The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Something More To Consider

Re: Something More To Consider

permazorch — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:22:45 -0000

Strange when you see the brilliance in common sense comments like yours, Michael E. Sullivan. Strange, because it is pretty rare to see/hear them. In most media, the voices that we're blessed with (like yours and all of the above), here, are drowned out by the likes of Fred Phelps (or his equivalent, all across the political/social spectrum).

So, thank you.

And a thank you to sylvain, who turned me on to TNC.

Thank you very much, Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Re: Something More To Consider

Michael E. Sullivan — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:04:12 -0000

You quote calexis's comment "Then again, lots of straight white males are uncomfortable with liberal identity politics because it seems to implicitly disinvite them from the party. I'm more concerned about the latter group's reaction than I am about the former."

Honestly, as a recovering privilege-blind straight white male, the thing that most concerns me about my group's discomfort is our appalling lack of empathy or clarity. O RLY? Do you feel uncomfortable when people start talking about race or gender and seem to implicitly disinvite you from the party? Welcome to the rest of the human race, privilege boy!

We, as in straight white males, have been implicitly disinviting everyone else from the party (when we took our breaks from and eventually mostly gave up enslaving, raping, brutalizing, disenfranchising and stealing from them) since the time of the indo-europeans rampaging across europe, asia and northern africa. While most of us have given up on the more obvious and unseemly aspects of racism, sexism, classism and general othering, the standard frame of reference where (white, male, straight == normal and objective) and (everyone else == unusual, ethnic, colorful, identity politics) is certainly alive and well among the powerful in our society, and it comes through loud and clear to anyone who isn't white, male and straight.

It does seem to me that one of the first orders of business for the privileged is to get over our discomfort that there might once in a while be a party we don't feel completely comfortable at because of our identity.

Re: Something More To Consider

Guest — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:19:51 -0000

I am always captivated and enriched by your blog, TNC.

At the end of your post above, you say:

"I don't think of blogging as a final verdict on my politics, as much as I think of it as a factory without walls."

People think. The intelligent person thinks, thinks again, considers others' opinions and thinks more. Your ability to listen to your readers and experience the world around you makes you worth reading. Committing words to this blog do not mean they are engraved in stone, despite the fact they may 'live' forever in the annals of the internet. You are able (and allowed!) to change your opinion.

Keep up the good work!

Re: Something More To Consider

Carrington — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:33:20 -0000

"In the 1950's Sotomayor would have been treated as a token."

Brooks' quick response -- 'was Hannah Arendt treated as a token?'

Actually, a fascinating question, but, like most of his classmates, he knows that his alma mater enjoyed its golden age because it aggressively pursued the intellectual talent that East Coast institutions were too snotty and too waspish to consider.

Re: Something More To Consider

ErikaMSN — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:59:37 -0000

Well, that partially depends on where she went, Bill--if she'd gone to one of the Seven Sisters, there would have been less of an expectation that she was there for the MRS. Not that there wasn't a lot of that everywhere, but at least at the sisters and their daughter schools it wasn't completely unheard of to want a career.

Re: Something More To Consider

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:48:27 -0000

Thanks for highlighting my comment, Ta-Nehisi. If you or any of your readers are interested in reading more about that banker I mentioned, Andy Beal, I posted about him a couple of months ago: "A Different Kind of Banker".

Re: Something More To Consider

Tony Comstock — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:26:42 -0000

It was the night after that spooky post he made about Tiananmen square. I think everyone loves James Fallows.

The only places I'm participating with any regularity are here and TAS. They all think I am a left-wing destroyer of public morals. Everyone here thinks I'm a capitalist pig. I guess balances out.

Re: Something More To Consider

Patrick — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:36:16 -0000

My favorite thing about your blog is something what you say in your last couple of sentences - watching you (and others here) think.

One of the most attractive qualities about my wife (also a writer) is that she "thinks out loud" - and I find it endlessly fascinating. She will argue a point with passion and conviction while she's working out what she thinks, and then a few days later, argue the same point from another viewpoint with the same passion and conviction. Eventually, she gets it boiled down and reduced to her absolute truth - that which she firmly believes without reservation.

One of the frustrations for her in dealing with me is that whenever we are in conflict about something, I clam up and internalize - I don't think out loud. I have to go away and ponder things in my own sweet time and decide what I think. I'll come back days later and say "this it what I think...". It is a quiet, internal process for me.

But I do appreciate the way you process things, and the intellectual honesty you bring to bear on it.

Re: Something More To Consider

sv — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:17:54 -0000

ditto all

Re: Something More To Consider

Bill Harshaw — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:34:46 -0000

I agree with Erika, partially. In fact though Brooks is too young to know. In the 1950's Sotomayor would have been treated as a token. And the assimilation would have been to the expectations that she was in college for her "Mrs." So no encouragement of pride in either ethnicity or sex.

If you need more reading recommendations, I'd recommend George Fredrickson, "Diverse Nations", which gets into cross-cultural perspectives, Edmund S. Morgan American Slavery, American Freedom (on ante bellum society)and anything by David Brion Davis.

Re: Something More To Consider

ErikaMSN — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:43:27 -0000

Referring to your first quote:

But Brooks didn't say "if she'd entered Princeton and Yale in the 1950s." He says "if she'd entered college." The Ivies might have been closed to a woman in the 50s, but she would have had plenty of other top-notch choices. He then goes on to debunk some of the criticism of her. His point (as I read it) is that she was the first wave of non-white males at the Ivies, and b/c of that experience, it's informed who she is and how she talks about her philosophy.

And I don't think the assimilation comment was meant to imply that she would have been welcomed by the white majority--I think he meant that she would have been pressured to subsume her identity into the prevailing culture. But because of when she was born, and who she is--female, Puerto Rican--and when she entered Princeton (first wave of women and first wave of hispanics), she's less "assimilated" than Thomas (thank god).

He's certainly somewhat patronizing about it: "These were the days when the whole race, class and gender academic-industrial complex seemed fresh, exciting and just...There was no way she was going to get out of that unscarred." But I think your criticism of that particular point is off-base.

(Also, did he really say "racialist?" Has he been watching Ali G?)

Re: Something More To Consider

Bill — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:38:01 -0000

Re Reconstruction books:

1) I am repeating two earlier recommendations. Read Eric Foner's "Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution." Then read J. Morgan Kousser's "The Shaping of Southern Politics."

Re Ethan Hoddes:

That was a good post, but I have a question. Generally, the Federalists are seen as conservative, but many of them opposed slavery. Sometimes, the left/right split in the present does not conform to the past.

Similarly, the No-Nothings are seen as reactionary anti - immigrant and anti-Catholc bigots. Yet in Massachusetts, they supported many progressive policies, including major increases in the legal rights of women. The No-Nothings were bigots, but they might not have been primarily reactionary. (I am Irish Catholic. I am not sympathetic to their bigotry. Still, I admire their work for thr rights of women.)

Re: Something More To Consider

eric k — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:16:17 -0000

I think a simple thing to keep in mind is that there are small c conservatives, I think that is what you are mostly describing, Andrew Sullivan would be a good example. And there are right wing reactionaries, most of the modern republican party fit here.

Re: Something More To Consider

Roger Tompkins — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:14:19 -0000

"I see similar thinking in Lincoln's opposition to the Mexican-American war, a fight pushed by people who called themselves conservatives, much like Bill Kristol calls himself a conservative. This is obviously a major area where the power/privilege critique comes up short."

People of power and privilege calling themselves conservative and favoring the status quo seems to me perfectly aligned with backing acguisitive wars of choice, since they expect to gain the lions share of any acquisitions and have always been able to insure their families never go in harms way during the war.

Re: Something More To Consider

deathbypapers — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:10:52 -0000

You know, I think it is always a good sign when you "can't get away" from something, because it means you love what you are doing. When I taught high school everything I did seemed to relate to my classroom/lesson plans/students, whether it was a movie, idle conversation or latest Trailblazers game (Go Blazers!). Now that I'm in graduate school, everything seems to either relate to Midwestern populists, K'iche Mayans or the "Imperial Brotherhood" (whatever the subject du'jour is).

I can assure that when I was bartending I didn't constantly think about serving AMF's, Long Island Teas or Cran Vodkas. So, I guess you can look at is as a good thing?

Re: Something More To Consider

Sorn — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:46:32 -0000

Thanks Mr. C. Just gotta say that most of the time you make this belagana very happy. Have to agree with all of the comments above. I love this place because it forces me to think. Always a pleasure.

Re: Something More To Consider

Ethan Hoddes — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:40:28 -0000

Regarding the honesty of the "cultural assimilation" argument that's been batted around here, I think a reasonably good take on it (perhaps because its NOT about any of the familiar modern issues) is Eugene Weber's "Peasants into Frenchmen." It's about the process of inculcating the French language and national identity in rural communities throughout modern France in the last decades of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century. It's a fairly long and complicated book. But one conclusion that he reaches, which I think has broader relevance, is that the longstanding central French drive to promote uniformity of culture only succeeded in any substantial way when it actually became true that it would benefit its targets. Learning Academic French and identifying with the French state genuinely opened opportunities far beyond the villages where people were born, but this hadn't really been true in previous centuries. Arguments over the cultural assimilation of minority communities tend to be presented by members of the majority, and so they tend to be constructed as "should we expect them to assimilate or shouldn't we" or "why don't they want to assimilate?" (with conservatives often blaming 'backwardness' and liberals crediting a natural attachment to their culture). The question "are we really going to LET them assimilate?" tends not to be asked, but I think it's often the far more relevant one.

I'd also disagree with your earlier statement that 'being a conservative in the nineteenth century meant thinking that slavery was wrong, but opposing war to end it.' This is what modern conservatives like to think they would have supported, but at the time being conservative (especially in Europe, but also in America) meant an essential belief in the right of the hereditary elites to dominate a hierarchical social order as well as the fundamental neccessity of a widespread belief in orthodox Christianity in order to maintain moral order. The use of 'conservative' to mean 'cautious' is a ludicrous con that obscures persistent political factions that defend authoritarian dominance by traditional religion or elite social groups for their own sake, and isn't interested in any change to that system, cautious or otherwise. It allows Lincoln to be referred to as a 'conservative' when no one at the time would have seen him that way and when the party which he led was an essentially insurgent creation, self-consciously aimed at revolutionary change (even if preferably by peaceful and cautious means).

Re: Something More To Consider

Hicks — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:47:52 -0000

Who doesn't?

Re: Something More To Consider

keith — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:41:09 -0000

I to spend way too much time thinking, and stressing about this blog. I can only imagine if this were my job, simply put I would not be able to do it. I love this and Andrew's site, for no other reason than it's constant ability to make me think past my engrained limits. I often don't post on the more weighty issues, the postings are so random and spontaneous by the time I get my thoughts together, the moment and thread has passed. That said, you guys here are so good at what you do, its impossible not to write something down. The fact that you and Andrew actually take the time out to read and respond to a simpleton's muses like myself is astounding and ever so rewarding. Over the past few weeks, I spawned a post from you, and two of my dissent emails to Andrew yesterday actually made it to his page. What you guys do here is important to me, if for no other reason than thanks to this blog I simply slay anyone around here in everyday world in daily discussions or arguments. This is so much beyond conventional thinking, you guys should be proud.

Re: Something More To Consider

Bruce — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:37:17 -0000

or the fact that she doesn't miss the opportunity of calling out shelby steele when ever he's mentioned on the blog...

Re: Something More To Consider

Deborah — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:35:26 -0000

There's conservative meaning change is bad, and we must resist it, which you're right always favors whoever's in power at the time. And there's conservative meaning cautious, as in "the government can't fix everything, and should be judicious in what it does take on." The perversion of the latter is the modern "government is the problem" formulation seen from Rush to Palin. But it can have perfectly pragmatic practitioners: Obama's proposed cuts to programs that are not, you know, working, would be conservative in this sense.

The Iraq war completely fails this conservative test. "We'll invade some other countries, then they'll be grateful and become pro-Western democracies who sell us oil at discount rates" is a grandiose idea of the power of the US government that is not remotely conservative. The Iraq War, by this definition, was not a conservative response. And its undercutting of the Afghan War--fewer troops, less money, less equipment, and just much less attention--was anti-conservative. The Iraq War was Government Can Fix Anything writ in mile-high letters.

The liberal Dem caricature of "whatever the social ill, throw some money and a program at it and it'll be fixed" is not based in nothing, and I understand concerns about that. In a number of cases I share them. (You can address bad factors in a childhood, but you're never going to reach equilibrium with children who have involved parents, no fears about their neighborhood safety or family finances, etc.) But at the moment the Republican position on most issues is so far from anything rooted in reality or their recent voting record that it doesn't leave a moderate anywhere to go. (I was thinking this following an NPR post on how Rs are going to oppose Sotomayor's racist judicial rulings and thus win moderates and independents; the lack of any such rulings was not seen as a major obstacle, nor was the possibility that moderates and independents had been following "conservative" reaction for the past few weeks.)

Re: Something More To Consider

RL — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:34:56 -0000

I should add. QED your points, lebecka, about community and reflection.

Re: Something More To Consider

BreakerBaker — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:33:55 -0000

Ditto on just about all the above comments.

Re: Something More To Consider

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:31:52 -0000

Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting at. But it's a fair point. And it's up there for you to disagree with.

Re: Something More To Consider

nolo93 — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:24:53 -0000

Dude, that is so cool. I love James Fallows. But I love the commenters here even more. I don't comment much myself because I find that I learn more by listening to all these wonderful voices. And that includes you, Tony.