KARL MARX, LOUIS NAPOLEON, AND ME

For those of us who find, in the writings of Karl Marx, an endless source of inspiration and enlightenment, The 18^th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, despite its now somewhat antiquarian interest, holds a special place in our hearts. It is hard, after all, to resist a book that begins, “Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” Marx, who was thirty-three when the great Napoleon’s grandson, Louis Napoleon, seized control of France and proclaimed himself Napoleon III, wrote with all the bitterness of a disappointed lover, for the failure of the uprising of 1848 put paid to his hopes for an imminent proletarian revolution.

If the truth be told, I have never given a great deal of thought to that mid-nineteenth century upheaval, beyond what I could gather from Marx’s densely written analysis of the events, but I did take away from the text the general sense that Louis Napoleon was an egregious clown. Was this a fair and balanced assessment of the man? Frankly, it never seemed to matter very much to me. I was content to leave it to French revisionist historians to produce reassessments of the man and his regime.

Well, the day before yesterday, Susie went to a lecture at a pricey assisted living community that is part of the larger Chapel Hill development in which we live, and came home with the name of a book about the rebuilding of Paris. Since we have a small apartment in the 5^th arrondisement, and love Paris more than anywhere else either of us has ever lived, we both thought it would be fun to read it. Amazon.com very quickly told me that the book is out of print, with second hand copies selling for $70 and up, so off I went to the UNC Chapel Hill library to get one of their copies. [North Carolina has the rather charming rule that any certifiable resident can, for $25, get a card and use all of the services of the university library. Classy.]

I started yesterday evening to read David H. Pinkney’s 1958 monograph, Napoleon III and the Rebuilding of Paris. To my chagrin, I discovered that the man I had for so long dismissed as the farcical second coming of the tragic Napoleon Bonaparte was in fact the author of the vast transformation of Paris that made it the magical city it is today. With Georges Haussmann [later Baron Haussmann], Napoleon III conceived and implemented the creation of the boulevards, parks, places, streets, and bois that I delight in each time I return to Paris.

I do not for a moment doubt that Marx’s estimation of the man as the protector of bourgeois France is spot on. But I am afraid that I shall never again be able to dismiss Louis Napoleon as merely a buffoon. If that be apostasy, make the most of it!

SARAH PALIN, ONE LAST TIME

Everything that can be said about Sarah Palin has been said. To be sure, as with Sleepless in Seattle or Casablanca, Palin afficianados can replay the best bits endlessly, mouthing her awful dialogue like lip-synching pop fans. But there is something important to be said about the commentary on, and reaction to, the Palin debacle -- something that has been gotten totally wrong by almost all of the commentators.

The standard line on Palin is that she represents, and hence speaks to and for, working-class Americans, non-elite Americans, high school graduate Americans, Americans who do not inhabit the coasts or go to toney private schools. And this, I cannot suggest too strongly, is a blood libel on those very men and women.

The truth, as everyone knows, even though many think they are not allowed to say, is that Sarah Palin is an ignorant and stupid woman. I know, I know, commentators right, center, and left keep saying that although she is not "ready" for national office, nevertheless she is a bright and talented person. Now, I spent fifty years -- a half century -- as a university teacher. I got very good indeed at evaluating the written and spoken productions of the thousands of students who passed through my classes. I can tell ignorance when I see it, and I can tell stupidity when I see it. I can spot confusion of thought a mile away. I can tell the difference between a prepared and vetted [or, as we say in the Academy, plagiarized] piece of writing and a piece of writing that is the genuine product of the student himself or herself. Sarah Palin is just plain dumb. To say that she has foreign policy experience because you can see Russia from Alaska is not just asinine [and, for the most part false, of course]. It is dumb. Not to be able to say which newspapers you read is not just a sign of stage fright or hostility to the elite media. It is plain stupid.

The fact that Sarah Palin is ignorant and stupid is not important [nor does it disqualify her for higher office, as the history of the United States demonstrates.] But it IS important to say, loudly and clearly, that intelligence and political understanding are as widespread among working class men and women as among men and women who have middle class jobs. Shirts as well as suits can put ideas together, spot hypocrisy, identify and articulate their interests, and form intelligent judgments about public affairs. Those with college educations are frequently smoother and more stylish in the expression of their opinions, but they are NOT by and large more intelligant in the formation of those opinions. What evidence have I for this assertion? Consider: working class Americans are more likely to vote for the Democratic than for the Republican party, and that tendency is not only an objectively accurate reflection of their real interests; it is also a simple but reliable sign of their superior intelligence.

There was a time, now for the most part gone, when socialist organizers arranged and taught sophisticated classes about economics and politics to working men and women who, despite putting in long and hard hours in factories and on farms, nevertheless spent their evenings studying. To be sure, what they learned was somewhat different from what was being taught in college classrooms, but it was deeper, closer to the truth, and just as intellectually demanding. That is how my grandfather learned what he knew about Karl Marx and socialism, and it is what people like my good friend, Enver Motala, were doing in South African townships only twenty years ago.

The appalling condescension of the media commentators who repeat this libel is evidence both of their ignorance and of their thoughtlessness. One must never forget that all of them, left, right, and center, spend their lives in upper middle class comfort, surrounded by people who echo the comforting falsehood that their wealth and education make them wiser than the unwashed multitudes to whom they deign to offer their opinions.

A LA RECHERCHE DU TEMPS PERDU

Much of my recent trip to Amherst was spent with old friends -- Milton Cantor and Margaret Taylor, Steve Arons, Esther Terry, Mike Thelwell, Bill Strickland, and many more -- as well as a new friend, Ann Davis, who was my student at Columbia forty-one years ago. It was of course wonderful to see these friends, whom I have known for more than two decades. But even more important to me than the affection I feel for them was the reminder they provided of a style of discourse that has all but disappeared from the public world in America today.

I spend endless hours watching television news stations and surfing the web, reading what is written by commentators and bloggers left, right, and center. The overwhelming impression this leaves on me is of an almost universal vulgarisation of the public discourse. Over the past three decades and more, the tone and content of what is said in the public arena has grown progressively more superficial, more ignorant, and meaner spirited. This is especially true on the right, but it extends across all of that narrow band of the political spectrum that makes an appearance in our public life.

The level of sheer ignorance, whether wilfull or unintentional. is staggering -- ignorance of the simplest facts of American social and economic life, ignorance of history, ignorance of literature and the arts, ignorance of elementary science, ignorance of other nations and cultures. Good-looking men and women with perfect hair and teeth and seemingly air-brushed complexions ask stupid questions with an air of self-confidence and self-satisfaction that takes my breath away. When politicians and others say patently ignorant and stupid things, they are almost never challemged or called to account by the interviewers whose smiling, nodding responses suggest that the politicians are making perfectly good sense. On the rare occasions when Barney Frank, for example, appears and speaks simple good sense, he is treated as a comic curmudgeon.

More distressing even than the ignorance is the acceptance of mean-spirited greed-soaked selfishness, which is taken as the moral norm for a person in public life. What matters is not so much whether these vile expressions are counterpoised against others, but that such ugly utterances are considered acceptable in public speech. There have always been callously selfish and unfeeling bigots, heaven knows. But only recently have the likes of Pat Buchanan been considered appropriate commentators on an ostensibly liberal network like MSNBC.

Spending time with my old friends in Amherst reminded me what conversation used to be like when I was young. I do not think this is simply the familiar nostalgia of the old when confronted with the inevitable passage of time. Too may people to whom I have voiced this distress have agreed with me that a real change for the worse has taken place in America's public life. If I may tie it to old movies [always a reliable barometer of the collective mind], compare the negative presentation of the self-interested fat cats played by Edward Arnold in the old films with the glow of attracvtion surrounding Gordon Gecko, played by Michael Douglas in Wall Street.

What to do, other than fulminate? Well, each of us can do no more than light a candle, while still cursing the darkness that remains beyond its flickering light. Over the next two years, I shall strike a very small blow for a more informed understanding of society and the human psyche by teaching a sequence of courses in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, a learning in retirement program at Duke University where I volunteer my time. This coming Fall, I shall teach a course on The Thought of Karl Marx. That will be followed, in each of three subsequent semesters, by courses on the thought of Sigmund Freud, Max Weber, and Karl Mannheim. Perhaps in a small way I can convey the breadth and depth of the insights that earlier generations of social, economic, and psyhcological theorists brought to our understanding of the human condition.

Don't expect any dramatic changes in the world!

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

All right, let me see if I have this straight. Senator John Ensign's staffer and her husband have their house broken into by thieves. The house is so messed up that they and their children move in with the Ensigns, who live in a neighborhood nearby. While they are all living together with the Ensigns and their children, Ensign starts shtupping the staffer. This causes some difficulties, which lead to the staffer severing her connection with the Senator's staff. Senator Tom Coburn, who is both a doctor and a lay minister, counsels Senator Ensign, and then, when questioned, says that as both a doctor and a minister he claims the privilege of keeping what he and Senator Ensign talked about private, except that Senator Coburn's office puts out a press release full of details about which the Senator has claimed privilege. Meanwhile, Senator Ensign's rich father and mother make eight gifts of $12,000 each to the staffer, her husband, and the two children, for a total of $96,000 totally free of all tax consequences [anyone can give anyone $12,000 a year or less with no tax consequences], ostensibly to tide them over the difficult time they are having.



Meanwhile, Senator Larry Craig is emplying a wide stance in the pubic bathrooms in an airport, Senator David Vitter is frequenting a DC madam, Governor Mark Sanford is explaining that though he crossed the sexual line with his Brazilian bombshell, he did not cross the sexual line with a number of other women, though he did cross a line nevertheless. And Governor Sarah Palin ups and quits her governorship, in order to show that she is no quitter, and then, having decided that her first attempt at explanation left something to be desired, gives a series of hastily arranged interviews with representatives of the hated Mainstream Media, wearing waders even though she gives no evidence of being actually engaged in fishing.

When I was young, the Republican Party was the party of grownups. Dull, unimaginative, out of touch with whatever happened to be the popular culture of the day, but manifestly grownups. What is going on? The Democratic Party is now the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as sober and serious a pair of grownups as you could find.

What happened?

SARAH PALIN, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND STUFF

I have returned from a four day weekend trip back to Amherst, MA, which Susie and I left almost exactly one year ago. When we arrived at our motel, I turned on the tv and stumbled on the live feed of Sarah Palin's resignation speech. For the next seventy two hours, when we weren't seeing friends or attending a splendid early music concert in Great Barrington, I was glued to the coverage, both on television and on the web. There are two questions that need answering: Why did she resign?, and Why did she choose to resign in such a hurried, incoherent, bizarre fashion? I don't know the answer to either question, of course, but the only speculation that makes any sense is that something really bad is about to surface that she had to get out in front of immediately. If three or four days pass and nothing surfaces, then we will all be left to meditate on one of the truly strange episodes of recent American politics.

HOWEVER: While we were yet again enjoying a full helping of schadenfreude, something genuinely important happened. Obama and Medvedev [which is to say Putin] agreed to reduce their holdings of nuclear weapons by twenty-five percent. If this agreement is carried out, it will be the most important thing Obama has done with his presidency thus far.

Nuclear arms reduction has been one of Obama's central concerns since he arrived in the Senate, of course, so it is not surprising that he should have pursued this issue in his 'summit' with Medvedev. But it is welcome news, nonetheless. I have been deeply concerned for fifty years about the dangers of accidental nuclear war, and more recently about the promiscuous spread of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was my introduction to politics. So, while we all enjoy the further disintegration of the Republican Party, let us pause to offer up a silent prayer of thanksgiving for this significant step toward the control of nuclear weapons.

A TINY BIT OF GOOD NEWS

Well, I, and apparently lots of others, called, emailed, or wrote Senator Kay Hagen [D. North Carolina] and told her that we expected her to reverse her stand and SUPPORT a public option in the health care reform effort. Now she says she never was opposed to it, and will in fact support the current Senate version. OK. I am a firm believer in allowing a politician to cover her ass when she has been pressured by her constituents into changing her position. Let's keep the pressure on all the waverers. This is crunch time, and clearly outside pressure is the key to getting a decent bill.

MOVIE REVIEW -- JANE AUSTEN DIVISION

I was channel surfing last night, and on Turner Classic Movies I came upon the 1940 version of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, with Edmund Gwenn as Mr. Bennett and Edna May Oliver as the egregious Lady Catherine de Burgh. I have recently become especially enamored of the 2005 version starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett. with Donald Sutherland as her father and Judi Dench as Lady Catherine. But Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier are among the greatest screen actors ever, so I watched a good deal of the film to compare. To my surprise, I found myself vastly preferring the Keira Knightley version.
Now, part of this is attributable to the fact that Donald Sutherland and Judi Dench are two of my favorite character actors, and each does a rather small part proud. And of course Knightley is luminous on screen, with an intensity that speaks depths of banked erotic emotion that Garson cannot match. But after a while, I realized that my preference really derived from a quite different source.
The 1940's film [on which none other than Aldous Huxley worked as a writer!] is a classic Hollywood period piece. All of the Bennett girls are beautifully turned out in hoop skirts and such, and their home is an elegant estate right off an MGM back lot. But just for this reason, the visual effect of the movie is to completely obscure the enormous class gulf between the Bennetts, who inhabit the lower reaches of the English squierearchy, and Mr. Darcy, who is the master of one of the great Stately Homes of England. This in turn makes his attitude toward the Bennetts incomprehensible, thereby completely undermining the fact that Austen, of all authors imagineable, would have been keenly attuned to every nuance of social distinction and class prejudice.
In the 2005 film, the Bennett household is represented in a way that communicates everything Austen would have relied on her audience to understand. The servants are not liveried, there is only one rather modest horse and carriage, pigs wander in and out of the house, farm workers are constantly in evidence, and there are no beautifully maintained English gardens in the background of the outdoor camera shots. Darcy's estate, by contrast, has vast acres of lawns, fountains, and formal gardens, and the interior even sports a huge sculpture gallery filled with Roman nudes in glistening marble and a carved stone likeness of Darcy himself. The sets and cinematography of the film capture brilliantly Austen's complex understanding of the social structure of early nineteenth century upper class England.
Still Laurence Olivier is Laurence Olivier, and any young Elizabeth Bennett would clearly be lucky to bag him.