April 15-16, 1839

It's an experiment in integrating past and present, perhaps with a little redemption along the way. :

The simple knot of Now & Then will give an immeasureable value to any sort of catalogue or journal kept with common sense for a year or two. See in the Merchant's compting room for his peddling of cotton & indigo, the value that comes to be attached to any Blotting book or Leger; and if your aims & deeds are superior, how can any record of yours (suppose, of the books you wish to read, of the pictures you would see, of the facts you would scrutinize) -- any record that you are genuinely moved to begin & continue -- not have a value proportionately superior? It converts the heights you have reached into table land. That book or literary fact which had the whole emphasis of attention a month ago stands here along with one which was as important in preceding months, and with that of yesterday; & next month, there will be another. Here they all occupy but four lines & I cannot read these together without juster views of each than when I read them singly.

A god's-eye view of the plateau?

Real World

As noted previously, I often have major disagreements with Noam Chomsky. But I'm glad he's in the public eye, doing what he's doing, supernaturally unflappable.

Anyway, Noam recently weighed in on the options facing the American electorate in 2004. I' m heartened to see that he's advocating a Realpolitik for leftists. Given a choice between "whether we want to pay attention to the real world, or prefer to keep to abstract discussions suitable to some seminar," he prefers the former. "It's a matter of judgment, of course, but mine is that those who favor electing Bush are making a very serious error. The people around him are likely to cause very serious, perhaps irreparable, harm if given another mandate." His critique of misplaced idealism highlights the peril of what the Bad Subjects manifesto -- almost ten years old! -- called "self-marginalization":

Those who prefer to ignore the real world are also undermining any hope of reaching any popular constituency. Few are likely to pay attention to someone who approaches them by saying, loud and clear: "I don't care whether you have a slightly better chance to receive health care or to support your elderly mother; or whether there will be a physical environment in which your children might have a decent life; or a world in which children may escape destruction as a result of the violence that is inspired by the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Cheney-etc. crowd, which could become extreme; and on, and on. Repeat: "slightly better." That matters to sensible people, surely the great mass of people who are the potential victims. So those who prefer to ignore the real world are also saying: "please ignore me." And they will achieve that result.

I suppose that means that even Chomsky is getting on the John Kerry bandwagon.