The death of David Foster Wallace was also the first time I heard of him. I was 17 at the time, and just beginning to explore the world of "adult" literature. Coaxed by grieving fans, I embarked on my own fandom that would span several passionate years. He remains an important figure for me, but I haven't seriously engaged his work since reading The Pale King in 2016. The shadow of his abusive behavior hangs too heavy. And while this conversation with Clare Hayes-Brady, an American literature scholar with a keen interest in Wallace, doesn't exactly persuade me, I do think her point near the end could be helpfully generalized:
FDB offers a much-deserved apology to Malcolm Harris. There are a lot of US American left factions online, and this whole ordeal clarified several things to me.
How will we ever overcome intergenerational trauma?
Can't debate them, can't fact-check them. Sounds like a noble failure, but a failure all the same.
Okinawa has spoken, though I doubt Abe will listen.
"As unlikely as it would’ve sounded at this time four years ago, when he trailed Democratic nominee Anthony Brown by double digits in the polls, Larry Hogan—a first-time Republican elected official in one of the bluest states in the country—is now the second-most-popular governor in the United States. According to a Morning Consult poll this summer, 68 percent of Maryland voters approve of the job Hogan is doing." Why? The article has a lot of useful information about Hogan's treachery regarding Baltimore, and it seems Maryland Democrats outside the City have turned a blind eye to it all.
Acid Corbynism is here to stay. But what happens when the trip ends? I believe it was Alex Williams who tweeted a while ago that the British left will need to come prepared with an array of social movements, so as to stave off Tory antagonism and corporate media attacks.
Reading this exhaustive polemic against fatphobia infuriated me.
Five Tokyo Centers. Of course Shinjuku has my vote...but I made a fair few visits to Shibuya, Roppongi, and Azabu-juban as well. Smaller gems of memory, but precious in their own way.
(And I visited Tokyo Station last summer! At night, when it was too dark to appreciate my surroundings much, but still. Ueno looks pleasant too.)
Iceland and Greece, two incredible case studies. (I'm fascinated by all the retrospective work going on about the financial crisis.)
Origins of the copyleft.
The US' future belongs not to the majority-minority, but the outright minority.
And guess what: I posted that last link days before Kavanaugh was confirmed! On these blogpost roundups I've been doing, I try not to focus too much on US micro-scandals. Partly because it's pointless and draining to keep up with all the back-and-forth, but also because international politics matter a lot more to me now. As the world transitions from its unipolar post-war status quo into a multipolar geopolitical future (with China as the probable center of gravity), I'd rather not entertain the US' illusions about itself as the world's most important country. However, the Kavanaugh ordeal does seem to signal something seismic, and I think Adam Kotsko's read on the situation is both the sharpest and most clear-headed. In discussing a "crisis of legitimacy," might we perhaps consider that the Republicans have regarded the Democrats as an illegitimate political party for at least several decades, and that their actions in office reflect this party-wide belief? If a broader crisis of legitimacy is indeed emerging, it would be commensurate with views Republicans have long held about the rest of us. The critical question faced by outsiders to this intra-class conflict (as most of us are) is what to do now that the stakes are finally clear, knowing that the pathetic members of our 'opposition party' are damned if they do and damned if they don't, so to speak. Here again, Kotsko grasps the severity of the situation: either remove the Republicans from power and begin making drastic structural changes, or accept a low-grade, indefinite state of emergency that runs the risk of igniting into actual civil war at any time. If ever there were time in this country for a politics of cautious optimism, that time has absolutely and unequivocally passed.
No comments:
Post a Comment