State of the Culture
-
…as the course goes on, the movement becomes centrifugal; we rejoice in our abandon and are never so full of the sense of accomplishment as when we have struck some bulwark of our culture a deadly blow. —Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences No way to delay That trouble coming every day —Frank Zappa, "Trouble Every Day"
-
It's frequently remarked by conservatives that present-day liberalism tends to politicize every aspect of life. Or should I say "aims" instead of "tends"? I'm not sure to what extent this movement is intentional, but it's certainly evident. Feminism has surely played a big role in it, starting with "The personal is political" and all that.…
-
Francesca Murphy has written a fascinating piece for First Things about the push for revision of the curriculum to make it more "goal-oriented." Like most bits of educational jargon, the phrase seems vague and harmless on its face, but in fact means, for those who are in the trade, something more specific. In this case it…
-
I've been reading a collection of Nat Hentoff's music journalism, American Music Is, and came across this great anecdote: When Mr. [Robert] O'Meally was a student at Harvard, he approached [Ralph] Ellison, who was giving a talk, and asked: Don't you think the Harlem Renaissance failed because we failed to create institutions to preserve our gains?"…
-
I've been reading Robert McCrum's biography of P.G. Wodehouse (Wodehouse, 2004). In passing, discussing Wodehouse's decision to try writing for Hollywood in the late 1920s and early '30s, the author mentions this: According to George Cukor, the premiere [of The Jazz Singer, the first talking picture], on the night of 27 December 1928, had been 'the…
-
James Dickey (poet, 1923-1997, and author of the novel Deliverance): "The history of poets pronouncing on public issues is notoriously dismal." Dickey is quoted by Neo-neocon in a post on the topic of poets, celebrities, and politics. I agree entirely with Dickey, and it's slightly painful to say so, because I've always been inclined to…
-
There are such things, and they are frightening. Someone mentioned here a while back the case of Justine Sacco, who said something stupid on Twitter, and was ruined for it. You can read the whole story in this New York Times piece, which also includes stories of other people who made the wrong sort of…
-
Why even bother? Why bother thinking about it at all, since it seems pretty clear that it isn't going to be stopped. A large segment of the country, including those all-powerful federal judges, have accepted the dogma that defining marriage as a union of two people of opposite sexes is morally and intellectually identical to…
-
For, as the course goes on, the movement turns centrifugal; we rejoice in our abandon and are never so full of the sense of accomplishment as when we have struck some bulwark of our culture a deadly blow. –Richard Weaver It's been obvious for some time that traditionalists, or realists, or whatever you want to…
-
It's odd that white liberals so often use "white" as a pejorative: "Old, white, wrinkled, and angry." There's some sort of cultural self-hatred involved there. I suppose that sneering at white people is a way of separating themselves from what they dislike so much, and establishing their superiority to it. And maybe it's also a…
Light On Dark Water 