There is nothing particularly American-nothing exceptionally American-about so many of our social and political pathologies, except that we have to say it with a smile.īeyond the allegorical pages of Bambi, Salten had quite a lot of rather not nice things to say about Europe in his era. Politically, there are left, right, and liberal versions of these sentiments-centered around themes of progress or decline, civility and indignation, transcendental or eternally recurring truths. In the cold language of economists, secular trends are those which stretch far beyond the immediate they are not cyclical but reflect rather the long course we are already on. Kind of like the election itself, the celebration has been overcome by “secular” trends. Even among those most intent on the downfall of the Trump regime, an edgy toggle persists. Is this an undercurrent of Benjamin’s famous “left melancholia”? If so, why is it accompanied by simultaneous admonishments to not only claim a “win” but act and strategize as if that’s a case, as if the (assumed) incoming administration is promising anything other than what is heavily outlined in its prospective appointees and transition team advisers? From civic-minded liberal to hardened Marxist, one observes something closer to the power of positive thinking or the prosperity gospel. The eruption of Émile Durkheim’s “collective effervescence” on the left had a kind of manic, bipolar quality to it. New York City, November 9, 2020: And just as cheers rose on an unseasonably warm Saturday morning, so too rose the markets-already remarkably detached from the “real economy” where depression conditions persist-to giddy heights. ![]() In post-Soviet Russia, you are forced to drink optimism, but in Capitalist America, optimism drinks you. And unlimited trust only in IG Farben and the peaceful perfecting of the air force.” Walter Benjamin, 1929: “Mistrust in the fate of literature, mistrust in the fate of freedom, mistrust in the fate of European humanity, but three times mistrust in all reconciliation: between classes, between nations, between individuals. “Emotional labor,” in its most formal sense, seemed an absurdity beyond belief. Back at the beginning of the “end of history,” former Soviet citizens subjected to economic “shock therapy” discovered that capital would not only dictate how, when, and where to work (already familiar terrain) but also that people actually feign being happy while doing so. Grey skies are gonna clear up, put on a happy face. If there’s anything to learn from the 2020 presidential election, it’s that the only realities of American exceptionalism are our empire, the dollar, and enforced optimism. Hold back that criticism in your throat-if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Bambi (1942) makes the story cough up the ubiquitous happy ending: the forest (somehow) grows back there’s a baby to celebrate a patriarchy is romantically restored. Salten’s book originally ends ambiguously, depicting a bleak life in the woods for its animal denizens and their enemy, humans. Disney transformed much of the book, adding Thumper’s little piece of advice, to wheedle out a silver lining. ![]() The movie is adapted from the novel, Bambi, a Life in the Woods by the Jewish Austro-Hungarian author and critic Felix Salten. ![]() The origins of the phrase are somewhat murky, but its media proliferation begins with Disney’s Bambi in 1942. The only negativity that is countenanced is fatalistic or conservative. There is perhaps no more American expression than “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” The political versions of this aphorism range from the barbaric dictate that you should never criticize unless you have a prepackaged “solution” to a spectrum of more generalized affirmational delusions.
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