Che IV

Ok, this is my last post along this thread.  

I'm just not convinced that the idealistic philosophies of Communism and Fascism is what's at issue.  I think as far as popular psyche is concerned, fascism and Hitler are inseparable.  So I'm not convinced that it is a bias towards communism as opposed to fascism.  

But if we assume you're right... that it is a fascism/communism dichotomy, as far as a storytelling is concerned, communists are more sympathetic figures.  An objective observer can look at a communist, see that their philosophy and methods are flawed, but that their motives (viva trabajaradoras: long live workers? I don't even know if "trabajadoras" is a word) are noble.  Whereas I don't even know what fascists motives are.  Selfish?  Keep our society pure?  Kill the darkies?  I could be wrong, but I always thought fascism was marked by xenophobia and nationalism.  Who is sympathetic to that other than racists?  An objective observer se s that as a flawed philosophy and DEFINITELY flawed methods, but it's misguided by what? Cynical hatred.  Blechhh.  

Although without seeing Valkyrie, I know there were a lot of high ranking generals in Germany involved/ sympathetic to the plot to kill Hitler.  There were generals were plotting to overthrow Hitler when he invaded Poland.  Had the British not appeased Hitler in Czechoslovakia, Hitlers generals were prepared to stage a coup.  In that light, fascists can seem more reasonable.  But I think that probably has more to do with Western bias.  The general's calculus was specifically to surrender to the allies to avoid the Russians.  

I know I'm conflating Hitler and fascism- but I honestly don't think they can be decoupled, as far as movies and the general population can be concerned.  Italy ans Spain were the other two fascist countries.  Italy was innept and Spain sort of was too.  

Anyway, I think I'm done with this.

Che III

You took my general contention too far here. I'm not saying anything about Nazi Germany or Communist Russia. I'm talking about fascism in general being (rightly) condemned while communism is either glossed over or commended. In particular, I was thinking of major films from just this last decade:

The Sum of All Fears, wherein the novel's Arab terrorists are morphed into Hollywood's catch-all baddie group; unrepentant Nazis. Presumably because it's unwise to use current events to frame your generic bad guys.

Che, of course, for the reasons discussed previously.

Finally, foremost in my mind at the time of my last post, Guillermo Del Toro's El Labirinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth). Captain Vidal has to be one of the most revolting characters I've ever seen. The man has no redeeming qualities, and is a truly excellent slate on which to paint the full horror of mid-twentieth century fascism (or, hell, fascism during any time period). At the same time though, the communist resistance fighters are portrayed as just about the purest, most virtuous band of heroic freedom fighters cinema has ever graced us with. Now I've no complaints with that; Vidal was the movie's antagonist, and the resistance fighters played well off of him in the traditional 'absolute good vs. absolute evil' that's such a hallmark of film. I'd be shocked to the core though if I ever saw a movie where the roles were reversed.

To these works are added the more common films that do, in fact, simply feature actual 1940's era Nazis as the main antagonists; last month's Defiance for one, alongside one of the best movies of all time, Schindler's List.

In contrast, I couldn't think of any halfway recent western film that details communism as being an equally brutal system (not that this means anything; I may well be overlooking a treasure trove of material that blows my assertion out of the water). You make a valid point in positing that this may simply be a result of our cultural identification with Hitler as the embodiment of evil, a characterization that is certainly accurate. I also take your point that we just don't hear much about Russia in general, given that the European theater in WWII was apparently won, as we all know, by a group of dedicated American farmboys who jumped off of the boats and instantly fixed everything (though oddly enough now that I think about it, that is, in actuality, how the Pacific theater was won...).



I remain curious as to whether these two points are the dominant explanation for the seeming disconnect between the treatments of fascism and communism. While impossible to empirically test (which of course renders this conversation rather pointless), I would very much like to know how much Hollywood's latent guilt over its complicity in the advent and growth of McCarthyism, coupled with the European left's flat-out refusal to condemn communism in any sort of meaningful ideological way, plays into the differing treatments between the two extreme ideologies.


As an aside, the best film I've seen which takes time to point out the madness of communism (as opposed to protesting against more 'pedestrian' authoritanianism, as does Richard "Free Tibet!" Gere's Red Corner) is a Chinese film; Farewell My Concubine. While an excellent movie, watching it has to rank up near the top of my "Most Depressing Ways to Spend 3 Hours of My Life" list. The movie starts off by showcasing the wretched life common people had to live in the dying days of the Republic of China. Then, the Japanese invade, and things get worse. Then the nationalists retake power at the end of the war, and the lives of the main characters descend to levels of sadness that plumb new depths...And then Mao enters stage left and the Cultural Revolution begins, and you seriously begin wondering how any person could maintain their sanity in such a situation. Highly recommended.

Che II

A couple housekeeping items first.  

1) DH you are repeatedly butchering the nom de plume, Patricius.  You keep dropping the second "i."

2) Stop calling me Patricius and just use Triple "P".  It's not that I favor Triple "P" but that's the name on my other blog and it's all the same to blogger.  When I post it says posted by Triple P.  

Moving on.  I haven't seen Che yet.  But I might go see it this week.  

But in regard to your more important question about Hollywood....I don't know.  I'm skeptical of your assertion.  Not because I think you're wrong, but whenever anyone asserts "group A always does this ____" my instinct is to ask for the numbers.  In this case the assertion is, Hollywood always makes movies about Nazi Germany, but we never see any about Commie Russia.  to be honest, I can't think of any big budget Hollywood films portraying the evil of the Russians (although there were plenty of propaganda movies back in the 50s and 60s).  

But let's assume your right (as I've thought about it for a day I can't think of anything to refute the assumption).  There may be a less pro-left ideological bias than appears.  

1) There are a lot of Jews in Hollywood and so tales about fascism (Hitler's Germany specifically) have more resonance, which would lead to more greenlighting of films about Nazi germany and the evils of fascism.  If you think about how many Jews there are worldwide and compare that to the number of blacks, chinese, russians, native americans, africans, indians, we might find that the tales that are most resonant to these people slavery, Japan, Stalin, colonization, colonization and slavery, Britian's India are underrepresented based on worldwide populations.  Keeping in mind the makeup of audiences (especially in America) some of those above subjects are made into movies from time to time.  Remember the Titans, Mississippi Burning, Ghandi, etc.  But we'd have to actually tally and compare the makeup of the world, and the country and compare the number of moveis Hollywood puts out to find the discrepancies in representation.  That's way too much work.

2) We also might consider the chicken and the egg.  Did Hollywood create the "fascism worse than communism" thing, or is Hollywood a reflection of the country?  And is it really fascism per se or is it Hitler/Nazis?  I think it's Hitler/Nazis.  This country never had a crusade against fascism but we were worried about reds living next door.  Most Americasn probably can't tell you what fascism is.  But they have an idea of what communism is.  But, for all tht drama, Hitler occupies a special place in the American psyche that Stalin does not.  In America, Hitler is the ultimate evil.  Why?  Stalin was bad too (he murdered more people) but people don't say, "he's a soup-commie" they say, "he's a soup-Nazi."  Nazi has become synonymous with fanatical.   

Is it why they murdered that we view them differently?  Hitler was actually crazy whereas Stalin was crazy-like-a-fox.  Hitler murdered Jews because of his twisted world view.  Stalin was just a power mad macchiavellian out of control.  

Is it because we allied with Stalin? What I mean by that is, in the story of WWII, Hitler was the antagonist.  Stalin was a victim of that, despite being a pretty horrendous dude himself.  The narrative of WWII was, Hitler was evil, and everyone had to gang up on him.  Hitler v. the world.  And while Stalin took his place after WWII, we only got a Cold War.  

Or is it because the western world just excludes Russia from a lot of stuff?  You NEVER hear about how they destroyed the eastern force of Germany's army.  Maybe you do, but only as 5% of the other stuff that's taught.  Africa, Patton, D-Day.  They lost 20MM men!  They did most of the fighting.  The eastern German force was bigger and badder than the western force.  Sometimes you hear about it but in the way that you may look through your elementary school textbook and see that Paul revere only rode a short distance but William Dawes and Israel Bissell completed much more impressive rides.  But you're talking about Paul Rever so it must be that he's more important.  

If that seems right, is Hollywood just giving us what we want?

Whatever the reason, I think there are a several reasonable explanations other than Hollywood is pro-left to explain the predominance of "fascist" films over "communist" ones.  Although Hollywood is pro-left.  

Special Election

The original was posted late.

Che

I meant to ask P last week what he thought of Benicio Del Toro's new paean to Che Guevara (I distinctly remember him going off one day a year or so ago on kids wearing Che shirts who then go home to enjoy all the fruits of a capitalist society).

Why is it in Hollywood that only Fascists are ever Evil? Is it just too hard to accept that the ideological extreme on the left is just as horrific as that on the right?

Meet the Press - Race in America

I suspect I was overly critical of the Chief of Staff, again, due to my natural antipathy towards his political style. That being said…

I agree with your take on Smiley vis a vis his interaction with Gregory. He’s a man who doesn’t want to acknowledge that his time seems to be passing (incidentally, you’re mistaken in maligning Anthony Evans. The Ambinder article incorrectly identified him in the first draft you read; they’ve since issued a "Sorry, our bad" retraction).

Interestingly enough, the strongest takeaway I had from that discussion came from Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty. Mayor Fenty related a story to Gregory of an Obama fundraiser he was attending at some point during the recent campaign. A white gentleman in his 50s was speaking to the crows and said "You know, to all of us he'll be the first black president. But to our kids and the younger generation, he's just the president."

Now, I readily acknowledge that President Obama’s victory most assuredly resonated with the African American community of all ages (as P can attest to after our many discussions on the subject), and I won’t argue that there wasn’t a certain amount of "hey, just watch us; we _can_ elect a black guy!" chutzpah from the under 35s, but all in all, I agree with the unnamed gentleman's sentiment. I know it's certainly how I view our President.

In the article, Cornell Belcher asserts that we're not yet a post-racial society, given the red-swath crescent across the deep South that I first saw discussed on Sullivan’s blog shortly after the election. However, I have a different takeaway here than does Mr. Belcher, and it ties back into P's point that the Blacks-As-Eternal-Victims ideology that's been peddled by so many self-appointed African American may now be on its way out. I think that our country is moving towards the post-racial society (at least as it pertains to the classic Black and White dynamic) as the nation’s demographics slowly but methodically shift, and I would hold that the deep South holdouts are simply emblematic of a time now passing into history. I view it as akin to Sparta during the closing century of the Roman Republic (and presumably through part of the Empire period as well), during which the Roman elite came on vacation to gape at the oddly anachronistic Spartans as they continued their ancient ways; a people who time had passed by.

Generation Y, whatever they're calling the newest generation, and parts of Generation X all have come of age of will come of age in an era when the battles of Dr. King are as much ancient history as World War II, and certainly The Great War was for the Boomers. I think all three of us began really following the vagaries of national politics during our High School years of the mid to late 90s, which means we've spent almost 15 years watching the Boomers fight the culture wars (yes, this is something of a tangent. Sorry). The reason those issues have less poignancy now isn’t because one 'side' has conceded defeat. It’s because more and more voters are coming of age who simply don’t care about these old issues. Those many decades of battles created a social dynamic that’s a mix of the ideals of both sides, and on which we came of age. A middle ground was long ago reached on most of these issues, it’s just that the warring factions didn’t notice. Put more simply, Hippies are as deserving of Cartman’s wrath as Christianist zealots are of our disdain. In the same way, the era of Creflo Dollar and Jesse 'Whack-a-Nut' Jackson is finally passing, thanks both to the demographic shift and to new leaders, most prominently the President, who refuse to play this tired, old, damaging, and divisive game.

5th Congressional District Special Election

So I have another blog that I started a year ago to discuss local issues and inform the electorate.  I haven't opened it up to public consumption yet I will in a few minutes I anticipate.  Anyway, there's the special election to replace Rahm and I'll be discussing my evaluation of the candidates over there.  I may cross post some of my more interesting conclusions.

Anyway the site is http://cccpolicygovernance.blogspot.com/.  FYI - My early rejects are:

Patrick O Connor

Cary Capparelli

Unfortuantely for us, the only Drake grad in the race is one of the worst candidates of the field, Cary Capparelli.  Anyway, check it out when you get chance.  

The Philosophy of Energy Policy

Since the Q and I found some agreement on our conversation from Tuesday, I figured I'd summarize hear so we were all on the same page.

WITHOUT GIVING ANY CONSIDERATION to REAL WORLD CONSTRAINTS... if the goal is to expand energy consumption limitlessy, then logically you would want to dedicate ALL EFFORTS to finding/developing a limitless energy source.  

Let's assume perfect information.  With 100% effort, there won't be a substantial breakthrough in harvesting unlimited energy for 20 years.  But at that 100% effort, our energy needs will be such that we will only have enough fuel for 10 years.  But we are 2 years away from a breakthrough that will quadruple energy efficiency, but obviously we would have to reduce that 100% effort to 50%, with the other 50% being dedicated to the breakthrough.  This scenario is both supports and refutes the above claim.  The only way to get to the unlimited resource is to NOT dedicate all efforts to the unlimited source and dedicate some (at least for a period of time) to the limited source.  But because the reason your dedicating time to the limited source is that it ULTIMATELY goes towards development of the unlimited source, that can be categorzied as effort to develop the unlimited source.

But perhaps a more accurate phrasing would be:  Without consideration to real word constrainsts... if the goal is to expand energy consumption limitlessy, then you would want to develop a limitless energy source.  

I removed the "dedicate all efforts" part because the statement itself may be logically inconsistent.  Dedicating effort is a statement about allocating resources, namely effort itself.  The only reason we care about allocating resources is because they are constrained and limited.  So it would be impossible to postulate how one would allocate resources without real world constraint.  

MTP Jan 18 2008

I watched MTP but wasn't as struck by Rahm's non-answers as DH.  But perhaps I didn't watch closely enough (I think I was multitasking at the time).  What I was struck by was Tavis Smiley's non-acceptance of his increased marginilization.  I'm really glad I grabbed breakfast by myself this morning because I read the Atlantic while eating.  I came across Ambinder's article that David Gregory quoted from.  

What Gregory didn't mention, but was the subject of some "impolite" dinner conversation I had a month or so ago (religion not sex), were the examples of corrupt black preachers trying to extort Obama throughout the campaign.  State Senator (and pastor) Darrell Jackson (SC) and Anthony Evans pastor of the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship and talk radio host.  The article didn't mention but you can check out for yourself Creflo Dollar (under investigation by the Senate) and there's a local pastor in Chicago (his name eludes me) that has a bodyguard detail.  What exactly does a man of god need a bodyguard detail for? 

Sorry to go into a mini tangent about black preachers (although Pat Robertson has a nice in home gym facility that was paid for by someone, so I don't mean to single out or discriminate) I'll have to dedicate a post about that at some time.  They occupy a similar place in the black community as Tavis, Roland Martin, Tom Joyner so that's why I thought of it.  My point was that Jesse-"wanna cut his nuts off"- Jackson and Tavis Smiley and their ilk are threatened by Obama.  His success and his message cut into the blacks-as-victim narrative and they have been relegated to second tier status.  Smiley on MTP clearly did not answer Gregory's question in the context to which it was asked.  He didn't answer it because he doesn't want to admit that if black people have to side with Barack-"you're not a victim, hope and change"-Obama and Tavis Smiley, they choose Obama overwhelmingly.  Know your role Tavis.

Rahm Emanuel on Meet The Press

I'm watching Rahm Emanuel on Meet The Press, and I'm reminded of why Triple P dislikes the man so intently. Emanuel is coming as close as I've ever seen to a guest on MTP telling the host to go (as crass as it sounds) screw himself.

I was particularly incensed by his response to Gregory vis a vis Roland Burris. Gregory brought up the hypocrisy of Obama's , followed by Burris' being sworn in a week later. Emanuel parroted (repeatedly) that Secretary of State White had signed the papers, so the last roadblocks to now Senator Burris' inauguration had passed. He very carefully avoided acknowledging that Burris was seated specifically because President-elect Obama told Senator Reid to, in essence, hurry up and roll over, as the Democrats are so notoriously good at doing. He proceeded to point out that he wasn't qualified to offer an opinion on whether Governor Blagoevich may be a tad corrupt. He then got angry when Gregory pushed him on the Burris issue.

I keep contrasting the political styles alongside, presumably, the philosophical underpinnings and base-level emotional states of the President-elect and his Chief of Staff, and am surprised by the degree to which I deeply respect the one and abhor the other. On the flip side, President-elect Obama undoubtedly needs hard-nosed men and women to help push his agenda, and now that Emanuel seems to have dropped his quest to find a placeholder for his congressional seat allowing him to return to the House in two to four years, he can be a very effective head of the administration and pointed tool in the Presidential arsenal.

At the great risk of rambling (now known, I've decided, as mission creep) perhaps my distaste for Emanuel is simply a result of the man's embodying two of the qualities I personally find so disquieting; his purposeful lack of civility and tendency to demonize his opponents, alongside his support for a man, Senator Burris, whom I hold in complete and total contempt due not to his unimpressive record in public office, but rather to his decision to accept the Senatorial appointment, apparently, simply because he so very much wanted to be able to add the honor "Senator" to his resume. I respect Rep. Danny Davis a great deal for refusing that same appointment due to Blagoevich's corruption and imminent impeachment.

Morality and Divinity

I haven't done a great deal of reading on the subject, but Plato first posited the separation of morality and a divine basis for its existence. The Euthyphro Problem is essentially a chicken and egg type of question, asking if God tells someone to follow a course of action because it is morally right, or if by the very fact that God has given a command the action is made morally right, as God is the fount of morality.

This has actually long been a key question in my mind, and the fact that I haven't put more effort into resolving it isn't exactly a mark in my favor. Although the following arguments are now well over two millennia old, I fall back on them because my experience with any philosophers past the Classical era is sadly deficient.

Plato's moral musings (which Kant, if I understand his work correctly, later expanded upon) were brought about at least in part in response to his dislike of the Sophists. In this case, they held what I now refer to as the "teenager worldview", believing that truth is relative, and thus there can be no absolutes. It's a common refrain among young would-be philosopher kings, and I distinctly remember struggling with the concept myself for a few months in our undergrad days once the idea had finally occurred to me.

I imagine Q can add more insight into this discussion (I really need to actually devote some real time to not only reading The Republic but actually sitting down and studying it), but as I understand it, Plato felt that morality was a function of human rationality and the innate human urge to gather in communities. Ergo, because moral actions promote secure and harmonious societies, man is naturally inclined to codify and follow them. I'd ask either of you to call me out on this interpretation though, because I've done no study whatsoever on the work, and so cannot in any way lay claim to accurately interpreting it. Hell, I haven't even perused the damn thing for almost a decade.

Of course, if I'm interpreting Plato correctly, that still leaves gaping holes in the question of moral universality; I'd like to hear how Kant addresses some of these, if he does. Most notably, what of moral absolutes that are not necessarily required for the 'good' of society (essentially, things that you don't find in the 10 Commandments, which by and large can be read as a laundry list of things people shouldn't do if they want their society to hold together)? Plato for one probably thought nothing of slavery, while Greek society of that time is, when you boil it all down, one big NAMBLA recruitment tool. It's only later that we as a society, heavily influenced by those self-same Greeks, decided that slavery and sexual relations with children were not only wrong, but were morally repugnant on a level equalled by little, if anything else. At the time both were viewed as integral pieces of a functioning civilization.

Given that then, can there be a universal morality independent of both a higher power and the ethical mores of a particular society?

Ethics not based on God

I'm reading some stuff about Kant.  Supposedly he's one of the first, or first major philosopher to completely eliminate the metaphyscial justifications for morality. Ethics based on God.  I'm wondering who the others are?  And are some of these others non-deontologists? 

by Patricius