Sunday, January 6, 2008

your wonkish arms are too short to box with that god

as promised! earlier - please please take some time to read this essay by Swarthmore history prof Timothy Burke, "Competency as a Cultural Value," a dryly, almost coyly academic title for easily the most fucking essential thing I've read about politics and policy and the way in which we experience 'the political' and history and our life in as long as I can remember. via wayne! go read it now, I'm being really serious here

what are you waiting for? the post is specifically addressed to cosmopolitan liberal elite types, which I'm guessing includes 'literally' anybody that reads this blog except for maybe Gary Jones if he's still reading - but he's probably read the Burke piece already anyway - and my parents or at least my dad - but it is seriously mandatory for him too, and for anyone who spends any time thinking about or at least (especially?) making wasted dinner party small-talk about US politics this year or otherwise. like so many of Burke's posts, it uncannily seems to express only dimly understood, shadowy ideas I had about the way the world works in clear, incredibly articulate, and powerfully 'truthy' language, like seeing a high res photo of a moment you'd previously only hazily remembered - it's all there, it's just like I remembered, it's just perfect

1 comment:

back40 said...

I still read. Your issues posts got few and far between for a while, so I didn't check in often. Perhaps that it changing again?