Kevin Berger's column came as music to my ears for several reasons. When I listen to music, I like to listen to music--period. The constant bombardment of music I haven't chosen makes me dislike public places these days, sometimes even private gatherings. As another writer pointed out, how can you hold a conversation over loud music? Of course there are suitable settings for music (loud or soft), but does it have to show up in EVERY setting? I worry that ubiquitous music has become so associated with consumption of goods and services, we immediately pull out our wallets when we hear it. Worse still, I teach at a small midwestern college where music plays constantly in the main admin building, which also houses two academic departments. Students, faculty, administrators, and everyone else enter to a variety of classical music, soft rock, pop tunes from Disney movies, and Ravel's "Bolero." The message we're sending is not "come here to learn," but come here to consume, or to enjoy pop culture. But if I complain there (as I'm doing here), I'll sound like a curmudgeon. A respectful debate about places that are and are not appropriate for public music might do my school a world of good.

The Editor’s Choice letters already posted on this interview make some excellent points: Goldberg does seem to cherrypick his definitions and his examples (dmnels); he uses words very loosely (Sandy Yago) and relabels things to suit his overall thesis (jontv). Steve Kelner Ph.D. also raised a point worth repeating—namely, the disjuncture between Goldberg’s cover illustration and his mental gymnastics to distance himself from it. Goldberg himself says, “But I think the problem is you get into one of these sort of overly doctrinal, ‘let's go to the text’ approaches where words get confused for things. . . . Saying that you still believe in the dialectic and the cold impersonal forces of history found in ‘Das Kapital’ or ‘The Communist Manifesto’ isn't an abracadabra thing where all of a sudden that means Stalin was really a Marxist or wasn't a fascist in terms of how he actually operated.” If Goldberg didn’t really like the cover, shouldn’t he have acted differently?

I’m still chewing on Goldberg’s methodology. I’m a medieval historian with a Ph.D. and tenure; if he majored in history as an undergrad, he didn’t go on to get advanced degrees. This doesn’t mean I’m right and he’s wrong. It means that I spend my time thinking about how I engage in historical research. Texts are my bread and butter, since they’re my only link to the actions people took in the twelfth century. Again, Goldberg seems to cherrypick, or rather mix and match, chosen actions to the relevant quotes so that he can make his point. While I’m completely ignorant of twentieth-century historical interpretations, I can say that methodologically, Goldberg’s very sloppy definitions can’t stand up to this sort of treatment.

Finally, I want to take issue with his labels of fascism as “feminine” and “masculine.” First, these definitions strike me as overly essentialist. Second, how can he really claim a straight line between old- and new-style fascism if it’s undergone such a fundamental gender change? Finally, Goldberg may not realize it, but his terminology implies that he’s not comfortable with feminine power. If this was intentional, he’s just slapped every American feminist in the face. If it wasn’t, was it a Freudian slip?

I didn't see this myself, and it's no longer on CNN's side. But according to commenters at Crooks and Liars, it said:

Does Barack Obama show the proper patriotism for someone who wants to be president of the United States?

The final tally was about 2/3 yes and 1/3 no. Other commenters noted that simply by framing the poll this way, CNN promoted Repub talking points.

I teach at a small state university, but I'm much more qualified to comment on the medieval understanding of rape than its incidence on our campus. Most of my students are surprised to learn that there's a direct connection between the concepts of chivalry, which put women on a pedestal, and understandings of rape. Our English word "ravishing" is related to medieval French words: for men, the word is a verb meaning "to lose control" and for women, it's an adjective meaning "so desirable she causes men to lose control." Obviously by this argument (posed by literary scholar Kathryn Gravdal), language insists that women cause their own rapes. Think about that the next time you hear "ravishing" used as a compliment.

I also see a connection between older understandings of rape and MacDonald's repugnant attitudes. Diane Wolfthal has studied artwork portraying "heroic rape," which in premodern Europe meant somebody stole/seduced a woman and this could be seen as a mark of masculinity and/or a crime against the woman's male kin.

Contact me for references or the lovely little lecture I give on rape and chivalry.

Wow, someone's story last fall about the high school mentality of the press corps REALLY rings true now. Why can't these people grow up? Or am I missing something, and the "real" world of power and politics is truly just an extension of high school? I teach at a small university, and that crowd doesn't seem so immature, somehow.