Walking the Dog Back: Revisionist History
Bob Somerby at Daily Howler reminds again today about the basics of revisionism - in this case that it was "unthinkable that a black man could have been elected president" - and in fact that continual presence of revisionist history every day.
Somerby notes (you might have to go to the previous day's archive) that people like Frank Rich were all for Obama running 2 years ago, quoting Dick Durbin to say that a few more years of voting in the Senate wouldn't improve his chances. That was in 2006. By february 2007, pundits were proclaiming that Obama would quickly catch Hillary. Of course Obama's not the only black man high up in politics, and Somerby reminds us how back in 1995 the punditocracy was all agoggle at the idea that Colin Powell could be president. Of course this is much about Frank Rich's revisionism - a major part of the NY Times elite.
But we live in a land of revisionism. The late spring was dominated by the revisionism that Democratic contests are always decided early and peacefully. McCain is an icon of revisionism, pretending to be a man of new ideas when he possesses that certain "je ne give-a-fuck pas" lack of decorum and finesse normally needed for politics - regularly emboided in the über-revisionist impetuous baby, Bush-fils (alias The Son King). Of course McCain is permanently assisted by the press, who delightfull forget how many times he's adopted Senatorial kneepads to cater to the powers-that-be on the way up.
Of course Obama's recent rise was launched by his revisionist book, which he had to quickly re-brand as something of a mash-up, a "composite", not a real biography (which stood to hold the dogs at bay until everyone forget again that it wasn't quite historical). The lesson was learned - later revisions revised the details, while leaving the overal impressions the same. Obama remains the hope and change candidate despite the loss in altitude provided by the spat with his preacher, his post-nomination tack to the right, his recent adoption of the Clinton economic team.
What all of this should warn us about is that Revisionism sells. Sarah Palin is a completely shrink-wrapped revisionist media product. While a bit overdone with a too short shelf-life (actually not short enough), the real warning is how well it worked. Had there been just a wee bit more substance to the woman, she likely would have transformed her party (which is more of a continual exercise in shared revisionism and mutual hallucination than an actual party of ideals).
And why does Revisionism sell? Because we buy it. Often for the wrong or unobvious reasons. Researchers have discovered that smarter people are even better than dumb people at discarding facts that don't fit our desired point-of-view. Perhaps America is really really smart, so we're able to distort reality beyond belief, where every encounter, political or sports or foreign military, ends up with our allies becoming saints and our enemies becoming antichrists. Which I guess is understandable in wartime, since someone has to work themselves up enough to die for it. But in an election? Bringing it all down to earth, a bit of gloss of the petals would help. Come November, we will likely have Obama and a typically corrupt, pandering and ineffective Congress to work with. And we'll need to keep banging them on the heads and writing them nasty-grams to keep them on track. Unless we want to be writing another revisionist history of the next administration, just to cover up our inadequacies as citizens.
Somerby notes (you might have to go to the previous day's archive) that people like Frank Rich were all for Obama running 2 years ago, quoting Dick Durbin to say that a few more years of voting in the Senate wouldn't improve his chances. That was in 2006. By february 2007, pundits were proclaiming that Obama would quickly catch Hillary. Of course Obama's not the only black man high up in politics, and Somerby reminds us how back in 1995 the punditocracy was all agoggle at the idea that Colin Powell could be president. Of course this is much about Frank Rich's revisionism - a major part of the NY Times elite.
But we live in a land of revisionism. The late spring was dominated by the revisionism that Democratic contests are always decided early and peacefully. McCain is an icon of revisionism, pretending to be a man of new ideas when he possesses that certain "je ne give-a-fuck pas" lack of decorum and finesse normally needed for politics - regularly emboided in the über-revisionist impetuous baby, Bush-fils (alias The Son King). Of course McCain is permanently assisted by the press, who delightfull forget how many times he's adopted Senatorial kneepads to cater to the powers-that-be on the way up.
Of course Obama's recent rise was launched by his revisionist book, which he had to quickly re-brand as something of a mash-up, a "composite", not a real biography (which stood to hold the dogs at bay until everyone forget again that it wasn't quite historical). The lesson was learned - later revisions revised the details, while leaving the overal impressions the same. Obama remains the hope and change candidate despite the loss in altitude provided by the spat with his preacher, his post-nomination tack to the right, his recent adoption of the Clinton economic team.
What all of this should warn us about is that Revisionism sells. Sarah Palin is a completely shrink-wrapped revisionist media product. While a bit overdone with a too short shelf-life (actually not short enough), the real warning is how well it worked. Had there been just a wee bit more substance to the woman, she likely would have transformed her party (which is more of a continual exercise in shared revisionism and mutual hallucination than an actual party of ideals).
And why does Revisionism sell? Because we buy it. Often for the wrong or unobvious reasons. Researchers have discovered that smarter people are even better than dumb people at discarding facts that don't fit our desired point-of-view. Perhaps America is really really smart, so we're able to distort reality beyond belief, where every encounter, political or sports or foreign military, ends up with our allies becoming saints and our enemies becoming antichrists. Which I guess is understandable in wartime, since someone has to work themselves up enough to die for it. But in an election? Bringing it all down to earth, a bit of gloss of the petals would help. Come November, we will likely have Obama and a typically corrupt, pandering and ineffective Congress to work with. And we'll need to keep banging them on the heads and writing them nasty-grams to keep them on track. Unless we want to be writing another revisionist history of the next administration, just to cover up our inadequacies as citizens.
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Nice work Des and recommended.
October 14, 2008 8:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
He had me at "je ne give-a-fuck pas."
October 14, 2008 11:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
A little potty mouth improves a post, I always say.
October 14, 2008 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yay, Des! We finally found some common ground.
October 14, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What's that stuck to your shoe, O.
Oh dear. A li'l bit a Desi.
October 14, 2008 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Desidero #5?
October 14, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay boys, I'm all for profanity, but this is getting gross.
October 14, 2008 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought I was just getting musical.
A little bit of Rudy's 9-1-1,
a litle bit Obama, he's The One,
a little bit of McCain watch him blink,
a little bit of Hillary's kitchen sink,
a little bit of Sarah's snowmobile,
a little bit of Huckabee's backroom deal,
a little bit of Ron Paul's No Iraq,
a little bit Kucinich's Dr. Spock,
a little bit of Romney's Mormon ties,
a little bit of Thompson's fast demise,
a little bit of Gravel's bizarre stare,
a little bit of Edwards' nice coiffed hair,
a little bit of Biden on a snore,
a little bit of Richardson to ignore,
a little bit of Al Gore write me in,
a little bit of Desi just let this end...
Bah dah, dah dah, ba-da-da-da-da
Ba-da da da...
October 14, 2008 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Inspired.
(And mostly, I was chastising Quinn.)
October 14, 2008 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was just covering Quinn's back, until he started that Dumb and Dumber bit below. Now it's war.
October 14, 2008 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very nice, Desidero. You're on a roll.
October 14, 2008 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmmmm, what else goes good on a roll? Herring, natch. Cheese, please. Des? Michelin Guide say, "Non."
October 14, 2008 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ritz cracker.
October 14, 2008 7:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
a meatball, all covered in cheese.
October 14, 2008 10:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Des I am now un-following you for getting that f(!&*&!% song stuck in my head :)
October 14, 2008 9:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tell me about it. You just had to listen -
I had to sing.
October 15, 2008 2:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
This post needs more music. How the hell can these people read without music? God, was a Mod.
October 15, 2008 2:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, cool, I'm already in the most Recommended with hardly any recommends. Wait, I feel an ode to my grandmother and her oatmeal cookies - that'll blow the top off the sucker. (I was going to say "whip the crowd into a frenzy", but realized Josh & Co. will be watching. Can't even whip up a few eggs anymore. I'll have to settle for a sandwich.)
October 14, 2008 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Serious sniper fire here.
Mind you, TPM's latest tools do allow for text revision, last I read.
October 14, 2008 9:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, so, you've covered McCain, Palin, and Obama. Where's your paragaph illustrating Clinton revisionism?
October 14, 2008 9:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I also covered the NY Times and the GOP. Lessee, there was Bosnia which was a bit over the top. Probably some of the chest thumping on her participation in the White House, but that's just a small bit of expected resume fluffing. Why, you know something else?
October 14, 2008 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
For how long has "revisionist history" been a bad thing? The way I learned it, revisionism was a provable corrective to conventional wisdom, not up-is-down distortion of the truth. George Washington didn't really chop down the cherry tree, etc.
October 14, 2008 9:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
Typically "revisionist history" is used as a pejorative, twisting historical lessons to your liking - history as written by the winners, for example. Certainly re-evaluating history based on new knowledge or understanding is a worthwhile endeavor. One day perhaps we'll be able to hopefully re-evaluate 9/11 and the war in Iraq. But note that originally, Bush stared into his book like a lost child, but in the movie he became heroic and decisive. Cheney rushed to his bomb shelter, but in the revisionist version he took charge (well, he kind of did, in a rather draconian way that would have made Alexander Haig blush).
October 14, 2008 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, now I see what you're getting at.
October 14, 2008 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points, Desidero. And better phrasing: "...the über-revisionist impetuous baby, Bush-fils (alias The Son King)...." Nice.
October 14, 2008 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I was kinda proud of that one myself, thanks!
October 14, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
As though YOU wrote that! More likely that a thousand centipedes scrabbling over a thousand keyboards for a thousand years come up with the King James.
Edit. More likely that a hundred millipedes scrabbling... etc.
P.S. How didja get the little dots over the "u?" Can I put 'em over any letter? I want 'em over ALL mine. Plus some flashing arrows. Maybe subliminal instigations to violence. Oh. And the odour (JUST the odour) of a fine fine sandwich.
October 14, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Edit: Insert "monkey" for "milli/centipede."
October 14, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Qüïńń l'Éšqůímðüt ¤ {l'Ặľĝỗŋqøựịṋ, en fait}
October 14, 2008 2:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bad monkey.
No banana.
October 14, 2008 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bananafishbones or Bananarama?
October 14, 2008 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about Banana Republic?
October 14, 2008 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Prefer New Yorker.
October 14, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
And, given turf loyalties as measured by ethnic, class and even compass point loyalties -- block by block -- that is different from a Banana Republic, how? ( Which is not to say that I do not love NY, because I do, or at least my own adopted Manhattan "hood.")
October 18, 2008 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Edit: Insert "Shakespeare" for "King James."
October 14, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I try very hard to maintain a basic level of objectivity of ideas, but even TRYING hard to do so, I find it difficult to do. Piddling things like Acorn, Ayers, Wright, Troopergate, the Bridge, the POW, on and on, keep getting mistaken for the serious issues of the day.
I think a lot of the problem has to do with what you're talking about: The modern tendency to think of elections as something more than just a contest between 2 people, or even 2 parties. I'm old enough to remember a time when losing an election was serious, for sure, but hardly life-threatening. You got-up the next day and went on about your life. 2 years or four years later, you revved-up and did it again. You knew that you always got another chance - a loss never felt PERMANENT.
Today, a loss in a big election has people literally vomiting into their toilets, and taking to their beds. Every minor Congressional race has the feel of a revolution.
We badly need REAL, permanent historical perspective: Our side is not saintly. The other side is not evil. Someone is going to lose, and someone else is going to win. Whatever happens, this great nation (that's US, not neccesarily the politicians) is going to go forward in its lumbering, meandering way toward the future. We'll make mistakes, but we'll survive them and sooner or later, get around to learning lessons from them. We'll try on. One of these days, Lord willing, we'll get it pretty close to right. That's our destiny, and even our momentary partisan stupidities can't mess it up for long.
October 14, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well it helps to be able to trust in some basic sanity of the other side. I suppose the rejection of Sarah Palin will give us some pause to think there's at least some know limit to the insanity. However, it's paired with a "conservative" nationalizing of banks to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. These are pretty loony times that make the Carter & Reagan years look very subdued.
October 14, 2008 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Revisionism sells because it's easier to deny the reality than to admit any hypocrisy or that they were wrong. Have a conversation with a GWB 2004 voter (who is honest enough to admit it) and you'll hear excuses like... no one else could have led us thorugh 9/11, the economic crisis is all due to 9/11, he was a president in difficult times, Iraq is the central front of the war on terror, GWB is a good man - he was just surrounded by the wrong people like Cheney or Rove. Who doesn't want to believe they were right all along?
October 14, 2008 10:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Alright, but how do we fare in the mirror? How many subscribed to the "Gore = Bush" equation at the time, just to name one? There's always the rush to embrace people like Arnie, Bloomberg, Arianna, Andrew Sullivan, Pelosi, the Washington Post, Olberman when they say what we like them saying and dis them when they don't, but how objective are we with what they actually say and who they actually are?
October 14, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've been myself guilty of being in a rush to congratulate you, Desi, when you've said something worthwhile.
October 14, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Take your time, enjoy the wine, a slow aged vintage, a shame to rush it.
October 14, 2008 3:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we need a foolproof method of historical causality before we extinguish the impulse to and need for revisionism.
The current financial crisis is as good a case in point as we need. The origin of our predicament is being blamed variously on Carter, Reagan, Clinton and Bush.
As for personal biography. I would suggest we all employ revisionism all the time. Sometimes we lie intentionally, sometimes we tell the truth as we remember it, sometimes we just construct our self-concept from a different set of facts and experiences and thoughts from those that an "objective observer" might choose.
October 14, 2008 10:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
I would imagine there's some blame to go all around, though from some of the GOP talking points flying around, they're very insistent on cherry-picking any Democrat in any setting and ignoring all others.
October 14, 2008 10:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, sure, like I said, some revisionism is just lying...or stupidity, or a reflexive ideological conditioning--if there is a problem the other guy must be at fault.
Blaming the current crisis on the Community Re-investment Act is a great case study.
October 14, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Until recently it was unthinkable that a black man could be elected president. Times have changed, so to speak. Revisionism doesn't seem the right term here at all, and really suggests longer spans of historical memory than a few years.
October 14, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure it was oh so unthinkable to elect Colin Powell president back in 1995. After Iraq his halo is rather tarnished, but the media still loves him and amongst Republicans he's been pretty much in favor, while Democrats always have to genuflect when he walks by.
October 14, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I still hear revisionism as a term associated with a longer term of reversal--revisionism about McCarthyism by example. When I say there was a time when it was unthinkable to elect a black president, I'm speaking of a span of some decades.
It comes down to how one hears the implication of the word. The oft- written term "revisionist history" is what strikes me. And history seems to have a longer range that a decade. I also don't think there ever was a chance that Colin Powell could have been elected. But I may just be a revisionist in that regard.
October 14, 2008 11:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I generally think of it in terms of the bigger picture as well.
Regardless what Frank Rich said yesterday, or two years ago, at a point in recent history, it was unthinkable that a black man could be elected president. We could get into a semantic argument about what "recent history" entails, but I think it goes back more than only 10 years. If you could go back and ask the folks in Mississippi '64, or Selma...if they thought a black man would make it to the White House in their lifetimes, I doubt you'd get many who'd thought so.
And yes, Powell in 96. But of course, it's the same punditocracy we're criticizing now who proclaimed him as a virtual shoo-in. So yes, maybe it became thinkable back in the 90s, but there's a gaping hole between thinkable and achievable. And because his candidacy never came to be, we can't know how it would have turned out, regardless of what the media or polling said back then. Remember, this year, they told us we were getting Giuliani vs. Clinton. Very little was known about his positions on topics then, and as an unelected official, he was never subjected to the grueling "vetting" of a 2 year presidential run. We simply cannot know.
But on the revisionism in society - I think it's a symptom of a greater disease. The hypocrisy and ignorance that comes with it is often blinding. We condemn others for the most flagrant and abusive revisions of history - Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial; yet never confront our own - the genocide and ethnocide of millions upon millions of American Indians, for example. We can never know exactly how many were killed, as population estimates for indigenous peoples pre-Columbus are ridiculously varied. And yet there is still debate over whether to call it genocide or not.
Textbooks are among the worst offenders of revisionist history. And they've improved in recent years. Yet they still show virtually no understanding of native religions, still hint at the old misguided dichotomy of savage/civilized. Words like "warlike," "conquer," "unfriendly" plague the passages. The treaties are almost always taught from the white man's perspective. The dots are never connected. On a Wiki article on Indian Removal, I was reading the discussion page, and someone found fault with the fact that Manifest Destiny was mentioned, as "it had nothing to do with it." I don't think I've seen any that talked about the policies of allotment and how the reservations actually came to be. No understanding of how the tribes were forced to fight for land ownership, despite the idea of owning land being against their every belief.
It's all too messy. Doesn't fit into our nice little U.S. of A. box.
Maybe we should be asking...why do we buy revisionism?
October 14, 2008 1:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Somewhere between Jesse Jackson's even more successful 2nd run and Colin Powell it started to become really possible. That was also the time when Clinton was stacking the administration with blacks and we'd basically moved out of the great crack wars of the 80's, not exactly the best PR African-Americans ever has. Clarence Thomas is hardly a leftist, but with figures like him, Thomas Sowell, Powell, Alan Keyes and a few others, even the right got a bit used to not thinking of it as a complete white's club, though only Powell really had all his ducks in a row for a real run at high office.
October 14, 2008 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it's funny you keep forgetting about Condi, Des.
October 14, 2008 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I considered and left her out on purpose. She reflects too much of the Peter Principle. She's pretty much similar to Sarah Palin except better educated, has been around longer and likes classical rather than country & rock. But she spits out those Hoover Institute talking points without them making any sense. And everything she touched in government? Pretty much abject failure.
October 14, 2008 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Other than that, it's all good though.
October 14, 2008 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear Condi's very likable. Maybe Repubs will like her even more in 2012, now that Hillary's out.
October 15, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
She is so over. If she were any use she'd be on the campaign stump now.
October 15, 2008 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry, I'm not a fan. My point is, she's a perfect candidate for a revisionist makeover by the press someday. She may never actually run for president, but she'll be lionized.
October 15, 2008 2:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
Or pussified, in tribute to your avatar. I am kitty, here me roar.
October 15, 2008 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, the Peter Principle. I'll give kudos to the Clintons on that one, Desidero. Both rising to their respective levels of competence, rather than incompetence. Will Obama do the same?
October 18, 2008 5:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, I got to talking history with a right-wing nut, and he just couldn't fathom how awful we'd been towards Mexico in the 1830's/1840's. Man, if there was any place where our foreign policy was indefensibly immoral, that was it, yet here's someone just toeing the line of the manifest destined God-loving nation.
October 14, 2008 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
A la Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the "noble savage"...i.e., the "canon" has a long way to go. Soon, please.
October 14, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought Coppola updated it. Not that Obama as Clean (Fishburne) would make a very hopeful example.
October 15, 2008 2:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly right. Somehow our politics doesn't extend past 1980. Revisionism is not the right. It's called permanent amnesia that somehow comes as a surprise each election.
October 14, 2008 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm recommending this just because I like you.
October 14, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Woo hoo! Identity politics trumps. Gosh darn it, people just like me.
October 14, 2008 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
How smart am I? I'm SO smart I can read this post, recommend it and then completely discard it - since it doesn't fit my desired point-of-view.
How smart am I? I'm SOO smart that when things turn out as you predict, I'll point to my Recommendation to show I was right all along.
How smart am I? I'm SOOO smart I just said this, on the record, laying bare my premeditated revisionism, because I know TPM now has a "Revise" feature that will let me erase it later.
How smart am I? I'm SOOOO smart that I understand how, in an age of electrons & internets & 1200 channels, with more than 700,000 "choices" in every supermarket, and universities lauding "marketing" and "post-modernism," abso-fucking-lutely no one ever has to own anything.
Get Smart.
October 14, 2008 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey smart guy, you can revise posts but not comments. Guess that you're owning this one.
October 14, 2008 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dear Symbol Guy II. TPM's software comes in two versions. Yours, and mine. Using your software, "revising" involves buttons and toggling and an almost infinite level of complexity, within which you can only revise posts.
Whereas MY kinda software involves tying Al Shaw to a chair & shoving strawberries up his nose til he does what I ask. In this case, I may want my comment revised. Or, if pushed, I may get Al to take away that pretty yellow toy you're sitting on. Al's a get-along kinda guy, when it comes to the strawberry thing. You think I jest? Don't you detect just a hint of nervousness in
these eyes?
October 14, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Had me worried you were sending us into Wheatfield Soul territory. Get me running back to Saskatoon.
October 14, 2008 2:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
It may not be normal commentary, pal, but all I know is... I'm straight up DOMINATING the news cycle. Big Love.
Your BFF, Accounts Payable.
P.S. I believe I can fly.
October 14, 2008 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Love will keep us together.
October 14, 2008 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
You can borrow my pony, if you need it.
October 14, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
And words can't bring me down.
October 14, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I love recent revisionism. My latest favorite example is Paul Krugman who -- you may recall -- was labeled by many at TPM as a Hillary Clinton shill.
No sooner than he wins the Nobel prize, everyone is falling all over themselves to post a congratulation note.
Much of the news today (and that includes blogs like this) is set up to provide cognitive consonance -- to allow you to justify your already pre-thought notions. And much of the interest in polls for many is a vindication to prove that their candidate is the "right" one. Revisionism is a way to get on the "right side" of things -- to make the facts give your gut.
Humans are tribal creatures. While most claim to want to be individuals, very few, in fact, are brave enough to endure that heavy mantel.
October 14, 2008 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, CT - those remind me of Mayberry RFID rules - "the 2nd rule is: 'Obey all rules'".
Listening to Heavy Mantel music all my life.
Yeah, the switch on Paul Krugman is just the type of revisionism/"friend of my enemy is my friend" thinking that I had on my mind. Bob Barr is now our friendly expert on the ACLU cause he started ranting against the administration. Chuck Hagel is just like us because he said something against the war in Iraq. Jim Webb is a liberal because he gave a speech. All these little details glossed over.
October 14, 2008 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those here who were unhappy about Krugman apparently arguing for Clinton usually complained he should stick to the economy. So what's revisionist about lauding his economics work?
Individuality is overrated, and not exhibited in most social animals. The true individuals are some solitary predators like tigers, or the solitary wasps.
Our two presidential candidates have mentioned Hemingway's character Jordan in "For Whom the Bell Tolls", but we should remember the whole quotation includes "no man is an island", and that is the main point of it, and of the novel.
"The world [is] a fine place, and worth the fighting for..."
October 14, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I got really sick of him calling the girl "Rabbit". Give me Old Man and the Sea any day. One lonely old man and a young boy facing the sharks, finding the fruit of their struggle stripped to the bone. Or The Sun Also Rises (though that finds itself surpassed by Under the Volcano).
October 14, 2008 4:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Under the Volcano was Lowry, not Ernest.
October 14, 2008 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Very good. Lowry never got too drunk he had to stop writing, or perhaps it was that he had no other hobbies besides drinking. In any case, my point was rather that the old Hemingway tradition was somewhat inherited and gloriously interred by Lowry who then interred himself, while the later Hemingway gasped and scraped itself to life to scrabble out the short but brilliant Old Man and the Sea before putting the shotgun to paper.
A Movable Feast indeed.
October 15, 2008 2:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Not to mention the slate of posts up from a few weeks back denouncing polling reliability.
October 14, 2008 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
So do we think that short-term revisionism creates long-term revisionism? The sum of all our short-term revisions become our history? Or are they both just the result of our attitudes toward truth and/or the idea of facts serving a purpose?
October 14, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you a positive negativist or a negative positivist? Do you like Diane Keaton? She was completely wacko in Love and Death.
October 14, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meaning she was spot on with her NY City psycho-philosophical babble while playing a Russian ingenue from the time of Napoleon.
Little revisions build to big revisions. Once you embrace a revision, it's hard to let go, and they breed like rabbits. But they do keep you warm in winter.
October 14, 2008 5:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Most of it has to do with maintaining the discipline of rationality at all times -- it *is* possible, or at least it should be something to aspire to at all times.
Just the other day -- since the new website went up, and I *still* can't find it despite having recommended the post and posting a comment on it!!! -- there was a blog showing how Josh was a bit overzealous in his reporting. This is the problem with blogs, FNC, and the 24 hour media cycle.
Much is detailed in a new book on this subject. So we get a gut feel based on natural biases and experiences and then simply seek out opinions that make us feel better about our knee-jerk reaction.
October 14, 2008 5:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not everyone thinks like that. Many of us embrace and accept contradictions.
For instance, here I go:
I despise Bob Barr as a hypocrite and a libertarian, probably in that order because I view being a libertarian as an intellectual rather than moral failing. His stance on civil liberties I find right in the stopped-clock sort of way.
I thought Krugman was needlessly anti-Obama in his columns, though I understood where it came from (he viewed Obama as less of an economic populist than Edwards or HRC). Didn't stop me from reading around the "cult" screeds to the actual substantive economic points.
I respect Chuck Hagel for his military service. Full stop.
I respect Jim Webb for having the guts to change political affiliation based around concerns of social justice, and I'm happy he's in our corner for numerous reasons of political expediency and because just having him around focuses attention on the fact that racial and "family values" issues have been used as a wedge to drive apart economically-oppressed white and black, urban and rural, Northeastern and Southern/Midwestern constituencies that should be voting in common.
Honestly, this post makes no sense. Blogs like this are all about a simplified expression of nuanced, complex political viewpoints. And, times change. I have to say that I would have preferred Edwards to be the nominee rather than Obama, but now, after BHO's coolness under fire and Edwards's sex scandal? Not so much.
October 14, 2008 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Try this - Keith Olbermann would be a pompous, self-absorbed jerk if he weren't flailing at Republicans. I found his "Dear Mr. President" schtick amusing/useful 1 time, but quickly tired of it, so by the time he took it upon himself to thrash Hillary there was no illusionment there to disilluse. But who exactly elected him blowhard-in-chief?
Bill Maher is rather misogynistic by any objective analysis, but he's a darling of the left and folks just seem not to notice.
You may like Hagel and Webb for various reasons, and as long as you realize they quite likely don't think like someone from the progressive spectrum of the party, well all's well. It's when people think "oh, anti-Iraq war, so these are my best bosom buddies, they share my interests". Whoa Nellie.
October 14, 2008 6:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would be careful in turning "revisionism" into a perjorative.
To revise is to change owing to new data. The data deserves to be analysed, and informed opinion/criticism can be leveled at the revision.
I like your writing (it is persuasive) but I believe you are operating on a slippery slope. Simply becase a few pundits and opinion merchants supported Obama in 06 or Powell in 95 does not mean that History will not ultimately collectively agree that Obama's success was heretofore unthinkable. Pundits are paid to run ideas up flagpoles. Facts frequently prove their ideas wrong. The difference between pundits and scientists is that scientists test their hypotheses. To use the navel-gazing tea-leaf-scrying pundit class as any barometer of History is to insult the subject,
I think you are confusing "manufacture of consent" (the creation and salesmanship of conventional wisdom, myth, and narrative) with historical revisionism. I suggest you rethink your approach to this subject, turn your critical lens upon yourself first, and come back with a more sustained critical focus.
October 14, 2008 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
From the time that Jesse Jackson won 13 contests (despite pissing off Jews with numerous anti-Semitic comments) by putting together his Rainbow Coalition, it has simply been a matter of time before someone stepped in to do it better. I remember one caucus - Jackson was the only one who really had students fired up.
That certainly doesn't mean it was foregone that Obama would win, or even that he would have an easy time of it. But running after a draining unpopular 2-term president and with a stack of old familiar faces that didn't excite in 2004, the odds weren't bad - certainly looked like the Democratic candidate would have a big advantage, especially coming out of the 2006 mid-terms. The biggest challenge has always been Obama's short resume, not his race or age. Americans tend to like their candidates folksier, but I'd say that equation doesn't work so well for a black candidate - better to err on the side of conservatism.
October 14, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's how I understand historical revisionism, too.
October 14, 2008 8:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't buy your claim:
Where's your supporting evidence?I know of research (e.g., this Emory University study) suggesting that political bias is a basic human cognitive function, not a "smart"/"dumb" distinction. As a smart person, I take umbrage at your suggestion that we're somehow more biased than the less gifted. ;-)
Otherwise, I do think you've got a good point on revisionism in particular and the SarahPalin 1.3 product in particular.
October 14, 2008 4:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, don't have the reference, but it's basically as I described it - the study's conclusion was that more educated people (I believe was the actual test) are quicker to weed out data that didn't conform to their desired result. I don't know if this was in Blink referring to rapid judgment, or something more general, sorry, tried to find the article (but being clever, deliberately sabotaged google to make sure it didn't show up).
October 14, 2008 5:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's such a fine line between stupid and.....
October 14, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm with stupid ↑↑↑.
October 14, 2008 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dumb & Dumber ↑↑↑.
(We could do this all day.)
October 14, 2008 6:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
It does seem to be a bit beneath me, though not sure what you folks do for fun those long cold winters. Ice fishing and curling I suppose. I tell you what - you go on and play without me and I'll catch up in bit, honest Injun.
October 14, 2008 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hurry Hurry HAAAARD! Dumber ↑↑↑. HAAAAAARD!
That's curling-talk, for those non-affiched.
(Not the "Dumber" bit. That bit was Politics. Sheesh. Guy writes a post on Revisionism & doesn't mention Hillary pounding whisky in a West Virginia bar. Which was a bit of revisionism that could only have been matched by Barack if, for instance, he had decided to go bowling.)
Which reminds me. Gotta pick-up the kids at the Pegerama.
October 14, 2008 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've been run down.
I've been lied to.
And I don't know why I let that mean woman make me a fool.
She took all my money.
Wrecked my new car.
And now she's with one of my good time buddies drinking in some cross town bar.
Look, there's a huge difference between being revisionist and pandering.
Besides of which, it was just one shot. Like in the movie - no, Nicky, no....
October 14, 2008 7:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe a better example would be her hunting expeditions, no? (Tuzla too easy, obviously.) ;)
October 14, 2008 10:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
But did she exaggerate her hunting? I don't recall her playing Deer Hunter, and one shot of whiskey really doesn't seem like such a stretch for her.
Remember how Gore got blasted for "pretending" he grew up on a farm in Tennessee instead of a fancy Washington hotel. Even though he spent lots and lots of time on his Tennessee farm as a kid? That was revisionism at its finest (read: worst).
October 15, 2008 2:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
This..... is this.
It ain't somethin' else.
October 15, 2008 12:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
We did the best we could what with our funding and time constraints. Our lawyers have advised us to say little else.
October 15, 2008 2:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Stanley, see this? This is this. This ain't somethin' else. This is this."
Tonight's a night to think about that one shot, and when you miss it - as Canada did tonight - you get to live with it. We get to through this next few years with these arsewipes of the New Right in charge. Lovely. that's gonna help my temper. Don't fuck up November, friends.
Like the X say, this is supposed to be The New World.
October 15, 2008 2:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I've got a spare room if you want to toss down a sleeping bag. Here it's a brave godless culture, with beer and hockey the 2 main priorities. As long as no one tries to fuck up that equation, the people will remain strong and constant. And inebriated.
October 15, 2008 3:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm just adding this comment, cause you only had 99, and I like to watch the odometer roll over.
October 15, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm only adding this one in honor of the Ventura Freeway.
October 15, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink