Theory of Humor Series, part 22, Literature as play for group status

This series of blog posts began as an analysis of the comic quality of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy), by John Kennedy Toole. After about ten posts, I had only just laid out the theory of humor I am using to frame the analysis. In early 2018, I was invited to write a book chapter on Toole and Confederacy, so now I will only use this series of blog posts to more fully articulate that theory of humor.

I was reading Eric Weitz's The Cambridge Introduction to Comedy (Cambridge UP, 2009) a while ago. Weitz was discussing Purdie's theory of mastery of discourse. I came upon an idea below. This idea is from the Summer of 2016.

All of literature is a status display. I write a work or compose a poem. In theory, I could create it only for myself, but language is fundamentally social, a form of communication. By creating a text and sharing it, I try to assert social status. If the audience refuses to attend the reading or fails to buy the book, they reject my play for higher status. Or they write bad reviews and even make fun me. This is analogous to the individual in a small group who tries to dominate, but is rejected by others in the group. The would-be author is ignored or ridiculed.

Fashion (including literary fashion) as dominance: I try a new look or literary style as a dominance / status display. This could be a clothing style, a new aesthetic of literature such as a stream-of-consciousness or magic realism, or a specific literary text. If the group adopts the new style, I become a fashion leader. If my assertion is rejected, I am humiliated. (The theory of memes also addresses this type of social behavior, but I agree with Steven Pinker's critique and rejection of memetics.)

One question is: does the new fashion come about because the vast majority of the social group suddenly embraces it, or does the majority of the social group embrace it because important gatekeepers in the group like the new style and promote it? I am not an expert in the social psychology and marketing of style trends, but I think that promotion by influential group members, arguably high-status individuals, is crucial to a group's adoption of styles. An inner circle will prove its own high status if the styles it promotes succeed in being adopted more generally. So a new fashion probably needs a status leader to succeed, but the would-be status leader needs success in fashion promotion to reaffirm high status as an insider.

Within society, there are multiple structures of status. One group may have a low opinion of the values of another group. So a text that is a bestseller for one segment may be beneath contempt for another segment. The genius of Shakespeare was that he wrote for both the groundlings and the royal court. Proust, on the other hand, did not write for the groundlings.

Considering that this blog is about John Kennedy Toole, it should be noted that Toole's own effort at a status display through Confederacy failed during his lifetime. He was only willing to send the manuscript to Simon and Schuster and refused to make the edits Robert Gottlieb demanded, and the novel wasn't published. It was only eventually published thanks to the grit of Thelma Toole, his slightly unhinged mother. That, and the fact that it was actually a pretty good novel. The gatekeeper to give it a literary validation was Walker Percy. His introduction was the ticket to its serious consideration. Ken Toole only gets to enjoy a moderate esteem after his demise. He had the talent to gain status, but he didn't have the tenacity to win it.

As far as that goes, the fact that this blog only has two followers suggests that I haven't exactly achieved a high status either. What goes around, ...

A friend of mine has opined: "All narrative is propaganda." If propaganda is a text with a political intent, and if politics is group status dynamics writ large, then this view of "literature as a status display" is related to "all narrative is propaganda."