April 7, 2019

Andrew Sullivan seems to have derived inspiration from the "Goofus and Gallant" children's comic strip.

From "Is Pete Buttigieg a Transformational Candidate?":
Trump is a pathological, malevolent narcissist from New York, breaking all sorts of norms. Buttigieg is a modest, reasonable pragmatist, and a near parody of normality. Trump thrives on a retro heterosexual persona; Buttigieg appears to be a rather conservative, married homosexual. Trump is a coward and draft dodger; Buttigieg served his country. Trump does not read; Buttigieg does. Trump’s genius is demonic demagoguery. Buttigieg’s gig is careful reasoning. Trump is a pagan; Buttigieg is a Christian. Trump vandalizes government; Buttigieg nurtures it.
Here's the "Goofus and Gallant" article in Wikipedia. Excerpt:
The comic, published monthly in Highlights for Children, consists of two panels depicting the actions of two children, Goofus and Gallant. Gallant's actions are always virtuous and respectful, in contrast to Goofus's, which are always rude and selfish. They are presented side by side with a brief caption (e.g. "Goofus turns on the television when there are guests; whenever guests arrive, Gallant turns off the television at once.")...

According to Brown, who was Editor of Highlights for Children, "Without Goofus, Gallant would be bland and no one would pay attention. But kids see parts of themselves in both characters. No one is as good as Gallant, and no one is as bad as Goofus. But being more like Gallant is something to strive for." For many years, a short line of text reading "Gallant shows correct behavior" was included at the bottom of the comic....
Without Trump, Buttigieg would be bland and no one would pay attention. But we see parts of ourselves in both characters. No one is as good as Buttigieg, and no one is as bad as Trump. But being more like Buttigieg is something to strive for.

By the way, one of Sullivan's contrasts does not belong with the others: "Trump is a pagan; Buttigieg is a Christian." The disparagement of Paganism is religious bigotry.

From the Wikipedia article "Modern Paganism":
Contemporary Paganism has been defined as "a collection of modern religious, spiritual, and magical traditions that are self-consciously inspired by the pre-Judaic, pre-Christian, and pre-Islamic belief systems of Europe, North Africa, and the Near East." Thus, the view has been expressed that although "a highly diverse phenomenon", there is nevertheless "an identifiable common element" running through the Pagan movement. [religious studies scholars Michael F.] Strmiska similarly described Paganism as a movement "dedicated to reviving the polytheistic, nature-worshipping pagan religions of pre-Christian Europe and adapting them for the use of people in modern societies." The religious studies scholar Wouter Hanegraaff charactised Paganism as encompassing "all those modern movements which are, first, based on the conviction that what Christianity has traditionally denounced as idolatry and superstition actually represents/represented a profound and meaningful religious worldview and, secondly, that a religious practice based on this worldview can and should be revitalized in our modern world."

240 comments:

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Narayanan said...

A request ...

Gramsci name mentioned often.
May I request quick Primer and pointers from Buwaya and YoungHegelian , anyone who knows.

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

Bernie Sanders just jumped the Total Communist Freak Shark

IF THIS SORT OF RHETORIC DOESN’T GIVE YOU CHILLS, YOU DIDN’T PAY ATTENTION IN YOUR “MODERN WORLD HISTORY” CLASS

narciso said...

Marxism cannot merely consider economic factors, it must enmesh in the culture, in the institutional framework


https://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/gramsci-and-hegemony/

cubanbob said...

Temujin said...
He's transformational in the sense that someone who kisses the ring of Al Sharpton is transformational. If I was seen going to a blatant racist, anti-semite, whose mouth has actually gotten people killed, to get his blessing to run, I'd probably not be able to run for President of our HOA, let alone the country.

Dems, including the Transformational Mayor Pete have all gotten in line to kiss that diseased hand. Sometimes you just gotta shake your head at what you see and read."

A party whose candidates need to seek Sharpton's nod is a party unfit to govern at any level. From President, to Governor, to Mayor and from Congress to State legislature to City and County hall, they all got to go.

narciso said...

Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and co, lean which way now, yes doc brown would obfuscate the point,

narciso said...

note some of these selections, happened before Mussolini took power,

https://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/

which isn't surprising as fascism is cousin to syndicalism,

chickelit said...

Question for you TV watchers: Are both g's hard in the Buttigieg?

gilbar said...

Unknown said...
Can the Democrats win without the black male vote?
Nominating Buttigieg is one way to find out.


Seriously!
If you're a Black Male Voter; and you had to chose between two White Guys
1) entertaining TV star, RICH, and has hired LOTS of Blacks (and brought record low unemployment
2) 37 year old faggot, the mayor of a small city near Gary; that STILL has high unemployment

Which would you chose? Inquiring minds want to know???

Josephbleau said...

Buttigeig’s rhetoric about we all agree murder is bad but some of us disagree that partial birth abortion is bad so it’s ok where murder is not is fairly clever. The opponent should have said, in the 1860’s many thought slavery was ok, does that mean government could not rightly pass laws against it? Slavery and partial birth abortion both have an aggrieved party too.

William said...

I can't remember their names but several of the candidates are bald headed white guys. Can you imagine? Straight, bald headed white guys running for President in this day and age. I think some of them have better records and more experience than Buttigieg, but be serious. Bald heads. As if.

Freeman Hunt said...

The positive quality about Buttigieg is his seeming willingness to take another perspective into account. He seems like the most moderate of their field.

Of course, this is all within the Dem field. None of these Dems are getting conservative votes in the general.

Even if abortion were the only decisive issue, that's enough. No pro-lifer is going to vote pro-choice. That would be like voting for slavery. Unthinkable.

M Jordan said...

It irks me to no end the gross misunderstanding of evangelical faith. The central tenet is, Salvation comes by faith, not works. Buttigieg keeps claiming a Pence and atrump aren’t true Christians, an obnoxious claim. Who can look into a person’s heart and see whether faith is there? I always doubted Obama’s Christian claims but never would say he wasn’t one. Jesus himself said there’s a lot of bad seed in with the good but you can’t tell the difference until the harvest comes.

Mayor Pete is really hurting himself by transforming into Pastor Pete.

MadisonMan said...

Hillary Clinton is a Methodist, and she is probably angry about the recent same-sex marriage vote.

I think it more likely she's waiting for polls to tell her what to feel.

narciso said...

buttigeg is a left evangelist, like his Gramscian father, so of course he would misrepresent the matter

buwaya said...

Gramsci is misunderstood.
He was essentially descriptive,not prescriptive.
He died 80 years ago and his works only began to be published and widely studied less than 50 years ago.
He didn't make anything happen, he just described a series of models for a phenomena that, much later, was found to suit that which was already happening. I suppose you could call him a prophet, whose prophecy was revealed by events.

He is worth study because his models suit any political position, particularly on the concept of hegemony, on "civil society" and "consent" as essentials of power, on the role of intellectuals, and of course about the

The wikipedia is actually very good, an excellent place to start.

buwaya said...

"long march through the institutions", which was not his term, but of an early student of his, Dutschke, around 1968. Of course, by 1968 the "long march" was already well on its way, and probably irreversible.

walter said...

Blogger BleachBit-and-Hammers said...
I hope he administers some sweet sweet governmetn controlled healthcare
Thousands in Britain left to go blind due to eye surgery rationing
--
Abusing the if you stumble, better to gouge yer eye out bit.

buwaya said...

A modern Gramscian is in an odd position, if left wing as of course he would be, as he would, politically, advocate for something that already is. He would be at the very center of "civil society", and all around him people just like him are the embodiment of the hegemony.

But people can be blind about their own circumstances. Its difficult to be a revolutionary on behalf of what is already the ruling class, "civil society".

A right-wing Gramscian though, that is a more interesting position.

buwaya said...

Gramsci's ideas are mainly about the nature of society and the nature of power, and not necessarily tied to a particular ideology. Therefore they are a useful frame of reference for any side.

The idea that "culture is upstream of politics", as Instapundit so often puts it, is pure Gramsci.

narciso said...

its the Brezhnev doctrine in culture, that which has been seized will not be relinquished, that which holds out, must be subverted, yes breitbart and bannon are symptomatic, the left used to rail against advertising, but now that they are the hidden persuaders not so much.

buwaya said...

Some of Gramsci's ideas did not work.

He thought, for instance, that it was necessary to create working-class intellectuals, in order to take over the institutions, because of course the bourgeois intellectuals would never betray their class. It didn't happen that way.

The working class either became bourgeois first, and then some of their children became intellectuals, or the power of fashion induced new generations of the existing bourgeois to adopt a leftist ideology.

narciso said...

who created the fashion, it's kind of a chicken and egg question, o'sullivan's law predominates, in the uk was a confluence of events, including a storm of legislation, promoted by tories as well as labour, what in this country came through the courts,

iowan2 said...

let me phrase that question another way: Who's more likely to drag another order of nuns before the SCOTUS?

The left has been trying to separate President Trump from his base for 4 years. Keep trying the same things that have worked for them in the past. Problem is it doesn't work with Trump. Evangelicals have explained it clearly. President Trump will not have policies intent in destroying the faith community in America. Democrats work every policy decision to the detriment of Religion. Democrats like their brothers in arms, communists, fear a populace that understands God is their savior, not Government.

buwaya said...

The chicken and egg question about fashion is interesting.
Where do these tides of ideas come from?
Politics and the courts, and, indeed, anything physical like clothing, these are downstream manifestations.

Somewhere, someone expresses an idea, that is picked up by others, and it snowballs, and eventually shows up as a discrete act, decisions and enforcement.

That early stage where it originates, and whatever it is that makes the first few listen, that is mysterious.

gadfly said...

I searched and I searched Andrew Sullivan's piece, but nowhere did I find the mention of a children's cartoon called "Goofus and Gallant" and I admit I don't seek to view children's cartoons designed to entertain kids with mentalities equivalent to their age. I am unsure whether or not listening to Donald Trump as many do on this blog, would influence my cartoon choices differently.

So I disagree that Sullivan has anything to do with Althouse's perceptions that it takes an unreasonable, incredibly immature septuagenarian narcissist to highlight a perceptive and mature leader. Mayor Pete and I will never agree on some of his liberal thought patterns but I think he has a strong libertarian tilt that makes him my favorite Democratic candidate among the twenty of so that are running for POTUS.

At least, if Buttigeig wins the Dem primary, I will have a Hoosier to vote for in the 2020 election, because I don't believe that Donald will run with toady Mike Pence next time - which will end my ongoing embarrassment.

Bruce Hayden said...

“Donald Trump is Presbyterian. To Sullivan and others this may seem like paganism, but let's get our facts straight. I'm sure calling Trump pagan is not Sullivan being glib. Sullivan is never, ever glib.”

Not sure how they get to paganism there. My view is that John Calvin, and his like, from whom Presbyterianism is descended, took the Reformation a lot more seriously than some of the other Protestant sects, who arguably tended to leave more of their Roman Catholic heritage intact. One big difference is that you will not see a human depiction in the sanctuary of many Presbyterian churches. Why? Because they consider the sort of human depiction that you see esp in Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches to be idolatry, and thus violative of the (Jewish) Ten Commandments (part of the Calvinist Reformation was the rejection of the Roman Catholic rewriting of the Ten Commandments - some other Protestant sects appear to have taken a middle ground). If you seriously want to discuss Christian paganism, then maybe we can start with Marian worship, which has roots in the worship of an earth mother. Essentially the importation of Roman paganism into Christianity. Sullivan sounds Irish? If so, that probably means Roman Catholic somewhere in his recent ancestry. Which, of course, is the center of Marian worship, and thus paganism, in the western Christian Church, at least in the view of many, if not most, Protestants.

Theologically, there hasn’t traditionally been that much difference between Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational. One big place where they do differ is in governance. Congregational is essentially descended from the sort of complete democracy that we had in our early days in this country, esp in New England, where each community worshiped as they wished, called and fired clergy as they saw fit. Etc. Presbyterian churches are organized very similar to how this country is organized. While ministers (teaching elders) are selected by the Session (ruling and teaching elders together) of a church, they are actually hired and fired by the Presbytery, which is a state level organization, The state level Presbytery is democratically run by delegates, and in turn sends delegates to the national organization. My understanding of the Methodist church is that it is more top down, run by bishops, who may or may not be legitimately descended through a line of bishops from the original Apostles (as is the case with he RC, Orthodox, and Anglican churches). Presbyterian and Congregational churches, of course, don’t have bishops.

walter said...

Oh gadfly,
Just sit on your hands again. Keeps your "Don't blame bumper sticker" in place. All clean!

Btw, while NHS rations eye surgeries, Sir Mick jusy had his innovative heart surgery in NY.
Wild horses couldn't get him to have it done in his homeland.

Chuck said...

Rusty said...
"Hey I do! I know exactly how often Chuck goes to church! It matters not, but I can tell you that it is about 50 times more than Donald Trump."
Facts not in evidence, again.


TrumpGolfCount.com says that he's played golf 167 times since becoming president.

How many times has he been to church? You say "Facts not in evidence." What are the facts? When has Trump been to church? As far as I know, apart from official appearances (the inaugural-related traditional church services, the funeral of President George H.W. Bush at the National Cathedral, etc.) Trump has not attended a single regular church service while in Washington. Trump does not attend church in New York City and he has, in two more than two years, gone to a handful of services the Episcopalian Bethesda-by-the-Sea in Palm Beach. That's it.

What other facts do we need "in evidence"?


Milwaukie guy said...

Between SDS's breakup and Days of Rage in 1969 and the McGovern campaign in 1972, the New Left began to split between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. I know I was in a study group that debated Gramsci and took a course on Alinsky in College.

The Mensheviks were the New American Movement, Michael Harrington's DSA, ACORN, the Midwest Academy, etc. The Bolsheviks were the communists who continue to barely matter.
_____________

The Presbyterian Church stopped being the Church of Scotland when it disestablished itself. Go Orange!

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


“I thought it was Nipsy Russell until just a few days ago.
Then I learned he's long dead; it was the gangbanger Nipsy Hussle, trading on the Hollywood Squares guys' name whom just got all shot up by his people in the hood.”

Mary made me laugh. Just noting it for historical purposes.

walter said...

I miss Comey's days of quoting scripture.

walter said...

..though he might be doing a helluva lot of praying.

walter said...

Trump needs to have more WH parties.
Obama showed us how it's done.
Good times..

Ann Althouse said...

"I searched and I searched Andrew Sullivan's piece, but nowhere did I find the mention of a children's cartoon called "Goofus and Gallant"..."

Ahem.

The words "seems to" matter.

Josephbleau said...

The Presbyterian Church stopped being the Church of Scotland when it disestablished itself. Go Orange!

The above fragment gives me the rare opportunity to declare myself an- Antidisestablishmentarianist!

Michael McNeil said...

… including his unapologetic pre-Christian personal morality.

Regurgitated popular mythology about supposed “pre-Christian personal morality.”

In reality, as historian Paul Veyne writes in his intriguing A History of Private Life: “Actually, the pagans were paralyzed by prohibitions.” The Stoics too.

More specifically (quoting…):

If any aspect of ancient life has been distorted by legend, this is it. It is widely but mistakenly believed that antiquity was a Garden of Eden from which repression was banished, Christianity having yet to insinuate the worm of sin into the forbidden fruit. Actually, the pagans were paralyzed by prohibitions. […]

What were the marks of the true libertine? A libertine was a man who violated three taboos: he made love before nightfall (daytime lovemaking was a privilege accorded to newlyweds on the day after the wedding); he made love without first darkening the room (the erotic poets called to witness the lamp that had shone on their pleasures); and he made love to a woman from whom he had removed every stitch of clothing (only fallen women made love without their brassieres, and paintings in Pompeii's bordellos showed even prostitutes wearing this ultimate veil).

Libertines permitted themselves to touch rather than caress, though with the left hand only. The one chance a decent man had of seeing a little of his beloved's naked skin was if the moon happened to fall upon the open window at just the right moment. […]

(/unQuote)

____
(A History of Private Life, Volume I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium, edited by Paul Veyne, translated by Arthur Goldhammer, Chapter 1: “The Roman Empire,” by Paul Veyne, the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987; pp. 202-204)

Renee said...

Buttigeg is very relate-able due to local issues. He's been working with municipal policy issues for the past eight years. That's 'normal' stuff that doesn't get partisan. Yes, discussion of what streets are two way or one way are pretty significant. In my local elections I vote have and will vote far-left progressives, because they're my neighbors and we tend to agree a lot at a local level.



But Buttigeg made a cheap swipe at Mike Pence. Something about 'this is how God made me this way' and he doesn't get that if a woman is late in pregnancy and is having complications that they just have an early delivery saving both the mom and baby.

sigh..


Of course you can be gay and Christian, no doubt. We're all created in the image of God, but even to be gay, as in being sexually orientated to the same sex, but don't you have to first acknowledge the complementary of male and female first. That even if you do not attest to a religious belief, that your existence comes from a mother and father.

Ultimately government and public policy cares about obligations, and when it comes to obligations and the rights of children, it's having their mother and father working as one socio-economic unit. Buttigeg appears to have greatly befitted from this form of a mom and dad. I just can't name it, as its own concept or else... or else..

It's 2019, It's like I just claimed the Earth was flat. Go ahead kick me around.


Nichevo said...

Go ahead and kick me around.


Only a toe-nudge for 'voting far-left progressives,' because you are arming them-your support is fungible-and they will eat you as and when convenient just the same. Or, if "eat" is too dramatic, it's definitely they who present the threat of kicking you around.

Renee said...

"Only a toe-nudge for 'voting far-left progressives,' because you are arming them-your support is fungible-and they will eat you as and when convenient just the same. Or, if "eat" is too dramatic, it's definitely they who present the threat of kicking you around."


-----
They knock at my door when canvassing the neighborhood and we talk for 15 minutes about policy issues. I figure I may a handful of social conservatives that may speak to. But heck, I'm just another SJW. It's just my cause is the family.

My goal isn't a culture war, even though attempts to silence cake bakers into submission does have to be addressed. I'm not going to compete with the gay lobby, even though it's nice to see the SPLC fall apart, since they no longer were upholding it missions. Same thing with the ACLU, no longer upholding its mission, either.

I have a little more say in my neighborhood though, and I have to work with progressives. Yes, you're right they will throw you under the bus. You can search the South Bend newspaper and there are several times both Pence and Buttigeg worked together on issues. So Buttigeg to say such things about Pence, is political partisan theater.

Bilwick said...

I remember Goofus and Gallant from stress-filled hours spent in dentist's waiting rooms. Apparently most "liberals" (by which I mean of course "tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State fellators") read the same strip and thought, "I'd like to be Goofus when I grow up!"

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