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April 2008
Elsewhere on the WebVictor Davis Hanson’s Private Papers Victor Davis Hanson Archive on National Review OnlineTour Books
A War Like No Other How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War
by Victor Hanson
Amazon.com’s Best of 2001 Many theories have been offered regarding why Western culture has spread so successfully across the world, with arguments ranging from genetics to superior technology to the creation of enlightened economic, moral, and political systems. In Carnage and Culture, military historian Victor Hanson takes all of these factors into account in making a bold, and sure to be controversial, argument: Westerners are more effective killers.
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson, John Keegan Hanson, for those who somehow have missed him until now, is a professor of Classics at California State and also is a part time farmer, both of which have contributed to his writing as a military historian. As a classicist, Hanson is well versed in the sources in their original Greek, and as a farmer he understands how agriculture affected the experience of the Greeks at war.
by Victor Davis Hanson
by Victor Davis Hanson
Hanson relates the life stories of his farmer neighbors, writing that their way of life will likely soon disappear, thanks in part to a federal system of agricultural subsidies that favors large-scale, industrial farm corporations over individual “yeomen.” This is a sobering and eye-opening book. by Victor Davis Hanson On first glance, The Soul of Battle appears to be three different books: biographies of two well-known generals—Sherman and Patton—and one who is virtually unknown today, the ancient Greek leader Epaminondas. Yet Victor Davis Hanson, a classics professor and author of The Western Way of War, makes a compelling connection between these three men. They were “eccentrics, considered unbalanced or worse by their own superiors” who led democratic armies on missions of freedom.
by Robert B. Strassler (Editor), Victor Davis Hanson (Introduction)
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April 14, 2008 11:15 AM
Our European CandidateThe Real Obama? I used to think the clumsy partial explanations for Rev. Wright or Michelle Obama’s speeches or the slips like “typical white person” were due to inexperience, and too much trust in the persuasive powers of his own rhetoric. But his inability to simply apologize for the stupid remarks and move on suggests that he may well think he has said nothing wrong. His memoirs prove that he was aware of Wright’s anti-American and anti-white venom; Michelle gave the “pride” speech and expressed similar sentiments in interviews on more than one occasion, and he never really apologized for his Pennsylvania remarks, but simply reissued them in a Bowdlerized form. The problem in his eyes is not the message, but either the message was not quite polished enough, or foolishly was issued in its uncensored form. In some sense, this is all as it should be. America will have a clear option to vote for someone who has a European view of the United States—as a rather primordial mean and backward society, salvageable only when run by cosmopolitan Ivy-League elites who can somehow stomach their own contempt long enough to delude and get a pass from the yokels they must help. As I keep saying ad nauseam—about where McGovern was in September 1972, when the initial anti-war, anti-Nixon hysteria led to a messianic nomination that embarrassed Democrats by the fall and led to their destruction. There are simply too many ticking bombs in the Obama campaign: Rev. Wright was at it again, defaming the Founding Fathers while praising that far better statesman Louis Farrakhan. Michelle will say something outrageous in the next month or so. Rev. Meeks and Rev. Lee are the tips of the iceberg. There will be more quips like ‘typical white person’ and neat explanations for Middle American stupidity. Why? All one has to do is to read the two Obama memoirs, review the careers of his mother and father and the views they promulgated, wade through the Wright corpus, remember the message that is conveyed in black liberation theology, remember even more the world view that predominates at Harvard Law School and Columbia, collate all that with the benefits that accrue to someone that goes into the industry of racial grievance, remediation, and white guilt and recompense, and, presto, if you didn’t have Barack Obama you would have to invent him. Note the furor on the left at the latest gaffe. Obama is so close to being nominated and elected! And with that reality, almost all dreams are finally realized: white guilt is alleviated in a stroke, the United States transmogrifies into a hip, revolutionary society in the eyes of those abroad, with entirely new attitudes toward Hamas, the Iranians, Chavez, Castro, and others. We get a young charismatic icon who can wow those abroad. The possibilities are endless! And yet, and yet—it all can go up in flames by a silly innocent (but also sincere and courageous) remark by Obama, one that will be hyped, snippeted, looped and beat to death by those right-wing zealots and flaks for capitalists, racists, and imperialists. They always “steal” a sure thing with their “Rovian” tactics. No sense of Sophoclean tragedy here—that Obama has several hamartia, that due to hubris keep growing and growing, until at the opportune moment they bring on nemesis and with it atê. The Real Tragedy What is really tragic is that successful African-Americans, who have had it far rougher than the Obamas—a Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas, Tiger Woods—excel in American society and really do transcend race. And yet white elite leftish America senses that such talents don’t need liberals’ permission and ratification, and so don’t do anything for their own left-wing guilt. The elite liberal wants to be told that HE did something for a poor African-American and therefore in recompense deserves to be finally free of guilt—and yet also wants to forever be in a position of condescension and being owed some sort of perennial thanks. With the successful, independent thinking minority race become secondary, and therefore a Thomas or Powell is of little psyshological use to the liberal—or the army in the race industry that they have helped to create.
On the Orwellian nature of Obama’s “clarification” I posted this at NRO’s corner: Why Orwell Matters [Victor Davis Hanson] “You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
1. Note how version #1’s “cling” becomes version #2’s “vote about” and “take comfort from”—as the condescending dismissal becomes empathetic understanding.
8. Note how there is sudddenly no “context” for the landscape of version #1: an elite Bay-area audience that is told stories about those Pennsylvanian gun-toting zealots. With Obama, the clarifications (cf. the Wright and Michelle contextualizations) are always more interestig than the original lapse. 04/13 08:27 AM Comments (25)con dog :Allison Aller :Tell it, Brother! ET :The sputtering defenses of Obama's latest absurdity should provide for some amusing reading. The backpedaling itself is amusing, but it is a rather sad laugh. Anonymous :“I was not raised in a religious household. For my mother, organized religion too often dressed up closed-mindedness in the garb of piety, cruelty and oppression in the cloak of righteousness. However, in her mind, a working knowledge of the world’s great religions was a necessary part of any well-rounded education. In our household the Bible, the Koran, and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology. On Easter or Christmas Day my mother might drag me to church, just as she dragged me to the Buddhist temple, the Chinese New Year celebration, the Shinto shrine, and ancient Hawaiian burial sites. In sum, my mother viewed religion through the eyes of the anthropologist; it was a phenomenon to be treated with a suitable respect, but with a suitable detachment as well. Yet, Sen. Obama seeks out the brand of religion that seeks to blame, seeks to hate, seeks to revile, seeks to insult, seeks to slander, seeks to divide. Of ALL the religious institutions that Sen. Obama could have embraced…he chose the one that was based on Marxist principles, anti-American values, hatred of an entire race of people, anti-Semitism, …the weekly spilling of bile and venting of spleens. He embraced an anti-America worldview. He embraced a blame white America worldview. He embraced hatred instead of healing. He embraced rage instead of rationality. He embraced finger-pointing instead of forgiveness. He embraced slander instead of solutions. Source: The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, p.202-4 Oct 1, 2006 When a white teammate expresses empathy for young Barack, feeling awkward and clumsy after being taken to a black party after a basketball game, Sen. Obama wanted not to heal his friend’s awkwardness, he wanted to punch him. When given the opportunity for healing…Sen. Obama sought rage. In fact, he found that it was best to engage in duplicity with white people, they responded to someone who was articulate and polite and it would serve him well to not be upfront with them. This duplicity is the very hallmark of his candidacy. When the cloak slips, when the cover allows a glimpse, when the carefully crafted shroud is peeled back…the Marxist, anti-American, elitist, fringe leftist appears beneath the surface. When the tools used for duplicity drop…what is left…is the guy who pals around with Ayers and Dorhn…people who set off bombs in the Pentagon. Violent, virulent, anti-American Marxists. The evolution of young Barack into Sen. Obama is one of a steady entrenchment into hard leftist notions, anti-American values, and his worldview of America has been shaped by some of the most virulent anti-American forces within our borders. Ayers is a smirking, smarmy, sneak attack proprietor…Rev. Wright is a bombastic flame-thrower of hatred and bile, “Frank” was a Communist antagonist, and Michelle is a Magnet School, Ivy League, millionaire …perptetual victim. The prism through which Sen. Barack and Michelle Obama see our nation, sets them so far outside the fringe left…that it is little wonder they think and say the things they do. Behind closed doors, with the Billionaire Brie set…”typical white people” are gun toting, Bible-thumping, mouth breathing Neanderthals. He won’t lose a single vote from the arrogant and puerile who harbor this ignorant conceit themselves. While it is myopic and dangerous for anyone to hold these views, it is more dangerous to believe that they haven’t been indoctrinated in enough people to take root. This country has been propagandized from within for over 40 years. That propaganda has taken hold and we are on the brink of putting a man and a woman in our White House who have been immersed in it, bathed in it’s bile and hatred…nearly all their lives. They see an America that needs to be cleansed. FORCED to accept that worldview. They see an America through a prism of hard leftism and sweeping slanders. Ron Kean :In my life, never before has there been such a stark contrast. One side won't acknowledge Old Glory, on video, denigrates America, and extolls Israel's enemy. The other suffered for America, lauds America, and stands with Zionists. Excess over Obama if you want, but as Karl Rove said...'Clinton's not out yet.' I don't know what 'ate' means but I hope it means annihialation in a purely metaphorical sense. I wonder if the issue isn't which black spokesman articulates hate again. Will a white guy use the 'N' word and argue for an entitlement? TLM :Elitist liberal senator ascribes the social values and concerns of working class voters to misdirected bitterness about their economic status, their social class. He further believes their religious faith, traditional family values and adherence to the sanctity of the Constitution prevent them from focusing on what truly ails them: their lack of economic opportunity. What was that philosophy called that asserted all political behavior could be explained as class conflict over economic opportunity? That religion was opium for the masses, lulling them into complacent acceptance of their proletarian status? Oh yeah, now I remember. Marxism. And I remember where I first learned about this now discredited political theory. Possibly the same place Barack Obama did. Obama's recent statements in San Francisco about why he cannot attract more working class voters in middle America are more than just condescending. They are, quite frankly, radical, in the sense that word used to imply during the 60's. These statements may provide a glimpse into the inner Obama, reflecting his true convictions and what underlies his political philosophy. If he believes workers in this country "cling to" their guns, religion and social values because of their poor economic status, he's applying Karl Marx's theory of historical materialism to explain traditional American beliefs. Speaking from experience, during the 1970s Marxist theories were quite popular among professors in the Social Science Departments at Occidental College. It's been some time now, but I think I detect a bit of the dialectic in Obama's statements. And I wonder if he isn't a closet Marxist. I wrote the above yesterday after hearing about Obama's talk in San Francisco. Then I googled Obama and Marxism. Plenty of people have made the same assessment. Apparently it's no secret that he leans toward a modified Marxist view of American society. Bill Kristol's OP/ED piece in the NYT today lays it all out for us. misanthropicus :I agree with your comments regarding Obama but I take exception regarding the "white guilt thing". From the beginning Obama's (current) electoral career has been wrapped in this "white guilt" notion which I think is a misreading (and oftentimes a willed misrepresentation) of a different situation, i. e., the liberals' (and alas! so many other humans') chronic need to flash their enlightenment and superiority, by embracing various causes or actively showing their contempt for "inferior" fellows (needless to say that this attitude shows neither character nor interest for bettering the world). Obama himself illustrates this situation with his description of Pennsylvania folk which suggests a (bit) softer version of the "Deliverance" crew -not much hope'n change and positive attitude here. kuze :Who is Colin Power? Paul from Florida :I'd like to tell the Democrat Party elite the same thing I tell the summer people from New York living on the outer Cape (Wellfleet, Eastham). Often the husbands, and sometimes both husbands, have Birkenstock sandals, white socks, a lefty t-shirt and gray hair with ponytails. I look them up and down, and say, "The '60s are over." I really think only the grave will change them. We got another 25 years with these people. Poor Obama, raised and educated in Lefty cocoon world. He should of done a 6 year tour as an enlisted if he wanted to be somewhere exotic. Living with lefties all your life is no way to get a popular education. vb :I agree with the comments about the Marxist anti-American basis of Obama's beliefs. But what is beginning to strike me is the superficiality of his thinking, the grasping of feel-good ideas and policies without really understanding their roots or implications. I tend to believe him Obama seems to wants to glide over differences and avoid making hard choices. He wants to understand so he doesn't have to confront conflicts. At first, this approach is appealing, but then the need to say what you really think and stop playing PC games sets in. If it is legitimate for Wright to speak, then it must also be legitimate for Bill Cosby and the lunch-pail-toting guy from Pennsylvania. Obama doesn't realize that his understanding actually denies people the right to think and speak for themselves. I don't think Obama has thought it all through. If he can't deal with these issues in the American arena, how will he do in the far more complex and conflictin interational ones. jimbo :Hey, let's cut Obama and these urban liberals a little slack here. Try to show a little empathy. After all.......
Trudy B. Taylor :could it possibly be realized by the democratic party? could this actually come to pass? could we see the super delegates exercise their rumored power and tell obama to go sit down in the "support team" section and a give the presidency a pass? i finally began to believe this fantastical plan might eventually materialize yesterday; as i waited in vain for some sort of reply that could pass as an apology for obama's remark about regular folk clinging to guns and religion as some sort of opiate against the frustration of the bush41-clinton-bush42 years in america.(by the way, does that sound suspiciously marxist to anyone out there?) but all i heard was some reference to annie oakley...it wasnt pretty. even i am beginning to think that the fabled idea of hillary importuning the super delegates to ditch the cute, young, flash-in-the-pan just might come to pass. after all, that is why the democrats have constructed this byzantine infrastructure within their party; they have a propensity to evolve(?) curiously exotic candidates from time to time, who have only a rickety chance of being elected in the general election. i think this next week (she'll need to win in penn. with a 10 point or better lead) will either trip the wire connected to this behind-the-scenes process or it will never happen and the dems will be stuck, for better or worse, with the new millennium's version of the manchurian candidate. LSD :For someone who advertises himself as a product of two worlds, it seems he has focused his studies on only one of them. His highly-regarded speech on race, resonated with his comments made in San Francisco when he explained that the poor whites see their political struggle as a zero-sum game. Does he feel his white heritage gives license to talk about poor white folk in taxonometric terms? Not very hopeful. -I guess I must be an Obamacan't. Nick B :I really hope we are seeing a McGovern-style candidacy. I can't believe how my lefty friends -- normally very cynical of politicians -- are falling all over themselves to praise Obama. Enough is enough guys. There's no need to be in a trance 24 hours a day. Jeremy :Again you make brilliant points and I am very thankful that there are people like yourself and other commenters who get it. However what we fail to realize is that no matter how much truth you speak, this crazy Obama can actually get elected because the people voting are getting dumber and dumber. As the percentage of lazy and economically frustrated people grows, the more likely we have to worry about guys like Obama. What Liberals fail to realize is that no matter how many left wing socialists they put in the White House, they still end up economically challenged and on the back end of the prosperity. We are just in another cycle and Obama and Hilary have timed it perfectly as did Jimmy Carter. That is why neither one will go down without a fight. The winner between the Democrats will get the Whitew House and smart people are too few in numbers to do anything about it. Cobb :Powell, Rice, Woods, et al do not 'transcend' race. They simply do not use the trope to the specific political ends of permanent grievance and permanent revolution. Just like boys sports teams do not 'transcend' sexual energy, it is merely subordinated and redirected to more constructive ends. Woods' story on race, Powells's story on race and Rice's story on race say something important about their character and it is palatable and respectable. We expect it and we should. Again, everyone has a story about race and it will never be transcended, but it will be used in an ethical way or an unethical way. Just as you know, professor, everyone in the Central Valley has had stories about race and ethnicity, and a real, mutually respectful cultural exchange as you have explained well. Otherwise your stories of second-generation Mexican American classics scholars would be meaningless counter-examples. Their shared racial experience and identity is real - they simply don't use it for permanent grievance. There is a particular vein of American politics that continues to assert that 'blacks don't have permanent alliances, but permanent issues' which draws all sorts of people to support its prerogatives, and it is a Marxist trope which brings in the 'discarded', 'bitter' proletariat into a brotherhood of shame and a constituency of revolution. Obama is a direct heir of WEB DuBois in that regard, a well-recognizable icon of his 'Talented Tenth'. Cobb :For clarification, this is the motto of the Congressional Black Caucus: Black people have How do you turn that into a multicultural motto? Listen to Obama. TLM :Ron Kean :KUZE: Apr 14, 2008 10:52 PM - FYI if you should come back to check... Colin Power is a very strong laxative. It's sold from radio infomercials on Sunday morning. Not for a weak stomach. M.E. :I take the liberty to explain two Greek concepts that Dr. Hanson uses as key-words to describe Obama’s political personality: “hybris” and “ate”. “Ate” means blinding, deception, illusion, but also punishment and ruin. In Greek mythology Ate is a divinity, personification of Error. “Hamartia” means also mistake, but “ate” had for the Greeks metaphysical sense as a divine punishment for “hybris”, i.e. arrogance, insolence, violence. Obama has demonstrated all these qualities in his triumphal speech (2.12) where he blamed McCain to be “bound to the failed policies of the past”. What Obama’s “new” politics are, now we know perfectly: “new attitudes toward Hamas, the Iranians, Chavez, Castro”, and other similar idols (the list of them is too long) of American and European leftists. It’s interesting: why these criminals do excite so much enthusiasm in the “liberal” public? As a scholar of the mythologies I see here the eternal fight between the forces of the Chaos and the Order. The demons (represented in our time by “liberals”), blinding by hybris, do always the same error, believing that for them no law exists and taking their bold visions as reality. So they fatally meet malicious Ate and terrible Nemesis, the “curse (pema) of mortal men” (as Hesiod says). DD :As a non-American, my impression from afar is that Obama will fade away, embittered and puzzled that he was rejected by the voters. He will probably go back to his radical, hate-spewing friends for comfort and they will simply reinforce all the prejudices that they have been spewing for years. He will blame racism for his loss when really, it is his politics and character that will be his downfall. The really sad part is that the best the Democratic Party can come up with are these two extraordinarily weak candidates for President. The US and indeed, the rest of the world needs serious leadership. Unfortunately, these two are empty shells. Trudy B. Taylor :last night's "debate" was very interesting, dont you think? while clinton was clearly speaking to all those uncommitted super delagtes out in the ethers, practically the first word out of obama's mouth was "frustrations" in an effort to re-re-explain what he really meant at that fundraiser the other day. the only mistake she made was in answering a semi-peeved "yes, yes, yes" to the question about whether she thought obama was electable in the general election. she should've said something along the lines of " not under acceptable conditions" and gone on to hit hard. when she " goes negative" she is merely talking above the heads of the democrat regular electorate to the super delegates. the house of lords is alive and well in the democrat party. J.E. Dyer :I guess Obama's clarification was interesting. However, since it boiled down to "Well, folks, you ARE bitter and loony," I take leave to still find it condescending and out of touch. Obama has had a uniquely insulated life trajectory, one that, for example, shielded him from the knowledge most of us have of something as simple as a dad who works to support the family for decades, is there every day to raise it, and likes to kick back with some NASCAR, hunting, or beer and pool in his rare leisure hours. Obama talks like someone who knows the world only through academic theory, and a series of mentors and handlers. I'm not sure he even has a visceral sense of what hamartia and ate can mean to a human life. What a country we are, to be able to make such a person rich, and put him in a leadership position. Like the lilies of the field, he toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like Barack Obama. bour3 :Barak Hussein Obama's association with Rev. Wright's church had absolutely nothing to do with religion. That's why he can claim without lying he never heard any of those regrettable things. (He was playing his Nintendo DS, or otherwise texting) His association with Wright has everything to do with political expediency. A bit Machiavellian, innit? Perfect for POS. R. A. Wilson :Dear Dr. Hanson, Re April 14, whatever happened to I love your work. Comments have been archived for this page. |
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White people are bitter and frustrated. Better-qualified white students, employees, etc. face intense racial discrimination. Obama and his liberal comrades call it “Affirmative Action”.
Millions of white Americans see “people who aren’t like them” illegals and inner-city parasites sucking up on free benefits.
Millions of tax paying white Americans can no longer use the public school system because “people who aren’t like them” have made the schools awash with violence, drugs, and gangster rap.
Apr 14, 2008 12:58 PM