Coaches get fired/praised depending on how their teas do… but we all know damn well players’ heads should roll more often…
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
katzenjammer wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
Someone in 1831 thought Americans were enamored with equality???
Where…between Protestant white males?
Help me out here.
Mufasa
Taking him in historical context, and compared to the European societies with which he was familiar - yes, in his eyes America was obsessed with equality; he perceived this obsession as a kind of holy tenet to an unofficial civic religion.
Thus his concern that our disdain for any sort of hierarchy (in culture and elsewhere) would lead to a kind of celebration of the average, and thus a kind of lukewarm mediocrity. Which is what we have now.
It seems to me that his eyes were deceived, mainly because while we may have been talking equality, we certainly were not practicing it for significant parts of the population.
Another set of questions:
Celebration of the average what? Man? Government? Other?
Has led to lukewarm mediocrity in what?
Mufasa
[/quote]
I’d say more or less every aspect of American life.
Let me give you an example that we can bounce around. My grandfather was raised to read great literature & music, to play an instrument in order to learn as much as he could about these great works of art that exhibit the highest excellence and partake of something eternal.
On his lips was Latin poetry and quotations from the Illiad. This was not unusual. People even of very modest means strived mightily to be educated - and sacrificed towards this end because to be an educated person was a highly valued thing; and meant traffic-ing with the best of the past.
Okay, let’s fast forward to the children we see around us now: they play game boy (& that creepy guitar hero thingy), while listening to the likes of britney spears; and their reading, if they read at all, consists of harry potter. What are these things but the celebration of mediocrity?
A hollowed out culture; a hollowed out people. Sad.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
It seems to me that his eyes were deceived, mainly because while we may have been talking equality, we certainly were not practicing it for significant parts of the population.
[/quote]
Well yeah. But the ideal was quite strong in America - and strikingly different from where he had come from, which made him such a highly perceptive and valuable student of America.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
bald eagle wrote:
jawara wrote:
LOL @ Beowolf.
Ok I have no love for Bush or Obama or Mccain but I will say this: As far as I know Bush is the guy who deregulated Wall Street. In other words he made it ok to but stock on even more of a margin than in the past. So it is partially his fault.
He also wanted the housing market to get more black and hispanics into home ownership. Thats why there were so many no money down home loans. The people that got into these didnt read the fine print about the adjustable rate and got fucked because there own stupidity. They knew they couldnt afford it but ya know… fuck it.
The idea to get more minorities into home ownership actually started in the 90’s. The Whitehouse did warn congress in 2003 but they did not listen. Barney Frank said there was no problem with fannie or freddie.
I think it started in the 70’s and it just has been building.[/quote]
You may be right. I should have stated it differently because I am not exactly sure when that specific policy was first promoted but there was a big push under Clinton in the 90’s.