Crackpot Realism

[Monte Davis]

Point taken. I was using "beacon of freedom etc." as sardonic shorthand for
*all* the arguments adduced within a globally crackpot-realistic framework
now 70 years old.

On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 11:45 AM, rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think that came after when they needed to justify the invasion w/o WMD
> found. I thought Cheney and co wanted to deter others by being aggressive
> and willing to use force. Remember the talk of taking out Assad? Even the
> Iranians. Seeing where we're at now one can help seeing the irony. We need
> Tehrans help against Isis and we want Assad to stick around.
>
> rich
>
>
> On Saturday, May 23, 2015, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Could be wrong, but I think sociologist C. Wright Mills coined "crackpot
>> realism" circa 1960 for the kind of pseudo-realpolitik thinking that, e.g.,
>> had the Bushies in 2002 envisioning Iraq as a beacon of freedom and
>> democracy for the Middle East.
>>
>> On Fri, May 22, 2015 at 8:57 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> In an online fragment of a book about some "modern writers',
>>> the (minor) novelist Melvin Jules Bukiet---one of whose books
>>> pays overt homage to GR, I remember---called writers like
>>> Thomas Pynchon CRACKPOT REALISTS long before Wood
>>> found his descriptive adjective for REALIST. @1995.
>>>
>>> Besides exaggerated "reality" in description and characterization, he
>>> found the use of coincidence
>>> and chance instead of true-to-life plot movements to be a major part of
>>> his meaning with the term.
>>>
>>> I like it better than HYSTERICAL REALISM (which shows Wood's
>>> bias via verbal associations of Hysterical.
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>>>
>>
>>
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