[lbo-talk] Jerry Lewis as worst-case scenario

[Carl Remick]

>From: Michael Pugliese <michael.098762001 at gmail.com>
>
>http://jkalb.org/node/18
>... There are many reasons to read Emerson: his skill with words, his
>penetrating intuition, his wonderful gift for concrete images of
>spiritual states of affairs, and his acute observations, marked by
>generosity, broad culture, and common sense. ... We should no more be 
>prisoners of established ideas than he was. The
>debate among conflicting sides of Emerson's thought is the necessary
>debate between dreams and experience in America. Life among us has
>been more than grand proclamations of equality and democracy.
>Tradition, ordinary human ties, and loyalty to substantive goods that
>transcend us have been essential to what we have been. To get beyond a
>political, cultural and spiritual situation that grows increasingly
>superficial, sterile and perverse we must deal with that situation
>directly and at its root. Which aspects of our life and ideals have
>had enduring value, and which have proven at odds with the good of our
>people? The rhetoric we have made habitual cannot provide an answer.
>Emerson, the greatest expositor, proponent and critic of the spiritual
>side of the American polity, can be a special aid to us in our
>difficulties.

Many thanks for posting, Michael.  That is excellent.

Carl