Thoughts without a thinker
First posted May 31
Okay, now you know all. I said last week ‘For reasons which I will explain another day, the publisher became nervous’; now you know the reasons. I must say, given the way the article is worded, and given the headline, I understand the publisher’s reaction better, and I regret the slightly acid tone of my post.
The article is, frankly, worded in a rather peculiar way. There’s a very noticeable lack of attribution throughout – there are free-floating feelings and reactions with no actual people having them or expressing them or taking ownership of them. There are fears and concerns and suggestions, but the reader can’t tell whose fears and concerns and suggestions they are.
Well I can tell you. I have privileged information here, so I can tell you. No one’s. They are no one’s fears and concerns and suggestions. This is not altogether surprising, since the book is not out yet, and very few people have read it. I suppose it could be that some people could have read about the book, and developed fears and concerns, and told the journalist, Christine Toomey, about them – but it seems very unlikely, and the fears and concerns would have to be awfully vague and amorphous. The article makes it sound as if (without actually saying) there are real people who have real fears and concerns about the actual content of the actual book – but there can’t be any such people, because they can’t have read the book. You see what I mean? Of course you do. So that makes it odd to talk about fears and concerns and suggestions.
An academic book about religious attitudes to women is to be published this week despite concerns it could cause a backlash among Muslims because it criticises the prophet Muhammad for taking a nine-year-old girl as his third wife…This weekend, the publisher, Continuum, said it had received “outside opinion” on the book’s cultural and religious content following suggestions that it might cause offence.
What Toomey doesn’t say there is that the ‘suggestions that it might cause offence’ came from Toomey. That’s how all this got started. Toomey interviewed the publisher, and that’s when the publisher decided to get outside opinion. (The ecumenicist by the way behaved very well. The ecumenicist put aside his likes and dislikes, and judged it on impartial grounds. The ecumenicist is impressive.) That last sentence really should say ‘This weekend, the publisher, Continuum, said it had received “outside opinion” on the book’s cultural and religious content after I suggested that it might cause offence.’ As it is the article creates the impression that there is already a set of people who have fears and concerns about the book. There isn’t.
It’s all rather odd, really. It’s like another Denise Spellberg except it’s one who likes the book as opposed to hating it. Toomey does great reporting, but I don’t think much of this anticipatory ‘there could be a backlash’ approach. It’s too closely related to internalized self-censorship. Saying a book is controversial is one thing, but sounding a warning is another.
Still – it’s always nice to be noticed eh?
Interesting last lines, Anjem Choudary: “… it [discussion of Aisha as child-bride] would lead to a huge backlash, as we saw with The Jewel of Medina.”
Is that a threat? As you say Choudary cannot have read the book and we cannot be sure what was said to him about it to get this response.
Anyway, I’ve ordered my copy.
This backstory makes the headline is kind of odd.
I’m still trying to figure out how Choudary knows when young Mrs. Mohammed got her period.
Also chewing on the twists that lead from “got her period” to “she is a woman.” Maybe in those days (but also maybe not). Even 9 year olds who are menstruating are still children. They are in about 4th grade if they are lucky and get to go to school.
The headline is odd and the floating ‘concerns’ are odd. The headline is an editor’s doing, but the article isn’t. This ‘is to be published this week despite concerns it could cause a backlash’ is really absurd, because the only concerns there have been are the ones that the author of that sentence suggested. There were no concerns it could cause a backlash until Toomey created them. That means she created a story and then reported it but without saying she’d created it. I really don’t think that’s very good journalistic practice, frankly.
Besides, the vagueness also makes it sound as if there could be whole crowds and flocks of people gathering and muttering together about their concerns. It makes it sound like some big social fret – when it’s not anything.
Maybe she’ll try to spin this into another story:
“Exclusive: journalist reports on self”
‘Floating concerns’, yes. There does seem to be a lot of that around, although only towards Islam. It’s pernicious, but maybe a more generous interpretation in this case might be, ‘We know from experience what is likely to happen, make doubly sure that all the angles are covered.’ Which, of course, you have.
The difference between, ‘Don’t say X, it might offend Y’ and ‘Saying X will offend Y, we know what Y is like so be ready for it.’
Well, one, she could have said that instead of what she did say. But two, I don’t think people should say that, either. I think it’s mistaken and pernicious to say that, for several reasons. One is that it’s a kind of entrapment. One of the things we know from experience is that if someone says ‘Ooh this might piss people off’ then there will always be at least a few people who will obligingly be pissed off – quite without feeling any need to read or look at the material in question, of course.
Another reason is that there will always be something that someone could disagree with and hence be offended by in any book or movie or tv show or political broadcast or ______. What the hell is the point of running around saying ‘Oh look, someone might not like this book’? Of course someone might not like this book! Someone might not like any number of books! Why make a ‘story’ out of it?
But, OB, this book will piss people off. It will piss off the right people in the right way, but it isn’t ‘might’, it’s ‘will’. That’s a given, surely?
Choudary, for example hardly needs to be prompted. Of course few or none will read the book, but that is the way these things work.
Given that Toomey is generally favourable towards the book and has a good track record I’m inclined to give the benefit of the doubt here.
Personally, I would not presume to warn you of eventualities you are clearly aware of, but you are scarcely ‘under the radar’. This is a book which is likely to be publically burned, which will probably evoke death-threats and hysteria, and which may even involve riots.
Taking on the patriarchy, the whole damn patriarchy, is stirring up a hornets nest. It will respond.
Fine. Let it. But let us be ready. Ordered the book, behind you all the way.
Don
Piss people in general off, yes of course, but more than that? No, not really (not a given). I think Choudary does indeed need to be prompted – he wouldn’t be aware of the book without prompting!
I admire Toomey’s work, I’m not exactly denying her the benefit of the doubt…but I do think it’s an odd way to frame the matter.
Well, since there is mention that your “gruesome catalogue of abuses carried out against women” will include those done in the name of Catholicism, I think you should gird your loins for the grim but likely possibility that Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, is going to be outraged. Outraged, I say.
You really must send him a complementary copy. It could provide cover.
I so look forward to Bill Donohue’s being outraged. I do hope he’ll oblige.
I loved that comment of yours about ‘Like comes only from Like’ at Pharyngula, Sastra – I copied it into some notes for safekeeping.
You copied something from me? Egads, you should see the saved quote file I have on you.
I’m looking forward to this new book. And Why Truth Matters was so sharp and pithy and small and easy to carry around in purse or pocket or jacket that I apparently lost it somewhere, and will have to buy another.
Why is there such a fuss about the criticism of Islam in a book that no-one’s yet read? The tu quoque mudfight at http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/026359.php reaches fever pitch. I’m sure the book deals with all the Abrahamic cults.
I can’t wait to read this book. I’ve already nagged our local bookshop to the point of being told “Look – just try Amazon.”
Yeah it never pays to read the comments at Jihadwatch. They’re not what you’d call elevating.