October 21, 2020

Hate readsThe Western canon has no shortage of fascists. But can the far-Right make 'literature' worthy of the name? (Andrew Marzoni, 10/21/20, Aeon)

The public outrage following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbury earlier this year flooded bookstores in the United States with orders for recent publications such as Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility and Ibram X Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist, as well as for classic novels by Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, and essays by Angela Davis and Audre Lorde. At the same time, the British Right-wing propagandist Milo Yiannopoulos posted 'An "America First" Reading List' to the extremist social media network Gab. Co-authored by the American blogger Michelle Malkin, this 'gift for young conservatives' compiles nearly 200 books sorted by theme (literature, Christianity, religion, culture, US politics, race, economics and 'the West'), priority, and level of difficulty.

Pillars of the canon (Dante's Divine Comedy; Augustine's Confessions; Shakespeare's tragedies) mingle liberally with stalwart fetish tracts (The Art of War by Sun Tzu; The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler), conspiracy theories ('The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'; the Unabomber's manifesto) and titles from contemporary conservatism's most popular pundits, among whom both authors immodestly insert themselves, allotting three to four slots each: more than other conservative commentators such as Dinesh D'Souza and David Horowitz get, and as many as Ann Coulter.

It takes a tremendous effort to stay as ignorant as a Trumpbot.
Posted by at October 21, 2020 12:00 AM

  

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