"It seems to me that to organize on the basis of feeding people or righting social injustice and all that is very valuable. But to rally people around the idea of modernism, modernity, or something is simply silly. I mean, I don't know what kind of a cause that is, to be up to date. I think it ultimately leads to fashion and snobbery and I'm against it."
Jack Levine: January 3, 1915 – November 8, 2010
LEVEL BILLIONAIRES OUT OF EXISTENCE
Sunday, October 8, 2017
23 Of These Die Every Month To Keep Donald Trump In Hair
From Kurt Andersen's recent ATLANTIC piece on how America has lost its mind.
"People on the left are by no means all scrupulously reasonable. Many give themselves over to the appealingly dubious and the untrue. But fantastical politics have become highly asymmetrical. Starting in the 1990s, America’s unhinged right became much larger and more influential than its unhinged left. There is no real left-wing equivalent of Sean Hannity, let alone Alex Jones. Moreover, the far right now has unprecedented political power; it controls much of the U.S. government.
Why did the grown-ups and designated drivers on the political left manage to remain basically in charge of their followers, while the reality-based right lost out to fantasy-prone true believers?
One reason, I think, is religion. The GOP is now quite explicitly Christian. The party is the American coalition of white Christians, papering over doctrinal and class differences—and now led, weirdly, by one of the least religious presidents ever. If more and more of a political party’s members hold more and more extreme and extravagantly supernatural beliefs, doesn’t it make sense that the party will be more and more open to make-believe in its politics?"
If more and more of a political's party's members hold supernatural beliefs, doesn't it make sense that more and more of them will be open to make-believe in their politcs?
Let me guess, someone at Eschaton posted that excerpt from an article you didn't read. I did and it didn't stand out from any of the deeper pieces recently written on the topic. He's not as superficial as Duncan and his crowd, it would be hard for someone with a real writing career to be that superficial, but he's not a deep thinker. He's certainly a conventional thinker when the conventions he thinks in have failed, utterly, over the past half century and more.
Andersen is an atheist, no surprise that he doesn't get it.
From Kurt Andersen's recent ATLANTIC piece on how America has lost its mind.
ReplyDelete"People on the left are by no means all scrupulously reasonable. Many
give themselves over to the appealingly dubious and the untrue. But
fantastical politics have become highly asymmetrical. Starting in the
1990s, America’s unhinged right became much larger and more influential
than its unhinged left. There is no real left-wing equivalent of Sean
Hannity, let alone Alex Jones. Moreover, the far right now has
unprecedented political power; it controls much of the U.S. government.
Why did the grown-ups and designated drivers on the political left manage
to remain basically in charge of their followers, while the
reality-based right lost out to fantasy-prone true believers?
One reason, I think, is religion. The GOP is now quite explicitly Christian. The party is the American coalition of white Christians, papering over doctrinal and class differences—and now led, weirdly, by one of the least religious
presidents ever. If more and more of a political party’s members hold
more and more extreme and extravagantly supernatural beliefs, doesn’t it
make sense that the party will be more and more open to make-believe in
its politics?"
If more and more of a political's party's members hold supernatural beliefs, doesn't it make sense that more and more of them will be open to make-believe in their politcs?
NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!!!
Let me guess, someone at Eschaton posted that excerpt from an article you didn't read. I did and it didn't stand out from any of the deeper pieces recently written on the topic. He's not as superficial as Duncan and his crowd, it would be hard for someone with a real writing career to be that superficial, but he's not a deep thinker. He's certainly a conventional thinker when the conventions he thinks in have failed, utterly, over the past half century and more.
DeleteAndersen is an atheist, no surprise that he doesn't get it.