This is the Blog for MORRIS BERMAN, the author of "Dark Ages America". It includes current publications and random thoughts about U.S. Foreign Policy, including letters and reactions to publications from others.
A cultural historian and social critic, MORRIS BERMAN is the author of "Wandering God" and "The Twilight of American Culture". Since 2003 he has been a visiting professor in sociology at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
Feel free to write and participate.
November 08, 2011
Interview With Thom Hartmann
This interview, which Thom did with me on 7 November 2011, is in two parts, and can be found at the following links:
Good stuff! Those so-called Young Turks that debated you should take a few tips from Thom Hartmann.
And regarding Alex Jones, it's probably for the best. That nincompoop accused Chomsky of being an NWO/globalist shill on the air immediately after their interview.
I did a review of WAF on Amazon, and as I say there, it took me all of 8 hours to finish. It is rare for an accomplished scholar to also be a treat to read, so well done.
I also want to say thank you for reiterating what I have been ranting to co-workers for years, that Ted Kaczynski was not insane, but needed to be presented as such for the good of TAP's fragile worldview. As an aside, in his interviews from prison, he describes his life in the woods as reminiscent of the eternal present that you describe in WG, which I thought you might find interesting.
Lastly, good job of not ruining the fun of your book by giving us too many details on the blog ahead of time, you are a shrewd businessman (hustler) after all.
Oh man, the youtube comments are priceless ... or annoying depending on how much you value the opinions of youtube nutjobs who probably never bothered to watch the whole thing, nor read ny of the books.
Glad to see you looking good, last time I saw you in video form was from book TV.
I appreciate your efforts to remind Wiley about my free WAF50 copy Morris, that's real class.
I feel really awkward pressuring the press or you for a free copy, and don't want to alienate the press from you or us. Its just that I didn't want to miss the chance to be part of the ongoing discussion. Then I think about how Goethe and Kant and Galileo waited months or years for a chance at a manuscript or a bound copy. I realize that NMIs should probably start practicing doing without instant manuscript gratification, for the supply chain disruptions just ahead. Still, it will be good to get a copy.
Re: the Hartmann interview - were you discussin the "when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross" quote debatably attributable to Sinclair Lewis, or another one from Orwell?
Also, I would add to your observations about the Great Depression's role in the coming of Nazism, the impact of the lost First World War. Unique to the German Reich was the need to explain not only the sheer waste and awfulness of the conflict (in common with the victors), but the total loss of political legitimacy of the Imperial government and the appaling conclusion that all those millions of soldiers had died for nothing. (We at least had the luxury of justifying their deaths with further Wilsonian illusions). The first Fascist/voelkisch/racist paramilitary political combat leagues antedate the Great Depression. Their victory in 1933 was certainly enabled by the economic collapse, but the outlines of their deadly threat to liberal democracy were becoming increasingly credible to growing numbers of people by the early 1920s.
Ray and everyone else who shd have gotten a bk and didn't:
Eric's assistant quit b4 she finished the job, so half the bks didn't get sent. In general, as i have just finished telling Eric in extensive detail, Wiley's incompetence in the PR/mktg dept is 2nd to none.
You all shd have a copy pretty soon; and if not, write Eric at enelson@wiley.com and say: Hey, man, WTF?
Shameful, as I said b4; there is abs. NO excuse for this.
Nice to see you with a sympatico like Thom Hartmann, although he always seems to be in such a hurry. Maybe you can struggle northward to the Rochester area to hustle your book. Nothing much has changed here, though. Republicans running mostly unopposed.
Dr. Berman Watched your interview. It was great to listen to someone who brings an intellectual and thoughtful analysis to the problems of the ensuing American catastrophy. I'am having Visions of Grandeur. All of your books are on the NYT beast sellers list, you get a talk show on FOX and the society as a whole begins to look within. You never know! While waiting for my copy of WAF to arrive I started reading Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"; where he relates the myths of the world with human psycological development. Quotes Arnold Toynbee, Sigmond Freud, C.G. Jung and many others. Was wondering if you had read it and what your thoughts might be.
Thanks for straightening out this free book business. I have been stalking my mailman and he's starting to get pretty nervous.
It's nice to see you on RT doing a long-form interview. Speaking of which, have you tried the "This is Hell" people up here at Northwestern U's radio station? I think you've talked w/ them before, no? Surely they'd love to have you back.
I would also like to enthusiastically recommend the movie "Visioneers" for light WAFfle-friendly entertainment.
I've seen and heard several of these interviews now, some better than others, even with sympathetic hosts. (Hartmann clearly gets it but kept pushing a potential reboot.) Though the video image is somewhat overpowering, it certainly does add something over the telephonic interview. I'm bugged, though, that while your message stays fairly intact throughout these interviews, the presentation inevitably loses the coherence and tight focus of even a short blog or essay. If the main function is to entice people to read, then PR purposes may be served. However, readers (NMIs) are going to read anyway and watchers (TAP), well, not so much.
A thought about when you answered the living in Mexico mixed with narco state question. That is you find the people gracious but that border narco thing is fueled largely by gringos. Every opportunity should be taken to not let the US off the hook for the drug situation in northern Mexico.
And the drug problem is one of the "going through" problems we'll have in the coming years as you said to Ken Rose. Drugs (illegal, legal) help us avoid the reality that is not going anywhere.
There are 2 articles that speak to the current opposites in journalism. "Perry: The Best Little Whore In Texas" by Matt Taibbbi in Rolling Stone
and it's magical solution opposite "America's 'Oh Sh*t' Moment" by Niall Ferguson in Newsweek.
The Taibbi introduces you to DAA Texas. If elected president, Perry would take the US to depths not even Bush would go. People, buy this issue. This article alone is worth it.
The Ferguson article observes that the US is in a bad place but implies that the event horizon of no escape is still in front of us. Right.
Not a fan of Campbell: it's mythology for the New Age crowd, where (incorrectly) the myth is always the same, and everything is related to everything else. Check out the footnotes re: Campbell in my bk "Wandering God" for more elaborate analysis.
Morris, great discource, I share your views regarding the fate of the USA, my query is will Canada suffer a similar fate. You advise folks to relocate would Canada be a safe haven; if not what are the criteria to look for in a host country? thanks Dave
Okay. I can officially be labeled insane. I agree with Andrew Mellon. There, I said it! Dont's make me do it again.
Ran across this by AM from 1924:
“The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life and it descends to his heirs. Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.”
For the uninitiated, three presidents served under Andrew Mellon when he was Treasury Secretary (Harding to Hoover). I pass by buildings erected to/by this guy every day I go to work (in Pittsburgh). His money lives on, doing many evil things, in the hands of his descendent (and Pittsburgh resident), Richard Mellon Scaife, a soulless troglodyte (and likely resident of Mordor) if there ever was one. Use the Google to find out just how bad.
So, in summary, on taxes (and on most else) the current Republican party is the to the right of a 19th century Robber Baron.
Dr. Berman Couple quick comments: I agree with you concerning Campbell's mono-myth theory and his comparison of everything to everything. I had pick that up before I posted. It is a fun read though because he presents many myths from many different cultures. You just have to wade through some of his analyses and conclusions.
On another note: went to see "West Side Story";(a Turner Classic Movie Promotion) walked out of the theatre feeling like I did when I first saw it 50 years ago. They don't make-em like that any more. Rita Moreno what a gal!
Here come the Jets/Like a bat outta hell/Someone gets in our way/Someone don' feel too well.
Dave-
Depends on yr priorities. I lived in Can 7.5 yrs, feel it's too much like the US. I wanted to move to a traditional culture. Pockets of traditional culture exist in countries all over the world. Start yr research!
MB, it was nice to meet you and hear you talk in LA this week! Also good to see that C-SPAN was covering it, which might further the effort to get the work known and read. I had a pretty somber group of people in my car during the ride home (to be fair, they were also quite tired). I thought a lot about that general desire for an upbeat and optimistic ending, and the difficulty that we have in coming to grips with the grim prognosis for our culture at large. Because I do still retain a lot of optimism about my own little life, and my efficacy in the face of general degradation. Perhaps I'm able to be this way because I've spent many years attempting to create a healthy response to the disease around me, from the community garden to the artist collective to the extended family ties and so forth, all of which serve as cultural bulwarks to help us flourish within. It just occurred to me that it would be thrilling if you were to write some more about the new monastic response, or detail some other examples in the world where people are accommodating the failure of America in a healthy manner.
Sometimes, my keyboard fails me, so I'll just report, and mind you, I am not making this up.
Right now on Huffington Post (that bastion of journalism where you submit things for free and Ariana Huffington sells the site for $300 million dollars) one can view this:
"Restoring capitalism, restoring America"
by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO of EL Rothschild, LLC and the co-Chair of the "Better Values, Better Markets" Task Force
Help!! Did somebody from the Onion post this? WTF? Are the WAF's running a guerilla comedy campaign?
I'll raise you a Mario Batali story for your De Rothschild/Huffington, Bis.
Mario Batali is the celebrity chef now drawing flak for comparing his wealthy banker customers to Hitler and Stalin. The bankster community have apparently decided to boycott all of his massively expensive restaurants.
That is except for a few brave, principled holdouts. When questioned as to his motives, one of these heroes said -
"That just means more white truffles for me."
That's right, banker guy, "ME." Stick it to the system, man.
Talk about letting them eat cake. Talk about an Onion comedy campaign. If only it were funny. Does the guy even know what animals are used to find truffles?
Here's the link - Just like you bis, I have to remind myself didn't make this up.
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King, Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring:/ Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know, But leechlike to their fainting country cling Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow. A people starved and stabbed in th'untilled field...
The Ferguson article, as you allude to, is another of those "we need to be scared of Asia". It makes you wonder where these guys get their info doesn't it?
Talk with anyone who's spent time working or living in China, and specifically Shanghai recently you get a very different picture. Ditto for S. Korea.
The latest educational report for Shanghai had language like "surrounding Shanghai districts". Similar reporting exists in SK. Districts are "selected" to be part of the country's report.
Really, this reporting is quite superficial at best.
Meanwhile, rivers turned into toxic sludge, horrible labor conditions in China and leading rates of suicide in SK.
Just what we want to emulate right? What's funny is this is supposed to be some sort of "rallying" cry for avoiding western collapse? What could the thought process be for writing this stuff be?
Ray--Batali apparently had a rare moment of courage and spoke the truth about his customers. But he was knocked back into reality pretty quickly and issued a groveling apology. Nobody-not even celebrity hamburger-flippers-are to point out how corrupt the people are who benefit from this system.
Dr. Berman,
I've really enjoyed the interviews you've given for your book launch. I particularly agreed with what you said about every agency being now, at the core, corrupt and incompetent and the impossibility of reforming any of them, much less all of them, for the country to function. When searching for the interviews on youtube I ran across a movie called Lifting the Veil. It's long but if any of you have a couple of hours to spare, I'd recommend it.
And one result of "Bataligate", as it's now being called, is that flashing your Wall St. business work ID gets you a free glass of wine at a number of Little Italy spots hoping to scoop up the business. Thank God SOMEONE will take care of those mistreated bankers!
Thanks, glad u enjoyed them. There's a long one, abt an hr, that I have yet to post, because I'm waiting for the link. It's the talk recorded by PirateTV (and also the local Wash State c-span) at Elliott Bay Bks in Seattle, and by national c-span at B&N in LA. The latter will be shown on BookTV, but they are notoriously slow abt releasing their videos (my publicist will hafta bug them a bit). But if PirateTV comes thru for me pretty soon, I shd have the link up and running.
I'm back in Mexico now, and unless some miracle occurs (aka $), the book tour/launch is over. But it was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping these interviews get some degree of exposure.
Every time I hear, read, or think about 'progress', I am drawn back to Aldous Huxley’s 1944/45 book, "The Perennial Philosophy". In a chapter called, of all things, 'God in the World', he marvels at how twentieth-century Westerns "still hold fast to the religion of Inevitable Progress – which is, in the last analysis, the hope and faith (in the teeth of all human experience) that one can get something for nothing. How much saner and more realistic is the Greek view that every victory has to be paid for, and that, for some victories, the price exacted is so high that it outweighs any advantage that may be obtained!" He adds, "It is because the reality of Progress can never be determined that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have had to treat it as an article of religious faith."
There is a long but interesting article (actually it's a review of Fukuyama's latest book) in the 'New Republic' by John Gray. It deals with American Messianism and our ideas about 'Progress'. He makes the same point that he did in his book, "Black Mass" – that the idea of Western Democracy or 'The American Way' as 'the light and the truth and the way for all people, for all time' is just Judeo-Christian apocalyptic thinking dressed up in a modern disguise. A disguise which is becoming somewhat threadbare, I might add.
You can access Gray's article at Arts & Letters Daily, at www(dot)aldaily(dot)com
It is my humble opinion that any DAA'ers who are not familiar with Gray's works should become so – after you have read all of Dr. Berman's books, of course.
I've read two of John Gray's books and several of his essays and book reviews. I also recommend him highly as a means of removing the scales from one's eyes, but the takeaway is not altogether happy or soothing. Like Prof. Berman's American trilogy, it's mostly bad news with no possibility escape. For truth-seekers, it's a no-brainer; for those happier to live within the Bageantean hologram, it's time to kill the messenger.
prof. berman i'm glad to see you doing talks/interviews again. even though i already follow your blog closely (ever since reading 'twilight'), hopefully it will bring more people here and influence those sympathetic with OWS. someone please upload mr berman's talks on youtubes if they are not already there.
Glad u cd view the lecture. Ed Mays sent me the link; only problem was, I couldn't get it to work! I've asked him if he can get it onto YouTube, but frankly, we may hafta wait for the c-span video (taped in LA on Nov. 8). Problem w/c-span is that they often take months to run the thing on BookTV. Oh well...
Perhaps we could get Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez to interview via streaming video on Democracy Now. This is my main source of news as I have long since discarded my television and stopped trusting the main stream media outlets.
Amy is very good about getting people on DN that would otherwise not have a Titanic's chance in the Atlantic of being heard or seen by a large audience.
You have quite a few important ideas that need to be heard and expressed to those of us who are paying attention and by those persons of conscience who feel like they are either out of their minds or who are otherwise ostracized by the hustler culture that is mesmerized by what Chris Hedges calls "electronic hallucinations".
Speaking of the Titanic. I used to study quite a bit on the Titanic. The two books that stand out the most about that tragedy were written by Walter Lord. The parallels of the Titanic and the United States are too numerous to mention here. But I have been thinking about a short book entitled "The United States of Titanic".
I would appreciate any comments you might have to offer on such a project as I have never even attempted to write a book before.
I fear I don't know very much abt the Titanic, except as a metaphor. As for how to write a bk: there are no easy pointers I can give you. But you might benefit from a nonfiction writing course such as are often given at University Extension (I used to teach one myself, yrs ago).
Re: Amy Goodman: friends of mine have campaigned on my behalf, to no avail. She just isn't interested. There are, I'm sure, many reasons for this; but a big one, I'm guessing, is that unlike Amy, I'm not a 'progressive'. The only future I see for the US is the Titanic, and I doubt she wants to hear that.
Check out the recent article by Matt Taibbi on Rolling Stone: "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests"
His impression? "People want to go someplace for at least five minutes where no one is trying to bleed you or sell you something... People want out of this fiendish system, rigged to inexorably circumvent every hope we have for a more balanced world."
Amy Goodman salivates every time she has Chomsky or Moore on her program so I don't think she'd welcome the good doctor on especially if you make even an oblique and more than likely unfavorable reference to those two. She probably harbors in fact some believe that Obama will radically turn left so as to capture the progressive vote so again you would only disturb her world view. Anyway, your interviews are remarkably lucent. Funny to hear all three interlocutors try to convince you that things are not hopeless. Well, in one regard they are right. There is , in fact, social mobility in the US. A recent study found that 1/3 of those born into the middle class are now statistically poor.
Congratulations on a successful launch and book tour! I'm looking forward to the new interviews and will check out the link that someone graciously posted.
Last time you went to the U.S. you posted an account of your experiences such as being served coffee by a zombie barrista. I'd be interested in hearing your observations on your recent experiences being in the U.S. during the book tour. BTW, did you get a chance to visit any OWS encampments?
I figure I'll be on Amy's show when snowballs freeze in hell. Right or Left, almost no Americans want to hear that It's Over, least of all the 'progressives'. I love that quote from Garrison Keillor: "Here in Lake Wobegon we have the ability to look reality right in the eye and deny it." If u have it, pls supply us w/yr source on downward social mobility.
Thanx for ref to Taibbi. He seems to be saying that the real pt of OWS is to reject the hustling culture. Which wd mean what I've been hoping for all along, namely, that it's not abt redistributing the pie more fairly; rather, it's abt trying to have a whole different kind of pie. I hope he's rt. A couple of excerpts:
"Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it....
"We're all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob's Ladder nightmare with no end; we're entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer."
I really liked your Seattle talk, you had plenty of time to present your ideas, ideas that should that lead one to a deep questioning of this culture. Of course, deep questioning is something that Americans are practically trained from birth not to do.
During the question period someone seemed to be trying to make the point that America may be a greedy, hustling culture but that this behavior is human nature. Implying that America is kind of inevitable and natural and maybe even what all human societies should be. My guess is that Americans, like most people in all times believe their society to be the perfect reflection of human behavior, so this kind of smugness is to be expected. And it is true that greed is a human trait. But there are other human traits and lots of societies that were and are not based so exclusively and greed. You get the behavior that you encourage and reward. Derrick Jensen speaks about this in his interview with Ken Rose using some native American tribes as examples. If your culture believes it will be in the same place for the next 500 years, because in fact such people believed they were inseparable from their land, then certain behaviors cannot be permitted. If it doesn’t then you get a trash it and move on to the next hustle type behavior.
Another thing that you mentioned was manana culture and that life can be lived in a slower and more gracious way. I did a search of the term and the results were quite interesting. One American who ran out of gas in Mexico was frustrated that there weren’t more gas stations and had praise only for those areas that were developed, he liked the high rise buildings on the Yucatan because they reminded him of Miami Beach. On a right wing website the term came up because it was feared that manana culture was being brought to the US by immigrants. Another site had a lawyers group advising frustrated American investors on how to deal with it. The impression I got was that manana culture was standing in the way of Americans and their hustling way of life. If that is so, then viva manana culture.
David Sirota in Salon.com (Nov.11) cites a Pew Charitable Trusts report that found that "roughly 1/3 of those who grew up in the middle class have now fallen below that station in adulthood."
Art--Here's a quote from last weeks post on James Howard Kunstler:
"The nation is hostage to a confederacy of racketeers. Banking. Big Pharma. The Higher Ed / Loan nexus. GMO agri-biz. Fast food. Mandatory motoring. You name it. What a disgrace we are, and the worst of us are the least to know that."
Someone wrote in a while back about the possibility of the American ruling class deliberately imploding the system. I have to agree with Dr. Berman that to think of ruling class behavior in simple conspiratorial terms is a mistake. Nevertheless, I am reminded of fellow blogger, Nicholas Colloff's description of a high-level corporate consultant he met at an Oxford dinner who "admitted that the system was bust, (and) that the CEOs he worked with half knew it." I suppose that corporate executives used to sincerely care for their corporations and the corporate world in general since they felt they had 'hitched their wagon to a star'. Perhaps the kind of thinking Nicholas described is influencing top corporate executives and has begun to influence the economy and society as a whole. However, I think this would fall far short of a conspiracy to deliberately bring the system down.
It was Keynes who once said that "capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all." That must also apply within a ruling class.
My favorite brief and basic exposition of social classes (particularly ruling classes) and how they function was written by Paul Sweezy back in 1951 and published in the May and June issues of "Monthly Review" – an independent Marxist journal. You can also find it in Sweezy's 1953 book, "The Present as History: essays and reviews on Capitalism and Socialism". The article is called 'The American Ruling Class'. Of course it describes the US back in the late 40's and early 50's, but I think it is still relevant, and in 18 pages it presents an antidote to simplistic conspiratorial thinking.
Hmmm...I wouldn't call Derrick Jensen a progressive. He wants to blow up dams to liberate rivers, topple cell phone towers that kill song birds, encourage people to engage in sabotage, cyber and bombs, against corporations and, essentially, abolish civilization. For Jensen, civilization is a United States with all the flaws that Morris Berman describes in his American Trilogy. It's gotta go.
Yet, Amy Goodman interviewed that anti-progressive! I seem to recall that Jensen was going to have a two-parter on DemocracyNow. But maybe Amy realized her mistake and didn't invite him back for part 2. I like Amy and the valuable work she does, but I regret that she has not ever mentioned Morris Berman's work or invited him to the program.
In some ways, the Left is more obtuse than the Right, the more so for being 'progressive' and thus not able to tolerate an argument that flatly says, Game Over. I recently got a letter from a semi-prominent Left-winger who writes for sites like Common Dreams, telling me that I was a "rat" for abandoning ship; that WAF was obviously a bitter book; and that the 'larger picture' was that The US Will Rise Again. It finally led to his apology, and a reasonable discussion between the two of us; but I'm impressed as to the rage that my position triggers from this camp. The tone of WAF, it seems to me, is philosophical rather than bitter (I don't feel bitter at all); and based on a careful study of our history, I am 99.9% sure that there will be no Renaissance on American soil. I cd say more abt this (and did, to him), but u.c. what I'm talking abt. If Amy were to invite me on the program--wh/wd require Divine Intervention--I'd literally faint dead away.
DR-
I always suggest to conspiracy theorists that they read essay #3 in QOV, the profile of C. Wright Mills, which reveals a very nuanced understanding of the subject on Mills' part. That being said, it is also true that (a) conspiracies do occur, from time to time, and (b) that there is a kind of slippery shadow area between, say, the ruling class members pursuing their own individual interests and this coalescing into some kind of deliberate, concerted effort. Conspiracy theorists do tend to be mad/paranoid, in the sense of connecting dots in a particular way that may not genuinely be connected; the problem is, that sometimes they are! In addition, there is the sobering thought that even tho a particular situation is not conspiratorial, the social or political outcome is such that it might as well be. Thus as Susan/Kunstler pts out, the US is now controlled by racketeers; but they may not be all that coordinated. Nevertheless, the top 1% does wind up with more than 90% of the cash. Gee...
Reminds me of when I presented the ol fluoride conspiracy to a futurist I was a graduate assistant for...he said that it was interesting and all, but you must assume that the gov is wily enough to pull that kinda shit off.
Regarding bitterness, I have to say, even though we may find ourselves in shitty situations as a result of nefarious people and institutions, the best retort is rejection of their reality, including not clinging to bitterness, which will only serve to delay one's escape. So, fuck the control freaks, but fuck negative identities too.
Thank you for your interest and support. Personally, I'm very interested in what is going on in India, which I suspect is very different from what Thos Friedman tells us is going on. Hope you'll continue posting, but I suggest you do it under the most recent post, as people tend not to read the previous ones.
Good stuff! Those so-called Young Turks that debated you should take a few tips from Thom Hartmann.
ReplyDeleteAnd regarding Alex Jones, it's probably for the best. That nincompoop accused Chomsky of being an NWO/globalist shill on the air immediately after their interview.
Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeleteI did a review of WAF on Amazon, and as I say there, it took me all of 8 hours to finish. It is rare for an accomplished scholar to also be a treat to read, so well done.
I also want to say thank you for reiterating what I have been ranting to co-workers for years, that Ted Kaczynski was not insane, but needed to be presented as such for the good of TAP's fragile worldview. As an aside, in his interviews from prison, he describes his life in the woods as reminiscent of the eternal present that you describe in WG, which I thought you might find interesting.
Lastly, good job of not ruining the fun of your book by giving us too many details on the blog ahead of time, you are a shrewd businessman (hustler) after all.
Oh man, the youtube comments are priceless ... or annoying depending on how much you value the opinions of youtube nutjobs who probably never bothered to watch the whole thing, nor read ny of the books.
ReplyDeleteGlad to see you looking good, last time I saw you in video form was from book TV.
I appreciate your efforts to remind Wiley about my free WAF50 copy Morris, that's real class.
ReplyDeleteI feel really awkward pressuring the press or you for a free copy, and don't want to alienate the press from you or us. Its just that I didn't want to miss the chance to be part of the ongoing discussion. Then I think about how Goethe and Kant and Galileo waited months or years for a chance at a manuscript or a bound copy. I realize that NMIs should probably start practicing doing without instant manuscript gratification, for the supply chain disruptions just ahead. Still, it will be good to get a copy.
Re: the Hartmann interview - were you discussin the "when fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross" quote debatably attributable to Sinclair Lewis, or another one from Orwell?
Also, I would add to your observations about the Great Depression's role in the coming of Nazism, the impact of the lost First World War. Unique to the German Reich was the need to explain not only the sheer waste and awfulness of the conflict (in common with the victors), but the total loss of political legitimacy of the Imperial government and the appaling conclusion that all those millions of soldiers had died for nothing. (We at least had the luxury of justifying their deaths with further Wilsonian illusions). The first Fascist/voelkisch/racist paramilitary political combat leagues antedate the Great Depression. Their victory in 1933 was certainly enabled by the economic collapse, but the outlines of their deadly threat to liberal democracy were becoming increasingly credible to growing numbers of people by the early
1920s.
Ray and everyone else who shd have gotten a bk and didn't:
ReplyDeleteEric's assistant quit b4 she finished the job, so half the bks didn't get sent. In general, as i have just finished telling Eric in extensive detail, Wiley's incompetence in the PR/mktg dept is 2nd to none.
You all shd have a copy pretty soon; and if not, write Eric at enelson@wiley.com and say: Hey, man, WTF?
Shameful, as I said b4; there is abs. NO excuse for this.
mb
Nice to see you with a sympatico like Thom Hartmann, although he always seems to be in such a hurry. Maybe you can struggle northward to the Rochester area to hustle your book. Nothing much has changed here, though. Republicans running mostly unopposed.
ReplyDeleteDr. Berman
ReplyDeleteWatched your interview. It was great to listen to someone who brings an intellectual and thoughtful analysis to the problems of the ensuing American catastrophy.
I'am having Visions of Grandeur. All of your books are on the NYT beast sellers list, you get a talk show on FOX and the society as a whole begins to look within. You never know!
While waiting for my copy of WAF to arrive I started reading Joseph Campbell's "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"; where he relates the myths of the world with human psycological development. Quotes Arnold Toynbee, Sigmond Freud, C.G. Jung and many others. Was wondering if you had read it and what your thoughts might be.
MB & Ray,
ReplyDeleteThanks for straightening out this free book business. I have been stalking my mailman and he's starting to get pretty nervous.
It's nice to see you on RT doing a long-form interview. Speaking of which, have you tried the "This is Hell" people up here at Northwestern U's radio station? I think you've talked w/ them before, no? Surely they'd love to have you back.
I would also like to enthusiastically recommend the movie "Visioneers" for light WAFfle-friendly entertainment.
I've seen and heard several of these interviews now, some better than others, even with sympathetic hosts. (Hartmann clearly gets it but kept pushing a potential reboot.) Though the video image is somewhat overpowering, it certainly does add something over the telephonic interview. I'm bugged, though, that while your message stays fairly intact throughout these interviews, the presentation inevitably loses the coherence and tight focus of even a short blog or essay. If the main function is to entice people to read, then PR purposes may be served. However, readers (NMIs) are going to read anyway and watchers (TAP), well, not so much.
ReplyDeleteProf.
ReplyDeleteA thought about when you answered the living in Mexico mixed with narco state question. That is you find the people gracious but that border narco thing is fueled largely by gringos. Every opportunity should be taken to not let the US off the hook for the drug situation in northern Mexico.
And the drug problem is one of the "going through" problems we'll have in the coming years as you said to Ken Rose. Drugs (illegal, legal) help us avoid the reality that is not going anywhere.
There are 2 articles that speak to the current opposites in journalism. "Perry: The Best Little Whore In Texas" by Matt Taibbbi in Rolling Stone
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/rick-perry-the-best-little-whore-in-texas-20111026
and it's magical solution opposite "America's 'Oh Sh*t' Moment" by Niall Ferguson in Newsweek.
The Taibbi introduces you to DAA Texas. If elected president, Perry would take the US to depths not even Bush would go. People, buy this issue. This article alone is worth it.
The Ferguson article observes that the US is in a bad place but implies that the event horizon of no escape is still in front of us. Right.
David-
ReplyDeleteNot a fan of Campbell: it's mythology for the New Age crowd, where (incorrectly) the myth is always the same, and everything is related to everything else. Check out the footnotes re: Campbell in my bk "Wandering God" for more elaborate analysis.
mb
Morris, great discource, I share your views regarding the fate of the USA, my query is will Canada suffer a similar fate. You advise folks to relocate would Canada be a safe haven; if not what are the criteria to look for in a host country?
ReplyDeletethanks
Dave
Okay. I can officially be labeled insane. I agree with Andrew Mellon. There, I said it! Dont's make me do it again.
ReplyDeleteRan across this by AM from 1924:
“The fairness of taxing more lightly income from wages, salaries or from investments is beyond question. In the first case, the income is uncertain and limited in duration; sickness or death destroys it and old age diminishes it; in the other, the source of income continues; the income may be disposed of during a man’s life and it descends to his heirs. Surely we can afford to make a distinction between the people whose only capital is their mettle and physical energy and the people whose income is derived from investments. Such a distinction would mean much to millions of American workers and would be an added inspiration to the man who must provide a competence during his few productive years to care for himself and his family when his earnings capacity is at an end.”
For the uninitiated, three presidents served under Andrew Mellon when he was Treasury Secretary (Harding to Hoover). I pass by buildings erected to/by this guy every day I go to work (in Pittsburgh). His money lives on, doing many evil things, in the hands of his descendent (and Pittsburgh resident), Richard Mellon Scaife, a soulless troglodyte (and likely resident of Mordor) if there ever was one. Use the Google to find out just how bad.
So, in summary, on taxes (and on most else) the current Republican party is the to the right of a 19th century Robber Baron.
Can you say Terminal Decline?
Irony? Can there be any after this? MB?
Help!
Dr. Berman
ReplyDeleteCouple quick comments: I agree with you concerning Campbell's mono-myth theory and his comparison of everything to everything. I had pick that up before I posted. It is a fun read though because he presents many myths from many different cultures. You just have to wade through some of his analyses and conclusions.
On another note: went to see "West Side Story";(a Turner Classic Movie Promotion) walked out of the theatre feeling like I did when I first saw it 50 years ago. They don't make-em like that any more. Rita Moreno what a gal!
Dr. Berman: Your moral intellectualism/common sense stands out from all people. You are the very top. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteDavid-
ReplyDeleteHere come the Jets/Like a bat outta hell/Someone gets in our way/Someone don' feel too well.
Dave-
Depends on yr priorities. I lived in Can 7.5 yrs, feel it's too much like the US. I wanted to move to a traditional culture. Pockets of traditional culture exist in countries all over the world. Start yr research!
mb
MB, it was nice to meet you and hear you talk in LA this week! Also good to see that C-SPAN was covering it, which might further the effort to get the work known and read. I had a pretty somber group of people in my car during the ride home (to be fair, they were also quite tired). I thought a lot about that general desire for an upbeat and optimistic ending, and the difficulty that we have in coming to grips with the grim prognosis for our culture at large. Because I do still retain a lot of optimism about my own little life, and my efficacy in the face of general degradation. Perhaps I'm able to be this way because I've spent many years attempting to create a healthy response to the disease around me, from the community garden to the artist collective to the extended family ties and so forth, all of which serve as cultural bulwarks to help us flourish within. It just occurred to me that it would be thrilling if you were to write some more about the new monastic response, or detail some other examples in the world where people are accommodating the failure of America in a healthy manner.
ReplyDeleteMr. D-
ReplyDeleteIt was great to meet u. Sounds like yr up on the NMI thing, wh/is the best alternative available to hitting the rd, imo.
mb
Sometimes, my keyboard fails me, so I'll just report, and mind you, I am not making this up.
ReplyDeleteRight now on Huffington Post (that bastion of journalism where you submit things for free and Ariana Huffington sells the site for $300 million dollars) one can view this:
"Restoring capitalism, restoring America"
by Lynn Forester de Rothschild, CEO of EL Rothschild, LLC and the co-Chair of the "Better Values, Better Markets" Task Force
Help!! Did somebody from the Onion post this? WTF? Are the WAF's running a guerilla comedy campaign?
MB, does this shit happen in Mexico?
I'll raise you a Mario Batali story for your De Rothschild/Huffington, Bis.
ReplyDeleteMario Batali is the celebrity chef now drawing flak for comparing his wealthy banker customers to Hitler and Stalin. The bankster community have apparently decided to boycott all of his massively expensive restaurants.
That is except for a few brave, principled holdouts. When questioned as to his motives, one of these heroes said -
"That just means more white truffles for me."
That's right, banker guy, "ME." Stick it to the system, man.
Talk about letting them eat cake. Talk about an Onion comedy campaign. If only it were funny. Does the guy even know what animals are used to find truffles?
Here's the link - Just like you bis, I have to remind myself didn't make this up.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/10/mario-batali-hitler-stalin-comparison
I'm favoring WAF:ERS as the blog goup's name:
ReplyDeleteWhy America Failed: Encyclo-Redactive Syndicate
Maury,
I saw you on the telly! Well, youtube. Great interview.
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying King,
ReplyDeletePrinces, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn,--mud from a muddy spring:/
Rulers who neither see nor feel nor know,
But leechlike to their fainting country cling
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow.
A people starved and stabbed in th'untilled field...
Who wrote?
Kelvin,
ReplyDeleteTwas Shelley.
Not this one http://bit.ly/vuNI4D
This one http://bit.ly/urk42X
Hey Neb,
ReplyDeleteThe Ferguson article, as you allude to, is another of those "we need to be scared of Asia". It makes you wonder where these guys get their info doesn't it?
Talk with anyone who's spent time working or living in China, and specifically Shanghai recently you get a very different picture. Ditto for S. Korea.
The latest educational report for Shanghai had language like "surrounding Shanghai districts". Similar reporting exists in SK. Districts are "selected" to be part of the country's report.
Really, this reporting is quite superficial at best.
Meanwhile, rivers turned into toxic sludge, horrible labor conditions in China and leading rates of suicide in SK.
Just what we want to emulate right? What's funny is this is supposed to be some sort of "rallying" cry for avoiding western collapse? What could the thought process be for writing this stuff be?
El Juero
Dear Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeleteRay--Batali apparently had a rare moment of courage and spoke the truth about his customers. But he was knocked back into reality pretty quickly and issued a groveling apology. Nobody-not even celebrity hamburger-flippers-are to point out how corrupt the people are who benefit from this system.
Dr. Berman,
I've really enjoyed the interviews you've given for your book launch. I particularly agreed with what you said about every agency being now, at the core, corrupt and incompetent and the impossibility of reforming any of them, much less all of them, for the country to function. When searching for the interviews on youtube I ran across a movie called Lifting the Veil. It's long but if any of you have a couple of hours to spare, I'd recommend it.
And one result of "Bataligate", as it's now being called, is that flashing your Wall St. business work ID gets you a free glass of wine at a number of Little Italy spots hoping to scoop up the business. Thank God SOMEONE will take care of those mistreated bankers!
ReplyDeleteSusan-
ReplyDeleteThanks, glad u enjoyed them. There's a long one, abt an hr, that I have yet to post, because I'm waiting for the link. It's the talk recorded by PirateTV (and also the local Wash State c-span) at Elliott Bay Bks in Seattle, and by national c-span at B&N in LA. The latter will be shown on BookTV, but they are notoriously slow abt releasing their videos (my publicist will hafta bug them a bit). But if PirateTV comes thru for me pretty soon, I shd have the link up and running.
I'm back in Mexico now, and unless some miracle occurs (aka $), the book tour/launch is over. But it was a lot of fun, and I'm hoping these interviews get some degree of exposure.
mb
Dr. Berman and DAA'ers—
ReplyDeleteEvery time I hear, read, or think about 'progress', I am drawn back to Aldous Huxley’s 1944/45 book, "The Perennial Philosophy". In a chapter called, of all things, 'God in the World', he marvels at how twentieth-century Westerns "still hold fast to the religion of Inevitable Progress – which is, in the last analysis, the hope and faith (in the teeth of all human experience) that one can get something for nothing. How much saner and more realistic is the Greek view that every victory has to be paid for, and that, for some victories, the price exacted is so high that it outweighs any advantage that may be obtained!" He adds, "It is because the reality of Progress can never be determined that the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have had to treat it as an article of religious faith."
There is a long but interesting article (actually it's a review of Fukuyama's latest book) in the 'New Republic' by John Gray. It deals with American Messianism and our ideas about 'Progress'. He makes the same point that he did in his book, "Black Mass" – that the idea of Western Democracy or 'The American Way' as 'the light and the truth and the way for all people, for all time' is just Judeo-Christian apocalyptic thinking dressed up in a modern disguise. A disguise which is becoming somewhat threadbare, I might add.
You can access Gray's article at Arts & Letters Daily, at www(dot)aldaily(dot)com
It is my humble opinion that any DAA'ers who are not familiar with Gray's works should become so – after you have read all of Dr. Berman's books, of course.
David Rosen
I've read two of John Gray's books and several of his essays and book reviews. I also recommend him highly as a means of removing the scales from one's eyes, but the takeaway is not altogether happy or soothing. Like Prof. Berman's American trilogy, it's mostly bad news with no possibility escape. For truth-seekers, it's a no-brainer; for those happier to live within the Bageantean hologram, it's time to kill the messenger.
ReplyDeleteMB,
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to the PirateTV video.
http://www.edmaysproductions.net/webvideo/berman.wmv
I am watching it now.
VW
prof. berman i'm glad to see you doing talks/interviews again. even though i already follow your blog closely (ever since reading 'twilight'), hopefully it will bring more people here and influence those sympathetic with OWS. someone please upload mr berman's talks on youtubes if they are not already there.
ReplyDeleteVW-
ReplyDeleteGlad u cd view the lecture. Ed Mays sent me the link; only problem was, I couldn't get it to work! I've asked him if he can get it onto YouTube, but frankly, we may hafta wait for the c-span video (taped in LA on Nov. 8). Problem w/c-span is that they often take months to run the thing on BookTV. Oh well...
mb
MB,
ReplyDeletePerhaps we could get Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez to interview via streaming video on Democracy Now. This is my main source of news as I have long since discarded my television and stopped trusting the main stream media outlets.
Amy is very good about getting people on DN that would otherwise not have a Titanic's chance in the Atlantic of being heard or seen by a large audience.
You have quite a few important ideas that need to be heard and expressed to those of us who are paying attention and by those persons of conscience who feel like they are either out of their minds or who are otherwise ostracized by the hustler culture that is mesmerized by what Chris Hedges calls "electronic hallucinations".
Speaking of the Titanic. I used to study quite a bit on the Titanic. The two books that stand out the most about that tragedy were written by Walter Lord. The parallels of the Titanic and the United States are too numerous to mention here. But I have been thinking about a short book entitled "The United States of Titanic".
I would appreciate any comments you might have to offer on such a project as I have never even attempted to write a book before.
VW
VW-
ReplyDeleteI fear I don't know very much abt the Titanic, except as a metaphor. As for how to write a bk: there are no easy pointers I can give you. But you might benefit from a nonfiction writing course such as are often given at University Extension (I used to teach one myself, yrs ago).
Re: Amy Goodman: friends of mine have campaigned on my behalf, to no avail. She just isn't interested. There are, I'm sure, many reasons for this; but a big one, I'm guessing, is that unlike Amy, I'm not a 'progressive'. The only future I see for the US is the Titanic, and I doubt she wants to hear that.
mb
Dear Friends,
ReplyDeleteCheck out the recent article by Matt Taibbi on Rolling Stone: "How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the OWS Protests"
His impression? "People want to go someplace for at least five minutes where no one is trying to bleed you or sell you something... People want out of this fiendish system, rigged to inexorably circumvent every hope we have for a more balanced world."
Amy Goodman salivates every time she has Chomsky or Moore on her program so I don't think she'd welcome the good doctor on especially if you make even an oblique and more than likely unfavorable reference to those two. She probably harbors in fact some believe that Obama will radically turn left so as to capture the progressive vote so again you would only disturb her world view.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, your interviews are remarkably lucent. Funny to hear all three interlocutors try to convince you that things are not hopeless. Well, in one regard they are right. There is , in fact, social mobility in the US. A recent study found that 1/3 of those born into the middle class are now statistically poor.
Hi Maury,
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on a successful launch and book tour! I'm looking forward to the new interviews and will check out the link that someone graciously posted.
Last time you went to the U.S. you posted an account of your experiences such as being served coffee by a zombie barrista. I'd be interested in hearing your observations on your recent experiences being in the U.S. during the book tour. BTW, did you get a chance to visit any OWS encampments?
Dan-
ReplyDeleteI figure I'll be on Amy's show when snowballs freeze in hell. Right or Left, almost no Americans want to hear that It's Over, least of all the 'progressives'. I love that quote from Garrison Keillor: "Here in Lake Wobegon we have the ability to look reality right in the eye and deny it." If u have it, pls supply us w/yr source on downward social mobility.
mb
Art-
ReplyDeleteThanx for ref to Taibbi. He seems to be saying that the real pt of OWS is to reject the hustling culture. Which wd mean what I've been hoping for all along, namely, that it's not abt redistributing the pie more fairly; rather, it's abt trying to have a whole different kind of pie. I hope he's rt. A couple of excerpts:
"Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance. It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything. This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become. If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it....
"We're all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob's Ladder nightmare with no end; we're entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer."
I really liked your Seattle talk, you had plenty of time to present your ideas, ideas that should that lead one to a deep questioning of this culture. Of course, deep questioning is something that Americans are practically trained from birth not to do.
ReplyDeleteDuring the question period someone seemed to be trying to make the point that America may be a greedy, hustling culture but that this behavior is human nature. Implying that America is kind of inevitable and natural and maybe even what all human societies should be. My guess is that Americans, like most people in all times believe their society to be the perfect reflection of human behavior, so this kind of smugness is to be expected. And it is true that greed is a human trait. But there are other human traits and lots of societies that were and are not based so exclusively and greed. You get the behavior that you encourage and reward. Derrick Jensen speaks about this in his interview with Ken Rose using some native American tribes as examples. If your culture believes it will be in the same place for the next 500 years, because in fact such people believed they were inseparable from their land, then certain behaviors cannot be permitted. If it doesn’t then you get a trash it and move on to the next hustle type behavior.
Another thing that you mentioned was manana culture and that life can be lived in a slower and more gracious way. I did a search of the term and the results were quite interesting. One American who ran out of gas in Mexico was frustrated that there weren’t more gas stations and had praise only for those areas that were developed, he liked the high rise buildings on the Yucatan because they reminded him of Miami Beach. On a right wing website the term came up because it was feared that manana culture was being brought to the US by immigrants. Another site had a lawyers group advising frustrated American investors on how to deal with it. The impression I got was that manana culture was standing in the way of Americans and their hustling way of life. If that is so, then viva manana culture.
David Sirota in Salon.com (Nov.11) cites a Pew Charitable Trusts report that found that "roughly 1/3 of those who grew up in the middle class have now fallen below that station in adulthood."
ReplyDeleteDear Dr. Berman,
ReplyDeleteArt--Here's a quote from last weeks post on James Howard Kunstler:
"The nation is hostage to a confederacy of racketeers. Banking. Big Pharma. The Higher Ed / Loan nexus. GMO agri-biz. Fast food. Mandatory motoring. You name it. What a disgrace we are, and the worst of us are the least to know that."
DAA’ers
ReplyDeleteSomeone wrote in a while back about the possibility of the American ruling class deliberately imploding the system. I have to agree with Dr. Berman that to think of ruling class behavior in simple conspiratorial terms is a mistake. Nevertheless, I am reminded of fellow blogger, Nicholas Colloff's description of a high-level corporate consultant he met at an Oxford dinner who "admitted that the system was bust, (and) that the CEOs he worked with half knew it." I suppose that corporate executives used to sincerely care for their corporations and the corporate world in general since they felt they had 'hitched their wagon to a star'. Perhaps the kind of thinking Nicholas described is influencing top corporate executives and has begun to influence the economy and society as a whole. However, I think this would fall far short of a conspiracy to deliberately bring the system down.
It was Keynes who once said that "capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all." That must also apply within a ruling class.
My favorite brief and basic exposition of social classes (particularly ruling classes) and how they function was written by Paul Sweezy back in 1951 and published in the May and June issues of "Monthly Review" – an independent Marxist journal. You can also find it in Sweezy's 1953 book, "The Present as History: essays and reviews on Capitalism and Socialism". The article is called 'The American Ruling Class'. Of course it describes the US back in the late 40's and early 50's, but I think it is still relevant, and in 18 pages it presents an antidote to simplistic conspiratorial thinking.
David Rosen
Hmmm...I wouldn't call Derrick Jensen a progressive. He wants to blow up dams to liberate rivers, topple cell phone towers that kill song birds, encourage people to engage in sabotage, cyber and bombs, against corporations and, essentially, abolish civilization.
ReplyDeleteFor Jensen, civilization is a United States with all the flaws that Morris Berman describes in his American Trilogy. It's gotta go.
Yet, Amy Goodman interviewed that anti-progressive! I seem to recall that Jensen was going to have a two-parter on DemocracyNow. But maybe Amy realized her mistake and didn't invite him back for part 2. I like Amy and the valuable work she does, but I regret that she has not ever mentioned Morris Berman's work or invited him to the program.
Kel-
ReplyDeleteIn some ways, the Left is more obtuse than the Right, the more so for being 'progressive' and thus not able to tolerate an argument that flatly says, Game Over. I recently got a letter from a semi-prominent Left-winger who writes for sites like Common Dreams, telling me that I was a "rat" for abandoning ship; that WAF was obviously a bitter book; and that the 'larger picture' was that The US Will Rise Again. It finally led to his apology, and a reasonable discussion between the two of us; but I'm impressed as to the rage that my position triggers from this camp. The tone of WAF, it seems to me, is philosophical rather than bitter (I don't feel bitter at all); and based on a careful study of our history, I am 99.9% sure that there will be no Renaissance on American soil. I cd say more abt this (and did, to him), but u.c. what I'm talking abt. If Amy were to invite me on the program--wh/wd require Divine Intervention--I'd literally faint dead away.
DR-
I always suggest to conspiracy theorists that they read essay #3 in QOV, the profile of C. Wright Mills, which reveals a very nuanced understanding of the subject on Mills' part. That being said, it is also true that (a) conspiracies do occur, from time to time, and (b) that there is a kind of slippery shadow area between, say, the ruling class members pursuing their own individual interests and this coalescing into some kind of deliberate, concerted effort. Conspiracy theorists do tend to be mad/paranoid, in the sense of connecting dots in a particular way that may not genuinely be connected; the problem is, that sometimes they are! In addition, there is the sobering thought that even tho a particular situation is not conspiratorial, the social or political outcome is such that it might as well be. Thus as Susan/Kunstler pts out, the US is now controlled by racketeers; but they may not be all that coordinated. Nevertheless, the top 1% does wind up with more than 90% of the cash. Gee...
mb
Reminds me of when I presented the ol fluoride conspiracy to a futurist I was a graduate assistant for...he said that it was interesting and all, but you must assume that the gov is wily enough to pull that kinda shit off.
ReplyDeleteRegarding bitterness, I have to say, even though we may find ourselves in shitty situations as a result of nefarious people and institutions, the best retort is rejection of their reality, including not clinging to bitterness, which will only serve to delay one's escape. So, fuck the control freaks, but fuck negative identities too.
I enjoyed all your talk shows.
ReplyDeleteI am from India and I can vouch for the fact that the rich urban cities in India face the same mindless consumerism.
I had written about the Fading American Dream in my blog - link-http://urgentquestions.blogspot.com/2010/12/fading-american-dream.html
I plan to read all your books as it also offers interesting perspective on the malaise that is also affecting India.
crs-
ReplyDeleteThank you for your interest and support. Personally, I'm very interested in what is going on in India, which I suspect is very different from what Thos Friedman tells us is going on. Hope you'll continue posting, but I suggest you do it under the most recent post, as people tend not to read the previous ones.
Namaste,
mb
Hi
ReplyDeleteI read this post two times.
I like it so much, please try to keep posting.
Let me introduce other material that may be good for our community.
Source: Lucent interview questions
Best regards
Henry