>From: Peter Howard <[log in to unmask]>
>Curious. I can't recall any posting in the discussion that idolised
>criminality, or came close to doing so.
>
Well, I may well be reading too much into this and won't press the
point in reference to recent threads here. But since I've brought it
up, I'll add that I think in general the phenomenon of
intellectuals/academics/artists being fascinated by criminals is pretty
well attested in America at least, and is a particularly late twentieth
century characteristic. Norman Mailer is the classic case, and also the
clearest example of the psychic mechanism behind this fascination. In
America, to be an artist is not to be a man; it is to be a limp-wristed,
daffodil-sniffing sissy. This admiration for hard guys is a reaction
formation rooted in the American artist's necessarily uncertain
masculinity. It's deeper than that though I think. Fundamentally this
is part of the great American dichotomy, which I am concluding at last
is the key to understanding this country: Nature=Man/Culture=Woman.
====
There ain't no sanity clause.
-- Chico Marx
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