I think that Native American art has largely fallen away from our ancestors’ imaginations. The intensity of subsistence living mixed with passionate earth-based spirituality has been replaced by replication of a thin white leftism. A sort of self-colonization.
Sam, I like how you veer between and among all these seeming opposites, arriving at something akin to Douthat’s desire for Catholic transcendence beyond the thin gruel of liberalism - the shaggy, “imaginative universe” that nods to emotion and the profound human need for connection. You’ve helped me identify why I’m drawn to Douthat’s provocations despite my politics, because reading him allows me to channel some of my own annoyance with the rationalism of liberal politics and media. It’s as if all the guys are only grappling with half of human experience or insist emotions and the intellect are a binary, which they aren’t.
I’ a 2.5-wave feminist, so I feel bound to note that there are many other thinkers about society, privilege, utopia, individuality, and culture beyond Trilling, Freud, and DeLillo - much as I appreciate the struggles of Smith and other Gen-Xers, the supposed lost vision of the ‘60s doesn’t play out the same way for those of us who aren’t male. I never bought into DeLillo’s essentially cold systems vision, for instance, and I don’t buy into the anti-emotionalism of the tech guys now. They never were or have been reflecting my point of view.
Quite brilliant. I wish I had your Substack around when I was working on my dissertation on contemporary American realisms. What an unwieldy beast that was. I like your reading of Wallace. Feels right on. DeLillo’s retreat from systems has always fascinated me. To try to say more with less. Or really to try to say less with less. Such a rare thing for an American novelist to do.
I think that Native American art has largely fallen away from our ancestors’ imaginations. The intensity of subsistence living mixed with passionate earth-based spirituality has been replaced by replication of a thin white leftism. A sort of self-colonization.
Perhaps a good-willed effort to find consensus on what constitutes ‘reality’ would be axiomatic for a cultural revival, Sam.
Lyin' disease, you say? Hell, yeah.
Sam, I like how you veer between and among all these seeming opposites, arriving at something akin to Douthat’s desire for Catholic transcendence beyond the thin gruel of liberalism - the shaggy, “imaginative universe” that nods to emotion and the profound human need for connection. You’ve helped me identify why I’m drawn to Douthat’s provocations despite my politics, because reading him allows me to channel some of my own annoyance with the rationalism of liberal politics and media. It’s as if all the guys are only grappling with half of human experience or insist emotions and the intellect are a binary, which they aren’t.
I’ a 2.5-wave feminist, so I feel bound to note that there are many other thinkers about society, privilege, utopia, individuality, and culture beyond Trilling, Freud, and DeLillo - much as I appreciate the struggles of Smith and other Gen-Xers, the supposed lost vision of the ‘60s doesn’t play out the same way for those of us who aren’t male. I never bought into DeLillo’s essentially cold systems vision, for instance, and I don’t buy into the anti-emotionalism of the tech guys now. They never were or have been reflecting my point of view.
Quite brilliant. I wish I had your Substack around when I was working on my dissertation on contemporary American realisms. What an unwieldy beast that was. I like your reading of Wallace. Feels right on. DeLillo’s retreat from systems has always fascinated me. To try to say more with less. Or really to try to say less with less. Such a rare thing for an American novelist to do.
Thanks, Sam. I could say the same about you.