In his 1993 essay “E Unibus Pluram,” Wallace says: “The next
real literary ‘rebels’ in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of
anti-rebels … who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in
U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip
fatigue. … The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled
eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the ‘Oh
how banal.’”
The corner which Wallace was trying to turn can be
understood as the difference between sincerity and authenticity, as described
by Lionel Trilling [Sincerity and Authenticity. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Univ. Press. 1972]. Ensuring the truth
of oneself to others was a salient characteristic of Western culture for 400
years, suggests Trilling. But in the 20th century, the ideal became one of
authenticity. Though Trilling goes into great detail, roughly, in his terms, sincerity
places emphasis on communication with others,
whereas authenticity sees truth as something inward, personal and hidden, with
a goal of self-expression rather than other-directed communication.
For most of my life, assessment of inner truth, or
authenticity, has been the criterion by which literature, politics and people
have been judged. But Orlando Patterson, a respected Jamaican-born sociologist,
describes what happens to public discourse when individual insistence on inner
truth trumps tolerance and civility. Divisive identity politics and prejudices are
upheld, among other things. [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/26/opinion/26patterson.html]
Several critics have pointed out that Wallace may have wanted
to “eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue,” but that he could not overcome
his own ironic ambivalence. In his novels, he tries to be “at once unassailably
sophisticated and doggedly down to earth.” [A.O. Scott] David Foster Wallace
did not want to lose what had been gained by our relentless focus on
authenticity. I think of him when I run into the young hipster culture. As some
have told me, “hipster” can be defined, but the person defining it is never
referring to himself. Wallace would be pleased to find, as he believed, that
“cynicism and naïveté need not be mutually exclusive”.
Both sincerity and authenticity reflect wholeness to the
inner self. But I don’t think this is just a semantic tempest in a teapot. In
public life, we must begin to behave with civility and tolerance while
negotiating the authentic beliefs each of us hold dear. We must trust each
other’s cordial gestures to have been offered sincerely and find common ground
upon which we can all stand as humans.
In art, I would love to see work which opens to the world
validated. Works which value the senses and allow the spirit present in things
to emerge. Works of observation celebrating and exploring life itself. I think
we’ve seen enough of the dark interiors of various people’s minds! We know now
that the observer affects what he sees and thus, we must triangulate through
many works to get a clear picture of truth. But why not? It is the work of
being human.
David Foster Wallace was demonstrably trying to step back
from pure self expression toward an ethos which valued the other, the
reader, in his work. At present, I do not see widespread movement to what has
been called “the new sincerity.” But I do identify with his idea of the new rebels. I
quite expect yawns and rolled eyes where my writing is concerned, and I am more
interested in what the reader needs than in self-expression. My characters are
offered sincerely, in a spirit of civility and tolerance, finding common cause
with the 90% of humanity that we all share, rather than in the narrow, hidden
aspects in which we differ.
