Monday, October 8, 2018

Episode 112: Ragged Dick, Right Here

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Ever wonder why a book was published? Ever since I saddled up and started riding this hobby horse of mine, this podcastic obsession I have with advertising and its deleterious effects, that's a question I can never not ask. I ask it again in Episode 112: Ragged Dick, Right Here, the conclusion to my deep-ish dive into author and cultural dog whistle Horatio Alger.

In this episode, I read pretty extensively from the introduction to Horatio Alger's Ragged Dick, at least from a more modern printing of that book (Horatio Alger, Ragged Dick and Mark, The Match Boy: Two Novels by Horatio Alger, The MacMillan Company, 1962). I think Rychard Fink used Ragged Dick to do his bestest to help thwart the leftist tendencies rising in his time. I also read: from Ragged Dick itself; and from a Politico article concerning the real reason behind the Little House books, an article I highly recommend you read yourself.

Musically, I play: Turmoil's "The World Is A Toilet"; and Podington Bear's "Ideas." KMFDM backs Bernie in the intro, and I close the show with Mistle Thrush.

I'm releasing this and all my episodes under a Creative Commons 4.0 attribution, share-alike, and non-commercial license.

2 comments:

  1. The parallels between Horatio Alger and Ayn Rand are interesting! I had no idea they were connected by their sponsors. Even further, both of them, (I think even a lot of their big fans will admit), wrote terrible prose. Yet both were extolled -- to young people, Alger being given to the very young, but Rand is always foisted on High Schoolers and early College youth -- by people who were enamored of their _political_, philosophical and _economic_ ideas, rather than their actual literary craft.
    And as a result, it is my opinion that literally scores of millions of Americans who _HAVEN'T_ read either author and might not even recognize their names, are deeply, deeply wedded to their ideas. Presumably because their young friends were influenced and it was just a part of their literary environment during their formative years. This is true of large numbers of people on _either_ side of the political spectrum. I know sooooooo many centrist Democrats who insist that government interference on industry, or heavy-handed targeted taxes, are unwise because "anyone can make it in America if they just try hard".
    Hey, _I_ can write terrible, turgid Socialist historical fiction at the drop of a hat. Where are _my_ wealthy backers and schools naming buildings after me?

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    Replies
    1. Hey, Kevin!

      On both Rand and Alger, yup, you're darned tootin'. Those ideas are embedded in our psyches, even when the debunking of them is only taking a look at the source, a skeptical book readin' away.

      Hey, _I_ can write terrible, turgid Socialist historical fiction at the drop of a hat. Where are _my_ wealthy backers and schools naming buildings after me?

      I think you lost those "wealthy backers" and name-plastering schools when you pointed out you write "turgid Socialist historical fiction." D'oh! Shift your turgidity toward the Fascist, and you'll make out like, well, a bandit… maybe even better than mere bandit-dom.

      Consider a former Socialist newspaper editor, and another guy made the titular head of a workingman's political movement. Do the names Mussolini and Hitler ring bells?

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