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Go Home I Am Appalled That TNR Has Published Why Some Nobody...

THE SPINE MAY 8, 2010

I Am Appalled That TNR Has Published Why Some Nobody Doesn’t Want Elena Kagan Nominated To The Supreme Court

BY MARTIN PERETZ

This nobody who is suddenly somebody is Paul Campos. He is a professor of law at the University of Colorado. Other than being an unremarkable law professor, he is known largely for trivial interests: obesity, the personality of judges, the origins of the chicken sandwich, the Notre Dame football team. He has also shown some knack for interdisciplinary work. For example, he wrote a piece, “Fat Judges Need Not Apply,” for the Daily Beast, which, as you know, is a very serious journal. But don’t underestimate Campos. He also writes a weekly column for the Scripps Howard newspapers, a chain I hardly knew still existed. Do you want the full story on this silly scholar? Take a look at his bio on Wikipedia.

He has two arguments against President Obama’s impending nomination of the present solicitor general Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. The first is quantitative. How much has she written? Well, apparently she hasn’t written nearly enough for Campos. And certainly not in relation to his two favorites for the post. One is Stanford Law School’s Pamela Karlan, the Judith Butler of the legal academy, which is to say on the far left of the trade. Her qualifications include the fact that she has written more than 100 papers. Then there is Harold Koh, former dean of the Yale Law School and now legal adviser to the State Department. He also has more than 100 papers on his C.V. One problem with him is that he probably couldn’t get past even the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Of course, but if the main qualification for Supreme Court candidates is to be the volume of writings, the shoo-in would be Cass Sunstein, who has written several hundred articles (including many for TNR) and more than 20 books. By this standard, Cass should have two seats among the Supremes. In fact, maybe he should have two seats even by other standards.

The fact is that Campos is not sure of Kagan’s politics. She may just not be “progressive” enough for this portentous guardian of the judiciary. Isn’t it enough that President Obama, who is clearly satisfied with her performance as S.G., will send her name to the Senate? As Campos admits, most people on the left are roughly comfortable with her politics. And everybody admires her character. I’ve only met her a few times at Cambridge events. She is a brilliant conversationalist ... and very funny, besides.

OK, this is not exactly a qualification. But it is very much to the president’s credit that he is not putting up as the Stevens replacement someone who has basically signed on the dotted line.

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114 comments

Cass Canfield? Who in the world is Cass Canfield? The only one I know of has been dead for 24 years, (although sitting next to Thomas would still likely be the more lively of the two) I like Cass Sunstein, and if you are talking about Cass Sunstein I heartily agree, but good lord can't you at least get someone to proofread your writing?

- blackton

May 8, 2010 at 4:49pm

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blackton is probably right, and I hope Marty was a little tipsy when he wrote the above post. He must have been since he said something positive about Obama: "But it is very much to the president’s credit that he is not putting up as the Stevens replacement someone who has basically signed on the dotted line."

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 5:04pm

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Btw, I think that Kagan if confirmed will replace Stevens as well as justice Ginsberg who will probably be retiring soon also. She is very ill and 77 years old.

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 5:09pm

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Paul Campos's bio on Time states: -- A magna cum laude graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where he was editor of the Law Review Professor Campos joined the University of Colorado faculty in 1990. His academic articles and essays have appeared in the nation's top legal journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the Michigan Law Review, and the California Law Review. In 1995 he was named the first director of the Byron R. White Center for American Constitutional Study. Among other awards and honors, Professor Campos was recently named "Best University of Colorado Professor" by the Colorado Daily. I doubt Martin Peretz's bio would amount to much more than a sentence. The fact is that Campos is a "nobody" precisely because that is how Martin Peretz regards anyone not in his "circle" of glitterati. I suspect that had James Kirchick, for example, published this article on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal Martin Peretz would be linking to it and praising his early genius.

- ndmackenzie

May 8, 2010 at 5:15pm

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Muckenzie’s resume would look something like this: BA university of Bristol with a major in PLO studies MA university of Tripoli Thesis: ‘A comparative study of Grand Mufti, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini and Mohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini” (never published). Employment: Office of PLO propaganda, division of website misinformation.

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 6:00pm

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By the way, while I like Sunstein, he has written way too many controversial things that I don't imagine will ever get nominated. It will probably be Kagan then Diane Wood to replace Ginsburg. It would be interesting to see what would happen if Scalia (74) or Kennedy (73) keeled over or retired due to illness, if Obama would go for a far more moderate justice or go for broke and appoint another Liberal. I also don't like the elitist tone of Marty calling somebody a nobody. I have no problems with his disagreeing with Campos, but damn, calling somebody a nobody is offensive. At which point do we start to exist in his eyes, is it based on how much money we have? Fame? Does he want his readers to view him as an insufferable old fool? And the worst thing is I agree with his criticism of the article. Let me also say what I like about TNR is the fact is it does publish articles I disagree with, either to the left or right, so I really don't understand why he is so angry about the best feature of the magazine.

- blackton

May 8, 2010 at 6:02pm

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jackson: "Marty was a little tipsy..." most likely enraged to discover he was drinking A.J. Canfield's diet chocolate fudge soda instead of his usual Yoo-Hoo while reading John Yoo's torture memo. Yes, surely he meant Cass Sunstein. "...Kagan if confirmed will replace Stevens as well as justice Ginsberg..." Is that a two-fer? or do you mean that Obama's nominee when Justice Ginsburg retires will be a white Protestant male veteran who is secretly a liberal? if it is Kagan, I assume Obama's true agenda is to lock-up the slightly overweight single women's vote for the midterms...unless Ms. Kagan drives a Saab, which was the clue to Sonia Sotomayor's real demographic appeal :) Harold Koh would be a fun nominee. The hearings would be a schizoid bounce between "Manchurian Candidate" and the New World Order conspiracy theory. C-Span would beat American Idol.

- K2K

May 8, 2010 at 6:03pm

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jdyer writes: -- Muckenzie’s resume would look something like this: -- BA university of Bristol with a major in PLO studies By most accounts Bristol University is one of the best universities in England. I suspect jdyer isn't bright enough to be admitted as a student in any subject.

- ndmackenzie

May 8, 2010 at 6:04pm

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"I Am Appalled That TNR Has Published Why Some Nobody Doesn’t Want Elena Kagan Nominated To The Supreme Court" It's proof of TNR's worth that it contains both Campos's and Peretz's conflicting articles on the same day. And as TNR's editor-in-chief Peretz shows his deep commitment to a genuinely democratic conversation. Not that such principles deserve a special accolade but it's nice to see, from time to time, how this exercise takes place in front of our very eyes. BTW, I consider a lively and articulate sense of humour as a real marker of high intelligence and, if I may be so bold as to suggest, a certain wry affection for human weakness which cannot be a bad thing in a judge whose opinion is often also a sentence. "Judge Weaver: One judge is quite like another. The only differences may be in the state of their digestions or their proclivities for sleeping on the bench. For myself, I can digest pig iron. And while I might appear to doze occasionally, you will find that I am easily awakened, particularly if shaken gently by a good lawyer with a nice point of law. " ("Anatomy of a Murder" 1955)

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 6:04pm

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jackson, funny that.

- blackton

May 8, 2010 at 6:05pm

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the more I think about it, the act of nominating Harold Koh to SCOTUS might actually cause numerous deaths from sudden stroke or heart attack, starting with Scalia. I wish the State Department would unleash Harold Koh on the U.N.

- K2K

May 8, 2010 at 6:09pm

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ndmackenzie's very weak comeback proves the value of a real sense of humour. He answers wit with petulance and deludes himself that it is interesting in any way. Well, it IS interesting, in so far as it can serve as an illustration of the difference between a joke and asininity.

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 6:13pm

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Peretz could have made his case without either slagging Campos or misstating parts of his brief piece. And I believe he is "appalled"-as the title of his post says--which marks him absurdly pathetic. It is no tribute to Peretz to say that his post and Campos's appeared on the same day. What's appalling is that Peretz's certitude can brook no dissenting voice, and a not unreasonable one from someone much better placed to sound it at that. Peretz's post is so pathetic that to try to rationalize it, even as a joke, by suggesting he had too many brandies for his mid day snack--"Cass Canfield" --is actually to try and do him a pathetic favour.

- basman

May 8, 2010 at 6:47pm

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With respect to the question of calling someone a 'nobody' in a public venue, specifically in the journal which you own and which has published an articule by that individual: I watched the movie "The Damned United" a couple of days ago, about the famous English soccer manager Brian Clough (played by Michael Sheen from "Frost/Nixon"). In a scene where he's breaking up with his business partner of many years Peter Taylor, they have a shouting match over who has really been the strength of their two-man team. Taylor yells at Clough that he's 'nothing.' Clough screams in response "Nothing? I'm nothing? If I'm nothing what does that make you? Nothing's parasite?"

- ironyroad

May 8, 2010 at 6:58pm

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"With respect to the question of calling someone a 'nobody' in a public venue" there is this rumour about Churchill that he said this about Attlee: An empty taxi arrived at 10 downing street, and when the door was opened, Attlee stepped out. Of course one can forgive a multitudes of sneers if they come wrapped up in Churchillian wit. Marty ought to remember that. You can say whatever you want as long as it is witty and elegant.

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 7:50pm

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I mean, nobody would have have minded if Marty's "nobody" insult were done with some polish and genuine malice. Instead he resembles the classical, mumbling, always disgruntled mother-in-law.

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 7:54pm

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-- An empty taxi arrived at 10 downing street, and when the door was opened, Attlee stepped out. And Churchill got into the taxi and closed the door while Atlee walked through the open doors of 10 Downing Street having trounced Churchill in an election that changed the face of Britain.

- ndmackenzie

May 8, 2010 at 8:05pm

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"And Churchill got into the taxi and closed the door while Atlee walked through the open doors of 10 Downing Street having trounced Churchill in an election that changed the face of Britain." Atlee was a poor plastic surgeon and we can the results when one looks at the “face of Britain” today.

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 8:29pm

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"...when one looks at the “face of Britain” today." Beauty in the eye of beholder. And when the beholder is ndmackenzie, we can only imagine, with a twinge of horror, what kind of beauty his eye beholds. Does anyone wonder here that he expresses contempt for Churchill?

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 8:37pm

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-- Does anyone wonder here that he expresses contempt for Churchill? The people expressing contempt for Churchill are those putting stupid comments in his mouth.

- ndmackenzie

May 8, 2010 at 8:40pm

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noga1 "Beauty in the eye of beholder." A face expresses more than beauty.

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 8:53pm

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"The people expressing contempt for Churchill are those putting stupid comments in his mouth." NDMuck can’t stand too much reality. http://www.workinghumor.com/quotes/winston_churchill.shtml “A sheep in sheep's clothing (On Clement Atlee) A modest man, who has much to be modest about (On Clement Atlee)”

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 8:57pm

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Churchill by way of South Park http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IDTOg4DuCA

- ironyroad

May 8, 2010 at 9:02pm

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Family Guy, not South Park, sorry.

- ironyroad

May 8, 2010 at 9:09pm

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It leaves out the punchline: Lady: “Winston, drunk again I see” Churchill: “Madam, and you are a fat bitch. But in the morning, I shall be sober.”

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 9:21pm

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Bernadette: All Jane Austen, all the time. It's the perfect antidote. Prudie Drummond: To what? Bernadette: To life. from "The Jane Austen Book Club" movie just before the two hour power outage that has now tranisitioned into a dark and stormy night. I think Martin Peretz is not yet recovered from dinner with Samantha and Fern, and Cass what's-his-name? More from Winston Churchill: On Joseph Chamberlain's other son Neville, the Conservative Prime Minister 1937-40 and champion of appeasement of Nazi Germany, Winston had much to say. Here are some examples:"An old town clerk looking at European affairs through the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe" and "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour and you will have war." http://www.winston-churchill-leadership.com/churchill-quote-others.html

- K2K

May 8, 2010 at 9:35pm

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noga1 “It leaves out the punchline: Lady: “Winston, drunk again I see” Churchill: “Madam, and you are a fat bitch. But in the morning, I shall be sober.”” This is an old joke with more punchlines than Carter has little liver pills.

- jdyer

May 8, 2010 at 9:37pm

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hey jackson, and noga, here is Harold Bloom's book review of Anthony Julius' TRIALS OF THE DIASPORA: A History of Anti-Semitism in England http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/books/review/Bloom-t.html?src=me&ref=homepage with a bit on Shylock, de ja vu. no mention of ndmack :)

- K2K

May 8, 2010 at 9:41pm

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"a great poet indulging a prejudice he himself regarded as a cultural and religious argument. " What does he mean by this? That Eliot considered his own prejudice not a prejudice, but a kind of cultural and religious criticism? This paper by Shalom Lappin should be read in tendem with Anthony Julius' book: http://www.yale.edu/yiisa/workingpaper/lappin/Shalom%20Lappin%20YIISA%20Working%20Paper.pdf

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 9:56pm

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"This is an old joke with more punchlines than Carter has little liver pills." Your point being???

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 9:57pm

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irony: thanks for reminding me to put "The Damned United" on my Netflix queue. noga: I think Peretz is about to explode from the internal pressure of avoiding anything to do with Israel, Iran, or Syria since Mearsheimer's speech. so the comments descend into irreverence because the posts are like taking an acid trip in 1972 in order to watch the Watergate hearings. who knows? don't worry. be happy. the sky will fall tomorrow, the Dow will drop on Monday, the oil slick will devour the blue bayou on Tuesday, but next Friday, all will be well because Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett as directed by Ridley Scott will be in a movie theatre near me for 141 minutes.

- K2K

May 8, 2010 at 10:28pm

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Ay yes, the new Robin Hood. I'm in full anticipation, too. Only I noticed it was rated 13+ and I was hoping for a family viewing but my youngest is only 10. (Though much more mature for her age.)

- noga1

May 8, 2010 at 10:34pm

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My goodness, what is with the personal attacks on people. What exactly have you accomplished on your own with your own resources, MR Peretz?

- OscarPeck

May 9, 2010 at 12:00am

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Cass Canfield! Wow. Actually, the possibilities behind this funny mistake actually endear the old grudgeholder for me. Too many old fashioneds? Too potent dope? Too much chocolate? Whatever it is, it does appear to have an rather blatant link to human fallibility and hopefully this will humble the self professed brainiac a bit. And what happened to the heterodox pride that you used to have for tnr? To be honest, I would be interested in reading more varied articles on any Supreme Court choices. I usually know so little about them prior to the announcement and I sure don't know this Cass Canfield...

- MrCookie1

May 9, 2010 at 1:05am

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K2K -- I liked it, but it had less actual football than I thought it would. There are some scenes on the field, and some footage from back in the day, but it's more of a drama that unfolds in interiors. Sheen -- who is a total natural to play Clough -- is on his usual form, and Timothy Spall who plays his sidekick Peter Taylor, is really excellent.

- ironyroad

May 9, 2010 at 1:35am

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irony: Peter Morgan, who authored "'The Queen" and "Frost/Nixon", adapted the script for "Damned United", which is more than enough of a reason to add it to my Netflix queue. after all, Senate confirmation hearings no longer provide any gripping drama, so, must rely on the Brits, including director Ridley Scott. and Jane Austen :) How long before Peretz notices he turned Cass Sunstein into a WASP, i.e., Canfield?

- K2K

May 9, 2010 at 8:51am

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a valuable counterpoint to this weekend's ongoing debate over how to kill all the Taliban terrorists: William Dalrymple, author of the excellent "The Last Moghul" (covers the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857), offers the rarest of a NYT op-ed, a detailed historical comparison between today's US/NATO war in Afghanistan and the complete humiliation of the British in their first Anglo-Afghan War, from "The Ghosts of Gandamak": "...A week or so ago, while doing research for a book on the disaster of 1842, I only narrowly avoided the fate of my Victorian compatriots. ..." http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/opinion/09dalrymple.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

- K2K

May 9, 2010 at 9:26am

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Marty - drinking and typing, always risky business.

- WandreyCer

May 9, 2010 at 9:39am

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Peretz does this appall you by past association: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-04-19/elena-kagans-achilles-heel/ ?

- basman

May 9, 2010 at 11:30am

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Slightly longer context of Noga's cite from Bloom on Julius: ...An earlier work by Julius, “T. S. Eliot: Anti-Semitism and Literary Form,” impressed me as the only just and responsible treatment of Eliot’s polite hatred of the Jewish people. Admiring Eliot’s earlier poetry, Julius subtly demonstrated Eliot’s evasion of some modes of anti-Semitism while extending others. Eliot was not Ezra Pound or Wyndham Lewis, but a great poet indulging a prejudice he himself regarded as a cultural and religious argument... I haven't read Julius before but I think based on the floating snippets that Nogs is right if I am reading her right. For me part of the issue is the cultural deification of Eliot that emasculates appraisals of his anti Semitism to a cultural whim. My untutored sense is that that deification constrains Julius's and Bloom's ability to face Eliot's Jew hatred straight on--his "polite hatred...", for instance. In Shylock, on the other hand, we have an instance of tortured brilliance whose literary instincts--unrivalled on this earth--not letting Shakespeare completely get suborned by the stock figure of the Jew while wanting to write a romantic comedy. The play is valuably, and in my view unintentionally, schizophrenic for that, its failure as a play its redemption.

- basman

May 9, 2010 at 12:15pm

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Wandrey This does offer a new clue as to why for the past month or so, the Spine has been so incoherent and rambling.

- MrCookie1

May 9, 2010 at 12:22pm

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basman, you should read Julius, “T. S. Eliot: Anti-Semitism and Literary Form,”. I read many years a go so I'm working from memory but I do remember being impressed by Julius's argument that anti-semitism served as one of Eliot's muses. The book caused a mild storm of indignation at the time. Some said it was a prosecutorial case. It resonated with me exactly because Julius seems as impressed as I am by Eliot's poetic genius. Yet I always felt as if his antisemitic poetry was meant to exclude me from the circle of his would be readers. So when I read Eliot and enjoy his poetry I feel like an interloper, a gatecrasher. It is not a nice feeling. Shylock and Shakespeare do not make me feel this way at all. I am not at all angry with the play as Harold Bloom seems to be when he writes about it. BTW, Derrida wrote a very interesting exegesis of the Merchant: http://www.wehavephotoshop.com/PHILOSOPHY%20NOW/PHILOSOPHY/Derrida/Relevant%22%20Translation%3F.pdf

- noga1

May 9, 2010 at 12:35pm

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Noga, I never would have taken you for a Derridean deconstructionist.

- jdyer

May 9, 2010 at 1:37pm

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Goodness, jackson, why can't I find Derrida useful without having to embrace his entire philosophy? It so happens that in this particular case I agreed with his description of the competing ethoses (what's the plural of "ethos"?) but I completely disagreed with his conclusion that they were incompatible. In that respect you can label me a Nussbaumian compromisist, or contentious centrist.

- noga1

May 9, 2010 at 1:49pm

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noga1 “Goodness, jackson, why can't I find Derrida useful without having to embrace his entire philosophy?” You can. Many critics favor an eclectic approach. “It so happens that in this particular case I agreed with his description of the competing ethoses (what's the plural of "ethos"?)” Plural of ethos is ethoi but it is hardly ever used. I would just say “competing ethos.” “but I completely disagreed with his conclusion that they were incompatible. In that respect you can label me a Nussbaumian compromisist, or contentious centrist.” Ok, you can be a “compromist, “if I can become a “critiquist.” I just printed out the Derrida essay and will read it as soon as I can. Looking at the first few pages I had a sense of déjà vu ‘all over again.’

- jdyer

May 9, 2010 at 2:27pm

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Are you feeling better jackson?

- noga1

May 9, 2010 at 3:24pm

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I am still closing one eye to type. Thanks for asking, Noga. Waiting for my next cataract surgery; should know this Wednesday when it is to be.

- jdyer

May 9, 2010 at 3:29pm

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"Many critics favor an eclectic approach." Yes. The following recipe is popular: In a large bowl, mix J. Hillis Miller, Raymond Williams, and John Crowe Ransom. Add Helen Vendler, Ian Watt, and Harold Bloom to taste (if using Bloom, make sure you use early, fresh Bloom -- older Bloom can have an odd taste). Pour into an ovenproof dish and bake in a 375 oven. For the crust, mix 2 tbsp of Erich Auerbach, 2 tbsp of Jacques Derrida, and a twist of Kenneth Burke (use Edmund Wilson if Burke is not available). Spread over top for last five minutes of baking. Remove from oven after 45 mins. and let cool on a Rhetoric. Sprinkle with T.S. Eliot (remember to separate out the bitter parts first) Serves a small seminar group.

- ironyroad

May 9, 2010 at 4:09pm

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Okay here is the shorter version. I found a short article by Julius after his book on Eliot. Having read it I have a better understanding of the fullness of his argument but I still stand behind the point in my previous post: that Bloom—just based on his op ed—and Julius—based on his article—and while less so than Bloom, soften Eliot’s anti Semitism by virtue of the undeniable greatness of his art. As I note, of the two, Bloom is the worse offender. To repeat Bloom's damning sentence which you cited: "...Eliot was “…a great poet indulging a prejudice he himself regarded as a cultural and religious argument.” But to quote from Gerontion for example: “…My house is a decayed house, And the jew squats on the window sill, the owner, Spawned in some estaminet of Antwerp, Blistered in Brussels, patched and peeled in London…" For Julius, the greatness of Eliot’s art is part of a nuanced position: “…With great virtuosity, Eliot turns this material into art. He compresses anti-semitism into powerfully charged language, and thereby restores something of its menace and resonance. His poetry is one of anti-semitism's few literary triumphs… Eliot's anti-semitic poetry is deeply troubling. Writing my book, I was searching for a way of respecting its integrity while recognising its ugliness. I imagined a Jewish reader pushing one of Eliot's Jew-despising poems away, affronted. I asked myself, how can this reader be persuaded to return to it? I propose an adversarial stance. One maintains one's relation with the work, but argues with it. This is not a prosecutorial reading, but it is one that acknowledges the offence to the reader. It does not suppress the offence, or wish it away. But nor does it reject the work …” In relation to this: …The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot..." Julius is too full of double consciousness. I say that where Eliot in his poetry and other writings is so Jew hating, he should be indicted, prosecuted and judged guilty accordingly, with no guilty by explanation, no exoneration by reason of his artistry. As for Derrida and The Merchant of Venice, I looked at Derrida and as usual soon got exhausted by his prolixity, which damned up the river of my will to read him. . So I ask you to indulge me two questions: 1. Please give me, if you will, in plain language the Derrida For Dummies version of his argument: what is his core line of reasoning in relation to this play, all endless verbosity about translation to the side, and perhaps you could direct me to the page(s) and paragraph(s) wherein the heart of his argument about the play lurks? 2. As for this: “…Shylock and Shakespeare do not make me feel this way at all…” How do they make you feel given, for an example right at hand, Bloom’s admiration of Julius’s concise summation, “Shylock is an Englishman’s Jew — wicked, malignant but ultimately conquerable” even as Bloom tellingly departs from Julius in Bloom’s seeing the “…ultimate viciousness both of Shylock and of Shakespeare’s gratuitous invention of the enforced conversion, which was no part of the pound-of-flesh tradition….”?

- basman

May 9, 2010 at 4:44pm

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The Lower Case Jew --T.S. Eliot appears before the rabbinical court in Jewish heaven. The Prosecutor: T.S., I got to tell you the emes --Bleistein here, pardon the cigar-- remember me, palms turned out Chicago Semite Viennese? Like I'm some kind of ape? You didn't like my baggy pants- now I'm here to take your measure- To prosecute is drek, but I got assigned. You think God don't have a sense of humor? It's punishment for you, but also me. I have to read these stinking lines you wrote about the Jews. Exhibit A: The jew squats on the windowsill, the owner Spawned in some estaminet in Antwerp- Squats, what's the matter? Did you owe your landlord rent? And spawned-- like shrimp in a tank- or in some dank cabaret after hours two Jew toads humping on a table? And what about that lower case j ? You must have hated us to break the rules of grammar, most bank clerkly of Englishmen.. Still I got to admire your style, the classy way you built those lines. The sounds kick back and forth: "jew" and "spawned," "owner" and "Antwerp," "squats"! You've got a delicate ear. The w sounds kiss word to word before they stick in the craw. But the lower case "jew" that spawned them all, that I don't forgive. You were a poet, T.S. you shoulda known better, a guardian of the tongue. That lower case j was a country club sign: No dogs or Jews allowed-- to keep us out of the poem or make us stoop to enter: Now here comes Exhibit B: Rachel née Rabinovitch Tears at the grapes with murderous paws; Me I'm an ape, okay. Look what you did to poor Rachel. A raccoon you made her- that gorgeous girl with the dark eyes-- she's dead now fifty years... I remember you liked to watch her and the one in the Spanish cape. You peeked in through the barroom door in your bank clerk suit buttoned up tight clutching your umbrella handle. Premature dirty old man, did you dream Rabinovitch, a rabbi's daughter, would softly claw your grapes? If only you weren't so scared. If only you had known her. What a world of wonder she hid. You were drawn by what was under, and you were afraid too-- undersea, under skirts, the secret under-name, for the secret underneath where you thought you might drown: I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. Pardon the dime store Freud from a Chicago Viennese, but about yourself you didn't feel so good so you took it out on me and Rachel and Sir Ferdinand Klein. Was he the only phoney-- you fake English from Saint Louie, Missouri? Because you were ashamed that you liked to sniff around dirty bars, back alleys, looking for rolled up condoms on the ground testimony of summer nights. Hey, everyone's got a hobby. Sweet and dirty, high and low, Shakespeare and Dante in your ear slime in your eye, a stink in your nose. You liked to mix it up. London and Jerusalem, you called them unreal cities. Maybe what made those cities unreal was you never saw the people in them, just toads, raccoons, apes- and rats. For rats you had a special feel. A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank rats feet over broken glass, And here's Exhibit C: On the Rialto once, The rats are underneath the piles. The jew is underneath the lot. And that time in Venice a Jew got between you and a painting what did you see when you looked in his face? A lustreless protrusive eye Stares from the protozoic slime At a perspective of Canaletto, Protrusive eye? Protozoic slime? Canaletto? You should plant your head like a potato and grow your eyes under ground! Instead of rats, you could have had rachmonis, the love a mother feels in her belly, rachmonis, rachmonis- you could have felt for people like what you felt for rats. I rest my case. Defense: Sir Ferdinand, here for the defense. What Bleistein's done is most unfair. Excerpts, scraps, bits and pieces, The rest is here: http://www.corpse.org/archives/issue_11/poesy/kamenetz.html

- noga1

May 9, 2010 at 7:18pm

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at some point in the past four hours, Cass Sunstein dropped his Canfield alias. Peretz realized that T.S. Eliot was about to be nominated to SCOTUS??? Jackson, Glad to read your recovery is progressing well.

- K2K

May 9, 2010 at 7:21pm

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"...in plain language the Derrida For Dummies version of his argument: what is his core line of reasoning in relation to this play" In Shakespeare’s play, the MofV, we are presented by two seemingly mutually-exclusive ethical systems: Judaism, as represented by Shylock, and Christianity as represented by the Venetians. Literary critics claim that the real tug of war in this play is between Jewish legalism and Christian notions of merciful justice. Jaccques Derrida , after minutely analysing the progression and deterioration of the relationship between the Jew and the Christians in this play, concludes, similarly, that the crisis is due to the untranslatability between and mutual-exclusiveness of Jewish and Christian ethics. I accept his analysis but not his conclusion, that translation was impossible. On the contrary, it was possible but deliberately rejected by all. "How do they make you feel given, for an example right at hand, Bloom’s admiration of Julius’s concise summation, “Shylock is an Englishman’s Jew — wicked, malignant but ultimately conquerable” even as Bloom tellingly departs from Julius in Bloom’s seeing the “…ultimate viciousness both of Shylock and of Shakespeare’s gratuitous invention of the enforced conversion, which was no part of the pound-of-flesh tradition….”? The insertion of the enforced conversion was a departure from the story which served as source for Shakespeare MofV. It was not the only departure. You can learn a lot about the changes in time and how memory infiltrates language from comparing source and re-make. Any movie that has ever been remade tells you something about how times have changed, how new customs, conventions, ideas have become so different that an author, artist, creator feels the need to revisit a story from his end of the time. (Think of "You've got mail" and compare it to Lubitz's "The shop around the corner", for example). This is what happened to "Il Pecorone" once Shakespeare got his hands on it. He translated the story into his own time. Forcible conversion and its consequences were not a lived reality at the time that Ser Giovanni wrote his story. By the time the story gets to Shakespeare, 150 years later, the idea of forcible conversion of the Jews was no longer strange and absurd. It was part of the relatively recent history which Europeans, including Brits, encountered on a daily basis in the form of the conversos. It was not a "gratuitous invention". By the time Shakespeare wrote his play, this "solution" had already become part of contemporary landscape, the way, for example, the Holocaust changed the way people think of Jews and Jews think of Jews.

- noga1

May 9, 2010 at 7:22pm

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p.s. Be careful what you wish for: "...you can label me a Nussbaumian compromisist, or contentious centrist...” Nussbaum, a while ago, here: http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/stages-thought#comments Me, a while ago, here, being pretty anti Nussbaumian: "...I have my doubts about the idea that there is a way of reading Shakespeare that involves "doing philosophy" as such. Critical emphasis, Northrop Frye said, should be bear wise proportion to the emphasis in the poem. So the second of Ms Nussbaum’s criteria makes sense to me as it sounds like a good description of good old textual criticism. But the first and third of her criteria have me scratching my head. She does not want the plays to be mere springboards for philosophical discussion, or mere grist for argumentation, such that, once launched, the plays are left behind. But how does the philosopher discussing Shakespeare “really do philosophy” without either leaving the plays behind or without violating Frye’s dictum? For example, the nice sampled discussion of the differences between the young, world-transcending love of Romeo and Juliet and the contrasting of the mature, of-this-world love of Antony and Cleopatra seems to owe everything to close, thoughtful and perceptive readings of those plays and little, if anything, to the discipline of philosophy... And, so, the subject philosophers... read like literary critics, though interesting and perceptive ones to be sure. And I don’t see how it could be otherwise. The third criterion seems made up of whole cloth. And if her first criterion is faulty, the third, which I read as a complement to the first, makes very little sense. Why *must* anyone care about the plays? But that cannot be Ms Nussbaum’s question. Her question is: why should philosophers in the way of doing philosophy care about the plays; which is to ask, what in the plays helps philosophers fill in gaps in the ordinary doing of philosophy such that they help fill out the philosophical project? She has not satisfactorily answered that question; nor has she demonstrated by the discussions of Shakespeare she reviews that the question can be answered...."

- basman

May 9, 2010 at 7:23pm

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This is disgraceful.

- subterran

May 9, 2010 at 9:38pm

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I am appalled that the owners and management of TNR still let a crackpot like Marty Peretz post the latest emanations from his tin foil hat.

- gea1434

May 9, 2010 at 10:33pm

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You answered your own observation, gea1434 Peretz IS the owner of the New Republic

- OscarPeck

May 9, 2010 at 10:39pm

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I just perused the Derrida article. I had stopped reading him in the mid 90’s when he started to repeat himself. In this article too he made all the familiar moves. It was pretty boring going through it since I anticipated the Hegelian aufhebung ending. He said he was following Jean Hyppolite’s reading of Hegel which is too bad. Had he read Walter Kaufmann’s reading of the “Phenomenology…” where he translated the concept as “sublation” it might have worked better. His notion about translation didn’t impress me at all. Walter Benjamin’s essay which he was trying to outperform is still offers the best insights on the translation. I also didn’t think his application to the “Merchant…” worked all that well. (Derrida was not that good with readings of fiction. He always used the txt in order to exemplify some philosophical idea rather than offer a reading of the text on its own terms.) There are much better readings of the play. Ironically both Bloom’s Alan and Harold had deeper readings. I especially like Alan’s reading where he introduced the notion of a tripartite division in the play: in his view the Merchant is about the clash of three world views and not just a Christian world view that opposes a supposed Jewish world view which is actually a division within Christianity itself. To Bloom there is a third world: the classical Pagan world view exemplified by Portia in Belmont. Had Derrida paid more attention to Belmont in the play he might have seen it. Btw: I pity the crowd that had to suffer through his reading of the paper. I sat through one of them once and that was enough pour moi.

- jdyer

May 9, 2010 at 10:57pm

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NYT says Kagan's nomination will be officially announced at 10:00 a.m. on Monday. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/us/politics/10court.html I hope she drives a GMC pick-up truck, just to confuse everyone.

- K2K

May 9, 2010 at 11:51pm

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Noga, thanks for answering. I just got back here now for a moment. I'll try to respond a bit when I have a better chance, most likely after my day's work tomorrow.

- basman

May 10, 2010 at 1:40am

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btw: more that's APPALLING: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/04/15/kagan_as_solictor_general/index.html

- basman

May 10, 2010 at 2:24am

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I'd hardly call it appalling. It still leaves her with eight times the smarts of Clarence Thomas and one-eighth the smug assholery of Antonin Scalia. If we're talking about real stuff, I mean.

- ironyroad

May 10, 2010 at 2:55am

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To Marty's point, if we can generously pretend that he actually had one when writing this lymphatic discharge, if there's a chance that Kagan may be a Miers-like nominee, isn't it a good thing that the danger is aired sooner than later? Sooner because if it's true, better to find out now. And sooner because if it's not true, better to engage the debate now so as to be able to make the best possible case at the decisive moment of the confirmation debate. In either event, raising the question of Kagan's fitness now is a service to the president and to the country. And while I found Campos's thesis unpersuasive, the fact that Marty is not capable of making even a single substantive point to counter Campos beyond tipsily repeating, "But Campos is a douchebag," makes me wonder if Campos isn't perhaps onto something more than I at first understood. Campos makes a pretty thin argument; if he's wrong, it wouldn't take much to counter him. Marty doesn't even try.

- rhubarbs

May 10, 2010 at 7:39am

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Derrida was the most humane deconstructionist, the only one whose work has real value in fighting injustice. He speaks directly to the heart, good for you noga - great ref. I'm afraid TS Eliot makes me deeply uneasy.

- WandreyCer

May 10, 2010 at 8:01am

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Derrida's work has no value in "fighting for justice." One can use his methodology to deconstruct a just as well as an unjust text. Nor is his work applicable to mundane political issues as he himself admitted. Derrida used to talk about justice (he did so because Emanuel Levinas had challenged him on that point) but his comments were never supported by his system of deconstruction as Paul de Man and other deconstructionists knew. On the whole his system is amoral and apolitical. Those who claim otherwise either don’t understand his work or else try to mix in a good dose of wishful thinking and project their own morality unto Derrida’s texts. This doesn't make him a bad thinker, his early work is quite good, but it does limit its moral and political value.

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 9:45am

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"I'm afraid TS Eliot makes me deeply uneasy." If he makes you uneasy and makes me uneasy then this uneasiness ought perhaps to be looked at more closely. Because I don't remember you and I have all that much in common, politically speaking. I am always quoting Eliot's instruction that "Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry." It seems to be a plea for not presuming the speaking voice in his poems to be one and the same as the poet himself: " No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. " It addresses exactly that sort of unease, and even re-enforces it, because these lively antisemitic images are embedded in his poems co-exist with his unpoetic productions as he declares things like:"What is still more important [than homogeneity of culture] is unity of religious background; and reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of freethinking Jews undesirable." So how am I, one of his undesirable thinking Jews, supposed to read his poetry? Perhaps Ben-Gurion's schizopherenic* dictum would do here, read "Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar" as if there were no "After strange Gods", and vice-versa? * "We must support the [British] army as though there were no White Paper, and fight the White Paper as though there were no war." __________ As for Derrida, let me clarify again that I find his deconstruction theories useful as a method, not as a philosophy. In this case, it should also be remembered that it was Lawrence Venuti, a translation theorist, who translated the piece and also provided, if I recall, an preface. It's funny how exciting I still find these issues even years after I actually dealt with them academically.

- noga1

May 10, 2010 at 9:50am

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Apropo Derrida and injustice: As I read his analysis of Shylock's gradual moral disintegration, I was surprised at the levels of anger and resentment he allows himself to reveal, at the way the Venetians refuse to understand his point of view. In that, I consider him closer to Edward Said's take on Shylock (whom he appropriated for his own ends as merely an oriental character). He actually so identifies with Shylock's rejection of Portia's plea for mercy, that he even begins to speak as if he were Shylock. He fails to note how Shylock's refusal to forgive is much less motivated by Judaic legalism than it is by the earlier rejection of his own pleas for friendship by Antonio.

- noga1

May 10, 2010 at 10:02am

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...I'd hardly call it appalling.... I was twitting about it being "appalling".

- basman

May 10, 2010 at 10:03am

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Some may find this interesting: Jeff Goldberg is right on: “The Characteristics of English Anti-Semitism” “I've just finished reading Anthony Julius's startling and riveting book about English anti-Semitism, "Trials of the Diaspora," which concerns what Harold Bloom described in yesterday's Times as "the long squalor of Jew-hatred in a supposedly enlightened, humane, liberal society." It's a subject that's been of great interest to me lately, in part because we've been watching in real time as Great Britain's academic and intellectual elite turn comprehensively against Israel, even the existence of Israel, all the while claiming that the excoriation of the world's only Jewish state is not motivated by anti-Semitism, a claim Bloom describes as "humbuggery." Much of "Trials of the Diaspora" describes the deep tradition of English literary anti-Semitism, from Shylock to Fagin to Caryl Churchill, in a summary that leaves you wondering if it is possible for a properly-educated Englishman to avoid harboring certain stereotypical views of Jews, stereotypes and assumptions that manifest themselves in disproportionate hostility whenever Jews behave in ways the English find at all disagreeable.” http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2010/05/the-characteristics-of-english-anti-semitism/56441/

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 10:56am

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Jeff Goldberg also quotes from the following review of Julius’ book: “Anti-Semitism creeps back on to English lawns Charles Moore reviews 'Trials of the Diaspora’ by Anthony Julius and finds the author's vigilance justified.” “On the whole, however, Julius's vigilance is justified. He meticulously shows how anti-Semitism, as well as being what he well describes as "a false alarm", is also a permanent temptation. Like Jews in its own fevered imaginings, it is sly. It knows how to reinforce a feeling of superiority, or relieve a feeling of inferiority, or seem to provide an explanation for what is puzzling. It endlessly reinvents what it sees as a "problem", for which it can offer a "solution" – even a Final Solution. And because we English see ourselves as tolerant, we may be too lazy to notice when the mood changes. Julius establishes that it has changed greatly from when the critic John Gross, in 1963, felt able to write that anti-Semitism was now "little more than a minor nuisance". In the psycho-drama of Muslim dispossession, Israel fills a central role. In a weird ideological alliance with Islamism, the secular Left now tries to argue that Israel is an "apartheid" state. There are many criticisms that can justly be made of Israeli policy, but criticism of Israel is often quite different from that of other countries involved in violent political conflict. It is existential criticism. It is against the Jews – seeing them, yet again, as the problem. This is anti-Semitic, and it is growing here, like litter, as Julius puts it, on our English lawns.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7499355/Anti-Semitism-creeps-back-on-to-English-lawns.html

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 11:01am

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Israel is a legitimate country (Nice to see Israel is recognized as such unaminously by the OECD): from Sara Toth Stub at 9:58 a.m., WSJ. "...The 31 current member countries of the OECD unanimously approved Israel as a new member. ...Before the approval was officially announced Monday, Ghassan Khatib, spokesman for the PA's Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, said the OECD's vote on Israel was "premature because Israel needs to show its seriousness towards the peace process and international law in order to get such a privilege." Mr. Khatib said the PA government was in a weekly cabinet meeting at the time of the OECD vote, and would convene again after the meeting to discuss the decision. ..." sorry to interupt the Derrida discussion :)

- K2K

May 10, 2010 at 11:02am

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It's quite true as a generality that one can "deconstruct" a text in a just cause as much as one in an unjust cause, but I don't believe that a just cause will necessarily suffer from that deconstruction -- it may by way of some oblique movements even make it stronger, as, say, Nietzsche's dismembering of the assumptions embodied in Judeo-Christian notions of mercy and protection of the weak reminds us of the bone-headed contradictions and slimy hypocrisy involved in present-day American conservative "Christian" attacks on the Health Care act -- to the distinct advantage of Nietzsche, I'd say.

- ironyroad

May 10, 2010 at 12:05pm

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Jeffry Goldberg is a ZioNazi apologist who betrayed the United States of America the day he donned the uniform of a foreign army. He likes to think of himself as being the intelligent face of ZioNazism but the primary difference between Goldberg and Peretz is that Peretz married money that allowed him to own a magazine not be stuck writing for one. Goldberg has never met a critic of Israel whom he doesn't attack as an Anti-Semite. He is a deeply ignorant man utterly unaware of his own militant bigotry. M.J.Rosenberg is right to mock Goldberg as someone who doesn't stray more than a millimeter from AIPAC.

- ndmackenzie

May 10, 2010 at 12:08pm

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ndmackenzie “Jeffry Goldberg is a ZioNazi apologist who betrayed the United States of America…” Ha, ha, ha, I was waiting for this. Just a few weeks ago MUCkenzie was quoting from Goldberg’s blog to support one of his doubtful views. MUCkenzie is nothing if not a predictable antisemite. I am also touched that this British Jew hater should tell us who is a “traitor to the US.” This is very British. The Brits are the most disgusting antisemites in Europe today. Their brand of antisemitism is like the pre-Nazi era German one.

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 12:15pm

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ironyroad “It's quite true as a generality that one can "deconstruct" a text in a just cause as much as one in an unjust cause, but I don't believe that a just cause will necessarily suffer from that deconstruction –“ I am not sure this is correct. Firslty because most causes are just or unjust but have a mixture of justness and unjustness about them. This is one of the problems with deconstructions, it pretends that purity and consistency are paramount values. Derrida himself claims that to deconstruct a text is not to diminish it but “to place it in another register.” Still, this view hasn’t ben shared by his followers. After Derrida deconstructed Levi Strauss most of the structuralists in academia moved away from it. “it may by way of some oblique movements even make it stronger, as, say, Nietzsche's dismembering of the assumptions embodied in Judeo-Christian notions of mercy and protection of the weak reminds us of the bone-headed contradictions and slimy hypocrisy involved in present-day American conservative "Christian" attacks on the Health Care act -- to the distinct advantage of Nietzsche, I'd say.” I don’t find this comparison compelling, Irony.

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 12:24pm

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I am sorry I had to deal MUCkenzie's muck before I answered Irony. MUCKenzie is the poster child of British antisemitism and his protests against the charge are full of antisemitic tropes that show who and what he really is: a BRITNAZI.

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 12:27pm

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I thank Kagan is a wonderfull pick for the hight court. Good post Marty. She is I would say on the center left. Obama had had to go down the medel on this pick.

- NR105702

May 10, 2010 at 1:51pm

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Marty's has a unique editorial postion in publishing, as both owner and house blog troll. I like how the titles for his posts have gradually morphed into pure incitements, as if he's either not expecting anyone to read his post (and wanting to get the dig in while he for the moment has everyone's eyes) or like a little boy, he wants to get right to the fun part, without all the boring editing, titling, etc. Either way, I get a kick out of it. He clearly generates, by far, more reponses posts than any other writer in tnr.

- rufus2fus

May 10, 2010 at 2:57pm

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I can't do compelling in every single post, JD. But I agree that the question of "diminishment" is crucial to this discussion. If deconstruction (which I think has to be seen as something more than close critical reading) is a way of showing how (a) ordering principles are required to make meaning, and (b) those ordering principles are themselves embedded in the process meaning-making, then the very idea of an objective point outside of "text" (in the broadest sense of script or locution) from which such meaning can be evaluated simply cannot be upheld. It then becomes a very sensitive issue whether or not that procedure has diminished meaning (and even the meaning of meaning) or whether it has placed it in a new "register" with less inherited credit but more exciting possibilities.

- ironyroad

May 10, 2010 at 3:39pm

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I haven't read Peretz's blog in so long, I forgot how nasty, mean-spirited and petty he is. Thank Allah that he is sequestered here so that I may most efficiently continue to ignore his rantings.

- Tilghman

May 10, 2010 at 4:12pm

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ironyroad, I agree with most of what you said. However, not this: "It then becomes a very sensitive issue whether or not that procedure has diminished meaning (and even the meaning of meaning) or whether it has placed it in a new "register" with less inherited credit but more exciting possibilities." It's sensitive because deconstruction can be and has been used in nefarious causes such the denial of historical events. That Derrida himself didn't go there (some say that his friend de Mann did) doesn't mean that he didn't open the floodgates of historical revision and denial. I understand why some readers found Derrida work exciting; I did too at one time. Then, I found myself anticipating his programmatic conclusions and decided that one could build a computer to deconstruct texts. The same thing happened when I looked at his essay on Translation/Merchant of Venice.

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 5:02pm

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Noga: I haven’t thought hard about The Merchant of Venice in a very long time. I had a set of views about it when I first read it and studied it. Occasional attendances at its performances over the years have tended to deepen what I first thought and how I first responded to it. If what you say Derrida says in his, for me, unreadable essay is what he says, then all that mind boggling verbiage has served no useful critical purpose that I can make out. For if all that all of that goes to is the “untranslatability” of “two ethical systems”, he has, to my mind, said nothing of any interpretive penetration. I reject any reading of the play that does not see Shakespeare’s subversion and explosion of the “two ethical systems”; and to say only that they are necessarily incommensurate—which necessity I understand you not to agree with—is, I am sorry to repeat, to gain no purchase on what the play means, what view of the world, what view of the condition of men's and women's lives in the world and the reasons why, it dramatizes. Moreover, I cannot see a “progression and deterioration of the relationship between the Jew and Christians in this play” as the impetus of its dramatic structure. That deterioration is set from the beginning. Barely ostensibly, Shylock at the near end—another Act follows—is redeemed by his conversion; and ostensibly, not so barely though, Christianity is seen to be triumphant in the generosities that abound in the ways of material gifts and romantic love. For an example, you speak of Shylock’s moral degeneration. I’d contend there is none. His intentions are hatched and set by the terms of his loan as writ in his bond with Antonio. He does not depart from those intentions until he is forced to at play’s near end. Wherein exist, even as a matter of scant outline, the steps of this degeneration? Almost finally, for now at any rate, you say you agree with Derrida’s analysis but not his conclusion, that a “translation was possible but deliberately rejected by all”. On no level of reading this play, can I make any sense of this if I understand it. How do you see that “translation” as a possibility given the play’s themes and the play’s terms? Now it may be that out of concern for my intellectual plight you have chosen to give me a watered down version of Derrida’s argument in order to spare me the agony of trying to understand its complexity. But I believe I can deal with whatever that complexity is, if it’s in fact more than what you say—which it would have to be for all his endless prose. What I can’t deal with is his writing, which is why I asked for the essence of his argument as a matter of plain speaking. Finally, for now, your comments about the forced conversion are interesting and so forth but don’t address my question, if you care to answer it, about how the play’s ending makes you feel, unless you find it dramatically satisfying. I don’t and come back to my original comment about Shakespeare’s creation of a predominant character in Shylock which the play’s world of romantic comedy cannot contain. He rips it apart by his force, passion, intellectuality, ferocity and complexity such that all else seems hollow and empty beside him, including the ending, rather than the traditional social resolution of comic integration. That’s at least how I am made to feel by the play when I see it performed and when I reread it.

- basman

May 10, 2010 at 7:01pm

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"I asked for the essence of his argument" I hate so say this basman, but from anything I've read or anything I know about Derrida's writing, an "essence" is precisely what an argument never posesses.

- ironyroad

May 10, 2010 at 7:29pm

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"...don’t address my question, if you care to answer it, about how the play’s ending makes you feel, unless you find it dramatically satisfying." I'm less interested in feeling "dramatically satisfied" at the end of the play. I'm much more interested in the play as a sort of a moment in time when certain historical denouements and forces converged to create this combustion in the harmony of multicultural Venice. According to Derrida it had to do with irreconcilable interpretations of justice. What I learned from Derrida was the way he engages with the characters as if they were real persons. He is right there in court, responding to Portia, and explaining Shylock's intransigence. He addresses the forced conversion only as a way to illustrate Portia's bad faith in making that speech about mercy tempering justice. But let me say just this: if you consider the play to be a failed comedy (as I do) and Shylock a tragic hero who has wandered into the romantic comedy and by his very presence forbids the mending of discord from happening, then the end is very satisfying. I don't necessarily think this was Shakespeare's intent but this is the play he left behind and the problematics of the play are what makes it so interesting and relevant. "Relevant" btw is very important for Derrida in this article. For the subject is what makes a translation relevant. What makes justice relevant? So what makes MofV relevant today? Is it the romantic comedy? Or Shylock? I know most audiences who want to see a romantic comedy are disappointed that they are prevented from feeling so happy for Bassanio and Portia, beautiful, young, rich and secure as they are, exactly because they don't know what to feel about Shylock. That makes many people resentful. Like wearing an itchy cashmere sweater. I'm pretty sure I'm not answering any of your questions. I would if I fully understood what they are.

- noga1

May 10, 2010 at 8:28pm

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irony: nice aphorism about Derrida, but doesn't he simply impose a Marxian concept of the "superstructure" onto language? A specific context for a word in a phrase, and an always-already cultural context determined by power structures for the meaning of that phrase?

- icarusr

May 10, 2010 at 9:05pm

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Noga are you writing a thesis on the figure of Shylock in "The Merchant...?"

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 9:26pm

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I put the project on hold for the time being. Family concerns having more urgent demands on my attention.

- noga1

May 10, 2010 at 9:37pm

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Thanks, Noga, if I were working on a book, I wouldn't discuss it online. Nor do I usually discuss with people the subject of their thesis since of necessity they would always be keeping something back. Best to discuss books and writers about whom one has no plans to write, hence Derrida is fair game.

- jdyer

May 10, 2010 at 10:01pm

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Right you are. Thanks.

- noga1

May 10, 2010 at 11:19pm

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ndmack wrote "Jeffry Goldberg..... betrayed the United States of America the day he donned the uniform of a foreign army." Can you explain to what you are referring?

- OscarPeck

May 10, 2010 at 11:30pm

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A thesis on the figure of Shylock: what deep end did I dive into? When you talk about Portia's bad faith in her mercy speech, you talk my kind of talk about the play. And there is a nice insight in the idea of Portia's speech about mercy, and Portia herself, being, at bottom, merciless. All through the play high sounding notions are turned inside out. If Derrida engages with characters as if they were real people--and you had mentioned Nussbaum--there may be some analogy to Nussbaum's notion, as it was explained to me by my Nussbaum loving daughter, that judges need to be empathetic, need to put themselves in the shoes, the soles, of the parties who come before them--exactly the opposite of Portia as Balthazar toward Shylock at the trial. Save for what Derrida does as a dramatic kind of criticism as opposed to dull expository analysis, it all sounds misconceived both for literary critics and for judges. I agree with some of this: ...But let me say just this: if you consider the play to be a failed comedy (as I do) and Shylock a tragic hero who has wandered into the romantic comedy and by his very presence forbids the mending of discord from happening, then the end is very satisfying. I don't necessarily think this was Shakespeare's intent but this is the play he left behind and the problematics of the play are what makes it so interesting and relevant... It overstates it to say, I think, that Shylock is a tragic hero. As Kenneth Gross argues, paraphrasing G. Wilson Knight, unlike Shakespearean tragic heroes, Shylock has no cosmological resonance, "no surrounding forces that both sustain and expand word and consciousness of" a Hamlet, Lear or Macbeth, "that give them their breadth of relation, their diffuse generality." Part of his complexity and sheer predominance in spite of his limited actual presence in the play is a function of a kind of dramatic failure. He, I think, got away from Shakespeare whose humanizing, dramatic instincts made of him so much, much more than a stock figure that he bursts, and bursts out, of the play. It's dissatisfying, not uninteresting, because we are seeing, finally, a broken play, one does that not cohere, one in which the themes and seeming intent cannot dramatically coexist with, nor sustain, Shylock’s preeminence. As to your, Derrida's, questions about relevance, I find them as confounding as you seem to find mine of you. Once last word: I dissent from Jack's view that you should not discuss online what you are thinking of writing about academically. One reason is purely selfish: it gives a pisher like me a chance to learn something from somebody more steeped in, and learned, than am I about something that interests me a lot. Another reason is that if it were me writing about something academically, I'd see and welcome discussing it as a way of testing and refining my own thinking.

- basman

May 10, 2010 at 11:32pm

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basman "dissent's from Jack's view that you should not discuss online what you are thinking of writing about academically..." especially if you are writing about Shylock and Deridda in a TNR blogpost about Elena Kagan. on the other hand, you never know how the confirmation hearing questions can suddenly veer off the cliff into whether Kagan is a postmodern deconstructionist on the Constitution because some researcher found this thread on a Google search.

- K2K

May 10, 2010 at 11:46pm

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just kidding! no, not really. um, maybe that is what every SCOTUS battle is about: deconstructionist versus originalist???? hey, I am still kvelling over the unanimous vote for Israel by the OECD. Turkey and Sweden voted yes. Israel: the new Luxembourg! you know the rightwing is also pissed about the liberal fascism of Helvetica, the typeface? the hidden progressive agenda of PBS' Masterpiece Mystery programming?

- K2K

May 10, 2010 at 11:54pm

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NYT reports that, Elena Kagan is also "the literature lover who reread Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” every year. " "But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she hardly had a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes."

- K2K

May 11, 2010 at 1:15am

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oh dear, just finished the NYT profile. Upper West Side daughter of an lawyer-activist, and, at Princeton, "...She titled the thesis “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933,” and used the acknowledgments to thank her brother Marc, whose “involvement in radical causes,” she wrote, “led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.”..." Having lived in the grungier part of the Upper West Side for 14 years, my prediction is this is going to be one heck of a confirmation hearing based on her "life story".

- K2K

May 11, 2010 at 2:05am

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K2k: Not even the Republican Party will dare make an issue of Jane Austen. I mean, do you want to see Noga's shadow on your bedroom window with an axe? icarus -- I disagree about the "superstructure" notion, but I'm too far gone to think any rational thoughts at the moment. Maybe tomorrow.

- ironyroad

May 11, 2010 at 2:44am

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Irony, in 8" Red Eye is on. I can't wait to see who's in the "legs chair."

- basman

May 11, 2010 at 2:53am

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ironyroad's lurid imaginings: "I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild. ... Her hair so untidy, so blowsy!'' ``Yes, and her petticoat... six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office.''

- noga1

May 11, 2010 at 8:41am

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K2K: "... the hidden progressive agenda of PBS' Masterpiece Mystery programming?" I was pretty dumbfounded by the lurch into moralizing deconstructionalism in the most recent installment of "Foyle's War" in which I learned that WWII was fought in order to abolish racial segregation in the American South. Of the assortment of characters, American black soldiers and British soldiers are redeemed as noble comrades not only at arms but at peace-time as well, while the villains are American white soldiers behaving like simple-minded hoodlums.

- noga1

May 11, 2010 at 9:05am

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does anyone want to read Kagan's senior thesis “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933”??. I do, especially since Sean Wilentz was her advisor. Hopefully, Kagan will channel Elizabeth Bennet so well at her hearing that anyone voting against her will make Mr. Collins look good. noga: while I would love to turn this into a dialog about "Foyle's War", leave it to the study of history, where the U.S. military was highly segregated during WW2, and the attitude of many people in Britain, France, and Italy was indeed quite different from that of American troops, especially from the south, and especially when the black GIs dated local women. I guess it was a clumsy way of exploring the hypocrisy of Jim Crow America fighting a war to free the world from tyranny. New York City was de facto segregated. One big mistake in this episode was having characters like Sergeant Calhoun sound like he might be from New Jersey instead of South Carolina, with Private Gabe Kelly, allegedly FROM South Carolina, sounding like he was from Connecticut. The next episode "The Hide" includes the thread of British Nazi sympathizers, which will be very interesting since Anthony Horowitz wrote that script.

- K2K

May 11, 2010 at 9:58am

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"British Nazi sympathizers, " In one of the earlier and much more sophisticated and genuinely interesting episodes the subject was already tackled, with the once gorgeous Charles Dance as the polite Moseleyite agitator. I find the BBC does American in the same way it does Jewish but without the attendant anxiety.

- noga1

May 11, 2010 at 10:07am

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"The White Feather" in year 1 was a great episode. I loved it when DCI Foyle says to Guy Spencer (Charles Dance): "you are a liar, a thief, and a murderer."

- K2K

May 11, 2010 at 10:38am

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Basman "...and Portia herself, being, at bottom, merciless. " I tend to agree. Look how she mocks her earlier suitors, tortures Bassanio over the business of the the ring, makes short work of his friendship with Antonio, now that the latter is no longer in danger and Bassanio's debt to him had been settled, marginalizes Jessica... Not a pleasant sight and maybe the inspiration for CS Lewis's unkind portrait of possessive wives in "Friendship" (The four Loves)

- noga1

May 11, 2010 at 11:34am

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Agreed jackson - my experience of deconstructionism is that its mostly useless twaddle. But I do think that only Derrida seemed to understand at a visceral level that oppression is perpetuated by language. Only Derrida made the first bit of sense. As I recall, Philip Roth has several delicious essays and quotes pitilessly (natually, tis the Roth way) demolishing all deconstructionsm. I will try to find some of them. Despite his brilliance, TS Eliot's anti-semitism has always made my hair stand on end. There are so many other poets to relish (Rimbaud and of course the incomparable Whitman to name just two of my favorites), that I would rather skip Eliot. (What is with poets and their anti-semitism and tendency towards crippling depression? The Brits are hopeless). I've lived on the Upper West Side for 20 years and share most of Kagan's views (such as they are, tricky lady) and those of her delightful sounding family. I cracked up reading her background story in the NYT today. The Republican good squad is going to faint: Dissertations on American socialism! Radical politics! Upper West Side! Harvard Law School! She's unmarried and smokes cigars! This should be fun. She a quintessential Upper West Sider and I'm embarrassingly proud of her today. (Irony, may I please swipe "smug assholery of Scalia" from you?).

- WandreyCer

May 11, 2010 at 11:42am

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"There are so many other poets to relish " Yes, but then it's like saying: why do you love that particular person? Or why is he your best friend? Here is one reason: The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter, It isn't just one of your holiday games; You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. First of all, there's the name that the family use daily, Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James, Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey-- All of them sensible everyday names. There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter, Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames: Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter-- But all of them sensible everyday names. But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular, A name that's peculiar, and more dignified, Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular, Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride? Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum, Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat, Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum- Names that never belong to more than one cat. But above and beyond there's still one name left over, And that is the name that you never will guess; The name that no human research can discover-- But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess. When you notice a cat in profound meditation, The reason, I tell you, is always the same: His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name: His ineffable effable Effanineffable Deep and inscrutable singular Name. My daughter loves "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats". Why should I deny her that pleasure?

- noga1

May 11, 2010 at 12:02pm

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Wandrey -- be my guest. Noga -- just watch where that blade is going, ok? :) basman -- Huh? Does not compute (but don't explain it if that will kill a joke you enjoyed yourself, dude!) K2K & Noga -- I haven't seen any of the new "Foyle's War" series as yet but I saw a trailer for that "racism" episode. It does sound as if the idea was executed fairly ineptly, but there were in fact several startling incidents during the war in which British and black American soldiers ending up fighting (in a few cases with weapons) white GIs who were trying to kick black GIs out of pubs or suchlike. Often, these were reported on by African American papers but suppressed by the regular military press. And of course the sudden lack of any enforceable norm of sexual/racial segregation (eerily mirroring exactly that experience that black AEF soldiers had in France in 1917-19) infuriated many white Americans. The Brits, as Noga says, tend to do American like they do Jewish, but not with such oblique contortions. I find the standard transatlantic bullying meme always shows up on schedule even when there's no real need for it e.g. in the otherwise wonderful miniseries "Torchwood: Children of Earth" on BBC America last summer.

- ironyroad

May 11, 2010 at 12:09pm

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WandreyCer "But I do think that only Derrida seemed to understand at a visceral level that oppression is perpetuated by language." He didn't invent that notion, Wandrey. "Only Derrida made the first bit of sense." Yes, he makes "sense," but it is a limited philosophy; besides one would have to understand his concepts of "ecriture, "the arche-trace," "differance," etc. to being able to make sense of his "sense." "As I recall, Philip Roth has several delicious essays and quotes pitilessly (natually, tis the Roth way) demolishing all deconstructionsm. I will try to find some of them." If they are from "American Pastoral" I know them well.

- jdyer

May 11, 2010 at 12:26pm

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Re: TS Eliot, I haven't been following the exchanges all that closely, but I tend to agree with Noga that he was a despicable Jew hater, but some of his poems (and only some) are phenomenal. One of the first poems I memorized was his "Prufrock" poem.

- jdyer

May 11, 2010 at 12:31pm

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Irony, no solipsistic joke: Red Eye is on Fox at 3:00 a.m. hosted by Greg Gutfeld. On some nights, early mornings, when too much caffeine kills sleep, I watch it. It's often iconclastic and free wheeling and funny especially on Mondays (or Tuesday mornings) when the great Jim Norton is on. It's juvenile and low brow too. I like it. It's notorious for having good looking women on, sitting on an outside chair with camera concentraton on their legs. Last night was right on cue with the dim but gorgeous Courtney Friel. Your students probably watch it. Noga, your brief, succinct and telling comments on Portia are bang on the money. I have had it in mind for a while now to write something extended and critical, but not scholarly, for my own interest, on The Merchant of Venice. Maybe one day I will before my dotage is complete.

- basman

May 11, 2010 at 12:41pm

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basman, thanks -- a good tip. And there was I, thinking that only cspan-2 was worth it . . .

- ironyroad

May 11, 2010 at 12:54pm

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Simply delightful noga! Agreed jackson, Derrida didn't invent the notion but he's the only deconstructionalist who wrestled with it in such an explicit way and new way that I know of. He's certainly the only one with any heart and anything valuable to say. I found his work credible, especially compared to the rest of those writers, who were almost all silly. Yes yes, American Pastoral - he should have won the Nobel for that whole trilogy. Come to think of it, Philip Roth's entire oeuvre the last ten years has been an explicit repudiation of post-modernism, The Human Stain especially. He gave a speech to a group of french students after he published that novel. He became irritated with their questions, which all centered on concepts of deconstruction. I'll have to paraphrase because I can't remember his exact words but they were roughly "You all speak of nothing but what is happening on the scoreboard, as if that has meaning, it does not! You ignore the only thing that matters - the baseball game. Your questions are so far are rubbish."

- WandreyCer

May 11, 2010 at 3:50pm

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"Yes yes, American Pastoral - he should have won the Nobel for that whole trilogy. Come to think of it, Philip Roth's entire oeuvre the last ten years has been an explicit repudiation of post-modernism, The Human Stain especially." I did mean to write, "The Human Stain" instead of "American Pastoral," WandreyCer. Thanks for reminding me. It aint easy typing with one eye closed.

- jdyer

May 11, 2010 at 4:41pm

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For what it's worth, I've watched two episodes of Foyle and in my opinion they're just not as good as previous seasons. I found the black soldier show especially preachy. Also, a few years ago I reach a nice take-down of Eliot by Cynthia Ozick.

- MOLLYSIMON

May 11, 2010 at 6:40pm

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thanks, malahat, I'll find out tomorrow how soon they can deal with the other eye.

- jdyer

May 11, 2010 at 8:56pm

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a final point of controversy for Elena Kagan's confirmation hearing: she will be the fourth sitting SCJustice who grew up in New York City, although the only one who was a Zabar's regular :) Worth taking a look just to see the childhood homes of Scalia (Elmhurst, Queens); Ginsburg (Flatbush, Brooklyn); Sotomayor (Bronxdale Houses and Co-op City - neither of which is the South Bronx); and Kagan (75th and West End Avenue, UWS of Manhattan). The only thing missing is the Herman Wouk novel! "A New York Bloc on the Supreme Court" http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/nyregion/12newyorkers.html?ref=todayspaper

- K2K

May 12, 2010 at 1:15pm

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