Your mix of research and personal narrative reminds me of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with Agee's 1930s sharecroppers here replaced by citizens that remain in today's sacrifice zones.
The recent, almost after-the-fact dates of many of the books you cite suggest the West's perennial tendency to ignore those who for decades ignore politics and then enter it sometimes to overthrow the system. I'm rereading Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, in which she claims the masses' sudden appearance in national politics exposed "that democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country." Finding ways to acknowledge and grieve and repent as a nation sure beats an increasing authoritarianism.
I never would have grouped the unresolved grief of those who lived through the collapse of the pride economy with those who lived through the displacement of America's urban renewal politics, but it makes perfect sense. I look forward to the next installment of this series.
Your mix of research and personal narrative reminds me of James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with Agee's 1930s sharecroppers here replaced by citizens that remain in today's sacrifice zones.
The recent, almost after-the-fact dates of many of the books you cite suggest the West's perennial tendency to ignore those who for decades ignore politics and then enter it sometimes to overthrow the system. I'm rereading Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, in which she claims the masses' sudden appearance in national politics exposed "that democratic government had rested as much on the silent approbation and tolerance of the indifferent and inarticulate sections of the people as on the articulate and visible institutions and organizations of the country." Finding ways to acknowledge and grieve and repent as a nation sure beats an increasing authoritarianism.
I never would have grouped the unresolved grief of those who lived through the collapse of the pride economy with those who lived through the displacement of America's urban renewal politics, but it makes perfect sense. I look forward to the next installment of this series.
Thanks, Bryce, especially for the nod to Agee! I think Arendt is behind some of my thinking here, now that you bring her up.