James Baldwin's Tough Love

Podopticon

Last time, we discussed Rousseau’s "Confessions," an autobiographical work that’s meant to encourage some thinking around various questions common to life and living.

This time, we turn to another thinker who made his own life central in various ways, James Baldwin. As we’ll see, Baldwin personalized his thinking–not just by being autobiographical but by addressing his audience directly. “YOU” must this and that. “YOU.” A jarring sort of second person personal.

Now, in the spirit of autobiography, even a touch of confession, I don’t know James Baldwin well at all. I come to him very late. But it’s particularly exciting to come to a thinker so deep and deeply interesting when you feel like you might already have a foot in the grave; makes you want to pull the foot out and keep reading. I recommend it.

On the other hand, I haven’t simply stumbled around in the dark, I’ve had the help of Nicholas Buccola, a Baldwin expert and author of “The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate Over Race in America.” Nick was PODOPTICON’s first guest. And it was there that I got a taste for Baldwin.

So don’t worry, people. This won’t just be some bro who thinks he’s discovered something. I come with an expert, who’ll keep me in check. Or who will try.

I come, then, as an amateur, which in an older and simpler sense suggests a kind of lover. So it’s appropriate that we’re going to talk about James Baldwin on love.

It’s not so romantic, though, unless by "romance" you mean to suggest a touch of the Sturm und Drang.

Baldwin’s love is tough love, and you’ll hear from him terms like a “lovers’ war”. Baldwin applies such love to his own country. It’s not a warm hug. But it’s hard to say it’s not necessary. He applies it, too, to his father, as in his novel, “Go Tell it on the Mountain,” and to Norman Mailer in the essay “The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy.” Distinct works, but two scathing critiques later described by the author himself as love letters.

In the same light, we’ll touch on Baldwin’s engagement, his grappling, with the western tradition. There, too, is a kind of Baldwinian love in action. Particularly interesting in this regard, maybe, is the discussion around his essay, “Why I stopped Hating Shakespeare.”

Like Rousseau, with whom I opened, Baldwin found himself a stranger in his own land. While Rousseau’s researches made him feel like a barbarian for not being understood, Baldwin’s digging around the tradition made him feel like what he called “a bastard of the west.” Such individuals might be destined for a kind of loneliness.

Indeed, in the various personal works discussed in this episode, we’ll see Baldwin talk about the life and business of the artist. And it’s there, I think, that it all comes together. Baldwin doesn’t shy from the big questions, and he doesn’t want you to, either. It’s Baldwin in the Socratic tradition.

Let’s get to the episode, then. I do hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I enjoyed having it.