I've noted what I think is a disturbing trend, or tendency, in modern works of history I've been reading lately (mostly regarding ancient Rome, with which I'm fascinated). Each book I read sports a preface or introduction of on average some twenty pages in length, in which the author in tedious detail explains and justifies the approach he/she takes towards history in general and the subject of the book in particular. This requires that many other authors, presumably of some note, be referenced and quoted. In addition, the regrettable excesses of past historians are described. The grave difficulties involved in analyzing ancient cultures and peoples is detailed. A painstaking explanation of the approach adopted and support for the approach is provided. Finally, the nearly impossible task engaged in by the author is acknowledged but nonetheless accepted in the hope of providing some insight.
I find myself longing for historical works which are not so studiedly timid and defensive. I suppose such apologetics are deemed necessary in academic circles to circumvent criticism, and it may be that these exercises are intended only for that purpose. Perhaps such introductory excursions are history professors writing exclusively for other, rival, history professors.
However, I suspect that they are also indicative of a realization on the part of historians that their efforts will always be considered unworthy in some sense by non-historian colleagues and intellectuals. It's possible that the efforts of postmodernists to render dubious all efforts at obtaining or purporting to obtain anything resembling knowledge, even such knowledge as is not absolute and contingent, has had this effect--that any work which might be even thought accurate or valid must be accompanied by a kind of penance. The creator of such a work must be seen to don a hair shirt and beat his or her breast while reciting caveats and qualifications, or at least with many a wink and nod demonstrate that he or she knows that the work cannot be "true" in any sense.
Regardless of their source or cause, these extended attempts to explain and justify are dreary and uninspired. In fact, they discourage anyone, or at least me, from reading any further.
I personally don't read works of history believing them to be absolutely true accounts of past events, peoples, societies or cultures, and am uncertain even absent a prolonged apology that the authors of such work purport them to be such accounts. I think it is nonetheless possible to identify and relate certain information regarding what has taken place, and to indicate what if any evidence there may be that they have taken place. That's all I require of a history; that should, I think, be all that anyone requires. That's indeed all that can be done.
It strikes me as counterproductive and even poisonous to so vilify any effort at studying or analyzing the past as to make it appear that it's unworthy of consideration or in effect a waste of time to read; a mere expression of opinion necessarily tainted by all sorts of socio-cultural conditions which make it suspect. I think that's what takes place, though, as part of the diminishment of all human endeavor which it seems is the particular object of our current intellectual class. Perhaps it isn't all human endeavor that is mere pretense, though--only those endeavors engaged in by others, particularly those which have taken place in the unknowable past.
I wonder sometimes whether postmodernism is in its own way as insistent that humanity is as fallible and corrupt as the Catholic Church has been in the past, for different reasons. But that should be the topic of another post.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Friday, May 6, 2016
Regarding Al Capp
I'm not sure what brings him to my mind, but here he is wandering about it, that most perplexing cartoonist, Al Capp. Liberal in the 1950s, conservative in the 1960s and 1970s, unbearably smug and insulting at times as when visiting John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their much touted time in bed (not Lennon's finest moment, true); creator of the comic strip Li'l Abner, and very much a public figure of his times. There must have been something about those days which prompted intellectuals of sorts to appear on various TV shows, and something about such as Johnny Carson (and before him Jack Parr) and Dick Cavett which prompted them to seek them out as guests. That doesn't seem the case any more. Perhaps there are no public figures who purport to be intellectuals anymore, or nobody to patronize them, no audience for them.
I suspect he's been brought forth by my memory as a kind of tonic in response to these remarkable times here in our Great Republic, and the sense of foreboding I feel, given the likelihood that its President will soon be one of two people for whom I have no respect or liking. Also the sense of chagrin at what seems to be a potentially catastrophic failure of our political system, already necessarily corrupt due in part to the ruling of those who are supposed to be among the greatest jurists of our land.
I' ve often wished Mencken or Bierce were alive to comment on this dark age. I'd settle for someone like William F. Buckley, Jr., or his old friend, Gore Vidal; Walter Lippmann would provide solace as well. Christopher Hitchens would have gone into a frenzy. When it comes to editorial cartoons, I wish Pat Oliphant was still working.
Those old enough will remember that, depending on his mood, Capp could be quite the satirist; and, somewhat remarkably for a cartoonist, he could even be rather subtle in his satire. I cherish the memory of the Schmoos and the Kigmies. I even think fondly of Fearless Fosdick, now and then. Sadie Hawkins Day, Dogpatch and the Yokums are part of Americana. But Capp was by most accounts a very disagreeable, angry and vituperative man, with several unfortunate characteristics, such as propositioning uninterested women. Like too many artists and intellectuals, his ability doesn't entirely surmount his personal flaws and this leads me, at least, to doubt his worthiness.
Still, he and others like Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo, were more adroit satirists than cartoonists of our time because they were more subtle in their political and social satire. There's no question that cartoonists now lampoon political and cultural figures, but they do so in a more obvious manner. Those figures appear in cartoon strips and do and say what one expects them to given the opinions of the artist. This is sometimes funny, sometimes too blatant to be very amusing. Now, Capp and Kelly would do much the same thing now and then. I remember a character in Pogo clearly based on Spiro Agnew, and Capp wasn't above putting such as Ted Kennedy in his strips as characters under other names. The case of Joan Baez appearing as Joanie Phoanie is notorious, and resulted in litigation.
But given his angry and seemingly malicious character, I have to wonder whether he would if he lived now merely contribute to the choleric nature of our politics, which I think contributes to the current chaos. I wouldn't necessarily object to the mocking of either of what are being called the "presumptive nominees" of their parties, provided it's done well. But I imagine him as being not content with satire, and inclined not merely to draw but to rant and not just in his cartoons. At every opportunity. He likely would, in other words, do little more than add to the thoughtless noise. And we have more than enough of that now.
I suspect he's been brought forth by my memory as a kind of tonic in response to these remarkable times here in our Great Republic, and the sense of foreboding I feel, given the likelihood that its President will soon be one of two people for whom I have no respect or liking. Also the sense of chagrin at what seems to be a potentially catastrophic failure of our political system, already necessarily corrupt due in part to the ruling of those who are supposed to be among the greatest jurists of our land.
I' ve often wished Mencken or Bierce were alive to comment on this dark age. I'd settle for someone like William F. Buckley, Jr., or his old friend, Gore Vidal; Walter Lippmann would provide solace as well. Christopher Hitchens would have gone into a frenzy. When it comes to editorial cartoons, I wish Pat Oliphant was still working.
Those old enough will remember that, depending on his mood, Capp could be quite the satirist; and, somewhat remarkably for a cartoonist, he could even be rather subtle in his satire. I cherish the memory of the Schmoos and the Kigmies. I even think fondly of Fearless Fosdick, now and then. Sadie Hawkins Day, Dogpatch and the Yokums are part of Americana. But Capp was by most accounts a very disagreeable, angry and vituperative man, with several unfortunate characteristics, such as propositioning uninterested women. Like too many artists and intellectuals, his ability doesn't entirely surmount his personal flaws and this leads me, at least, to doubt his worthiness.
Still, he and others like Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo, were more adroit satirists than cartoonists of our time because they were more subtle in their political and social satire. There's no question that cartoonists now lampoon political and cultural figures, but they do so in a more obvious manner. Those figures appear in cartoon strips and do and say what one expects them to given the opinions of the artist. This is sometimes funny, sometimes too blatant to be very amusing. Now, Capp and Kelly would do much the same thing now and then. I remember a character in Pogo clearly based on Spiro Agnew, and Capp wasn't above putting such as Ted Kennedy in his strips as characters under other names. The case of Joan Baez appearing as Joanie Phoanie is notorious, and resulted in litigation.
But given his angry and seemingly malicious character, I have to wonder whether he would if he lived now merely contribute to the choleric nature of our politics, which I think contributes to the current chaos. I wouldn't necessarily object to the mocking of either of what are being called the "presumptive nominees" of their parties, provided it's done well. But I imagine him as being not content with satire, and inclined not merely to draw but to rant and not just in his cartoons. At every opportunity. He likely would, in other words, do little more than add to the thoughtless noise. And we have more than enough of that now.
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