It’s bizzare how Bottom’s problem with localism is traceable once again to his cultural snobbery towards folk music. First it was the ukelele, and now the Old Britannia folk rockers Show of Hands. There really is something pathalogical going on here, and I frankly find that pathology far more fascinating that the old wicked slander of anti-semitism.
I think he’s after Corps command!
My links’ broke…Joe Carter “Come in!” ….so a Caleb blog on this insult would seem, to me, to be most appropriate. Was it High Snark?
It’s bizzare how Bottom’s problem with localism is traceable once again to his cultural snobbery towards folk music. First it was the ukelele, and now the Old Britannia folk rockers Show of Hands.
Um…what? Bottum doesn’t even mention Show of Hands in that discussion.
Yep, he does. He’s riffing off of Rusty’s praise of Show of Hands.
Joe, old palsy, please fix the link, talk later! This one can burst at any minute!
Bob: The links seem to be working.
Caleb: I’m rather disappointed that you responded with such a knee jerk reaction. I had to go back and read Bottum’s post twice to try to figure out how you could have drawn the conclusion that he was “riffing off of Rusty’s praise of Show of Hands.”
In fact, Bottum links to three posts Rusty wrote on folk music and localism. It wasn’t Show of Hands (the link to England) but the singer Bok van Blerk (the South Africa link) that he was referring to when he was talking about anti-Semitism. Van Blerk’s song that Rusty links to was controversial because it was seen by white supremacists as a call to arms to violence.
In that context I don’t think bringing up concerns about anti-Semitism is beyond the pale.
Joe, this is what Bottum wrote:
“Last year, Rusty Reno explored a little the modern pop music of resurgent rural localism in England [i.e., Show of Hands], Quebec, and South Africa. And the topic hasn’t ever quite left my mind. Rusty underplayed, I think, the ease with which such visions blend into anti-Semitism … to say nothing of racism and xenophobia.”
The phrase “such visions” would not seem ammenable to your defense of Bottum refering only to Van Blerk. Anyway, I thought the Boers were anti-English, not anti-semetic.
Bottum also wrote:
“But, then, it’s always the Jews, isn’t it? Or the blacks, or the foreigners, or the diseased. The problem usually comes down to the Jews, though.”
I’m sorry, but this is totally irresponsible, and my response was on the kind side, not the knee-jerk side. Bottom paints with a huge brush and tars with ugly words a vast spectrum of thought and action which he can lump as “localist.” And really, it’s not the tarring I mind as much as the rhetorical cheat of using morally charged language to shut off thought. When localists, isolationists, decentralists (pick your chosen target) can be identified as anti-semites and mean to people in wheel chairs to boot, they can easily be dismissed as raving lunatics. “Don’t listen to them! After all, they like the ukulele–and you know what that means! C’mon let’s be sophisticated and head over to the Met for the Michael Jackson tribute show. Or is it U2 playing tonight? And bonus, there’s a Burger King on the way!”
And yes, I do think it is significant that Bottom’s school-marmish scolding seems to be set off most easily by folksy music. Pathalogical, as I said.
Of note and related in a lot of subtle and overt ways:
Natural Law, the Death Penalty, and Political Theology: An Editorial Response to First Things
Let’s start at the end and work our way back.
And yes, I do think it is significant that Bottom’s school-marmish scolding seems to be set off most easily by folksy music. Pathalogical, as I said.
If you didn’t want to engage Bottum’s argument that would have been fine. But for you to go off on a weird tangent about him being “pathological” about folk music makes you look less than serious.
First, you’re single data point is flawed. The post on the ukulele is not about folk music at all (last time I was in the record store the music of Eric Clapton wasn’t found next to Joan Baez and Woodie Guthrie). Even the instrument itself— the ukulele—is not a “folk instrument.” (It is from Portugal; it’s about as Hawaiian as, well, as Burger King.)
Second, it was Rusty who brought up the subject of xenophobia, racisim, and—in his reference to Chesterton’s prejudices—anti-Semitism into the original discussion. It was the vision behind the music—not an animus against folk music itself—that Bottum is referring to when he says that Rusty “underplays” their implications. (The fact that Rusty included a song that is a hit with white supremacists makes me think Bottum might have a point.)
In other words, the discussion is not about folk music at all.
Bottom paints with a huge brush and tars with ugly words a vast spectrum of thought and action which he can lump as “localist.”
Bottum is reacting to a post by Rusty and his words must be taken in that context. For example, Rusty says:
While I agree with Rusty’s larger point, I also agree that Rusty is definitely “underplaying” the inherent racism that can lurk beneath localist motives. Southern intellectuals may be able to devise clever rationales for defending the confederate battle flag, but the fact is that it represents a heritage of racism—and that is why a lot of people embrace it. The elephant in the localist room (and I consider myself one) is xenophobia and racism—and its time, as Poulos would say, to “feed the elephant a peanut.”
The reason that Bottum is able to paint with a broad brush is because it is a truth—a very ugly truth—that we localists downplay at our peril. We can’t simply dismiss it as a problem that has been solved, or at least, doesn’t apply to us. The idea that, had we lived during the time of the Confederacy or Jim Crow, we would have followed our localist principles to a different, more enlightened position needs to be explained. We can’t just wave our hands and dismiss such criticism as poisoning the well.
I was hoping that you would help provide a robust defense case against such criticism. Instead, you veered off on an odd tangent about Bottum having a pathological dislike of folk music. It’s a bizarre and disappointing response.
Of note and related in a lot of subtle and overt ways:
I think you provide an intriguing critique, though I’m not sure how it is related, either subtly or overtly.
Meathead said to Archie: “You’re Prejudiced Awwwch”!
Bunker replied :” “Oh youse Meathead youse….we’re not prejudiced, were just particular”.
Edit looked on in a tizzie.
Joe:
1. I am glad you are over here on the Porch, and I have enjoyed the rapport I have had with First Things, its editors and others over the years, and such was due in no small part to their graciousness and openness, despite deep differences. So please accept the foregoing and following in that spirit.
2. The subject of race in America is, shall we say, delicate. So much so that it ought to be approached with utmost caution and prudence, and should never be bandied about by general indictment, but by specific indictment only. As Jody himself just wrote in the context of free speech, racism is “the media’s dominent metaphor” and as such becomes a bludgeon to silence dissenters from this or that preferred idea, program, etc.
3. … makes you look less than serious. Since we’re blogging, I should have thought that was obvious. If it wasn’t, the donkey-headed man festooning my post should have cinched it.
4. You’re defense of Bottum is quite detailed, which rather works against your interpretation. Sure, he may have meant this or that, but what he wrote was that the vision of the folk musicians Rusty mentioned easily “blended” to anti-semitism, racism, and xenophobia. Look, that guy is against pubs with big screen TVs and mass produced comodification of culture and he values his own history so he must be a racist! That is the clear subtext, and very nearly the text. I called foul, and I still call foul.
5. If you weren’t following the whole PoMoCon debate of the past week, the uke reference would have seemed obscure to you, so I can give a pass on that. I maintain something significant can be deduced from Bottum’s weird cultural touchpoints, but that discussion need not happen now.
6. the inherent racism … beneath localist motives and The reason that Bottum is able to paint with a broad brush is because it is a truth—a very ugly truth and The elephant in the localist room … is xenophobia and racism. Here you just sold the farm and confirmed my original reaction to “what Bottum meant” (it is odd that his meaning should need such detailed interpretation by his accolytes). I strenuously reject all three of your characterizations as false. It may be true of some forms of “localism” but it most certainly is not true of all. And in keeping with the care and prudence mentioned above, it is incumbent upon anyone trying to establish that link to do so with a specific indictment.
7. The most specific charge you have been able to come up with is “white supremecists liked that song.” I’ll tell you, guilt by association is about the worst form of intellectual dishonesty, and this is about the loosest form of association I have ever seen employed to imply guilt. I bet there’s a few white supremecists reading First Things.
8. I was hoping that you would help provide a robust defense case against such criticism. Joe, I appreciate that, and I have hope for continuing fraternal relations with First Things and PoMoCons etc. But I reject the form of the argument that runs: “You’re a racist!” “No I’m not!”
All for now.
1. … So please accept the foregoing and following in that spirit.
Will do. And I apologize if I came across as rather abrasive. That was not my intent, though after rereading it I think I came off that way.
2. The subject of race in America is, shall we say, delicate.
I completely agree. Indeed, I think that Bottum was being rather delicate in his (delayed) response to Rusty. A less generous reader might have thought that Rusty was a bit too dismissive over concerns about racism in matters like the confederate battle flag. I don’t think that was Rusty’s intention at all. In fact, I think he brought it up in his post simply to acknowledge it. But I agree with Bottum that it’s an issue that can’t simply be dismissed.
3. … makes you look less than serious. Since we’re blogging, I should have thought that was obvious. If it wasn’t, the donkey-headed man festooning my post should have cinched it.
Sorry, I was overly harsh there. I really was hoping to see more engagement with Bottum’s point, if for no other reason that it would keep me from having to come up with one myself. ; )
4. . . . Sure, he may have meant this or that, but what he wrote was that the folk musicians Rusty mentioned easily “blended” to anti-semitism, racism, and xenophobia.
Perhaps. I might be being a bit generous in my interpretation of Bottum’s remarks. But it isn’t exactly like Rusty simply wrote a post about folk music and Bottum make a strange leap to racism/xenophobia/etc. Rusty very clearly acknowledged that there may be some nasty subtext buried beneath the surface. He just thinks that is part of the unfortunate side effect to an otherwise beneficial means to social cohesion.
6. . . . I strenuously reject all three of your characterizations as false. It may be true of some forms of “localism” but it most certainly is not true of all. And in keeping with the care and prudence mentioned above, it is incumbent upon anyone trying to establish that link to do so with a specific indictment.
There is nothing more wrongheaded than to claim that “all” is applicable to an abstract concept like “localism.” So I certainly don’t want to imply that there is a direct line from localism to racism/xenophobia. I also admit that the connection I was trying to make was a bit confusing. Rusty was discussing foreign folk music but the racism question came in connection with a peculiar brand of American Southern music.
Those of us who are sympathetic to the FPR-style localism are most likely thinking of how it applies to agrarian, rural, Southern/Western localities in America (I myself am a redneck from rural Texas.) I would say that speaking generally and historically, when these locales have had a strong sense of “localism” that they have often been plagued by racism/xenophobia. (I could be wrong, of course, but I think this point is rather obvious.)
This may not be true of South Africa or England, though I suspect there is something universal about distancing from the Other the closer one is drawn to one’s own community.
Obviously it’s difficult to talk about these issues without stepping on people’s cultural sensibilities. (I myself find it easier to talk about the racial problems in the South with other Southerners; when Yankees chime it I tend to get defensive.) I wasn’t trying to point fingers since I didn’t think it would apply to anyone who might read this (I admit it’s a prejudice to assume that people who read FPR and First Things aren’t likely to be the type who subscribe to xenophobic or racist beliefs— i.e., We are above that sort of thing.) My thinking was more along the lines of, “This is where localism can lead our ugly cousins so how do we prevent it.”
7. The most specific you have been able to come up with is “white supremecists liked that song.” I’ll tell you, guilt by association is about the worst form of intellectual dishonesty, and this is about the loosed form of association I have ever seen employed to imply guilt. I bet there’s a few white supremecists reading First Things.
Well, it’s not like its some Kumbaya-style folk song. The lyrics call for an armed struggle by the Afrikaners, a group that has historically believed in the God-ordained racial superiority of whites. This isn’t to say that that the song or the singer are racist; it very well be nothing more than a “celebration of Afrikaner lore.” But it’s like someone from Arkansas singing a song called “Block the door George Wallace” and then claiming that those “silly racists” are misconstruing its meaning.
8. I was hoping that you would help provide a robust defense case against such criticism. Joe, I appreciate that, and I have hope for continuing fraternal relations with First Things and PoMoCons etc. But I reject that form of the argument that runs: “You’re a racist!” “No I’m not!”
You’re right. I apologize if this was the way it came across. I certainly don’t think anyone who writes for FPR is a racist and I’d be shocked to find that many of the readers are either.
I believe that localism as a concept cannot be abstracted from the actual locales in which we want to apply it. Unfortunately, for most of the rural areas in America this is still a problem (I think it’s probably an even bigger problem in urban areas but that is not my fight). My point is simply that if we don’t find a way to talk about it and find a resolution, who will? We can’t simply pretend that it will go away just because we ourselves are not prejudiced in this way.
If localism is to be more than just a lifestyle preference then we must find a way to draw the circles of community ever tighter without excluding the Other among us.
Joe, no appologies necessary, and many of your points are well taken.
1. So I certainly don’t want to imply that there is a direct line from localism to racism/xenophobia. This is very good to hear, as many people do wish to imply just that. And in fact, I think Bottum implied just that, though I am pleased to hear that he probably didn’t mean it.
2. I believe that localism as a concept cannot be abstracted from the actual locales in which we want to apply it. Exactly right. I agree entirely.
3. Those of us who are sympathetic to the FPR-style localism are most likely thinking of how it applies to agrarian, rural, Southern/Western localities in America. I think this is a very common misconception, but a misconception nonetheless. Agrarian and rural heritage, “localism,” etc., can and does flourish anywhere there is a real place left which has not yet been ravaged fully by the beheamoth that it American mass culture. My own tradition and place is that of the prairie populists of the great plains. I do not think that racism plays nearly the role of the histories of the midwest and west as it does in the old north and south. Kansas was founded by Yankee presbyterian abolitionists, who later became the first state to give sufferage, and have always been in some measure driven by a radical egalitarianism (not today’s PC garbage). Kansas filled up with “exodusters” (newly freed black farmers) after the war and they fought side by side in the populist battles of the late 19thC with the poor white clodhoppers. The American West is likewise defined in history and memory much less by race. The “localisms” of these places simply has a very different history from the “state’s rights” movement of the South.
4. This is where localism can lead our ugly cousins so how do we prevent it. I think you are drawing a causal connection again that is not warranted. Of course, “preventing” actual racism is a good thing, but can you actually support the claim that it was a “localist” political posture that led to the racism? More likely you are thinking of the ways that certain areas (the South) used local and State sovereignty arguments in an attempt to preserve their way of life. I actually don’t have a big problem with that (while still having a problem with the particular “way of life.”) In other words, localist impulses are always about defending a particular, specific, rich, and most of all loved, way of living, way of being human beings in relation with other human beings. That is the way it ought to be, I believe.
5. Unfortunately, for most of the rural areas in America this is still a problem (I think it’s probably an even bigger problem in urban areas but that is not my fight). My point is simply that if we don’t find a way to talk about it and find a resolution, who will? This would indicate to me that the problem “racism” is entirely unconnected to the phenomena “localism.” If what you mean to say is that race remains a significant issue in America for everyone and localists should talk about it as much as anyone else, that is fine. But this is a very different thing from saying that localists have a particular problem with being racists.
[…] Bottum had originally written: “My problem with … localism … is the Jews. But, then, it’s always the Jews, isn’t it? Or the blacks, or the foreigners, or the diseased. The problem usually comes down to the Jews, though.” I called foul, and you can read that exchange over here. […]
I just picked up on this discussion.
Firstly, Mr. Bottum is being disingenuous in the extreme in the way in which he tosses around racism without defining what it means. The word has become so charged (possibly because it is the only sin that the modern world has sufficient moral force to condemn) that it has become the supreme allegation, against which there is no defense. If a person, group, society, or idea can be stained with “racism” or if it excepts anything less than strict racial orthodoxy, the whole thing becomes dismissed. There is nothing else that has a similar effect -if an idea can be shown to be illogical, murderous, rotten, evil, intemperate, foolish, or barbarous, it still has a good chance of being accepted by modernity. But if it can be shown to be racist -my God, that’s a whole ‘nother matter.
But, there is a larger point.
Nothing is without a price; localism is not perfect, nor does it pretend to be. The question raised by the Front Porchers, as I see it, is this: is the present, comfortable, bland, sterile, therapeutic, multicultural, industrial, consumerist existence worth the price it takes to accept it? And, let’s not be mistaken, there is a price -the price of what someone (I can’t remember his name at the moment) called the grand “liberal bargain.” The price of the liberal bargain is this; the sacrifice of roots and hearths, of local patriotisms and local quarrels, the sacrifice of “thumos,” of chivalry and honor and yes, violence; the sacrifice of self-sufficiency, of place, the sacrifice of the drama of limits and orthodoxy, of consequences, and the sacrifice of tradition and prejudice (in the Burkean sense). The question raised by the Front Porchers is: do all these sacrifices entail a sacrifice of our humanity?
Let me be frank. Does localism engender racism? To a degree, yes. Does localism engender conflict? To a degree, yes. Does localism engender prejudice? To a degree, yes. But that is because localism is, at essence, humanism; it is Man in his proper state, a life lived on a human scale. And Man is not perfect; even in in his proper state, in a well-ordered community, he will have problems.
But let us not forget that it takes modernism to make local racism scientific racism and justify mass genocide; to make local conflicts bloody global wars; to take prejudices and make them national policies, enforced by a pervasive state.
The impulses behind racism and violence are not inherent to any system, but to man. They will be present in a localist society because all of Man’s nature will be present in its proper proportion, and a mistrust of the unknown and willingness to use force to avenge wrongs is part of our nature. We can try to “engineer” or legislate these things out of ourselves, through the grand liberal project that views Man as infinitely malleable. But we will not be able to legislate or engineer them out without legislating or engineering out something far more important -our humanity.
To paraphrase Chesterton, the liberal bargain wishes us to stop being human so that we may start being humane.
The “localist” or “traditionalists” or “Front Porchers” or whatever-you-have-its have a different vision; they propose that we be human, but do not and cannot guarantee that we will be humane.
Yours, &c,
“While I agree with Rusty’s larger point, I also agree that Rusty is definitely “underplaying” the inherent racism that can lurk beneath localist motives”
This obsession with “racism” is downright quaint, but is rapidly being overtaken by events. America’s “minorities”, soon to be the majority, are themselves racist. Racism is Americas future, and its not the white racism which has the dinosaurs here so preoccupied, it’s the racism of the Jews, Indians, Hispanics, Asians, and blacks. Racism, love of ones own, is the natural human condition. The notion that it is some unique evil which surfaced in American whites is a fantasy, and one which is already being exposed.
The “localist” or “traditionalists” or “Front Porchers” or whatever-you-have-its have a different vision; they propose that we be human, but do not and cannot guarantee that we will be humane.
Yes, if you give people freedom it’s implied that some of them will abuse it and be inhumane. But they have to be given it in any case. The people at First Things have forgotten that basic Christian truth, if they ever knew it.
V.M.G., thanks for the above!
I was pulling what hair I have left out,having a heck-of-a-time trying to focus this brouhaha and your comment just did it!
Modernity has left us derailed both noetically and spiritually.
Instead of just having to recover our humanity in terms of the Nous (Reason) we are also required, at this specific time in our history, to recover an understanding of the God made known through the presence of the Christ (Logos)!
The proverbial double-whammy!
My only disagreement is in your statement that “racism” is inherent in man. I think “racism” is a relatively modern phenomenon, the product of modern ideological distortions, and in the instant case of this discussion is being used to further derail the quest to exist as being in community e.g. where, in leveling the charge of “racism” it reveals a certain pneumopathology on the part of the accuser.
If Caleb (and you) are saying that to live as we were designed by God to live we must seek the divine-human encounter that is revealed (illuminated) in consciousness and shared in community, then I do agree. Sadly, those that would deny us the hope are themselves condemned to an existence in revolt against God.
Caleb, thank you so much for fighting back, without supports.
VMG, thank you for clarifying the issue and bring it into sharp focus for me.
Bob, my pleasure. My only hoped for reward has been the dispatch report on the charge from Sgt. Robert C. Cheeks, chronicler, poet, and writer of songs.
And VMG is certainly right to tie all this to humanism. In other words, as I noted somewhere in this discussion, above all I wish to conserve myself as a human being and all that that means.
Mr. Cheeks:
Thank you for your kind words!
I think I should clarify what I mean in the part about “racism” being inherent to man. I do not mean that it is our primary nature to sneer at other people’s skulls and make derogatory comments, but rather that a fear of the unknown is inherent to human nature, and that many activities that we in America brand “racist” are in fact not “racist” in the strictest sense, but part of the natural (but by no means “good,” any more than other natural impulses are good) fear of the unknown. If a man has only ever seen others of a certain race and he sees someone of another race, his first instinct, likely as not, will include some fear, and this is natural. That he should then devise a philosophical and social system to “exterminate” the foreigner is not natural and set the world right requires a special type of madness -the madness made possible by a culture that believes we have both the infinite power and the infinite right to shape our environments, our fellows, and, ultimately, ourselves.
Yours, &c,
Caleb,
Yes, I hope we’ve all had a hoot, and now the exercise seems to be bearing a little intellectual fruit. So, congrats on a very good idea!
VMG,
Yes, the whole discussion on ‘race’ and ‘racism’ is fascinating, and perhaps one of our learned academics or other contribs should enter the field and open it to discussion, though one risks the loonies lurking on the fringe,…and that gets tiresome. I think the question of racial communication is a function of distance/place, e.g. the closer two races are the more they are socially engaged, e.g. trading, warring, and copulating…thus the population of southern Europe and North Africa (among other places, and as an example) is in large measure over the past several thousand years largely mixed race…yes, no? I always thought, through the civil rights years, that the answer to the “race” question was one of economics,e.g. if we trade among ourselves the contrived social predjudice (sp) evaporates in large measure because of necessity of meeting fundamental economic needs. So, I’m not quite so sure of your “fear” scenerio in the act of two racially divergent groups “meeting,” which would have been related more to economics and therefore ‘necessary.’
I should hope you might respond to the (in)famous cavalryman, Carl Scott, who has challenged your historical/philosophical analysis of the neocon paradigm, though I do understand you meant it as a methodology possibility, and not necesarily as a historical analysis.
Or, perhaps, I’m wrong?
[…] Jews by local communities, we can conclude that by nature local communities persecute minorities. Caleb has already answered this charge far more ably than I can, but I agree with his response: […]
In Reference to Joe Carter’s comment :
“Those of us who are sympathetic to the FPR-style localism are most likely thinking of how it applies to agrarian, rural, Southern/Western localities in America (I myself am a redneck from rural Texas.) I would say that speaking generally and historically, when these locales have had a strong sense of “localism” that they have often been plagued by racism/xenophobia. (I could be wrong, of course, but I think this point is rather obvious.)”
This, I will contend, is precisely the problem at the heart of urbanite thinking regarding localism. To be local does not require a rural context–as is evidenced by the denizens of Crown Heights on Long Island. Localism certainly required no rural or agrarian orientation in history, as evidenced by Athenian pride. Indeed, urban localism forms the contextual backdrop to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as well as Westside Story.
Localism primarily requires that one identify closely with those who are proximate. This ability to identify with the local “few” rather than the national or international “many” comports with the physical and mental limits of the human person. As Robert Putnam has demonstrated, and as numerous sociological and anthropological studies can attest, nationalism without localism diminishes social capital.
Those, like Bottum, whose critique of localism revolves around fears of its latent capacity to exclude seem to suggest that there is a way to structure human affairs which will allow for a utopian state of communal bliss.
If so, the world anxiously awaits their suggestions.
In the meantime, I will take localism with all of its petty and provincial shortcomings. It gives us something to do.
And the good Lord knows that in places where localism has vanished, such as, say, Los Angeles, idle hands have been the devil’s workshop.
Ken – Crown Heights is in Brooklyn, not Long Island.
Brian–
Occasionally, Localism can rear an ignorant head, as in the case of my wanting to conflate Long Island with Brooklyn. I made the same mistake just last week, introducing my friend’s Brooklyn-born wife as being from Long Island and was quickly corrected. Thanks for keeping me straight!
Comments are closed.