2.8 The Enemy of Morality is Not Modernity, It’s Me
The great English essayist and linguist Samuel Johnson was writing during the Enlightenment—the period some historians identify as the beginning of the modern age. American author and philosopher David Foster Wallace worked more than two centuries later, in the “post-modern” style. But these two writers shared a common problem: once modernity fractured society’s sense of shared moral norms, how could you write persuasively about morality? This episode looks at how Johnson and Wallace attempted to solve this problem; what struggles plagued their solutions; and why our modern, pluralistic landscape makes their work more valuable than ever.
Episode released Dec 20, 2023.
Researcher, writer, and episode producer: Kirsten Hall Herlin
Art Direction and Animation: Dimitrios Salonikios
Video Writer and Producer: Katy Carl
Featured Scholars: Walter Jackson Bate (1918-1999), Professor of English, Harvard University
Matt Bucher, Managing Editor, The Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies
Jack Lynch, Professor of English, Rutgers University
D. T. Max, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
Special thanks to: Dutton Kearney
Resources
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The transcript for Episode 2.8 is available here.
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This episode's Teaching Aid is available here.
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Bate, Walter Jackson. Samuel Johnson. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.
Bate, Walter Jackson. Biographers and Brunch Lectures, 92nd Street Y’s Unterberg Poetry Center, New York City. October 18, 1998.
D.T. Max and James Wood on David Foster Wallace. Sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center and The Harvard Advocate. Harvard University, December 10, 2012.
Max, D.T. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace. Penguin, 2013.
MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue. University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.
Boswell, James. The Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791.
Pope, Alexander. “An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot,” 1735; The Dunciad, 1728.
Lannan Foundation. Everything and More: A Tribute to David Foster Wallace. Featuring David Lipsky, Rick Moody, Joanna Scott and Michael Silverblatt. March 16, 2011.
McCaffery, Larry. “An Interview with David Foster Wallace.” Review of Contemporary Fiction, Vol. 13 (Summer 1993).
Audio Interviews with David Foster Wallace: Fresh Air: NPR, March 5 1997; Charlie Rose, 1996; Charlie Rose, 1997
Works by David Foster Wallace: The Broom of the System (1987), Girl with Curious Hair (1989), Infinite Jest (1996), “Joseph Frank’s Dostoevsky” in Consider the Lobster (2005), This is Water (2005), The Pale King (2011)
Works by Samuel Johnson: The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), The Rambler (1750-1752), The Adventurer no. 99 (1753), A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Rasselas (1759), Preface to The Plays of William Shakespeare (1765), Lives of the Poets (1779-81)
