[Xmca-l] Re: Imagination;semiotic mediation

Sun Mar 27 16:06:58 PDT 2016

David,
Yes, the effect of the message (and the implicit message of Trumps campaign)
Is "rich outside, poor inside".

But I think it was Spy magazine that long ago labeled Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian". Here is a recent reprise by the author of that epithet:
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/10/graydon-carter-donald-trump
I'm sure he'll be getting lots more mail from Trump!
Greg

Sent from my iPhone

> On Mar 27, 2016, at 2:41 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Greg:
> 
> We are taught to think that Trump is boorish and uncultured and from the
> wrong side of the Hudson because of his hair-trigger reactions. How is it
> possible to teach us to do this--WITHOUT noticing that this very teaching
> reliably informs us that the whole playground game started with a taunt
> from Senator Rubio? (It was, actually, a very well aimed taunt, designed to
> bring out the ease with which this potential president can be jerked
> around, one that suggests strategic knowledge of Trump's greatest
> weaknesses; it was not, as Rubio himself claimed, something he just
> stumbled into by accident in the desperate flailing of his dying campaign).
> 
> We are taught to think that this is all highly regrettable. How is it
> possible to teach us to do this--WITHOUT noticing that the very people
> teaching this are the ones who created this carnival atmosphere where
> serious discussions are impossible--mostly these hard, unfunny 24-7 comedy
> shows which are always so hard up for their hard, unfunny material,
> relying, again and again, on the puerile devices of profanity and
> industrial quantities of canned laughter? How not to notice that people who
> most "shocked, shocked!" are precisely the people who have littered
> politics with what are essentially unserious, unsocial, non-political
> lifestyle issues? (Not just the comedy shows. which have been the death of
> comedy as well as the death of politics, but the Evangelical Christians,
> and above all the 24-7 news people who have to talk about politics all day
> and all night without ever really talking class or social issues of any
> kind.)
> 
> Here's what I notice. We notice Trump's boorishness and not Rubio's just
> because Trump is bigger than Rubio (I am not referring to their male
> endowments). We notice vulgarity in others but not in ourselves because
> when I do it on national television and you laugh at it in the privacy of
> your own home, it's just not so "in your face" for either of us.
> 
> I notice that white working people have been successfully taught to ask
> that if Trump's so dumb, how come he's rich? I notice that the simple job
> of the media is to demonstrate that although he is rich, he is actually
> rather insecure, thin-skinned, infantile, and his chain is easily jerked.
> This shouldn't be that difficult, and it's only mildly subversive of class
> politics in the USA, since there is only the slightest suggestion that some
> people who are rich are actually not particularly mature, trustworthy,
> or deserving of life-and-death powers over you and your children.
> 
> But then in order to do this very simple task, the media now argue that
> although he's rich, and although he's from the East Coast, he's from the
> wrong side of the river, and his playground demeanour shows it. In other
> words, although he's rich, he's really poor.
> 
> No wonder Trump is so popular!
> 
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
> 
> On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 2:39 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Should we say anything about the fact that nobody has mentioned the "hand
>> envy" moment of one of the recent Republican debates (the one where
>> politics was raised to new lows)?
>> 
>> http://www.businessinsider.com/new-yorker-cover-about-trumps-hand-size-2016-3
>> (you should really check out the original debate - really amazing stuff)
>> 
>> Nor has anyone said anything about the hailing hand gesture done at some
>> Trump rallies (note: this is a Trump-supporting page, but no, I'm not a
>> Trump supporter, it had the least ads of any of the descriptions I could
>> find):
>> 
>> http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/03/08/trump_controvery_over_trump_pledge_salute.html
>> 
>> Did everyone just assume that this is common knowledge? Or did people not
>> know about these hand-y origins?
>> And if you didn't know about this, does knowing this deepen the meaning of
>> the image?
>> 
>> and a recent Daily show segment where Black Trump responds to the New
>> Yorker cover:
>> 
>> http://www.mediaite.com/online/the-daily-shows-black-trump-reenacts-the-donalds-crazy-rant-about-his-hands/
>> 
>> -greg
>> 
>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2016 at 11:36 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> BTW:
>>> 
>>> Eugenics has the Greek etymology of eu- meaning "good" or "well," and
>>> genos, meaning "race," "stock," "kin," that is... "well-born".
>>> 
>>> This may relate to the short fingers, which also makes a reference to
>>> mating, and also possibly, just possibly sterilization.
>>> 
>>> The image becomes cleverer every second!
>>> 
>>> :)
>>> 
>>> Kind regards,
>>> 
>>> Annalisa
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Anthropology
>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
>> Brigham Young University
>> Provo, UT 84602
>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>> 