As I connect these days to varying degrees with my old (65-75) “liberal” friends, Patrick’s descriptor, nostalgia, seems to sum their “reality” quite well. When an old college mate, who frequently plasters her posts with rainbows and trans triangles posted her exuberance at the news that the Cheneys and other Republicans had endorsed Harris, I replied, “I would think for any progressive, Cheney support would send chills down one's spine.” I also included a link to Tim Foley’s reading of the forthright Caitlin Johnstone’s post that very day stating, “…this election is now a showdown between the Trump Party against the Cheney Party, and no matter who wins, the empire wins.
Her one line response was, “We’ll have to disagree on politics.”
Really? While I’m sure we cannot agree on everything, I’m quite sure we could make common cause on a long list of things—if they could just admit that their Blue Team has long lost its way. I know Katrina vanden Heuvel and her late husband, Stephen Cohen, didn’t agree on everything, but to her buying into the giddy-joy campaign aligned as it is to all things Russiaphobic, surely must have him spinning in his grave (or his ashes in a whirlwind).
Can you imagine living with her? Cohen was a good guy, but wow, did he have a rough existence having that female on the other side of the table. Her pomposity knows no bounds
Already, it's Putin's interfering. Of course, they will blame Jill as well. I said to another old acquaintance giddy about the Cheney endorsement, "I hope Team Blue isn't too shocked when progressives vote for Jill Stein or stay home in disgust."
"Many commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing: Kamala Harris as product, “new and improved”"
Maybe, but few have done it as thoroughly and as well.
The marketing success that you reference could not have taken place without first having the public education institutions completely captured by post modernist dogma AND the voting age lowered to eighteen.
Sorry, I don't buy that part. As just one example of how young people are often wiser (less indoctrinated), and more compassionate, than the oldsters: there are a lot more (proportionally) young people aware of and determined to oppose the genocide in Gaza (soon to be extended to the West Bank).
why i left the "left" is clearly represented by the likes of katrina vanden heuval, who ruined a journal i had subscribed to for decades, become trash.
compare this delusional poster to caitlin johnstone's recent painting of the same subject: splash blood all over this one to get a truer picture of this spew to swallow
This article resonated with me. I always enjoy reading Mr Lawrence’s work. However, this piece went beyond positing an idea that had already occurred to me, and no doubt to others. It is obvious, or ought to be, that the “Democratic” Party’s candidate is being promoted like a bar of soap or some other such product, where we are to focus on the packaging and not on its contents.
But Mr Lawrence has transcended a mere recitation of the obvious. He has provided a deep analysis of significance and meaning behind the “Politics of Joy” as represented by the poster. This is what I believe makes the current article especially brilliant.
It occurs to me that much could be gained by a comparative study of the iconography associated with the other “major party” candidate: Flower Power Politics of Joy contrasted with Defiant Fist in the Air Politics of Anger. In both cases there is an effort to touch an emotional nerve. But they differ in that there is much to be angry about, while there is very little reason for joy.
I must acknowledge, though, that when it comes to at least some of the most important current foreign policy matters, neither candidate offers anything to be happy about.
Looks like when I finish my rereading of Wendell Berry’s “The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice,” I’ll be downloading Dufourmantelle’s book. With another school shooting it is hard for me not to return to the extraordinary events in the 2006 Amish school shooting. “To risk one’s life”—this is exactly what the oldest girl in the class did—thirteen years old—when she said, “Shoot me first,” hoping her death might forestall other killings. In the end, five girls were dead with five more severely injured before Roberts turned the gun on himself.
In the immediate aftermath, the Amish community visited and comforted Roberts' widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts' sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. They also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter.
Who does that?! It would seem the answer would be those who understand the price of costly grace—a people who follow as best they can in their imperfection a man who forgave even in his bloody agony.
"The imagery seems, somehow, an almost criminal violation of human intelligence."
The sociopaths who rule over us say "So what, as long as it works?" It worked for Obama in 2008 (remember "Hope"?), maybe the old magic can be revived, and, long as she keeps her piehole shut, voters can project whatever they want on Harris.
Meanwhile, the fact that none other than Dick Cheney has endorsed her should speak volumes about what a Harris administration will actually look like. "But as long as we have tasteful graphics, abortion and gay rights, that makes genocide okay!" chime the liberals.
Precisely! The "Hope" trope. I watched it work! Could not believe it...what was left of my faith in the electorate evaporated until it sneaked back in through the side door for a brief encore (before it could be slammed ) in 2016.
I'm old enough to remember when Democratic Senators like J William Fulbright, William Proxmire, Wayne Morse, Robert F Kennedy, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, and Frank Church spoke out loudly and often against Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war policies. Today's Democrats provide cover for Biden's genocidal policies against the Palestinians, and his escalation of the proxy war in Ukraine against nuclear-armed Russia. And to add to the insult we have Democratic partisans cheering the endorsement of Kamala by one of the most evil creatures on the planet, Dick Cheney.
No one voted for these policies, no one voted for Kamala. Why would anyone with functioning brain cells support this Party and its undemocratically appointed candidate?
Patrick: “Nostalgia, I have long argued, is at bottom a symptom of depression. Nostalgists are those who retreat into the past as a refuge from a present they find in one or another way unbearable”.
I have found it odd how people such as Patrick have morphed the word nostalgia into a pejorative. At its root is Ancient Greek for a longing for home. This I would posit is a fundamental human emotion. Cross cultural. Why then is a longing for home a sign of depression Patrick?
Thanks your v refined etymology, August. And thanks, Blimax, for your useful response.
I did not use the term, or reference the notalgist's impulse to retreat, with any thought of the ancient Greek. Words accrete meanings over long periods of time. I learned this when I acquired, years ago, the original OED, reduced down to two volumes w/ four pages facsimilied onto each page. You learn language this way. Egregious: We all know the meaning nowadays, and it is pejorative. The original meaning, again Greek, referred to a sheep that was taller than the rest of the flock so that its head stuck out above the others. I mention this as a case in point .
My reference to nostalgia as a form of depression, and you haven't persuaded me to step back from my meaning, derives from personal experience. I knew a person in whom the retreat into the past was strong, almost defining of the personlity, and it was evident to me as I thought about this person over time that the root of it was a discomfort, a deep disappointment, that the present was not as the past was, or as this person recalled it.
I'd rather not say more and have perhaps said too mcuh already. But it was from this experience I learned to intrepret nostalgia as I do, and this interpretation tends generally to hold. I think it certainly does in this case.
I don't think he was using it as a pejorative but more as a descriptive term. As for its meaning, note that the root also contains a reference to "pain", or "άλγος".
Maybe you're right on substance, but on the other hand, it may be that one should distinguish between a fondness for home, which does not in and of itself imply a rejection of the present, and a painful longing for a past that serves as a refuge from the present.
The left journey from good intention to a facile immaturity is also accompanied by straightforward hatred of the people and interests that Donald Trump represents. The left is full of hatred and most particularly self loathing; they hate their fellow Americans. To be fair, those feelings of hatred are reciprocated.
Yeah, real leftism has never been tried. But maybe that’s not useful, maybe all theories that come to contact with the real world are always distorted and the real left argument is just whistling past the graveyard.
For the purposes of this essay, the left are people who would vote for Kamala Harris. Simple yes?
Depends what you mean about the 'real world.' does this mean just the USA? Because if it does US is NOT the real world to me.
You live in a bubble.
"For the purpose o this essay, the left are people who would vote for Kamala Harris." I understand what you are saying but it makes me realise that you have no understanding of History?
I lived in the USA for 23yrs and was called a "Pinko/Communist outside the left wing Canyon where we lived.
My daughter was in school for all those years and she still doesn't understand left from right.
Here living in France we have a HUGE problem with regard to left and right......the difference is we are EDUCATED. This is why we are on the street protesting Macron policies.
You are most welcoem, Zanizibar, & thank you the encouraging words.
You may want to make one correction in your version. The title of the Dufourmantelle book in the Fordham Univ. Press translation is "In Praise of Risk."
Thank you for your answer, maybe I misunderstood your comment about the title of the book by Anne Dufourmantelle, which, in French, is "Éloge du risque".
I also want to thank you for your precious articles that I offer regularly and in free access to readers.
It is thanks to my total involvement in the fight for Assange/ WikiLeaks for more than 5 years that I have been able to extend the field of authors I want to make known in France where investigatin and analysis journalism is very poor even if, "thanks to" Macron, it tends to develop.
When the poster first dropped, some wag asked, “I’m not really into fashion these days, but is it appropriate to wear white to a genocide?"
As I connect these days to varying degrees with my old (65-75) “liberal” friends, Patrick’s descriptor, nostalgia, seems to sum their “reality” quite well. When an old college mate, who frequently plasters her posts with rainbows and trans triangles posted her exuberance at the news that the Cheneys and other Republicans had endorsed Harris, I replied, “I would think for any progressive, Cheney support would send chills down one's spine.” I also included a link to Tim Foley’s reading of the forthright Caitlin Johnstone’s post that very day stating, “…this election is now a showdown between the Trump Party against the Cheney Party, and no matter who wins, the empire wins.
Her one line response was, “We’ll have to disagree on politics.”
Really? While I’m sure we cannot agree on everything, I’m quite sure we could make common cause on a long list of things—if they could just admit that their Blue Team has long lost its way. I know Katrina vanden Heuvel and her late husband, Stephen Cohen, didn’t agree on everything, but to her buying into the giddy-joy campaign aligned as it is to all things Russiaphobic, surely must have him spinning in his grave (or his ashes in a whirlwind).
Stephen Cohen was very good. On the John bachelor show he described exactly what’s happening now. I think his wife is an idiot.
Agreed. Stephen once made mention of their fraught dinner time conversations. I commend them both for loving each other.
Can you imagine living with her? Cohen was a good guy, but wow, did he have a rough existence having that female on the other side of the table. Her pomposity knows no bounds
Watch the liberals pile on excuse after excuse.
Hadn't seen your posts in a while!
Already, it's Putin's interfering. Of course, they will blame Jill as well. I said to another old acquaintance giddy about the Cheney endorsement, "I hope Team Blue isn't too shocked when progressives vote for Jill Stein or stay home in disgust."
The are already floating the blaming Iran narrative too
Cheney's endorsement won't turn away a significant number of voters. Those who want to vote for Harris will find an excuse to do so.
.
"Many commentators have attempted to describe the astonishing devolution of Democratic Party politics into sheer marketing: Kamala Harris as product, “new and improved”"
Maybe, but few have done it as thoroughly and as well.
Force Of..
Thanks this kind and encouraging remark.
This column was what I call a tooth-pull. It took days to get it right.
Grateful your reading and regular presence in the comment threads.
P.L.
Force Of...
This is a very kind remark. Thanks for it.
This column was what I call a tooth-pull. It took days to get it right.
Thanks your reading and regular presence in the comment threads.
P. L.
The marketing success that you reference could not have taken place without first having the public education institutions completely captured by post modernist dogma AND the voting age lowered to eighteen.
'...AND the voting age lowered to eighteen."
Sorry, I don't buy that part. As just one example of how young people are often wiser (less indoctrinated), and more compassionate, than the oldsters: there are a lot more (proportionally) young people aware of and determined to oppose the genocide in Gaza (soon to be extended to the West Bank).
why i left the "left" is clearly represented by the likes of katrina vanden heuval, who ruined a journal i had subscribed to for decades, become trash.
compare this delusional poster to caitlin johnstone's recent painting of the same subject: splash blood all over this one to get a truer picture of this spew to swallow
This article resonated with me. I always enjoy reading Mr Lawrence’s work. However, this piece went beyond positing an idea that had already occurred to me, and no doubt to others. It is obvious, or ought to be, that the “Democratic” Party’s candidate is being promoted like a bar of soap or some other such product, where we are to focus on the packaging and not on its contents.
But Mr Lawrence has transcended a mere recitation of the obvious. He has provided a deep analysis of significance and meaning behind the “Politics of Joy” as represented by the poster. This is what I believe makes the current article especially brilliant.
It occurs to me that much could be gained by a comparative study of the iconography associated with the other “major party” candidate: Flower Power Politics of Joy contrasted with Defiant Fist in the Air Politics of Anger. In both cases there is an effort to touch an emotional nerve. But they differ in that there is much to be angry about, while there is very little reason for joy.
I must acknowledge, though, that when it comes to at least some of the most important current foreign policy matters, neither candidate offers anything to be happy about.
[Reposting my comment from CN.]
People should be angry.
Looks like when I finish my rereading of Wendell Berry’s “The Need to Be Whole: Patriotism and the History of Prejudice,” I’ll be downloading Dufourmantelle’s book. With another school shooting it is hard for me not to return to the extraordinary events in the 2006 Amish school shooting. “To risk one’s life”—this is exactly what the oldest girl in the class did—thirteen years old—when she said, “Shoot me first,” hoping her death might forestall other killings. In the end, five girls were dead with five more severely injured before Roberts turned the gun on himself.
In the immediate aftermath, the Amish community visited and comforted Roberts' widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts' sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him. They also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter.
Who does that?! It would seem the answer would be those who understand the price of costly grace—a people who follow as best they can in their imperfection a man who forgave even in his bloody agony.
"The imagery seems, somehow, an almost criminal violation of human intelligence."
The sociopaths who rule over us say "So what, as long as it works?" It worked for Obama in 2008 (remember "Hope"?), maybe the old magic can be revived, and, long as she keeps her piehole shut, voters can project whatever they want on Harris.
Meanwhile, the fact that none other than Dick Cheney has endorsed her should speak volumes about what a Harris administration will actually look like. "But as long as we have tasteful graphics, abortion and gay rights, that makes genocide okay!" chime the liberals.
Precisely! The "Hope" trope. I watched it work! Could not believe it...what was left of my faith in the electorate evaporated until it sneaked back in through the side door for a brief encore (before it could be slammed ) in 2016.
I'm old enough to remember when Democratic Senators like J William Fulbright, William Proxmire, Wayne Morse, Robert F Kennedy, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, and Frank Church spoke out loudly and often against Democratic President Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war policies. Today's Democrats provide cover for Biden's genocidal policies against the Palestinians, and his escalation of the proxy war in Ukraine against nuclear-armed Russia. And to add to the insult we have Democratic partisans cheering the endorsement of Kamala by one of the most evil creatures on the planet, Dick Cheney.
No one voted for these policies, no one voted for Kamala. Why would anyone with functioning brain cells support this Party and its undemocratically appointed candidate?
Patrick: “Nostalgia, I have long argued, is at bottom a symptom of depression. Nostalgists are those who retreat into the past as a refuge from a present they find in one or another way unbearable”.
I have found it odd how people such as Patrick have morphed the word nostalgia into a pejorative. At its root is Ancient Greek for a longing for home. This I would posit is a fundamental human emotion. Cross cultural. Why then is a longing for home a sign of depression Patrick?
Thanks your v refined etymology, August. And thanks, Blimax, for your useful response.
I did not use the term, or reference the notalgist's impulse to retreat, with any thought of the ancient Greek. Words accrete meanings over long periods of time. I learned this when I acquired, years ago, the original OED, reduced down to two volumes w/ four pages facsimilied onto each page. You learn language this way. Egregious: We all know the meaning nowadays, and it is pejorative. The original meaning, again Greek, referred to a sheep that was taller than the rest of the flock so that its head stuck out above the others. I mention this as a case in point .
My reference to nostalgia as a form of depression, and you haven't persuaded me to step back from my meaning, derives from personal experience. I knew a person in whom the retreat into the past was strong, almost defining of the personlity, and it was evident to me as I thought about this person over time that the root of it was a discomfort, a deep disappointment, that the present was not as the past was, or as this person recalled it.
I'd rather not say more and have perhaps said too mcuh already. But it was from this experience I learned to intrepret nostalgia as I do, and this interpretation tends generally to hold. I think it certainly does in this case.
P.L.
I don't think he was using it as a pejorative but more as a descriptive term. As for its meaning, note that the root also contains a reference to "pain", or "άλγος".
Maybe you're right on substance, but on the other hand, it may be that one should distinguish between a fondness for home, which does not in and of itself imply a rejection of the present, and a painful longing for a past that serves as a refuge from the present.
You forgot bigotry.
The left journey from good intention to a facile immaturity is also accompanied by straightforward hatred of the people and interests that Donald Trump represents. The left is full of hatred and most particularly self loathing; they hate their fellow Americans. To be fair, those feelings of hatred are reciprocated.
If not hatred what exactly animates our society?
What 'left?"
You?
I don't see any "left" in the USA.
Yeah, real leftism has never been tried. But maybe that’s not useful, maybe all theories that come to contact with the real world are always distorted and the real left argument is just whistling past the graveyard.
For the purposes of this essay, the left are people who would vote for Kamala Harris. Simple yes?
Diamond boy.
Depends what you mean about the 'real world.' does this mean just the USA? Because if it does US is NOT the real world to me.
You live in a bubble.
"For the purpose o this essay, the left are people who would vote for Kamala Harris." I understand what you are saying but it makes me realise that you have no understanding of History?
I lived in the USA for 23yrs and was called a "Pinko/Communist outside the left wing Canyon where we lived.
My daughter was in school for all those years and she still doesn't understand left from right.
Here living in France we have a HUGE problem with regard to left and right......the difference is we are EDUCATED. This is why we are on the street protesting Macron policies.
Better than splendid. Thank you for such a brilliant analysis of the insanity and utter infantilization of an entire population.
This poster could've come out of a Barbie colouring book! What the artist forgot when he designed it was the abundant blood spatter!
If my cat looked at me like that I would think it’s ready to attack.
Remember the 1960s era poster "War is not healthy for Children..."
https://images.app.goo.gl/dPbcazwJGZcGHjCH9
Thank you Mr Lawrence for this article. I will buy and read "Éloge du risque" from Anne Dufourmantelle that you made me discover.
Translated in French on my Substack account. https://zanzibar.substack.com/p/kamala-et-la-gauche-qui-se-berce
You are most welcoem, Zanizibar, & thank you the encouraging words.
You may want to make one correction in your version. The title of the Dufourmantelle book in the Fordham Univ. Press translation is "In Praise of Risk."
It is good to come out in French.
Kindest regards.
P.L>
Thank you for your answer, maybe I misunderstood your comment about the title of the book by Anne Dufourmantelle, which, in French, is "Éloge du risque".
I also want to thank you for your precious articles that I offer regularly and in free access to readers.
It is thanks to my total involvement in the fight for Assange/ WikiLeaks for more than 5 years that I have been able to extend the field of authors I want to make known in France where investigatin and analysis journalism is very poor even if, "thanks to" Macron, it tends to develop.
Best regards,
Zanzibar