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I think they sort of realize it–and realize it more because of political events than anything else.
The Chinese comedy Women Who Flirt has a Taiwanese villain who personifies much of what mainlanders think about Taiwanese: essentially like us, but snotty, effeminate, beautiful, and self centered. Very little realization of the political anger and hate many Taiwanese feel towards the mainland.
Part of the reason mainlanders look over such differences is because mainland China itself is just an extremely extremely diverse place. They can plausibly say that Taiwanese are not more different than mainland norms than people from Guangxi or what have you. That difference matters.
It is funny this is a topic for us this week, because I was chipping away at this on my book while traveling last week. From one perspective the Grimdarkification of American life is insane: those who consume it most live incredibly safe lives–lives that have gotten safer and more cushy over the last two decades, not more dangerous. Yet grimdark is almost always equated with “realism.” Why?
My working hypothesis at the moment is that it is because Americans feel grimdark. Witness the incredible rise in suicide over the last two decades. Witness the equal rise in anti-depressant (and anxiety pill) use. Look at growing levels of obesity in America. Part of the problem, IMHO, is that American brains and bodies literally feel worse, and this is distorting our notions of the world around us.
There is also a question about how the political climate influences all this. The Bond example, and the Nolan batman one, are both clearly artifacts of the War on Terror. I think the whole mystique of the “operator” who lives by no rules, and defines manhood through doing dark and gritty deeds behind enemy lines, is a big part of this. The Buys, likewise, just couldn’t be made without trump. That insane scene where the villain kills a guy and people cheer — not possible in the pre-Trump world. No one would view it credible. But now half of America does.
Music is interesting.. My impression is that country music is less heartfelt, but maybe not “darker”? Rap might be an interesting case study — far less violent than in the ’90s, but also the themes *seem* darker (e.g. “This is America”).
Video games? Too big an industry to spot trends?
Other data points: gun culture moving from 1776 cosplay to “warrior” tacticool cosplay; the entire medium of prestige TV; the rise of MMA from obscure bloodsport to super popular; mass shooters; YA literature (50% of which is set in dystopian settings, so I don’t by the Hoel point on this);
Very interesting.
I have read A Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy and purposefully did not include many of the “orthodox schools” because I think they are more about questions of epistemology and metaphysics than ethics, politics, or aesthetics. If a focus on these sorts of questions was enough to keep Leibniz et. al. off the list, I figured the same thing should be applied to the Indic canon.
Gandhi was always a tough choice. I included him because I think he was not only a political activist but a political philosopher–a political philosopher whose ideas engaged both the Indic past and the Western tradition, and profoundly influenced both. However, many Indians criticized this choice, perhaps because of Gandhi’s political valence today.
Tagore is tough for me–but for the reason you identified. I did not know Yeats was responsible for the translation. I just thought it was not a good read. I concluded Tagire’s reputation was founded in mostly Bengali nationalism. I would love to know the translation you read that convinced you otherwise.
The “Modernist” spot on the canon would probably go to either a Wahabbi theologian or somebody like Qutb, ancestor of the modern Salafi-Jihadist movement.
I have thought that my biggest weakness on that list was lack of familiarity with Islamic law and its interpretations.
I am curious who you will add to the Indic canon!
Sorry for the late reply to this…. but I wanted to make it a full post!
The Fall of History as a Major–and as a Part of the Humanities
I didn’t quote you by your name here, but if you would like, I would be glad to.
I have not looked into this in great detail, and have sent a message to the author of the Palladium article in question to ask. I do know however that many other ‘social ills’ (prostitution, gangs, secret societies) were decisively wrapped up in the 1950s, when all of civil society–including illicit civil society–was wrapped up in one big dragnet. Dittkotter’s The Tragedy of Liberation, ch. 2-3 might be the best place for to read about that. its footnotes might include more. (here is that book’s Amazon page: https://amzn.to/2BEVujv ).
SF20–
With the advent of the PC, you owned your computer, and operating systems still exposed their inner workings so you could manipulate them. These have gotten locked down over time, and now smartphones don’t even expose the filesystem to users.
I am glad you said this–and with permission, I will probably quote this (from “a forum user”) in my eventual piece.
Does anybody have thoughts on this thread? I suppose I have not been following YIMBYism as closely as I thought — while the personal connection to Sanders politics is obvious to me, the “annoying online bro” part is not?
Interesting to see the Bernie Bro narrative recreated almost word for word about the YIMBY bros. I don't doubt that people have had bad experiences with each group (being ratio'd is not fun) but I think it's a reflection of the dynamics of online discourse more than any one group
— James Medlock (@jdcmedlock) June 14, 2022
Vingilótë,
thank you for that extremely detailed reply! That is all very interesting. For what it is worth, Super Smash Bros is the only video game I play with any regularity, and that with my roommates and whoever we can wheel over. When I was in high school I played a much larger group of games (RPGs like Kotor, RTSs like Age of Empires, FPSs like Starwars Battlefront) but now I struggle to find the time to play games much at all. Occasionally I will run an emulator to play the gameboy game Advanced Wars 2 if I have a particular need to decompress.
I am curious to what extent these things decompose as one ages. Fortnite seems like a general gen-z phenomenon; when I was a teenager in the aughts, games like Halo and Starcraft seemed like general features. Everyone my age, regardless of tastes or class background, across three states in which I lived, had been exposed to them, and probably played them. The OP that started this convo is I think in his early 40’s (as opposed to early 30’s like myself) and perhaps the “democratic” experience of gaming that seems plausible to us is a remnant of a time when the gaming market was less developed and thus less bifurcated into siloed genres?
I do not know how much the centrist/conservative opposition to YIMBYism matters. The places most in desperate need of YIMBY reforms–San Fransisco, New York, and the like–are overwhelmingly blue. If anyone has case studies that go in the opposite way I would love to hear them, but my intuition is that these people speak to the left because in urban milieus it is just the left that matters.
Of course, wine mom left is a bit different than normal left, and that might matter–Arlington VA is extremely lefty by many measures, full of those “We Believe” signs–but it is still an upper middle class place interested in stability and other “conservative” virtues that the GOP has long moved away from. Maybe it is towards these small c conservative sensibilities you are motioning toward?
This is a very good comment. I cited The Art of Sanctions several times in that essay, and he makes a similar point– many times sanctions are less about achieving an instrumental end in the behavior of the foreign actor so much as demonstrating we are “doing something” without that “something” being too costly. IMHO this is bad policy all around, but understandable and perhaps inevitable.
“who largely doesn’t care about foreign policy except as a cudgel to use against domestic opponent”
The thing is, I don’t think this is entirely correct. It is not what led the U.S. into Ukraine–or Iraq. Foreign policy can be about domestic advantage, but the American people actually do tend to see dissidents, activists, etc. as heroes. Moreover, in 2012-2014 the Russians were not especially associated with the GOP. Romney had just declared them the biggest security threat, McCain was visiting Ukraine in show of support, and so on. I don’t think they were yet the cudgel they would become.
I loved teaching. Felt like I was making a difference every day, actually enjoy the process of teaching, the whole nine yards.
What I don’t like is:
1) Classroom management (getting kids to pay attention, respect you, etc)
2) Paperwork of an administration
3) Designing courses to outside testing standards, especially stupid ones
4) Being restrained in the books I can assign for cost reasons/being forced to teach books I think are useless.OK folks, I think I will ask the developers to remove the newsletter pop up. This will go in conjunction I think with setting up a substack purely to link to my posts here.
