[lit-ideas] Fergusoniana
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 09:05:24 -0400 (EDT)
My last post today!
Well, perhaps we should focus on how this author (N. F.) argues then.
I'll contribute with an 'ad hominem': his "Oxon. credentials" as per wiki,
below!
In a message dated 5/2/2014 7:49:15 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Well, Ferguson is an interesting author but one with a pretty obvious
ideological agenda (just to think that he married Hirsi Ali says volumes). He
oscillates between saying that the US is an empire at present and saying
that it currently isn't but should be one.
Wikipedia tells us:
"Ferguson received a Demyship (half-scholarship) at Magdalen College,
Oxford."
Pronounced ˈmɔːdlɪn -- Wilde's, Strawson's, and indeed, my
(architecturally) favourite!
"While at Magdalen, Ferguson wrote the 90 minute student film 'The Labours
of Hercules Sprote' and became best friends with Andrew Sullivan, based on
a shared affinity for right-wing politics and punk music."
Hercules's labours were twelve. This should give us an idea as to how many
minutes Ferguson dedicates to each of them.
"Ferguson had become a Thatcherite by 1982, identifying the position with
"the Sex Pistols' position in 1977: it was a rebellion against the stuffy
corporatism of the 70s.""
"While at Magdalen, "he was very much a Scot on the make ... Niall was a
witty, belligerent bloke who seemed to have come from an entirely different
planet," according to Simon Winder."
The phrase 'Scot on the make' triggers perhaps the wrong implicature seeing
that before his Oxonian days, Ferguson had already been made in Scotland.
Niall Campbell Douglas Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His father
was a doctor and his mother a physics teacher. He attended The Glasgow
Academy.[10]
Ferguson has stated that "I was surrounded by insufferable Etonians with
fake Cockney accents who imagined themselves to be working-class heroes in
solidarity with the striking miners."
On the other hand, there are sufferable Cockneys with fake Eton accents, I
assume?
"It wasn't long before it became clear that the really funny and
interesting people on campus were Thatcherites," he said.
It was different in Oscar Wilde's days...
Ferguson graduated with a first-class honours [perhaps not quite arguing
either alla Grice or Popper] degree in history.
"He received his D.Phil from Magdalen College ---"
Actually, I think he received it from the University, previous
consideration by the Faculty of History.
ˈmɔːdlɪn is perhaps above such bureaucratic matters...
"... and his dissertation was entitled "Business and Politics in the
German Inflation: Hamburg 1914–1924"
Strictly:
"Business and politics in the German inflation: Hamburg: a decade,
1914-1924".
How he got an interest in Empire is a different matter.
Perhaps an interest in the British Empire, before he turned to writing
about "American Empire".
--- While loads have been written on the 'fall' of the Roman empire, we
were discussing the use of 'rise and fall' of Empires, and I pointed out that
a LITERAL use of 'fall' is in the well-known quatrain:
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
--> Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after
which may relate?
The word "Jack" was in use before 1600 to describe the maritime bow flag.
By 1627 a small Union Jack was commonly flown in this position. One theory
goes that for some years it would have been called just "the Jack", or "Jack
flag", or "the King's Jack", but by 1674, while formally referred to as
"His Majesty's Jack", it was commonly called the Union Jack, and this was
officially acknowledged.
Cheers,
Speranza
---
O. K. quotes from N. F.:
"Unlike most European critics of the United States…I believe the world
needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best
candidate for the job.…The United States has good reasons to play the role of
liberal empire, both from the point of view of its own security and out of
straightforward altruism. In many ways too it is uniquely well equipped to
play it. Yet for all its colossal economic, military and cultural power, the
United States still looks unlikely to be an effective liberal empire
without some profound changes in its economic structure, its social makeup and
its political culture.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2007/05/the-global-empire-of-nia.html
He also discusses the term 'hegemony' but comes out in favour of 'empire':
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59200/niall-ferguson/hegemony-or-empire
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