Using 1700 words, Lee Smith of the Weekly Standard was able
to paint his own portrait as that of the quintessential literary scorpion. He
wrote “Behind the PEN American Center Brouhaha,” which he published on May 5,
2015 in the Standard. He did in this piece what the scorpion did in the analogy
that is circulating widely in the Middle East
among all the ethnic groups and all the religions.
The story is that of the scorpion which asked the frog to
take it on its back to the other side of the lake. The frog agreed, and when
they got to the middle of the lake, the scorpion stung the frog that began to
die. He had enough time before expiring, however, to ask the scorpion why it
committed an act that will drown them both. And the scorpion replied: I'm a
scorpion and this is my nature. I could not help it.
This is what Lee Smith has done to his profession not
because he is a writer but because he is who he is. He did it not as a
constructive criticism aimed at correcting a bad trajectory he believes the
profession has taken; he did it because members of an organization called PEN
representing a group of writers did not agree with a decision that was taken by
the executive, and they exercised the right to voice their displeasure. That's
what angered Smith so much as to sting the profession.
Something similar happened to me when I launched a small
newspaper in the town where I live. The thing about a newspaper – and every
media outlet, for that matter – is that everyone, including the competitors, knows
who your clients are. They are the companies and individuals that advertise
with you, and thus keep you afloat. If and when the competitors decide to sink
you, they approach your clients and do something with them. But there is here
the risk that they may sink with you as well.
As it happened, my local competitors were the subsidiary of
a gigantic out-of-town media conglomerate that did not worry about letting the
little thing sink with me. The parent company had pockets deep enough to throw
the publication a lifeline and re-float it after we both sank. And so, my
competitors went to each of my clients and told them they had entered into a
conspiracy with me to fleece our clients, knowing full well that newspaper
advertising does not generate demand.
They told the local business owners that the Yellow Pages
used to be the best bet for advertising a small business. But now there is the
internet that will generate all the business they can handle. They said they
were now confessing their sin because they felt badly about what they did,
having conspired with me to fleece them. Because an act of contrition has
gripped them, they feel compelled to stop advertising the small local
businesses, and seek only to do business with the big businesses from
out-of-town. They counseled them to cease advertising with me because it's like
throwing money out the window.
This is what Lee Smith has done in his article: “their [the
dissident writers'] gesture is about something much closer to home. It's about
politics, ambition, jobs, money, and prestige … the desire to be relevant
[because] it takes time to write a book, even a bad one.” He goes on to display
the dirty laundry of the profession, having exaggerated and caricatured its
shortcomings almost beyond recognition. And he concludes that the letter which
the dissidents signed “is a passage in a story about a family that is scared by
jealousy and resentment.” What a broken family, that is!
In case the general picture he painted of the profession is
not sufficient to convince the readers it is a bad profession, he zooms in on
the individuals who practice it, and paints them in a bad light: “For those at
the very bottom of the literary food chain, the letter is a resume builder …
some are just out of grad schools, apprentices … maybe now they dream. Maybe
they've got a shot at that job.” What an insult!
But if this is human nature of the sort that the reader may
sympathize with, Smith has something else up his sleeve. He attacks the
credentials of the writers: “Many of the people who signed the letter spent
their entire adult lives on university campuses. I know one writer on that list
who has never had to earn a living … the rank and file of the literary
establishment – the majority of the people who signed the letter – consists of
people re-circulating the same air.” This guy spares no one, not even the
people he knows.