tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1325202981202311932024-02-08T09:52:56.635-05:00howl at plutoLFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.comBlogger1383125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-16415186834054516912022-11-20T13:32:00.002-05:002022-11-20T13:36:06.867-05:00New link<p>This is a link to my current blog site:</p><p><a href="https://surmisesandsuspicions.wordpress.com">Surmises and Suspicions</a><br /></p>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-78279384805885638852017-05-10T15:05:00.002-04:002017-05-10T15:05:22.262-04:00Placeholder<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is a placeholder post to help ensure that the site remains up. (I don't know if it's necessary but I figure it can't hurt.) </span> LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-22451262786265723952016-07-31T14:57:00.000-04:002018-07-22T18:21:58.164-04:00Note<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As <a href="http://howlatpluto.blogspot.com/2016/06/soft-landing-july-31.html">announced</a> previously, there will be no posting here after today. However, I'll be checking the site periodically so comments may be left after today. Thanks again to all readers and<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>commenter<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s</span> since <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the blog began</span>. </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-71005723735069636262016-07-26T22:00:00.000-04:002016-07-26T22:00:26.187-04:00Worldly objects, the welfare state, and 'authentic' politics<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hannah Arendt <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span></span>n <i>On Revolution</i>, the degeneration of the French Revolution <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">into the Terror <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was predictable as soon as </span></span>the poor<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> entered <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">he political arena as direct actors, i.e., fr<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>m the onset of the Revolution i<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">self.</span></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The plight of the starving </span>provoked compassion<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">;</span> a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span>d -- as George Kateb summarizes <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arendt<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'s</span></span> account<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> --</span> t<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">his "intensely felt compassion"</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">then "transformed itself...into an abstract pity for hum<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span>nity, and pity...in turn transformed itse<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l</span>f into immitigable anger that brooked no opposition and established a despotism that was meant to be radically remedia<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l."[1]</span> </span></span> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In this context Are<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ndt contrasted "necessity,"</span></span> the unmet physical needs of <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>the people<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">',</span> with "freedom," i.e., the ability/opportunity to participate, through speech and deliberation, in "the public realm."<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>In chapter 2 ("The Social Question") of <i>On Revolution</i>, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">she</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">put</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the point <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">this way</span>:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When [the poor] appeared on the scene of politics, necessity appeared with them, and the result was that the power of the old regime became impotent and the new republic was stillborn; freedom had to be surrendered to necessity, to the urgency of the life process itself. When Robespierre declared that "everything which is necessary to maintain life must be common good and only the surplus can be recognized as private property," he...was, again in his own words, finally subjecting revolutionary government to "the most sacred of all laws, the welfare of the people, the most irrefragable of all titles, necessity".... It was necessity, the urgent needs of the people, that unleashed the terror and sent the Revolution to its doom.[<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2</span>]</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Passages like this <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">support the view</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>that Arendt <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">drew a sharp distinction between</span> social and economic matters on one hand and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">p</span>roper<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ly political concerns on the ot<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">her<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">; <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span></span>f a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">p</span>iece is her de<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ni</span>gration of "compassion," which, in its <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">focus on suffering, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"will shun the drawn-out wearisome processes of persuasion, negotiation, and co<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">m</span>promise</span>, which are the processes of law and politics, and lend its voice to the s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">uffering itself, which must claim for s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">wift and direct action,</span></span> that is, for action with the means of violence."[3]</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">However, Steven Klein offers a different reading of Arendt </span></span>in an article published in the November 2014 issue of the <i>American Political Science Review</i>. In "'Fit to Enter the World': Hannah Arendt on Politics, Economics, and the Welfare State<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">" (<i>APSR</i>, v.108 n.4, pp.856-869)<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, Klein argues, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to quote</span> the article's abstract, that</span> </span> </span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[f]or Arendt, the danger is not the invasion of politics by economics, but rather the loss of the worldly, mediating institutions that allow economic matters to appear as objects of public concern. Reconstructing her account of these mediating institutions, [the article] show[s] that Arendt's analysis opens up novel insights into the relationship between democratic action and welfare institutions, drawing attention to how such institutions transform material necessity into shared objects of attachment, judgment, and action.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Klein's argument, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">which proceeds through deta<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>led exegesis, </span></span></span>is <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">quite</span> d<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ense </span>and so rather than trying to summar<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>ze all of it <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">focus on </span>a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">few key points. T</span></span>hough Arendt's position<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>o<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span> the modern welfare state <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>s "equivocal" (p.857), Klein writes, implicit in her work <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is a view of the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">w</span>elfare state as <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">containing </span>"mediating institut<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>ons that transform [material] necessity into the worldly interests a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span>d concerns that are possible, indeed unavoidab<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l</span>e, objects of pol<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">itical activity." (p.858) Thus, according to Klein, "far from stringentl<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y upholding the divide<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> betwee<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n politics and economics<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span>" Arendt<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span>"elucidates sophisticated accounts of both the possible interrelationships between them and the vital importance of economic matters in political life." (p.857) </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The article's title comes from a passage in <i>The Human Condition</i> in which Arendt writes that 'work' <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-- </span>one of that book's central categories<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> --</span> transforms "'the naked greed of desire' and 'the desperate longing of needs' into things that 'are fit to enter the world'" (p.862, quoting <i>The Human Condition</i>), where 'work' "signifies those activities that transform raw materials into lasting tools and objects of the built human world." (p.858) Bare needs, carrying "the urgency of the life process itself" (to quote the passage that opens this post), have to be changed into 'worldly' things to become proper matters for political action, in Arendt's view. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Klein</span> thus emphasizes Arendt's concern with the public face, or 'worldly' aspect, of economic institutions (see esp. pp.861-63)<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">; it is this aspect that '<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">med<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iates' between bare needs (or 'necessity') and the public realm. </span></span></span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For most <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>f Klein's article, the idea of "<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mediating institutions"</span> remain<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s</span> at a high level of a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">bstraction, b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ut his <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">c</span>oncl<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">uding</span></span></span></span></span></span> section gives some</span> contemporary and his<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>orical examples tied to the argument about the welfare state. For instance, a pension can be seen as a 'worldly <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ob<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">je</span>ct' because it not only <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"</span>satisfies material <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">needs of citizens but...a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l</span>so</span></span> provides [them] with a sta<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ble location in the world and</span> a measure of glor<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y or public esteem...." (p.866) <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bismarck<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span></span>s <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">social insurance funds, contrary to his intentions, assumed a 'worldly' char</span></span>acter when they bec<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ame sites of </span>political action, as s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">oc<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ialists demanded "that work</span></span>ers... play an active role in <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">their de<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">m</span>ocratic administration<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span>" (p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span>868)</span> In this way workers could become, in the words of one ac<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>ivist of the era, "'the most knowledgeable inter<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">preters of their <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">own wishes and demands.'" (p.868)</span></span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let's return to the period of the French Revolution. Arendt held that there were, in Klein's words<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span> "some important, albeit limited, mediating and worldly institutional structures" in late 18th-century Europe (p.8<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6</span>1<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">), but</span> these<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> were not enough to prevent the 'unmediated' entry of social needs into the public <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ar</span>ena. She viewed the U.S. Con<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">stitution as a</span> worldly object, a "tangible worldly entity" (p.861, quoting <i>On <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">R</span>evolution,</i> p.157)</span> that </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"open[ed] a non-instrumental space of appearance and judgment," but "the relative a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b</span>sence of such worldly, shared objects in Europe" (p.861) sent the French Revolution, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in the words of the passag</span>e from <i>On Revolution</i> quoted <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">at the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">outset o</span>f this post, "to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">its doom." </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">W</span>hile <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>he notions of 'mediation' and 'worldly objects' may shed light, as Klein suggests, on the modern welfare state and its institutions, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the</span> us<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">efulness of these ideas for interpreting the French <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Revolution seems more doubtful. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Arendt's views <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>n the relation between economics and p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">olitics<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> evidently can be read in more than one way. I take Klein's reading as, among other things, an effort to broaden the s</span></span>e<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nse</span> of what counts as 'authentic politics' in Arendt's sense<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Klein </span>argues that such politics can be found not <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">only in, to use Kateb's words, the "erup<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>ive"</span> </span></span> </span>and "creative" moments of founding a new polity<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4</span>], but also in settings that <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">are </span>less dramatic but no less impor<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tant</span>.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And why <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is 'authentic' politics so <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">significa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nt</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> anywa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y? <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As </span>Kateb explains, Arendt's answer<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> is that humans are most distinctively human and also freest when engaged in it. To "affirm ex<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>stence against...causes for de<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s</span>pair or resignati<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>n" and to "affirm the human statu<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>e<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span>" <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">she </span> see<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">k</span>s "<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">evidence of freedom in activities that <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>traditionally, as well as according to cu<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>rent opinion, are within the range of every <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">human being<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>" (quo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>ing <i>The Human Condition</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">)</span>.[5] <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span> To <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">enga</span>ge in a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">uthe<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ntic politic<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s</span></span></span> is to bring within reach "the sheer exhilaration of action and, relatedly, the exper<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ience of <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b</span>eing free<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">."[6] To broaden the conception of <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">authentic<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">olitics is thus to expand the idea of freedom</span></span></span>. </span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-----</span></span></span></span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u>Notes</u> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. George Kateb, "Political <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A</span>ction: Its Nature and Advantages," in <i>T<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">h</span>e Cambridge Companion to Hannah Arendt</i>, ed. Dana Villa (Cambri<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">d</span>ge U.P., 2000), p.140<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. Hannah Arendt, <i>On Revolution</i> (Viking <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">P</span>ress<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, 1963), pp.54-55 (internal quotation from Robespierre, <i>Oeuvres</i> (1840 edition), vol.3, p.514).</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>On Revol</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>ution</i> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Penguin ed. 1990), pp.86-87.</span></span></span> </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">K</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ateb, "Political Action," pp.134-135.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">5. Ibid., pp.147-148<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6. Ibid., p.145.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-91443344494575314752016-07-16T21:25:00.003-04:002017-04-06T15:35:27.841-04:00Reflections on blogging here<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As my time blogging here <a href="http://howlatpluto.blogspot.com/2016/06/soft-landing-july-31.html">draws to a close</a> (I will have one post [ETA: a rather l<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>ng one] after this and that's it), I thought I'd reflect a bit about how the blog and my feelings about blogging changed over time. I was a relative latecomer to a fast Internet connection, but as best as I can recall I started posting not too long after getting one. For a while, after beginning in May 2008, the idea of posting something and having it read -- at least in theory -- in a matter of hours after that was exciting in itself. I had no clear, precise, worked-out idea of exactly what I wanted to say or exactly why I was blogging, but the ability to throw one's words into the world instantaneously was somewhat intoxicating.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">The intoxication did not last terribly long, as I realized that an astounding number of words were (and are) being thrown into the world daily. I have blogged under my initials rather than full name, but if I'd used my full name I doubt the audience here would have been much bigger. Not having written a book*, not having an academic position, and not having name recognition through other channels, use of my name in itself would not, it seems to me, have made much difference. In recent years I have resisted going on Twitter or Facebook, two things that might have increased the blog's readership a bit. In any case it has remained very small, despite occasional mini-spikes caused by one unusual factor (i.e. being linked by a particular site) or other. But clearly a readership of the sort that, say, Corey Robin and Brad DeLong (to mention two well-known single-proprietor bloggers) have was never in the cards; nothing even remotely approaching that would have been a realistic goal.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Over the years I had occasional interesting conversations here with a few academics specializing in international relations, but unlike Duck of Minerva or some others this blog never</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">became an IR blog in the full-blown sense, and as time went on I found my interests, as far as posting is concerned, drifting in other directions. I</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> also found myself exercising somewhat more self-censorship as time passed. A short, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">inconsequential</span> post that I might have put up without much hesitation in the first years I've increasingly thought twice or thrice about more recently.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The year 2011 saw the largest number of posts, mostly because the Libya intervention generated a lot of discussion of 'the responsibility to protect' and related issues, and it was easy to comment on and/or link to some of those discussions. However, the gap between 2011 and the other high-volume years here is not that big. The amount of posting I did </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">decreased </span></span>quite a bit in 2014 and 2015, a sign of waning enthusiasm on my part, among other things.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">Psychologically, one of the liberating things about stopping posting is that I will no longer have to even pretend to keep a deliberate eye out for interesting articles and tidbits, and I can read books and other things with no thought of how I might turn them into a post. Conversely, I will no longer rush to the keyboard eagerly if something happens by chance to catch my eye. The tradeoff is probably worth taking.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">In the future I could perhaps see blogging again in a different context, but for now I'm looking forward to a protracted period of not being a blogger.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">______ </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial";">*Under certain definitions</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of "book," I did co-author a short one in the mid-1980s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">; however, </span>the details aren't worth going into. </span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-35928873879985276612016-07-11T23:08:00.000-04:002016-07-18T17:13:29.274-04:00Exchange of the day<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There has been a fresh eruption of violence in South Sudan. Asked by The World's Marco Werm<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span>n whether <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the issue <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>s still the con<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">f</span>lict between the president and vice-president, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Dale <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Will<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">man <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-07-11/worlds-youngest-country-couldnt-even-celebrate-its-independence">replied</a> that "</span>It's not clear what this latest round of fighting is about, to be honest," before going on to mention factors such as poverty, low oil prices, and ethnic divisions. He said that the currency has<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> d</span>ropped by 90 percent since December and that about 4 million South Sudanese (out o<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">f</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">oughly</span></span> 9 <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to 11 million total population)</span> are <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>food insecure<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'</span>.</span></span></span> </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-36924587418537389302016-07-09T22:58:00.000-04:002016-07-09T23:02:57.669-04:00Bad week<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Queen Elizabeth once memorably used the phrase <i>annus horribilis</i>. In the U.S., this week has been a <i>septimana horribilis</i>. (A cursory search makes clear that I'm not the first person ever to have had the idea of adapting the phrase in this way.) ETA: <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">W</span>ould like to say something more substantive but not up to it at the moment. </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-37528387941670579612016-07-06T16:19:00.001-04:002016-07-06T21:43:43.287-04:00The shock of the...something or other<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For those who find talk of great art (see previous post) fusty and old-fashioned, here is <a href="http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/11/17/jaden-and-willow-smith-exclusive-joint-interview/?_r=3">a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s</span>tatement</a> from Willow Smith:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"That’s what art is, shocking people. Sometimes shocking yourself."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yeah, down with that. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tally.</span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-30728039419287199762016-07-06T15:11:00.000-04:002016-07-06T15:49:20.684-04:00The sources of art (capital 'A')<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Where does great literature and art come from? [ETA: A more accurate version of the question might be: How is it pr<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>duced o<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r generated?]</span> Herewith <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span> couple of perspectives<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, not <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">original of course (though the labeling may be).</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>he first <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">c<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ould be called Individual Genius Mee<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ts An <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Imperfect W<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>rld. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>he artist converts personal misery into art (consider, e.g., how much mileage Dicken</span></span></span></span>s got out of his relatively short time in the 'blacking' fac<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tory). The misery can be colle<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">c</span>tive rather than str<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ict<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l</span>y personal (e.g., no Napoleonic wars, no <i>Wa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span> and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Peace</span></i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">).</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The second perspective <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">could be called Individual Genius Meets Its <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Predecessors. The artis<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t struggles to carve out her or his own terrain in conversation with, o<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r response to, what others have done. This is about the an<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">xiety of influence, in Harold</span></span> Bloom's well-known phrase.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The t<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">w</span>o perspectives are not mutually exclusive. A given work can <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">resp</span>o<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span>d both to an external even<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span> and to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the</span> in<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fluences</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">of </span>the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">artist's</span> predecessors (or perhaps contempo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>aries). <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Does great art require the prod of misery, frustration, injury,<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> imper<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fection, unhappiness, injustice? <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">W</span>ould there be great art <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in a ut<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">opian soc<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iety? My impression is that some ske<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tchers <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>f utopias (say, the</span></span> ninetee<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nt</span>h-century utopian</span> socialists, or Skin<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span>er</span></span></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>n <i>Wa</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>lden Two</i>) have not been much concerned with this issue. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Where is <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>he</span> Marxist<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> tradition </span>on this? Is the whole notion of gr<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">eat art a decadent bourgeois concoction? Are the question's <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">assumptions </span>irrelevant or meaningless in a comm<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span>nist society where, as Trotsky apparently t<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hought, the average level of <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">human</span></span> creativi<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ty <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">would rise to heights <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">n</span>eve</span></span>r before seen? In the absence of empirical evidence <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>n the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l</span>ast point</span>, I guess we're all <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">f</span>ree to speculate.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-77947145959856541352016-07-03T09:39:00.000-04:002016-07-17T17:07:28.050-04:00Terrorist attack in Dhaka: what does it say about the current government?<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To an interested alb<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e</span>it casual outside observer, politics in Bangladesh has long seemed a highly personalized duel between the leaders of the country's two main parties: Sheik Hasina of the Awami League, the current prime minister<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, and Khaleda Zia of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP). Punctuated by fairly regular charges of election fraud and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nationwide <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/world/asia/the-many-casualties-of-the-battle-of-the-two-ladies-in-bangladesh.html">strikes<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and boycotts</span></a>, this rather dysfunctional politic</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">al setting <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">has <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">not distinguished itself in recent months when faced with the challenge of rising jidahist-m<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ilitant violence, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>ncluding a st<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>ing of fatal attacks on bloggers<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, academics, and others.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The attack on the res<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">taurant in the Gulshan</span> d<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">istrict of Dhaka, for which ISIS claimed</span> r<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">esponsibility and in which 20 people who had been taken hostage<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> were killed, has led to renewed attention <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to</span> what the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">current government has been </span>doing -- or more to the point, not doing -- about the threat and actuality of militant violence. As <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/07/01/terror-attack-in-bangladeshs-capital-should-surprise-no-one/">Ishaan Tharoor notes</a> in a July 2 WaPo piece (see esp. the links toward the end of the article), close observers have criticized Hasina's government for <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">downplaying or denying the extremist threat<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">focusing <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>oo much effort on consolidating its power at the expense of the BNP. Until the government's basic approach changes, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bangladesh, which has been <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">one of the Muslim world's </span>relatively secular, as <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">opposed to theocra<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tic, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">politie</span>s, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">will probably</span></span></span></span></span></span> contin<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span>e to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">be seen by <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ISIS and other extremist</span></span> groups as fertile <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">g</span>round for expansion<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ETA: See also <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/07/08/standoff-in-bangladesh-islamist-violence-july-first-attack/">this</a> by J. Allchin, which goes into detail on the recent history and gives one a sense of the complexities of the political situation in Bangladesh. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-60367813377961579292016-06-30T15:03:00.000-04:002016-06-30T15:03:37.314-04:00Anniversary of the Somme<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tomorrow, July 1, is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/30/the-guardian-view-on-the-somme-centenary-rest-in-peace">the hundredth anniversary</a> of the first day of the battle of the Somme, the costliest (i.e., in terms of casualties) day in the history of the British army.</span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-49407002831347380632016-06-27T17:25:00.002-04:002016-06-27T17:28:23.403-04:00An ill-timed sentiment<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In <a href="http://duckofminerva.com/2016/06/the-true-costs-of-brexit.html">a post</a> at Duck of Minerva, J. Stacey writes:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">...now that the UK is packing up and politically retreating back across the
Channel, the admiration Americans hold for Britain will also falter as
the openness and tolerance of our British cousins will increasingly be
called into question.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span>n <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ill<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">h</span>rased and possibly ill-timed <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">remark, it seems to me. I would have voted R<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">emain, but I don't <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">think "packing up<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"retreating" really capture <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">what's going on here -- at <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b</span>est, it's a partial description. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Moreover, I don't see sentiment about Britain</span> in the U.S. being affec</span></span>ted that much. Americans who were <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span>ngloph<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>les before Brexit will still be <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a</span>nglophiles. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">British h<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">istory and 'high' culture, e.g. literature</span></span></span> (by which I mean to includ<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e</span> the history<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">/</span>c<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span>lture of the<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> U<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">K's constituent parts), are, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to a</span> lar<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">g</span>e <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e</span>xtent, what American anglophi<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">les admire, and</span> I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">wouldn't</span> anticipate that <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">feeling</span> changing drastically, if at all.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-37829896025560201382016-06-24T10:23:00.001-04:002016-06-24T10:24:21.553-04:00Headlines of the day<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Should say something about Brexit but I think it's all being said elsewhere, so I'm not going to bother. Except to say that HRC should nip in the bud Trump's "I love Britain, we're going to be closer under my admin" thing before it becomes one of his standard talking points. </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-20386754759360434492016-06-22T23:47:00.001-04:002016-06-22T23:50:14.115-04:00Quote of the day<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">George Eliot, <i>Middlemarch</i>, ch. LXI:</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"There is no general doctrine which is not capable of eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men."</span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-35363481877911389202016-06-17T07:30:00.000-04:002016-06-20T10:08:22.325-04:00Soft landing: July 31<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This blog has been running for more than eight years -- the first post went up on May 23, 2008 -- and I believe <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the</span> time has arrived to wind<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>it up or, to use a cliché, bring it in for a soft landing. F<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">or one thing</span>, my impulse to blog has weakened and I'm increasingly busy with other things. Second, the readership has shrunk from small to minuscule.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>here may or may not be a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">little</span> more posting in Ju<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ne or July</span> -- I'm not sure. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">T</span>he last day of active operation for Howl at Pluto will be July 31, 2016. I'll leave the site up but I don't plan to post anything after that. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">M<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y thanks to those who have read and commented here over the years, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">as well as </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to those who wrote guest posts<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> -- </span>HC and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Peter T</span>.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ETA: <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A</span>nd I sho<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span>ld <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">acknowledge and than<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">k</span></span> Hank F<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">_</span>M<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">_ as <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the </span>most <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">faithful reader from the blog's <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">very </span>beginning to now, even though he and I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">often disa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">gree on politics and other matters.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-35264865700004234472016-06-14T18:26:00.001-04:002016-06-14T18:26:21.381-04:00Obama on the phrase 'radical Islam' and why he doesn't use it <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Good statement on that: <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/watch-live-obama-statement-on-countering-violent-extremism/">here</a> (latter portion, starting at around 14 minutes in).</span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-31538927841992917702016-06-12T21:20:00.000-04:002016-06-13T09:43:10.215-04:00Fraser, Harris, and the memory holes of contemporary history <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The prose in <a href="http://inthesetimes.com/article/19169/End-of-American-Liberalisms-Age-of-Acquiescence-Paved-Way-for-Sander-and">this piece</a> is sufficiently smooth that one might almost be carried away by its perhaps slightly-too-clever argument that "limousine liberalism" -- to blame for many current woes<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> --</span> is finally meeting its comeuppance. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>ece's message <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>s that the real villain is not li<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">beralism, limo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">usine or otherwise, but the capitalism <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that i</span>t</span> has ser<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">v</span>ed. </span>C</span>onsider this passa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">g</span>e:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brave and audacious as they were, rarely had the rebel movements of
the fabled sixties or those that followed explicitly challenged the
underlying distribution of property and power in American society. And
yet if liberalism had proved compatible enough with liberty, equality,
and democracy, capitalism was another matter.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A case c<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ould be made that some of the sixties movement<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>did</i> challenge </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"the
underlying distribution of property and power in American society</span>." <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s</span>ince Fraser in this piece never bothers to define capitalism, he is free to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">argue</span>, or at least to imply, that the only movements in recent years that have challenged </span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"the
underlying distribution of property and power in American society</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">" have done so under an anti-capitalist banner.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The imp<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">lication is, at best, dubious.<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span>In 197<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">6, Sen. Fred Harris ra</span></span></span></span></span></span>n for the Democratic presidential nomination <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">on the <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">message that what was needed was "a faire<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r distrib<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span>tion of wealth<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and income and power." </span>Harris framed <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that</span> message in terms of <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">left-populi<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sm<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> rather than (explicit) ant<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i-capitalism. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bernie</span> Sanders has framed a similar message against the backdrop of a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> s</span>tated commit<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ment to democratic socialism. But that commitment <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">has been mainly a matter of ideological self-labeling rather than program, since, as Fraser himself notes, Sanders's proposals <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">have <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">been</span> mostly a left<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">-tinged version of the New D</span></span>eal<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, not anyt<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hing notably more radical.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">B<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>w, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>his is <i>not</i> to deny that Sanders is a s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ocialist: within</span> certain wide limits, a socialist is anyone who calls himself or herself that, and <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Sanders, who jo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>ned the Young People's Socialist League as a s<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>udent</span>, has l<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>ng embraced the label. B<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ut <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fraser the historian, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in</span> ignoring</span> Fred Harris <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and his lef<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t-populist presidential campaign -- one that occu<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>red</span></span></span></span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">after the New L<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e</span>ft</span></span></span> had b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">urned itself out and when 'limousine liberals' for their part were <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">somewhat </span>in retreat</span> -- can</span></span> reasonably be faulted for having fallen into<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> one of the memory holes of recent history.</span></span></span></span></span> </span> </span> </span> </span> </span> </span> </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-91131865411135103302016-06-11T16:34:00.001-04:002016-06-11T19:29:09.406-04:00Peasants and patriotism<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It is sometimes useful to distinguish nationalism from patriotism. <i>Nationalism </i>often carries overtones of aggression, exclusivity, and/or xenophobia that <i>patriotism</i> doesn't. A 1971 article by Jacques Godechot embodies the distinction in its title: "Nation, patrie, nationalisme et patriotisme en France au XVIIIe siècle." </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Godechot is cited by Rogers Brubaker in <i>Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany</i> (1992) for the argument that French nationalism, as opposed to patriotism, emerged only in 1792 with the revolutionary wars. Before that, "nationalism existed neither as a 'blind and exclusive preference for all that belongs to the nation' nor as a 'demand in favor of subject nationalities.'" [1] Acc<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ording to Godechot,<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> "</span>it is...absurd to speak of Frenc<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">h <i>nationalism</i> during the first years of the Revolution; <i>patriotism</i> is an entirely different thing." [2] </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">P</span>atriotism was certainly in evidence long before the Revolution. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'ve lately been dipping into Jay S<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mi</span>th's 2011 book on 'the beast of the G<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">é</span>vaudan,' a notorious p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>edatory animal (or animals) that ravaged a remote part of south-central France in the mid-1760s.[3] In <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">t</span>wo separate <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">episodes, two people -- a shepherd boy and a middle-aged woman -- stood up to the beast when it attacked rather than running away, thereby becoming<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> not only local but national heroes. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The king, L<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ouis XV, rewarded them monetar<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ily, and the boy, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">theretofore illite<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>ate, was given an education at state expense and went on to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">a successful military career <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(abbreviated <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">pr<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ematurely</span></span> by <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">his death in 1785).</span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">S<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">m</span>ith writes:</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Their f<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e</span>ats <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[i.e., the feats of the boy and the woman] were folded into</span> a potent cultural initiative evident in m<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">any corners of French public life in the 176<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0</span>s. In the wake of a disheartening war [i.e., the Seven Years' War], many writers -- government propagandists, h<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">istorians, educators, moral<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>sts, journal<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>sts, novelists, and pamphleteers -- worked to</span> </span>boost national m<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">orale and encourage new sentiments of national pride. Their pro<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ject grew out of the hardening conv<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">iction that even "subaltern heroe<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">s," or persons of inferior status, could rise to</span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span>the level of patriotic pa<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">r</span>agon, and it reflected the belief that a French identit<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y based on proud sentiments of honor</span> should inspire "patriotic enthusiasm" througho<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ut the</span> "mass of the nation." [4]</span></span> </span> </span> </span></span></span> </span></span></span></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">----</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u>Notes</u></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">1. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Brubaker, <i>Citizenship and Nationhood</i>, p.8, quoting Godechot, "Nation, patrie..." in <i>Annales historiques de la Révolution fran<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ç</span>aise</i></span> v. 206 (1971).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">2. Godechot<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, "Nat<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ion, pa</span></span>trie...", p.498, as quoted in Brubaker, <i>Citizenship and Nationhood</i>, p.193 n.28<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span> </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">3. Jay M. Smith, <i>Monsters of the </i></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>G<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">é</span>vaudan: The Making of a Beast</i> (2011).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">4. Ibid., p.160 (endnote omitted).</span></span></span></span></span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-87151688145679374632016-05-29T00:38:00.001-04:002016-05-29T13:01:46.817-04:00Noted<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Not posting anything re Memorial Day partly because busy etc. right now, but the comment thread attached to <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/05/david-french-the-obama-hiroshima-drama">this post</a></span> has some interesting contributions, mostly the personal stories about parents' and relatives' WW2 experiences, etc.</span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-39562766860728898592016-05-28T10:55:00.002-04:002016-05-28T11:04:16.720-04:00Spats & corrections<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the unlikely event anyone was following the unpleasant exchange between me and b.s. (initials) at CT: I'm not going to deal in detail with all of b.s.'s misrepresentations about what went on at b.s.'s blog. Suffice to say that b.s. misrepresented both the length and, to some significant extent, the substance of the comments I left there. My comment about the novels (to which b.s. referred) never even appeared. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And although this is semantics, I did not say that b.s. had "banned" me, as b.s. claimed; rather, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in</span> my earlier post here on the matter, I wrote: "</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ordinarily I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">m</span>ight have left this as a comment on <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">[b.s.'s] </span>blog <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">rather than</span> writing a post here, b<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">u</span>t <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">she's made clear that m<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">y</span> comments aren't welcome there."</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">'s what I wrote: I didn't use the word "banned." Whether the accuracy of b.s.'s recollection in this respect</span> reflects on the accu<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ra</span>cy, or lack thereof, of <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b.s.'s</span> recollection in other respects I will leave <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to</span> the reader's judgment. I am goin<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">g</span> to try hard to avoid <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">an</span>y future interaction with b.s.</span></span></span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-14780990529789275282016-05-27T16:30:00.000-04:002016-05-31T20:51:19.556-04:00A policy nightmare<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The nightmare of policy makers is a situation where every option appears bad and there is no good outcome in sight for the foreseeable future, and this seems to describe the situation in Syria. <a href="http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/05/what-was-obamas-syria-strategy">This post</a> by R. Farley on the Obama admin's strategy <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">underscores</span> the point. There are those who have argued that an early U.S. intervention (without ground forces) would have allowed the Free Syrian Army to topple the Assad regime, but (1) this must remain at least somewhat speculative and (2) as Farley points out, the Obama admin had reasons for fearing what might happen in the wake of a rebel victory. J. Stacey, who has made the (necessarily counterfactual) argument about early intervention, also contended that a large UN peacekeeping operation would likely have followed the fall of the Assad regime, but<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, </span>for reasons I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">gave</span> in a brief exchange with Stacey at Duck of Minerva<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span> I'm not persuaded of this.</span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-62159996825665288242016-05-21T15:47:00.002-04:002016-05-21T15:48:44.305-04:00Noted<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since I just linked to this in a Crooked Timber thread, I might as well also link it here, though I've not read it thoroughly yet (it's a review of B. Milanovic's <i>Global Inequality</i>):</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://prospect.org/article/worlds-inequality">here</a>. </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-89907775476077011012016-05-16T22:13:00.001-04:002016-05-16T22:13:37.617-04:00Sykes-Picot anniversary<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A couple of academic-style events mark</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the 100th anniversary of the Sykes-Picot agreement (there are probably more, but these are two I noticed): a symposium tomorrow (May 17) at the Wilson Center (find it <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/events">here</a>; live webcast) and a sympo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">sium that was held this a<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fternoon (May 16) at AEI (<a href="https://www.aei.org/events/the-sykes-picot-agreement-at-100-rethinking-the-map-of-the-modern-middle-east/">here</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">; video apparently available).</span> </span></span> </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-84006110449445771602016-05-15T16:42:00.000-04:002016-07-12T01:07:00.809-04:00A certain magazine in 1846 on slavery<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">W.L. Burn, <i>The Age of Equipoise</i> (Norton pb., 1965), pp.69-70 (endnotes omitted):</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The entrenched humanitarians of an older generation might deplore, as Lord Denman did in 1848, the fact that public opinion on the subject of slavery had suffered "a lamentable and disgraceful change". They might note as evidence of a narrowing of sympathy the remark of the <i>Economist </i>of July 25, 1846, that "the duty of England is to its own subjects, not to the natives of Africa or the slaves of the Brazils" and its yet more forthright assertion on February 26th that the slave trade was "the only practical mode which has yet been discovered by which a communication can be opened and maintained between Africa and the civilized world".</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Context: Parliament abolished the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery everywhere in the Empire in 1833. The issue here, as Burn notes, was the future of the West Africa Squadron, which (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#British_slave_trade">per Wi<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">k</span>i</a>), "[b]</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">etween 1808 and 1860, <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">... </span>seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">--- </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ETA<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">: Off-topic but not perhaps enough</span> for a separate <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">post so I'll stick it here. I <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was at the Boston <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">R</span>eview site just now and on their "most read" list there's a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">pi</span>ece <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">J</span></span>ames Galbraith from 2003 arguing the JFK-had-ordered-a-withdrawal-from-Vietnam thesis. I didn't take the time to read it, just scrolled through, but was interested given the persistent harping</span></span> on this point <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">b</span>y a particular Crooked Timber commenter who doesn't seem to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">be posting there anymore. Call me a snob or something, but a <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">l<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">engthy p<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">i</span>ece by James Galbraith ma<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">kes m<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e take notice</span> a bit more</span> than a pseudony<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mous blo<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">g</span> <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">c</span>ommenter d<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">o</span>es. Not expressing a view on the substance. </span></span></span></span> </span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132520298120231193.post-50090373317556231832016-05-11T22:51:00.000-04:002016-06-03T15:41:08.584-04:00The 1997 E. Asian financial crisis and world trade<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Loomis in a Lawyers Guns & Money post linked to <a href="http://bostonreview.net/world/marshall-steinbaum-branko-milanovic-global-inequality">this piece</a> that in turn linked to <a href="http://cepr.net/blogs/beat-the-press/the-elite-s-comforting-myth-we-had-to-screw-rich-country-workers-to-help-the-world-s-poor">this piece</a> by Dean Baker. I was particularly interested in Baker's point that many poorer countries started running large trade surpluses with most of the developed world after the '97 East Asian financial crisis. Governing <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e</span>lites in the S.E. Asian countries after the crisis felt they needed to build up large foreign exchange reserves (and were also, in effect, told to by the IMF); hence, the need to <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">increase</span> their <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">exports as much as possible to the rich countries</span>. The U.S., unlike Europe and Japan, was running a trade deficit with <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">these</span> countries before the '97 crisis, but the U.S. trade <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">imbalance</span> with them got larger after that, peaking in 2005. <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One </span>result was increased loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs. Anyway, you can read the links for the details of the argument.</span>LFChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13551197682770555147noreply@blogger.com0