It's delightful, it's delicious, it's dlevy!
Powered by Disqus
I would say the difference between this and the essence of liberal religion, is that liberal religion doesn’t claim to be journalism rather than metaphor. The fact that we know that much of our written religious history cannot be literally true directly influences the meaning that we take from it.
And we don’t go on public radio and present as journalistic fact things that we know are metaphors.
Emotional experience (into which category religion falls for me) and its representation in art or poetry can be non-literal. Journalism can’t be.
John Kinsella has a fascinating poetical autobiography called Auto, which addresses the nature of childhood memory, and what we take as history vs. metaphor in our own personal narratives.
Good points all. But often in religious we speak in a shorthand in which we discuss things we know are metaphor with the language of fact because we assume everyone in our audience can understand the implied scare quotes. Only that’s rarely true of the audience, we just get sloppy. Similarly, I suspect that (at the start) Mike Daisey assumed that when he was performing for theater insiders, he didn’t need to make those scare quotes visible, and then he got stuck in a snowball of lies. Not forgiving him, just trying to understand how it happened, being generous in thinking that this isn’t the work of someone setting out to deceive.
This American Life: Retraction [PDF Transcript]
There are going to be some amazing masters theses written about this event.
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the ethics of telling stories that uncover truths while the stories themselves aren’t factual. I mean, that’s the essence of liberal religion. I think this comparison is particularly apt given the way Apple devotees worship Steve Jobs, the way theater fans worship theater, and the very name of Daisey’s show: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.
I wonder now if last week’s obsession with The Lifespan of a Fact on public radio was a subtle way to prepare listeners for this.
I wonder if Mike Daisey has any hope of maintaining a career as a monologuist after this. Will his next great monologue be the theatrical equivalent of the Opera Apology Appearance? I Lied To You And Now I’m Sorry: A Theatrical Monologue By Mike Daisey (Of course, a more appropriate theatrical exploitation of this chapter would be for someone else to create Daisey/Glass, ala Frost/Nixon, so Daisey himself neither profits nor has a hand in how this part of the story is portrayed and interpreted.)
The real problem for me, as someone who wants to believe in the redemptive power of theater, is that Daisey’s fabrications go beyond what happened on stage, beyond the confines of his story. During the fact-checking process, he lied directly to the radio producers. He wrote op-eds in major newspapers containing these lies.
I mean, I get it. The attention that came to Daisey because of this monologue was huge, career-making, life-changing. And when that kind of attention comes calling, it’s very hard to draw the line and say, “No, I this kind of exposure, this kind of publicity will pull my story out of the realm of theatrical licence and into an ethically indefensible area.” How do you say to This American Life, to The New York Times, etc. “No thanks?”
But he should have. And Daisey, in particular, as someone who has examined these very issues in previous pieces—most damningly so in Truth, about James Frey—should have known better and acted better.
Is this an opportunity for an American conversation of the nature of truth versus fiction, truth versus facts, history versus memory versus mythology? Probably. Will the conversation last beyond one news cycle? Doubtful.
ETA: The Public Theater’s statement on the show’s relationship to facts.
