Things Noted Here and There
Gabriel Piterberg,"Zion's Rebel Daughter: Hannah Arendt on Palestine and Jewish Politics," New Left Review, November/December, examines the development of Arendt's views about the Zionist project and Israel. Hat tip.
Fred Siegel,"Their Friend, the State," WSJ, 4 January, should have been a friendly review of Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascists. It isn't. John Scalzi,"Things One Should Not Forget," Whatever, 14 January, puts a nail in Goldberg's coffin. Hat tip.
Finally, from the Department of Cutting Edge Research, check this out:"Marketing the South: Commercial mythmaking and reshaping popular memories," Physorg.com, 8 January, trumpets the publication of an article in the Journal of Consumer Research, February 2008. Among other things, its authors tell us:
"A countervailing system of meanings has been culturally propagated through the ceaseless efforts of Southern intellectuals, politicians, writers, journalists, historical preservationists, and business leaders to place a redeeming light on the region's historical heritage ..."
"Through these myth making activities, this broad coalition of Southern mythmakers sought to defend the honor of their Confederate ancestors, rebuke the cultural stigmas that had been ascribed to white Southern identities and perhaps most of all, attract infusions of Northern capital needed to build a more prosperous New South."
They reveal three related white identity myths that have been prevalent in commercial representations of Southern culture:
# The myth of the Lost Cause: the Confederacy viewed as a legion of gallant Christian Knights serving a divine cause. Serves to release white Southerners from guilt by reshaping their memories of the brutal conditions of the slaves.
# Moonlight and Magnolias: represents Southern womanhood as a vulnerable vessel of virtue. Gone with the Wind depicted both the"Lost Cause" and the"Moonlight/Magnolias" myths, with unprecedented box office success.
# The Celtic myth: stereotypes poor Southern whites as lazy, drunk, uneducated hillbillies, due to their Celtic blood line. Projects blame for societal problems on the"racist Southern redneck."
The authors of this cutting edge research are J. Craig Thompson of the School of Business at Wisconsin, Madison, and Kelly Tian of the School of Business at New Mexico State. You have to hope that these marketing profs give due credit to several dozen historians of the American South over the last half century. These findings might have been considered new and interesting 50 years ago.