Though I wear proudly my advanced degree (I am a Doctor of Jewish Prune Juice), I never expected that I myself would ever be the subject of any academic study by a Ph.D, unless those letters stood for “Pretty Hip Dude.’
But I’ve been proven wrong.
For your amusement, I am linking you all to the title page of “Blogging the Unspeakable: Racial Politics, Bakhtin, and the Carnivalesque” by Polly Bugros McLean and David Wallace, published by The University of Southern California Annenberg School’s “International Journal of Communication.”
From that page, you will find a PDF containing the actual document, which runs 20 pages.
According to the Abstract:
“The 2006 Democratic primary in New York’s 11th Congressional District saw opposition from the blogosphere to David Yassky, a White legislator running for election in a district created under the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s account of carnival, this study uses a qualitative approach to examine how the racial discourse was constructed on two political blogs within a carnivalesque framework. At the same time, this study notes the uniqueness of the discourse between the White bloggers as well as between the Trinidad-born bloggers and their White counterparts. While the bloggers injected themselves into the spectacle of the campaign hoping to impact the election, there were inherent limitations in this new medium.”
The bloggers are myself and Rock Hackshaw (of Room 8), EnWhySea Wonk and Maurice Gumbs (then still affiliated with Room 8), and Michael Bouldin, Mole333, Liza Sabater, Dan Millstone and Rwallnerny (then all affiliated with the dearly departed Daily Gotham [alev ha-sholem]).
And I thought Bakhtin was what you put on booboos.
But the only booboo here is that some supposedly reputable journal allowed itself to be suckered into publishing this journey into the surreal. .
Frankly, except for me, all the bloggers who responded to my contact are delighted, feeling that it affirms their value.
This, in spite of the fact that to a person, we all think Rwallnerny is perhaps the worst political writer of all time.
The writers are not without some points:
Political blogging bears a striking resemblance to elements of Russian literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of carnival culture. For Bakhtin, carnival culture belongs to the traditions and ritual practices of medieval folk culture, manifesting itself through ritual spectacles (carnival pageants, comic shows of the marketplace), comic verbal compositions (parodies both oral and written), and various genres of billingsgate (curses, oaths, popular blazons) Carnival is a time of laughter and openness leading to a type of communication that is aimed at creating an “atmosphere of freedom, frankness and familiarity”. The carnival, therefore, provides “a place for working out, in a concretely sensuous, half-real and half-play-acted form, a new mode of interrelationship between individuals”). This essay argues that the blog is the 21st-century carnival square—the marketplace—where people mingle, negotiate, laugh, tease, chastise, and organize while asserting their values and ideologies. Like Bakhtin’s carnival, the blog “brings together, unifies, weds, and combines the sacred with the profane, the lofty with the low, the great with the insignificant, and the wise with the stupid”. It is precisely this mix of people participating in an online community relatively free of “officialdom”—across social strata where the borders between actors and spectators are blurred and where praise and abuse operate side by side—that blogging permits. For political bloggers, entering the virtual square, whether masked or unmasked, provides a liberating experience and a rebirthing of political engagement.
Characteristic of Bakhtin’s carnival is a world turned “upside down” or “inside out,” where life becomes unpredictable. It is in this carnivalesque atmosphere that bloggers can unmask the sacred and subvert what is authoritative, rigid, or serious through discussions and opinion postings. Moreover, verbal etiquette and discipline are relaxed, and indecent words and expressions may be used. However, Bakhtin cautions that the “Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it, and everyone participates because the very idea embraces all people”. Because people live in the spectacle culture of the carnival, there are no passive spectators—writers, readers, blurkers are all active participants. Yet, as social actors [they] are rarely “innocent” and social roles are rarely fixed and shared in any simple fashion. Instead, social actors are usually driven by complex interests, which lead them to push and pull at one another at every next turn.
In this vein, marked by an unmanaged social gathering across geographical space that is free, open, nonhierarchal, rarely neat, and user-driven, bloggers can turn U.S. cultural politics upside down by tackling the unspeakable subject of race.
Or, as one Room 8 blogger puts it:
“Gatemouth is the man New York politicos love to hate. An angry, acerbic, absurdist, contrarian, pragmatic, partisan, neo-liberal, Bill Clintonite, New Democrat, with an intolerence for sacred cows and received wisdom, a love-hate relationship with politics as usual, and an alarming tendency to drop bad puns, obscure political history and esoteric cultural references.
Picture, if you can, Michael Kinsley trying to channel Groucho Marx while overdosing on Viagra, stuffed derma, and scratchy old jump blues 78s. Watch New York politics realistically portrayed as the theme park you always suspected it was. Then watch Gatemouth spoil it by paying too much attention to the man behind the curtain.”
The authors also are very prescient in describing how the white bloggers, with their focus on Chris Owens and David Yassky, missed the real story of the race (Clarke's eventual victory), though they go too far in saying that only Wonk did not write her off.
While it is true that only Wonk supported Clarke, Rock Hackshaw always considered Clarke a strong candidate from the start, and I myself made a few comments along the way acknowledging her strength, saying at one point that if Owens was so concerned about holding the seat for a black, he himself should leave the race because he was the weakest of the black candidates.
But much of the time the writers seem intent of distorting our points, sometimes going out of the way to take them from their context, and make us into something we are not:
As Mole noted “I find it very amusing. We are caricatures of ourselves.”
We are fit into boxes, and not even accurate ones. Wonk, who is as Puerto Rican as Owens is black, is portrayed as being white. My home page, clearly meant to be the equivalent of vaudeville (or, if you prefer, “carnival”) is portrayed as deeply revealing of my character.
Meanwhile, my real issues with Owens—the issues a Clinton Democrat would have with a very leftie “progressive”—are completely ignored. As a review of my actual pieces would confirm, I believed (as did my pro-Owens antagonists, Mole and Bouldin) that we were engaged in a war for the very soul of the Democratic Party; in my case, I believed Owens embodied the enemy—as Rabbi Hillel said, “everything else is commentary, and though I criticized Owens (and all the other candidates) about other matters, that was at the heart of my coverage.
None of that comes though here, casting my work in a very false light.
The result is a very different portrait of me than what one would find from the totality of my writing on this race the authors have claimed to have read through multiple times.
So, in the interest of correcting the record, I give my own version of the race, as covered on the blogs.
What is here includes 1) my own pieces posted here at the time (leaving out a few tangential pieces, like Owens’ proposals to reform the Brooklyn Democratic Party, and the efforts of the candidates to pack the membership of political clubs), 2) some of the original comments posted from threads on those pieces, which no longer exist, but which I had saved, 3) things I added to the originals later, mostly culled from comments threads from here, Daily Gotham, Politicker, Daily Politics and elsewhere (which were also seen by the authors, since at the time they still existed), 4) a couple of pre-Room 8 threads from Politicker, 5) clarifying comments in parenthetical boldface added to the original pieces, sometimes drawn from the threads here or elsewhere, and 6) a few gap-filling narrative sections, written for a book I never finished, or put together especially for this piece, often drawn from threads I had saved or gathered from elsewhere.
I will note that, while the authors may be correct that we did not have much influence on the election results, the evidence would indicate that some of us did quite a bit to sway coverage in the mainstream media.
This is my recall of the 2006 Democratic Primary for Congress in CD-11 as portrayed on the blogs from my vantage point. It surely was a “carnival,” but one very different from that portrayed by the authors.
Congressional Notes — February 15, 2006
BEN SMITH: Daily Gotham rounds up the race to replace Major Owens in the 11th. [Note: The piece no longer exists on the web- ]
GATEMOUTH: The Gotham piece (written by some jerk who calls himself Mole333) is sci-fi verging on masturbation fantasy. We are supposed to believe that there is a plot for Andrews and Perry to drop out so Yassky can become the machine candidate? The last thing Yassky wants (unless it's for DeBlasio to drop in) is for Andrews and/or Perry to drop out. And while Yassky might want de facto support from Lopez, but he'd never want open support, and in any event wouldn't get it. The piece would be a good commercial for Chris Owens, if it weren't so stupid.
ROCK: Who wrote that piece on the 11th Congressional race ?
Fire the writer please!!
One of the worst political pieces ever written.
Yassky's slim chance lasts as long as the field stays large . If there are four or more he has a legit shot , but two or three and he is dead man running.
Chris, Nick and Yvete will all have money problems. Chris and Yvette will run irregardless. Nick may fold real soon. Carl may raise the money but has some "connection" issues. Maybe because she is the only female Yvette just might pull this off( there are other good / legit reasons why she can win of course). Being the only female must be good for at least 5 percentage points here , no?
Chris may be the best on the issues with Yvette and Yassky close runner-ups.
Nick and Carl are yet to show us that they do care about public policy.
To your marks. Get set. GO!!!!!
The Owens race is truly an open race for all political handicappers. Here are the latest odds ( supplied by the "rockman" ) :
Owens 2-1
Clarke 5-2
Andrews 3-1
Yassky 6-1
Perry 25-1
Machine Politics — February 16, 2006
BEN SMITH : Over at Daily Gotham, a blogger argues [Note: the piece no longer exists on the web] that David Yassky can't win in Brooklyn.[I’ve always wondered why, if Bouldin was so certain that Yassky’s efforts would come to naught, he was so obsessed with impeding them] How do you reach this conclusion? By vastly overstating the effectiveness (existence?) of the "Brooklyn black political machine."
He writes: "…there are currently two races, one open, one very much behind the scenes. The first is the primary, the second is the race to see who is the most promising African-American contender. Should Yassky win the primary, which is possible, if unlikely in my view, he will face the winner of the second race.
GATE: How stupid can the writer get? The 2nd primary must take place before the 1st primary to have any effect. Otherwise what ballot line shall the winner of the 2nd race run on?
Republicans Working Families, Conservatives and Independence will all select their choices before the Dem primary, unless they have primaries themselves; either way, one doubts they would unite on the same horse, or that the "machine" spoken of could control this result so that there'd be only one viable black candidate coming out of such a process. If they could do that, they wouldn't need to do it at all; they'd just do it before the Democratic primary, and avoid the challenge of winning such a general in what is likely to be a heavily Democratic year.
Moreover, thanks to the recent Federal Court decision [Subsequently reversed by the US Supreme Court], the opportunity for the other parties to designate a placeholder who could later be nominated for a Supreme Court judgeship has probably gone out the window. Unless they nominate a candidate who has property in Ireland (it has been done) substituting later would seem to be out of the question. Finally, independent (not Independence) line petitions must be circulated before the Dem primary occurs, and, unlike minor parties, have a high signature threshold, making them very susceptible to challenge. Plus, how do you keep everyone from filing them?
While the writer's theory could work theoretically, in reality it runs into the roadblock of both election NY election law and personal ambition.
BOULDIN: Well, as the author of the offending piece, perhaps I can add whatever my substantial and acknowledged degree of ignorance allows.
First, I stand by the conclusions reached in this piece, based on conversations I've had with various elements in NY-11. Based on those conversations, I do assume that there will be a black compromise candidate on the November ballot. Who that is going to be, I do not know, despite the claim that this piece carries water for Owens, who isn't mentioned.
Second, I'll acknowledge a degree of inexactitude: 'machine' should have read, perhaps, 'machines', in the plural. I'm referring to the various fiefdoms out there, which are quite vital, and which I believe will all pull in one direction come November.
Third, to be clear, I have no personal animus towards Yassky; he's a fine legislator, and would be a good Rep. That said, I don't think he'll be elected, for the reasons I laid out. I get a strong sense that there is resentment of what is characterized as effrontery by Yassky to run for a seat in a district carved out to send a black person to Congress. One does not need to share that analysis to see that the voters there would be very open to it.
Erik Engquist: As to the notion that Yassky could win the primary but lose to a black candidate in the general election, that is absurd. The danger for Yassky, if he wins, would be facing a single black candidate in 2008
The 11th CD: A Guide For the Perplexed (The First in a Series of at Least Three Parts)
The race for Congress in the 11th Congressional District works best when viewed as a morality play, allowing the audience to comfortably weigh their own competing values against one another, while pondering their irreconcilability. At the end of such a play, one can walk out satisfied that one has exercised their intellect, and then one can discuss it for hours on end over a double latte or a crisp white pinot, without ever actually feeling obligated to convert one’s conclusions into an actual course of action.
The race for Congress in the 11th CD works worst when viewed as an actual election, because once the curtain falls, one is obligated to actually vote for one of the candidates.
Christopher Owens does have his points. While, at times, he seems to be reciting a catechism of the politically correct, at least it appears that he has some system of belief which he can actually apply to each new situation and use to come up with a rational answer. That is an important consideration.
Compare Ed Towns, who has no belief system, allowing him to vote to allow a land war in Kosovo, while voting against supporting an air war, a combination which made no sens