Reading, of all things, Harpo Marx's autobiography I really got a good sense of how vulgar, soulless, and anti-human the advent of film must have seemed to people in vaudeville. And they were right, it really did lead to the complete destruction of a great tradition of indigenous art which is now lost forever. But hey, we got some good stuff out of the results! I don't know if we're in a similar situation (certainly the people in charge of the technology now frighten me much more than say, David O. Selznick!), but it did calm me down a bit to think about.
Yes, I don't want to slip into a blasé "nothing ever changes" attitude, but I have the same mixed reactions any time I read about similar developments. Socrates's criticisms of writing are all true! And the triumph of the novel did eventually lead us to lose poetry in a meaningful way! And then the triumph of cinema displaced not only vaudeville but also literacy itself! And on and on. But also writing and the novel and cinema are great, as you say. I guess we'll see!
I finished it. Working on my review for Locus now (published in the June issue). I didn’t expect it to be so moving. I wouldn’t have guessed it from here, but you’re a softie. It’s also one those novels where people will take different things from it depending on where there interest lie. It has multitudes.
Anti-trade arguments from the left about “the dignity of the producer” have always been misguided. As the saying in development economics goes: the only thing worse than being exploited by global capitalism is not being exploited by global capitalism.
Like with Brexit, increased tariffs won’t cause society to fall apart, things will just keep on getting crummier and stupider and people will look for something else to blame. I have been surprised by the hostility towards Europe: as in other domains, the American Right seems to have countered the fantasies of the American Left of European-style democratic socialism (which doesn’t actually exist anywhere in Europe anymore) with an even more deranged view of Europe as being the functional equivalent of a Chinese-style one-party state.
And one has to admire D’Emilio’s obstinate refusal to think straight: “in the most profound sense, capitalism is the problem” although gay identity is a recent invention made possible by capitalism and non-capitalist systems display even more virulent forms of homophobia.
Thank you! I am assuming the line about re-industrialization is a half-truth—they may bring back some production, but with robots—and the real point here is decoupling from China, since a lot of the most fanatical people on the "populist" side of MAGA like Bannon, Navarro, and Posobiec, seem to be China hawks first and foremost. But it's hard to say from outside what they're thinking, further hampered by my own economic ignorance.
Reading, of all things, Harpo Marx's autobiography I really got a good sense of how vulgar, soulless, and anti-human the advent of film must have seemed to people in vaudeville. And they were right, it really did lead to the complete destruction of a great tradition of indigenous art which is now lost forever. But hey, we got some good stuff out of the results! I don't know if we're in a similar situation (certainly the people in charge of the technology now frighten me much more than say, David O. Selznick!), but it did calm me down a bit to think about.
Yes, I don't want to slip into a blasé "nothing ever changes" attitude, but I have the same mixed reactions any time I read about similar developments. Socrates's criticisms of writing are all true! And the triumph of the novel did eventually lead us to lose poetry in a meaningful way! And then the triumph of cinema displaced not only vaudeville but also literacy itself! And on and on. But also writing and the novel and cinema are great, as you say. I guess we'll see!
I finished it. Working on my review for Locus now (published in the June issue). I didn’t expect it to be so moving. I wouldn’t have guessed it from here, but you’re a softie. It’s also one those novels where people will take different things from it depending on where there interest lie. It has multitudes.
Thank you! Looking forward to your review—yes, I'm practically a sentimentalist.
Provocative as ever!
Anti-trade arguments from the left about “the dignity of the producer” have always been misguided. As the saying in development economics goes: the only thing worse than being exploited by global capitalism is not being exploited by global capitalism.
Like with Brexit, increased tariffs won’t cause society to fall apart, things will just keep on getting crummier and stupider and people will look for something else to blame. I have been surprised by the hostility towards Europe: as in other domains, the American Right seems to have countered the fantasies of the American Left of European-style democratic socialism (which doesn’t actually exist anywhere in Europe anymore) with an even more deranged view of Europe as being the functional equivalent of a Chinese-style one-party state.
And one has to admire D’Emilio’s obstinate refusal to think straight: “in the most profound sense, capitalism is the problem” although gay identity is a recent invention made possible by capitalism and non-capitalist systems display even more virulent forms of homophobia.
Thank you! I am assuming the line about re-industrialization is a half-truth—they may bring back some production, but with robots—and the real point here is decoupling from China, since a lot of the most fanatical people on the "populist" side of MAGA like Bannon, Navarro, and Posobiec, seem to be China hawks first and foremost. But it's hard to say from outside what they're thinking, further hampered by my own economic ignorance.
I can recommend Deirdre Nansen McCloskey's Bourgeois Equality:
How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo22655327.html