james traub on "anti-americanism"

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i usually don't read the new york times magazine on sundays because it's 99% garbage, but i finished the crossword early, had ten minutes to kill on the C train back into brooklyn and was flipping through it when a pic of harold pinter caught my eye. it's a photo of him behind a "stop bush" poster, the one with big block letters and blood spatter behind it, familiar to anyone in london and probably all of the uk as well.

the article is called "their highbrow hatred of us." it's a naive domestic burgundy without breeding, but i think you'll be amused by its subjective identification with fascism, as well as its kneejerk identification of the outside world as "snobs who nonsensically look down on us"
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When the British playwright Harold Pinter was interviewed after learning earlier this month that he won the Nobel Prize for literature, he said that he might well use his acceptance speech in December to "address the state of the world." This could prove to be quite a revelation for Pinter's American admirers, who tend to know much less about his politics than Europeans do. Still, they need only go to Pinter's own Web site to learn that the author of "The Birthday Party" and "The Homecoming" views the United States as a moral monster bent on world domination.

Pinter's consuming anti-Americanism may have had little or nothing to do with the judges' decision to award him the prize. Unlike Dario Fo, the 1997 recipient notorious for his denunciations of the U.S., Pinter has written works that will remain long after his polemics are forgotten. Even some conservatives have applauded the selection. But whatever the intention, the Swedes have given Pinter the most prestigious of platforms from which to broadcast his worldview - a view that has become common currency, albeit in somewhat less toxic form, in the highest reaches of European culture.

Pinter's politics are so extreme that they're almost impossible to parody. "Mr. Bush and his gang," he said in a speech as the war in Iraq approached, "are determined, quite simply, to control the world and the world's resources. And they don't give a damn how many people they murder on the way." Pinter sees the current president as only the most recent exponent of the American hegemonic impulse. The playwright was just as outraged by NATO's 1999 air war in Kosovo. Though the bombing was essentially a last resort in the face of Slobodan Milosevic's savage campaign of ethnic cleansing, Pinter described it as "a criminal act" - the U.N. Security Council hadn't approved - designed to consolidate "American domination of Europe." He complained, in fact, of "the demonization and the hysteria" that accompanied the NATO campaign against Milosevic and the Serbs.

These views are hardly unfamiliar in the United States; you can hear them on any major university campus. Among public intellectuals or literary figures, however, it is hard to think of anyone save Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal who would not choke on Pinter's bile. But the situation is very different throughout Europe, where the anti-American left is far more intellectually respectable. In the Anglophone world of letters, John le Carré holds opinions similar to Pinter's, as do the essayist Tariq Ali and the novelist Arundhati Roy. These last two publicly root for the Iraqi "resistance" against the infernal machinery of American empire. Roy has conceded that despots like Saddam Hussein "are a menace to their own people" but concludes that there isn't much that can be done about it save "strengthening the hand of civil society" - a comment apparently not intended as a joke.

All this talk about "resistance" and "antifascism" betrays the origins of this virulent strain of anti-Americanism: support for the "liberation" struggles in China, Cuba, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Iraq, in other words, is being superimposed on the old "anti-imperialist" grid, with disgruntled Baathists playing the role of the Vietcong. You might have thought that the end of the cold war would have knocked the starch out of this Manichaean struggle, but the far left has been unwilling to surrender the exhilarating moral clarity of that era. Failure, in fact, may have driven elements of the left deeper into opposition; the "socialist debacle," as the political writer Ian Buruma noted in a recent essay, "contributed to the resentment of American triumphs."

What, then, to do? Should we beam Radio Free Europe to the captive states of France, Germany and England? Actually, I have a better idea: get the C.I.A. to secretly subsidize the publication of Pinter's political poetry, along with a worldwide tour booked into major sports stadiums. The poet would be encouraged to recite such clanking fragments of doggerel as the following from "God Bless America": "Here they go again/The Yanks in their armoured parade/Chanting their ballads of joy/As they gallop across the big world/Praising America's God." Sunshine, they say, is the greatest disinfectant.

You cannot, of course, dissuade implacable ideologues, any more than you can an implacable jihadist. But that's not the goal, either in Iraq or in the West. The goal is to delegitimate extremism among the great mass of people not yet lost to reason. Even here, there is no getting around the fact that no nation as dominant as America now is will be accepted as a benevolent actor; indeed, no nation so easily able to advance its own interests will act benevolently most of the time.

But we could certainly help our case by boasting about our benevolence less and proving it more - by acting, that is, in ways that seem worthy of a great democracy. We might, for example, take the wind out of the antifascist sails by accepting rules and institutions - the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, the disarmament provisions of the Non-Proliferation Treaty - that practically everyone save us and a few outright malefactors hold dear. We might cut our farm subsidies to improve terms of trade for impoverished African farmers (and to show up European countries unwilling to do the same). We might tiptoe less delicately around authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and stand up more staunchly for democratic forces. The battle of ideas, after all, is not to be waged only in the Islamic world.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:31 (twenty years ago)

i love it when he talks about taking "the wind out of the antifascist sails", it's so inspiring

p.s. i realize my comma placement there is a little condescending

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:38 (twenty years ago)

ah, disapproval of american policy = extremism

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:42 (twenty years ago)

What a weird piece. It's 9/10ths "those crazy hippie Marxists are gonna call America a big dumb bully no matter what we do" and 1/10th "if only we didn't make it so easy for them by being a big dumb bully".

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:44 (twenty years ago)

what's weird about it is that it sits up near the front of the magazine, which is one of the most-read sections of any edition of the times. it's in a space typically given over to non-controversial stuff like safire's language column or dippy interview pieces. this piece in this spot of this section is reminiscent of the new yorker editorials, which speak for the entire magazine, and are written in exactly the same "we're all reasonable people here, right?" kind of tone. it's also kind of weird in that it starts off like it might be an actual piece of reporting, so it lulls you into an unargumentative mentality

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:51 (twenty years ago)

Traub also has an irritating essay-cum-review in the same day's book review section, pulling together some current books on Iraq from the left and right. He manages to somehow concede that war opponents were right but still say they're basically wrong.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 31 October 2005 21:59 (twenty years ago)

from that link - opponents of the war are "satisfied" by its failure; one odious personal friend of traub's is even "gleeful" about it; the case for mounting an invasion of iraq was "powerful" in march 2003, however, and "survives" today - no explanation given for either assertion

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

im sorry is pinter actually right about kosovo bombing and bush-as-darth-vader bullshit? i agree that traubs motives for beefing w/ him are suspect but still

― _, Monday, 31 October 2005 22:08 (twenty years ago)

pinter is an artist, not a politician, so when he says tony blair is going to wash his cucumber sandwiches down with a fresh glass of baby's blood i don't question whether he was in the room when blair chose from the menu!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:11 (twenty years ago)

is james traub a politician?

― _, Monday, 31 October 2005 22:13 (twenty years ago)

i agree with pinter about kosovo, insofar as military intervention in another state should be by genuine consensus, not just cause you're like "hey, why not"; it arguably paved the way for iraq

xpost: well he's no artist

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:14 (twenty years ago)

it's pretty lame that he read a bunch of books (i'm using the term "read" loosely) about the iraq war and managed to get TWO boot-licking articles out of them for the same edition

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

opponents of the war are "satisfied" by its failure; one odious personal friend of traub's is even "gleeful" about it

I know. It's like, who are all these horrible lib-leftists that people like Traub seem to know? I know lots of lefties but somehow don't run across these. (And Traub and a friend made bets about the war? WTF?)

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

All this talk about "resistance" and "antifascism"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:23 (twenty years ago)

maybe he knows tad

― _, Monday, 31 October 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

i imagine him doing air quotes as he says this, while two servants straighten his cuffs and shine his shoes

xpost!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 31 October 2005 22:24 (twenty years ago)

i have my feet up on a slave as i type this

― _, Monday, 31 October 2005 22:26 (twenty years ago)

This must be some of that NY Times liberal claptrap those wingnuts are always going on about.

― Earl Nash (earlnash), Monday, 31 October 2005 23:35 (twenty years ago)

i am considering writing a long e-mail to charles krauthammer, because i am drunk and tired of people ignoring history. god i need to wise up.

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 03:56 (twenty years ago)

Tracer, this article actually caught my attention in a really distasteful way, and then I saw that books piece, but stayed away from it due to the author. Who is this guy, an even more reactionary version of Thomas Friedman?

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 04:11 (twenty years ago)

maybe he knows tad

ethan, shut the fuck up. seriously.

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 04:58 (twenty years ago)

kosovo was a case of "hey why not"?? tracer what the fuck.

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 08:33 (twenty years ago)

anyway it's too bad cos antiamericanism is worth a look but traub doesn't tell us anything we didn't know from being awake between 01 and 05.

and holy cow is pinter's poetry shitty

― geoff (gcannon), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 08:38 (twenty years ago)

I like the way he blithely dismisses Dario Fo, a writer whose plays will be enjoyed long after Traub's polemics have been forgotten.

― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 08:58 (twenty years ago)

I used to look to newspapers like The Guardian and (less) the New York Times for indignant editorials about the abuse of power, or ethical takes on current events But what I've noticed recently is that only book papers like The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books have been as trenchant in their criticism of Bush and Blair as I'd wish the daily papers to be. Like Eliot Weinberger's excellent What I Heard About Iraq in the LRB.

So far I haven't seen the NYRB or LRB's takes on Pinter's Nobel Prize, but maybe they'll be in the next issue. The thing is, in terms of how literary intellectuals are thinking, Pinter's views are fairly normal.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 09:18 (twenty years ago)

The worst piece of anti-Americanism I've seen in Europe recently was The Guardian's vicious attack on Noam Chomsky yesterday, in which Emma Brockes told us he's "miring debate in intellectual spam", is a "hypocrite" because his wife owns shares, has opinions "as flaky as the next person's; he just states it more forcefully" and "he plugs the gaps in his knowledge with ideology".

Unlike Brockes herself, apparently.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)

pinter is a menk, though.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:45 (twenty years ago)

I look forward to reading your plays, Henry.

― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:50 (twenty years ago)

oh, his plays are great (the ones i've seen), but as a voice against imperialism he's a menace, kind of pilger at +8.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:51 (twenty years ago)

my mum loves pinter.

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:52 (twenty years ago)

We've had this debate on another thread recently. Whilst I kind of agree that a certain kind of rhetorical hysteria might damage a good cause, I tend to think that the problem with our civilisation is that not enough people are getting hysterical enough.

― Patchouli Clark (noodle vague), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:53 (twenty years ago)

The battle of ideas, after all, is not to be waged only in the Islamic world.

It certainly isn't. Reporters Sans Frontiers have just published their latest World Press Freedom Index. Following increasing judicial pressure on the press, and the imprisonment of a journalist from Traub's own paper for refusing to reveal her sources, the USA has fallen more than 20 places since last year, to 44. Which leaves it behind every country in Western Europe, Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Namibia, El Salvador, the Czech Republic and Hong Kong.

The newly-"liberated" Iraq stands at 157 in the list.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 11:57 (twenty years ago)

i got quite worked up about the chomsky interview last night. granted i'd had a few glasses of wine, but for brockes to suggest that chomsky's activism and scholarship is invalid because he hasn't renounced his material possessions and totally withdrawn from the society he criticises... come on.

― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 12:46 (twenty years ago)

I tend to think that the problem with our civilisation is that not enough people are getting hysterical enough.

-- Patchouli Clark (noodle_vagu...), November 1st, 2005.

yes i for one would like to see more journalist beheadings, homophobic apocalypse rhetoric, and attack dogs released on naked pyramids of iraqi prisoners

― _, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

oh wait you meant quaint lefty outrage, n/m

― _, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 13:09 (twenty years ago)

haha, he has a point though. the 'left' have acquiesced in setting the agenda for a long time now (certainly in terms of economics), and there is continuing fear about appearing the wrong way (in practice this has led to appearing even worse, and the characterization of leftists has worsened over the last 5 years or so). outrage, im not sure about, the left could do with some righteousness and some conviction

― terry lennox. (gareth), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 13:23 (twenty years ago)

yeah i know what he meant i was just being a dick about his stupid, stupid phrasing

― _, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

really if the left had a coherent idealogy they might have won more than just a couple lame pyrrhic gains using bullshit emotional rhetoric of the moore/sheehan/pinter variety

― _, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:22 (twenty years ago)

conversely, the GOP has an internally coherent ideology which bears scant relation to the reality of their policies

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

what the hell is a menk?

― anthony, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:24 (twenty years ago)

well yeah but it works

― _, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:36 (twenty years ago)

winning elections, at least, not successful governing

― _, Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

menk = mentalist

― Theorry Henry (Enrique), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

Come on, Pinter is not a mentalist. Meaningless unsubstantiated assertions of mentalism add nothing to this conversation, shame on you!

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 22:31 (twenty years ago)

geoff i was exaggerating - of course the 10-week kosovo bombing campaign was much, much more than "hey, why not?" -- it was a pig-headed, unimaginative, arguably illegal effort undertaken solely by the US (with NATO as its proxy) which circumvented the UN Security Council, the latter of which is supposed to be the sole arbiter of such things. the pattern became entrenched in iraq. the US rumbles, makes vaguely threatening noises towards some country or region that shows a little recalcitrance, or whose government presents a shifting, unstable climate that threatens or endangers global business interests, and then the US feels compelled to "follow through," to "preserve its credibility"

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 22:44 (twenty years ago)

which is perhaps "anti-american policy," but it would be nice if defenders of the kosovo bombing could point out what exactly is wrong with that analysis, or even what the bombing accomplished beyond intensified ethnic conflict and the death of serbia's nascent civil society

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 1 November 2005 23:13 (twenty years ago)

it's in a space typically given over to non-controversial stuff like safire's language column or dippy interview pieces.

uh, that lead essay "the way we live now" has tackled "controversial stuff" as long as i can remember seriously reading the times (since about high school?).

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 03:59 (twenty years ago)

"uhhhhh" i never said it didn't, just that the rest of the front is always explicit fluff. my point is that its position there and its tone lends it "voice of the paper" status

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 04:44 (twenty years ago)

ok, i just don't think it's that weird, is all. it's been like that for quite some time, and as you note other publications do something similar, so... yeah. terrible essay, btw (i admit i'm not a fan of "the way we live now").

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 2 November 2005 04:48 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 88 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

pat robertson doesn't have a tv show, but an entire network.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 16:53 (twenty years ago)

so does influential bush policy advisor al gore

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)

and whatever the hell that thing from animal planet is

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:16 (twenty years ago)

that's more than a bit disingenuous. if you really wanna claim that pat robertson, the founder of the christian coalition, has little influence on american politics...

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:22 (twenty years ago)

you're going to say the same about robertson arent you?
-- terry lennox. (...), November 3rd, 2005.

well in 2005 yeah unless you just mean as a mouthpiece for homophobes, i dont think he dictates foreign policy
-- _ (...), November 3rd, 2005.

and homophobia has about as much to do with iraq as pinter's plays
-- _ (...), November 3rd, 2005.

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:24 (twenty years ago)

dictates /= influences

not sure why everything has to be an absolute to mean something to you. it's undeniable that pat robertson has an "influence" on american politics, not all of it domestic. the guy ran for president a couple of times, pushing george h.w. bush further right, started the most influential american political organization in recent times, launched the career of ralph reed, etc., etc.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)

well yeah thats where "in 2005" came from, obv his influence with the christian coalition and during iran-contra was massive but over the past 4-5 years the only thing ive heard from the white house about him is condemnations of stupid shit he said (fags and the ACLU caused 9/11, lets assassinate democratically elected presidents)(admittedly i can understand his shock they werent down for that last one after his deals with reagan)

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

i mean, is he more influential than harold pinter? of course! are his comments usually more offensive than pinters? no shit they are! but the reaction to robertsons comments has suited these imbalances, and i dont see how this one negative reaction to pinters comments somehow means that i excuse his. its like saying you cant hate on the guy who stole your car til everybodys done talking about hitler.

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:37 (twenty years ago)

yeah, i almost suspect the white house loves bringing attention to the batshit stuff robertson says now as mechanism to say "dubya is a SERIOUS WARTIME PRESIDENT who doesn't hate all muslims," etc., etc. even tho the latter owes being taken seriously as a politician due to robertson.

...i dont see how this one negative reaction to pinters comments somehow means that i excuse his.

who's saying that, exactly? i'm not sure that's what nabisco was saying, but i can't speak for him.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:38 (twenty years ago)

well nitsuh seemed to be saying that pinter's anti-americanism was justified because pat robertson is american

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:41 (twenty years ago)

i don't think that's what he was saying. i think he was saying pinter's political speech is on a continuum with robertson's, and relative to that, pretty benign.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:42 (twenty years ago)

i think its also because theres no one here defending robertson, whereas there are people defending pinter? so of course, its going to be argued over

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:44 (twenty years ago)

well yeah like the guy who stole your car compared to hitler, i just dont see how the stupidity of something is invalidated as long as theres stupider things out there somewhere

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)

gareth youre always really cryptic on politics threads! you can find dozens of posters on ile who would defend pinter, only a couple would sincerely defend robertson

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

see that's the thing, i don't think nabisco was saying that it (ie. pinter's rhetoric) wasn't stupid, just that it's practiced in greater doses without much outrage (ie. freedom fries-style conflation of nation-state's people v. nation-state's policies).

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

that was my point! sorry, i reread and it makes it look like i was implying there werent pinter defenders. i actually meant there are

i dont count myself as a pinter-defender, but i also dont necessarily disagree with anything he's said here

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:47 (twenty years ago)

meaning, its no wonder people are disagreeing about pinter, because (some) people here agree (to varying extents)

sometimes these threads move too fast, and you end up talking past each other!

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:49 (twenty years ago)

yeah i realized thats what happened on the blackface thread yesterday with me & dan

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:53 (twenty years ago)

i was actually being a dick to jed

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:56 (twenty years ago)

whoever that is

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:56 (twenty years ago)

Dude, Ethan, you're leaning on some point-scoring stuff here to evade the point of what I said. Notice I wasn't talking about whether Pinter's or Robertson's comments were dumb or not on a practical, factual level -- I was talking about rheotical tone, and I was suggesting that maybe we shouldn't be surprised that people tend not to feel a need to be ultra-conservative in their language when unleashing polemics on the actions of foreign nations. Bush labels three unrelated nations an "axis of evil," which is rhetorically beyond anything in that particular Pinter quote. There have been as many Americans talking about how "the French" entity doesn't support us as there have been French people talking about how "America" the entity does X, Y, and Z. Thus my question: why exactly would someone like Traub be surprised to find that same level of rhetoric being pointed back toward us? Why, in other words, hold a double standard that expects everyone criticizing only your side to be precise and conservative and un-colorful in their language? That particular line from Pinter expresses a not-particularly-extreme worldview ("they want to control everything, and they don't seem interested in the side casualties") in vague, abstracted, figure-of-speech terms; criticizing that seems like a request for the writer to talk in policy-wonk reasonable specifics. But why should he, when "axis of evil" talks in exactly the same abstract/poetic terms?

So I'm not saying "it's okay because they do it" -- I'm saying it's okay, full-stop. It makes perfect sense to me that writers talk in terms like Pinter's in that specific quote; he's not a politician, and he's not an American, so I can't imagine what reason he'd possibly have not to express his view as he understands it. And I would feel the same way about Pat Robertson's Chavez comment, except for the prime difference between them -- Robertson was advocating murdering Chavez, whereas I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that Pinter has never suggested killing Bush.

This is the source of my comment about panty-twisting: using that quote up-front immediately casts Traub as essentially saying "look, a non-politician foreign national disagrees with our government, and instead of writing detailed policy papers about it he's just saying it in everyday figure-of-speech terms!" Which is pathetic: that's what people do in our country and in every countery, all day long.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 17:57 (twenty years ago)

well i cant speak for traub but the inflammatory, xenophobic generalizations of some americans dont hold the implicit endorsement of every american (i realize you know this but bear with me) or mean that "we" somehow deserve statements like that in return- i dont think "the french" are cowards, i dont think "the americans" are warmongers, i dont endorse the former statement simply because it is made by americans, and therefore reserve a right to be offended by both

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:02 (twenty years ago)

ok "warmongers" is too vauge lets go with pinter and say "americans are murderers"

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:05 (twenty years ago)

i dont think "the french" are cowards, i dont think "the americans" are warmongers, i dont endorse the former statement simply because it is made by americans, and therefore reserve a right to be offended by both

that sorta seems to be the point of this thread, no?

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:08 (twenty years ago)

i mean you get what im saying right nitsuh? im not SURPRISED that people in europe react to stupid things said by americans with more stupid things, i realize WHY it happens, i just dont want to excuse it and devote all my resources to shitting in pat robertsons mouth, with every indefensible remark from him (and every reasonable, defensible mark from our side - which doesnt restrict rhetoric, theres plenty to get pissed about) we get closer to actually living in a better world!!

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:08 (twenty years ago)

xpost yeah this is just semantics i guess

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:09 (twenty years ago)

but wait, pinter isnt talking about 'americans' is he? he's talking about the american government. its implicit, in foreign policy context, when we talk of the americans, israelis, libyans, germans, isnt it? to be intensely critical of the us govt, by no means anti american people. (even though, in a democracy, you could argue that, logically, it means precisely that). there cant be many in the west that dont recognise that america is incredibly divided, but, even if it wasnt, it still doesnt follow that US govt=xyz is same as americanpeople=xyz. and i think this is all about the bush administration

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:09 (twenty years ago)

well yeah i thought we were going on the presupposition by traub that pinter is flat out "anti-american", if not him theres a million other examples of euro dorks hating on our fat midwestern cheeseburger asses

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:11 (twenty years ago)

i mean, unless i'm missing something, i'm as anti-american as pinter is (going by that article at least)

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:12 (twenty years ago)

Grrr Ethan I feel like you're still avoiding! Of course I'm with you -- if the comment is stupid or unthinking, I'll be offended by it no matter where it's coming from. But the Pinter comment I was talking about was not stupid or unthinking, just poetic! E.g. in our world of "reasonable" and "practical" political talk we all theoretically agree that an Iraqi civilian killed by a bomb was not "murdered," oh no -- but Pinter, a writer, is not talking in policy-paper terms, and he is using the word "murder" to advance a specific idea, a specific interpretation of what happens when e.g. that Iraqi civilian is killed. That's an absolute basic of how literary language works.

So I'm saying I feel like condemning that comes close to condemning the idea that people anywhere might advance a worldview on its own terms, instead of engaging in endless detailed point-by-point evidence-only debate. It comes close to asking that not only of politicians, but of writers / "public intellectuals," whose whole purpose is often to interpret all those details into some coherent act of "speech," active use of language and all. There's a very good reason detail-type political writers love to pick on the political comments of academics and people in literature and so on: they want desperately to read those people's words as detailed political speech, when in reality they're another kind of speech entirely. They're personal analysis; they're less concerned with fact-arrangement and more concerned with interpretation and the effective use of language to advance moral arguments. And -- again, speaking strictly of that line -- Pinter's interpretation is demonstrably accurate (how many of this administration's policy papers are completely up-front about looking for total world hegemony?), and his emotional ante-upping with the "murder" line is not particularly bizarre. (Once again, the continuum: I don't think it's particularly bizarre of pro-life folks to refer to abortion as "murder," even though our detailed legalistic notion of "murder" doesn't include it -- they're using the word to advance a moral belief. So is Pinter.)

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

traub evidently thinks he is, but then offers nothing to back that up

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

i mean, unless i'm missing something, i'm as anti-american as pinter is (going by that article at least)

so am i! and i'm american, even.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

it's a confusing thing, this self-hate thing, or whatever.

― hstencil (hstencil), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

if not him theres a million other examples of euro dorks hating on our fat midwestern cheeseburger asses

argh, wait a minute. now we are getting close to the "well, coulter probably would have said xyz" territory you criticized on the other thread.

i think the phrase "anti-american" needs some serious examination and unpacking.

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:17 (twenty years ago)

My Unpacking of How Actual "Anti-Americanism" Functions
(a play)

CHARACTERS:
America (a really fat guy)
Europe (a really ugly guy)

SCENE 1

America does something really stupid and annoying.

EUROPE: Hey! Why the hell did you do that, fat-ass?
AMERICA: That was so anti-me of you to call me a fat-ass, you ugly little jerk!
EUROPE: Well maybe I wouldn't have to call you a fat-ass if you'd stop doing that stupid annoying shit you keep doing.
AMERICA: Yeah right, like I care if you think it's stupid -- you're clearly just prejudiced against me for being fat.
EUROPE: Whatever, jerk.
AMERICA: Fine, jerk.
POLAND: Guys? Guys?

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:30 (twenty years ago)

AMERICA: ...
EUROPE: hmm
AMERICA: nothing
...
EUROPE: right

now you have it as a pinter

― terry lennox. (gareth), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:33 (twenty years ago)

RUSSIA: (counting gangsta petrodollars) Tsk tsk.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:41 (twenty years ago)

i wish i hadnt already wasted my daily custos dis on dave popshots

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:42 (twenty years ago)

That play is way beyond Custos, dude! That's actually about how I think it works -- like actual American actions touch off Euro criticisms of them that are vaguely wound up in some kind of ongoing aesthetic distaste for America as a whole. And then we use that little internal kernel to gainsay the real criticism that's attached to it. A lot of work goes into pretending that all European critics of American actions are just knee-jerk America-hating "lost to reason" types -- we basically sit around fantasizing/rationalizing that the populations and governments of an entire continent are, you know, just haters or something. Which is bizarre, given that there are pretty good indicators that this isn't the case -- e.g., it's not exactly blanket hating, and it's not exactly hard to figure out in advance which actions certain Europeans are going to dislike and criticize.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:48 (twenty years ago)

Surprise: a nation that fetishizes its ignorance of and contempt for the rest of the world, insists on its own God-ordained exceptionalism, and invades, on average, two countries per decade is ill-thought-of outside its borders.

― M. V. (M.V.), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:49 (twenty years ago)

i was kidding

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:54 (twenty years ago)

I was adulting.

― nabisco (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 18:59 (twenty years ago)

are you my granddad?

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:06 (twenty years ago)

that's the worst joke I've ever read, nabisco.

― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:08 (twenty years ago)

Whatev, y'all bitches wouldn't know comedy if it pulled a Werther's hard candy out from behind your ear.

― nabilford scimley (nabisco), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:12 (twenty years ago)

....

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:13 (twenty years ago)

If you are fucking keeping some Werther's from me, I will injure you. Give it up, bitch.

― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:26 (twenty years ago)

Also, pls make it the kind with chocolate coating thanks.

― Laurel (Laurel), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:43 (twenty years ago)

OTM!

― Allyzay must fight Zolton herself. (allyzay), Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:46 (twenty years ago)

http://www.opiummagazine.com/wilford.gif

― _, Thursday, 3 November 2005 19:57 (twenty years ago)

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