Misogyny in Action
September 9, 2013 § 2 Comments
This article from a TV station in Texas is unconscionable. A truck decal business in Waco, TX, created a decal for the tailgate of a pickup truck of a women tied up and looking like she’s been abducted. I will not re-produce the image here, it doesn’t deserve it, but you can see it if you follow this link. The decal is bad enough. But the article on the TV station’s website is even worse. After noting that the majority of the feedback for the decal has been negative, moron journalist Matt Howerton says that the feedback leads to the question as to whether or not the decal is “‘Poor taste or good business?'”
I’m gobsmacked at how this question is even asked. An image of a distressed women tied up and looking like she’s in the back of a pickup truck is never good business. It’s beyond poor taste.
A few days ago that I know we live in a misogynist society, but sometimes it just hits me in the face how misogynist. This is one of those moments. By now, everyone in Canada has heard about the students during frosh week at St. Mary’s University and the University of British Columbia (my alma mater, I’m ashamed to admit) chanting about underage rape. Seriously. It’s not funny, it’s never funny.
Pretty much every single woman I know has been the victim of sexual assault at least once in her life. And yet we as a society accept that, we even encourage it with idiocy like KWTX’s question about the truck decal. This is a nothing less than a disgrace.
Immigration: The More Common North American Experience
September 6, 2013 § 4 Comments
The scenery as we drove across the United States and back was amazing. So were many of the place names. There is a town in Colorado named Rifle. Another town in Colorado is called Cahones. I kid you not. But perhaps my favourite highway road sign in all of the United States was this one we saw on the side of I-84 in Eastern Oregon.
The sign pretty much says it all. Canadian and American culture is full of stories of the successful immigrant, the ones who came to these shores with nothing and made lives for themselves, who made fortunes and found fame. And while certainly there were a few who experienced this good fortune on North American shores, the majority did not. Most settled somewhere in between fame and fortune and poverty and despair.
Certainly, pop culture contains references to the downside of emigration. In Canada, university students in Canadian history and literature are tortured with perhaps one of the worst books in Christendom, Susanna Moodie’s interminable Roughing It In the Bush, Or, Life in Canada, about the trials and tribulations of Moodie and her husband, John Weddiburn Dunbar Moodie, a down-at-the-heels member of the British gentry, in the wilds of Upper Canada in the 1830s and 40s. While Moodie was a horrible writer and her husband an even worse poet, the book is a key text on the struggles of even wealthy emigrants in the British colonies in the mid-nineteenth century (it worked out ok for the Moodies, they ended up moderately wealthy and living in the thriving town of Belleville, Ontario).
One of my favourite Pogues songs is “Thousands Are Sailing,” which is the story of downtrodden Irish emigrants in New York City in the 19th century. The song is actually kind of heartbreaking.
So this sign for an exit on I-70 in Eastern Oregon struck me as a remarkable site. Old Emigrant Hill Road is on the northern side of I-70, and it runs into Poverty Flat Road on the southern side of the highway. Obviously, these two roads have been there for a lot longer than the Interstate. And, as you can see from the terrain surrounding the sign for the exit on the highway, the landscape around Poverty Flat Road isn’t exactly all that welcoming. This was also a common experience for emigrants to the “New World” in the 19th and 20th centuries: they ended up farming lands that were not conducive to growing much of anything. Generations struggled to make a living on these farms until someone, whether out of optimism or desperation, decided to clear off the land and make his or her fortunes elsewhere.
Perhaps this is the more common story of the immigrant in North America than the one of fame and fortune.
Wisdom On the Road
September 5, 2013 § 2 Comments
As you may have noticed, I took a bit of a hiatus from this site over the past month. We moved, then went on an epic road trip that saw us drive from our home near Boston to Portland, OR, for my sister’s wedding and back. Saw some amazing sites, met some really interesting people along the way.
Driving out of Portland through the Columbia Gorge was perhaps the most eventful part of the journey. My wife wanted nothing more than to swim in the Columbia River. So we stopped in Mayer State Park, about halfway between Hood River and The Dalles. Here we met a man named George. He was a retired trucker, spent thirty years driving the Seattle-Los Angeles run which had left him pretty much fed up with cities. Can’t say I blame him. So, he hit the road in his retirement. He was a 21st century hobo. He slept in his pickup truck and drove. His plates were from Washington state. Said he would drive down to Arizona for the winter. He headed into town now and then for a hot meal, check his email, get his Social Security. He carried with him a copy of the Good Book. George kind of reminded me of Buck 65’s character in his track, “Wicked and Weird.”
George was very excited about our road trip, said it would change our lives, it was good for our souls. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it was good for our souls. Said that the problem with most people is that they get caught up in the moss, they get stuck. George is right, this is most of us, this is probably all of us. It’s hard not to get caught up in the moss, quite frankly. But that doesn’t make him any less right.
A chance encounter with a random guy in an Oregon state park parking lot. Perhaps the most memorable part of out trip.
On Ridiculousness
August 1, 2013 § 3 Comments
Reading The New Yorker recently, I came across perhaps the most ridiculously ostentatious language in the history of the modern world. Speaking of a retrospective of the work of the artist Ken Price, the magazine writes:
Price’s manipulation of cup forms, variously geometric and biomorphic, amounted to a surprise attack on the history and aesthetics of modern art, spankingly refreshed and made the artist’s own. His later mode of globular masses, with sanded, speckled patinas of paint is sui generis. It exalts color to practically metaphysical intensities.
Oy vey!
The Historian’s Job
July 31, 2013 § 2 Comments
Three times in the past three days I’ve been reminded of what it is that we historians do. And let me be clear, by “historian,” I mean academically-trained holders of advanced degrees who study the past. Yeah, call me pretentious or whatever. I don’t care. The first reminder I got was the now notorious interview of Reza Aslan by FoxNews concerning his new book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. In the interview, Aslan had to continuously remind the FoxNews host that he was a trained historian, not just some Muslim dude writing about the founder of Christianity. Jesus Christ isn’t usually a topic I find interesting, but after hearing the NPR interview wherein Aslan actually got to discuss the book, I almost want to read it. Almost.
The second reminder of what it is that an historian does came yesterday. Against my better judgement, I got involved in a Twitter discussion with a conspiracy theorist. I should’ve tuned out when he told me that Pierre Elliott Trudeau, whom many (including me) consider Canada’s greatest Prime Minister, was a communist. Trudeau, you see, made Canada communist. But, wait, there’s more! The communist path was paved for Trudeau by his predecessor, Lester B. Pearson, who was PM from 1963-8. Pearson, this guy claimed, had been named by a Soviet spy before US Congress as having passed on secrets to the Soviets during the Second World War. I have, believe it or not, seen this claim before, I have a vague recollection of having read something of it in connection to the Gouzenko Affair. The author of whatever this piece was addressed the Pearson claim in a footnote and gave his sources. As an historian does. My interlocutor, however, did not consider this enough. He dismissed this academic article as a MSM source (mainstream media) and biased, blah blah blah. I found myself thinking of Aslan repeating ever-so-patiently noting what it is that makes him qualified to speak on the subject of Jesus Christ. I thought, well, let’s see, I’ve read somewhere around 5,000 books and articles over the course of my career. Maybe more, maybe a little less. I am trained to critically assess an argument, its logic and its evidence. As are all the rest of us academic, professional historians. My interlocutor had offered up a Google search as his “proof” that Pearson and Trudeau were dirty commies. But he dismissed my evidence as “nothing.” Ah, wonderful, anti-intellectualiam. Carry on then, good sir, and good luck with your alternate reality.
The third time I was reminded of the historians’ path came today when reading The Times Literary Supplement. I allowed my subscription to lapse last fall. I regret that. I just renewed, and the first new issue came yesterday (note geek excitement here). In it comes a review of Brian Levack’s new book, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World, by Peter Marshall. I thought several things of this book and its review. The first was it appears to have been a colossal miss in terms of Public History. Levack is bedeviled (pun intended) by the fact that it is well nigh impossible to rationally explain possessions. And yet, people continued to believe they happened. I’m more interested in that cognitive dissonance, I must say. Anyway. Towards the end of the review, Marshall opines that “The folie de grandeur of historians is that we are conditioned to believe we can explain anything.” Huh. Not sure I agree with that. Certainly, the rational, positivist bent of our training is given over to such pursuits. And we tend to take on rational topics, things we can explain. Certainly, anything I’ve tackled in a research project from undergrad to now fits into this category. But there are some things that are harder to explain. Like, for example, the life and times of Jesus of Nazareth. Or a belief (or unbelief) in God. Or, possessions, demons, and exorcisms. Here, the historian is left with this cognitive dissonance, of attempting to conduct a rational discussion (and argument) about something that may not actually be rational. Herein lies my interest in exactly that dissonance. What is it that makes people persist in their beliefs? Even in the face of all rational evidence to the contrary (as in the case of, say, possessions)? The very fact that the subject of discussion is not explainable is exactly what makes it so interesting. So, in a sense, then, Marshall is incorrect, historians cannot explain anything. Nor should we wish to.
Diaspora and Terrorism: The problem with relativism
July 21, 2013 § Leave a comment
Janet Reitman‘s Rolling Stone feature on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a fascinating read in many ways, as she explores just what might have radicalised him and turned him into a terrorist. Reitman talked to pretty much everyone in the Boston region who knew him growing up. He comes across as the pretty stereotypical American urban kid. As a Bostonian, the article interested me for obvious reasons. But as an historian, I was struck by questions and notions of diaspora concerning the Tsarnaev family and the youngest son, especially.
Reitman talked to Brian Glyn Williams, who teaches Islamic Studies at UMass-Dartmouth. UMass-Dartmouth, of course, is where Tsarnaev went to school. Interestingly, Tsarnaev, who by all accounts was interested in his history as a Chechen and a Muslim, didn’t take a single one of Williams’ classes. But Williams also comments on the older brother, Tamerlan, who by all accounts was the ring-leader. Williams, says Reitman,
believes that Tamerlan’s journey – which he calls “jihadification” – was less a young man’s quest to join Al Qaeda than to discover his own identity. “To me, this is classic diasporic reconstruction of identity: ‘I’m a Chechen, and we’re fighting for jihad, and what am I doing? Nothing.’ It’s not unlike the way some Irish-Americans used to link Ireland and the IRA – they’d never been to Northern Ireland in their lives, but you’d go to certain parts of Southie in Boston, and all you see are donation cans for the IRA.
I find this comment interesting. Being an Irish Canadian, and having spent much of the past decade-and-a-half studying the Irish in North America, I’ve always been struck by the willingness of Irish-Catholics in both Canada and the United States to identify with the IRA. Usually this identification with the IRA came without complications. Supporters never thought about where that money in those tins was going, what it was going to be used for. What happened when the guns and bombs it bought were used, who got hurt, who got killed. If they had stopped to think about this, if they removed the romanticism of the struggle back “home” (even if Ireland hadn’t been home for several generations), I’m sure support for the IRA would’ve dried up pretty quickly. Not many Irish Canadians or Irish Americans actually went back to Northern Ireland and got involved in the fight.
And yet, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did. He went back to Chechnya and Dagestan. He was, however, told by a cousin in Dagestan that this was not his fight. So he brought the fight home. I shudder at the consequences.
But that is exactly what makes Williams’ comparison invalid after a certain point. All those Irish in Southie who contributed to the IRA’s cause have several degrees of separation from the consequences of their donation. Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev quite literaly have blood on their hands as a direct result of their actions.
National Review on Brown v. Board of Education and Desegregation
July 19, 2013 § 2 Comments
The National Review is one of the United States’ longest-standing conservative voices. It is also usually a reasoned, steady voice. But, well, as I read a bizarre rant about George Zimmerman in its pages full of thinly veiled racism, I find myself recalling National Review’s response to Brown v. Board of Education and government-mandated desegregation in the South in the late 1950s.
Writing in 1957 (the 24 August edition, to be exact), the editors of National Review had this to say:
The central question that emerges — and it is not a parliamentary question or a question that is answered by merely consulting a catalogue of the rights of American citizens, born Equal — is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas where it does not predominate numerically? The sobering answer is Yes [italics in original] — the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race.
Yup. And for an added bonus, here is James J. Kilpatrick, who was then the editor of the Richmond News-Leader in Virginia. He was of the opinion that Brown and forced desegregation would “risk, twenty or thirty years hence, a widespread racial amalgamation and debasement of the society [of the South] as a whole.”
Rolling Stone and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
July 18, 2013 § 1 Comment
Rolling Stone’s new issue is causing a tumult here in Boston. The cover image is one of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston bomber. In the picture, he looks like a loveable kid, laid back, like your little brother. Not a terrorist. I suppose this was Rolling Stone‘s purpose. The article, by Janet Reitman, is an excellent attempt to figure out what went so wrong with Tsarnaev, and how a laid-back, captain of the wrestling team, because a murderer and terrorist. In other words, there is massive cognitive dissonance between the image and the article.
I find the image distasteful. I find it alarming. And I find it jarring. I don’t like it. Yesterday, CVS decided not to sell the image in its Boston-area outlets out of respect to the victims. Other local merchants have agreed and are not selling this issue. I re-tweeted the CVS one, thinking that this was the right decision.
Today, I’m not so sure. In part, because I had a long argument with with @lostinhistory (Better known as Jason Warren, purveyor of a very fine blog) on Twitter last night and this morning. This was NOT an argument about the article itself, which I think everyone in and around Boston should read. It was entirely about the image. Jason noted RS’s long history of provocative images with its mudracking journalism.
He cited the (in)famous Charles Manson cover of 15 June 1970.
https://twitter.com/lostinhistory/statuses/357631151067774976
But his larger point is that the article itself would hopefully spur greater discussion about what it was that made Tsarneav become a terrorist, and if the image helps further that goal, then that’s good. I disagreed. Vehemently. I re-read the article today. As I read, I found that the article remained as insightful as it was yesterday and that perhaps Warren had a point, the image is and may be provocative (and note how I have not reproduced it here), but the article should be required reading. It is chilling at times, especially when Reitman is talking with Tsarnaev’s high school friends in Cambridge; they had no clue. None. And given Tsarnaev’s public image, I’m not surprised. What’s so chilling is he managed to create this private life, very far removed from his public one of a happy stoner, and no one had any clue.
Why Friedrich Hayek was NOT a Conservative
July 18, 2013 § 3 Comments
I found this interesting little gem yesterday from Friedrich Hayek who, in by 1960, found himself somewhat alarmed that his The Road to Serfdom had become such a bible for right-wing laissez-faire capitalists and their supporters. Hayek subtitled the Postscript to his book, The Constitution of Liberty, “Why I’m Not a Conservative,” he writes that, amongst other things, conservatism (at least in 1960) lacked coherency in terms of countering liberalism (and other enemies). But, perhaps more to the point, Hayek argues that conservatism was hostile to innovation and new knowledge. It was shaky on the economic foundations of free market economics (which he himself was not all that fond of, as noted in The Road to Serfdom), and, to quote George H. Nash, “altogether too inclined to use the State for its own purposes rather than to limit this threat to liberty.”
Interesting, really.
Joseph McCarthy and Intellectual Dishonesty
July 17, 2013 § 2 Comments
I’m working on a new research project, for which I am reading George H. Nash’s classic The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America since 1945. Nash, a conservative himself, wrote this book 37 years ago, in 1976, but it has been updated regularly, most recently in 2006 (the edition I’m reading). It is, for the most part, a tour de force, but too often Nash (and the men he studies) are incapable of recognising the moral and real world implications of their arguments.
One glaring example of this is in the 1950s and the support of the American Right for McCarthyism. At least according to Nash, almost to a man, the right in the 1950s supported the bullying, unintelligent senator from Wisconsin. They supported his lies. They did so because of their belief in the evils of communism. But they seem to have been incapable of recognising the cost of McCarthyism. As one of my old professors, Steve Scheinberg (a 1960s radical) noted, many lives were destroyed by McCarthy and his accolytes in the early 1950s.
Nash even refers to one, Owen Lattimore. Lattimore was accused by McCarthy of being a Soviet stooge (along with many of the China Hands at the CIA, for that matter). Lattimore was was professor at Johns Hopkins University, in the 1930s, he was an adviser to both the American government and Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalist movement in China. Chiang, of course, was engaged in a long and brutal civil war against Mao Zedong’s Communists throughout this period and was supported by, amongst others, the Americans. The Senate Internal Security Subcommittee engaged in an investigation of the Institute of Pacific Relations, as well as the American government’s China policies (remember, Mao and the Communists won the civil war in 1949, Chiang’s nationalists withdrew to Taiwan, but it was not until 1972 that the Communists were recognised by the US as the legitimate government of China).
Rumours of Lattimore being a Soviet spy had existed since 1948, but it in the early 1950s, McCarthy went after him, calling him the top Soviet spy in America, as well as accusing him of having delivered China into the hands of the Soviets. After investigation, it was found that Lattimore, though he had been an admirer of the Soviet Union and Stalinism in the 1930s was not, and had never been a Soviet spy, nor had he engaged in espionage. But that didn’t stop the Subcommittee’s report from concluding that Lattimore was “from the some time beginning in the 1930s, a conscious articulate instrument of the Soviet conspiracy.” This was untrue and a lie. Nonetheless, it ended Lattimore’s career as a consultant for the CIA and the American government. Ultimately, he left Johns Hopkins and moved to Leeds University in England, perhaps for obvious reasons.
But very little of this is in Nash’s book. The quote from the Subcommittee above is, and then he goes on to note how the right then used the report of the Subcommittee and quoted it “from one end of the country to the other” and of the impact of the report and its supporting documents. There is not a single mention of Lattimore’s innocence. At all. And all throughout Nash’s discussion of McCarthyism and its import for the American Right in the 1950s, he conveniently avoids mentioning all the lives that were destroyed by Communist witch hunts.
To me this is intellectual dishonesty. Nash completely avoids the implications of the arguments made by the conservative intellectuals of the 1950s he studies. He decontextualises these implications. One could read this chapter in Nash’s book and have absolutely no clue of the excesses and dangers of McCarthy, an ill-educated bully who ranted and raved about names he had listed on what were actually completely blank pieces of paper.
Matthew Barlow 