J.L. Wall

Thoughts Obama and Appalachia: It Ain’t (Quite) About That Southern Thing

by J.L. Wall on May 23, 2012

1) Voter registration. Kentucky, West Virginia, and Arkansas are disproportionately Democratic—that is, when you compare voting preferences with party identification. In Kentucky and West Virginia, the margins are 56-37 and 54-29, respectively. While the Old, Solid South has trended Republican in party ID, Coal Country has remained solidly Democratic. There are plenty of races in Kentucky—particularly in the eastern counties that Obama lost—which are, effectively, decided in the Democratic primaries. Turnout in these races, that is, included many voters who are in practice Republicans.

2) Let me put this in terms of a series of questions, all meant to be read in light of the race question in these primaries (now and in 2008): What do we make of the fact that Obama won Virginia but lost West Virginia? Or that he lost Appalachia overwhelmingly but won Fayette County? Obama does worst not in “The South” but in Southern mountain country specifically. Whether Blue Ridge or Smokies, the history of race in these hills is quite distinct from the history of race in “The South”—by which we typically mean farming country, not mining country. The former is by comparison wealthier and racially more diverse; the latter is (even within Kentucky’s overwhelmingly white demographics) overwhelmingly white and intractably impoverished. Continue reading this post…

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What Makes a War?

by J.L. Wall on May 21, 2012

In his writing on the Civil War and American slavery, Ta-Nehisi Coates frequently refers to a “war” on the slaves and/or America’s black populace. (The violence done to slaves — or at least the threat of it – did to some degree extend to free blacks.) This is a notion that I’ve been less than comfortable with, without ever quite understanding why. Recently, TNC paused to define and criticize his own terminology:

The use of the word “war” carries with it a notion of intention, consciousness, something which I think is present at some moments (in antebellum America) and absent, or diffuse, in others (colonial America.)

More tangibly, can you have a war when the people with guns do not acknowledge it as such?

To call something a war — particularly something that is not clearly a war — presents the question, “What is a war?” The term may summon columns of tanks and infantrymen, but, he points out, that’s not all that it’s reserved for in contemporary usage: Continue reading this post…

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Wendell Berry Studies I: Mother Nature’s Son

by J.L. Wall on May 17, 2012

Wendell Berry’s recent Jefferson Lecture was not, as both his supporters and detractors have acknowledged, his finest piece of writing. His use of the lectern to present a theory of Kentuckian animosity for all things Duke that began well before 1992 has, however, obscured the more interesting and important aspect of the address—which, to one well-read, though by no means an expert, in Berry’s writing, at the very least felt new: his explicit and concise argument for affection. In this post and several following, I want to try to understand Berry’s particular brand of affection and its implications. This post is meant to be an introduction that lays out my intuitive, possibly too parochial, critique of a writer for whom I have much sympathy — even affection.

Among the more interesting feuds in the political blogosphere is the one that picks up every so often between the Porchers and the Pomocons. For the former, Berry is the central contemporary writer; the latter want, in essence, to hear him out but hold him at arm’s length. I’ve found myself sympathetic to both sides and their critiques (and, at times, defenses) of contemporary culture and politics. A central component to the Pomocon critique of Front Porch agrarianism/localism is the charge that Berry slouches toward pantheism. Initially, I dismissed this as a misreading—but it is a charge which I find increasingly plausible and would, I fear, undermine portions of Berry’s thought from within.

This is not to say, however, that Berry is a pantheist. Rod Dreher recently fired back at such a charge,

Berry, who is some sort of Protestant, is talking about the sacramental quality of the created world — which is not the same thing as pantheism. His book against scientism, “Life Is a Miracle,” is a profoundly Christian statement of intellectual humility and the sacramental worldview. “Pantheism”? Good grief. That’s on the same level as saying that Catholics worship statues. Continue reading this post…

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A Mentsch Trakht, un Got Lakht

by J.L. Wall on May 8, 2012

I was as surprised as anyone to wake up this morning and discover that Kadima had agreed to enter Netanyahu’s governing coalition. This, in case you missed it, broadens its reach to 94 of the Knesset’s 120 legislators. This certainly does not signal Bibi’s transformation into Nixon-in-China, but it is cause for a moment’s sighing in relief, if not quite celebration.

Shortly after Kadima failed to form a government following* the last Israeli elections, there were, it seemed, three scenarios through which the inevitable Likud coalition would form: a Likud-Kadima-Labor centrist/unity coalition, a Likud-YB-Religious coalition (both the most right wing and fragile), or the variation on the former which occurred—the inclusion of Labor in the governing umbrella. To my centrist/center-left friends, some version of the first was the best-case; some version of the last (the middle was too unstable to truly fear) was the worst. What we have going forward is a version of the best that we could have hoped for once it became clear that Netanyahu would become Prime Minister.

The Likud-Kadima-YB government, is, more importantly, a secular one. Continue reading this post…

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Mid-Season Mad Men Studies: “And would it have been worth it, after all?”

by J.L. Wall on May 3, 2012

I grow old … I grow old …

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

–T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

In my post on the Season Five premiere, I suggested that the between-season jumps in time were beginning to undermine the show’s narrative. Let me revise: at least in terms of this season, they seem to have a central role in creating the show’s thematic, if not narrative, arc. They keep us moving swiftly—more swiftly than we might realize—through time and the ever-changing 1960s. Less than five years have elapsed since the show’s premiere in July of 2007, but for Roger, Don, Pete et al., it’s been closer to seven. Don has turned forty, Pete is pushing thirty, Roger is upwards of fifty, and Bert Cooper sits alone in the conference room all day, forgetting and forgotten.

The show is no longer about Don’s lyrical ad pitches—but about ad men (and women, now) who, in Eliot’s words, “have measured out [their] live[s] in coffee spoons.” Maybe it’s that the Sixties knocked the glitz and glamour off their jobs and lives; maybe it’s just that the glitz and glamour couldn’t survive more than a couple seasons on-air. Don, turning forty, has turned inward from the office in an effort to shore up the fragments of his ideal American life—he’s turned, in the eyes of Pete and Roger, boring. To Pete, indeed, he’s “not feeling well.” Don has become someone other than himself—but Don Draper never has been himself. He’s always acting, and what remains unclear is whether his current iteration is just another role to play—or if this is the man the Don/Dick hybrid has become. He murders an ex-lover in his fever-dream, and is quick to remind himself that he and Charles Whitman share a name. Don, too, doesn’t seem to know which is the performance and which is the reality—but he knows there’s something in himself (in everyone?) worth fearing. Don Draper is by no means a wise man, but he increasingly possesses a kind of authorial world-weariness. Continue reading this post…

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Can We Have Post-Modern Faith?

by J.L. Wall April 24, 2012

A new study out of the University of Chicago shows, in its words, a “modest” decline of belief in God globally, with dramatic variations among individual countries. I don’t want to argue about the value or non-value of surveys attempting to pinpoint whether God has a constituency problem—but I do want to make a point about the terminology it, and we, use when talking about belief and non-belief. The survey notes that 60.6% of Americans agree with the statement, “I ...

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World’s Greatest Mystery, Solved

by J.L. Wall April 20, 2012

…Maybe. An intrepid CNN.com reporter attempts to answer the question that has plagued all of us for years: did Levon Helm sing “Annie” or “Fanny”? (For the record, I’ve always thought “Fanny” — but I’ve had many moments of doubt.)

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On Faith After the Holocaust

by J.L. Wall April 19, 2012

(I promised myself I would attempt to respond to this article on Yom HaShoah. The latter fell sooner than I thought, and no complete response, I suspect, is possible. So with my caveat aside…) Ron Rosenbaum takes to—of all places!—The Chronicle of Higher Education to wonder how and why Jews can continue to believe in God after the Holocaust. (To be more accurate, the driving question of the article is why we don’t demand better responses from our leaders and ...

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Mad Men Open Thread

by J.L. Wall April 2, 2012

I’m building it, so y’all better come visit now, here? I haven’t seen this week’s episode yet, and probably won’t until later this week — there are more important things in the offing today/tonight — so I won’t be looking at comments. But enjoy.

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I Wanna Catch That Fireball Mail…

by J.L. Wall March 28, 2012

It’s not quite Friday night, but Earl Scruggs, one of this country’s musical greats, deserves it.

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Mad Men Season Five Premiere Open Thread

by J.L. Wall March 27, 2012

According to Wikipedia (to which I had to turn to figure out when we were), Mad Men is, in the wake of a 1966 Kentucky-Duke all-white Final Four bout to play Texas Western and be cast, some decades later, as the villains in Glory Road, about to introduce certain of its characters to the concept of race. Everything else below the fold. (Yes, I know, I’m a day late — but I’m watching it on iTunes.)

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Stray Thoughts on This Week’s Peter Beinart To-Do

by J.L. Wall March 21, 2012

1) I don’t know why I’m writing about this tonight and not Dr. McCoy’s technophobia. Probably because I’m a masochist at heart. 2) I haven’t read The Crisis of Zionism. Neither the university nor the local public library have it, and the League doesn’t yet cover book review expenses. So I’m not pretending to comment on the contents of the book per se. Perhaps, once one of these libraries does acquire a copy, I will read it, if I have ...

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Sympathy with the Kabbalists

by J.L. Wall February 29, 2012

I once wrote a short story for workshop that involved, I believe, the narrator dismissing any approach to grief informed by the Kabbalah as guilty of a kind of heretical dualism. It wasn’t this-worldly enough. Afterward, a classmate stopped me and said, “You know, for all your complaints, you do start sounding awfully Kabbalistic when you talk about language.” It was one of those remarks that made me stop. Certainly with respect to that story—and more than I’d like with ...

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Is There Conservative Art?

by J.L. Wall February 13, 2012

In a post at American Times, E.D. writes: It’s the same in politics: conservatives aren’t so much interested with their own ideas about governance as they are about responding to and obstructing the ideas of their opponents. And perhaps that’s the crux of the issue. Conservative art mimics conservative politics rather than the other way around. And so it can never really be art. Now, mind you, the painting he leads with is pretty atrocious. But I do, nevertheless, think ...

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The Third Tribe

by J.L. Wall January 31, 2012

Maybe this would be otherwise if I’d followed the discussions around here of Charles Murray’s Coming Apart thesis a little more closely, but I was struck by the math in David Brooks’ column* today:

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Butchery and Burial (or, Sympathy for McClellan)

by J.L. Wall January 29, 2012

I wrote, some time ago, that Grant becomes the hero of Shelby Foote’s Civil War because “he fights, unlike his colleagues on either side, who dilly-dally, blundering into and through battle and prolonging the war, and he fights for the Union.” The war, in this telling, is tragic in the root sense of the word not [because] it had to be fought at all, but that it continues without an end at hand while terrain, technology, and the incompetence and ...

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As Old As The World

by J.L. Wall January 22, 2012

Rhetoric can reveal an unconscious trope moving — or maybe just stirring itself awake — within a society without attributing conscious malice to the individual speaker. Thus the key line in Adam Kirsch’s consideration, five years later, of The Israel Lobby has nothing to do with Mearsheimer or Walt in particular: “So the floodgates were opened: What we have witnessed in the five years since is a blithe recuperation of dangerous, vicious imagery and ideas, with no apparent compunction about ...

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Fiction’s Ethos

by J.L. Wall January 19, 2012

At Literary Commentary, D.G. Myers engages Victor Davis Hanson’s question: Why read fiction anymore? He agrees it teaches one self-mastery, and contrasts this with a more common self-affirming method of reading. I was wary of this answer, at first—not because I don’t agree with the idea of fiction leading toward self-mastery, or reading toward betterment of self, but because I’m skeptical of the need to find a “use” for reading, for literature, or for art. This is not to say ...

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The Novelist and the Civil War

by J.L. Wall January 13, 2012

Because I’m behind the times (the Internet times, that is—they move so fast and I’m already stuck at least a decade ago), I’ve just now gotten around to reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ long-form article on the Civil War and tragedy. I don’t want to belabor quibbles over the definition of “tragedy” any more than other and I already have, so I’ll just send you toward Freddie’s list of caveats (for present purposes, those about the article itself). [Clarification: I really only meant ...

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The Biblical Renaissance and English Poetry

by J.L. Wall January 5, 2012

Not long ago, David Cameron delivered a speech extolling the continuing cultural relevance of the King James Bible (h/t Joe Carter). It stands as a fairly strong encapsulation of much of what has been said—especially in its just closed 400th anniversary year—about the translation: Along with Shakespeare, the King James Bible is a high point of the English language…creating arresting phrases that move, challenge and inspire. ... I feel the power is lost in some more literal translations. The New ...

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The Influence of Influence

by J.L. Wall January 1, 2012

Marilynne Robinson, doing what she does [NYT], talks about books, writing, and the Bible — as well as writing one of the politest harsh critiques of contemporary literature possible:

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