Democracy and Modernism

The problem with modernism, in art, is that it's too hard:

Beckett wrote “unenjoyable” books, says Martin Amis. Paulo Coelho believes Joyce’s Ulysses caused “great harm,” while Roddy Doyle doubts any readers are “really moved by it.” “Shabby chic” is the Financial Times’ verdict on modernist architecture. You hear it often these days, this grousing about difficult, pretentious modernism: Woolf, Kafka, Stein, and Picasso come in for it too. The emperor has no clothes. The flight from modernism—we know the names but skirt the works—may be a sign of the cultural times, a symptom of our special mix of fatigue, cynicism, and complacency. And then, of course, the art can indeed try your patience and stamina. Its demands are relentless; these are creations that decline to traffic in reassurance or open themselves to clicks and scans.

It's the opening of a book review on works produced in 1922, when modernism was still a rising force. But I wonder if the real problem isn't the one the critics append. Maybe it wasn't that the art was so challenging, but that it wasn't beautiful. The True and the Beautiful share a link that somehow know at basic levels of our being. We work hard for the beautiful because we can see its value, we know there is something of worth that deserves the work. Even when it is beyond us, as Kant said of the sublime, we try to grasp its truth though we are doomed to fail.

With modernism the challenge is purely intellectual, and relatively few are interested in that kind of challenge. That's not hidden praise for the art, as it is often taken to be -- "Only a select few can understand." It's a kind of hidden criticism, a democratic one.

UPDATE: Link missing before, fixed.

"You Played Yourself"

We give the man a hard time, but Ice-T had something to say even twenty years ago.

A Good Essay

Sarah Hoyt writes on a familiar problem. The title of the article sounds like she might be taklig She manages to articulate something that I hadn't quite sorted out until I read it, which is contained here:

And yes, boys can be taught to act weak and much like the sob sisters. The problem is they aren’t. Not even when they’re raised to act that way. The end result is that they don’t know how to express their strength and they’ve never been taught to modulate it. Men who have only been taught to “act sensitive” but have no other discipline, no other moral, no other idea of what it means to be a man, will in fact hoist the pirate flag. Whenever a memoir surfaces from the sixties, the thing that always strikes me is how these men who were considered champions of women were in fact nasty little petulant creatures, taking advantage as much as possible. Say, the story of Ayers raping a girl and then making her sleep with someone she had no interest in, by bullying her with the idea that not to do so would be unenlightened.

This is really the problem, isn't it? Generally I don't have any problem with women I know who self-identify as feminists: in fact, usually I like them, as I usually like tough-minded people who will argue with me.

I may think they are wrong on the facts or wrong in interpretation. Yet in the last few years I've realized that the real feminists are working it out for themselves, and left to it will eventually come around. There's nothing I can say that will convince them, but the feminist historians working in (say) medieval studies are looking hard for examples of tough women making their own way in the world. And looking for them, they're finding them -- everywhere they look. It may take a while to turn over the old orthodoxy of 'the patriarchy,' and they certainly aren't trying to do it, but at some point the weight of the evidence they are producing day by day is going to force them to take a second look at their guiding mythology.

And that's good. It's great, in fact. It's a tremendous service to human understanding of the past, and I'm excited to see it flowering before us. I enjoy reading their articles, lit with the joy of discovering a kindred spirit in yet another one of their ancestors. It fills me with hope that, one day when they're ready, we'll be able to talk anew about the blessed legacy we received who were lucky enough to be descended from the Men and Women of the West.

So far, so good. But the men: or 'men,' more appropriately. They aren't worth spit. The only thing that keeps them from getting smacked in the jaws on a regular basis is the profound sense of pity you can't help but have for them. They are worthless, pathetic creatures -- until, like the Ayers of her example, they work out their sleaze on someone else.

The young women, I think, will work themselves out in time.

The young men need to come back in under the weight of the -- well, 'patriarchy' isn't quite right. The Brotherhood. They need to fall back in under the mastery of better men than they are, so they might become brothers and better men themselves. The best of their nature does not come naturally. It is a product of long and ancient art.

The Scarecrow

The new diplomacy

Handy expressions

From a 1922 Spanish-English dictionary being processed now at Project Gutenberg.  How impoverished English is, to lack a verb for the act of giving a blow with an aubergine.

berenjenaza, f. blow with an aubergine. 

buzcorona, f. playful buffet to head of one who is respectfully kissing the hand. 

candileja, f. oil receptacle of a lamp.--pl. foot-lights of a theatre; (bot.) willow-herb, deadly carrot. 

cartapel, m. memorandum filled with useless matter. 

cascapiñones, m. one who shells hot pine-nuts and cleans the seed; pine-nut cracker. 

cascaruleta, f. (coll.) noise made by the teeth when chucked under the chin. 

casiller, m. in the royal palace, servant who empties the close-stools. 

casorio, m. (coll.) inconsiderate marriage; informal wedding. 

cejijunto, ta, a. having eye-brows that meet. 

celia, f. beverage made of wheat; a beer. 

centímano, na a. (poet.) having a hundred hands. 

cigoñal, m. well-sweep. 

cimillo, m. flexible twig on which a decoy-pigeon is tied. 

cinca, f. any infraction of the rules of the game of nine-pins (ten-pins) 

cisque, (coll.) to besmear, to dirty.--vr. to ease nature 

coche parado, balcony over a street full of persons. 

codal, a. cubital, one cubit long: palo codal, stick hung round the neck as a penance. 

codazo, m. blow with the elbow; a hunch. 

cogotazo, m. slap on the back of the neck. 

cojitranco, ca, a. nickname for evil-disposed lame persons. 

cola de boca, lip glue. 

colear, va. (Mex.) in bull-fights, to take the bull by the tail, while on horseback, and, by suddenly starting the horse, to overturn him; (S. Amer.) to fell a bull by twisting his tail. 

colillero, ra, a. person who gathers cigar stubs for a trade. 

colmillada, f. injury made by an eye-tooth. 

cominear, vn. (coll.) to meddle in trifles or occupations belonging to women. 

componte, secret order by which an obnoxious person is done away with. 

consentido, a. applied to a spoiled child; applied to a cuckold by his own consent.

Autumn, Minus A Week

The summer is dying in front of our eyes.  Better times, friends.  Better times are coming.

A Song of Plasma

Humanity reaches interstellar space.

The Race Is Not To The Swift

Tonight was a good night for the kind of small-town high-school football around which so much of American culture is built.  The closest small town large enough for a football team is the county seat, and it is so small by local standards that it very rarely carries the day.  The players are as strong as they usually grow in farm country, but there is more to the game than strength and speed.

I am teaching the rules to a young person who is growing in appreciation of the sport.  At the end of the first quarter, while the score was still tied, I asked him which team was going to win and why.  He answered that he thought the visiting team had better plays.  "That's right," I said.  "Their offensive strategy is much more sophisticated, and it is unlikely our team can adapt to it quickly enough.  Nor do we have a similar strategy that will let us match them.  They will likely win easily."

"But not for certain," he said.

"No," I agreed, remembering the verse from Ecclesiastes.  There were three quarters left, and time and chance happen to us all, but so it proved.

Guests

What better reason to clean things up than guests arriving in great numbers over the next few weeks?  We've spraywashed the outside of the house, touched up some trim on the porch, repainted old peeling patio furniture and put new cushions on it, and cleaned up any number of horrors in the house.  The spare bedroom becomes such a dump when there's no one planning to sleep in it.  My husband had the bright idea of squeezing my hundreds of skeins of yarn into those vacuum packages that attach to the vacuum cleaner, because I'm on a tiny-tiny white thread crochet kick and probably won't need to get to my yarn for years.  Boxes of this and that left the house for the local thrift store, ladders were climbed in aid of cleaning years' worth of dust off of the tops of windows, doors, light fixtures, and ceiling fans, and corners were de-grimed with toothbrushes.  We're nearly presentable!

Help Kickstart World War III

This sounds fantastic! We could have another 'Greatest Generation'!

Or, you know, part of one, anyway.

9/11 Annual Repost: "Enid & Geraint"

Once strong, from solid
Camelot he came
Glory with him, Geraint,
Whose sword tamed the wild.
Fabled the fortune he won,
Fame, and a wife.
The beasts he battled
With horn and lance;
Stood farms where fens lay.
When bandits returned
To old beast-holds
Geraint gave them the same.

And then long peace,
Purchased by the manful blade.
Light delights filled it,
Tournaments softened, tempered
By ladies; in peace lingers
the dream of safety.

They dreamed together. Darkness
Gathered on the old wood,
Wild things troubled the edges,
Then crept closer.
The whispers of weakness
Are echoed with evil.

At last even Enid
Whose eyes are as dusk
Looked on her Lord
And weighed him wanting.
Her gaze gored him:
He dressed in red-rust mail.

And put her on palfrey
To ride before or beside
And they went to the wilds,
Which were no longer
So far. Ill-used,
His sword hung beside.

By the long wood, where
Once he laid pastures,
The knight halted, horsed,
Gazing on the grim trees.
He opened his helm
Beholding a bandit realm.

Enid cried at the charge
Of a criminal clad in mail!
The Lord turned his horse,
Set his untended shield:
There lacked time, there
Lacked thought for more.

Villanous lance licked the
Ancient shield. It split,
Broke, that badge of the knight!
The spearhead searched
Old, rust-red mail.
Geraint awoke.

Master and black mount
Rediscovered their rich love,
And armor, though old
Though red with thick rust,
Broke the felon blade.
The spear to-brast, shattered.

And now Enid sees
In Geraint's cold eyes
What shivers her to the spine.
And now his hand
Draws the ill-used sword:
Ill-used, but well-forged.

And the shock from the spear-break
Rang from bandit-towers
Rattled the wood, and the world!
Men dwelt there in wonder.
Who had heard that tone?
They did not remember that sound.

His best spear broken
On old, rusted mail,
The felon sought his forest.
Enid's dusk eyes sense
The strength of old steel:
Geraint grips his reins.

And he winds his old horn,
And he spurs his proud horse,
And the wood to his wrath trembles.
And every bird
From the wild forest flies,
But the Ravens.

The Ignorance of History

Black NRA from Sarah Silverman

Let's have a short history lesson on the origin of the National Rifle Association, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The National Rifle Association was first chartered in the state of New York on November 17, 1871 by Army and Navy Journal editor William Conant Church and General George Wood Wingate. Its first president was Civil War General Ambrose Burnside, who had worked as a Rhode Island gunsmith, and Wingate was the original secretary of the organization. Church succeeded Burnside as president in the following year.

Union Army records for the Civil War indicate that its troops fired about 1,000 rifle shots for each Confederate soldier hit, causing General Burnside to lament his recruits: "Out of ten soldiers who are perfect in drill and the manual of arms, only one knows the purpose of the sights on his gun or can hit the broad side of a barn." The generals attributed this to the use of volley tactics, devised for earlier, less accurate smoothbore muskets.

Recognizing a need for better training, Wingate traveled to Europe and observed European armies' marksmanship training programs. With plans provided by Wingate, the New York Legislature funded the construction of a modern range at Creedmore, Long Island, for long-range shooting competitions. Wingate then wrote a marksmanship manual.

Got that? The NRA was founded by Civil War Union military leaders who recognized that northern prowess with rifles was lacking in the late war with more-rural Southerners. The purpose of the organization was to train potential soldiers in case it became necessary again to suppress a Southern independence movement.

Another mission it took on was arming and training Freedmen in the South. Don't take my word for it.



You can see the full version here.

The NRA was always "the Black NRA." They went to some trouble and expense, from the very beginning, to be just that thing. I would wonder at this shocking ignorance, except that it is such a piece of the historical ignorance of our gentle and generous friends on the Left.

For Those Of You In The Mighty 9th

As you know if you've been watching the last week with an eye for it, Congressman Doug Collins is sounding like a pretty serious "No" at this point on Syria. He's holding a telephone town hall tomorrow night to talk about it with anyone from the district who wants to call in.

This week, I returned to Washington for the House Foreign Affairs Committee's special hearing on Syria. This was the opportunity for Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel, and General Dempsey to make President Obama's case for why we should pursue military intervention in Syria. As I said at the time, I left that room with more questions than answers, and I don't believe they made their case.
You can see video of my questions in that hearing here, but tomorrow night, I want to hear your questions.
I'm holding a telephone town hall meeting to talk about Syria on Monday night. The call will start at approximately 7:25 PM, and you are welcome to call in if we don't call you first. The phone number is877-229-8493 and the passcode you'll need to enter is 111377.

I've said what I have to say about it at BLACKFIVE.

Getting one's bearings

One of my husband's war-gaming buddies provided him with this link.  An unusually impenetrable lecture on missile guidance, or an explanation of the rhetorical style of our foreign policy as recently announced?  You be the judge.

Bits of a Good Day

 

And then the local Oktoberfest (of which my photos have been seized by the NSA -- or, beer prevented me from properly saving. Whichever).

Bier of the night: Paulaner Oktoberfest.
Best song of the night: a xydeco piece with yodeling.
Best line of the night: in the middle of a (different) yodeling piece, the singer calls out "Everyone! Sing along!"

Prost, y'all!

History and Abduction

I think this is a really neat paper, a Master's Thesis from Canada.  It shines light on two very different debates:  a debate within the field of history about the reality of abductions in Medieval England, and our current debate over the value of higher education.

On the question of abductions, the author has taken the tactic of examining fifty court cases with surviving documentation.  The result casts some of our assumptions in a new light.

Both the finding and the method casts some light on our discussions about the value of higher education.  Many have argued, on reasonably good grounds, that higher education no longer provides the same value to students that it has in the past.  Education past the bachelor's degree, and particularly in the humanities, is especially subject to this line of attack.

There is one thing, though, that all these extra history and literature majors are doing:  they enable us to go over the historical record with a fine-tooth comb to a degree never before possible.  The value to the students may be questioned, but the value to the rest of us -- as long as these programs continue to produce students who perform quality research -- is not always adequately considered.  We really benefit from these minute but significant adjustments in our understanding of the past.

(H/t:  Medievalists.)

The High Woods, In Sunshine and In Shadow

Building zaps citizens

London now features a building with a curved glass wall that acts as a solar lens strong enough to melt plastic on parked cars.

A military "Onion"

Bookworm is right:  I didn't even get past the titles before I laughed out loud:

[A] friend of mine directed me to a site called The Duffle Blog, which is a military satire site. It's dedicated to churning out such articles as "US Praises Massacre Of Syrian Civilians Without Use Of Chemical Weapons" [and] "Admin Error Sends Bradley Manning to Death Row, Nidal Hasan to Gender Reassignment Surgery." Even the title is funny.

The article about Hasan and Manning was filed by one of the Korean Airline pilots, apparently.  New since Bookworm's post: John Kerry Announces Protest of Syrian Conflict As Soon As He Finishes Starting It.