[lbo-talk] Gossip

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Feb 2 18:27:51 PST 2012


On Feb 2, 2012, at 9:08 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:


> But how in the hell can you gossip about itptpoolas &
> nmtacteris -- which make as much sense as "conservatives" and "leftists."
> That contrast resembles, say, a contrast between Jonathan apples and styles
> in work shirts.

Since you issue a pronouncement like this about four times a day, and also like to go on about the Sixties almost as much, I thought of you when I read this in Jenny Diski's little book on the decade:

"Now that it has gone, the twentieth century has become an idea. The past is always an idea which people have about it after the event.... To generations born later...the past is a story, a myth handily packaged into an era.... The Sixties were an idea in the minds, perhaps even more powerful than the experience, of those who were actually living through them...."

An abstraction is not dissimilar.

Doug



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