[HN Gopher] The containment of George Kennan (2022)
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The containment of George Kennan (2022)
Author : hhs
Score : 11 points
Date : 2023-09-03 20:13 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (claremontreviewofbooks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (claremontreviewofbooks.com)
| RedCondor wrote:
| >[Kennan] envisions all of humanity destined to "melt into a vast
| polyglot mass," with only the Chinese, Jews, and blacks remaining
| apart. "Could this mean that these three minorities are destined
| to subjugate and dominate all as an uneasy but unavoidable
| triumvirate the rest of society -- the Chinese by their
| combination of intelligence, ruthlessness, and ant-like
| industriousness; the Jews by their sheer determination to survive
| as a culture; the Negroes by their ineradicable bitterness and
| hatred of the whites?"
|
| https://newrepublic.com/article/117174/george-f-kennans-diar...
| hhs wrote:
| This is the title of that piece: "U.S. Cold War Policy Was
| Designed by a Bigot"
| hackandthink wrote:
| >George Kennan --patron saint of the liberal internationalists--
| was an isolationist.
|
| It's a sad state of affairs that only conservative snobs oppose
| forever wars.
| dundarious wrote:
| This writing is really awful, tumbling all over the place. The
| example that made me start to skim heavily:
|
| > Kennan's father was something of a ne'er-do-well--not a
| wastrel, exactly, but unambitious and, despite his expertise in
| what should have been the lucrative practice of tax law, inept at
| navigating the real world. As a result, the Kennan family was
| always pinched for money, though far from destitute: they lived
| in a big house (a gift from Kennan's maternal grandparents) with
| servants and vacationed at an elegant lakeside summer retreat.
|
| The "orientalist" section is childish. It's common for people to
| psychoanalyze "the Russian mindset" as if it is immutable biology
| even to this day. It's a useful concept to criticize, and some
| use the phrase "orientalism" for that concept.
|
| The entire piece is so loaded with sections where the author is
| unable to contain their resentment, which can be quite
| legitimate, but likewise, they are unable to articulate or
| justify it -- making the whole endeavor useless. This is highly
| ironic, given it is a critique of a biography where the main
| point of contention is that the biographer/academy is guilty of
| this same offense.
| hhs wrote:
| Hm, the book, "Kennan: A life between worlds", though, is an
| interesting read.
| dundarious wrote:
| I would probably agree. Aside from my own interest in the
| topic and in Kennan, Michael Anton has made such a poor
| showing for himself and his critique, that even in my
| ignorance, Costigliola seems positively glowing in
| comparison.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > This writing is really awful, tumbling all over the place.
|
| I read that and thought it was a good summary of his childhood.
| What is it you find "awful" about it? Here's an exercise for
| you: rewrite it so it's not awful.
| dundarious wrote:
| What non-null portrait is being drawn here: sub-wastrel
| ne'er-do-well with a successful private practice who can't
| navigate the real world and who has servants and an elegant
| summer house?
| bomewish wrote:
| The editor fell asleep at the wheel by the looks of it.
| hackandthink wrote:
| This is dedication:
|
| >having authored a short book and over 40,000 posts on internet
| bulletin board Styleforum.net
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Anton
| dang wrote:
| Hmm. I thought it was engagingly written and enjoyed it on that
| level. It also contains tons of fascinating details about
| Kennan that I had no idea about. It's interesting simply for
| being neither of the two things that articles about Kennan
| always are: hagiographical or polemical. (It's polemical about
| other things, in a few passages that are best ignored--but not
| about Kennan.)
| dundarious wrote:
| I'd say it's plenty polemical, throughout. In and of itself,
| I don't have a problem with that, regardless of whether I
| disagree with the polemic. But the mass of self-
| contradictions (what non-null portrait is being drawn here:
| sub-wastrel ne'er-do-well with a successful private practice
| who can't navigate the real world and who has servants and an
| elegant summer house?), and the jaded and listless manner in
| which those polemics are doled out, each one basically
| amounting to just "but what do you expect these days,
| everything is X, Y, Z", makes it a real trudge to get
| through.
|
| Kennan is an interesting subject. I think that is safe to
| say, but I also think that is pretty much the limit of what I
| can say in unqualified agreement with the essay. In a much
| more qualified way, I share his criticism of the
| neoconservatives who still run US foreign policy, in both
| major parties.
|
| I would also recommend Stephen Kinzer's book, The Brothers,
| about Allen and John Foster Dulles, two figures who played
| far more active and significant roles, the consequences of
| which mark the world to this day.
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