Serious disappointments abound, but there are some bright spots.
1. The predisposition to weep in public over perceived ideological flummery, notably Boehner and Beck. Like Bill Holden in Network, it is a sign of incipient derangement. We need more of this.
2. The farrago of lies and half-truths pouring out of Afghanistan met by Wikileaks. An exciting and unfolding intersection. If the electorate cared, or felt empowered enough to judge . . .
3. The swimming pool at the J.
4. The massive and permanent indebtedness to Industrial China, ensuring cheap, quality goods for decades to come, and cleaner air and water here at home.
5. My book getting out, without entirely crushing me and my family.
6. The LRB.
7. The huge dent in my car compelling me to stop worrying about when I will fix the antenna.
8. New snow saucer ready to go.
9. Colleagues and friends making life bearable.
10. Z and P . . .
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Major Hassan and Fort Hood
He went mad after being made into a Muslim but he was a Major and psyche counsellor who happened to be of mideast descent. He did not want to go to kill other Muslims like he was constantly told about by traumatized soldiers
Friday, August 7, 2009
Nazi Techniques: Disruption, the Big Lie
The recent attacks on "town hall meetings" by partisans against health care provision reform has as their aim to disrupt and prevent discussion. The basic techniques are those pioneered by the S.A., the Storm Troopers in the early National Socialist movement in 1920s and 1930s Germany.
According to Gordon Craig, Martin Brozat, and other historians, the signal technique of S.A. mobs was to prevent free speech. Shouting down people you disagree with is not, in any fashion, free speech: it is the suppression of free speech. Now, how can the opponents of the free exchange of ideas claim to be exercising their rights to speech? Again, we have to look to the Nazis for the answer: the Big Lie.
Adolph Hitler said that most people can spot a white lie, a fib, a small lie that stays close to the truth. This is because they themselves have told such lies, and understand their function. Hitler's insight was that a huge lie, the exact opposite of an obvious truth, works precisely because most people have no familiarity with such a thing, and cannot imagine that it does not contain some truth. Hence putting a Hitler mustache on Obama, or calling him Hitler, or saying "Obama is the racist, Judge Sotomayor is the racist," or calling Nancy Pelosi a Nazi, or claiming that the Obama campaign insignia resembles the Third Reich's emblem, and that this is somehow significant . . . or, a Rush Limbaugh does, disavowing the larger significance (i.e. "of course" this is not deliberate), but nonetheless saying, "Hey, maybe there is something there . . ." This is again because the Big Lie is so capacious, in its reversal of truth valence, that it has room for affiliation even from people who doubt part of it; in other words, people who mistake it for an ordinary lie, one that stays relatively close to the truth.
So to return to the S.A.'s techniques: let the disruptive meeting-goers tell themselves they are exercising their right to speak freely, as they are told to disrupt and undermine meetings, and some of them will believe it, or believe part of it; they cannot conceive that the reality is the precise opposite: they are the opponents of free speech. It becomes important to call the Democratic leadership Nazis, because this helps immunize yourself against the realization that in fact you are behaving like a Nazi, you are engaged in mob rule, intimidation, and anti-political tactics. Rush can contort himself into claiming that President Obama is a Nazi precisely because President Obama is nothing like a Nazi: that fact alone can then be called up as if it were a camouflage, a clever mask, and the accusation is presented as if it were a revelation. Once the animosity and hatred is tapped, people can believe anything -- or at least, believe part of anything; they can excuse themselves and engage in the worst sort of behavior imaginable.
Now there is a lot of talk about Saul Alinsky and "Radicals' techniques" for getting their voices heard. For the record I believe that whether the Left or the Right does it, acting to stop dialogue, to prevent speech, to disrupt people at the podium and upset them, -- this is not something to be associated with. Anyone today can get a megaphone, literally or figuratively. There is no excuse for stopping speech, if only because free speech is a protected right in our own Bill of Rights. I remember when Lefties shouted down Gen. William Westmoreland at Wesleyan University: that was terrible, humiliating. Lefties need to remember how easy it is for the state to suppress speech in public venues before they pretend they are so righteous that the rules don't apply to them.
That said, when corporations fund gatherings of people to oppose the "socialist agenda" of the government, and claim to be adopting the modalities of an organizer interested in techniques for have-nots to get their voices heard, we are again in the territory of the Big Lie. When at meetings scheduled for transparently PR-related purposes, the disenfranchised speak up, or shout to get attention, they are not suppressing free speech, they are attempting to open the forum to new points of view. This is absolutely not the same thing as corporate-funded lobbying groups organizing people to shout down q-and-a sessions with Representatives. The Right always uses the "techniques" of the Left, but the purposes they put them to are very different. Let's not be fooled. The aim here is: More money in the pockets of the haves, fewer benefits and safeguards for the have-nots.
I am afraid we have not seen the worst of it. We know in this country that the Right falls back on mob rule, on lynchings, as Rep. Todd Akin remarked a few days ago. Lynchings are not a joke. They happened at the hands of enraged white men in the lifetime of many people, and they may happen again.
According to Gordon Craig, Martin Brozat, and other historians, the signal technique of S.A. mobs was to prevent free speech. Shouting down people you disagree with is not, in any fashion, free speech: it is the suppression of free speech. Now, how can the opponents of the free exchange of ideas claim to be exercising their rights to speech? Again, we have to look to the Nazis for the answer: the Big Lie.
Adolph Hitler said that most people can spot a white lie, a fib, a small lie that stays close to the truth. This is because they themselves have told such lies, and understand their function. Hitler's insight was that a huge lie, the exact opposite of an obvious truth, works precisely because most people have no familiarity with such a thing, and cannot imagine that it does not contain some truth. Hence putting a Hitler mustache on Obama, or calling him Hitler, or saying "Obama is the racist, Judge Sotomayor is the racist," or calling Nancy Pelosi a Nazi, or claiming that the Obama campaign insignia resembles the Third Reich's emblem, and that this is somehow significant . . . or, a Rush Limbaugh does, disavowing the larger significance (i.e. "of course" this is not deliberate), but nonetheless saying, "Hey, maybe there is something there . . ." This is again because the Big Lie is so capacious, in its reversal of truth valence, that it has room for affiliation even from people who doubt part of it; in other words, people who mistake it for an ordinary lie, one that stays relatively close to the truth.
So to return to the S.A.'s techniques: let the disruptive meeting-goers tell themselves they are exercising their right to speak freely, as they are told to disrupt and undermine meetings, and some of them will believe it, or believe part of it; they cannot conceive that the reality is the precise opposite: they are the opponents of free speech. It becomes important to call the Democratic leadership Nazis, because this helps immunize yourself against the realization that in fact you are behaving like a Nazi, you are engaged in mob rule, intimidation, and anti-political tactics. Rush can contort himself into claiming that President Obama is a Nazi precisely because President Obama is nothing like a Nazi: that fact alone can then be called up as if it were a camouflage, a clever mask, and the accusation is presented as if it were a revelation. Once the animosity and hatred is tapped, people can believe anything -- or at least, believe part of anything; they can excuse themselves and engage in the worst sort of behavior imaginable.
Now there is a lot of talk about Saul Alinsky and "Radicals' techniques" for getting their voices heard. For the record I believe that whether the Left or the Right does it, acting to stop dialogue, to prevent speech, to disrupt people at the podium and upset them, -- this is not something to be associated with. Anyone today can get a megaphone, literally or figuratively. There is no excuse for stopping speech, if only because free speech is a protected right in our own Bill of Rights. I remember when Lefties shouted down Gen. William Westmoreland at Wesleyan University: that was terrible, humiliating. Lefties need to remember how easy it is for the state to suppress speech in public venues before they pretend they are so righteous that the rules don't apply to them.
That said, when corporations fund gatherings of people to oppose the "socialist agenda" of the government, and claim to be adopting the modalities of an organizer interested in techniques for have-nots to get their voices heard, we are again in the territory of the Big Lie. When at meetings scheduled for transparently PR-related purposes, the disenfranchised speak up, or shout to get attention, they are not suppressing free speech, they are attempting to open the forum to new points of view. This is absolutely not the same thing as corporate-funded lobbying groups organizing people to shout down q-and-a sessions with Representatives. The Right always uses the "techniques" of the Left, but the purposes they put them to are very different. Let's not be fooled. The aim here is: More money in the pockets of the haves, fewer benefits and safeguards for the have-nots.
I am afraid we have not seen the worst of it. We know in this country that the Right falls back on mob rule, on lynchings, as Rep. Todd Akin remarked a few days ago. Lynchings are not a joke. They happened at the hands of enraged white men in the lifetime of many people, and they may happen again.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Professor Gates and Officer Crowley and President Obama
No need to rehearse what "actually" happened, as I was not there. And, to be sure, very few academics who deal with African American studies will want to comment on this in a signed post. I don't know Prof. Gates personally, but I sure know people he knows, and he may very well know (at least) my name. (It's Paul S. Landau.) But I can't resist. So here goes. After all, if President Obama is calling for a conversation, let's not shirk our duties. So I will make a few points -- five in all -- that I think may well escape the mainstream media.
Some preliminaries. All police officers "profile." They profile for race, class, gender, and age. And less tangible traits. Anyone who thinks otherwise is dreaming. I'm not supporting it. That is just the way it is.
Moreover -- and this is a separate point -- all witnesses tell police the race of the people they are reporting if they think they can judge it and they think they are seeing a crime. Just as they would any other "distinguishing features." In my own experience, cops ask this question themselves if it is left unsaid. What victim of a real crime, of any background, could seriously suggest leaving out the race of a suspect in talking to the police, if there is any doubt about it (i.e. we are not in Wasilla)?
Now to my five points.
1. Any male who was young once knows that the police can turn on you even if you call 911 for them. Being white and middle class means being able to "grow out" of this position. If the police are called, and you are an eighteen year old in jeans, and you are not ultra courteous, watch out. I was raised on the upper west side of Manhattan, on 96th street. When the cops came, one kept your head down. On the way to growing up, I was mugged or held up at knifepoint fifteen times by my count. The few times I called the cops, they were likely to tell me to "shut up" while they "did their jobs." If you interrupted them you risked becoming the object of their wrath. Telling a cop off? Saying "Your mama"? Forget about it. You're buying a ticket to the station house.
Now, today, I am 46 years old, so I am a white middle class man, not a white kid. And if I am wearing a suit and tie, and upset about something, and talking to a cop -- this has happened two or three times in my life -- nowadays, the cop is likely to be indulgent and calm. But I still recall the other tone of voice, which meant, if you do not calm down, I can haul your assoff in a heartbeat. Once an officer said as much, to me, as I was relating why the police needed to intervene in an ongoing child abuse situation next door to me in Brooklyn. "YOU calm down." I am sure others have similar memories.
So here is my first point. Being black in America, as far as policemen are concerned, means never being able to graduate to that status that white people all assume. Professor Gates is a black man in America and was treated like a black man in America, not like a 58 year old white man, and not (for sure) like a Harvard professor.
2. Now let's do a thought experiment. Let's pretend Officer Crowley had asked Professor Gates to come out of his house, and Gates had refused, and Officer Crowley, observing Professor Gates' bags, his demeanor, his apparent familiarity with the house, his attitude, his explanation that he had been pushing at his door, -- had divined that this was indeed the professor's home, and simply left. He might have reasoned: "Well, this is his home. It's that simple."
Now suppose that the two black men reported to have been pushing into the home had in fact been robbers who had just happened to arrive before Professor Gates got back from the airport. Suppose they had jammed the door. Suppose they were inside the house, upstairs, caught unawares by the arrival of Gates and Crowley at the front door.
Suppose after Crowley left, they had jumped Professor Gates and killed him.
What would Officer Crowley been able to say in his defense?
Proper protocol in similar cases is for the officer to inspect the house to make sure no one had broken in.
Would Officer Crowley have been able to say, "Professor Gates is black, and the reported intruders were black, so it was natural to assume they were the same people"? No. Would he have been able to say, "Professor Gates is an important man, and made a lot of noise, so I thought it best to leave"? No.
4. Suppose Professor Gates were white, and had (against probability) been reported by a witness as a possible b&e at a residence. Suppose he had lost his temper and refused to obey the cop. Suppose he had mentioned the cop's mother.
Should the officer smile and put away his cuffs, stroll back to his squad car, and say, "Well, he's white, so he's probably okay?"
5. Finally the human dimension must be considered here. Professor Gates is a man of whom much is expected, on a daily and even hourly basis. He lives in that peculiar high-pressure world reserved for very prominent academics of color. His every move is scrutinized. He was just returning from a work-related journey in a foreign country. He was tired. Professor Gates was not surrounded by aids or family, but was traveling alone. He had no helper save his cab driver. Now for the first time in a long while he was inside his home, his castle, protected by the sanctity of privacy.
Let's go a bit further. Note that Professor Gates has had hip replacement surgery, and walks with a cane. He had just spend twelve or fourteen hours on an airplane -- coming back from China -- and had then waited for his baggage. He may well have been insomniac and uncomfortable on the plane. He may even have been in physical pain. Hell, I have been in pain after a similar a flight from Africa.
Please imagine being him for a moment. Imagine coming up to your door and finding you could not get the key to work, the frame had swollen, the thing would not open. You can't get in. You ache. Finally, you get inside your house.
Now imagine that a police officer comes to your door and demands you step outside, acting like you are an intruder in your own home.
Imagine that he does not accept your Harvard ID, that he demands you speak to him respectfully, that he demands further identification, that he takes out a pair of handcuffs. He's not treating you like a middle aged white man, he's treating you like a youth; he's not treating you like a black Harvard professor, he's treating you like . . .
like a black man is in fact so often treated in America.
Some preliminaries. All police officers "profile." They profile for race, class, gender, and age. And less tangible traits. Anyone who thinks otherwise is dreaming. I'm not supporting it. That is just the way it is.
Moreover -- and this is a separate point -- all witnesses tell police the race of the people they are reporting if they think they can judge it and they think they are seeing a crime. Just as they would any other "distinguishing features." In my own experience, cops ask this question themselves if it is left unsaid. What victim of a real crime, of any background, could seriously suggest leaving out the race of a suspect in talking to the police, if there is any doubt about it (i.e. we are not in Wasilla)?
Now to my five points.
1. Any male who was young once knows that the police can turn on you even if you call 911 for them. Being white and middle class means being able to "grow out" of this position. If the police are called, and you are an eighteen year old in jeans, and you are not ultra courteous, watch out. I was raised on the upper west side of Manhattan, on 96th street. When the cops came, one kept your head down. On the way to growing up, I was mugged or held up at knifepoint fifteen times by my count. The few times I called the cops, they were likely to tell me to "shut up" while they "did their jobs." If you interrupted them you risked becoming the object of their wrath. Telling a cop off? Saying "Your mama"? Forget about it. You're buying a ticket to the station house.
Now, today, I am 46 years old, so I am a white middle class man, not a white kid. And if I am wearing a suit and tie, and upset about something, and talking to a cop -- this has happened two or three times in my life -- nowadays, the cop is likely to be indulgent and calm. But I still recall the other tone of voice, which meant, if you do not calm down, I can haul your assoff in a heartbeat. Once an officer said as much, to me, as I was relating why the police needed to intervene in an ongoing child abuse situation next door to me in Brooklyn. "YOU calm down." I am sure others have similar memories.
So here is my first point. Being black in America, as far as policemen are concerned, means never being able to graduate to that status that white people all assume. Professor Gates is a black man in America and was treated like a black man in America, not like a 58 year old white man, and not (for sure) like a Harvard professor.
2. Now let's do a thought experiment. Let's pretend Officer Crowley had asked Professor Gates to come out of his house, and Gates had refused, and Officer Crowley, observing Professor Gates' bags, his demeanor, his apparent familiarity with the house, his attitude, his explanation that he had been pushing at his door, -- had divined that this was indeed the professor's home, and simply left. He might have reasoned: "Well, this is his home. It's that simple."
Now suppose that the two black men reported to have been pushing into the home had in fact been robbers who had just happened to arrive before Professor Gates got back from the airport. Suppose they had jammed the door. Suppose they were inside the house, upstairs, caught unawares by the arrival of Gates and Crowley at the front door.
Suppose after Crowley left, they had jumped Professor Gates and killed him.
What would Officer Crowley been able to say in his defense?
Proper protocol in similar cases is for the officer to inspect the house to make sure no one had broken in.
Would Officer Crowley have been able to say, "Professor Gates is black, and the reported intruders were black, so it was natural to assume they were the same people"? No. Would he have been able to say, "Professor Gates is an important man, and made a lot of noise, so I thought it best to leave"? No.
4. Suppose Professor Gates were white, and had (against probability) been reported by a witness as a possible b&e at a residence. Suppose he had lost his temper and refused to obey the cop. Suppose he had mentioned the cop's mother.
Should the officer smile and put away his cuffs, stroll back to his squad car, and say, "Well, he's white, so he's probably okay?"
5. Finally the human dimension must be considered here. Professor Gates is a man of whom much is expected, on a daily and even hourly basis. He lives in that peculiar high-pressure world reserved for very prominent academics of color. His every move is scrutinized. He was just returning from a work-related journey in a foreign country. He was tired. Professor Gates was not surrounded by aids or family, but was traveling alone. He had no helper save his cab driver. Now for the first time in a long while he was inside his home, his castle, protected by the sanctity of privacy.
Let's go a bit further. Note that Professor Gates has had hip replacement surgery, and walks with a cane. He had just spend twelve or fourteen hours on an airplane -- coming back from China -- and had then waited for his baggage. He may well have been insomniac and uncomfortable on the plane. He may even have been in physical pain. Hell, I have been in pain after a similar a flight from Africa.
Please imagine being him for a moment. Imagine coming up to your door and finding you could not get the key to work, the frame had swollen, the thing would not open. You can't get in. You ache. Finally, you get inside your house.
Now imagine that a police officer comes to your door and demands you step outside, acting like you are an intruder in your own home.
Imagine that he does not accept your Harvard ID, that he demands you speak to him respectfully, that he demands further identification, that he takes out a pair of handcuffs. He's not treating you like a middle aged white man, he's treating you like a youth; he's not treating you like a black Harvard professor, he's treating you like . . .
like a black man is in fact so often treated in America.
Monday, June 29, 2009
We live in a paradox
we academics, I mean me, rather: All my information comes from the digital interface, but my sole desire is to create the artifact the book. I read an article on Tonga Christian conversion in the Journal des Societies Oceanistes, and it is there, permanently, irretrievably, forgottenly, but there. The old yellow pages heavy and shiny.
Actually I am reading books. I am still reading Against the Day, the monumental and awesome Thomas Pynchon book, which I had to put away after a while when I realized the Chums of Chance and the retreat into altered history and the buzzing Lovecraftian beings without pathos were not all going to be explained, but were parallel threads overleaving themselves with each other. I do understand what the novel is up to, finally, (p. 657 or so). The doubling that time is weirdly involved with: the alternative realities in all of us, the reversals of contemporary virtualities by repositioning them in history differently.
And Van Dieman's Land, by James Boyce. A little bit. But mostly it's -- let's go to the INTERNET! EBSCO, JSTOR, etc. etc.
Actually I am reading books. I am still reading Against the Day, the monumental and awesome Thomas Pynchon book, which I had to put away after a while when I realized the Chums of Chance and the retreat into altered history and the buzzing Lovecraftian beings without pathos were not all going to be explained, but were parallel threads overleaving themselves with each other. I do understand what the novel is up to, finally, (p. 657 or so). The doubling that time is weirdly involved with: the alternative realities in all of us, the reversals of contemporary virtualities by repositioning them in history differently.
And Van Dieman's Land, by James Boyce. A little bit. But mostly it's -- let's go to the INTERNET! EBSCO, JSTOR, etc. etc.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Who can keep up?
Moravians in the Eastern Cape, 1828-1928: four accounts of Moravian mission work on the Eastern Cape frontier
By Friedrich Rudolf Baudert, Timothy J. Keegan
Published by Van Riebeeck Society, The, 2004
ISBN 0958452229, 9780958452229
Colin Rae's Malaboch: The Power of the Book in the (Mis)Representation of Kgalui Sekete Mmalebh
Author: LIZ KRIEL a
Affiliation: a University of Pretoria,
DOI: 10.1080/02582470208671417
Publication Frequency: 4 issues per year
Published in: South African Historical Journal, Volume 46, Issue 1 May 2002 , pages 25 - 41
By Friedrich Rudolf Baudert, Timothy J. Keegan
Published by Van Riebeeck Society, The, 2004
ISBN 0958452229, 9780958452229
Colin Rae's Malaboch: The Power of the Book in the (Mis)Representation of Kgalui Sekete Mmalebh
Author: LIZ KRIEL a
Affiliation: a University of Pretoria,
DOI: 10.1080/02582470208671417
Publication Frequency: 4 issues per year
Published in: South African Historical Journal, Volume 46, Issue 1 May 2002 , pages 25 - 41
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Wittgenstein is remarking on this passage in Frazer’s Golden Bough:
“At a certain stage of early society the king or priest is often thought to be endowed with supernatural powers or to be an incarnation of a deity, and consistently with this belief the course of nature is supposed to be more or less under his control’ (Frazer, Golden Bough, 168 [iii, 1]); Ludwig Wittgentstein, “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,” I, 1931 (MS 110), and II, ca. 1948 (MS 143), in Philosophical Occasions, 1912-1951.
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