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> This writing is really awful, tumbling all over the place.

I read that and thought it was a good summary of his childhood. What is it you find "awful" about it? Here's an exercise for you: rewrite it so it's not awful.

What non-null portrait is being drawn here: sub-wastrel ne'er-do-well with a successful private practice who can't navigate the real world and who has servants and an elegant summer house?

So you don't want to rewrite it?

And I don't know what you mean by "non-null portrait."

Let's look that awful sentence:

Kennan’s father was something of a ne’er-do-well—not a wastrel, exactly, but unambitious and, despite his expertise in what should have been the lucrative practice of tax law, inept at navigating the real world.

It does not say "successful," first of all. It says he was expert in tax law but somehow didn't manage to turn that into serious money. "Not a wastrel, exactly" suggests that he had some wastrel-like qualities. "Unambitious" and "inept at navigating" -- also character descriptions like you'd find in fiction.

As for the servants: not that unusual in that age. Their house was "a gift from Kennan’s maternal grandparents." And it doesn't say they owned an elegant summer house; it says they "vacationed at an elegant lakeside summer retreat."

For me it IS a character portrait, sorry. I guess you don't like the author's tone, which is legitimate, but you have not indicted the writing at all.

Half of the statements contradict the other half. It's null in the sense that he's drawing an Euler diagram where the circles don't intersect. The author might have something he meant to say, but he didn't say it -- instead he seems to have just used words he likes. The only thing standing is "unambitious".

That's why I don't attempt to rewrite it. There's hardly a coherent thought for me to express differently.

Hmm. I thought it was engagingly written and enjoyed it on that level. It also contains tons of fascinating details about Kennan that I had no idea about. It's interesting simply for being neither of the two things that articles about Kennan always are: hagiographical or polemical. (It's polemical about other things, in a few passages that are best ignored—but not about Kennan.)

I'd say it's plenty polemical, throughout. In and of itself, I don't have a problem with that, regardless of whether I disagree with the polemic. But the mass of self-contradictions (what non-null portrait is being drawn here: sub-wastrel ne'er-do-well with a successful private practice who can't navigate the real world and who has servants and an elegant summer house?), and the jaded and listless manner in which those polemics are doled out, each one basically amounting to just "but what do you expect these days, everything is X, Y, Z", makes it a real trudge to get through.

Kennan is an interesting subject. I think that is safe to say, but I also think that is pretty much the limit of what I can say in unqualified agreement with the essay. In a much more qualified way, I share his criticism of the neoconservatives who still run US foreign policy, in both major parties.

I would also recommend Stephen Kinzer's book, The Brothers, about Allen and John Foster Dulles, two figures who played far more active and significant roles, the consequences of which mark the world to this day.

Self-contradictions -- that's called "human nature." And you seem to have read something other than what it says (see above comment).

It was a complicated world, but one thing hasn't changed: the qualities that get to the top of the heap are not the ones that make you intellectually interesting. He was someone that the people in power liked to listen to, now and then, but he was too mercurial to occupy their positions.

Somewhat like his father, in that sentence you hate so much.

The contradictions I'm talking about are in the writing, not in the subject. Contradictions like "he was idle and poor but he earned a lot at his successful business". The fact that he also spent a lot, so he was always tight on money, does not justify the "idle and poor" (ne'er-do-well and almost wastrel) parts. We all contain contradictions, but not "he was short but tall" ones like that.

The bits you've quoted aren't contradictory, and the contradictory bits aren't quotes, even though you put quotation marks around them.

The passage about Kennan's father is perfectly coherent. He didn't live up to the class status he married into. The career he chose could have been lucrative, but wasn't, not because of a lack of expertise but because he was inept at other things. There's nothing contradictory there and it's normal stuff for a biographical piece.

I can't understand where your criticism of this article is coming from. I could understand someone disliking it because they disagree with the author either ideologically or about Kennan, but since you say it's not that, I'm at a loss.

Personally I learned more about Kennan from it than everything else I've read about him put together. That's not saying much, as I'd only read maybe 3 or 4 things, but it's interesting, and he was a fascinating figure. The obvious thing to criticize would be the tedious bits when the author abandons his topic and becomes a harumphing curmudgeon, but at least he gets back on topic after that.

I wish you had written the essay, as that aspect about class status is coherent, but not found in the section at hand. All I get from the author is disdain, with a hint that it's centered on the subject's lack of ambition.

Of course I have other critiques, but to borrow a strange phrase from the movie JFK, is it worth picking gnat shit out of pepper?

"Harumphing curmudgeon" is putting it mildly. The following example paragraph isn't even a coherent expression of a far right viewpoint by Claremont's usual standards; it's just spittle-flecked nonsense.

>The present ruling class, by contrast, does not appear to wish to improve the people but apparently seeks to make them worse. How else to explain policies that encourage poverty, joblessness, obesity, and illegitimacy? Or teaching children to hate their ancestors, their country, and themselves—and then encouraging them to self-mutilate while punishing parents who try to stop them? The government and its corporate allies have morphed into a kind of nationwide crime syndicate pushing drugs, gambling, sexual degeneracy, and every imaginable form of vice. The next step on the road to national dissolution, it is now clear, will be expropriation, a.k.a., racial “reparations.” One wonders what comes after all that money is spent on an attempt to square “the debt that can never be repaid”?

Although there is some interesting information in the article, I do have to wonder whether I should believe a word of the analysis beyond the barest biographical facts. Knowing little about Kennan, I would rather turn to sources that are less prone to wild exaggerations and fabrications. (Anton has past form here, for anyone who cares to check.)

Of course I was putting it mildly, because it's exactly the least interesting part of the article and the whole idea of discussion here is to optimize for what's interesting.

I wasn't criticizing you for putting it mildly – especially given your role in the site. However, I think it's also legitimate to point out that sloppy passages like the one I quoted undermine the author's overall credibility. Most people are (like me) reading this casually and won't have the time or resources to independently verify the more interesting claims. If someone makes up patent nonsense about the present day, how far can I trust them to accurately report far more obscure historical facts?

The editor fell asleep at the wheel by the looks of it.

Hm, the book, "Kennan: A life between worlds", though, is an interesting read.

I would probably agree. Aside from my own interest in the topic and in Kennan, Michael Anton has made such a poor showing for himself and his critique, that even in my ignorance, Costigliola seems positively glowing in comparison.

This is dedication:

>having authored a short book and over 40,000 posts on internet bulletin board Styleforum.net

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Anton