes

[1] For instance, on 10 separate occasions Donald Rumsfeld asked the C.I.A. to investigate Iraqi links to 9/11. Daniel Eisenberg, “‘We’re Taking Him Out,’” Time, May 13, 2002, p. 38.

Similarly, Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, urged Powell’s speechwriters to include the Prague connection in his U.N. address. Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, “Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked by Cheney,” Washington Post, September 29, 2003.

[2] See, for instance, The Editors, “Iraq: Were We Wrong,” New Republic, June 28, 2004; [Author unspecified], “The Times and Iraq,” New York Times, May 26, 2004; and Howard Kurtz, “The Post on W.M.D.: An Inside Story,” Washington Post, August 12, 2004.

Al Kelly: Professor Extraordinaire

Last summer, as I struggled to concretize a proposal for a Watson or Bristol postgraduate fellowship, I knew there was one person whose guidance I needed. I had talked with others, but no one had this person’s ability to explain any subject I’d ever asked about with such clarity, conciseness, context and cogence. Add this to patience that never flags and a wit that never runs dry, and this is why I think of Al Kelly as a personal encyclopedia.

I showed up unannounced at his office one weekday, doubtless while he was hard at work on his own research. What made our meeting special is Professor Kelly’s consistent brilliance to immediately distill the essence of an issue. Since my passion for a fellowship far outran any specific ideas for it, we spent about an hour and a half clarifying the reason for and goals of my project. Not where I would travel, or what I would do, or how I would do it, but simply why. Surely, anybody else would have either given up or moved on after say 20 minutes, but here was Professor Kelly calmly, happily connecting disparate dots, drawing out the big picture, and raising points as important as they were seemingly hidden. He knew that without a sound foundation, I was dooming myself to failure.

Yet rather than condescend whatsoever—how, with his intelligence, he does this is extraordinary—Professor Kelly never interrupted but let me hold forth as I attempted to verbalize my thoughts. Only when I finished, as is his unique habit, did he reply, speaking slowly and humbly, choosing his words thoughtfully, and asking me pointed questions. When I left, he transformed my mental chaos into lucidity.

*                      *                      *

When I returned to the Hill in the fall, having spent the summer interning at Time magazine, I decided to attend the first faculty meeting as a reporter for the Spectator. As one of maybe three separate students among maybe 150 professors, I entered the Events Barn with uncertainty. Then I spotted Al Kelly, holding court at the back of the room in his usual big chair. I breathed in relief, pulled up a seat and settled in. As the meeting proceeded, he explained some of the finer procedural points, and provided some funny human-interest anecdotes for my article. By next month’s meeting, it was as if I were a colleague.

In October the Spectator asked me to interview President Stewart about the coming presidential election. So I formulated a bunch of questions and then sought out Professor Kelly. I stopped by his office unannounced, and we spent 40 minutes ensuring that each question was relevant, distinct, compact and interesting. Forty minutes on what turned out to be 10 questions? Yes—and without checking his watch once. For unlike interviews I did for my column, this was my first interview to be printed as such, and since I’m an aspiring journalist, Professor Kelly knew it was crucial that I get it right.

Another indelible incident came a few months ago during the Susan Rosenberg affair. As I was weighing the competing arguments for Rosenberg’s appointment, I encountered Professor Kelly leaving the K-J building one night. I asked for his opinion, and in one crisp sentence he made explicit the fundamental principle at stake. I had had countless conversations about the controversy, but, again, Al Kelly was the only one who could simplify everything into a neat, small package.

He would engender another eureka moment for me during the Ward Churchill affair, but perhaps the most important one came during his European Intellectual History course, which I took as a junior. I had raised an objection to something he said, and in five words—“Watch your straw men, Jon”—he significantly altered my approach to scholarship. What this meant, he continued, was that although we all occasionally resort to weak or imaginary arguments, like straw, setup only to be summarily confuted, enlightened discourse proscribes such red herrings.

If this sounds simple, it is. Yet therein lies the beauty of this analysis, which, as is Professor Kelly’s wont, was at once readily comprehensible and crucially insightful. Indeed, his message embodied the goal of a liberal arts education: to further one’s knowledge not by expounding one’s own opinions but by understanding those of others. For this reason, I titled the column I would begin weeks later in the Spec, “No Straw Men.” Similarly, a few months later, I cited Professor Kelly’s exquisite monograph, Writing a Good History Paper, in an op-ed I wrote on journalism. He may be a historian by training, but his wisdom encompasses all disciplines.

*                      *                      *

Of course, all the above points to Al Kelly the mentor; doesn’t this guy—the Edgar B. Graves Professor of History after all—teach? Excellently. Al Kelly is of the old school of pedagogy, which means that he sees students not as incubators for his personal politics, but as diverse minds to be filled with classic knowledge. Accordingly, Professor Kelly is an eminently reasonable grader, who I would trust above all others to assess my work fairly. For rather than privilege one’s conclusion, he focuses on the way by which one reaches them. Consequently, his courses are rigorous (to set the tempo, he assigns homework not after but for the first class); challenging (a thorough grasp of the course material is never enough; students must make connections among and outside them); and thorough (you can’t cut any corners for an Al Kelly paper).

Indeed, class with Professor Kelly makes me believe that I’m getting my $35,000 worth of yearly tuition. I come away feeling enlivened and empowered, such that one day, following his Nazi Germany course, he and I continued a discussion from the library all the way to K-J—despite that I was going back to my dorm in North. Even when I didn’t do my homework, I always looked forward to each 75-minute session, because in simply listening to Professor Kelly lecture, I learned as much about that day’s topics as about life. Where else would I hear about the so-called four lies of modernity? (The check’s in the mail. I caught it from the toilet seat. I read Playboy for the articles. And it’s not about the money.)

Finally, rather than ask students just to defend or argue against a view, Professor Kelly requires that we engage it creatively. One typical question, from a final exam, went like this: pretend you’re Mary Wollstonecraft, and write a book review of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Equally impressive is his feedback on our answers, which is why in January I asked him for feedback on my senior thesis in government. He uses few words, but they’re the pithiest I’ve ever received. Were he alive, William Strunk Jr., the initial author of The Elements of Style, would surely take great satisfaction in knowing that others take seriously his maxims to “omit needless words” and to “make every word tell.” The world could use more Al Kellys.

Some Reporters Push Back: On the Irony of Roosting Chickens

We all have skeletons in our closet, and when reporters start digging around, they invariably unearth some (if not many). Remember the rapid downfall of Bernard Kerik after President Bush nominated him to be the Homeland Security Secretary? Or consider Ward Churchill, whose marriages, salary, military service, arrest record, artwork, ethnicity, etc., etc., has been plastered and replastered across the Internet, newspapers, TV and radio.

Does not such scrutiny cross the line of necessity or decency? What does it matter, in the context of the debate on academic freedom and free speech, that the man allegedly beat his first (of four) wives? It doesn’t—except that Ward Churchill had it coming all along. This is, after all, someone who courts controversy, who thrives on vituperation in order to advance his berths on the college lecture circuit. He is, above all, a rabble-rouser.

Moreover, the leitmotif emerging from these exposés—fraud—bears not only on the catchall of character, but also on the debate at hand. For if one has blatantly copied another’s copyrighted painting, or publicly lied about being an Indian, surely it is reasonable to investigate whether one has plagiarized, hyperbolized or otherwise employed distortion in one’s area of expertise. Indeed, each week seems to bring another damning example.

Given the roosting-chickens subtitle of Churchill’s essay/book on 9/11—not to mention his protesting Columbus Day parades in the name of hate speech or his hurling imprecations against capitalist America despite his taxpayer-funded $100,000 salary—the irony is delicious and deserved. Call it, Some Reporters Push Back.

A Secular Appreciation for Pope John Paul II

Published in the Observer-Dispatch (Utica, NY), April 3, 2005 (noted on the Hamilton College Web site).

During junior high I traveled to away swim meets with the Listers. I never knew it until later, but they were devout Catholics, and what I remember most about my best friend’s family is something Margo Lister once told my mother, which my mom recounted to me. Seeing Pope John Paul II in the flesh in Newark, NJ, she said, was a divine experience. His skin appeared translucent, and she felt that he had reached into her soul.

I never understood this connection, but as time passed I began to appreciate the special influence the faithful reserved in their hearts for this pontiff. I recognized it in the politics of another friend in sport, Matt, with whom I went to Italy for a Latin class trip. I saw it in Jerry, a college friend who aspires, more than anyone I know, to live a life of uncompromised Catholic principles. And I learned to respect it—because the Pope earned these feelings not through divisions, which Stalin famously mocked the Vatican for lacking, but through moral leadership.

This is not to say that one need subscribe to the teachings of the Church, but that disagreement does not diminish John Paul’s weighty contributions to humanity—of all faiths.