It reminds me of Taylor Mali's "What Teachers Make" and the whole debacle surrounding the usurping of that raw spoken word poem which became a widely-circulated internet chain letter that went viral in the most precise sense of a virus: something that inhabits a host cell and turns the means and purposes of the host cell to its own parasitical ends.
Words were changed to cover his swearing. Lines were omitted.
What was once an excoriation of privilege and marginalization became, stripped of its context and exigence, a convenient form of Internet non-activism. The words ARE inspirational, powerful, painful, and Mali's poem is so beautiful that is transcends the hackery. But the poem was robbed of its critical polemic because it was more convenient for it to be irreverent: a spoonful of sugar that diminished the efficacy of the medicine.
As I am reading Flannery O'Connor, I am reminded of how words can be so easily decontextualized. In "The Barber," a liberal professor struggles to communicate his "lofty" political views on racial equality to his barber and the men who hang out at the barber shop. First of all, the story itself is so complex and gorgeous that I have trouble thinking about what line of analysis to pursue. The protagonist, Rayber, an unsophisticated anagram of "brayer" with the lack of sophistication in the anagram serving as a rather lovely supporting paradox of characterization for the high-minded and idealistic Rayber who (loathing every confidently ignorant word that his jackass barber brays) cannot seem to properly articulate his own beliefs because he over-complicates his delivery even when he resolves to prepare a careful mini-manifesto.
The story is an intricate and painfully real, at least for me, narration of the mortifying bemusement and betrayal of self when one is faced with having to explain one's beliefs to an unsympathetic and willfully ignorant, yet raptly listening (for a chance to refute), audience.
One's tongue is frozen even as the brain separates itself into the part that knows exactly what to say and the part that is running around trying to unlock the door to the room in which the aforementioned part of the brain is inexplicably hiding. It is the Three Stooges trifecta of self-betrayal. It is every failure to have a retort prepared for a casual insult or mundane act of cruelty. Actually, It is worse than that, as a retort is a moment, but a failure to articulate beliefs means that we question whether we actually believe or not. It is a crisis of faith precipitated by self-betrayal, and that is the most Biblical proportion of this familiar narrative.
I cringe upon recognizing that I am Rayber all the time. I was Rayber two days ago at The Broken Record attempting to explain evolution, I was Rayber yesterday at a birthday party advocating against Patron shots (ugh) in favor of Jameson shots (yay - although it is for sipping), and I am Rayber today as I read my newsfeed and have a tiny conniption fit because I want Google News to stop thinking that George Clooney's love life is news.
Also, there is some marvelous subtext about Brayer's own culpability in patronizing the barber (in several senses of the word), thinking that he has to oversimplify because he is too smart to have this conversation and is infuriated on several levels when he realizes that the barber never loses the upper hand in any of their conversations. I LOVE FLANNERY O'CONNOR SO HARD.
The point is that after two failed attempts to communicate his political views, Brayer goes home and writes that mini-manifesto, ending with "Men who use ideas without measuring them are walking on wind."
I love that quote because it perfectly crystallizes Rayber. He "thought the last sentence was pretty effective," when it is, essentially, a fart. It is an ironic flatus - too vague to hold any concrete logical meaning, as no one can walk on wind. If it does say anything, it is, ironically, suggesting that the unmeasured idea is miraculous, as enables men to do the impossible. It is so inarticulate, so incoherent, so perfectly characteristic of the barber's braying. Rayber is the chiasmatic/mirror-image barber, and the parallelism in the name helps to evoke that as well.
I placed the quote in a Google search, and it popped up a few times as an inspirational quote, even though I feel like O'Connor's purpose in creating the quote is to demonstrate the irony of meaningless quotage. I am both saddened and self-indulgently delighting in the schadenfreude that I have patronizingly constructed for myself. I feel superior to people on the internet! This is terrible.
My favorite lines from the story come from when Rayber's friend, Jacobs, asks him what he is doing. Rayber responds with, "Defending myself against barbers... You ever tried to argue with a barber?"
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