Monday, September 13, 2010

Althouse: on art as social work

Althouse:
Why are there so many serious novels about 9/11 and so few about Katrina? — asks Chloe Schama who thinks it's just shameful.

A nice takedown of a very common notion among the Vulgar Liberals (aka the bien pensant) -- answering the question in her post's title, she says:
Oh, good lord, this is so stupid I hate to have to point it out. Katrina was a hurricane. We don't have to try to figure out its motivations and come to terms with its evil. Yes, there were human failings in the aftermath of the storm, but novelists have been chewing through the routine failings of humankind since the novel was invented.
Of course, this ignores the conspiracy theorists who think "Katrina was an inside job", just like 9/11, but then everyone ignores them, don't they?

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