Down with Democracy

The March of Progress

I’m not necessarily in favor of American cultural or political hegemony, or ideological limitations on public discourse, but I don’t really understand why the Times is running an op-ed by a venture capitalist arguing that America’s government should be more like China’s, and that it’s a good thing the Tiananmen Square protests were violently put down, because the alternative — political liberalization and increased popular participation in governance — would have been so much worse. Were Tiananmen not handled as it was, argues Mr. Li, who wrote the awful thing, then China would likely not be in the economic position it is today: coming off a long run of massive economic growth and newly installed as the second largest economy in the world.

Never mind that China still does not have an independent judiciary or due process, has the one-child policy, executes more people than the rest of the world combined (tax fraud, for example, is punishable by death), and promotes virulent racism, particularly towards Africans, Tibetans and Uyghurs. Never mind that nearly 500 million Chinese live on less than $2.00 per day, that income inequality in China is on the rise with no signs of stopping, that government officials use beatings, torture and the “black jail” system to forcibly vacate property holders from land so they can resell it to real estate prospectors, that, on average, 60% of the cost of a hospitalization will come out of the patient’s pocket, that graft, bribery and nepotism are endemic within the government, with misspending of public funds totaling at least 3% of China’s GDP annually, or that China spends more money on its police forces and internal security measures than they do on their military. One would imagine that the case of Chen Xiaofeng, for example, might be illustrative of some greater societal ills, or that of Wang Yue, or the incident in 2008 when dairy products were found to contain high levels of melamine, or the incident in 2009 when inspectors in Wuhan discovered that most blood pudding in China contains little if any actual blood, but is instead made of formaldehye, corn starch, and industrial grade salt, or the stinky tofu producers who were found to be using sewage in their production process, or the deaths of 40 people last year in a train crash which resulted from design flaws and mismanagement in China’s new bullet train infrastructure. You would think that these things might cast some doubt on the long-term viability of the current Chinese political and economic systems.

Continue reading »

Thoughts on the Modern Library’s Reader’s List of the 100 Best Novels

It's twilight in America and I know who's to blame!

It's twilight in America and it's because of this list.

In no way is this breaking news, but I just glanced at the Modern Library’s Reader’s List of 100 Best Novels, and it occurred to me that it’s indicative of many of the things that are so terribly wrong with America today (this is almost certainly not a coincidence). Let’s take a look at the top 10.

1. Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand (Ron Paul is an elected official.)

2. The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand (Rand Paul is an elected official.)

3. Battlefield Earth – L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology exists; the movie Battlefield Earth also exists.)

4. The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkein (Rampant escapism, racism, the use of weapons as a tool when shopping, Elijah Wood is creepy.) *

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (I’ve never not laughed at a Boo Radley-based joke.)

6. 1984 – George Orwell (Ron / Rand Paul supporters won’t stop using the phrase “Big Brother” in reference to President Obama all over the internet.)

7. Anthem – Ayn Rand (People take Ayn Rand seriously.)

8. We the Living – Ayn Rand (That this many Ayn Rand books exist is a serious problem.)

9. Mission Earth – L. Ron Hubbard (There was no movie adaptation of Mission Earth due to the critical and commercial failure of Battlefield Earth, but I wish there was a movie adaptation because I always need more Forest Whitaker in my life.)

10. Fear – L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology again.)

I don’t know why I’m getting all in a twist about this now, but seriously, who are the people who voted to make this list happen? I find it difficult to believe that anyone actually believes there are four Ayn Rand novels and two L. Ron Hubbard novels that are better than Ulysses, which comes in at number eleven. In other news, Stephen King is apparently superior to John Fowles, Vladamir Nabokov, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Malcolm Lowry, Joseph Conrad, and Virginia Woolfe, and D.H. Lawrence, E.L. Doctorow, V.S. Naipaul, and E.M. Forster don’t even crack the top 100. What does America have against people with initials? I smell a conspiracy.

* In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve read The Lord of the Rings 10 times, give or take, so don’t think I don’t also love it. It’s just that sometimes you have to let go of the things you love for the good of the country, like how Mark Foley let go of that handsome young page’s hand, or how Barack Obama (didn’t) let go of his racist feelings towards white folks.**

** That’s intended as a joke, in case there’s any confusion. Everybody knows Mark Foley never let go of that boy’s hand.

On Great Sentences, Episode 1: Barry Hannah

BarryIt’s difficult to consider the work of the late Barry Hannah a sentence at a time, piecemeal. The individual Hannah sentence is the very amalgam of sound and image, yet it simultaneously derives so much of its art from its position within the writhing, snapping entirety. Removed from its brethren, a Hannah sentence seems a somewhat hollower version of its former (gigantic) self. For all of the flash of Hannah’s style, his most fundamental interest was in people, and their exploration, and celebration. This is evident in his sentences, and also why these sentences, when taken out of the context of their empeopled environments, lose a lick of their flame. Take, for example, this sentence from “Our Secret Home.”

Continue reading »

ONSQU Contributor Kerri Webster’s New Book Out Soon (Buy it!)

Tags

, ,

Kerri Webster

Kerri Webster’s new book, Grand & Arsenal, which won the Iowa Poetry Prize and features several poems that have appeared in Washington Square, will be released by the University of Iowa Press this Spring! Congratulations to her! I strongly suggest that you pre-order it on Amazon by clicking here. Loyal readers, and some choice disloyal readers, may recall that Kerri also won the prestigious Whiting Award back in October. Five of Kerri’s poems were featured in our Summer/Fall 2011 issue, which you can pick up by going here. In conclusion, we love Kerri Webster, and would love it if you’d join us in support of her fantastic work.

Announcing the Blogtest Winner AND the Washington Square Awards Judges!

Tags

, , , ,

Congratulations to Blogtest winner Michael Gossett!

That’s right! Hundreds of you came out and voted (thank you for that), and America has spoken: Michael Gossett is the winner of the first ever Washington Square Blogtest! Michael wins a subscription to Washington Square and a free submission to the 2012 Washington Square Awards. Well done, Michael!

Speaking of the awards, our second order of business is to announce the judges for this year’s contest! So, without further ado, here they are:

Poetry  Judge: Marie Howe

Marie Howe’s most recent book, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her other collections of poetry include What the Living Do and The Good Thief, which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 1987 National Poetry Series. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, Agni, Ploughshares, and Harvard Review. Her honors include National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim fellowships.

Fiction judge: Darin Strauss

Darin Strauss is the author of four novels, including the international bestseller Chang and Eng, the New York Times Notable Book The Real McCoy, More Than it Hurts You. His latest book, a memoir, Half a Life, won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His work has been translated into fourteen language, and has appeared on multiple Best Book of the Year lists. He’s also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Flash Fiction Judge:  Jim Shepard

Jim Shepard is the author of six novels and four short story collections, including Like You’d Understand, Anyway, which won the Story Prize in 2008, and was nominated for a National Book Award in 2007. His novel Project X won the 2005 Massachusetts Book Award. Shepard’s work has been published in McSweeney’sGrantaThe Atlantic MonthlyEsquireHarper’sThe New YorkerThe Paris ReviewPloughsharesTriquarterly, and Playboy.

About the 2012 Washington Square Awards

Submissions to the contest are open as of this morning, via the Washington Square online submission system, which you can access by clicking here and following the instructions. Submissions close on March 8th. The winners from all three genres will receive a $500 prize and publication in Washington Square. The submission fee is $10 — a paltry sum compared to what you stand to win (particularly for Michael Gossett)!

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 5,684 other followers