User:24.18.59.229

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Welcome to Wikipedia!

I sure wish you would get a UserName...it's so easy.

You will note that I deleted the line you added to Susan Sontag, citing Wikipedia's NPOV (neutral point-of-view policy). The line read as follows: "Andrew Sullivan complained that Sontag got more of a pass by the media on her extreme leftist political affilations after her death than the late Philip Johnson did on his fascist past. [1]"

My objection is threefold: first of all, the notion that Sontag was an "extreme leftist" is highly simplistic. She was left on some issues, right on others. The fact is, she was a hawk (and out-hawked many conservatives) when it came to U.S. military intervention in Bosnia, and I believe time has proven her correct.

My second objection is the old Andrew Sullivan issue, discussed already on the Talk page -- this is not his entry, he is not Sontag's biographer, and his own biases should either be mentioned here or they should disqualify him outright from being called on as sole arbiter of Sontag's reputation. I've known Andrew for more than 15 years, and even as a friend, I can tell you he's not always objective (and there's a whiff of misogyny in this, as there often is with Andrew...remember, I say this as a friend of his). Was Sontag an "extreme leftist"? Obviously not. No extreme leftist I know of was an open and passionate advocate for U.S. military intervention in Bosnia -- at a time when Andrew Sullivan, as editor-in-chief of the New Republic, was in the habit of openly mocking her for directing "Waiting for Godot" in Sarajevo. Andrew's own conversion to interventionism in the Balkans was very late... perhaps this is all a cover for it, because Andrew certainly wants to be on the right side of history. But that's the sort of discussion that belongs on his page. Not on hers.

My third objection is just the nature of the quote, which stretches into irrelevance: adding Andrew Sullivan is one thing, adding Philip Johnson and fascism is another. Maybe you need to start a page about obituaries and labels? But Sontag's page shouldn't bear the weight of what people said or didn't say about Philip Johnson, of all people -- and, by the way, the New York Times gave ample treatment to Johnson's fascism, so I don't really know what Andrew is talking about here. Sandover 05:42, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)