Culture and Stuff

by liberal japonicus

Well, my month back in Mississippi is wrapping up and it's been nice to have to opportunity to go out an eat a lot. My high end experience was going to Cochon, by the NOLA convention center for crawfish pie, smothered greens, wood roasted oysters and a brisket sandwich, accompanied by a Lazy Magnolia Southern Pecan (draft!). And while I could have happily driven down there for lunch any number of times, I didn't have to, as my small Mississippi town now has so many dining options that a month of lunches with my dad, (and, when not too busy, my brother joining us from work) hasn't exhausted them all. Po' boys and crawfish, catfish and hush puppies, pulled pork sandwiches and BBQ ribs, gumbo, jambalaya and red beans and rice with real boudin. My town also just voted to allow restaurants to serve alcohol with meals this year, so I was occasionally able to wash it down with one of the aforementioned Lazy Magnolias or something from Abita. Amazing. 

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by hilzoy

Over at Ta-Nehisi’s blog, I found a wonderful poem by Elizabeth Alexander, who has been invited to write a poem for Obama’s inauguration. It’s ‘Hottentot Venus’, about a woman from what is now South Africa who was taken to Europe and exhibited throughout Europe. When I was 12 or 13, I saw her skeleton, and I think some sort of cast, in Paris, where it was on exhibit in a museum (apparently, it has since been put away, thank God, along with her preserved brain and genitalia, which I do not recall. France returned her remains to South Africa in 2002.) I’ve put the poem below the fold; it’s really, really good. Ta-Nehisi:

“I don’t know how, but in my early readings of this piece, I missed perhaps the most important emotion–a kind of slow-burning rage. There are many ways to read those two quotes. But I’m black and Ta-Nehisi and what I see is the irony of science, how disciplines founded to better understand the world so often obscure the world.”

I think that’s right: right about the rage, right about the science. But it’s also striking to me how she manages to combine a kind of generosity to Cuvier with that rage. The first part starts with such beauty, though as it goes on, you can see the inhumanity peering out from behind it. But a less generous poet would have left it out entirely.

But politics obscures the world as well. Googling around to find out more about the woman who wrote this poem, I found some other responses, from people who didn’t seem to want to bother giving her a try. This from Newsmax is typical (it’s worth reading the poem it excerpts in its entirety. You can make snippets from any poet sound dumb. Think of TS Eliot:

“Twit twit twit

Jug jug jug jug jug jug”

What a dope!)

In any case, enjoy!

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by publius

On the crunchy front, I recently finished Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. And while melodramatic in places, it’s worth the read. In fact, I’m finding myself investigating local CSAs, and trying to eat more “food” as opposed to “edible food-like substances.” (not at July 4 BBQs though – I’m not made of stone).

What’s interesting, though, about Pollan’s argument is how fundamentally conservative it is. In particular, it seems to echo many of Edmund Burke’s arguments in that it values the wisdom of traditional customs over the puny powers of Western reason.

To back up, the most powerful conservative Burkean argument has always been an epistemological one – that is, Burke is most persuasive when he’s talking about the limits of human reasoning powers. (This will be familiar to old LF readers). Burke is skeptical about our abilities to determine “the good” from abstract thinking. Instead of trying to recreate a brave new world on paper, we should instead look to the wisdom inherent in customs and tradition.

Under this view, tradition isn’t glorified for tradition’s sake. Tradition is instead a giant laboratory that provides us insight into what works and what doesn’t work. To Burke, we abandon these traditions at our peril when we opt for sudden change or revolution. (Admittedly, this view also justifies existing exploitative relations – e.g., slavery – but that’s a different post).

Anyway, whether Pollan intended it or not, a lot of these Burkean themes run through In Defense of Food, including: (1) skepticism of modernity; (2) wisdom of customs; and (3) the harms of sudden change. More below.

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by hilzoy

Melissa McEwan has a post up that has to be seen to be believed. It includes images of sixty five disembodied breast novelty items, many of them very odd (I mean, who, exactly, is the target market for the Boobie Pacifier?), and some, especially the very realistic breasts meant to be sucked or squeezed in some way, flat-out revolting.
[Picture of revolting shower dispenser is now below the fold, with the other pictures.]

I don’t know about you, but I think that anyone who uses this might as well put up a large sign saying: I don’t expect to have women over to my house, ever, for the rest of my natural life.

As Melissa says:

“I can, quite genuinely, understand why people look at one—or maybe even two, or three—of these items and dismiss them as “just a joke.” If I wrote a post about just a frying pan that turns eggs into boobs, I’m certain even some truly feminist women and men would defend it as just a bit of harmless kitsch. It’s just a joke; what’s the big deal? I get that; I really do.

Which is why I went for critical mass.

It isn’t just one “boob novelty” (or, as they tend to be called, “boobie novelty”). It’s sixty-five. If I hadn’t totally run out of steam, I probably could have included sixty-five more. And these things aren’t relegated to adult stores and websites—ads for the Jingle Jugs are being run on radio and TV during ballgames, and many of these items can be found in regular old party stores and gag shops like Spencer’s Gifts, which has franchises in every bloody mall in America. The “Stress Chest,” “Beer Boob,” and “Boobie Fuzzy Dice” are all sold at Spencer’s, right alongside Harry Potter action figures.

The ether is permeated with boob novelties (which is to say nothing of vagina novelties, women’s ass novelties, the women-as-toilets products, etc.), and while each on its own may not be such a terrible thing, the combined effect is having turned disembodied women’s body parts into just so much cultural detritus to be consumed or ignored. No rational person can argue that makes no difference to how women are viewed, as a group and as individuals, by men and by themselves. And that isn’t a laughing matter.”

Well, that’s just Melissa being a humorless feminist again. Because, honestly, what red-blooded American girl could fail to see the fun of, say, her body parts mounted as trophies?

[Picture of boob trophy racks]

And if Melissa doesn’t think the toilets she posted here and here are funny — well, I guess some people just can’t take a joke, is all.

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by publius

This weekend’s Book Review brought us a retrospective on the university canon wars. And I’m not ashamed to say I’m with Ross Douthat on this. I’ve always been a bit curmudgeonly on all matters Western Canon. In fact, defending the traditional canon illustrates one aspect of conservative thought that I’ve always found compelling. But first, to the wars.

Rachel Donadio correctly says that “it’s generally agreed that the multiculturalists won the canon wars.” Don’t get me wrong, I think adding some diversity to the required lists is good, but it’s important that the old books stay on the list. Douthat makes an interesting side point that the greater threat is not so much removal of the texts, but studying everything through “the ‘modes of inquiry’ (or in Harvard-ese, ‘approaches to knowledge’) view of education[.]” I tend to agree, but that’s a different debate. For now, I want to focus on the older one – i.e., why require those old books in the first place? Why call them a “canon”?

At the outset, I recognize that these are all dead white male books (except for Austen, who clearly belongs on any list). I also recognize that this disproportionate representation stems from social and political repression – and even slavery. I grant all that. But it doesn’t exactly answer the question. The question, after all, isn’t “how come these are all dead white male books?” We know that. The question is, “of all the dead white male books ever written, why do these particular ones stand out?” And the answer is because they are great books.

Fine, but what makes them great? Who gets to say? Tough questions, all. Books aren’t great because I say so. They’re not great because Harold Bloom says so (though his vote counts more than mine). To me, greatness is simply a function of appeal over time. If a book continues to appeal to generation after generation, then there’s probably some objective value lurking somewhere in the work. For instance, Shakespeare is still going strong at 400 not because a bunch of dead white professors pushed him for years on brainwashed students, but because the works have (thus far) appealed to each generation across cultures. Same deal for Homer.

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