OK, I'll admit that, at the moment, I'm feeling more than a little maudlin. I had a brief comment-conversation on FB with an old friend of mine, found after many years, that said so much without saying a whole lot about a mutual friend of ours who is nearly 23 years gone now. With the help of a soundtrack via Pandora and YouTube, I've been thinking about time, and memory, and the way that old memories - some of which can be painful - are necessary for us.
That's the theme of one of my favorite movies, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A couple, recently broken up, discovers they have availed themselves of the services of a company that erases memories. Love seems to be something "real", more powerful than our desire, let alone power, to control. Even more important, the film shows us that as painful as some memories can be, removing them robs us of something that makes us human.
Whether the pain is caused by a lost love, or the untimely death of someone near to us, that pain reminds us that what happened was real. The person who shared our life, now gone, was real. Those moments, never to return, live on.
It can suck, it's true. But the alternative is really too awful to contemplate.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Resuscitating A Good Lost Law
This is great news.
It took less than a decade after the provisions in Glass-Steagall concerning investment versus commercial banking were removed for the entire edifice to collapse. Think about that. From 1933 to 1999 - two whole generations, roughly speaking - the banking sector, and by extension the rest of society - were protected from the dangers of complete financial collapse. Then, from 1999 to 2008, and look where we are now. It almost makes me want to go back in time and smack Phil Gramm around.
Anyway, this is an idea that is long overdue, precisely as the House is taking up consideration of new financial industry regulations. It seems to me we don't so much need new ones as a return to the old ones that worked quite well. They weren't perfect, to be sure, but they worked, which is far better than perfection any day of the week.
The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) in the United States and provided a strong regulatory environment that largely served the nation and its banking sector well. The law separated commercial banks from investment banks by banning commercial banks from underwriting securities, forcing banks to choose between being a lender or an underwriter but not both. The law was finally repealed in 1999 during the Clinton Adminstration after 12 attempts in 25 years had weaken the provisions. [...]
This week five House Democrats - Maurice Hinchey of New York, John Conyers of Michigan, Peter DeFazio of Oregon, Jay Inslee of Washington, and John Tierney of Massachusetts - will introduce an amendment that would give banks one year to choose between being commercial banks or investment banks. I support this amendment and believe it critical to the future success of the country because it will restore a balance within the finance industry letting commercial banks do what they do and investment banks do what they do.
It took less than a decade after the provisions in Glass-Steagall concerning investment versus commercial banking were removed for the entire edifice to collapse. Think about that. From 1933 to 1999 - two whole generations, roughly speaking - the banking sector, and by extension the rest of society - were protected from the dangers of complete financial collapse. Then, from 1999 to 2008, and look where we are now. It almost makes me want to go back in time and smack Phil Gramm around.
Anyway, this is an idea that is long overdue, precisely as the House is taking up consideration of new financial industry regulations. It seems to me we don't so much need new ones as a return to the old ones that worked quite well. They weren't perfect, to be sure, but they worked, which is far better than perfection any day of the week.
Scrooge WIth A Lemon Twist
In 1843, Charles Dickens published a very short book that has become so much a part of our celebrations, we think of it as eternal. The message of the book was simple - part of the Christmas Spirit is remembering to live with our fellow men and women, with love and care and concern just because they are fellow travelers for our short season on this Earth. Far more horrible than poverty is the loneliness that leaves one unlamented, unmourned, and forgotten at death.
There was, of course, a social and even political dimension to Dickens' spirited tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge; yet focusing on that to the exclusion of the deeply human, deeply faithful theme at the heart misses the main point. The social and political dimension exists precisely because of the stresses and strains on human community and interaction.
Fast forward to our time, and we face this, which shows just how little times have changed, or indeed have degraded. Rather than create a marvelous world full of characters so memorable even the minor ones - like Scrooge's nephew Tom - stand out in our minds as people we know and care about, some people believe it necessary to forget that Christmas isn't about coercion, or laws, or forcing anything upon anyone. Christmas is the amazing story of Divine love entering the world in the most remarkable, unbelievable, fashion and form. For all their insistence that they are doing what they are doing in the name of Christmas and the faith of the child whose birth we commemorate, these latter day Scrooge's lack even the slightest notion that all their passion, all their righteous indignation could be far better spent working for others in the name of the Christ child, rather than legally demanding superficial conformity in the form of required artistic performance.
These are our Scrooges. Who, I wonder, could be their Marley, arranging an intervention to spare them, and us, from the ravages of their narrow lives? What answer could they give to the Second Spirit, who sees in Scrooge's pettiness nothing of merit, insisting that he (Scrooge) is far less deserving of life than millions such as Tim Cratchit (my guess is, for all his joviality, that Spirit was not one to mess around with)? They are just as petty, just as spiteful, just as removed from human fellowship as Ebeneezer. Just as his nephew did for Scrooge, we should pity them for their small minds, their shrunken hearts, their refusal to accept the invitation to be with others. Whether gold or god, an idol is an idol is an idol.
There was, of course, a social and even political dimension to Dickens' spirited tale of Ebeneezer Scrooge; yet focusing on that to the exclusion of the deeply human, deeply faithful theme at the heart misses the main point. The social and political dimension exists precisely because of the stresses and strains on human community and interaction.
Fast forward to our time, and we face this, which shows just how little times have changed, or indeed have degraded. Rather than create a marvelous world full of characters so memorable even the minor ones - like Scrooge's nephew Tom - stand out in our minds as people we know and care about, some people believe it necessary to forget that Christmas isn't about coercion, or laws, or forcing anything upon anyone. Christmas is the amazing story of Divine love entering the world in the most remarkable, unbelievable, fashion and form. For all their insistence that they are doing what they are doing in the name of Christmas and the faith of the child whose birth we commemorate, these latter day Scrooge's lack even the slightest notion that all their passion, all their righteous indignation could be far better spent working for others in the name of the Christ child, rather than legally demanding superficial conformity in the form of required artistic performance.
These are our Scrooges. Who, I wonder, could be their Marley, arranging an intervention to spare them, and us, from the ravages of their narrow lives? What answer could they give to the Second Spirit, who sees in Scrooge's pettiness nothing of merit, insisting that he (Scrooge) is far less deserving of life than millions such as Tim Cratchit (my guess is, for all his joviality, that Spirit was not one to mess around with)? They are just as petty, just as spiteful, just as removed from human fellowship as Ebeneezer. Just as his nephew did for Scrooge, we should pity them for their small minds, their shrunken hearts, their refusal to accept the invitation to be with others. Whether gold or god, an idol is an idol is an idol.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
"Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace"
I read the text of Pres. Obama's acceptance speech in Norway. What struck me the most? Not just his admission that he was probably far less deserving of this award than many others; acknowledging that was surely necessary. More than anything, what stood out for me was Obama's refusal to deny the reality that human conflict will ever be eradicated. This struck me as courageous, considering the venue and circumstances.
This is not to say that I believe the "wars" over which he presides as Commander-in-Chief of the US military meet the criteria of "Just War"; rather, it is to say that, on a theoretical level at least, Obama understands that there has to be a mixture of idealism and realism in pursuit of the most noble of goals, peace among nations and peoples.
The biggest problem facing the international community was addressed directly by the President - the reality that most conflicts, at least in the years since the Second World War, are civil wars, wars within states. Obviously there have been and will be exceptions (most recently the Israeli attack on Lebanon); for the most part, however, national collapse or an internal revolt have been far more destructive of human life than wars between states. Far more protracted, intractable, and difficult to deal with from the perspective of international law, civil strife within states, especially when combined with the overarching idea of the inviolability of national sovereignty, has yet to be untangled successfully.
Consider a couple examples. When the Khmer Rouge regime in Kampuchea created a refugee problem in Vietnam, and the reality of what was happening there became clear (not to mention historical animosity between them), Vietnam invaded, to all sorts of international condemnation, despite the fact that their intervention ended the worst of the horrors of Pol Pot's regime.
Similar reaction met Tanzania's military intervention in Idi Amin's Uganda.
Pres. Obama's Nobel Prize speech may just rank as among the most memorable precisely because of the clarity of vision, and the ready acknowledgment that the unity of peace and justice in the international sphere needs a grounding in the undeniable reality that injustice and violence and conflict are far more complicated issues, and necessitate creative measures to confront, and perhaps even prevent, in the future.
This is not to say that I believe the "wars" over which he presides as Commander-in-Chief of the US military meet the criteria of "Just War"; rather, it is to say that, on a theoretical level at least, Obama understands that there has to be a mixture of idealism and realism in pursuit of the most noble of goals, peace among nations and peoples.
The biggest problem facing the international community was addressed directly by the President - the reality that most conflicts, at least in the years since the Second World War, are civil wars, wars within states. Obviously there have been and will be exceptions (most recently the Israeli attack on Lebanon); for the most part, however, national collapse or an internal revolt have been far more destructive of human life than wars between states. Far more protracted, intractable, and difficult to deal with from the perspective of international law, civil strife within states, especially when combined with the overarching idea of the inviolability of national sovereignty, has yet to be untangled successfully.
Consider a couple examples. When the Khmer Rouge regime in Kampuchea created a refugee problem in Vietnam, and the reality of what was happening there became clear (not to mention historical animosity between them), Vietnam invaded, to all sorts of international condemnation, despite the fact that their intervention ended the worst of the horrors of Pol Pot's regime.
Similar reaction met Tanzania's military intervention in Idi Amin's Uganda.
Pres. Obama's Nobel Prize speech may just rank as among the most memorable precisely because of the clarity of vision, and the ready acknowledgment that the unity of peace and justice in the international sphere needs a grounding in the undeniable reality that injustice and violence and conflict are far more complicated issues, and necessitate creative measures to confront, and perhaps even prevent, in the future.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
When The World Collides
The Climate Summit in Copenhagen is providing interesting reading for folks. Apparently, Sarah Palin has weighed in via the always friendly op-ed pages of the Washington Post. Last night, California Republican Congressman Dana Rohrbacher took to the House floor to denounce "globalists" who have a secret agenda that only he, apparently is aware of, although what it is, he can't say, because then he'd have to kill everyone listening.
Then there's the alleged "Climategate" scandal, in which hacked emails from a British climate research institute reveal . . . that scientists debate stuff, including the political implications of their research. Ooo!
When politics and science collide, it is usually a messy business. Politics is about power; science is about explaining how stuff happens, a "best guess" based on publicly-accessible methods, providing answers that even the most dedicated practitioner would admit are nothing but provisional. After all, even Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Darwin were "wrong" in the sense that their theories have either been superseded or, at the very least, are known to be incomplete. Precisely for this reason, however, the introduction of scientific data in to political debate creates problems. Since there are actually politicians who are unscrupulous enough to point out that scientific data can be erroneous, we have the odd combination of a political conference, meeting to discuss the policy implications of scientific data, based in a theory, all of which, as some rightly point out, could be wrong.
"Could be" is not "is", however. Falsifying a scientific theory is difficult. A theory that is able to take in to account all sorts of disparate data, and predict the potential outcomes of future research is a pretty robust theory. Then there are the facts that the theory attempts to connect - the belching of all sorts of gases known to create the greenhouse effect by two hundred years of industrial activity in the west; rising global temperatures and sea levels; the disappearance of glaciers; the upward trend in global temperatures; the increasing instability of regional meteorological phenomenon; even species extinction rates and migration patterns of birds and sea mammals. These are phenomena that, taken separately, make no sense. Drawn together through a theory that states that they are related, or at the very least highly correlated, makes sense of this data.
No scientist, of whom I am aware, would make a policy recommendation based on any particular bit of research, or even an entire theory. At their best, as handmaids of politicians, they merely report their findings, based on current research models, and allow the politicians to figure out what to do, if anything.
Since it is devilishly difficult at the moment to get some folks in the United States Congress to understand the reality that we face, imagine getting delegates from nation-states as disparate as Uzbekistan, the Central African Republic, the Maldives, and Bolivia to come to anything like agreement on a kind of global policy regarding climate change. Yet, the UN is cowboying up, getting roughly representatives from over 200 nations together to discuss "what do we do about it." In principle, this is a good thing; global warming effects us all. No single country can possibly address this issue on its own. Yet, at the same time, there are all sorts of complications that make such a meeting not quite a farce, but certainly an exercise in futility, especially for those who are dedicated to the idea that global warming is the most pressing problem facing the planet at the moment. Energy-producing countries certainly have no interest in curbing the use of fossil fuels; some of those countries, like Venezuela and Nigeria, need that oil money for development purposes. Emerging economies like India, China, Brazil, and Argentina might balk at being told by those in western Europe and North America that they are required to take steps to make further industrial expansion more expensive. African nations that are potentially rich in mineral wealth and other natural resources might not be best pleased to be told that extracting that wealth would be a danger to the climate. It is difficult enough to find investors willing to risk putting their money toward mining ventures in unstable places in the world; now, it seems, it might be possible that such would be cost-prohibitive.
These are only some examples of the political realities the meeting will face. Then, of course, there are on-going international rivalries and even conflicts that make these economic questions pale in comparison. There is the developed world faced by an increasingly recalcitrant undeveloped world. Many of these latter states, only recently released from over a century of imperial domination, still de facto colonies of the interests and industries of the imperial power, might be a tad reluctant to be told by these same former colonial powers how to run their countries.
Finally, there are the activists. A fun bunch, they are convinced that the threat of global warming is such that we must simply disregard the social, economic, and political realities of the world and do somethingright now!!!!! What "that" might be . . . well, beyond "curbing greenhouse gas emissions" and "ending our reliance on fossil fuels" some might offer some ideas, to be sure. For the most part, though, the nitty-gritty details of policy - like cap-and-trade, say, in the United States, or investment incentives via the World Bank for developing nations to adopt "clean" industries - are up to other folks. Too many activists, in my experience, really can't be bothered with this kind of stuff. "Raise awareness" is their mantra and motto.
The clean lines and elegance of science meeting the dirty, sometimes nasty, occasionally delusional, world of politics can be fun to watch. Yet, when the issue facing us is as full of roadblocks and pitfalls, crazy folk screaming at the clouds and earnest do-gooders insisting that the entire planet is going to die unless we all shut up and listen to them, we have the makings not so much for a road map for future policy as an exercise in global futility. It may be that Rep. Rohrbacher's delusion of "global governance" is what is necessary to address the threat posed by global warming; sadly, the reality is that such does not exist, and even if it did, it would face these same problems, only slightly more organized.
Then there's the alleged "Climategate" scandal, in which hacked emails from a British climate research institute reveal . . . that scientists debate stuff, including the political implications of their research. Ooo!
When politics and science collide, it is usually a messy business. Politics is about power; science is about explaining how stuff happens, a "best guess" based on publicly-accessible methods, providing answers that even the most dedicated practitioner would admit are nothing but provisional. After all, even Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Darwin were "wrong" in the sense that their theories have either been superseded or, at the very least, are known to be incomplete. Precisely for this reason, however, the introduction of scientific data in to political debate creates problems. Since there are actually politicians who are unscrupulous enough to point out that scientific data can be erroneous, we have the odd combination of a political conference, meeting to discuss the policy implications of scientific data, based in a theory, all of which, as some rightly point out, could be wrong.
"Could be" is not "is", however. Falsifying a scientific theory is difficult. A theory that is able to take in to account all sorts of disparate data, and predict the potential outcomes of future research is a pretty robust theory. Then there are the facts that the theory attempts to connect - the belching of all sorts of gases known to create the greenhouse effect by two hundred years of industrial activity in the west; rising global temperatures and sea levels; the disappearance of glaciers; the upward trend in global temperatures; the increasing instability of regional meteorological phenomenon; even species extinction rates and migration patterns of birds and sea mammals. These are phenomena that, taken separately, make no sense. Drawn together through a theory that states that they are related, or at the very least highly correlated, makes sense of this data.
No scientist, of whom I am aware, would make a policy recommendation based on any particular bit of research, or even an entire theory. At their best, as handmaids of politicians, they merely report their findings, based on current research models, and allow the politicians to figure out what to do, if anything.
Since it is devilishly difficult at the moment to get some folks in the United States Congress to understand the reality that we face, imagine getting delegates from nation-states as disparate as Uzbekistan, the Central African Republic, the Maldives, and Bolivia to come to anything like agreement on a kind of global policy regarding climate change. Yet, the UN is cowboying up, getting roughly representatives from over 200 nations together to discuss "what do we do about it." In principle, this is a good thing; global warming effects us all. No single country can possibly address this issue on its own. Yet, at the same time, there are all sorts of complications that make such a meeting not quite a farce, but certainly an exercise in futility, especially for those who are dedicated to the idea that global warming is the most pressing problem facing the planet at the moment. Energy-producing countries certainly have no interest in curbing the use of fossil fuels; some of those countries, like Venezuela and Nigeria, need that oil money for development purposes. Emerging economies like India, China, Brazil, and Argentina might balk at being told by those in western Europe and North America that they are required to take steps to make further industrial expansion more expensive. African nations that are potentially rich in mineral wealth and other natural resources might not be best pleased to be told that extracting that wealth would be a danger to the climate. It is difficult enough to find investors willing to risk putting their money toward mining ventures in unstable places in the world; now, it seems, it might be possible that such would be cost-prohibitive.
These are only some examples of the political realities the meeting will face. Then, of course, there are on-going international rivalries and even conflicts that make these economic questions pale in comparison. There is the developed world faced by an increasingly recalcitrant undeveloped world. Many of these latter states, only recently released from over a century of imperial domination, still de facto colonies of the interests and industries of the imperial power, might be a tad reluctant to be told by these same former colonial powers how to run their countries.
Finally, there are the activists. A fun bunch, they are convinced that the threat of global warming is such that we must simply disregard the social, economic, and political realities of the world and do somethingright now!!!!! What "that" might be . . . well, beyond "curbing greenhouse gas emissions" and "ending our reliance on fossil fuels" some might offer some ideas, to be sure. For the most part, though, the nitty-gritty details of policy - like cap-and-trade, say, in the United States, or investment incentives via the World Bank for developing nations to adopt "clean" industries - are up to other folks. Too many activists, in my experience, really can't be bothered with this kind of stuff. "Raise awareness" is their mantra and motto.
The clean lines and elegance of science meeting the dirty, sometimes nasty, occasionally delusional, world of politics can be fun to watch. Yet, when the issue facing us is as full of roadblocks and pitfalls, crazy folk screaming at the clouds and earnest do-gooders insisting that the entire planet is going to die unless we all shut up and listen to them, we have the makings not so much for a road map for future policy as an exercise in global futility. It may be that Rep. Rohrbacher's delusion of "global governance" is what is necessary to address the threat posed by global warming; sadly, the reality is that such does not exist, and even if it did, it would face these same problems, only slightly more organized.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
In Which I Attempt An Answer To A Conundrum
Via Duncan Black comes this question:
The answer is really quite easy. You hear it all the time on Rush. In fact, it is one of his great themes. We liberals, really just socialists/communists, want to destroy prosperity out of spite and envy; since it is a product of capitalism, which we loathe, we want to end it. If that means impoverishing the entire world in the process, so much the better. Rather than offer a model of development and a standard of living to which the whole world should aspire, so this argument seems to go, we should destroy American wealth, American industry (or what remains of it, anyway), and our entire economic structure in order to share it with the rest of the world, not in any constructive way - that is, allowing others to copy its merits in order to lift themselves out of poverty - but to get even with all those wealthy people who have achieved something in their lives.
See, to a certain conservative mind-set, we liberals are not motivated by any sense of fellow-feeling, even less any love for all the makes the United States great. Rather, we are motivated by the most base feelings of loathing for all those political and economic and cultural values that make our nation great. Being nihilists, we wish nothing more or less than the destruction of those values in the name of abstractions that sound good, but are merely lies, hiding our true, nefarious desires.
Since any attempt to end global warming would necessitate moving us away from reliance on the oil industry, perhaps any industry as it exists right now, this obviously means that we liberals, standing behind our real leader, Al Gore, want to destroy American prosperity. Since it's snowing outside right now where I am, and since we had, here in northern Illinois, a mild summer by recent standards, global warming is a farce. Retreating glaciers and melting permafrost are as nothing to what is quite visible and plain for anyone to see.
I hope this clears things up.
Still, one thing I've never quite understood is to the extent that they actually believe or claim to believe that it's all some liberal conspiracy, just what is it do they think we have to gain from it? What's the point of our little conspiracy?
The answer is really quite easy. You hear it all the time on Rush. In fact, it is one of his great themes. We liberals, really just socialists/communists, want to destroy prosperity out of spite and envy; since it is a product of capitalism, which we loathe, we want to end it. If that means impoverishing the entire world in the process, so much the better. Rather than offer a model of development and a standard of living to which the whole world should aspire, so this argument seems to go, we should destroy American wealth, American industry (or what remains of it, anyway), and our entire economic structure in order to share it with the rest of the world, not in any constructive way - that is, allowing others to copy its merits in order to lift themselves out of poverty - but to get even with all those wealthy people who have achieved something in their lives.
See, to a certain conservative mind-set, we liberals are not motivated by any sense of fellow-feeling, even less any love for all the makes the United States great. Rather, we are motivated by the most base feelings of loathing for all those political and economic and cultural values that make our nation great. Being nihilists, we wish nothing more or less than the destruction of those values in the name of abstractions that sound good, but are merely lies, hiding our true, nefarious desires.
Since any attempt to end global warming would necessitate moving us away from reliance on the oil industry, perhaps any industry as it exists right now, this obviously means that we liberals, standing behind our real leader, Al Gore, want to destroy American prosperity. Since it's snowing outside right now where I am, and since we had, here in northern Illinois, a mild summer by recent standards, global warming is a farce. Retreating glaciers and melting permafrost are as nothing to what is quite visible and plain for anyone to see.
I hope this clears things up.
On The (Different) Merits
I hate to disagree with Tbogg's casual dismissal of Stanley Fish's column on Sarah Palin's memoir, Going Rogue, but Fish has it right. For those who may not have heard of him, Fish is a big deal in the pomo world; he ended up at Duke University back in the 1990's, which sought to become the home of serious lit-crit. In the 1990's, he did a debate tour with Dinesh D'Souza, and published a summary of the event as There is No Such Thing as Free Speech and It's A Good Thing. Cantankerous, brilliant, always thought provoking, Fish has the ability to grasp not just texts, but reading in a way few can.
On how to read Palin's book, Fish nails it quite easily.
Fish insists we need not bother with questions of reliability in any traditional sense precisely because these aren't the criteria by which the book is to be judged. Not just by "impartial reviewers", of which there are sure to be few. The question forced upon the reader of the autobiography is one not of "truth" in some verifiable sense, but Truth as a property of one's life. More than just integrity as a condition of singularity of purpose and vision and practice. In the sense meant here, Truth is something that one possesses that is a condition for integrity, gives strength in times that challenge the desire to live it out, and is recognizable to those who share it in their own lives. This is Truth not as something that is factually accessible; this is the Truth that Palin and her admirers understand lies at the heart of our common life as Americans.
Unlike liberal elitists, with their penchant for fact-checking and defining reliability as something that has nothing to do with personal integrity (also not defined with any reference to anything outside one's own sense of oneself), Palin understands, and communicates to her readers, that the threats to our country do not lie in abstractions like global warming or the still faltering economy. Rather, the real threat to America, far more sinister and dangerous precisely because it is cloaked in the rhetoric of concern and a kind of patriotism, comes from those who do not understand that reliability is a personal quality, Truth is a possession, and integrity is the drive that keeps one from succumbing to doubts in the face of outside criticism. Rather than consider criticism as a constructive discussion with others, Palin simply dismisses any and all criticism of her life-choices, at a professional level, as coming from those who do not understand how she is living out, with integrity grown from the inner light of Truth.
As a cultural artifact, then, Palin's memoir is important as a demonstration of the persistence of a kind of child-like refusal to submit one's life to the judgment of others. Rather than self-knowledge, or at least the kind of understanding that comes from wrestling with the doubts and differences of others, Palin's work stands out as a kind of defiant call to return to an earlier understanding of the self as something flowering from inside oneself. Should others not understand that, not see the way Truth and certain simple American values create a life that values family and mild ambition above all others, they are only revealing their own unAmericanness, their own adherence to alien views of Truth, their elitist concern with petty things like facts.
As a cultural and political artifact, then, Fish gives readers an understanding of Palin's book that should leave us pondering the question, "What next?"
On how to read Palin's book, Fish nails it quite easily.
My assessment of the book has nothing to do with the accuracy of its accounts. Some news agencies have fact-checkers poring over every sentence, which would be to the point if the book were a biography, a genre that is judged by the degree to which the factual claims being made can be verified down to the last assertion. “Going Rogue,” however, is an autobiography, and while autobiographers certainly insist that they are telling the truth, the truth the genre promises is the truth about themselves — the kind of persons they are — and even when they are being mendacious or self-serving (and I don’t mean to imply that Palin is either), they are, necessarily, fleshing out that truth. As I remarked in a previous column, autobiographers cannot lie because anything they say will truthfully serve their project, which, again, is not to portray the facts, but to portray themselves.
The questions to ask then are (1) Does Palin succeed in conveying to her readers the kind of person she is? and (2) Does she do it in a satisfying and artful way? In short, is the book a good autobiographical read? I would answer “yes” to both.
Fish insists we need not bother with questions of reliability in any traditional sense precisely because these aren't the criteria by which the book is to be judged. Not just by "impartial reviewers", of which there are sure to be few. The question forced upon the reader of the autobiography is one not of "truth" in some verifiable sense, but Truth as a property of one's life. More than just integrity as a condition of singularity of purpose and vision and practice. In the sense meant here, Truth is something that one possesses that is a condition for integrity, gives strength in times that challenge the desire to live it out, and is recognizable to those who share it in their own lives. This is Truth not as something that is factually accessible; this is the Truth that Palin and her admirers understand lies at the heart of our common life as Americans.
Unlike liberal elitists, with their penchant for fact-checking and defining reliability as something that has nothing to do with personal integrity (also not defined with any reference to anything outside one's own sense of oneself), Palin understands, and communicates to her readers, that the threats to our country do not lie in abstractions like global warming or the still faltering economy. Rather, the real threat to America, far more sinister and dangerous precisely because it is cloaked in the rhetoric of concern and a kind of patriotism, comes from those who do not understand that reliability is a personal quality, Truth is a possession, and integrity is the drive that keeps one from succumbing to doubts in the face of outside criticism. Rather than consider criticism as a constructive discussion with others, Palin simply dismisses any and all criticism of her life-choices, at a professional level, as coming from those who do not understand how she is living out, with integrity grown from the inner light of Truth.
As a cultural artifact, then, Palin's memoir is important as a demonstration of the persistence of a kind of child-like refusal to submit one's life to the judgment of others. Rather than self-knowledge, or at least the kind of understanding that comes from wrestling with the doubts and differences of others, Palin's work stands out as a kind of defiant call to return to an earlier understanding of the self as something flowering from inside oneself. Should others not understand that, not see the way Truth and certain simple American values create a life that values family and mild ambition above all others, they are only revealing their own unAmericanness, their own adherence to alien views of Truth, their elitist concern with petty things like facts.
As a cultural and political artifact, then, Fish gives readers an understanding of Palin's book that should leave us pondering the question, "What next?"
Monday, December 07, 2009
Music For Your Monday
In memory of my Aunt Joan, the biggest Alan Sherman fan I ever knew, here are some examples of some of the best song parodies ever written. The Ballad of Harvey and Sheila ("The ladies of Haddasah!"):
Al & Yetta need a life.
I wonder if Tom Waits ever heard this song. "Shake Hands With Uncle Max":
Al & Yetta need a life.
I wonder if Tom Waits ever heard this song. "Shake Hands With Uncle Max":
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Christmas Memories - 1985
Sticking with my stated goal, this Second Advent Sunday brings another Christmas memory, from my college years. I have struggled, trying to determine how I should present this. In the end, rather than be retrospectively harsh on my 20-year-old self, I am going to write it from within the perspective of that young man, full of naive optimism, and with little understanding of the world or his place in it. There may come a time to make fun of the person I was, but this isn't it.
There are those fleeting moments in one's life when, despite all sorts of obstacles and in the face of all sorts of evidence to the contrary, one seems to have one's hand securely on the tiller of life. All the different pieces of one's life, once tossed in the air, seem to have landed to form the perfect picture. One can get a gliimpse - all too brief, and maybe even wrong - of the course one's life could take; as long as the course one is taking doesn't veer off too far, it is possible to get to where you want to go from where you are with a minimum of effort. That time in my own life - viewed with a mixture of harsh criticism and a kind of burning nostalgia - runs from the spring of 1985 through the end of the summer, 1986. Situated almost exactly in the middle of this time, Christmas 1985 stands out precisely because, having just emerged from my first straight-A semester, I felt like I was, indeed, sailing with the wind of life.
Four of the five children would be at my parents' that year. I was the first to arrive, on December 20th. The next day, I went with my folks to pick out a Christmas tree (this was pretty typical; some years, the tree wouldn't be finished until Christmas Eve!). My mother told me once, a few years later, that I picked out the best tree we could have found that year. Maybe, but it certainly seemed that way. Like a Saturday Evening Post cover, it started snowing as my parents and I walked through Rosh's Trees.
A couple days later, on the morning of Christmas Eve, my youngest sister, my brother, and I all went last-minute shopping for stocking stuffers for my parents (my youngest sister started that tradition, and it was enjoyable to get Mom and Dad stockings). The snow from the previous couple days was having additional inches added to it by a Christmas Eve snowstorm; I remember, as we drove in to the parking lot at Newberry's Department Store in Sayre, PA that it seemed as if nature was cooperating to provide a memorable, almost classic, Christmas.
As we adult children gathered around the Christmas tree the next day, for the first time the atmosphere was relaxed. We sat and drank coffee or hot chocolate, ate a little breakfast, checked out who had what package, laughed and looked forward to what turned out to be an almost textbook example of The Perfect Christmas.
In retrospect, though, I wonder about that. Does it seem perfect because it was filled with those elements that, as someone just emerging from adolescence, seemed to define what Christmas should be - snow, but not too much; friendliness, even joviality around the Christmas tree; family actually enjoying one another's company - or are those memories tainted by my own retrospective sense that this particular Christmas seemed to come in the midst of a time when my life was firing on all cylinders?
That is a question I cannot answer, not really. Rather than sit and deconstruct those memories, taking this very special Christmas from a very special period of my life and attempting to make it in to something it was not, might satisfy my own sense that I need to be far more critical of my younger self. Yet, the reality is, reading my journal entries from this time - I've kept a journal fitfully for over a quarter century - I get no sense of anything other than a joy at living at this place and this time. I was somewhat dimly aware that I was living in the midst of a very special moment, that I had to hold the wheel carefully, because life has a way of taking over and not just capsizing it, but dragging it to the depths. Rather than sit and write all sorts of things that pointed out my many quite obvious personal flaws at the time, I want to let this moment - this Christmas that was perfect it could almost be used as a template for what Christmas should be - rest in my memory for what it actually was. The six of us gathered that morning of December 25th had a wonderful time together, the run-up to Christmas was something out of a Hallmark television special, and all the moments of my time home between semesters was filled with a sense that life was going to provide even more special moments, as long as I was open to those possibilities. What actually happened, well, that's a story for another time and place.
For now it is enough to say that this Christmas stands out precisely because it was, like so much else during this all-too-brief moment in my life, just about as perfect as can be.
There are those fleeting moments in one's life when, despite all sorts of obstacles and in the face of all sorts of evidence to the contrary, one seems to have one's hand securely on the tiller of life. All the different pieces of one's life, once tossed in the air, seem to have landed to form the perfect picture. One can get a gliimpse - all too brief, and maybe even wrong - of the course one's life could take; as long as the course one is taking doesn't veer off too far, it is possible to get to where you want to go from where you are with a minimum of effort. That time in my own life - viewed with a mixture of harsh criticism and a kind of burning nostalgia - runs from the spring of 1985 through the end of the summer, 1986. Situated almost exactly in the middle of this time, Christmas 1985 stands out precisely because, having just emerged from my first straight-A semester, I felt like I was, indeed, sailing with the wind of life.
Four of the five children would be at my parents' that year. I was the first to arrive, on December 20th. The next day, I went with my folks to pick out a Christmas tree (this was pretty typical; some years, the tree wouldn't be finished until Christmas Eve!). My mother told me once, a few years later, that I picked out the best tree we could have found that year. Maybe, but it certainly seemed that way. Like a Saturday Evening Post cover, it started snowing as my parents and I walked through Rosh's Trees.
A couple days later, on the morning of Christmas Eve, my youngest sister, my brother, and I all went last-minute shopping for stocking stuffers for my parents (my youngest sister started that tradition, and it was enjoyable to get Mom and Dad stockings). The snow from the previous couple days was having additional inches added to it by a Christmas Eve snowstorm; I remember, as we drove in to the parking lot at Newberry's Department Store in Sayre, PA that it seemed as if nature was cooperating to provide a memorable, almost classic, Christmas.
As we adult children gathered around the Christmas tree the next day, for the first time the atmosphere was relaxed. We sat and drank coffee or hot chocolate, ate a little breakfast, checked out who had what package, laughed and looked forward to what turned out to be an almost textbook example of The Perfect Christmas.
In retrospect, though, I wonder about that. Does it seem perfect because it was filled with those elements that, as someone just emerging from adolescence, seemed to define what Christmas should be - snow, but not too much; friendliness, even joviality around the Christmas tree; family actually enjoying one another's company - or are those memories tainted by my own retrospective sense that this particular Christmas seemed to come in the midst of a time when my life was firing on all cylinders?
That is a question I cannot answer, not really. Rather than sit and deconstruct those memories, taking this very special Christmas from a very special period of my life and attempting to make it in to something it was not, might satisfy my own sense that I need to be far more critical of my younger self. Yet, the reality is, reading my journal entries from this time - I've kept a journal fitfully for over a quarter century - I get no sense of anything other than a joy at living at this place and this time. I was somewhat dimly aware that I was living in the midst of a very special moment, that I had to hold the wheel carefully, because life has a way of taking over and not just capsizing it, but dragging it to the depths. Rather than sit and write all sorts of things that pointed out my many quite obvious personal flaws at the time, I want to let this moment - this Christmas that was perfect it could almost be used as a template for what Christmas should be - rest in my memory for what it actually was. The six of us gathered that morning of December 25th had a wonderful time together, the run-up to Christmas was something out of a Hallmark television special, and all the moments of my time home between semesters was filled with a sense that life was going to provide even more special moments, as long as I was open to those possibilities. What actually happened, well, that's a story for another time and place.
For now it is enough to say that this Christmas stands out precisely because it was, like so much else during this all-too-brief moment in my life, just about as perfect as can be.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
The Intellectual Integrity Of Theology
In a comment on a post at Crooked Timber concerning an obscure British theologian who is influential in Tory Party circles, one commenter writes the following:
Sad to say, on the merits of most "serious" theology, I'd have to say without reservation, "No."
Like all intellectual disciplines, theology far too often is concerned with itself. Philosophers tend to read academic journals in philosophy. Chemists tend to read chemistry monographs. Psychology grad students pay attention to the latest buzz in psychology.
Yet, theology, at least, gives lip service to being more than just an intellectual pursuit. It is, in the words of a professor of mine at seminary, "the science of the church." As many a theologian has put it, theology is critical reflection on the Christian proclamation. As such, it has to account for more than just the theological content it offers. Theology certainly has to pay respect to philosophy. Contemporary theologians should be conversant, to say the least, in social theory and criticism, as well as cultural theory. At their best, theologians should also be able to converse on a relatively equal playing field with many other disciplines. Far too often, however, this is honored more in the breach than in actual fact.
One of the worst offenders in this regard is Jurgen Moltmann. While seeming to attempt to unite contemporary left-wing European and American political and social thought with a radical theology based on the eschatological promise of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, for the most part, he seems poorly informed about any serious developments past, oh, the mid-1960's or so. He name drops, for example, Christopher Lasch, without showing any sign that he has read, let alone, grappled with Lasch's cultural critique. While based, loosely, in a neo-Marxist framework rooted in the utopian thought of Ernst Bloch, Moltmann seems not to have read much beyond Chapter 59 of that book, the specific area where Bloch offers a Marxist reinterpretation of the prophetic challenge to established orthodoxy, even as he, Bloch, sees Jesus as transforming the dead god of Judaism in to the also quite dead god of Christianity, made only somewhat more palatable by the prophetic and utopian possibilities offered in Jesus' preaching of the Coming Kingdom.
There are theologians who seem to wrestle quite well with contemporary thought. In Exclusion and Embrace, Miroslav Volf draws upon two very different thinkers - Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor - in his discussion of contemporary society. Yet, Volf's work, as important as it is, also has its drawbacks, not the least of them being a preference for methodological dialecticism at the expense of a far more cogent argument.
David Tracy, the late Langdon Gilkey, the cultural work of James Cone (The Spirituals and the Blues; Dream or a Nightmare? Malcolm, Martin, and America), and an earlier generation including Henry Nelson Weiman and Paul Tillich all have grappled with extra-theological content in a serious fashion. Yet, again, for the most part, these examples prove the rule that theologians, for the most part, don't honor the pledge to do theology that uses all the tools available to do it well. While it would be nice to be able to defend the intellectual integrity of theology as a practice (not necessarily a discipline in the academy, but that is not its sole, or even most important, function), one cannot read contemporary theology and do so with a straight face.
Is there any reason to take theology seriously?
Sad to say, on the merits of most "serious" theology, I'd have to say without reservation, "No."
Like all intellectual disciplines, theology far too often is concerned with itself. Philosophers tend to read academic journals in philosophy. Chemists tend to read chemistry monographs. Psychology grad students pay attention to the latest buzz in psychology.
Yet, theology, at least, gives lip service to being more than just an intellectual pursuit. It is, in the words of a professor of mine at seminary, "the science of the church." As many a theologian has put it, theology is critical reflection on the Christian proclamation. As such, it has to account for more than just the theological content it offers. Theology certainly has to pay respect to philosophy. Contemporary theologians should be conversant, to say the least, in social theory and criticism, as well as cultural theory. At their best, theologians should also be able to converse on a relatively equal playing field with many other disciplines. Far too often, however, this is honored more in the breach than in actual fact.
One of the worst offenders in this regard is Jurgen Moltmann. While seeming to attempt to unite contemporary left-wing European and American political and social thought with a radical theology based on the eschatological promise of God incarnate in Jesus Christ, for the most part, he seems poorly informed about any serious developments past, oh, the mid-1960's or so. He name drops, for example, Christopher Lasch, without showing any sign that he has read, let alone, grappled with Lasch's cultural critique. While based, loosely, in a neo-Marxist framework rooted in the utopian thought of Ernst Bloch, Moltmann seems not to have read much beyond Chapter 59 of that book, the specific area where Bloch offers a Marxist reinterpretation of the prophetic challenge to established orthodoxy, even as he, Bloch, sees Jesus as transforming the dead god of Judaism in to the also quite dead god of Christianity, made only somewhat more palatable by the prophetic and utopian possibilities offered in Jesus' preaching of the Coming Kingdom.
There are theologians who seem to wrestle quite well with contemporary thought. In Exclusion and Embrace, Miroslav Volf draws upon two very different thinkers - Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor - in his discussion of contemporary society. Yet, Volf's work, as important as it is, also has its drawbacks, not the least of them being a preference for methodological dialecticism at the expense of a far more cogent argument.
David Tracy, the late Langdon Gilkey, the cultural work of James Cone (The Spirituals and the Blues; Dream or a Nightmare? Malcolm, Martin, and America), and an earlier generation including Henry Nelson Weiman and Paul Tillich all have grappled with extra-theological content in a serious fashion. Yet, again, for the most part, these examples prove the rule that theologians, for the most part, don't honor the pledge to do theology that uses all the tools available to do it well. While it would be nice to be able to defend the intellectual integrity of theology as a practice (not necessarily a discipline in the academy, but that is not its sole, or even most important, function), one cannot read contemporary theology and do so with a straight face.
Cornel West & His Discontents
Scott McLemee has a pretty brutal, but honest, review of Cornel West's Brother West. When I say "brutal", I mean McLemee takes West as he once was, West as he now is, and asks the most difficult question of all: Is the child (or earlier up-and-coming academic) the father of the man (the celebrity who seems to have the ear of the President)? A couple paragraphs from West's memoir do seem to support the charge that West's concern is almost always with . . . West. One of the more troubling passages, on West's approach to relationships with women, should indeed inspire, as it did in McLemee's wife, the insistence to run as far as possible from anyone who expresses the following:
On a less personal, more public note, McLemee notes West's stated plans, a decade ago:
McLemee notes that not a single one of these has seen the light of day.
Yet, a comment points out a different, and meritorious, view of West's unfolding career.
I'm not sure if the first sentence is correct, however. As it seems to be the major premise of the argument, falsifying it might make the rest untenable. Yet, I don't believe it does. It may or may not be true that West understood that he would never receive the respect and intellectual accolades he deserves for his quite obvious brilliance. Yet, in order to prove one's brilliance, it might be thought necessary to do something brilliant! While the work on hip-hop culture is important, it seems to me that so is a work on African-American literature; while appearing in Matrix movies as a signal that the film's philosophical underpinnings are in accord with one's own might be a kind of intellectual noblesse oblige, but so would a monograph of Josiah Royce.
This past spring, I heard an interview with NPR host and author Tavis Smiley who is a mutual friend of West and Pres. Obama. Smiley said that Obama understood he must not just be a good President, but as the first African-American President, he had to outstrip most other Presidents. The author of the above comment may be correct that opting for a different route in the face of racial animus is the reason for the decisions West has made in regards his intellectual output. Yet, Smiley is doing nothing more than reiterating a long-standing notion that Americans of African descent have known for generations. The standards to which an African-American are held are indeed higher than those of non-blacks. Yet, meeting and even exceeding those standards has always been thought necessary as part of the burden. It is not fair, to be sure. That doesn't make it any less necessary.
Among the great African-American thinkers and writers, mentioning West in the same breath as Ralph Ellison is, I believe, interesting. Ellison published just one novel during his life - Invisible Man. Yet, he also wrote many incomparable essays, a collection of which adorns my library. His writings on writing and writers, on Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker, on his early life and later accolades, are brilliant, insightful, witty, and lacking in one quality that West wears on his sleeve - his own perception of himself as a national treasure. There is enough truth in McLemee's portrait of West as one enamored of his own brilliance and insight to make any reader steer clear of an entire book dedicated to West on West.
The basic problem with my love relationships with women is that my standards are so high -- and they apply equally to both of us. I seek full-blast mutual intensity, fully fledged mutual acceptance, full-blown mutual flourishing, and fully felt peace and joy with each other. This requires a level of physical attraction, personal adoration, and moral admiration that is hard to find. And it shares a depth of trust and openness for a genuine soul-sharing with a mutual respect for a calling to each other and to others. Does such a woman exist for me? Only God knows and I eagerly await this divine unfolding. Like Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship in Emily Bronte’s remarkable novel Wuthering Heights or Franz Schubert’s tempestuous piano Sonata No. 21 in B flat (D.960) I will not let life or death stand in the way of this sublime and funky love that I crave!
On a less personal, more public note, McLemee notes West's stated plans, a decade ago:
Ten years ago, in the final pages of a collection of his selected writings, Cornel West gave readers a look at the work he had in progress, or at least in mind, for the years ahead. One would be “a major treatment of African-American literature and modern Greek literature.” Another was “a meditation on Chekhov and Coltrane that delves into the distinctive conceptions of the tragic in American civilization and of the comic in Russian civilization.” He would be writing an intellectual autobiography “modeled on black musical forms.” Nor had he given up on plans to complete a study of David Hume. There would also be a book on Josiah Royce.
McLemee notes that not a single one of these has seen the light of day.
Yet, a comment points out a different, and meritorious, view of West's unfolding career.
cornel west learned long ago that no matter how many academic books that he published he would never be properly respected and embraced by white academics (a philosopy ph.d. this brilliant who has never been shown any interest to teach in a philosophy department?!?!?). the racism in the academy is so deeply entrenched that (how many total black people are in ivy league religious studies departments? philosophy departments?) if he were to keep doing "serious" academic work his contributions would never be taken as seriously as say, scott mclemee's; and, it would make him less accessible to his own community. so, knowing that the "emperor has no clothes" he gave the white academy the middle finger and is doing work to inspire black people. white folks should just leave him alone. the academy is an unfair and culturally biased place. it shows black people less respect even when they do work that is head and shoulders above the navel-gazing, non-creative work of white scholars. c'mon white academics! admit that your standards are so deeply biased and tainted that you would never accept cornel west if he out published harold bloom, marjorie garber and stanley fish. take stock of the true bone-heads in your department. then ask yourself why west does work that speaks to the black masses and not to white scholars. keep doin' your thing cornel!! your memoir is inspiring a lot of people and your speeches are saving lives! none of your white colleagues can speak to the issues you can. we need you. shake off these criticisms like teflon and do you!
I'm not sure if the first sentence is correct, however. As it seems to be the major premise of the argument, falsifying it might make the rest untenable. Yet, I don't believe it does. It may or may not be true that West understood that he would never receive the respect and intellectual accolades he deserves for his quite obvious brilliance. Yet, in order to prove one's brilliance, it might be thought necessary to do something brilliant! While the work on hip-hop culture is important, it seems to me that so is a work on African-American literature; while appearing in Matrix movies as a signal that the film's philosophical underpinnings are in accord with one's own might be a kind of intellectual noblesse oblige, but so would a monograph of Josiah Royce.
This past spring, I heard an interview with NPR host and author Tavis Smiley who is a mutual friend of West and Pres. Obama. Smiley said that Obama understood he must not just be a good President, but as the first African-American President, he had to outstrip most other Presidents. The author of the above comment may be correct that opting for a different route in the face of racial animus is the reason for the decisions West has made in regards his intellectual output. Yet, Smiley is doing nothing more than reiterating a long-standing notion that Americans of African descent have known for generations. The standards to which an African-American are held are indeed higher than those of non-blacks. Yet, meeting and even exceeding those standards has always been thought necessary as part of the burden. It is not fair, to be sure. That doesn't make it any less necessary.
Among the great African-American thinkers and writers, mentioning West in the same breath as Ralph Ellison is, I believe, interesting. Ellison published just one novel during his life - Invisible Man. Yet, he also wrote many incomparable essays, a collection of which adorns my library. His writings on writing and writers, on Charlie Christian and Charlie Parker, on his early life and later accolades, are brilliant, insightful, witty, and lacking in one quality that West wears on his sleeve - his own perception of himself as a national treasure. There is enough truth in McLemee's portrait of West as one enamored of his own brilliance and insight to make any reader steer clear of an entire book dedicated to West on West.
Saturday Rock Show
Blame Scott McLemee. I was going to do Gentle Giant when I stumbled across a piece McLemee wrote for Crooked Timber a few years back, and, well . . . This is "Natural Is Not In It", and set aside whether it's Althusserian Marxism or Debordian Situationism (my vote is for the latter, by the way, if only because Situationism was in the air at the time, thanks in no small part to the Sex Pistols manager, Malcolm McLaren) and just groove.
Public Discourse Versus The Pundit Class
With the announcement this week that the US will send an additional 30,000 combat troops to Afghanistan, and the ensuing discussion and criticisms of this move by may, both left and right, it would be nice if our elite commentariat could discuss the issue in an intelligent, thoughtful manner. They could discuss whether the troop increase is warranted; whether it is large enough to be effective; whether the underlying strategic plan - increase troop strength in order to provide time for Afghanistan to improve its military and police forces to take up the slack once we leave - has any merit given the realities on the ground. Why, there could even be discussions over the cost, given that most pundits seem to think that reforming health care is too expensive.
These are the kinds of discussions we could be having. Instead, what Dana Milbank offers us is the following:
This kind of piffle is one reason our politics is so broken; mindless jibber-jabber such as this, offered in one of the most important newspapers in the country, sucks far too much intelligence and thought from any discussion. Rather than discuss the issue of our policy in Afghanistan, we have to spend time pointing out that the entire premise of this column is flawed; that Milbank offers nothing in the way of actual evidence that there ever was a "Church of Obama", that his "followers" thought he could save the earth before sundown. This is typical, mindless, small-town gossip offered as serious political commentary.
This isn't public discourse so much as it is a church-lady wagging her finger (I know Milbank is a man, but just run with the pronoun, OK?) at someone who got too puffed up, too big for his britches, and is now being brought down a peg or two. Milbank is quite happy that Obama is facing opposition not because of any of the merits or demerits of his decision on Afghanistan - you never get the sense, reading this column, that Milbank has an opinion, or even any understanding of the issue - but because Milbank is a self-appointed guardian of our political class. Obama, young, brash, and black, has managed to remain popular during the first year of his Presidency even as the pundits fretted about all the things they have always fretted about. Even as Obama seemed to spurn their advice, and ignore their columns, and did all the things they said couldn't and shouldn't be done, he has remained popular.
These pundits are far less serious, thoughtful people with one eye on the national interest and the other on the costs and benefits of any policy. They are that gaggle of old men and women who sit around the local diner, drinking cup after cup of coffee, ordering pie while they wink at the waitress, and believe, without any evidence whatsoever, that their views are important, their voices ought to be heeded, and that their inclusion of personal gossip is a necessary adjunct to discussing questions of real merit.
From this moment on, I rescind my own self-imposed decision not to resort to the short-hand used by some of referring to Washington insider journalism as "the Village". Milbank's column today is a wonderful distillation of the kind of small-town nonsense that is making it almost impossible to talk about questions of import with anything resembling intelligence. If Washington is, indeed, a Village, today, Milbank showed us who the village idiot is.
These are the kinds of discussions we could be having. Instead, what Dana Milbank offers us is the following:
Some parishioners in the Church of Obama discovered last week that their spiritual leader is a false prophet.
--snip--
Obama had become to his youthful supporters a vessel for all of their liberal hopes. They saw him as a transformational figure who would end war, save the Earth from global warming, restore the economy -- and still be home for dinner.
This kind of piffle is one reason our politics is so broken; mindless jibber-jabber such as this, offered in one of the most important newspapers in the country, sucks far too much intelligence and thought from any discussion. Rather than discuss the issue of our policy in Afghanistan, we have to spend time pointing out that the entire premise of this column is flawed; that Milbank offers nothing in the way of actual evidence that there ever was a "Church of Obama", that his "followers" thought he could save the earth before sundown. This is typical, mindless, small-town gossip offered as serious political commentary.
This isn't public discourse so much as it is a church-lady wagging her finger (I know Milbank is a man, but just run with the pronoun, OK?) at someone who got too puffed up, too big for his britches, and is now being brought down a peg or two. Milbank is quite happy that Obama is facing opposition not because of any of the merits or demerits of his decision on Afghanistan - you never get the sense, reading this column, that Milbank has an opinion, or even any understanding of the issue - but because Milbank is a self-appointed guardian of our political class. Obama, young, brash, and black, has managed to remain popular during the first year of his Presidency even as the pundits fretted about all the things they have always fretted about. Even as Obama seemed to spurn their advice, and ignore their columns, and did all the things they said couldn't and shouldn't be done, he has remained popular.
These pundits are far less serious, thoughtful people with one eye on the national interest and the other on the costs and benefits of any policy. They are that gaggle of old men and women who sit around the local diner, drinking cup after cup of coffee, ordering pie while they wink at the waitress, and believe, without any evidence whatsoever, that their views are important, their voices ought to be heeded, and that their inclusion of personal gossip is a necessary adjunct to discussing questions of real merit.
From this moment on, I rescind my own self-imposed decision not to resort to the short-hand used by some of referring to Washington insider journalism as "the Village". Milbank's column today is a wonderful distillation of the kind of small-town nonsense that is making it almost impossible to talk about questions of import with anything resembling intelligence. If Washington is, indeed, a Village, today, Milbank showed us who the village idiot is.
Friday, December 04, 2009
God Talk Over A Round
When I was in seminary, then-academic Dean M. Douglas Meeks described a discussion he had as a Ph.D. candidate in Germany as taking place in the best theological tradition, in a bar with a lot of beer. One of the great theological books, far too often talked about and far too little read, is Martin Luther's Table Talk. It is this that is, I think, Meeks' reference point. Luther was a great lover of brewed malt and hops. Drink would loosen his tongue a great deal. Like all great and powerful men and women throughout history, he had his sycophants and hangers-on, and they would jot down this or that quip or epigram on beer napkins, table cloths, whatever was handy; the results, published as Table Talk, is occasionally hilarious, always insightful, and gives a rare glimpse of an early-16th century, pre-modern man of letters.
One thing my wife and I have mused about, on and off over the years of her ministry, is the reaction of a local congregation to actually putting Jesus' ministry in to practice. Not the whole "preaching to the masses" stuff; more like "Jesus was accused of hanging out with drunkards and prostitutes" stuff. Well, it seems there are some Christians, in Chicago at any rate, who are at least willing to risk the first part.
I have no opinion on the journalistic merits of the story as presented in the GetReligion.com piece. I do find it interesting, though, to consider the surprise reporters voice on the thought of ministry taking place in such a setting. Imagine! Taking the Good News to a bar! We Americans, for far too long, have associated liquor with vice (and there are good reasons for this, to be sure), rather than as a social lubricant, a way to open people up. Jesus was certainly not afraid to imbibe, or to ensure that others did, as well. He also was not concerned with the moral approbation of the self-appointed moral scolds of his place and time; he took his message of Divine love to those who needed to hear it. That's also why the kind of small-mindedness that reacts with a knee-jerk "tut-tutting" at bad language makes me smile; imagine, if you will, the kind of talk Jesus most likely encountered as he sat around talking with caravan drivers, prostitutes (both the legal and less-than-legal variety), and social outcasts of his time. Do you think Jesus got upset over the occasional first-century equivalent of the "f-bomb"?
Even as various denominations and church agencies struggle with ways of being relevant, of taking ministry in new directions and to underserved populations, the notion of sitting around a bar, with a pitcher of beer to loosen tongues and open minds, seems quite far-fetched. So does the idea of sitting and talking with working girls. Yet, in a very real and literal way, to do so would be to imitate Christ far more radically than sitting around and talking about how bad some people are, and how good other people are. Jesus wasn't concerned about whether people were good or not; he was far more concerned with the fact that far too may people were abandoned by society because they were deemed "bad". This is an example we need to follow.
One thing my wife and I have mused about, on and off over the years of her ministry, is the reaction of a local congregation to actually putting Jesus' ministry in to practice. Not the whole "preaching to the masses" stuff; more like "Jesus was accused of hanging out with drunkards and prostitutes" stuff. Well, it seems there are some Christians, in Chicago at any rate, who are at least willing to risk the first part.
I have no opinion on the journalistic merits of the story as presented in the GetReligion.com piece. I do find it interesting, though, to consider the surprise reporters voice on the thought of ministry taking place in such a setting. Imagine! Taking the Good News to a bar! We Americans, for far too long, have associated liquor with vice (and there are good reasons for this, to be sure), rather than as a social lubricant, a way to open people up. Jesus was certainly not afraid to imbibe, or to ensure that others did, as well. He also was not concerned with the moral approbation of the self-appointed moral scolds of his place and time; he took his message of Divine love to those who needed to hear it. That's also why the kind of small-mindedness that reacts with a knee-jerk "tut-tutting" at bad language makes me smile; imagine, if you will, the kind of talk Jesus most likely encountered as he sat around talking with caravan drivers, prostitutes (both the legal and less-than-legal variety), and social outcasts of his time. Do you think Jesus got upset over the occasional first-century equivalent of the "f-bomb"?
Even as various denominations and church agencies struggle with ways of being relevant, of taking ministry in new directions and to underserved populations, the notion of sitting around a bar, with a pitcher of beer to loosen tongues and open minds, seems quite far-fetched. So does the idea of sitting and talking with working girls. Yet, in a very real and literal way, to do so would be to imitate Christ far more radically than sitting around and talking about how bad some people are, and how good other people are. Jesus wasn't concerned about whether people were good or not; he was far more concerned with the fact that far too may people were abandoned by society because they were deemed "bad". This is an example we need to follow.
The Left And The American Military
This piece by Dana Milbank - which I discovered thanks to Crooks and Liars - follows hot on the heels of Chris Matthews calling Barack Obama's speech at the United States Military Academy an appearance in "the enemy's camp" (to give Matthews credit, he apologized for this comment). Why is it there are still those who believe - despite so much evidence to the contrary - that Democratic politicians are hostile to the military? For those old enough to remember, Jesse Helms once claimed that should then-Pres. Clinton visit any military bases in North Carolina, it might prove dangerous for the Commander-in-Chief. Rather than treat this outrageous comment with the contempt it deserved, and relegate the person who spoke it to the non-entity file, there was actually discussion in elite Washington circles over whether or not the President of the US would need a protective escort on military bases!
There is military bashing on the Left in the United States. Yet, in the first instance, with the possible exception of Russ Feingold - from just up the road in Janesville, WI - there aren't too many left-wing Democrats left. Second, Pres. Clinton managed, somehow, to use military action effectively, even though he faced opposition from the Left (wow, what a shock!), particularly in the Balkans. Pres. Obama has showed a willingness to use the military as well; consider the way the Nave SEALS managed to deal with the pirates off the Horn of Africa.
For some reason, though, there are still those who think that Democrats don't like the military, and that, politically speaking, the military mind-set and Democratic politics don't mix. This is, perhaps, the stupidest legacy of the Vietnam War. The irony, of course, is this war was waged largely by Democratic Administrations (although the heaviest casualties came with the Nixon Administration) and had some of its biggest supporters in the Democratic Party. When the country, and the Democratic Party, turned against the war, many on the right turned this rather sound and sober judgment - that the Vietnam War was quite the foreign policy blunder and we needed to get out as soon as possible - in to the slander that "liberals hate the military". This was made worse by the creation of the urban legend of returning Vietnam Vets getting spat upon by hippies. Even though there isn't a single documented case of this happening, it is far too often trotted out as evidence that yesterday's hippies, and today's Democrats, are just a bunch of unpatriotic nancy boys who hate the military.
This situation is not made easier by what Michael Berube calls "the Manichean left" - Chomskyite knee-jerk critics of any American foreign policy that includes the use of the American military. There are, in fact, left-wingers who do not reflexively consider any use of force by the United States as suspect. I count myself among them. The problem, far too often, is that in theory, at any rate, there are good cases to be made for a particular, limited use of the military (in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11, for example) that, when put in practice, end up far worse than they might have been otherwise. This does not make me, or anyone else, who believes there are cases where the judicious use of military force is both prudent and acceptable, "liberal hawks". At least in my own case, I think it makes me someone who sees the threat and use of force in international affairs - done within the limits of the UN Charter, and in concert with our allies in an agreed-upon framework - as a live possibility. That far too often the US has used the military poorly, as it continues to do in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and, no, I do not support Pres. Obama's "surge" in Afghanistan), does not mean that, at some point, we will have wiser and more capable hands at the wheel of our military machine; it just means we need to look at each instance on the merits.
In the meantime, what do we do about this ridiculous nonsense that there is some kind of innate hostility between American liberalism and left-wing politics and the United States military? Beyond calling it out for the stupid that it is, I'm not sure.
There is military bashing on the Left in the United States. Yet, in the first instance, with the possible exception of Russ Feingold - from just up the road in Janesville, WI - there aren't too many left-wing Democrats left. Second, Pres. Clinton managed, somehow, to use military action effectively, even though he faced opposition from the Left (wow, what a shock!), particularly in the Balkans. Pres. Obama has showed a willingness to use the military as well; consider the way the Nave SEALS managed to deal with the pirates off the Horn of Africa.
For some reason, though, there are still those who think that Democrats don't like the military, and that, politically speaking, the military mind-set and Democratic politics don't mix. This is, perhaps, the stupidest legacy of the Vietnam War. The irony, of course, is this war was waged largely by Democratic Administrations (although the heaviest casualties came with the Nixon Administration) and had some of its biggest supporters in the Democratic Party. When the country, and the Democratic Party, turned against the war, many on the right turned this rather sound and sober judgment - that the Vietnam War was quite the foreign policy blunder and we needed to get out as soon as possible - in to the slander that "liberals hate the military". This was made worse by the creation of the urban legend of returning Vietnam Vets getting spat upon by hippies. Even though there isn't a single documented case of this happening, it is far too often trotted out as evidence that yesterday's hippies, and today's Democrats, are just a bunch of unpatriotic nancy boys who hate the military.
This situation is not made easier by what Michael Berube calls "the Manichean left" - Chomskyite knee-jerk critics of any American foreign policy that includes the use of the American military. There are, in fact, left-wingers who do not reflexively consider any use of force by the United States as suspect. I count myself among them. The problem, far too often, is that in theory, at any rate, there are good cases to be made for a particular, limited use of the military (in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11, for example) that, when put in practice, end up far worse than they might have been otherwise. This does not make me, or anyone else, who believes there are cases where the judicious use of military force is both prudent and acceptable, "liberal hawks". At least in my own case, I think it makes me someone who sees the threat and use of force in international affairs - done within the limits of the UN Charter, and in concert with our allies in an agreed-upon framework - as a live possibility. That far too often the US has used the military poorly, as it continues to do in both Iraq and Afghanistan (and, no, I do not support Pres. Obama's "surge" in Afghanistan), does not mean that, at some point, we will have wiser and more capable hands at the wheel of our military machine; it just means we need to look at each instance on the merits.
In the meantime, what do we do about this ridiculous nonsense that there is some kind of innate hostility between American liberalism and left-wing politics and the United States military? Beyond calling it out for the stupid that it is, I'm not sure.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Unbelievable
With a h/t to RM, it seems the Conservative Bible Project has decided to take a stand on liberal perfidy.
Oh, those whacky liberals! Imagine, the Son of God forgiving those who were putting him to death!
Wait a minute . . . What was that last sentence again? Oh, yeah: "even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible".
The passage in dispute, as the "scholars" note, doesn't appear in every manuscript. Of course, there are hundreds of such passages that vary, or disappear or reappear, in various manuscripts. Most serious Biblical translations note this, should the reader note carefully the notes; there will be something like, as in my Revised English Bible, "some witnesses omit". The Hebrew Scriptures very often point out variations between the original Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint (the Greek translation done by Jewish scholars in the second century CE). It might also point out that other translations differ, particularly St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
What does omitting this particular sentence mean? Can it be proven that, in fact, this was an emendation done by liberals hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago to portray a Jesus far different from the one who actually lived? To the second question, I can only say, "No". To the first, it means that conservatives just don't want their Jesus being all loving and forgiving. These words of grace from the cross have spoken to millions of believers over the centuries about the depths of God's love, the freedom offered by Jesus on the cross, and the mystery of grace that envelopes us.
Which is why, obviously, Jesus never uttered these words and the conservatives want it expunged from their Bible.
My guess is, should they pretend to a certain consistency, their Bible will be thicker with footnotes than most, even as the Biblical books themselves are actually smaller. There are so many disputed passages, should these folks decide to omit all but those that all can agree are authentic, we might end up with whole books removed from the canon.
I just can't wait to see the finished project. What are they gonna do with all those passages in the Hebrew prophets about how the rich grind down the poor, and for that reason God is going to punish Israel? Or one of the last verses of The Revelation of God, which warns against changing or removing one word from that particular book of the Bible?
The Gospel of Luke records that, as he was dying on the cross, Jesus showed his boundless mercy by praying for his killers this way: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
Not so fast, say contributors to the Conservative Bible Project.
The project, an online effort to create a Bible suitable for contemporary conservative sensibilities, claims Jesus' quote is a disputed addition abetted by liberal biblical scholars, even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible.
Oh, those whacky liberals! Imagine, the Son of God forgiving those who were putting him to death!
Wait a minute . . . What was that last sentence again? Oh, yeah: "even if it appears in some form in almost every translation of the Bible".
The passage in dispute, as the "scholars" note, doesn't appear in every manuscript. Of course, there are hundreds of such passages that vary, or disappear or reappear, in various manuscripts. Most serious Biblical translations note this, should the reader note carefully the notes; there will be something like, as in my Revised English Bible, "some witnesses omit". The Hebrew Scriptures very often point out variations between the original Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint (the Greek translation done by Jewish scholars in the second century CE). It might also point out that other translations differ, particularly St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate.
What does omitting this particular sentence mean? Can it be proven that, in fact, this was an emendation done by liberals hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago to portray a Jesus far different from the one who actually lived? To the second question, I can only say, "No". To the first, it means that conservatives just don't want their Jesus being all loving and forgiving. These words of grace from the cross have spoken to millions of believers over the centuries about the depths of God's love, the freedom offered by Jesus on the cross, and the mystery of grace that envelopes us.
Which is why, obviously, Jesus never uttered these words and the conservatives want it expunged from their Bible.
My guess is, should they pretend to a certain consistency, their Bible will be thicker with footnotes than most, even as the Biblical books themselves are actually smaller. There are so many disputed passages, should these folks decide to omit all but those that all can agree are authentic, we might end up with whole books removed from the canon.
I just can't wait to see the finished project. What are they gonna do with all those passages in the Hebrew prophets about how the rich grind down the poor, and for that reason God is going to punish Israel? Or one of the last verses of The Revelation of God, which warns against changing or removing one word from that particular book of the Bible?
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Rick Warren Needs To Read His Bible
In what has been a pretty typical right-wing whine, Wonkette reports on a Twitter by Rick Warren.
In St. Matthews Gospel, Jesus is reported to have said that those who suffer and are reviled for their faith are blessed. 1 Peter 4:14-16 reads, in the Revised English Bible, "If you are reviled for being Christians, count yourselves happy, because the Spirit of God in all his glory rests upon you. If you do suffer, it must not be for murder, theft, or any other crime, nor should it be for meddling in other people's business. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he should feel it no disgrace, but confess that name to the honour of God." Romans 8:17b reads, "[B]ut we must share [Christ's] sufferings if we are also to share his glory." This is but a small sample of verses in the New Testament that describe how we Christians are to react to persecution for the faith. Rather than whine about how no one notices, we are to rejoice for the example so set, pray both for those who suffer and for those who inflict it, and remember that such suffering for the Gospel (Paul repeatedly invokes his own imprisonment for the sake of the Gospel as an example to follow) is our lot in life, a mark of true faith.
This is not to say that we should not protest these deaths, nor let them go unnoticed, nor point out how, in some countries, the mere claim of faith is enough for official approbation and unofficial harassment. Yet, if we are to be consistent and constant in our faith, we should also celebrate the witness of those who refuse to yield to threats and force, even to the point of death. Nor should we forget that this is our reality as Christians; two thousand years as both official and unofficial religion of Empire has rendered us forgetful that our existence as Christians qua Christians should antagonize, rather than ameliorate, the powers that be, wherever we live.
If Rick Warren were more concerned with faith and less concerned with keeping name in the papers, he might understand that.
In St. Matthews Gospel, Jesus is reported to have said that those who suffer and are reviled for their faith are blessed. 1 Peter 4:14-16 reads, in the Revised English Bible, "If you are reviled for being Christians, count yourselves happy, because the Spirit of God in all his glory rests upon you. If you do suffer, it must not be for murder, theft, or any other crime, nor should it be for meddling in other people's business. But if anyone suffers as a Christian, he should feel it no disgrace, but confess that name to the honour of God." Romans 8:17b reads, "[B]ut we must share [Christ's] sufferings if we are also to share his glory." This is but a small sample of verses in the New Testament that describe how we Christians are to react to persecution for the faith. Rather than whine about how no one notices, we are to rejoice for the example so set, pray both for those who suffer and for those who inflict it, and remember that such suffering for the Gospel (Paul repeatedly invokes his own imprisonment for the sake of the Gospel as an example to follow) is our lot in life, a mark of true faith.
This is not to say that we should not protest these deaths, nor let them go unnoticed, nor point out how, in some countries, the mere claim of faith is enough for official approbation and unofficial harassment. Yet, if we are to be consistent and constant in our faith, we should also celebrate the witness of those who refuse to yield to threats and force, even to the point of death. Nor should we forget that this is our reality as Christians; two thousand years as both official and unofficial religion of Empire has rendered us forgetful that our existence as Christians qua Christians should antagonize, rather than ameliorate, the powers that be, wherever we live.
If Rick Warren were more concerned with faith and less concerned with keeping name in the papers, he might understand that.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thomas Friedman - Useful Idiot
Matt Yglesias highlights something extremely stupid in Thomas Friedman (a task made infintely more difficult by settling on just one such item):
Hard on the heels of my own confessions concerning Noam Chomsky, it is interesting to read, thanks again to Yglesias, a non-American comment on this bit of fatuousness:
Matt then writes that this is "dangerous. It’s one thing to make up fairy tales to amuse the children, but the danger the United States keeps stumbling into is a tendency among our elite to start believing the fairy tales." While it is probably true that Friedman believes quite sincerely every word he has uttered, my guess is those who formulate our foreign policy view such statements with wry amusement, at best. While it need hardly be repeated, any country determines its foreign relations on a careful, but usually quite narrow, understanding of what is in the interest of the United States (as usually defined by corporate elites). The notion that our foreign policy is ever driven by any ideological sense of our own beneficence (the Republican myth of Reagan-era anticommunism) or other motives is belied by our history. That Friedman can write, with anything approaching a straight face, the words above, proves nothing more than he might be a stooge for the powers that be, but little else.
Yes, after two decades in which U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny— in Bosnia, Darfur, Kuwait, Somalia, Lebanon, Kurdistan, post-earthquake Pakistan, post-tsunami Indonesia, Iraq and Afghanistan — a narrative that says America is dedicated to keeping Muslims down is thriving.
Hard on the heels of my own confessions concerning Noam Chomsky, it is interesting to read, thanks again to Yglesias, a non-American comment on this bit of fatuousness:
In one sense it is charming that the Cousins retain such a faith in their own idealism; in another it’s infuriating that they so often fail – Friedman being a regular exemplar of this – to appreciate that their idealism is a pretty cloak for America’s self-interest. There would be less wrong with this if America’s great idealism were applied more consistently. But since it isn’t it’s unwise to boast too much about it or to pretend that it’s the only motivation for US foreign policy and that if only this were more perfectly understood all would be well.
Matt then writes that this is "dangerous. It’s one thing to make up fairy tales to amuse the children, but the danger the United States keeps stumbling into is a tendency among our elite to start believing the fairy tales." While it is probably true that Friedman believes quite sincerely every word he has uttered, my guess is those who formulate our foreign policy view such statements with wry amusement, at best. While it need hardly be repeated, any country determines its foreign relations on a careful, but usually quite narrow, understanding of what is in the interest of the United States (as usually defined by corporate elites). The notion that our foreign policy is ever driven by any ideological sense of our own beneficence (the Republican myth of Reagan-era anticommunism) or other motives is belied by our history. That Friedman can write, with anything approaching a straight face, the words above, proves nothing more than he might be a stooge for the powers that be, but little else.
Music For Your Monday
World War II, among its many odd effects, produced some memorable songs.
"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", here done to perfection by the Andrews Sisters.
"I'll Be Seeing You" here done by Billie Holiday
One for the season, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" performed by Johnny Mathis.
"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree", here done to perfection by the Andrews Sisters.
"I'll Be Seeing You" here done by Billie Holiday
One for the season, "I'll Be Home For Christmas" performed by Johnny Mathis.
"Ever the most precious in the common"
In George Scialabba's review of Allan Bllom's The Closing of the American Mind, I have found that missing nugget, that treasured last piece of the puzzle, in my ongoing feud with Feodor. Quite apart from whatever intellectual merit Bloom's work may or may not have, it took aim squarely at a host of issues that were only peripherally addressed in the arguments over the literature canon. Bloom was quite explicit in his contempt for the radicalism of the 1960's, and its occasional forays in to irrationalism and anti-intellectualism. Yet, for all that, Bloom seems to me to be just another self-appointed guardian of western culture, thinking that to teach Plato and Thomas and Hegel and Heidegger to undergraduates is to bring out the best wine early at the wedding as it were. Seeing the choice - if such it be - as one between allowing a uniquely American voice to sound out clearly and treasuring the wisdom of the ages in and for itself, Bloom sides unequivocally with the latter.
This is not to say, like George, that there are not merits to the critics of culture studies. It is to say that Bloom's response, like his response to pretty much everything in academia, is the response of a college sophomore.
Far too often, the self-appointed guardians of our inherited western cultural tradition act as if the Greeks, the Catholic philosophers and theologians, the philosophes, the German idealists and Romantics, the novels and poems and drama of Britain and France and Germany, spoke a single voice, in a single language. For far too long we have been hectored that any appeal to democratizing culture is a decision against the inherited wisdom of the ages in favor of mediocrity. From Tocqueville through Bloom and former Education Secretary William Bennett, cultural commentators have thought the dangers of our peculiarly American preference for workable solutions would sideline what has always been thought to be the essence of our heritage - genius. Borrowing from Nietzsche, it would seem we are the epitome of the last men, who favor comfort over wisdom.
Yet, the choice, it seems to me, is false. While it may be so that the vast bulk of Americans will never "get" the subtlety of Hegel, or appreciate the vigor of Voltaire's novels poking holes in the bloated egos of the powerful, this has always been the case and is hardly an argument against a peculiarly American approach to the life of the mind. George quotes, at length, from that most American of voices, Walt Whitman:
George follows this directly:
Yet, this is not the end of the argument against the kind of intellectual hauteur Bloom advocates. As George points out, while Bloom certainly seems to prefer Nietzsche's, and Plato's, preference for a rule by the wisest, Nietzsche's framing of this decision is, unlike Plato's, ironic precisely because Nietzsche could not accept any metaphysics. The decision, for Nietzsche, was based solely on a preference against those he deemed "culture-philistines", the last men and their advancement of mediocrity. He recognized this argument as one of preference, without any philosophical underpinnings at all; Bloom insists there must be. Yet, the best American thinkers have always scoffed that democracy, either in politics or culture, is in need of any justification outside its own existence. Thus, George quote Richard Rorty:
As, indeed, they seem to be. American culture is not a singular thing, even as an appeal to a pragmatist argument in favor of the hodge-podge may seem to make it so. America has produced some quite fine art and literature and music and even thought. That we would also celebrate what has been deemed "folk" - in art, in music, in wisdom - is not to be derided, but celebrated as a uniquely American contribution to our store of cultural inheritance. It is more than possible to celebrate the beauty of both our more popular cultural artifacts as well as those less well-known but by that token even more profoundly beautiful. At its heart, this is what America bequeaths to the world: a celebration of the precious in the common, as Whitman insisted.
And should it be that such inclusiveness is impossible, in the end, to sustain, it is a noble project, an experiment worthy of the attempt. Nothing is lost in the process and much can be gained. As Lincoln pointed out, America is still an experiment in liberty, as true 140 years ago as it is today. Our self-appointed guardians of high culture would do well to remember that we are America, and our voice does not speak in Greek or Latin or strident, convoluted Teutonic sentences.
This is not to say, like George, that there are not merits to the critics of culture studies. It is to say that Bloom's response, like his response to pretty much everything in academia, is the response of a college sophomore.
Far too often, the self-appointed guardians of our inherited western cultural tradition act as if the Greeks, the Catholic philosophers and theologians, the philosophes, the German idealists and Romantics, the novels and poems and drama of Britain and France and Germany, spoke a single voice, in a single language. For far too long we have been hectored that any appeal to democratizing culture is a decision against the inherited wisdom of the ages in favor of mediocrity. From Tocqueville through Bloom and former Education Secretary William Bennett, cultural commentators have thought the dangers of our peculiarly American preference for workable solutions would sideline what has always been thought to be the essence of our heritage - genius. Borrowing from Nietzsche, it would seem we are the epitome of the last men, who favor comfort over wisdom.
Yet, the choice, it seems to me, is false. While it may be so that the vast bulk of Americans will never "get" the subtlety of Hegel, or appreciate the vigor of Voltaire's novels poking holes in the bloated egos of the powerful, this has always been the case and is hardly an argument against a peculiarly American approach to the life of the mind. George quotes, at length, from that most American of voices, Walt Whitman:
America . . . must, for her purposes, cease to recognize a theory of character grown of feudal aristocracies, or form'd by merely literary standards, or from any ultramarine, full-dress formulas of culture, polish, case, &c., and must sternly promulgate her own new standard, yet old enough, and accepting the old, the perennial elements, and combining them into groups, unities, appropriate to the modern, the democratic, the west, and to the practical occasions and needs of our own cities and agricultural regions. Ever the most precious in the common.
George follows this directly:
The genius or splendor of the few may afford the rest of their society a sense of participation in infinity and immortality. But if the maturation of a people requires the exchange of this vicarious experience for the direct experience by the many of their own, more limited individuality, then such an exchange should — with a proper sense of the genuine loss that maturation always involves — be accepted. Growing up (remember Kant’s definition of Enlightenment: “humankind’s emergence from its self-imposed minority”) has its compensations.
Yet, this is not the end of the argument against the kind of intellectual hauteur Bloom advocates. As George points out, while Bloom certainly seems to prefer Nietzsche's, and Plato's, preference for a rule by the wisest, Nietzsche's framing of this decision is, unlike Plato's, ironic precisely because Nietzsche could not accept any metaphysics. The decision, for Nietzsche, was based solely on a preference against those he deemed "culture-philistines", the last men and their advancement of mediocrity. He recognized this argument as one of preference, without any philosophical underpinnings at all; Bloom insists there must be. Yet, the best American thinkers have always scoffed that democracy, either in politics or culture, is in need of any justification outside its own existence. Thus, George quote Richard Rorty:
From Plato through Kant down to [Habermas and Derrida], most philosophers have tried to fuse sublimity and decency, to fuse social hope with knowledge of something big…My own hunch is that we have to separate individual and social reassurance, and make both sublimity and agape (though not tolerance) a private, optional matter. That means conceding to Nietzsche that democratic societies have no higher aim than what he called “the last men” — the people who have “their little pleasures for the day and their little pleasures for the night.” But maybe we should just make that concession, and also concede that democratic societies do not embody anything, and cannot be reassured by anything, larger than themselves (e.g., by “rationality”). Such societies should not aim at the creation of a new breed of human being, or at anything less banal than evening out people’s chances of getting a little pleasure out of their lives. This means that citizens of those societies who have a taste for sublimity will have to pursue it in their own time, and within the limits set by “On Liberty”. But such opportunities might be quite enough.
As, indeed, they seem to be. American culture is not a singular thing, even as an appeal to a pragmatist argument in favor of the hodge-podge may seem to make it so. America has produced some quite fine art and literature and music and even thought. That we would also celebrate what has been deemed "folk" - in art, in music, in wisdom - is not to be derided, but celebrated as a uniquely American contribution to our store of cultural inheritance. It is more than possible to celebrate the beauty of both our more popular cultural artifacts as well as those less well-known but by that token even more profoundly beautiful. At its heart, this is what America bequeaths to the world: a celebration of the precious in the common, as Whitman insisted.
And should it be that such inclusiveness is impossible, in the end, to sustain, it is a noble project, an experiment worthy of the attempt. Nothing is lost in the process and much can be gained. As Lincoln pointed out, America is still an experiment in liberty, as true 140 years ago as it is today. Our self-appointed guardians of high culture would do well to remember that we are America, and our voice does not speak in Greek or Latin or strident, convoluted Teutonic sentences.
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