Stranger than Fiction: On the Ethics of Cultural Artifacts and Cross-Talk

In my blog post last week, I used the debates surrounding the song “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” to highlight a focal question of mine: How do we responsibly study and address difficult issues embedded in cultural artifacts, especially those that still wield sociocultural influence today? For the purpose of this post, I wish to consider Goffman’s On the Run both as a work of research and as a cultural artifact as well.

One major problem I have perceived is that nobody can be fully knowledgeable in everything culture and society, but we all have to navigate complex sociocultural situations and make decisions and judgements every day. Different individuals possess different biographies, come from different perspectives, care about different artifacts and within them, different aspects, and therefore reach different interpretations and end up debating at complete cross-purposes. And thus, wherever there is fanfare, controversy, or some other point of interest, there is a very common response, which I’m sure we have all observed in both our personal experiences and in various public/private “comment sections.” It is always something to the effect of: “Who gives a ****? It’s just a song/YouTube video/movie/novel/story/[insert whatever cultural artifact typology].” This can be used as both a dismissal to accept, reject, or ignore any argument or artifact.

I have come to know and understand more about the case of Alice Goffman just recently, but it has become apparent to me that it is a rare case of the perfect storm: The kin of several prominent academic figures; a white woman of privilege; topics that cut into the core of American society’s most sensitive nerves; early and impressive professional recognition and endorsement; wide public interest. Two overarching questions seem to be: 1) Who can talk/write about what and whom? How, and why? (e.g., Does a rich, highly educated white women get to write about experiences of police brutality and struggling black individuals? Can she publish articles and books that may include controversial details for the purpose of raising public awareness?) 2) How do prominent individuals (including, but not limited to artists and academics, etc.) balance the often competing concerns and demands of the systems and communities they inhabit? (e.g., How can a sociologist most effectively argue and comment on the issue of inequality and institutional violence while achieving disparate aims to protect/help their research participants, gain recognition in academia, and affect public opinion?)

There are no simple and straightforward answers. For now, I want to focus and expand on only one major dimension. Reading through Lewis-Kraus’s reporting in “The Trials of Alice Goffman,” I get the sense that Goffman appears unfazed by discipline conventions or criticisms to her accuracy and reliability. As long as she gets her major points of argument across to her readership (which includes both academics and the general public), it seems like she does not mind playing with fire. Reading through On the Run, it is apparent that she plays fast and loose with some narrative elements of her writing. One cannot know whether this is to achieve more dramatic effect, obscure and protect identities, or if they are simply inconsistencies in her data, etc. It is of course most likely some combination of factors. However, what we do know is that her proponents ignore/embrace all this in favor of her larger narrative and argumentative points. By contrast, her critics target this and use it to question her entire paradigm, narrative, and by extension, her arguments. It seems that what we accept or reject include both Goffman’s methodology/methods and her ethics. In other words, in effect, people argue “Who gives a **** if the narrative is flawed? Her arguments are still valid, and she is coming from the right place” vs. “Who gives a **** about what she has to say? Her book is just a story.”

Therefore, as we ponder the research ethics of citizen sociolinguistics, I can’t help but see why discussions are often unproductive. I wish to ask three interrelated questions (this time, I really have no good answers):

1)    In your opinion, in the name of hiding the identities of her participants, presenting a compelling narrative, and raising awareness, is it acceptable that some parts of Goffman’s book are presented as inconsistent?

2)    Any processes of data collection, analysis, interpretation, and presentation are necessarily limiting and limited processes of selection and reduction. Do the ends justify the means, at least sometimes? Consider a cultural artifact or phenomenon that YOU care about personally (I have an answer, for example, for “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”).

  

3)    Building on this, if someone disagrees with you about an issue related to this artifact/phenomenon (or raise another related one), how do you curb your instincts to dismiss something (out of either spite or acceptance)? In other words, how can we avoid cross-talk (in the pragmatic sense) regarding our cultural artifacts and by extension, our language, culture, and society?

--Andrew

P.S.

There is an aphorism about legal strategy that I really like. There are different variations, but the phrasing attributed to American journalist and author Carl Sandberg is: “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.” It seems that Goffman’s case, like so much of how we talk about language, culture, and society, follows something similar: If a theory/methodology/belief is against you, argue the data. If the data is against you, argue a theory/methodology/belief. If both are against you, well, you know what to do.