dagblog - Comments for "Sully solipsism"

I'd forgotten details of

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 14 May 2016 08:02:10 +0000

In reply to True enough, Grass was direct

I'd forgotten details of Billiards, but yeah, Böll worked out guilt for the nation too, plenty to share, though his family came out against the Nazis, so less to deal with - he took to Catholic guilt to make up for it, along with the more modern topic of press responsibility for irresponsible reporting (Katherina Blum).

True enough, Grass was direct

moat — Sat, 14 May 2016 00:56:26 +0000

In reply to Böll was an Adler-era

True enough, Grass was direct in his use of metaphor that anybody in any genre would be hard put to top.
But Böll was guilt-ridden too as expressed in Billiards at Half Past Nine.
It doesn't seem he was satisfied by the No he put forward when the deal went down.

There's a youtube video about

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 11 May 2016 09:13:28 +0000

In reply to Tyranny is always a possible

There's a youtube video about "first follower" and yeah, Trump has some following but no obvious clique. The Bundys? Right. Hitler had disaffected brownshirts / ex-soldiers led by someone so efficient he had to be killed in the night of the long knives after he built up to a few million men. Though that took a decade as well. Though do note there are several examples where a minority position was good enough to launch a power play from.

Tyranny is always a possible

ocean-kat — Wed, 11 May 2016 08:10:06 +0000

In reply to Sully solipsism

Tyranny is always a possible problem. Gut level voters swayed by emotion could push a strong man into power. Trump does seem to have the ability to work the republican primary crowd as Hitler was reported to with Germans. But He doesn't seem to have that crowd appeal with the general population.

Taking over the US isn't a one step proposition. Even if elected there are other centers of power he'd have to defeat. Trump doesn't strike me as a Machiavellian genius. I think he's the buffoonish reality tv star he appears to be. Where's his team? For example Hitler had Goebbels, a master propagandist. There's no one in the Trump campaign who is an Axelrod or a Karl Rove at the height of his powers. They all look like Mark Penn or Frank Luntz to me. Just more buffoons. Second raters at best.

Trump has no base of power with the military, no SS force answerable to him. Even as commander in chief the military won't support him in enforcing illegal actions on American soil.

I could be wrong just as I and almost every major pundit was about Trump. But I think he has gone as far as he is able to.

Böll was an Adler-era

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 10 May 2016 03:19:39 +0000

In reply to The Tin Drum knows it very

Böll was an Adler-era rebuilder. Grass was a guilt-ridden participant trying to atone without being discovered. Makes it even more intriguing. He painted himself as a fascist moral midget, sign o' the times.

The Tin Drum knows it very

moat — Tue, 10 May 2016 03:14:14 +0000

In reply to Read several of Böll', like

The Tin Drum knows it very far down.

It makes Böll look like an optimist.

Or trying to say to say something different.

Or including a story that is easily forgotten in the face of terrible events.

Read several of Böll', like

PeraclesPlease — Tue, 10 May 2016 02:51:50 +0000

In reply to Your critique regarding when

Read several of Böll's, like him a lot. Also Tin Drum is a nice tract on morality.

Your critique regarding when

moat — Tue, 10 May 2016 01:42:27 +0000

In reply to Maybe disingenuous, maybe

Your critique regarding when "strong men" seize control hits the mark.

In addition to ignoring that swings of the pendulum can be unduly regarded as expressions of democratic will, Sullivan's depiction of liberal causes emphasizes identity politics with only a vague acknowledgement of their role in a growing consensus that binds people together. And that is always the other side of what an Eric Hoffer type catastrophe is about.

Speaking of Catholic moralists, Heinrich Böll wrote well on this critical element. It is the kind of thing it is better if you don't have to know all the way down.

Maybe disingenuous, maybe

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 09 May 2016 04:42:56 +0000

In reply to I agree with Sullivan that

Maybe disingenuous, maybe easier to consider the concept first without getting blinded by detail. I'm not largely a Sully fan, and he's likely wrong more than right. But the historical view is useful even if proves inapt. I remember one of.the old Turkish leaders was rather enlightened for his time, but he was pushed aside by a very focused intolerant group. Is it easier to do this from inside a democracy? A guy once mentioned to me that he could walk through a nightclub full of Japanese (in Japan) bumping into people and no one would say a thing. I dont think he did it, but it seemed largely possible. People get conditioned, or condition themselves, a certain way, and something that cuts against the current can have devastating results.

Probably most important is the Republicans simply stopped seriously believing in anything some time ago - "if you dont stand for something, youll fall for anything" - and Trump provided the right measure of dada/mash of Republican cant mixed with personality in a field of dullards and functionaries. Did we get dulled by too much democracy? Perhaps useful to look at Andrew's query at the local level where the Republicans have been most successful. I suspect the GOP's approach takes Bismarck's sausage metaphor to the extreme, so national photo ops are none too pretty.

If you read the Foundation Trilogy, The Mule was a rather unlikely unrecognizable architect of the coming evil collapse and control - a foolish looking/sounding roving jester easy to dismiss.

The crowd given up to excess sounds a bit too much like 60-80's, not the current times - Andrew's Catholic/cultural tut-tutting?. I think the current generation is a bit too given in to rather quotidien activities than any great sloth or pushing recklessness. Exercising gyms and Whole Foods and biking and rather safe tourism... aside from our more urban/suburban living with most mills shut down and the rise of mibile communications, I dont think we've grown weak or we're so addicted to largesse, especially if we look at wages. Stuck and making do with limited possibilities seems more like it, at worst a bit distracted and preoccupied with other things. I havent seen an excess of democracy in... forever. The strong man coming in to fix it all with a culture of victimhood fits a Weimar/Italian Duce model well in the middle of war-induced chaos and financial meltdown, not democracy. Carter didnt signify too much democracy - he was a protest candidate after the failure of the Vietnam War and the amoral Nixon government (which did, ironically, draw down the war as fast as likely possible). Obama likewise was a protest against Bush war mongering, with conservative attempts to dig their way out of the 2008 mess they built and trying again to blame their fall on outside forces rather than internal obvious flaws via the Tea Party to right things, via a hodge-podge of illucid candidates, via fomented discontent blaming the lack of order chutzpah-style on the ones who tried to claw back order.

The Republicans always try to rebrand as the adults in the room, making America "great" again, and saving us from the perils of too much prosperiity. Get we to a nunnery, I suppose - a few Hail Marys, self-flagellation and new mass priest is all we require. "Bless me, Donald, for I have sinned". "You're ~~forgiven~~ fired!" Beatific.

I agree with Sullivan that

moat — Mon, 09 May 2016 02:24:47 +0000

In reply to Sully solipsism

I agree with Sullivan that Trump's incitements to violence should be recognized as a departure from the political process.that maintains the continuance of the Republic.

But Sullivan's analysis that the Trump phenomenon is largely the result of a superfluity of democratic participation in the affairs of state paints a picture of the "elites" where it is difficult to make out the faces. The account doesn't include any of the policies and people Sullivan has supported over the years as a possible contribution to this unpleasant outcome. That absence makes the piece seem disingenuous to me.