It's also called "hedging your bets" and "fear of commitment." The chattering class has hitched its star to power, rather than truth, so it must remain "intellectually" mobile because power changes every few years in America.

Though a bit "Baroque" itself, this piece is spot on. Gracias

Hedging bets and fear of commitment have done lots of damage, in politics and in in business. There are no more "deciders"; decisions are avoided or deferred as long as possible. Corporate and civil governance fail, and their constituents suffer. I look forward to the "Super Congress" making no decision at all after putting on a fabulous dog and pony show.

I find Mr. Harrington's essays evocative because they focus on areas that are seldom considered. With that being said, this article is FULL of grammatical errors... but I'll give Mr. Harrington the "Mercury retrograde pass," as the winged planet's inverted direction does tend to cause typos, and excess flaws in writing.

I can't recall the author of the play, "School for Scandal," but it does a good job of mocking the types of socialized behaviors that reflect what's acceptable during any given time frame.

The intelligentsia has a choice: whether to act in a way that flatters and reinforces power, or whether to use its mental muscle to point out all that does not work, all that betrays ideals, along with The Peoples' interests.

Humanity has come to the end of the Piscean Age, and with duplicitous Neptune, its ruler, betrayal, lies, illusion, and deception now "own" the measures to govern like kings. When we, the Initiates of Truth, from this website, read the mainstream media's missives, how often do we recoil at the retelling and repackaging of countless LIES!

In Vietnam 55,000 young American boys died, cast initially as "observers." The same cheery prescriptions are used to continue wars/occupations in Iraq. Euphemisms are deployed to turn soldiers into advisors, or teachers, or "assistants," rather than what they are. Lies are repackaged and "sold" to the American public to mask our soldiers' presence in Afghanistan and beyond.

Our food is a lie. Much of it doesn't even qualify as anything remotely akin to food, if that substance is intended to allot nutrition.

Our leaders are a lie. They serve big money, not any premise of this sovereign nation (as an entity) or its diverse body of citizens.

Our elections are a lie. They mock the premise of choice, as well as freedom.

The U.S. budget is a lie. It comforts the privileged and punishes the afflicted.

The list of lies can extend many pages...

My point is that for high paid members of the Intelligentsia, those who still retain media jobs, in order to maintain those positions, they must flatter power. And since power has become abjectly corrupt, in order to cover the obvious, like pretending the dog didn't shit on the rug and no one bothers to clean it up, they use their wits to invent all sorts of gymanstic gyrations of language. As if the public doesn't sense the stink!

Baroque, or otherwise, deception is a dangerous and timeless art; and now, at the cusp of Ages when it is precisely The Truth that would set "Them" free, the media's capture by the Interests of Deception is ominous, indeed.

I aprpeciate Mr. Harrington pointing out that as was true in an earlier era, so, too does it remain dangerous to tell the truth, or ask inconvenient questions today.

In every era, however, thanks to the Cosmic Design Plan, there will be those born brave enough to question the deceptions of their times, the lies preferred by authoritarian entities. Remember, every new truth is first perceived as a heresy. I would amend that statement to suggest that the inviolate truths remain heresies to those who find them incompatible with their own campaigns of pillage, plunder, and propaganda.

A one sided view of the Reformation. Protestants were hardly champions of free inquiry. Where they got into power, were in the majority, they tried to force their worldview on everyone else too, without regard for free material inquiry.

And the Baroque period produced some of the greatest works in the human arts.

Political correctness. Watch what you and how you say it or you may be sued or jailed. All opinions must be internalized unless they meet society's current values.

Reread Orwell's 1984. Remember Winston's continual worry that the wrong expression on his face, or the carriage of his body might get him turned over to the thought police. Even the language was being turned into thoughtless pabulum so it would be difficult to even express an opinion that differed from the pronouncements of Big Brother.

What do we see around us these days? People running around looking for unorthodox opinions to report on. There is a program being developed where any photo or surveillance camera (this includes intercepting photos from iphones) will be analyzed for "resentment toward government."Those ID'd would be put on a government watch list, which would extend to the person's family, friends and associates. There is another for analyzing speech for the same "crime."

No fly lists, border crossing lists, sexual assaults by blue gloves in airports, "Your papers, please?" at any time and any place. Ever stronger and more brutal suppression of the First Amendment rights of petition for the redress of grievances or any other protest against intrenched government or corporate power.

The government now has the right to burgle your home, to see if you are doing anything outspoken or subversive. They don't need a warrant, just a hunch that it might be a good idea to see what you are doing.

Those who are thinking about or planning a protest against some government action may have their doors kicked in by a heavily armed SWAT team and be hauled off to jail, their home trashed by searchers and their books, papers, computers confiscated.

By golly, he's right! Someday, we may become intimidated by the government.

I find this historical analogy to be far fetched. It hardly sheds much light on what is happening to day in the US, and ignores the high quality of much Counterreformation culture, thought, and art.

If only the US showed some signs of approaching the level of what came out of the Counterrreformation! Instead, the typical products of current American attempts to hold on to its dominance are characterized by moral and intellectual infantilism, brutal technology, and the self pity of the sadist whose victim fails to appreciate his 'loving" attentions.

Intellectual and spiritual inflexibility certainly contributed to the decline of Spain, but it was unlikely that a 17th century Power could possibly handle the multiple challenges posed by a huge and unwieldy European empire and a huge and unwieldy overseas empire at the same time in any case. Spain lost its European predominance largely because of dynastic issues, but managed to preserve its overseas empire until the 19th century, when Napoleon's invasion of Spain gave colonists the opportunity to break away. Even then, Spain managed to hold onto Cuba and the Philippines until the 20th century, while adding some small African colonies as well.

I think Spain would have been better off if it had never embarked on imperialism, as the US would be. But in imperialist terms, both countries have had remarkable success. And both have paid the rpice of that success.

Yes, the Protestants were easily as bad as the Catholics, and Christianity remains a Barbarian religion, although I do agree with the point being made by the author. Islam, as purely practiced, offers the last remaining resistance to Neoliberal Imperialism, which is why there's a war being waged against Islamic peoples---Islam is very upfront about NOT putting Profit over People. Some will say Christianity is too--individually, perhaps, but not institutionally; otherwise, we would see many equivalents of Fatwas issued quite often by the Pope denouncing the gross immorality and Barbarity of Neoliberalism and its Imperialism, as well as outspokenness from the leaders of the numerous Protestant sects. But, as with Hitler, the Holy See et al have turned a blind eye.

I'd like to make another historical comparison: Neoliberaism and its Imperialism is akin to the institution of African Slavery. The latter was accepted and justified in a matter-of-fact manner just as current trade and war policy are today. Abolition became possible because the institution of slavery deprived Africans, once they arrived on British soil, of the fundamental freedoms enshrined to all under British Common Law. And it was through the British court/legal system that African Slavery was abolished. The commonality is Neoliberalism and it Imperialism destroy the basic freedoms ennumerated in the 1787 constitution, British Common Law, and the UN's Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR). Neoliberalism will be defeated because it destroys freedom, and because its gross Barbarity kills millions of innocents through its trade policies and wars. The only venue we can possibly win on is the legal venue, not the battleifeld--Slave uprisings didn't ultimately win freedom; victory in a court-of-law did. The only way to win the battle against neoliberalism is to file suit against the laws enacted to allow its existence--not just in the USA, but globally, particularly in countries that have ratified the UNDHR. Yes, such an undertaking needs funding and staffing, along with a poltical arm. At the time it was said the Abolishonists hadn't a chance. But they won because it was realized that they had the force of law with them, and the fundamental morality that law embodied. Today, we have that same force; it just hasn't been used in a strategic manner (as the law was employed to defeat segregation). We cannot even begin to fight global warming or make a better future for ourselves and the planet without first defeating the scourge of our time--Neoliberalism and its Imperialism.

RE: "...hallmarks of the baroque mind: trying to appear wide ranging and thoughtful while meekly accepting the many a priori restrictions on thought imposed by the powers that be."

Seems like a good description of a liberal.

These references are the best part of the comments for me. Thank you everyone!

This guy is unreadable.

College professor, huh?

Boring, Boring, boring.

This is probably the most idiotic comparison I've ever come across on Commondreams -- and that's saying a lot -- since "Counter-Reformation" is the term that the Protestant bigots, you know, the ancestors of the bunch now running the American Empire, came up with to describe the Catholic response to the immense money- and land-grabbing operation that the "Reformation" was, but which in the revisionist history of Anglo-American historians becomes a movement for "dignity" and "freedom" (tell it to the victims of Luther, Calvin, Elizabeth and the Dutch merchants) . . .

There seems to be many - like A. O Scott & our author - who don't read Foster Wallace attentively (out of fear or laziness - typically both) and then need to sound-off about it.

To accuse DFW of "meekly accepting the many a priori restrictions on thought imposed by the powers that be" is - in the context of the "argument" - a supremely self-incriminating a remark.

There are too many of us who take our facility to impress ourselves to imply genuine sagacity.

To tj:

Touché, Thanks for endeavoring to see the woods for the trees.

To Sioux:

Though I have tried and tried I have never mastered the art of proofreading my own stuff. Still working on it in the hopes of getting better. Again thanks for your indulgence

To rfloh:

Where did I ever say that the Protestants were paragons of free inquiry? I am saying rather, that they were presenting themselves as paragons of free inquiry in relation to the Roman Church of the time. I don’t think you can dispute that.

Whether they actually lived up to their promise of their own marketing over time is a whole different question.

That said, there is no denying that the Protestants were, whether you are prepared to admit it or not, the anti-imperialists in the picture I have briefly sketched out.

Many people have rebelled against empires and created something worse.
That doesn’t obviate the fact that the empire that oppressed them in the first place was, in fact, an empire, and thus from their point of view, probably pretty disagreeable.

Leezasky:

Where did I ever say that there was no high quality art during the Counterreformation?

There was loads of it, much of it very near and dear to my heart. Great art can, and often is, generated in oppressive situations. And much great art is not particularly concerned with contributing to what we sometimes like to call the “search for moral truth”.

But it just so happens that I was attempting to address the search for moral truth in artistic expression as well as the need to challenge orthodoxies in politically difficult times.

And in that context, I very much stand by my suggestion that the Baroque period was one in which institutional orthodoxies lay so heavily upon the society and its artistic creators that many of the latter chose to bury themselves in extravagant esthetics rather than generate broadly accessible and free-ranging inquiries about human values.

None of this negates the stunning beauty of so much of what was produced in the Baroque period.

You also seem to be missing the fact that I, like you, am arguing precisely that Spain’s major problem was imperialism. No imperialism, no need to fight religious wars, no religious wars, no need to intimidate people ideologically at home. No intimidation of people at home, no need for people to engage in the diversionary, albeit often stunningly beautiful, practices of the Baroque.

Sant-Just:

See the comments I made to rfloh above. To suggest that the Protestant Reformation presented itself, and was seen by many at the time, as a movement of liberation in relation to the Catholic church of the time is beyond dispute.

That those same protestants failed to live up to the promise of liberation they held in front of the noses of German and Dutch peasants over the test of time is a whole separate matter.

Would be glad to talk to you about it some day if I ever write an article on how the Protestant leadership has betrayed their followers, or how their offspring fowled the earth. That, however, is not what I am addressing here.

Tony Lynch:

There are many people who believe that the work of DFW, with its inexhaustible curiosity about things large and small , verbal virtuosity, and evident desire to break the mold of many existing literary conventions, constitutes one of the great artistic monuments of our time. I have colleagues who feel the same way about the great Baroque poet Góngora.

Who am I to dictate what they think?

No one. That is why I am not engaging in that practice.

What I am seeking to address is if, and in what measure, the aching sense the provisionality that runs through the work of DFW and many notable creators of our time, might be have been induced by knowing or feeling that we are living and working in a world where powerful Imperial forces, forces that work daily to trim the field of thinkable thought, have deprived us of the types freedoms we truly desire, heartfelt freedoms we thought (perhaps wrongly) were part of our birthright as people raised in what we were told was a “free” and “democratic” society.

Care to comment on that?

Tom Harrington

Fucking comments here are as wordy as Wallace himself.

Karl Marx: "The struggle between the classes is a political struggle."

Just because many of Marx's prescriptions for capitalism failed to work in large States, does not mean that his critique of capitalism was incorrect. To engage in effective political struggle you must get off your ass, organize, educate and agitate in as many numbers as possible--realizing that there is always a cost to existence "below" the upper-class: Either you take your lumps for participating in effective resistance or you take your lumps for knuckling under to fascism. As far as we know we only have one life. How do you want to live it? Knuckling under like a fearful child ensuring the enslavement of your own progeny, or resisting on your feet like adults to take the worthwhile risk to free yourselves and your progeny?

Living now in Mexico and becoming somewhat acquainted with Spanish Baroque and its impact on all aspects of this country, - and having read Anthony Pagden's "Spanish Imperialism and the Political Imagination" - I appreciate your tying together the Spanish Empire with the American one.

Wonderful. Two of my favourite examples of non-Baroque people who tell it like it is without caring a fig about what others think are Vermont's Independent Senator Bernie Sanders and architect Richard Gage. Who??!! Visit www.ae911truth.org for a no-holds-barred discussion of the greatest triumph of mendacious Baroque chicanery the world has seen in centuries. If we can't settle accounts with this one, then all is indeed lost, and we will most deservedly go the way of 17th century Spain. Mene, mene, tekel upharsin.