The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: jay-ell on September 26, 2003, 04:06:56 pm
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Mr. James had some interesting things to say in today's bleat, I think. As a master's student specializing in 20th century US history, a lot of his stuff resonates today. Partuclarly this bit:
That’s the nifty thing about any portion of the past you never experienced: its distance from your current position doesn’t change much. The difference between me and, say, a TV show from 1984 or an issue of Cream from 1975 - these are significant distances. But 1939 will always be 1939, as familiar as it is foreign. Cigarette ads, KSTP schedules, big campaigns for department stores long gone or recently renamed. The newspapers contain the DNA of the era, and the microfiche is the amber that holds them.
That struck me as very similar to the reason I enjoy studying history. It can be at once static and dynamic -- the past doesn't change, but the way we view it from the current vantage point (and based on the most recent scholarship and documents) can change. To delve briefly into historiography, if you look at high school history textbooks from 1953, their interpretations of, for instance, World War I are very different from the interpretations you'd find in textbooks being used today*. Part of it is because as time passes, more and more documents are being de-classified; part of it is because history, like everything else in which people are involved, is subject to trends, fads, and fashion. Skepticism is very "in" right now.
Lileks often describes the past in a way that brings perspective to the present. While this is one argument for the necessity of studying history, I take the opposite position: the present also serves to provide a platform from which to observe the past. We exist in this world by way of creating an allegory to what has come before and what is to come in the future. It is through our own experiences and environment that we connect to generations past, and without that connection we are rootless, adrift, pathless. Without a sense of our own place in history, our lives are stripped of their significance and our voices are enveloped in the dank blackness of eternity.
Woah. Heavy.
*This may suprise you: many historians and historiographers criticize modern textbooks for being excessively critical of the U.S. Government, particularly in areas of foreign policy. According to some, we are raising a generation of jaded, cynical youth. I blame the revisionists.
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Yeah, I liked that bit, too. As usual, I didn't care for the political conclusion he reached. Lileks is frustrating -- so right about some stuff, so wrong about the rest.
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Yes, that's true. I skip the political stuff altogether -- his responses tend to be quite predictable so I feel no need to read them because I already know what they'll say.
I do, however, love the dog-and-baby stories. What can I say? I'm still a chick.
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I haven't been able to read Lileks since he accused me of hating America because I don't support the war in Iraq. I agree with August, Lileks is frustrating because he has a lot of interesting things to say about pop culture, but his political stand is repugnant. I like the baby stories too JL because I can relate to people loving their children, but also because it reminds me that no one sees your child like you do.
~Paul
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I haven't read Lileks in a while because it seems like, recently, all his musings run down into the same revolting channels. Frustrating, because he often does have a point, if he didn't sabotage it.
Gnat's still cute, though. Very cute.
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He could just go back to putting the screeds on a separate page. Which I think would make everybody happy.
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I tried Lileks after it even managed a link here. But, I came across one of his political bits and haven't dared to go look since.
I get too angry about some things...
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I can read Lileks. I can read anything. I don't necessarily agree with everything he says either, but I can't imagine getting angry at some guy's opinion. He writes well, and I like that. He says some stuff I don't agree with. So does my Dad. I haven't punched my Dad yet, either.
The media is suffused with more left-standing viewpoints, so I find it more than a little interesting to see one coming more from the right, especially in the, what is word in your country, um, "blogosphere". F. Scott Fitzgerald said it best:
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."
I'm just saying give it a read, disagree if you like, but anger is probably misplaced. If you want to fight something, you should know it well - learn the viewpoint from the right wing and argue rationally, not in anger. You'll come out seeming all the smarter if you avoid gnashing your teeth and getting emotional about it.
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I've been able to pass Fitzgerald's test for a long time. I've actually relied on Lileks to give me the right viewpoint since he's usually much more palatable than your average rightwing pundit. I do like to know what those people are thinking, but his attack on the left as America haters really threw me for a loop. I don't want to read anymore of that kind of shit.
~Paul
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Perhaps if you explained your views to Mr. Lileks he'd change his mind and then everyone would have the same opinion and no one would fight anymore or be mean.
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I entirely respect Lileks's writing skill and his right to write whatever he wants. That's cool. I just don't read it because I exercise my right to not read stuff that gets me semi-incoherent with thoughtless, visceral rage, is all.
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I read it because it's good. I agree with what I like and I disagree with what I don't like. I save visceral rages for people who do bad things to my family or my stuff.
I disagree that Paul or anyone else is anti-American based on their opinion about the war. If this country were full of simps agreeing to everything their leaders did (regardless of which one we are talking about) this wouldn't be America. Nor would it be a very good place if we shut down everyone with an opinion we didn't like. So read it or don't read it, but use whatever you take from it constructively - that's all I mean to say - letting it piss you off or spoil your day kind of wastes what you could do positively in whatever (political) direction you lean. Use that energy for your verson of good is all I'm saying.
Grasshopper.
[/master_po]
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Lileks is a dork who is better at forming an opinion than he is at informing that opinion.
This forum will be folded into a new forum this week sometime that will be for general web blog discussion.
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Why I no longer read The Bleat (http://www.citypages.com/databank/25/1206/article11813.asp)
This is the article on The Bleat I would write if, you know, I knew how to write.
~Paul
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Very nice article. Lileks is so good on pop culture that I usually am capable of tuning out his fatuous political opinions. Sometimes he does get through and I wonder how somebody who "gets it" on so many things is so willfully blind on others.
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This post (http://veryveryhappy.blogspot.com/2003_09_07_veryveryhappy_archive.html#106316201320863955) with generic right-wing blog entries, including a Lileks one, 'bout made me fall out of my seat laughing.
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I can't.... stop.... reading the Bleat every day, even though the whole visceral-rage thing that V-Adore so succinctly mentioned is a real problem for me too. I just start skipping paragraphs when he gets too far out there in dissing pinko trash like me.
Interesting quote from the article Carlos linked to: "Historical context is seldom welcome at The Bleat". It's very true, and yet it had never really clicked with me that someone who's devoted his life to a large extent to the ephemera of the past should have a little clearer perspective on such things...
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That essay really did hit home. I especially liked the point about hypocrisy -- Lileks's ability to rail on, say, an Iraqi warblogger for not "having the stones" to take the fight to Saddam even as he admits he wouldn't, either.