(cc) freeparking on flickrI had a creative writing professor who would search antique stores for old portraits, subjects long since separated from kith and kin. She would use the portraits to help generate character sketches, even if just as a jumping off point.

We don’t know much about Kate, the character Jane Jacobs uses to compile the two lists of “esteemed behavior” in Systems of Survival. Jacobs manages to sneak in a few details and traits about Kate—more than in your average Platonic dialogue—but we’re left with far fewer than for most characters in your contemporary novel.

Here’s the short list I provided earlier about Kate:

Kate:

• 30
• Academic - Biologist
• Enjoyed popular success with book on animal memory published by Armbruster, to dismay of peers
• Volunteers to go first; needs just over four weeks to research the systems behind morality

I also forgot that during the first meeting, while everyone else but Ben is drinking alcohol, she chooses coffee. Jacobs also applies the adjectives “tired” and “rumpled” to her appearance at this meeting.

Also, she’s not just your run-of-the-mill biologist. The academic denegration she’d received for the popular success of her book had landed her on a project involving rabbit neurobiology, edging out her research on squirrel behavior. In other words, she presents as both a generalist and a specialist: presenting her passion popularly while pursuing a very specific target in her academic discipline.

Within all this, Jacobs presents Kate as a keen observer of all manner of systems. In Kate’s words: “I like uncovering systems…” (p21) While her specialty is neurobiology, she proves that the same observation skills apply to systems of morality. Jacobs proved herself as a keen observer of urban systems in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (tags: organized complexity, processes).

That’s not to necessarily equate the real Jacobs and the fictional Kate, but I would imagine Jacobs’ methods to ferret out these systems of morality were similar to Kate’s. The latter, though fictional, has the advantage of age, position, and eagerness on the real Jacobs, yielding results in four weeks, compared to Jacobs’ 15 years.

Kate: First I immured myself in the library, opening to closing. Read, read, read, and took notes.

…Biographies; business histories; scandals; sociology, although that was less help than I expected, except for some of the Europeans. I dipped into general history and…skimmed some cultural anthropology. Nights at home I clipped newspapers.

I drew on three kinds of evidence. Whenever I ran across a behavior that was extolled as admirable, I cast it in the form of a precept….

I did the same with behavior that was laid out as expected or proper….

My third type of evidence was behavior that was deemed scandalous, disgraceful, or criminal….

…I kept running across much the same underlying moral principle in [other] contexts…I cast it as the more embracing precept…

Then I holed up at home and tried to make sense of my notes. First I sequestered off the universals….

…I noticed that specific precepts were repeatedly associated with specific others…. Aha! Precepts came in linked clusters! Each kind overlapped with other clusters. Combining the overlaps resolved the clusters into these two lists…

~”A pair of contradictions” Systems of Survival (p25-27)

The other characters bring different perspective and modes of thinking to the dialogue, but it’s comforting to see some of the habits Jacobs relies on in other works reflected in Kate.

Armbruster:

This is no novel… This is a tradition older than the novel. Dialogue—didactic talking heads, if you will—goes back to Plato and possibly to the dawn of consciousness about right and wrong, whenever that was. “Armbruster’s Summons” Systems of Survival (p20)

Jane Jacobs is about to leave most of the devices of fiction behind. The only thing more we’ll learn about the characters is from what they say. She’s front loaded the book with their back stories - the details I shared last week in the character guide I’ve updated below.

Jacobs, surely, is not a master of fiction writing. I’ve sat in workshops where she’d be thoroughly taken to task for the sake of the craft.

But craft is not her concern.

She’s using the characters to advocate for different views and positions. She’s using just a touch of back story and character revealing action to cast the players to take these didactic positions. There’s no plot.

Back to Armbruster:

The form—disagreements, speculations, second thoughts, questions, answers, amended answers—it’s suited to the problematic subject matter. “Armbruster’s Summons” Systems of Survival (p20)

Before the first evening of discussion is up, before Armbruster can make this proposal, we’ve already lost Quincy, the banker (updated below). I’ll speculate about his purpose later. I’ve also added new labels for Ben and Hortense. Ben is a moral absolutist. Hortense is a moral relativist. That is, for Hortense, whether an action is right or wrong depends on the circumstances. Kate has also agreed to take the floor the next evening the five remaining characters can reconvene—but only with enough time to do plenty of research.

Updated character guide:

Key:

• New information
• No longer relevant
  

Armbruster:

• Host, in modest Manhattan apartment
• Retired publisher

Jasper:

• Crime novelist, published by Armbruster
• 50, writing his memoirs

Kate:

• 30
• Academic - Biologist
• Enjoyed popular success with book on animal memory published by Armbruster, to dismay of peers
• Volunteers to go first; needs just over four weeks to research the systems behind morality

Ben:

• Environmental doomsday-ist, but cheerful
• Carries his own kumquats
• Published a bestseller on planetary destruction under Armbruster
• Mid-40s
• Moral absolutist

Quincy:

• Banker
• Former business relationship with Armbruster now friendship
• Busy

Hortense:

• 43
• Divorce lawyer
• Legal aid worker
• Widow
• Armbruster’s niece
• Reluctant attendee
• Moral relativist

I think I’m going to be missing Jane Jacobs’ voice.

Despite the subtitle—A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics—I hadn’t realized that the format would be a departure from text in her voice.

Jacobs picks up the form of the Platonic dialogue, a written tool that uses many of the same strategies as the Socratic method. Questions abound.

In other words, Jacobs has invented a group of characters, much like a novelist would. However, rather than develop these characters to create a compelling narrative, these characters allow Jacobs to explore and discuss various perspectives on morality. While this is a sound rhetorical strategy, quite appropriate for the topic, I’m still going to miss the direct, forthright, and honest voice of Jacobs, unmediated.