It's interesting having a diverse group of friends. Seems like half of them are cheering his demise, and the other half are posting what they consider his most inspirational quotes.
Certainly, he was a man of consequence. Most of those consequences were bad.
Speaking of Guns
A position paper from the Trump team calls for national reciprocity for concealed carry permits.
Check Your (Stability) Privilege
An argument against gun control:
Take these recent nominations for cabinet positions. Some of them have come from the right, like Jeff Sessions. Others have been lifelong Democrats, like Mike Flynn. Harold Ford is supposedly going to head up the infrastructure plan, and he was a Clinton supporter. Mitt Romney is supposedly in the pole position in the race for Secretary of State, and he's a centrist Republican who strongly criticized Trump. Jim Mattis is apolitical. To me, this looks like the choices of a guy who is largely non-ideological, rewarding some allies but also making outreach efforts to potential supporters he didn't win over during the campaign. But to my left-leaning friends, the right-winger appointments prove Trump's pending evils; and the centrist and Democrat choices are traitors, to be forever despised for not standing strong against the man. [UPDATE: Apparently NPR agrees with me, more or less.]
I think they really believe not that they're safe, but that many of their fellow citizens -- and especially the sort who buy guns or vote for Trump -- are barely restrained Nazis who dream every night of murdering gays and lesbians and people of color. The fact that we actually live in the safest place and time in human history, in a political system that if anything is too stable* for its own good, doesn't seem to be a conviction.
So the longing to disarm the citizenry makes sense, not because they don't see any good to guns, but because they're terrified of us.
* Is it possible for a political system to be too stable? I don't think Aristotle would say so, but it strikes me that stability is not an unalloyed good. Instability is dangerous, but it also enables adaptation. The United States might be better off if it changed some aspects of its political system to reflect the fact that we no longer have regional diversity, as was well served by the state system, but rather a rural versus urban split. It's easy to see from the county-level election maps that there aren't really red states and blue states, but blue urban cores inside a massive red country. Does it really make sense to have Atlanta in the same "state" as the rest of Georgia, or Charlotte in the same state as the mountains of Western North Carolina? The system of states is stable, but insofar as this creates new tensions and clashes, it may be "too stable."
The American left supports gun bans, magazine bans, and the abolition of the 2nd Amendment wholly as a function of what I’m calling “Stability Privilege.” Almost no one out there on the left can remember a time when America was not economically and politically stable, relatively speaking. It’s been half a century since a president was assassinated, and even then, the transition of power was seamless. It’s been a little less time since a president was forced out of office. Again he left quietly, not a shot fired...It's an interesting theory, but I'm not at all sure it's correct. The reaction to Donald Trump becoming President Elect has not convinced me that people on the left believe that stability and nonviolence are dependable features of American life.
They don’t believe they can be rounded up and shot, because “that could never happen here.” They don’t believe someone would break down their door for the food in their pantry, and slaughter them if they resist. They don’t believe they could be rounded up and raped by the truckload for worshipping God differently than their next-door neighbor. They don’t really believe that any of these things are happening anywhere. If they do on any level, they seem to think they can hashtag it out of existence. They believe all of this because of their stability privilege, because they’ve never seen it with their own eyeballs, and so they think “It can’t happen here.” All they’ve seen themselves is firearms misused near them, and so that is the one thing they can wrap their heads around. They don’t see the use, the purpose, the importance of the 2nd Amendment and modern arms....
Try to remember that Sarajevo once hosted an Olympics. Remember that Beirut used to be called “The Paris of the Middle East.” Remember that women used to wear lipstick and miniskirts in Tehran. Most of all...remember that it CAN happen anywhere. It can happen here. The bubble can break. The bubble WILL break.
Take these recent nominations for cabinet positions. Some of them have come from the right, like Jeff Sessions. Others have been lifelong Democrats, like Mike Flynn. Harold Ford is supposedly going to head up the infrastructure plan, and he was a Clinton supporter. Mitt Romney is supposedly in the pole position in the race for Secretary of State, and he's a centrist Republican who strongly criticized Trump. Jim Mattis is apolitical. To me, this looks like the choices of a guy who is largely non-ideological, rewarding some allies but also making outreach efforts to potential supporters he didn't win over during the campaign. But to my left-leaning friends, the right-winger appointments prove Trump's pending evils; and the centrist and Democrat choices are traitors, to be forever despised for not standing strong against the man. [UPDATE: Apparently NPR agrees with me, more or less.]
I think they really believe not that they're safe, but that many of their fellow citizens -- and especially the sort who buy guns or vote for Trump -- are barely restrained Nazis who dream every night of murdering gays and lesbians and people of color. The fact that we actually live in the safest place and time in human history, in a political system that if anything is too stable* for its own good, doesn't seem to be a conviction.
So the longing to disarm the citizenry makes sense, not because they don't see any good to guns, but because they're terrified of us.
* Is it possible for a political system to be too stable? I don't think Aristotle would say so, but it strikes me that stability is not an unalloyed good. Instability is dangerous, but it also enables adaptation. The United States might be better off if it changed some aspects of its political system to reflect the fact that we no longer have regional diversity, as was well served by the state system, but rather a rural versus urban split. It's easy to see from the county-level election maps that there aren't really red states and blue states, but blue urban cores inside a massive red country. Does it really make sense to have Atlanta in the same "state" as the rest of Georgia, or Charlotte in the same state as the mountains of Western North Carolina? The system of states is stable, but insofar as this creates new tensions and clashes, it may be "too stable."
Romance and Waiting
An academic argues that women always wait:
Consider this bit from Le Morte D'arthur, in which the good knight Beaumains has fought a number of the great knights of the world, and overcome them, in order to free a lady who was being besieged by them. Her sister says to go and see her, but when he gets there...
Literature bears out Barthes’s claim and my experience: In books, it is always women who wait. In the Odyssey, Penelope awaits the return of her husband for twenty years, weaving a funeral shroud for her father during the day and unraveling it during the night to put off intermediary suitors, one of whom she will wed when the interminable tapestry is finally complete. Penelope is the product of an oral lyrical tradition that excluded women, and it is only fitting that a male authorship relegated her to the sort of maddening inactivity that waiting so often entails.The whole tradition of chivalric literature runs the other way. In the literature of a thousand years, the man -- the knight -- serves patiently in the hope of a woman electing to reward him with her love. This is often described as "mercy" or "grace," as she is not in any way required to do so by the forms of the literature.
Consider this bit from Le Morte D'arthur, in which the good knight Beaumains has fought a number of the great knights of the world, and overcome them, in order to free a lady who was being besieged by them. Her sister says to go and see her, but when he gets there...
NOW turn we unto Sir Beaumains that desired of Linet that he might see her sister, his lady. Sir, she said, I would fain ye saw her. Then Sir Beaumains all armed him, and took his horse and his spear, and rode straight unto the castle. And when he came to the gate he found there many men armed, and pulled up the drawbridge and drew the port close.My guess is that there's a lot more literature like this, even outside the chivalric tradition. Waiting for a beloved, even forever, is a sadly universal experience.
Then marvelled he why they would not suffer him to enter. And then he looked up to the window; and there he saw the fair Lionesse that said on high: Go thy way, Sir Beaumains, for as yet thou shalt not have wholly my love, unto the time that thou be called one of the number of the worthy knights.
More guides for Thanksgiving harmony
We won't have any use for these; our gathering today won't have much ideological diversity.
Agree that America has a terrible gun crisis – many Americans simply cannot afford to purchase the multiple firearms each citizen should own. Inform him that his opposition to your plan for “gun vouchers” to allow all Americans to take part in the defense of themselves, their families, communities and the Constitution, is “super racist” and that you support “caliber diversity.”Last night we had neighbors over, and everyone stayed strictly away from politics. It was a lovely dinner. Today we make a roundtrip roadtrip to the Houston vicinity visit my mother-in-law.
Happy Thanksgiving
I have a sixteen-pound bird that I am slow-roasting at 165 degrees for twenty hours. This approach means you cannot possibly overcook it, as the bird will eventually be exactly the temperature you want it to be throughout. I have a few other side-dishes planned, but it will be a simple Thanksgiving this year. With my father's death, my mother has gone out to Wyoming to be with my sister and the new baby. It doesn't seem like it's worth doing things quite as extravagantly without them.
This day of all days I remember Iraq. I was there two Thanksgivings in a row. This year some five thousand paratroopers, a Division's special troops battalion, and a bunch of special operators are in Iraq. More are in Afghanistan, where they serve the interests of a President who never intended for them to win their war. Others are in Africa, and points East.
Think of them today, at least during the holiday prayer.
I wish you all a very fine day.
This day of all days I remember Iraq. I was there two Thanksgivings in a row. This year some five thousand paratroopers, a Division's special troops battalion, and a bunch of special operators are in Iraq. More are in Afghanistan, where they serve the interests of a President who never intended for them to win their war. Others are in Africa, and points East.
Think of them today, at least during the holiday prayer.
I wish you all a very fine day.
Terminal Lance on General Mattis
The comic -- by a now-former Marine Corps infantry Lance Corporal -- mostly treats the various indignities and hardships of a life that wasn't quite what the recruiter promised. Usually anything "moto" (i.e., overly motivational) is mocked viciously. Life in the Corps is about standing in the mud and the rain, punishing deployments, being screwed over by your chain of command, and so on.
But there is a heartfelt exception for General Matts.
But there is a heartfelt exception for General Matts.
Just in time for Christmas
Over at WeaponsMan, a hot tip on a gift for the ages- an incredibly high quality reproduction of the manuscript I.33, which, Dating from around 1310 is the earliest known surviving European Fechtbuch (combat manual). He's done a great job linking various related sites, including the site for information to purchase, should you be so inclined, so go over and enjoy the splendor of an amazing publication (at least virtually). Just be forewarned- it's not cheap!
A Symbol of Fear
A liberal arts college in western Massachusetts has taken down the American flag on campus –leaving the flagpole bare until next semester –in hopes it will free up students to have a “direct, open, and respectful conversation.”Indeed there are people who should fear the American flag. May it ever be so.
The flag at the center of Hampshire College is viewed by some as a symbol of racism and hatred and following the election and news of Donald Trump’s victory – many students called for its removal....
Hampshire College President Jonathan Lash wrote: “By removing the flag, the college will seek to focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.”
A spokesman for the college told the Boston Globe that some people view the flag as “a powerful symbol of fear they’ve felt all their lives because they grew up as people of color, never feeling safe.”
No Nazis Welcome
In a far-ranging interview with the New York Times, the US president-elect was quoted as saying: "I condemn them. I disavow, and I condemn."They really didn't do themselves any favors at this weekend's conference, especially right at the end. My guess is that there were some 3 martini lunches.
He said he did not want to "energise" the group, which includes neo-Nazis, white nationalists and anti-Semites.
Alt-right supporters were filmed on Saturday in Washington DC cheering as a speaker shouted: "Hail Trump."
In the video, Richard Spencer, a leader of the "alt-right" movement, told a conference of members that America belongs to white people, whom he described as "children of the sun".
In fairness, at least one of their leaders has called for an end to any sort of Nazi symbolism.
Swimming is good for you, but some people need it more than others.
Trump Breaks Campaign Promise
I didn't really expect him to prosecute Clinton. It goes against all the rules of a class to which he himself belongs, and to which he will himself someday have to appeal for his own personal safety.
However, it is disappointing to see that the law remains for the "little people."
However, it is disappointing to see that the law remains for the "little people."
"You $*%@ed Up. You Trusted Us."
Undocumented immigrants learn a lesson from Animal House.
More than 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought here as kids, myself included, have willingly handed over our personal information to the federal government as part of a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). The program, started by President Obama through executive action in 2012, was supposed to temporarily shield us from deportation and give us temporary employment authorization.And people wonder why the NRA is so dead-set against a gun registry.
"The President Can't Have a Conflict of Interest."
That's not true, boss. It was the whole problem with the Clinton Foundation, in fact.
Trump's sense of self is completely tied up with his business empire. I'm guessing nobody can talk him into liquidating his interest in it, or giving up a sense of personal control over it. That means this whole Presidency is going to be one scandal after another.
Trump's sense of self is completely tied up with his business empire. I'm guessing nobody can talk him into liquidating his interest in it, or giving up a sense of personal control over it. That means this whole Presidency is going to be one scandal after another.
Glam Dicenn
In ancient Ireland, bards were supposed to be able to perform a kind of satire that was so punishing that it could cause boils to rise on the head of its target. This satire, glam dicenn, was traditionally reserved for very bad kings -- especially kings who didn't pay their bards.
The power of satire is something I've been thinking about lately. It is a more powerful weapon than we readily acknowledge, one that really does have the potential to destroy. Sarah Palin, once a successful and highly popular governor, was asked what in her experience qualified her for the job of Vice President. She made a reasonable argument that governors have to handle civil defense matters as the head of the National Guard for their state, and that Alaska has an unusually sensitive position because of the issue of Russian aerial incursion given its proximity. Almost no one remembers her answer, or the responsibility that really does attend to such a position. What everyone remembers is Tina Fey's satire: "I can see Russia from my house!"
The result of such mockery, carried on day and night at a national level, seems to have destroyed Ms. Palin. She ended up reduced to a caricature of the successful, plucky woman she was in 2008. She discovered that being willing to play that caricature was lucrative, as people loved the idea of her as a ridiculous figure so much that they would pay for it. In the end, she made herself over into what they mocked her for being.
I was thinking of this when I saw John Oliver's treatment of Trump -- and Mike Pence. It's a long bit, and the only part I'm interested in really is what is pointed at the VP. He was mocked as being a Salem Witch Trials-era figure. This is intended as punishment for the sin of taking traditional moral positions on things like marriage and abortion. These positions are shared by many millions of Americans of all races. In the case of marriage, his position was quite modest compared to the resistance pushed by Roy Moore of Alabama: he signed a law protecting moral objectors from being dragooned into wedding ceremonies they found blasphemous, and then revised it when objections were raised. This willingness to reconsider his position given further argument is described as him being "forced to sign" another bill, but in fact you can't force a governor to sign anything. Nobody was there with a gun making him sign it. He was reasoned with, which proves that he's reasonable.
Further evidence of his being reasonable occurred this weekend, with the Hamilton mini-controversy. Mike Pence strikes me as a good guy. I think we don't agree on everything, but I never expect that. He's a very ordinary Republican in most respects.
So, when Oliver says that Pence is "even worse" than Trump, and goes on to mock him viciously, I'm wondering what the effect of this unconstrained use of satire must be. Trump deserves all the satire he gets, I think. Hillary Clinton likewise deserved to be mocked. Yet if we use satire against everyone, we lose anyone with whom we can reason. Everyone becomes, in our minds, a mockery. No one is left to talk with.
I would propose a restriction of the weapon of satire on the order of the ancient bards. It's a weapon that should be used with care. As an opening position, is it possible to construct a list of figures in American life who don't deserve to be treated this way? I am especially interested in figures from the opposition: people who deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect, even though we disagree. Any nominees?
The power of satire is something I've been thinking about lately. It is a more powerful weapon than we readily acknowledge, one that really does have the potential to destroy. Sarah Palin, once a successful and highly popular governor, was asked what in her experience qualified her for the job of Vice President. She made a reasonable argument that governors have to handle civil defense matters as the head of the National Guard for their state, and that Alaska has an unusually sensitive position because of the issue of Russian aerial incursion given its proximity. Almost no one remembers her answer, or the responsibility that really does attend to such a position. What everyone remembers is Tina Fey's satire: "I can see Russia from my house!"
The result of such mockery, carried on day and night at a national level, seems to have destroyed Ms. Palin. She ended up reduced to a caricature of the successful, plucky woman she was in 2008. She discovered that being willing to play that caricature was lucrative, as people loved the idea of her as a ridiculous figure so much that they would pay for it. In the end, she made herself over into what they mocked her for being.
I was thinking of this when I saw John Oliver's treatment of Trump -- and Mike Pence. It's a long bit, and the only part I'm interested in really is what is pointed at the VP. He was mocked as being a Salem Witch Trials-era figure. This is intended as punishment for the sin of taking traditional moral positions on things like marriage and abortion. These positions are shared by many millions of Americans of all races. In the case of marriage, his position was quite modest compared to the resistance pushed by Roy Moore of Alabama: he signed a law protecting moral objectors from being dragooned into wedding ceremonies they found blasphemous, and then revised it when objections were raised. This willingness to reconsider his position given further argument is described as him being "forced to sign" another bill, but in fact you can't force a governor to sign anything. Nobody was there with a gun making him sign it. He was reasoned with, which proves that he's reasonable.
Further evidence of his being reasonable occurred this weekend, with the Hamilton mini-controversy. Mike Pence strikes me as a good guy. I think we don't agree on everything, but I never expect that. He's a very ordinary Republican in most respects.
So, when Oliver says that Pence is "even worse" than Trump, and goes on to mock him viciously, I'm wondering what the effect of this unconstrained use of satire must be. Trump deserves all the satire he gets, I think. Hillary Clinton likewise deserved to be mocked. Yet if we use satire against everyone, we lose anyone with whom we can reason. Everyone becomes, in our minds, a mockery. No one is left to talk with.
I would propose a restriction of the weapon of satire on the order of the ancient bards. It's a weapon that should be used with care. As an opening position, is it possible to construct a list of figures in American life who don't deserve to be treated this way? I am especially interested in figures from the opposition: people who deserve to be treated with a modicum of respect, even though we disagree. Any nominees?
My Colleague's Opinion Makes Him A Monster
In the new political climate we now inhabit, [David[ Duke and [Mark] Lilla were contributing to the same ideological project, the former cloaked in a KKK hood, the latter in an academic gown. Both men are underwriting the whitening of American nationalism, and the re-centering of white lives as lives that matter most in the U.S. Duke is happy to own the white supremacy of his statements, while Lilla’s op-ed does the more nefarious background work of making white supremacy respectable. Again.Here's Lilla's piece, which I take to argue that identity politics isn't really working out well for Democrats and they ought to rethink it. I'd have thought this was a bit of advice obviously intended to help the Democratic Party win elections, and thus less likely to come in for a charge of "white supremacy" than if it were aimed at helping the Republican Party. Apparently not, but see what you think. Maybe the KKK aspect of his piece is eluding my eye.
Mark Lilla and I both teach at Columbia University, and I acknowledge that this is a harsh indictment of my colleague. But these are harsh times.
If this is where people's heads are, this is going to be a rough little while.
My sense is that it's not going to work, though. The election of Donald Trump was a very close-run thing, and I don't know that he has a lot of deep support as a person. But while the election of Trump was narrow, the rejection of political correctness as an approach to life was broad and deep. The fact that Trump got through the Republican primary shows that Republicans are done with it. The fact that he was taken seriously as a major party candidate in the general shows that the American people are, mostly, done with it.
Hillary Clinton wondered aloud why she wasn't ahead by 50 points, given all the things Trump said and did. It was a good question. The only workable answer lies in collapsing the assumption that violating PC norms was fatal.
That's going to give us a very different public discourse. We'll see how it improves, and whether it also harms, public life. These attempts to stand the PC norms back up, though, isn't going to work. A Trump administration is going to be a continuing bulldozer to such norms. Every day there will be a new lesson in how they don't apply any more.
UPDATE: Bernie Sanders asks about going "beyond identity politics." He should realize how offensive this is, says Vox.
Harleys are Awesome, But...
John Wayne on a Honda should pretty much end the idea that only Harleys are fit bikes for American riders.
Which movie do you think this still is from? He wore suspenders all across his career, from Stagecoach to The Searchers to the Cavalry movies and onwards. He's older, here. Big Jake?
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