Simultaneous Truths Zadie Smith’s “speaking in Tongues” intensely explores the ability to embody more than one voice. Originally a lecture following the inauguration of Barack Obama, Smith compares the then President-Elect to historical figures who share his “irreducible multiplicity” (12). As a biracial man who has lived in multiple states and countries, Obama has the gift to speak to and identify with many different people. Throughout this text, Smith wavers in deciding whether it is advantageous for political leaders to have multiple identities or allegiances. One of her most compelling arguments regarding this is hidden in her description of Shakespeare’s writing ability: “…the very medium of it, allowed him to […] speak simultaneous
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In fact, throughout the text she describes President Obama as someone who uses his multiplicity as a political weapon. She even imagines a scene in which Obama thinks to himself: “Everyone wants to be Barack Obama. Even I want to be Barack Obama” (6). This conjecture is rather extreme, of course. It insinuates that President Obama is wearing a mask of some sort, and even succeeds in fooling himself. People are wary of this, and they arguably have a right to be. Smith reinforces this with the example of Halifax, who was generally considered by the l British population to be: “insufficiently committed to an ideology” (13). They didn’t trust him enough to put their faith in him because his motives and beliefs were not so easily distinguishable. That is precisely the same problem so many had with Obama., As Smith writes, “these are fears that have their roots in an anxiety about voice” (7). Humans are often afraid of putting into power those they cannot easily …show more content…
Will had seen too many wild-eyed martyrs, too many executed terrorists, too many wars on the Catholic terror. He had watched men rage absurdly at rood screens and write treatises in praise of tables. He had seen men disemboweled while still alive, their entrails burned before their eyes, and all for the preference of a Latin Mass over a common prayer or vice versa. He understood what fierce, singular certainty creates and what it destroys. In response, he made himself a diffuse, uncertain thing, a mass of contradictory, irresolvable voices that speak truth plurally. Through the glass of 2009, “negative capability” looks like the perfect antidote to “ideological heroism.
In fact, throughout the text she describes President Obama as someone who uses his multiplicity as a political weapon. She even imagines a scene in which Obama thinks to himself: “Everyone wants to be Barack Obama. Even I want to be Barack Obama” (6). This conjecture is rather extreme, of course. It insinuates that President Obama is wearing a mask of some sort, and even succeeds in fooling himself. People are wary of this, and they arguably have a right to be. Smith reinforces this with the example of Halifax, who was generally considered by the l British population to be: “insufficiently committed to an ideology” (13). They didn’t trust him enough to put their faith in him because his motives and beliefs were not so easily distinguishable. That is precisely the same problem so many had with Obama., As Smith writes, “these are fears that have their roots in an anxiety about voice” (7). Humans are often afraid of putting into power those they cannot easily …show more content…
Will had seen too many wild-eyed martyrs, too many executed terrorists, too many wars on the Catholic terror. He had watched men rage absurdly at rood screens and write treatises in praise of tables. He had seen men disemboweled while still alive, their entrails burned before their eyes, and all for the preference of a Latin Mass over a common prayer or vice versa. He understood what fierce, singular certainty creates and what it destroys. In response, he made himself a diffuse, uncertain thing, a mass of contradictory, irresolvable voices that speak truth plurally. Through the glass of 2009, “negative capability” looks like the perfect antidote to “ideological heroism.