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The Ricochet Weekend Essay Assignment: Martin Amis on Barack Obama
Herewith the novelist and culture bearer Martin Amis, interviewed on Barack Obama in 2009.* (If you watch to the very end, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most astounding utterances any educated person has ever spoken with a straight face: ”He may be able to change the spirit of the planet.”)
Your assignment: Construct a defense for Amis. Excuse him so convincingly that somewhere in America—even if only in the English departments of small liberal arts colleges—a few people find themselves able to continue taking him seriously.
*With a tip of the hat to our own John Podhoretz.
Published in General
Wow. What an idiot. I’m not sure there is a better word to describe it. Funny to see him giving the interview at some beach resort…. Doesn’t mean anything, necessarily, but it creates a bad taste in the viewer’s mouth.
Thanks for alerting me to the name. If I ever see a book with his name on it, I’ll happily pass it by.
Peter, I am currently reading an old book that you may have seen: Political Power: USA/USSR, by Brezezinski and Huntington (um… 60’s sometime). I take it with a grain of salt, of course, but they are describing the differences between Soviet and American politics and ideology. It is scary to see that many of the differences they articulated have faded in recent years. There are still massive differences, which actually gives me some hope, but the red flags are more concerning.
” Writers should be read, but neither seen nor heard.” Is a quote attributable to:
A) Martin Amis.
B) Maya Angelou.
C) Norman Mailer.
D) Gore Vidal.
E) Daphne du Maurier.
I’ve gotten A’s in all my other assignments this semester. I’ll take a hit on this impossible assignment.
I was not in the least bit troubled by your comment, and I also like to come onto Ricochet to have a bit of fun.
I reckon that I’ve failed Peter’s test too. But the good news is that even though I have no freaking clue who this dude is, I could care less about what he or most Progz have to say about anything anyway. The point I was trying to make is that our nation could use more people working with their hands and fewer working with words. Intellectuals are wonderful and such I suppose, but I have more respect for plumbers. BTW, isn’t Obama an intellectual? I mean – has he ever done an honest day’s work?
The only thing grounded in definable reality (of which he may well be skeptical), is that a man named Obama exists. Obama may (or may not) change the spirit (whatever that is, was, or will be) of the planet (presumably he means the it’s inhabitants, unless of course the planet is imbued with a spirit)? Profoundly confusing mustn’t be mistaken for profound, but in Amis’s defense, I’ve never heard of him.
His excuse: “I am a naive idiot, coming right out of the tradition of the useful idiots. Idiots follow idiots.”
LOL!
[1/2]
Just after Barack Obama was elected a leftish-leaning British Magazine, Prospect, interviews Martin Amis. In this interview Martin Amis expresses his expectations of the cosmic accomplishments that should be forthcoming now that BHO is in charge.
As an aside, in the interview Amis revealed he doesn’t understand how the world works. This is a necessary precondition for believing that negotiating with criminal regimes would be productive–as though nobody has ever tried that before. Does he not know this? Or in spite of being aware of the poor outcomes of these previous efforts did he magically believe that things that never worked out well before would work out much better now just because it was being done by Barack Obama? Put another way, is he uninformed or incompetent?
Kenneth Pollack wrote a book describing years of sterile negotiations with Iran.
Now that Martin Amis has been shown to be a fool because he had faith that all of this could be true Peter Robinson wants me to explain why what Amis said might have been reasonable to say in April 2009. Hoo boy.
Let’s try to examine why Amis is so hard to defend. In my view the reason why Amis looks so stupid is because he doesn’t understand how the world works, is unaware of the gaps in his own understanding and then has the effrontery to preen his self-esteemed superiority–which in reality was his inferiority–over those he sneers at. For example:
Now assuming that Amis is merely a uninformed fool is the most charitable conclusions. But he can only be merely a uninformed fool if he doesn’t understand that Hamas is a Islamic terrorist organization and that Iran is a terrorist state. If he is well-aware of the both Iran’s and Hamas’ nature then Amis is essentially a terrorist sympathizer who is willing to shill for Iran and Hamas. How progressive can you get?
[2/2]
The most embarrassing aspect is his exhibition of callow naivete. This could be expected–and therefore tolerated–in a person with only a modicum of life experience (scenario: a millennial.) But Martin Amis is in his 60’s. Why has he learned so little in the last 30 years?
I can’t resist. From the interview, Amis speaking: ” What if [Obama] started talking to Hamas next week? Talks to Ahmadinejad next week? I’m convinced that talking to your supposed enemies–we’ve seen the fruits of not talking to them and that’s worked out really well hasn’t it? Not talking to them.”
I ask Amis, as the trainwreck of Obama’s Middle East policy creates the precondtions for a truly epic catastrophe : Have you seen how Obama’s “talking to” Hamas and Iran worked out? Really well hasn’t it?
By now Peter Robinson is probably beginning to wonder whether I have forgotten that I am supposed to be defending Martin Amis. Here it goes.
My defense is that Amis was just playing it safe: he was reciting what passed for conventional wisdom amongst his peers circa 2009. What he said was calculated to be non-threatening to the progressive world-views generally held by the company he kept. Nobody in the circle of acquaintances that he needed to get along with was going to be upset with him, make him justify his statements over dinner or decide to take it out on him when they reviewed his next book. It was safest for Martin Amis to talk like that.
Another defense is that Amis is in a lot of good company: Barack Obama has made fools out of many people who usually are to0 smart for fall for the likes of Barack Obama. This includes some right of center folks like Peggy Noohan, Chris Buckley and Colin Powell; they indicated that they were comfortable with a Barack Obama presidency during 2008. Today I think all of these–Amis included–will be careful to be a bit more humble, more restrained the next time the Left serves up another messiah.
Kingslay Amis is rolling in his grave.
I can’t let this insult to my tween daughter go by without objecting.
It’s dog-like devotion like that that got Obama elected twice.
European lefties got the US President they had wished for (for a very long time) in 2008. So, Amis like the rest of them was punch drunk and euthopian stupid in 09. The annoying thing about the left is their inability to learn from either history or data (hello! Party of science). I bet Mr Amis will Blame any thing other than the naïveté and stupidity of his side for the mess that is Obama’s world.
Peter,
Thanks so very much for this post. It is very very important to observe clearly the total lack of Wisdom that this new-age fool actually possessed in 2009. That he was so capable of this level of self delusion should disqualify him from ever again being taken seriously by sane adults.
If that’s too harsh a judgement, then frankly Martin I don’t give a damn.
Regards,
Jim
You ask, I respond:
“Amis yearns for an country where the President starts speaking directly to Hamas and I’m A Dinner Jacket, instead of employing the usual imperial bluster spewed by AmeriKKKan politicians. Instead, constrained by the Wall St power elites and intimidated by the millions spent by the fearmongering Koch Brothers, Obama missed this opportunity to change the spirit of the planet. We can only hope that January 2017 sees the inauguration of President Warren who is the one we have been waiting for, the true vehicle for the hope and change this country so badly needs.”
But he speaks English with an snooty accent…doesn’t that mean he’s smarter than us ‘Mericans?
Amis’ only defense is that he doesn’t have a real job other than writing, so he’s working with ideas. In 2009, the idea of Barack Obama was front and center, instead of the reality of Barack Obama. Considering that Obama hadn’t done anything yet – and would go on to do largely more of the same – Amis was writing the Obama story in his head.
I’ve only read “Money”, which was a pretty good book, but hugely grim. Perhaps Amis needed a fictional counterweight to what looks like an extremely cynical worldview – and he found one in Barry.