Friday, August 17, 2024
The Walt/Mearsheimer Book
The Times has an interesting piece on the problems Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer are already running into with their forthcoming book, The Israel Lobby.
An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.
With all due respect, professors Walt and Mearsheimer, I have one suggestion: When you're taking on a topic this inflammatory, appearance matters. (It probably shouldn't, but it does.) Get rid of this photo—now. Quite frankly, it makes you look cold and heartless and a little creepy. Lose the ties at the very least. Get a dog in there somewhere. (Not a German shepherd, though!)
The book is going to be problematic enough as it is... Anyone out there plan to read it?
An article last spring in the London Review of Books outlining their argument — that a powerful pro-Israel lobby has a pernicious influence on American policy — set off a firestorm as charges of anti-Semitism, shoddy scholarship and censorship ricocheted among prominent academics, writers, policymakers and advocates. In the book, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux and embargoed until Sept. 4, they elaborate on and update their case.
With all due respect, professors Walt and Mearsheimer, I have one suggestion: When you're taking on a topic this inflammatory, appearance matters. (It probably shouldn't, but it does.) Get rid of this photo—now. Quite frankly, it makes you look cold and heartless and a little creepy. Lose the ties at the very least. Get a dog in there somewhere. (Not a German shepherd, though!)
The book is going to be problematic enough as it is... Anyone out there plan to read it?
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Yes, the photo is awful. I don;t thinbk they need a dog, nor do they need to lose the ties, but they need to get a professional photographer who can make their eyes look less shifty.
And maybe dissuade the raising of eyebrows. Might as well be raising his pinky finger to the corner of his mouth a la Dr. Evil.
The above poster linked to this Wikipedia entry, which is probably not intended as a compliment to my post:
—Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985), is a controversial book by Neil Postman in which he argues that mediums of communication inherently influence the conversations carried out over them. Postman posits that television is the primary means of communication for our culture and it has the property of converting conversations into entertainment so much so that public discourse on important issues has disappeared. Since the treatment of serious issues as entertainment inherently prevents them from being treated as serious issues and indeed since serious issues have been treated as entertainment for so many decades now, the public is no longer aware of these issues in their original sense, but only as entertainment. ("Conversations" in the sense here of a culture communicating with itself).—
I would simply rebut that by saying that presentation matters and always has. It has nothing to do with television or any other electronic medium; it has to do with human nature.
—Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985), is a controversial book by Neil Postman in which he argues that mediums of communication inherently influence the conversations carried out over them. Postman posits that television is the primary means of communication for our culture and it has the property of converting conversations into entertainment so much so that public discourse on important issues has disappeared. Since the treatment of serious issues as entertainment inherently prevents them from being treated as serious issues and indeed since serious issues have been treated as entertainment for so many decades now, the public is no longer aware of these issues in their original sense, but only as entertainment. ("Conversations" in the sense here of a culture communicating with itself).—
I would simply rebut that by saying that presentation matters and always has. It has nothing to do with television or any other electronic medium; it has to do with human nature.
Oh my god, I just went on this site and scrolled down and -- POW!!! -- these two gross creepy white guys staring out at me, like a couple of extras from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I can't decide what that fluid is that's dripping off them -- oil or pretension?
It's sadly funny how easily the overly-giddy poster above can drop the phrase "gross creepy white guys" knowing full well that inserting any other color/race into that same phrasing would be grounds for serious admonishment on this blog and in the public domain. The poster is either a) a person of color and therefore a hypocrite or b) a white person shamelessly trying to "play it cool" and/or exorcising white guilt in a truly pathetic manner.
I agree, or perhaps some messenger-shooting as well, which would relate to the Amusing Ourselves to Death point. It's easier to imply character-flaws on the basis of a photo than focus on the "serious issues" in their book. I loved the faux OMG opening of 3:33 p.m.
To both of the above posters, thank you, thank and thank you. Yes, I'm a white guy - and I'm shamelessly (shamelessly!) trying to "play it cool". You caught me, straight up! Word to yo motha, though: look at that photo and then dig deep in yourselves, really really deep, down in that place where you "let your hair down", feel kind of artsy and hip, and don't worry so much about being rational and fair and adult, and then ask yourself - are those guys or are they not both the most prototypically white and c-r-e-e-p-y guys you've ever seen? Just a little itsy bitsy weeny teeny bit? Now, as for their book, I'd love to read it, really I would -- but unless they come out with a graphic version, I just won't.
P.S. Smoke a Gaulloise when you try that little experiment above. It helps.
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P.S. Smoke a Gaulloise when you try that little experiment above. It helps.
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