By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, March 1st, 2013 
Clifton Truman Daniel’s “A Mission of Reconciliation,” describes his recent trip to Japan, honoring the victims of the atomic bomb, ordered by his grandfather. On the first day of Daniel’s trip, Nana Yamada, the Nagasaki correspondent of Japan’s largest television network, asked Daniel whether he came to Japan to apologize.
He didn’t.
“Out of respect for the survivors and their countrymen, I would not defend the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but neither could I apologize for my grandfather or my country. After all, I have shaken the hands of dozens of WWII veterans who tell me they probably wouldn’t have survived the invasion of the Japanese main islands.”
For the remainder of his visit and in his report, Daniel worked to explain and enact this complicated stance, which I appreciate. It hit close to home. As I read his account, I thought of my father.
While Daniel’s grandfather, President Harry Truman, momentously decided to drop the bomb, my dad, Ben Goldfarb, was one of the thousands of GIs who, therefore, were not part of the invasion. For my father, this was after serving in the South Pacific for four years as a conscript (who went in as a private and out as a corporal or private, I can’t remember; he told me about repeated promotions, followed by demotions connected to fighting with an anti-Semitic officer in his unit).
My father and I generally agreed on politics, though he was probably more of a leftist. He didn’t vote for Daniel’s grandfather, but for Henry Wallace. Yet, he strongly supported President Truman’s decision to drop the atomic bombs, not only because it saved him, but also because, he convinced himself following the commonsense of his times, the bombs in the long run saved more lives than they destroyed. I didn’t and don’t agree, but it was one of the very few issues that he really didn’t want to debate, our typical mode of communication once I was an adult. And as Daniel didn’t want to either defend or apologize . . .
Read more: The President and the Private, and the Atomic Bomb: Responding to Clifton Truman Daniel’s Mission to Japan
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 4th, 2013 
A friend on Facebook declared: “if you want to know everything wrong in the world, all you have to do is watch the stupid bowl.” Written during the course of the great event, I missed the comment in real time, as I missed the game. But I suspect she is right. And for this reason, I generally stay away, though with some ambivalence.
As a good American boy, I enjoyed playing the game and watching, and the memories of pleasures past linger (including watching games, in the less distant past, with my son, who was without my provocation a fan). Yet, football is more and more clearly brutal, with its special cult of violence becoming increasingly problematic. And the Super Bowl is not just another game; it has specific repulsive dressing. The ads are a spectacle of consumerism and all I hate about capitalism. Even though I begrudgingly offer capitalism two cheers, seeing no practical alternative in our world, I see no reason to see virtue in necessity, and it is off putting to celebrate. Super Bowl Sunday is a media event from which I abstain.
Last night, I followed my Super Bowl tradition, and went to the movies. I finally pushed myself to go see Zero Dark Thirty, with less than ten other people in the audience. I very reluctantly went. Following the debates about the film, I didn’t want to support a work that apparently credited torture for the killing of Osama bin Laden. I expected to be repulsed, not by the gratuitous violence of the film (in football’s spirit). It was the violence of the message that concerned me. Proponents of torture applauded this Hollywood production as the exception that proves the rule of Hollywood’s liberal bias. Opponents of the use of “enhanced interrogation” denounced the film. And esthetes of various sorts, including the film’s director, claimed that as a work of art, one based on our very recent past, Zero Dark Thirty is intentionally without a clear political message, depicting the facts, opening discussion. I decided to decide for myself, and . . .
Read more: Zero Dark Thirty on Super Bowl Sunday
By Gary Alan Fine, December 24th, 2012 
One of the truisms of the Internet Age is what has become known as Goodwin’s Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. Let us turn to the Third Reich in Connecticut.
The reason that Americans permit the tragedy of Sandy Hook to occur year after doleful year has nothing to do with the fear of home invasion. It has nothing to do with cocaine-soaked gangs. It has nothing to do with the love of hiding in a duck blind. It has all to do with George III, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. This is the half-hidden secret behind the National Rifle Association’s passion and it needs to be judged in its own terms.
The justification for the Second Amendment and the justification for opposition to such real and apparently rational limits on semi-automatic weapons is to keep power in the hands of the people. The local community is a bulwark of democracy. Just as the rest of the libertarian-blessed Bill of Rights is concerned with constraining the heavy hand of state control, so is the Second Amendment. The fantasy is Red Dawn as Groundhog Day. A demand for personal liberty led Charlton Heston to be willing to fight until “they” pry the gun from his “cold, dead hands.”
In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, of Aurora, of Tucson, of Virginia Tech, of Columbine the issue is trust. Can we trust that our American regime (or invaders from Venezuela or Mars) can eschew the temptations of tyranny? Does power corrupt absolutely? Although the National Rifle Association is loath to admit it, gun control depends on political theory. The reason for heavy personal artillery is not to provoke one’s children against a break-in by Spike or José, but to kill Sergeant Spike or Colonel José. We need an arsenal not to hunt Bambi, but Senator Bambi. And if the National Rifle Association did not fear public revulsion, this is the argument that they would make.
In fact, the argument is not entirely crazed. Some seventy-five years . . .
Read more: Sandy Hook and Hitler
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 18th, 2012 
While I take for granted that gun control is a proper response to the atrocity in Newtown, not all do. This is the second of a two part extended exchange (part 1, here ). My friend Thomas Cushman, who holds libertarian views, challenged me and proposed a different interpretation and a different course of action. I hope this will open a deeper deliberate discussion.
Tom: Jeff, I wonder if we as sociologists could bring some kind of understanding to this situation that does not sink down into the extreme positions on either side? Otherwise it’s just politics as usual. Consider, for instance, that Connecticut already has severe gun control measures. They did not stop the atrocity. Vermont is a state where any resident can buy as many guns, and as much ammunition as they want, carry concealed handguns, own assault rifles, and it has the lowest homicide rate in the country. I am not a fan of the gun culture by any stretch, but it seems shallow to imagine that some amorphous, state induced “gun control” is going to ever stop these kinds of things. As you know, the problem is cultural. We live in a degraded cultural environment full of simulated and prosthetic violence,. Our children, especially our boys, are immersed in violent culture produced by Hollywood. Why not start there?
Jeff: Agreed the problem at its base cultural. Gun culture, the culture of violence and its glorification. And yes, violence in popular culture is a problem. But why have so many guns? I would like to work on all fronts. I would start with a discussion about gun controls in the political arena. Certainly some weapons shouldn’t be in private hands. Certainly, also, we should have a discussion about depictions of violence in films and music. If you want to start there, . . .
Read more: After Newtown: A Discussion about Gun Controls and Popular Culture
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 17th, 2012 
As with many others, I have been consumed by the tragedy in Newtown Connecticut. I wrote a post on Saturday, something I try not to do. Signed a couple of petitions (see here and here). Watched the memorial service last night. Was moved and inspired by Obama’s speech.
It is at moments like this that I am relieved and proud that Barack Obama is president. He gave a powerful speech. He got to the heart of the matter. I am confident a real response to this tragedy will happen.
Moving from alarm, to depression to hope, I discussed with friends on Facebook the events as they have been unfolding. I think the discussions were informative and re-produce slightly edited versions here. The discussion crossed intellectual gated communities, an interesting exchange on my left was initiated by my Israeli friend, Orly Lubin, joined by American based friends Peter Manning, and Esther Kreider-Verhalle. In the second, from the more libertarian side of things, there was a civil exchange with my friend Tom Cushman, which I will post tomorrow. I hope we can continue these discussions at Deliberately Considered.
The discussion on the left was between those, including me, who saw a major change in Obama’s approach to leadership and gun policy, and those who see a pattern of compromise and ineffectiveness in domestic and foreign policy.
Orly: You Americans are the masters of understatements – Hannan and me were furious – between Jesus and god bless America, couldn’t hear the word “gun” nor the word “control” – but what do I know, don’t speak american, I guess.
Jeff: Yes, I think you don’t. Though I also don’t like certain religious aspects of American.
![]() After Newtown: A Dialogue on the Left
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 15th, 2012 
This time it was in a Connecticut elementary school, not very far from my home. The local and national news together are overwhelmingly depressing. I feel despair and powerless: such brutality, and Americans have kept on arming themselves, with support for gun control diminishing.
Why? Perhaps it is because too many of us confuse fictions with facts? On this issue the NRA view of the world seems to dominate. Consider this blast from Deliberately Considered’s past, the story of a preteen sharpshooter defending her home in Butte Montana. Gun advocates make up there own facts to justify their position that guns yield personal and public safety.
A fact free world provides the grounds upon which outrageous judgments are made. Charles Blow cited one today:
“Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, wasted no time trying to pin Friday’s shooting on gun control advocates. ThinkProgress quoted a statement of his that read, in part: ‘Gun control supporters have the blood of little children on their hands. Federal and state laws combined to ensure that no teacher, no administrator, no adult had a gun at the Newtown school where the children were murdered. This tragedy underscores the urgency of getting rid of gun bans in school zones.’ ”
How is it possible for someone to imagine let alone utter such words? Following their logic, and the sort of pseudo-evidence it is based on, “the fictoid from out west,” perhaps the answer to school violence is arming kindergarten kids. David Frum, indeed, in a tweet sarcastically declared: “Shooting at CT elementary school. Obviously, we need to lower the age limit for concealed carry so toddlers can defend themselves.”
And then there is the magical power of prayer. Mike Huckabee: “We ask why there’s violence in our schools but we’ve systematically removed God from our schools. Should we be so surprised that schools would . . .
Read more: Another Day, Another Gun Massacre
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 13th, 2012 
I am embarking upon a new project, the investigation of the social condition, highlighting dilemmas that are inevitably built into the social fabric, and exploring the ways people work to address them. Some examples:
It is obviously important for a democratic society to provide equal opportunity for all young people. The less privileged should have the advantages of a good education. This is certainly a most fundamental requirement for equal opportunity. On the other hand, it is just as certain that a good society, democratic and otherwise, should encourage and enable parents to provide the best, to present the world as they know and appreciate it, to their children: to read to them, to introduce them to the fine arts and sciences, and to take them on interesting trips, both near and far. But not all parents can do this as effectively, some have the means, some don’t. Democratic education and caring for one’s children are in tension. The social bonds of citizenship and the social bonds of family are necessarily in tension. This tension, in many variations, defines a significant dimension of the social condition.
Another dimension of the social condition was illuminated in a classic lecture, “Politics as a Vocation,” by Max Weber: the tension between what he called the “ethics of responsibility” versus the “ethics of ultimate ends.” We observed an iteration of this tension in the debate about Lincoln, the movie. In politics there is always a tension between getting things done, as Weber would put it, responsibly, and being true to ones principles. Ideally the tension is balanced, as it was portrayed in the film: Lincoln the realist enabled Thaddeus Stephens, the idealist, to realize his ends in less than idealistic ways. A wise politician, Weber maintained, has to know how to balance, ideal with realism. But this tension goes beyond individual judgment and political effectiveness. Establishing the social support to realize ideals is necessary, but sometimes the creation of such supports make it next to impossible for the ideals to be realized. Making sure that educational ideals are realized, for example, . . .
Read more: The Social Condition
By James M. Jasper, November 29th, 2012 
At a Sixteenth Arrondissement party soon after I arrived in Paris in late 1984, I was cornered by a tipsy Frenchman who repeatedly exclaimed–in a tone more resigned than angry–“You’ve won! You’ve won.” This was all he would say, elaborations and explanations apparently being unnecessary.
Once I began to look for them, signs of American triumph were everywhere: Carl Lewis’s Olympics a few months before, Reagan’s enthusiastic re-election a few weeks before, and a sense that personal computers coming from garages in Silicon Valley would displace the tiny Minitel terminals linked to a central network for which the French had instead opted (a prescient model, but ten years before the internet could have made real use of them). After several months in Paris, I realized this handwringing was a daily theme in the Parisian press: the United States had won the economic game.
The idea was everywhere: the news detailed France’s economic crisis and America’s ascendency; top journalists and other members of the intelligentsia analyzed how France had gotten into its sad state; academics wrote books setting the crisis in world-historical context; politicians spun grandiose plans for pulling France out of its malaise. But no one took the schemes of the politicians seriously: the crisis, everyone knew, was there to stay. Thus Le Monde‘s annual report on the economic state of the world in early 1985 had on its cover a tiny boat, its sail in disarray, about to drop from the crest of a wave, and a large ocean liner placidly moving along in the distance. The dinghy flew several European flags, the steamer those of Japan and the United States.
It was not just France: the entire “old world” was implicated. It was just that: old, weary, perhaps exhausted. Many French, if it fit their current political rhetoric, were fond of pointing out that France had done better than most European countries. The French were happy that they were not the Germans, the Swiss, or even the Swedes who had beaten them this time. It was America, which is after all America, and Japan, that . . .
Read more: An American in Paris: Thinking about France, Taxes and the Good Life
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 15th, 2012 
As I was composing my thoughts about the Biden–Ryan debate, I returned to my initial response to Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his Vice President.
“Ryan’s nomination, I believe, assures the re-election of President Obama. The basis of my belief is a judgment that Americans generally are guided by a conservative insight, an American suspicion of ideological thought. Conservative insight defeats the conservative ticket.”
I reported this on my Facebook page and a very interesting debate developed, the sort of “serious discussion about the events of the day,” beyond “partisan gated communities,” which I hoped Deliberately Considered would stimulate. Thomas Cushman, the Deffenbaugh de Hoyos Carlson Professor in the Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College, was the critical voice, reflecting on my post and on James Jasper’s on anti-intellectualism, which focused on Paul Ryan. The discussion than took off when I responded and then Aron Hsiao joined us.
Thomas Cushman: Honestly, is it possible that anyone could not look at Biden and see the incarnation of the anti-intellectual? It would seem more sociologically accurate and fair-minded to see that ideologue anti-intellectuals abound in both parties.
Jeffrey Goldfarb: Historically for sure, there have been anti-intellectuals in both parties. I really don’t understand on what grounds you label Biden as such, though. And I think ideological temptations, in the form of magical modern thinking about complex problems, exist among Republicans these days, not among Democrats. I wish this wasn’t so as someone who admires conservative thought.
Thomas Cushman: Really, from my point of view, it seems like Obama is almost completely a magical thinker, who inflects most of reality with a utopian narrative, and therein lies the problem. You can’t govern with a narrative, not a complex . . .
Read more: A Dialogue on Politics, Anti-Intellectuals and Ideologues on the Occasion of the Ryan–Biden Debate
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, October 8th, 2012 
I woke up Saturday morning blown away by Charles Blow. His witty defense of PBS in his column is perfect. PBS as the enactment of the ideal of a democratic culture: refined, enlightening, open, inclusive, transforming. Blow presents not only illuminating personal reflections gleaned from the one gaffe of the Presidential debate on Wednesday, the dissing of Big Bird and PBS, as Aron Hsiao’s post yesterday analyzed, Blow also significantly addresses one of the crucial fields of contestation in American history: the perils to and promise of cultural excellence in a democracy. I have been thinking about this issue for much of my career. It was at the center of my book The Cynical Society: The Culture of Politics and the Politics of Culture in American Life. Blow shows how Big Bird and his Sesame Street friends, along with much else in PBS programing, contribute in a significant way to the health of the republic and its citizens.
Blow celebrates the character of Big Bird as it contributed to his own character. “I’m down with Big Bird.” Being black and poor in rural America, in the absence of good schools, PBS became his top quality primary and secondary schools. His uncle daily cared for him and permitted only one hour of PBS TV each day. (The same regime, I used with my kids. I wonder: how many millions were so raised?)
Blows imagination was sparked. His thirst for knowledge was quenched. He learned about science through nature programs, to his mind his SAT prep. He devoured arts programs, which he believes enabled him, a college English major without formal art training, to work as the design director of The New York Times and the art director of National Geographic magazine.
“I don’t really expect Mitt Romney to understand the value of something like PBS to people, like me, who grew up in poor, rural areas and went to small schools. These are places with no museums or preschools or after-school educational programs. There wasn’t money for travel or to pay . . .
Read more: On “Don’t Mess with Big Bird”
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