The Importance of Being Earnest

So, New Sincerity.  I can't really write anything about New Sincerity, since that term refers to some sort of literary movement that happened years ago and with which I have no familiarity.  Elisa wrote a blog post discussing New Sincerity, and you can see things play out in the comments section of that post.  Elisa's post linked to a lengthier blog post by A D Jameson.  He later wrote a follow-up post, and has promised to write more.

So far my knowledge of New Sincerity goes, and no further.  But I was intrigued by this tweet by Elisa:

If we don't care what people mean, there can be no irony, and all texts are sincere.

(You can see an earlier expression of this sentiment, and of the opposite sentiment, if you read through the posts I have linked above.)  I responded, eventually, "The text can have both [a literal and intended meaning] without regard to the author's subjective state."  That is, the text is all you know on earth, and all you need to know.  It's sort of like a metaphysical anti-realist position.  The author is dispensable, superfluous, analogous to the noumenal world.

And I think this is basically what I believe.  You can spend a lot of time thinking about what an author "really meant," or what an author's viewpoint "really" was.  I am not denying that this can be worthwhile—surely it can bring valuable insight.  And you could, in theory, define irony and sincerity as a function of the author's intent.  This, I think, is less fruitful.  If we were to learn that Catch-22 had been written by an advanced computer algorithm designed only to maximize book sales, we would not then conclude that it does not contain irony after all.  (Again, this does not mean that its origins would be uninteresting.)

At this point I should re-emphasize that I have no familiarity with "New Sincerity."  I just have an idea in my head of what it could mean, in a perfect world.  So the following bears only accidental resemblance to reality, if any.

I think there is a terminological problem right from the start.  I wouldn't use the term "sincerity," I would use the term "earnestness."  Sincerity has connotations of honesty, which is not quite what I think is called for.  What I am looking for is emotional straightforwardness.  I am looking for hearts on sleeves.

And while I am happy to argue that irony—true irony, not dramatic irony—is detectable even with no insight into the author's mental state, irony is not the right term for what should be cast aside.  Rather, what I wish people would shy away from is detachment, which is so often accomplished by ironic distance.  What I want to banish is deniability.  I don't care how you render yourself capable of being pinned down, I just want you to do it.

Maybe an analogy will help.  You are discussing something with your friends.  One of your friends simply mocks what other people say and looks for opportunities to be clever.  Another friend takes positions, defends them, re-examines them, engages with you.  This is the difference between detachment and earnestness.  It doesn't have to do, specifically, with the deployment of irony.

So you can imagine a pamphleteer writing an argument that is sarcastic throughout, and yet is entirely earnest.  This is not a contradiction in terms unless you take earnestness to be simply the absence of irony.

Now you might say, "But James, if you want the author to wear his heart on his sleeve, then you must care about what the author really means."  I'm not sure that's right.  Again, I think one can be a metaphysical anti-realist about this and concern oneself only with the text itself, the "voice," the feel.  Tolstoy's description of how Kitty feels when she attends a ball is earnest, though it is hard to imagine that the man himself authentically felt what it was like to be a Russian debutante.  Or to follow my analogy, in a discussion, someone could take a position provisionally, or for the sake of argument.  As long as he does his job properly, the discussion can be fruitful regardless of what he really thinks.

But I am not sure I am right about this (being way out of my depth).  I offer one of my favorite passages from Infinite Jest as an example.  It is sufficiently problematic, I think, that it could be cited for or against my position.  Pemulis is trying to comfort Possalthwaite, who keeps saying that nothing is true.  (His father has somehow betrayed him, I don't remember how.)  From footnote 324:

Pemulis compulsively zipped and unzipped one of the covers.  'Take a breather, Keith.  Todd, trust math.  As in Matics, Math E.  First-order predicate logic.  Never fail you.  Quantities and their relation.  Rates of change.  The vital statistics of God or equivalent.  When all else fails.  When the boulder's slid all the way to the bottom.  When the headless are blaming.  When you do not know your way about.  You can fall back and regroup around math.  Whose truth is deductive truth.  Independent of sense or emotionality.  The syllogism.  The identity.  Modus Tollens.  Transitivity.  Heaven's theme song.  The nightlight on life's dark wall, late at night.  Heaven's recipe book.  The hydrogen spiral.  The methane, ammonia, H₂O.  Nucleic acids.  A and G, T and C.  The creeping inevitability.  Caius is mortal.  Math is not mortal.  What it is is:  listen:  it's true.'

. . . .

Pemulis unzipped the cover.  'The axiom.  The lemma.  Listen:  "If two different sets of parametric equations represent the same curve J, but the curve is traced in opposite directions in the two cases, then the two sets of equations produce values for a line integral over J that are negatives of each other."  Not "If thus-and-such."  Not "unless a gladhanding commercial realtor from Boardman MN in $400 Banfi loafers changes his mind."  Always and ever.  As in puts the a in a priori.  An honest lamp in the inkiest black, Toddleposter.'

. . . .

'. . .  Only that at times like this, when you're directionless in a dark wood, trust to the abstract deductive.  When driven to your knees, kneel and revere the double S.  Leap like a knight of faith into the arms of Peano, Leibniz, Hilbert, L'Hôpital.  You will be lifted up.  Fourier, Gauss, LaPlace, Rickey.  Borne up.  Never let fall.  Wiener, Riemann, Frege, Green.'

. . . .

'Never trust the father you can see,' Pemulis told Possalthwaite.

[A little context is needed.  Pemulis's math skills are questionable, and his relationship with his own father is troubled.  And so, you know, DFW has the requisite detachment from the emotion that is being expressed.  But still.  Possibly bearing on this question:  DFW was a sort of math half-nerd, having written an error-prone book (PDF) on the subject of infinity.]