I don't know how you do it, Heather. Almost every day, a balanced, thoroughly informed, beautifully written, incisive analysis of the working out of history in some sphere of the US. This time it is the evolution of "thought" up to the point of claims that "the federal government must turn over all public lands to the states to open th…
I don't know how you do it, Heather. Almost every day, a balanced, thoroughly informed, beautifully written, incisive analysis of the working out of history in some sphere of the US. This time it is the evolution of "thought" up to the point of claims that "the federal government must turn over all public lands to the states to open them to private development" by a series of unhinged, bigoted, desperately selfish men (they were all men) from Rush Limbaugh and before, to Bundy, and now the loons who rushed the Capitol. And now want to be pardoned.
Your lesson for today is so important, and the world may be in a state to listen to it, put so luminously. I guess there is space to think about the Fairness Doctrine again, this time in the guise of a Federal Communications Commission (or whoever) for regulation of communication platforms and the enforcement of editorial accountability.
Reading your words from afar (the UK) there is one aspect of the history that you unfold that seems to be understated. In Europe - in our crowded countries - we have always given weight to the contribution of community to problems and to their solutions. In the wide-open spaces of America, you have always elevated the status of the single man fighting alone for his family, and downplayed, even disparaged, the role of collective solutions.
To me, the lot of them - Weaver, Koresh, McVeigh, Bundy (Cliven and Ammon) - all stand in the tradition of John Wayne and High Noon. They would say "proud tradition". I would say - dangerous. They would say "patriotic". I would say - undermining the nation by elevating private greed.
Of that lot, Koresh is, maybe, a different case. The role of cult psychology in a nation that fed on camp meetings and exclusive group self-identification is another story you should tell one day, and I recommend one of my compatriots to you: Fanny Trollope, Anthony's mother, The Domestic Manners of the Americans, 1832.
In both of her books I have read—The History of the Republican Party and How the South Won the Civil War—Heather spends much time framing America’s cowboy image, one Reagan used to great advantage during his campaigns. She does this especially in the latter, which is her most recent. If you haven’t read them, I can’t recommend them highly enough. I also have her book Wounded Knee; it’s in my queue. (Incidentally, the great James Baldwin also wrote about the myth of America, which included—among many things—these cowboy western films and images.)
Really enjoying how the south won...I didn’t know it was Buckley who birthed the advice, Republicans should give up on reasoned debate and should have a strategy appealing to passions and emotions.
Ultra-individualism – the notion that each human being is a discrete, totally autonomous entity -- is a poisonous absurdity, one which when used as it has been in America and too many other countries, transforms citizens into free radicals infesting the body social and politic. It is commonly accompanied by the equally spurious idea (one also held by otherwise intelligent Inquisitors, frightened of their helpless prisoners) that by destroying the bodies of “bad” individuals, you destroy what they stand for. This doesn’t wipe out evil, it perpetuates it.
Think back to 1945. Those of us who grew up in postwar Europe did not expect any form of Nazism to arise from the ashes; but the evil that men did lived on, not always underground, in an endless chain reaction. It still lives, befouling all it touches: the innocent, the unborn, the miraculous planet we live on.
History is not dead people, dead ideas, in a dead past. The past is all too present. In us. Among us.
"the evil that men did lives on" . . . unless active, intelligent steps are taken to break the cycle. And even then, it is one step forward and likely another step back later. Look at the legacy of Mandela's magic of reconciliation in South Africa. But, I am still convinced that the overall direction can be forward. Have you come across a book by the Dutch Historian Rutger Bregman, "Humankind"? Well worth reading, and optimistic. Also this interview with Bregman will amuse you:
Thank you Bob for your perspective from the UK, I appreciate it. Your first paragraph stays with me —- it is mostly selfish white men who want to turn our democracy into oligarchy. I see a few women and a couple Black men in the videos from Jan 6, but overwhelmingly it is white men. I agree the attraction is greed, especially for those more well off, but also perhaps they are attracted to physical fighting? More so than women in general?
I watched the first few episodes, but the whole big rich rancher doing his thing AND the tendency to get kind of soap-opera-drama-like just turned me off. I'm done with the whole cowboy image thing taking over the land - now public land - and cows everywhere. Could be it didnt continue in that vein - I've always like Kevin Costner, but I'm done.
I don't know how you do it, Heather. Almost every day, a balanced, thoroughly informed, beautifully written, incisive analysis of the working out of history in some sphere of the US. This time it is the evolution of "thought" up to the point of claims that "the federal government must turn over all public lands to the states to open them to private development" by a series of unhinged, bigoted, desperately selfish men (they were all men) from Rush Limbaugh and before, to Bundy, and now the loons who rushed the Capitol. And now want to be pardoned.
Your lesson for today is so important, and the world may be in a state to listen to it, put so luminously. I guess there is space to think about the Fairness Doctrine again, this time in the guise of a Federal Communications Commission (or whoever) for regulation of communication platforms and the enforcement of editorial accountability.
Reading your words from afar (the UK) there is one aspect of the history that you unfold that seems to be understated. In Europe - in our crowded countries - we have always given weight to the contribution of community to problems and to their solutions. In the wide-open spaces of America, you have always elevated the status of the single man fighting alone for his family, and downplayed, even disparaged, the role of collective solutions.
To me, the lot of them - Weaver, Koresh, McVeigh, Bundy (Cliven and Ammon) - all stand in the tradition of John Wayne and High Noon. They would say "proud tradition". I would say - dangerous. They would say "patriotic". I would say - undermining the nation by elevating private greed.
Of that lot, Koresh is, maybe, a different case. The role of cult psychology in a nation that fed on camp meetings and exclusive group self-identification is another story you should tell one day, and I recommend one of my compatriots to you: Fanny Trollope, Anthony's mother, The Domestic Manners of the Americans, 1832.
Thank you, again, Heather.
In both of her books I have read—The History of the Republican Party and How the South Won the Civil War—Heather spends much time framing America’s cowboy image, one Reagan used to great advantage during his campaigns. She does this especially in the latter, which is her most recent. If you haven’t read them, I can’t recommend them highly enough. I also have her book Wounded Knee; it’s in my queue. (Incidentally, the great James Baldwin also wrote about the myth of America, which included—among many things—these cowboy western films and images.)
Really enjoying how the south won...I didn’t know it was Buckley who birthed the advice, Republicans should give up on reasoned debate and should have a strategy appealing to passions and emotions.
Thank you. I have it, by the magic of Kindle.
We need to keep the good stuff, like HCR and Wikipedia and junk the bad stuff. How do you legislate for good intention?
Thank you too, Bob.
Ultra-individualism – the notion that each human being is a discrete, totally autonomous entity -- is a poisonous absurdity, one which when used as it has been in America and too many other countries, transforms citizens into free radicals infesting the body social and politic. It is commonly accompanied by the equally spurious idea (one also held by otherwise intelligent Inquisitors, frightened of their helpless prisoners) that by destroying the bodies of “bad” individuals, you destroy what they stand for. This doesn’t wipe out evil, it perpetuates it.
Think back to 1945. Those of us who grew up in postwar Europe did not expect any form of Nazism to arise from the ashes; but the evil that men did lived on, not always underground, in an endless chain reaction. It still lives, befouling all it touches: the innocent, the unborn, the miraculous planet we live on.
History is not dead people, dead ideas, in a dead past. The past is all too present. In us. Among us.
"the evil that men did lives on" . . . unless active, intelligent steps are taken to break the cycle. And even then, it is one step forward and likely another step back later. Look at the legacy of Mandela's magic of reconciliation in South Africa. But, I am still convinced that the overall direction can be forward. Have you come across a book by the Dutch Historian Rutger Bregman, "Humankind"? Well worth reading, and optimistic. Also this interview with Bregman will amuse you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFI2Zb7qE&t=6s
Thank you Bob for your perspective from the UK, I appreciate it. Your first paragraph stays with me —- it is mostly selfish white men who want to turn our democracy into oligarchy. I see a few women and a couple Black men in the videos from Jan 6, but overwhelmingly it is white men. I agree the attraction is greed, especially for those more well off, but also perhaps they are attracted to physical fighting? More so than women in general?
And white men, as well as plenty of white women, will do anything to hold onto their power in the wider society.
Heather speaks often of our revered American cowboy image. Ugh. My childhood adoration of the cartwrights, poof!
We grew up with cowboys and “Indians”. Bang bang shoot em up. What brainwashing!
Yellowstone, the series with Kevin Costner, whose side am I on now?
We haven’t watched it yet... how is it?
I watched the first few episodes, but the whole big rich rancher doing his thing AND the tendency to get kind of soap-opera-drama-like just turned me off. I'm done with the whole cowboy image thing taking over the land - now public land - and cows everywhere. Could be it didnt continue in that vein - I've always like Kevin Costner, but I'm done.
Ha! Yes, and all the years of having a crush on the Mavericks!
I used to fantasize about having a cowboy as a boyfriend. Now I see a few of them out there rioting and I want to puke. 🤢
Which of the Cartwrights was that? My impression was that they were all meant to be terribly manly - mostly the men, anyway!
Bundy is a blow hard. He gets people rilled up, but he s a coward. Watch, he ll be outspoken but never in the front line of direct confrontation.