Folks, I'm glad you like reading the blog, and find my posts worth closely scrutinizing -- but there really is no need to overread between the lines. A commenter on an earlier post writes:
What's with the literary quotes today? Employing the maxims of implicature, we can infer that Eugene is trying to convey some relevant message. The analogy seems to be that we Americans are too unwilling to defend ourselves today.
So, Professor: is the mssage "we should be cheering the latest illegal NSA program" or "we should invade Iran"?
The commenter, I'm afraid, is inferring what I am not implying. I started reading Rebecca West's chapter because I liked the "It was good to take up one's courage again" quote that someone had posted on another blog months ago; and it did seem linked to the posts about courage, which were in turn triggered by the Ayaan Hirsi Ali story. I blogged the first set of quotes because of the link to courage. I blogged the second quote because I ran across it in the same reading session, because it struck me as eloquent and moving, and because I am pretty interested in history. I had hoped that my readers would be moved by it as I was -- always a good reason, I think, to pass along quotes.
But if you absolutely must try to infer some deeper message -- and, I stress again, I'm flattered that you'd want to, but I don't see why you should -- consider the possibility that, contrary to the (often accurate) stereotype of Americans, not all of my messages are about Americans.
Perhaps the West quote is apt about certain aspects of European society today; we've all heard things said that suggest it might be. Or perhaps not. If you as a reader find that resonance, great. If not, you might just find the quote moving as a commentary on a trait that sometimes arises in human nature, for instance in the era or eras about which West was writing.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Careful With That Inference:
- "The Idea of Self-Preservation Was as Jealously
While Europe Slept, by Bruce Bawer, an American multilingual europhilic gay man who is very very angry by the end of the book.
a) You're seriously surprised that readers might react to an extensive quote on an oft-political blog as implying something of a political nature? Seriously? It was my *first* reaction. Also, I got here via Instapundit. I also wonder why *he* linked the quote, since he did not state a reason.
b) You really think it's an American thing to assume that a writer making an allusion about a society would probably be making an allusion about his own society? That seems pretty natural to me, not specifically American. I would assume that if a writer of a large country wanted to specifically comment on the society of other cultures, that writer would do something to indicate he was doing so, and not simply expect the readers to make the jump themselves.
How does one adapt a blog to the big screen?
And which actor should play Eugene?
As to why one might think twice about drawing such an inference, recall that this was a follow-up to the earlier West quote, which was directly linked to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali court decision thread -- a thread that was all about something happening in Holland, not in America.
The Administration is proposing that we go to war with Iran as part of the GWOT, and supporters of war have repeatedly analogized proposals for the use of diplomacy instead of force as akin to the Neville Chaimberlain's failure to oppose Hitler at Munich.
In this factual and rhetorical context, is it unreasonable for commenters to read a post about absence of the courage necessary for national "self-preservation" among the British after World War I as a comment about the war on terror? This is a political blog, you are a party-line Republican who generally supports the President on national security, and the quote was offered largely without much by way of commentary.
How does one adapt a blog to the big screen?
And which actor should play Eugene?
Don Knotts?
The questions we should be asking are why that indoctrination is so unsuccessful, and why it has difficulty applying to situations like Hirsi's.
How does one adapt a blog to the big screen?
And which actor should play Eugene?
Is Peter Ustinov dead? :)
People, you're thinking inside the box. Expand your horizons a bit, and the perfect candidate becomes obvious.
Read it all. You have just read the tip of the iceberg.
The rest of the book is more romainian?
Now, you have a post in which you reference the British struggle against Nazism in a very specific manner. This is in the context of pro-war commentator's making numerous comparisons to world war II, specifically praising Churchill’s backbone in opposing the Nazi’s, with the concomitant implication that we today lack the backbone necessary to make a similar stand against today's evil (because of, take your pick, the media, the left, the ACLU, our lack of ruthlessness, academia, etc); they even call their great evil “Islamofascism,” SPECIFICALLY invoking a comparison to WWII. I mean, hell, a few days ago you even commented about the "dark days ahead."
Either you are astonishingly tonedeaf to your prose's barely concealed subtexts--something I doubt, given your obvious intelligence--or you are just being coy. Neither alternative, I fear, says much for your intellectual honesty.
The irony here is that, about a week ago, Belle Waring and the folks over at Crooked Timber got their hackles up over your post about "illegal touching," accusing you of using essentially the same rhetorical manuver that I described above. I actually came to your defense, believing them to have read far too much into it. Good to see you substantiating that defense...
I had started by commenting on what struck me as a bad response by the Dutch court -- and some Dutch neighbors -- to the Ayaan Hirsi Ali matter. I then linked that to the Rebecca West quotes that were related to courage (my first Rebecca West post). Having read more of the Rebecca West epilogue, I saw this other quote that struck me as quite interesting, and posted that, too.
I had thought that: (1) The blog's readers would understand that I sometimes find some quotes to be moving and worth passing along, and pass them along, for their eloquence and aptness on their own terms (West was writing, after all, about 1920s and 1930s England, not the 2000s). (2) If the readers really wanted to find some deeper meaning, they wouldn't assume that I was referring to America is a nation -- we're a not very pacifistic bunch, on balance -- but rather to a broader pacifist attitude that is not very common in America but that has been said to be somewhat more common in Europe.
The thought that someone would somehow mistakenly infer that I meant that "we Americans" as a nation are unwilling to defend ourselves -- contrary to the evidence that we have been quite willing to do that -- seriously didn't even cross more mind. Some readers (I have evidence of two) apparently made such a mistake. I hope the rest of our readers forgive me for not planning to adjust my blogging plans in light of that mistake.
I figure there are two possibilities. A) there is no intended subtext -- in this case, you are unfair to the author by implying one. B) there is an intended subtext -- in this case you are subverting the author by ignoring it and proceeding naively. It seems to me that this is the dominant strategy.
So we are going to go with the tone deaf option? That quote, in this context, keys into very specific rhetorical tropes. Words have meaning, and part of that meaning is determined by what other people are saying.
As far as the "tone deaf" thing, he acknowledged that others might find deeper meaning in the passage pertaining to current world affairs. Or do you mean that he was somehow unaware of his own intentions?
I will repeat myself.
It was obvious that EV was referring to the Hirsi eviction.
It is not credible to me that you could have missed that.
So you must have another agenda.
What else could explain a deliberate mis-reading of a text?
Derrida street theatre?
What is it?
It is not credible to me that you could have missed that. "
Oh, I don't deny that he was referring to the Hirsi eviction. My problem was with the way in which he generalized on the sly. BTW, Derrida street theater is a great phrase, does it have a specific origin?
"he acknowledged that others might find deeper meaning in the passage pertaining to current world affairs."
The "might" is awfully slippery and is at the heart of my objection.
I just made it up.
It seemed to describe your deliberate -- it seemed to me -- attempt to transform EV's clarity into ambiguity and confusion.
"I just made it up in your honor, Glenn B."
I, unlike some of the other posters here, am not interested in accusing you of intellectual dishonesty. But I think my interpretation of what you wrote was the most reasonable interpretation from the point of view of an objective observer. And even if your interpretation is more reasonable, mine was a reasonable interpretation that does not involve some arcane search for hidden meanings, just an ordinary unpacking of unsatated implications.
I had taken you to be saying: something along the lines of "Deciding not to attack Iran [or rejecting the recently revealed NSA program] would mean that we are not willing to fight for self-preservation." It's not at all implausible that someone would say such a thing. Imagine the following, written following a rejection in Congress of a declaratoion of war on Iran: "We have sent a message to the terrorists: you have won. Americans have lost the will to fight even for our own safety."
Given this rhetorical climate, your post *unquestionably* invokes such comparisons. Whether this was intended or not does not change this fact.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that, regarding the Walt+Mearshimer paper, plenty of people on this blog were looking out like hawks for exactly this type of rhetoric--and rightfully so.
Like this?
Why do you conflate opposition to the war in Iraq with the "war" on Islamofascism? i.e. one can -- moi, for example -- think that the the Iraq war was stupid and against our interests etc etc in part precisely because it interfered with and distracted us from fighting Islamofascism. Frankly, you can't listen to what GW Bush says on these matters -- and he doesn't say much, in fact, which will ever illuminate why he got us into this mess.
Yes, there are parallels between WW2 and its struggle against German fascism and the current one against Islamofascism. Are they perfectly parallel? Of course not. But we do face a very very serious threat and poo-pooing as a right-wing fantasy will not make it go away. It hasn't and has been abround for decades at this point.
(The Derrida Street Theater game will lose its humor if you keep doing it.)
I didn't know about West's work and probably would not have found it on my own.
I'll just thank you for posting on it, and try not to worry too much about inferences. ;)
But I think SLS 1L and Glen B. are certainly right that in this context, it's hardly surprising that folks would hear a passage on this blog in this time period equating disapproval of using military force with moral cowardice as relating to the U.S. and Iraq and/or Iran. As they have both pointed out, it's a standard rhetorical device for war proponents to analogize to WWII, with opponents being Chamberlain-esque appeasers who lack moral courage, etc. [I often suggest that war proponents and opponents should agree that the former should eschew analogies to WWII and the latter should eschew analogies to Vietnam, but nobody seems to have taken me up on that].
I'm absolutely willing to believe E.V. when he says that's not what he intended. And it's always good to remind Americans that people aren't always talking about Americans. But I'm not sure it's hard to understand why people took him a certain why.
She has the gift--or trick--of providing frequent insights which are on point and the kind of thing "I would have thought of in another minute." Except "I" would probably not.
This being Mothers' Day, I recall a piece from Black Lamb. She and her group are touring an isolated cemetery from one of the Balkans' frequent wars. The soldiers taking care of the cemetery say it's good duty, in the daytime. At night, when the dead guys are crying for their mothers, it's a different story. So are the soldiers putting the tourists on? Could a tape recorder hear "Something"? Or are the soldiers, scions of an ancient, poorly-educated, warlike culture the only ones who hear?