Comments on: Portraying Guevara

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Tue, 12 Oct 2004 06:12:52 +0000

“Lack of success and damaging facts should not necessarily be enough to deprive a hero of heroic status” Chris Bertram thinks Bush is a hero. Cool.

By: Colby Cosh

Colby Cosh — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 09:38:28 +0000

This entry + the very recent entry on “less Tubman, more [Robert E.] Lee” = typically comic Crooked Timber cognitive trainwreck.

By: veebee

veebee — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 06:06:55 +0000

How to write about Che? If I were to do it, my inspiration would come from Nietzsche. Twilight of the Idols, anyone?

By: mcgruff

mcgruff — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 03:33:12 +0000

The most striking line in Chris’s post is this one—”Hagiography should be out, but so should the sort of reaction that just carpingly lists bad things”—since Berman’s essay wasn’t a first order portrayal of Che, but a response to what he described reasonably as hagiography. I.e, Achilles without the killng. IF hagiography is out, why isn’t carping criticism a legitimate response to it?

By: jam

jam — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 01:20:24 +0000

If I may come back in. I, too, have a lot of problems coming to a final (?) position on Che. I left school in 1967. I “sat in” as a University freshman in 1968. Much of my young self is involved in some way with the figure that Che projected. And yes, Abiola, being a handsome young leftist was certainly part of that. But, given the massive mismatch between Che’s declared aims on the one hand and his actions and achievements on the other, it does seem to me that to come to a balanced judgement requires a dose of scepticism about his aims. We have had this discussion before. A little while ago, Brad Delong put up an anti-Nader-supporter post under the title “An Infantile Disorder” referring to Lenin’s attack on what he then called Left-wing Communism. I could certainly see such an attack being made on Che. But it would not be made by someone who saw grandeur in Che’s life.

By: asg

asg — Mon, 11 Oct 2004 00:16:04 +0000

Thanks, Daniel, I’ll keep that in mind, but since this is, you know, a weblog, with comments threads, somehow I don’t think “shutting up” is what I, or anyone else, come visiting here to do.

By: Detached Observer

Detached Observer — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 22:54:16 +0000

Chris wrote “[Che] did turn his back on a comfortable future as a communist bureaucrat to pursue the goal of the revolutionary liberation of humanity.” And Osama Bin Laden turned his back on a comfortable future as a millionare to execute what he perceived as God’s will. Should our discourse about him be similarly informed by a sense of grandeur, tragedy, and heroism?

By: WeSaferThemHealthier

WeSaferThemHealthier — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 21:05:09 +0000

Bertram, Not that clearly. Where does he say to what degree they are disqualified? Where do you get the “not absolutely”? When someone says that one is disqualified and never mentions degrees, I understand that to mean that the person is completely disqualified. Is that reasonable? “In the same way” appears to mean “for the same reasons”. Jamie, “It’s not about whether you agree. it’s about whether you understand what the hero in question was trying to do, and what compelled him or her to do it.” Many people who disagree with an idea or person are capable of taking a descriptive rather than normative view of that idea/person. One doesn’t need to excuse to explain. Macintyre didn’t say that a book containing normative judgements is disqualified, he said an author who thinks an idea absurd is disqualified. It’s all about whether or not you agree. “Liberal universalism seems so infantile at times…” Yeah, let’s try something else.

By: yabonn

yabonn — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 21:02:50 +0000

Off tracks, mostly : Paul Berman’s philistine reaction to The Motorcycle Diaries A propos of philistinery, no one else appaled by the weekly standard article about jelinek’s nobel? “Upon learning her award, let’s not forget, my good fellows, that she is a commie bitch, commie bitch, commie bitch, and, as such, a bad writer.” And Seems like there’s nothing like a maccarthyte titillation to spice up the same old, same old warmongering. Ah yes and, she’s a feminazi too. I mean “Viennese virago”.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 20:37:38 +0000

“wesaferthemhealthier” wrote: bq. Bertram quoted a passage that said people are disqualified from writing about X if they disagree with X. No, the passage Bertram quoted did not say that. It said that those who thought the communist project (as characterized by Macintyre) was an absurd fantasy were so disqualified. And the qualification is clearly a relative one: they are as disqualified as atheists writing ecclesiastical history are (i.e. not absolutely).

By: jamie

jamie — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 20:33:45 +0000

Are Mussolini lovers the only viable ( as in, not disqualified ) candidates for Mussolini biographers? It’s not about whether you agree. it’s about whether you understand what the hero in question was trying to do, and what compelled him or her to do it. A moral perspective isn’t adequate to this task.

By: WeSaferThemHealthier

WeSaferThemHealthier — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 20:22:58 +0000

Jamie, Bertram quoted a passage that said people are disqualified from writing about X if they disagree with X. It goes a bit further than what you said. I ask again: Are Mussolini lovers the only viable ( as in, not disqualified ) candidates for Mussolini biographers?

By: jamie

jamie — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 20:08:21 +0000

Chris: There’s a bit in the Songlines where Bruce Chatwin compares the major points of Guevara’s career to the tale of Beowulf and finds them almost identical in structure. Chatwin puts this down to primeval longing for the nomad state. He seems to put most things down to such longings, though. More generally, I’m surprised that so many people seem to be shocked by Chris’ point. Obviously, you can’t look at a claim to transcendence from a narrow rational/moral perspective to fully understand it, whether you agree with it or not. Liberal universalism seems so infantile at times…

By: dsquared

dsquared — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:54:11 +0000

David and “asq”; if you are lost for words, there is always the option of shutting up.

By: mona

mona — Sun, 10 Oct 2004 19:42:40 +0000

Maybe it’s a cultural barrier thing? I had this feeling when reading this comment from carlos on Yglesias: “I think Berman is pissed off that, despite everything that has happened since the sixties, Ché is still a loved figure (at least in Latin America). ¿Maybe instead of ranting about it in movie reviews he should travel here and try to figure out why?” But how could anyone who thinks what Chris or Matthew wrote is “inexplicable” be interested in figuring out why the Ché is so loved? How could they be interested in a film that tries to explain some of that?