Dwight MacDonald Was A National Review Conservative

[Bret Cahill]

In "The Triumph of the Fact" MacDonald mentions the low number of book
reading American college graduates vs English high school dropouts, a
typical National Review issue, but the U. S. never had any
aristocratic background. Tocqueville covered this a century before
_Masscult_ suggesting people living in ages of equality read the
literature of aristocratic ages but the aristocrat seemed to be more
understanding or tolerant of the situation.

D.MacD. plays up qualitative and plays down quantitative but that just
leads to nonsense in the political and economic sphere. Today it
looks like The Triumph of The Fact was a better deal than the believe-
whatever-you-want fantasy that's going on today.

This isn't meant to detract from qualitative endeavours. Q v Q was
always a big deal in surfing. Except for tow-in surfers on big waves
where they measure wave height, surfing is as qualitative as any art
and surfing contests are, in fact, decided much like art shows. I
always read novels growing up, the Iliad in 2nd grade, but let's face
reality. You just look silly reading novels when you can't pay the
rent. Tocqueville covered the social ramifications of this in depth
as well.

Those that try to combine the two generally wind up working for the 1%
as a shill helping the 1% keep the 99% out of power -- not the
smartest vocation in the cheap info / cheap communications age. If
you aren't a Renaissance man / polymath, one way or another you're
skating on very thin ice.

The worse part of all, however, is the claim that the media, i.e.,
Luce's Time, is only pandering to the masses and is completely
controlled from the bottom up. To be sure the media must have some
way to lure readers, i.e., Oprah telling fat women they are beautify,
Fox telling rightards they are intelligent and the NY Times telling
whitey professionals they are interesting -- all, of course, Big Lies
-- but unless you believe Americans aren't interested in money,
editorial control is and for the past century, by the 1%.

It's not like the 1% media want the 99% to find out average mean
income is over $65/hr. No siree bob. The media ain't gonna be gush
hyping _that_ fact this October.

Some of this obviously changed since the book was written. The 1% v
99% didn't really exist back in the 50s. Moreover, the focus on facts
alone is a valid issue and may even have come at the expense of basic
reasoning ability resulting in the mass insanity that we see today.
Everything hinges on reasoning ability including the acceptance of
facts so the non liberal arts focus on facts _alone_ has made facts
unacceptable!

Next book: Massinsane


Bret Cahill