The role of critics

His similes are terrible, but his points are good…

[T]he art critics and the dramatic critics […] are separated by a great chasm of “culture” and fastidiousness from the people for whom they write. They [look upon] the amusements of the public, not as wine-tasters oversee wine-drinking, or horse-doctors inspect horses—that is, by right of knowing more than most people about something which most people know. Rather they oversee them as teetotalers count the [pubs], or as a giraffe, with lifted head, might oversee a fish-market. This division and disgust is a dangerous attitude, even when it is a right attitude; for there is in all arrogance the beginning of ignorance. […] Obviously the right condition for a healthy community is that the people and the critics should have the same basic joy in beautiful or comic things; but that the people should not know why they feel the joy, while the critics should tell them. […] As men they should laugh or cry at a theatre; and then afterwards, as critics, defend themselves for having done so. They should justify to the public its own feelings in the act of justifying their own. But […] something has gone wrong with this natural relation of the critics to the commonwealth. The writers in question never attempt to explain why humanity likes this or that; generally they get no further than explaining why they do not like it themselves. […] [A] critic, even if he differs from the [general opinion], ought to be able to explain it. That is his business.

— G. K. Chesterton, 1909

A tragic hubris

Even after the slaughter of World War I, there could still be in 1937 an excessive faith in human progress:

Today, of course, we hardly know the meaning of the word “fear” in its medieval sense. Anesthetics have removed the fear of physical pain. Logic and intelligence have extinguished the fires of hell. We live in a world of such superabundance that the hideous nightmare of starvation no longer plagues us—or, at least, it should not. If all of us do not get enough to eat, we realize that it is the result of bad management and not the result of the actual absence of whatever we need. And as for the fear of foreign invasion—yes, such a thing is still possible, but even during the Great War, which was not exactly fought in what one might call a “gentlemanly spirit,” no country suffered any of the horrors which up to a few hundred years ago were connected with the idea of an invasion by a hostile army. Here and there a few citizens might be inadvertently killed, but there was no question of exterminating the whole population or of selling hundreds of thousands of women and children into slavery, and even those cities which suffered most were carefully rebuilt as soon as peace had been signed.

— Hendrik Willem van Loon, The Arts, pg. 146.

 
Three years after van Loon wrote this passage, he watched from New York as German armies invaded his homeland, the Netherlands, levelling Rotterdam, the city of his birth, as they advanced. During the five years of German occupation, tens of thousands of Dutch Jews were enslaved and/or exterminated, and the Dutch people suffered starvation and privation in the “hunger winter” of 1944-45.

Van Loon died in 1944. After the invasion, he never saw his beloved Zeeland again.

This is tragedy; the hubristic brought low; almost an ancient Greek play brought to life.

 
There are people who say that 9/11 “changed the world forever”. These people know very little about the world.

The New Republic and George McGovern

The controversy over whether Howard Dean is another George McGovern and the endorsement of Joe Lieberman by The New Republic has inspired me to dig up some of what The New Republic wrote in 1971 and 1972 about George McGovern’s presidential campaign.

Looking at contemporary writings can be interesting, because they can tell you what people were thinking when they didn’t know what we know now (or when they knew things which we’ve forgotten). For example, in 1971, the name “George McGovern” did not connote “49-state loser”, and people thought of McGovern in a different way than we do now: As a respected two-term United States Senator, and the architect of the South Dakota Democratic Party.

In this excerpt from the lead editorial of The New Republic after McGovern officially began his campaign in January 1971, you can see some similarities between the nascent McGovern campaign and the Dean campaign of several months ago:

The book-person’s view of the world

Over at 2 Blowhards, Michael Blowhard describes what he sees as “the difference between the movie-person’s view of the world and the book-person’s view of the world”:

[F]or the sake of this discussion, I don’t mean book fans. I mean people who spend a hunk of their professional lives in the books world — as agents, retailers, critics, editors, writers, designers, etc.

[…]

Practically speaking, many people who join the books world do so because they’re scholarly and quiet sorts. You won’t find many movie professionals who spend a lot of time regretting that they left academia, or who went into the moviebiz hoping to find a quiet refuge from the stresses of business, ambition, competition, chores, and sex. But you’ll find a lot of such people in the book world.

Also, the simple fact is that, for many people, books equal school — while movies represent weekends, vacation, time off, romance and sex. And so life in the books world is for many books pros a way of trying to continue living life as though in school. […]

As a consequence, the books world has a quiet-study-and-thought-at-war-with-everyday-distractions feeling. IMHO, many of the characteristics, and many of the endlessly recycled arguments and discussions that preoccupy bookworld people — standards at war with money; the way striving for the good becomes a matter of holding the world at bay; a dreamy leftism — can be explained from this simple fact: many books people are bugged by life outside of school. They wish life were like school. They were happy in school, and they did well there. Money, business, leaky roofs — it all interferes with how they want to live, buried in their books. They feel put-upon by life […]

 
I can’t deny that the man has a point.

It’s an HOMAGE, okay?

Two pairs of songs that are…interesting to listen to back-to-back:

“Pump It Up” by Elvis Costello (1978), followed by “My Sharona” by The Knack (1979).

“Dreams” by Gerry and the Pacemakers (1965), followed by “Lucky Ball & Chain” by They Might Be Giants (1990).

Thursday evening at Slainte and Birraporetti’s

I got together after work Thursday at Slainte on Main Street with Thomas and Lori Gray, Thomas’ brother David, and Lori’s former co-worker Booth (an ex-MOBster).

Slainte is one of two faux-Irish pubs between Prairie Street and Texas Avenue. The menu items all have cloying Irish names (the onion rings are “Claddah Rings”), and the music alternates Irish rock songs (U2 gets played a lot) with standard album rock favorites. Aside from that, though, it’s a good hangout. It appears to have all of the usual drinks, the food tastes good, the prices are reasonable by bar standards, and the decor is pleasant, if obviously fake.

Rancor and politics

Dylan Wilbanks takes a look at the current state of American political discourse, and says one thing I strongly agree with (though I would quibble with “impossible”):

I believe political discourse is now impossible in this country, thanks to the media, the bevy of talk-show moruns [sic] out there, and a bunch of writers too lazy to write an interesting and factual column. It’s sad when bloggers on both sides have a better grasp on political ideas than the mainstream media.

 
I rarely read political columnists any more (and I certainly don’t bother with political news on television). The political bloggers I read are more honest and more to the point, and rarely waste my time.

A penny short

I stopped by a Houston Metro RideStore on my way home from work tonight to buy the $25 MetroRail Downtown Pass. I presented my credit card to pay for it, and was told that Metro was only accepting cash and checks. (!)

In my wallet, I had 24 dollars.

In my pocket, I had 99 cents.

I’m not kidding.

After remorsefully realizing that Kevin Whited does have a point, I remembered that I had some spare change in my attaché case, and was then able to buy the railpass without having to come back the next day.

I’m happy to say that I didn’t need any money on my way home.

Malice and spite

The Westminster Gazette […] remarked that one particular play, produced by Mr. George Edwardes, had not a very good libretto. […] Mr. Edwardes [retorted] that the Westminster Gazette criticism was obviously inspired by malice and spite. Now this is a smashing test; this is always the thing that people say when they have literally nothing else to say. If a critic tells a particular lie, that particular lie can be pointed out. If he misses a specific point, that point can be explained. If he is really wrong in this or that, it will be on this or that that the insulted person will eagerly pounce. But “malice and spite” are vague words which will never be used except when there is really nothing to pounce on. If a man says that I am a dwarf, I can invite him to measure me. If he says I am a cannibal, I can invite him to dinner. If he says I am a coward, I can hit him. […] But if he says I am fat and lazy (which is true), the best I can answer is that he speaks out of malice and spite. Whenever we see that phrase, we may be almost certain that somebody has told the truth about somebody else.

— G. K. Chesterton, 1909

Houston’s new MetroRail

I work at the northern terminus (UH-Downtown) of the new MetroRail line and I commute on public transit, so I’ve been looking forward to the opening of the line.

I rode it yesterday and today, between the UH-Downtown station and the Main Street Square station. I love it. The new rail line shaves 10-15 minutes each way from my commute, when compared to the C trolley, and the train is much more comfortable than the trolley. Plus, because the train part of my commute is entirely within downtown (I take the Allen Parkway Special or the 48 bus the rest of the way), I can use the $25/year MetroRail Downtown Pass, which means that losing the free trolley service won’t be a burden.

Count me as a satisfied MetroRail customer so far.