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Nice post as usual, Professor LaRoche.
I have to say that when I hear or read a person say or write something very insulting and emotional about a political opponent, I suspect some degree of projection.
The far Leftie types (such as the Kossacks) who are convinced that GW Bush will declare martial law are projecting, I think, their own wish to impose their own beliefs on everyone else.
Such people are very good at putting the actions (and often apparently telepathically acquired knowledge regarding the motives of people whom they do not know and have not met) under a microscope, but want a "pass" on their own behavior....or the behavior of others with whom they agree politically.
For example, being exquisitely sensitive to racially charged comments from Politician "A" but when Pundit "B" says exactly the same thing, why, that is just "irony." When I hear people basically defending hypocrisy by using the excuse of "irony," I come back to Inigo Montoya's famous quote from "The Princess Bride":
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
The people who are most sensitive to these kinds of issues tend to have no problem saying insensitive things. Projection, again.
So it was with the term "neocon." I love it when the rock 'n roll types try to use the term...when I doubt very much they could spell "neoconservative," let alone understand its history or context.
It's all about simplifying a complex world so that it fits onto a bumper sticker, again.
"Yes, we can!"
"Change you can believe in."
And so on, on BOTH sides.
Oh well. Again, a great post.
When I hear people basically defending hypocrisy by using the excuse of "irony," I come back to Inigo Montoya's famous quote from "The Princess Bride":
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Yes, and "irony" is the reason used to explain why Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert should be considered smart and funny. As if reading garbage off of a teleprompter and mugging for the cameras are indicators of a keen intellect.
I have always wanted to know why people think that Stewart and Colbert are some kind of source of analysis. That they crack jokes? That they make fun of people who don't have a crew of writers and their own television show?
Stewart and Colbert don't write their own material (or if they do, by no means a lot of it). Yet we act like they are humorous versions of pundits. They are just talking heads. Who knows what they believe? And honestly, I doubt they care much. The writers put words in their mouths, anyway.
It reminds me of Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" with the climenoles, who actually control what the "rulers" of Laputa think by only allowing those rulers to see, hear, or speak when they (the climenoles) feel that they should do so.
I believe that there was a deconstruction of this fetish we have with irony a few years back. The book is called "For Common Things: Irony, Trust, and Commitment in America Today (1999)" and is by Jedediah Purdy.
One of the things it attacks is the faux-sophistication of the "ironic" approach to important things. Well worth a read.
The Left *hated* the book. Such anger always makes me think I should give the book a careful look!
I don't want to get into a political debate, but I do want to correct your history (or Jonah Goldberg's, and many others').
Michael Harrington did not coin the term neoconservative. See my article here:
http://dissentmagazine.org/artic...le/?
article=867
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