Intellectual Formation

Dwight Garner, at the New York Times, posted in the Paper Cuts Blog (the blogs at the NY Times are pretty great, by the way, and I’m not a big fan of blogs) (yes, I said that with a straight face) this fascinating back-and-forth in interviews with Barack Obama and the great Philip Roth:

From an Atlantic Monthly interview with Barack Obama:

JG: You’ve talked about the role of Jews in the development of your thinking.

BO: I always joke that my intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn’t know it at the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris. So when I became more politically conscious, my starting point when I think about the Middle East is this enormous emotional attachment and sympathy for Israel, mindful of its history, mindful of the hardship and pain and suffering that the Jewish people have undergone, but also mindful of the incredible opportunity that is presented when people finally return to a land and are able to try to excavate their best traditions and their best selves. And obviously it’s something that has great resonance with the African-American experience.

I love me some Barack, but the above’s a little ambiguous and left me with the worry that someone needs to get this brother a good history book and a good geography book. Jews never left “Palestine” / “Israel.” Israelis are Palestinians. I won’t bore you. Look it up. Jews been there 3000 years or so. Many Diaspora Jews did “return” to Israel, specifically in the late 1800s, throughout the 1900s, culminating in the aftermath of World War II. But this idea that there was this place where Jews used to be, then left, then came back to, is compelling but, unfortunately, historically wrong.

But whatever. If you don’t get it by now that facts and history and ethics and geography have absolutely nothing to do with Israel vs. The World, you won’t never get it, so why bother. Is there anything in this world more weary than the Israel vs. The World thing. Anything more weary-ful.

Anyway, over at the Atlantic Goldberg has now begun a contest for readers: “In a couple of pithy sentences, tell us what the first 100 days of a Roth-influenced Obama presidency would look like. I’ll post the best responses. First prize is a piece of liver.”

If you don’t get the liver joke, don’t ask.

So, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, here’s Roth:

Spiegel: What made you interested in Obama?

Roth: I’m interested in the fact that he’s black. I feel the race issue in this country is more important than the feminist issue. I think that the importance to blacks would be tremendous. He’s an attractive man, he’s smart, he happens to be tremendously articulate. His position in the Democratic Party is more or less okay with me. And I think it would be important to American blacks if he became president.

Spiegel: It could change society, couldn’t it?

Roth: Yes, it could. It would say something about this country, and it would be a marvelous thing. I don’t know whether it’s going to happen. I rarely vote for anybody who wins. It’s going to be the kiss of death if you write in your magazine that I’m going to vote for Barack Obama. Then he’s finished!

Personally, I don’t think “the race issue” is more important than “the feminist issue,” here in the US or just about anywhere else. But how would I know. I sometimes think that “the food issue” trumps them all and is the more fundamental problem. Usually though, I figure it is the chicks. I know it sure is the chick thing in the Islamic world. Whoo. Let’s not even go there.

Still. Yet another reason to love Barack. Go get em, Barack, go get em.