After 25+ Years: An Author and Scholar Revisits Her Work
Many moons ago (about 28 to be exact), I wrote a book (my first) titled Failure and Forgiveness: Rebalancing the Bankruptcy System (Yale University Press 1997). Within that book, I suggested the need for and import of taking community interests into account within our insolvency/ bankruptcy system. I added in the need to protect the most vulnerable unsecured creditors.
As my now late husband predicted when the book was released (he was a corporate securities lawyer at a big firm in NYC), the book generated fistfuls of controversy. (What he actually said was that my head would be on a chopping block.) But yes, there were and still are plenty of supporters too. Academics have wrestled with and continue to engage with its ideas across the globe. The book has been cited hundreds of times. It is available still. It has value still. And aspects of its approach have been advocated for by lawyers and approved by judges.
I am headed to the UK soon as part of a larger effort to launch my latest adult book. It is in that context that I reconnected with some academic friends at the Universities of Lancaster and Liverpool, respectively. At both places, first at a conference and then for a class, I will be addressing what has occurred over the past 25+ years in terms of the approaches developed in and undergirding my now “ancient” book, Failure and Forgiveness. (An actual 25th book Anniversary party/conference had been planned in the UK but COVID intervened.) What has been and what is the value of community interests in bankruptcy systems? How shall we treat all creditors and can we and should we differentiate? What have I learned since its publication? And, what would I change in the book, if anything?
Who gets such an amazing opportunity to reflect upon and reckon with (while one is still relatively astute and active) the impact of one’s academic, scholarly work decades later? And, while I have left my focus on insolvency law (for the most part although it remains deeply ingrained in my being for reasons too complex to share now), the concepts of “failure” and “community” and “equality ” deeply embedded in this book continue to play a central role in my work, in my teaching, in my writing, in my personal and more private life.
As I prepare my remarks and re-read Failure and Forgiveness and its many reviews and citations, I am struck my two things right from the get-go (and I am sure I will uncover many other things as I prepare and hope to write about them later):
1. I have always been keenly aware of and concerned about those who “have less” and the need for our laws and our society and our educational systems to protect those who cannot protect themselves. While this value system has taken different forms for me over the years, it has been central to how I have lived and continue to live my life.
This framing guides my work as an educator today, and it likely accounts for my focus on the impact of trauma on learning and psychosocial development. And, for the record, I remain controversial in my approaches to issues as I vociferously express my support of and for those in need.
2. I have remained aware all these many years of two particularly nasty reviews of Failure and Forgiveness. One of the professors has passed away and the other has retired, best as I can tell. Seems the latter individual turned to university press book writing towards the end of his academic career and perhaps that process has enabled him to find decency later in life. One can always hope!
Both reviews changed me…for the better I might add.
For starters, I changed how I write about the work of others, inspired by someone who said to me: “Even if you don’t like a book or viewpoint, write the review you would want to receive if someone were critical of your work.” Quality advice. And that goes for giving verbal feedback too. Do it with kindness. As an emerging fine artist (mixed media), I accept criticism for sure but vastly prefer it when it is delivered thoughtfully and with respect and decency.
I have also crusaded against meanness and nastiness in both my personal and professional life, and it gives me pleasure to know that, 25+ years later, I can return to and rebut the naysayers. No, I haven’t reached out to the still living (though retired) detractor. He can live with his own conscience.
Let me be very clear: Meanness gets you nowhere. Meanness is toxic and not just to the recipient. It invades the psyche and morality of the provocateur. Meanness is not good for one’s mental health nor one’s friendships nor one’s more intimate personal relationships; if one has children, it is downright destructive. Meanness is professionally unsound and unwise.
Yes, mean people can get power and get ahead within their profession (and win elections) but they don’t get respect. They aren’t admired and adored. They aren’t role models for anyone. They alienate others.
Kindness, and thoughtful decent and respectful disagreement, are the keys to a civilized society. Civility was and remains central to my being, forever reminded of how to respond to and address meanness, something as to which I have become increasing capable. It is that gray hair at work that enables me to respond now in the moment rather than being temporarily silenced by (and stewing about) nastiness; it has facilitated my speaking up and out to those who exhibit mean traits and mean words, whatever excuses they provide about it not being personal (oh yeh?) or they have lots on their platter that meant they were self-focused rather than outer directed.
So, Failure and Forgiveness will be reviewed and brought forward by others and by me in March 2025. I look forward to sharing and revisiting its core themes. The timing occurs after 28 years but in terms of our society and our world and our cultures, the timing could not be more timely.
