Replies

The Perils of Designer Tribalism*** What Sandall describes as "the culture cult" dreams of a new simplicity: a mode of existence that is somehow less encumbered, less rent by conflicting obligations than life in a modern industrialized democracy. It is a vain endeavor. The romanticization of the primitive only emphasizes one's distance from its simplicities. Romanticism in all its forms is an autumnal, retrospective phenomenon: the more fervent it is, the more it underscores the loss it laments. "It is time," Sandall writes, "to stop dreaming about going back to the land or revisiting the social arrangements of the past."

Miss Hutton's happy ejaculations were prompted by such dreams. What she heard among those Masai savages as they danced about and drank blood was Pascal Bruckner's "enchanting music of departure." But it is, alas, a departure to nowhere. As Sandall observes, life is about "ever-extending complexity." To deny that is to neglect the "Big Ditch" (Ernest Gellner's term) that separates the modern world from its primitive sources. On one side of the ditch is the rule of law, near universal literacy, modern technology, and the whole panoply of liberal democratic largess. On the other side is- what? "Most traditional cultures," Sandall writes, "feature domestic repression, economic backwardness, endemic disease, religious fanaticism, and severe artistic constraints. If you want to live a full life and die in your bed, then civilization-not romantic ethnicity-deserves your thoughtful vote."***

What's happened under Mugabe

We've wasted billions and billions trying to save Africa from Africans. The tune of need is getting old and many of us are just plain tired of it. If Africans want to live in crime, poverty, and death that is their business.
Now their aids problem is massive. Now their hunger problem is massive. Now their wars problem is massive. Now their problems is their problem and Self imposed.

It is fascinating to watch the mainstream media at work. The NYT, by and large, has ignored Zim. When they do write about it, they cannot bring themselves to address what is really going on there. Rather than analyze this situation as a racist pogrom against the white farmers, they feel the need to only focus on the black victims of Mugabe's rule.

This story exposes a very interesting aspect of the liberal psyche.