Things always shift from the sublime to the ridiculous. You’re considering something quite serious, and suddenly the absurd pops up – happens all the time. You might find yourself reading Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime (Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen), a 1764 book by Immanuel Kant. The first complete translation into English was published in 1799, and you just happen to have a copy, but then there’s another Simpsons episode on in the other room – Bart once again intones “Eat my shorts.” What are you going to do? There are always these contrasts. You probably have read The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion, that Mircea Eliade thing everyone who went to a liberal arts college ended up skimming (no one really read the whole thing.) You get used to the jumps from the one to the other – that’s life.
On Saturday, October 20, you could be glancing through the MIT Press Journals, as everyone does now and then (well, perhaps not), and you’d come across an item by Charles Kupchan and Peter Trubowitz about how America really has changed – fundamentally, significantly, and there’s no going back. Maybe it was Karl Rove, or the neoconservative crowd finally having control of what we do, but what might be called “bipartisan internationalism in American foreign policy” is dead and gone, and that’s rather a big deal, or so these two say –
The Bush administration’s brand of international engagement, far from being an aberration, represents a turning point in the historical trajectory of U.S. foreign policy. It is a symptom, as much as a cause, of the unraveling of the liberal internationalist compact that guided the United States for much of the second half of the twentieth century.
The polarization of the United States has dealt a severe blow to the bipartisan compact between power and cooperation. Instead of adhering to the vital center, the country’s elected officials, along with the public, are backing away from the liberal internationalist compact, supporting either U.S. power or international cooperation, but rarely both. … Prominent voices from across the political spectrum have called for the restoration of a robust bipartisan center that can put U.S. grand strategy back on track. … These exhortations are in vain. The halcyon era of liberal internationalism is over; the bipartisan compact between power and partnership has been effectively dismantled.
“We go it alone” and “you’re with us or against us” is now the norm. Andrew Sullivan, who pointed to this item, is not happy –
In retrospect, this may have been a goal of some of the more hard-core neoconservatives all along: to destroy the bipartisan consensus of using force for internationalist ends in the world, and to replace it with raw power, one-party rule at home, and American militarist unipolarity abroad. Today’s Republicans have palpable disdain for sharing power with another party - and almost as much discomfort for allies abroad. The Rove project was an attempt not just to defeat but to destroy the Democratic Party at home, by cultural polarization, gerrymandering, a K-Street monopoly and even abuse of the Justice Department. And the neoconservative project is close to degenerating into a program of constant war-making abroad that can be used in turn to polarize the country still further.
It’s a matter of power – getting it and retaining it, and having that “palpable disdain” for sharing power with another party, or with anyone. Maybe it’s just competitiveness – everyone admires that, as we all grin when a coach, his team far ahead early in the game, runs up the score to beyond blowout levels just to mock and ridicule the other team. We like taunting losers. That’s sort of the American way.
Or it is the American way now. Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Melish, January 13, 1813, made this observation – “An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.”
What would Jefferson say of people, now, who get off on “power,” no matter how damaging? John Lehman, who was Secretary of the Navy from 1981 to 1987, is said to have made this comment – “Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.” Sigh.
But that’s too heavy to consider. The evening before, J. K. Rowling really shook the world. She announced that Dumbledore is gay, and all hell broke loose –
Harry Potter fans, the rumors are true: Albus Dumbledore, master wizard and Headmaster of Hogwarts, is gay. J.K. Rowling, author of the mega-selling fantasy series that ended last summer, outed the beloved character Friday night while appearing before a full house at Carnegie Hall.
After reading briefly from the final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” she took questions from audience members.
She was asked by one young fan whether Dumbledore finds “true love.”
“Dumbledore is gay,” the author responded to gasps and applause.
Oh my! If you follow the books and the movies – as of April of this year the first six books in the seven book series have sold more than 325 million copies, have been translated into more than 64 languages, and the seventh and last book in the series had an initial US print run of twelve million copies – this is a big deal.
If you’re interested, Rowling explained that Dumbledore was smitten with rival Gellert Grindelwald (yep, she does odd names), the fellow he defeated long ago in a battle between good and bad wizards –
“Falling in love can blind us to an extent,” Rowling said of Dumbledore’s feelings, adding that Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down.”
Dumbledore’s love, she observed, was his “great tragedy.”
Well, the shaper fans had long suspected this – no close relationship with any women and a mysterious, troubled past. And it seems “explicit scenes” with Dumbledore already have appeared in “fan fiction” – fanciful extrapolations by those truly hooked on this stuff. And she herself said that while working on the sixth Potter film, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” she saw the screenwriters had added something to the script about a girl who once was “of interest” to Dumbledore. She put an end to that. She sent a memo to the director, David Yates – Hey, the guy is gay! She says she regards her Potter books as a “prolonged argument for tolerance” and urged her fans to “question authority.”
Yep, she’s a damned liberal. She says she understands not everyone likes her work, likely referring to Christian groups that claim the books promote witchcraft and want them banned. She said her news about Dumbledore will give them one more reason to hate the books. One assumes she smiled when she said that.
This caused no end of comment on the web. See Jill at “Brilliant at Breakfast” with Another Reason for the Book-Banners to Go Bats**t Crazy –
Since there will be film versions of the remaining books, we’ll be treated to a new version of the infamous Murphy Brown fracas, in which the Christofascist Zombie Brigade™ will get its collective knickers in a twist over a headmaster who’s not only a wizard, but also gay! Oh, the humanity! Think of the CHILDREN!!! Then grab the popcorn. This is going to be fun.
See Cockney Robin at “Buck Naked Politics with Albus Dumbledore’s Outing –
I can see a whole industry springing up round this revelation, which certainly blows apart the sort of 1950’s sexual vibe of the Potter books, where a little snogging between adolescents, a couple of double entendre jazz lyrics, and a few other very chaste references is all the sex we (or children) have to cope with. The Potter books are very much about friendship and love, but not very much about sex.
So I do have an objection to her having made this revelation post hoc, though it is literary rather than moral, political, or sociological. She’s retroactively, just by this one bit of information, changed the whole dynamic of the Potterverse. Now readers and critics - certain of them, anyway - will scrutinize in retrospect every interaction between Harry and Dumbledore, every revelation about the relationship between Sirius and James Potter, and so on. In her place, it isn’t what I’d want. Besides, I’m always uneasy with the notion of an author interpreting her own work outside the scope of it. Surely you should leave it to the reader to draw the right conclusion (or not)?
Why make explicit after the fact information that the books themselves left to inference and speculation? If she wanted to explore the sexuality of adult wizards, why not start a new series? She’s brought up a whole generation of readers who would happily devour anything of the kind.
See “Andy” at “The World Wide Rant” with And He Tapped His Foot in the Hogwart’s Bathroom Too –
Oh no, another reason for the right-wing religious nutzoids to think Harry Potter is of the devil…
I’m not sure how “Dumbledore is gay” answers the question of whether or not he finds true love. Does that mean that gay people can or cannot find it?
I’m all confused now!
And at IMAO (”Unfair, Unbalance, Unmedicated”) see Dumbledore Gay? We Should Have Known! –
I’m shocked by this news but it does explain the “I heart Larry Craig” bumper sticker on his broom.
Best to turn to Andrew Sullivan, the man who digs up distressing analyses from obscure MIT journals, but who also happens to be gay. He offers this –
Let’s run the gay-check, shall we? No known female companion ever. Brilliant in school. Befriends a despised classmate. Childhood crush on another boy. Morally unsparing. Extremely attuned to and horrified by cruelty.
Yep, Dumbledore is just a good person. And Sullivan points to Wikipedia –
Characters in the books often remark that his greatest weakness is his willingness to trust those who may otherwise be considered untrustworthy. This trust is often criticised by those around him but is rarely questioned. He is frequently shown to have a great sense of humour, and often has a whimsical sense about him, especially during conflict, which can often infuriate those who are at odds with him. He is hardly ever impatient, and makes a point of politeness, even to those whom one would consider his enemies. He is a great lover of music, calling it “A magic beyond all we do [at Hogwarts].”
What’s not to like? And Sullivan adds this –
Oh: and he “did things with a wand [the examiner had] never seen before.” Ahem.
No one is talking much about the MIT item, but this Dumbledore thing is hot. And given the characteristics listed above, the world needs more of such people, many more – gay or straight or anything in-between.
The odd thing is that if you read Sullivan’s blog at the Atlantic, The Daily Dish, you will find that of all the people who are hoping to be the next president, the only one who seems appropriate for the job, as far as he can see, is Barack Obama – smart as whip, humble, inspiring and without a mean streak. Obama could get the country back to where it needs to be – and Sullivan’s arguments, day after day, are convincing.
But then you get Earl Hutchinson at The Huffington Post with Obama Should Repudiate and Cancel His Gay Bash Tour, and Do it Now –
Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama ripped a page straight from the Bush campaign playbook with his announced upcoming three date barnstorm tour through South Carolina with notorious gay basher, gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. The Grammy winning black gospel singer’s last effort on the political scene was his song and shill for Bush’s reelection at the Republican National Convention in 2004. Obama has hitched his string to McClurkin’s high flying gay bash kite in part out of religious belief (he purports to be somewhat of an evangelical), in bigger part because he’s falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton with the black vote in South Carolina and everywhere else, and in the biggest part of all because he hopes that what worked for Bush’s reelection will work for him.
It’s long, but even the New York Times and Washington Post covered the story, and John Aravosis at AMERICAblog picked up on it with Obama to do gospel tour with radical right singer who crusades against “the curse of homosexuality” –
Yes, sucking up to anti-gay bigots and joining them on stage - no, giving them a stage - is certainly defying conventional wisdom as to how a Democrat becomes president. Oh, and McClurkin also believes that gays can, and need to, be “cured.”
We, there is this profile of McClurkin – the man has issues.
Well, so much for the two guys at MIT – after the Dumbledore business, what is Sullivan going to say now about Obama?
Damn, the sublime and the ridiculous, the serious and the frivolous, always get all mixed up.
