Tell us what you really think. No, really –
“In this climate, what might seem to be Gov. Palin’s blatant struggles with inadequacy serve as proof of her potential to lead. She wins the vicarious sweepstakes hands down. Every revelation of a seeming deficiency in her temperament, judgment or character offers a new avenue of access into her life.”
“[I]n Sen. Obama’s elevated way of thinking and speaking, he cannot touch what seem to be the mean, petty, vindictive, narrow-minded hockey mom’s achievements in the realm of sheer human messiness.”
whew – I’m sorry, but I think it’s all ‘too much of a mouthful’.
The author flits from definition to definition; he begins by defining ‘culture’ as ‘arts and music’; then moves on to ‘culture is religious or secular beliefs’ then on to ‘it’s your values’ [whatever that means_ and then, on to ‘it’s what’s immediately experienced’ vs ‘the abstract’.
He’s then defining the first as ‘organic’, having to do with ‘rituals around the use of a gun’ vs the abstract enjoyment of Rossini (he forgot lattes). Somewhere in this entire world-in-a-nut, he also inserts ‘postmodern ambience’..who knows what that means.
He’s mixing up terms: culture and social. That’s part of his problem. And, since he merges the two, he muddles both of them.
Another problem is his lack of a definition of ‘political’. He finally says it’s ‘the art of making the abstract palpable and real’. No, he’s mixing up definitions again. That’s just a facet of communication.
Politics is a social system; it’s the system by which a society organizes itself to define who and what is ‘in authority’ over the population. That’s all. It can make these decisions by force (a dictator); or by rule of law. It can choose its leaders by hereditary or elective means. It can define ultimate leadership as god or man. But the key factor is: who has authority over us, and what is the nature of that authority.
McCain has said it very clearly. The ultimate authority is you, the people. Not him, not the elected individual. But you, the people. Both McCain and Palin acknowledge the abstract ultimate authority as god. But in the society, it’s ..the people. This is a view that give power to the majority, ie, the middle class, the class that is free and based around the individual.
The left, the Democrats and the Liberals, have a different view of the political system. They see it as a two-class structure, made up of two immovable groups.
There’s an almost hereditary elite – the professional class made up of lawyers, academics etc – in charge of the other group: the non-professional worker class. There is no mixing up these two classes.
Sarah Palin’s crime is that she is defined as a member of the lower class; she therefore has no right to assume political or any other power. And of course, there is no ultimate or abstract authority (ie god).
Siegel’s article is a great steaming pile of horsepucky cradled in obtuse metaphors, grandiose slurs and faux demogogy. Wot a pile of unintelligble crap. Hope his book reads better, or it too, will soon be available on the bargain rack at Chapters for $2.99, 3 for $5.99.
I got 1/2 way through the article and had to add some whiskey to my coffee.
Here’s a summary for those with neither the time or inclination to have their brains scrambled so early in the day;
“Americans are stupid and the Republicans are going to win the election because they have somehow found a way to plug-in to that stupidity.”
Siegel is a textbook example of a lib-left pseudo intellectual…
That article was better than I expected, although the author definitely rambles on. My favorite lines:
(about Sarah Palin) “All the abstract talk in the world about compassionate change cannot match an example of forgiveness in action.”
(about the Democrats’ ideological bent) “The Democrats consider any attention to the practices and prejudices of everyday living a mendacious diversion from the “issues,” while the GOP, the party of the status quo, has proven itself astoundingly skillful at using its cultural antennae to adapt to new times.”
Right on, ET. The great lefty meltdown continues, as this trailer trash Alaskan, this uppity WOMAN who doesn’t know her place, keeps kicking sand in their messiah’s face.
Doesn’t she know she’s one of the stupid people that have to be controlled?!!! Next thing you know these dime-a-dozen peons will be demanding a tax cut!
I couldn’t write a better condemnation of the American Left than the one they are writing themselves this year with thier own little fingers.
The Emperor truly has no clothes.
In September 2006, Siegel was temporarily suspended from The New Republic, after an internal investigation determined he was participating in misleading comments in the magazine’s “Talkback” section, in response to anonymous attackers on his blog at The New Republic’s website.[7] The comments were made through the device of a “sock puppet” dubbed “sprezzatura”, who, as one reader noted, was a consistently vigorous defender of Siegel, and who specifically denied being Siegel when challenged by an anonymous detractor in “Talkback.” In response to readers who had criticized Siegel’s negative comments about TV talk show host Jon Stewart, ‘sprezzatura’ wrote, “Siegel is brave, brilliant, and wittier than Stewart will ever be. Take that, you bunch of immature, abusive sheep.”[8] The New Republic posted an apology and shut down Siegel’s blog. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, Siegel dismissed the incident as a “prank.” He resumed writing for the New Republic in April 2007.[9] Siegel’s critique of Web culture, entitled Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob, was published in January 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Siegel_(cultural_critic)
His name rang a bell. He’s THAT idiot. enough said.
Thanks Penny, that’s informative.
Although, I was taking the “idiot” part as read. He’s a DemocRat, one assumes “idiot” when dealing with them. ~:D
well…I printed “that” out, and hung it on the bath room wall, just in case I run “out”
need to get some value for my time spent reading such garbage
I was rather taken with his assurances that the Left’s adoring and unstinting praise of Obama is just a function of their racism. Who knew?
Well, I commented before I read it. I must revise my estimate from “useful DemocRat idiot” to “arrogant moron educated far beyond his capacity to think.”
ET,you were too kind with this guy. He’s making this crap up as he goes along, he’s got no friggin’ clue what he’s talking about.
Truly, an Ivory Tower retard of the first water.
Although Siegel’s literary style doesn’t relay on precise definition and logical connection, I found the article interesting and enjoyable. I didn’t take any inference that he was presenting a strong left position; I know nothing about Siegel so maybe I’m missing something.
I completely agree with his description of a contextual perception of the word culture; for some it means another pavilion at Folklarama, a view which I believe anthropologists refer to as ethnocentric. But ask a western person who has been immersed in a distant (from ours) culture such as China, and that person will probably understand the broader “organic” meaning. In this case, I take organic to mean gut-level, the kind of values that are learned during childhood, which are not easily changed by education or experience. Siegel’s application of these views to the liberal versus conservative context is new to me, and interesting.
“Politics, by definition, is the art of making the abstract palpable and real.” While some may dispute the lexical precision of this statement, I find it an apt description for the most important role of an elected representative in a democratic system.
All in all I thought the article was complementary to conservative values. Or maybe I’m just too much of a knuckle-dragger to recognize the intended insult.
Entertaining read. It goes to show that they still don’t know what is hitting them. They have theories but they will never understand us. I am certain of that now. Obama never promised to understand us, he promised his base that he could bamboozle us, then steamroller us. That is his “new kind of politics.” In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny “What a maroon.”
That writer really needs to learn to condense his thoughts into a readable form. Reading that was as confusing as the first time I opened an organic chemistry text. Some writers have mastered writing elegant articles with fancy words and are still easily understood but this guy is not one of them. My thought at the end was – what exactly is his main point, supporting evidence and conclusion?
Tim in Vermont:
Where is my Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!?!
Marvin the Martian is singing the old Steppenwolf tune:
….
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
Frankenstein Battalion
2nd Squadron: Ulanen-(Lancers) Regiment Großherzog Friedrich von Baden(Rheinisches) Nr.7(Saarbrucken)
Knecht Rupprecht Division
Hans Corps
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”
I am certain that Siegel is paid by the word. He used many of them and said little. ET summed it up nicely.
And THERE IS A CULTURE WAR. Seagal denies it because he’s on the losing side.
The left want us to have a socialist culture (without even understanding what it means in every day life) and the Right is fighting to stop them from destroying the freedom and prosperity that the traditional culture has already proven to provide.
Sure it means that not everyone will be rich and successful, but ANYONE who is willing to do what it takes can be.
In the other culture, once fully established, only close friends and family of government will have wealth, no one else can succeed because the system will not accommodate individual reward of effort. F*ck that!
For that I will go to war. I … do … not … want … a socialist culture. And I am not alone.
Yeah.. Lee Siegel got lots of concepts twisted and exposed more than a little bit of mush headed liberalism, defeatism and all that goes with it.
I agree to some extent with what I see as his main theme. As I read his piece it was about two solitudes talking to no one in particular and making no difference.
Thus he wanders to a pathetic whimpering conclusion that they are all the same while not sharing anything in common but being stuck in the same game driving toward ultimately futile goals and inconsequence.
So he says “The Republicans may or may not be the party that will effect change. But they are certainly the party that knows how to ride it.”
I’d bet that Siegel contemplates suicide about once a week.
Which leads me to wonder if this sort of attitude might become more common among liberal chattering circles!
What a windy fellow. What was he saying anyway?
Culture springs from the febrile imaginations of sexually unfulfilled anthropology professors. There is no culture. There is only principle and the lack of it.
Spew multi-syllabic vitriol (quick, someone take away his thesaurus), and imply that anyone who doesn’t vote for The One is a redneck racist.
Sounds like a 10th grader trying to sound adult & score extra marks from a teacher they’re hot for.
What he, and a lot of others like him don’t get is this. They say Republicans are brilliant strategists for exploiting resentment. What they don’t understand is how good they are at creating resentment. All Republicans have to do is say “I’m not them as what hates you.” Game over.
Hey, Obama’s grandiose theatrics at his nominee acceptance says it all. Who exactly was the target audience? Surely not the farmers and ranchers, working till 9:00pm while there was still some light. Hell, even Puerto Rican hotel staffers in N.Y. must have been shaking their heads (left to right)…
Biggest load I ever read. As the kids say on YouTube, always so polite, I want my five minutes back.”
Mr. Siegel would have done better by simply stating, “I’m so confused!”
Note to self: “Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob,” now there’s a book to avoid bothering to read for you.
I am surprised the Wall Street Journal would print such crap. Still, he did use the word “prejudice” in relation to Republican strategies so there’s a small grain of honesty in the midst of all the blarney.