Wednesday, September 06, 2006

"American Ugly" By Stojgniev O'Donnell

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here.

Updated January 25, 2008

Once again, we present another article by the Stojgniev O'Donnell (the name is a pseudonym). O'Donnell is an American citizen who was educated at US universities. He has an advanced degree, possibly a doctorate. He is currently overseas and I believe he may be teaching somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I won't say more so as to protect his privacy.

O'Donnell has been getting thrashed a bit on the blogs these days. On the conservative Foreign Dispatches and the centrist The Moderate Voice, he was called an anti-Semite.

The Moderate Voice referred to him as a neo-Nazi. I think that is a bit over the top. O'Donnell probably shares the contempt for Nazi Germany that many Slavophiles had.

As far as anti-Semitism, O'Donnell recently authored this fascinating piece, The Jewish Question. In this piece, he boldly and honestly lays bare his soul about his complex and ambivalent feelings about Jews, mostly stemming from his days as a graduate student, when many of his fellow students were Jewish. The article comes from a Slavic Orthodox Christian perspective and is not really anti-Semitic in any way.

Similar to Marx's piece by the same title, instead, he both praises and criticizes the Jews. The criticisms center around what he calls the "strident ethnocentrism" of the Jews, their perpetual victimhood, their hypocrisy, their moral compass that points to "what is good for the Jews" and their refusal to consider how Jewish behaviors may effect non-Jews and adjust their behaviors accordingly.

All of these are perfectly valid, non-anti-Semitic complaints that many humanistic Jews have been making for centuries now, from Spinoza to Gilad Atzmon (By the way, Atzmon is great. I have read many of his pieces. He is an Israeli expatriate jazz musician and novelist living in Britain. He gets accused a lot of being an anti-Semitic Jew, but in general, I do not think that the charge is warranted at all.)

But enough complaining - how about movement towards resolution? The Russians and Poles remain highly anti-Semitic people, if the polls are correct. Furthermore, Russian and Polish anti-Semitism have horrendous histories, mostly from 1700-1945 in the case of the Poles and from 1550-1917 in Russia. The sooner the light goes out of traditional East European anti-Semitism, the better it will be for all.

Yet the more I read about anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe, the less I understand it, at least in the modern era. Early on, it was clearly often just Christian religious bigotry.

Later, in Russia, Jews were leading many revolutionary movements and the Czars mobilized populist Christian anti-Semitism in order to protect their oligarchic privileges. Progressives out to throw a shout out to Russia's Jewish revolutionaries for fighting against the horrid Czarist system.

In Poland, it's more mysterious. Early on, it was just garden-variety Catholic bigotry. More recent complaints centered around the "Jews are Communists" line and a complaint that Jews were more fluent in Yiddish than in Polish. Yet even that does not seem sufficient to explain the virulence of Polish anti-Semitism in the 20th Century.

We already know the unhelpful, ego-defensive attitude of the Jews: "They hate us for no reason. It is simply pure evil manifesting itself." Jewish activists delight in taking apart all of the supposed reasons for anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and trashing them as fallacies.

Their response is simply, as Yitzak Shamir, former Israeli President, said, "The Poles learn anti-Semitism at their mother's breasts". That phrase has a nice ring, but it doesn't explain much. People usually engage in behaviors for concrete, understandable reasons. Racism, prejudice and bigotry also occur for various reasons, depending on the groups involved and the time frame.

It is only by examining the complaints various groups have towards each other than any movement towards resolution can begin.

By the way, I really enjoyed O'Donnell's The Jewish Question and recommend it highly. It's one of the better articles he has written.

Regarding the stridently anti-American piece below, one thing about Slavophiles is that while they are culturally conservative, they are often anti-American and anti-Western. This view stems back centuries to the conflict between Russia and the West. Part of it is resentment of the more highly developed West and its attitude towards backwards Russia. Face it, from Peter the Great on, Russia has been playing catch up.

Even deeper roots lie in the rivalry between the Orthodox Church in Russia and its rival Catholic Church in Rome, a rivalry which is little known outside of the region. Such conflicts have played out in Ukraine and Poland in our modern era. In fact, historic contempt of Poles by Russians was rooted in part by the religious rivalry between the Eastern and Western Churches.

Interestingly, O'Donnell does not seem to stake out the typical anti-Catholic position of Slavic Orthodox.

I do not necessarily agree with the entirety of piece below - the tone of which is that America is an ugly, vulgar place - but it is certainly a common enough complaint, especially by foreigners. Clearly, there is at least some truth to this contention.

American Ugly
By Stojgniev O'Donnell



It’s easy these days to take cheap shots at America. That country and its people, all the way from Hollywood to Washington and the Big Apple, offer plenty of opportunity for a cheap shot. But I can say that I had contempt for America before it was fashionable to do so.

Long before Iraq, I despised America just for its pristine ugliness, for the ugliness of its culture, many of its people, and architecture. I was born and raised in what is, all things considered, the ugliest hole on earth.

I have observed poverty in Latin America, the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and Africa. And it seems to me that the material poverty of America’s poor is shockingly uglier than the poverty of those other places.

Confronting nomadic Bedouins living out of boxes in Africa, I sensed something positive, even uplifting in their particular style of poverty. In certain circumstances, of course, poverty is not a curse - just have a look at some of the world’s wealthier folk.

And yet America’s poverty is repugnant, because one senses that it is a thorough, drenching poverty, something in which both the culture and the individual are thoroughly submerged. That ugliness is strikingly evident in America’s inner cities, as well as in suburban and rural areas.

Given America’s wealth, one marvels that America has produced no architectural Wonder of the World. How is it that, with America’s great resources, the nation could not create some lasting collective architectural monument for human posterity?

Whether traversing rural America or stalking the streets of urban slums, one sees little evidence to indicate the proud wealth and power of America.

The urban wilderness of America, which since the 1970s has functioned as the primary source of innovations in popular culture, cultivates purposely an image of ignorance and sullen ugliness, evident in the landscape, the violent behavior of its inhabitants, and their disdain of education and intellect.

The urban popular culture has its origins in commerce, not art. Whereas art is born and nurtured over time within a community of individuals sharing like values, the popular culture of America is unnatural and contrived. American culture depends on an insanity of novelty, far removed from expressions that have an authentic origin in the folk.

The situation in rural America is no less discouraging. For some years I regularly traveled an interstate that crosses what, for me is, an earthly revelation of hell.

Both sides of the interstate are strewn there with junked automobiles; rickety wooden shacks and mobile homes; rusting manufactured metal sheds; insignificant businesses revolving around automobile engines, bodies, and tires; and frightful little white wood-frame churches from which heresies and hatreds are spewed Sundays and Wednesdays.

Speeding away one day in an effort to escape the place, I was stopped and ticketed. I decided to fight the speeding charge, which meant I had to return to the local court a month later. I knew already what I would encounter.

The hearing then was delayed by a discomforting wedding ceremony which involved an immense bride, a slim sloppy groom in blue jeans, both in their late 30s, and a small entourage of relatives with the same empty eyes and expressions, the same neglected appearance as the wedding pair. The single mother of the groom loudly and proudly proclaimed to strangers her joy to “finally git her son married.”

Had there been no entourage, one might have explained it away as two individuals with disabilities. But it was clear that the ugliness and emptiness were collective, common to a whole community, an entire culture. I have since shuddered every time I passed through that spot in the “greatest nation on earth.”

The idyll of suburbia has brought comfort to some Americans. Proud American suburbanites see only beauty in the symmetrical rows of similar ranch style homes (or homes of whatever style happens to be popular for the decade) surrounded by manicured yards.

That greenery serves not as a retreat for humans to commune with nature, but as a boundary separating anonymous inhabitants of adjacent housing. (Some other nations, by contrast, tolerantly cultivate their “weeds” with grasses and flowers; thus, one nation’s weed is another’s flower). Those boundaries are important for Americans, guaranteeing the sacred American privacy that isolates one individual from another.

American suburbia displays its own unique ugliness in the symbols of commercial life that are the same throughout America (and increasingly, the world).

It is unsettling for me to know that two individuals at the same moment can enter a franchised fast food joint in Alaska and Florida, read simultaneously the same menu, and receive at the same synchronized moment an identical portion of food previously manufactured in a common commercial vat at a processing plant at still a third location.

One cannot help but wonder what ends might be accomplished for humanity had some nation other than America control of such marvelous energies and resources.

America is the land of mass production par excellence. Housing and commercial buildings are manufactured distant from the spot where they come to rest. The craftsman does not see his product set into place; he never interacts with the community where his product is installed.

The efficiency of the assembly line permits productivity and efficiency, yet it sacrifices part of the human being. It prohibits the development of human community, an important by-product of human industry.

For many Americans content to share their dwelling with rats, roaches, overflowing toilets, and filth, the true abode is the automobile (or maybe just a motorcycle). There the soul resides. Pimp my ride, dude! (not that I have any clue what the latter phrase really suggests).

I have a prejudice here, insofar as I never learned to recognize beauty in an automobile. Not even the Hummer or late model double-seat pickup trucks impress me. (I have in recent years not only liberated myself from the automobile, but I have come to appreciate the unhurried pleasures of transportation upon occasionally reeking and ornery camels).

The three-car garage becomes a norm in American suburbia, not because most families now own three cars, but rather because the American consumer requires massive space for the storage of his gadgets and accouterments. In a nation that has produced as much as America has, the disposal of waste presents a formidable problem. No folk in this world has such a cluttered environment as the Americans.

Marketers of popular culture, having learned from successful marketers of automobiles and vacuum cleaners, are required to “move” a set quota of pop culture product, which means that consumers periodically must replace their previous cultural product.

The homes and apartments of America are filled with cultural product, current and expired, the different generations of which have a common relation only through the individual’s shallow fantasy of nostalgia.

America is a rootless society. The tradition early was established that, once the surrounding environment is exhausted and the cabin begins to show signs of deterioration or accumulated waste, one pulls up stakes and moves on down the road to a new environment.

Some Americans in their front yards display trucks and automobiles in various stages of disassembly, which are not only a sign of their admiration for technology, but are simultaneously a monument to the motions of migration that are by now a tradition. Yards with flowers and gardens belong to more recent immigrants of different backgrounds.

America undergoes a constant indoctrination of commercialism which conditions the behavior of its citizens. Americans rejoice to buy one, get one free. This is a language Americans accept and believe in; it seems natural to them that this is how their universe should function. (Ancient societies, surely and rightly, understood that it is illogical that one buys one and gets one free).

Commercialism legitimizes a whole culture of dishonesty and commercial obscurantism. Commercialism has allowed the prostitution of art as, for example, in the fusion of popular culture and the commercial medium of television.

The true indicator of American Ugly is found in architecture, a genuine human language. Through architecture we make a statement about ourselves and about our community. Perhaps more than any other art form, architecture is about community, and therefore it reveals something of the soul of a culture.

Standing before Rome’s mighty wonders, at St. Basil’s in Moscow, Hagia Sophia, or the city of stone in Petra, I am dumbfounded, stunned not less by the design and beauty as by some realization of the distant collective effort that was generated in the creation and execution of beauty. In each of those places, I have witnessed a statement of unique human culture.

American architecture is not about community or culture. It is today about kitsch, commerce, and individual egos. Just look at Beverly Hills or any suburb in which wealthy and famous Americans reside. Americans have no understanding of beauty.

For some post-modernist elites, beauty is created exactly when the masses perceive ugliness (your insignificant ugly=our celestial beauty, “bad”=great). Beauty for the Americans is never collective, for the average American today knows not what is beautiful and what is ugly. American “multiculti” comes into play here.

If all human cultures are inherently equal, they reason then that all architectural styles must have equal value, even mud-ugly huts and primitive human habitations in holes in the earth. Yet one can never simply collapse all the architectural displays of the world into a Disneyland of multicultural synthesis.

Great architecture reflects a true collective culture. In its poverty of architecture and its ignorance of beauty, America demonstrates the absence of genuine culture and values.

2006
from a better place than America


Ultimate White Trash Elected Officials in America
by Honkitonk Shapyro



[RL:I think that the fake Jewish surname as the author of this parody post was gratuitous.]

Someone said that Dick Cheney is the ultimate white trash VP of American history. If he don’t like ya, then he’ll train a goddam shotgun on yer face. I don’t know American history all that well, though I believe that country has had some spectacular white trash presidents. Andrew Jackson probably qualifies. More recently, there is Bill Clinton. If Bill Clinton ain’t pure white trash, I’ll smoke a clodhopper.

But then W. ain’t real white trash, though oddly, he seems to be a’wishin’ he wuz. I wuz lis’nen’ to one of his recent speeches - if one optimistically would call it a speech - in which he precisely imitated the jargon of white trash Texans. And he did a heck of a job of it.

But W. was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, or a silver foot in his mouth, as one Texas politician once said, to a wealthy noble patrician family from the northeast. He didn’t grow up a’talkin’ the talk he talks now. Is that what thangs has come to these days: to get elected president of the U.S.A. a son of the privilegeds gotta talk white trash patois? Lordy, lordy.

If W. had putted as much effort in understanding global history and geography as he puts into trying to appear white trash “folksy,” he might rise to the level of one of the lesser mediocre presidents. Then there’s this big white trash electorate in America.

They drive enormous, gas-guzzlin’ pickup trucks, buy lots of lottery tickets, listen to contemporary country music, drink cheap beer, consume cheap hamburgers, and visit hateful white trash churches on Sundays and Wednesdays. I know them folks. Regular I picked up they litter they throwed along my place in America. Empty beer cans, discarded church bulletins, and worthless scratched Lotto tickets are tellin’.

I know this litterin’ white trash. Went to school with them, grew up among ‘em. And I know Dick Cheney. I cannot think of any worse - “wurst” as some among them might say- vice president in American history. And believe me, I ain’t no liberal.

Some of them Americans used to say spitefully that each nation gets the government it deserves. America! You’ve now got W. and Dick Cheney. Embrace and enjoy! You’ve had ‘em comin’ for some time. And shout one goddam hallerlooyer while y’er at it!

August 2006

Update September 18: Comments posted on the popular blog site Extreme Mortman by Epaminondas, author of the Villagers With Torches blog, suggests that comments in the post above are an example of anti-Semitism. Epaminondas' use of German accents and phrases on his comments suggests that my comments are akin to Nazism.

Sane readers of this blog can quickly determine whether or not I am a Nazi, so there is no need to respond to such charges. In general, I feel that it is also useless to defend oneself against charges of racism, in particular anti-Semitism.

It seems, that, once accused, there seems to be no way to defend oneself against the charge, even if one is innocent, as is typically the case nowadays, since those who level it are convinced that you hate Jews, and therefore all defense is a waste of time.

On the other hand, real anti-Semites should just admit it. Many Jews are racists themselves, and as long as one does not harm Jews, there are many worse things than being an anti-Semite. Those who are not anti-Semite or racists should not stoop to defend themselves against such asinine charges.

In general, nowadays in the West, anti-Semitism tends to be a grotesquely spurious charge, usually leveled by Jews themselves (especially the more ethnic activist types) and Judeophilic Gentiles at entirely innocent people. Increasingly, any criticism at all of Jews is considered anti-Semitism and any criticism of any race or religion is considered racism or bigotry. Obviously, this is absurd.

Epaminondas himself is Jewish, however, he refuses to admit to it for some bizarre reason. A quick look at his blog shows that he is of an increasingly common species known as a liberal or Centrist neoconservative.

A former 1960's liberal and civil rights activist, he is still a registered Democrat, but a quick look at his politics shows that he is racing right as fast as he can. Why? Seems that the Democrats and the Left hate the Jews! I know, stupid, huh? What these people really mean is that the Left and some liberals increasingly dislike Israel. Apparently, hatred of Israel is hatred of Jews. Or something.

Yet this species of Jew like Epaminondas is increasingly spied in the US. I wrote about a similar neoconservative Jewish Left in Britain in a very popular article of mine. I am now convinced that there are also liberal and Centrist branches of neoconservatism in additional to the typical rightwing version and the strange British Leftist variety.

Kevin MacDonald notes that formerly radical neoconservative positions on Israel associated with the Likud Party are now the mainstream views of US Jews.

This is long-term Jewish trend whereby in times of stress, radical, Messianic-type Jewish extremists emerge. At first they are seen as fringe types but through aggressively accusing Jews who do not adopt their extreme positions of being traitors to the Jews, the radical views progressively become the Jewish norm.

MacDonald relates various cases to bolster his case and implies that the Jewish religion may prime Jews to be susceptible to radical, Messianic, fanatical-type causes. MacDonald's theory fits well with the history of neoconservatives.

At any rate, I am curious why Epaminondas felt that my comments in this post (see the italics at the top of the post) are anti-Semitic, much less Nazi-like. If anyone can understand what the heck this fanatical person is talking about, please point it out to me. I honestly don't see it.

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