I am as worldly as the next dreamer, but the scales fell from my eyes, the same ones that keep finding their way back to my eyes, when I opened The New Yorker a few weeks ago and found, in a portfolio of “portraits of power,” Mussolini’s full-page face piggishly staring at me in chicly lurid detail, the very emblem of brutality made aesthetically acceptable. And when I turned the page there was Franco, in full generalissimo kit gazing coldly forward, every hair on his heartless mustache uncannily vivid in a miracle of photographic verisimilitude. Is nobody any longer beyond the pale? Is moral judgment now bad form? Is repugnance a thing of the past? I’m lying, of course. Neither Mussolini nor Franco appeared in The New Yorker’s exciting feature. But Ahmadinejad, Mugabe, Chávez, and Qaddafi did. They were shot--sorry, I’m dreaming again--they were photographed by Platon at the United Nations in September, where, according to an unsigned editor’s note, he set up a little studio not far from the General Assembly. “For months, members of the magazine’s staff had been writing letters to various governments and embassies”--imagine some of those letters!--“but the project was a five-day-long improvisation, with Platon doing his best to lure the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chávez, and Muammar Qaddafi to his camera.” I guess Omar Al Bashir was out of town. The photographer made things worse with an unbelievable audio account of the adventure. “To get Chávez was a big, big deal,” he exulted. And “Ahmadinejad is, believe it or not, a very childlike man. He’s short, shorter than me, I think. He giggles like a little boy. I didn’t want to paint a caricature of him: tough and mean. I wanted to show this irony that there’s an innocence about his eyes. So that’s what this picture is about.” Actually, that’s not what this picture is about. It is a perfectly familiar photo that conveys, in unfascinating close-up, only the sitter’s trademark smirk. The picture is about the art of the get, and nothing more. The editor’s note compares Platon’s project to Avedon--and alludes to Velázquez, like any undergraduate discussion of portraits of power--but these pictures display none of Avedon’s revelations, or interpretations, in portraiture. Avedon’s distortions were at least the evidence of a temperament; but there is no temperament in Platon’s people, there is just a pushy frontality and a phony intimacy, as if you capture a person when you capture his pores. These pictures are exercises in a stylized neutrality, a willful indifference to everything we know about their subjects. There is not “an innocence” about Ahmadinejad’s eyes, or ears, or nose. He is, in his every detail, guilty. He represses his society and subjugates its women and shoots its young people and steals its elections and threatens to incinerate another country. Fuck his giggle.
What these silly sanitizations really capture is the American moment, the Obama coolness. Fareed Zakaria, the black-tie barometer, recently praised Obama as “the anti-Churchill.” Now that’s a contemporary compliment! We have become too smart and too sensitive for indignation. We regard the hatred of evil, even the talk of evil, as a preparation for war. We are beyond good and evil and we are beyond zero sum. To be sure, hatred is not quite an analysis; but still a word must be said on its behalf. Hatred may be a sign that something has been properly understood. If you do not hate racism, then you do not understand what it is. If you do not hate Ahmadinejad, then you do not understand who he is. In Washington, however, indignation is scorned as impractical. It is the business of the government of our state, after all, to do business with the governments of other states; and we do not choose who governs other states. We have objectives that we cannot achieve on our own. We cannot prevent the Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons, for example, without the cooperation of the Iranians. For this reason, we have elected to deny democratization a prominent place in our Iran policy. This, we are told, is the responsible thing to do. But what if one believes that it cannot be done? There is nothing, certainly, in the history of the ayatollahs’ diplomacy that suggests an inclination to compromise, or to honesty. What if one holds that the only reliable way to guarantee that Iran will not threaten its region with weapons of mass destruction is the establishment of a legitimate and decent and rational government in Tehran that will not make such a threat? If this is what one believes, and there are plentiful grounds for such a view, then it is the suppression of indignation, the refusal to side--to engage!--in strong and sophisticated ways with the democracy movement, that is impractical. Sometimes I hear that such arguments and passions--such “brickbats”--are fine “on the outside,” but the president cannot afford them, because he has problems to solve. This is exactly backward. It is the president who has the authority to educate the American people in the purposes of our policy, and it is the president who has the power to make those purposes historically consequential. This, I think, was the education of Bosnia; and we are witnessing the disappearance of the Bosnian education from the making of American foreign policy.
In an interesting volume called Civil Resistance and Power Politics, edited by Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash, I am startled to find among the case studies of non-violent revolution a chapter on the Iranian revolution of 1978–1979. It is described as “an outstanding case of a revolution through civil disobedience.” The author, Ervand Abrahamian, declares that Khomeini’s uprising “would have won the admiration of ... Rosa Luxemburg and even Mahatma Gandhi.” Khomeini himself, we are instructed, “was consistent in shunning violence.” This I have never seen before: Gandhi, King, Havel, Walesa, Khomeini. Not a mention by the progressive professor of the mass savageries, the shootings and the burnings, that attended the seizure of power and its aftermath. This revolution that “‘came’ from below rather than was ‘made’ from above” was in fact quite a bloodbath. The essay concludes, not surprisingly, with the reassurance that the opposition to the theocracy will call “not for the overthrow of the Islamic republic but for its democratization.” This is apologetics. Are they not the same thing? Anyway, those words have already been refuted in the streets of Tehran. You see? Sometimes it is the absence of hatred that addles the mind.
Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic.
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COMMENTS (25)
Ah yes, the inability to label something as "evil" or even, heaven forbid, use the word. For a fine and timely example of the pilpulistic pontification against which Wieseltier is fulminating, see John Judis' piece (here) in the current TNR.
This sort of nihilism is the logical conclusion of the post-modernism and multiculturalism that informs and permeates most elitist intellectual thinking in modern Western society. It was George Orwell who dryly noted that there are some ideas that are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.
שבת שלום -- Shabat Shalom
Hershel Ginsburg
Efrata / Jerusalem
Ah yes, the inability to label something as "evil" or even, heaven forbid, use the word. For a fine and timely example of the pilpulistic pontification against which Wieseltier is fulminating, see John Judis' piece (here) in the current TNR.
This sort of nihilism is the logical conclusion of the post-modernism and multiculturalism that informs and permeates most elitist intellectual thinking in modern Western society. It was George Orwell who dryly noted that there are some ideas that are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them.
שבת שלום -- Shabat Shalom
Hershel Ginsburg
Efrata / Jerusalem
Didn't the real Churchill once say, in reference to criticism of his alliance with Stalin's Russia, that he would ally Great Britain with the Devil himself if it meant strengthening opposition to Hitler, or at the very least that he would make a speech in praise of the Devil in the House of Commons? That seems to be part of Churchill that is always lost on contemporary commentators.
Didn't the real Churchill once say, in reference to criticism of his alliance with Stalin's Russia, that he would ally Great Britain with the Devil himself if it meant strengthening opposition to Hitler, or at the very least that he would make a speech in praise of the Devil in the House of Commons? That seems to be part of Churchill that is always lost on contemporary commentators.
I am with ginzy on this, one caveat about the article however: There is nothing, certainly, in the history of the ayatollahs’ diplomacy that suggests an inclination to compromise, or to honesty.
This is an oversimplification to say the least. Ayatollah Sistani could have destroyed America's efforts in Iraq but instead during the darkest times called for Shia restraint against Sunni terrorism. Ayatollah Montezeri in Iran has spoken out forcefully, and at great risk to himself, against Ahmed. Sometimes we do have to compromise in who we accept. Kruschev was better than Stalin, Deng was better than Mao. The days of Ahmed and Khameni are numbered, hopefully his successor will be of the re ... view full comment
I am with ginzy on this, one caveat about the article however: There is nothing, certainly, in the history of the ayatollahs’ diplomacy that suggests an inclination to compromise, or to honesty.
This is an oversimplification to say the least. Ayatollah Sistani could have destroyed America's efforts in Iraq but instead during the darkest times called for Shia restraint against Sunni terrorism. Ayatollah Montezeri in Iran has spoken out forcefully, and at great risk to himself, against Ahmed. Sometimes we do have to compromise in who we accept. Kruschev was better than Stalin, Deng was better than Mao. The days of Ahmed and Khameni are numbered, hopefully his successor will be of the reformist mold and we can recognize him as such.
"I wanted to show this irony that there’s an innocence about his eyes."
Well the photographer failed miserably. All he showed was deviousness.
"I wanted to show this irony that there’s an innocence about his eyes."
Well the photographer failed miserably. All he showed was deviousness.
Souldn't the title of the article be "Plato's Cave" and not Platon's Cave"?
Leon does a good job bringing the prisoners out of the cave and into the sunlight.
I think "Ginzy" (see above) gets it right.
My digression:
I too was diappointed by John Judas article about Evil in TNR of 1217/09. He tries to bring Reinhold Niebuhr's "The Irony of American History" into the discussion. I sense that Judas read the Introduction by Andrew J. Bacevich and not the book by Niebuhr.
Niebuhr discusses the evil of Communism and other "evils" of civilization with great skill. Provocatively Niebhhr notes, "the evils against which we contend are frequently the fruits of illusions which are similar to our own. ... view full comment
Souldn't the title of the article be "Plato's Cave" and not Platon's Cave"?
Leon does a good job bringing the prisoners out of the cave and into the sunlight.
I think "Ginzy" (see above) gets it right.
My digression:
I too was diappointed by John Judas article about Evil in TNR of 1217/09. He tries to bring Reinhold Niebuhr's "The Irony of American History" into the discussion. I sense that Judas read the Introduction by Andrew J. Bacevich and not the book by Niebuhr.
Niebuhr discusses the evil of Communism and other "evils" of civilization with great skill. Provocatively Niebhhr notes, "the evils against which we contend are frequently the fruits of illusions which are similar to our own."
Are the illusions of Osama bin Laden parallel to those of President Obama's? Judas thinks they are parallel and sharply criticizes the case for US involvment in Afghanistan.
Leon Weiseltier's ending "Plato's Cave"is supurb: "This I have never seen before: Gandhi, King, Havel, Walesa, Khomeini." Wow!
wildboy
"Didn't the real Churchill once say, in reference to criticism of his alliance with Stalin's Russia, that he would ally Great Britain with the Devil himself if it meant strengthening opposition to Hitler, or at the very least that he would make a speech in praise of the Devil in the House of Commons? That seems to be part of Churchill that is always lost on contemporary commentators."
Here is the full quote: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” He made comment in 1941 after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and while England was being bombed by Germany and expected and invasion at any time.
As usual, Wildas ... view full comment
wildboy
"Didn't the real Churchill once say, in reference to criticism of his alliance with Stalin's Russia, that he would ally Great Britain with the Devil himself if it meant strengthening opposition to Hitler, or at the very least that he would make a speech in praise of the Devil in the House of Commons? That seems to be part of Churchill that is always lost on contemporary commentators."
Here is the full quote: “If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.” He made comment in 1941 after Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and while England was being bombed by Germany and expected and invasion at any time.
As usual, Wildass, missed the point.
Churchill didn't say anything nice about Stalin, he merely said one tyrant was much worse than the other and that it was more urgent to defeat it now.
Later on Churchill made the "iron curtain speech" in which he detailed highlighted the Stalin tyranny.
"Souldn't the title of the article be "Plato's Cave" and not Platon's Cave"?"
I think the title was ironic.
In any case, Platon is the way Plato's name is pronounced in the ancient Greek. (Platon, I think, means "broad")
"Souldn't the title of the article be "Plato's Cave" and not Platon's Cave"?"
I think the title was ironic.
In any case, Platon is the way Plato's name is pronounced in the ancient Greek. (Platon, I think, means "broad")
The point, Jackson, is that Churchill was a pragmatic politician who was willing to make unsavory compromises and alliances in order to advance Britain's national interests. He was an ardent anti-Communist before World War II and would revert to his ardent anti-Communism afterward, but he kept the Anglo-Soviet alliance intact and vigorous through some very rough patches and ultimately succeeded in bringing down Hitler, who was the biggest threat to Britain's interests all along. So, to call Obama an "anti-Churchill" presumably because he eschews grandiose moralizing in favor of diplomacy with unsavory characters -- or to praise Churchill for his supposed stalwart commitment to values other ... view full comment
The point, Jackson, is that Churchill was a pragmatic politician who was willing to make unsavory compromises and alliances in order to advance Britain's national interests. He was an ardent anti-Communist before World War II and would revert to his ardent anti-Communism afterward, but he kept the Anglo-Soviet alliance intact and vigorous through some very rough patches and ultimately succeeded in bringing down Hitler, who was the biggest threat to Britain's interests all along. So, to call Obama an "anti-Churchill" presumably because he eschews grandiose moralizing in favor of diplomacy with unsavory characters -- or to praise Churchill for his supposed stalwart commitment to values other than Britain's national interest -- is very simplistic.
Put me on record as standing with Leon et al.
Put me on record as standing with Leon et al.
Well, Fareed Zakaria's comment was ridiculous. Obama is neither Churchill nor the “the anti-Churchill."
Well, Fareed Zakaria's comment was ridiculous. Obama is neither Churchill nor the “the anti-Churchill."
"Put me on record as standing with Leon et al."
Me, I'd rather be recorded as sitting with Leon and the et alii.
I love the "et alii," they are so other; and otherness is so in.
"Put me on record as standing with Leon et al."
Me, I'd rather be recorded as sitting with Leon and the et alii.
I love the "et alii," they are so other; and otherness is so in.
At last, Jackson, something we can both agree on. As my 2-year old is fond of singing these days, הִנֵּה מַה טוֹב וּמַה נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אָחִים גַּם יַח"ַד"
At last, Jackson, something we can both agree on. As my 2-year old is fond of singing these days, הִנֵּה מַה טוֹב וּמַה נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אָחִים גַּם יַח"ַד"
"Me, I'd rather be recorded as sitting with Leon and the et alii."
That is so cool, Jackson. Of course, you are right. Maybe one day when I get properly educated by the Meaningless Stew-meister I can be as cool and enlightened as you are. Won't that be a fine alchemy?
"Me, I'd rather be recorded as sitting with Leon and the et alii."
That is so cool, Jackson. Of course, you are right. Maybe one day when I get properly educated by the Meaningless Stew-meister I can be as cool and enlightened as you are. Won't that be a fine alchemy?
Umm. I'm assuming that we know one another well enough that you will regard the foregoing as tongue in cheek.
Umm. I'm assuming that we know one another well enough that you will regard the foregoing as tongue in cheek.
"What these silly sanitizations really capture is the American moment, the Obama coolness."
What these silly commentaries really capture, is the eternal emptiness of an over-intellectualised pompous mind.
The man spent an hour speechifying about War while receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, for cying out loud. What more do you want? We spent eight years denouncing evil under CheRumRiceush, and where did it get us? Are we safer? Have Islamists been defeated? Has nihilist ideology been vanquished? Are the Europeans any wiser? Are the Arabs any closer to real democracy? Are the Russians our friends? Are the Chinese converted to our ways? WTF?
The artist is an idiot; he is an idiot much the ... view full comment
"What these silly sanitizations really capture is the American moment, the Obama coolness."
What these silly commentaries really capture, is the eternal emptiness of an over-intellectualised pompous mind.
The man spent an hour speechifying about War while receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, for cying out loud. What more do you want? We spent eight years denouncing evil under CheRumRiceush, and where did it get us? Are we safer? Have Islamists been defeated? Has nihilist ideology been vanquished? Are the Europeans any wiser? Are the Arabs any closer to real democracy? Are the Russians our friends? Are the Chinese converted to our ways? WTF?
The artist is an idiot; he is an idiot much the same way that many - if not most - artists are. There is no need to overanalyse the matter; and there is no way that the artist's idiotic statements should be tied to the Obama "cool".
So, then that moron Benn went to Baghdad to kiss Saddam's ass, was that because of Obama's coolness too? When Bush fils looked into the eyes of Chechnya's rapist and saw a man he could trust, was that because of Obama? How about the Reagan years - the years when the Great Communicator talked about the Evil Empire even as he allows his South American goons to rape and pillage and cleanse and murder and steal and destroy, even as the US supported Saddam's chemical armory? Has any US politician of note said one word, ONE fucking word, against the Saudi kleptocracy? And that includes Joementia.
I agree somewhat with Icarus.
I think Wieseltier's diarist entry is tired and stale when it isn't incoherent.
The first--what I laughingly call--paragraph is impaled on confused arguments that can't logically meet each other. Wieseltier confuses bad art with really bad people. So it's not clear whether he objects to photographs of Hitler and Mussolini in his dreams and Chavez et al in reality because they are really bad people or because the subject photographs are bad. These disparate notions encroach on and undermine coherence in the first paragraph. Plus the really bad people idea is wrong. The bad art idea could be right depending on the pics.
With his Afghan decision and his Nobel speech, ... view full comment
I agree somewhat with Icarus.
I think Wieseltier's diarist entry is tired and stale when it isn't incoherent.
The first--what I laughingly call--paragraph is impaled on confused arguments that can't logically meet each other. Wieseltier confuses bad art with really bad people. So it's not clear whether he objects to photographs of Hitler and Mussolini in his dreams and Chavez et al in reality because they are really bad people or because the subject photographs are bad. These disparate notions encroach on and undermine coherence in the first paragraph. Plus the really bad people idea is wrong. The bad art idea could be right depending on the pics.
With his Afghan decision and his Nobel speech, Obama, for some us, who have been not as favorably disposed to Obama as Icarus and other here have been, started getting his foreign policy legs and, to mix metaphors, and started drying more behind his ears. To put it differently, I'd say, somewhat a la Michael Walzer--http://www.tnr.com/article/mehttp://www.tnr.com/article/metro-policy/there-no-simple-formula-here
tro-policy/there-no-simple-formula-here—that with the decision and the speech he got his foreign policy balance in better proportion.
The pontificating about Obama having less of an understanding of evil then, let's say, the long, long winded literary editor and about Obama's post modernism is overdone and, as I say, tired and stale. Time, I say, to judge the man on the merits of his policies and later for all the over hackneyed over intellectualizing and academic categories.
What silliness this article was. The strategic problem with Iran is that most Iranians (vast and overwhelming majority) are not anti-American and reacted positively to Obama's election by apparently voting out Ahmadinajad, or so the regime conservatives feared. A military assault will not work any more there than in Iraq/Afghanistan (much worse in fact) and sanctions will likely have little or no effect either until we drastically cut our own oil consumption which chicken hawks do not much advocate either. Call Ahmadinehad evil?? HIs giggliness only shows that he is nothing but a weeny of the regime. Not the decision maker. Bush calling Iran an Axis of Evil (even though the leaders and p ... view full comment
What silliness this article was. The strategic problem with Iran is that most Iranians (vast and overwhelming majority) are not anti-American and reacted positively to Obama's election by apparently voting out Ahmadinajad, or so the regime conservatives feared. A military assault will not work any more there than in Iraq/Afghanistan (much worse in fact) and sanctions will likely have little or no effect either until we drastically cut our own oil consumption which chicken hawks do not much advocate either. Call Ahmadinehad evil?? HIs giggliness only shows that he is nothing but a weeny of the regime. Not the decision maker. Bush calling Iran an Axis of Evil (even though the leaders and people openly expredded outrage and solidarity with us after 911) only solidified hard-liners position, and its nukes.
Leon says hatred is defining of some principle. Should Obama do as I do and hold hatred towards the Republicans who blocked health care reform leaving USA to be grounded in personal and national future bankruptcy? It is not intellectual coolness but the Prez operates in some "grudge free zone". YEs, he should be angry if he was serious about a public option. As basman alluded just before he might understand the world.
Speak softly and carry a big stick, as TR wisely stated. It might work.
p.s.
"...Mussolini’s full-page face piggishly staring at me in chicly lurid detail, the very emblem of brutality made aesthetically acceptable...
So pompous and self important is this guy.
p.s.
"...Mussolini’s full-page face piggishly staring at me in chicly lurid detail, the very emblem of brutality made aesthetically acceptable...
So pompous and self important is this guy.
Mr. Basman. You sound like an attorney. A damn fine one I might add. If you would be so kind as to argue on my behalf that this article by Leon was not really about Obama or Bush but that it was more of an attempt to capture a particular flavor of weltanschauung. A zeitgeistian frustration with the idea that manners might improve the standing and validity of diplomatic overtures toward those with unashamed murderous intention. Thus a strange kind of wishful paralysis induced by three monkeys, see no, hear no, speak no fame.
I hope that Obama succeeds famously. He is my president and I, in fact, voted for him. Nothing could make me happier than to see him triumphant on the world stage. It doe ... view full comment
Mr. Basman. You sound like an attorney. A damn fine one I might add. If you would be so kind as to argue on my behalf that this article by Leon was not really about Obama or Bush but that it was more of an attempt to capture a particular flavor of weltanschauung. A zeitgeistian frustration with the idea that manners might improve the standing and validity of diplomatic overtures toward those with unashamed murderous intention. Thus a strange kind of wishful paralysis induced by three monkeys, see no, hear no, speak no fame.
I hope that Obama succeeds famously. He is my president and I, in fact, voted for him. Nothing could make me happier than to see him triumphant on the world stage. It does seem, however, that since his very excellent Oslo speech there are some erstwhile opinion makers and academics who are finding it necessary to draw distinctions of the finest hairsplitting variety as a means to justify an, shall we say, inconsistent position of advocacy and contention toward the powers and problems that be. ie. Iran, Bush (neocons) and the Islamic world, etc.
Next on the docket will be a defense of the Iraq action. You would be well advised to make some room for a convenient historical revision. Be prepared that Bush is an evil criminal and should have been the one at the end of his rope. I'm hoping Obama can escape such a similar fate in Afghanistan. It won't be the Pubs who string him up.
We have work to do good barrister. Unless of course you'd rather not take the case. Then I suppose I'll have to make do with second best.
Jacko I'm a liitle swamped now: can I recommend Icarus?
Jacko I'm a liitle swamped now: can I recommend Icarus?
"מה־טוב ומה־נעים שבת אחים גם־יחד"
sounds good to me.
"מה־טוב ומה־נעים שבת אחים גם־יחד"
sounds good to me.
Icarus:
"The artist is an idiot; he is an idiot much the same way that many - if not most - artists are. There is no need to overanalyse the matter; and there is no way that the artist's idiotic statements should be tied to the Obama "cool"."
Platon, the artist, may be an idiot, but I doubt that most artists are idiots any more than most lawyers are grasping and greedy or most political philosophy professors are naive.
The rest is just Wieseltier’s view of the current political atmosphere in Washington and I see no point in over exercising by fingers over it.
Icarus:
"The artist is an idiot; he is an idiot much the same way that many - if not most - artists are. There is no need to overanalyse the matter; and there is no way that the artist's idiotic statements should be tied to the Obama "cool"."
Platon, the artist, may be an idiot, but I doubt that most artists are idiots any more than most lawyers are grasping and greedy or most political philosophy professors are naive.
The rest is just Wieseltier’s view of the current political atmosphere in Washington and I see no point in over exercising by fingers over it.
I know Ick is a fine mind and has some valid complaints about the worlds imperfections but I'm not sure his heart is in the trim of it. Arguing my case that is.
I sympathize with our president. These are very, very trying times.
I know Ick is a fine mind and has some valid complaints about the worlds imperfections but I'm not sure his heart is in the trim of it. Arguing my case that is.
I sympathize with our president. These are very, very trying times.
...most lawyers are grasping and greedy...
I take that personally.
After all, I never meant to marry my wife for her money.
There was just no other way to get it.
...most lawyers are grasping and greedy...
I take that personally.
After all, I never meant to marry my wife for her money.
There was just no other way to get it.
p.s. I want to amend somewhat and curb my criticism of Wiesletier's first paragraph. He isn't saying that really bad people aren't fit subjects for art but he is though being prescriptive about what is "aesthetically acceptable". So I am wrong as to what I first thought but still maintain my criticism as to the prescription.
p.s. I want to amend somewhat and curb my criticism of Wiesletier's first paragraph. He isn't saying that really bad people aren't fit subjects for art but he is though being prescriptive about what is "aesthetically acceptable". So I am wrong as to what I first thought but still maintain my criticism as to the prescription.