[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: RARA-AVIS: hb libertarian



On Fri, 17 Jan 1997, michael david sharp wrote:

: To the first question: in its pessimism about the competence of
: governmental institutions, the hard-boiled attitude of much 30s-40s
: fiction does (vaguely) have something in common w/ what appears to
: be an increasingly libertarian American electorate.

If the first person meant "libertarian" in the sense of whacked-out
gun nuts holing up in Montana, I don't see any connection.  If he
meant people who want to be left alone, I'd agree there's some
similarity.  But a hardboiled dick would be as equally skeptical of a
free-market capitalist as he would of the government, I think.  He
knows it won't make much of a difference.  He'd still have to wade
though the same crap and corruption every day.

There's quite a bit of sentiment against the rich in hardboiled dick
stories, I suppose because it's so easy for the rich to buy their way
out of any trouble. 

Did Mike Hammer ever deal with any really rich families?  I wonder
what Spillane made of them.

: > On another tact, I'd be interested to hear hb-slang for 'artist.'

I haven't seen anything.  But your average hardboiled type would
probably be pretty sarcastic when commenting on anything "modern."  


Bill
-- 
William Denton : buff@vex.net     <-- Please note new address.
Toronto, Canada                   <-- I'm not at io.org any more.
http://www.vex.net/~buff/         Caveat lector.

-
# RARA-AVIS:  To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis"
# to majordomo@icomm.ca


References:


[Archives] | [RARA-AVIS]