I should also mention that there's actually one useful thing he's done in his political writing, and that is to ridicule some of the unexamined college-leftist pieties that I get the impression he had when he was a young sprog—particularly the seething contempt for the mass of Americans. For all the costs, there are deeply good things about the life of an American suburbanite family, and I like that he can express that.
But he's like C. S. Lewis writing about atheism and identifying it all with his own snotty adolescent anti-religiosity. Since Lileks was a cartoon liberal to begin with all he can dispute is cartoon liberalism. And the essay he wrote for this past Sept. 11, the one that turned me off reading him regularly, he showed signs of being possessed by a new seething contempt himself, the notion that millions of his countrymen are subconsciously on the other side in the War on Terror and want to see his daughter incinerated. Spend too much time dwelling on paranoid thoughts and they start to color everything you see and do.
the notion that millions of his countrymen are subconsciously on the other side in the War on Terror and want to see his daughter incinerated
*ding ding ding*
I may yet try to work up a full-size rant about it, but you've hit the nail on the head here in regards how Lileks got infected by the brain-eater. He had his first kid in his early 40s, and 9/11 happened shortly before her first birthday: suddenly all that free-floating angst that every parent has about (a) their child's safety, and (b) how all the stupid things they thought/said as a youth would obviously disqualify them as a parent if anybody knew about them...had a target.
Okay, that's dimestore Freudian analysis, but frankly, that's about what his political columns have rated, quality-wise.
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syntheid
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 10:01 am (UTC)But he's like C. S. Lewis writing about atheism and identifying it all with his own snotty adolescent anti-religiosity. Since Lileks was a cartoon liberal to begin with all he can dispute is cartoon liberalism. And the essay he wrote for this past Sept. 11, the one that turned me off reading him regularly, he showed signs of being possessed by a new seething contempt himself, the notion that millions of his countrymen are subconsciously on the other side in the War on Terror and want to see his daughter incinerated. Spend too much time dwelling on paranoid thoughts and they start to color everything you see and do.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-22 10:54 am (UTC)*ding ding ding*
I may yet try to work up a full-size rant about it, but you've hit the nail on the head here in regards how Lileks got infected by the brain-eater. He had his first kid in his early 40s, and 9/11 happened shortly before her first birthday: suddenly all that free-floating angst that every parent has about (a) their child's safety, and (b) how all the stupid things they thought/said as a youth would obviously disqualify them as a parent if anybody knew about them...had a target.
Okay, that's dimestore Freudian analysis, but frankly, that's about what his political columns have rated, quality-wise.