New York Review of Books, Digest: Dec./Jan. 2018/9

A few gems appeared in the Letters to the Editor section this month, and I most enjoyed this exploration of the modern terrain of American masculinity in the workplace:

~"What Men Want" - An Exchange

On "Male Trouble"

(the article by Arlie Russell Hochschild, in the NYRB [Oct. 11, 2018]) ~

A GENTLEMAN READER, who must have Arno Breker and Futurist statues of masculine physiques littered around his domicile, has written in to remark:

Hochschild's article [. . .] does not ultimately come to grips with the impact of losing the physical connection to work found, as she describes, in coal mines, assembly lines, oil rigs, and steel mills.

After he has pooh-poohed the idea of funding drug treatments, education bursaries, etc. for industrial workers who are losing their jobs in the United States, the letter-writer declares that these measures would not address the underlying "alienation" and "lack of a viable livelihood."

"Nor," he asserts

does retraining for androgynous jobs, like coding, that men supposedly "badly want" (how does she know?).

Arlie Russell Hochschild asserts, in her reply to the letter, that Appalachian miners and factory workers might miss "high wages and camaraderie" after they lose their jobs. They do not appear to be nostalgic about the repetitive/hazardous labour.

Moreover, unemployment, imprisonment and homelessness do not present an ideal masculine existence either.

So her proposed social welfare programmes (and 'androgynous' work training) might be the lesser evils. (pp. 93-4)

***

"One Hundred Years of Destruction"
(by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, pp. 74, 80-81])

Wheatcroft's article is very painful to read. After he touches on the unscrupulous projects of the British government using the RAF in early 19th-century colonialist warfare, he analyzes the RAF in World War II.

He argues the weaknesses of preferring the Air Force, instead of land- or sea-based forces, in overall British strategy. (Was it the best use of metal, factory labour, etc.? Was it the most effective?)

He frowns on Sir Winston Churchill and high-ranking officers who ordered the RAF to harass and slaughter about 400,000 people in aerial bombing of cities:

"It was quite a feat to kill 400,000 civilians while barely affecting the German war economy."

The RAF pilots, too, died at an intense rate;

"Out of almost 125,000 who flew on active service, an awe-inspiring 55,573 were killed."

The peril of this article is, I think, that a veteran, or the descendants of a veteran, might read this and feel personally attacked. The author does try to qualify his assertions, and perhaps indirectly acknowledges that a good conscience was one of the casualties of war for many people (who are open to crises of conscience).

*

[Patricia Storace's article, "Sing, Goddess" about Pat Barker's novel The Silence of the Girls and Madeline Miller's Circe, both set in Homeric Greece, and about the brutal woman's lot in an Archaic, men-dominated world (e.g. during war-time), was similarly painful. (pp. 65-66, 68]

***

"Founding Frenemies" by T.H. Breen winds up in a near-"twist ending." The article at first appears to be about U.S. President John Adams's abrasive demeanour and his unexpected friendship with Thomas Jefferson. Then, at the end, it becomes apparent that the pleasantly idle nostalgia-trip to late 18th-century America is no such thing, after all... (pp. 68, 70-71)

***

[All articles, including the quotations above, are from the New York Review of Books, Vol. LXV, No. 20, December 20, 2018 - January 16, 2019]