In the wake of Orlando and the recent horrific killing of a British MP, a few thoughts..
The need to avoid an accounting perspective. Having said that, does the death of 80,000 Kashmiris matter? Or the millions killed and maimed in Iraq and Syria? The death of an individual moves us but the senseless murder of large numbers of people numbs us. Is that just human psychology?
To talk about context is not to absolve the individual of ultimate responsibility.
But there is a context here and it is ugly. Firstly, the growth in mental health problems and the multi- faceted reasons for this trend is never really addressed. Stick to " lone wolf" theorizing. Don't talk about why there's so much inequality, isolation and alienation.
Secondly, there's a toxic political atmosphere. LBC had it right..it's as if public reason is being replaced by emotions ( fear). Once again, ignore any context for your own convenience. That sections of the media and the far right have been scaremongering when it comes to migrants/ Muslims for a good part of the last decade might, at least in part, explain why there's so much hatred out there. Again, no discussion of economics or the economic system must be allowed. So, for instance, globalisation, neoliberalism, the decline of manufacturing..all of that must be dismissed; instead, let's stick to issues of " cultural" difference because that's something that can easily be exploited ( blood and soil, ya?)
And, predictably, no one wants to discuss the growth of the far right- here or in Europe. And on the other side of the pond...
People talk about Trump as if he's a one-off, a terrible anomaly to a venerable democratic tradition of reasonableness and pragmatism. But reading an article written over fifty years ago you do begin to wonder if the paranoid style of politics is if not a central then at least an important dimension of American politics. How did the fundamentalist right and the Republican Party cultivate this sense of grievance? And why are conspiracy theories so prevalent ( Long John Nebel).?
" Taking back control".
From who? The elites, the niggers and Jews, the fags and atheists? When wasn't America a " hell- fire nation"?
Norman Mailer once wrote, intriguingly, about how white men have, over the last 40 years, felt themselves on the receiving end. Not just in sport, but in the political arena as well ( Vietnam) there was defeat and humiliation. How could you be a real man in a world where women and black people were " emancipated" ? The obvious answer: war and violence.
Of course, one finds the same kind of delusional mindset in the land of the pure which makes you wonder if there isn't some deep- seated and universal mental disturbance that inclines us to find a kind of pleasure in being unhinged, suspicious of other people.
The need to avoid an accounting perspective. Having said that, does the death of 80,000 Kashmiris matter? Or the millions killed and maimed in Iraq and Syria? The death of an individual moves us but the senseless murder of large numbers of people numbs us. Is that just human psychology?
To talk about context is not to absolve the individual of ultimate responsibility.
But there is a context here and it is ugly. Firstly, the growth in mental health problems and the multi- faceted reasons for this trend is never really addressed. Stick to " lone wolf" theorizing. Don't talk about why there's so much inequality, isolation and alienation.
Secondly, there's a toxic political atmosphere. LBC had it right..it's as if public reason is being replaced by emotions ( fear). Once again, ignore any context for your own convenience. That sections of the media and the far right have been scaremongering when it comes to migrants/ Muslims for a good part of the last decade might, at least in part, explain why there's so much hatred out there. Again, no discussion of economics or the economic system must be allowed. So, for instance, globalisation, neoliberalism, the decline of manufacturing..all of that must be dismissed; instead, let's stick to issues of " cultural" difference because that's something that can easily be exploited ( blood and soil, ya?)
And, predictably, no one wants to discuss the growth of the far right- here or in Europe. And on the other side of the pond...
People talk about Trump as if he's a one-off, a terrible anomaly to a venerable democratic tradition of reasonableness and pragmatism. But reading an article written over fifty years ago you do begin to wonder if the paranoid style of politics is if not a central then at least an important dimension of American politics. How did the fundamentalist right and the Republican Party cultivate this sense of grievance? And why are conspiracy theories so prevalent ( Long John Nebel).?
" Taking back control".
From who? The elites, the niggers and Jews, the fags and atheists? When wasn't America a " hell- fire nation"?
Norman Mailer once wrote, intriguingly, about how white men have, over the last 40 years, felt themselves on the receiving end. Not just in sport, but in the political arena as well ( Vietnam) there was defeat and humiliation. How could you be a real man in a world where women and black people were " emancipated" ? The obvious answer: war and violence.
Of course, one finds the same kind of delusional mindset in the land of the pure which makes you wonder if there isn't some deep- seated and universal mental disturbance that inclines us to find a kind of pleasure in being unhinged, suspicious of other people.
4 comments:
Well, b, you've said it right (or should tbat be left?☺)Question remains:how are we to live/think in this benighted age?
Ah, my comment seems to have disappeared. Rejected on my own blog!
Briefly: no idea. Wish I had had an education that would have helped me read/think/live properly.
Sadly, I've come to believe that no education which we would recognise as such would have equipped us to make sense of the contemporary world. But we must resist the temptation to retire, like Montaigne, to book-lined towers.That's chickening out!
True. I'm not sure to what extent humans have ever been able to make sense of their world. And though the attempt to do so has often produced great wonders ( art, literature) it's also been hubristic, wouldn't you say? When to let go of the questions and be at ease with never being able to make sense of it all ( or even of ones own life)?
Personally, I'm drawn to the idea of retirement, having never really engaged with what people call the real world. Not book- lined towers, though, but maybe a few books, friends, and some cinnamon rolls!
Schuon once wrote: if you face an avalanche there's no courage to be had in not running ( chickening out).
Best
K.
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