Beyond Lileks

I think James Lileks is one of the greatest writers of our time. I have a bunch of his books and I've given many away for gifts. His "screedy" stuff rings with joy. He displays an easy patriotism to which I relate.

But even the great man comes up short today. His Bleat becomes a takedown of Joel Stein's Eek! A flag on my lawn! in the Los Angeles Times. Lileks is in good form:

That’s the key line, right there. Not because he admits to looking down on people who put up a flag on the Fourth; that’s hardly unusual in the thin moist demographic stratum he occupies. It’s not that they don’t like the flag, necessarily, and it’s not that they don’t enjoy the Fourth, but put the two together and people might get the wrong idea. No, what amused me was the sight of a writer who’d burrowed so far up the aperture of his warm narcissistic cocoon he has no idea how he comes across. I have liberal friends who fly flags without apology or worry, because they’re Americans, because it’s the Fourth, because they love their country, and because they don’t believe that trinity is the property of the other side. Which it isn’t. When it comes to struggling to get the flag on the pole just right, we’re all in this together. But to Mr. Stein, these are people to be looked down upon. Places deserving of a sniff and a snort. Cringe, O Banner-deck’d exurb jingo-huts, at the withering Looking Down Upon, exacted with bone-dry scorn by a professional thinkerator.

But when you read the original column, you get the feeling James went too easy on him.

Stein is "in a tizzy" because a Realtor has -- sit down for this -- put a small American Flag on his lawn. The subhead asks "When a realtor sticks the Stars and Stripes in your front yard, do you trash it or stash it?"

So the reason I didn't want to put a flag outside wasn't because I disapprove of our international policies. It was because I didn't want to associate myself with the other people who put them up, and with their unquestioning, tribal, us-versus-them, arrogant mentality. Though I love being American, I don't want to proclaim it as the sole basis of my identity.

Flying it proudly is not an option for Joel Stein. Eek. He's in a tizzy. poor chap.

From the other side Posted by jk at July 12, 2006 8:23 PM