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Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

the breakfast table
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from: Katha Pollitt

More Common Ground -- Oh No!

Posted Monday, May 11, 1998, at 6:49 PM ET

Well, Andrew--can it be? Two hearts that beat as one? I too contribute to Equality Now! I even write letters as per their direction, although I always feel a little silly (congratulating the Health Minister of Egypt, for example, on his efforts to ban female genital mutilation, currently inflicted on around 90% of Egyptian girls. I'm sure my note made a big impression on him). "Women's Rights Are Human Rights"--I love that slogan. It's true the postmodernists, or anti-foundationalists as Judith Butler now insists is the proper term, aren't too keen on such universalist declarations--but there aren't too many postmodernists in the real world (that is, the "real" world). Mainstream feminism is pretty solidly behind expanding women's rights around the globe. Interestingly, people who never talk about this are the conservative women like the Independent Women's Forum and Christina Hoff Sommers, and the "anti-feminist feminists" as I call them, like Katie Roiphe, Karen Lehrman and your pal Camille Paglia. They are the ones always telling American women they live in total freedom and have no problems that cannot be solved at the individual level, and that for real oppression US women should look at the plight of women in Islamic regimes, or India or Eastern Europe. But when it comes to addressing the situation of those Islamic, Indian etc. women, you don't see those pundits in the room.

Amazing story about Stephen Glass. I once had an assistant who was a true pathological liar. He lied for sheer pleasure. He would call up the NYU Hillel House and make an appointment for seder, pretending to be a lonely British Jew stranded in New York over the Holidays. He made up all his fact-checking, barely proofread or copyedited at all, and the thing was, whenever I got suspicious he had the most inventive rationalizations ready to hand: once he persuaded me that Kodansha listed the price of a book as $19.09 as a Zen Buddhist joke. He was a very intelligent, charming fellow--and of course totally sycophantic. When it all came crashing down and I had to fire him (many, many therapy sessions devoted to that painful and guilt-inducing decision, I can tell you!), I had to confront the fact that I was much more susceptible to flattery than I had thought.

The thing is, even if Stephen Glass made it all up (except about the UPS men, as you say--mine also is very cute, and a real union man too!), he's still a terrific writer. He's just in the wrong end of literature. He could write wonderful satirical novels.

I think there is something in many people that wants to believe these fantastical fabulators. Life is too boring, perhaps--their inventions are so piquant, improbable, entertaining. They make the world seem like a bigger, stranger, more romantic place, full of odd twists and hidden possibilities. Their falsifications are a kind of gesture of optimism. Because surely in a world in which books are priced along arcane Buddhist principles, and companies will drop you into the wilderness for a year and make sure that no harm befalls you, one's own life can also suddenly flower in an unexpected way?

I wish young Stephen all the best,
Katha

the breakfast table
entries
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from: Katha Pollitt

More Common Ground -- Oh No!

Posted Monday, May 11, 1998, at 6:49 PM ET
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Katha Pollitt is a columnist at The Nation. Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at the New Republic.
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