The Dish

Two more readers weigh in on Mark Steyn’s recent pre-emptive attack. Mark Steyn hasn’t read my book – and he hasn’t read Faust either:

Steyn has totally misunderstood the quote from Faust. Ironically, he couldn’t have picked a better quote to make your point: Faust is madly driven by his desires Рfor knowledge, wisdom, power. To this torn man, the ability to let go, to be at peace and enjoy the moment, is nothing but foolishness, laziness and weakness.

What makes this anti-hero so fascinating is his constant thirst for more and his refusal to ever be satisfied. But this is also his big mistake, and his downfall. Only at the end of his journey will Faust finally find his peace – his one moment that he wants to "linger awhile". However, it is not his defeat, but his salvation. Steyn got it totally wrong: To Goethe, "living for the moment" is not "Western weakness" – but rather it is true happiness.

Faust Schmaust. Steyn had some copy to file and a poofter to discredit. Another reader adds:

It apparently escaped Steyn’s notice that Goethe’s Faust, unlike Marlowe’s, is saved by God at the last minute precisely because his motive in making a deal with the devil was noble. (Although misguidedly romantic, not "conservative".) In fact, God, in Goethe’s work, is so little concerned with following inviolable laws and moral regulations that He’s willing to overlook making a deal with the devil in the case of someone who tries to do the right thing when it matters.

Should we be surprised that Steyn attacks you by plucking a quote out of context from a work that he doesn’t actually know anything about? Should we be surprised that his thinking is so sloppy that he completely misunderstands what the quote itself plainly means?

Count me unsurprised.

It’s critical for a halfway decent future for Iraq. And thanks to the post-liberation anarchy, it seems to have evaporated in favor of Sadrist extremism. I missed this story on vacation, but it seems important, if depressing, to note.

"Today, students should shout at the president and ask why liberal and secular university lecturers are present in the universities," – Michelle Malkin Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran.

It’s getting just a little weird. They ridiculed Saddam, and he was deposed. They depicted Mel Gibson as a deranged sado-masochistic anti-Semite, and … well, now we know. They took on Tom Cruise, and he went down the Paramount plughole. So this script from 1999 was always a little unnerving:

[Cartman’s house. A television is heard. The screen shows an Australian crocodile hunter narrating his adventures as a woman pilots his boat down a river.]

Aussie: As we steer our boat down [the boys are on the sofa looking at TV], looking for these dangerous predators‚Ķ Boy, there’s a king croc right here. [it slips into the water] He must be four meters; 12, 13 feet long at least. [it looks up at him] This croc has enough power in its jaws to rip my head right off.

Kenny: (Oh, no!) [tightens his hood up]

Aussie: I’ve got to be careful. So, what I’m gonna do is sneak up on it and jam my thumb in its butthole.

Stan: Holy crap. dude!

Aussie: If I get bit out here, I’m 200 kilometers from the nearest hospital: I’d better be real careful jamming my thumb in its butthole. [jumps in and grabs the crocodiile] Oh, boy, it’s pissed off now.

Kyle: Go, dude, go! [excited, the boys jump on the sofa]

Aussie: I’m gonna jam my thumb it its butthole now! This should really piss it off! [reaches down with his left thumb to do it. The croc jumps up in pain and drops] Oh, yeah, that pissed it off, all right! [the boys cheer] I’ve gotta be careful!

Stan: This guy rules!

Kenny: (He actually killed it!)

Cartman: I told you guys.

Aussie: [with left arm now bandaged and in a sling] Well! That was quite an angry croc! But I managed to escape with only a few bruises and a shattered left testicle. Next week we’ll look for more of these beautiful creatures, so we can learn more about them by pissing them off immensely.

Enter one immensely pissed-off sting-ray.

Manhattan, 6 pm. Back to work.

Only a decade ago, the Republican senator was very chummmy with the macaca-free Council of Conservative Citizens. Uh-oh.

Here’s a tart critique of the Mark Steyn column I posted on here, courtesy of Glenn Greenwald. Money quote:

The ironies of this disturbed war dance are virtually infinite … but the most striking irony is this. So much of the neoconservative warrior cries are built on an ethos of deep fear, of exactly the desperate desire to be protected and saved which Steyn and company claim is the hallmark of the girlish, soul-less West. As they strike the warrior pose, they are desperately willing, even eager, to fundamentally change the character and principles of our republic and to sacrifice the core liberties which define it because they are scared and want, more than anything else, to be protected.

I might add that I and many others witnessed the the true character of the "girly, soulless" West in the days after 9/11; and it was neither weak nor afraid.

It now seems likely that conservative Judaism will soon end its ban on gay ordination and same-sex marriage. Reform Judaism has already reformed to reflect our new knowledge of human nature, and the God-given dignity of gay people. The predictable backlash is underway.

A reader writes:

I just read your description of your book – how it differs from Derb’s description of the second part of it – and was struck by how your hope for a church free from "excessive doctrinal obsession, minute moral regulation, and constant guilt," squares beautifully with today’s Gospel reading from Mark:

So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him, "Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?" He responded, "Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites, as it is written:

This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines human precepts.

You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition."

Wonderful.

Today’s Christianists have one major problem in their recasting of Christianity as a partisan politics and a set of inviolable laws and moral regulations. That problem is the message of Jesus.

Here’s a fascinating new insight into a state of mind called "whiteness." Meanwhile, the Derb tackles one of the most politically contentious issues of our time: the resilience of aggregate differences in racial groups. It’s well worth reading – although it is, alas, graced with the expected occasional ugliness. I think the small but sometimes salient aggregate differences between humans from various genetic backgrounds are worth debating and examining without fear – if only because the process might prompt us to revisit one of the great social poisons of our time: affirmative action.