Bill Moyers interviews culture critic Clive James, whose latest book CULTURAL AMNESIA comes after more than 40 years observing and commenting on arts, literature, culture, and politics.
Aung San Suu Kyi a heroine? Even the great Clive James got it badly wrong occasionally. Itself a valuable lesson. But Cultural Amnesia is a terrific book .
I've read 'Cultural Amnesia' and recommend it. It's unique both in its objective (start conversations about important topics and remind us of culturally important people who shouldn't be forgotten), and in its method (expository essays). If the book is somewhat hung up on the cataclysms of Nazism and Stalinism, it's understandable - partly because those cataclysms shouldn't be forgotten and also because of their relevance to today: the medieval barbarism that denounces western liberal democracies. Maniacs who peddle authoritarian utopist ideology based on revealed knowledge or sacred books? We've seen them before, in different times, and now as then they should never be appeased; they must be opposed.
James loved individualism and having a variety of different viewpoints - he understood that that is what fosters creativity. And he understood that collectivism - on the Right and on the Left - seeks to crush individual viewpoints and make everything uniform and boring. So he was very hard on those artists and writers who promoted authoritarian ideologies - he detested both French collaborators with the Nazis and writers who kowtowed to Stalin. He saw that both Fascism and Communism both murdered the human spirit (to say nothing of actual human beings.)
I love Clive James, but I think he'd doubt his own answer at 13:25-13:38 if he witnessed America's current and mostly voluntary slide towards authoritarianism. I miss his voice!
Regarding Operation Cyclone in particular, the CIA spent nearly a billion dollars in funding counter-revolutionaries, known as the "Mujahideen" (meaning, "people who do jihad"). All this in the name of "regime change." We then subsequently turn around and invade Afghanistan's Taliban regime, citing they had connection to radicals like AQ. But the Taliban is there for a reason.. billions of reasons. The red scare pretext has militarized the Afghani people, thanks to our "intervention."
Sorry Prof but I don't agree. Listen to what James says: "Watch out for the beautiful style, the beautiful style may be enshrining an untruth. You've simply got to learn to see through the way it's said to what's said." As I understand him, he's not referring to a hidden agenda (or even the role of simplicity in language) but insisting we cultivate a critical awareness towards the art of rhetoric and other forms of stylish, persuasive speaking and writing.
How things change. I wonder whether he regretted dedicating the book to her. It brings to mind the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." That quote seems to be tailor made for what happened to Aung San Suu Kyi. Clive James admitted that he changed his view of Edmund Wilson 27:54 so maybe he would say the same about her.
There's more civilisation in this video than a million other youtube videos combined. If we wonder what interacting with a super-intelligence will be like, this is it; including, of course, taking care to be intelligible to lesser minds. But the vast majority of humans nontheless feel no need for the insights. They prefer his early funny stuff.
In the book, he tells us he taught himself to read/write in this or that language at least ten times. Is this insecurity or what? Same as his endless posturing as a classics scholar in other tomes. I've no doubt he's erudite and intelligent but he doesn't half beat his own drum. I actually returned this book.
