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The Mighty Quinn: The Cultural Relevance of Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.
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The First Dispatch...

An irregular discussion of the intellectual substructure of the quotidian and workaday.

As we've seen, The Mighty Quinn's theme of pessimism of the intellect and optimism of the will was cited by Gerry Adams early in the Northern Ireland peace process as a vital approach. On May 18, in the New York Times' Sunday Opinion pages, Elias Khoury authored a piece on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict which concluded"

"Recognizing the sufferings of the victim, even if they are the victim of a victim, is the necessary condition for an exit from this long and tragic tunnel. However, as the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci suggests, it is difficult to maintain the optimism of the will in the face of the pessimism of the intellect. Pessimism of the will is what we are living today in the Middle East. It is a pessimism that warns not only of the danger of recurring episodes of catastrophe as Arab societies break apart, but of the dismal prospect of an endless war that will provoke future tragedies in the 21st century."

Khoury arguably misunderstands Gramsci's idea, as did Adams: refusing to recognize the sufferings of the victim, even if they are the victim of a victim, is an example of optimism of the intellect, producing the pessimism of the will and the suffering we know only too well. Complete satisfaction with a willful ignorance is not a productive attitude. There are times when it is appropriate to "just move on," and times when doing so is a willful surrender of our humanity. The pervasive cry of "Never Again!" from Jews who survived the Holocaust (and, indeed, of their descendents), is the quintessential illustration of this principle.

Another piece published in the Times that same day under the same heading featured a better understanding of the idea of a pessimism of the intellect. Nicholas D. Kristof's piece focuses on Tibet, and a mixture of policies that simultaneously "undercut Chinese moderates" and threaten to produce "a Tibetan equivalent of the Irish Republican Army or Hamas." Countering the optimism of the intellect that fuels the possibility of further violence, Kristof writes:

"Both China and the Dalai Lama exaggerate, and the historical evidence about Tibet is contradictory. One can make a good case that Tibet has been a part of China at least since 1720. One can also make a good case that Tibet became independent around 1911. The evidence is simply mixed."

 

 

 



 

 
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