In trusting that our academic interests expand beyond the realm of the classroom and internet blogs, I'd like to pose the following question:
What did you think of Gore Vidale?
A specific point of interest to me, and I think of specific relevance to our class, was his commentary on republics. I believe the quote from Benjamin Franklin was something to the effect that he had provided a republic, as long as the people would keep it. What does that mean for us, in today's context? Keep in mind the fact that Gore Vidale has an extremely fatalistic view of our present condition and future, which is centered around the idea that we are in a decline. Do you agree?
Personally, as naive and potentially embarrassing as this may be, the question of our imminent demise and Vidale's dire predictions came not as a shock perhaps, but as a way more foreboding image than I was expecting. There is no doubt that the United States is in trouble. The war in Iraq is far from successful, and has long ago fallen from public favor. It has become popular to mock and jeer the President that we elected not once, but twice. Our debt is continually mounting, we are impressively unpopular in many sections of the international community, etc etc etc. But to say we are not only in decline, but close to ruin? On this point, (and in general to Gore Vidale's Q&A section,) I felt there was a certain intellectual haughtiness and melodramatic fatalism that was exaggerated for effect and hilarity.
Thoughts?
5 comments:
Vidale is one of those aging men, who could basically say whatever they want and get away with it, which is partly why his interview at the Ath amused me.
Although countless problems plague our nation, I disagree with him that American society is in decline. In fact, I believe that life has improved for many after he was born in 1925. For example, the civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's resulted in desegregation and more equal treatment of citizens of color, and FDR's New Deal in the 30's introduced programs to provide relief for the unemployed.
Even though he claimed that nobody really knows anything anymore, I think that with the internet and new technological inventions, it has become easier to access and disseminate information.
Nevertheless, I think that Vidale still has hope for the future. After all, why would he have bothered to become involved in politics? Currently, he's apparently part of World Can't Wait, which is an organization advocating the impeachment of Bush.
For more Vidal (along with Lincoln portrayer Sam Waterston), see:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo7LHUhHrxM
I wonder why we even invite people like him to this campus. Would we invite Ann Coulter? Why Vidal?
As much as I may want to disagree with his conclusion I do not think that a) one can easily disregard what Vidal said, and b) take what he said at face value.
While it is certainly possible to disagree that the American republic has begun an inevitable fall down history's slope, as I do myself, I think that Vidal's comments are better understood as those of a critic and a satirist. Both his politics and his temperament lead him as much to his current state as a more objective view of reality would suggest. That being said, the challenges he highlights cannot be written off as the ravings of an old man. The previous night at the Ath, Jabari Asim made the point that too often history and experience is lost when a previous generation does not tell it to those which come after. Gore Vidal has an amazing wealth of knowledge and experiences from which to draw on, and which one might not consider him all knowing, he certainly has a perspective to share. As well, as I said before, he is a satirist, and satirists necessarily do, he exaggerates the elements of the picture he is trying to paint in the pursuit of a laugh.
More broadly, I doubt that the end is quite so near. As we talked about in class, the particularity of this republican form is that it both distrusts its participants and places checks on their power, while at the same time hoping to evoke mankind's better qualities.
As to his comments about the lack of education. While he may have braodly characterized modern education to teach much of anything, a point I would be hesitant to dismiss out of hand, his specific critisism was that today's students choose to learn about that which they already know and thus loose out on what is a siginificant purpose of education- to expand ones knowledge beyond that which one knows. When he speaks of a failure to know Aristotle, or Pericles, indeed a great deal of the classical thinkers and actors upon which so much of history rests, I would tend to agree. Access to information has never been more prevalent, but rarely is the question asked, is our children learning? The fact that knowledge is available does not mean that it is taken in, processed, analyzed, critiqued, or in any other way used. I certainly cannot say that I am versed in great thinkers or great thoughts, but I would hope that I would hope to learn. I may disagree with Gore Vidal's politics, but I admire his credibility, and adore his style.
A few days ago, in class, it was mentioned that politicians often seem to promises more, or indeed outright lie, in pursuit of winning an election. Though this observation is debatable it reminded me of a Mario Cuomo line which seemed apt to both that comment and to understanding Gore Vidal's rhetoric. Cuomo said, "You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose."
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