Steinbeck's myth of the Okies (Another archtypical liberal myth debunked)

The New Criterion ^ | June 2002 | Keith Windschuttle

[John O]

(Mine was actually funnier than the 1st and 2nd place stories, but I made fun of the very contest I was entering too and so they wouldn't dare give it first place)

So post it already and let us judge. We can always use a good laugh

GSA(P)

[JudyB1938]

It was also a time when after The War that there were a lot of Veterans begging on the streets downtown. They were the ones with no legs, scooting around on a board with wheels on it. Or the ones who'd been blinded. But never the "shell-shock" ones. I don't know where they were, but they weren't visible. The only one I knew was cared for by his family. I was scared to death of him, because my grandmother told me he was "crazy".

There was also "Crazy Annie" who rode around town on her three-wheel bicycle. She'd been a nurse who broke down serving overseas. Everybody watched out for her, because they had such admiration for her and pride in how she'd served our country.

Of course, these "war stories" have nothing to do with the topic of this thread. Get an oldie to reminiscing, and all kinds of memories come flooding back.

[Grig]

"So post it already and let us judge. We can always use a good laugh"

Technicaly, by subbmitting it to the contest, it becomes their property. Plus I would have find my copy and scan it in first if I wanted to post it. It has been one of those 'I'll do that someday' for years.

[Zeroisanumber]

There are two categories of rats. Both spread plague and disease and death. The rodent form is the less dangerous.

Are you calling my dad and grandad rats? Plague dogs? Watch yourself there slim.

In a democracy people are going to disagree, that doesn't make your opposition into some demonic force. No matter how you exaggerate the differences between the two sides Democrats (in general) are not evil; they simply have different ideas on the direction that this country should take.

Looking at politics the way you do is unhealthy and, in a way, anti-democratic. Settle back, take a breath.

[monkey]

By the end of the book, Ma Joad, who was initially concerned to keep the family together and to preserve their food and supplies for their own use, now identifies herself as one with all the other poor and oppressed. The stout woman smiled. “No need to thank. Everybody’s in the same wagon. S’pose we was down. You’d a give us a han’.” “Yes,” Ma said, “we would.” “Or anybody.” “Or anybody. Use’ ta be the fambly was fust. It ain’t so now. It’s anybody. Worse off we get, the more we got to do.”

Gifts are an important part of tribal cultures. It has more to do with Nietzsche's Will to Power than concern for others.

The giver is Master of the Universe, as is the receiver (who temporarily escapes the tyranny of earning a living by the sweat of his brow). At the next campfire, the roles are reversed. It's a zero-sum game, with everyone feeling a bit more powerful.

This post reminds me of the Eskimo saying: "We become who we are by living in the same place for a long time."

[John O]

Are you calling my dad and grandad rats? Plague dogs? Watch yourself there slim.

Yes I am. As well as my dad who falls into the 'democrats are for the little guy' brain dead zombies. He refuses to see that the rats left him years ago. Stupid and blind and dangerous to his own country.

In a democracy people are going to disagree, that doesn't make your opposition into some demonic force. No matter how you exaggerate the differences between the two sides Democrats (in general) are not evil; they simply have different ideas on the direction that this country should take.

The direction that the democrat leadership (the truly evil ones) want to go is destructive to everything that is good. This direction is evil and anyone who supports them in that desire is evil by association. There is no such thing as a good democrat. They are opposed to all I hold dear and to the principles upon which this country was founded. They are the enemy. Unfortunately a large number of them (read 'stupid') don't realize that they are destroying their own country.

GSA(P)

[John O]

It has been one of those 'I'll do that someday' for years.

If you ever do post it please ping me.

GSA(P)

[x]

Fascinating article. One thing, though, is that things look different afterwards than when one is living through them. Separating out rumor and myth from proven fact is hard enough afterwards. It may look like an impossible task at the time.

A success story of wise and prudent migrants looking for opportunities and finding them, does not a great novel make. It's the tragic and epic and Biblical undertones that do that.

Also, the worst thing that happens tends to enter peoples' consciousness. The day when it does rain dirt from the sky becomes a constant occurrence in the memory. The one family that's been on its land for three generations becomes every family. That is how myths work in cultures -- and in literature.

[robowombat]

Your comments are very true. The difference between say Melville and "Moby Dick" and Steinbeck and "GOW" is that there was no political context for Melville. There was, for instance, only one whale ship that ever seems to have been sunk by an enraged sperm whale and the gallery of archtypes that signed on the Pequod tax ones credulity. (for instance Gay Head Indians, South Sea Islanders, and Arabs crewing different whale boats. All of these did exist in the Nantucket whale fleet but not likely to all be found on one ship). These and other elements which practically yell "this is supposed to be an epic" at the reader only serve to make the literary analysis of the book more interesting.

In Steinbeck's case he was wielding his pen both for reasons of literary expression and as a "committed" soldier in the war for the triumph of the left. He may have moved across the political spectrum to libral center rightist by the time of his death but his works of this period continue to be utilized to wage intellectual war on the notion of private property and individual rights.

The use of the product seems to me to be what is crucial here and why exposing the falsity of its basic propositions is important and relevant to contemporary events.

[TheGrimReaper]

Thanks, once again, FDR, you SOB

And I wasn't finished thanking him for that little Ponzi scheme of his..... aka "Social Security".