Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch & Jane Austen’s Emma seen through the prism of Himmelfarb:
Lydgate fails in his moral ambition to do “good small work for Middlemarch, and great work for the world,” because he is inadequate to the small world in which he finds himself, whereas Dorothea is fulfilled as a moral being precisely because she is content to do good work in her small world, thus for the world as a whole. (33) (bold added)
They don’t, not really, although one could be excused for thinking so.
I think the old observation that, “when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail,” better explains the Left’s unremitting criticism of, and apparent animus toward, the free world.
You cannot be sure you are right unless you understand the arguments against your views better than your opponents do.
Most of us were once young and stupid. What if we were branded by the worst we have done? What if anyone, listening to us, couldn’t avoid seeing that brand? Then, how effective would we be? How difficult would it have been for us to speak with authority, to do the best that we could do when we were no longer quite so stupid? Clearly, Dimmesdale is tempted by Chillingworth to justify his hypocrisy by the good that his sermons do. (The temptation how many politicians’ handlers set before their bosses?)
So, we see the artful Gunter Grass letter. I am struck by how this aged man notes he will bear the mark of Cain – he has lived a long life without it. It will, needless to say, be a part of every obituary when he dies, but it was not a part of a lifetime’s work nor a factor in others’ responses. He won’t be around for the obituaries; he was around for the Nobel prize.
The lessons Tom Segev finds have the truth of clichés but also their simplification:
Two main lessons arise from the letter: Be skeptical, young man, especially in a time of war. Ask what should be asked. If you have a terrible secret, come out with it before you become a person whom the whole world recognizes, and the sooner you do so the better off you’ll be.
Skepticism in the midst of a mob is necessary for integrity, its detachment lets us analyze when faced with the overwhelming passions of a society on the wrong track. But unresolved skepticism – skepticism that doesn’t have a “for” as well as an “against” – leads to cynicism, to nihilism and disengagement. Skepticism inspired by rational assessment should be followed by engaged action (often counteraction). Skepticism in itself is barren.
And, many a terrible secret is never known in our lifetimes – indeed, ever. Our lives are various & confused, our pasts mingle with our present but are unseen – ignored by us, shadows others can’t see. And how would Grass’s words have been interpreted if the brand had been public his whole active, intellectual life? He was playing the odds and he had a chance of winning. Pragmatism – it will eventually come out – is not the best argument here. Of course, while others don’t know, we do. Such duplicity harms us even if no one else finds out.
Thank you, John Jay, for the post below. I started a comment & kept ranting, so made it into a messy post. It remains more a thrown out comment than coherent response. And, of course, mostly I think you are quite right.
Nonetheless, I think Mencken got it really wrong and is an irritating forefather of some of the worst about our culture today – especially his emphasis upon cynicism and his lack of gratitude for the rich tradition we have been given. His belief we need aristocrats is characteristic of his misanthropy which seemed to come from a narrow & bitchy soul. I remember picking up his essays to read on break & feeling physically ill – the pages seened strewn with spittle & venom. You have shown, however, that he did have both a sense of humor and common sense.
Sure post modernism is impenetrable because it is idiotic�being impenetrable is a power play for one thing. This is the same device that the theorists want to be called philosophers & contend they are discussing philosophy. Well, they are writing impenetrable prose about quite abstract, counterintuitive, and often just weird ideas. That doesn�t make it deep.