Neoconservatism Updated

City Journal editor-at-large Myron Magnet eulogizes Irving Kristol with these (seen from a sufficiently perverse perspective) wonderfully felicitous lines:

[Kristol] had had his youthful flirtation with left-utopianism and, disillusioned by experience, became a neoconservative--a liberal, as he defined it, who's been mugged by reality. What he really meant, of course, was simply a liberal who'd been mugged--who'd seen that all the liberal, welfare-state ideals for the uplift of the poor, and especially the minority poor, had in the end produced a criminal underclass, exactly the opposite of the intended uplift.

You almost have to admire the deft invocation of hoary images of black criminality used here to discredit an entire political philosophy.

Doin' McLuhan

Today I've assigned a bit of Marshall McLuhan in my Political Sociology class. Impossible for me to think of McLuhan at all without flashing back to this classic scene...

Merit

Er, I'm back. A marathon of grading, then packing, then moving, then unpacking, then other kinds of my-two-cents distractions (Facebook, Twitter), etc., etc. Long story. Anyway...

One of the more common--and more despicable--assumptions on the Right concerning persons of color in high places is that any achievement or station in life is the result, not of merit, but of misplaced liberal guilt. One could cite as a recent example Fred Barnes' on-air musings about the legitimacy of Judge Sonia Sotomayor's summa cum laude honors at Princeton; or one could simply read this wretched commentary by City Journal's Harry Stein on l'Affaire Gates. 'We're ... learning that race hustlers come in all kinds of packages', he fumes, and while his basic claim is that 'the racial-grievance industry won't learn anything' from the whole dust-up, his main ambition seems to be to drag Gates, a Cambridge-educated Harvard don, through the mud of calumny and innuendo. 'As a scholar in the trendy[!] field of black studies [sic]', Stein declares (without supporting evidence of any kind), 'Gates has built a career on being deferred to by cowed liberal colleagues, and he's obviously unaccustomed to anyone's calling him out on anything'. (Actually, according to one former colleague, he's quite accustomed to being called out all the time, simply on account of the color of his skin.) Stein then cites an instance where Gates apparently misattributed a line by the poet Robbie Burns to William Shakespeare, and approvingly quotes an anonymous online commenter in explaining the failure of the press to highlight this error: 'Why shouldn't Gates expect preferential treatment? He's been getting it his whole life'.

It's an interesting 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' moment when great achievement is taken as proof of a lack of merit: Stein might have looked to Gates' scholarship, or his command of the language, or his intelligence, for such proof. But these seem to me to be, even given my limited familiarity with his work, fairly unimpeachable, pace what seems to have been a rather egregious slip in erudition. No matter: Gates has been handsomely rewarded, he is black; ergo we have some quota to thank. '"Teachable moments" never teach these people anything', Stein concludes. Indeed.

The Thinkable Revolution

David Brooks thinks the tumult over the Iranian elections reveals that the regime is 'fragile to the core'. But it's not clear why he thinks that disenchantment with Ahmedinejad's government and its efforts to stay in power is the same thing as disenchantment with the Revolution.

The Higher Learning

When I was fifteen years old I saw the University of Chicago for the first time and somehow sensed that I had discovered my life.  I had never before seen, or at least had not noticed, buildings that were evidently dedicated to a higher purpose, not to necessity or utility, not merely to shelter or manufacture or trade, but to something that might be an end in itself. ... The longing for I knew not what suddenly found a response in the world outside.

The transformative experience Allan Bloom that describes in The Closing of the American Mind (1987) is one that, according to Rick Perlstein, is no longer possible for today's wide-eyed freshmen.  (To begin with, they are no longer wide-eyed:  thanks to the usual technological suspects, they've already had all the transformative experiences previous generations could only access in the rarefied environs of the university.)  Interestingly, Bloom's reminiscence suggests that Damascus Moments were not the birthright of all hitherto existing undergraduates; rather, it was a privilege linked to a particular place and time:  

In high school I had seen many of the older boys and girls go off to the state university to become doctors, lawyers, social workers, teachers, the whole variety of professions respectable in the little world in which I lived.  The university was part of growing up, but it was not looked forward to as a transforming experience--nor was it so in fact. ... But a great university presented another kind of atmosphere...

Perhaps this atmosphere was only ever really available at Chicago and at a few other like places.  But if that's so, then Perlstein's pronouncement is even more dire, since his sweeping conclusions are drawn entirely from conversations with contemporary undergrads at ... Chicago.

Nevertheless, I'm inclined to be skeptical of Perlstein's claims.  It can't be denied, of course, that there is a general movement among both students and administrators to view university training in more corporatized, instrumental terms.  But that is all the more unfortunate, given that Damascus Moments that are still to be had in a good university.  To say that transformation is no longer possible because kids can now discover free jazz or indie films on their own overestimates the amount of transformation to be had autodidactically; in principle, there was all kinds of information available to the novice even before the advent of the Web.  The point of a university even then was to acquire the interpretive and critical apparata that permit a higher assimilation of such information.

Never Had It So Good Again

The summer after my sophomore year in college, I lived with two roommates in what seemed like a brand-new apartment in Cleveland Circle, on the outskirts of Boston.  There was wall-to-wall carpeting, cable, and a pool and hot tub in the courtyard (we spied on at least one late-night hot tub tryst).  I thought I'd never have it so good again.  

I'm thinking about that apartment these days as I get ready to pack up and leave the faculty housing I've been in here since August.  There's no pool or hot tub, but measured by other standards, I have been living in a lap of luxury most obscene:  there are two bathrooms and two porches; there are two cars and a bicycle; and for most of the time, there has been just one inhabitant.  

Of course, life's hardly been a picnic:  I've spent so much time working in my office that I'm rarely home; and even when I am home, being the unsociably sociable person that I am, I've wanted for company.  I look forward to going back to life with roommates, as much as that life has its own downside.  It's just that, at a moment when I'm not even sure how I'm going to put food on the table come September, the current digs deserve some kind of commemoration.  So here's a quick house tour, interrupted by a short, 'summer breeze' DJ set:

What Ringo Said

Some interesting research findings here, but you still have to chuckle a little at the punchline: 'The consistent message of these studies is that friends make your life better'.

Where would we be without science?

Dr. Bruni, I Presume

I'm starting to think more and more about the things I'm gonna do when I get back to New York. I always used to talk about the Queens food safaris I was going to undertake, for example, but never got around to it; now I'm gonna get serious (assuming I can afford to eat three months from now...). First on my list, I think, will be the (apparently very reasonably priced) Chinese restaurants in 'Flu-Shing', Queens. Or maybe I should look for Italy in the Bronx. Brooklyn Based has a really useful guide to daytripping in the other, other Chinatown: Sunset Park. Or one can visit Little Mexico--without ever leaving Sunset Park!

The End of the End of Ideology Thesis

This ought to be interesting to read the next time I'm teaching Daniel Bell or Fukuyama.

Gran Turismo, Indeed

The East side is definitely where the action is; it seems everyone is arty and fashionable (like SoHo or something), and every little shitty bar and cafe has a beautifully designed sign and incredible identity work (menus, signage, interior design). A lot of the town is newly built, and there is a ton of construction going on.

This observation, by a filmmaker friend-in-law who spent a few weeks in Berlin in 2001 shooting spots for Gran Turismo 3, aptly recalls something that's always struck me about the city. Berlin is a magnet for artists and creative types, and the city has been reaping the benefits of such magnetism for a while now. Moreover, when I first came there in 1998, the appeal seemed to be Continent-wide; more and more, however, it seems to be world-wide. I'm no artworld-insider, but it's easy to get the impression that, whether you're a local Prenzlwichsler or an Osaka-born installation artist, Berlin is your new capital.

Over the years, people have asked me for advice about what to do and where to go while in Berlin, and I've provided suggestions to the extent that I'm able (given the pace of change in Berlin, advice from someone who's no longer living there is bound to be of limited value). But I've gotten tired of composing long emails on the subject and then being unable to find them for the next traveling slacker looking for guidance. So here's an attempt at some disordered, but at least revisable, suggestions (if you don't find the Berlin I found, relax: one Berlin-based correspondent now goes so far as to claim that Munich is where it's at...):

Stay with friends. If you don't have friends in Berlin, stay with my friends, if they'll have you. (It's worked before.) If they won't, or you're too shy, or we don't know each other well enough for me to be able to vouch for you, here's some advice about what do on a super-posh or just-posh budget. (I'm not sure if I've already been to the riverside Club der Visionaere mentioned in that article, but I'm definitely going next time, and putting Berlin's Summer 2008 hit in my headphones.) If you're sub-posh, try this piece on hostels. I'm no sophisticate when it comes to fine dining in the middle of Mitteleuropa, but I could prolly put together an exhaustive Google Map on the subject of chowhounding. Being lazy, however, I'll refer you to this New York Times piece. And this one, for chow-blood hounds.

East Is East, West Is West

In my heart, I'm a Prenzlberger, but people have been trying to beat the drum for West Berlin for the last ten years. Kreuzberg is, of course, still agreeably boho; every few years, however, I come across someone claiming that quieter quartiers like Charlottenburg or Schoeneberg are making the move from bourgeois to 'BoBo'.

Beautiful Beemers

Got to make it back to NYC for this before it closes! The Calder 3.0 CSL above is my new DreamCar.

(Best part of this article: Chris Bangle is described as the *departing* chief of design.)

Good Bank-Bad Bank

Alan Blinder talks about the downsides to nationalizing the banks.

Bobby Jindal to Deliver Riposte for GOP on Tuesday

Will this be a decisive step on Piyush 'Bobby' Jindal's path to 2012 contender-dom? In an almost deathwish-y way, I had hoped McCain would choose Jindal (young, gifted, and brown--sound familiar?) as his running mate; but John Heilemann reports that the Louisiana Governor had pulled his own name out of 'fear of being tangled up in a plainly doomstruck campaign'.

Well, in any event, Sarah Palin seemed to have made it out none the worse for (ahem) wear.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

USA Swimming publicly reprimanded Phelps, who won eight medals at the Beijing Games, temporarily withdrawing its financial support to him and barring him from competition through early May. Phelps receives a monthly stipend of $1,750 from the organization. The national and world championships will be held in the summer.

“We decided to send a strong message to Michael because he disappointed so many people, particularly the hundreds of thousands of USA Swimming member kids who look up to him as a role model and hero,” the organization said in a statement.-- the New York Times, 6 February 2009.

Well, I for one am glad that USA Swimming has taken this stance. Without that reprimand, hundreds of thousands of kids might one day grow up and ... smoke pot? Well, that would surely be the end of the world.

Death of a Salesman

Somehow this makes me sad, all the way down in North Carolina. I think I may have only seen him once or twice, but to me he was New York's great instance of that glorious figure: the English Eccentric. Thankfully, a Times blogger got hold of some video of Joe Ades in action. R.I.P.

It's Official

Animal Collective are officially my Favorite Band at the moment.  It's been unofficially true since I saw them in late 2004:  their show that night was one of the best I've ever seen, and it was the perfect way to celebrate my successful dissertation defense earlier that day.  But this song seals the deal, and represents the first time I've even come close to tears of joy:

It's not as if I haven't been deluged by great music lately.  I lived inside of that Grizzly Bear album for a couple of months this fall; after that, I practically married the mathro-pop of Dirty Projectors--an understandable desire, if you've ever seen their bassist and second guitarist ('eerily corn-fed', as a Pitchfork reviewer had it).  And while I'm at it, their album's been out for a while, but have you ever heard Battles' 'Rainbow' song?  Gives me those old 'Peaches en Regalia' warm fuzzies.  (Check out this hilarious vid a fan did for another of their songs.)  It's a deluge, I tell you:  just a few weeks ago, one of my neighbors in Bushwick handed me a DVD he'd just put out; one song, nine remixes, and I still can't seem to stop listening!  But AC is still my official fave.

Minivan Moms, Move Over

Speaking of felicitous combinations (well, a month ago, anyway), here's my current favorite combination of author name and title/subject matter. As if the surname 'Blow' and the topic (cocaine use among teens) weren't enough, in the title there's also the irresistible echo of the Grandmaster Flash and the Furious classic in the phrase 'white teens'. Sing it with me! 'White teeeeeeennnnns, going through my mi-iiiiinnnnd...'

It's almost as perfect as the tandem of sociologist James Aho and his 2002 book, The Orifice as Sacrificial Site.