Monday, October 8, 2018
Episode 112: Ragged Dick, Right Here
Play Now!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.
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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.
ReplyDeleteAnd 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?
Hey, Kevin!
DeleteOn 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?