Letters to the Editor
Christopher1988
Published Letters: 569 Editor's Choice: 40
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People always get Wertham wrong
[Read the article: Panic in the pages]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Salon has recently been closing its letter's pages after only a few days, so I'm going to post this without rechecking the copy of Seduction of the Innocents available at my local college library. But I have actually perused a copy, which I suspect most people who deride the book have not. So, from memory:
1. Though Miller refers to Wertham as having a "bizarre fixation on superheroes and their purported connection to the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and, by extension, Nazism," I think not more than five pages of Wertham's book are actually devoted to superheroes. He makes glancing remarks about Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, but most of his over 100 page tome is devoted to horror and crime comics. The only time I recall his comparing any superhero to Nietzsche or Nazis is his glancing remark on Superman's curious name (considering the origins of the term) and his caustic remark that if he wears a giant "S" on his shirt, at least one should be greatful it isn't an "SS." That's, what, two sentences out of the entire book?
2. Anyone who thumbs through Wertham's book expecting a Reefer Madness of anti-comic book hysteria is likely to be disappointed. The book is somber and rather dull, actually, and despite a few well-chosen excerts often reprinted in works of comic book appreciation, and despite the wild headlines newspapers at the time chose to print, it's really a very dry and rather dull read.
3. Wertham was a liberal of the old school, a supporter of modern art, a defender of the Rosenburgs, and man who gave his time to helping gay kids in Harlem, for goodness sake. He was no McCarthyite. He was incredibly misguided in his attack on comics, missing the salient point that all kids were reading them. So trying to find a connection between comic books and juvenile delinquency or comics and mental disorders was rather like trying to find a connection between a round earth and juvenile delinquency. or breathing oxygen and mental disorders. However, his goals were noble, and were it not for the repurcussions of this one moment in his career, he'd probably be hailed as a foreward-thinking man. More likely, of course, he simply would not be remembered at all.
On another note: I love Miller's general thesis. It's nice to hear someone tow a middle ground. But there's still a glimmer of something that she's ignoring but I find fascinating: the hypocrisy that often seeps into books on popular culture. I first encountered it as a teen when I would read, say, the Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll, which would early on deride the repressive cultural custodians of the 50's for mischaracterizing rock as a sex-crazed short cut to juvenile delinquency. Then, for the majority of the book, go on to cheer rock and roll for, well, celebrating sexual promiscuity, embracing rebellion first in the form of 50's greasers and juvenile delinquents and then in that of the 60's counter-culture, and finally for bringing about a great societal revolution through sex, drugs and rock and roll. In other words, the repressed conservatives were lying when they called this this wild, socially destructive music...but we should celebrate it for...being wild, and socially destructive? That seemed to be the convoluted logic.
For the past twenty years or so, comic book fans (and I'm one, but I disagree with a lot of them on this) seem to have been going down the same road. Wertham in the 50's says "comics are subversive" and in every anthology on comic books since the 70's they shriek "No, it was all just innocent fun!" Then when teacher isn't looking they giggle "weren't these comics wonderfully subversive?" It's unpleasant when the reasoning of left-leaning culture critics so strongly resembles that of Tricky Dick.
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Um...huh...what?
[Read the article: Rev. Jeremiah Wright isn't the problem]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Wright's unforgivable sin was that he violated our rigid code of national etiquette. Instead of the requisite "God bless America," he said "God damn America." He said 9/11 was a case of chickens coming home to roost. Now we must all furrow our brows and agree that such dreadful words are anathema and that no presidential candidate can ever have been within earshot of them.
Leaving out the "unforgivable sin" rhetoric, damn straight. Am I to understand we did bring 9-11 on ourselves? Is that what Salon in claiming? When did they take up the line of Jerry Falwell? Who in America is responsible? The gays? The hedonists? The capitalists?
I should hope anyone who says "God damn America" or supports such sentiments will never be electable in this country. Freedom of speech is guaranteed, but when the speech is treasonous, the speaker will hopefully not be in possession of America's future.
What I would like is for the dangerous comments of John McCain's spiritual adviser to be treated to equal media scrutiny. Rod Parsely has called Islam a "false religion" and advocated that a confrontation between Christianity and Islam is unavoidable. Isn't that pretty close to (if not in fact) inciting his followers to Holy War? Is this any more tolerable than Wright's message?
Neither pastor should have an influence over a candidate for the Oval Office.
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After Her Bosinia Lie, Salon Has the Guts to Ignore That Story and Run This Nonsense, Like the Week Is Business as Usual?
[Read the article: The GOP attack plan for Hillary Clinton]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She's over. She lied. Directly. No "misspeaking." She wasn't unclear. She gave specific, dramatic details that were thoroughly false. And, as she claimed to be a First Lady under enemy fire, that means she was lying about an issue of national security. There is no way for her to live this down. Politically she's a dead duck.