The Making of a Contender
Some semblance of a regular habit of posting to commence shortly. In the meantime I am occupied with the writing of a piece on Manichean politics that I hope the kind souls at Tabellina will be wise enough to publish; trying to decide which of Dell's many splendiferous laptops will soon be my own; wondering when the sword of Damocles will fall to punish my iniquitous levels of consumption, and most importantly, attempting to find suitable accomodation in Aberdeen. A presto.
posted by the jacobin at 10:04 PM
3 Comments:
A link to Tabellina would be nice :) Like so, Myfanwy :)
I still have not found any posting regarding your American Sympathies.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea massima culpa.
To be serious, if only for a moment, I am writing something which will qualify as a defense of American values, if not U.S foreign policy, and I hope to have it published in Tabellina - after which, I'm sure, we can begin our (hopefully polite) disagreements.
Yet..if I could say something by means of an introduction, my point of view isn't so much philoamerican as it is value-neutral. In matters of politics (and art, and morality, for that matter), and in general, I tend to judge things (for lack of a better word; of necessity I am scribbling this very quickly) on a case-by-case basis, without any overarching philosophy to coagulate my thoughts.
Now, I'm sure that there are at least several ways of which it is possible to attack such an attitude, but nevertheless it renders me incapable of making grand sweeping statements of the sort you have, and to which I objected. I can't possibly, therefore, adhere to a point of view which says dogmatically (and please forgive me if I have misunderstood you) that the United States, and Americans, in all they represent, in all of their manifestations, are inferior to Europe, and Europeans. It may be possible to calculate overall superiority, but alas I am not equipped to. I wouldn't even know where to begin. If I was to try to, though, I would, in somewhat of a tortoise-like fashion, first begin with a definition of the terminology to be used. Thus when you (or anyone else) make claims regarding European - or American, for that matter - superiority, I am instinctively led to ask: "Superior? What does that mean? And on what grounds?" You didn't seem to answer these questions at all, except with a series of unqualified accusations, whose veracity you did not even begin to prove.
Have you read "The Hedgehog and the Fox" by Isaiah Berlin?
(Apologies for the discombobulated nature of this reply, you've caught me at my worst time of day, the afternoon)
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