Harold Bloom - How to Read and Why4 - Blood Meridian

[ThomasEarnshaw]

On Bloom's point about the profound example of cultural loss that the Bush presidents represent when compared to the Adams presidents, he doesn't for a moment consider that such cultural loss is inevitable when broader segments of society are enfranchised. Return the vote to land-owners and the tone of political debate in America, while it would still be heated, would be more rational and "cultured". Lack of such insights should be expected from someone who missed the Nietzsche in Blood Meridian

[MortimerYoung]

Why is the volume so low on this thing? I had to go to the earbuds for this.

[earwax8toecheese]

the gun . . point and click. . . . your dead . . .one step closer to becoming gods ourselves

[Bmacrae01]

Blood Meridian is history, fictionalized to dramatise the setting and thought behind its abiding detail: violence. You may argue it has nothing to do with gun control - as Viet Nam had nothing to do with dominoes - but its naive to the pont of comedy to try and think we are not gun crazy. Have you actually been outside your own country for more than a week at a time in all your fifteen years?

[knightschwartz]

people who hate any discussion of politics are PC idiots.

[llamasarus1]

isn't training people with guns a good thing since murderers who have slain with a guns statisticly mostly are not gun trained. but i guess my opinion doesn't matter. Blood meridian is the best novel iv'e ever read so lets leave it at that.

[Pointsman190]

@edmund184 Perhaps because the motor car is not designed to kill people, and abortion has obvious positive societal benefits. This contrasts with firearms, which at best can be excused as useful for self-defense. Also keep in mind that Bloom never said to ban guns, he stated there is a problem with american culture for it's focus on violence and firearms.

[edmund184]

Simple question Mr Bloom: why don't we ban the motor car which kills 400 people everyday and ban abortion which kills 1,000,000 every year? The gun thing is political not moral.

[twelvemotion]

Blood Meridian is far above politics. It has nothing to do with views on gun control. American is not gun crazy and there is nothing wrong with educating students on firearms. To bring politics in the same discussion as Blood Meridian is an insult to McCarthy's masterpiece.

[gsrs1277]

@twelvemotion Politics = the very substance of our society, of power itself; a fundamental issue for all human beings.

The racist slaughter of an entire civilization by technological tactics raises profound questions about what it means to be human, about what it means to have and use power.

Satan in Paradise Lost invented gunpowder. The allusion is right there in Blood Meridian.

There is no "above" politics. That idea comes from the news and entertainment industry, not from serious art.

[Vree0387]

@gsrs1277 There is only above politics. Everything else is forgettable.

[floppykid]

@twelvemotion

America is gun crazy.

The term was invented for them.

[TheDucciano]

Likewise, thanks for the upload.  Bloom steers my non-fiction reading and I read this book because of him.

Um...yeah. Nothing like it I've ever read.

[bostonteabagger71739]

great but wish the sound was better

thanks for the upload

[pleaseoceancloud]

Thank you for this upload!