cheese it, the cops!

things i wrote this year

I reviewed a couple of books for the Times Literary Supplement: John Kaag's wonderful Hiking with Nietzsche, the incomparable James C. Scott's Against the Grain

For the New York Times' "Stone" series (the thing cannot possibly be described as a 'blog') I wrote on The Oscars and the Illusion of Perfect Representation

I haven't been rolling the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal quite as heavy as I had been the previous couple of years, but I notched a few: Mark Zuckerberg or Xi Jinping? Russian memes didn't steal the election, rural voters' pride and left's prejudice, the opposite flaws of trump and mueller, hatred enhaces your self-esteem

I had a couple of essays in the Los Angeles Review of Books' Philosophical Salon: western philosophy as white supremacism and before and beyond left and right (in early 19th c america)

For Times Higher Education I did an essay on some of the difficulties i'm having in teaching today's undergrads

For Standpoint I recapitulated my ridicule of Ludwig Wittgenstein

 

I must be getting toward two hundred columns for splicetoday over the last few years. In praise of my outlet I want to say that splice gives you some of the liveliest and most various and fun writing you'll find. Some 2019ly items:

I solved Brexit through the miracle of mereology

refuted Fukuyama and identified the actual end of history

narwhal horns and moral scorekeeping

mass shootings and the stories we tell ourselves

the powerlessness of positive thinking

male aging memoir: short version

reviewed or discussed visual art, as Pat Steir at the Barnes Foundation, arte povera at the Philly Museum, art and capitalism in Bentonville (Crystal Bridges), the art of suiseki landscape stones

i began a series of resoundings or recoveries of somewhat-forgotten recording artists, or lost-and-found musical loves: The Bellamy Brothers, Augustus Pablo, the Kendalls, Blue Angel (Cyndi Lauper), and Ann Peebles. There will be more of these as time unfolds.

i covered country music from time to time (and see above): steel blossoms, the highwomen, self-dramatization in cody jinks and miranda lambert, 2019 top ten

wrote about race, gender, identity politics, pc, free speech: break the glass floor; sexual abuse and political power, apologizing for whiteness; white guys: collectable, electable; his pronouns are 'they' and 'them'; trump, tropes, and the jews, 

masculinity, psychology, and servility

higher ed, which is struggling these days: hunting humans on campus, mandate campus free speech with a new title IX;  the ridiculous state of campus journalism

i covered some of the debates and impeachment developments and, in general, politics: joe biden rattletrap, intel will pick the next pres, the wrong word, whatever you do, don't elect the unelectable, there's no such thing as electability, 2020 will make 2016 look like a more innocent time, how elizabeth warren started her slide, (maybe this wasn't so prescient): biden and sanders are fading, trumpism after trump

media and such: against copyright, the wrong word is the least of our problems, yo, opinion editors, stop this practice immediately, the conspiracy theory is fake news

 

some piecey blog entries: how thoreau became a radical, ragging mr. rogers, 'ok boomer' and the fiction of generations, mao meets macklemore, quotations from chairman joe, masculinity, psychology, and servility, i just can't get no reception, the washington post opinion page and the cia: no distance, nicholas sandmann and nathan phillips (remember them?) both did well, homo economicus replaced by saints

On Sophia/bloggingheads I argued with Dan Kaufman about wittgenstein, the western phil as white supremacism essay, realism anti-realism and g.e. moore, the analytic/continental split, TRUTH

I think early in the New Year I'll have long pieces in Reason and Quillette, among others. I'm working through Robert Brandom's unbelievable book A Spirit of Trust (750 pages on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, but also about everything else; it is itself a philosophical system) for the TLS right now.

2018 sartwelliana

recent items

 

wsj: are rural conservatives voting against their own interests? [pdf]

splicetoday: elizabeth warren lost the debate.

resounding: augustus pablo's rasta hymnody

 

previous resoundings: ann peebles, blue angel (cyndi lauper), the kendalls, the bellamy brothers

as biden and sanders fade, trump removal is urgent

2020 is going to make 2016 look like an innocent time

free speech: a visceral defense

nostalgia for automobile

the highwomen redeem america (or at least americana)

op-ed as advertising

 

 

 

 

 

Video or stand-up version of my @splicetoday column on the CNN debate, night 1: Marianne Williamson, Amy Klobuchar, and Death. Sorry about the thumbnail; I look hostile. But I'm really very nice.

Recent items:

 

wsj: the opposite flaws of trump and mueller

splicetoday: art and capitalism in bentonville

times literary supplement: an authoritative but anti-authoritarian account of 'the dawn of civilization' (review of the great james c. scott's against the grain) [drive]

times higher eduction: teaching beauty and existentialism to the students of now  {drive}

larb philosophical salon: western philosophy as white supremacism

wsj: hatred enhances your self-esteem

Rolling pretty good these days!

Crispin the YouTube Pundit on the second debate and why Joe Biden should dissipate.

Joe Biden, Rattletrap

The video version.

 

I'm going to read/footnote my column for SpliceToday every week on YouTube. I might go back and grab some of my favorites from the last few years as well.

 

items

wsj: Nothing the Russians or anyone else can do on social media can in itself delegitimize any election. 

pdf

splicetoday: Male Aging Memoir, Short Version

"Spying' is not the wrong word. But even if it was...(investigate the investigation)

Resounding: The Kendalls (an appreciation of the father/daughter act's classic cheating songs)

guilty of whiteness

 

 

recent splicetoday things:

 

apologizing for whiteness is not the worst idea

resounding: the bellamy brothers (first of a series, reaching back and re-appreciating)

mass shootings as a kind of nihilism (perhaps ideology and, like, social media, are not the problem)

go ahead and have babies if you want (prediction, in 30 years the world will still be beautiful)

how to write an executive order on free speech (a new title ix)

hunting the ultimate game (on campus and congress)

 

 

 

recent items

splicetoday: Fukuyama described the fictional end of a fictional history. This one is real. (also a quick precis of my political orientation)

wsj: Who do you want controlling your internet, Mark Zuckerberg or Xi Jinping?   (or here)

splice: copyright is obviously incompatible with the basic values of scholarship

splice: the scandals at lincoln center and the nature of art

sartwelliana, 2018

Some of my writing this year, especially for splicetoday:

Music: on my stereo and in  my head, a lot of the year was occupied by classic gospel, say 1940-80; gospel music as women's liberation, 80th birthday tribute to the great Shirley Caesar, country enters its postmodern era (2018 top ten),  hippie goddesses of the 1970s (Bonnie Raitt, Maria Muldaur, Linda Ronstadt, Tracy Nelson), stoner country (Commander Cody, Asleep at the Wheel, NRPS), Chrissie Hynde, best pop artist of the last 40 years, happy birthday, 'stand by your man'.

For whatever reason I didn't do a shitload of humor this year, but I did pen a stirring tribute to Philip Roth's obituarists. I tried to rehabilitate my tarnished brand with an apology to America.

I tried to sketch out my basic politics in a triptych: why i am not a leftist, why I'm not on the right, why i am an anti-authoritarian. 

Attacks on pc, identity politics, representation etc.: the dead end of demographic politics (wsj), dna and politics, kanye west and susan collins: shredded by intersectionality, "looks like me", 'researcher' announces stunning result: we're all the same, King meets Zuckerberg, pc entertainment as medieval allegory, bad words, the punditry of personal destruction, self-esteem and bauxite, Anna Deavere Smith and the ridiculous reception of Black Panther

Gender: conversion therapy isn't the cure for toxic masculinity (wsj), boys, we will survive, we old dudes should mistrust ourselves, holidays and gender

'Why They Suck" is winding down, but I got to michelangelo, harry potter, bill gates, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Richard Serra.

Religion and spirituality: (see gospel music stuff, above), beckoning god from his fastness, i advocate the doctrine of original sin (nytimes), priestly abuse is central to catholicism .

Personal/philosophical excursions: fall in the south mountain fruit belt, weekend dad, a very short memoir, how to be original, how much distance?, review of james c. scott 'against the grain', george lakoff and the pseudo-science of neuropropaganda (wsj)

Politics, Trump, and so on: perjury factory, fuck me, i'm going to vote democrat tomorrow, apocalypse in the theatrocracy, re-narrating american history is an old persuasive tactic, american institutions have earned our distrust (wsj), two (or three) kinds of dishonesty, slavery, immigration, and civil disobedience, grooving on the world order in danger, america's intelligence coup, the domestic threat to american elections, american politics is filthy, polarization and the counter-factual crisis, how to argue with a young socialist (wsj), i want donald trump to hold me while i cry, politics and geography, children: our treasures our targets, trump and brexit as repudiations of technocracy

How Would You Draw History?

recent items

NYTimes: How Would You Draw History?

SpliceToday: How Much Distance?

Why They Suck: Richard Serra, Tear Down This Wall

(and the why they suck hall of fame)

Fuck Me, I'm Going to Vote Democrat Tomorrow

America, There is Hope (for Country Music)

  

i just want trump to hold me while i cry

Everyone on television appears to want to be consoled and inspired by the same people who coerce them. Not that I'm diagnosing, of course, but I think of anyone who is begging for a president to care for them, or who has spent a lot of time thinking about what they wish the president would say to them,  as . . . sexually complex, but definitely compliant. I respect that, of course.

 

Consoled by Presidents

By Crispin Sartwell

Article II of the Constitution, somewhat cryptically, enumerates the powers and obligations of the President: he is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, for example. He has the power to make treaties, appoint various officers of the United States (with the advice and consent of the Senate), and to grant reprieves and pardons. He has the duty to report to Congress on the state of the Union and to see that the laws are faithfully executed.

Conspicuous by omission is what many politicians and pundits evidently regard as one of the core functions of the executive, which we might think of as therapeutic. At times of national trauma - these days, that seems to be all the time - it is apparently the duty of the President to "bring us all together," to "speak words of healing and unity," to be the "consoler-in-chief." We expect our President to bring a sense of hope to all of us in this difficult moment of dummy bombs, hurricanes, and mass shootings. Article II, that is, omits one of the President's most sacred duties: to hold us while we cry. Or at least to convey the impression that, if he could, he would reach out from our televisions and draw us all into a group hug.

Abraham Lincoln, as we learned in school, brought all Americans together with his immortal words, even as his generals burned their way across Georgia. After immolating Waco, Bill Clinton felt our pain and held us as we went through it, though he was also rubbing up against us in a somewhat disconcerting way.

In this regard, many people are very disappointed with Trump, who often appears to be too self-involved to perform the emotional duties of his office. Many pundits portray themselves or at least Americans other than themselves as in need of a sort of national Mister Rogers, to explain this puzzling world to us and convince us televisually, in a deep and quietly melodious voice, that everything will be okay. Even as Donald Trump gets blamed for the bombs, for example, the President of the United States is expected to provide words of healing. Now that is emotional labor.

Feminist sociologist Arlie Hochschild came up with the idea of "emotional labor" in the 1980s to describe, for example, the unenumerated duties of someone working as a waitress: all the smiling, expressions of connection or concern, the self-effacement in the face even of abuse. It is one way, for example, of describing some of the traditional duties of the housewife: to see to everyone's feelings as well as their bodily needs, and hence keep the family functional.

Writing in Quartz, Leah Fessler gives a typical description of emotional labor, both in the office - "constantly smiling, making small talk, planning birthday celebrations, cleaning up after celebrations" - and outside it - "endless texting to help siblings through breakups, evaluating whether friends' hookups were fully consensual, cleaning roommates' dishes." "It is time we start recognizing this unpaid labor, which is disproportionately performed by women," writes Fessler. And by presidents.

That Americans allegedly want to be nurtured or consoled, by the same person who, in faithful execution of the laws, operates the Federal prison system, or who is to see that the taxes are collected, or who can press the nuclear button, annihilating life on earth, is puzzling in a way; there's no particular reason to think these functions ought to be combined. It seems, really, that we want a national Dad to discipline and protect us and a national Mom to do the emotional dishes and rock us to sleep, as European nations split their authority figures into President and Prime Minister.

Now, one may be somewhat puzzled by the power of the President to console a wounded nation. He speaks to all of us in general and none of us in particular. When he is doing the emotional labor we expect, he is uttering highly conventionalized words, like a customer-service representative. We know exactly what he is supposed to say before he says anything - "This is not who we are as Americans," for example. President Obama reached the point, after responding in the conventional fashion to a number of mass shootings, where he remarked on the futility he felt in speaking at all: "Somehow this has become routine," he said after a 2015 shooting in Oregon. "My response here, from this podium, has become routine." And yet he produced the required response anyway, because he acknowledged our deep need.

Perhaps Article II can be amended to enumerate a list of emotional duties within the purview of the executive, and then Trump can be impeached on the grounds that he has failed to perform some of them satisfactorily. Admittedly, the amendment process will be difficult in this partisan environment. But I have faith that it will happen. After all, even in the darkest times, Americans have always risen together to meet every challenge.

***********

Here's Donna Brazile on "This Week":

 

Here's Kathleen Parker, again telling Donald Trump, word for word, what she wants to hear from him. What good it is going to do her or any of us to operate Donald Trump like a sock puppet is anyone's guess.

That people think this way about political leadership, or rather about government power - that it should nurture and heal them, and tell them what is true and not - is a pretty good candidate for the fatal evolutionary flaw that will bring us to extinction. 

it overlaps with this and this for splice

recent items

splicetoday:

okay. for real. i'll shut up now. (on old men and #metoo)

stoner country (new riders of the purple sage, asleep at the wheel, grateful dead, commander cody)

apocalypse in the theatrocracry

the fight for the soul of america (mccain, etc)

country needs women (sister sadie, the great all-female bluegrass band)

 

wall street journal: how to argue with a young socialist (on google drive)

 

 

recent hits

wsj: george lakoff and the pseudo-science of neuropropaganda*

splice: we're all the same damn thing

how to be original (for real)

two (or three) kinds of honesty

 

 

 

 

recent material

An Apology to the American People

Keep your hands off my . . . gender

The Roth Obituaries: a Tribute

Why I am an Anti-Authoritarian

Original Sin, You've Got Yourself a Case

 

original sin and rebellion

nytimes: what's good about original sin

splice: why i'm an anti-authoritarian

recent items

splicetoday: gospel music as liberation, how strong women made it from bessie smith to janis joplin

the great nathaniel peabody rogers on how to write, unpublished since 1842

why they suck: w.e.b. dubois

reality and representation: martin luther king on facebook

pc entertainment as medieval allegory

nonsense demography

it's true! i'm in the wall street journal today. i think people have failed to see something pretty glaring about analyzing politics, or prosecuting it, primarily through demographic categories. namely, that the thing is incoherent. incoherent, i tell you.

last few splicetoday columns:

boys: we will survive

american and world politics is reconfiguring very quickly

why bill gates sucks

children: our treasures, our targets

 

 

 

this week for splice: the magic of words

oops, last week: to redress the sex, we'd better try to address the power

for the wall street journal: the modern epic of denunciation. a couple of related pieces:

the president of the united states of america: god, slave, scapegoat

i need a comforter-in-chief

it's true! i'm in the nytimes today, developing my brand-new theory of history. 

fuck! it's world-history on horseback. 

i wonder who you think are world history's greatest dumbfucks and fuckwads. perhaps i'll write a book.

in a similar vein from the latimes 2005 or so: my explorer, hernando de soto.

splicetoday: the march of euphemism. the key to human liberation is to replace bad words with neutral-sounding words. then those words sound wrong, and we'll need new ones, forever. still, at least we'll all be free. okay, not to go all pointed, but the people who think that word replacement and censorious editing constitute substantive blows for the resistance are, you know, 'idiots, imbeciles, the feeble-minded, and moral defectives.' or to be fair - they are saying with the utmost apparent sincerity and intensity what they and we know very well to be false: that words create reality. obviously, harvey weinstein can learn to talk like a feminist and just keep right on with the abuse. correct?

total depravity

I'm a Quaker, which is sort of an opposite form of Protestant Christianity, but let's just say I've always felt to the pull of a more puritanical approach. Also I've been teaching Jonathan Edwards again. Here's my splicetoday column this week, noting that the doctrine of original sin has a certain plausibility.

 

splice, yesterday

it won't surprise you that i, like you, am terribly in need of a comforter-in-chief. 

A brief history of me in opinion journalism

I started writing op-ed for the Nashville Banner (the afternoon daily, now defunct) in the early '90s when I was working at Vanderbilt. In the mid-to-late nineties I was more or less weekly for the Philadelphia Inquirer, probably 200 pieces, and had a few dozen in the Los Angeles Times. 2001-2004 or so, I did a weekly column for Creators' Syndicate, and a series of longer pieces in the Baltimore Sun. Success with Creators was limited, but I've probably been in every US daily one way or another. I did some essays for Weekend All Things Considered, and did place a couple back in the day with the Washington Post, though Lord knows I've been pitching them with some futility for many a year.

I left Creators when I fell in love with blogging; no editing can be seductive. But some items/runs from the last few years:

 

The Atlantic online

A Leap of Atheist Faith (but now I'm a Quaker)

The Left-Right Political Spectrum is Bogus

The Credibility Index

 

New York Times

My Walden, My Wal-Mart

The School of Arthur Danto

Poe v Twain: Can We Improve?

Andy Warhol and the Persistence of Modernism

 

Los Angeles Times

How to Have Taste: Jeff Koons's Popeye

Should Miley Cyrus Wear Dreadlocks?

 

Wall Street Journal

This is the Golden Age of the Written Word

Styles of Masculinity in the Trump Admin

Left or Right? Thoreau Wouldn't Have Understood the Question

Fiestas and Apples: Small-Town Life Before Trump

Getting Metaphysical About the Post-Truth Era

The Wax Presidency Wanes

[there's one more? but which?]

 

I've done some book reviews for the Times Literary Supplement. Here one.

Into the Fifth Phase

 

And of course, I've done maybe 70 or 80 pieces in SpliceToday over the last year and a half.

 

 

here's a bonus splicetoday column on the death of free expression in contemporary america. it's the one thing that left and alt right can really agree on.

true, true, i'm in the wall street journal today, writing about donald trump and styles of presidential mannishness. the wsj has been infiltrated by judith-butler-style gender theory, for one thing.

we've really had some busters.

it's been great to write about gender and politics over the last year. hillary too.

really, however, the manliest pres was william howard taft, who practiced manspreading as a sort of science.

 

admittedly, there was little of girlishness in the mien of zachary taylor.

 

this week in splicetoday: oh no! we lost the war on vulgarity. man events swamp columns these days.

oaxaca in a wyeth

I'm in the Wall Street Journal today, writing again about immigration in rural PA.

[that's my house]

here is a really good piece on immigration in this area from the voice of america.