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- OPEN AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL VALUE
The Danger Of ElitismBut perhaps, when everyone criticizes you, it’s not simply because you are always right. In Sontag’s case, there is a Line of thinking from her critics which paints her as arrogant and self-satisfied by her ability to do nothing but criticize, to always take the intellectual high ground. Her criticism of revolutionary leftists, for example, ignores the important contributions made by American radicals in opening up the discursive and political space to generate social changes such as civil rights and anti-war movements. Her eschewment of reductionist art and literary interpretation, critics say, ignores the important role that such criticism plays in telling us about ourselves. Critics claim that Sontag is nothing but negative, and in being so, she misses the virtues of the very institutions she seeks to improve and defend. Like other liberal critics such as Herbert Marcuse and Norman Mailer, who also came of age in the 1960s, Sontag also seems to assume that the “critical” spirit can only come as result of an “educated” consciousness, and that an educated shift in consciousness is necessary for meaningful social change. This, critics say, makes her an elitist, a charge which goes well with the accusation of her arrogance. Since when, critics ask, have nay-sayers such as Sontag ever accomplished anything meaningful for the majority of Americans? By arguing that criticism is more important than political action (an argument which she even seems to contradict in some of her criticisms of the Western left), and by arguing that criticism can only come as the result of a Harvard-type education, Sontag entrenches at least one attitude she doesn’t seem interested in negating: the idea that only an enlightened few can be appointed the guardians of democracy. But these charges are not unique to Susan Sontag, and her work is, in fact, accessible to most people who can read and think. If she is arrogant, it is perhaps because she sees through the self-importance of others and must assert at least some degree of her own in order to fight fire with fire. And if she stresses education and a lucid pen, perhaps she is simply pointing out that the modern age gave many people this power to criticize and she is no exception. Whatever the case, Sontag cannot help but inspire anger for her refusal to fully accept, without question, any dogma or system. In this, she is both a product of her age (many people today feel the same contempt for self-certainty) and an advocate for absolute critical freedom. Ideas For DebateSusan Sontag’s work provides many different weapons for debaters. Since she is mostly concerned with bow ideas and words are used, debaters should carefully read her works for both attitude and content. The “Metaphors” works about disease, in particular, provide goad grounds for criticizing opponents who stress ideas such as social order, declaring ~ on social evils, and so on. Similarly, her criticism of the over-interpretation of things suggests a strategy of simplification in debates which become too immersed in “critical theory,” during which some debaters will critique certain values or ideas as being motivated by some sinister set of underlying objectives (such as Nietzsche’s “will to power” or Ayn Rand’s egoist critique of unselfish communitarianism). Stop saying that something is something else all the time, Sontag says; debaters can easily say these things in response to opponents’ efforts to prove their cleverness by interpreting things away from what they were originally intended to be. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Sontag’s writing stresses that we must always question ourselves and the things we hold “sacred,” not for the sake of questioning itself (see, for example, Heidegger), but instead because it is the only way to preserve our identities, to prosper, and grow. Thus, appeals to tradition, social order, or conservatism of any kind (including the “radical” but actually conservative dogmatism of the radical left or right) are especially fitting for a dose of Susan Sontag’s leveling gaze.
Sontag, Susan. AGAINST INTERPRETATION AND OTHER ESSAYS (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1966). . AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1989). . THE BENEFACTOR (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1963). . CONVERSATIONS WITH SUSAN SONTAG (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1995). . DEATH KIT (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1967). . I, ETCETERA (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1978). . ILLNESS AS METAPHOR (New York: Vintage Books, 1979). . STYLES OF RADICAL WILL (New York: Doubleday, 1969). . UNDER THE SIGN OF SATURN (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1980). Kennedy, Liam. SUSAN SONTAG: MIND AS PASSION (Manchester Manchester University Press, 1995). Sayres, Sohnya. SUSAN SONTAG: THE ELEGIAC MODERNIST (New York: Routledge, 1990). OPEN AND CRITICAL DISCOURSE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT SOCIAL VALUE1. MUST TREAT ALL SOCIAL ISSUES CAREFULLY AND IMPORTANTLY Susan Sontag, American philosopher, in Sohnya Sayres. SUSAN SONTAG: THE ELEGIAC MODERNIST, 1990, p. 2. We may not be living in the final stage of the enlightenment. However, from the point of view of the writer--and, for that matter, from the human point of view--it is always better to believe we are living in the last stage of human history, if only because that attitude makes you scrutinize what’s going on much harder, pay greater attention to every detail. Maybe the curtain won’t fall tomorrow, but it’s better to think that it may. Then we will take care of what’s going on in front of us. 2. WE MUST BE WILLING TO EXAMINE AND CRITICIZE ALL “-ISMS” Susan Sontag, American philosopher, in Sohnya Sayres. SUSAN SONTAG: THE ELEGIAC MODERNIST, 1990, p. 2. Today, we are living out the paradoxes of eschatological thinking. Actually, the various avant-garde “isms” were not supposed to replace one another. Each conceived of itself as the terminal “ism.” But we have discovered that there is no terminal “ism”; the messiah doesn’t come. History doesn’t end although particular histories end. 3. REPETITION OF FALSE IDEAS PREVENTS SPECIFIC SOLUTIONS TO PROBLEMS Susan Sontag, American philosopher. AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS, 1990, p. 164. Part of making an event real is just saying it, over and over. In this case, to say it over and over is to instill the consciousness of risk, the necessity of prudence as such, prior to and superseding any specific recommendation.
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