I admire DFW's writing a lot but I have to say that I largely agree with this critique of that speech (from the posted article):
"To me, it’s the least interesting version of himself he ever put to the page. But an unquantifiable number of online readers, millions of YouTube viewers, and thousands of bookstore shoppers disagree. Among the more dispiriting aspects of the Wallace canonization is how much it has been built out of his suffering — the way the cult has revived, for precisely the post-therapy, post-Romantic, self-help-soaked culture Wallace described and intermittently deplored, the Romantic picture of the depressive as a kind of keen-eyed saint."
My stomach sank at reading the GP comment, to have missed the exact point the article was making. (I almost wonder if it was intentional?)
But then somehow it is so appropriate to DFW that an article about him becoming a caricature of a writer and bemoaning that speech in particular produced that particular comment, a sort of circular irony or something that I almost imagine he'd appreciate.
Its borderline shameful you've been downvoted solely because someone at "vulture.com" thinks that speech is too "treacly" and doesn't represent whatever "real" view of DFW we're supposed to have. Yeah, he wasn't a liberal, he was a Reagan voter and didn't buy into the boomer hypocritical 60's freelove liberalism that was dying out by the 90s (and rightfully so by me). I think today's liberals and far left can't stand that. Why isn't he one of us? How can someone critical of causal sex, liberal politics, etc also have an somewhat enlightened view of how people work and how people should work all picked up from what seems popularized Eastern thought and heaps of cognitive behavioral therapy. We don't tolerate those who aren't like us it seems!
As a snide note, my god, if you go against the far left on social media which is almost totally ruled by college identity politics, expect a harsh reaction. I read some really disingenuous hit pieces here and elsewhere about Chicago's recent election and statements about Rahm that were somewhat if not mostly unfair and a complete and utter obedience to Chuy, who was the epitome of an empty suit protest candidate. Pointing any of this out simply was not allowed. Chicagoans voted and kicked Chuy to the curb but if you read only social media you'd think he won in a landslide. I can see how kids today look at DFW's moderate if not sometimes conservative politics as some kind of betrayal and his pieces romanticizing middle America as "giving in to the man" or some other crap. This article really seems to resonate with that crowd who really like to over-politicize everything, lower the discourse level, and bully those who they disagree with.
So, someone at vulture.com said its terrible, so now we downvote in earnest. There's a real idiocy here and appeal to authority that has always bothered me about sites like HN and reddit where opinions expressed via up and down votes are often just stemming from a fairly emotional place. "How dare you link to something the article said was crap? Enjoy your downvotes!" Its so petty and uncritical.
Article: "post-therapy, post-Romantic, self-help-soaked culture Wallace described and intermittently deplored, the Romantic picture of the depressive as a kind of keen-eyed saint"
This is just a bullshit statement. Wallace was a lot of things, and in the role of giving a commencement speech he played up being a mature adult laying down some wisdom for the graduating class. How this suddenly makes him some kind of self-help guru is beyond me. I also don't see how anyone could ever seee him as 'hip' or 'post-romantic'; he came off as a super nerdy goon with poor social skills in all his interviews, hell his Charlie Rose interview is just hard to watch, even for fans. His other interviews are almost painful and I've never seen him try to build some kind of guru superstar image either for himself or for him by his fans. We all knew he was a messed up weirdo and somewhat, if not very, unlikeable, overly academic, overly elitist, etc.
I think the author just doesn't like DFW, which is fine, but she certainly isn't giving him a fair shake and seems to have written a fairly dull hit piece for outrage which translates often into ad impressions. Which is hilariously ironic as DFW would have satirized the hell out of treating a dead writer like this. Its just so plain-faced and mercenary faux-outrage writing, the same way anyone can write a piece about Steve Jobs being a jerk and how stupid Apple customers are. HN would see through that instantly but apparently not through this considering the upvotes and uncritical reception its gotten.
This is a very cynical guess as to why GP is being downvoted. The more obvious, straightforward reason is that the article links to this speech a mere seven sentences in. In that light, the post being downvoted adds nothing and indicates that the author probably didn't read the article at all. Commenting on something without reading it is frowned upon around here.
Maybe, but when I see hit pieces (lets just admit this is what the article is) on social media, I just see a lot of uncritical reflexive knee-jerking. "Yes, of course he was terrible! Thank you current .com tastemakers for telling me this! Christ, how did anyone like this person before you opened my eyes?" It always reminds me of crowds at the town hall in the Simpsons who are 100% swayed by every speaker at the podium. Luckily, Lisa speaks last as the voice of reason. On the web, that's rarely the case.
The rewriting of history and the political correctness polarization is so out of control, I'm not even sure we see it anymore. Thomas Edison is the millenials version of Stalin for no other reason than him being a successful businessman while the cult-favorite failed at his own, just as evil/greedy/stupid/cheap business. Or how autocratic states are so wonderful and democracy so terrible because it would be un-PC and racist to admit that the Chinese, Iranians, or Russians have significant problems themselves.
This stuff wouldn't be so bad, but once you toss in an up/down vote mechanism, the cream doesn't often float to the top. Its like lowest common denominator crap that does and if you browse this article without reading DFW's work or watching some interviews, you'd just shrug and agree he was a terrible person on some kind of moralist crusade to build himself up as some kind of guru superstar, when he was very, very far from that.
