Words&Dirt

“Not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and far more portentous––why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the Christian’s Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind.

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as an essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows––a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues––every stately or lovely emblazoning––the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colourless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge––pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino Whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”

––Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville, pg. 163-4

“My brother Hoke, an investment banker who’s always been hugely supportive of me and my career, faced his own frustrations trying to tell people he encountered in the financial world that I had hardly ‘dropped out.’ As he wrote to me in the wake of the reactions, the clear message in the media was that I am ‘someone who bailed because trying to be both a mother and a high foreign policy professional was too tough.’ I was, in effect, painted as someone who just couldn’t cut it or couldn’t manage the juggle of work and family, when in fact I was still teaching a full load, writing regular columns on foreign policy, giving thirty to forty speeches per year, and working on a new book. All I had really done was shift from inflexible intensive work to flexible intensive work that I could schedule myself and thereby spend more time with my family, and yet I was being described with a word we typically apply to students who fail to finish high school or college.

No wonder so many women and men, after making a choice to work at anything less than full tilt––whether part-time, in a less demanding job, or not at all––feel like failures. None of my critics were willing to say outright that I was a wimp, but that was certainly the message. Euphemisms like ‘opting out,’ or certainly ‘dropping out,’ send a deep cultural message about how we define success and failure, while also obfuscating that message in ways that make it very hard to challenge.”

––Unfinished Business: Women, Men, Work, Family, by Anne-Marie Slaughter, pg. 177-8