The Primacy of Palaver
Matt, it’s not an enviable position to be in, going after a 17 year old for the error of his ways. But I’ve decided to do just that--for two reasons. One, you’re smart and genuinely trying to grapple. And two, you’re wrong.
And, well, three, how would you feel if my post about you said: “I should note initially that I haven’t actually read Matt Zeitlin’s post. But before you stop reading, I have read every other entry in the book club, numerous comments about his post, and a lot of random stuff I encountered while surfing the net, like a rant defending Matt against another rant in which he’s called an antifeminist, but I don’t have time to read them, so I’ll just go ahead and repeat that canard as if it’s true.....”
But, you see, that canard is no more true than that phantasmagoric abyss that you claim I regard as the determiner for every little single thing we think or do, thereby reducing us all to pathetic puddles of Playdoh with no capacity or agency to call our own.
Maybe I’m just a bit cranky after having been misperceived and misrepresented by one too many critics who never bothered to get past chapter one of the book. (This is, I must say, a longstanding tradition in the media world, even before the invention of the blogosphere. My personal favorite is a national magazine review I got of my last book, Stiffed, in which the reviewer conceded in his first sentence, before proceeding to a wholesale trashing of the book, that he hadn’t actually read it because it hadn’t yet been published at press time. . . Well, at least he had an excuse!)
Anyway, far be it from me to take exception to the point of view of a blogger whose site’s slogan is “I have zero qualifications to write about anything of importance besides the fact that I have a computer, internet access and spend too much time reading,” but, sheesh, Matt, maybe you should spend a little more time reading and a little less time sounding off on books whose covers you haven’t actually cracked.
Not that you’d have to venture very far into the text to discover that your characterization of my thesis—that it “attempts to explain the aggregate of actions by different cultural and political actors by pointing to a common ‘narrative’ of insecurity that is the root cause of all these actions”—is bunk. Here’s page 14 of the Terror Dream, for instance: “Nor does it [i.e. my book] purport to take the full measure of our national reaction to the attacks: the panoply of botched military and foreign policy stratagems, the self-righteous media fanfares to American virtue, the governmental whacks at civil liberties, the neo-conservative campaigns to pin the 9/11 tail on ‘liberal’ and ‘cultural elite’ donkeys, and the maneuverings of corporate and oil interests. Rather, this is a book about one facet of our response, a facet that runs deep in the American psyche, yet has gone largely unrecognized and undiagnosed.”
As you say you read “numerous reviews,” I presume you got around to the New York Times Book Review piece by John Leonard, where he quotes from this passage about the book exploring just “one facet of our response” in his first sentence. What I’m trying to say here, to put it in the terms you prefer, your central argument is, indeed, “falsifiable.”
To spell it out: I never said, and never would say, that national psychology precludes the political. I’m well aware that the decisions of Supreme Court justices in 2000 and the Vulcans’ appetite for preemptive war and a host of individual political factors have played powerful, and fatal, roles in shaping our current disastrous foreign policy. And I don’t happen to believe that Al Gore would have marched us into Iraq.
That said, there is always an interplay between the political and psychological, between policy wonkery and irrational impulses, between our dreaming and waking states. I would say, Matt, that you are ignoring the role of many other forces, among them, the troubled American economy, the interests of corporate multinationals, and the globalization of trade. I’ve pulled out one strand, the cultural and domestic American response to 9/11—which, I repeat, I never presented or regarded as all-determining. I chose to examine it in greater detail precisely because so little has been written about it, because it’s been so unexplored and, willfully perhaps, overlooked. And that cultural response did express itself in strange and gendered ways that are revealing of American impulses, American preoccupations, American fears. Which is to say, they are important and worthy of dissection.
If anyone’s being single minded and reductive here, it’s those who argue, as you seem to be doing, that this war is driven by, and only by, politics. I suspect underlying this tendency is a desire to make things clear-cut and neat, to stick to the tidy football field/stock index of agate and stats, of winning and losing in a world where individual and great (and not so great) men call the shots. The mucky id realm of national fantasies and fears may be just too messy and alarming to ponder for long. “Falsifiable,” by the way, is one of those very scientific sounding terms that omits all the factors that aren’t strictly quantifiable. That sort of diagnosis may itself may be part of the problem; by failing to explore the underbelly of our actions, we make ourselves more vulnerable to the “rational” arguments for, say, invading a country that didn’t attack us. I wish before that invasion that we had paused to consider our unfalsifiable psychological motives before shedding so much rational blood.
As for your view, Matt, that liberal hawks like Berman, Beinart, and Ignatieff supported the war in Iraq for “humanitarian and liberal reasons,” and not as an “inevitable result of the narrative America adopts when under threat,” well, again, I never said their reaction was inevitable or only because they were under the sway of a national narrative. You seem here to be the party insisting on one explanation to the exclusion of all others in your insistence on taking individual policy positions at face value. Liberal hawks, as their eagerness after 9/11 to reinstate a macho “Cold Warrior” posture on the left indicates (along with their repeated invocations of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s The Vital Center, which is itself a case study in male hysteria over “emasculated” and “impotent” male progressives), were also driven by unexamined impulses—in particular, a need to prove their virile bona fides in a time of fear and threat. Liberal opinion-meisters can be some of the worst in this regard. And look at the pundits showcased in the so-called “liberal media” (Newsweek, Washington Post, etc.) who were advocating torture and secret prisons in the months after the attacks, and long before it became known that the Bush administration was pursuing these very same policies.
Or look how the liberal press gave grandstanding Bush II a free pass in the 2000 election campaign (gushing about him because he was “the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with”) while mocking Gore as a high-waisted wimpster. It’s hard to look at the outpouring of macho and chest beating and denunciations of our “feminized society” on the part of the male punditry after 9/11 and conclude anything but this: whatever their political views, they were driven as well by anxieties that their masculine creds might not measure up and that a feminist/feminized culture had put constraints on them. The attacks on 9/11 were used to justify many different actions and behaviors. Surely one of those was the permission it granted to tweedy liberal pundits to release their inner male.
Yes, as you say, the Bushies had hopes of going into Iraq long before 9/11. In your mind, this must deprive my thesis of “its explanatory power.” But, of course, if you had read my thesis in the book, you would understand my contention that crises advance existing trends. On page 22 of my book, I say, “In part, what the attack on the World Trade Center did was foreground and speed up a process already underway.” Iraq’s a good example. Bush’s neo-con advisers had long wanted to invade. But what allowed them to go in with barely a peep of establishment protest? Where were the media and the so-called Democratic opposition? Why were they not only docile but collaborating, cheering from the sidelines? One reason why, and I think it’s a reason worthy of more than five seconds of contemplation: a devotion to a mindset in which America must always assume the figure of the invincible and conquering frontier hero. That devotion drowned out more measured and responsible instincts. And surely enabled the Bush agenda.
Finally, back to the agency you say I’ve deprived you of, leaving “little room . . . as members of a polity, to change the direction of our culture and our politics.” Changing the direction of our culture and our politics is why I wrote the book. I hoped to begin an informed discussion that might help free us from the formulas of naïve rationalism that have recently led us to such disaster. I still hope for that.
Re: Or look how the liberal press gave grandstanding Bush II a free pass in the 2000 election campaign (gushing about him because he was “the kind of guy you’d want to have a beer with”) while mocking Gore as a high-waisted wimpster.
Here's my problem with this: I don't remember any of that. I was an adult (33 years old) and intensely interested in the election-- and I don't remember that stuff. Maybe the partisan media (like the National Review) gushed over Bush and panned Gore, but I do not recall anything I read doing so. I agree that the media failed to properly analyze Bush and his beliefs (though we heard about his drinking problem and his DUI). But they were just as shallow with Gore. That's the real problem with the media: other than the openly partisan journals (and Fox News), they aren't "for" one side or the other. They just do a damn poor job of digging beneath the superficial and the senational.
Re: It’s hard to look at the outpouring of macho and chest beating and denunciations of our “feminized society” on the part of the male punditry after 9/11 and conclude anything but this: whatever their political views, they were driven as well by anxieties that their masculine creds might not measure up and that a feminist/feminized culture had put constraints on them.
Again, I don't remember any of that. As I said in an earlier post, in a nation or size I;m sure you can find something liek that; a rightwinger can find leftwing screeds about America's imperialism from those days too. But it was mainstream. At most it was theme that reverberated around the right-wing echo chamber, from national Review to the WSJ to Lucianne.com to James Dobson's prayer breakfasts. But it wasn't something the rest of us encountered unless we went looking for it.
November 8, 2007 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would humbly submit that if you "don't remember any of that" it's because you weren't actually paying attention at all, despite your insistence to the contrary. Or you have a really really really REALLY bad memory.
November 8, 2007 4:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Susan, if you don't envy the position of replying to a 17 year old you probably shouldn't spend the first 4 paragraphs being dismissive about his qualifications and his background.
November 8, 2007 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's my problem with this: I don't remember any of that. I was an adult (33 years old) and intensely interested in the election-- and I don't remember that stuff.
This is well-documented in Journeys With George. You should rent it. The fawning is eye-opening.
For a more scholarly approach, you can read "The Press Effect," by Jamieson and Waldman. Yes, it's true, the press was "just as shallow with Gore," and they do a good job in this book explaining why that worked out in Bush's favor.
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
November 8, 2007 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
If it's that easy give us some cites
Jack
November 8, 2007 5:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "beer test" certainly did happen whether or not you remember it. As I recall, the major 2000 memes were:
1) "likeable" - including beer, folksiness
2) "straight talker"
3) "compassionate conservative"
4) "of faith"
5) "moderate" - worked with Texas Dems
6) "competent" due to advisers
Am I forgetting any? I always though he was a snake. Anyways, pretty sad now. Considering he turned out to be:
1) an asshole, elitist, and pretzel hazard
2) a chronic liar
3) ruthless conservative ideologue
4) dubious faith in regards to Christianity as most people see it
5) extremely partisan
6) surrounded by lunatics and incompetents
But regardless, that doesn't support Faludi's theory either.
The political utility of being likable isn't a gender specific trait. And while the "beer test" could be interpreted as male bias, albeit trivial, it wasn't the only way in which he was supposedly "likable." There is his supposed faith, that he was supposedly compassionate, and that he was supposedly a moderate and pragmatist. And I'm sure he kissed some babies too.
All of which turned out to be nonsense. But, none the less, the packaging wasn't hardly this "hypermasculine" brand Faludi claims by cherry picking out of context.
November 8, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, really. My nine-year-old says your essay is like Catherine MacKinnon meets Baudrillard Lite. Now go after him.
November 8, 2007 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The bold in partiuclar seems to indicate that the war was inevitable, and that therefore, would have happened regardless. Matt's argument seems to be that the war was not inevitable, nor was it necessary, given the cultural trends you highlight. In order to prove this, he offers the counterfactual of Al Gore, which you still convienently have not answered, as such I'll repost it here:
Yes, you concede Gore wouldn't have marched us into Iraq, but that doesn't fully answer the counterfactual, and would seem to disprove that the march to war was so culturally compelling as you ask us to believe.
November 8, 2007 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't agree with too much above but "pretzel hazard" is hilarious. Nice job.
November 8, 2007 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quit yer complainin' about everybody not having read the book. That's the format. It's like one of those investor things where you get 60 seconds to pitch your business plan. No fair saying afterwards, "But you didn't read my whole business plan!" We KNOW that! You had plenty of space to state your thesis in a concise way, many of us found it unconvincing, vague, gaseous, overreliant on trends which exist only in the pages of Newsweek, and not well-informed about the things we're well-informed about, like 50s westerns. Deal with it.
November 8, 2007 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Huh, what a speedy and agressive response from Faludi.
And three, because her ego is bruised and she has to take up arms to defend her territory and slay her enemies. In this case a 17yo male. Ask Ducat why.
Geeze. So hostile. But is it really just "crankiness" or is Faludi going "hypermasculine?" Was our national response to 9/11 "crankiness?" Has she explored this looming "crankiness" epidemic in our culture? Next book?
Are hoisted petards phallic? Is hoisting oneself onto the petard erotic? Is that masculine or feminine? It's all so hard to keep track of.
I knew we'd get around to dream analysis.
November 8, 2007 5:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's also not taking himself too seriously.
cough, cough
November 8, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Susan, like most everyone else here, I haven't read your book. I do think your ideas are thought-provoking, and, quite frankly, I think many people are being assholes in response to your writing, and it's detracting from the conversation.
It generally happens when a feminist point-of-view is offered here, so perhaps you shouldn't take it too personally.
But...this:
The kid's just being snarky.
It's funny. It's actually very funny. It's actually very funny blog humor.
You don't think?
If you don't, I think you just don't get it. But, trust me, it's funny.
"Thank God George Bush is our president." -Rudy Giuliani
November 8, 2007 5:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Matt Bai had the same complaint. I will ask the same question I asked him: would you reject a review in the New York Review of Books, knowing that the vast majority of NYRB readers who read the review and even discuss it will never buy your book?
sPh
November 8, 2007 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
The only way I'd want to have a beer and pretzels with Bush, is if I was training in CPR. Did he choke on the pretzel because he's an idiot, or did he fall off the wagon?
Remember he is actually an alcoholic! The beer he drank in that famous photo op was an O'Doules non-alcoholic beer for that reason. Him actually drinking a beer would raise too many concerns. So the president of the USA isn't safe to drink.
An alkie who was hitting the bottle into his 40's, could flip that and market himself as a likely drinking partner for a good time, and become president.
It boggles the mind.
All Faludi's goofy gender politics accomplish is a smoke screen for the blatant incompetence and lick-spittle nature of our media that will hawk anything so long as it's conveniently packed for them and sells.
November 8, 2007 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You forgot:
"I'm a Uniter, not a Divider"
David Horowitz, Salon, May 6, 1999
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 8, 2007 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, that's usually called humility. Not enough of it going around these days...
November 8, 2007 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
That wasn't as witty.
November 8, 2007 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or more to the point, if you went on a radio show to promote your book, would you be offended that all the listeners hadn't read it yet? This is promotion, too, only it's a kind that talks back.
November 8, 2007 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only if one is a suicide bomber....
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 8, 2007 5:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
And I submit that the reason I don't remember any of it is because it was not mainstream stuff and you have to dig into rightwinger-world to find any of it. I'm willing to believe that Fox News, the National Review, the Religious Right, the Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and the rest of that world harped on these themes. I don't believe the rest of us did because, dammit all, I WAS THERE TOO AND WE DIDN'T. I don't recall any revival of Westerns (the last significant one on TV was "Dr Quinn Medicine Woman" and that ended in the 90s, nor was it about weak fainting women); indeed TV was dominated by smart sitcom wives coping with fat, dumbass husbands, by Buffy still slaying vampires, and by the Sex In The City ladies still taking New York by storm, one bed at a time. Yes, firefighters were cultural icons for a while; I recall there was a blip upward in NYFD Halloween costumes for a while. But I also recall a quest for non-traditional 9-11 heroes, like the gay priest who died at the towers, or the gay guy who led the other passengers on Flight 93 in attacking the hijackers. And yes, I recall flags and jingoism and a certain revenge-lust, although the latter at least is hardly an abnormal feeling in the aftermath of an atrocity and certainly did not need a media to create it. But I don't recall any gender stereotypes being called up put of mothballs. If anything the attempt was made to get everyone on board the NeoCon war wagon so we had a sort of affirmative action warrior ethos pedaled to us, something bloody and gory for everybody to sink their rage into.
November 8, 2007 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: The "beer test" certainly did happen whether or not you remember it.
Maybe so, but I don't see that as proof that the media is biased in Bush's favor. Given his well-known past, talking about Bush and beer is not exactly helpful you know!
As I said the media is shallow and superficial and sensationalist. We got to hear about Bush's boozing and his DUI and his shirking Vietnam while partying in the National Guard. None of which really mattered any more than the 1992 election tales of Clinton's philandering did. What we needed to hear about was Bush's shallowness and lack of curiosity and Cheney's shady connections and the more sinister aspects of the ideas touted by the men they surrounded themselves with. We didn't and for that I will blame the media. But I don't see that as evidence of GOP sympathies, which is a rather biazrre charge when most polls of media figures show pronounced tendencies to vioting for Democrats.
In the end though the buck stops with the American people. If there was money to be made in deep analysis of policy and positions, or in exposing complex and rather boring financial shenanigans (rather than ilicit rolls in the hay) then we would hear about those things. The American people turn off their TVs and leave the papers and magazines un-purchased that attempt such things. And that's the problem. A populace that wants to entertained and told bedtime stories about politics, not get at the deeper truth.
November 8, 2007 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahem.
I believe an "enabling environment" is key here.
The 9/11 butt poking and collective fear and shame provided a convenient smoke screen for the real predators- predators that had been hawking the notion of deposing Saddam for twenty years.
I could almost see the spittle dribbling from Wolfowitz's and Feith's mouths as they saw the chance to mount Saddam and figuratively have their way with him. They and The Dark Lord Cheney and his minions danced in a cabal around the bonfire that was American hegemony, secure that there was a "selling" point for the real party- the WMD. Scare us some more and the fear of another butt-poking caused our collective sphincter to tighten enough to block out rational thought.
So it's not that our historical culture is predetermined, nor are we prone to being either hypermasculine with chattel or girly-men with Amazons.
When an emotional wound is inflicted on the masses, they can go about the difficult healing processes either way.....it just depends on who is leading the parade.
Alphonse ( Al ) Kada
Iranians are fighting the Americans in Iraq so they don't have to fight them on the streets of Tehran
November 8, 2007 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Interesting" post.
November 8, 2007 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
So sez you!
btw, your 8:16 was seriously funny. A literal lol. I uprated it to 5. Though otherwise I dislike you intensely. Just FYI. ;)
Anyways, he is an alkie, and that's not wit, that's a statement of fact.
That our president isn't trustworthy to drink strikes me as a pretty low bar for the highest office.
*** edit, I just realized the implicit pun of "low bar" and alcoholism. Accidental, and not an attempt at wit.
November 8, 2007 6:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, though that was kinda #5.
That claim he was a "uniter" was based on his supposed record in Texas as a moderate. Which was always a false premise due to his political backers and their intentions, Texas politics, and the unique nature of the Texas governor, who is basically a figurehead.
November 8, 2007 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"you concede Gore wouldn't have marched us into Iraq"
I think here is what throws her whole theory in the trash. Al Gore is every bit a southern male and carries himself accordingly. Look at his singlehandedly bringing the issue of global warming to all of our attention. Now that is Gary Cooper, Randolf Scott or John Wayne stepping out in the steet all alone and taking the evil doers because "that is what a man does"
Faludi doesn't recognise it because IMO, she is very provincial in her outlook. If it ain't going on in her little circle it has no truth.
I saw this earlier with her follow up comments about Jessica Lynch. She took quotes from small town rural West Virginia folks and twisted them into supporting her idea and showed no understanding of the beliefs that were underlying them.
She has isolated herself and doesn't understand the mythic themes she is talking about.
damn I used a lot of big words for an old whisky drinkin' hillbilly.
Jack
November 8, 2007 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
"That our president isn't trustworthy to drink strikes me as a pretty low bar for the highest office"
for not intending to, good job!
2 inebriating puns in one sentence.
and speaking of a high office, go to Times blog the Swampland and look at the picture of our fearless leader and the French guy(can't think of his name)
Jack
November 8, 2007 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right, I basically agree with all that, except I think it's a false to entirely blame the media. People were complacent too. Though yeah, as I said, I have a lot of scorn for the MSM as basically people who'd sell lead based baby formula if the "market" favored it.
In general, too many corporations, from media to industry to defense, and too many individuals in the media and business, have abdicated conscience to "market" dynamics, book sales, access, popularity contests, social status, etc. Which is just shameless.
*** edit, just realized I need to add, many of those who do project personal beliefs into their media and corporate lives are real zealots building monuments to themselves. So, it's kind of a catch 22. We need more media diversity, less monopoly. We also need the government to motivate industry and sever collusion and anti-trust when it's in the interest of the people. Take health care and net neutrality for examples.
November 8, 2007 8:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eh, that's not a very cogent comment.
1) Faludi is alleging that Zeitlin is unfairly critiquing her work is like a book reviewer who hasn't read the book.
2) Presumably the NYRB reviewer would have read it before reviewing it.
3) The NYRB isn't a blog where those who haven't read the book can comment in an open format.
4) Zeitlin isn't a book reviewer per se. He began by declaring he hadn't read the book, and specifically what he was critiquing in her work, theories, and general school of thought.
5) That's different from how the NYRB functions, which is irrelevant.
So, your comment and hers, non sequitur.
November 8, 2007 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you've got to admit the Maureen Dowd-led concentration on Naomi Wolf as Gore adviser and the earth-tones thing was a pretty egregious way to get punchlines by feminizing Gore (and turns out, according to Evgenia Peretz in Vanity Fair, to have been entirely made up). The hot new voting constituency in 1992 was "soccer moms" (pragmatic, participatory, vaguely Euro-international, feminine); by 2002 it was "NASCAR dads" (all-American, spectatorial, consumption and competitive displays of power, masculine). And so on.
I don't think it was so much a matter of gender stereotypes being called up out of mothballs -- though some were -- as of gender stereotypes being retooled and invigorated for a new era. Of course it's impossible to draw neat time dividers with phenomena like these. The Republican Revolution began in 1993, but obviously you wouldn't date the triumph of movement conservatism back then, you'd put it in 2002 or so. The gender-bending of Lara Croft coincided with the Gen-X gender-reinforcement of Bridget Jones and Sex in the City. But it is absolutely worth thinking about issues like these, even if they don't yield neat solutions, because it helps you explore the subtext behind the things you're hearing from different people. There are relationships between "American Pie", "Girls Gone Wild", Lynndie Englund, and the Theo Van Gogh/Ayaan Hirsi Ali film "Submission" that got Van Gogh killed. We spent the early 2000s in a weird exercise in self-definition against Islam that had a hell of a lot to do with gender issues, and Faludi is right that this is an aspect of our political culture in these years that needs to be explored.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
November 8, 2007 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with so many of the feminists TPMC has hosted is they have little other qualifications, expertise, or perspective, outside a humanities academic bubble and post grad career track.
So many declare themselves experts, experts in... populism.
I don't really see them as mainstream feminists but as caricatures of the worst in feminism past and present. It's kind of "lapel pin" feminism popular with book selling feminist revival firebrands. All that's missing are white, rhinestone-studded, pants-suits.
Most people here identify as feminists, including me. My mother was a member of NOW and other feminist orgs going way back. I spent a lot of my childhood at the Women's Center. But my family isn't ideological and didn't march in lock step. Most people go with what feels true to them, not cite feminist dogma chapter and verse.
Many of the leaders, then and now, are more extreme than the general public. Then, it was more accepted to be "radical" for it's own sake, because it was considered the right direction more or less. Now that so many see the excesses and mistakes, people are less appreciative of firebrands, militancy, out-there theoreticians, and radicals for their own sake.
I think if TPMC hosted more humanitarians dealing with women's issues without polemic, they'd get a much better response. Maggie Mahar for example posts on healthcare, and I'm not sure if she'd identify as a feminist, but she's smart, accurate, rational, dealing with important issues, including women's issues and health, and is my idea of the positive side of feminism and of humanity, and one of my favorite contributors.
***
On Faludi, I notice her education and journalism has been on highly empathic work. Her award was for empathic writing on "the painful human consequences of a leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores."
Which, to be clear, I think is a fantastic subject and important. The human consequences, and empathetic people to explore them, are vital to our public health. In the end, that's what it all gets down to.
However, Faludi seem less capable as a historian and analytical thinker wrestling with macro cultural events, biology, and so on. That's neither better or worse, just a different discipline. And if she's good at intimate human stories, that resonate to a larger audience, great. Or, if she wants to be more of a historian and philosopher, maybe she should be that ion it's own terms. But not be the "feminist philosopher" or otherwise constrain herself.
And before anyone accuses me of gender stereotyping, plenty of women are good at the skills I mentioned above. It's unfortunate the times are so gender polarized one even has to make such disclaimers.
Those skilled and capable people, men or women, in my experience approach their fields of study on it's own terms, rather than wearing gender or other labels on their lapel, and dragging it into everything to bolster an ideology and polemic.
November 8, 2007 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Faludi's "Backlash" was terrific. It was, I think, the first time ANY author had actually traced the evolution of how a series of stories that became media news of the day had evolved from the initial hook through the deployment of the national media narrative, and how those stories were influenced along the way (or only became story-of-the-week in the first place) because of how they played into gender narratives. Extremely insightful stuff, of the kind you can see in a lot of places today, but that was much less common back in 1991.
Plus, an incredibly hot chick saw me reading it while standing on line at an ATM and chatted me up. I blew it, but that was my fault, not Faludi's.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
November 8, 2007 8:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, dude. Some of those feminists chicks, are like, totally, hot. They should totally add a chapter in The Method, for bagging hot feminist chicks. Like about the misogyny and stuff.
Only, they should like make a Cliff Notes version of The Method, with some Backlash in the back.
(oi vey)
November 8, 2007 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's asking a lot from someone who can't remember the French guy's name --
But you could start by reading four or five years of the dailyhowler.com, or, if that's too much, you could try a short review, say, this essay in "Rolling Stone."
November 8, 2007 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Al Gore is so feminized and diversified and ecologically correct, he's practically lactating." Maureen Dowd (6/16/99)
November 8, 2007 9:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, you speak Yiddish! Can you give me lessons? What does "schmendrick" mean?
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
November 8, 2007 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Faludi is right that it's important to write about irrational drives, gender narratives, and their role in political history.
But her idea that the US has suffered from too much "naive rationalism" over the past 7 years is a bit unconvincing.
A situation that gets Thomas Friedman on PBS saying "Suck. On. This." (and repeating it for effect!) doesn't seem to be one where liberals are suffering from an excess of naive rationalism. Though it certainly does argue that subconscious gender roles and narratives are playing a pretty powerful role in driving people's actions.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
November 8, 2007 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: The gender-bending of Lara Croft coincided with the Gen-X gender-reinforcement of Bridget Jones and Sex in the City.
I have to admit that I am not familiar with Brigit Jones, but in what way was Sex In The City about traditional sex roles? The women in the show were all smart and self-supporting and they were in control of their own sex lives, not under the thumb of any man. I realize there's a strain of puritanical feminism that laments women having sex at all (except maybe lesbianism) but ask any rightwing Christian what he thought of those characters. He won't tell you what a wonderful family show it was.
November 9, 2007 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
Huh?
Oh, I'm sorry. My eyes glazed over after reading the same rant from you 150 times before in the last two days.
November 9, 2007 4:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sex and the City was about the invention and reinforcement of roles which were specifically reserved for women, and which were demarcated sharply by their differentiation from men and by straight sexuality. Those roles aren't the same as sex roles were in 1955 or 1975, they're a lot more autonomous and sexually active than 1955 and less political than 1975, but they are roles for women which are largely defined by being different from roles reserved for men. The show is about getting together with your female friends to talk fashion, shopping, and restaurants, and commiserate over encounters with men. It seizes upon phrases and exclamations which are intended to valorize reveling in femininity; when Sarah-Jessica Parker rhapsodizes over Blahniks, she's saying "My obsessions are feminine, they are 'shallow', and I embrace that as valid, over and against an earlier version of feminism which discounted fashion." The point is that this show builds gender-differentiated stereotypes and is focused on differentiating women's roles from men's. The stereotypes it builds are sexually active and career-oriented, but they are focused on girlishness (not to mention conspicuous consumption) in a way that, say, "Mary Tyler Moore" or "Murphy Brown" weren't.
"All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out." - I.F. Stone
November 9, 2007 5:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
The very least a book reviewer can do is read the book - Christ, there has to be some standard.
November 9, 2007 5:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't remember any of that
That's the real problem with the media: other than the openly partisan journals (and Fox News), they aren't "for" one side or the other. They just do a damn poor job of digging beneath the superficial and the senational.-
But it wasn't something the rest of us encountered unless we went looking for it.
I don't know how to respond except to ask, could 2000 have been a 1960's moment? I still hear echoes of the talking heads repeating with a questioning voice, ”he said he invented the internet”.
-----------------------------------------------
Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
November 9, 2007 5:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
I thought it was taken for granted by now that Sex and the City was about gay men, played by women.
November 9, 2007 6:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
As far as I can tell he never made a claim that he was reviewing the book. He was reviewing her argument as posted at TPM and represented by other sources. Do you really think that everyone posting here has read her book?
November 9, 2007 8:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Anyway, far be it from me to take exception to the point of view of a blogger whose site’s slogan is “I have zero qualifications to write about anything of importance besides the fact that I have a computer, internet access and spend too much time reading,” but, sheesh, Matt, maybe you should spend a little more time reading and a little less time sounding off on books whose covers you haven’t actually cracked.
I haven't read your post yet, so I'm not going to comment on the substance of it but this sentence strikes me as wrong. It doesn't take a degree or even much world experience to have cogent points and valuable opinions on something.
Case in point: It didn't take a degree in rocket science to know going to Iraq was the stupidest fucking thing we could have ever done. Many people with no experience in foreign policy, many people even in highschool knew that. Yet most of the "serious" people, people like Joe Biden went along with it when it was a mistake.
Perhaps it's hyperbole to contrast this, but the point remains that this particular part of your post is though refreshingly sarcastic, mistaken.
November 9, 2007 8:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is a point many people miss. See my discussion with Matt Bai. Dammit I had good arguments to what he said in the NPR interview but I couldn't remember them as it was months later that he showed up here and he conflated that with reading the book. In end I got too busy to find the podcast and gave up.
Also I'm not going to pay money for something when I know the central thesis is wrong.
November 9, 2007 8:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Shorter Faludi:
The kid's fair game.
November 9, 2007 12:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how having read Faludi's book or not disqualifies anyone from the general discussion here. We're not just talking about her book. You might as well demand that one must read the entire text of a proposed bill before Congress, before being qualified to express an opinion about whether it would make good law or not.
OTOH I don't see how one can plausibly review a book or film or TV show without having read it/seen it. One can certainly have an idea of what the thesis is - and it might even be correct - but if you're going to put yourself forward as 'reviewing the book (having some authority to speak on the matter)' versus 'some joe with an opinion about what he thinks the book is about (everyone's got an asshole too...)', you really ought to be sure you know what you're talking about.
November 9, 2007 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
To answer your question, you must seek within.
November 9, 2007 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh I'm sorry, I forgot that was your job.
November 9, 2007 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, of course, he's "fair game" to fair arguments. But presenting herself as the sagely adult, while attacking with a barrage of ad homs and distortions...
November 9, 2007 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
W.C. Fields hated sharing the stage with chldren or dogs. (Hope no one needs that explained.)
Kevin Russell Cook
November 9, 2007 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink