“Does liberalism have its roots in the illiberal upheavals of the English Reformation?” asks Keith Thomas, after surveying several books making claims of same. GEY hat-tip: Richard Rorty.
Over at The Point Jon Baskin’s Friends Like These takes the (figurative) shoes to Adam Gopnik. GEY hat-tip: Lionel Trilling. Baskin also roasts Ben Lerner and the “New Historicists” who were coming into vogue just as I was leaving academia. GEY hat-tip: Coleridge! And since you’re already at The Point, go on and give Denis Johnson’s God by Aaron Thier your attention. Unless you’re not into Johnson. In which case, give some thought to James Duesterberg’s Bad Infinity: The endurance of the liberal imagination. GEY: Trilling — again. So, you know — maybe dust off that old copy of The Liberal Imagination?
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| Oh, there you are! |
Which brings me full-circle to Keith Thomas’s Rorty quote:
“Some cultures, like some people, are no damn good: they cause too much pain and so have to be resisted.”An increasingly tough call to make, these days.
Coming back around to this. Some of it is familiar territory, of course.
ReplyDeleteThe contemporary lit part, not at all. Never heard of, say, Denis Johnson, Ben Lerner, or Patricia Lockwood, and really am not sure about trusting Jon Baskin and chums writing at The Point, whoever they are, to tell me about them and their respective generations (one or more of which will be my own), though I certainly don’t presumptively distrust them either. Wouldn’t be such a cold feeling if I didn’t actually have a damn lit credential and hang around with people who read widely and in various ways stay on top of all of this business. But boy, it is sometimes interior effort to shake it off and keep feet planted in ‘the conversation’ in whatever way I can contrive to. I mean … I don’t really want to complain. A little alienation’s a good nudge, if nothing else, against yielding to temptations to identify with this or that following amid ‘post-liberal’ churn.
But, like, I should have known about somebody like Johnson by now, right? And Lockwood is hardly a step removed from people I know (who don’t necessarily like me, granted). How lazy am I, actually?
ReplyDeleteI'm a little surprised Johnson never blipped on your radar -- CH, the film-geek buddy you introduced me to, is a yooj fan (Johnson laid claim to being a Calvinist, albeit of a variety that probably elected exactly one member). But Johnson was caught between Kurt Vonnegut and DFW, so there's reason for his being overshadowed, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteOh, that is interesting. I don’t hang around nearly enough with ‘the people I hang around with,’ of course. (I haven’t hung out with Chris in literal terms for the better part of a decade, at least, and then only in a group of 1/2-dozen or so.)
ReplyDeletePaul: If it helps, outside of the Johnson mention, I'm completely lost here.
ReplyDeleteAlso: I love Darrell's description of Johnson's "Calvinism." I prefer not to think too deeply about Johnson's stated beliefs and to let his writing do the talking. It can be comforting, although more often challenging.
Well, look at this! You two are hanging around each other again -- with me! At my pad! This is SO much better than that blue-and-white place, grumble grump...
ReplyDeleteBoy is it ever. Push that bottle over here, somebody.
ReplyDeleteYou’re each many times the reader I’ll ever be, so I’m just going to stick to one-word replies and grunts from here …
You’ll both get a kick out of little bio I wrote for myself for SH, by the way. Just got to this yesterday.
ReplyDeleteCan’t rightly say whether I’ve made it to ‘post-liberal’ yet, friend. Will ‘post-protestant’ do?
ReplyDeleteI'd opt for "meta-Protestant," personally. It's a variation on "Who watches the watchmen?"
ReplyDeleteMeta-Catholic is probably truer to my situation at this point — but maybe the beauty is that it winds up coming to the same thing. I like it.
ReplyDeleteYou watch me, I watch you. Are we reforming yet?
ReplyDeleteRe-formatting, I'd like to think -- in my more generous moments :)
ReplyDeletenice! : )
ReplyDelete