The Book Scandal Strikes Back

And this time it's a real writer who's under the gun: Günter Grass, Nobel Prize-winner. I'm not going to say much about this other than to remark that these book scandals seem to be getting more serious. Next thing we know, Charles Darwin will be accused of having rigged Origin of the Species.

Seriously, though, we're getting closer to a potential carthsis this time. The betrayal represented by Mr. Grass, his memoir, and its revelation that he was once a member of the Waffen-S.S. is far closer to the sort of massive, international political treachery that I believe these scandals are sublimating.

For me the big question that remains is what the skepticism of Grass (as well as less distinguished authors like James Frey) implies about our contemporary attitude toward truth. There seems to be a growing sense that, in every arena, those who have been appointed to articulate our collective truth are somehow dishonest -- not only with us, but (perhaps even more imporatantly) with themselves. Is this what these scandals are trying to say, to articulate our shared sense of denial? Is that why we haven't yet been able to collectively express our outrage at the Bush administration? Because too many of us still can't admit that things actually are as bad as they seem...

Dewey, Individualism, and the Liberal

The lack of secure objects of allegiance, without which individuals are lost, is especially striking in the case of the liberal. The liberalism of the past was characterized by the possession of a definite intellectual creed and program; that was its distinction from conservative parties which needed no formulated outlook beyond defense of things as they were. In contrast, liberals operated on the basis of a thought-out social philosophy, a theory of politics sufficiently definite and coherent to be easily translated into a program of policies to be pursued. Liberalism today is hardly more than a temper of mind, vaguely called forward-looking, but quite uncertain as to where to look and what to look forward to. For many individuals, as well as in its social results, this fact is hardly less than a tragedy. The tragedy may be unconcious for the mass, but they show its reality in their aimless drift, while the more thoughtful are consciously disturbed. For human nature is self-possessed only as it has objects to which it can attach itself.

-- John Dewey, "Individualism, Old and New," 1930