5/14/2014

The "Maleficent Ecology" of Civil War history

From Baudrillard's essay "Maleficent Ecology":
By producing highly centralized structures ... by remorselessly condensing down functions and models, we are transforming all the rest into waste, residue, useless relics.
How much Civil War history has been transformed into "waste, residue" by the prevailing narratives and the huckster authors who haunt this corner of the nonfiction world?

5/06/2014

Copperhead, the film

Bill Kaufmann and Tom Woods discuss the Kaufmann/Maxwell film Copperhead and make a few interesting points. I paraphrase and summarize:

Woods: Do we not today use "The North"* as a foil** against "the South"*?

Kaufmann: The greatest anachronism in an historical film is to have a character reflect 21st Century ideas and values.

Woods: The Liberty Party received 2% of the vote before the Civil War. But if you talk to people today, that's not a radical party because we're all behind the Liberty Party now.

These are summaries and paraphrases, I repeat, and the context of their discussion is modern political Libertarianism in places. Unfortunately, the scant treatment of these kinds of insights spotlights the limits of radio-podcast-video discussions.

(Note: I'm not sure the audio link will stay active beyond a few more days)

--
* as a construct
** in the sense of thesis/antithesis

5/01/2014

You know you want a Lincoln bobblehead

The big question around Lincoln bobbleheads is always **which** Lincoln bobblehead to buy.

Maybe a Memorial bobblehead is the thing. 

What is it about Lincoln that affects people such that his image must be tamed, mocked, lampooned, and generally made "user friendly"?