... from Taxi Driver and Three Days of the Condor, to Guilty by Suspicion and Mercury Rising, to The Sentinel and Syriana, and, well, I can't keep up. For at least half a century, our movies, from simple to complex, have been driven by the idea that official words have no meaning and that government is either criminal or a sham.
If you haven't seen the movies:
...you have probably read the standard texts of advanced American attitudes. Thus you have absorbed throughout college, like any number of Hollywood screenwriters and American tastemakers, the idea — from Nietzsche to Wittgenstein to Foucault to Derrida to Chomsky to Stanley Fish — that the words used by any type of official, political entity, like a government, are nonsense. "What is government if words have no meaning?" That could be the motto of The Daily Show.
If we're soaking in a culture of nihilism, why are most of us holding up so well?
I took this little video of the line at 2:25 CT. The security checkpoint wasn't set to open until 3:30, and the event won't start until 4:45.
It looks like President Obama will have the fabulous crowd he's hoping for.
Here's the email sent just now from the UW Police:
President Obama’s Library Mall rally is expected to draw a capacity crowd this afternoon. For safety and security reasons, Bascom Hill will be opened as a site for overflow spectators who can not fit into the event area.
To accommodate spectators, there will be amplification of the event and music up Bascom Hill, beginning at 4:30 p.m. As a result of the noise, there could be potential impacts on classroom meetings, academic activities or other events scheduled after this time.
So if you're one of those who think "Right now Nietzsche is a little more important" and things like that, you will be overwhelmed by sheer power and volume. I'm not enough of a Nietzschean to say what Nietzsche would have thought about that.
Said UW student Justin Marita, who said he wasn't going to the President's big get-out-the-vote rally in Madison today.
But there are some students who are asking teachers to cancel class so they can attend. Imagine that! A teacher canceling class for a political rally.
I think Nietzsche is a little more important — important enough to correct the spelling of his name in the quote before putting it in the blog post heading. Madison.com spelled it "Nietschze." How do you misspell Nietzsche in a news story? Isn't it obvious you need to check?
