the poverty of social scientific culture

According to the New York Times, the cultural explanation of poverty (i.e., the “culture of poverty”) is back in. The Times confirms this fact with a quote from an essay by Mario Small, David Harding and Michèle Lamont: ‘“Culture is back on the poverty research agenda,’ the introduction declares, acknowledging that it should never have been removed.” Searching the globe for further confirmation, we are informed, based on the golden chestnut of the censorship imposed by “political correctness,” that: “We’ve finally reached the stage where people aren’t afraid of being politically incorrect,” said Douglas S. Massey, a sociologist at Princeton who has argued that Moynihan was unfairly maligned.’ We are then offered a presumably un-PC and deeply thought definition of culture: “‘Robert J. Sampson, a sociologist at Harvard, culture is best understood as ‘shared understandings.’” Best understood: but for whom, social scientists?

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The problem is these particular scholars of poverty (excluding Lamont) don't know what "culture" is from a scientific point of view, aren’t “current” with the ways contemporary scholarship on culture has developed, and end up reproducing folk knowledge derived from a folk category (as Bourdieu might say) rather than anything approximating social scientific knowledge. What’s equally ridiculous is that complaints about “the poor” have been couched in moral terms since the 17th century: they drink too much, fuck too much, have too many babies, are godless, and so on. The same moralistic language was behind the “welfare reform” of 1996, which presumably “ended the welfare state as we know it” (Bill Clinton's goal). The aim of that legislation was to “reduce illegitimacy.” People didn't wait for Rob Sampson, or Saint Daniel Moynihan and the benighted Oscar Lewis (who actually emphasizes social structure), to produce a cultural explanation of poverty. Meanwhile a "full employment policy" that was in discussion during the 1940s never got off the ground because, well, gubmint shouldn't compete with the free market. Oh well: maybe those politicos and their social scientific epigones are the ones with an impoverished culture of civic duty, not to mention a culture of intellectual poverty.

crisis of the humanities?

Whenever a department closes, another five administrators are born....

SUNY Albany closes departments of French, Italian, classics, Russian and theater and the scholastic punditry kicks into high gear. To write of a crisis of the humanities in general, as does Stanley Fish, misconstrues the actual situation that particular disciplines face scrutiny under the forceful watch of administrative bean counters. There are solutions that don't involve making claims that humanities programs really do sell merchandise. Endangered language programs can become interdisciplinary programs (i.e. “studies”), can hire higher value (from the cash cow standpoint) social scientists, and thereby co-opt the corporate good will that shifted to the social sciences during the years of the New Frontier (an outcome that had less to do with academic value than political savvy on the part of the quantifiers). French studies, German studies, Mediterranean studies (Italian, French, Spanish, Arabic), fold theatre into English departments (literature and literary performance arts). . . it just takes some imagination on the part of faculty to break with the canonical culture of disciplinary singularity. Classics will likely remain threatened, only to be taught to the privileged few at the top liberal arts colleges, which still inculcate the Arnoldian attraction to sweetness and light. There's nothing wrong with that.

October Fifteenth

I was sitting alone in my Berlin apartment on Renate-Privat Strasse when I received the news by letter, several months after the fact (there was no email in those days): a clipped notice from my college alumni magazine. It flashed through my mind that I couldn’t remember the first time I saw Laura, and a sudden mélange of regret and remorse spread over me. I felt lightheaded. “That’s not true.” I remember when I first saw her. It was the fall semester. I had enrolled in an English literature class, the only “lit” class I would take in college. It was an odd choice, mixed in with courses in history and philosophy (and a writing course in “advanced composition”), since I never read literature. I fancied myself an intellectual, which is what a high school teacher had exhorted my AP European History classmates and I to become. I held philosophy in the highest esteem next to my major, history. At the time, I simply didn’t find literature intellectual enough. But I signed up for “Comedy Classics,” an introduction to literate, and literary, wit, taught by an itinerate assistant professor, Dr Shattuck. It was in this class that I first saw Laura. But when I first saw her, I could not recall. I didn’t really know what Laura saw in me. In my mind’s eye, I was not someone anyone would notice unless it was of necessity, like an admissions officer or hostess at McDonalds. Whatever it was, it must have had something to do with sitting next to each other in the first week of class. I may have noticed her first. The class read aloud works by Shakespeare and, because we sat next to each other, we often read together. Laura and I eventually adopted Bard appropriate nicknames. She was Laurino.

Laura Lane Leathers. I would notice a name like that then, its perfect alliteration. Then I imagine I would have noticed her eyes: green blue, two gemstones set below soft, dark blond hair. But her physical beauty didn’t strike me at first; that came later. After all, I was in a relationship. When it ended suddenly, a few weeks into the semester, Laura was there for me then and was with me afterwards. I loved her for that (as I still do). I recall all of this now, just as I did then, when the airmail letter arrived at its destination on the coffee table. I wish I could remember more about the exact moment the random act of mutual recognition occurred, because she is no longer be able to remind me.

Laura was always interesting, never dull or predictable. Never to be forgotten, she is forever, dearly missed.

Laura Lane Leathers, d. October 15, 1991

. . . because I knew you, I have been changed for good.

palling around with Paladino

Mr Paladino is the face of the new Republican Party, which has been infused by Tea Partysan resentment (the losers of recent American history). There was a time when Republican candidates would have expresses their various antipathies towards racial and sexual minorities (not to mention women) in indirect ways, using code words or euphemisms. But now that strategy is associated with the despised RINOcrats, the "weaklings" whom Tea Partysans seek to eliminate. Today it's good to be mavericky and to be rude and offensive, which is the form that "political correctness" takes for the Baggers: in other words, it's politically correct to be uncivil. Then, when the so-called MSM responds, one can always claim victimhood. It's a winning strategy: perp at one moment, victim of a media crime the next.

the year of reading tea leaves IX: the emocons

Regarding emotion, it is worth noting that a trend has emerged from the conservative milieu that may portend a new political orientation -- if not a new political style -- in American politics. Nine years ago, the "neocons" rose to power, bringing with them a confident and assertive view of America's place in the world. The "new American century" called for forceful action from the world's only superpower; and by pulling off the invasion of Iraq (a plan laid out in position papers during the 1990s), the new American centurions didn't allow a crisis to go to waste.

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A mere six years after the shock and awe of March 2003 and the triumphant days that followed the fall of Baghdad, the neocons and their grand vision have been swept away. However, a new group has stepped into the political void, a group that could be called the "emocons," whose affect-laden public discourse stands in marked contrast to the aggressive, self-confidence seen in the typical neocon performances of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al. The emocons have taken their place on the public stage in a variety roles, as politicians, as pundits, as police officers demanding public apologies, and even as ordinary citizens. The heartfelt emotion portrayed in the tearful performances of Glenn Beck is echoed by the Delaware “Birther” who cried out, during a public meeting, “I want my country back,” like a child who has had her favorite toy taken away (fortunately, the aggrieved Birther found comfort in a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance). Yet, it is the emergence of emocon politicians in recent months that has been most striking: from Die Leiden des mittelältlichen Sanfords, the South Carolina governor who found himself torn between two lovers, whose copious tears held viewers of his unscripted press conference riveted, and whose passionate emails to his “soulmate” from the Southern Hemisphere offered a modest challenge to the lyricism achieved by Goethe (or The Young and the Restless); to the pouting visage of Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R- Alabama) as he sat -- passive-aggressively -- in confrontation with a Latina who declared herself to be wiser than him; to Governor Palin’s star turn as a sympathetic (not empathetic) victim of the machinations of Hollywood (i.e., anti-hunting, anti-gun actors), of New York (i.e., The Media, also known as those who are “makin’ things up” about her), and of Washington D.C. (i.e., elected officials who are currently exercising the authority granted to them by “the People” -- as per the Constitution -- as a result of free elections). It is not clear whether the emocons have a common agenda or set of policy prescriptions apart from tugging at the heartstrings of the American public. But the pathos and bathos of this group is certainly fun to watch.

the year of reading tea leaves VIII: Palin

She's mastered the new political medium created by 24/7 cable news, blogs, etc., an over-caffeinated world in which half-truths, spin, winking falsehoods, and simmering status resentment constitute a fair and balanced communicative style. She is a celebrity, hence her life, her private life, is as much a part of her political brand as her policy positions and accomplishments in Alaska. Her propensity to respond to what appear to be trivial snipes, things ordinary politicians would ordinarily ignore, is a continuation of the persona that was presented in 2008: hockey mom, political maverick, and all-around western tough gal. She's anything but an ordinary politician. Her legend is enhanced by (1) the fact that she's a 'target' and (2) that she responds in kind (she's no weak-kneed libral). In the play book of contemporary Republican politics, if you're a target of ridicule in the mythical MSM, you are part of the real America, you are an authentic conservative (not one of those country club types who speak in sonorous tones -- and in complete sentences -- on the floor of the Senate), and you are a promising presidential candidate. I can easily imagine a Republican fantasy ticket of Palin/Prejean in 2012.

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Andre Agassi's tag line in the Canon ads "Image is everything" fits the new political reality. I think, at this point, Palin is famous for being famous and not much else. It is an open question of whether this "category" can sustain a presidential candidacy through the Republican primaries and debates. It appeared to me that the candidacy of Fred Thompson, which flamed out because he seemed to lack energy and interest in politics, was premised on being famous (a star of the big and small screens). Palin doesn't lack energy or a willingness to joust. It might come down to the question of which candidate is more likely to keep Republican primary voters awake during twenty two-hour debates: Romney, Pawlenty, or Palin? I'm betting on the former Alaska Governor.

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Outside of ultra-conservative chavs (who are not a majority among Republican voters . . . unless the birthers movement takes off unexpectedly), I don't see much support for Palin, going forward, in the Republican Party. She's anti-pork, so she would cut off the flow of milk to Alaska from the federal government teat. Could she even carry Alaska in a general election? She has a better chance of making a boatload of money using the media to bash the media, one of those performative contradictions that have marked her public persona since last August: she opposes the "politics of personal destruction" yet seeks to destroy her liberal opponents in a silly slurry of anti-American accusations; she's a fighter who nonetheless quits; a hockey mom who fancies Neiman Marcus; a momma Grizzly bear who protects her cubs, yet exposes them -- using them as political props -- to the harsh glare of the media; a family values candidate who publicly trashes the father of her grandchild; an avatar of abstinence, who allows non-same sex sleepovers under her own roof.

the year of reading tea leaves VII: violent tea

It could be that the USA is in the midst of conservative days of rage that recall the period of uncivil unrest that occurred in the wake of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Those Tea Partysans who are unable to contain their disappointment over a legislative defeat appear willing to cross over the line from a peaceful remonstration of grievances into violent opposition. Even “Pro-Life” conservatives have turned on other Pro-Life politicians who are now deemed “baby killers” because they wrangled an executive order banning the use of federal funds for abortion from a pro-choice President (and in the screwy logic of the contemporary conservative base of the Republican party, what would otherwise be treated as a victory is viewed as a defeat or, worse, as a traitorous surrender). The overlapping membership of the remnants of 1990s militias and the newly-minted extremists within the Tea Party camp could lead to the formation of groups analogous to the Weathermen/Weather Underground. Whereas the Weather Underground’s theory of the legitimate use of political violence was fueled by Marxist-Leninist theory, copious quantities of pot, LSD, and polymorphous perversion, today’s incipient Rogue Underground is driven by apocalyptic visions of death panels and hidden Muslim agents, Hitler and the Anti-Christ -- all embodied in the Affordable Health Care for America Act -- and fueled by a collective memory of rage that was stoked when the Branch Davidians were consumed in the cleansing fires of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’s secular purgatorium. Similar to the Weather Underground, which possessed a photogenic and charismatic frontperson in Bernadette Dohrn, a conservative Rogue Underground can already claim a candidate with similar qualities as the attractive face of its armed resistance.

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It would be interesting to know whether, and how deeply, the FBI has infiltrated the Tea Party organizations.

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Lacking moderate voices among their membership, the Republican party has only one option as long as it is out of power: total, absolute, non-cooperation. That is understandable, even rational. However, the way in which it pursues non-cooperation is curious, especially the use of slogans and distortions of reality that only invigorate the less emotionally stable segments of its political base. Republicans only paint themselves into a corner. It's been said many times before: if Republican legislators insists on describing the Affordable Health Care for America Act as a threat to American democracy and values, as a government takeover, and as socialist, then there's no way these legislators can contribute positively to such a piece of legislation, and the rhetoric will be impelled further into loon land. And the loons will come out to play.

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Also curious is the way the once staid, emotionally controlled presentation of the Republican Party has morphed into an uninhibited expression of feelings and a political style that exhibits the characteristics of a new form of secondary narcissism. In The Culture of Narcissism, Christopher Lasch described the shift in the type of patient who presented him/herself for psychoanalytic treatment: "Psychoanalysis, a therapy that grew out of experience with severely repressed and morally rigid individuals who needed to come to terms with a rigorous inner 'censor,' today finds itself confronted more and more often with a 'chaotic and impulse-ridden character.' It must deal with patients who 'act out' their conflicts instead of repressing or sublimating them." Todays Republican politician, no less than the Tea Partysan that is her de facto mirror-image, now presents similar characteristics. The Republican politician reacts impulsively to disappointments, and "acts out" against the agency (whichever one is found to be handy at any given moment: "liberals," Obama, ACORN, unions, Pelosi, "Hollywood," "illegal immigrants," the "mainstream media," etc.) that is perceived to be the source of disappointment through the use of disparaging language that reaches for the worst metaphors of political degradation. The emocons of today are no longer able to sublimate frustrations and anger, and their rage boils over on the floor of the House ("baby killer"), in town hall meetings, at Tea Partysan gatherings, and on voice mail left for members of Congress ("I hope you bleed ... (get) cancer and die"). None of this is new, of course: paranoid style rage against the changing political cultural circumstances is older than McCarthyism, the clinic bombings, and Tim McVeigh. What is new is the open embrace of a discourse of victimhood, of victimization, from the conservative milieu. The fear of victimization is the emotional anchor of conservative politics today, a sense of victimization conservatives enable through their refusal to participate in the political process like responsible legislators and citizens.

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Individuals identifiable with the Tea Party-Patriot tendency now feel entitled to attack governmental authority using symbolic and physical violence (if necessary). This new violence entitlement, often claimed in the name of Jesus, the Second Amendment, or Ayn Rand, has, unfortunately, been given comfort by mainline Republicans (who should know better) and by rogue conservatives (who don't know any better).