tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post2590560174504520255..comments2024-03-18T16:55:31.971+00:00Comments on This Space: More from the Sydney twangerStephen Mitchelmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-74586746390263946372007-12-31T00:53:00.000+00:002007-12-31T00:53:00.000+00:00Hi,I'm anonymous from above (Ha! call me the Angel...Hi,<BR/><BR/>I'm anonymous from above (Ha! call me the Angel of Truth). Funny, I'd much prefer to have a few drinks with Mr. James than read 'Cultural Amnesia' through. There is some sound stuff in there of course, but I 'm not really hooked so far!<BR/><BR/>Tring to make *sense* of a suicide (is it not?) is ridiculous.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-62575393942017756962007-12-30T03:48:00.000+00:002007-12-30T03:48:00.000+00:00I agree with everything you've said about James an...I agree with everything you've said about James and Benjamin . . . yet I still find myself finding some stuff of value in <I>Cultural Amnesia</I>. I don't think I'd want to have a drink with James, nor would I find myself in agreement with him on all that much . . . but on the occasions when he is able to shed his weirdly doctrinaire anti-the-left faith (reminiscent as it often is of Christopher Hitchens's reflexive contrarianism), he can write some masterly sentences that really do help me understand some writers whom I've already been deeply engaged with.<BR/><BR/>But anyone who claims to be capable of getting into and understanding another person's suicide is always going to be suspect in my book--excpeting, maybe, Tolstoy.Levi Stahlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11094919454842047688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-7678068699641217422007-12-30T01:31:00.000+00:002007-12-30T01:31:00.000+00:00Best of luck with hanging off from the firefightin...Best of luck with hanging off from the firefighting, Stephen. It's the Google reader and the del.icio.us 'to read' pile that defeats me. As another Australian once said, 'show me some discipline, and I'll show you mine.' Happy New Year.genevievehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02895689949182365454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-48354630831896276982007-12-29T21:09:00.000+00:002007-12-29T21:09:00.000+00:00Ooh: Thanks for linking to that Praxis post. Grea...Ooh: Thanks for linking to that Praxis post. Great stuff. Explosions going off in my mind, etc...Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08014014605639738887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-41631614865383574002007-12-29T20:26:00.000+00:002007-12-29T20:26:00.000+00:00I reckon that the only valid criticism 'Cultural A...I reckon that the only valid criticism 'Cultural Amnesia' makes about Benners is that he has been somewhat totemised. (At least this is arguable.)<BR/><BR/>What annoys me:<BR/><BR/>1. The often cheesy prose style! (Not going to give an example here).<BR/><BR/>2. I disagree with the theory that the Benzinator only killed himself because he felt that Fascism was inescapable as much as I am annoyed that CJ basically announces his suicide as an intellectual retreat. Bullshit. I don't know what was going on in the man's head. CJ really loses the plot here.<BR/><BR/>3. That CJ compulsively deploys the testimony of the Holocaust/Stalin (almost an either/or thing going on with this) as proof that he's in the Right (what wit!). Does God exist: 'where was God when the snow was falling on the foreheads of the little kids in Auschwitz?' What about the intellectual achievement of Marx: 'Gulags?' Bloody hell.<BR/><BR/>Basically, I agree with you Mr. Blog, sir.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com