Mar 18, 2007
Eggers in Atlanta
Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and Valentino Achak Deng, Sudanese refugee and subject of Egger’s new quasi-fictional biography What is the What?, spoke tonight at the Margaret Mitchell house. It was one of those typical writerly events, free cheese with $10 admission, annoying introductions (what for?), no drum solos, minor technical difficulties. Dave didn’t speak much about his writing as most of the time was spent interviewing the affable Valentino who spoke about the tragedy and fortune that led him to the US. Interestingly enough, the aspect that moved me the most wasn’t so much the genocide tragedy (which, like all of them, are so awful they are difficult to even process) but Valentino’s emphasis on the fact that he did not suffer, that he escaped the suffering, and that those who didn’t escape are the ones who suffered. Now that, is fucking human. Survivor guilt was palpable, paralleled with the first-world status guilt of the audience, most of whom were not refugees, and whose lives nowhere approached this level of tragedy. Whose most taxing dilemmas stem from having too many choices to contemplate. How we labor over freedom, if we have the luxury.
Did Eggers admit he hadn’t suffered either…at least in any way he hadn’t totally cashed in on?
BTW, my dog has cancer, but it’s OK, because I’m working on a book to be called ‘A Stupendous Epic of Unstoppable Furriness’ (no. it’s irony. you see-) that I’m pretty sure is gonna get me on Animal Planet. Well, actually the book is about me pitching the book to the producers of Animal Planet, one of whoms dogs MY cancer ridden dog is fucking…
I think the fact that Eggers spent the entire time interviewing Valentino and hence calling attention to the Sudan/Darfur/genocide issue adequately demonstrated his humility. Also, Valentino controls all the profits from the book. I haven’t researched to see what that really amounts to but it seems like Eggers isn’t getting much personally for it except the altruistic self-importance (whatever, that’s also human), and more name fame, but he already had that…
No, I have no problem with this project, and general respect for the McSweenys empire. I was taking a Eggers potshot. Perhaps the joke is on Deathkulture America and he used that initial project, intending all along to take what he knew would be a money maker and use the profits to finace other ventures.
OR, maybe after his flash in the pan success, and unable to match the other novel, he realized he needed to involve himself in a project that would give him validity as an apparent altruist. This is obviously a cynical theory, only he knows the truth and my opinion and sarcastic snipes don’t really mean much in the big picture.
It’s easy to be self-centered, manipulative, or just plain evil. Everyone recognizes those traits. Bad people get celebrated in the DeathKulture, e.g. books and movies about serial killers are big money makers. We know the names of those crazy fucks, yet hardly anyone knows about, for example, Doctors Without Borders. Violence is absence, just shut off the more developed parts of the brain and let the animal or the repressed infantile tantrum come out. It takes a hell of a lot more imagination and persistence to do something right and-or good.
I have to take issue with one thing, allycks. There is no such thing as ‘evil’. It is a term of divinity. Good/Bad. Angelic/Demonic. I’m not sure what (righteousness?)/Evil. There are only varying degrees of unenlightenment and selfishness, mental illness and depraved behavior. I don’t believe forces from hell take control of people and manipulate them to do their will. In a way, the term evil acts as a buffer label for people who don’t want to (can’t?) accept the more animalistic acts humans are capable of. Hilter/Manson/Hussien were not ‘evil’, without condoning anything they did or their twisted visions – theres were the acts of humans, not supernatural beings.
Further, this is exactly what’s so fucked up about Bush using a term like ‘axis of evil’ because it implies he leads a struggle of righteousness. This on top of the obvious hypocrisy of his administration…
I also meant Deathkulture in a different sense than you did. I was talking about plastic fantastic vacuous capitalism, where as you were addressing a morbid fascination with entropy, pain and decay. Though surely you would agree that it was wrong for the early church to try and forbid Leonardo DaVinci from studying cadavers for the purposes of science and acurate illustration.
Look at the example of child molestation: it’s very easy to have a reaction of “Nothing can excuse this heinous act! The guilty party must be punished and destroyed”, which is essentially the reactionary impulse akin to Taliban logic. Nothing will ever be learned about what causes the deviation by this methodology. By all means, these deviants should be isolated, nothing ‘made easy’ for them, and studied. I think it’s ironic that such persons are thrown into a prison system (actually, an incarceration industry) where they are the lowest strata and at the mercy of all other deviants, then when they die their bodies thrown into a grave; but it would be considered ‘inhumane’ to take a view of ‘you have lost your rights, and the establishment is now going to experiment on you to try and find a way to stop this, and when you die, whether you want it or not, your brain WILL be cut open and studied. You’re a donor now – like it or not. Not even your mortal coil is entitled to anything.’
What is ‘gained’ from the system as it stands now? In a sense, intentional torture in a way that may have scientific gain makes more sense to me than merely condeming a person to an enviornment where you can assume they will be tortured, for no purpose.
I agree ethical and moral behavior require more effort (imagination, persistence) than selfishness, vengence and depravity. I’m not sure that ‘everyone recognizes these traits’, the American reaction to 9/11 being one example.
If we have to define the terms ‘good and evil’ around the moronic worldviews of politicos and church folk, then there’s no point in even getting started. Also, if you want to look at human behavior from the deterministic perspective of cause-effect, i.e. the body and brain are simply subject to chemical reactions, and thus potential imbalances which cause ‘bad’ behavior, then again we’re on an incredibly reductive, albeit ‘scientific’ terrain. I’m talking about the choices that people make–if you’ll allow that humans do indeed choose how to lead their lives–whether to destroy or to create, to smother or to urge towards life. The choosing is the hard part, it’s easier to follow instinct or to simply relegate the entire spectrum of life and human behavior to a sytem of scientific ‘principles’ (which is starting to sound a lot like the self-congratulatory ‘faith’ of the church folk.)
If a couple (or just the woman) decide to terminate a pregnancy rather than have a child, I don’t necessarily think it’s a ‘bad’ thing. If a couple want a child ‘of their own’ so much they consult science aggressively and allow other aspect of their lives to become unbalanced by the obsession rather than to simply adopt an existing but neglected child on earth, I don’t necessarily think it’s a ‘good’ thing. These are examples to make the point that some things should be destroyed, and some things shouldn’t be created.
I agree ethical terms shouldn’t be entirely defined around the views of politicos and church folk, but they can’t be entirely seperated either. Ideals are important, but human reality is each individual making good and bad choices, the vast majority of which will never be subject to verdicts or medals. It is not possible to make an ‘evil’ choice.
I’m so confused now. I don’t know whether to like Charlie Manson or get an abortion.