Fake News: The Trump Phenomenon - Open Anthropology Cooperative2019-11-03T23:00:37Zhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/forum/topics/fake-news-the-trump-phenomenon?commentId=3404290%3AComment%3A244961&feed=yes&xn_auth=noI can't help thinking of H.G.…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2018-09-11:3404290:Comment:2450552018-09-11T14:57:26.170ZHuon Wardlehttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/HuonWardle
<p>I can't help thinking of H.G. Wells <em>Time Machine</em> in which the traveller comes across a completely polarised social structure made up of graceful and enlightened Eloi but also disgusting subterranean Morlocks. Parallels with the class system in imperial Britain abound except there is a sting in the tail -- the troglodytic Morlocks are effectively farming the oh-so-sophisticated Eloi for food. 'We are all cannibals' as Levi-Strauss says.</p>
<p>I can't help thinking of H.G. Wells <em>Time Machine</em> in which the traveller comes across a completely polarised social structure made up of graceful and enlightened Eloi but also disgusting subterranean Morlocks. Parallels with the class system in imperial Britain abound except there is a sting in the tail -- the troglodytic Morlocks are effectively farming the oh-so-sophisticated Eloi for food. 'We are all cannibals' as Levi-Strauss says.</p>
Trump and the Horror of In…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2018-09-09:3404290:Comment:2449612018-09-09T23:48:34.189ZLee Drummondhttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/LeeDrummond
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<p><strong>Trump and the Horror of Incest</strong></p>
<p>Huon,</p>
<p> Thanks for the kind words. Your remark about the “naturalisation” of political differences following the election goes to the heart of the matter. The visceral repulsion half of America feels toward Donald Trump is something I don’t think we’ve seen in the political arena, perhaps since the Civil War, if then. The anti-war movement during the Viet Nam war generated intense feelings, but its focus was…</p>
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<p> </p>
<p><strong>Trump and the Horror of Incest</strong></p>
<p>Huon,</p>
<p> Thanks for the kind words. Your remark about the “naturalisation” of political differences following the election goes to the heart of the matter. The visceral repulsion half of America feels toward Donald Trump is something I don’t think we’ve seen in the political arena, perhaps since the Civil War, if then. The anti-war movement during the Viet Nam war generated intense feelings, but its focus was not, could not be, on a single individual. Begun by Eisenhower and fanned by Kennedy’s adventurism (those brave men of the Green Beret), the conflict turned into all out war with LBJ’s staged Gulf of Tonkin incident and became an indisputable war crime with Nixon’s covert invasion of Cambodia. So, there was no one president to rage against. With Trump it was an entirely different matter. Election night and the next morning precipitated a tsunami effect throughout American society. Since the election came just two weeks before Thanksgiving Day, a time for celebrating family values, the impact could not have been more dramatic. </p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3131552575?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3131552575?profile=original" width="500" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">Thanksgiving Dinner, 1943, Norman Rockwell </p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3131552716?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3131552716?profile=original" width="600" class="align-center"/></a> Thanksgiving Dinner, 2016</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> (keep Dad away from that carving knife!)</p>
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<p>Unlike those aboriginal groups with their exogamous moieties, however, Americans have now formed themselves into endogamous moieties – Trump supporter or Trump hater – in which the horror of incest has been replaced by an equally powerful horror of marriage / relationships with a member of the other moiety. Here that naturalisation you describe is in full force: contamination through intermarriage is on the same deeply emotional level as violation of an important dietary restriction (Jews or Muslims eating pork, for example) or a religious prohibition against worshipping false gods. I think that dating sites now routinely screen members for their political affiliation; it would be interesting to know how much weight they attach to the answers (my guess: a lot). </p>
<p> The sound bite format of cable news is no more able to deal with the phenomenon of Trump than with the ancient conflict between Arab and Jew or the intensity of feelings associated with the abortion issue. Hence, the networks’ only recourse is Fake News. </p>
<p> </p> Lee,
I think this is a great…tag:openanthcoop.ning.com,2018-09-04:3404290:Comment:2448582018-09-04T13:11:01.375ZHuon Wardlehttp://openanthcoop.ning.com/profile/HuonWardle
<p>Lee,</p>
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<p>I think this is a great exploration of Trumpianism. There is one feature that stands out, that I found particularly interesting--the naturalisation of the differences between Libl and Con. Con news personalities are pneumatic, Lib newspeople are etherial. There is a reminder of Australian totemic systems where one phratry/.moiety is red, the other black, or one has flat faces the other round etc. In that system intra-moiety incest is forbidden, exogamy rules. In your case…</p>
<p>Lee,</p>
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<p>I think this is a great exploration of Trumpianism. There is one feature that stands out, that I found particularly interesting--the naturalisation of the differences between Libl and Con. Con news personalities are pneumatic, Lib newspeople are etherial. There is a reminder of Australian totemic systems where one phratry/.moiety is red, the other black, or one has flat faces the other round etc. In that system intra-moiety incest is forbidden, exogamy rules. In your case mating between a pneumatic and an etherial would be breaking a taboo. Are we witnessing the emergence of a LED lit caste system?</p>