I never pay much mind to the political Left, especially the American Left, as they so predictably savage each other it's like guessing rain in April.
Ken Kesey described their rote intolerance as a "pecking party,"
“The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it."
What is there for a centrist to do? Nothing actually, hang back, don't get blood on you, just wait awhile.
I know it's incidental, but the gold toilet, apart from being all concept and no cattle, is so facile, so been-there-seen-that, so totally establishment (not to say academic), that it's not even clever or amusing, let alone innovative--it's just trying too hard. Well, maybe Damien Hirst appreciated it.
Oct 22, 2022·edited Oct 23, 2022Liked by Franklin Einspruch
What Spector is paying is not the wages of vulgarity, though she was vulgar enough, and may have even thought her response to the Trump request was witty rather than snotty. As I see it, she is paying the wages of exhibitionistic, opportunistic and very safely fashionable self-righteousness.
Her use of her professional position to insult Trump was not a private matter between her and the White House, or certainly did not remain so, and I expect it was meant to be flaunted--as, in effect, it was. Alas, though she was duly applauded by her coreligionists for her would-be panache, her 15 minutes as a "resistance" star did not save her career from being, in a sense, lynched.
Apparently, she was not sufficiently au courant to grasp that, currently, an essay for a major museum's exhibition catalog, however inadequate, could not be required to be improved if its writer, being who she was, saw no need for improvement or was in any way offended by being challenged. Why, that would make Spector, despite her progressive CV, a "clueless, rapacious White woman."
I am hardly inclined to feel sympathy for Spector, but it is hard not to pity her--not just because of the price she's paid for doing her job, but because she could not see it coming. Still, she was indeed part of the problem well before it turned on her. I hope she has at least seen some sort of light.
The Guggenheim weathered the storm of 2020 by scapegoating Nancy Spector, but id did not look good doing it, especially given how long she had served it. It could have stood by the independent investigation's conclusion that allegations of racism were unfounded, as they appear to have been. I expect it chose to sacrifice Spector (while sparing Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong) not because it believed she deserved it, but to save itself. I suppose that is what institutions tend to do, but while it may be pragmatic, it is hardly respectable, let alone admirable.
I never pay much mind to the political Left, especially the American Left, as they so predictably savage each other it's like guessing rain in April.
Ken Kesey described their rote intolerance as a "pecking party,"
“The flock gets sight of a spot of blood on some chicken and they all go to peckin' at it, see, till they rip the chicken to shreds, blood and bones and feathers. But usually a couple of the flock gets spotted in the fracas, then it's their turn. And a few more gets spots and gets pecked to death, and more and more. Oh, a peckin' party can wipe out the whole flock in a matter of a few hours, buddy, I seen it."
What is there for a centrist to do? Nothing actually, hang back, don't get blood on you, just wait awhile.
I know it's incidental, but the gold toilet, apart from being all concept and no cattle, is so facile, so been-there-seen-that, so totally establishment (not to say academic), that it's not even clever or amusing, let alone innovative--it's just trying too hard. Well, maybe Damien Hirst appreciated it.
What Spector is paying is not the wages of vulgarity, though she was vulgar enough, and may have even thought her response to the Trump request was witty rather than snotty. As I see it, she is paying the wages of exhibitionistic, opportunistic and very safely fashionable self-righteousness.
Her use of her professional position to insult Trump was not a private matter between her and the White House, or certainly did not remain so, and I expect it was meant to be flaunted--as, in effect, it was. Alas, though she was duly applauded by her coreligionists for her would-be panache, her 15 minutes as a "resistance" star did not save her career from being, in a sense, lynched.
Apparently, she was not sufficiently au courant to grasp that, currently, an essay for a major museum's exhibition catalog, however inadequate, could not be required to be improved if its writer, being who she was, saw no need for improvement or was in any way offended by being challenged. Why, that would make Spector, despite her progressive CV, a "clueless, rapacious White woman."
I am hardly inclined to feel sympathy for Spector, but it is hard not to pity her--not just because of the price she's paid for doing her job, but because she could not see it coming. Still, she was indeed part of the problem well before it turned on her. I hope she has at least seen some sort of light.
The Guggenheim weathered the storm of 2020 by scapegoating Nancy Spector, but id did not look good doing it, especially given how long she had served it. It could have stood by the independent investigation's conclusion that allegations of racism were unfounded, as they appear to have been. I expect it chose to sacrifice Spector (while sparing Guggenheim director Richard Armstrong) not because it believed she deserved it, but to save itself. I suppose that is what institutions tend to do, but while it may be pragmatic, it is hardly respectable, let alone admirable.