http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/10/the-courthouse-...
His criticism imagines a better hero, one who would righteously proclaim truth. But this is also unfair. Had A.F. done this, he would have lost his stature and surely everything he held precious. This is impossible for most, and it would be unrealistic to write the story in that way.
In my view, the work stands strong, as it has weathered many assaults, this latest included. Other favorites of mine have toppled.
However you approach her second novel, it's worth the read to understand her outlook on life in the South.
And the critique of Atticus Finch I don't even take as some kind of heavy-handed moral judgment. The article's byline isn't "Atticus Finch was a bad person," it's "Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism." A person trying to stand up for the right in this way can do some good (And Jim Folsom did some good). But an accommodating, non-confrontational approach like Atticus will have its limits.
I also don't feel that the article's conclusion implies that people should be 100% uncompromising in their principles all the time. Pragmatically speaking, that's unlikely to maximize the amount of justice in the world.
to which I reply
> Pirates are evil? The Marines are righteous? These terms have always changed throughout the course of history! Kids who have never seen peace and kids who have never seen war have different values! Those who stand at the top determine what's wrong and what's right! This very place is neutral ground! Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice! [0]
By appealing to "justice", Malcolm Gladwell is making a deontological appeal. But as a consequentialist, I don't find it very convincing. Additionally, the critique reminds me of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics: "Atticus did good, but not optimally good. Therefore, he was worse than Hitler."
Furthermore, I disagree that Atticus's impact on society was limited by his approach. Rather, his impact was inherently limited by the culture. I.e. I suspect that a lot of people imagine "if I had lived in the antebellum south, I'd have been more vocal than MLK jr". But realistically, there's only so much a single person can do to effect change. Almost by definition, the status quo has inertia. So given the circumstances, the "hearts and minds" approach may have very well been the most effective strategy. More than one history teacher has told me that we have to interpret people's behavior within the context of their own time period. This entails that it's misleading to judge the behavior of people from other cultures by modern standards.
(but thanks for sharing the article. It changed the way I think about "to kill a mockingbird" also.)
If Gladwell's point is that people are interpreting TKAM incorrectly, then I suppose I agree, but that's not what I'm getting out of this essay. What I'm getting is the distinct feeling that Gladwell wants to criticize Lee for pushing some sort of agenda... which is, well, bizarre.
I suppose what bothers me most particularly is the appeal to legal expertise in the analysis. I think this is missing the point completely, and I fail to see how that can be a criticism of anything but the author. We learn that Lee isn't a legal expert, but this isn't a book about law per se. Rather, it's a book about society, so the moral and ethical contradictions in Finch's character constitute a feature, not a bug, and the legal narrative drives the story -- nothing more.
Yes, this is exactly the point I was trying to make, so it seems as though we're in agreement. It also seems as though I may have read too fast or too far into Gladwell's editorial.
Color me satisfied :)
I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact, the only way you can change systemic problems is to convince the minds and hearts of people to change.
You cannot simply make new laws and expect everything to go smoothly if few people have changed their minds or hearts. How will you enforce the new laws?
And furthermore, he wasted a whole lot of his time and mine trying to reveal the disparity between the novel Harper Lee wrote and the one she should have written. Why?
Also I don't think it's meant as a criticism of the novel at all. It just means the novel is deeper than a simple morality play.
On your first point, I don't think the law needs to wait on everyone to change their minds and hearts. But enough lawmakers and voters have to change their minds and hearts for the systemic problems to go away.
On the second point, you're probably right. But something about the way he says it seems critical of fictional character behaviors.
It just makes sense. If you want to convince people, you don't want to antagonize them.
There are limits, of course. Some people are just so completely racist, homophobe, antisemitic, whatever, one can't reach them, certainly not charm them into becoming more decent.
But for most other people, the friendly approach is far more promising than the confrontational one. This goes for smaller issues, as well, and is well worth keeping in mind in day-to-day interactions with others.
Brilliant characterization--Scout, Jem, Dill, Atticus, Calpurnia, Boo Radley, the Ewells, Tom Robinson...
The setting...the Deep South, small town flavor, racial tensions...
This novel has it all...the Great American Novel, personified...
Sad news...great writer...
One of these approaches persuaded people to come around to correct views. The other approach produced intellectual trench warfare and our current political gridlock. And Gladwell likes the second, not the first.
Does he have any idea what happens when you use force of arms to compel people to assent on the surface to beliefs they don't hold? The example of the Soviet Union should warn him that this is a bad idea. In particular, look at the Baltic states, which didn't really have a sense of national identity or distinction from Russia before Soviet rule, but are now fanatically nationalist and anti-Russian.
More to the point -- because they're culturally much more similar to the American South -- he should look at Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. Ireland shook off the Saxon yoke after its "Eight Hundred Years of Oppression", which did nothing to make the Irish into Englishmen; Scotland is close to recovering its freedom, reversing the verdict of the 1707 Acts of Union; Welsh nationalism is growing, and we'll probably see Welsh independence in our lifetimes -- even though Wales has been ruled by England since 1277.
The longer the American South is coerced instead of persuaded -- even if they're coerced to do the right thing -- the more they'll react like the other Celts over the water. (Especially the Lowland Scots, who are the people that most contemporary Southerners descend from. Donald Trump, for example, is a textbook Lowlander -- although admittedly he's not Southern.) I wonder what payoff the futures markets offer for Confederate secession in 200 years?
Excellently put! All sides of the political spectrum should learn from this, if not to get along with the, to them, despicable other side, than to beat them. Case in point: Until we stop calling Trump backers idiots, racists, etc. (http://thedailybanter.com/2015/09/a-new-gop-poll-proves-trum...) we will be plagued by the likes of him.
Orwell didn’t think that Dickens should have written different novels; he loved Dickens. But he understood that Dickens bore the ideological marks of his time and place. His class did not see the English social order as tyrannical, worthy of being overthrown. Dickens thought that large contradictions could be tamed through small moments of justice. He believed in the power of changing hearts, and that’s what you believe in, Orwell says, if you “do not wish to endanger the status quo.”
(But then, Gladwell wrote a book called _The World is Flat_ in 2000, and it was about free trade, not fundamentalism; he's not exactly someone who I look to as a paragon of good judgement either.)
Finch isn't a Facebook-era observer who has just heard the story and the emotions are fresh. He's the victim's lawyer, who has been working hard on the case for months, all the time knowing that the jury would almost certainly declare for guilt. He leaves the court a tired, defeated man who tried hard to make it otherwise.
The author of the article declares that he should have been trembling with rage - perhaps the author should spend time in an actual courtroom observing how lawyers behave, rather than the ones on TV. The first time I saw an actual trial in progress, I was shocked - it was so boring. The lawyers didn't wander around the courtroom; lean over jurors to talk to them one-to-one; point accusatory fingers at the current witness...
Anyway, while the article is interesting, all through the article I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. Finch is defending his client in the best ways he knows how, using tactics he think are most likely to work. He's not half-arsing the job, but working his best. But the article never drops the other shoe; never actually articulates what Finch should have done in the novel's context to make him the hero the article takes great pains to point out that he's not. As best as I can see, if Finch had've visibly shown he was miffed at the verdict, that would have been enough to turn him from "racial apologist" to "civil rights hero".
The disingenuity of the article is summed up at the end. Quoting the sheriff saying that he's not going to go public with the cause of Ewell's death, because Radley is a shy man who generally wants to be left alone, the author instead translates this as literally "the sheriff is stopping Radley from getting FREE CAKE!". Regardless of whether or not you agree with the actions of the sheriff, this is an atrociously bad reading of what was happening.
the tl;dr is:
The lawyer isn't really that good a role model. He gets a black man off of a rape charge mostly by attacking the alleged victim's character. He can't bring himself to hate a white man that wants to lynch that same black man, or indeed even Hitler. In the end he conspires with the sheriff to obstruct justice when a nice middle class white man kills a poor white man.
In this way he reflect the actual time and place, where people who could in some respects be seen as liberal and generous, like the governer at that time, weren't actually doing anything to achieve true equality (whether black/white, male/female, rich/poor) and when racial matters came to a head they got swept aside as the core issue was never dealt with from within and had a solution forced on them from outside.
I get the feeling the author was trying to be a little contrarian, but still brings up lots of interesting details and examples, particularly with hindsight from the present.
I think that overstates the article's position. The article mentions several things the governor did to works towards equality:
> He worked to extend the vote to disenfranchised blacks. He wanted to equalize salaries between white and black schoolteachers. He routinely commuted the death sentences of blacks convicted in what he believed were less than fair trials. He made no attempt to segregate the crowd at his inaugural address. “Ya’ll come,” he would say to one and all, making a proud and lonely stand for racial justice.
No, he tries to get a black man off of a rape charge, but he fails. And, it is worth noting, the black man was (almost certainly) actually innocent, the alleged victim was actually the aggressor, and the black man is ultimately killed by a vigilante.
A second and fascinating point deals with the trial in the book. I always read it as Atticus patiently but relentlessly exposing the obvious truth, which was that Bob Ewell beat up Mayella for daring to touch a black man. The article makes the case for a different interpretation, and offers historical support for it by citing scholars who have explored many historical cases of black-on-white rape.
I don't fully subscribe to every last conclusion of the article, but it did shift my thinking and expand my perspective about the book dramatically.