I, Wise Hack
In this essay, Roberts explores and explains just what kind of writer he is, and how he relates to world that he spends so much time criticizing.
Recently, following a habit of obsessive re-reading I fall into with texts I enjoy, I returned to an essay by Gore Vidal titled Top Ten Best Sellers, According to the Sunday New York Times, written back in 1973. Set up almost like a short story, the introduction is built around various characters. Some of them, of course, were real; people like Christopher Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, Dorothy Parker, and Vidal himself, people who were screenwriters for Hollywood movies from The Gambler to Pride and Prejudice, among others. Some are real, but mere jesters in the court of Vidal's 'book-chat'; unsuspecting authors who did not expect such clever criticism.
But there is one character, definitively, who was fictional; and as in all Vidalian writings, the fictional character is the center of attention. In this essay, he calls the character 'The Wise Hack at the Writer's Table in the MGM commissary…', or 'Wise Hack' for short. There is something almost archetypal about this Wise Hack; to my mind, I could cast Hugh Laurie as Vidal's Wise Hack, reprising his House-like personality as this worldly, cynical American TV screenwriter. Much like House, the Wise Hack has axioms that seem both cynical but witty, an insight that dries up and closes off any sense of deeper meaning or depth. Vidal begins the essay, even, with the Wise Hack's defining axiom, "Shit has its own integrity."
At first, I was tempted to ignore or chuckle at this proto-Houseian figure. I was here for the reviews Vidal is so famous for, not a story about a fictional character. But over time, as I have returned to this essay over and over again, something about this Wise Hack stuck with me, like a popcorn kernel in the teeth. I picked at it, and picked at it, and having finally removed it, I realize what so fascinated me about this character; I am a wise hack.
What do I mean by this? What is a Wise Hack? Part of the archetype of the Wise Hack, a writing archetype that for years has been confined to screenwriting rooms or to being one's favorite bierbrüder, can be found in the text of Vidal's essay. In particular, the axioms of said Wise Hack, or what Vidal mentions about him. It seems to me, as Vidal zeroes in on either the members of the Writer's Table or the hapless authors he tortured surgically, he reveals more and more about this character, this Wise Hack.
One can see, for example, the tradition of the Wise Hack in the long shadow of Dorothy Parker, who always had a witty thing to say. Vidal notes, after citing a few Parker-isms, that:
“The style, you see, must come as easily and naturally as that."
Vidal, however, gives quite a bit more exposition to this character; at least, at the beginning of the essay. Vidal writes:
"It was plain to [the Wise Hack]…that since we came to Hollywood only to make money, our pictures would entirely lack the one basic homely ingredient that spells boffo world-wide grosser. The Wise Hack was not far wrong. He knew that the sort of exuberant badness which so often achieves perfect popularity cannot be faked even though, as he was quick to admit, no one lost a penny underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
At one point, while actually reviewing the book The Camerons by Robert Critchton, Vidal notes that he cannot put his finger on just what, exactly, is missing from the book but refers to the Wise Hack, suggesting that the book lacks the 'integrity' the Wise Hack might insist on. The Wise Hack, here, is some combination—to my literary eye—of the trickster and mentor archetypes.
It seems, from these small bits in Vidal's essay, we find the Wise Hack as something of a postmodern sage who does not believe in their own sagacity; or, as I would put it, a sage who is being honest. The Wise Hack is a Diogenes whose cynicism about society is driven by their reconciliation of integrity and clear-eyed assessments. They do suggest that shit and integrity are, more often than not, intertwined. The Wise Hack tends to be naturally witty, with a disposition towards style over depth, and has an eye for art.
As Gore Vidal suggests, at the end of his essay, the Wise Hack has the creative aptitude of the writer, particularly the novelist, but unlike the novelists who populated Vidal's 'Writer's Table', the Wise Hack did not use their medium to search for, present, or fetishize the 'depth' of literature.
Literature was not, and has never been, without shit.
***
Now, that is not the whole story of course. And no two Wise Hacks are the same. But they tend to follow some notion of integrity that is not separate from, but is part of, the shit. They are willing to accept, as well, that integrity is very real, but that its application is spotty at best. A book may possess integrity, but it can--and often is--passed up by a book that is shit. But they add a complicated dimension to this all too mentioned truism; what you think has integrity might be shit, and what you think is shit might have integrity.
The role of the Wise Hack, therefore, is as simple and as complicated as shifting through the shit in search of integrity. Think Diogenes and his lantern in broad daylight; the Wise Hack is in search of integrity in whatever they are engaged in, while accepting that it might be shit. In my case, as a cultural critic, I sift through aspects of culture in our lives and search for something with integrity, albeit the concept of 'integrity' is something I would prefer to call honor.
But this is not without cynicism, which here refers to a clear-sightedness, rather than a hip negativity. This is, also, not a call to 'truth seeking', as the truth is usually right here in front of you, mundane and easily ignored. It is, as Sherlock Holmes would say, deceptive because it is obvious. It is easy, and constantly done, to either say 'all things have integrity' or to say 'all things are shit'. It is the currency of our era; you have enforced positivity where one posts inane 'inspirational quotes' everyday or sad boi internet pessimists who post Schopenhauer quotes and talk about Emil Cioran as if he had something to say. Neither of these are, of course, cynicism; cynicism is a relationship to ideas, believing that ideas are related to the people who assume them. The Wise Hack knows how to consider the selfish, insincere, and absurd motives of the people who suggest an idea, but they also know when and how to consider an idea on its own. Shit can be the midwife of quality.
The Wise Hack can be intransigent or elitist--often they come off this way--but they are never a snob. By this I mean that they never wall off any part of our world based on a dislike of it; they are not reading the classics and eschewing pop culture, or they do not avoid country music just because they dislike it. Apathy disguised as criticism is not what a Wise Hack does. A Wise Hack might, say, criticize love as little more than an animal instinct, but this would not be cause for them to merely avoid it. They follow their tastes, and thus they are driven to indulge themselves in order to get a sense of what they think of something. I might disapprove of smoking, but I am willing to try it. Just as well, I may not approve of a particular kink, but I will advocate that people should be allowed to participate in it.
In a sense, all of this can be condensed in an examination of the name 'wise hack'; wise, coming from the same etymological origin as 'wit', and so both being a good sense of judgement and being witty. It also refers to a sense of 'alertness' or being aware of something going on. And hack, meaning both to cut, strike, or deliver a blow to something in order to remove it, as well as meaning someone who deals with or produces unoriginal work.
What is a Wise Hack? A shrewd, witty person who hacks their way through the quotidian shit in the name of their craft.
***
What does this mean for me, as a writer?
I have never been comfortable--and firmly refuse--being considered a philosopher or intellectual. I lack the scholarly slothiness and the impulse to specialize to be either. I respect some intellectuals, sure. Often, I find someone is called an intellectual after they die, as though it is the only safe time to insult someone so crudely. I do not, however, see myself as some kind of pundit or journalist or--I shudder at this--an influencer. I am not an ideologue, a partisan, or a mere polemicist. I refuse to be some kind of lettreferit. Even labels I am comfortable with, like cultural critic or writer, I find myself chafing. I refuse terms like 'sage' or aphorist, and to name me an 'essayist' is like naming a cat 'feline'.
And so, I turn to the term 'Wise Hack', running with a fictional archetype that comes closer to the truth than the labels available to me. I sit somewhere between the wise and the charlatan, and I take lessons from both of them.
One of the things I enjoy about this role of Wise Hack, particularly Vidal's manifestation of it, is that the Wise Hack travels with an entourage of writers, his very own 'Writer's Table'. It is often stated, and is the truth, that writers carry in their heads a repository of writers who they engage with as they make their way through life. I call this repository my 'Writer's Table', and those who sit at it influence me greatly. And most of them are not intellectuals, or at least were only given the title posthumously. My dear readers do not need me to go through them, as I refer to them quite often, just as I have in this article when I reference Gore Vidal. My Writer's Table gives me ideas, and like the Wise Hack--or, to my delight, like House--I respond to those ideas, whether I ridicule them or accept them or reject them.
I, of course, have more axioms or principles to add to the few attributed to Vidal's Wise Hack: I think it is better to know things than not to. I think alienation is the driver of history, and I think people who claim to have some kind of 'depth'--no matter the subject--don’t realize that depth is a creation rather than the truth, and usually a diversion from truth. Life is a failure, History is a farce, and politics is a circus. Freedom and liberation are not the same thing, but we need both. To me, people don't change and our misuse of language is the origin of ideology. Some of us are sadists, others of us are masochists, and we are all fetishists. And I am against wisdom.
I could go on, and I will go on, as I continue to write my essays. I will shake my finger at the masses and the elites alike, I will continue the tradition of people like Mencken, Vidal, Parker, and so many others. I will put a dent in the universe with a slapstick, using both trickery and some kind of wisdom. I will bring the reader from their 'depth'--where they suffocate--and bring them to the surface, the only thing that is real. I will lecture, and I will entertain. I will talk about movies on podcasts and reference the classics in my literary reviews. I will watch House M.D. for the billionth time and pass judgement on whoever comes into my sight. I will sift through the shit, in search of something with integrity.
Because I am a Wise Hack.