So now the fascists have turned their attention to the books in school libraries. They want to ban the books they do not like, thinking in that way to keep them from impressionable children. Lordy, they are so clueless. Do they really think schoolchildren go to the library when they want to read a book? I would love to know how many times in the past 12 months those dangerous books have been checked out of a school library. Then I would like to put a message about the books up on TikTok or WhatsApp or Facebook or any of the other social media platforms that I have never even heard of and see how many times the message is read or forwarded or liked or commented on in the first 24 hours.
I am as horrified as anyone by book burning but I am afraid
that ship has sailed.
33 comments:
Sure seems performative to me. Like so much of what happens these days.
For what it's worth, Maus is fantastic and a quick read if you are interested in the holocaust and don't have an aversion to comics.
Is Maus one of the books which these people are complaining about? If so, that would be ironic, given that the Nazis burned books during the Holocaust. Today is the 77th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Russians.
Okay, I found my answer.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/holocaust-novel-maus-banned-in-tennessee-school-district
Mind boggling and sad. The nude "woman" is depicted as a mouse.
This seems worth reading: America is not on the cusp of a civil war.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/27/no-america-is-not-on-the-cusp-of-a-civil-war
Re Maus: I thought it was about banning assigning it to students, which would seem to be a case of making it the case that they don't read it when they otherwise would
Thanks for that link, S. Wallerstein. I can't help but quoting this paragraph:
The good news is that the second problem, the tens-of-millions-of-Americans [true-believers in the Big Lie, ready to take up arms in Civil_War2.0, singing the Horst-Wessel Lied] problem, is not real. It is an artifact of politicized polling design and survey responses, followed by overly credulous interpretations of those results by academics and pundits who are committed to a narrative that half the electorate is evil, ignorant, stupid, deranged and otherwise dangerous.
Does that describe anyone we know?
- The AnonyMouse
To s. wallerstein:
Interesting article but I think the author is going for the low hanging fruit. It is true that thinking that a civil war is approaching or likely to occur is naïve and even simple minded. Yet treating the multiple surveys and data as a "joke" to which academics are not let in is also naïve. It does not really matter whether those that say the election was corrupt, somehow do not really believe it in the inner depths of their minds (if there is any depth). It is obvious that when interacting with these people one may find them pleasant and normal and would have similar opinions on specific neutral non politics related questions. He is ignoring the decades of American history that led to the moment we are in now. One has to at the least start with the Goldwater presidential campaign and the movement that arose from it (some would argue that it started in the 1930s). Since at least then there has come about a dishonest right wing movement with different alliances formed. It should have been obvious in the 80s, that the "crazies" (as they were called then even by Republicans) would ultimately end up getting the upper hand in the alliance. The fact that there are millions and millions of individuals who believe in so many provable false things and vote on those beliefs, is reason for concern not because all of them (or any chunk) will act on their beliefs and destroy everything, but because it creates a more perfect environment for a few terrorists to develop with the real intent in destroying what we normally call democracy. This is analogous to islamic terrorism. The vast majority of Muslims are normal human beings with similar opinions to those of any American in any given non religious/political topic. Yet in certain Muslim nations, numerous polls have shown that there is a relatively high preponderance of illiberal beliefs about the way society should be run. Again most would not dare on becoming a terrorist or behave any related way, but the environment is appropriate for a few to appear that will. These few is more than enough for concern.
Marco Aurelio Denegri,
I agree with much that you say. I linked to the article because I found it thought-provoking.
However, your comment "in the inner depths of their minds (if there is any depth)" strikes me. It's the "we're smart, they're dumb" mindset which one sees reflected over and over again in the so-called "liberal media". It's like Hillary Clinton calling them "deplorables" While Trump supporters are probably less intellectual than Bernie Sanders supporters (like me), there is no evidence that they are dumber or have lower IQ's. It's a prejudice and a bias that "liberals" who claim not to have prejudices and biases and who condemn prejudices and biases commonly have.
To s. wallerstein:
I admit that the quote you refer to was included to poke fun at the article. It was clear to me that this type of attitude was what the author was referring to and criticizing. I would underline strongly what you are sort of suggesting: intelligence and the intellect are two very distinct things. Multiple philosophers and intellectuals have made that point with varying amounts of detail(even Socrates) but I think Richard Hofstadter explains it with more nuance in his great book "anti-intellectualism in American life" from 1962. It is quite easy to imagine highly intelligent individuals whom are quite the opposite of what an intellectual is. I met these type of people when I was studying engineering in undergrad. Whether or not the trump supporter is intelligent, there are some observations about them that are clear. In general they know very little of history, philosophy, literature and other fields which are essential sources of nourishment for the intellectual mind. As a result (again in general) they have a very simplistic worldview of right and wrong (hence the argument for no depth of mind). Just see the types of slogans, posters and other ideas in general that Trump supporters use to praise their side and attack their opponents. I would argue that the age of television and later that of social media has made things worse. Too many performative intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals who have become famous in Youtube and social media have endlessly attacked "the left", academics and intellectuals (exaggerating some problems that do exist) but have criminally ignored the boiling pot of right wing extremism in such a big portion of the population. It is laughable how many of them expressed shock at what has happened in the last 5 years.
Marco Antonio Denegri,
First of all, I don't live in the U.S. and so I don't personally know any Trump supporters. All of my friends in the U.S. are anti-Trump.
However, you claim that "they have a very simplistic worldview of right and wrong".
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has studied both left and right in the U.S. and elsewhere and claims that the right and the left have very different views of right and wrong. They have different core moral principles: those on the right emphasize authority and tradition, for example.
That's my impression too. I don't believe that there is a CORRECT view of right and wrong, although for lots of reasons, many of them purely biographical, my views of right and wrong are leftwing. Someone who was educated in another background will have other views: think of someone educated in a Muslim society.
I'm not a philosopher nor did I major in philosophy, but from the little I know about philosophy I would say that I am not a moral realist.
So while I don't vote for the right and never will, while I support candidates on the left with donations and while when I was younger and fitter, I went on marches and actively participated in leftwing protest groups, I'm not prepared to say that the moral or ethical view of someone on the right are wrong. They're not mine. Just as mine are the product of my genes, my education, the books I've read, the people who I've hung out with, the women I've loved, so too with theirs.
s.w., this is the Clinton quote:
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables."
In the 2016 election Trump got ~46% of the vote. Half of that would be ~23%. Do you doubt that ~23% of the American electorate is overwhelmingly some combination of ignorant, stupid, and evil (with ignorant leading, followed by stupid and evil bringing up the rear)?
If one reads the media accounts, it's obvious that most of the stories were written to mislead the reader and "take Clinton down a peg" since they figured she was going to win anyway. She should have learned a long time before that most of the media was hostile to anything Clinton and been more careful but what she said was merely stating what is obvious to anyone who is familiar with the American electorate.
If that ~23% were evenly distributed across the land they would be mostly irrelevant. Sadly, due to demography and our obsolete and failing Constitution they are too often able to be electorally dispositive. Of course in terms of intellectual heft we can safely lump in with Trump's deplorables those folks on the left who looked at the stakes in 2000 and 2016 and then figured that voting for Nader or Stein was a good idea .
" On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
H. L. Mencken
What the Right figured out long ago was that the dumber and poorer that they were able to make folks (insert relevant LBJ quote), the more likely they would be to vote for them. The Right's current anti-vax strategy carries this to the level of outright human sacrifice.
Prof. Wolff I hope all is well with you.
s. wallerstein:
I would readily agree with you on the point: "I'm not prepared to say that the moral or ethical view of someone on the right are wrong" if we were talking in the 1920s or so. It is my view that what is called the conservative movement in the US is a manufactured, artificial and superficial movement. From its inception, at its core there was pure dishonesty. I am not originally from the US but I am now an American citizen and live in PA and have interacted with Trump supporters numerous times. (my neighbor is a trump supporter). I agree with what aaall is suggesting: the right has infantilized their supporters more so in the last three decades with television and then through social media. Unfortunately the strategies that the clownish American right has used in last decades little by little have been replicated in more countries. The internet makes this replication faster. Personally I have been in awe of many conservative figures and intellectuals that were active before the 50s (from different nations). Despite my fundamental disagreements with these individuals I respect them because they were searching for the truth, whether cultural, religious, economic or political. This conservativeness was not for the masses. The one we have now is market based conservatism, it is meant for the masses.
Marco Antonio Denegri,
I would tend to say that politics in the age of social media infantilizes people, politics on the left and politics on the right. Most people are more grown-up (not everyone) when they're not talking politics or anything else that they learn from social media or television.
You say that you are not originally from the U.S. I live in Chile and the name Denegri has a tragic history in Chilean society. Are you in any way related to Rodrigo Rojas Denegri?
s. wallerstein
I thought I kept a good record of the atrocities committed under Pinochet, but I am ashamed to admit that I did not remember Rodrigo Rojas Denegri (there is a good chance I never learned about him). In all honesty, I do not post anything online and do not have any social media account. I have very negative views about social media and the internet culture in general. You might have guessed that from my two previous posts. I found this blog just some weeks ago after reading the preface of a very old collection of classic philosophical writings. The editor was professor Wolff. I was curious about him since his feelings in the preface perfectly captured mine. I wanted to know if he was still alive. After finding this community, I was motivated slowly to lose my online posting virginity but I was not ready to show my real name. Marco Aurelio Denegri is a Peruvian intellectual who died in 2018. I picked his name because he is not even famous in Peru. Yet he is among the small group of contemporary intellectuals that I most highly respect. With him and others of his age, a certain type of intellectual is slowly disappearing.
Marco Antonio Denegri,
Nice to meet you.
For those who might be interested in the tragic case of Rodrigo Rojas Denegri
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodrigo_Rojas_de_Negri
there's a movie about him, which I guess has not appeared in the U.S. here's the trailer.
very strong stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8hn-sYsvmI
s. wallerstein
Nice to meet you too. I will definitely watch the film. I listen to the music of Victor Jara and when I learned about his demise (many years ago when I was still a teenager) I could not sleep that night. Latin America had many sad episodes.
if you like Chilean music, here's a song by Illapu about Rodrigo Rojas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yPpIvTZBQU
Now I am even more ashamed. I only learned about Jara after finding Illapu and then Inti Illimani. I haven't paid too much attention to the political songs of Illapu. I do know those of Inti Illimani. Thanks again
de nada...
Marco Antonio Denegri,
Do you like rock?
Here's perhaps the most emblematic song from Chilean rock of the 80's, El Baile de los que Sobran, which became the anthem of the 2019 protest movement, performed by Los Prisioneros. As the title indicates, it's about those who are "left out", written by a group of kids who come from that social sector. I find it very powerful
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIBtYNNj4zo
s. wallerstein,
Like everyone else who reads the professor's blog, I'm wringing my hands and hoping that he and his wife are alright. In the meantime, I wondering whether you might consider putting up a list of what you think of as essential groups and songs of Chilean music.--I wouldn't think that the professor would mind.--I hadn't known of Illapu, and am very glad that you've alerted me. Among other things, they do 'Amalia Rosa' which I had only previously heard from Perotá Chingó. Thanks (I hope) in advance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et01-V99vEU&ab_channel=LucasGz
John Rapko,
I second your hoping that Professor Wolff and his wife are okay.
I tend to go step by step, so I'll start with the first essential Chilean musical figure, the greatest of all, I'm fairly sure. Violeta Parra. I would wager that most people have heard her song, Gracias a la Vida (I give thanks to life). Her lyrics are Dylan quality. By the way, her brother, Nicanor Parra, is a great poet and worth reading.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violeta_Parra
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicanor_Parra
So I'd say start with Violeta and Nicanor. I believe that Allan Ginsberg translated some of Nicanor's poetry, so you can more or less see where he was at. Nicanor is contrarian, rebellious, he called himself the "anti-poet". If you want more, I can give you more when you wish, but I'm just not a person who functions with definitive long lists.
s. wallerstein,
I am fairly new to this site, and so I was wondering how often is it that professor Wolff does not post anything for 5 days or more. Having read some of his last posts, it is understandable to get worried about his well-being.
I do not listen to rock frequently and when I do it is entirely for surface pleasure. I know one or two songs from Los Prisioneros. I did not know the one you cited.
I definitely agree that Violeta Parra should be at the top of the list. Her "Rin del Angelito" is enchanting. I would also recommend Victor Jara. Just to name one of his greatest songs I would cite "El Arado".
s. wallerstein, Thanks very much for the directions. I haven't listened much to Chilean music, though I've been listening to a great deal of Argentinian music for the past decade after a Colombian friend alerted me to 'viral' hit by Perotá Chingó, 'Rie Chinito', back in 2012. I've been a big fan of Nicanor Parra for a long time (as was e.g. Roberto Bolaño).
John Rapko,
You teach aesthetics, I believe, so I'd best be forthright with you and I'll give you recommendations in the order of my tastes, not according to who is the "best", whatever that means, although I believe that the experts might agree that Violeta Parra is the best and she's my favorite too.
Next recommendation (and the last for today) is the group I recommended to Marco Aurelio Denegri yesterday, los Prisioneros. They rock and I like rock myself more than folk music. Or to be more honest, I've never liked folk music fans much myself, either in the U.S. or here in Chile. A question of personal affinities.
They began in the 80's during the Pinochet dictatorship. They were clearly opposed to the dictatorship, and while their songs have elements of protest (they're rebels against the system, maybe against any system), they're not identified with any political ideology or with a general ambience of Latin American leftie music, which got to be a bit tiresome at times.
They come from a working class background too and not from the generation that was politically active during the Allende years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Prisioneros
s. wallerstein, Thanks so much again. I think I know what you mean about folk music fans, although I have never mistaken a discourse from a rock music fan for something Oscar Wilde might have said. It seems to me that the greatest sin on the conscience of rock music is not the music per se, but its terrible degradation of dance (compare even the best rock dancing to average ska or South African gqom). I'll give los Prisioneros a serious listen; with rock I'm most attracted to people from the working class or lower middle class, like Eric Burdon or Mark E. Smith.
John Rapko,
Rock dancing is a blessing for people like me who have utterly no ability for dancing, but like to move their bodies to the rhythm of music from time to time. I view it as a participant, not as a spectator.
s. wallerstein,
As so often, there's a lot of wisdom in what you say. I wished you said it a couple of years ago, when I tried to gqom dance and within seconds pulled a muscle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqVTq5uasv8&ab_channel=Snapper
John Rapko,
Thank you for your kind words of praise.
I can't agree with John Rapko's reference to rock's "terrible degradation of dance." There is good rock dancing and less good. S.w.'s "participant, not spectator" is pretty much spot on. And if you define rock to include disco-inflected stuff, even better for dancing (though I, like everyone else, am doubtless reflecting my generational cohort, or more bluntly the date of my birth, here). I'd never claim that a song like "I Will Survive" is esp. great music (though it's not terrible), but it's a really good dance song.
I'll listen to that Los Prisioneros song you linked, s.w., though not tonight as it's late.
As for Prof Wolff, hopefully he's just taking a break from posting.
You say 'fascists', apparently you mean conservatives. I suppose that over the last several years, there have been many opportunities to throw around terms like “fascist“ and “fascism,” and now, there is what is amid the GOP’s nationwide push against teaching about race and sexuality in schools. Book banning is back. Maus. Spiegelman draws his Jewish family and protagonists as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs. The 10-member school board in McMinn County, Tenn., voted unanimously to remove Maus from the county’s eighth grade curriculum, “because of its unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide.” These events might not seem so crucial if they were the only censorship game in town. The removal of Maus seems a case study in a much broader agenda. Fascism and antifascism in our time - critical investigations.
s. wallerstein said...
'First of all, I don't live in the U.S. and so I don't personally know any Trump supporters.'
This gave me pause -- do *I* know any Trump supporters?
'Sadly, due to demography and our obsolete and failing Constitution they are too often able to be electorally dispositive.'
The framers' inadverdent gift -- sharp ideological realignments that cleave along racial and ethnic lines.
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