The Death of the Author

Everytime I see John McWhorter's byline I'm prepared to become infuriated, but he's devilishly clever and totally correct about The Wire. David Simon has a lot of political opinions that strike me as somewhat unsound and that strike him as reflected in the show, but the actual content of the show is so good that it actually supports much more nuanced interpretation than the one Simon seems to have.

I do, however, worry a bit that Season 4 may get unsound in a heavy-handed way. In particular, there's something of a cliché out there where we're supposed to think that the reason kids get involved in drug dealing is that the school system isn't good enough. The truth is probably more like the reverse -- it's more-or-less impossible to teach kids effectively when they're too busy dealing drugs. School outcomes tend to follow socioeconomic conditions rather than determining them. I hope the show avoids that pitfall.

Comments

Matt

Being a huge Wire fan myself I can't seem to pass up chances to talk about it (no matter how tangentially).

In this case, however, I just want to comment on something that McWhorter said that mirrors an irritating technique used by David Brooks in his recent innumerate foray into the causes of inequality

"Rather, studies by social scientists such as Harry Holzer and James H. Johnson have shown that factory relocation was responsible for at most a third of the rise in unemployment of uneducated young men in the 1980s."

I have zero familiarity with this particular literature, but, if a social scientist finds one influence that explains a third of any large-scale social phenomenon, this is a big, big deal.

Brooks harumphed that de-unionization is thought to only explain 10-20% of the total rise in inequality in America. This is also a big deal.

So, Simon's politics may not be nearly as naive as both you and McWhorter seem to think.

I dunno, they might be really bad, but, McWhorter has failed to land a real whammy with this particular nitpick.

joshb

Posted by joshb | September 13, 2006 12:01 PM

The problem with your "reverse" view is that drug dealing is really still only an activity for a small subset of the students. All the problem students can't be dealing, or where are the customers? Or is drug dealing like some Amway pyramid scam?

The problem is more systemic than that. That the schools are bad and that there are vast social problems together form a feedback system, each re-inforcing the other.

Posted by Misplaced Patriot | September 13, 2006 12:01 PM

Overall, the literature on this issue grapples with the sad fact that the problem is less that jobs for people without B.A.s are unavailable (say, as sound technicians, mechanics, building inspectors, repairmen, mail carriers) than that a wide range of factors discourage people from finding and taking them.

What are the factors?

Posted by JP | September 13, 2006 12:02 PM

The first three seasons don't seem to me to make unblemished recommendations for any particularly unsound policy.

Season 1 didn't seem to me to be about policy at all. Season 2 neither, except to ignite the debate about urban decay an gentrification. Season 3 is vaguely about legalization, but I can't say that Hamsterdam really makes a positive case for legalization, decriminalization, or police tolerance. Now, it's clearly pro-police tolerance, but Hamsterdam obviously has its downsides.

I'm really worried that the middle school story arc is going to get very preachy. But I'd be interested in evidence on the school quality front. The Stand and Deliver/Dangerous Minds genre of teacher flicks is hokey, but they're usually based on true stories. The problem isn't that school isn't "hard" enough, it's that it isn't "interesting" or "relevant" enough. And, as Simon points out, the future looks bleak if you live on the Westside; visualizing an alternative life trajectory is really hard.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | September 13, 2006 12:04 PM

Cities where factory relocation was minimal have seen the same problems with unemployment and drug vending as ones like Baltimore--Indianapolis is a useful demonstration.

Speaking as someone who lives in Indianapolis and visits Baltimore pretty regularly, umm, no. A simple comparison of the crime rates of Baltimore and Indy shows that this problem is much more pronounced in Baltimore. Driving through the "bad neighborhoods" of both cities is also instructive. The difference is quite stark.

Posted by cwk | September 13, 2006 12:09 PM

"Everytime I see John McWhorter's byline I'm prepared to become infuriated, but he's devilishly clever and totally correct about The Wire."

Meh. Just because he likes The Wire doesn't men he's not an idiot.

McWhorter writes:

Interestingly, the writing and acting on "The Wire" are so very good that what comes through is a much more nuanced message than Simon apparently intended.

But that's retarded. He thinks Simon is a political simpleton who expresses a more complex message on the show through some accidental/magical intervention? Seriously, if Simon isn't intending the nuanced message of the show, where the hell is it coming from?

A skill for the narrative arts is not necessarily accompanied by a skill for the rhetoric of political theory. Any number of artists who tell rich political stories can sound shrill and overly didactic when talking politics in interviews.

Posted by Petey | September 13, 2006 12:10 PM

I have to second pretty much all the comments here. Simon's message in The Wire is anything but naive and simplistic, and McWhorter's piece is foolish.

Posted by Christmas | September 13, 2006 12:21 PM

More on McWhorter,

To say that factory relocation caused "only a third" of the decline in employment among uneducated young men is really dismissive. Have researchers come up with any other trend that is responsible for a third of the rise in joblessness? McWhorter represents "A wide range of factors [that] discourage people from finding and taking" low-skill jobs, but offers no specifics. Presumably this is some combination of low-grade discrimination, difficulty in getting to work, plus some Moynihan-esque concern about cultural differences between Black America and White America. There's probably something to those sorts of claims.

Also, it's unclear to me why things in Baltimore are just so much worse than everywhere else, and why things haven't gotten better there while they have in other cities. Baltimore is still at 270 murders per year. Atlanta, a city of comparable size, and once the murder capital of America, is down to under 100 murders. DC is at 200. But Baltimore, along with Detroit, Gary, Richmond VA, Camden NJ, and maybe pre-Katrina New Orleans, has been left behind, O'Malley's efforts notwithstanding. My hunch is that Baltimore is hideously underpoliced -- I counted one officer per 12 violent crimes; most major cities have one per 3 or 4 -- and that they should convince the governments of surrounding counties that they can score political points by contributing to a safer work environment in B-more and spend a little less time enforcing curfew on punk teenagers or writing parking tickets. That, plus The Cut.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | September 13, 2006 12:23 PM

I have to agree with the several comments, including "To say that factory relocation caused "only a third" of the decline in employment among uneducated young men is really dismissive."

Seriously, 'only' a third? A third can be, would even probably, represnt a tipping point.

And as the other commentor said, McWhorter's separation of Simon and his creation is retarded. What's his theory, that it's magic?

The real magic of the Wire is that it introduces these interlaced problems in a way that makes you follow them without it feeling like work. It's as good a study of organizational behavior as I've ever seen. How much more can we ask?

Posted by drinkof | September 13, 2006 12:37 PM

I have to agree with the several comments, including "To say that factory relocation caused "only a third" of the decline in employment among uneducated young men is really dismissive."

Seriously, 'only' a third? A third can be, would even probably, represnt a tipping point.

And as the other commentor said, McWhorter's separation of Simon and his creation is retarded. What's his theory, that it's magic?

The real magic of the Wire is that it introduces these interlaced problems in a way that makes you follow them without it feeling like work. It's as good a study of organizational behavior as I've ever seen. How much more can we ask?

Posted by drinkof | September 13, 2006 12:38 PM

HBO just announced they are picking up a fifth season.

Posted by Unf | September 13, 2006 12:38 PM

I heard an invterview on NPR with the ex-policeman who writes the show and do believe that you are right in thinking that the show is gong to push the view that bad schools are failing the kids, and therefore they are becoming drug dealiers. Then they played a clip of a naive teacher trying and failing to reach middle schoolers. Since they are using local kids in the show, I think that the reality will show that it takes more than an idealistic, energetic teacher to cure poverty.I know lots of teachers and their feeling is that it is harder and harder to teach at all economic levels, and especially in urban poverty areas. Kids come to school with no manners, no sense that adults have any legitimate authority, many of them are deeply dysfunctional because they come from deeply dysfunctional families. Many teachers feel that society and our culture have decided that it is up to the schools alone to socialize and prepare children for the world. That this is no longer the task of the family. Even upperclass parents don't necessarily parent, two income families don't like spending their family time being other than pals and advocates for their children, not being able to handle a single tear and carrying them over all puddles. However, the town, city, state, federal gov't, and taxpayers want accountability from teachers, but do not want to spend money. A lot like we are fighting the war in Iraq. This is the most important thing ever, and you must do it our you are a worthless crumb, but no money for the weapons needed. No music, art, guidance counselors, basketballs, books, school phsychologists, and on top of it all no kid should ever be made to feel bad.

Posted by Cathy | September 13, 2006 12:38 PM

Matt,

Season 4 is supposedly largely based on Ed Burns' expirience teaching in the Baltimore public school system, so it may in fact be more nuanced than you expect. Part of the strength of the show is that the mainstays of the creative team (Simon and Burns) are in many respects dealing with first-hand expirience and observation. The show "seems real" for a reason.

Posted by jayinbmore | September 13, 2006 12:45 PM

Unf!

Posted by Christmas | September 13, 2006 1:07 PM

I don't know, maybe the author of the approvingly-linked piece has seen the prior three seasons and therefore is an expert on Baltimore now!

Posted by norbizness | September 13, 2006 1:49 PM

Matt,

McWhorter is a drive by columnist. His projection of simpliciity seems to more apply to his own writings than that of the show.

The highlight for me of Episode 1 was the contrast between the fueling powerpoint presentations given to the teachers at the Tilghman Middle School as well as to the police officers of Western District. We have two sets of government employees both trying to do their jobs and both listenting to presentations that don't address what's actually going on. Both literal and metaphorical classroom settings for the "teachers" who will interact with the student body we meet throughout the rest of the episode.

The second highlight was the latent black-white tensions, where we see blacks trying to improve and take control of their local situations while white supervisors/establishment remain impassive or barely motivated. We have Greggs and Freamon, running what appears to be a rogue operations to bust Marlowe, while decieving their supervisor Lt. Asher to do so. We have Carcetti's tour of Victorina Simmons and Rev. Garnett's neighborhood, leads to a cell phone call from Carcetti to a police buddy in an attempt to "call down some fire" toe the "Middle East" warzone from which he just departed.

Most interesting was Freamon's discussion with Pearlman contrasted with Carcetti's talk with "young" Tony. Pearlman complains about Freeman's Barksdale drug money "asset investigations" implicating "a dozen key political figures", presenting both her passive acknowledgement of the reality of the level of systemic corruption and her latent belief that prosecuting this type of crime is a terrible burden, perhaps even to be avoided. Afterward we see "young" Tony, (what a great actor), advise Carcetti to give up the ghost because Baltimore is no longer a mangable problem; "the day of the white mayor is over in this town", while Carcetti snaps at his his black aide in a manner reminiscent of the bygone days of segregation.

It's an intersting meme, the black suffering for the unwillingness of the entrenched white guard to get truely invloved. But lest we think Simon is being uni-directional we see the black Mayor Royce approve his underling shaking down a white real-estate developer for campaign contributions, plus from previous seasons we have seen State Senator "Clay" Davis taking large cash payments from the Barksdale organization.

This ongoing multi-faceted unflinching examination of race, class and corruption is really the heart what makes the Wire such great theater. For a drive by columnist like McWhorter to pass judgement on just one aspect of this delicious concoction is to sell the show and his readers way short.

Shame on McWhorter, attempting to make such a complex and wonderful show into a 30 second endorsement of "globalization".

Posted by patience | September 13, 2006 2:21 PM

My Comcast On-demand allowed me to see the second episode (39) of Season 4 before next Sunday’s broadcast, and it was as brilliant as any episode of the show. It made me excited for the rest of the season.

I live in Philadelphia, which is larger than Baltimore and awash in the same miserable urban decay and crime-ridden mayhem, times two. Philly's murder rate keeps growing, and the sad truth is that most of the dead bodies on our streets are young, black males murdered by other young, black males.

So I am greatly interested in what Burns and Simon have to say on this issue. It's not like our local or national leaders have a fucking clue. Philadelphia's Mayor, John Street, and Police Commissioner, Sylvester Johnson, have both thrown up their hands and given up, more or less. The kind of social changes we need require the kind of foresight, patience, courage, and money that no one wishes to provide any more.

I'm a big fan of Emile Zola, and I still believe in the power of great fiction to change minds and affect social progress for the better. Therefore I think The Wire, a superb work of modern fiction, is worth watching for more than just its entertainment value. It sometimes wavers into the surreal and absurd, but so does real life in cities like Baltimore and Philly.

Posted by Alex von Waldenberg III | September 13, 2006 2:31 PM

I think Simon understands that didactic and one-sided politics don’t make for good art. He certainly has his own political viewpoints, and often will hint at them in subtle ways, like with the epigrams that start each episode, or through the use of metaphors and parallels. But at the literal level the show will present both sides of an issue in as fair and nuanced a way as possible, and let you make up your own mind. It never tells the viewer what to think, or presents an oversimplified view of things, or pretends that there easy solutions to the problems it dramatizes. That’s part of what makes ‘The Wire’ so great.

Also, McWhorter’s reading of season 2 is simply wrong. Nick and Ziggy are not in any way absolved of responsibility for their actions. If anything, the writers go out of their way to repeatedly illustrate how Nick and Ziggy and Frank all end up where they are because of the bad choices they make.

Posted by RC | September 13, 2006 4:12 PM

I never, ever want to hear anyone compare Baltimore to Indianapolis again in a way that doesn't acknowledge the clear superiority of Baltimore in every metric worth considering.

Posted by MDtoMN | September 13, 2006 4:14 PM

I do, however, worry a bit that Season 4 may get unsound in a heavy-handed way.

I predict Queen Latifah will bring new shades of nuance to the underexplored stock character of African-American community activist.

Posted by Kiril | September 13, 2006 5:19 PM

If GM could get back a third of the market, they would think they had died and gone to heaven.

A thing about schools- if they're not very good, they're bad. A school is, in a sense, a prison. A high school is a place where 1000-2000 young people are gathered, separated from the socializing influences and experiences of the day-to-day world. In a good high school this means they are protected from distractions. In an indifferent or bad high school things can go very wrong.

Secondly, most schools in minority neighborhoods are nowhere near as good as we would like to think. After 30 years of "fighting discrimination", schools in the south end of Seattle are still using textbooks from the 50s and 60s- and none too many of those. IMHO, the bussing experiment turned into a CYA exercise for liberals. YMMV.

Posted by serial catowner | September 13, 2006 6:48 PM

I think there's an interesting connection between young Mr. Yglesias' thoughts at the end of this post and his post earlier today on Adrian Fenty. If you think socioeconomic issues are the cause of all our urban woes, and the only way to improve numerous social and urban ills is to dramatically reduce or eliminate socioeconomic inequality, then you're not going to have much confidence in the ability of local leaders to improve the numerous local government services, programs, and regulations they control or influence to improve lives in their city. (Although I think Matt has much more confidence than I do in the ability of federal governments to address inequality or poverty--I'm not saying that they can't, but human nature being what it is the limits on what they can and should do are pretty significant.) I tend to think the evidence, for one thing performance comparisons for urban school districts across the country that are facing similar challenges, contradicts that to some extent, and that success is more likely to come through a series of marginal efforts to help people have better lives in ways that eventually build up to bigger change than through ambitious efforts to dramatically change the socioeconomic order. This isn't a philosophical position so much as a pragmatic one.

Posted by flippantangel | September 13, 2006 7:58 PM

SEASON FIVE, BITCHES.

Sorry, just needed to up the jubilation quotient here.

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 13, 2006 10:41 PM

As a Teach For America alum, I have a different perspective on this crime-education-chicken-egg question. Kids in failing schools know they are getting a poor education, even as they are told that education is the only "way out." This undermines their buy-in to education and leads many to think there is no "way out." Drug dealing, which provides a shot of status, some cash, a social group, and a little opportunity for advancement, thus becomes more attractive. Schools don't fail because they are full of drug dealers. Drug dealing -- at the street level -- proliferates because kids who go to failing schools see drug dealing as more attractive than education. Yes, there are numerous other factors in play, but I'm describing a dynamic I have personally witnessed.

Posted by Dan | September 13, 2006 11:57 PM

Uh, Matt, I've never been to urban Baltimore but I have worked as a social worker in Compton, Lynwood and Watts and let me tell you, the school systems in those cities DO suck. Is it cliche? Yeah, probably. Is it the only reason kids don't finish school? No, definitely not. But the fact is that many schools in poorer urban areas are underfunded, badly administrated and genuinely unpleasant places to be. There are still many dedicated teachers and administrators across the country, but like Dan says, kids junior high age and above understand when they're not getting a good education. And God forbid if they have any history of behavior problems. Most schools probably aren't going to want them anyway.

Based on the last few seasons, I actually suspect the Wire will have a fairly nuanced approach to the systemic problems in contemporary urban school systems. And granted, there's a lot more to it than lack of funding. But don't think that schools in poorer neighborhoods are in any way equal to those across town. In Southern California at least, they most certainly aren't.

Posted by GiantDuck | September 14, 2006 12:59 AM

I haven't read the Holzer/Johnson paper(s). Holzer is a good guy (I don't know Johnson), but McWhorter's point is a non sequitur. The unemployment rate, if that's what we're talking about here (as opposed to, say, the ratio of employment to population), is not necessarily definitive on this issue. People who drop out of the labor force -- those in the army of druggies in The Wire -- are not counted as unemployed. Differences in the UE rate would reflect "structural unemployment," but it doesn't quite cut the cake.

Posted by Miracle Max | September 14, 2006 9:59 AM

Misplaced Patriot asks: "Or is drug dealing like some Amway pyramid scam?"

Actually, kinda yes. For whatever its flaws, the chapter in Levitt's "Freakonomics" about the bookkeeper in the Chicago drug gang is enlightening in this regard: for the street-level soldier, drug sales pretty much operate like a multi-level marketing scheme, and one in which the chances of getting ahead are pretty low.

...but if it's the only game in town, someone will play.

Posted by Doctor Memory | September 14, 2006 1:13 PM

I do, however, worry a bit that Season 4 may get unsound in a heavy-handed way. In particular, there's something of a cliché out there where we're supposed to think that the reason kids get involved in drug dealing is that the school system isn't good enough. The truth is probably more like the reverse -- it's more-or-less impossible to teach kids effectively when they're too busy dealing drugs. School outcomes tend to follow socioeconomic conditions rather than determining them. I hope the show avoids that pitfall.

I had that worry (or a similar worry) before the first episode aired. Having seen the first two episodes now, I'm a lot less concerned. It looks to me like they're showing both--that is, schools that fail kids and kids who are impossible to teach due to external conditions--which is closer to the truth than either view on its own.

Posted by Tom Hilton | September 14, 2006 3:43 PM

The television-type critics were given advance DVD's of the whole season (see http://www.slate.com/id/2149566/nav/tap1/). They aren't just singing the praises of the show: they're shouting from the rooftops. The usual word seems to be "heart-breaking". I don't think we need worry about excessive preachiness.

Posted by dell | September 14, 2006 5:24 PM