I suspected JP was a conservative for some time before I saw his coming out video, but this one caught me completely by surprise.
Put the drink down before you watch this one.
Germany Prepares to Evacuate AFG
Careful plans are being made.
According to Germany’s Ministry of Defense, all the alcohol will be repatriated before the last German boot leaves Afghan soil.
Circe by Madeline Miller: A Review
My sister sent me a copy of Circe, a novel by Madeline Miller that is built around the title character's role in Greek mythology. Although I have spent a lot of time with Greek mythology, history, and philosophy, I would probably never have bought this book for myself. I generally do not read things written in the last hundred years, with rare exceptions that come highly recommended.
The NYT review they cite as a pull-quote gives it thus: ""A bold and subversive retelling of the goddess's story," this #1 New York Times bestseller is "both epic and intimate in its scope, recasting the most infamous female figure from the Odyssey as a hero in her own right" (Alexandra Alter, The New York Times)."
I am sure it was intended to be subversive since that is the thing to be as a contemporary author, but I did not find it so. I think Plato would have hated it for exactly the same reasons he hated the poets' treatment of the gods, which readers are familiar with from our trip through the Laws. In an important way, then, it's well-placed in the tradition rather than subversive of it. The problem for Plato was that the Greek popular ideas about the gods were subversive to the philosophical idea that justice was somehow rooted in the divine order -- an order that the stories about the gods showed to be entirely based on divine behaviors that would be predatory and vicious in a human being.
That theme is the major theme of the book: that the divines are really very bad people, and just because they do not struggle, suffer, and die like mortals do. Mortals have all the same vicious inclinations, but they end up being tempered those qualities that would seem to make mortals' lot undesirable by comparison. It is our need to work hard and practice to perfect our crafts that develops virtues like patience, self-discipline, and temperance. It is our doom of death that forces us to develop courage, prudence, and that can enable us to develop a sense of mercy. It is our suffering that opens us to empathy, as we know what suffering is like. It is our need to struggle to gain our masteries that give us sympathy for those who -- unlike the Greek gods, in her telling -- are still struggling to gain a foothold.
This reading would probably have gotten you executed as a philosopher in ancient Athens, but they executed Socrates (and nearly Aristotle). It is just why Plato wanted to force the poets to reform in their stories about the gods, so that the gods would not seem like spoiled and vicious beings. She also shows why a god could even come to see death as desirable once she sees the value of mortal beings. This underlines why the ancient mythic order was readily subverted by a God who would choose to walk as a mortal, to suffer and die as we do, and then to prepare the way for us for a better next world. This is not a theme and never mentioned, but it undermines the idea that this novel is subversive: yes, but not of our own moral order. It is subversive of the ancient mythic order, just as Plato warned these stories would be. It is therefore a fit part of the ancient tradition, and undermines it only on its own terms.
Miller departs from the ancient Greek tradition in places, but her choices are defensible. For example, she elects to follow Ovid in her treatment of Scylla, rather than Greek sources. She also follows a lost poem that is probably authentically ancient Greek, but which we have only in summary. I didn't care for that choice personally because it gives Odysseus a worse story than some other sources and he is my favorite of the Homeric characters; but she was writing about Circe, and her decision is entirely within an author's prerogative.
She loses focus on her major theme only once that I can tell, when she introduces a feminist element to (partially) justify Circe's violence against sailors like Odysseus'. Only in that one chapter do male mortals become reliably vicious characters; and even then the one chapter is tempered by later reflections on the morality of using violence against others. It ends up being balanced against Telemachus' participation in the executions of the slave girls (and everyone else) at the end of the Odyssey, which Miller views with contemporary horror. Yet Circe has done as much, and as carelessly of whether or not her violence was always deserved, as she admits and of which she refuses to be absolved.
I will close with some praise for her skills as a writer. Much of the book is beautifully written, especially in the context of modern novels which are rarely so. Well done.
More waltzy stuff
This is a Leonard Cohen song, but I like what Joe Cocker and Leon Russell do with it.
Disturbing American Flags
A reporter speaks of her harrowing experience on Long Island.
Her complaint starts with American flags flying from the backs of pickup trucks, and later expands to dozens and dozens of American flags flying per se. I remembered later how, in 2003, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean sparked a minor furor by saying that he wanted "to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," adding that he only thought they could win by appealing "to a broad cross-section of Democrats." It's true that Clinton and Gore had run using Confederate flag campaign memorabilia, and that Jimmy Carter was often seen with Confederate flags. For that matter, here's JFK being presented with one, though like Dean he was a non-Southerner who had no plausible heritage-based reasons to associate with it.
Both of those Democratic campaigns had carried Georgia, and therefore the White House. However, by 1996 Zell Miller as Governor of Georgia was trying to remove the Confederate flag from the state flag, which his successor succeeded in doing; by 2003, Dean was the last person to think that guys with Confederate flags flying from the backs of their pickup trucks were good people whose votes he wanted.
I can understand the way that Democrats decided to stop chasing white Southerners of proud Confederate heritage as voters. The Democrats' own history there is extremely embarrassing -- being the party of the Confederacy, the KKK, and Jim Crow -- and the story they'd like to tell of themselves was the Civil Rights story they've come to prefer. Republicans somehow allowed themselves to become painted as the heritage party of racism and all that, even though they had historically been a major force in opposition. This is similar to how nobody remembers the NRA's role in providing arms and training to black Freedmen, nor for that matter the NRA's role in helping arm the UK against Nazi invasion in World War II. Both organizations had every right to stand on their history and fight for it, but somehow both groups got stuck with the worst labels.
What is happening now, as this reporter shows, is that 'men who fly flags from their pickup trucks' is becoming an undesirable part of the story the Democratic Party wants to tell about itself. Indeed, it is 'men who fly American flags at all.' They are, she says, a minority who should be "marginalized"; also a threat to be taken seriously, worried about, monitored, any force of government that can be marshalled by her side brought to bear against them.
These are the people she thinks are dangerous to democracy: them, not herself. These are the people that she thinks are dangerous to America: the ones who fly American flags.
It's madness, a collective madness that she and those interviewing her share (the lady at the end says she 'agrees totally'). Embedded within it is that preferred Democratic story about our history that puts these people on the wrong side of racism, now called 'Whiteness.' She does not know whose ancestors fought against slavery or armed the English against the Nazis. This is Long Island, home of the Creedmore Rifle Range founded in 1872 by the NRA and the state legislature of New York; the whole point was to train the citizens of New York City in riflemanship, to mitigate the advantages of the rural South if another fight were needed.
She has no idea how wildly wrong she is, and neither do any of them; but they think they are the educated ones, just as they think they are the democratic ones. Their madness is a drumbeat driving our nation to ruin; but they believe they are its only saviors.
When snowflakes strike
Powerline assesses the New Yorker union webpage. His favorite line (and mine) is "prestige without the pay is élitist." If you don't pay me a wage commensurate with my staggering prestige, you force me to taint myself with elitism, and that would be wrong.
Daddy
I don’t know if I put this up here before, but I meant to do.
“43 has got the nerve.” Yeah he did.
Some Remarks on Hillbillies
From someone named Robert Weissberg:
At the core of this elitist fear of Hillbillies (aka Po White, Rednecks, or Trailer Park Trash) is the elite’s realization that these denizens of rural America enjoy an almost genetic immunity to today’s race-based, politically correct narrative. Yes, the Dukes of Hazzard County folk may not be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier or especially well-informed politically, but when they hear mendacious anti-American lies, they may as well be rocket scientists. They admire America for what it is, not according to some bizarre ideology cooked up in a faculty lounge. Unlike timid elected officials, these people are not afraid of expressing “offensive’ views....
Hillbillies refuse to be placated by the elite’s permission to run wild and grab free stuff. No member of the White Trash Community will have their political grievances satisfied by looting Farm and Fleet or upsetting tables at a Cracker Barrel.
The Hillbilly Community is not easily bought off with elite-supplied goodies such as overpaid jobs as professors of Appalachian Studies or campus directors of outreach dedicated to targeting underserved rural populations. Nor are they willing to sacrifice personal freedom (and self-respect) to qualify as affirmative action hires. Chuck Yaeger would never have enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces if they lowered standards to fill diversity quotas.
I don't know who this guy is, but he should talk to Joe Bob Briggs. He's got a whole speech about this. Here's a sample.
I'd add that the gun-owning community, which overlaps somewhat with the community under discussion here (though far from perfectly) has responded to recent events not by looting but by purchasing ammunition. We're two years out on backorders right now; old manufacturing lines are being reopened to satisfy demand.
On old guns too: I hear Marlin Firearms lever actions may be available again soon.
Prudence from West Virginia
Senator Joe Manchin saves the Republic from a grave peril by an exercise of practical wisdom. Well done.
D-Day
A long time ago now, and very few are alive who remember it. Since we have had pipers this week, here’s a couple of videos remembering the role of Bill Millin. He was one man among many thousands, all united in common purpose.
Actual Treason in the Senate
A book reviewed by MIT Press points out that Ted Kennedy had a KGB liaison, and that he regularly communicated with the USSR on undercutting American foreign policy.
That explains his long, deep friendship with John Kerry.
JP on CRT
Continuing the theme ...
As a bonus video, Ryan Long explains the many differences between racists and wokists ... er, something.
The AJC on CRT
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has this to say about Critical Race Theory:
Critical race theory. Once an academic abstraction discussed in college classrooms, it’s now a flashpoint for conservatives who say it is influencing what is being taught in grade schools.
The decades-old concept seeks to highlight how racism influences all aspects of society and how past systemic inequities continue to shape policies.The concept has become politicized with critics saying it distorts history. They say it casts white people as exploiters who owe a debt to everyone else, especially Black people.
The 'concept' has not 'become politicized,' though. It was always an inherently political mode of analysis.
The AJC tries to paint this as a conservatives vs. everyone issue, but in fact the hottest critics of CRT are on the left. Major historians who objected to the 1619 project were published by the World Socialist. As for CRT broadly, here's a sample of their opinion:
Identity politics serves to divide workers into warring camps based on superficial aspects of their identity. There is no challenge to the existing structure of society, only a shuffling of the deck chairs.
The fact of the matter is that identity politics and reactionary ideologies such as intersectionality are not merely compatible with the needs of US imperialism and its institutions like the CIA; they are an essential tool utilized by the bourgeoisie to maintain its class domination over the working class by keeping workers divided along racial and gender lines.
The actual Marxists object stridently because they see CRT (and similar critical theories) as hijacking their 'true and correct' analysis that everything is explicable in terms of economics; instead they try to explain everything in terms of race or sex or sexuality or whatever. If you're a true believer in Marxism, that's always going to lead to bad outcomes because it draws people away from the real problem, and divides them into warring camps who are more easily controlled than a united front would be.
They have a point. These theories divide us into warring camps according to criteria we can neither choose nor change. That does, in fact, make Americans as a whole easier to control. It makes it less likely that united fronts will emerge against government corruption, corporate/tech domination of society, or the influence of foreign powers over what is supposed to have been a self-governing nation.
It's also bad history, as you can read explained by major historians who were interviewed by the World Socialist.
Trying to Reason from Anecdotes
Point: in Kansas City, a police officer appears to have shot another officer during an arrest (presumably by accident), then killed the person being arrested; the police then reported that the arrested/dead person had been the one to shoot the cop, thus justifying the shooting. Only it was caught on video.
Counterpoint: in Volusia County Florida, police had responded 300 times to a juvenile group home, only to be ambushed by three of the juveniles who had fled, broken into a nearby lake house, found guns, and taken up shooting at the police for fun. The three were 12-14 years old. The police did eventually shoot one of them, not fatally, but only after enduring an hour and a half of gunfire themselves.
The police in the second case have a very clear idea of what went wrong there: they say the juvenile system in Florida is broken. The activists in the first case have a very clear idea of what went wrong there: they say the policing system is broken.
Once we as a culture would have said that these were too specific for general lessons; rather than try to alter legislation or training, we'd have referred the matters to prosecutors for individual trials on the exact charges in play. That era has apparently passed, but the new era leaves us scrambling to try to reason from anecdotes. That a bad thing can possibly happen leads to laws and restrictions that may make it harder for good outcomes to happen in many other cases. The emotions attending the bad cases lead to irrational decisions applied to the whole model. This is no way to run a railroad.
A Major Victory for the Right to Bear Arms
California's 'assault weapons' ban has been overturned.
In his 94-page ruling, the judge spoke favorably of modern weapons, said they were overwhelmingly used for legal reasons.“Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle,” the judge said in his ruling’s introduction.
A remarkably sensible ruling to have been written by a judge in California! Good to see some clear thought coming from that quarter.
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