Posted under American history & Gender & class & jobs & students & technoskepticism & unhappy endings
Well, friends: we’re in the midst of a butt-chapping deep freeze, thanks to an Alberta Clipper that just won’t quit. It’s -15 degrees Fahrenheit here in Potterville, and won’t get above freezing until sometime this weekend. Those of you in the East might be enjoying a snow day today, so here are a few tidbits to warm you up and get your engines running this morning:
- Chris Hedges asks, “Are Liberals Pathetic?“ (h/t Susie at Suburban Guerrilla.) He writes that their “sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision.” He then goes on to contrast elite, sheltered liberals with working class men who “knew precisely what to do with people who abused them. They may not have been liberal, they may not have finished high school, but they were far more grounded than most of those I studied with.” What do you think? I think he’s onto something, but he also engages in a romanticization of a partcular kind of working-class masculinity that equates “fighting” with manhood only, and by implication slights the liberal coalition of today which is based on feminists and gays. Can we get away from these gendered tropes for criticizing the left? (Hedges himself identifies the intersection of Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue that’s really to blame for Dem reluctance or even refusal to attempt real change.)
- Hedges’ essay reminded me of an interesting piece by Joe Bageant on the absence of compassion among so-called “progressives” called “Shoot the Fat Guys, Hang the Smokers.” I worry about this–it’s part of what I was trying to get at last year in most of my posts on Sarah Palin. Laughing at or condescending to people isn’t a winning strategy. Smugness will be the death of the left.
- Clio Bluestocking brings us more tales from the Orwellian world of online teaching at her school–or, as Hacky McHackhack, the overpaid consultant puts it, “delivering education.” Continue Reading »






