Writes novelist Teddy Wayne, who fits the mood of the Obama administration, which seems to have actively sought to dispel exceptionalism and deflate our sense superiority. Despite the old posters that said HOPE, Obama invited us to mature beyond our need for encouragement and optimism. Don't buck up. Buck down.
ADDED: This post needs a little musical accompaniment:
AND: How is it Teddy Wayne failed to mention superdelegates?! From last night's cold open on "Saturday Night Live," Larry David as Bernie Sanders expresses his annoyance when he's prodded by "Jake Tapper" with "You may have won Michigan, but Hillary still leads you in delegates and superdelegates":
Can I ask just something? What's a superdelegate? Who calls themselves that? It's so cocky. They walk around like they're such big shots. Ooh! I beg your pardon, Mr. Superdelegate. Let me tell you something. I've met some of these superdelegates. They're not so super. Mediocre delegates is more like it.
Posts
28 comments:
At least Trump and Cruz both love America.
Make America Super Again!
The piano was a "Felcher & Sons".
"Obama invited us to mature beyond our need for encouragement and optimism" in the same sense that Dr Kevorkian invited his patients to mature past the need for encouragement and optimism.
Super is successful as a prefix and as a standalone word.
-tacular only works as a suffix.
I've never heard Trump, who obsessively uses adjectives, use "super". In spite of the perception that " huuuuuge" is his go to adjective, I hear him use "beautiful" way too often.
We should nickname Mr. Trump, Ray as in Ray Stevens.
Superfetatiousness.
Google Books Ngram search
Except for a couple of spikes in the 1800s, "super" usage is actually relatively flat, esp if you turn off smoothing. Just about any other word shows more variance, e.g. compare it to "hope".
And if you lived in an apartment building, even the lowly janitor was usually called "the super."
"Super" is so attached to "Superman" that it can't launch on its own as a free word or prefix.
Kinda like "graft". You don't hear it unless it's "graft and corruption".
Someday we'll figure out why we consider it greater art, or more serious writing or thinking, to be a downer.
We look at film that way and books that way. Many people craved Obama because despite all of his "Hope" rhetoric, he spoke an "eh, America isn't really so special" message. We (or the "thinkers") allow only musical theater to be uplifting.
I suspect it's because so many of our artists and novelists are clinically depressed or take recreational depressants. We don't need to embrace that.
Obama pulled a great rhetorical trick in expressing his desire to eliminate American exceptionalism. He misdefined exceptionalism as "success over time" rather than its prior meaning of the citizens' grant of authority as the basis for government.
The exceptionalism of the US is that individual rights have higher priority by law than government authority, unlike everywhere else on earth, and the consent of the governed can be withdrawn from government.
When Obama says the US should be more like other countries, he means individual rights should not override government authority, nothing more, nothing less. It is a statement of pure evil.
"Man and Superman" must have had an effect. It came out in 1903.
The word comes from Nietzsche:
"Another singular feature of Zarathustra, first presented in the prologue, is the designation of human beings as a transition between apes and the "Übermensch" (in English, either the "overman" or "superman"; or, superhuman or overhuman. English translators Thomas Common and R. J. Hollingdale use superman, while Kaufmann uses overman, and Parkes uses overhuman. Martin has opted to leave the nearly universally understood term as Übermensch in his new translation). The Übermensch is one of the many interconnecting, interdependent themes of the story, and is represented through several different metaphors. Examples include: the lightning that is portended by the silence and raindrops of a travelling storm cloud; or the sun's rise and culmination at its midday zenith; or a man traversing a rope stationed above an abyss, moving away from his uncultivated animality and towards the Übermensch."
By the way... Uber.
Could be annoyed at that too.
I love Big Gay Al!
And I am super, thanks for asking!
In the office currently doing some prep for tomorrow, then walking to the gym, walking over Mass Ave Bridge, going to the Esplanade to read, then back over the Mass Ave Bridge, yoga class, Whole Foods, Dry Cleaning, hang outside with rare clumber, dindin with friends.
Have a super day everyone.
Make it a great day and make America great again too!
tits.
When I read Nietzsche I never liked translations that used "superman", because it seemed to imply great abilities like strength or intellect.
What Nietzsche meant (in part) was a man who is free from obsolete notions of morality.
There is only ONE True Super: Schneider.
Duane Schneider: Always remember, and please never forget: A man is like a bow-and-arrow, and a woman is like a target. Bow-and-arrow needs practice. Target doesn't.
Didn't realize that Pat Harrington Jr died this past January.
A moment of silence, please.
I am Laslo.
I think of Warhol when I hear the word super, everything was super so nothing, in the end, was. It was deflationary.
AA "Man and Superman" must have had an effect. It came out in 1903.
The real "Superman" was born in 1938; having read only about 10 sentences of Nietzsche's, I was surprised to see that "Superman" was rather popular before 1938. "overman" ("an overseer") goes way back, mostly pretty flat.
Here's an Overman at Burning Man
American exceptionalism is not the same thing as a feeling of superiority. America is exceptional because it is the only country (except perhaps the old Soviet Union!) expressly founded on a set of ideals, in our case those of the Declaration and the Constitution. Other countries are based on geography, ethnicity, language, or culture, or result from various dynastic or colonial upheavals. Lots of people think their way of life is "better" than anyone else's, but that's a different sense of "exceptional."
I recall a time when people would say "Oh, super," with a tone of mild despair. (Can despair be mild?)
Anyway, it meant "that's bad." Usually used in reaction to a series of bads.
David said:
"I recall a time when people would say "Oh, super," with a tone of mild despair. (Can despair be mild?)"
The British say, "Brilliant," meaning good. We say, "Oh, brilliant," with the same tone of mild despair.
That SNL skit strikes me as something Trump might say, not so much Bernie. (The actual Trump, not the SNL Trump.)
Coincidence. . I watched Saturday Night Fever last night. Name dropping Stephanie ("Eric Clapton was in the office today") is moving into Manhattan with help from Tony. Stephanie's friend from work, a much older man corrects her when she says super. "No one says super anymore." I thought that was funny.
According the the NFL, the name Super Bowl was based on a toy in the sixties, I had one, called a super ball. It was a very high bouncing ball and clearly was named to invoke Superman, not sure if he was named for Nietzsche's "ubermensch," but it is a possibility.
I was on an airplane headed for Los Angeles, and seated next to two very attractive 30-something women. I think they were buyers for a department store. They were reviewing pictures of clothing on their computers. When they found something appealing, one would say "cute", and the other would respond "super cute".
"Cute". "Super cute".
"Cute". "Super cute".
This went on for the whole two and a half hour flight.
"According the the NFL, the name Super Bowl was based on a toy in the sixties, I had one, called a super ball. It was a very high bouncing ball and clearly was named to invoke Superman, not sure if he was named for Nietzsche's "ubermensch," but it is a possibility."
(Man starts) I'm gonna buy you a Chevrolet (x3) if you'll do something for me, uh hunh, if you'll do something for me(Woman answers) I don't want your Chevrolet (x3) and you can't do nothing for me, nooo, you can't do nothing for me...diamond ring......cutting board... ...paper boat... ...paper cigar......Superball...(Final answer) I'll accept your Superball (x3) and you can do something for me anytime, you can do something for me...
This post was both superior and superb.
Post a Comment