[lbo-talk] Haaretz - Shooter of Jewish Congresswoman listed 'Mein Kampf' as favorite book

[James Leveque]

Huh, I'd missed that. That Rand had written a novel called "We The Living" I
think was somewhere deep in the back of my mind, but I guess it doesn't
stand out amongst her other novels, so I guess my characterisation of the
list being 'important' works is probably a little bit of overstatement.

Incidentally, regarding Huxley, I've met conservatives who have praised
Brave New World. About three years ago, I was sitting on a train back to
Oakland, where I met a guy who sort of fits the 'type' that we're talking
about now: late-teens/early-twenties, white, working-class. His voice had a
sort natural contempt and bitterness and he spent some time complaining
about how he was 'so sick of all these liberals'. After I told him that I
study literature (which he said was 'gay') he told me that one of his
favorite books was Brave New World. I've never gotten around to reading that
and only know vaguely what it's about, so I assumed that he read it as some
sort of allegorical criticism of a stereotyped communism that carbon-copies
its citizens, strips them of individuality, inserts them into the
revolution, and so on. (Perhaps that's way off the mark, but I'm just trying
to account for what this guy saw might have seen in it.) Afterward, I read
that Huxley hung around with Frankfurt School types so it's probably more of
an allegorical criticism of capitalist processes of replication. I supposed
I should just sit down and read the book.

James

On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 5:05 AM, socialismorbarbarism <
socialismorbarbarism at gmail.com> wrote:


> Well, he also posted "We the Living."
>
> On Sun, Jan 9, 2011 at 7:30 AM,  <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "James Leveque" <jamespl79 at gmail.com>
> >
> > "He also listed Plato, Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Lewis Carroll, Harper Lee,
> Ken
> > Kesey and a half dozen other very random books. It struck me a smattering
> of
> > "important" works, but nothing anybody could glean a coherent ideology
> from.
> > So I think the listing of Mein Kampf with the Communist Manifesto is more
> or
> > less meaningless. Much like a lot else in this whole sad crime."
> >
> > With the exception of Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf, it looked to me
> > like a left-leaning greatest hits.
> >
> > Joanna
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
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