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Problems with Kunstler's social politics

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I find James Howard Kunstler to be worth reading more often than not. He writes engagingly and his insight into the devolution of capitalist society can be quite valuable, But he's been more and more prone to going off the rails when he discusses issues of race. It's usually not out-and-out racism; there's a kernel of an idea that's worth discussing, but usually not the way he's discussing it. His phrasing betrays a tone-deafness that underlies much of his opinion in these areas. For example, in a recent post <a href="http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/the-agonies-of-sensible-people/" source="Clusterfuck Nation">The Agonies of Sensible People</a>, he writes: <bq>Finally, on top of his Wall Street connection, Bloomberg is Jewish. (As I am.) Is the country now crazed enough to see the emergence of a Jewish Wall Streeter as the incarnation of all their hobgoblin-infested nightmares? Very possibly so, since the old left wing Progressives have adopted the Palestinians as their new pet oppressed minority du jour and have been inveighing against Israel incessantly. Well, that would be a darn shame. But that’s what you might get in a shameless land where anything goes and nothing matters.</bq> That's a lot of incoherent, vaguely racially charged and misguided babble. It suggests that Kunstler views the plight of the Palestinians as just some issue picked up by bored liberals, not an actual, serious war crime perpetrated by a state that the U.S. 100% supports. This is not the first time that Kunstler got very flustered and incoherent when he sees the need to defend Israel at all costs. Kunstler further idly wonders whether America could even contemplate a Jewish candidate---as if poll-leading Bernie Sanders had been hiding his Jewishness somehow. Yes, Kunstler got so swept in his fantasy that America would reject the otherwise-perfect Bloomberg just 'cause he's Jewish, he completely forgot that Bernie Sanders is way Jewier than Bloomberg and is doing just fine in polls---even in Iowa. The reason I noticed is because this paragraph just swept in out of the blue, after a more trenchant analysis of another topic. Its presence is jarring and demands extra attention. It makes Kunstler seem hyper-sensitive about a largely non-existent anti-semitism---so much so that he invents it in order to be offended by it. That he hasn't written a word about Sanders is revealing. Sanders is Jewish, so Kunstler is unlikely to want to be too disparaging---lest he become that which rages against. But, because Kunstler doesn't like socialists, he's <i>forced to forget entirely that Sanders exists</i>. More of a libertarian bent, is Mr. Kunstler. Where Israel deserve's Kunstler staunch protection, however, he feels that black people complain too much and he cheerfully downgrades their issues in his depictions of them. In his 2016 predictions article <a href="http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/pretend-to-the-bitter-end/" source="Clusterfuck Nation">Pretend to the Bitter End</a>, an otherwise well-written and insightful article contained a section titled <iq>Race Relations and the Cowardice of the Thinking Classes</iq> who's content was incongruously ungenerous (as the depiction of the Arab-loving liberals above). In defending his opinion that black Americans are disadvantaged because they are not getting a proper education in how to communicate grammatically in English, he leaves his conclusion deliberately open as to who he thinks is to blame for that. It's not an uninteresting thesis---David Foster Wallace wrote quite eloquently and non-controversially on the topic in <a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html">Present Tense</a><fn>---but he quickly moves on to phrasing that reveals a less refined and less helpful underlying thesis. It's perhaps easy to miss because he signals with only a few words, but Kunstler is far too good and generally careful a writer for this to be unintentional. He writes, <bq>I suspect that many people of good intentions are running out patience with this <b>racket</b> — and it is a racket for extorting preferential treatment and money from guilt-tripped white people. (Emphasis added.)</bq> The reader can only conclude that, while Kunstler never heard a concern of Israel's he found trifling, the concerns of black people in America amount to a <i>racket</i> about which Mr. Kunstler has heard quite enough, thank you very much. Further on, he writes: <bq>The <b>martyrs of the movement act in ways likely to get them in trouble</b>, for instance the hapless 12-year-old Tamir Rice, shot brandishing a BB gun designed to look exactly like the US Army 1911 issue .45 caliber ACP</bq> There is no other way to interpret this than to understand that Kunstler thinks that Rice brought his shooting on himself because he doesn't know his place. A black boy cannot play with a gun in America. When he is shot by the police in record time, it is the black boy's own fault for not paying attention to this obvious rule. <bq>[...] Trayvon Martin beating down George Zimmerman</bq> That's about the least generous interpretation of what happened in that case that you could possibly have. Zimmerman triggered the confrontation when he could have avoided it in myriad ways, then shot Martin, then avoiding any sentencing. Martin is dead for no other reason that that he was black and somewhere where Zimmerman thought he shouldn't be. Zimmerman went unpunished because America agreed with that statement. Kunstler can only remember that Zimmerman was beaten unfairly and seemingly out of the blue. <bq>The trend will be for police to regard certain neighborhoods as “no-go” areas — if only to avoid the gigantic multi-million dollar litigations that grow out of these ambiguous confrontations.</bq> Now he's sympathizing with the put-upon police who are repaid for their efforts in policing no-go areas---full of ungrateful animals---with lawsuits that bleed their nearly-empty coffers unfairly dry. Yes, because that's exactly how things go, right? The poor get away with murder and get paid richly for it while cops kowtow? <bq>The larger question going forward is whether Black America will continue to insist on being an oppositional culture.</bq> Kunstler thinks that black America is solely responsible for its own plight because it is "oppositional". If "they" would just play along, everything would be fine. If they only knew their place, they'd be fine.<fn> Where his financial and high-level international analysis can be trenchant, his national and social analysis is tone-deaf and not really worth serious consideration. <bq>They also will not recognize the need for a common culture in this nation, a set of truly shared values and standards of conduct.</bq> This, from the same guy who argues for balkanization everywhere else, who wrote at the top of the article that <iq>[t]he coming crackup will re-set the terms of civilized life to levels largely pre-techno-industrial</iq> and who has argued vehemently and eloquently against suburban culture and the loss of communal life. So while Americans in general should welcome a <iq>crackup</iq> that returns them to smaller, more manageable communities, he also cheerfully blames and shames blacks for not properly participating in the 380-million--strong current American culture. So, blame the outsider for not integrating properly. Ironic, considering his vehement defense of Israel and Bloomberg while espousing his own Jewishness. I have had my doubts about reading Kunstler for a few years, but he's usually made it worthwhile---for now. He's making it more difficult to continue, though, because even when he makes good points, it's hard to forget the giant pile of petty and racist opinions that lurk beneath.<fn> <hr> <ft>As usual with David Foster Wallace, you should just read the <a href="http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/DFW_present_tense.html">whole essay</a> because a citation doesn't do it justice. An excerpt nonetheless follows. <bq>What I am suggesting is that the rhetorical situation of an English class — a class composed wholly of young people whose Group identity is rooted in defiance of Adult-Establishment values, plus also composed partly of minorities whose primary dialects are different from SWE — requires the teacher to come up with overt, honest, compelling arguments for why SWE is a dialect worth learning. These arguments are hard to make — not intellectually but emotionally, politically. Because they are baldly elitist. [38] The real truth, of course, is that SWE is the dialect of the American elite. That it was invented, codified, and promulgated by Privileged WASP Males and is perpetuated as "Standard" by same. That it is the shibboleth of the Establishment and an instrument of political power and class division and racial discrimination and all manner of social inequity. These are shall we say rather delicate subjects to bring up in an English class, especially in the service of a pro-SWE argument, and extra-especially if you yourself are both a Privileged WASP Male and the Teacher and thus pretty much a walking symbol of the Adult Establishment. This reviewer's opinion, though, is that both students and SWE are better served if the teacher makes his premises explicit, licit and his argument overt, presenting himself as an advocate of SWE's utility rather than as a prophet of its innate superiority. [From a prepared speech he gives his classes...] Maybe it seems unfair. If it does, you're not going to like this news: I'm not going to let you write in SBE either. In my class, you have to learn and write in SWE. If you want to study your own dialect and its rules and history and how it's different from SWE, fine — there are some great books by scholars of Black English, and I'll help you find some and talk about them with you if you want. But that will be outside class. In class — in my English class — you will have to master and write in Standard Written English, which we might just as well call "Standard White English," because it was developed by white people and is used by white people, especially educated, powerful white people. [RESPONSES by this point vary too widely to standardize.] I'm respecting you enough here to give you what I believe is the straight truth. In this country, SWE is perceived as the dialect of education and intelligence and power and prestige, and anybody of any race, ethnicity, religion, or gender who wants to succeed in American culture has got to be able to use SWE. This is How It Is. You can be glad about it or sad about it or deeply pissed off. You can believe it's racist and unjust and decide right here and now to spend every waking minute of your adult life arguing against it, and maybe you should, but I'll tell you something: <b>If you ever want those arguments to get listened to and taken seriously, you're going to have to communicate them in SWE, because SWE is the dialect our country uses to talk to itself.</b> (Emphasis added.)</bq> This is clearly a different subject with a lot of value in and of itself, but I thought Wallace at least was able to present a rational view on it without seeming derogatory. I'm not saying he's right, necessarily, but that he presents a good point lucidly. While it could be argued that Kunstler is making a similar point, it seems to be coming from a different, far less-constructive place.</ft> <ft>The same arguments are made about immigrants in the U.S. and Europe. Why won't they integrate? Why don't they just shed their identity and become exactly like us? And if they try? Tell them they're doing it wrong or deny them otherwise. Then complain further that they're <i>still</i> not integrating. Repeat ad nauseum until you're allowed to throw them out of the country, exploit them legally, kill them outright or some glorious combination of the three.</ft> <ft>Kind of like Donald Trump, actually. For every interesting statement he makes about our foreign policy---e.g. that we wasted $4 trillion on war that would have been better spent at home, that millions died in war on Hillary's watch in Libya, Iraq, Yemen, etc. or that we should be talking to Putin rather than rattling our cartoonish sabers---he makes at least a dozen ignorant statements about foreigners or the economy.</ft>