A Loaf and A Half

Page 33 March–April 2008 Taylor continued from previous page Enlightenment principles, particularly not empiricism . In fact, the opposite is true—empirical principles are founded on the enshrinement of doubt. One would think that, if anything, the valuation of direct experience and individual judgment over entrenched authority would fit right into Duncombe’s advocacy of an open and participatory political activism. It would seem instead that Duncombe’s beef is not with empiricism per se but with scientism, which abuses are indeed rampant. Not that you’ll see such distinctions made here. This kind of ahistorical misrepresentation and breezy dismissal of Western intellectual history is rife throughout Dream, and the misapprehensions behind this stance are responsible for most of the book’s weaker arguments. Duncombe, in fact, spends little time supporting his thesis that liberals have lost ground as a result of trying to be too reasonable in their opposition to a “shock-and-awe” right-wing. Perhaps this is because the concept doesn’t survive examination. To accept this narrative, one must believe that the decades-old stereotype of the “bleeding-heart liberal” never existed, and that “Hollywood liberal” is a term of affection rather than disdain. The fact that the modern conservative movement, from William F. Buckley and Barry Goldwater, through to Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and even Newt Gingrich, gained ascendancy by selling themselves as defenders of Enlightenment principles—however disingenuous their claims truly were—would seem to suggest that the concept, far from being outdated, has great resonance with the mainstream. Consider, for instance, George W. Bush’s early campaign advocacy of “strict constitutionalism” as a criteria in the selection of Court Justices; this was a defense of precisely the kind of drab, cool reasoning that Duncombe accuses the Democrats of using to their own detriment. Have not liberals for decades been, instead,the“barbariansatthegate”intheconservative narrative? On what basis does Duncombe assert that Paris Hilton and celebrity gossip resonate with a majority of Americans? All of these suppositions remain unexamined in Dream, which reads as if its author saw no distinction between the products consumed and the people who consume them. His approach is almost archeological—“the people” are studied through their artifacts. While an entire chapter is devoted to a sociopolitical analysis of the video game Grand Theft Auto, the voice of the demos outside of the author’s own urban, activist milieu barely makes an appearance. In the end, one comes away from Dream with a genuine sense of possibility, tainted with a heavy dose of skepticism. That progressives need to rediscover the language with which to address the popular “dream” is a position hard with which to find fault. But in the journey from the abstract to the specific, my fear is that Duncombe takes things in entirely the wrong direction. The theatrical activism that he advocates, while bracingly effective in certain settings, has also arguably discredited the Left in the eyes of the mainstream. In an era in which the public, Left and Right, is clearly hungry for both recognition and an empowering comprehension of the world around them, one might reasonably hope for something nobler than more effective advertising and “happenings.” Is it not possible that the rapid expansion of Internet activism—which compliments its idealism with factual and analytical discourse—is a sign that Enlightenment principles are ready for a comeback? Might not the Internet, oddly absent from Duncombe’s discussion, have the potential to democratize the Enlightenment as has never been done before? Now that would be a dream come true. Andrew S. Taylor is the associate editor of the online literary magazine Menda City Review. His short stories, articles, and essays have appeared in numerous publications. Skinner continued on next page a Loaf and a haLf José skinner the savage Detectives Roberto Bolaño Translated by Natasha Wimmer Farrar, Straus and Giroux http://www.fsgbooks.com 592 pages; cloth, $27.00 The inside flap of the hardcover edition of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives quotes an anonymous reviewer from the Spanish newspaper El País: “[Bolaño’s book is] the kind of novel Borges would have written….” This is silly on the face...