On November 14 Lewis Lapham, who has been editor of Harper’s since 1983, announced his retirement. Lapham is the originator of the widely imitated “Harper’s Index” and the author of numerous books, including Gag Rule and, most recently, With the Beatles. He recently spoke by phone with In These Times from the Harper’s offices in New York. What do you… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (32)Page 1 of 1 pagesWhat Lapham says about religion, “it’s either true and revealed, or false and heretical” is precisely right. Whenever I used to get into political discussions in the States (I live in Greece now) all Bush supporters, who were usually religious as well, had this mental barrier and were unwilling to even consider an opposing opinion to whatever their god, their preacher, their mommy and daddy or their president told them. At least when I talk to Europeans we come to a certain amount of political agreement.
Maybe things are different now. A lot has happened in a year. Though I can picture this one American chump who I got into it with one night about the war, who was ALL for it 2 years ago, now just changing the subject anytime the it comes up, with that dumb, drunk look on his face.
Posted by m goodwin on Dec 14, 2005 at 7:29 AM Greece. Nice, huh?
Those poor chumps. I almost feel sorry for the administration. What a bunch of turncoats. It seems to be true, for as long as I can remember that Americans want to be on the side that’s winning. Like Homer Simpson said, ‘it’s more important to be popular’.
My guess is that all but the true believers (who may kill their family and themselves before questioning the Rapture, W. as a man of God, and Israel as a monument to biblical proportions), will simply act like they never thought otherwise , but that George and his posse were all crooks and incompetent boobs.
The same people who would have turned me in to the Secret Service had they heard my opinions, will suddenly be whistling a different tune and saluting whomever the new “winners” might be. Let’s hope they’re not worse.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 14, 2005 at 1:24 PM “With religion you often run up against people who already know all the answers and don’t find any need to argue the point.”
This statement is really much more true for ideologues, whether they are secular or religious. But really, to some extent, we all have the same tendency, especially as we age and our ideas become more set. For instance, how many people here think that their opinions on such things as abortion or the death penalty (not to mention the war in Iraq) can be changed by an enlightened conversation with another person?
Still, it is fashionable on the left to slam religious folk and the quote above does achieve that aim. Kudos to LL.
Posted by wolf on Dec 14, 2005 at 2:35 PM While agreeing with Mr. Lapham’s assessment of our current wealth disparity,I can’t help but feel that this guy deserves no kudos.
Why didn’t he let his opinion be known while he was probably raking in more than 300 times more than an average press operator at Harper’s?
Maybe,for some people,a golden parachute comes with a guilty conscience.
Posted by Dr.D on Dec 14, 2005 at 8:43 PM I’ve been reading Lewis H. Lapham’s <i>Notebook<> in Harper’s for about twenty years.
I guess I never stopped to ask myself how much more an accomplished career writer and editor made when compared to the wages of an average press operator. In my opinion, his writing is better than average, and it isn’t his responsibility to correct the behavior of our national economy, but I’m a superstar in Plato’s cave, or whatever, so what do I know?.
I’ll ask Mr. Lapham----
Mr. Lapham, how did your pay compare to the pay of “your average press operator”? And, why didn’t you do something about it ? Don’t you think you owe every and any body an apology for everything---past, present, and future?
Did you get a “golden parachute”, or did you just retire? Or something yet more sinister that I have not even imagined, (living in a cave and all)?
How many of Harper’s employees are up the creek without a canoe, while you jet off to the islands where you can slap the help?
How can you sleep at night? Here you are TALKING about wealth inequality, when you have wealth--- a little too close to the topic, to talk about it, and still be eligible for ‘kudos’, don’t you think?
Hope you can sleep at night without those “kudos”. Confess your guilt now, and perhaps you’ll be eligible for a sticker.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 14, 2005 at 9:57 PM I can change my mind as the result of “more enlightened conversation"---even on big issues. At least, if I don’t change my “yes” to a “no”, or “no” to a “yes, being able to frame something differently or weigh it differently is to be influenced. We’re all influenced by other people.
I see your point about the left slamming religion, and I wish they wouldn’t because they are only being religiously anti-religious, and I don’t believe that it is “stupid” or “sheepish” to have religious beliefs; but that doesn’t mean that a religious idealogue doesn’t have a tendency to use faith to make him/herself dangerously unaccountable to human reason and earthly law. Not every criticism is “slamming”.
This danger is inherent in religious ideology that is primarily composed of “followers” who feel that it is blasphemous for them to question their human leaders, whether or not the left is being fair in their criticisms.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 14, 2005 at 11:13 PM Lapham has a way with words, no doubt.
Although I personally think the most pressing issue for America is not how to define “national security”, but how to use our incredible power and influence in a way that benefits ourselves and also helps/refrains from hurting other societies.
Which is to say, how to use hyperpower properly.
If, that is, you accept the idea that people and nations are responsible for the harm they do, no matter whether it’s a main effect or a side effect of their intentional actions.
Some people don’t buy that, ya know…
Personally, I’m not too disturbed by the ratio of the CEO’s salary to the lowest salary in the firm and much more disturbed by the facts that 1) too many CEOs get a raft of goodies BEFORE they’ve done anything beneficial for the company (paying in advance doesn’t foster the best performance in a worker, even a worker in a corner office) and continue to get it even if their leadership damages that company and the people working for it, and 2) worse, the conditions in which diligent work, creativity, and intelligence could be translated into an improved life appear to be narrowing in America, not expanding.
It’s the excellence thang, ya dig. Why should I work so bloody hard if I’ll be stuck with a crap wage and little chance for advancement anyway? Might as well just do the minimum to get by…
I do think LL has a point about the admixture of religious fervor with government’s agenda, i.e. reacting as though questioning policy is a morally suspect and even treasonous behavior. A terrible attitude for an American to take! Wolf is right, though, when he points out that ideologues come in secular as well as churchy flavors. Some people you just can’t talk to, because they already know everything.
When people like that get ahold of power, better watch your back! Who cares if they’re devout or atheist? They’ll justify your destruction either way, and tell you why it was right, true, and appropriate that you be destroyed.
Well, an eloquent viejo’s musings are worth reading, I guess. A little bit.
Posted by Kuya on Dec 14, 2005 at 11:51 PM Although I personally think the most pressing issue for America is not how to define “national security”, but how to use our incredible power and influence in a way that benefits ourselves and also helps/refrains from hurting other societies.
That doesn’t seem incompatible with what Lapham was saying. There is no state of absolute security, so setting the parameters for what constites “security” might not hurt. A society made mostly of confident, competent, people who learn and consider themselves to be part of the fabric of a society are going to be more secure than people who are mostly scared and heavily armed.
Which is to say, how to use hyperpower properly.
How do you define “hyperpower”? My first thought is tectonic plates. France cracked one on the bottom of the ocean testing an atomic bomb. Who knows how much environmental damage is being done by carpet bombing and deep earth penetrating missiles followed by bombs, etc? I say, “if you can’t fix it, don’t break it”.
I agree that people and institutions need to be held accountable, regardless of their intentions. But----you might consider this a hyperpower issue---there are some chances that I don’t think anyone should be allowed to take.
It seems that as the right ratchets up the faith issue, the scientific world is becoming more decadent in its goals and careless in the risks they are taking. They are willing to take a one in three hundred chance of contaminating the earth with plutonium in an accident. One in three hundred? This is not astronomical odds.
Dangerous things are best left alone or in the hands of people who aren’t thrilled to have the power, and want to do what ever they can do to reduce the threat of causing harm, and to halt the threat of irreparable harm.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 15, 2005 at 12:41 AM Hi wileywitch,
No doubt, getting a handle on “national security” as a function of informed citizens’ feelings of connectedness and confidence would be great, I just have had a lot of thoughts about America’s inordinate economic and cultural influence (hyperpowerful influence that’s out of proportion to our numbers on the planet, also out of proportion to our apparent wisdom as a society… if societies can be wise, as individuals sometimes are), and so my phrasing. Lapham’s musings triggered me sharing a few of my own, not much more. I wasn’t particularly slamming him, maybe just altering the emphasis a bit.Your point about the hazards of science being used foolishly or in dangerous ways is important to consider. It preoccupies me somewhat, because I tend to favor science as a way of learning about the world and (my hope) improving human life while minimizing the damage we do. Science is an enormously powerful tool, easy to misuse or to employ toward stupid or evil ends. I certainly think it’s more useful as a way of understanding the material world than any metaphysical approach, although in the absence of ethical restraints or a contemplation of possible bad consequences, its power can bring about some terrible results.
Thanks for your responses, always appreciated.
Posted by Kuya on Dec 15, 2005 at 7:50 PM Well (not to be argumentative) but I don’t think that the metaphysical and physical worlds are necessarily at odds in any natural sense.
You might be interested in reading some of Fritjof Capra’s work, like the “Tao of Physics”, if you haven’t already. In “The Turning Point”, I think he made a really good argument for working toward shedding ourselves of Cartesian assumptions. The mind/body reductionist and dualistic thinking divides us against ourselves. A lot of stuff in it went over my head, but I hope to catch up with it bit by bit.
Not that DeCartes didn’t get things done and give us tools to better study the world---he most certainly did--- but many physicists find this framework limited and not up to task on the sub-atomic level.
I think we’re less likely to do stupid stuff with science when we accept ourselves as sensuous and fickle humans, instead of minds in a vat of meat that only need to be properly engineered---socially and/or genetically---to some measurable level of “perfection”.
Thank you for your response.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 15, 2005 at 8:50 PM “I think we’re less likely to do stupid stuff with science when we accept ourselves as sensuous and fickle humans, instead of minds in a vat of meat that only need to be properly engineered---socially and/or genetically---to some measurable level of “perfection”. “
You said a mouthful, compan~ero!
I read “Tao of Physics” years ago, pretty cool stuff although there were points where it was either too esoteric for my ADHD head or (what I felt at the time), tried too hard to fit together conceptual frameworks that weren’t really harmonious. But I did think it was an interesting approach, whether it truly rang my gong or not. Groping toward understanding is better than avoiding thought, which I fear is the habit of too many.
Side note: sometimes my democratic prejudices are jangled by my observation that so many would rather not think too much, preferring instead to parrot what they hear. Saddening.
OK, gotta bail, til next time.
Posted by Kuya on Dec 15, 2005 at 10:15 PM The triumph - and curse - of science is that you have to standardize your environment in order to minimize your unknowns to a manageable level, in order to ensure a predictable outcome. You can’t drive a car without a network of roads and highways to convey it. Even a Land Rover requires a relatively flat, level surface in order to function efficiently.
The ability to reduce (standardize) your variables in order to predict a positive outcome is not limited to physics and the presumably inanimate objects it manipulates, but extends beyond the physical boundaries to include social, economic and political organizations which educate and inform its membership with the necessary cultural ideals required to reproduce the organizational structure. The organization thereby becomes a functional organism, possessed of a collective, corporate intelligence, with attributes which extend far beyond the mortality of ordinary individual human life.
Theological references to divinity are thereby veiled, coded allusions to the operation of natural and social organizations, clothed in the vocabulary of supernatural events designed to elicit a collective standardized response to the stimuli of its religipous leadership. Human consciousness is thereby reduced to more manageable levels of collective operation.
Scientists, as such, are the secular clerics of the postmodern state.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 17, 2005 at 6:38 PM http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen12162005.html
This is quick, light reading--- I think it’s a reasonable look at the issue of science and religion both having their places, functions, and limits.
If put on a pedestal and accepted without question, then science becomes a religion and ceases to be science.
And just a thought, science is not just standardization and control. Observation, imagination, and questioning are important to the art of science. Much has been discovered through intuition and accident. The history of science is dominated by prior scientific theories and conjecture being proven wrong---which is part of it’s charm, I think, we do manage to advance somehow by falling forward.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 18, 2005 at 12:53 AM I’m not arguing for or against the Scientific Project, in contrast to the Theocratic Project. I’m just trying to delineate the structural similarities between the two, and see where it gets us. The Scientific Project would have been impossible without the Industrial Revolution, just as the Theocratic Project would have been impossible without the Agricultural Revolution. In either case, major advances were made with respect to the social division of labor. Entire categories of class, and the people who constituted them, were created and destroyed in order to accomodate emergent methods of production and social reproduction. The evolution of industrialism is coincident with the evolution of the Scientific Revolution. Condemning the social dislocations produced by industrialism (imperialism, fascism and communism) while praising the scientific discoveries which made them possible appears, to me, to be hypocritical and grossly disingenuos.
Newton modestly praised the “shoulders of giants” upon which he stood in order to extend his scientific perception. He failed completely to perceive the shoulders of those millions of people who made it possible for the “intellectual giants” to create their scientific discoveries. They were invisible. They were unimportant. And they were expendable.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 18, 2005 at 9:25 AM Condemning the social dislocations produced by industrialism (imperialism, fascism and communism) while praising the scientific discoveries which made them possible appears, to me, to be hypocritical and grossly disingenuos.
I hadn’t intended to contradict you at that point. I recommended that article because I though it complimented what you were saying.
Science and social structure is an interesting juxtaposition that I hadn’t really contemplated much. I was thinking that the age of Industrialism was kicked off by fossil fuels, but I can see the science connection you referred to.
Would you wish us back to the Stone Age? It looks to me like you’ve set up an argument that makes it convenient to point a blamey finger at anyone expressing gratitude for scientific discovery, and that seems disinegenuous to me. I’m not saying that you haven’t made a point, just saying that it’s only really useful as an attempt to foil discussion of scientific topics. Like you said the “the evolution of industrialism is coincident with the evolution of the Scientific Revolution. Emphasise “coincident”.
We’re all “standing on the shoulders of giants”. We could, by your argument, logically say that it’s hypocritical to praise anything we do because it fails to take into account the demise of the CroMagnon.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 18, 2005 at 1:43 PM There are no giants. We stand on the shoulders of our predecessors, who stood on the shoulders of their predecessors, who stood on the shoulders of their predecessors. Our individual social contributions are incremental and infinitesimal, and appear to be gigantic only in the limits of integration over the history of our special experience. Speecial, as opposed to speshul. Innovation is a social and collective process, and requires the participation of all its constituents.
Posted by Major Major on Dec 18, 2005 at 11:09 PM It’s not like I just love to argue with you, but I feel compelled to say “what’s your point”? Are you being deconstructionist?
I think that there are “giants”. They would not have been “giants” without the conditions that allowed them to be which is moving toward an ontological argument here---a lot of great artists worked in the shadow of Michaelangelo, and Michaelangelo probably would not have been as great as he was had he not been surrounded by them and the work of prior great artists but there are geniuses that deserve credit.
Is it hypocritical for a person to like the statue of David if that person doesn’t agree with the Roman Catholic church?
You seem to me to be arguing in favor of rigid thinking and word traps. You also seem to be asserting that anyone not considered great has been treated as Alpo throughout human history. I think not.
And it is not only in hindsight that accomplishments are recognized and credited with greatness or innovation.
I think you’re totally oversimplifying humanity and history.
Intelligence over-rated? Intelligence is just the beginning, but I think it’s a little hard to over-rate. Good looks aren’t going to save us. And we all know the adage about good intentions.
The problem I see with our culture is that we don’t recognize different kinds of intelligence, our school system makes most children feel stupid, television makes most people feel unattractive and undeserving of attention, and our culture makes people too afraid of being wrong and making mistakes. Big whoop. Everybody is wrong. Everybody makes mistakes. And in my opinion, everybody has at least one form of intelligence that enhances life. I’ve never met a stupid person. And I’ve never met anyone who didn’t do or say stupid things now and then.
If you said wisdom is underrated, and there is no such thing as a “self-made” man I’d have to agree.
Did you ever tell me if you got the name “Major Major” from “Catch-22?”
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 18, 2005 at 11:51 PM I guess I’m not as infatuated with the “intellectual giants” as you seem to be. More to the point, our collective infatuation with hyperindividuality ignores the people who provide the intellectual aristocracy with the affluence and leisure they require to construct the masterpiece. To cite your own example, it took an entire society to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from the stonecutters who quarried the granite to the masons who built the structure, the “canvas”, to the peasants who starved to provide his patrons with the food to feed him.
Catch-22? What’s that?
My father, C. Sharp Major, was, like his father, a consummate practical jokester, and christened me Major after my birth. He “was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anybody but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government paid him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. [My] father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap,’ he counseled one and all, and everyone said, ‘Amen.’”
Posted by Major Major on Dec 19, 2005 at 7:14 PM I’m just as infatuated with people who aren’t “giants”. I think their accomplishments are all of ours.
I didn’t know you were funny Major Major (my friend just said that I’m “giggling uncontrollably to myself again") but that is a funny story that could be straight out of Catch 22.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 19, 2005 at 9:57 PM Harpers is the only magazine i ever actually subscribed to in my life and the only thing i really missed after “exiling” myself to Saigon in 1994—aside from licorice ju-jubes and baklava.
When Harpers finally went part way onto the Net, i was in ecstasy (and i suppose i should add for the Witch’s and Kuya’s sakes, that that is as opposed to “into” ecstasy [quick wink and a smile]).
Even today, Harpers’ Index never fails to astound me and spur my imagination. With the heedless approach to intellectual property epitomized by the Orient’s Pearl, i rip a few entries from the most recent Index as examples:
* Number of journalists killed in Vietnam during twenty years of war there: 63 [Reporters without Borders (Paris)]
* Number killed in Iraq since March 2003: 71 [Reporters without Borders (Paris)]
* Years after the start of the Vietnam War that a majority of Americans first said it was a mistake: 3 1/2 [The Gallup Organization (Washington)]
* Years after the start of the Iraq War that a majority said this: 1 1/4
Those stat’s will just have to be replayed in the Saigon Times. I’ll see what i can do.
Lapham’s responses to Aaron Sarver’s questions only reinforce the opinions i’ve held since being a born-yesterday baby-boomer back in Canadada.
Though i too experience some angst when trying to imagine how much i might make as a junior journo versus Lapham’s parting package from Harpers—and i cannot claim to have any notion of what the real difference might be, fair or not—i have no qualms about a sub-market that puts its highest relative values on those who contribute as hugely to the spread of Real Justice in the world, even if only their intellects and words, as Lewis Lapham has.
Lastly, in light of the Witch’s (raw HTML) CounterPunch reference (above), i’d like to add another more directly related to what i see as Lapham’s general gist in this interview: The Decline of the American Empire by Gabriel Kolko, AD.2005.Dec.17. Kolko elegantly outlines a scenario which i’m pretty sure a whole lot of us are now actively working towards, from La Paz to Pretoria, Montreal to Mumbai, Harare to HoChiMinh, Tokyo to Tiblisi…
The abstract leading into Kolko’s piece seems a fact of life outside the US: Defeated in Iraq, Bankrupt at Home, Despised Around the Globe (And That’s Just the Good News).
AD.2005.Dec.20.11:49.ICT (IndoChina Time)
Posted by AD Marshall on Dec 19, 2005 at 10:54 PM Glad to see you sober AD. Or looking like it anyway.
Oh yeah---Lapham. He can put together some complex sentences---usually in an historical perspective. A person could easily do worse with their education.
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 20, 2005 at 12:10 AM Just a different stage, dear Witch, a different role to play. As your own posts suggest between their lines, the ambiance of Lewis Lapham is quite unlike that of Baba Vonnegut.
But just to show i can be as fortunately fecetious as ever (am@[home]$ fortune -am sober all): The worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.—William Butler Yeats
AD.2005.Dec.20.15:57.ICT (IndoChina Time)
Posted by AD Marshall on Dec 20, 2005 at 3:01 AM Ad, I love Lapham’s writing and will not allow my subscription to Harper’s to run out for now. Everything stops around here when I get a new issue. I hope it doesn’t nose-dive now that L.L. is gone. It seems like it hasn’t had as much punch as it used to, but still I like it.
(I wouldn’t be hanging around here so much if I weren’t sick with a flu, btw. Like the threads, but am looking forward to making myself a bit scarce in the near future. The other day my bones were melting, now they feel frozen, though I feel rubbery all around them. Those viruses are sly ones.)
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 20, 2005 at 5:59 PM wileywitch - hope you feel all the way better soon. Take care and have a Merry Christmas!
Posted by wolf on Dec 21, 2005 at 10:26 AM Thank you, Wolf. Merry Christmas to you and yours---sincerely--- (your little joke has not gone over my head.)
Public service message --- the death toll for medical error has exceeded the death toll for car accidents, so drive carefully (you don’t want to end up in the hospital).
Posted by wileywitch on Dec 21, 2005 at 6:32 PM That was brill’ WileyWitch. LOL!!! I’m plugging it into my not-ions database right away. Can i attribute it to you?
Posted by AD Marshall on Dec 21, 2005 at 6:55 PM whew, at last, that file’s been sitting open for two days <smirk>
Posted by AD Marshall on Dec 23, 2005 at 7:55 AM root@[fortune]# fortune -sam wileywitch all
%% (not-ions)
Public service message—the death toll for medical error has
exceeded the death toll for car accidents, so drive carefully
(you don’t want to end up in the hospital).
—wileywitch, Lapham Way (discussion), In These
Times (online), AD.2005.Dec.21.19:32.ICT
Posted by AD Marshall on Dec 23, 2005 at 8:00 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
register a new account »Posting Security
Posted by 
Also by Aaron Sarver
- Kids LOL @ Navy Recruiters
Millennials, explained Arthur Mitchell, director of strategic planning for the Navy's Accelerate Your Life campaign, are "narcissistic praise junkies" and "a somewhat alien life force" - Creating the 21st Century Library
The Prelinger Library eschews the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress systems, and is organized instead by what Megan Shaw Prelinger calls "a map of my brain" - A Win for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers
In the face of a giant protest, McDonald's caves into farmworkers' demands for a penny per basket raise. - Cholera and the City
- Witnessing Extraordinary Rendition
Nonprofit organization Witness uses video like the new film Outlawed, to document human rights abuses worldwide. - Tracking the CIA Torture Flights
In their new book Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, A.C. Thompson and Trevor Paglen detail how the CIA transports detainees worldwide.
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1972 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
459 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
426 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2005 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
