ATDTDA tangent Durkheim

mikebailey at speakeasy.net mikebailey at speakeasy.net
Sat Aug 25 07:56:23 CDT 2007


Mark and Dave were discussing earlier this month 
that Durkheim might have been on Pynchon's reading list

Besides having a cool name, and inventing sociology,
I found this out about 
Emile Durkheim from Wikipedia:

"France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War 
had created a backlash against secular, republican 
rule and many considered a vigorously nationalistic 
approach to rejuvenate France's fading power. Durkheim, 
a Jew with a sympathy towards socialism, was thus in 
the political minority, a situation which galvanized 
him politically. The Dreyfus affair of 1894 only 
strengthened his activist stance."

-- we need him now - America's defeat in the Vietnam
War has created a backlash against secular, 
(small r) republican rule and many [are] consider[ing] 
a vigorously nationalistic approach...

(no fooling, we could use more kindly people
in general with at least a sympathy for the
motives and goals of socialism, 
if only to balance out the neo-cons
and their "culture of hate")






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