Mr. Leff is Thor Wintergreen
I want to assert right now, I don't think that Mr. Leff is Thor Wintergreen. I'm sorry for deceiving and using you.
We've been talking a lot in class recently about modern manifestations of Jes Grew and Atonism and the specifics of those ideologies. My thoughts about Jes Grew and Atonism in the "real world" have mainly revolved around phenomena which could be considered both - Pro-Jes-Grew texts written in Atonist ways, or as we talked about in class today, Bruno Mars' Super Bowl performance in which he calls upon elements of hip-hop culture but his performance is "watered down" for an Atonist audience. As if I didn't already have enough brain food, we started talking about jazz culture in the 1920s in US History class this week, an inherently Jes Grew topic in a somewhat Atonist setting. I started thinking, how do we evaluate phenomena with both Jes Grew and Atonist elements? What do we label them?
Is US History class a form of Jes Grew? For one, we know that Jes Grew as it manifests in the 20s was jazz culture. There's no debate about whether or not we are talking about Jes Grew in history class. The setting of the book is the 1920s in the midst of a cultural conflict over jazz culture, which Reed asserts is Jes Grew. I am also inclined to believe that our US History class is Jes Grew oriented, in that the class makes points of paying attention to non-Euro-centric narratives of American history, such as taking an "Eastward facing perspective" on native American culture and reading about the perspectives of slaves during the civil war.
Yet, when we talked about jazz culture in history the other day, we did so in a very bullet-pointed, intellectual way, and listened to very little jazz. As the class does when discussing other topics, we tried to leave our own feelings and beliefs out of the discussions, like whether or not we thought jazz was cacophonous or whether it was freeing, and focus purely on the historical perspectives. So, while we might be talking about an element of Jes Grew, we are doing it in ways that deliberately remove us from a strong emotional connection with it - a decidedly Atonist principle.
However, I think Atonism and Jes Grew are even more complicated than that. Is it necessarily true that anything practiced in an Atonist style (stemming from white academic convention) is Atonist? It seems like for something to be Atonist, it must also be actively anti Jes Grew. For example, in the myth of Osiris and Set, Set insists that Osiris must stop dancing and spreading Jes Grew, while Osiris seems not to care if Set dances or not. The Wallflower Order, while its name might mislead us to believe they simply refrain from participating in Jes Grew, actually does much more than sitting along walls at dances. They actively try to kill Jes Grew. Mr. Leff's history class does not attempt to kill Jes Grew actively. It does not negatively portray jazz culture or attempt to undermine it the same way the Atonists consciously attempt to undermine Jes Grew.
While I personally don't think that Mr. Leff, who serves here as an allegory for Uni culture or academic culture in general, is an Atonist because he actively doesn't try to destroy Jes Grew, perhaps Reed would characterize him differently. It seems like through most of the novel, the characters are either Atonists (or some other Anti-Jes Grew party) or Pro-Jes Grew. There are few characters who are not assigned a side in the conflict. (Except for Abdul, who is Anti-Jes Grew, but not Pro-Atonism either. Thoughts?) It is also significant that all of the white characters are in some way affiliated with Atonism. This is obvious in the cases of Hinckle and Safecracker, and Biff as well. Here is where we get to the meaning of the title - Thor Wintergreen at first thinks he is on the side of Jes Grew and the Mu'tafikah, but all it takes is one conversation with Biff Musclewhite to convert him to Atonism. It seems Reed is asserting that all the white characters, unless I've missed one, whether they want to be or not, are Atonists. So, if Reed met Mr. Leff, would he assert that Mr. Leff was an Atonist, despite Mr. Leff's conscious effort to support Jes Grew through "Atonist" means? To clarify, I'm not asserting that Mr. Leff is Thor Wintergreen. Mr. Leff is so much better and cooler than Thor Wintergreen. But to me, Reed's only account of a Pro-Jes Grew white person is Thor Wintergreen, and he turns into an Atonist - so would Reed assert that all white intellectuals are Atonists? More likely, I think Reed would assert that Mr. Leff uses Atonist academic conventions to support Jes Grew, but that he isn't an Atonist in any way. Thoughts? Flaws in my logic?
I really hope that I have not offended any Mr. Leff fans (a group of which I am a member), or worse, Mr. Leff himself. I'm not saying that Mr. Leff is racist, and I am also not trying to criticize his lesson on jazz culture in the 20s. I am using his class simply for analysis and because our discussion in history the other day got me thinking about the relationship between Atonism and Jes Grew. I don't think that in the real world they are mutually exclusive, but Reed might. Even our panel presentation article, which praised Mumbo Jumbo, seemed to show traces of both ideologies. Although the author positively reflected on Reed's use of satire and humor to create a compelling novel, she quoted Freud to emphasize that very point - and she quoted him un-ironically.
We've been talking a lot in class recently about modern manifestations of Jes Grew and Atonism and the specifics of those ideologies. My thoughts about Jes Grew and Atonism in the "real world" have mainly revolved around phenomena which could be considered both - Pro-Jes-Grew texts written in Atonist ways, or as we talked about in class today, Bruno Mars' Super Bowl performance in which he calls upon elements of hip-hop culture but his performance is "watered down" for an Atonist audience. As if I didn't already have enough brain food, we started talking about jazz culture in the 1920s in US History class this week, an inherently Jes Grew topic in a somewhat Atonist setting. I started thinking, how do we evaluate phenomena with both Jes Grew and Atonist elements? What do we label them?
Is US History class a form of Jes Grew? For one, we know that Jes Grew as it manifests in the 20s was jazz culture. There's no debate about whether or not we are talking about Jes Grew in history class. The setting of the book is the 1920s in the midst of a cultural conflict over jazz culture, which Reed asserts is Jes Grew. I am also inclined to believe that our US History class is Jes Grew oriented, in that the class makes points of paying attention to non-Euro-centric narratives of American history, such as taking an "Eastward facing perspective" on native American culture and reading about the perspectives of slaves during the civil war.
Yet, when we talked about jazz culture in history the other day, we did so in a very bullet-pointed, intellectual way, and listened to very little jazz. As the class does when discussing other topics, we tried to leave our own feelings and beliefs out of the discussions, like whether or not we thought jazz was cacophonous or whether it was freeing, and focus purely on the historical perspectives. So, while we might be talking about an element of Jes Grew, we are doing it in ways that deliberately remove us from a strong emotional connection with it - a decidedly Atonist principle.
However, I think Atonism and Jes Grew are even more complicated than that. Is it necessarily true that anything practiced in an Atonist style (stemming from white academic convention) is Atonist? It seems like for something to be Atonist, it must also be actively anti Jes Grew. For example, in the myth of Osiris and Set, Set insists that Osiris must stop dancing and spreading Jes Grew, while Osiris seems not to care if Set dances or not. The Wallflower Order, while its name might mislead us to believe they simply refrain from participating in Jes Grew, actually does much more than sitting along walls at dances. They actively try to kill Jes Grew. Mr. Leff's history class does not attempt to kill Jes Grew actively. It does not negatively portray jazz culture or attempt to undermine it the same way the Atonists consciously attempt to undermine Jes Grew.
While I personally don't think that Mr. Leff, who serves here as an allegory for Uni culture or academic culture in general, is an Atonist because he actively doesn't try to destroy Jes Grew, perhaps Reed would characterize him differently. It seems like through most of the novel, the characters are either Atonists (or some other Anti-Jes Grew party) or Pro-Jes Grew. There are few characters who are not assigned a side in the conflict. (Except for Abdul, who is Anti-Jes Grew, but not Pro-Atonism either. Thoughts?) It is also significant that all of the white characters are in some way affiliated with Atonism. This is obvious in the cases of Hinckle and Safecracker, and Biff as well. Here is where we get to the meaning of the title - Thor Wintergreen at first thinks he is on the side of Jes Grew and the Mu'tafikah, but all it takes is one conversation with Biff Musclewhite to convert him to Atonism. It seems Reed is asserting that all the white characters, unless I've missed one, whether they want to be or not, are Atonists. So, if Reed met Mr. Leff, would he assert that Mr. Leff was an Atonist, despite Mr. Leff's conscious effort to support Jes Grew through "Atonist" means? To clarify, I'm not asserting that Mr. Leff is Thor Wintergreen. Mr. Leff is so much better and cooler than Thor Wintergreen. But to me, Reed's only account of a Pro-Jes Grew white person is Thor Wintergreen, and he turns into an Atonist - so would Reed assert that all white intellectuals are Atonists? More likely, I think Reed would assert that Mr. Leff uses Atonist academic conventions to support Jes Grew, but that he isn't an Atonist in any way. Thoughts? Flaws in my logic?
I really hope that I have not offended any Mr. Leff fans (a group of which I am a member), or worse, Mr. Leff himself. I'm not saying that Mr. Leff is racist, and I am also not trying to criticize his lesson on jazz culture in the 20s. I am using his class simply for analysis and because our discussion in history the other day got me thinking about the relationship between Atonism and Jes Grew. I don't think that in the real world they are mutually exclusive, but Reed might. Even our panel presentation article, which praised Mumbo Jumbo, seemed to show traces of both ideologies. Although the author positively reflected on Reed's use of satire and humor to create a compelling novel, she quoted Freud to emphasize that very point - and she quoted him un-ironically.
Woah I loved reading this post! First off I am also a member of the Mr. Leff fan club - I also believe that his lessons are so good, especially the ones on the 1920s that we just had. To get to your question of whether or not he should be considered Atonist or not, I would point to the section in your post where you discuss how Atonism seems to need an element of "anti-Jes Grew". Without this, I don't think the term "Atonism" would have as much meaning. I associate Atonism with white supremacy and I think of Jes Grew as the celebration of black culture, so the two terms connect and work with- or rather, against- each other. Because Mr. Leff isn't a white supremacist and does not believe that Jes Grew is an epidemic to our society, I don't think he would be considered an Atonist. (But what Reed would think might be different from my take...)
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting that you say that attonism is more like white supremacy, because throughout the book, I have thought of attonism as just western culture. It's true that the wallflower order was actively trying to further attonism and block jes grew, which is white-supremacist-y, but to me, attonism isn't inherently defined as opposition to jes grew. I do see the validity in the argument that attonism began with Set being salty at Osiris and trying to stop his fun - so he established attonism as actively trying to repress jes grew. My case for attonism being just western culture is that I thought that jes grew was countering attonist thought, while a more active attonism (the wallflower order) was countering jes grew, if that makes sense? Regardless, this is an interesting distinction to make, and I don't know which definition I necessarily agree with.
DeleteI think what you are seeing in Mr. Leff, is the first step in what Reed sets up in the end of the book with LaBas giving a lecture at a college. In that situation, Jes Grew is no longer made incompatible with academia. The end contrasts the beginning of the book, where it mentions that the Wallflower Order's "foot soldiers" are white professors, and academics, and politicians. So with Mr. Leff we can see a White person, participating in what was once an entirely Atonist system (academia), but participating in a non-Atonist way. He may still be influenced by Atonist conventions--such as the trying to remove personal and emotional taste--but I think Reed would see him as a step in the right direction. After all, Reed was an academic, and he believed that it wasn't incapable of including Jes Grew, just that it hadn't. Reed would say that we still have a ways to go, but Mr. Leff is on the right track, despite being a white academic. Reed would also say that multi-cultural departments are on the right track in terms of incorporating Jes Grew into academia, and specifically a non-western-centric view of history, is a good idea. He would merely point to the examples you did of Mr. Leff's Atonism, or budgetary decisions in universities, as places where Atonism still has a greater hold than Jes Grew.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! All the analysis is great. I never thought about how although Atonism isn't defined clearly in the book (defining terms is an Atonist thing anyways), Reed might suggest that to be Atonist is to be anti Jes Grew. It does seem that in Mumbo Jumbo all the Atonist characters actively work against Jes Grew at one point or another, so there is an argument to be made stating that to be Atonist one must consciously work against Jes Grew. But that got me thinking about how in general Reed tends to give human agency to what are usually considered unconscious forces--just look at the whole idea of secret societies pulling the strings behind the scenes. Reed might give agency to Atonists as anti Jes Grew agents in a similar way. Maybe every Atonist, like it or not, consciously or unconsciously, works against Jes Grew simply by virtue of the values they hold. Now that is an interesting thing to think about, especially since I consider myself an nearly classic Atonist. Do my values inherently cause me to work to stamp out Jes Grew? It's entirely possible, and a thing I should probably examine more in the future.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! I never realized how most of the characters are either pro-Jes Grew and anti-Atonism, while other characters are anti-Jew Grew and pro-Atonism. There really isn't a character in the middle (perhaps somewhat indifferent characters like Charlotte?). Also there aren't really good examples of good white characters, which makes me wonder what Reed would think when he meets someone like Mr. Leff. One thing I appreciate about Mr. Leff and many white teachers in Uni is that they make the conscious effort to reject Atonism. I think that's especially important when Atonism is deeply ingrained in subjects like English and History. However, classes like Race, Class, and Gender or African American literature resist the historical Atonism in academia. I guess to determine whether Mr. Leff is someone like Thor Wintergreen requires us to approach the question if white people are inherently Atonists because Mr. Leff doesn't seem to be unwavering in his 'wokeness' but would Reed say that that's enough?
ReplyDeleteAlthough it is clear that Mr Leff is/is not Thor Wintergreen for the purpose of this particular analysis, you might find value in developing the lens of 'is/is not Mr Leff' as a survival strategy in ahistorical post-post-modernism. I know you are all busy with high school, but I have time to work this out. Don't miss Jiu Jitsu though.
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