The New Republic

Well, now, _that's_ appropriate... one superannuated reactionary lauding another. Larkin on low-albedo folks in Britain ("We don’t go to Test matches now, too many fucking niggers about...") is a little blunter than Peretz on Arabushim, but more or less in the same vein. But there's an even older poem that expresses both your sentiments, isn't there? You're both evidently so enamoured of the savage wars of peace... "Take up the White Man's burden-- Send forth the best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives' need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child...."

- SMacEachern2

January 2, 2010 at 10:23pm

Typical SMacEachern2 out of season nonsense. Here is something more pertinent: "Assassin shot in cartoonist's home has links to al-Qaida, say policeDenmark shocked by return of Islamist terrorism after 2005 storm over drawings of the Prophet Muhammad." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/03/kurt-westergaard-cartoon-muhammad-denmark Shocked, shocked, shocked? That Muslim Somali refugee would turn out to be terrorists, who would have thunk it. give me a break. Only the Mac people who are getting paid not to believe it would be tell you that it "ain't necessarily so."

- jacksondyer

January 3, 2010 at 12:31am

Your apologies for Peretz really do get a little pathetic, you know. He's getting all nostalgic for the Raj, and keeping the wogs in their place - the usual Peretzian stuff on TNR - and so you need to jump in, waving your hands and yelling... "Nothing to see here, folks! Move along!"

- SMacEachern2

January 3, 2010 at 7:17am

I see your pathetic attempt to whitewash Islamic terrorism by blaming everyone else for their murderous activities, I don't see Marty being nostalgic for the "Raj." I see him being nostalgic for fighting fanatical totalitarianism. You are out nostalgic for the policies of appeasement.

- jacksondyer

January 3, 2010 at 11:08am

SMacEachern2 Do you really believe that Peretz is nostalgic for some lost days of American colonial eminence based on his nostalgia for the loss of white racist privilege? Do you really believe Peretz cites Larkin's mordant poem in *homage* to that nostalgia? Do you really believe that Larkin's poem cannot be read as an indictment of great power cacooning itself in the face of threats to the ideals it professes? Do you really believe that Peretz didn't cite Larkin for something like that reason as he sees things? See: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704152804574628134281062714.html#printMode Finally, do you really think that it's necessary in taking issue with Peretz's citing of Larkin's poem or in taking issue with Ajami's op ed, which I do, to call Peretz, or Ajamai for that matter, or Bill Kristol who originally recently cited Larkin's poem old fart, colonial racists--"superannuated reactionary"? (Ajamai, a Kiplingesque, superannuated reactionary", really?)

- basman

January 3, 2010 at 11:58am

My comment got cut off with the link to Ajami. My last question to you is/was: "Do you really think it's necessary in disagreeing with Peretz, with his citing of Larkin, to call him, or Ajami for that matter, whose op ed is more rhetorical than real in my view, or Bill Kristol, who recently orginally cited Larkin's poem over what he thought was Obama's "dithering" over Afghanistan, old fart, white supremacist racists--"superannuated reactionary"? (Ajami, a Kiplingesque, white supremacist, really?)"

- basman

January 3, 2010 at 12:17pm

What I find a little odd is that we're really talking about withdrawing not only troops but also the British Crown as an executive authority from areas of the world that were part of the Empire. Larkin's poem therefore embodies something of an ideological feint: it pretends to be about military deployments but is in reality an exercise in imperial nostalgia. In our case, however, U.S. troops were never meant to establish an empire and indeed neither political party, once you get down to it, wants to suggest that the U.S. should retain sovereign power in either Iraq or Afghanistan or that foreign countries should have their national defense permanently linked to the presence of American soldiers. One might also note something else that Larkin elides from his poetic vision: that it hasn't been just the benificent gestures on the part of Britain that have brought about said departures, but also the often peaceful and sometimes armed struggles by nationalist forces (Ireland, Palestine/Israel, India, Malaya etc). That the poem is a screed and not anywhere in the same class as Kipling's "The White Man's Burden" (which is both more open in its racialism and more thoughtful in its sketch of imperial responsibility) is revealed by the speaker's pointless jibe about "Instead of working." Half-disguised class resentments rarely improve poetic quality. Kipling's ballad is, while imperialist and racialist, also sharp and poignant in a way that Larkin doesn't manage.

- ironyroad

January 3, 2010 at 2:05pm

basman: Larkin's poem can be read as mordant, if you like, or as an indictment of great power cocooning itself, but one might as well also read it in the context of his own ideals, notably expressed in _Philip Larkin: a writer's life_ and _Selected letters of Philip Larkin_. The bit that I quoted, or his 'greasy Arabs on the train', or ... 'Prison for strikers Bring back the cat Kick out the niggers How about that?' ...lend rather a less uplifting air to that poem that Mr. Peretz likes so much (while that last doggerel also touches on the class resentment that ironyroad mentions..). Makes it sound rather more like colonial nostalgia, doesn't it? I make no claims for Fuad Ajami nor even for Bill Kristol: neither posts on The Spine, as far as I know. Ajami's piece is notable more for animus toward the present American government and nostalgia for those heady days in Washington when the deaths of a couple of hundred thousand Iraqis were counted as nothing against the March Toward Democracy, but disregarding kilodeaths in the service of an ideal is not the sole province of colonial nostalgists. As for Mr. Peretz and such colonial nostalgia... Such nostalgia is most often about a time of unquestioned hierarchy, when the wogs (another word that Larkin uses quite a bit) knew their place, rather than about the nuts and bolts of colonial governance. The Spine is above all Peretz's forum for his musings about the failures of the lesser breeds - Arabs, Muslims more generally, Hispanics in the past, Inattentive Negroes (take note! Obama is becoming Attentive again!) and so on. Further, such nostalgia for a colonial past not their own is quite common among Americans - witness conservative writings in defense of apartheid South Africa from the 1960s onward. As for the 'savage wars of peace', the reason that I thought of Kipling's poem is that almost exactly three years ago, Peretz was waxing eloquent on this very forum about his 'exhilaration' at Christian Ethiopia's invasion of Muslim Somalia - putting more wogs in their place, and just across the sea from Yemen. A few more kilodeaths, and we all see how _that_ turned out, but nothing like a thumping little war to get one's blimpishness up, eh Mr. Peretz? So yeah, I think 'superannuated reactionary' works quite well in this case.

- SMacEachern2

January 3, 2010 at 6:55pm

With jackson spot-on personal criticism of me still stinging a bit, I do have to agree with irony and maceachern that this particular poem is a very peculiar choice. It is just not possible to cauterize political poems from the politics of the author and the author's time, reference set, and political stew that brought forth the poem. So, again, this is a very peculiar choice on the part of peretz.

- MrCookie1

January 3, 2010 at 9:40pm