Mostly nonpolitical/nonpartisan today… for values of "political" and "partisan" that carefully ignore Orwell's pithy explanation of the flaw in that objective: "[N]o book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude." (Why I Write (1946))
- Every so often, "covert operations" aren't just another excuse for skullduggery. Sometimes — even if unintended — they can be a bulwark against madness. But that requires focus on the arts, not on intentional disinformation; unfortunately, the latter is by far more common. It almost leads one to question whether all of those Ivy League graduates recruited in the 1950s and 1960s were the wrong ones. Maybe they should have been looking for literature majors…
- Speaking of "unwarranted exclusivity," consider the problem of actual creators from "working class" backgrounds. (The stark contrast with "nepo babies" justifies a little scrutiny, too.) The music industry is particularly annoying in this regard, given the pathetically small portion of the revenue stream allocated to them — even paperback writers are better off. (Not much.) Having family support so that "artistic failure" doesn't mean "starvation" requires a family that can afford that support in the first place. "Cui bono?" is almost always concentrated away from those actually creating and/or acting as necessary infrastructure for the arts (like the set-builders and other stage crew for live theatrical productions). Funny how one hears of musicians of the past now surviving on charity, but not music-industry (or Ticketbastard) executives…
- Then there are really, really hard questions, like how much of a father's sins must be visited upon their sons when interviewed in a documentary. Not having seen this piece, I can't even begin to evaluate its substance. I'm reluctant to assume that a 13-year-old boy in a patriarchal culture has views independent of his father's… or in lock-step with them. (Specific example, albeit much older: The just-sworn-in Secretary of Health here in the US isn't exactly in tune with his late father's views, and hasn't been for decades.) Thus, I don't think there's a bright-line rule, in general or as applied to this documentary — especially since there are atrocities on
bothall sides in the Levant. And "disclaimers" are worthwhile only when viewed, understood, and as necessary acted upon beforehand, so I doubt this particular disclaimer is actually worthwhile. - Things don't get much better over in the other of CP Snow's "two cultures." Science gets respect in the US only in the abstract, and pretty much only as useful technological applications that make their way toward the general public (especially if useable with no directions or training, like the microwave oven). There are lots of high-falutin' theoretical constructs out there, some more plausible than others. As someone who has had a foot in both of Snow's cultures for decades — I have degrees in both, and indeed in the neglected "third leg" of the theoretical and applied social sciences — I've often felt more like the wishbone about to be torn apart based on superstition…
- "Cui bono?" is also at issue regarding DEI programs. There's a disturbing, much-less-optimistic-than-Manifest-Destiny background in there, whether overtly in the "Great Replacement" handwavery or more subtly, the various "anti-DEI" theories are as much about cutting the pie as anything else. The disturbing background is that individual slices can be a smaller proportion of the whole and still have more "food value" if the pie is growing faster than the number of additional "diners." Consider the Friday Night Massacre for a moment — and remember that the two highest-ranking "DEI hires" identified here managed to achieve their current ranks largely fighting against precisely the assumptions of those who just fired them.
Or just remember that the opposite of "woke" is "comatose."
I did say "mostly."