Tag: argument

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Response to A.A. Gill’s “America the Marvelous”

It’s always disappointing to read pieces of literature by great authors who – disappointingly – are unforgivingly white. I have no problem with white authors (except for J.D. Salinger – you know why) and often praise them for their whit, eloquent speech, and disorienting allusions: authors like Thomas Moore, Marie de France, and Homer. As much as I appreciate white literature (white American and white European I use interchangeably)  and understand it to be the norm (albeit forcefully) for intellectual discourse, I can’t forgive white authors for being the very thing they are: white. 

A.A. Gill in his piece “America the Marvelous” argues that Europeans are hypocritical normies who purposefully refute the greatness of America to make themselves feel more superior. He strings together various reasons for why America is so great: the US has some of the best universities in the world, the most Nobel prize winners, and New York City. For all of these reasons, Gill confirms that Europeans only ridicule Americans out of their own self-pity and need for a farce to indulge themselves in the benefits of insults. A.A. Gill paints this marvelous image of America, one of an idealistic, diverse, complicated, cosmopolitan country; in Gill’s eyes, once you’ve stepped foot in America, you’ll never want to leave. You’ll be pulled in by America’s greatness and would dread the idea of returning to Europe, Africa – wherever you may be from. This is Gill’s argument, for his animosity towards our European counterparts has grown so great that he believes throwing insults back at them is the best way to find common ground; and although Gill never says it openly, I –  as I imagine most black, Asian, Hispanic people would – understood exactly what Gill really wants to say. Behind all this misplaced anger, Gill was just bragging about being white. All he did was talk about white people: who they are and what they’ve done, although he did gloss over a few things:  slavery, redlining, COINTELPRO, Jim Crow, Vietnam war, war on drugs, Cuban Missle Crisis, segregation, Japanese internment camps, the KKK, the Proud Boys, mass shootings, Native American genocide, Richard Nixon, the South, Chinese Exclusion Act, Guantanamo Bay, the My Lai Massacre, Emmett Till’s murder, the Wilmington coup (seriously, look this up), the Sand Creek Massacre, Santa Barbara Oil Spill, smallpox, neo-nazis, police brutality, Executive order 10450 (look this up too), Operation Wetback, Dredd Scott decision, McCarthyism, and the death of Treyvon Martin. But I guess none of this matters to A.A. Gill because he got to sing Be Bop a Lula (a song I have never heard as an American) in front of and with other white people. It’s almost sickening once you’ve realized what A.A. Gill has done: he’s made America into an oasis by distinguishing it from Europe, but still using Europe as the starting point of American culture, and by accentuating a few good outcomes over years and years of negative ones. I should mention again, Gill can only write in such a way because he is white; his argument and reasons for arguing are white noise to any person who isn’t white. He’s just another patriotic American white guy who has no shame, urges others to only look at the good, and abuses his whiteness so take bring himself above not only Europeans (who are also white), but anybody who isn’t also white (I use white a lot in this piece and I hope you understand why by now). Gill is just shouting into a white void – he’s furiously screaming at our European counterparts to understand how their history and ours are linked, and that we came out the better nation in the end. He condemns their snobbery, hypocrisy, and self-indulgence, all of which – I can logically assume – makes him feel like the bigger, better white guy. I don’t know A.A. Gill personally, so what I’m saying might come off as defacement; most readers would assume I’m any angry black guy lashing out on “white oppressors.” To an extent, that is true, but I assure you I am doing more than that.

 

I am trying to paint a picture of America as a whole,  not the bits and pieces Gill uses to develop his argument. America needs to be seen, in any light, by the good and the bad, they cannot exist without one another. Too often white authors only paint the picture of white America (even though Gill mentions Jazz which set me off), completely omitting the history of non-white Americans. If Gill and any other white American wishes to uplift America as this utopian-esque society with still more room to grow, they must also mention what is weighing America down: all the bigotry, hate, narcissism, and history that comes with being an American. Say what you will about Europeans: their accents suck (this is a joke for I am quite fond of British, French, and Spanish accents), most of them never reach 5’10, and they’re all stuck in the past. As bad as all this may seem, America is no better, and rather than pointing fingers, we should focus our energies on doing and being better; the first step, admitting to yourself Mr. Gill that you are white, and you have privilege.

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Jack Albert Nusenow

The Selfie, New and Old Travel Writing

Progym: ekphrasis, argument

While it seems to be getting less and less stylish to take and share selfies, in actuality, my sense is that no one has slowed down. The first accusation in conversations about selfies is their vanity. Critiques of selfies is an artistic sense often rely on this quality as a means of attacking selfies’ potential to be rhetorical in some way. This extends to selfies as a form of travel writing. The first sentence in the introduction of Kylie Cardell & Kate Douglas’s essay on selfies as travel writing immediately brought to my mind a famous picture.

At 23, Beatles' lead guitarist George Harrison clicked an iconic selfie at the Taj Mahal during his 1966 India visit

George Harrison, at 23, standing in front of the calm, shallow pool that reflects the memorial’s figure feels anything but vain. The fisheye selfie features the Taj Mahal as the one point perspective with reverence, not vanity. It highlights Agra’s beautiful greenery and their vibrant blue sky. If travel writing’s “purpose” (if it has only one) is to spur curiosity and inspire travel, this picture, for me, is a perfect form of travel writing. It says more without words than most stories could, while leaving mystery to provoke a serious desire to visit the Taj Mahal.

If Cardell and Douglas are right, and selfies are indeed on the forefront of travel writing, they’re nothing new. They’ve only been made ubiquitous.

 

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Ehren Joseph Layne

On Selfies – Opinion/Thesis

There is nothing anybody can say to convince me that selfies are about anything other than the selfier (the person taking the selfie – yes we are creating words). To take a selfie is to prioritize yourself over your surroundings, your vanity over your sanity, your perception over your reception; selfies are not tools of self-expression, but rather instruments of self-obsession. As selfies continue to grow in popularity amongst the young and the old, there have been cultural shifts in how people relate themselves to the world and the world to them. Whether a selfie is taken at a memorial site or a famous restaurant, the goal of the selfie is the same: to place oneself in the world and reflect their image upon it. Some might consider this a form of self-expression: for someone to reflect themselves upon the world is for them to take notice of the world and place themselves in a position of reflection, admiration, consideration, appreciation, and expression. This ignores the fact that selfies themselves are, by definition, separate from the world; rather, they exist to make the selfier the world(hence the strained importance on the word “self”). People have injured themselves trying to take selfies – died even – all for the sake of making the world revolve around them. Rather than the appreciation and admiration some would say encapsulate the true nature of the selfie, the injury caused by the selfie provides an alternative narrative: one of self-obsession. People who take selfies are self-obsessed, they care more about outward appearance and recognition for said appearance over inward qualities and the world around them. Tourists who take selfies at various locations are not doing so because they believe said location is of great importance; it’s quite the opposite – they believe that they can take importance away from the location and place themselves in the space created. They are what is most important, they are what matters. Selfies taken at weddings and other forms of public or private celebration are done so to make certain that the selfier is seen; seen by others and, most importantly, seen by themselves. The celebration only matters so much that it allows the selfier to say, “I was here” or “They are with me” or “I did that”. Never is the other recognized in the selfie; however, when the other is emphasized more than the selfier, the other acts to make the selfier seem righteous for giving the other more space to be important. No matter how you spin the selfie and its implications, the selfie always falls back on the self: I matter, I am important – look at me for this is my world, and in my world, nobody else matters besides me.

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Black people are wild savages, yet we can’t venture into the wilderness? – Thesis/Argument

I am Black and have no idea how to start a fire. I don’t know how to hunt, have very little knowledge on how to traverse large landscapes, and I can’t, for the life of me, pitch a tent.  If you were to place me in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, I’d survive for 2 to 3 days max; 4 days if I don’t eat the blueberries that were obviously not blueberries. Even with all my non-knowledge of the great outdoors, I am – as Black people are commonly referred to as – a wild savage. To some, or many, white people, I am the epitome of savagery and should forever exist in the wild or as a slave; they believe that I should have no rights, that I have a brain the size of a pigeons’(pigeons are considered a delicacy in some regions of the world so thank you for the back-handed compliment white man) and that I am, above all other flaws, a good-for-nothing…, well, you know the rest of the phrase. As a black man with no survival skills, it is difficult for me to understand (the outdoors, obviously) why there continues to be this link between my blackness and the wilderness. I am very much aware of the history between black people and nature. Rahawa Haile in her personal essay “Going it Alone”(a powerful piece that I very much enjoyed) gives the example of Harriet Tubman who, among many things, was an expert hiker who understood how to traverse the hundreds of miles of woods and mountains that lay between the North and Southeast regions of the US. She is an example of a black person who was – even if not by nature – very knowledgeable of the outdoors, and with that knowledge, she was able to save hundreds of other enslaved black people. I must mention, however, that Harriet Tubman is no longer alive(may she rest in peace) and that black people(thank god) are no longer enslaved. In the US, the majority of black citizenry live in or near metropolitan cities. Many of us, myself included, rarely venture into the wilderness, and those of us who do(like Rahawa) have a mixed experience with it. Rahawa is a black woman who adores the outdoors and understands it extremely well. As she attempts to embrace the wilderness to which she feels extrinsically linked, she cannot avoid the racism that exists as a byproduct of her ancestor’s enslavement. In her essay, Rahawa recounts, time and time again, the racist interactions she’s had with hikers not like herself(meaning white), and those who live in towns parallel to common hiking trails. She talks about a time where another hiker didn’t believe she was “black” because real “black” people don’t hike. I can’t wrap my head around how black people can be savages when many of us know nothing of the wilderness, and even if we do, we aren’t “black” because knowledge of the outdoors is reserved for white people. I direct this question to any white man who may be reading this: are Black people savages for your convention, or because hip-hop is the closest thing to monkey culture that you know?

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Everybody Looks the Same? – Response to A.A. Gill

 

44% of London’s population consists of Black and Brown persons, yet A.A. Gill composes a picture of a city that is woefully and unwaveringly white. This, I must be honest, pisses me off. It is too often that travel writers or travel critiques write in a way that completely excludes Black and Brown persons (unless, of course, they’re are writing about Africa or South America). Black people(which I happen to be: go Black people!) are never given proper representation in travel documentation unless we are the spectacle that is to be seen by tourists. Besides such spectacle, Black and Brown persons are presented as non-existent – with the reason being that due to our lack of “history” in mainly white cities, we hold no value to the physique or aura of said city. I will have Mr. Gill know that Idris Elba was born in the U.K., and he is one hell of a Black man. He is a Londoner, and much like Mr. Gill, Idris Elba matters. He matters to the history of the U.K. He matters to the U.K. entertainment business. He is another Black Londoner whose struggle has been interwoven into the current U.K. mainstream entertainment that white Londoners have enriched themselves off of. So before you talk about your city and its rich history, that history better include Black people.

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Jack Albert Nusenow

Pro/Am Travel Writing

Argument

Alacovska proceeds delicately through what is a very difficult and precarious rhetorical situation — that is, critiquing the shift that the travel writing industry is experiencing towards less experienced writers.

In the very beginning of the article Alacovska argues that the digitization of travel guidebook writing is a figurative “canary in the digital coalmine.” We’ve seen essays like this one pushed out plentifully by academics and creative professionals specifically in the last 15 years as the internet has become a mainstay of daily life. They range from truly credible and thoughtful critiques of changes in their field brought about by technology to outright gatekeeping from previously successful people in the space that just can’t keep up. Whether its meant to or not (and its probably not), Alacovska’s essay rhetorically evokes my frustration over the experience paradox every college student faces. I can’t get an job because I don’t have experience because I can’t get an job because I don’t have experience because I can’t get an job because I don’t have experience… So again, I wonder if this essay really is the well written, thoughtful critique of a shift to younger, less experienced, bright eyed aspiring travel writers that are in over their heads that I’m hopeful it is, or if it’s a mischaracterization of old-school travel writers’ troubles as fresh minds with new skill sets move into a space that was once theirs.

At the very least, this essay demands two things: healthy skepticism and more research… two things that should also never stop being demanded from travel writers.

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Opinion – Cruise Ships

I hate pampering. To be more honest,  I abhor it. I feel zero envy towards those who are given everything; I look upon them with only disgust for their complete dependency on the work of others. To never have to clean; to never have to cook; to never have to do your own laundry; it all seems ridiculous to me – the idea of complete and utter dependency. Now,  I can’t lie, I understand the appeal of pampering from a maternal standpoint: most of us ( I would assume) were raised by parents(or a parent) who provided us with all that  we needed; we didn’t have to shop for ourselves, cook for ourselves, or even clean up our own shit. It isn’t until we’ve begun maturation (depending on your socioeconomic class, that is: the richer you are, the less you’ve had to do for yourself , the less you’ve matured,  and vice versa) that we start to feel a sense of independence. Upon maturation, our need for an overseer(our parents or parent) begins to fade, and we desire everything and anything to be done by our own hand. To this extent, I can understand where a desire for pampering comes from: a distant past where you were once treated like a baby because you were one. However, even in older age, there still is the inclination – or want – to be treated like a baby. If you’re 84 years old, senile, and geriatric, I can better wrap my head around why you’d want your “mother” back(I would too if I couldn’t clean up my own shit anymore), but even with that said, pampering still feels so, well, shitty. Take cruise ships, for example: they pamper you to death. I am yet to board a cruise ship myself(as a colored person, I feel terrible watching other colored persons do everything for a majority white cruise ship population) but am acutely aware of how cruise ships advertise themselves and how they treat their customers. Cruise ships offer scenery and a lifestyle unbecoming of most lower and middle class persons; pale blue skies, luxurious meals, bear-ass soft towels, 24/7 neo-slavery, and more. On cruise ships, the more you do nothing for yourself, the more you enjoy everything about the cruise experience. Annual cruise-goers(or whatever they call themselves: Americans) are more like products than anything: their lives are made up by industry executives all for the prospect of monetary gain. The luxury cruise line business model is to supply you with a life that makes them money: by any means necessary they will give you everything, in the hopes that you do nothing, so that they can get more of everything you need to do nothing. Nothing. Fucking nothing. How is nothing so appealing? Having someone constantly in your room, cleaning it for you, venturing close to basically wiping your ass; having someone cut your steak for you, put on your bib for you, and basically pre chew your steak au poivre. Having someone carry around your sweaty towel( which – if you believe in the transitive theory – basically means they were touching your balls), carry around your bags; carry every load in your life , breaking their backs on supporting your bad habits, your worst behaviors, and your insatiable appetite for a maternal love that has been commodified. I abhor pampering, but have an even stronger condemnation of cruise liners, for not only do they pamper to death, they make so much money off of our worst impulses.

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Ehren Joseph Layne

Urry through Frow – Confirmation/Thesis

Confirmation / Thesis 

 

Frow’s expository, “Tourism and the Semiotics of Nostalgia”, presents an understanding of the tourist v. traveller dilemma and uses semiotics to interpret the network of concepts relating to tourism, nostalgia, and heritage(concepts such as authenticity, the tourist gaze, and so on). Frow also expands upon  paradoxes that Culler and Urry explain in their respective pieces on tourism – those paradoxes being: the continuous refabrication of the authentic coupled with the continuous validation of the refabrication of the authentic as authentic, and the inability to upkeep authentic cultural traditions because the upkeep of said traditions changes then from being “authentic” and instead makes them “the revitalization of the authentic”.  I find myself being more and more persuaded by the arguments Urry makes in respect to tourism, and was pleased to see Frow reference him almost ubiquitously(I had no care for references to Culler). Frow leans on Urry’s conceptualization of the authentic  when explaining the paradox of authenticity: Frow writes – 

 

 “The paradox, the dilemma of authenticity, is that to be experienced as authentic it must be marked as authentic, but when it is marked as authentic it is mediated, a sign of itself and hence not authentic in the sense of un- spoiled. “ 

 

Frow’s usage of Urry is not limited to this definition: Frow does a copy and paste of an excerpt from Urry where he is fantasizing about the prospect of  “real travel” but doing so in the context of the paradox. Urry wishes to travel authentically, but understands his inability to do so by nature of the dilemma of authenticity: Urry cannot wish for authentic travel because travel itself is the catalyst for the spoiling of the authentic, and therefore, the inability to ever experience the authentic. Urry goes as far as to saying that: 

 

“ I am the loser – and more heavily than one might suppose; for today, as I go groaning among the shadows, I miss, inevitably, the spectacle that is now taking shape. My eyes, or perhaps my degree of humanity, do not equip me to witness that spectacle; and in the centuries to come, when another traveler revisits this same place, he too may groan aloud at the disappearance of much that I should have set down, but cannot. “

 

I would like to emphasize this, for it helps in the contextualization of my thesis from my last post. My redefinition of authenticity is because I wish to dismantle the narrative that we are no longer able to perceive spectacle(the authentic). I hope to, with some rudimentary knowledge of semiotics, relieve tourism of its many incapabilities (inability to perceive the authentic, inability to deal with the authentic, and inability to think freely without compartmentalizing our knowledge of the authentic) and open up the possibility of discourse that upholds tourism rather than stigmatizing it.

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Jack Albert Nusenow

Cultural Reduction

Progym: Argument

Every culture that we believe to be easily recognizable and identifiable is surely more complex than we can ever grasp. I mostly agree with Cullen when he says that tourism “reveals difficulties of appreciating otherness except through signifying structures that mark and reduce it.” My addition of mostly stems from his inclusion of the word reduce. Ironically, we need a semiotic approach to evaluate what he means by this. Like his early example of the Eiffel tower, world wonders lend themselves well to Cullen’s idea of tourists and signs, but this I think is too generous to tourists. When we talk about tourist attractions, we have to examine who these sites actually serve. In essays and articles about tourism, its easy to slip into the routine of describing these sites merely as attractions or monuments that exist to serve foreigners, but doing this ignores the cultural relevance that citizens inherit from their own homes. A Parisian would rebuke the idea that the Eiffel tower or the catacombs reduce in any way French and Parisian culture, just as a New Yorker would with the Empire State Building, or an Egyptian would with the Pyramids. But I think all would agree, semiotically, that these attractions signify their cultures. And while the Eiffel Tower, and the Empire State Building, and the Pyramids aren’t accurate signs or descriptors of the cultures that produced them, they are all, undoubtedly, uniquely of their culture.

The distinction is almost semantic, but there’s an important case for why cultures’ greatest creations aren’t reductionary. Rather, important and relatively immortal cultural and historical markers for us as we exist in a globalist world.