Proposal for a moratorium on the use of the words “fashionable” and “trendy”

Tyler Cowen links to an interesting article by Terry Teachout on David Mamet’s political conservatism. I don’t think of playwrights as gurus, but I do find it interesting to consider the political orientations of authors and celebrities.

I have only one problem with Teachout’s thought-provoking article. He writes:

As early as 2002 . . . Arguing that “the Western press [had] embraced antisemitism as the new black,” Mamet drew a sharp contrast between that trendy distaste for Jews and the harsh realities of daily life in Israel . . .

In 2006, Mamet published a collection of essays called The Wicked Son: Anti-Semitism, Jewish Self-Hatred and the Jews that made the point even more bluntly. “The Jewish State,” he wrote, “has offered the Arab world peace since 1948; it has received war, and slaughter, and the rhetoric of annihilation.” He went on to argue that secularized Jews who “reject their birthright of ‘connection to the Divine'” succumb in time to a self-hatred that renders them incapable of effectively opposing the murderous anti-Semitism of their enemies–and, by extension, the enemies of Israel.

It is hard to imagine a less fashionable way of framing the debate over Israel, and even the most sympathetic reviewers of The Wicked Son frequently responded with sniffish dismay to Mamet’s line of argument. . . .

I added the boldface above.

Setting aside the specific claims being made here (it would be hard for me to evaluate, for example, whether antisemitism was indeed “trendy” in 2002), I think Teachout made a mistake in his use of “trendy” and “fashionable.” What do those words mean, really? As far as I can tell, they are used to refer to a position that you disagree with but that you fear is becoming more popular. Or, to put it another way, everything’s trendy until it jumps the shark.

So far, it might sound like I’m making a picky comment about English usage, along the lines of my recommendations to academic writers to avoid unnecessary phrases such as “Note that” and “obviously.” “Trendy” and “fashionable” are convenient negative words that don’t add much meaning–they’re a way to express contempt without taking the trouble to make an actual argument.

But it goes beyond that. My real trouble with the use of “fashionable” and “trendy” (and the accompanying implicit reasoning that goes along with them) is that they can get a writer tangled up in contradictions, without him even realizing it.

Let’s return to the article under discussion. After praising him for his “less fashionable” framing of the debate over Israel, Teachout turns to Mamet’s latest play, which he does not actually like very much: “Alas, his first post-conversion play does not suggest that this new point of view has as yet borne interesting artistic fruit.” Teachout concludes his mini-review with the following sentence (parentheses in the original):

(The play has, interestingly, proved to be a major success at the box office.)

Here’s my problem. At this point, everything in Teachout’s (and, perhaps, Mamet’s) world is suffused with political implication. It’s the good guys versus the bad guys. I can think of a few ways to interpret the parenthetical remark above:

– Theatergoers–unlike playwrights–are sensible Americans, middle-of-the-road politically, and welcome a fresh new play that does not take a politically-correct view of the world. This is a Hollywood-versus-America sort of argument and is consistent with the idea that we should trust the judgment of the market over that of a narrow spectrum of playwrights and critics.

– On the other hand, Teachout didn’t actually like the play, so maybe he’s making an opposite argument, that theatergoers are, essentially, nothing but sheep who flock to anything by a big-name playwright. This is consistent with the idea that theaters can get away with all sorts of politically-correct crap and the audience won’t know the difference, thus a self-perpetuating mechanism that isolates theater away from the real life of America.

– Or maybe Teachout is simply saying that American theater has degenerated to such an extent that even “heavy-handed lectures”–this is how he describes Mamet’s latest–can be major successes.

The judgment of the market is always a double-edged sword, and it’s never clear whether popularity should be taken as a sign of virtue (“the free-market economy,” in Mamet’s words) or as a deplorable sign of conformity (recall those oh-so-trendy words, “trendy” and “fashionable”).

Why did I write this?

I’m a Mamet fan–who isn’t?–but I don’t recall ever having seen any of his plays performed. And I’m not really familiar with Terry Teachout (although I recognized the distinctive name, and I think I’ve read a few other things by him, over the years).

So why did I write this? Because I think a lot about writing, and I find myself sensitive to turns of phrase that facilitate confusion in a writer. Sometimes confusions can be remedied by statistics (for example, the notorious claim that “people vote against their interests”), but in other cases, such as in Teachout’s article, I think the problem is in a division of the world into good guys and bad guys. Here’s another example from a few months ago, an article about demographic trends that, again, got tangled from a need (as I see it) to be both popular and unpopular at the same time–to have the perceived virtues of mass support while being an embattled underdog.

In the short term, perhaps we can all avoid the words “fashionable” and “trendy.” Or, if they must be used, please explain how to distinguish a positive trend in opinion (a “trend,” as it were) from a negative trend (which, of course, is just “trendy”).

P.S. I’m not trying to pick on Teachout. It’s only because I found his article interesting that I took the trouble to comment on this one bit. I just think his article (and similar musings on art and politics) could be improved by subtracting these two words, which are so easy to write but so destructive of clear thinking.

P.P.S. After posting the above, I corresponded briefly with Teachout . He was polite but refused to back down. Oh well, life wasn’t meant to be easy, I guess.

4 thoughts on “Proposal for a moratorium on the use of the words “fashionable” and “trendy”

  1. But they're such interesting and rhetorically useful words!

    I think the mistake is expecting them to comment on the correctness of a view. A 'bad idea' is inherently incorrect, a 'fashionable idea' is orthogonal to the question. I agree that using 'trendy' as a sneer is a bit weak, but sometimes a weak jab is useful for addressing a heavy idea without having to get bogged down in correctness. It's almost a misdirection. The original example avoids discussion of Middle East politics, but also avoids overtly failing to take a side.

    Some ideas are just inherently trendy. I've noticed over the years that if Communism ever comes up in a discussion among my generation, people will invariably say "it's a good idea in theory, but just doesn't work out in practice". It's a pragmatic view, but the fact that so many people say it makes it fashionable. It's such a balanced statement, toeing the conventional US view on the issue, but at the same time distancing the speaker from the excesses of the Cold War. It's a bland response, but the fact that its fashionable speaks deeply about this generation's zeitgeist.

    "The fashionable view that Communism fails in practice" as praise of Communism falls flat, and I think that's the use you're writing against. But the use of 'fashionable' in a discussion of the idea tangential to its correctness is a very important and unavoidable role for the word.

  2. Strong rhetorical devices are like strong drink: the good thing about them is that they'll reliably hit the spot fast and cheaply, and the bad thing about them is that they'll reliably hit the spot fast and cheaply.

    It doesn't take long for a really good all-purpose zinger to be picked up by everyone and used as an all-purpose zinger, even for positions that have no other strength. Then they get used *especially* to push positions that have no other strength.

    It's very fashionable to claim that criticizing you is fashionable, as if that was bad in itself. Hitler did it in Mein Kampf, you know, which means that if you do it, you're exactly like Hitler

  3. It doesn't take long for a really good all-purpose zinger to be picked up by everyone and used as an all-purpose zinger, even for positions that have no other strength. Then they get used *especially* to push positions that have no other strength.

    Agree.

  4. Terry Teachout, a political conservative himself, can be injudicious in his writing. In his entertaining and well-written biography of Louis Armstrong, Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong, he has occasion to refer to an article about Armstrong which appeared in the New York Times in 1955. He refers to the Times as the "house organ of the liberal establishment." The gratuitousness of this remark is not as evident as it was in context.

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