UWP Lecturers Fwd: brilliant letter

[Carole Fabricant]

Hey folks,

The depths to which some of my esteemed and, er, enlightened colleagues will
stoop never ceases to amaze me.  One is never quite prepared for the next
act of outrage or idiocy.  Way to go, guy; let's hear it for colleaguiality
and (more importantly) class solidarity.  In case you don't know what I'm
talking about, I'll attach a newspaper article (and a half) to this email (I
copied it into my Word documents) which will explain it all.  Below you will
find my response to His Eminence the Distinguished Professor Scull.  There's
no way one can deal with this except through satire.  (Well, actually
there are other ways -- but nothing that can be described in an email.)  I
heartily encourage all of you to send emails to Scull congratulating him on
his brilliant satiric wit.  It would be nice if his mailbox were filled with
such notes.  (Actually it would be even nicer it it was filled with
something else -- but never mind that for now.)

Read and weep.  Or better yet, read and laugh, and write sarcastic fan mail.

btw, Don't forget to address him as "Distinguished Professor" -- given his
obvious adulation of status and reputation I'm sure he wouldn't want to be
addressed any other way.

Cheers,
Carole

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carole Fabricant <cf7516 at gmail.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 3:00 AM
Subject: brilliant letter
To: ascull at ucsd.edu


Dear Distinguished Professor Scull,

I very much enjoyed reading portions of your brilliant satire which, had you
been a less humble and unassuming person, you might have entitled "A Modest
Proposal for preventing the Inferior Campuses of the UC System from being a
Burden to their Superiors or the University at large, and for making them
Beneficial to the Public."

As a Jonathan Swift specialist I can say without reservation that you have
perfectly captured the tone and spirit of Swift's greatest satire, creating
a persona whom you've succeeded in making into the twin brother of the
Modest Proposer:  a man, deeply concerned for the welfare of his community,
who understands that the sacrifice of some of its members (other
than himself and his fellow classmen, of course) is necessary for the good
of the whole.  Your persona, like the Modest Proposer, subscribes to the sad
but inescapable truth that in every society the weak have to be sacrificed
to ensure the continued health and prosperity of the strong, the have-nots
must give way to accommodate the desires of the haves; and while expressing
regret regret at being forced to "contemplate very, very unpleasant choices"
he doesn't allow mere sentiment to soften the stark nature of his proposal,
or to divert him from his noble purpose.

Of course, this being a satire, we eventually come to realize that the
Modest Proposer's (both yours and Swift's) presumed concern for the welfare
of his society, hence his eagerness to offer solutions to its problems, is
merely a cover to mask his own self-interest, delusions of grandeur, and
dehumanizing outlook (his substitution of abstract quantifiable measures for
human values) -- but not before we've enjoyed a delightful romp through the
realms of the satiric grotesque.

I must say that I thought it was a particularly brilliant stroke of wit on
your part to substitute the image of General Motors "lopping off" Hummer,
Buick, Opel, Saab, "and who knows what else" for Swift's central metaphor of
chopping up and eating Irish babies.  The "who knows what else" provides
just the right Swiftian touch, opening out the possibilities of the satire
in the same way that Swift's Modest Proposer, after describing the many
dishes the babies can be cooked up into, adds that "Those who are more
thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flay the carcass; the skin
of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and
summer boots for fine gentlemen."

Equally ingenious was your remark that because of the funding crisis we now
have to become "only a nine, or an eight (and a half) campus system."  A
lesser satirist would have left it at 'nine, or eight,' but your insertion
of 'a half' of a campus produces an ever-so-slight frisson, evoking the
image of a half of a baby (somehow more shocking than a whole one) being
stuffed into a pot to make a stew:  an image that serves to underscore the
fundamental sadism and cruel indifference beneath the Modest Proposer's mask
of benevolence.

I will be teaching Swift in the fall quarter and wonder whether you would be
willing to come and talk to my class about your perspective on the art of
satire -- perhaps even share with us some of your other creative endeavors
in this field.  I always tell my students that, given the absurdity of the
times in which we live, it's no longer possible to write satire.  But I'm
glad to say that you've proven me wrong.

Yours sincerely (and admiringly),

Carole Fabricant
Professor of English
University of California, Riverside
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