From "My Country Suddenly Turned on Me/Recovering from the trauma of the Trump era will depend on how its story is told" by Jennifer Finney Boyle (NYT).
This column — which also includes a story about a physical scar Boyle has from childhood — is more equivocal than I thought it would be. The title made me think that it would demand that we prioritize the way people feel by telling the story that has the most power to heal those who were traumatized. That is, forget the search for truth, we need to get together as quickly as possible embrace the story that works best to lift the spirits and relieve the suffering of the downtrodden.
But Boyle doesn't quite say that. Not clearly. She does speak of "a single narrative" about the Civil War without which we "have never fully healed."She doesn't quite say that if only we'd all got together on a single narrative we'd be healed by now. And she probably would concede that she's mixing up cause and effect. Once you're in the condition to agree on a single narrative, you are healed. How can you make a single narrative happen without a self-defeating sacrifice of freedom of thought and expression? And if it's just force-fed single-narrative propaganda, it is not "agreed on."
Boyle equates the Trump years with the Civil War. She uses Lincoln's language — "Now we are engaged in a great" — and, for "Civil War," substitutes "debate about the lessons and meaning of the Trump era." I favor debate over agreeing on a single narrative, and maybe Boyle does too. She never makes the strong move I thought I saw coming and insist that we must now agree to a single narrative. I can see that her narrative would be a story of "mendacity, incompetence, racism and — in the end — insurrection." But she keeps it open-ended. That's the story she would tell, and we're in a big debate about what just happened. There is no single narrative.
And what of the wish for a single narrative and the faith in its power to heal and healing as a priority over the search for truth? (This question makes me think of "The 1619 Project." It's not history as truth, it's history as medicine. But if you want history as medicine, you'll still have plenty of trouble getting to a single narrative. Everyone touting "The1619 Project" medicine is counterbalanced by somebody offering the restorative power of the "City on a Hill.")
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159 comments:
She imposes order as she thinks of it.
Whilst reading yet another Orange Man Bad rant from the nyt, keep in mind that Jennifer Finney Boyle is a man.
I'm curious - why is there no pressure for the tech billionaires to pay for and build homeless shelters?
How did Boyle and her friends of color survive the internment camps and the social cancellations of the Trump Era? Inquiring minds want to know.
"One reason the scars of the Civil War have never fully healed is that we’ve never, as a nation, agreed on a single narrative about what it was all for."
What a creepy notion, that we should.
Name a major historical conflict where everyone agrees on a single narrative about what it was all for. Consider the different perspectives people bring, the different weights they attach to different aspects.
Now imagine the level of coercion required to make everyone agree. Or imagine we say, This is the narrative we agree on as a nation. Sure, there are those who disagree, but screw them. We have agreed on it.
"Progressives" like Boylan seem especially fond of that kind of thinking.
On another note, I rather liked Boylan when all I knew of her was what Richard Russo wrote of their friendship. The more I read straight from the source, the more I think she's an unpleasant, bitter person. I have no doubt she had a tough time of it, but she seems to want to take that out on her designated enemies.
The Civil War healing was the confederate statues and street names and army base names. An agreement about honor. Wrongthink wasn't a thing.
Now they've stripped the tombstones of buried confederate soldiers in Madison, as part of the wrongthink cleanup.
"the past four years have been a period of mendacity, incompetence, racism and — in the end — insurrection"
So true. Mendacious Russia collusion hoax, incompetent impeachment fiasco, racist Dem/BLM riots, racist school lockdowns, insurrection actually from the very beginning by the deep state, Dems, and the MSM.
Hard to heal from all that.
Fuck its trauma. Do not take pointers from the lobotomized on narrative creation. I'm not going to agree with anything regarding the civil war and the present cultural zeitgeist when we can't even agree what sex something is.
Opinion discarded.
Most of the United States is populated by people who themselves or whose ancestors immigrated to the US after the Civil War.
They don’t relate to the Civil War Debate.
"I can't quit you, Don."
Effing junkies. Whattya gonna do.
Jennifer Finney Boyle is probably working on a fish story about how she barely survived the insurrection of 2021. "the barricades! the barricades!"
Other than her self inflicted mental issues did one single thing about her life change during those four years? Anything?
My great great great grandfather volunteered (along with with a brother) for the Wisconsin's Marching 12th infantry in 1861. Three other brothers volunteered in different units. I'm sick and disgusted that assholes like Boyle never denounced the destruction of the Heg state in Madison. Fuck her forever.
How do people like this function every day?
Every fucking thing is a slight, a trauma, an insult.
Btw, my ancestors had slaves (enslaved people?) in South Carolina...7 or 8 if the old documents are correct.
So they probably fought for the South.
It's an interesting piece of trivia, but I don't care at all.
They were people of their time.
Stop the whining and get a life.
I am now a primary caregiver for an elderly woman dying of lung cancer. I'm doing this out of neighborly love. She is a rabid anti-Trumper and incessantly watches TV news channels, especially the ones that focus on Trump. But she knows that my love is tested when she watches that crap because it drives me away.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all" is white systemic racism.
My ancestors were awesome, therefore I get credit for their good deeds and am off the hook for fixing the damage not yet repaired.
A strange conception of history--that we all have to share a single interpretation of an enormous event. This hasn't even happened with regard to the Trojan War.
Boyle is working toward "everyone agree, and then politics will be great!" But politics is all about finding common grounds for action in the midst of larger disagreements.
Sorry but this is not a story about her content. Instead, it is part of the "big lie" propaganda that there is " a single narrative"--hers, of course! This is simple censorship at the process level, pushing the meme that we all have to agree. The point is, of course, that anyone not expounding the "single narrative" is dangerous and an extremist. Want to be a DVE? Just disagree.
A good place to start would be not taking the opportunity to attempt to impose government by fiat (Executive Orders) and to make any opposition to your plans treasonous. (When did dissent stop being patriotic?)
"A single narrative" in an age of Post-Modern Deconstruction is the negative space left after everything has been broken and nothing better can be built from the rubble.
The only narrative left is who is to be blamed.
I am Laslo.
My ancestors were awesome, therefore I get credit for their good deeds and am off the hook for fixing the damage not yet repaired.
The people "damaged" by certain historical events have a better life and a higher standard of living than 99% of all humans who have ever lived. They have a smartphone in their pocket, gold chains around their neck and $200 sneakers on their feet.
Move on.
Storefronts even churches were burning for the better part of a year, did that not enter her timy skull?
This woman sounds like my gay sister who insists that she has been persecuted and living in fear for the last 4 years. She was SO persecuted that she was able to marry her girlfriend, get health insurance coverage from one of their two employers (federal gov't coverage via USPS or private insurance from a corporate employer) to cover the both of them, saw huge increases in her 401K account, get a low-interest rate mortgage to build a big house in an expensive suburb, etc. Yeah, she was definitely living in fear.
" ...a period of mendacity, incompetence, racism and — in the end — insurrection." I would have said that better describes the Obama era. She is putting nice words around the very primitive framing of "my side won and we will distribute the goods and status," versus "I was oppressed during the years when the other tribe was in power." In most of America, it is not that stark and people get along. But in the journalism and government (but I repeat myself) ranks it differs from Serbs/Croats/Bosnians/Kosovars, Tutsis/Hutus, and Dinka/Nuer only in degree.
It is a quite evil way to frame one's own country.
Laughing Fox mentions that this is a strange way to conceive of history at all, and it is. But it is common. One can see it in any place where the teaching is "we will only succeed if we all work together, no exceptions," which is an uncomfortable substrate even in nice places like Scandinavia. Scratch a Swede, find a fascist, they used to say.
Dear diary...
The truth is doubleunplusgood
https://mobile.twitter.com/MichaelBerrySho/status/1357370221602947076
"Seeing a troubled life as a drama, a series of conflicts that, with luck, lead to resolution is one of the ways we reach a state of hard-won grace as we age."
People need to realize that, in the end, life is just a Bright Ray of Darkness.
I read that somewhere.
I am Laslo.
All lives won't matter until Deplorable Lives Matter.
How do people like this function every day?
Yes, how do they function? An earlier comment asked, exactly how was your life materially affected? Exactly what is worse now than 4 years ago? All of her (his?) complaints are nothing but media narrative. Apparitions with no form or substance.
LOL. And they said comedy was dead.
The babe in the woods willingness of conservatives to eagerly accept and repeat the left's false depiction of reality used to depress me. Now, I see it as a helpful sign that you should never be taken seriously, a pair of mittens stapled to your coat.
This is more of the left's false depiction of reality and if you're going along you have a pair of mittens stapled to your coat. Those of us in the reality version of reality can see them.
We can't agree on the relatively small things, how are we supposed to agree on a big narrative? For example, Kamala Harris said she was proud of Jacob Blake. I think his behavior was shameful. I'm not sure there's a common ground here. If we can't find some place of agreement on one event, how can we agree on a full four years? If we can't agree on those four years, how can we agree on the whole history of our country?
Three people can’t agree on breakfast, much less a single narrative.
Fake woman whines about fake persecution.
Feminism in a nutshell.
I keep waiting for Althouse to confess that her feminism has been a 60 year long psychotic episode.
We've always been at war with Oceania.
The problem is partly that people confuse the motivations of A with those of B. The civil war really was fought because of slavery. But not every person who fought in it did so over slavery.
It’s clearer in 1914. The war was fought over Great Power ambitions. My grandfather didn’t sign up because of Great Power ambitions, he signed up because of Edith Clavell .
We've seen what you do with "narrative". The last thing we need is more of it.
The problem is that the author is a psycho identity politics huckster, doing the Bennie Hill imitation.
Why, Althouse, are you suggesting we take seriously a loon who’s playing S&M games with us for its amusement?
I looked at pictures of this goof and laughed out loud, which is the sensible thing to do.
This is a con artist.
Lets dig into the past of families with slave owner history.
I'd bet money a large percentage of those families are elite democratics and media +hollywood figures.
BidenFamilyTaxPayerFundedCrackPipe [great nickname, by the way] asks:
why is there no pressure for the tech billionaires to pay for and build homeless shelters?
Why is there no pressure on state and federal office buildings to offer the homeless -- or anybody from the general public -- access to toilet facilities?
Standing in line at the Post Office and suddenly being overtaken by a biological need to void urine; one must surrender one's hard-won time and position in the queue, LEAVE THE BUILDING, find a PRIVATE operation like McDonalds' or Starbucks', use THEIR toilet, (and if so inclined as a good citizen, buy some token from the vendings on offer -- french fries or pastry -- ) go BACK to the Post Office, get in line AGAIN, and hope to complete a government traction before biology once again asserts itself.
Ditto the state motor vehicle offices. Ditto City utility bill payment centers. Etc etc.
The public health issue for the homeless is less that these unfortunates have no roof over their heads and more that they have no commodes under their butts. Urine and Feces go to the sidewalks, curbs, and at very best into the storm water system to rivers, all untreated for Covid or Cholera or Typhus ... Fouling the streets every day and night with contagious pathogens is a BIG issue, but our political leadership seems to be more concerned with invisible emissions of "carbon" which may, next century, raise night time winter temperatures in the temperate regions sufficiently to be noticed in global averages.
There are a lot of smart people in government who avoid our questions, aren't there?
11:32 Chickelit
#!
The fake news industry has traumatized many people.
The only way to make these people whole again is to have "history" books written that tell "The Truth!" about Donald Trump. These damaged people can get together and have public readings, where they rock back and forth while reading together out loud. The books will simply repeat over and over, "orange man bad orange man bad orange man bad".
You know, if you ridicule assholes like Jennifer Finley Boyle, and refuse to play the little monster’s game, you get a lot less monsters like her.
I am sick of lefties screaming "racism." Trump actually put policies in place to end racism which Biden is already reversing. The only people being silenced are those on the right. Leftists like this trans person get to scream lies from the front pages.
Sebastian: spot on. There was a series of attempted coups for the first three years of Trump’s Presidency.
When will the neurotic self-obsessed psychodramas end?
They were annoying a few years ago. They have since morphed into meaningless and boring absurdity.
I do not know how Althouse tolerates reading this crap. Maybe it reminds her of her students.
I pray for the healing of this deranged person, but I will prepare for that not happening. I'm so sick of the left and what they've done to this country. It's really useful to know who your enemies are.
Recovery progress includes JournoListic braying (e.g. inciting adversity) and trials by press (e.g. Electoral Press) where demos-cracy is aborted at the Twilight Fringe. A return to the Obama/Biden era of progressive prices (e.g. Obamacares), wars without borders, transnational terrorism, redistributive change, diversity, [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform, Green Blight, kneeling for environment and labor arbitrage, rape culture and concentration/re-education camps, children in cages, on trail of tears, and dunked, and reestablishment of the Progressive Church and Pro-Choice quasi-religion ("ethics"). Planned Parent/hood. Social contagion. Every child left behind (e.g. Atlanta). Semantic games, conceptual corruption, and conflation of logical domains. #InStorkTheyTrust
"Other than her self inflicted mental issues did one single thing about her life change during those four years? Anything?"
You bet. Her IRA increased around 68% if she had it invested in an S&P index fund, her salary increased by 10% if she earned the median annual salary, unemployment dropped by more than half, income taxes dropped and her standard of living improved. Oh, and if she had a son, he didn't go off to some new war.
These people have no sense of reality. The healing she requires is for us deplorables to admit how wrong we were so she can help make us disappear as an exercise in healing. Fuck her.
At the end of the Obama years the black community was poorer than when Obama was elected. After three years of Trump it was better off. Then came covid. Now. do we recover by adopting the policies that Trump followed that made the black community better off or the policies that Obama followed that made it poorer? Harrisbidens executive orders are restoring the Obama economy or, in other words, the economy that impoverished the black community. So that's one side. Should we support that side? or is impoverishing the black community racist or is it insurrection? Can some of you woke folk help me out? Already I've been wrong because I opposed segregation and supported Martin Luther King's call for a color-blind society. I'd like to get it right this time around. Yet it upsets me to see white folks put on black masks and go in to black communities and burn businesses. I keep thinking they're the baddies; I can't get that out of my head. And I keep thinking that people can't make it in this society without an education so the inner city schools should be in an emergency state. But I'm supposed to think that they aren't needed, instead jettison the curriculum. OK for a day but won't it just be like going to San Francisco wearing a flower in your hair - it's not a lifetime plan. It's cheap, shoddy social pretense. Oops.
But I can't, just can't, see how it's going to work. Can someone explain?
Desperately Seeking Wokie Understanding
And what of the wish for a single narrative and the faith in its power to heal and healing as a priority over the search for truth?
It's the standard position of the American Utopian; accept my narrative and we will have Utopia. The problem is their narrative can always be summarized as; "Accept my natural superiority, you human turd, and admit that I alone am right!". This line of thought never plays well in Peoria or a million other places.
But we have agreed on a single narrative: We Republicans, the abolitionist party, wanted to end slavery. You Democrats, the slave-holding party, did not want to end slavery. It's very simple and clean. The problem is that Democrats have never forgiven Republicans for freeing their slaves.
Boyle wants to have "a single narrative" with no deviations from the approved party line.
She also is assuming that HER viewpoint is the one that should prevail, because everyone who disagrees with her is wrong wrongity wrong. Stupid and deplorably wrong.
THIS attitude is why we will never have her single narrative and will fight to the bitter end to have our own minds and not be forced into her world.
North of the OneohOne sums it up perfectly at 12:17 "Accept my natural superiority, you human turds and admit that I and I alone am right!".
What a load of crap.
Ace described it best as "The MacGuffinization of Politics" or the idea that politics is merely a background for the real story in which you are the hero.
The people who are traumatized by Donald Trump are too congenitally psychologically damaged to ever be healed.
"I looked at pictures of this goof and laughed out loud, which is the sensible thing to do."
I have no problem with trans people who are actually trans...i.e. they have made the physical transition (in this case) from a man to a woman.
I have great respect for anyone man who takes the steps to have his penis and testicles removed. That shows commitment.
But until a man takes those steps, 'he's' just playing dress-up and looking for attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxcVZ2Hompk&list=RDWxcVZ2Hompk&start_radio=1&t=68
Explaining the flowers reference - this was popular song two generations ago.
Would this person speak more truth if he/she self identified as a Golden Lab?
The way I see it, the US decided that the South would not be permitted to unilaterally leave the Union, and that at the end of the war they would be reincorporated. Fine. But in doing so, they had to fully accept the South, warts and all. That means embracing southern culture as a part of American culture, embracing southern history as part of American history, and accepting southern heroes into the ranks of American heroes. Otherwise you're creating a two-class system where one group are deemed inferior, denied their history and culture which are the bones over which they build their identity.
Sebastian: spot on. There was a series of attempted coups for the first three years of Trump’s Presidency.
And they were unsuccessful, ergo the second Senate impeachment trial.
What's the unified narrative theory behind the War of the Roses?....I guess everybody who participated in that venture eventually died and then their great grandchildren did too and nobody gave a damn anymore. The unified narrative theory is that it's over......My immediate ancestors (great-grand uncles) fought on the Union Side. Their post-war challenge was to accept white southerners as citizens of the United States. The Democratic Party helped to effect this reconciliation. I suppose the challenge now is to fully integrate Blacks into American society. Perhaps the Democratic Party will help to effect this next reconciliation, but it won't happen for another two or three generations.
Actually it’s only her side that hasn’t fully healed from the civil war.
The side who lost was perfectly happy to not desecrate the graves of the winners.
well there were tudor propagandists like morton, who shakespeare relied on, this is more like the eugenics wars, which happened in the shadows,
Cacimbo: I am sick of lefties screaming "racism."
"Racism" is a grave moral accusation, so much so that it must come backed by proof, just like calling someone a pedophile.
When there is no evidence, not even a hint of it, that diagnoses the accusers as slanderous liars of the very first stripe, disgusting people to be called on their petty viciousness at every opportunity.
Oh, and I did read its entire article, plus the links.
It is completely incapable of anything remotely approaching analytical thought.
"that at the end of the war they would be reincorporated. Fine. But in doing so, they had to fully accept the South, warts and all. That means embracing southern culture as a part of American culture, embracing southern history as part of American history, and accepting southern heroes into the ranks of American heroes"
That's not right. In the South it used to be that you had to accept Lee's brilliance as a general and the courage of the Confederate private and you had to know that Lee called for Southerners to be good citizens instead of launching a guerilla war as Jeff Davis wanted. You could not mention the song, Marching Through Georgia. You had to be able to say that good people could be misled into supporting a bad cause. That was the minimum. You did not have to accept segregation or slavery as good or Calhoun or Yancey.
Meanwhile, with the stroke of a pen Uncle Joe has deprived thousands of their livelihoods. I got your healing right here.
Some people appear to have a willful need to feel victimized, unsorted, not in control of their thoughts, much less their lives.
They find a sense of comfort in this.
“My country suddenly turned on me” is orange-man-level narcissism. It’s not all about you, honey.
Seems like a bad time to rip off the Civil War bandage. Is the NY Times launching the moral equivalent of war?
My grandfather didn’t sign up because of Great Power ambitions, he signed up because of Edith Clavell.
Did Edith have the baby, or did she terminate the pregnancy?
J Melcher.. 12:05
Thanks for that.
Yes.
The entire left and most of the rest have no idea how to solve anything. All legislative priorities are manufactured for the left to gain wealth and power.
If a problem needs a solve - the hard working tax payer need another TAX hike. The billionaires are exempt.
At the mental asylum, Napoleon and Jesus and Elvis and Babe Ruth are never going to agree on the narrative.
Pretty piss poor insurrection. The only people who had guns were the Feds.
The Oppression LARPing absent any true threats to these progressives is what is truly dangerous. Her column is incitement in itself to portray ordinary Americans who dissent with her politics as dangerous seditionists who need to be monitored and suppressed by the State.
Shouting Thomas said… I looked at pictures of this goof and laughed out loud, which is the sensible thing to do.
Joe Smith said…I have great respect for anyone man who takes the steps to have his penis and testicles removed. That shows commitment.
Although I often don’t agree with Althouse, I do appreciate the her creation of the greatest comments section on the internet.
Howard said...
"My ancestors were awesome,"
And yet you failed them.
I was reading the local rag this morning, and the advice column Dear Amy or Ask Amy, or whatever it is called, featured a letter from a guy who recognized his neighbor as one of the people at the Capitol protest. Now, he was on very good terms with this neighbor as he described in his letter, and that the neighbor hadn't been on video actually doing anything illegal, but was "struggling" with whether or not to rat him out to the FBI. The advice given was to rat him out to the FBI. That is what this country has come to, ratting out your neighbors because of their politics. The columnist even bragged about how a lot of the informants are informing on family members. Literally bragged about it.
Our leadership class has gotten themselves into a situation where they have no choice but to build an increasingly oppressive police state in order for them to remain in power.
There was a story going around yesterday how the new Defense Secretary has ordered a standdown of the US military in order to organize a rooting out of extremists. Who doesn't think this rooting out will start with finding out who the members voted for or wanted to win the last two elections? There is a familiarity to this sort of thing in banana republics the world over.
SJWs think that saying sophisticated words like "insurrection" 500 billion times will make it a reality. A few dozen morons loitering and trespassing is not an "insurrection" in any country.
Enough already with equating things to the Civil War. Extreme right bloggers and commenters —like Ace of Spades who went off the rails with the vapors, have been saying that for years, and now The Left is reinforcing that. The Capitol attack is now Pearl Harbor according to Kamala and Chuck Schumer and the Trump years are equated to the Civil War.
Pearl Harbor—2,403 Americans died, and led us into WW II.
The Civil War— 365,000 dead.
What the country needs is a Midwest correction. A President without the East Coast or Southern, or Californian —Pacific Coast flair for the dramatics. I know who I have in mind but they will probably get crushed by their inability to grab media attention.
Remember the song — “video killed the radio star”, television probably killed competency in government.
If you want competent government, you need a much, much smaller government, not a larger one. The footprint of the US federal government spans the globe- it needs to be much smaller to be competent and non-dangerous.
biden is the less photogenic nominee since muffley in strangelove,
who was snarking about jesus land, 16 years ago, and who actually believed the tripe of handmaid's tales,
and going back to jericho, about a red takeover, precipitated by a false flag nuclear attack,
If you want competent government, you need a much, much smaller government, not a larger one. The footprint of the US federal government spans the globe- it needs to be much smaller to be competent and non-dangerous.
Local government is better than a federal monstrosity. Small organizations with narrowly-tailored missions are better than sprawling organizations full of infighting and empire-building.
Yancey Ward said...
There was a story going around yesterday how the new Defense Secretary has ordered a standdown of the US military in order to organize a rooting out of extremists. Who doesn't think this rooting out will start with finding out who the members voted for or wanted to win the last two elections?
Next question; what's he going to do when he finds all the Trump supporters? Kick them out? And if he does; how's he going to replace them? Draft Anti-fa and BLM? Maybe draft women into the ranks? How's that going to work out for him?
Our leadership class has gotten themselves into a situation where they have no choice but to build an increasingly oppressive police state in order for them to remain in power.
Institutions (political, academic, cultural, etc) used the social capital that they possessed post-WWII as collateral against an expansion of their power and influence. Early on this was fine, because the expansions were relatively small, and the prosperity of the post-war West brought them a lot of good will. But by the late 90s they had massively expanded, and were massively overleveraged. This made them very fragile, very sensitive to shocks to the system. 9/11, the Iraq/Afghan wars, the rise of ISIS, the rise of China, and the 2008 recession were all shocks which demonstrated that the systems built by these institutions were no longer able to provide what they promised. What we're seeing now are increasingly desperate short-term moves, similar to how bad management might drive a good company into desperate financial straits, and then make short-term decisions to shore up the appearance but which are ruinous for the company in the long-run.
The more bad things they do, the more bad things they have to do. That's the downward spiral in every corrupt system.
yes, next question, you want politically reliable troops, like the folks from the countryside who were willing to fire upon the protesters at tienanmen,
The more bad things they do, the more bad things they have to do. That's the downward spiral in every corrupt system.
Yup, and one of the reasons that I don't despair: it always comes crashing down eventually. Corruption is like a tree rotting from the inside: it looks strong until it collapses.
To progressives like me, the past four years have been a period of mendacity, incompetence, racism and — in the end — insurrection.
These people are just so, fucking tedious. Miserable slobs.
They deserve their misery.
Howard said...My ancestors were awesome, therefore I get credit for their good deeds and am off the hook for fixing the damage not yet repaired.
It's not that all, Howie. Statues and memories of those ancestors get their credit voided. They get shit on and paint splattered and thrown in the lake by your asshole BLM heroes.
And yet, now that Dementia Joe is here to save the day, these emotionally damaged snowflakes seem even more miserable than ever.
I am available for a NYT article on how disillusioned, devastated, demoralized, and disgusted, and outraged I am that such obviously morally corrupt lifelong political troughgobblers as Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden could be allowed on a ballot for any national office.
The media - NYT particularly not excepted - have beclowned themselves and will NEVER regain respect or credibility.
The 1619 Project could have been a useful endeavor in explaining how central slavery was to US history without that stupid gimmick about our "true founding." The race issue has divided Americans and been a source of contention from the very beginning. From the constitutional convention to westward expansion to the Civil War to Reconstruction to Jim Crow to the Great Migration to the civil rights era of the 50s and 60s to the culture wars of the 80s and 90s and right up to today's Great Awokening.
Desegregation, voting rights, and fair housing drastically remade the southern United States and American politics. The New Deal coalition was smashed, and Republicans drew support from the south and from the suburbs during a long period of ascendancy. It was that ascendancy that gave us the DLC and the New Democrats.
There is a brief period of time in the late 1990s and early 2000s that I call the "Golden Age of Race Relations." I usually date it from the debut of Chris Rock's HBO comedy special Bring the Pain in June 1996 to Kanye West's "George Bush doesn't care about black people" ad lib in September 2005. A decade later and you have white liberals further to the left on race than blacks, Latinos, or Asians.
I checked, none of my ancestors are complaining, chickelit. I take my white privilege seriously by allowing others to have their tantrums without crying like a bitch.
it's about deconstructing the country, you give the left too much of the benefit of the doubt,
J. Farmer said...The 1619 Project could have been a useful endeavor in explaining how central slavery was to US history without that stupid gimmick about our "true founding."
How else are you going to get Reparations rammed through except by convincing (forcing) everyone who will pay for into believing that they are guilty?
Boyle is a second-rate thinker and lazy writer. She wouldn’t be in the Times is she hadn’t cashed in on her sex change operation. I read her memoir: she was ten times more interested in flaunting her new girl jeans than in the consequences of her sex change operation on her wife and teen children. So as far as changing narratives goes, I imagine she believe that some people have the right to do it and the rest of us have to submit to it.
How else are you going to get Reparations rammed through except by convincing (forcing) everyone who will pay for into believing that they are guilty?
Render elections moot through theft and fraud, then write an executive order....or just use a government alphabet agency to do it.
We not only can't agree on a single narrative about the "civil war", perhaps because there were several equally important causes.
We can't agree that it was a civil war. If BC and Alberta go to war with Manitoba and Ontario, that is a civil war.
If France and Germany go to war (yet again), when in the EU, is it a "civil war"?
If independent nations, countries, "states" go to war with one another, even though they are federated, it is not a "civil war" by any normal understanding of the words.
It was properly "the war between the states" Calling it the "civil War is basically just propaganda.
It is also called the "war of the northern invasion" because that is what happened. Northern American countries (NY, MA, PA, IL et al) invaded Southern American countries (VA, NC, SC, GA etc)
John Henry
Since when did America have a single narrative about anything?
"Fernandinande said...
Whilst reading yet another Orange Man Bad rant from the nyt, keep in mind that Jennifer Finney Boyle is a man."
Jennifer Finney Boyle is "Trans lesbian". And is married to a "cis her".
So she is a dude that likes woman and being a woman. And he/her's wife likes dudes.
If it was a TVG show it could be called "Leave Him for Beaver"
"Chennaul said...
The Civil War— 365,000 dead."
Why don't you count confederate deaths?
"Now we’re on Month 1 of the Biden/Harris years, and for many progressives, it’s with a hearty sigh of relief. I wept at the inauguration; I actually stood up for the Pledge of Allegiance and sang along with the national anthem. Nonetheless, the scars of the Trump years are likely to endure."
The white left use racism as a weapon. The white left are actually racist for doing so.
Users and abusers.
I, for one, exalt the individual perspective. Everyone has a different and unique perspective. When we abandon the Naked City perspective, we abandon humanity and become as ants. " "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them."
I don't know if it was more painful to read the author's article or the soft, yearning comments that followed it. Yikes. Again, I keep wondering: what did you people do to New Yorkers and when will they be coming back?
This crowd that currently runs New York and writes or self produces videos of their experiences daily, is not the crowd who built that city. This crowd is like the citizens of Nero's Rome, eating up the remnants of a once great society and wondering when someone is going to fix the roads.
"This is not the only scar on my body; at my age — a well-moisturized 62 — I’ve got lots of little dents and bumps to remind me of misadventures past."
Indeed.
I can not understand why anyone would expect insightful, interesting writing to appear in the pages of the NY Times. It is the voice of the Establishment, by turns cowardly, mendacious, and threatening, but always mediocre. The Establishment always produces mediocre art.
Boylan says she feels that her country "turned on her" with the election of Trump.
Well, the people in power now have called me a bitter clinger, an irredeemable deplorable, and the dregs of society.
Grow the fuck up, liberals. It is not my job to celebrate your mental disorder.
It remains incomprehensible that I could possibly reconcile my belief in justice, normalcy, racial equality, and political leaders as role models after the presidency of Barack H. Obama. His calculated rot of America polluted the body politic and infected it with a ruthless, vengeful weaponization of the neutral government powers inherent in law enforcement and the security apparatus. He is nothing less than Goethe's Mephisto.
Canadian here making a couple of observations:
1. "we’ve never, as a nation, agreed on a single narrative about what it was all for." She outs herself as a simpleton here, not leaving room for the idea that, perhaps, it wasn't "all for" a single thing, rather, there were many things over which the war was fought.
2. Her comments about the Trump years demonstrate that she is not a listener but yet another dictator speaking from her "place of hurt" or whatever, moaning about her ostensible "truth" while giving not as much as a slight nod to the half the country that saw that period completely differently than she, and not for the bad reasons she's wedded her "single narrative" to.
People like her have no business making recommendations to people seeking to live in a civil society; she's a know-nothing.
"I wept at the inauguration;"
If she wasn't weeping for the loss of the country demonstrated by the display of a drooling imbecile barely reciting lines in front of a massive teleprompter speaking only to television cameras pretending he was addressing a great outdoor crowd, she was weeping wrong.
"I actually stood up for the Pledge of Allegiance and sang along with the national anthem."
I'll take "things that never happened" for $300, Alex. Get pfacking real, silly twunt.
Someone who exemplifies the most obviously distorted view of reality demands we all agree on a single "narrative" on what the reality of the last 4 years entailed? Delusion doesn't begin to describe his narcissism. If Lasch could only see the culture now!
There will be blood.
Mr Wibble said...
“What a load of crap.
Ace described it best as "The MacGuffinization of Politics" or the idea that politics is merely a background for the real story in which you are the hero.”
Short version: gammas (of both sexes) are always “Secret Kings”.
My grandfather didn’t sign up because of Great Power ambitions, he signed up because of Edith Clavell.
Did Edith have the baby, or did she terminate the pregnancy?
Too bad there was no DNA testing. Signs in Alberta still direct one to mount Edith Cavell.
@chickelit:
How else are you going to get Reparations rammed through except by convincing (forcing) everyone who will pay for into believing that they are guilty?
By doing just as I said. Keep the clock at 1776, and you could still make the exact same argument. I think they partly pushed the "true founding" gimmick so they could use the 400th anniversary motif. Nikole Hannah-Jones seems like a pretty shallow thinker.
How will I ever heal from being called a Nazi, Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Traitor, Bigot, Hitler, disgusting human being every time a democrat opens their pie hole.
I probably won't, but I hope to get even.
Wouldn't a single agreed upon narrative be really...boring? The recent season of iconoclasm certainly has made a lot of places more boring. And uglier.
Insisting that your narrative is the only one worth considering is also a good way to knock down Chesterton's fence.
Unknown said...
How will I ever heal from being called a Nazi, Racist, Sexist, Homophobe, Traitor, Bigot, Hitler, disgusting human being every time a democrat opens their pie hole.
I probably won't, but I hope to get even.
2/4/21, 4:14 PM
Exactly. 12 years of this....since the Divider in Chief resided in the WH. A LONNNNNG 12 years of getting called the worst possible things people could call you because you didn't vote for Saint Obama, and had the nerve to vote against Queen Hillary.
@veni vidi vici:
Canadian here making a couple of observations:
1. "we’ve never, as a nation, agreed on a single narrative about what it was all for." She outs herself as a simpleton here, not leaving room for the idea that, perhaps, it wasn't "all for" a single thing, rather, there were many things over which the war was fought.
I take your point, though a narrative isn't so much an historical accounting of the r
easons for the war but a story that explains the war in terms of values, lessons, symbols, who we are, where we were, where we're going, etc. A story that is "based on" true events rather than the events themselves.
I didn't read the link, but the obvious parallel with the 1860s is the 1960s. Federal forces were deployed against the states, the South's racial order was being undone, and the country was sharply divided by war. Most of the major civil rights legislation was passed by the end of the 60s So, if the goal of the Civil War was to stop secession, eliminate slavery, and integrate African-Americans into the political and social realm, is it fair to say that was accomplished by 1968?
I think the different ways people can answer that question is why the issue remains unresolved.
Contemporary liberalism is a mental disorder.
Sweet Baby Jesus! I was thinking Laura Flynn Boyle as I read her name. Then I saw some photos. I was wholly unprepared.
The only war we've ever fought that can reasonably be said to have resulted in a "single narrative" is WW2.
This is what I mean when I deplore the poor quality of the writing in the NY Times. It is all just "reinforce the narrative."
The Times writers and editors are wannabe authoritarians with mental health issues. That doesn't make for excellence in writing.
If you want to see what the "single narrative" about WW2 was like, watch the Capra "Why We Fight" series of films. They were produced early in the war to explain to soldiers and citizens why neutrality was no longer an option. You can find them on Youtube.
But modern liberals might be offended by the emphasis Capra placed on the American traditions of free labor and freedom of worship.
The "narrative" about the Civil War has changed several times. To skip over the immediate post-War era, in the late 19th and early 20th Century (call it the Woodrow Wilson era), the narrative of the noble lost cause was adopted, along with the installation of heroic Confederate statues throughout the South, and the spread of segregation throughout the South and into the Federal government. I grew up much later, in the 1950's, in the North, but even then the "rebel" was a hero in many movies and TV shows. By then, Truman had integrated the Armed Forces, and the civil rights revolution had begun, and us folks in the North thought that was fine (because it was aimed at Southerners).
Today I live in the South (most of my adult life has been spent south of the Mason-Dixon Line, although I am still a Yankee). In the Woodrow Wilson era, the statues of Confederate generals and soldiers were rallying points for the "lost cause"; they aren't any more. The Southerners I live with have fewer racial prejudices than the Yankees I grew up with.
In other words: Don't try to impose a "narrative" on the people. You'll just screw things up.
Lewis Wetzel said...
If you want to see what the "single narrative" about WW2 was like, watch the Capra "Why We Fight" series of films. They were produced early in the war to explain to soldiers and citizens why neutrality was no longer an option.
I have always blamed Capra and WWII for those who want a "single narrative". It was the beginning of what I call "Disneyfied History".
JPS nails it:
"Now imagine the level of coercion required to make everyone agree"
This is why the Year Zero, the Terror, is an inevitable result.
"Why don't the Trump people just accept that they are wrong, dishonest, evil and racist, and let the healing begin?"
@Lewis Wetzel:
The only war we've ever fought that can reasonably be said to have resulted in a "single narrative" is WW2.
Yeah, I've been trying to think up a case for another one but haven't had much luck. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and just assume "agreed on a single narrative" wasn't intended to be as restrictive as it is. If there is a dominant narrative and only fringe alternative narratives, does that count? If so, the First Gulf War could be a contender.
Come to think of it, the U.S. Civil War, the Second World War, and the First Gulf War are still ongoing.
Balloon Juice on "The Sound of Silence"
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the lead House impeachment manager, asked former president Donald Trump on Thursday to provide testimony under oath “either before or during” his Senate trial scheduled next week. In a letter, Raskin asked for testimony about Trump’s conduct Jan. 6 when a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in a deadly assault.
If the latest clown carload of lawyers carry the day, the reviled ex-POTUS will probably refuse on constitutional grounds. Is that something the Supreme Court could rule on? I have no idea.
Alternatively, Hair Furor could be deposed at his Disgraceland estate in Florida rather than appearing in person at the crime scene. I hope so. The sound of his silence has been so soothing that I dread the prospect of it ending.
J. Farmer, I think that a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that we actually lost the War of 1812.
“J. Farmer, I think that a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that we actually lost the War of 1812.”
No, Andy Jackson redeemed the whole thing in New Orleans.
@Lewis Wetzel:
J. Farmer, I think that a reasonable person could come to the conclusion that we actually lost the War of 1812.
I agree. I think that may be the prevailing opinion by now. A land grab for Canada that fell on its face and saw Madison fleeing the capital and Andrew Jackson emerge a war hero for a battle fought after the war had ended.'Murica!
But I am not a reasonable person, J. Farmer :) Let us say that instead of defeat, the US found it that its best interests were to accept a negotiated peace.
But I am not a reasonable person, J. Farmer :) Let us say that instead of defeat, the US found it that its best interests were to accept a negotiated peace.
I had little doubt you would be against that "prevailing opinion." But aren't you just saying that losing a war can have a good effect?
With ancestors who fought on both sides of the War Between the States [and both sides of the Revolutionary War], I can't help but believe that both sides in both confrontation had reasons for their allegiances. They were not evil people. Wars are largely started by politicians but it's the average citizens who fight them. And nothing could be more reprehensible than to punish an already defeated foe.
//To progressives like me, [insert claim here]//
This is a bullshit phrase.
Is the claim true? Then just make the claim. No need for the relativistic 'true to me' bullshit.
If 'to me it is true' is shorthand for 'I believe this is true', drop the shorthand.
The counter to the 1619 project is The 1776 Project, which President Trump added to the White House website. Usurper Biden, in his first week, took The 1776 Project down. It's worth the read.
Rusty - LOL.
"One reason the scars of the Civil War have never fully healed is that" Democrats have never forgiven the Republican Party for taking away their slaves.
@mockturtle:
And nothing could be more reprehensible than to punish an already defeated foe.
How about punishing an already victorious foe?
"One reason the scars of the Civil War have never fully healed is that" Democrats have never forgiven the Republican Party for taking away their slaves.
Or wiping out their KKK foot soldiers.
@Farmer: How about punishing an already victorious foe?
That, too.
As for the single narrative of WW2, remember that FDR's objective was a post-war world in which peace would be assured by the joint efforts of the USA, Russia, and China. How'd that work out for ya?
beautiful-things-
I do hope Professora AA deigns a book review for us
"Why is there no pressure on state and federal office buildings to offer the homeless -- or anybody from the general public -- access to toilet facilities?"
This is an excellent comment; a point that certainly has not found favor with the elite. The lack of public toilets is not simply a homeless issue. It is an issue that affects the chronically ill, the elderly, parents with infant children. It is a significant factor in the degradation of public spaces--polite people stay away from downtown because, when they are temporarily homeless, they do not have a place to take care of their bodily realities.
Although less flashy, it is far easier to rent portable toilets than to pressure Billionaires to invest in Public Spaces, let alone toilets open to ANYONE.
Anyway, these LARGE players want to void urban cores of pedestrians. That way the city's overhead to keep those spaces policed makes up for the defunding policies.
Like almost all the stories coming out of the media these days...
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Gunner said...
"SJWs think that saying sophisticated words like "insurrection" 500 billion times will make it a reality. A few dozen morons loitering and trespassing is not an "insurrection" in any country."
This is the sad fact is the every progg. believes it. They know the name of the guard that died, but have no idea that a woman protestor was shot. None at all. The responses when I bring it up are, "That's not true!" to "She had it coming.". These are the people we're dealing with. There really is no point of an internet awash with information if your not going to avail yourself of every opinion and evaluate the infomation with a critical eye. Of course it helps to have some basis in history and some universal truths.
I am soooooooo not bummed for these people. Get over it!
We celebrate and admire heroes in this country -- not victims. We pity victims because they are weak. Slaves out-numbered their captors in the same way the Jews outnumbered those guarding the concentration camps. There is shame in not coalescing into a group of heroes to overcome oppression. The Jewish community feels that shame deeply. Not because they are to blamed for antisemitism, but because as a group their individual safety was prioritized over the need to sacrifice cooperatively.
Heroes died to end slavery and heroes died to end the third reich. Victims died suffering and waiting for heroes to save them. It's sad when groups are oppressed and sad when groups become impotent victims.
Slaves were freed by the sacrifice of soldiers in the Union Army. They are the heroes. The slaves were victims who failed to defeat their oppressors and didn't even try except in a few notable instances.
That fact is what the black community is struggling to accept. It's never acknowledged and taboo as a point of discussion. Just as their inner city neighborhoods lack a coalition of the willing who will overcome the oppression caused by the teacher's unions and politicians who only want their votes. They are still looking to white America to free them. Stop being victims and start being heroes.
There's a difference between having a "single narrative" when one is fighting and afterwards. There was conflict over the War of 1812 and the Mexican War and the Philippine Insurrection while they were going on, but those conflicts have been forgotten. There was some degree of (government enforced) unanimity about WWI, but afterwards, when people thought about the war there was much criticism and dissent from what had been the established narrative. Vietnam was divisive at the time and is still divisive, though we don't obsess about it anymore.
Maybe we did have a "single narrative" about the Civil War for some time, say from the 1890s to the 1980s or so: the North was right and the South was brave. If Southerners dissented, the rest of us didn't hear about it. If we don't have a unified narrative now, it's not just the woke or the PC who are to blame. You saw a lot of "the South was right" revisionism in the last few decades.
Clearly, there isn't a single unified narrative about the Trump years, but are we really as divided about our recent past as we think? Everybody pretty much was fed up with Bush II at the end of his term. The extremes of Clinton love and Clinton hate, Obama love and Obama hate fade and people come to see them in a more measured way. Even Reagan gets some respect from people who hated him. Even if Trump doesn't run again, he will be back, if only as a cudgel for Democrats to hit the next Republican politician with. He wasn't an ideologue and his policies weren't terrible.
"Maybe we did have a "single narrative" about the Civil War for some time, say from the 1890s to the 1980s or so: the North was right and the South was brave. If Southerners dissented, the rest of us didn't hear about it. If we don't have a unified narrative now, it's not just the woke or the PC who are to blame. You saw a lot of "the South was right" revisionism in the last few decades."
Excellent point. There were people in the South who dissented to both the war and slavery at the time, especially before the war broke out. Unfortunately, these voices have been silenced in recent years for a variety of reasons. My favorite example of this is Disney's Song Of The South, where Father is an abolitionist and treated his "people" well. This film has disappeared. Pity. I liked Brother Rabbit.
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