Fortune-telling in the War on Terror
In an essay on Norman Mailer's books on 1968 (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Berman-t.html) occur these lines:[In 1968] "Mailer prophesied that Communism, based on its inbuilt inadequacies, was going to collapse. There was no reason to go to war against it. His analysis would loom today as totally brilliant if only he had added a 20 percent tip about what was meanwhile likely to happen to the unhappy people of Indochina during the interval between America’s withdrawal from the war and the Communists’ eventual withdrawal from Communist doctrine — the interim experiences of policy-driven famine and poverty in Vietnam, extreme oppression, “boat people” fleeing for their lives and Cambodian horrors: the Indochinese catastrophes that have still not registered in the consciences of Americans when they are feeling dovish, just as Hiroshima and Nagasaki have not yet registered in the consciences of Americans when they are feeling hawkish.
Somehow this informs the discussion on the "War on Terror", just not sure how.
By the way, it is the likes of Bailey's jack-off analysis of a 40 year old text that sent me running and screaming away from a graduate degree in English and a life of professordoom. How can so many people spend so much time over-analyzing the musings of others. Digging into Shakespeare and Joyce, yes, I can see it, but the rest is, at best, cocktail conversation waiting to be distracted by the sight of a leggy blond (of whatever sex).
Labels: 1968, Mailer, terror, war
posted by DanZ @ 8:48 AM
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