Response to Orson Scott Card's response

I wrote a letter in response saying that when Card blamed New York intellectuals for wrecking popular culture, as he did in his article, it seemed that the awful New Yorkers in question were Jews.  

In his reply to my letter, Card says, “Never in my writings have I blamed ‘New York intellectuals’ for wrecking anything.”

Never? Let’s take a look at Card’s original article, which was headlined “Intellectual Update.” In it, he mentions “New York” and “New Yorkers” fifteen times, with an additional “Manhattan” thrown in for variety.

He refers to the “touchy sensibilities of New York intellectuals.” He says “New York culture has become so degraded,” and celebrates places with “audiences that haven't reached the same level of crudeness as New Yorkers.”

Card assigns these New Yorkers an active role in assaulting the values of the rest of the country.

He ascribes to Neil Simon, his designated representative of New York culture and “hero” of intellectuals, the belief that “what works in New York is what is going to work everywhere, or else,” and adds, “Simon is so provincial that he thinks that however things are done in his home town [New York] is the right way to do them everywhere else.”

And it is in New York that Card imagines a playwright using an epithet for Jews, which would supposedly offend “intellectuals…who are incapable of questioning the biases and shibboleths of their own narrow-minded community.”

For a guy who has “never blamed ‘New York intellectuals’,” Card sure spends a lot of time blaming New York intellectuals.

At no point in my letter did I “presume to detect anti-Semitism throughout (Card’s) entire oeuvre,” as he claims. I noted his support for Israel, and said that I don’t suppose he is an anti-Semite in his own mind. It was just that whole say-"Kike"-in-New-York-and-we’ll-see-who-squeals thing that led me to the conclusion that the New Yorkers he so despises are Jews.

In his letter, Card scoffs at me for questioning his definition of “intellectuals,” asking if I define words like “Republican,” “Democrat,” and “New Yorkers” each time I use them. Well, no, those definitions are pretty clear. “Intellectuals,” though, is a more malleable word, and in Card’s hands it takes several interesting shapes.  

Card blames people he calls “intellectuals” for coarsening the culture. But are the people responsible for this pervasive vulgarity really intellectuals? Are the Farrelly brothers, Madonna, Eminem, Howard Stern, and the corporate executives who make so much money off of them, all intellectuals? Surely there are actual intellectuals who write about the thrilling subversiveness of such twaddle, but are they really pulling the levers here?

Card even lumps me with the “intellectuals,” only to say at another point that I’m not a real intellectual after all. Apparently, then, the terms “intellectual” and “non-intellectual,” or at least “pseudo-intellectual,” are sometimes interchangeable in his lexicon. I have never described myself as an intellectual, not because I shun the label but because I don’t know that I’ve earned it. If I have, then surely the talented and prolific Card has, too.

Card also includes as intellectuals, or at least as their willing accomplices, the theater audiences of New York. Last I checked, these audiences, especially the ones for mainstream Broadway fare like the f-bomb-strewn works of Neil Simon, are comprised in large part of tourists from across the country, hailing from places like North Carolina and even Utah.

(Card seems to have a complex relationship with Neil Simon. He says Simon is no longer funny, but gets testy with me for not showing proper respect for his comic genius. By the way, it turns out that Simon did not just reach out and squash that poor little Utah theater company – a local newspaper writer drummed up the controversy by calling Simon’s copyright agency about the changes, then didn’t admit that he had done so, for which actions he was quickly fired by the paper.)

Much of Card’s letter ignores my specific statements about his language and logic, and is devoted instead to bitter and general denunciations of large groups to which he claims I belong.

Let me say for the record that I don’t want to ban any words, although I do think people should be accountable for what they say. I’m not a supporter of “puritanically imposed utopian plans.” I’m not even sure that community theaters should be unable to edit the f-word out of Neil Simon plays.

Also, I am a long-time fan of science fiction and admire many sci-fi writers. I did not just take a “hostile glance” at Card’s book Ender’s Game; by chance I read it the week before his original article appeared, enjoyed it greatly (to the point, I must admit, of intellectual stimulation), and had expressed to my son, who also read and enjoyed it, my hopes of interviewing Card for my weblog (www.edcone.com), on which I had previously posted links to chapters of his upcoming book as they appeared in this newspaper.

I’d still like to do that interview. We could start with a question about the possible interpretations of articles that mix stereotypes of New York intellectuals with fantasies of slinging anti-Semitic epithets in front of them, and go from there.