Trump and the Fine Art of Dialectics
Alexander Blok, one of the smartest and most noble of Russians, wrote this amazing essay on Catiline, a Roman rebel whose plot was crushed and who was utterly maligned by the father of all bullshit, Cicero.
So Catiline was this patrician, a decadent SOB who, when mistreated and challenged by the Roman establishment, organized the Roman deplorables and started a rebellion.
It was squashed of course, but for Blok, he remained a hero. Blok calls Catiline the Roman Bolshevik, and insists on approaching him not from Cicero's moralizing NYT-like perspective, but from the perspective of World Revolution.
For Blok, as he puts it, the heart of the Roman Empire stopped when Christ was born. It continued for another few hundred years, but in a zombie-like state until its petty, militaristic, provincial, materialistic character was finally exposed as the bluff it always was, and it collapsed under the weight of its own corruption. And here is Blok's paradoxical view: Catiline's rebellion makes sense only from this perspective.
Catiline might have been corrupt, decadent, debauched and what have you. Yet, he did expose how rotten Rome was. For that, both Blok and Ibsen (another rebel against stifling bourgeois order) place Catiline in heaven.
Which takes me to Trump. Whatever his critics say, he has it, and then some, but like Catiline, he fully exposes how corrupt, venal, and petty the established order is.
The genie cannot be put back into the bottle. Mass media is exposed for what it is: a spinning machine for the militaristic oppressive order, a purveyor of fake news. And this is not the view of some obscure academic like Chomsky. It is the view of the President of the United States.
Isn't it liberating?! No more butchery, bombing, and destruction, while the press conducts its cheer-leading campaign in support of another "humanitarian intervention", be it Serbia, Iraq, or Libya. The genie is out of the bottle. People are not buying it anymore.
Politicians are corrupt! Trump exposes it. Mass media lies and spins! He exposes it. Mass media is in obvious disarray. The only thing the Establishment learned to do during the 'End of History' period was to spin and promote government policies. Now, with their insane hatred of Trump, they can't do it any longer. And because they also became so lazy and corrupt as they suckled at the teat of the Establishment, they can't bring themselves to expose political or military corruption either.
The only thing left to them is "Russia-gate". How pathetic. So let them expose that Trump, 'the Emperor', is naked. He merely laughs back at them, and wiggles his naked derrière in their faces. And not just his, but their own. Their naked cowardliness, their naked corruption, their naked immaturity and lack of civic honor. The only thing they know how to do is to be sycophantic and sing 'Hail to the Chief'. And now they can't even do that because... #NotMyPresident! What a glorious scandal!
The empire built on lies, corruption, militarism, and petty materialism no longer can pretend to be anything else. And we should all be grateful to Trump for that. And to Americans who voted for him.
The French had their chance, yet they voted for their version of Obama, a petty little banker in cahoots with their corrupt media. In other words, they decided to act like ostriches, keeping their heads in the sand, and thinking that if they sign the Paris accord, all will be fine, 'Rome will continue unopposed'.
Except that it won't. The heart of today's Roman Empire has stopped, the wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun, and yet the ostriches march on.
Alexander Blok, one of the smartest and most noble of Russians, wrote this amazing essay on Catiline, a Roman rebel whose plot was crushed and who was utterly maligned by the father of all bullshit, Cicero.
So Catiline was this patrician, a decadent SOB who, when mistreated and challenged by the Roman establishment, organized the Roman deplorables and started a rebellion.
It was squashed of course, but for Blok, he remained a hero. Blok calls Catiline the Roman Bolshevik, and insists on approaching him not from Cicero's moralizing NYT-like perspective, but from the perspective of World Revolution.
For Blok, as he puts it, the heart of the Roman Empire stopped when Christ was born. It continued for another few hundred years, but in a zombie-like state until its petty, militaristic, provincial, materialistic character was finally exposed as the bluff it always was, and it collapsed under the weight of its own corruption. And here is Blok's paradoxical view: Catiline's rebellion makes sense only from this perspective.
Catiline might have been corrupt, decadent, debauched and what have you. Yet, he did expose how rotten Rome was. For that, both Blok and Ibsen (another rebel against stifling bourgeois order) place Catiline in heaven.
Which takes me to Trump. Whatever his critics say, he has it, and then some, but like Catiline, he fully exposes how corrupt, venal, and petty the established order is.
The genie cannot be put back into the bottle. Mass media is exposed for what it is: a spinning machine for the militaristic oppressive order, a purveyor of fake news. And this is not the view of some obscure academic like Chomsky. It is the view of the President of the United States.
Isn't it liberating?! No more butchery, bombing, and destruction, while the press conducts its cheer-leading campaign in support of another "humanitarian intervention", be it Serbia, Iraq, or Libya. The genie is out of the bottle. People are not buying it anymore.
Politicians are corrupt! Trump exposes it. Mass media lies and spins! He exposes it. Mass media is in obvious disarray. The only thing the Establishment learned to do during the 'End of History' period was to spin and promote government policies. Now, with their insane hatred of Trump, they can't do it any longer. And because they also became so lazy and corrupt as they suckled at the teat of the Establishment, they can't bring themselves to expose political or military corruption either.
The only thing left to them is "Russia-gate". How pathetic. So let them expose that Trump, 'the Emperor', is naked. He merely laughs back at them, and wiggles his naked derrière in their faces. And not just his, but their own. Their naked cowardliness, their naked corruption, their naked immaturity and lack of civic honor. The only thing they know how to do is to be sycophantic and sing 'Hail to the Chief'. And now they can't even do that because... #NotMyPresident! What a glorious scandal!
The empire built on lies, corruption, militarism, and petty materialism no longer can pretend to be anything else. And we should all be grateful to Trump for that. And to Americans who voted for him.
The French had their chance, yet they voted for their version of Obama, a petty little banker in cahoots with their corrupt media. In other words, they decided to act like ostriches, keeping their heads in the sand, and thinking that if they sign the Paris accord, all will be fine, 'Rome will continue unopposed'.
Except that it won't. The heart of today's Roman Empire has stopped, the wailing and gnashing of teeth has begun, and yet the ostriches march on.
About the author
Vladimir is a professor of Slavic studies at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1979.
Professor Golstein's scholarly interests embrace Russian culture, religion, philosophy, and poetry, of the past two centuries. He is the author of Lermontov's Narratives of Heroism (Northwestern University Press, 1998) and numerous articles on nineteenth-and twentieth century Russian authors, including Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tsvetaeva, and Bulgakov. He is currently completing a monograph on the conflict of generations in Russia.
Vladimir is a professor of Slavic studies at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1979.
Professor Golstein's scholarly interests embrace Russian culture, religion, philosophy, and poetry, of the past two centuries. He is the author of Lermontov's Narratives of Heroism (Northwestern University Press, 1998) and numerous articles on nineteenth-and twentieth century Russian authors, including Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tsvetaeva, and Bulgakov. He is currently completing a monograph on the conflict of generations in Russia.
