I got me a new Kodak v530 small enough to take anywhere.  So more pictues here soon!  Hooray!

I look forward to having a look at Kevin Phillips’s new book when I have a chance, although it’s likely to be even more depressing than his excellent Wealth and Democracy from a few years back.  In American Theocracy, the former Republican analyst takes a look at the connection between Christian fundamentalism and its belief that we’re living in the end times, and the American habit of acquiring unsustainable levels of debt.    Interesting (tenuous?) connection?  We’ll see, I suppose.  Perhaps American Theocracy will go on the shelf near Tom Frank’s best book, One Market Under God.  Have a look at Mr. Phillips talking with the increasingly populist Lou Dobbs. 

Anyway, I’m off to Chicago just now.  But playing on my television in the background is a infomercial, for On Wings of Eagles.  In it Pat Boone joins a chorus of glassy-eyed fundamentalists to call for all Americans to donate money to fly Jews from Russia to Israel to be part of a “prophetic miracle.”

Now, I’m all for giving plane tickets to refugees of all sorts to move to any countries that will admit them.  But of course, Wings of Eagles will, as far as I can tell, buy plane tickets for Russian and Ukrainian Jews to move to one place and one place only—Israel, because their presence there is a necessary to permit the Christian Apocalypse.  This David Koresh line of thinking appears to be having a real influence on American politics.

Ah, sweet religion.  Thank God it’s just the fringe groups charting a course for a future of Blood and Fire.

Three or four days ago I promised a posting “tomorrow,” which turns out to have been a bit misleading.  I consider this sort of thing part of my ongoing project of discouraging readers here at tdq, so that I may more freely write here about things I know know nothing about.  Readers after-all fall into two categories: trouble and potential trouble.

That said, I wanted to write a bit more about Harold Lasswell, who appears in the film linked to in this post, below.  If I were an Americanist (shudder), it might be fun to take a closer look at Lasswell.  He’s one of those lost intellectuals, who produces more hits in the catalogue of a good library than he does on Google.  But his interests—propaganda, totalitarianism, the ways that nations slide into “despotism” couldn’t be of greater contemporary moment.  The fact that he adopts a psychoanalytical approach adds some interesting wrinkles to a theory that seems to have been designed for wide public consumption, sounding more like H.G. Wells or C.E.M. Joad than Theodor Adorno or Jean-Paul Sartre.  But interesting.  In his 1941 Democracy Through Public Opinion, Lasswell begins by describing the narrow-mindedness and political repressiveness of early American Colonial life:

Just how far we have gone is reveled by even a cursory backward look.  The straightforward words of John Cooon were: “Democracy I do not convey that severe God didordeyne as a fit government either for church or commonwealth.” . . . The strength of religious bigotry of the times is shown in the classic anecdote of George Keith, an Anglican missionary [they had those?], and the Quaker who rescued him from drowning .  The Quaker, a former acquaintance, refused to allow his men to accept any pay.  “I thanked him vey kindly for his help in out Great Danger,” wrote the missionary in his journal, “and said to his, John ye have been a means under God to save our natural life, suffer me to be a mean under God to save your soul . . . he replied, George save thy own soul, for I have no need of thy help: then said I, I will pray for your conversion; he replied, the Prayers of the wicked are an abomination”

A lengthy reminder, if you needed it, that that religious intolerance is nothing new in American public life.  But Lasswell is interested in the question of how it was that the intolerance of the early colonies (often expressed in ways more legal and less colorful than the little anecdote above), was gradually mitigated by changes in law and opinion that made for a less sectarian public sphere.

Lasswell’s answer is, in a word, propaganda.  (I could be off in some respects here, as his method is somewhat digressive, and my reading has been cursory and sandwiched between moments of real work).  Lasswell defines propaganda broadly, as any attempt to influence public opinion, and thus defends it vigorously.  Writing in 1941 Lasswell is an apologist for American propaganda during World War II (it would be interesting to see whether his opinions changed during the Vietnam era); he finds that governments need to use propaganda to promote the values that that sustain the public sphere (not his term) upon which in his view Democracy depends. 

Lasswell seems an authoritarian “Democrat”—or is he just a realistic one?  Does the Government have an obligation or right to attempt to influence public opinion at all?  Do individuals have a right to do this through their government?  Lasswell has an acute sense that Democracy and its associated values of free speech are always under threat by economic, consumerist, nationalistic, and religious pressures, among others.  He seems to feel that it would be naive to expect Democracy to survive without conscious governmental effort to reinforce its value in the public mind.

Lasswell raises difficult questions, and provides a radical answer: that Democrat needs to be packaged, pushed, and sold like any other product—”from above,” if necessary.  As the Bush administration dismantles the separation of Church and State, minimizes international law and the United Nations, and undermines the notions of privacy on the one hand and of “public” lands and resources on the other, we might pause to consider Lasswell’s arguments, and whether the success of the Right has been due to a willingness to propagandize on behalf of its values, while the regime of Enlightenment has found ever fewer defenders.  Is it time for the Left—or even the democratic middle and right—to overcome a childish reluctance about the use of propaganda (video)?

Oh, wait, I have a blog, don’t I?  I’d almost forgot.  And in the meantime I’ve accumulated a backlog of trivial little things I’d like to blog about.

I’ve just settled in at Kopi to do a little dissertation writing.  I’m feeling a little vexed.  On the way here, I stopped by the Lincoln Bookbindery over in Urbana.  I have a copy of the Moxton 2 Volume Works of Beaumont and Fletcher which, if it were in good shape, would look something like this.  Except that the covers are off or mostly off of my copy, and the spine is all cracked and completely off one volume and has I think been taped, discoloring it further.  But once they were nice books.  They still are, really, with old hand made marbled endpages, and stately “Ex Libris” bookplates (btw, when will we see a hip bookplate web application for tracing the genealogy of books?  I think some bibilo-geeks would get a kick out of this).

Anyway, I’d wanted to get these books rebacked–the leather covers saved, a new spine built, and the old spine glued on-top of the new spine.  Sort of brutal to do to an old book—but done well, this looks nice.  I was told that this would probably not be possible with my books.  They were a bit too far gone.  They could try, but it would run me $75 per volume, with no guarantees.  Now, I do love old books, and I thought for a minute.  But the spine leather really was cracked badly, and I really don’t have $150 to spend on rebacking and, well, I finally just said to go ahead and rebind both volumes in new black buckram, for $35 apiece.  Still not cheap and indeed a profligate waste of money but there you have it.  The rebindings I saw at this busy little book factory (which is *not* a place specializing in conservation, I was warned) looked handsome and sturdy. 

Also I note with some sense of triumph that I got my hands on the last copy of Iconoclash available in the world.  Really.  This little-known book is associated with a German art exhibition mounted by Bruno Latour that was centered upon a fantastic and unique print that captures the essence of Protestant iconophobia.  A small version is available on-line.  Here: have a look. 

More here tomorrow, including perhaps my best idea ever.

So . . . you’d like to learn a thing or two about Despotism, would you?

Ok, I posted this link to Metafiler; Here’ s the Mefi post:

Despotism. In 1946, Encyclopedia Britannica and Harold Lasswell produced an educational film about the nature of Despotism.  Calls to mind contemporary examples of despotism, and (in view of Lasswell’s own views on the subject) raises some interesting questions about the uses and misuses of persuasion and propaganda.

Film link via the Prelinger Archive, previously discussed here).

Comment here if you wish, or see if anyone comments over at the mefi comments thread.

[UPDATE: turns out this was posted before on MeFi.  So my beautiful link will probably be quickly deleted.  Alas; it will live now, only in The Qualm.]

Ok, you’d never guess it by looking at me, but I appreacite it when people dress interestingly, and dream occasionally of doing the same.  A recent thread over at Majikthise about the celebrity fashion snark site Go Fug Yourself reminds me of this secret pleasure, regarding which I thought I would post a couple of links.  I am not such a fan of GFY, but there are alternatives.  To wit: you’re already acquainted with the Manolo’s shoe blog, of course.  But have you taken a look at The Sartorialist?  It’s just nicely dressed people around New York City.  A not-so-gulity pleasure.

In an act of sweet devotion, someone has made Jack Chick’s classic pamphlet Party Girl, into a film!

Hooray for party girls!

About this?

Via.

Ok: to add-on.  Here’s another clip, again from Crooks and Liars.  It’s an old one, but still shocking in its way:  This one reminds me again of just what the US has become vis-a-vis the world. 

How is it that here in Central Illinois I still find myself wanting to be wished to the Cornfield?

DL was telling me this eveing about Ascaris lumbricoides–a huge parasitic worm that’s inside 1.5 billion of our fellow persons.  I had no idea about this, and so posted a link at MeFi to bring this to the attention of the hive-mind.  Have a look over there if you are prepared to see some icky stuff, and maybe to consider the human neglect that allows these worms to be such a problem in so many parts of the world.

Attended Laura H.’s scandalous “Eyes Wide Shut” party last night.    There was a puppy.  On Thursday, I showed up for a local “openXsource” art opening thingamabob, and then made it out to see Terminus Victor (any relation?) and Russian Circles with a pleasant randomer from psychology.  RC’s unreal drumwork was worth the permanent hearing damage, I think.

This afternoon I observed complex social relations in downtown Champaign before taking a run and then grading here at Aroma.  Soon I will stop, go home, and go to sleep.

On Friday Ed, known to some of you through this person (filed under “Wikipedia Articles that Need their Importance to be Explained”), recommended I check out the Prellinger Archive (part of the Internet Archive).  You absolutely must go check this out.  I promise you will waste far far too much time browsing old educational and other sorts of footage.  This one bewitched me with the power of the atom (concerning which, see below, again).

For those of us who can’t get it in the snail-world, comes: Naughty America.  Not so very safe for work.

Another link: How no one could have anticipated the levee breach in New Orleans.  Video.

Grading papers is hard.  I am grading a long paper with lots of problems, and just can’t seem to go for more than a couple paragraphs without sighing, looking out the window and wondering about the multiform sadnesses that must have contributed to writing such as this.  What would be the objective correlative of this writing?  What would be its emblem?  What, in short is the ultimate nature of the badness I see before me?  And what, exactly, is it trying to tell me?

Is what I see perhaps a reflection back on my own inattentiveness?  The sort that’s got me tight in its flinty grasp right exacty now?

Hint: yes.