Columbus Day And The Most Chilling Eight Words In Journalism
We heard from James Carroll five weeks ago, when he attempted to argue that "Marxism has yet to be really tried" as a Labor Day analysis, which emphasized the first two syllables. Today we celebrate Columbus Day, and since it's yet another Monday holiday, Carroll returns yet again to the pages of the Boston Globe to tell us what it means. It involves African slavery, nuclear weapons, and torture, but surprisingly, nothing about Christopher Columbus:
IF COLUMBUS is the beginning of the story, and, say, Lincoln is the middle, what is the end? Each episode of the American narrative surfaced a problem, which prompted attempts to resolve it, which led in turn to a new problem. This movement from problem to resolution to new problem and ever new efforts to fix things is what makes the American story great.So Columbus arrived in 1492, but carried the European virus of ideological absolutism - what led Queen Isabella to expel Jews from Spain that same year. Such absolutism sparked Old World religious wars, and Puritan dissenters defied it by coming to America. But they brought their own version of that absolutism. John Winthrop's City on a Hill was a religiously gated community (no "pagans" or Quakers), with the magistrate empowered to coerce conformity. Therefore Roger Williams proposed the separation of church and state. By Jefferson's time, though, that distinction justified the separation of private morality from public ethics. Private morality meant he and others could keep the private property called slaves.
Abraham Lincoln presided at the altar on which the bloody sacrifice of civil war was justified by "freedom," but no sooner had redemptive violence (". . .as He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free") saved the nation's soul than it spawned the Indian genocide, and the Jim Crow betrayal of blacks. In the name of freedom, the United States conquered a continent, and claimed a hemisphere - a destiny whose virtue was manifest against corrupt European imperialism. In the American Century, the nation born in rejection of ideological absolutism called itself capital of "the free world," but redemptive violence went nuclear, and defense of that freedom required absolute readiness to destroy the world. The chill of Cold War "realism" froze the American conscience.
I would have bet money that no columnist in America could have painted such an incoherent and essentially false version of 500 years of Western civilization in just three paragraphs. People of intellectual heft generally have to spend years on dissertations being this dishonest and biased. Carroll may be the most efficient intellectual fraud in North America, a status to which he laid claim on Labor Day as well.
Columbus Day celebrates the opening of the Western Hemisphere to Western civilization -- the potential and the opportunity, not every single event that followed from it. Without that opening, the United States would not exist, at least not in its current form. Plenty of good flowed from that potential, none of which makes it into Carroll's essay on Columbus. Plenty of bad flowed from it as well, although almost none of what Carroll chooses to use as examples.
Let's move on to what Carroll says should be our focus, which all Columbus-related developments apparently keep us from addressing: the elimination of nuclear weapons and building structures of international peace. This seems surprising, as Carroll and his colleagues on the Left seem very uninterested in supporting the Bush administration's efforts to stop nuclear proliferation in Iran.
He approvingly quotes Barack Obama as saying that our nuclear stockpile is designed to deter a nation that no longer exists, the Soviet Union -- you know, where Marxism was "never really tried" -- but neglects to mention that Russis still has most of the Soviet arsenal still pointed in our general direction. He also neglects to mention the recent argument that we can apply the same containment doctrine of MAD to Iran, even though the Iranian mullahcracy seems to have no problem with massive destruction as long as the 12th Imam makes his return from the ether, a philosophy not shared with the atheistic Soviets.
So do we bomb Iran in order to get rid of our nukes, or do we keep our nukes to try the MAD doctrine on people looking forward to dying for Allah? Carroll never explains, only complains.
He also talks about torture, without giving a single shred of evidence that the US has tortured anyone. Carroll then asks "what about those who welcomed [Columbus]", apparently blissfully unaware about their own thoughts on what we consider torture and war crimes today. It's history without any historical context, a specialty of Carroll's. Slavery and torture have long histories in all corners of the world, and although Carroll apparently remains ignorant of it, still exist in reality in large sections of Africa and Asia, two places on which Columbus never set foot.
Enjoy Columbus Day. It apparently annoys all the right people.
Jules Crittenden also has more thoughts, including how he plans to celebrate the holiday in the most American way possible -- by working for a living.
Oh, and the Most Chilling Eight Words In Journalism? "James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe."
UPDATE: Sister Toldjah agrees with Carroll that we've taken a troubling turn in our history -- but has another turn in mind.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on October 8, 2007 9:05 AM | Comments (27) | TrackBacks (1)
Comments (27)
Posted by billhedrick | October 8, 2007 9:58 AM
A minor quibble: in your commentary you mention he emphasised the first two syllables of "Marxism has yet to be really tried" I think you mean 3 as "Marxism" is a three syllable word.
Posted by Captain Ed | October 8, 2007 10:00 AM
Wrong word. Take another look, and note that I wrote "the first two syllables".
Posted by unclesmrgol | October 8, 2007 10:24 AM
My flag is UP today.
Posted by docjim505 | October 8, 2007 10:28 AM
Lefties like to pose as "thoughtful, openminded intellectuals" by simply bitching about every wrong (real or perceived) ever committed by the United States. As we see from Carroll's column, they branch out into western civilization when they're REALLY feeling their Cheerios. Howard Zinn's horrid history of our country is cut from the same cloth: it is nothing but a recitation of everything that is wrong with America.
"Intellectuals" like Carroll are a dime-a-dozen: they mistake criticism for intellectual heft, scorn for open-mindedness. It's odd that Carroll continues to live in a country that fills him with such contempt if not outright horror. At any rate, people like him are nothing new. George Orwell (perhaps MY favorite columnist) knew British Carrolls and had this to say about them:
Within the intelligentsia, a derisive and mildly hostile attitude towards Britain is more or less compulsory, but it is an unfaked emotion in many cases. During the war it was manifested in the defeatism of the intelligentsia, which persisted long after it had become clear that the Axis powers could not win. Many people were undisguisedly pleased when Singapore fell ore when the British were driven out of Greece, and there was a remarkable unwillingness to believe in good news, e.g. el Alamein, or the number of German planes shot down in the Battle of Britain. English left-wing intellectuals did not, of course, actually want the Germans or Japanese to win the war, but many of them could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated, and wanted to feel that the final victory would be due to Russia, or perhaps America, and not to Britain. In foreign politics many intellectuals follow the principle that any faction backed by Britain must be in the wrong. As a result, "enlightened" opinion is quite largely a mirror-image of Conservative policy. Anglophobia is always liable to reversal, hence that fairly common spectacle, the pacifist of one war who is a bellicist in the next. (1)
With a few minor changes in names, this could easily apply to many American lefty "intellectuals".
Carroll is like the naughty little boy in class who misbehaves or the teenager who wears outrageous clothes in order to get attention. "Look at ME! See how DARING I am? I'm critical of my country! Aren't I brave and clever?"
Bah.
----------
(1) George Orwell, "Notes on Nationalism", 1945
http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/nationalism.html
Posted by Cardinals Nation | October 8, 2007 10:35 AM
James Carroll is a sanctimonious ass. And that's on a good day.
Posted by rhodeymark | October 8, 2007 10:50 AM
I have an eight word response for them as well:
"The Globe appears regularly at my door... NOT."
Posted by RBMN | October 8, 2007 10:58 AM
The United States didn't invent slavery, but the spirit of America, and its Christian roots, certainly led to the strong grassroots abolition movement, that eventually prevailed. Positive "revolutions" sometimes happen too slowly in democracies, but at least they can happen.
Posted by Bill H | October 8, 2007 11:30 AM
Columbus base his argument for financing on the bad science that the earth was smaller than it is. He sold this idea to the government and got the money. Columbus refused to believe that he was wrong.
Columbus sounds like he would be a liberal Democrat today.
Posted by Mark F. | October 8, 2007 11:30 AM
Carroll is rather careless with his words, for a wordsmith. Genocide is the deliberate and systematic extermination of a people. Diseases were what wiped out such huge numbers of natives, and one has to be out of touch with reality to suggest that the Spanish and other Europeans were actually conducting biological warfare. It is highly counter-productive to be both genocidal and seeking to obtain the greatest number of slaves. As to the charges of ideological absolutism and bloody sacrifice, nothing the Europeans ever did could hold a candle to the bloody tyranny of the Aztecs. Cortez, especially, was able to accomplish so much because the subjugated native nations were so delighted to find an ally that would help them overthrow the hated Aztecs. Oh, I don't really want to hear some airhead claim that it was really okay for one native nation to slaughter tens of thousands of their neighbors and enslave millions because it was a purely native matter.
Posted by rbj | October 8, 2007 11:43 AM
"carried the European virus of ideological absolutism"
Jeez, Chinese emperors, Japanese shoguns, Persian rulers, etc. all had their own ideological absolutism. Of course, nothing could match the ideological absolutism of Marxism.
This column reads like a bad high school essay.
Posted by mrlynn | October 8, 2007 1:04 PM
In a letter of mine (that the Globe actually published), I referred to "the insufferable James Carroll." The Globe deleted the words 'the insufferable', but that did not make him any less so.
/Mr Lynn
Posted by Robert | October 8, 2007 1:27 PM
Stupidest words of the 21st century:
"Now is not the time to question the President."
Spoken in the run-up to the Iraq War.
And it was said with a straight face.
Nothing will top that one for sheer stupidity.
Posted by viking01 | October 8, 2007 1:33 PM
Marxism already has been tried many times. It resulted in more slaughter in the 20th Century than any other form of government. Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev and descendants used it to purge their nation and the former Soviet bloc of many millions. Pol Pot used Marxism as a front to create the Killing Fields. Red China used it to purge their nation of, uh, undesirables. North Korea, too. Japan used socialism / Marxism cloaked under the code of Bushido to promote indescribable torture and slaughter throughout the entire Eastern Hemisphere. Hitler used National Socialism to enable the Final Solution and to guide his nation to commence international slaughter on an unprecedented scale (except for maybe for rival Marxist / Communist / NY Times hero Uncle Joe Stalin).
Marxism has certainly been "tried" and has been found to be the best recipe for creating holocausts yet devised by man. No wonder a narcissistic psychotic like angry Hillary finds that form of government so tempting.
Posted by Robert | October 8, 2007 1:48 PM
viking01,
Agreed. Marxism might be a fine ideology, but it obviously does not work in practce.
Much like Conservatism.
Posted by viking01 | October 8, 2007 2:09 PM
Marxism doesn't work in theory either because the nonproductive with needs predictably mooch off the productive with means and the productive eventually say to hell with it.
Limited (conservative / discreet) government through self-determination has worked quite well. Thanks. That's why we've celebrated Washington's Birthday and Independence Day for a few hundred years. Marx may still get a few celebrations on May Day at a few selected political backwaters (N. Korea, Myanmar, Columbia U. and Duke faculty meetings) from time to time.
Posted by Robert | October 8, 2007 2:29 PM
"Limited (conservative / discreet) government through self-determination"
Dead.
Shot in the head at point blank range by Ronald Reagan about 30 years ago.
Posted by viking01 | October 8, 2007 2:33 PM
Well.... there you go again.
Posted by jdege | October 8, 2007 2:52 PM
"Marxism might be a fine ideology"
Marxism is a fundamentally evil ideology. It is founded on envy, greed, and sloth.
Posted by docjim505 | October 8, 2007 3:05 PM
jdege,
Don't forget vanity. Marxism assumes that MOST people are too stupid to run their own lives and need "the right people" to do it for them.
Need it be said that the most committed marxists are also convinced that they are "the right people"?
Posted by Looking Glass | October 8, 2007 5:47 PM
EO Wilson, the distinguished Harvard naturalist and ant expert, said of Marxism: 'Wonderful idea. Wrong species.'
"Enjoy Columbus Day. It apparently annoys all the right people." Words for the ages. As with President Bush where there are some people, if they didn't hate him, I'd wonder what he was doing wrong.
Posted by Carl Gordon | October 8, 2007 7:05 PM
[Comment deleted. Read the Privacy Policy to learn what's acceptable here, and then call your mommy to learn some manners. -- Ed]
Posted by Carsick | October 8, 2007 7:57 PM
[Wow, this guy's persistent. He must be off his meds tonight. Now he's posting in a different persona.-- Ed]
Posted by Robert | October 8, 2007 7:59 PM
[Psst. You're off-topic. Pass it on to some other blog. --Ed]
Posted by Robert | October 8, 2007 8:31 PM
Ed,
Sorry about that.
I saw the jerkoff up-post make the comment about Hillary, so thought the fact that we provide our troops with socialized medicine might be relevant as well.
I'll wait for your posts on healthcare to mention how other nations provide their citizens better healthcare than the U.S. for 40% less cost.
Posted by Bennett | October 8, 2007 8:39 PM
I think the episode of the Sopranos where Silvio gets all worked up because the local (native) Indian Council is planning to protest the Columbus Day parade is a classic.
Christopher Columbus is and should be an inspiration to all of us because he started out looking for one thing (a route to India) and found something entirely different. It must have been amazing, that first sighting of land.
We think we know it all now, nobody goes looking for anything new in the world anymore, at least not very often.
Posted by Ric Locke | October 8, 2007 10:14 PM
As an aside, the true Eight Deadly Words are those of Dorothy J. Heydt: "I don't care what happens to those people." Spoken originally of novels with unsympathetic characters and nonexistent plots, but true of newspaper stories as well. If you don't care what happens to those people, why buy the newspaper to find out? After which Z increases.
Regards,
Ric
Posted by P.D. "Bo" Steele | October 9, 2007 1:08 PM
I was referred your way by Glenn Greenwald, of all people, who named you an intellectually honest Center Right blogger. Very nice post, sir.
Query: what is the psychological motivation of persons such as Mr. Carroll?