Ginny

Age: 77 Place: Originally Nebraska, now Texas Family: Husband, 3 daughters, 3 sons-in-law, 3 grandchildren Occupation: Retired Education: BA, MA Nebraska; Ph.D. UT-Austin Work On hhe Double (1979-1992); taught: ta Austin, Blinn Jr. College (1993-20015), Kelly Girls intermittently.

The Great Unifier

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To win wars, clean up oil spills, or define domestic policies, don’t we need to work together? Isn’t the president’s most important duty – the one that lies under all those others – to unify? I suspect that was the founders’ thoughts, since the presidency is the one post for which the entire country votes.

Sure, I saw enough of BDS to suspect Bush less culpable than his audience; I’m trying to be objective. And the leftist pundits are unhappy. Still, crazy as they are, they aren’t the thugs at polling booth doors – nor responsible for the large numbers at Tea Party rallies.

Surfing responses, I was struck by Luntz’s focus group: the more Obama talked the more reactions diverged; his audience became intensely argumentative. Some were attracted to populist rhetoric and others turned off by it.

My impression of past polls is despite a good-sized discrepancy on many issues, the lines were roughly parallel. The more knowledgeable might remark whether this divergence is common. Perhaps it isn’t a big deal. I hope not. We don’t need an increasingly polarized country. But though I would like us all to at least minimally get along and be more productive, that doesn’t mean I’m buying much if any of the goods Obama was selling last night.

And What is an Educated Man?

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Many (Foster here, Instapundit) have argued education is a “bubble” a good oversold and overpriced. Like most “bubbles”, this has begun with a good our founders understood only a literate society could successfully manage a democracy; a sense of history and perspective equips us against a demagogue. Education gives a longer perspective, so we are less likely to sell our birthrights for a mess of pottage. Universal, public education is necessary for a meritocracy.

But, like many large problems, this one is overdetermined.

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Smugness – And Simplicity

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There’s reality-based and there’s smug-based. Today, I was defining terms used often by Americans around the founding. (Doing an on-line course has forced me to be more precise and less airy – perhaps bullshitty is the appropriate word – than on-site teaching.) Googling “human nature”, the Merriam-Webster definition, first used in the 1500’s arises: “the nature of humans; especially : the fundamental dispositions and traits of humans.” Good enough. It linked the lengthier Britannica definition. This begins with the simplified traditional question: is man intrinsically selfish and competitive – as Hobbes and Locke would argue – or intrinsically social and altruistic – as Durkheim and Marx would argue. So this is how some saw (see) the divisions – such stark simplicity! Ah, some care and love humans; others don’t. The scripts and asides in class and subtle accusations in arguments write themselves. So, I tartly framed this for my students, observing that those who see man as altruistic have certainly proved it by murdering a hundred million of them in the last century.

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Personal Plug: The Victorians, Darwin & Lit Crit

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The first review of my husband’s book, Masculinity in Four Victorian Epics is out. He’s published a lot on Matthew Arnold, Victorian autobiographies, the Czechs, but this is his first full-length critical work using Darwinian criticism. This isn’t exactly a literary blog, but Tod Williams (who, in good peer review fashion we don’t know, but appers friendly to this methodology) reminds me of the way literature used to be approached.

My husband was attracted to this method: he argues it was growing up on a farm and reading Tennyson in the truck on the way to the feed store that made it natural. On another plane, of course, as the reviewer notes: “It should come as no surprise that an established Matthew Arnold scholar would approach literature with a concern for universal human truths or that one with such interests would turn to literary Darwinism for a methodology.” He examines that popular (but now seldom read) Victorian genre – the “long poem.” “Machann maintains in his introduction that the issue of masculinity is not only central to the four long poems he treats but to ‘our understanding of Victorian literature: its major themes, its idealism and social criticism, its perplexities and uncertainties’” (1) The Victorians restrained masculine violence in many ways, but the ideal of chivalry and “manliness” was also expressed in adventuring (both geographically and intellectually).

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Irony?

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Instapundit then Blog Prof; summary:
Gateway Belmont Club Arthur Chrenkoff

The Poles remember:
“The WW2 memorial service was for the victims of the 1940 Katyn massacre where thousands of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war were murdered by the Soviet NKVD, a massacre that Russia has never apologized for.”

An accident happens:
President, wife, the head of the Polish army, the head of the presidential administration, The Army chief of staff, National Bank President, and Deputy Foreign Minister are now dead.

Truth will out:
Putin will investigate.

Life is so full of accidents, it is generally best not to first fasten on conspiracies. History often seems told by someone with vast reserves of irony.

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