Hello and Happy New Year! Of course, it is not really happy, nor does it feel meaningfully new. There is still a global pandemic; it still feels dangerous, to say nothing of unethical (ahem, ahem, party-goers), to meet other people indoors; the days are still short and sunless; the Trump loyalists are still crazy; in short, the world is still bad, and badness is still unrelenting.
Re: the "Why did so may people vote for Trump?" paragraph. The questions there proliferate beyond the taming guidance of synopsis. So while I'm going to suggest a book, I'm not sure I can say with any crispness which itch it's intended to scratch.
I have in mind Overdoing Democracy by Robert Talisse, a philosopher at Vanderbilt. In particular, what he says about (what he calls) the political saturation of social space will, I'm guessing, play nicely off of the Robert Putnam book Tyson recommended (if the Putnam of that book is still anything like the Putnam of Bowling Alone.) The work is largely diagnostic, but it's an interesting diagnosis. Of what? Of the cold civil war that preceded Trump but has been aggravated by events during his tenure as president. At any rate, it tells a story that supplements the economic-alienation story whose exhaustiveness you rightly doubt.
Do note that the book is idea-delivery, businesslike. So the prose, while having a certain craftsmanship, isn't meant to be relished. But at least it's not too distracting. (Unlike the prose of many other academics who write public-facing work under the hideous assumption that doing so means adopting high TED-Talk-style.)
Like others, I can offer more diagnostics (wish I had solutions!). That said, a short book 'What Tech Calls Thinking' by Adrian Daub (published by the folks at Logic) does an astute job picking out seven of the intellectual bedrocks of Silicon Valley. The chapter on 'communication' seems particularly relevant to your discussion... it captures how an over-valuation of the vague category of 'communication' distracts from the actual types of communication social platforms facilitate (i.e. trolling), as well as showing how those who created these platforms have never been concerned with what actually happens on them (beyond 'more' = 'better'). Daub is especially concerned with neo-Nazi trolls and the chapter culminates, citing Sontag's essay 'Fascinating Fascism' (which I'm sure is brilliant), by arguing that "aggression frequently flows from an unconscious desire to be inanimate, [and] that there is pleasure to be had in ceasing to be a subject", which trolls achieve in becoming almost algorithmic-like in their automated, predictable responses. Not sure if that's helpful (or correct), but the chapter is short and insightful and I definitely recommend (as well as the whole book). Thank you for your engaging newsletter!
Robert Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism" is useful for understanding fascism's origins, growth, and nature. It's not actually as mysterious as people make it out to be. Fascism requires one essential ingredient: despair. Lots of it. Economic despair, spiritual blackout, PTSD (aimless, jobless WWI vets returning home to Germany in the 20s were a big factor in the growth of Nazism, according to Paxton), valorization of violence, a politics of pure emotion, loss of status, loss of face, and a rigid social structure that is unresponsive to people's needs. Economic inequality is also in there. But, I agree with you that we can have all this despair and end up with nothing like fascism, or something just as bad as fascism that may not be what we would familiarly call fascism. And so what? It's all still bad.
Chris Hedge's "Christian Fascism" is a harrowing deep dive, by a Pulitzer winning journalist and former seminarian, into christianized fascism in modern America, and what a fascism in America could actually look like.
Case and Deaton's "Deaths of Despair" goes a long way to explaining the dramatic rise in deaths by suicide, drugs, and alcohol that this country has been experiencing since around the year 2000. (Case and Deaton are a married academic couple, I think, which always seemed very odd yet sweet to me, given their choice for subject-matter) Should be required reading for all.
As should Robert Putnam's "The Upswing," a recent, very well researched and convincing piece of work that goes a good way toward articulating the proper response to some of our most urgent questions of the day (and on top of that is a nice antidote to all the despair reading).
Then there's "The Ordeal of Change" and "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer. Great books, and a very interesting person.
As for digital censorship , I'm an old school first amendment purist of the ACLU variety. I do think we have a right to punish Trump, or anyone, for using speech to incite violence. But I don't see how giving enormous companies the right to kick millions of wannabe fascists off their favored platforms will do anything but come back to eventually bite us in the ass one day. But to me, censorship of this kind is a second order concern, sort of like worrying about social unpleasantness aboard the Titania as it sinks.
I have recently been taking a lot of solace in Victor Serge's Retour a L'Ouest essays (actually a column he wrote in exile), there is a lot of wisdom in there on various issues, not just fascism, but social questions and historical patterns. Also, Auden always makes me feel sane again, somehow. I also really enjoyed Erpenbeck's Go, Went, Gone.
Sorry, this ended up longer than I'd planned it to be. Best to you.
So looking forward to your Celan piece, because I also have never been able to get on with him--a liability for someone who teaches Holocaust literature for a living! So thank you for the validation!
Re: the "Why did so may people vote for Trump?" paragraph. The questions there proliferate beyond the taming guidance of synopsis. So while I'm going to suggest a book, I'm not sure I can say with any crispness which itch it's intended to scratch.
I have in mind Overdoing Democracy by Robert Talisse, a philosopher at Vanderbilt. In particular, what he says about (what he calls) the political saturation of social space will, I'm guessing, play nicely off of the Robert Putnam book Tyson recommended (if the Putnam of that book is still anything like the Putnam of Bowling Alone.) The work is largely diagnostic, but it's an interesting diagnosis. Of what? Of the cold civil war that preceded Trump but has been aggravated by events during his tenure as president. At any rate, it tells a story that supplements the economic-alienation story whose exhaustiveness you rightly doubt.
Do note that the book is idea-delivery, businesslike. So the prose, while having a certain craftsmanship, isn't meant to be relished. But at least it's not too distracting. (Unlike the prose of many other academics who write public-facing work under the hideous assumption that doing so means adopting high TED-Talk-style.)
I feel like I'm going to have to go into the woods with Celan. Great piece!
Like others, I can offer more diagnostics (wish I had solutions!). That said, a short book 'What Tech Calls Thinking' by Adrian Daub (published by the folks at Logic) does an astute job picking out seven of the intellectual bedrocks of Silicon Valley. The chapter on 'communication' seems particularly relevant to your discussion... it captures how an over-valuation of the vague category of 'communication' distracts from the actual types of communication social platforms facilitate (i.e. trolling), as well as showing how those who created these platforms have never been concerned with what actually happens on them (beyond 'more' = 'better'). Daub is especially concerned with neo-Nazi trolls and the chapter culminates, citing Sontag's essay 'Fascinating Fascism' (which I'm sure is brilliant), by arguing that "aggression frequently flows from an unconscious desire to be inanimate, [and] that there is pleasure to be had in ceasing to be a subject", which trolls achieve in becoming almost algorithmic-like in their automated, predictable responses. Not sure if that's helpful (or correct), but the chapter is short and insightful and I definitely recommend (as well as the whole book). Thank you for your engaging newsletter!
Hi Becca. I don't have answers. But I have books.
Robert Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism" is useful for understanding fascism's origins, growth, and nature. It's not actually as mysterious as people make it out to be. Fascism requires one essential ingredient: despair. Lots of it. Economic despair, spiritual blackout, PTSD (aimless, jobless WWI vets returning home to Germany in the 20s were a big factor in the growth of Nazism, according to Paxton), valorization of violence, a politics of pure emotion, loss of status, loss of face, and a rigid social structure that is unresponsive to people's needs. Economic inequality is also in there. But, I agree with you that we can have all this despair and end up with nothing like fascism, or something just as bad as fascism that may not be what we would familiarly call fascism. And so what? It's all still bad.
Chris Hedge's "Christian Fascism" is a harrowing deep dive, by a Pulitzer winning journalist and former seminarian, into christianized fascism in modern America, and what a fascism in America could actually look like.
Case and Deaton's "Deaths of Despair" goes a long way to explaining the dramatic rise in deaths by suicide, drugs, and alcohol that this country has been experiencing since around the year 2000. (Case and Deaton are a married academic couple, I think, which always seemed very odd yet sweet to me, given their choice for subject-matter) Should be required reading for all.
As should Robert Putnam's "The Upswing," a recent, very well researched and convincing piece of work that goes a good way toward articulating the proper response to some of our most urgent questions of the day (and on top of that is a nice antidote to all the despair reading).
Then there's "The Ordeal of Change" and "The True Believer" by Eric Hoffer. Great books, and a very interesting person.
As for digital censorship , I'm an old school first amendment purist of the ACLU variety. I do think we have a right to punish Trump, or anyone, for using speech to incite violence. But I don't see how giving enormous companies the right to kick millions of wannabe fascists off their favored platforms will do anything but come back to eventually bite us in the ass one day. But to me, censorship of this kind is a second order concern, sort of like worrying about social unpleasantness aboard the Titania as it sinks.
I have recently been taking a lot of solace in Victor Serge's Retour a L'Ouest essays (actually a column he wrote in exile), there is a lot of wisdom in there on various issues, not just fascism, but social questions and historical patterns. Also, Auden always makes me feel sane again, somehow. I also really enjoyed Erpenbeck's Go, Went, Gone.
Sorry, this ended up longer than I'd planned it to be. Best to you.
So looking forward to your Celan piece, because I also have never been able to get on with him--a liability for someone who teaches Holocaust literature for a living! So thank you for the validation!