Epidemiology, Susan Sontag & Interpretations
Yesterday, I caught something in the most recent Harvard Magazine [which, after the initial horror at recognizing I was actually reading that thing--there's no denying alumna-hood now--wasn't so bad, really].
I read about public health professor and epidemiologist Nancy Krieger. I know nothing about epidemiology, I can barely spell the word (the study of disease, in case you wonder). But Prof. Krieger's theoretical premises intrigued me. She points out that under the norms of modern epidemiology, researchers study a population's patterns of health and disease as shaped by a complex "web" of risk and protective factors. Ooh, sounds like one of those respectable, academically complex ways of looking at things, yes? Krieger says "no", flips things on their heads. She points out that if this "web of causality" is the object of study, research ends up focusing on individuals, the shape and size of their webs and what they can do to improve those webs. But, what about the historically accrued economic, social and political structures that are spinning out these situations? Look up from the web for a second, Krieger says, and ask, "Has anyone seen the spider?" Oh snap. You have to admit, social musings like these are unorthodox for a scientist, especially one at a world class institution. But Krieger doesn't seem to mind. She makes remarks like: "We can embody those aspects of inequality or conversely embody those aspects of privilege. And then end up with biological manifestations, biologic expressions as it were in this case of race relations. So that while there may not be innate fundamental differences between, say African Americans and Whites, there may be still biologic differences that are acquired because of the fact of living in a racist society." Okay, really, a Ph.D. biochemist at Harvard is not supposed to know these words.
Reading Krieger reminded me of how a few weeks ago, I was at the Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side browsing cultural theory texts. The essay "Against Interpretation" by Susan Sontag caught my attention. In no time I was giggling, delighted with Sontag's acrid damnation of academic interpretation. With undisguised annoyance, Sontag blasts interpretation for smothering our ability to truly experience art, and by extension reality, and our lives. She bemoans the "armies of interpreters" that stand ready to attack and "ravish" Beckett, Kafka, Faulkner, etc. using hideous weapons of symbolism, allusions, mise-en-abime's and other cheap tricks of the hermeneutic magician.
I was reminded of my first tutorial in the Literature department, where I heard a pun referred to as "a work of literary violence". The author of the phrase looked so pleased with himself that I ran away screaming. I had been surrounded by so many stupid (sorry, is there a more politically correct word?) people in my previous surburban life. But Harvard was really the first place where I met supremely intelligent people who all seemed to focus on extremely idiotic things. Like avant-garde theater lighting, comic strip superheros or organic bananas. Having entered college with an extremely serious disposition, I found it all so trifling and a big joke. How could actual thinking people worship cartoons and churn out entire essays about them? From sensitive indy rockers to wool sweater-wearing poets, Harvard kids seemed universally more invested in how "cool" tacky 1950's ads of blonde children pouring baking soda were, instead of discussing The Grapes of Wrath as a tool for social change. What a waste, what a waste! I dumped all my exasperation onto literary and cultural interpretation. As Sontag describes and I scoffed then, "Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art"!
But, how did Nancy Krieger and Susan Sontag enter the same train of thought for me? The thread, as I eventually worked out, is about interpretations. Yes, I do find it terribly desperate when someone tries to convince that X imagery of corn husks is really a symbol of say, Jesus Christ. However, in hating the interpreters who foul art with their semantic flimflam, in all my shared giggles with Susan Sontag, how shall I treat what Nancy Krieger is doing in epidemiology? Because isn't that also interpretation? It digs beneath, it looks beyond, it unearths meaning in phenomena that are supposedly scientific and by extension (for most people) ahistorically neutral. This struck a chord in me.
About a month ago, I reached a point in my professional life where I realized that I was becoming stupider. Sure, I had acquired a lot of professional knowledge about housing development, but on another front, I could no longer articulate social scientifically complex thoughts. In this moment I terribly missed the social theory classroom. In the business world we have to be so action-oriented, frequently to the point of sacrificing reflection. You don't stop to ponder the ripple effects of your actions, how you fit into a sector, or what could be done better. You just do, you execute, time is money. And it's not even that your desire to reflect is squashed in distinct moments, but that the span of the entire culture is unreflecting. Thinking about Nancy Krieger, I realized what I missed in my work was interpretation. Without interpretation, you are constantly doing but you don't really know why it is done this way or what you are really trying to achieve. Gradually, your vision dwindles down. Your reason for coming to work consist of immediate, quotidian statements like "working to raise my family" or "need to pay the bills". You don't really care what you're doing or how you're doing it, as long as the fact is you're doing it. You have no larger purpose, you are sitting squarely inside a box.
On the flip side, did this mean I was ready to go back to academia? I recalled the literary violence of puns... and realized that in that world, interpretation runs completely rampant and can become the mode of action. I am hesitant to surround myself with that again. Instead, there must be some balance, or even better, some combination of having an expansive, interpretive vision and being able to execute and make that vision manifest. There is no tradeoff, the tradeoff is a sham made up by people to affirm their own choices and positions.
So in the end, I made my peace with interpretation, sort of. Interpretation can be annoying but it is not evil as such. In many instances, such as with Nancy Krieger in epidemiology, interpretation can embolden our views and empower us. Susan Sontag, even in the midst of abhorring interpretation, recognizes this. She writes, "In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling." So the idea is not to recoil from or to indulge in interpretation in itself, but to see it as a tool that like all tools, is appropriate in select circumstances. May we always recognize those times and places.
I read about public health professor and epidemiologist Nancy Krieger. I know nothing about epidemiology, I can barely spell the word (the study of disease, in case you wonder). But Prof. Krieger's theoretical premises intrigued me. She points out that under the norms of modern epidemiology, researchers study a population's patterns of health and disease as shaped by a complex "web" of risk and protective factors. Ooh, sounds like one of those respectable, academically complex ways of looking at things, yes? Krieger says "no", flips things on their heads. She points out that if this "web of causality" is the object of study, research ends up focusing on individuals, the shape and size of their webs and what they can do to improve those webs. But, what about the historically accrued economic, social and political structures that are spinning out these situations? Look up from the web for a second, Krieger says, and ask, "Has anyone seen the spider?" Oh snap. You have to admit, social musings like these are unorthodox for a scientist, especially one at a world class institution. But Krieger doesn't seem to mind. She makes remarks like: "We can embody those aspects of inequality or conversely embody those aspects of privilege. And then end up with biological manifestations, biologic expressions as it were in this case of race relations. So that while there may not be innate fundamental differences between, say African Americans and Whites, there may be still biologic differences that are acquired because of the fact of living in a racist society." Okay, really, a Ph.D. biochemist at Harvard is not supposed to know these words.
Reading Krieger reminded me of how a few weeks ago, I was at the Bluestockings Bookstore on the Lower East Side browsing cultural theory texts. The essay "Against Interpretation" by Susan Sontag caught my attention. In no time I was giggling, delighted with Sontag's acrid damnation of academic interpretation. With undisguised annoyance, Sontag blasts interpretation for smothering our ability to truly experience art, and by extension reality, and our lives. She bemoans the "armies of interpreters" that stand ready to attack and "ravish" Beckett, Kafka, Faulkner, etc. using hideous weapons of symbolism, allusions, mise-en-abime's and other cheap tricks of the hermeneutic magician.
I was reminded of my first tutorial in the Literature department, where I heard a pun referred to as "a work of literary violence". The author of the phrase looked so pleased with himself that I ran away screaming. I had been surrounded by so many stupid (sorry, is there a more politically correct word?) people in my previous surburban life. But Harvard was really the first place where I met supremely intelligent people who all seemed to focus on extremely idiotic things. Like avant-garde theater lighting, comic strip superheros or organic bananas. Having entered college with an extremely serious disposition, I found it all so trifling and a big joke. How could actual thinking people worship cartoons and churn out entire essays about them? From sensitive indy rockers to wool sweater-wearing poets, Harvard kids seemed universally more invested in how "cool" tacky 1950's ads of blonde children pouring baking soda were, instead of discussing The Grapes of Wrath as a tool for social change. What a waste, what a waste! I dumped all my exasperation onto literary and cultural interpretation. As Sontag describes and I scoffed then, "Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art"!
But, how did Nancy Krieger and Susan Sontag enter the same train of thought for me? The thread, as I eventually worked out, is about interpretations. Yes, I do find it terribly desperate when someone tries to convince that X imagery of corn husks is really a symbol of say, Jesus Christ. However, in hating the interpreters who foul art with their semantic flimflam, in all my shared giggles with Susan Sontag, how shall I treat what Nancy Krieger is doing in epidemiology? Because isn't that also interpretation? It digs beneath, it looks beyond, it unearths meaning in phenomena that are supposedly scientific and by extension (for most people) ahistorically neutral. This struck a chord in me.
About a month ago, I reached a point in my professional life where I realized that I was becoming stupider. Sure, I had acquired a lot of professional knowledge about housing development, but on another front, I could no longer articulate social scientifically complex thoughts. In this moment I terribly missed the social theory classroom. In the business world we have to be so action-oriented, frequently to the point of sacrificing reflection. You don't stop to ponder the ripple effects of your actions, how you fit into a sector, or what could be done better. You just do, you execute, time is money. And it's not even that your desire to reflect is squashed in distinct moments, but that the span of the entire culture is unreflecting. Thinking about Nancy Krieger, I realized what I missed in my work was interpretation. Without interpretation, you are constantly doing but you don't really know why it is done this way or what you are really trying to achieve. Gradually, your vision dwindles down. Your reason for coming to work consist of immediate, quotidian statements like "working to raise my family" or "need to pay the bills". You don't really care what you're doing or how you're doing it, as long as the fact is you're doing it. You have no larger purpose, you are sitting squarely inside a box.
On the flip side, did this mean I was ready to go back to academia? I recalled the literary violence of puns... and realized that in that world, interpretation runs completely rampant and can become the mode of action. I am hesitant to surround myself with that again. Instead, there must be some balance, or even better, some combination of having an expansive, interpretive vision and being able to execute and make that vision manifest. There is no tradeoff, the tradeoff is a sham made up by people to affirm their own choices and positions.
So in the end, I made my peace with interpretation, sort of. Interpretation can be annoying but it is not evil as such. In many instances, such as with Nancy Krieger in epidemiology, interpretation can embolden our views and empower us. Susan Sontag, even in the midst of abhorring interpretation, recognizes this. She writes, "In some cultural contexts, interpretation is a liberating act. It is a means of revising, of transvaluing, of escaping the dead past. In other cultural contexts, it is reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling." So the idea is not to recoil from or to indulge in interpretation in itself, but to see it as a tool that like all tools, is appropriate in select circumstances. May we always recognize those times and places.
posted by Quang Tran at 9:19 PM
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