tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post511934819661990007..comments2024-03-19T11:28:58.168-04:00Comments on History Unfolding: The Sunday New York Times, February 1965 and February 2015David Kaiserhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05020082243968071584noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-29129139941424789012015-02-22T01:26:33.692-05:002015-02-22T01:26:33.692-05:00It is a peculiar thing to me, growing up in the er...It is a peculiar thing to me, growing up in the era of which you are writing here, that I was very much enamored of the Romantic poets, the leaders in both England (and I do, here, mean England, not the United Kingdom) and in Germany, of the Romantic Movement, a great intellectual rebellion against the Age of Reason (as Thomas Paine termed it) and the Augustan poets, such as Alexander Pope, for whom the essence of civilization lay in rationality, not emotion. The Romantics, in contrast, promoted emotion and imagination as the highest form of human intellectual activity. As time has passed, and I have, at intervals, returned to my other great love (apart from archaeology), English literature, I have found myself increasingly unimpressed by the majority of the Romantic poets, and actually alarmed by the implications of the Romantic Movement, as I view its terrible results. The majority of Wordsworth's poetry is soppy, maudlin, and, for me, virtually unreadable (heresy, I know, but there it is). Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge wrote poetry of great beauty, sublime (in the terms of their own aesthetic), but always about themselves, and always about emotion, not reason. The triumph of this sort of Romanticism has been disastrous for the world, and continues to be so. It is self-indulgence writ large, with little or no thought for others or for the future. The results can be seen exemplified in your piece this week.Rupert Chapmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07007234333289329849noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-40994745214973064322015-02-21T19:54:22.937-05:002015-02-21T19:54:22.937-05:00Professor
Great post.
Re the media, see my blog...Professor<br /><br />Great post. <br /><br />Re the media, see my blog, terms search Lorch. <br /><br />That has been how it has been, the order of the day, since the 18th century.<br /><br />Even more overtly ideologically oriented media have been the order of the day since Lorch wrote.<br /><br />Quigley chronicles European media, British especially, "The Anglo American Establishment".<br /><br />all the bestBozonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18078858723231122013noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-62034312435665624392015-02-21T14:54:49.009-05:002015-02-21T14:54:49.009-05:00I happen to be reading Spengler on what makes a pe...I happen to be reading Spengler on what makes a people. It is not language, blood ties, religion, but an identity brought about through a great cause survived together. We see that in America clearly. When this purpose is lost then anything is possible. Late Rome he says was just a population, at time of Hannibal a people. America was clearly a people in 1945. This completed a process of which Civil War was second part after revolution. 9/11 drew America together, therefore endless wars as reconfirmation of identity, a sort of cultural ritual male bonding among individuals who, due to facts I have related above, have little in common and actually no sense of purpose or contact with self. In old world it may be simpler to maintain a feeling of nationhood due to stabler culture and blood ties so that constant nation building, internal, external unnecessary(moonlanding, global policeman, moral crusades). This makes USA dynamic like early historical warrior cultures, assyrians, arabs,mongols, celts, roman empire who were restless and maybe very changing in blood ties, geography, religion, language in an unsettled world. America was settle recently so it fits this modus operandi as does similarly Russia post expansion into Asia after 17th century. So from such perspective US history makes more sense. Japanese culture, language, religion, blood ties are quite rigid to make an extreme comparison. They were a warrior nation and very successful economically since war. But they settle quickly<br />into stasis. America is restless as inner form is missing. Form meaning an agreed subtextual understanding among all group members allowing peaceful and happy coexistence.Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-40039223964517757172015-02-21T12:22:47.838-05:002015-02-21T12:22:47.838-05:00David: Excellent, as always.
One quibble. You s...David: Excellent, as always. <br /><br />One quibble. You state: "[W]e easily forget that a substantial cohort of major political figures, including Senate Majority leader Mike Mansfield and Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman J. William Fulbright, opposed the war from the beginning, as did Church. Nowadays no major political figure in Washington is standing against the Administration's Middle Eastern adventures."<br /><br />Mansfield, Fulbright, and Church expressed concerns about our involvement in Vietnam, but no Democrat ever case a vote against the Vietnam War while LBJ was in office except for Morse and Gruening. The others only got the courage to vote their consciences after Nixon took office.Shelterdoghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09973906960864702661noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-80651947244403128142015-02-21T10:43:20.050-05:002015-02-21T10:43:20.050-05:00Good Morning:
I really enjoyed your well-develope...Good Morning:<br /><br />I really enjoyed your well-developed post. Let me provide a small observation from my high school days in the early sixties.<br /><br />Occasionally, I would go downstairs to the large basement (where I was not allowed to be) and read from the enormous stacks of newspapers and magazines from long ago and saved for whatever reason.<br /><br />I especially liked to read the newspapers of around 1900. (breaking news of such things as the assassination of President McKinley.)<br /><br />The one thing that impressed me was the almost universal optimism of all the writers. We were on the edge of a wonderful adventurous future and they couldn't contain themselves to write about it. Something you certainly don't see nowadays.Assurance-First-Assurancehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03957716561174470697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-69819233011360151902015-02-21T07:49:22.414-05:002015-02-21T07:49:22.414-05:00Continued
The physical fitness, mental acuity, em...Continued<br /><br />The physical fitness, mental acuity, emotional maturity of society goes hand in hand. We have given away our work to technological servants, physical and mental,thereby atrophying both brain and muscles. Additionally due to the industrial process people have gradually moved from interdependence on larger family groups towards 50s nuclear families towards single households eating instant microwave foods, living far from any relatives. The average person has fewer friends, less deeper contacts. Essentially giving our lives over to technology has atrophied our emotional muscles as well. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Your boomers are seeking inner life precisely because the nuclear family suburbia, fridge, TVschool desk existence lacks physical hardship, familial depth, mental realities(rout learning for tests). They are then coddled and sense an inner vacuum, try to rebel but find refuge in drugs, sex, rock and roll, later in 80s as yuppies and then as banksters, internet, computer inventors and global destabilizers. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Bush and Clinton clans are your left and right wing of this. One got drunk, the other did not inhale marijuana. One came from poverty, the other from wealth. Result is same, narcissism, irresponsible behaviour.Obama seemed nice but given his environment he folded, gave banksters a pass, is in security worse than Nixon. Xers are so insecure and see in boomers older siblings to look up to. Us xers are however unstable, boomers are blind leading blind. <br /><br />When I respect Putin I see a mature man, intelligent, independent of action, coming from a background of deep family suffering-Leningrad in war. This compares positively to go with flow, moral relativist boomers of rght or left. Right wing morality s hypocritical, left wing politically correct.<br /><br /> <br /><br />My Russian wife says to me today "we live wrong, I cook fresh foods,the kids are not kept in school afterwards till 4 pm so that I could work, we have no car". Before she has bemoaned other kids haveTV, PC, smartphone. Her family suffered massively due to the war, she went summers to her grandparents in country, worked on parents dacha to have food to get through winter. Mushroom picking, own potato patch, buckets of own strawberries to marmelade. This made winter up through gorbies time survivable outside privileged moscow, st. Petersburg. 1930s quasi 50 after the war but with fridge, TV, free medcal, all women working, kids in kindergarten, destroyed sense of family due to industrialism. America went far in one direction. Russia was a bit different.The 90s collapse and dacha mind set however reduced severity of boomer narcissism, which they also had. Putin is 63 and a clear example. Due to the suffering the best of their boomers, like Putin, are not Neros like Bush, but more like logsplitter Lincoln, or FDR or Washington. Spiritual cleansing is through suffering. America has not had since WW2 and the war was abroad.<br /><br />Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-59930285676946827212015-02-21T07:42:12.601-05:002015-02-21T07:42:12.601-05:00Very interesting. I read a book by a man who must...Very interesting. I read a book by a man who must be quite old who discussed the falling intelligence in society as falling around 1980(in germany) due to the introduction of private TV stations, based on ad revenues. This is parallel to cable TV in USA and later in Europe. People are distracted by sex, violence. I recall an internet article about the number of newspapers being very large earlier in the century with many different political leanings and that vocabulary of people was much larger. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We know about genrational theory. This explains internal boomer psychology.This is based on deep inner workings which would exist even in an illiterate, pre-industrial society. The egoism, spoiledness of the modern ruling class in the West has to do with excess of personal privilege(boomer coddling in 50s) in addition to technical and political surfeit of power over the physical environment(cars, TV, computers, nonphysical labour jobs), and over foreign country. The sum result is a narcissmus of a Nero or Caligula on a civilizational scale. We massacre physical habitats, species, cultures, nations and then go get our nails done, see a shrink, or play nintendo. We fiddle while Rome burns(or Obama and congress does) and panem et circenses in terms of <br /><br />nintendo, internet nonsese, food stamps for the masses. A critcal, educated public such as the offspring of majority farming based population from USA of 1920s-1930s, who were used to living hard physical lives of deprivation would not have behaved like ours.Energyflowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14476915209268786507noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8746692.post-69852569640171589452015-02-21T06:05:44.723-05:002015-02-21T06:05:44.723-05:00Interesting as usual David.
Who would have though...Interesting as usual David.<br /><br />Who would have thought then too that that the Birchers would find their way into mainstream politics and effectively take over a major political Party?Larryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13733155849517667884noreply@blogger.com