this is an authentic post. from David Meyerson

I would apologize for this coming days late, but I don't know who to apologize to.  Perhaps myself.  I'm trying to keep to a schedule, but I haven't figured out how to get these in before class.  A vow: this will be my last one done either on the day or after.  There's authenticity for you.

I really enjoyed the Bendix book, and that surprised me.  I'm getting more focused in my old age and issues of historiography of a field aren't boring me to death.  I've started to ask myself what I truly believe in.  It occurred to me as I read the section on Dell Hymes, that he (dead) and I (alive) are essentially seeking the same things: peace, love and understanding (thanks, Elvis!).  I used to put academia and academics on such a lofty pedestal, but I realize more and more that there are a lot of good, idealistic people in this biz who have their own forms to explore the same big questions.  I look for truths in literature and, sometimes, film, and Dell Hymes looked for his in anthropological studies in the Pacific Northwest.  This makes the academic world that I am immersed in less scary.  I can see how the path can change in the same quest based on our interests of the moment.  Thus, folklore studies.

I was struck by the similarity in the concepts of "cultural intervention" and "nation building".  Each is the beginning of a minefield of half-truths used to justify assumptions that may or may not be true.  I am an idealist when it comes to bringing peace to the world.  I have little problem with the idea of intervention in other countries, but how we go about it is so tricky.  In Iraq, we sought to bring them an "authentic" form of democracy, as if we know what that means to other people. I'm not so cynical as to believe that people don't really want to be free.  Freedom, food and shelter are necessities for all the world.  I had a government teacher in high school who said "He who controls the definitions...". We imagine that we control the definitions of words like "freedom" and "democracy".  We do not.  We (authentic foreigners) installed an authentic Iraqi government.  However, imposing authenticity always leaves someone out.  There are gradations of truth that must be parsed out and, eventually, decisions have to be made.  This is my rub.

Like the "authored" divide between academia and the street, there are always layers and layers of truth that beg to be deconstructed by those who are wont to do it.  In codifying or "making official" some aspect of a culture, somebody must be left out.  This is the way of the world.  What makes authenticity so beguiling and, oftentimes, a dangerous term, is that we don't acknowledge the subjectivity.  We mask our decisions in the mythologies that make us feel good for a minute.  We see the manifestations of this type of folklore when it begets nationalism.  Taken too far, we have the horrors of Nazi Germany.

One of my overarching questions about this process is what we do with the present.  We're beyond post-Modernism and might even move beyond its conservative backlash.  What are we left with?  I'm not sure I want to only look at performances of folk culture as a nice compromise.  I think polarity and essentializing and commodification is important if we want to understand how hegemonic forces operate for better or worse.  Sartre wrote an  interesting book called Anti-Semite and Jew where he shows the reciprocal relationship between the subject and the subjector.  Unfortunately, we live in a world where we are handed these dichotomies.  Otherwise, this would be Eden.