Strange Bedfellows: Socialism and Free Expression

From Roger Waters’s concert in Berlin

Reading Jack Marshall’s piece on Ethics Alarms about the Gallup poll that suggested an increase the percentage of Americans who self-identify as conservative, my first thought was, “so where do I fit in this model?”. 

There are so many variables: Curmie is quite liberal on some issues, staunchly conservative on others. I took a couple of those online quizzes: according to Pew, I’m “Ambivalent Right” (whatever that means); according to politicalpersonality.org, I’m a “Justice Warrior” (erm… no); ISideWith has me as a Green (I’m not, really, although I’ve been accused of worse). 

Moreover, such things are always relative: there’s no doubt that I’m well to the left of most people in my Congressional district, for example, but I’m a fair distance to the right of many of my colleagues in academic theatre. Moreover, times change. My once-radical position on gay rights, for example, is now rather mainstream: my belief system remained virtually unchanged, but it’s now no longer “very liberal,” and may even be “moderate.” 

Most importantly, distinguishing between left and right isn’t always the appropriate axis. Sometimes it’s the continuum from authoritarian to libertarian that really matters. Political Compass places me solidly to the left of center, but even further into libertarianism. 

In other words, my longtime assertion that, to quote the title of a piece I wrote a few months ago, “The Left and Right Both Hate Free Expression—They Just Do It Differently,” ought not to surprise us overmuch. What might is a casual observation I made while doing a little research for my second of my two posts on the Roger Waters controversy. 

Something clicked in my mind when I read a denunciation of the US State Department’s weighing in on the subject. An article entitled “Oppose the State Department’s slanders against Roger Waters!” appeared on… wait for it… The World Socialist Web Site, under the auspices of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). 

Given that site’s previous condemnation of “bourgeois politicians and the media” and the “shabby political elite” who denounced Waters’s concerts in Germany, this may be understandable. From the perspective of the WSWS, the opposition to Waters comes, in fact, from the right, because, as a WSWS review of the Detroit stop on the American tour argues, “Virtually every song is directed toward pressing issues of our time: imperialist war, fascism, the poison of nationalism, the plight of refugees, the victims of state oppression, global poverty, social inequality, the attack on democratic rights and the danger of nuclear annihilation.” 

The photo you see above suggests that the socialist defense of Waters may be founded at least in large part on political rather than free speech grounds. Were one of a cynical disposition (ahem), one might also suspect that such displays may also underlie the State Department’s intrusion into the kerfuffle. To be clear, every US President since Reagan was thus labelled: it’s not just Biden who got this treatment. 

So perhaps the socialists are defending Waters because they see him as one of them. Some of their rationale is, to say the least, rather strained, even to the eyes and ears of someone (like Curmie) more likely than the average person to see their argument in a positive light. That said, they are very specific that the attempt “to destroy Waters and intimidate other artists, performers and intellectuals from speaking out… is a desperate and systematic attack on freedom of speech and artistic expression.” Curmie agrees. 

More to the point, it doesn’t, or rather shouldn’t, matter if Waters is “right” about the issues. Do I think he’s absolutely accurate about some issues? Yes. About all issues? Hell, no. Is he antisemitic? I don’t think so. Is there any reason he ought not to be able to perform even if he were? No. 

What really caught my eye in all this was the fact that a Socialist organization was willing to take a stand for freedom of expression, but I can find no evidence that any other government official or political party has been willing to do so. There are politicians in the US, the UK, and Germany ready to condemn him for what I believe to be utterly imaginary offenses that tell us more about the spectator than the artist. But to the best of my knowledge, there’s not a single defense by any politician or political organization… except the Socialists. 

Anyway, I then recalled the case of Bright Sheng, the University of Michigan professor who got into hot water a couple of years ago for showing his class the Laurence Olivier film version of Othello.  

In that case, the Censorious Asshats (the usual hat-tip to Ken White of Popehat for the felicitous phrase) were clearly on the left, with the (alas!) usual genuflections to grad students (!) who were “hurt” by the incident. Eventually, sanctions against Professor Sheng were dropped, but the damage to his reputation was both undeniable and irrevocable. 

At the time, I’d either never seen the film in question or seen it so long ago I’d forgotten it. I watched it a couple of months ago, and no, I wouldn’t show it to students except if it were heavily contextualized… but not for the reasons that got Sheng into trouble. The casting of a white man in very dark makeup is a little unsettling at first, but what was really appalling was the Olivier himself was furniture-chewingly awful: bad enough that strong performances by Derek Jacobi as Cassio, Maggie Smith as Desdemona, and especially Frank Finlay as Iago weren’t enough to save the film from being, well, bad. 

This, of course, is only a matter of opinion and ultimately neither here nor there with respect to the Sheng case. What matters in the present circumstance pertains to the reaction to the brouhaha. Whereas commentators on such right-leaning sights as Newsmax and The National Review took up the cause, there was no uproar that I could find from politicians or mainstream parties of any description. 

You know who did write a scathing denunciation of the university’s violation of both academic freedom and First Amendment rights? Ah, you’re ahead of me here, aren’t you, Gentle Reader? That would be the International Youth and Students for Social Equality at the University of Michigan, whose self-description includes the following: “Equality is a fundamental right of humankind, denied almost universally to the people of this earth under the economic system of capitalism. While our organization encourages various means of promoting equality, our program aspires towards a socialist transformation of society.” 

The IYSSE (don’t make me try to pronounce that acronym) posted to (where else?) the WSWS page, arguing that “The actions taken against Professor Sheng… may well rank as the most shameful episode in the University’s history.” They argue further that the university’s initial capitulation to “poorly read, miseducated and disoriented students,” not Professor Sheng’s showing of the film, is what is helping to sanction “a thoroughly toxic environment on university campuses.” Those socialists aren’t pulling any punches! 

None of this is to suggest that socialists are universally champions of freedom of expression. Far from it, in fact. But at least we might start considering that other axis on Political Compass’s map. The libertarian streak missing from too many pols on the left and right alike seems not (yet?) to have been abandoned by self-identified socialists.  (Leftist Democrats are, of course, a different story.)  In these two instances, at least, they not only supported someone maligned for imaginary offenses that should have been protected speech under any circumstances, they were the only voices representing a political party (as opposed to being readily identified with such a party) to do so. 

That struck me as odd. Perhaps it shouldn’t have.

Note: This piece was originally intended to start as a guest post on Ethics Alarms.  Curmie's agreement with Jack Marshall, the host of that site, was that I was free to cross-post.  When, for a variety of reasons, the article didn’t appear there for a couple of days, I went ahead and posted here.  There are a couple of stylistic changes and a typo or two have been fixed, but the substance is what I sent to Jack.  Anyway, it’s now up on Ethics Alarms.  I mention this because that site has a far better track record than this one of engendering comments and debate.  If, Gentle Reader, you would like to join in that conversation, head there.  But I can’t foresee a scenario in which I would post something there and not here.

Bright Sheng and the Sorta Blackface Othello

Bright Sheng

Curmie has seen multiple stories about the case of Bright Sheng, the Chinese-born Leonard Bernstein Distinguished University Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan, currently under fire for showing the 1965 film version of Othello, the one starring Laurence Olivier, to his undergrad composition class.

Amidst the indignation from the Woke Folk and the indignation at the indignation from civil libertarians and conservatives, Curmie hereby attempts to make some sense of it all.

Sheng has impeccable credentials, including a MacArthur “genius” fellowship, a fact which may or may not complicate things.  Does this mean Sheng is inherently blameless?  Or does it make the offense more grievous, or at least more problematic, because students were afraid to come forward with legitimate complaints?  Curmie doesn’t attract a lot of idiots to his page, so he will take on faith that you, Gentle Reader, will know that the answer to both these questions is “of course not.”  Needless to say, however, this does little if anything to prevent the more foam-flecked on either side of the issue to assert otherwise.

Let’s start with the initial outcry.  The reaction of freshman Olivia Cook, quoted in The Michigan Daily (the student newspaper), may be seen as exemplary: “I was stunned.  In such a school that preaches diversity and making sure that they understand the history of POC in America, I was shocked that [Sheng] would show something like this in something that’s supposed to be a safe space.” 

If Ms. Cook believes herself to have been unsafe in any sort of physical sense because she watched a 56-year-old movie starring one of the most acclaimed actors of his century, she has some mental health issues and needs counseling, stat.  If, as is more likely, the safety in question is more mental, then she doesn’t belong at a university; having one’s ideas and perceptions challenged is, or at the very least ought to be, a major element of what higher education is about.  But she is a college freshman, and can be forgiven a lack of larger perspective.

It’s difficult to establish a precise timeline of what happened after the showing.  What is clear is that Sheng, with or without prompting, sent the class an apologetic e-mail soon afterwards, acknowledging (if that is the correct word) that the film was “was racially insensitive and outdated.” 

A second apology to students and departmental colleagues  a few days later actually exacerbated the situation.  Sheng cites his own failure to realize the “depth of racism” in past and present American culture (isn’t gaining such cognition what we’re supposed to do?), and cites his own experience of discrimination “[a]s an Asian American living in a primarily white society for the last 40 years.”  He notes, for example, that about 90% of singers of Madama Butterfly are white.  This experience, quite reasonably, makes him simultaneously more and less culpable: less because he’d “accepted it as a given,” more because he of all people ought to have empathy for others similarly excluded.

It’s also important that Sheng’s background is in opera rather than theatre.  The look of opera singers, unlike actors, is almost if not entirely irrelevant.  Curmie’s own sole experience as a performer in opera was as a narrator (literally no one wants to hear him sing) in a university production of an abridged (hence the need for a narrator) version of Offenbach’s La Pèrichole.  To avoid putting too much strain on young voices and to provide opportunities for more students, there were two different casts: the leads on Thursday and Saturday were in the chorus on Friday, and vice versa.  I’m willing to bet the Thursday/Saturday male lead outweighed his Friday counterpart by a ratio of more than 2:1.  What they had in common: they were both really good tenors, and that is literally all that mattered to the casting director.

Although Sheng explicitly states that he is not making excuses but rather “[realizing] how it happened,” his comments were perceived as “shallow” and insufficiently cognizant of the alleged harm the incident did to students.  Particularly problematic to his critics was a section in which Sheng comments on his work with BIPOC students and artists.  A letter signed by 18 undergraduate composition students, 15 graduate composition students and nine SMTD staff and faculty members asserts that Sheng’s apology “implies that it is thanks to him that many of them have achieved success in their careers.”  Two responses: 1). it does no such thing.  2). if it did, it would be accurate, at least to some degree.

We can also understand that Sheng thought it relevant that he has consistently, throughout his career, provided opportunities for BIPOC artists.  It sort of clouds the issue, and seems to be a variation on “but some of my best friends are Jewish,” of course.  But in the world of the ultra-aggrieved, it’s worse than that: a single misstep is grounds for character assassination, and any apology short of seppuku is “inflammatory.” 

Anyway, Sheng has been removed from the course because department chair David Gier is a weenie “it was the correct thing to do” and it will “allow for a positive learning environment.” He will remain as a tenured faculty member. 

The furor isn’t over, as a group called the International Youth and Students for Social Equality at the University of Michigan, whose page on the university website calls for “a socialist transformation of society,” has posted on the World Socialist Web Site a demand that Professor Sheng be re-instated, and that officials at Michigan “apologize to Professor Sheng and publicly repudiate all slanderous attacks on Sheng for being ‘racist’ or for carrying out a ‘racist act.’”  The authors of this piece are just as fervent as Sheng’s detractors, and they’ve done more homework.

Here’s an example:

The actions taken against Professor Sheng, a world-renowned scholar, may well rank as the most shameful episode in the University’s history. It exposes the extent to which the unrelenting promotion of racialist ideologies—fraudulently legitimized with pretentious postmodernist jargon—has created a thoroughly toxic environment on university campuses.

Any serious examination of Shakespeare’s play and the career of one of the 20th century’s greatest actors demolishes the charges of racism leveled against Olivier and the 1965 production. Comparisons to the racist depictions of African Americans in blackface are ignorant. The denunciation of Olivier’s performance is particularly preposterous in that the actor was attempting to take on the timid, semi-racist approaches to the Othello character that had prevailed for a century and a half.

OK.  There’s a legitimate argument here.  In an oft-cited essay on race and film versions of Othello, Laura Reitz-Wilson argues that Olivier’s performance, directed by Stuart Burge, is “revolutionary,” in that he plays a “very black Othello” and references the character’s race “as Shakespeare intended.”  Calling attention to Othello’s race makes it impossible for an audience to forget his outsider status, which is central to the character.  Indeed, although Othello is certainly a flawed character, he does elicit empathy from the audience, and underscoring his blackness thus becomes an anti-racist act.

Reitz-Wilson notes, however, that Olivier’s depiction “does border on a stereotypical portrait of a black man,” and that absolutely matters.  Still, actor Hugh Quarshie, who is black, wrote in 1998:

I am left with a nagging doubt: if a black actor plays Othello does he not risk making racial stereotypes seem legitimate and even true.  When a black actor plays a role written for a white actor in black make-up and for a predominantly white audience, does he not encourage the white way, or rather the wrong way, of looking at black men, namely that black men, or “Moors,” are over-emotional, excitable and unstable…  Of all the parts in the canon, perhaps Othello is the one which should most definitely not be played by a black actor.

In other words, Quarshie argues that the character per se, independent of the portrayal, is by modern standards racially problematic—the same way Shylock is in terms of religion.  Therefore any actor of any ethnicity risks reinforcing racial stereotypes.  For the record, Quarshie later changed his mind and played the role in 2015.

But this brings us around to the question of “tradition.”  Even the National Review, in its predictable response to events in Ann Arbor, notes that the role “has traditionally been played by a black actor in stage productions.”  Well, that depends on what “traditionally” means. 

Curmie fancies himself a reasonably good theatre historian, and as far as he can tell, the listing of black actors playing Othello opposite a white Desdemona in a significant professional production in the first three and a quarter centuries of the play’s existence reads like this: Ira Aldridge.  That’s it.  (I presume that although James Hewlett played the role in the African Company’s short tenure in the 1820s, the Desdemona was also black.)  It was therefore a Big Damned Deal when Paul Robeson played Othello in London opposite Peggy Ashcroft in 1930, and again in New York opposite Uta Hagen in 1943.

Since the 1940s, however, virtually all productions of the play do indeed feature a black actor in the title role.  The title roles in the only two Broadway productions since then were played by Moses Gunn and James Earl Jones, both of them outstanding black actors.  Similarly, any production in the last three and a half centuries featuring a male actor as Desdemona will rightly be regarded as a gimmick, albeit the role was originally written to be performed by a male.  Times change, and the structures and strictures of society would do well to change, as well.

So where does that leave us?  For one thing, the dominant philosophical paradigm under which we operate is now in question.  In Judeo-Christian thought, intentions matter.  No one that Curmie can find believes Professor Sheng was consciously and intentionally racist in his choice of cinematic Othellos.  Even a virtue-signaling jerk like Evan Chambers, who oh-so-coincidentally gets to take over the prestigious seminar now, feels compelled to include “regardless of the professor’s intentions” in accusing Sheng of “a racist act.”

There are cultures in which pollution trumps volition: the two Curmie knows the most about are Ancient Greece and Shinto.  According to these world views, if you cause harm to another person, even if you not only intended no harm but took active steps to protect the victim, you bear responsibility.  My favorite example is from the Greek orator Antiphon, who describes an athlete practicing the javelin.  Before releasing the projectile, the young man made certain the spectators in the area weren’t in the line of fire, and ensured that they knew he was about to throw.  The javelin went straight down the middle of the field, but while it was already in the air, a little boy ran out into its path and was impaled.  Although he was cleared of any charges of homicide, the young athlete was nonetheless charged with the boy’s death and threatened with exile.

Our society doesn’t work like that, or at least it shouldn’t.  Acknowledging harm is appropriate (but seriously, what actual harm was done here?), but intentionality matters.  Sheng’s initial apology was both timely and apparently sincere.  Learning to do better is the stated purpose of all those insufferably smug diversity seminars the professoriate endures.  It clearly isn’t the real motive, however, as precisely such a result has generated even more grief for Professor Sheng.

Don’t get me wrong.  Curmie doesn’t believe for a moment that either Sheng or Olivier committed a racist act.  But Sheng’s showing the Olivier film without context was an instance of remarkably poor pedagogy.  Sheng may have been born in China, but he’s lived in this country for 40 years.  Presumably he reads the newspaper occasionally.  Whether or not his students are hypersensitive, he needs to meet them where they are.  This doesn’t mean they should be coddled; their parochial mindset does indeed need to be challenged.  But in this instance patience truly is a virtue.

More to the point, when the Metropolitan Opera decided several years ago to drop what NPR timorously describes as “blackface-style makeup” for… wait for it…Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello, it’s your job, Professor Sheng, to know that and react.  Agree with that choice, disagree with it, Curmie doesn’t care.  But if you’re opening a seminar on musical adaptations of Shakespeare with Otello, you’d better demonstrate comprehension of the way staging has changed in the past half-century.

So here’s what do.  You show the Laurence Fishburne or Hugh Quarshie versions, or you preface the Olivier film, thus: 

“Giuseppe Verdi lived in the 19^th century, when stereotypical portrayals of black characters were the norm.  If we’re going to examine the interpretations of the text that existed in Verdi’s world, a world in which in both opera and theatre the title character was always played by a white man in blackface, we need to approximate as closely as we can those conditions. 

“The opera was written in 1887; we’re now in 2021.  Roughly halfway between those two dates was the release of what remains the best-known film adaptation of the play, that of Laurence Olivier.  Whereas he’s not in blackface per se, as his depiction was intended to be respectful, you will be seeing a white man in exaggerated makeup playing a black man.  This may be unsettling, even disturbing, to some of you.  But I think it’s important that you know the kind of production Verdi saw in his day, and this is the closest I can come.  I understand if you aren’t able to get past what you perceive as a racist production, but I hope you will try to examine the characterizations, the themes, and the language, as well.  Some of these may lead you back to your initial response.  That’s OK, but let’s see what else we can find.”

Providing context for virtually any in-class film-viewing is important.  When it’s something like this, it’s especially mandatory.  

Short version of all of the above: Sheng underwent far too much criticism for offenses he didn’t intend.  His initial apology should have been accepted.  That doesn’t mean it wasn’t necessary.