My Political Unconscious
A friend stayed in my apartment last Christmas and left, as a present I suppose, a copy of Boy Genius, about Karl Rove's career as Bush's Machiavelli. I have very little respect for political operatives, since there function increasingly isn't unlike the goofy but big guy on the basketball team who's only role is to put a hurt on more agile and athletic players. Rove's "genius" is being dirtier than most and playing electoral politics in Texas, along with having lucked into tremendous funding. But the word genius gets thrown around in politics (not unlike advertising or motivational speaking) because the profession is beset with insecure people.
Yet I read the book anyway and rather compulsively. I usually reserve that for William Gibson's latest, but the atmosphere of apocalypse and banality that we live in these days has made it harder. What's more, I have been trying to make sense of that atmosphere--and when I say, make sense, I mean make sense. One can hardly escape political information, but at the same time, much of it does come from books by Richard Clarke, Bob Woodward, Kevin Phillips and others. And there is sense that if you only get the digested version--in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, etc.--you are not getting the primary source. I admit that my academic turn of mind is at work here, too, the sense that the media can't be telling the whole story and therefore one should go to the source. (Never mind that these books are secondary and subject to same spinning procedures.)
I didn't want this reading to go to waste so I thought I should write about them, perhaps even come up with a thesis about them. After going through quite a few, I have no thesis. Things are as apocalyptic and banal as ever, although I have more names. But I have also been struck by the coverage of these books, which it seems rarely gives them a fair reading. The political hacks have their own agenda, while the literary hacks are disturbed to have politics on their doorstep. In any case, I probably won't do better, but I need to have some reason to have read 3 books by Bob Woodward.
So look for my reflections on our post-postmodern moment, occasioned by a recent political read. I trust that once November 2 passes, I can forget about politics or at least not read about it. Until then, though, one does what one can.
A friend stayed in my apartment last Christmas and left, as a present I suppose, a copy of Boy Genius, about Karl Rove's career as Bush's Machiavelli. I have very little respect for political operatives, since there function increasingly isn't unlike the goofy but big guy on the basketball team who's only role is to put a hurt on more agile and athletic players. Rove's "genius" is being dirtier than most and playing electoral politics in Texas, along with having lucked into tremendous funding. But the word genius gets thrown around in politics (not unlike advertising or motivational speaking) because the profession is beset with insecure people.
Yet I read the book anyway and rather compulsively. I usually reserve that for William Gibson's latest, but the atmosphere of apocalypse and banality that we live in these days has made it harder. What's more, I have been trying to make sense of that atmosphere--and when I say, make sense, I mean make sense. One can hardly escape political information, but at the same time, much of it does come from books by Richard Clarke, Bob Woodward, Kevin Phillips and others. And there is sense that if you only get the digested version--in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, etc.--you are not getting the primary source. I admit that my academic turn of mind is at work here, too, the sense that the media can't be telling the whole story and therefore one should go to the source. (Never mind that these books are secondary and subject to same spinning procedures.)
I didn't want this reading to go to waste so I thought I should write about them, perhaps even come up with a thesis about them. After going through quite a few, I have no thesis. Things are as apocalyptic and banal as ever, although I have more names. But I have also been struck by the coverage of these books, which it seems rarely gives them a fair reading. The political hacks have their own agenda, while the literary hacks are disturbed to have politics on their doorstep. In any case, I probably won't do better, but I need to have some reason to have read 3 books by Bob Woodward.
So look for my reflections on our post-postmodern moment, occasioned by a recent political read. I trust that once November 2 passes, I can forget about politics or at least not read about it. Until then, though, one does what one can.
posted by RobCrowe at 2:27 PM
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