• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

The Loneliness of Donald Trump

JackA

JackA

Banned
DP Veteran
Joined
Jan 5, 2016
Messages
6,917
Reaction score
2,930
Location
Richmond, VA
Gender
Male
Political Leaning
Liberal
Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump | Literary Hub

Beautifully written if a little long for the point she is making. The last paragraph is gold:



"The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and like Dorian Gray before him, will be devoured by his own corrosion in due time too. One way or another this will kill him, though he may drag down millions with him. One way or another, he knows he has stepped off a cliff, pronounced himself king of the air, and is in freefall. Another dungheap awaits his landing; the dung is all his; when he plunges into it he will be, at last, a self-made man."
 
There are people who have actually done things and there are people who haven't so they write about those who have.
 
bubbabgone said:
There are people who have actually done things and there are people who haven't so they write about those who have.
Click to expand...

Hence your posting.
 
ocean515 said:
Envy does stimulate the imagination of the pseudo intellectuals.
Click to expand...

Oh, Ocean, you and your defense mechanisms... If I plug my ears and say "la la la la la", the world seems to align very nicely to my opinions, too...hehe...
 
ocean515 said:
Envy does stimulate the imagination of the pseudo intellectuals.
Click to expand...

I didn't know who Rebecca Solnit was so before taking the link and checking her bio and employment history I worked up my own expectations based only on that blurb in the OP.
Some may say that was foolishly impulsive but it's funny how sometimes you can do that with certain people just by reading what they wrote ... right down to what they look like.
This was one of those times.
 
JackA said:
Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump | Literary Hub

Beautifully written if a little long for the point she is making. The last paragraph is gold:



"The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and like Dorian Gray before him, will be devoured by his own corrosion in due time too. One way or another this will kill him, though he may drag down millions with him. One way or another, he knows he has stepped off a cliff, pronounced himself king of the air, and is in freefall. Another dungheap awaits his landing; the dung is all his; when he plunges into it he will be, at last, a self-made man."
Click to expand...

I suspect it has a certain bias? Then no, I read too much of that bandwagon stuff.
 
OlNate said:
Oh, Ocean, you and your defense mechanisms... If I plug my ears and say "la la la la la", the world seems to align very nicely to my opinions, too...hehe...
Click to expand...

Can't resist commenting on my posts?

I've simply offered an opinion regarding pseudo intellectuals like the author highlighted in the OP. It's not defensive.

Perhaps the view from your self perceived lofty perch makes that difficult to see.
 
bubbabgone said:
I didn't know who Rebecca Solnit was so before taking the link and checking her bio and employment history I worked up my own expectations based only on that blurb in the OP.
Some may say that was foolishly impulsive but it's funny how sometimes you can do that with certain people just by reading what they wrote ... right down to what they look like.
This was one of those times.
Click to expand...

LOL

I did exactly the same thing. Never heard of her. Looked at her bio, and her "essential feminist" label, and drew my conclusion from that.

I wonder how much room there is on the loft perches such types occupy while observing the little people they think are below them.
 
ocean515 said:
Can't resist commenting on my posts?

I've simply offered an opinion regarding pseudo intellectuals like the author highlighted in the OP. It's not defensive.

Perhaps the view from your self perceived lofty perch makes that difficult to see.
Click to expand...

lol...just saying good morning, homie.... :) I like to come down from my lofty perch to visit my favs...certainly I would never *seriously* suggest that a post going up that is critical of your buddy, which you respond to by calling the author envious and a pseudo intellectual, is an example of your knee jerk defense mechanisms....only in jest, Ocean...only in jest... ;) haha
 
bubbabgone said:
There are people who have actually done things and there are people who haven't so they write about those who have.
Click to expand...
I know this doesn't fit some people's desired world view, but writing is "doing something", too. Not everybody's niche in contributing is the same, nor can it be.

And before you respond regarding the relative value of writing and 'doing something' somehow more valuable, ask yourself, "Shouldn't I be 'doing something' right now?"
 
bubbabgone said:
There are people who have actually done things and there are people who haven't so they write about those who have.
Click to expand...

People like Shakespeare, for example, or Hemingway, or in a lesser yet still accomplished way, Rebecca Solnit.

From Wikipedia:


Rebecca Solnit (born June 24, 1961) is an American writer. She has written on a variety of subjects, including the environment, politics, place, and art. Solnit is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, where bi-monthly she writes the magazine's "Easy Chair" essay.

Solnit has worked on environmental and human rights campaigns since the 1980s, notably with the Western Shoshone Defense Project in the early 1990s, as described in her book Savage Dreams, and with antiwar activists throughout the Bush era. She has discussed her interest in climate change and the work of 350.org and the Sierra Club, and in women's rights, especially violence against women.

Her writing has appeared in numerous publications in print and online, including the Guardian newspaper and Harper's Magazine, where she is the first woman to regularly write the Easy Chair column founded in 1851.
Solnit is the author of seventeen books as well as essays in numerous museum catalogs and anthologies. Her 2009 book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster began as an essay called "The Uses of Disaster: Notes on Bad Weather and Good Government" published by Harper’s magazine the day that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. It was partially inspired by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which Solnit described as "a remarkable occasion...a moment when everyday life ground to a halt and people looked around and hunkered down". In a conversation with filmmaker Astra Taylor for BOMB magazine, Solnit summarized the radical theme of A Paradise Built in Hell: "What happens in disasters demonstrates everything an anarchist ever wanted to believe about the triumph of civil society and the failure of institutional authority.

In 2014, Haymarket Books published, Men Explain Things to Me, Solnit's collection of short essays written about instances of "mansplaining." Solnit has been credited with coining "mansplaining," which has been used to refer to instances in which men explain things (generally toward women) in a condescending and/or patronizing way.

Solnit has received two NEA fellowships for Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan literary fellowship, and a 2004 Wired Rave Award for writing on the effects of technology on the arts and humanities. In 2010 Utne Reader magazine named Solnit as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World". Her The Faraway Nearby (2013) was nominated for a National Book Award,[16] and shortlisted for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle
For River of Shadows, Solnit was honored with the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and the 2004 Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology, which honors exceptional scholarship that reaches beyond the academy toward a broad audience. Solnit was also awarded Harvard's Mark Lynton History Prize in 2004 for River of Shadows. Solnit was awarded the 2015-16 Corlis Benefideo Award for Imaginative Cartography by the North American Cartographic Information Society
 
Very good read.

Thanks for sharing.
 
bubbabgone said:
There are people who have actually done things and there are people who haven't so they write about those who have.
Click to expand...

If you recognize it, one can only wish to have the ability to turn a phrase like the writer above.
 
JackA said:
Rebecca Solnit: The Loneliness of Donald Trump | Literary Hub

Beautifully written if a little long for the point she is making. The last paragraph is gold:



"The man in the white house sits, naked and obscene, a pustule of ego, in the harsh light, a man whose grasp exceeded his understanding, because his understanding was dulled by indulgence. He must know somewhere below the surface he skates on that he has destroyed his image, and like Dorian Gray before him, will be devoured by his own corrosion in due time too. One way or another this will kill him, though he may drag down millions with him. One way or another, he knows he has stepped off a cliff, pronounced himself king of the air, and is in freefall. Another dungheap awaits his landing; the dung is all his; when he plunges into it he will be, at last, a self-made man."
Click to expand...

Trumpkians will slam what they fail to understand. I suspect none of them will have a clue what this author wrote.
 
JackA said:
People like Shakespeare, for example, or Hemingway, or in a lesser yet still accomplished way, Rebecca Solnit.

From Wikipedia:


Rebecca Solnit (born June 24, 1961) is an American writer. She has written on a variety of subjects, including the environment, politics, place, and art. Solnit is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine, where bi-monthly she writes the magazine's "Easy Chair" essay.

Solnit has worked on environmental and human rights campaigns since the 1980s, notably with the Western Shoshone Defense Project in the early 1990s, as described in her book Savage Dreams, and with antiwar activists throughout the Bush era. She has discussed her interest in climate change and the work of 350.org and the Sierra Club, and in women's rights, especially violence against women.

Her writing has appeared in numerous publications in print and online, including the Guardian newspaper and Harper's Magazine, where she is the first woman to regularly write the Easy Chair column founded in 1851.
Solnit is the author of seventeen books as well as essays in numerous museum catalogs and anthologies. Her 2009 book A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster began as an essay called "The Uses of Disaster: Notes on Bad Weather and Good Government" published by Harper’s magazine the day that Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast. It was partially inspired by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which Solnit described as "a remarkable occasion...a moment when everyday life ground to a halt and people looked around and hunkered down". In a conversation with filmmaker Astra Taylor for BOMB magazine, Solnit summarized the radical theme of A Paradise Built in Hell: "What happens in disasters demonstrates everything an anarchist ever wanted to believe about the triumph of civil society and the failure of institutional authority.

In 2014, Haymarket Books published, Men Explain Things to Me, Solnit's collection of short essays written about instances of "mansplaining." Solnit has been credited with coining "mansplaining," which has been used to refer to instances in which men explain things (generally toward women) in a condescending and/or patronizing way.

Solnit has received two NEA fellowships for Literature, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan literary fellowship, and a 2004 Wired Rave Award for writing on the effects of technology on the arts and humanities. In 2010 Utne Reader magazine named Solnit as one of the "25 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World". Her The Faraway Nearby (2013) was nominated for a National Book Award,[16] and shortlisted for the 2013 National Book Critics Circle
For River of Shadows, Solnit was honored with the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism and the 2004 Sally Hacker Prize from the Society for the History of Technology, which honors exceptional scholarship that reaches beyond the academy toward a broad audience. Solnit was also awarded Harvard's Mark Lynton History Prize in 2004 for River of Shadows. Solnit was awarded the 2015-16 Corlis Benefideo Award for Imaginative Cartography by the North American Cartographic Information Society
Click to expand...

Yes, Rebecca wrote a lot, touched many Liberal hot button issues, and won awards for doing it.
And Barack Obama won a Nobel for talking.
Because of the same audience they both target, they both would fail your Shakespeare and Hemingway test.

I already looked at her bio and said this was one of those times you knew what you were dealing with without having to look.
She has quite a bio but it's shot through with the same perspective on everything she writes about.
And she wrote for all those sources because they have the same perspective, gave her awards for it, and that's why you liked this one enough to post it.
Nothing wrong with that.
It's the way things go.
 
bubbabgone said:
Yes, Rebecca wrote a lot, touched many Liberal hot button issues, and won awards for doing it.
And Barack Obama won a Nobel for talking.
Because of the same audience they both target, they both would fail your Shakespeare and Hemingway test.

I already looked at her bio and said this was one of those times you knew what you were dealing with without having to look.
She has quite a bio but it's shot through with the same perspective on everything she writes about.
And she wrote for all those sources because they have the same perspective, gave her awards for it, and that's why you liked this one enough to post it.
Nothing wrong with that.
It's the way things go.
Click to expand...

I suggest reading the piece, and then try to absorb what is being said. It's pretty good.
 
calamity said:
lol...I know what you covered alright.
Click to expand...

To be clear, I said I made my prediction based on the blurb before taking the link ... meaning, I then took the link and saw I was right.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom