[lit-ideas] Re: Literature as a reflection of life
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2006 22:36:46 -0700
Go way way way back to what I initially said - twist back if you can. I in
essence asked, using the symbol of Dirty Harry, asked whether it was right
to do what was necessary to rescue the innocent. That seems pretty simple
to me. Was Dirty Harry right or not? If he was right, then you can cut
through the garbage and look at the goal. We have the bad guys who came
after us time and time again and we know we ignored them after they attacked
us each time (as the mayor did in Dirty Harry's SF) until 9/11. Then we
educated ourselves in a hurry and learned how bad he really was and decided
we'd better fight him. If we didn't more innocent people were going to die.
The president, any president, has the duty of protecting the innocent people
of the U.S. and so he took us to war to do that. It is good that we are
doing that. We should be happy we are doing that, because had we not engage
the enemy in war he would have continued to disdain us as a nation of
victims.
Victims are targets for the Islamists. We were targets, but not any more.
The bad guy thought he had it going his own way but it didn't work. He
jumped from the bus and is on the run and Dirty Harry is after him. . . .
unless or until the weak, witless, victim-like Mayor weeps him away, takes
his 44 Magnum from him and renders the city once again a target. 2008
isn't so far away. Maybe your mayor is ready to run for president and you
can have your wish.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 9:56 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Literature as a reflection of life
No, I am not. I don't do stuff like that. Either we think in fundamentally
different ways, or our standards are very different, or we need to define
our terms, or something is way off. You watch Dirty Harry and are inspired
for war. I look at the facts and think it's a joke to use a Clint Eastwood
fantasy as war strategy. That junk doesn't even work in real life for
catching criminals, it's just entertainment. And then to use literary
references to justify war? How about Kurt Vonnegut or Johnny Got Your Gun?
Are they not equally valid?
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 4/8/2006 12:41:28 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Literature as a reflection of life
You are just jerking me around now with garbage Irene. Lets drop it.
Lawrence
_____
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Friday, April 07, 2006 8:52 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Literature as a reflection of life
What is the question about Dirty Harry Lawrence? That we should do like
Dirty Harry because then all the bad guys get what's coming to them? On
what evidence are you basing this? They, and you, claim this is a war.
Dirty Harry was one guy in one city with an ending written before the movie
was filmed. It's likely Clint Eastwood may even have filmed the ending
first. Where is the connection to this real live conflict? The fact that
you offer so much literary support for your war strategy is, to me, evidence
that indeed this "war" is just a fantasy, life imitating art. In fact, Gore
Vidal calls this a metaphorical war, like a war on dandruff. Gore Vidal
writes literature, does he not?
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence <mailto:lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: 4/7/2006 10:33:57 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Literature as a reflection of life
An interesting response Irene. Someone with a literary background on the
other hand would know that literature can reflect issues in society and
life. Upton Sinclairss The Jungle drew attention to the scandal of the
meat industry. His novel was fiction but it resulted in the creation of the
Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. In The Brass Check he was critical of the
Press.
Sinclair Lewis Babbitt painted such a vivid and critical picture of the
American social landscape that the term Babbitt entered the American
vocabulary in the same way that Philistine did after Matthew Arnolds
Culture and Anarchy. And who wanted to live in a tract house after reading
his Main Street?
Thomas Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles and Jude the Obscure painted
powerful pictures of the inequities in the British society of his day.
Dostoevski as a result of such novels as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot,
and The Brothers Karamazov is sometimes said to evince a better
understanding of psychology than any scientist (including Freud) could
claim.
The symbols of Ahab and The White Whale have entered our common vocabulary
as a result of Melvilles Moby Dick.
H. G. Wells The Time Machine created a very negative prediction of mans
future which was heavily influenced by Darwinian anthropological thinking.
I could go on. Approaching the matter from a slightly different direction
we can observe that much literature and many movies during the Cold War were
very pessimistic about the chances of mans survival. In the 1951 movie,
When Worlds Collide, the close pass of a planet will destroy human life and
so scientists scramble to find a way to preserve life by sending the best
people off in a space ship.
In the 1959 movie On the Beach, The residents of Australia after a global
nuclear war must come to terms with the fact that all life will be destroyed
in a matter of months.
In the 1962 movie The Day of the Triffids a shower of meteriorites blinds
everyone watching it and soon plants shoot up that can walk and have a taste
for human flesh.
The 1964 movie Dr. Strangelove, or how I learned how to stop worrying and
love the bomb was indicative of the common concern of the day: Plot Summary:
U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely and utterly mad, and
sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He suspects that the
communists are conspiring to pollute the "precious bodily fluids" of the
American people. The U.S. president meets with his advisors, where the
Soviet ambassador tells him that if the U.S.S.R. is hit by nuclear weapons,
it will trigger a "Doomsday Machine" which will destroy all plant and animal
life on Earth. Peter Sellers portrays the three men who might avert this
tragedy: British Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, the only person with access
to the demented Gen. Ripper; U.S. President Merkin Muffley, whose best
attempts to divert disaster depend on placating a drunken Soviet Premier and
the former Nazi genius Dr. Strangelove, who concludes that "such a device
would not be a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be
all too obvious". Will the bombers be stopped in time, or will General Jack
Ripper succeed in destroying the world ? [We could do a tangent on Dr.
Strangelove: Many Liberals have learned how to quit worrying and love the
idea of Iran having the bomb.]
Again, I could go on here as well. To return to the movie under discussion,
Dirty Harry symbolizes the perception of a liberal predilection for coddling
criminals at the expense of ordinary citizens. The perception of many is
that Liberals worry more about the rights of criminals than they do of the
protection of innocent civilians. Dirty Harry is a rather heavy handed
presentation of this perception. This perception is popular and Dirty Harry
was brought back in several sequels. Paul Kersey in Death Wish goes after
the sort of criminals who murdered his wife. He sets himself up as a victim
and then kills the criminals attempting to victimize him. Kersey was
brought back in Death Wish II, III, IV, and V. Lots of people like the idea
of someone dealing violently with those who victimize innocent civilians.
And this liking hasnt stopped. Witness 24.
Now you are either horribly stunted in your understanding of literature or
you are simply refusing to answer a very reasonable question about Dirty
Harry. Which is it?
Lawrence
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