Picturing My Book Draft
I have been talking to an artist about doing a draft concept for a book cover. Unfortunately, my jargoned brief summary was full of terms that did not effectively communicate what the book was about.
Rousseau this…General Will that…Dewey the other…and it starts to sound like “blah, blah, blah.”
Here is a break down of the idea behind the book:
- Obama sucks. Gingrich will be the brain and megaphone for Republican ideas; he will become the new change.
- Because Bush sucked, people choose Obama and they are starting to learn that Obama sucks too.
- Our politics change from suck to different suck to another different suck.
- Recently, each President is worse than the one before. The last time that downward pattern continued there was a civil war.
- The environment for the release of the book is that people will by then know that Obama sucks and so Gingrich’s ideas will look better. The book is to broadcast that Gingrichism (through his 21st Century Contract with America platform) does not really represent a fundamental change from Obama.
- The book is to explain what a real alternative would be to the unthinking blind pragmatism (do and try anything that feels right without reference to principles based in reality) shared by the Dems and Reps. It will do this by defining the follow terms, explaining how they relate hierarchically (think step pyramid), and demonstrating how they relate to current political reform: Reason, Justice, Freedom, Production, and Achievement.
As an example of a visual concept to give a flavor of the criticism within the book:
- Gingrich sits in the posture of Rodin’s “The Thinker,” except his features and body are not concentration embodied; instead Gingrich is slack, slouched, and puffy.
- His eyes are out of focus and crazy to represent his disconnect from reality.
- He has the manner of a dirty savage Neanderthal in a soiled American flag loin cloth. On his bicep is an “I Heart God” tattoo, or something upon that theme.
- He is larger than life and sitting upon the House wing of the Capitol (south wing), as a representation of his demagoguery (panderer to popular opinion; Gingrich is an admitted and proud poll follower).
- Beneath his bare and muddy feet is a parchment of the U.S. Constitution with the Bill of Rights prominent and particularly soiled by Gingrich.
- Several groups of small bipedal elephants in suits are on the hill below. They would be doing, as a symbolic representation, what Republicans at their worst do: crucifying somebody, burning books, abusing a pregnant woman, beating a gay couple, wastefully burning piles of money, marching school children in regimented obedient conforming order, holding a gun to someone’s head to make them pray, breaking scientific equipment, etc.
I think that picture illustrates the working title of the book, Conceding the Future: Gingrich Republicans and the Evasion of Individual Rights.
Rodin’s The Thinker
Image Source: WikiMedia Commons, copyright 2006 David Monniaux
U.S. Capitol, West Front view (House wing to the right side of image)
Image Source: The Architect of the Capitol
Cross posted from Conceding The Future
I have a writer’s technical question: Why did you decide to produce this work as a book rather than as a series of articles? In other words, what criteria should a writer use to make that sort of decision?
BL,
That is a really good question. In fact, I would like to know the answer myself. I’ll introspect and retrospect on the issue and make a separate post in response.
A few quick thoughts that come to mind initially: 1) I intended to go for a broader audience without a background in studying political philosophy, which would require more voluminous background explanations [for example, if I relate an issue to Rousseau's idea of the General Will and its historical consequences, then I needed some space to elaborate on his concept], 2) I think about the book as modular so sections can still be put into a series of independent articles supporting the dissemination of the ideas, and 3) a book gave me a vehicle to elaborate on “Francisco’s Hierarchy” as an alternative to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need.
On the later point, the source is Francisco’s Money Speech in Atlas Shrugged…”Reason, Justice, Freedom, Production, Achievement.” In the past, I have found it a useful tool to explain political reform and decay.