On Sontag
Writer Susan Sontag has died at age 71. She was a towering public intellectual who had the courage to consistently test the limits of coventional thought and strictures and to equally enrage the Right and the Left.
After the 911 attacks she was unfairly demonized by Sunshine Patriots as un-American, as a soft-headed leftist who had a weakness for terrorists. This because of her temerity in stating the obvious i.e. that the attacks on the WTC didn't just materialize out of the blue. She wrote in The New Yorker:
"Where is the acknowledgment that this was not a 'cowardly' attack on 'civilization' or 'liberty' or 'humanity' or 'the free world' but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and actions?...In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): Whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not cowards."
Sullying Sontag for this postulation was, in itself, an act of cowardice. Sontag was hardly a patsy for knee-jerk leftism. Indeed, she was among the first on the American Left --back in 1970-- to lambast fidel Castro for his persecution of writers.
In 1982, Sontag raised a storm at a New York Town Hall rally for the Polish Solidarnosc movement. Saying that Communism was but Fascism with a human face, Sontag angered the liberal audience by arguing that if anyone had read only The Nation or only the Readers Digest over the previous 20 years, the one who read the Digest would be be better prepared to understand the revolt in Poland.
During the 1990's Sontag made the Balkans and opposition to Milosevic's form of facsism her personal crusade, making serveral perilous visits to Sarajevo and -- somtimes alone among American intellectuals- calling for armed Western intervention.
The L.A. Times Sunday Book Review editor, Steve Wasserman writes a moving and comprehensive obituary of Sontag. Some of the key graphs:
Sontag wrote about subjects as diverse as pornography and photography, the aesthetics of silence and the aesthetics of fascism, Bunraku puppet theater and the choreography of Balanchine, as well as portraits of such writers and intellectuals as Antonin Artaud, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes and Elias Canetti.Sontag was a fervent believer in the capacity of art to delight, to inform, to transform."We live in a culture," she said, "in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying."In a Rolling Stone article in 1979, Jonathan Cott called Sontag a writer who was "continually examining and testing out her notion that supposed oppositions like thinking and feeling, consciousness and sensuousness, morality and aesthetics can in fact simply be looked at as aspects of each other "” much like the pile on the velvet that, upon reversing one's touch, provides two textures and two ways of feeling, two shades and two ways of perceiving."A self-described "besotted aesthete" and "obsessed moralist," Sontag sought to challenge conventional thinking.
December 28th, 2004 at 8:18 pm
From one Susan to another —
I will miss her dearly and was greatly saddened to hear of her death today. Thanks Marc, for the posting about her…
December 28th, 2004 at 8:21 pm
Mark, no. You quote too selectively, and the point is misdirected.
My (least) favorite passage from that Sontag piece:
- Where is the acknowledgement that this was not a “cowardly”
- attack on “civilization” or “liberty” or “humanity” or “the free
- world” but an attack on the world’s self proclaimed super-power,
- undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances and
- actions?
Well Suzie, it was “cowardly” because it involved no challenge more masculine than slitting the throat of an unsuspecting stewardess.
There’s nothing “self-proclaimed” about America’s super-power status, which is universally acknowledged.
Also, I’d like to know WHICH “specific” alliances and actions she deems (would have deemed) responsible for this horrendous massacre?
And that’s ONE SENTENCE. The rest of the piece collapses as readily.
It was in reading that letter from Sontag that I came to understand that New York intellectualism was frogwash, useless as a beacon for the challenges facing cilivilazation in the rest of my life.
December 28th, 2004 at 8:22 pm
Sorry, that was me.
December 28th, 2004 at 8:32 pm
Also, sorry for mispelling civi-millivanilli-zation. It’s because of the rain.
December 28th, 2004 at 9:40 pm
I have to agree with Cridland. Sontag was wrong to say that. Part of it was tautological (whatever we do has consequences…duh). But it failed to understand the critical issue: free and innocent human beings were attacked in a vicious and cruel manner, and that innocent humans – Americans and others – died not as a result of American policies, but because vicious cowards sent others to commit a vile act. Those others hardly needed much courage when they deeply believed that crashing those aircraft into towers full of people would instantly transport them to paradise.
They were attacking us because we were seen as evil in their twisted version of Islam, and because we were blocking their political ambitions to spread that version, by bloodshed, throughout the middle east and ultimately the world. And yes, they did attack because we are free, as liberty is against their values; they did attack our humanity, because it conflicts with their inhumane values; they did attack the free world and civilization because they wanted to create an unfree world without real civilization.
Sontag could not have been more wrong.
There were many things that could be said at the time. It is not as if Sontag said anything insightful or original or even non-obvious. She just had the bad taste to say it at a time that was inappropriate, and to include the standard left wing blame shifting to the United States.
But I guess only the right can be excoriated for being insensitive.
It reminds me of one of the big league civil libertarians whose first comment was “Oh no, what will this do to our liberties.”
What a lousy perspective – just like Sontag’s.
That she said a few other things against the leftist orthodoxy doesn’t make her so great either. Whoopie. This person commented once in a while that the emperor had no clothes. I am not impressed.
The loss of Susan Sontag doesn’t make my world any worse, except in the sense that the loss of almost any human life is sad.
December 28th, 2004 at 10:10 pm
Marc writes, “Sullying Sontag for this postulation was, in itself, an act of cowardice.”
I respectfully disagree Marc. While I always enjoyed Sontag’s writing, she was way off base with that paragraph. It was indeed “cowardly” to attack a non-military target full of totally innocent civilians going about their business. It was cowardly to plan the attack over “infidels” desecrating “holy” soil by the US being in Saudi Arabia. Such wanton slaughter of people for religions sake (bin Laden’s self admitted reason) has no place in “protest.” Besides my friend, what we have to deal with is not always reality, but our perception of reality and my perception of this bit by Susan Sontag was that she was way off base.
December 28th, 2004 at 10:21 pm
I can’t imagine that anyone would have suspected that Susan Sontag’s death would make your world any worse, John M. Thanks for the confirmation, though.
Marc – good call on Sontag and her critics. The thing about Susan Sontag was that she wasn’t particularly likeable. But I like her word, “desimplyfing”. That she was…and whether her aim was always true, she always took her best shot as a “public intellectual”, the likes of which we rarely see anymore.
I found her post-9/11 commentary jarring until I witnessed the rather hysterical reactions from, you know, ordinary Americans – like Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens. At that point I knew we needed some voices like hers that would risk cutting through the escalating orgy of self-congratulation on having endured a violent attack on our cities. The assault on Sontag was a mere harbinger of the deadening cynicism of a Beltway-centric conservative elite that saw 9/11 as the opportunity of a lifetime, grabbed the ball and ran with it. (Of course, as is now obvious, they took it upon themselves to mostly run in the wrong direction.)
December 28th, 2004 at 11:45 pm
To me reading Sontag was like watching a great athlete. You don’t have to like the person—or even their sport of choice—to appreciate the talent. Her intellect was muscular and daring.
By the same token, I admit never liked the New Yorker piece when I read it at the time. (Although I essentially agreed with the sentence you quoted that caused all the hubbub: “Whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards.” Violent, sociopathic, morally reprehensible, fundamentalist sickos. Okay, I’m pretty down with that description. But, cowardly? No. Wrong use of the word.)
But I enjoyed the challenge posed by her thinking. And the vilification she received as a result of the piece was, as you said, cowardly. (By this I don’t mean criticisms like those posed by Cridland, John M., and GM—all of which are merely honest and honorable disagreements—as opposed to the threats and abuse that were heaped on Sontag, and people like Barbara Kingsolver who wrote a similar—albeit much more humanistic Op Ed.)
Glad you wrote some about her, Marc.
December 29th, 2004 at 12:46 am
The attacks on 9/11 were an abomination, indefensible by any human measure, and the only people to blame are those who funded it, plotted it, and did it. But Sontag was right to rattle cages in the rhetorical aftermath.
The “unsimplified” truth: the trade center and the pentagon were not random locations but highly symbolic targets. The murderers no doubt overcame fear to martyr themselves. And most sadly of all, their act of terrorism has proven to be wholly successful. They created terror in America. They changed the course of our democracy and radically redirected our attention and resources. And the righteous blowhards — who leaped forward to advance that process for them — have remade our way of life. They did with their fear mongering; ill-advised, ill-planned war; and by downgrading freedom in the name of security. They deserved to be challenged for their simplifications.
Sontag didn’t expect it to be popular, or to be liked, or thanked. And certainly didn’t expect most to agree. It was like the rest of her work. Courageous, dense, complicated, big thoughts, often before people are ready to think them.
Marc, Reg & Rosedog are right: the denunciations were cowardly and intended to help people not to think. While Sontag, first and foremost, always meant to make people think. Thanks for honoring her here.
December 29th, 2004 at 2:47 am
The death of Susan Sontag reminds me of the eloquant tribute she paid to, among others, Rachel Corrie and all Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories. She did this in a speech delivered to the Yesh Gvul organisation, a group of Israeli officers and soldiers refusing to fight in the occupied torritories. Here an excerpt, its titled “Of Corage and Resistance” and was printed in the Nation. Her willingness to speak out agianst the Israeli military occupation ( a taboo in American political and social life) after witnessing first hand its brutality, encapsulates the vision and courage of Susan’s life.Susan will be missed. I leave you here with her words.
“We are all conscripts in one sense or another. For all of us, it is hard to break ranks; to incur the disapproval, the censure, the violence of an offended majority with a different idea of loyaltyHere is what I believe to be a truthful description of a state of affairs that has taken me many years of uncertainty, ignorance and anguish, to acknowledge.
“A wounded and fearful country, Israel is going through the greatest crisis of its turbulent history, brought about by the policy of steadily increasing and reinforcing settlements on the territories won after its victory in the Arab war on Israel in 1967. The decision of successive Israeli governments to retain control over the West Bank and Gaza, thereby denying their Palestinian neighbors a state of their own, is a catastrophe – moral, human, and political – for both peoples. The Palestinians need a sovereign state. Israel needs a sovereign Palestinian state. Those of us abroad who wish for Israel to survive, cannot, should not, wish it to survive no matter what, no matter how.”
December 29th, 2004 at 6:38 am
> the trade center and the pentagon were not
> random locations but highly symbolic targets.
How do you figure?
Let’s say I decide to attack your family, and select as first target, um, say… your WIFE. And let’s say I strike first to blind her, so that she can’t defend herself further, and then go to break her knees, so that she can’t go about the business of caring for you and your infant sons. Would there be anything “symbolic” about such assaults? Would the cleverness of wounding her pivotal capacities instruct you about the nuance and purposes of my complaint with you?*
I’d heard Sontag’s name my whole life without caring about her any… Same as with Terry Bradshaw. In both cases, there was a body of work, mostly from the 70′s, that sat waiting for investigation if I ever found the time, which wasn’t likely. But the New Yorker 9/11 letter completely drained that curiousity.
Mostly because it was so STUPID. Consider her use of the word “specific” in the passage above. Could there be any doubt that she was actually speaking GENERALLY? Otherwise, she’d have LISTED some specifics… Which would have been fascinating. But she didn’t, did she? Because she couldn’t. And there was no ironic intent on her part.
So I think whatcha got here is a rattled old woman, out of her depth in the flow of events, trying to convince people to turn to wisdom of the intellectual in a time of new crisis… And bungling it so badly that the opposite truth is apparent: When the heat is on, this planet is not about brains.
You’re right, her thinking was “dense.” At least Bradshaw didn’t pop up that week to lecture us on the importance of the forward pass.
*PS- This was rhetorical, and I presume you’re not married.
December 29th, 2004 at 7:06 am
“When the heat is on, this planet is not about brains.”
You know, that’s one of the best rationales for the BushCo post-911 strategy I’ve read yet.
December 29th, 2004 at 8:14 am
I know little about Sontag but having now read obits, blog praise, and various criticisms it is clear to me that she exemplifies this rule (or is it simply a guideline?):
Loud Contrarian = Intellectual.
How else to explain these:
“The North Vietnamese genuinely care about the welfare of hundreds of captured American pilots and give them bigger rations than the Vietnamese population gets.”
“The Cubans know a lot about spontaneity, gaiety, sensuality, and freaking out. … The increase of energy comes because they have found a new focus for it: community.”
“To us, it is self-evident that the Readers Digest and Lawrence Welk and Hilton Hotels are organically connected with the Special Forces’ napalming villages in Guatemala.”
Marc, you do more in a single post to advance how we think about the way the world does and ought to work. My life is none the worse for being ignorant of Ms. Sontag.
December 29th, 2004 at 8:22 am
Sorry, Cridland…your argument about symbolism just doesn’t work.
An attack on the center of U.S. military isn’t symbolic? How do you figure? How about the perceived target of the Pennsylvania plane, the White House? That wouldn’t have been symbolic? I would argue that attacks on, say, Yankee Stadium, or perhaps Madison Square Garden, would have been more about random death than symbolism, as opposed to, say, Wall Street, which would indeed be a target with symbolic value, which would be more about economic disruption than random death.
December 29th, 2004 at 8:24 am
> …rationales for the BushCo…
See, it’s all about GWB. This is why the left earns no enthusiasm… They’re as monomaniacal as the Impeach Clinton people were.
December 29th, 2004 at 8:52 am
Jim, EVERY ASSAULT is going to have symbolic value. But when blood actually spills –and we lost buckets on that day– I’m immediately less concerned with the declamatory intrigues of it all. One doesn’t kill thousands of people in a moment of articulation. The point is not whether the terrorists delivered death pointedly (a claim Sontag declines to substantiate) or randomly: The point is, they delivered death. Most Americans figured that out.
December 29th, 2004 at 9:07 am
I do have a family. And if you did any of those things to the mother of my child I would do my enraged best to kill you. I am not Michael Dukakis.
Since when are acts of terror — or acts of war –ever intended to “instruct about the nuance and purposes” of the complaint? That was never my point and your analogy is bogus.
December 29th, 2004 at 9:13 am
The point is Sontag’s, and you’re right, it’s bogus.
Nice to have gotten on the record about the “specific” thing before Htichens did this morning:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2111506
December 29th, 2004 at 9:42 am
Actually,Cridland, it’s all about the direction of the country. BushCo (the brand), if you hadn’t noticed, has had a significant impact on the country I do indeed care about “monomaniacally” – virtually all of it has been negative unless one savors death and deficits. Prior to 9/11, GWB was a virtual nonentity – an opportunist with a lucky streak, a pedigree of sorts, a fairly mindless pre-fab agenda and ruthless handlers. BushCo benefited from 9/11 to a remarkable degree and they’re the only Americans who were, I have absolutely no doubt, happy to have an historic opportunity handed to them. One might say they were “immediately concerned with the declamatory intriques of it all” – like how an attack by Islamists based in Afghanistan with cells reaching into Europe and America could be used to justify an old obsession, taking out Saddam. The current imbroglio was, quite clearly, totally unanticipated by Bush’s Brain Trust. Given the speculative fiction that “justified” the invasion in the first place, the turn of events really should come as no surprise. (For an example of the utter cluelessnes that still drives the conduct of this war, read Col David Hackworth’s column on the Mosul mess hall bombing. Herding troops into a high-school cafeteria environment in the midst of a guerrilla war runs counter to the most elemental rules of force protection. I’ve heard that point made twice now from guys with military experience, and it signifies that whoever is in charge in Iraq can’t comprehend where they are and what they’re up against. There’s no excuse for degree of ignorance at this point, except that the alternative doesn’t fit into the consistent and mostly wrong scenario that’s been painted for the past two years by the politicians and ideologues in charge of the war. Disgusting, dangerous, deadly.)
The meme that “the left’s” concern with George Bush is essentially personal, like Clintonmania, is a convenient device to assist the several layers of denial and dishonesty that has characterized the descent of contemporary conservatism into routine BushCo apologia. Of course a guy who didn’t know who Mushareff was when he was seeking the presidency a year before 9/11 does make an awfully sweet, inviting target.
On Topic – I had no idea until reading an obit that referenced her “longtime companion” that Susan Sontag and Rolling Stone photog Annie Liebovitz were an item. The thought of those two together certainly adds another dimension to the concept of “gay”.
December 29th, 2004 at 9:49 am
It is unfortunate this discussion takes place immediately on her death. I was angry at those who criticized Reagan during the mourning period, and here I attacked Sontag just after her death.
My comments above represent my views (and the Vietnam quote by “too many Steve’s” reinforces them), but the timing is inappropriate.
December 29th, 2004 at 10:02 am
So the reasons al Qaeda attacked us weren’t specific. Nor – Hitchens would have it in the Slate column referenced – were they general. I’m at a loss. Oh yeah…they were EXISTENTIAL. Bin Laden attacked us because of who we ARE.
Who are we ? Well, to get on the wrong side of the Islamofascists, we must be people who’ve consistently and historically put democratic values first in our dealings throughout the Muslim world.
Well, no, that’s not really true.
Must be because we’re the pro-homo, pro-feminist, hedonistic, baby-killing, secular infidels reviled by religious fanatics everywhere. Could it be that Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were the only Americans who really GOT 9/11.
December 29th, 2004 at 10:10 am
Cridland – by ‘specific’ Sontag clearly means 9//11 was a response to policies not values. Perhaps in a longer piece she might have suggested some – though other authors have pointed to Israel-Palestine, economic & cultural imperialism (including feminism), and support for mideast dictators and war. An accounting of each policy would be a major undertaking, don’t take her unwillingness to do so as evidence that she condemns every mullah-offending policy. Sontag’s piece contests the notion, and more pointedly the purveyors of the notion, that our enemy’s grievances are simple and a-historical. If she isn’t clear enough in her denunciation of the terrorists themselves (Marc would have been more careful), that’s a failure I’ll attribute to her frustration with commentators who only talked about the evil killers and never tried to understand the context.
I was lucky enough to hear Susan Sontag speak at my college graduation two years ago. Her work merits disagreement but not dismissal. She always approached her own work with that same ethic.
December 29th, 2004 at 10:14 am
100,000 gone. Sobering.
http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/15630695?source=Evening%20Standard&ct=5
December 29th, 2004 at 10:43 am
Sontag showed courageous solidarity with the people of Sarajevo. She stayed in the city while it endured horrific shelling. She supported an intervention when most of the Left was caught in a knee-jerk anti-war position (I was at the time).
She may have lost her bearings from time to time, but she always got back on track. I will miss her work.
December 29th, 2004 at 11:11 am
To say that the WTC attacks were a product, at least in part, of specific U.S. policies is in no way –necessarily– to justify the attacks. In the end, GW Bush says the same thing: we are targets because of our policies of democracy. So let’s not go overboard on Sontag. As Mark S said above, she didnt say what she said to be popular, to exploit public opinion or to win an election. She said what sheshe did to think aloud about a probloem at a precise time we were being told that any thought, any hesitation was suspect.
December 29th, 2004 at 11:46 am
We were in a time of national mourning when she said it. Her statement was inappropriate and insensitive. Her previous tendency to side with the enemies of America made it even worse.
To understand your enemy is important. To justify your enemy is not, and to state it the way she did was to place blame on the US. That was terribly inappropriate.
Those of us on the right wondered how long it would take various people on the left to shift the perspective back to the normal anti-US position. In her case, not long.
At the time, btw, I also wrote that I didn’t consider the hijackers to be cowards. I was wrong. It doesn’t take any bravery when 72 virgins in heaven are awaiting your death.
It also wasn’t wrong to use a little hyperbole in describing our own people when they have been grievously wounded, and it wasn’t wrong to pull together as a nation and reject those who fight against that. Her scare quotes are hence also inappropriate.
December 29th, 2004 at 12:12 pm
I think it’s safe to assume that no one – and certainly no organized movement that’s already been seasoned by a successful guerrilla war against a “superpower” – goes to war over an abstraction. Religious and political zealotry are “ideas”, certainly, put unless they are destined to irrelevance there is always a specific context for their posing a threat. Hitler’s ability to promote Nazism can’t be comprehended apart from the humiliation of Germany in World War I, Versaille, the economic crisis, etc. Without those specific national grievances, Hitler would have been left standing on a street corner, shouting and passing out pamphlets. (The anti-semitism was totally unhinged from any objective reality, but it had deep roots in the “conventional wisdom” throughout Europe – and America, for that matter – for centuries.)
Without specific reality-based grievances against the role of the Western powers in shaping and re-shaping the Middle East according to their own interests for most of the past century on which to hang al Qaeda’s overtly reactionary, fundamentalist ideology, bin Laden would have had as much impact on history as Dr. Gene Scott.
No one, certainly not Sontag, is arguing that al Qaeda’s rationale for attacking the United states was justified. Just that if we refuse to contextualize it with anything other than our own self-righteousness, we can’t even begin to counter it strategically on it’s own turf.
If you want to pinpoint the loudest, most influential political faction in the United States who have most explicitly argued that 9/11 was a wake-up call for America to radically reshape very specific policies of pragmatism and realpolitik toward the Arab world, it is the neo-conservatives. Their ideas are inconsistent, rhetorical, half-baked and often duplicitious, but they are as harshly critical of specific aspects of America’s historic role in the Middle East as any leftie and actually blame much of it for allowing Islamic fundamentalism to fester.
Sontag mourned the losses of 9/11 as much as any American. When the New York Times began publishing the daily series personal portraits of each victim , it was the first thing she turned to every morning. A small thing, but more telling about her personal conncection to the actual tragedy than the idle bluster about how “we” were attacked coming from people thousands of miles from Ground Zero who revile New York City and East Coast Intellectuals in much the same terms that zealous Islamists revile modernism and the West.
December 29th, 2004 at 12:47 pm
I did not think for a moment my essay was radical or even particularly dissenting. It seemed very common sense. I have been amazed by the ferocity of how I’ve been attacked, and it goes on and on. One article in the New Republic, a magazine for which I have written, began: “What do Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Susan Sontag have in common?” I have to say my jaw dropped. Apparently we are all in favor of the dismantling of America. There’s a kind of rhetorical overkill aimed at me that is astonishing. There has been a demonization which is ludicrous.
(snip)
I don’t agree with Noam Chomsky, whom I am very familiar with. My position is decidedly not the Chomsky position
Interviewer: How do you differ from Chomsky?
First of all, I’ll take the American empire any day over the empire of what my pal Chris Hitchens calls “Islamic fascism.” I’m not against fighting this enemy — it is an enemy and I’m not a pacifist.
I think what happened on Sept. 11 was an appalling crime, and I’m astonished that I even have to say that, to reassure people that I feel that way. But I do feel that the Gulf War revisited is not the way to fight this enemy.
December 29th, 2004 at 6:21 pm
“I think what happened on Sept. 11 was an appalling crime, and I’m astonished that I even have to say that, to reassure people that I feel that way.”
In other words, she was completely out of touch with the mood of the country. Otherwise she would not have been astonished.
There are lots of truthful statements that can be made at the wrong time. Part of raising a child is teaching them that. As far as talking about American policies in the light on 9-11, it is just silly. It’s one more case where a person, due to fame, has her silly and uninformed ideas (as indicated by herre use of scare quotes) were spread around. An ordinary person saying the same thing would be ignored. What she said was hardly novel or requiring special knowledge or intelligence. She carried no more authority than your typical rich, ignorant Hollywood actress who lectures us about global warmming.
December 29th, 2004 at 6:37 pm
My read’s a bit different than yours, John. I, too, was appalled and angered by 9/11, but, by your take on the `mood of the country’, are you saying that Sontag, by her statements, was as valid a target for our hate as OBL? Hmmm. Remember the reaction to Bill Maher’s rhetorically thrown out statement; “You want to be careful of what you say right now”? That’s the kind of `mood of the country’ that bothers me.
December 29th, 2004 at 6:46 pm
The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.
December 29th, 2004 at 7:23 pm
> Sontag was right to rattle cages in the
> rhetorical aftermath.
She might have been, had she actually made the effort. Instead she came off like a petulant teen, upset that little brother Tyler enjoyed a PB&J right after school while she herself has to wait until dinner. *This* is an intellectual response to 9/11? Then we are, or academe is, certainly hurtin’. I suspect the latter.
> BushCo (the brand), if you hadn’t noticed,
> has had a significant impact on the country
> I do indeed care about “monomaniacally”…
Everything’s sarcastic, in scare quotes, and subject to update later (eg direction of the country, significant impact). If that’s how you wanna pursue your political understanding, have at it. It’s no less tempting a worldview than when the fuckwits went after Clinton. It’s not the case that you can identify individual figures as being the source of public evil. It would be great if you could.
> It is unfortunate this discussion takes
> place immediately on her death.
I sincerely admire your gentle intentions. But in the public sphere we play for blood. I loathed Reagan while he governed, and learned to admire him only during his spittle years. I was grateful for ALL the reviewers during his week of interment. There’s much to be said for an honest appraisal no matter what the hour. Remember this at my funeral.
> Must be because we’re the pro-homo,
> pro-feminist, hedonistic, baby-killing,
> secular infidels…
Reg, sarcasm rarely works in print, and never without a baseline of sincerity. On blogs, a working email address helps people believe you mean what you say.
> Sontag clearly means 9//11 was a
> response to policies not values.
Mavis, I deeply wish that were clear, but I think it’s something of a reach on your part.
> (Marc would have been more careful)
Exactly! Which is why I admire journalists more than intellectuals. The former are at least willing to deal with facts, while the latter are all to eager to pretend that the little people just don’t understand.
> her frustration with commentators who
> only talked about the evil killers
> and never tried to understand the context
Atrocity on the magnitude of 9/11 transcends context.
Josh, can’t argue with that.
> GW Bush says the same thing: we are targets
> because of our policies of democracy.
Marc, it’s appalling that you’d interrupt this sewer-rat pissfest of accusation and contention with insight and clarity! And on your OWN BLOG, for cryin’ out loud! (See Reg, it’s difficult to do facetiousness).
> 72 virgins in heaven…
One wag described that as the worst Hell: six dozen naive girls awaiting you.
> A small thing, but more telling
> about her personal conncection…
Her interior life was her own business, until she surrendered its contents in the New Yorker. Thereafter, Game On.
> reaction to Bill Maher’s rhetorically
> thrown out statement; “You want to be
> careful of what you say right now”?
> That’s the kind of `mood of the
> country’ that bothers me.
Jim, it’s folded over too many times to be clear. What worries you?
December 29th, 2004 at 7:32 pm
Take a shower before reading this. And another one afterwards. And no eating five cheeseburgers
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/msg58784.html
[Marxism] Cockburn on Sontag
To: marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu
Subject: [Marxism] Cockburn on Sontag
From: Louis Proyect
Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 21:30:33 -0500
Reply-To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition
Sender: marxism-bounces@lists.econ.utah.edu
From Alexander Cockburn’s “Beat the Devil” column in the 3/20/2001 Nation
Magazine
You can pretty much gauge a writer’s political sedateness and
respectability in America by the kind of awards they reap, and it is not
unfair to say that the literary and indeed grant-distributing establishment
certainly deems Sontag safe. Aside from the recent National Book Award, she
got a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977, was appointed in 1979 a
member of the American Academy, and in 1990 received the liberal imprimatur
of a five-year (and richly endowed) “genius” fellowship from the MacArthur
Foundation, which once contemplated giving a fellowship to Said but
apparently desisted after furious protests from one influential Jewish
board member.
Now Sontag’s been named the Jerusalem Prize laureate for 2001, twentieth
recipient of the award since its inauguration in 1963, and the second woman
to be so honored, the first being Simone de Beauvoir. The award, worth
$5,000, is proclaimedly given to writers whose works reflect the freedom of
the individual in society, and is presented biennially at the Jerusalem
International Book Fair. Past recipients of the Jerusalem prize include
Bertrand Russell, Jorge Semprun, Isaiah Berlin, Mario Vargas Llosa, Jorge
Luis Borges, J.M. Coetzee, and rather bizarrely, Don DeLillo.
Sontag was selected by a three-member panel of judges, comprised of the
Labor Party’s Shimon Peres and Hebrew University professors Lena Shiloni
and Shimon Sandbank. Peres has been quoted as admiring Sontag’s definition
of herself. “First she’s Jewish, then she’s a writer, then she’s American.
She loves Israel with emotion and the world with obligation.” When notified
of her latest accolade, Sontag’s response was, “I trust you have some idea
of how honored and moved, deeply moved, I am to have been awarded this
year’s Jerusalem Prize.”
Sontag is now scheduled to go to Jerusalem for the May 9 awards ceremony,
which will be held within the framework of the 20th Jerusalem International
Book Fair. One news report remarked that “According to book fair director
Zev Birger, events which have blighted tourism in recent months have not
adversely affected the publishing world. ‘It’s business as usual,’ he said,
noting that checks and hotel reservations were coming in.”
Why dwell on the familiar currency of international literary backslapping?
I do so to make a couple of points concerning double standards. American
intellectuals will be brave as lions concerning the travails of East
Timoreans, Rwandans, Central American peasants, Chechens. But for almost
all of them the Palestinians and their troubles have always been invisible.
The intellectuals know well enough that to raise a stink about Israeli’s
appalling treatment of Palestinians down the years is to invite drastic
revenge.
Now it could scarcely be said that Sontag is a notably political writer.
But there was an issue of the late 1990s on which she did raise her voice.
Along with her son David Rieff, Sontag became a passionate advocate for
NATO intervention against Yugoslavia or, if you prefer, Serbia. (To put in
a good or even a balancing word for the Serbs was of course another rare
event in American intellectual life, where almost all liberals became, like
Sontag, enthusiastic advocates of NATO’s bombs.)
On May 2, 1999 Sontag wrote an essay in the New York Times, “Why Are We In
Kosovo?”, urgently justifying NATO’s intervention. “Of course, it is easy
to turn your eyes from what is happening if it is not happening to you,”
she wrote. ” Or if you have not put yourself where it is happening. Imagine
that Nazi Germany had had no expansionist ambitions but had simply made it
a policy in the late 1930?s and early 1940?s to slaughter all the German
Jews. Do we think a government has the right to do whatever it wants on its
own territory? Maybe the governments of Europe would have said that 60
years ago. But would we approve now of their decision? Push the supposition
into the present. What if the French Government began slaughtering large
numbers of Corsicans and driving the rest out of Corsica . . . or the
Italian Government began emptying out Sicily or Sardinia, creating a
million refugees . . . or Spain decided to apply a final solution to its
rebellious Basque population? Is it acceptable that such slaughters be
dismissed as civil wars, also known as ‘age-old ethnic hatreds.’”
Now, Sontag is obviously not entirely unaware that there is a country from
which more than a million refugees have been expelled. In 1973 she actually
made a film in Israel, “Promised Lands,” made in October and November of
1973 after the Egyptians crossed the Suez canal in the Yom Kippur war. Back
then, Nora Sayre gave it a politely damning review in the New York Times:
“Throughout the ideas and the people and the machines of war are examined
from a distance, as though everything had been observed through some kind
of mental gauze. The Israelis – particularly those in robes – are filmed as
if they were extremely foreign or exotic. Also, Israel seems like a nearly
all-male country, since few women appear and none have been interviewed.
There are a few sympathetic words for the Arabs, but their existence seems
shadowy and abstract – almost as bloodless as the statues in a wax museum
devoted to Israeli history.”
But surely now Sontag has had time to reflect more deeply on real Israeli
Jews, and on real Palestinians. Through the 1990s it became a lot harder
than in earlier years for American intellectuals to claim that they did not
know what was happening, or were in ignorance of how Palestinians have been
treated. The subject became legal tender, even if the currency remained
severely limited in fungibility.
Sontag has always been appreciative of irony. Does she see no irony in the
fact that she, relentless critic of Slobodan Milosevic, (upon whose
extradition to face trial in its Hague Court as a “war criminal” the US is
now conditioning all aid to Yugoslavia,) is now planning to travel to get a
prize in Israel, currently led by a man, Ariel Sharon, whose credentials as
a war criminal are robust and indeed undisputed by all people of balanced
and independent judgement. To resurrect a tired phrase, Sharon really does
have the blood of thousands of Palestinians and Lebanese upon his hands.
Does Sontag sense no irony in getting a prize premised on the author?s
sensitivity to issues of human freedom, in a society where the freedom of
Palestinians is unrelentingly repressed? To dramatize her support for
multi-ethnic Sarajevo, she actually produced a play in the beleagured city
a few years ago. Imagine what bitter words she would have been ready to
hurl at a writer voyaging to the Serb portion of Bosnia to receive money
and a fulsome scroll from Radovan Karadzic or Milosevic, praising her
commitment to freedom of the individual, and poo-pooing “events that have
blighted tourism.”
Yet here she is, packing her bags to travel to a city over which Sharon
declares Israel’s absolute and eternal control, and whose latest turmoils
he personally provoked by insisting on traveling under the protection of a
thousand soldiers to provoke Palestinians in their holy places. Can there
be a more flagrant and disgusting pretensions to all those invocations to
toleration and diversity Sontag and the others put forth, accompanied by
their strident demands for NATO to drop its bombs on the Serbs?
Does Sontag plan to raise the issue of Palestinians in her acceptance
speech? I would like to think so, but somehow I doubt it. She’ll scurry in
and scurry out, probably hoping not to attract too much attention. When the
South African writer Nadine Gordimer was offered the Jerusalem prize a
number of years ago, she declined, saying she did not care to travel from
one apartheid society to another. But to take that kind of position in the
United States would be a risky course for a careful (and by a less obliging
token) a cowardly intellectual. Of course, Said knows he lives in a
glasshouse, yet he had the admirable effrontery to throw his stone.
Louis Proyect
Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
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December 29th, 2004 at 7:41 pm
Sorry, it wasn’t very clear, was it? When Maher rhetorically asked if U.S. pilots dropping bombs on civilians weren’t every bit as cowardly as the 9/11 hijackers, he was warned in the press by an official spokesman in the Bush admistration that he should be careful of what he said. Understand, I’m not claiming to support Maher’s statement, but I found the warning particulary chilling, in a `your either with us or against us’ sense. There was a lot of that sentiment around at that time (still is); that’s what I meant
in context of the `mood of the country’.
December 29th, 2004 at 7:52 pm
Well, be fair. That warning was from a White House press secretary, who was basically looking for a way to chew through a few minutes of his daily chores by mouthing off a little, and deviating from the POTUS’ script. This isn’t done so much in this White House, because Dubya is a such a fanatic for loyalty, such that the character is drained from most staff positions. WHich is why it’s taken me two minutes to remember his name, Fleicher. He had that moment and was never heard from again. We should all be as oppressed by our government as Bill Maher is. The sentiment you speak of is in no way prevalent. Sure, people are shits, but let’s not panic.
December 29th, 2004 at 8:04 pm
“I’d heard Sontag’s name my whole life without caring about her any… Same as with Terry Bradshaw. In both cases, there was a body of work, mostly from the 70′s, that sat waiting for investigation if I ever found the time, which wasn’t likely. But the New Yorker 9/11 letter completely drained that curiousity.” Cridland
Doesn’t sound like there was much curiousity to drain. In any event, for me it was Terry Bradshaw trying to sing Hank Williams on the old Dinah Shore Show. Ooops…sorry. I forgot that “sarcasm rarely works in print. Especially without a baseline of sincerity.”
December 29th, 2004 at 8:09 pm
Jim,
In no way did I mean that she should be equated with Bin Laden. Rather, she should have been treated as you would a child who mouthed off during a funeral.
Same for Bill Maher. What he said, if I remember correctly, was true. That he said it at the time was in execrable bad taste, which for Maher had always been part of his schtick. That he didn’t realize how bad it was shows how out of touch he was in the Hollywood echo chamber.
But then, I’ve always thought Maher was a not-so-bright comedian who pretended to be a libertarian while really being a leftist libertine.
I have just once in blog space created a moral equivalency that bridged such a huge moreal gulf (and someone grabbed it from my site an posted it here). It was never meant to be taken precisely.
December 29th, 2004 at 8:10 pm
Yeah, guess your right Cridland…have to wonder, WHAT WOULD Mike McCurry HAVE SAID?
December 29th, 2004 at 8:48 pm
>
Reg, Who said the above? I’ve forgot. Oh yeah, Huntington…never mind.
Pat
December 29th, 2004 at 9:19 pm
I was very disappointed that nobody jumped on me for expressing “anti-Americanism”. The quote’s obviously too well known to serve as bait. Yeah..it was Huntington.
December 29th, 2004 at 10:34 pm
Wow. Alexander Cockburn on Susan Sontag. What an awful thing to post!
His comments on Sontag remind me of the famous quote from Bull Durham when the Kevin Costner (crash davis) character asserts in an argument with the Susan Sarandon (Annie) character that the “the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap.†That could be true. I prefer her non-fiction. As for what Cockburn said about Sontag’s noble stand in regards to Yugoslavia, pure crap as usual. Like Seattle, Cockburn was nowhere near Sarajevo. To me, a fictional character in a film has more credibility than Cockburn. Sontag’s courage in regards to Yugoslavia cannot be viewed in retrospect as anything other than admirable.
Susan Sontag’s doodlings have more worth than anything Alexander Cockburn has ever written. I am sure he will come up with something snappy on Counterpunch to celebrate her death.
Hitchens wrote a good obit on Slate
December 29th, 2004 at 11:49 pm
Here’s the link to the Hitchens obit. Everyone should read it. That goes double for anyone who dislikes either Sontag or Hitchens.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2111506/
December 30th, 2004 at 1:02 am
Hey Josh, at the time Alex was dead on in his assault on Sontag’s apparent double standard concerning the plight of Palestinian national rights. For most of her career, not unlike many Amercan liberals, she remained silent on the issue of Israel’s behaviour minus signing a PEN petition concerning the imprisoment of Palestinian intellectual Sari Nusseibeh.
I remember at the time many progressives wondered aloud whether Susan Sontag would say anything about the occupation, when was awarded the litarary prize in Jerusalem. Well she did. Standing on the podium, next to right wing thug and Jerusalem mayor Ehud Olmert, Susan Sontag said the following
“I believe the doctrine of collective responsibility as a rationale for collective punishment is never justified, militarily or ethically. And I mean of course the disproportionate use of firepower against civilians, the demolition of their homes, the destruction of their orchards and groves, the deprivation of their livelihood and access to employment, to schooling, to medical services, or as a punishment for hostile military activities in the vicinity of those civilians.”
Many of the spectators booed quietly or walked out. Later she became more outspoken, writing a lengthy and articulate article in the Nation eulogising Rachel Corrie and lauding the efforts of Israeli Refuseniks. Alex, in fact wrote about this later praising Sontag’s growth on this issue
December 30th, 2004 at 1:33 am
How unfortunate, a post dedicated to remembering the moral and intellectual energy of Susan Sontag, quickly degenerates into a stale and tired debate on 9/11 and “root causes”. Alowing of course for the wretched nonsense eminating from uber patriot and self avowed Swift Boat groupies John Moore. Well, since this is sadly the case let me throw in my two cents.
When i hear rhetoric of “evil” that belies context, understanding, or explantion as in the case of 9/11 I’m reminded of the Hanah Arendt’s brilliant and ground breaking work onthe Holocaust. Rather then speak of the uniqueness of the Holocaust she sited it in imperial history of genocide and the vast killing of native populations by European settlers. Arendt understood the history of imperialism through the workings of racism, bureaucracy, institutions forged through European expansion in to the non Eorupean world. The massive slaughter of native populations in the New World, the use of race and bureaucracy in India, South Africa, algeria she wrote, gave rise to the modernity. Thje first genocide in the 20th century was the German annihiliation of the Herero people in South West Africa in 1904. Her argument was that the exploration of the causes of the Holocaust and its links to imerial violence abroad, racism, as well as anti semticism allows one to think of the links between modernity and political violence as well as confront those realities. By seing the perpetrators of violence simply as cultural renogades or moral perverts, may be conforting but it divorces us from any understanding of historical time, as well as allows for the avoidance of troubling and neccesarry questions. I think Arendt’s work should inform and warn us about rhetoric of “evil with no context” type rhetoric.
Its late and i’m dozy, so i hop my comment was helpful, and at very least coherant
December 30th, 2004 at 10:21 am
Obit clip: A precocious teenager, Sontag told one interviewer she “used to buy Partisan Review at a newsstand at Hollywood and Vine and read Lionel Trilling, and Harold Rosenberg and Hannah Arendt.”
As Russell Jacoby lamented in “The Last Intellectuals”, there aren’t many (any ?) left like Arendt, Sontag,Irving Howe. Hell, I even Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz gain stature every time either of their sons opens his mouth. When Christopher Hitchens is the smartest guy in the room – and the room is Tucker Carlson’s father’s Christmas party, as we blessedly learn on Hitchens’ website – you know we’re in trouble. Ahmed, I have this nasty feeling that Ann Coulter has already surpassed both Arendt and Sontag in the contemporary marketplace (literally) of what passes for “ideas”.
Happy New Year !
December 30th, 2004 at 11:13 am
Re Cockburn: Silly me, i used to think we judgded writers by what they wrote– not by what prizes they were given by others. Perhaps one of our industrious commenters can do a bit of web research on Pere Cockburn– Alex’s beloved model for an engage journalist. Old Claude Cockburn was such a reliable Stalinist that many have accused him of being a KGB liaison… I am not among those because I have no knowledge of any such link, other than ideological. But it would be fun to see just WHAT awards old Claude was given back then. I, personally, couldnt be bothered to do the work. I already know what my view is of Alex: he’s a wretched, professional character assassin.
December 30th, 2004 at 12:03 pm
Silly you indeed, Marc, you missed the point entirely. The contreversy at the time wasn’t whether Sontag should be judged and her writing versus awards, but instead, her silence on the atrocious bahoviour of her hosts. This is the issue Alex– amongst many others–raised at the time. It included a joint letter to Sontag from 9 major Israeli and Palestinian women groups
http://www.nimn.org/Perspectives/international/000133.php?section=International%20Voices
As someone who castigated Mandela for accepting the dubious Ghadaffy prize for human rights, I’m a little suprised that you think this is a non issue
Anyways, like I said Sontag chose not to go and shut up, but rather speak out at the podium, against the house demolitions, the maiming, the klling conducted in the name of the occupation. She should be commended for that.
And Reg, that is a scary thought indeed.
Peace
December 30th, 2004 at 2:03 pm
I do so to make a couple of points concerning double standards. American
intellectuals will be brave as lions concerning the travails of East Timoreans, Rwandans, Central American peasants, Chechens. But for almost all of them the Palestinians and their troubles have always been invisible. The intellectuals know well enough that to raise a stink about Israeli’s appalling treatment of Palestinians down the years is to invite drastic
revenge.
This was the crux of Alex’s argument. Say what you will about Cockburn, but he’s dead on here.
December 30th, 2004 at 2:23 pm
Ahmed is right about intellectuals and the Palestine issue, but Sontag did take the opportunity both in Jerusalem and after her death to criticize the occupation and praise the Israeli soldiers who wouldn’t serve in the Occupied Territories. Part of the reason was groups and individuals in Israel and folks in the United States calling her to account for her past silence. In all fairness, I think she deserves acknowledgement for coming around on the issue.
Re: A. Cockburn – for people criticizing him of character assisination or whatever, you might want to cite specific examples or quotations and explain why they are unfair to that person’s character (I don’t generally care for Cockburn’s tone and disagree with him on any number of issues, but calling Sontag to account prior to the Jerusalem award is fair and was one voice of many doing just that), or you may wind up being accused of being a character assassin yourself.
December 30th, 2004 at 3:31 pm
“Sontag did take the opportunity both in Jerusalem and after her death to criticize the occupation…”
Quite a woman. No RIP for Susan Sontag. (What was that old Reader’s Digest chestnut…”Laughter is the best medicine ?”)
December 30th, 2004 at 3:40 pm
PS – I have to agree with Jack. I can’t stand Alexander Cockburn. But I’d be interested in a more in-depth critique than my gut reaction and Marc’s acid comments, served without examples. How about Der Webmeister treating us to a longer post delving into the Cockburn school of journalism and politics. Eric Alterman, another Nationite, does the same thing that Marc does – the very mention of Cockburn seems to curdle his milk. But he’s never actually taken him on, to my knowledge. Maybe I’ve missed something. (One thing that bugs me about Hitchens, and why I percieve his politics as an extension of his own ego, is that he apparently was very palsy with Cockburn until the nastiness got turned on him personally.)
December 31st, 2004 at 1:35 am
I have taken alex on directly in the pages of the Nation… and four years ago on the eve of the DNC in LoS Angeles when my-then 16 year old daughter came within a hair of flattening his sodden bod when the lout tried to pick a physical fight with me. Alex was lucky he backed down when he did as Natasha would have decked him cold with one punch!
INtelleigent readers can use accessible web technology to view the confrontations I have had with Snake Cockburn, No need to burn up bandwith here rehearsing them. All I know is if people on the left were generally like Alezx it would make an excellent reason to join the Montana Militia.
December 31st, 2004 at 1:46 am
I didnt make a light point of what Susan said or did not say in Israel. I made a light point of one Mr Cockburn playing this completely silly and intellectually dishonest game. X speaks out on Palestine but not on Bosnia. Y hates the Serbs but also loathes the Pals. Z loves the Pals and the Serbs and so on. What a crock! Can u imagine, human beings that are contradictory? I dont judge writers or anyone else on the “positions” they take but rather how loyal they are to democratic and human principles. On that score Sontag ranks about 88 compared to about 39 by Alex Cockburm (at best). Im bored to tears with Alex’s little games of throwing poisoning darts… Ill leave the tracking of that to the more stomach-steady among you.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:39 am
Wow! I figured out how to google cooper cockburn. Does that mean I passed the I.Q. test? I’m kidding, I pretty much have come to see myself as a little pup trying to hang with the big(and smarter) dogs on this blog, at least while you’ll still have me. Kidding aside, and admitting a certain bias for Corn and Cooper, the three
way brawl over the anti-anti war protester claim was a pretty entertaining read. Alexovitch does come of as a shrill, self righteous SOB, have to say. Well, guess that since your combined initials, CCC, do bring up memories of that fun old commie org, there was bound to be some fractioness behaviour involved…
December 31st, 2004 at 2:53 am
Marc, you’re clearly shifting the terms of the debate, not too mention avoided the crux of Alex’s argument. Cockburn’s point is still a good one: that American liberals willing to denounce all sorts of attroacities all over the world are on the most part absulutely silent concerning the billigerent behaviour of Israel towards the subjects of its ocupation. One of the many reasons is that critiques of Israeli policy simply entail a enormous political cost that most are unwilling to pay. This is why a sensible discussion of the United States role in buffering greater Israel– ideologically, politically and militaruily–is a taboo in American politics and media. THis produces all sorts of doouble standards, incuding those who passionately defend refugee rights in Yugoslavia yet say nothing abbout the largest group of refugees in the world who have continually faced dispossesion. Cockburn was right to point this out and for all his faults including: his nutty defence of right wing militias, his blistering ad hominem assaults, his well crafted liberal baiting, he has consistently produced a homourable body of work in defence of Palestinian national rights. Marc, if you’re truly going to judge people on the basis of their loyalty to democratic principles, I’m sure who’ll find that on the question of Palestine far too many progressives fall short. That was the point, wasn’t it?
December 31st, 2004 at 8:39 am
Postrel gave the best goods this week…
http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/archives/001533.html
… by referencing a man named Kimball…
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16486
… in pursuit of an important journalistic priciple: FOLLOW THE MONEY.
December 31st, 2004 at 12:34 pm
Kimball on Sontag: “The one constant was unremitting aniumus against the United States: its culture, its politics, its eocnomy(sic), its very being.”
Boy, this Kimball guy certainly has a piercing intellect. He’s giving Ann Coulter a real run for her money.
December 31st, 2004 at 12:41 pm
Marc, I’ll check out the exchanges with Cockburn. I tend to pass on Cockburnia in the Nation, which is why I probably missed the fracas first time around.
December 31st, 2004 at 2:43 pm
“Interviewer: How do you differ from Chomsky?
First of all, I’ll take the American empire any day over the empire of what my pal Chris Hitchens calls “Islamic fascism.” I’m not against fighting this enemy — it is an enemy and I’m not a pacifist.
–Now, that’s a weak response really. I think Sontag could have spelled our her political differences with Chomsky instead of resorting to mistaken interpretations of Chomsky. Plainly Chomsky doesn’t support the ‘empire’ of Islamic “fascism”. And he plainly is not a pacifist. I do find it interesting that people who claim to be supporters of lively exchanges on political opinions are offended by Alex Cockburn challenging some of the positions taken by Sontag, even as he, as Ahmed correctly points out, also wrote in support of her arguments on other occasions.
Certainly one of Sontag’s brightest moments was the courage to stand up to the leitmotif of American political life in the post-911 period that called for silence in the face of Orwellian demands for revenge as a domestic and foreign social policy for the US. Wasn’t it Hitchens after all who referred to Sontag’s post-911 comments as ‘disdainful’? Why is that cool, but Cockburn’s criticisms of Sontag are somehow off limits?
December 31st, 2004 at 3:29 pm
Since its been brought up, I thought I’d direcnt people to a lively an interesting exchange between Marc and Alex on the anti war movement. I found the following links
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn1114.html
and http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20021223&s=exchange
I’m admittedly biased to the argument Alex was attempting to make against people like Cooper and Corn. That said, i think Cockburn clearly won this debate.
December 31st, 2004 at 4:02 pm
Ahmed, aren’t you the one always taking people to task for not backing up their contentions? How did you come to your conclusion as per the `debate’? Was it such Cockburn lines as `Here we are in 2002, with the UN a wholly owned US subsidiary (as I should have conceded to myself and others a lot more than I did in 1990)’?
December 31st, 2004 at 4:59 pm
ROFL.. Ahmed… yes indeed, thanks for very hearty end of the year laugh! Indeed, Alex truly bested me in the debate.. the proof is in the pudding.. two years later and just when a majority of the American people oppose the war, that wonderful peace movement that Alex so unflinchingly defended has all but evaporated! What a damn fool I was not to recognize the resolute leadership of the comrades of the Workers World Party that has achieved such resounding success! Again.. ROFL
December 31st, 2004 at 5:26 pm
Oh marc, give ma a break will you. Your righteous belligerance elicits some laughter from these quaters as well. You know damn well that the argument wasn’t about the political credential of the bonkerist WWP party. No one doubts they’re dubious to say the least, but dude that wasn’t the point. Quit changing the key terms of the debate, its a pretty preditable tactic.
And Marc, you like answering me right?–well im intested whats your take on my post, addressing american progressives blidness on the Pla question. Just wondering.
And as for the political desolution of the peace wing, I don’t at all doubt the probels with the sects at the leadership side of things, but I’m wondering what sort of formulation do you thin would have led to large enrgized mass peace movement in this country. The world witnessed the largest mass demonstrations in history aganist war, the US brazingly went ahead with their assault anyways, and the truth is that in this countr many ppl got demoralized. Further in my view, another consideration is the way Howard Dean coopted and ate up the anti war movement, then the DNC killed off Dean, while hardly making any critique of Bush’s invasion at all. Trying to forment opposition in this country to imperial policies and war has never been an easy task for a multitude of reasons, so your flipancy seems a bit off, dude.
happy new year to all
December 31st, 2004 at 5:44 pm
“two years later and just when a majority of the American people oppose the war, that wonderful peace movement that Alex so unflinchingly defended has all but evaporated!”
Gosh, there’s not a major rally for a few months and the movement is ‘dead’. I thought there were some 400k or more out in the streets at the RNC convention to protest the war? I’d say that’s a lot better than the antiwar movement was doing in 1965, no? Much better in fact!
December 31st, 2004 at 5:58 pm
Ahmed, not trying to be mean here, but what you call `righteous belligerence’ is clearly just sarcasm, to my mind pretty much a forte in Coop’s writings. Guess it might have the same effect on the recipient (and probably caused him a few fights when he was a kid), but I see it as a more goodnatured mode of verbal sparring.
December 31st, 2004 at 6:13 pm
Omigod steve’s back. It has been a marvelous break without him and more than one commenter has noted in email to me how much easier it is has been to read the blog comments with an absence of his serial postings.
NEW YEARS RESOLUTION FROM DER HERR WEBFUHRER: Serial poster-snipers will henceforth be eliminated summarily and without warning. No kidding. Make my day. And just to be 100% clear.. I have NO intention of either being fair or even-handed about such decisions but rather reckless, unpredictable and arbitrary!
Ahmed… as Im half on holiday and dont feel (ever) the need to respond to every post or challenge that you or anyone else makes (after all this is my blog on my time if you dont mind), I will limit my remarks to the following… in the “debate” with skunk Alex that you have posted, I said at the beginning of my response in The Nation that my intention and that of David Corn was very narrow and clear: a hope that a broad-based political leadership would emerge at the top of the peace movement and displace the kooks and the bonkerists (to use Cock-burn’s own term) from the WWP lest the movement face a bleak future. I believe, unfortunately, that I have been proven correct. It wasnt difficult to predict, in any case. Only a fool could have believed that a group that supported Saddam and Kim Il Sung could lead a successful mass peace movement. If you believe otherwise, terrific and Happy New Year.
And thank you Jim for perfectly interpreting my tone. Belligerence, Ahmed? Dont flatter urself.
December 31st, 2004 at 7:21 pm
“Omigod steve’s back. It has been a marvelous break without him and more than one commenter has noted in email to me how much easier it is has been to read the blog comments with an absence of his serial postings.”
That’s odd, I’ve seen in the last round of ‘ban Steve’ from the echo chamberists that no less than Woody, GM, even John Moore, among others who I’ve had disagreements with, have said that they liked my presence here and that the cries for my being banned are, according to them, ludicrous and based on misreadings or offense taken in the most partial manner. I return now from a short trip and ya’d think I reentered the fray with swearing, hectoring, yelling at people ‘anti-American!!’ or other forms of bullying behavior.
I really don’t see why my repeating views that you can hear from people Marc is good friends with is so offensive to Marc or others on this comments blog.
December 31st, 2004 at 7:37 pm
Steve, I like reading your posts…but maybe it’s time to bow out gracefully from this argument, rather than continue to sound put upon, and come back with a different tack.
December 31st, 2004 at 8:01 pm
“a hope that a broad-based political leadership would emerge at the top of the peace movement and displace the kooks and the bonkerists (to use Cock-burn’s own term) from the WWP lest the movement face a bleak future. I believe, unfortunately, that I have been proven correct.”
Have you been proven correct, or do you merely state that without any serious reference? I mean, let’s face it, the point I”ve made is not one that you can just wish away, in 1965, which is about where we are with the US occupation of Iraq. In 1965, I don’t remember any protests of 400k antiwar peaceful marchers in NYC or DC. And it’s a tad deterministic [the sin of Marxist we have been told time and again, no end to the irony] to declare the antiwar movement dead at the start of the New Year
January 1st, 2005 at 9:30 pm
Claud Cockburn has the distinction of being mentioned in one of Orwell’s writings on the Spanish Civil War (Homage to Catalonia or Reflections on the Spanish War… can’t remember)as an example of Stalinist propoghanda. 100% pure Stalinist who wrote for the Daily Worker for gods sake!
This is the gene pool that old Alex comes out of. Alex is vile and is dead wrong about Answer.
It is such a failure to criticize Sontag because she didn’t follow the exact party line on the Palestinian issue. Actually, she did. Just not to the satisfaction of the Stalinoids.
Sontag was a warrior and made a true contribution. Like Hitch said, she was smart enough to write for Partisan Review a journal with some of the most important intellectuals ever.
Cooper and Corn are write about ANSWER.
January 1st, 2005 at 9:50 pm
“It is such a failure to criticize Sontag because she didn’t follow the exact party line on the Palestinian issue. Actually, she did. Just not to the satisfaction of the Stalinoids.”
But it’s ok for Hitch to refer to her critical comments on the 911 bandwagon effect as ‘disdainful’. Hmmm…that seems fair.
January 2nd, 2005 at 12:13 am
Marc of course you have a right to respond to whatever you wish, that wasn’t my point. My problem’s with your woeful interpretation and misreading of the Cockburn article, as well as the heat Sontag took from human rigths groups before the Jerusalem award ceremony. You responded flippatantly that writers should be judged on their work instead of their stack of awards. Sure, that and a dollar fifty will get you on the subway. No one was making the argument you suggest. Rather the whole ordeal provided an adequate forum for a discussion on the invisiblility and moral blinders many liberal American activists, authors and intellectuals have on the subject of the right of Palestinians. This is phenomenon is especially crucial since it is our nations policies of inspidid support and financing of the occupation, which has acted consitently barier to the implementation of international law, as well as helped keep Palestinian in caged like banstutans under martial law. That was the point which you failed to address, choosing instead to go on a wholly uninteresting and seemingly unimportant rant on Cockburn, et cetera. But Marc, as someone who argues for rigid critique amongst the “left” and keeeping the progressives honest when it comes to issues of Cuba, Venuazuala, and the like I’m surprised you have nothing to say here on Palestine. The failure among many in the progessive communnitty in the States to honestly confront what is happening to those in the occupied territories, and speak from position advocating democratic and just principals, is absolutely sttartling. As someone who sees himself as keen in keeping the left honest, how can you not see what im getting at here?
January 2nd, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Josh, I’m curious what the hell is the party line on Palestine anyway? For the most part the Palestinian narrative and history has been so badly distorted, and a series of moral political evasions has rendered their dispossesion as some sort of triumph for liberal democracy. We live in a country where the dominant media rarely sees fit to mention the sufferings, the checkpoints, the killings, maiminh and imprinsoment that is a dialy reality for those living under, let me remind you, and entirely illegal occupation made possible only through our countries suppport. Yes of course the history is complex and never one sided, but the fact is that Israel is an occupier and the violence is wholly dispoportional.
Most even on the liberal/left side of things have an incredible blindness when it comes to the plight of the Palestinians. To question the dominant narrative and dichotony which frames the conflict as Israel (the west) a democracy fighting the “terrorism” of Palestinians who innately hate freedom, is to open one up to the basest of slurs and all kind of political attacks. The consequence of this atmosphere in this country is an awfully lopsided discourse, to the detriment of a peaceful and just solution in Israel/Plaestine based on international law
JOSH, i find it interesting that you exalt hitchens. THe fact is that he has always gone against prevailing wisdom and the Palestinian issue and defended the struggle against occupation . He wrote a beautiful and mving tribute to Israel Shahak here http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20010723&s=hitchens
Which I belive really encapsulates much of what the conflict is really about. SO I ASK YOU, and would like a reply, was HITCHENS also following what you view as the stalinoid line on palestine? I’d be interested to see your response
December 29th, 2004 at 12:47 am
Susan Sontag dies at 71 *
Sontag died today of leukemia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The L.A. Times online obituary by her good friend, Book Editor Steve Wasserman, calls Sontag “one of America’s most influential intellectuals, internationally renowned…
December 29th, 2004 at 12:54 am
Susan Sontag dies at 71 *
Sontag died today of leukemia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The L.A. Times online obituary by her good friend, Book Editor Steve Wasserman, calls Sontag “one of America’s most influential intellectuals, internationally renowned…
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