Critics . . .

(via Scott on Facebook, with thanks)

Hold on to your hats and opinions, folks. Some authors, including those we love, get their asses handed to them. Sometimes by literary figures, sometimes by folks like Samuel Johnson who had more opinions than he should have. This is linked and copied in fun.

8. Charles Dickens, according to Arnold Bennett (1898)

About a year ago, from idle curiosity, I picked up 'The Old Curiosity Shop', and of all the rotten vulgar un-literary writing...! Worse than George Eliot's. If a novelist can't write where is the beggar.

9. J.K. Rowling, according to Harold Bloom (2000)

How to read 'Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone'? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.

11. Fyodor Dostoevsky, according to Vladimir Nabokov

Dostoevky's lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity -- all this is difficult to admire.

24. J.D.Salinger, according to Mary McCarthy (1962)

I don't like Salinger, not at all. That last thing isn't a novel anyway, whatever it is. I don't like it. Not at all. It suffers from this terrible sort of metropolitan sentimentality and it's so narcissistic. And to me, also, it seemed so false, so calculated. Combining the plain man with an absolutely megalomaniac egotism. I simply can't stand it.

And my favorite . . .

Every time I read 'Pride and Prejudice,' I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone. - Mark Twain

Justice Delayed But Not Denied

The link is to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, but I heard the story last night on BBC World Service.

Argentina's last dictator was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison Tuesday for kidnappings and torture during the nation's 1976-1983 military regime.

Reynaldo Bignone, 82, was convicted along with five other former military officers in 56 cases involving torture, illegal detentions and other crimes in one of Argentina's largest torture centers, the Campo de Mayo army base.

These events, over thirty years past, seem more part of an historical record than the stuff of court cases. While the wheels of official justice occasionally grind slow, they do grind, and former General Reynaldo Bignone will spend the remaining time he has left on earth in jail.

For those who wish for the Obama DOJ to go after Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others for doing many of the same things, we should remember that sometimes, a full accounting awaits the comforting distance of some time. With this conviction, Argentina shows the United States how one deals with national "leaders" who flaunt the rule of law in the name security. It may take time, but at some point, a prosecutor will put at least some of those responsible in the tank for their crimes and we, the people, will be able to say that we have, finally and fully, restored the rule of law.

Music For Your Monday

The summer of 2001 I went on a music buying binge. During the days around the birth of our younger daughter, Miriam, I saw a CD from a band that included Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy. Being a huge fan, I bought it because of him, and the fact they did a cover of a Procol Harum song, "In Held (Twas In I)".

The day Miriam came home from the hospital, I sat in our living room, with Moriah on one side, and a tiny Miriam on the other, and headphones on, listening to Transatlantic's SMPTe. The first song, "All Of The Above", is not exactly for the faint of heart. Thirty minutes long, it had better deliver something to keep one from hitting the "next" button. I sat and rocked my two daughters to sleep with that song in my ears, and was transfixed.

The band was a multiple side-project. Portnoy and Spock's Beard-founder Neal Morse (multi-instrumentalist and lead singer/songwriter) had asked bassist Pete Trewavas from the venerable British band Marillion and long-time Swedish prog-rocker Roine Stolt from The Flower Kings to gather together and put together some music. In the early 2000's, Morse became a born-again Christian and left both his own band and Transatlantic. But, it seems time has done its work, and they got together and released some new music last summer (The Whirlwind) and, now, are touring. Tomorrow night, they are playing the Park West theater in Chicago, and I will be there.







That funny looking guy with the long hair on stage in the last video is Daniel Gildenlow, leader of Sweden's Pain Of Salvation, hired as a side-man.

Lost In Space Program

Like his predecessor, Pres. Obama has announced ambitious plans in regards to the exploration of space. As I wrote last summer, I fail to see where any serious attempt at human exploration of Mars, absent other, practical reasons, makes any sense.

Part of the problem with all the talk of human space exploration misses a couple points. While it might be true that humans have always pushed the boundaries of exploration, they did so in the past either to flee various threats (the Huns, Magyars, and other eastern ethnic groups that started settling the eastern Danube basin in the times of the late Roman Empire did so because they were fleeing Mongol and Tartar oppression) or to search for exploitable natural resources (the Portuguese, Spanish, French, and British weren't exactly doing what they did in the 16th and 17th centuries for the good of humanity; they wanted to get rich). We are, slowly, becoming sophisticated enough politically to understand that we cannot flee current threats to human survival on earth, but need to address them politically. While escape certainly might seem an attractive alternative to some should those efforts fail, they still should be a last resort.

As a kid, I remember my older brother - an avid, rabid, science fiction reader - talking about the possibility of mining asteroids, mining other planets. It seems to me if there was money to be made doing that kind of thing, the mining companies and others would either be pressuring the government to get the ball rolling, or designing and building their own, private fleets for doing so. They aren't. Neither the Moon nor Mars (that planet that seems to dominate discussion of human exploration at the moment) have enough mineral wealth that would be exploitable without a serious investment in either terraforming or otherwise making life comfortable enough for those who would do the work.

The natural barriers to human space exploration are multiple. We are, like it or not, bound to earth by biology. The human body barely tolerates the stresses of space flight; zero-gravity leeches bone and muscle mass, and there is as yet no way to counter it. The assaults upon our bodies by unshielded cosmic rays are manifold.

Then, of course, there is the turn-around time involved. Even with improved technology, a trip to Mars takes months. The cost of keeping human beings fit and comfortable for the duration of the trip out and back, it seems to me, outweighs any gain that might come from actually planting our feet on Martia firma.

While I know there is something romantic, dashing, about the prospects of human space travel, I for one just don't see it as a viable policy initiative. Robotic space exploration has been extremely effective and even popular. I say, we should go with our strengths. While every President since the end of the Apollo program has iterated American commitment to human space exploration, the actual investment in it has been minuscule, for a very good reason - it just doesn't make sense.

Fifteen Years . . .

I was sitting down to check CNN as my lunch was getting ready. Like the day nine years before when the Challenger exploded, the scene before me made no sense, because my mind refused to countenance what I was seeing. Then, again like the Challenger disaster, it gradually sank in. Something horrible had happened.

What is most odd, and frightening, about our current climate is how this single event, rather than serving as a caution to those on the right to temper their rhetoric, and consider the dangers of talking about tyranny and the end of America and whatnot, has become a focal point of so much discussion. There are those out there who wish to own this event, and celebrate the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, as a great patriot. That should be enough of a caution.

Times are passing people by at such a rapid pace, the desire to turn the clock back to the previous decade seems overwhelming. Many desire a return to the prosperity of the 1990's. Some others to Republican ascendancy. Still others want to delegitimize yet another Democratic President by any means necessary. Our times are not theirs, however. Our challenges are greater precisely because we need to move forward rather than glance back at what has been.

Yet, we should never forget what one person, intelligent, resourceful, and bent on destruction, can do. The fallen in Oklahoma City - a city some of whose residents I have come to know and love - should be a constant reminder that "government" is not some abstract "thing", but people just doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. Sometimes, "government" includes a space for the children of these people, and on April 19, 1995, there were children in the Murrah Federal Office Building. Faceless bureaucrats? Rather, our neighbors.

I Am Better Than Everyone Who Criticizes Me (UPDATE I, II, III . . . VII)

Please note the following is a parody of a typical Glenn Greenwald column.

Because of my vast experience and superior understanding, there is not a single blogger, commentator, author, or other authority who can lay a finger on me. My arguments here, here, here, and here prove that to any disinterested reader and observer. That isn't enough for some, however. Rather than simply accept both my superior arguments and innate purity, they pretend to be offering arguments that substantively disprove my own claims. In doing so, however, they not only prove their own shallowness, but their willingness to serve the powerful at the expense of the Constitution. All the while, they attack me personally, making even more plain their own stupidity and lack of imagination.

The most blatant stupidity is offered as a serious argument.

I am he as you are he as you are me
and we are all together
See how they run like pigs from a gun
see how they fly
I'm crying
Sitting on a cornflake
Waiting for the van to come
Corporation T-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday
Man you've been a naughty boy
you let your face grow long

I am the eggman
they are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Mr. city policeman sitting
pretty little policemen in a row
See how they fly like Lucy in the sky
See how they run
I'm crying
I'm crying, I'm crying
Yellow matter custard
Dripping from a dead dog's eye
Crabalocker fishwife
Pornographic priestess
Boy, you've been a naughty girl
you let your knickers down

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Sitting in an English garden
waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come you get a tan
from standing in the English rain

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob

Expert, texpert choking smokers
don't you think the joker laughs at you
See how they smile like pigs in a sty
See how they snide
I'm crying
Semolina pilchard
climbing up the Eiffel tower
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man, you should have seen them kicking
Edgar Allan Poe

I am the eggman
They are the eggmen
I am the walrus
Goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' joob
Goo goo g' goo
goo goo g' joob goo
juba juba juba
juba juba juba
juba juba juba juba
juba juba

Obviously, the ravings of someone who has not paid attention to my cogent argument here, let alone the substantive point I made in an interview here. Anyone who takes these criticisms seriously does not have the US Constitution in the forefront as their sole concern, as I do. Neither are they intelligent. Any mention of my political beliefs, no matter how obvious, is a clear indication they have no idea what they're talking about, because even though I know my own purity precisely because of my political and social stance, they cannot bring that up unless they are willing to grant that purity that lives in my heart forever.

Since I am the lone voice of true Constitutional wisdom in a world filled with neo-conservative hacks it should go without saying that their criticisms have the most base motives imaginable; they differ little from members of the Bush Administration, really, who all belong behind bars. Not because that has been adjudicated, but just because I say so.

The lack of recognition for my own simplicity, let alone genius, is evident in my opponents refusal to engage the central point of every argument I make - it's all about the law, except when it's about their own cupidity and blindness. My observations on my opponents lack of personal hygiene and truly horrendous ugliness is not at all an ad hominem, but rather the objective description of their current condition. Any mention of error on my part, however, is instantly recognizable as an incoherent attack on my personality.

So, being above it all does come at a price. I am attacked from all sides, even as none of the criticisms actually address my main points. I can take it, though, because I am a brave soul, fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves.

UPDATE I: Obviously, this reader just doesn't get it at all.

And after calming me down with some orange slices and some fetal spooning
E.T. revealed to me his singular purpose,
He said you are the chosen one.
The one who will deliver the message.
A message of hope for those who choose to hear it
And a warning for those who do not.
Me, the chosen one
They chose me
And I didn't graduate from fucking high school!

You had better
You had better
You had better
You had better listen

None of this has anything to do with what I wrote. If this critic had been smarter, a better reader, a more careful observer, he might not have made the fundamental mistake of not understanding how clear I was in what I wrote above. What could be clearer?

UPDATE II: This discussion strays way off the mark. Perhaps the writer should learn English.

UPDATE III: To restate the obvious, this critic has no idea what I wrote.

UPDATE III: While I might be able to grant the possibility that there is some substance to this, doing so would undermine a key point - my own simplicity and purity, which makes all my arguments unassailable (as I pointed out here, here, and most cogently here).

UPDATE IV: Neocons need no answer other than the back of my hand.

UPDATE V: Finally, a worthy opponent!

Who let the dogs out
(woof, woof, woof, woof)
(woof, woof, woof, woof)
(woof, woof, woof, woof)
(woof, woof, woof, woof)

Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)
Who let the dogs out (woof, woof, woof, woof)

(woof, woof, woof, woof)

When the party was nice, the party was jumpin' (Hey, Yippie, Yi, Yo)
And everybody havin' a ball (Hah, ho, Yippie Yi Yo)
I tell the fellas "start the name callin'" (Yippie Yi Yo)
And the girls report to the call
The poor dog show down

Except, alas, it doesn't address something central to my position. So, yet another loser.

UPDATE VI: Ditto.

UPDATE VII: This commenter makes an excellent observation.

Go fuck yourself.

Need I say more?

An Appeal For Information

I read this review of a biography of C. Wright Mills, and a couple things occurred to me. First, that I really don't know much more than that he was a radical critic during a time of intellectual conformity (a pretty typical view, and one challenged by the biography under review).

Second, what occurred to me is that much of Mills description of the way the interests of the various sectors of American elite society intersect reminds me of my own thoughts on my first reading of Noam Chomsky. His description of the way consensus is formed on foreign policy in America is remarkably similar to the description of Mills' The Power Elite given in this review.

So, has there been any work done on the relationship between Mills and Chomsky? Are Mills' works still available?

Criticism, Free Speech, & Responsibility

I got thinking about the intertwining of freedom and responsibility, the Tea Baggers and our public discourse, and then I read some remarks Bill Clinton gave in Oklahoma City to honor the fallen from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City.

But I think that the point I’m trying to make is, I like the debate. This “tea party” movement can be a healthy thing if they’re making us justify every penny of taxes we raised and every dollar of public money we spend. And they say they’re for limited government and a balanced budget; when I left office, we had the smallest workforce since Eisenhower and we had four surpluses for the first time in 70 years.

--snip--

... By all means, keep fighting. By all means, keep arguing. But remember words have consequences as much as actions do. And what we advocate commensurate with our position and responsibility, we have to take responsibility for. We owe that to Oklahoma City.

We owe it to keep on fighting, keep on arguing. They didn’t vote for me in Oklahoma in 1996. It was still a Republican state. But I loved them anyway, and I will till the day I die, because when this country was flat on its back mourning their loss, they rallied around the employees of the national government and they rallied around the human beings who had lost everything, and they rallied around the elemental principle that what we have in common is more important than our differences. And that’s why our Constitution makes our freedoms last – because of that bright line.

Just prior to this beautiful paean to the power of our freedoms to transcend the petty differences of politics, he also said the following, which puts these remarks in their proper context.

Before the bombing occurred, there was a sort of fever in America in the early 1990s. First, it was a time, like now, of dramatic upheaval. A lot of old arrangements had changed. The things that anchored peoples’ lives and gave a certainty to them had been unraveling. Some of them, by then, for 20 years. ... And there were more and more people who had a hard time figuring out where they fit in. More and more people who had a very difficult time living with confidence and optimism in the face of change. It is true that we see some of that today.

... But what we learned from Oklahoma City is not that we should gag each other or reduce our passion from the positions we hold -- but that the words we use really do matter, because there's this vast echo chamber and they go across space and they fall on the serious and the delirious alike. They fall on the connected and the unhinged alike. And I am not trying to muzzle anybody.

But one of the things that the conservatives have always brought to the table in America is a reminder that no law can replace personal responsibility. And the more power you have and the more influence you have, the more responsibility you have.

Look, I'm glad they're fighting over health care and everything else. Let them have at it. But I think all you have to do is read the paper everyday to see how many people there are who are deeply, deeply troubled. We know, now, that there are people involved in groups – these “hatriot” groups, the Oath Keepers, the Three Percenters, the others – 99 percent of them will never do anything they shouldn’t do. But there are people who advocate violence and anticipate violence.

In other words, a certain amount of common sense should suggest to at least some people that, in w setting in which the inflammatory rhetoric of an unknown, angry citizen suddenly becomes the voice of an entire movement - how many times in recent months have we had the most extreme voices become The Voice of the Tea Baggers? - it might be wise to consider the possibility that all the talk of violence, of civil war, treating difference as moral error, obsessing on already-disproved nonsense like the Birthers and Obama's alleged socialism and ties to The Weather Underground; all of this might just lead some people to consider violence as a proper response?

This same rhetoric, turning difference in to moral error, has led to the murder of abortion providers and the bombing of women's health clinics. This same rhetoric has led to threats on the lives of law makers. This same rhetoric makes it impossible to discuss the merits or demerits of policy precisely because too many amplified voices on the right do not see merit in any policy offered by the Democratic Party. The current Republican members of the Senate display their solidarity with this view by blocking legislation and Administration political appointees. How far-fetched is it to wonder whether or not it might be possible for some who swallow whole the nonsense on the right to consider violence as a necessary evil to fight the threats to our freedoms?

Yet, Clinton here, and Obama on many occasions, and many others, have said the question is not the Tea Bag crowd, or the debate. Pres. Clinton expressly supports the Tea Baggers. I have no problem with them, either. I disagree with their policy stances, to be sure, but that doesn't mean they should be silenced; on the contrary, the more voices the merrier.

The issue is not the Tea Bag crowd and their legitimacy; it is understanding that with great freedom comes responsibility. I would add this goes for the Left as well as the Right. By highlighting the fringe elements of the Tea Party protest movement, giving the voices of racists and hate-mongers as the "leaders" of this still-nascent, coalescing movement, the Left too often falls in to the same trap. How often do we read scurrilous, sneering posts on the ignorance and silliness of the Tea Partiers? How often do we see, accompanying a story on this or that outrageous statement by an attendee at a Tea Party rally, the assumption that this voice is the voice of the multitude?

Many on the Left are comforted by the thought that, yes, indeed, these ignoramuses are all there is to the Tea Party. That makes us as much a part of the problem as those who voice these outrageous comments. We become part of what Clinton called "the echo chamber" - and to our peril.

So, responsibility extends not just to the Tea Party itself and its supporters in right-wing media. It also extends to those on the Left who get baited by instances of extremist rhetoric in to pretending, or actually believing, it is the voice of the movement itself. This further erodes the our public square, making it that much harder to hear legitimate voices of protest and questions of priorities. We can mock the Tea Party as nonsensical, violent, and extreme without considering the possibility they might have a point worth listening to.

I would extend the necessity of responsibility to those on the Left who wish to marginalize the Tea Party by playing this game. In our country, these voices should be heard and considered on the merits.

You Say You Don't Believe In Resurrection . . .

Then read this story. When a church meets a new pastor, both with baggage and issues, they help one another to stay alive, and even thrive.

New life isn't about resuscitation. It's about real new life. Now, maybe to some a church growing from an average attendance of 6 to 25 may not seem like much. Under the conditions in question, however, it is marvelous.

My guess is Marilyn Neal has a bright future ahead of her. Thankfully, so does Sedgewick UMC.

Different Opinions

I love this post. I have linked to the Taibbi piece on Friedman (one of the all-time great critical beatdowns), but it is nice to see that there are those out there who are willing to be honest enough to swim against the current.

The only thing that would have made this complete is a seriously funny critical takedown of Jonathan Franzen. Maybe there just wasn't time. . .

Don't Know Nothin' 'Bout 'Nothin' At All

First, yes, I have been lurking. Much as I know I should steer clear, I just can't.

Yet, this post smacked me between the eyes. Specifically, the following section from this comment:

This is just your own arrogance. You dishonor God by your flippant comment, just as if you took His name in vain. By saying He will remember (to Noah) is to suggest that Noah remember as well.

As for the creation stories, I don't need to change anything to make it agree since it doesn't contradict each other.

Quite apart from the pronoun not agreeing with the previous noun (a singular pronoun referring to a plural noun), he actually wrote that. Marshall Art, who insists we liberals aren't Christian, don't read the Bible, and don't know what we're talking about when we talk about the Bible actually wrote the two creation stories don't contradict one another.

Please give me one reason why I should take seriously anything this man writes. Ever. Again. Or, perhaps, better yet - don't. This single passage is enough proof he is really and truly not to be regarded with any seriousness whatsoever.

Going Gaga

I have been kicking these ideas around for a while, and then this appeared. Beaten to the punch, and in a far better way, I have now been given permission to put my ideas out there. So, here it is for whatever it might be worth.

My biggest impression of the very first MTV Music Awards was a very drunk/stoned Ron Wood, giving an award with Rod Stewart, dropping what is now called "the f-blomb". Yet, Madonna writhing on stage as she lip-synched "Like a Virgin" is also pretty clear in my memory. What struck me most was her willingness to put herself out there. It was all about the visuals: the wedding dress, the juxtaposition of wantonness and the lyrical insistence on virginity. In the quarter century since then, Madonna has released mediocre music that have become huge hits because of her dedication to a visual display that was far more powerful than the music itself.

The paeans to Madonna's debt to and use of Music Television are legion. Even more than Michael Jackson (whose monster hit Thriller was certainly aided by the video music channel, yet I think it probably would have done quite well anyway), Madonna was the first, and probably greatest and longest-lived performer for whom the imagery became something greater than the music.

With the ascension of Lady Gaga, we are witnessing, I think, a weird convergence of a sort, of multiple cultural, economic, and technological trends that are blaring from speakers and headphones and laptops. While I certainly agree that Gagaism is as much about the supremacy of Web 2.0, her songs, unlike those of Madonna's, stand up on their own. Her style, in many ways linked to Madonna simply because it seems like outrageousness for its own sake, in fact tells us far more about her attitude to her understanding of herself as a performer than one might think. Finally, that her CD is breaking big even as the economic model of the music industry is tanking reminds me of another time the music industry fought back against a current that seemed bent on its destruction. Let's take these in reverse order.

In 1979, Disco was queen. It was everywhere - on pop radio, in movies and soundtracks, influencing the nightlife of the rich and famous - and seemed ascendant. Since the first half of the decade had been dominated by white rock bands, heavily influenced by the blues, the danceable, r&b-tinged Disco seemed the antithesis of everything rock stood for. In the midst of this unstoppable musical and cultural phenomenon* the Knack dropped a little song, "My Sharona", that took over radio, the music charts, and helped spur on a kind of rock-revanchism that gave birth, in just a few years, to a rule of mediocrities - Loverboy, REO Speedwagon, Journey - that managed to keep the forces of darkness, personified by disco, at bay. In many ways, the relentless marketing of Lady Gaga, and her economic and sales success seems like much the same phenomenon. The industry, which for decades has floundered under a business model no longer relevant, seems to be attempting to reclaim some kind of cultural capital with Gaga's success.

Her public appearances seem so scripted they must be. Her appearances guarantee a pack of photographers. She often appears in masks, hooded (as in the above veil), or with makeup that alters her facial features. While there seems to be little doubt these are carefully calculated incidents, I find her willingness to keep her face hidden interesting. It almost smacks of a kind of statement. It looks like she is telling the photographers that she is in control of her image, to the point of refusing to reveal her face. Others will make of her what they will, but who she is is up to her.

If you consider her music in and of itself, it actually betrays a depth, and an interest in music for its own sake, that just isn't there in Madonna's output. Her biggest hits - "Like A Virgin", "Like A Prayer", "Vogue" - all seem to have been recorded in service of an image. Gaga's songs, on the other hand, are far more clever, far more musical, than Madonna's. That Gaga was a songwriter before releasing her own material shouldn't surprise after actually listening to her singles. While it seems obvious to the point of cliche that Gaga is piggybacking on Madonna, just as she piggybacked on Marilyn Monroe, I think the difference between her and her older musical colleague is Gaga is far more musical. She certainly owes her rise to Web 2.0. Yet, I think that her phenomenal success owes as much not only to a native intelligence in using the new media to her advantage (like Madonna); it also displays better musical instincts. Finally, her success and her musical and songwriting abilities have, for one brief, shining moment, allowed her record label to set aside their worries. I do not think, like the aftermath of the Knack's success, that the record companies will be making a comeback. Her success will breed all sorts of imitators; thankfully, precisely because of Web 2.0, we won't have to deal with them for very long.

In sum, then, Lady Gaga represents both continuity and change. I do not see this as vindicating a McLuhanesque understanding; rather, we merely have an example of a smart, talented song-writer and performer who uses the new media to her advantage, even as she sets boundaries with her image and style.

*Unlike a lot of commentators who write about punk, the simple fact is it had little impact in the US, except perhaps among some musicians who understood it. It was a British phenomenon. The same year the Sex Pistols released Never Mind the Bollocks saw the release of Saturday Night Fever and came the same year as Peter Frampton's live album raised a struggling British blues-based guitarist to super-stardom.

American Not Thinker

Marshall Art (no link) is always claiming that American Thinker is a wonderful publication. Apparently, however, it isn't.

I love this kind of thing. Really. Once again, folks show they are beyond parody. If I made up a story like this, no one would believe it.

Heads A-Poppin'

As I do not listen to Contemporary Christian Music (CCM; I consider this something necessary for my aesthetic health) I have never heard of Jennifer Knapp. So, it is with great surprise that I read this:

Another prominent Christian music artist has come out of the closet.

In interviews this week with Reuters, Christianity Today, and a prominent homosexual publication, Dove Award-winning and Grammy-nominated musician Jennifer Knapp made public that she is a lesbian who has been in a relationship with a woman for eight years. The announcement comes roughly one month before the release of her new album titled "Letting Go" and after several years' hiatus from the music scene.

Reuters alludes to "rumors about her sexuality" over the past several years -- rumors her Christian fans "faithfully shot down" -- but quotes her saying about her concerts: "I'm definitely getting a lot more friendly winks from the girls than I have in the past." And she told Christianity Today that she is not a "pro-gay activist" but "just a normal human being who's dealing with normal everyday life scenarios. As a Christian, I'm doing that as best as I can."

My guess is hundreds of thousands of CDs are being burned even as we speak, iTunes playlists are being shortened, and denouncements of her are probably pouring in.

Yet, I have to congratulate her, even though I cannot for the life of me picture myself listening to her music. She's got guts.

(h/t - Rick Perlstein via Facebook)

An Interesting Intersection Of Fiction And Life?

It occurred to me as I mulled Stanley Fish's review of a symposium of Jurgen Habermas on religion in public life that one way to explain why I find Habermas' approach so misguided would be to relate my own almost-finished reading of Susanna Clarke's marvelous novel Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. Two magicians appear to revive English magic. It is the desire of the first to steer clear of anything having to do with Fairies, Faerie, or the mysterious medieval king of northern England, John Uskglass, known as the Raven King. Yet, in pursuit of his quest for reviving English magic, Mr. Norrell, of Hurtfew Abby, Yorkshire, bargains with a Fairy, trading the life and sanity of a woman for the goal of establishing magic.

The end result of the struggle to establish magic upon sound, rational principles, purged of what Norrell considers "mysticism", is the realization that that which Norrell claims to despise the most - the Raven King, Fairies, the "mystical" notiont that England is as much founded upon magic as upon anything - is at the very heart of his attempted project. Strange understands this all too well, and he pays dearly as well, but is willing to bear the cost (although he does free Lady Pole and others from their enchantment at the hands of the Fairy).

The gist of this review is simple: the attempt to make something "rational", by some random definition, of a pursuit that at its heart is not wholly rational is doomed to failure. Habermas' attempt to lasso religion in service of some greater social good - what I called an Erastian bargain - works well enough where it is employed as some kind of official doctrine of a state. As a way of understanding the heart of the Gospel message, however, it is doomed to failure. The message of the Church - the Good News of God's prodigal love for all creation - cannot know any limit or boundary. In Herbert Marcuse's definition, it is indeed a totalitarian ideology; that is to say, there can be no aspect of one's life or thought that it does not penetrate. This is not a criticism of it, by any means.

Setting artificial, arbitrary boundaries to the expression of religious belief - no fundamentalism! no metaphysical nonsense! - strips Christianity of its very heart. While it may work as a social ameliorative (Habermas' decision to use a funeral as an example is a marvelous instance of this way of thinking), it makes of religious belief something other than "Christian".

Habermas As Erastian Philosopher Of Religion

I was given a tipoff (thanks, Feodor) to this article in the New York Times and think there are a couple comment-posts inside there. The first thing that struck, me, however, was the description offered by an interlocutor of Habermas.

Religions, explains Reder, are brought in only “to help to prevent or overcome social disruptions.” Once they have performed this service they go back in their box and don’t trouble us with uncomfortable cosmic demands. At best (and at most), according to Habermas, “the encounter with theology,” like an encounter at a cocktail party, “can remind a self-forgetful secular reason of its origins” in the same “revolutions in worldviews” that gave us monotheism. (One God and one reason stem from the same historical source.)

This sounds remarkably like the evolution of the Erastian bargain in Great Britain. While officially religious, with the Queen both head of state and head of the Church of England, in fact, religion in Britain - outside pockets of nonconformity including Methodists, Baptists, Rastas, Roman Catholics, and Jews who are observant - exists mostly as the conductor of certain life-rituals: baptism, marriage, and funeral services. For the most part, the C of E and the British public rarely encounter one another. In order to maintain a certain social peace, the established Church accepts its position in society while never demanding of its members more than titular adherence to that membership.

Overall, this seems to me to be akin to Habermas' understanding of the role in what he calls a "post-secular" society. In fact, that hyphenated phrase is quite meaningless, because I can't even imagine what it might mean. His explanation seems to me to reflect a kind of European acceptance of post-Christian Erastianism.

Unless, of course, I'm missing something, or Fish left something out. . .

On Notebooks, Journals, And Embarrassing Stuff

As we pack to move, I discovered some of my old journals. Written in old spiral notebooks, my earliest journals were written starting the summer after my freshman year in college. I have been sporadic in keeping up with them; this site actually serves much the same purposes as those journals, albeit in a far more limited way.

As I flipped through the pages - the dates on them seem impossibly far in the past, a different age - I was put in mind of some reflections on keeping a notebook. Some of the things Didion writes are actually spot on - why does this or that comment appear, and about whom? One thing, however, I have to admit. Despite the other things I will write in what follows, these journals were very much memory aids. As I read through them, I was both amused and pleasantly surprised to find that they helped shape my memory of some events, keep others in mind at all long after one would have thought they would have been forgotten; and kept names and faces in my mind I might otherwise have let slip. The question, then, is whether or not the recollections included reflect events accurately or not; I cannot even begin to answer that question with any equanimity. Discovering that my memories have been shaped to a very large degree by my own attempt to record those memories makes it impossible for me to get behind that process and figure out whether or not they bear any resemblance to what actually happened. Indeed, the question becomes meaningless.

I cannot help but note how juvenile my earliest entries are. They are full of earnestness, which is, I suppose, excusable. They are also terribly embarrassing precisely because of that. I would far prefer to have been mature at 18, to be far less convinced of my own understanding, knowledge, insight, and prospects. Alas, a theme that runs through the earliest entries is the conviction, the certitude of my beliefs.

One theme that runs through my journals of which I was really unaware until I read through them - my dating life! My very first journal entry, dated August 17, 1984, was the afternoon of a date with a young woman; we went to see Ghostbusters at a theater in Elmira. One journal, comparatively small, begins with the date September 8, 1991, and is almost completely dedicated to recording my reflections (some of them a bit taxing even to me in the way the spiral of reflection soon enters the territory of the absurd) during the last love affair I had before I met the woman who would become my wife. This last is important for any number of reasons, but most of all because I was convinced then, and am satisfied now, that this was the first time I was really, truly in love. Nothing in any previous relationship - not various young women I dated occasionally, or to whom that word might refer - prepared me for the depth of feeling, the honest surrender and vulnerability I allowed myself. As I read through my thoughts from that autumn of 1991, I have to smile at the way it all sneaked up on me. Even though we broke up, and badly, I have nothing but good thoughts and memories of our time together. Reading through the journal entries reinforces this particular view.

Some moments are recorded that help me anchor certain world events - the Challenger explosion; the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti and Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines; the bombing of Libya; Chernobyl; the events of the spring, summer, and fall of 1989 during which the Warsaw Pact and Communist bloc collapsed. It's nice that I managed to pay attention enough during these times, when I was remarkably self-involved, to not only note their passing as events, but to reflect upon them.

Part of me wonders why I keep them, but then I realize I cannot get rid of them. For all they are quite nonsensical in many ways, they are also accurate reflections of who I was at one time. I would be getting rid of evidence of my own existence, in some way, if I discarded them.

And, no, I will not share them. For one thing, they contain names, and my guess is the people attached to those names might object. For another, it is enough that they are embarrassing; take my word for it, and leave it at that, OK?

More Things That Make Me Go WTF

So I was perusing the Pulitzer winners and was gobsmacked to discover Kathleen Parker won for commentary.

Kathleen Parker?

The Luminferous Ether And Phlogiston Of Social Theories

I've been thinking something for a few weeks, and keep putting off organizing the thoughts because of the press of other business. Today, though, comes something at Crooked Timber that presents the issue directly.

If the 20th Century was the Road To Serfdom, it can hardly have been a long march to increased freedom. If progressives and liberals are the authoritarian enemy, it can hardly be that their victories have, on the whole, made us more free. Since the 20th Century was when the bad stuff really got going, how can it NOT be appropriate to be thoroughly nostalgic for the 1880’s as a Lost Golden Age?

While left unsaid, it seems pretty clear to me that the corollary of this particular observation is this - since the "evidence" libertarians use to defend their position is faulty, their theory is falsified.

Since the Republican Party lost control of Congress in 2006, then the White House in 2008, conservative ideologues have argued that, in fact, the Republicans in Congressional leadership positions, and the Bush Administration, were not, in fact, conservative. To the extent that, in fact, they didn't act in accordance with certain conservative principles - shrinking the size and scope of the federal government, introducing balanced budgets - then, indeed that is true. It seems to me, however, that Dennis Hastert, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, and George W. Bush were, indeed, conservatism personified up until the moment they lost power; they certainly believed so and argued forcefully for this position. There are two conclusions one can draw from this (if one is sane). Either, a) they were lying and not, in fact, conservative (and all the conservatives who supported them were dupes; which would be a corollary of that particular conclusion); or, b), conservativism is not what its supporters and "theorists" suppose it to be. In either case, it seems to me, the dismal record of failure across the board of the Bush Administration, and its support among conservative elites through most of its duration pretty much falsifies conservative political thought as a socio-political theory.

For some odd reason, as much as we would like to pretend we are all scientific in our approach to the world, the fact is our social and political theories continue to live on even long after they have been falsified by events. Libertarianism and conservatism, for all intents and purposes, are failures as social and political theories for one simple reason - they are contrary to fact. This does not necessarily leave us with only liberalism (in its American variety, at least) as the only viable alternative. What it does mean, at least to me, is that those who argue at some level of vigor so conservative or libertarian social and political principles are supporting discredited theories. Like biologists who continued to deny the efficacy of evolution and genetics in the early 20th century; geologists who supported catastrophism; or physicists who attempted to discover, via experiment, the luminiferous ether after Einstein, these folks are supporting theories that are no longer have any explanatory power.

Mediocrity & Stupidity, Not Bias

In the past twelve hours, I have read two marvelous articles by Matt Taibbi, and two posts by Matt Yglesias that have me thinking about a particular bit of frustration I have. For years, decades even, the right has complained of "liberal media bias"; Bernard Goldberg has made a cottage industry out of this particular bit of nonsense, enriching himself and flattering the bloated ego of Bill O'Reilly even though all he is really doing is carrying out a years-long vendetta against Dan Rather because Rather made Goldberg look like a tool at CBS and then, because Rather had integrity, forced Goldberg out. FOXNews is predicated on the false idea of "liberal bias". Eric Alterman, an otherwise intelligent and thoughtful commentator, mistitled a book What Liberal Media?, that actually presented an argument concerning a lack of factual integrity and evidence of partisan rather than ideological bias among a small cohort of commentators rather than actual journalists.

The relationships among these fours pieces I have read is this - the two articles by Taibbi are thorough critical coal-rakings of Thomas Friedman and David Brooks; Matt insists the issue of "bias" is unprovable, and that the criticisms of Media Matters and other Media Watchdog sites concern themselves with issues of facts. The link here is the question of quality, if one considers that a news organization should be judged on its adherence to reporting factual material to its audience, and relating that factual material to their lives.

My own take on talk radio; on FOXNews; on right-wing websites; even on pundits is quite simple - for the most part, they are not factually accurate in their analysis. It is easy enough to call out Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter for their lack of facts. There is a whole industry devoted to each of these folks. Yet, more established pundits like David Broder, George Will, David Brooks, Gail Collins, Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, and Eugene Robinson suffer not only from fact-free doodling. For the most part, these writers are also quite mediocre. There are commentators out there who do good work (Taibbi is one of the best, but he's just not ready for prime-time, if you know what I mean; Matt Yglesias would be far too dull because he would go off on tangents concerning philosophy and mathematical economics that would glaze the eyes of whoever hosts his appearance). Mediocrity in itself isn't a horrible failing; I am a mediocre writer (at best). Sprinkled within their mediocrity, however, is a tendency toward leaving the boring confines of fact, spiraling off in to the air to construct castles of sublime idiocy untethered to anything at all.

Our discourse is damaged by this convergence of fact-free revery and mediocrity. Matt Yglesias is quite correct that there are almost no incentives for accuracy in either journalism or commentary. Time and again, it seems those who have neither the desire nor innate ability to remain anchored in the mundane are those most rewarded (again, consider the contract Limbaugh has, or the publishing deal Coulter has managed to finagle, or the ubiquity of Sean Hannity). This reality in and of itself pushes further to the side any incentive for accuracy and superior competence.

For some liberals and leftists, however, this isn't enough. They make the same claim, only giving the actors an opposite bias. It seems to me this is just as wrong, and on this point at least, Matt Yglesias, Media Matters for America, Duncan Black at Eschaton, and other media critics are exactly right - the question is not one of bias, which involves mind reading; rather, it involves accuracy. Liberals who complain about conservative "bias" are as wrong as their opposite number because they mistake "error" for "bias". While it is true, say, that Taibbi is a pretty liberal guy, his complaint about David Brooks' column on the NCAA Basketball Championship Game isn't that Brooks is a conservative; rather, his complaint is that it is stupid, quite literally. His review of Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat considers Friedman's many sins as a writer, and how his metaphor-mangling, shallow pseudo-thought actually makes his usually mediocre writing truly awful.

I couldn't care less who different columnists or journalists vote for. I am uninterested in whether or not the White House Press Corps is staffed by liberals or conservatives. FOXNews wouldn't draw the ire of liberals if its news division weren't dedicated to peddling factually inaccurate material. If conservatives are truly dedicated to quality, as they claim, they have an interesting, if somewhat stupid, what of showing it. Their favored sources of information are riddled with error, lazy and shoddy reporting, and a kind of kindergarten analysis that leaves many people stunned by its stupidity.

It would be nice if conservative critics understood this. Apparently, a steady diet of really bad, factually inaccurate nonsense year after year has left their critical faculties dulled to this simple reality - it isn't about bias. It's about stupidity.