A Century of the Self

I've referenced this documentary here before. I can't speak highly enough about it.

Here's a description from the BBC website:

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud's ideas to manipulate the masses.

He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn't need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires. Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar. His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom.

But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile. It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today's world.

Here is Part 1 (of 4):


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Another Tony Judt Obit

This one's at the home of many of his essays, the New York Review of Books.

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Vindication, However Small

Some time ago, I wrote this.

Today, I came across this in an interview with Terry Zwigoff, director of Crumb and Ghost World:

TZ:...The Coen brothers do a lot of movies with a very strong regional dialect. I love the movie they did with Tom Hanks, Ladykillers. That woman Irma P. Hall, I could listen to her all day.

AVC: You said before that you have different tastes than most people in movies, and that would be a case in point, since nearly everyone else seems to dislike The Ladykillers.

TZ: They don’t like The Ladykillers? Huh. Well, it’s better than the original English film, though I’m sure I’ll be crucified for saying that. Mainly because of Irma P. Hall. And I liked Tom Hanks in it, too; I thought he was good.

Crucified? You're hanging with the wrong crowd, Mr. Zwigoff.
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More Tony Judt

The Guardian has a good obit.

I particularly like this line:

By his later years, Judt's adherence to scholarly standards, along with his contempt for charlatans such as Louis Althusser and for academic fashion, made him seem a conservative figure to more modish colleagues. But far from making the notorious journey to the right, he was preaching social democracy to the end of his life. He was a reactionary only in reacting against intellectual dishonesty and imposture (Emphasis mine.)

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Tony Motherfucking Judt, Kick-Ass Chronicler of History, Is Dead at 62

I've written a little bit about him here before. His NYT obit is here.

ALS got him. It took two years. I feel robbed, frankly, but relieved he's free from that prison. I read the news on the subway last night, and goddamn if I didn't start crying. Being an intellectual and a writer ain't like being an athlete; he could have kept cranking out awesome for another 20 years.

He could think and write with the best I've ever read. Only some of his essays at the NYRB are available for free, and I'd been putting off pulling the trigger on a subscription--$69--but I figure I will now. I'd also been lazy about picking up his latest book, Ill Fares The Land, so I'll probably do that too. You can read the opening chapter here.

And to my Jewish friends: I highly recommend his essays on Israel and American foreign policy. He took a lot of shit from pro-Israel-no-matter-what writers, politicians, and hacks. His positions are nuanced and thoughtful, and it pains me to think that part of his legacy will be his "controversial" views, where "controversial" = not parroting AIPAC or the ADL's dogmatic positions.
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Americans

I spend a fair amount of time online reading about politics, foreign policy, stuff like that. And that reading--against my better judgment, sometimes--includes reading the comments section.

Suffice to say, there is no better place to see the seedy underbelly of the American mind, but sometimes you get to see what goes on in equally-but-differently-retarded brains of people from other countries, stuff like this:

Citizens of nations in North or South America who object to Americans being referred to as "Americans" because citizens of the United States of America aren't the only inhabitants of "The Americas."

I'm not kidding, I've encountered it several times, and I did so today.

My response is twofold.

1. Our country has "America" right in its fucking name you fucking pussies!!!!!. United States of America. Calling us Americans is simply shorthand. With a name like ours, we've got a few: U.S., U.S.A, the States, and yes, America. The only one that lends itself to pluralization is America. Pretty simple, right? So is "America" part of your country's name? No? Didn't fucking think so, so shut the fuck up.

2. After shutting the fuck up, find a gun and shoot yourself in the face. Don't have one? Find an American, we've got plenty.
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