bsmall2Feb 26
I saw a reel with Mehdi Hasan, and blurbs about "Chomsky's Legacy" like he was a President seeming to implement policy and needed PR consultants and academic "frauds" for a sycophantic history...A meeting with Ehud Barak that "wasn't holding him to account for war crimes". It's consistent with an ability to see Hans Morgenthau or a corporate CEO as a "nice guy". Chomsky's focus was on the institutions: ".. you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous"
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It seems goofy to feel the need to discard useful books, writings, interviews because a guy might have messed up big time in his 80s. Unlike Bill Gates, it's easy to imagine Chomsky not getting involved with Epstein.. Like if his first wife had survived him and there weren't family financial issues to deal with. Bill Gates is always about prick policies and it's not surprising he'd be asked how to kill off all the poor people if you look at his agricultural policies in Africa. Gates' GeoEngineering fantasies for us are like antibiotics for his wife.
Feb 26 at 2:09amWeb
Show threadbsmall2Feb 26
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It's goofy but I know the feeling, the sort of insecurity about accepting the work of someone associated with a monster.. I had to get over it with Ariel Dorfman (and Sigourney Weaver) with _Death and the Maiden_. It was directed by Roman Polanski.. I saw a meme lately damning Quenten Tarantino's inappropriate (sick?) defense of Roman Polanski and mention that Tarantino is now in Israel doing photo ops for the IDF. Is it true or not? Not sure but _True Romance_ is the only one of his movies I could really watch without feeling icky.
Show threadbsmall2Feb 26
A few years ago when concern about Woody Allen as a monster was at a peak (I guess?) I saw an article by a woman about how to create (write or whatever) you sort of have to be a monster. The Mom had to cloister herself away from the kids and other human activities to write a book or an essay or something.. I could never watch Woody Allen movies anyway so didn't really have a bird in the fight. I remember funny parts of a few and felt like it must be smart to be able to appreciate his movies: but they're irritating...
Show threadbsmall2Feb 26
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I searched a couple times but can never find the article (ZNetwork? CounterPunch? TomDispatch? probably Z...) by the woman who defended a couple of Woody Allen's movies. She seemed to know about movies and be able to defend her taste in them.. More than I can say... She said his good (or classic) movies weren't about the areas where the guy was a monster. The movie about dating a high school girl wasn't one of his good movies.. It made me think of Robert Frost poems. I guess he wasn't in racist mode when he wrote the good ones?
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The whole thing (this pressure to disregard all Chomsky's work because he met Epstein and Bannon and Barak...) has me going back the _Practical Criticism_'s I.A. Ricards on the Prophets and Poetry..

> ... Happy was Isaiah, who had no biographer! Unhappy, Jeremiah, about whom we know too much. Amos again: what a noble figure! Poor Hosea...

https://nerdica.net/display/a85d7459-2069-892d-2adf-02e662025530

#RichardsOnProphets #TheWorkAndTheHuman [参照]

Brian Small

"A sterner conscience and a friendlier home." --- W. B. Yeats In I.A. Richards's _So Much Nearer_ p. 150~ "The Future of Poetry" p. 151~ Try it again: "t...

Show threadbsmall2Feb 26

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Maybe if Chomsky had been a better writer, less rushed?🤔

> Time that is intolerant
Of the brave and innocent,
And indifferent in a week
To a beautiful physique,

> Worships language and forgives
Everyone by whom it lives,
Pardons cowardice, conceit,
Lays its honors at their feet.

> Time that with this strange excuse
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel,
Pardons him for writing well.

https://newrepublic.com/article/165810/wh-auden-memory-wb-yeats

Other on-line versions omit the part about "Pardons him for writing well"
#AudenOnYeats #YeatsObituary #PaulClaudel

In Memory of W.B. Yeats

I. He disappeared in the dead of winter.The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,And snow disfigured the public statues;The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.O all the instruments agreeThe day of his death was a dark cold day.Far from his illness,The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;By mourning tonguesThe deat...

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