robertsgriffin.com

WRITINGS


Three parts in this section, and I'll add entries as time goes on
  • Recent Short writings.   Comments on and a copy of my short writings produced since the publication early in 2006 of my latest book, Living White.  The most recent writing is listed first.
  • Books.  Comments and availability information on five books I have published since 1998.
  • Short Writings, 2001-2005.  Published and unpublished short writings, absent commentaries, from 2001 to the publication of Living White.  Again, most recent first, and unpublished material is available here.
If you want to get my view of American life and our individual lives, you could read the books in the order I have listed them here, beginning with Sports in the Lives of Children and Adolescence.   Add to that the short writings since the publication of my last book, Living White--they are listed in the "Recent Short Writings" section below--and then the material in the "Thoughts" section of this site.  If you only have the time or interest to read just one book, I suggest The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds.  If you want the latest and/or a sense of who I am,  read the thoughts in the order they are listed in the Thoughts section of this site, beginning with "On Foucault"--and you can read them in any order, they are self-contained.

          If the PDF links are oversize, adjust them to accommodate your reading preference..

          Recent Short Writings            

                  

                 • Robert S. Griffin, Looking Over the Wall to See What a Stranger is Up To, 12 pp., 2022.

 

                These days, very near the end, images from long ago pop into my head, seemingly on their own; I don’t know what prompts them, and
                I let them take me where they will.  A couple of days ago, it was of a moment from the mid- to late-1980s in Burlington Vermont. 
                Read the article here.

 

              • Robert S. Griffin, “What-If” Thinking:  Imagining Alternative Histories as a Way to Know, 13 pp., 2021.

 

              I’ve found it useful to engage in a “what-if” thought exercise. The idea is to imagine what it would be like now if what   
              happened in the past had happened in some other way, to envision an alternative history and see what it implies.  Read the
              article here.
 

                 •  Robert S. Griffin, Thoughts on Kenosha, 9 pp., 2021.

                                     

                This was written on November 20th, 2021, the day after the not guilty verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  

                Streaming the trial got me thinking.   This article shares some of what came up for me for your consideration.  Read the article here.

  

               • Robert S. Griffin, What’s to be Learned from Jon Gruden Getting Kicked Out of the Game, 6 pp.,  2021.                                         

                                                                                    

                At this writing in mid-October, 2021, Jon Gruden, coach of the National Football League’s Los Vegas Raiders, has forced to resign
                from his coaching position and undoubtedly been cancelled for life after it was found he used offensive language in personal emails to
               former Washington Football Team president. Bruce Allen. Race hasn’t surfaced in the Gruden matter, at least explicitly, but it informs
               what went down in his case.  Read the article here.

 

              • Robert S. Griffin, My Take on James W. Loewen, Sociologist and Civil Rights Champion, 13 pp., 2021.

              At my late stage of life, I find that the first thing I read every morning is the obituary section of The New York Times.  I took particular
              notice of the obituary of James W. Loewen in the August 20, 2021 edition of the paper.   It prompted me to rework a review of a book of
              his I had written many years earlier.  Read the reworked review here
 

              • Robert S. Griffin, If I Had Made the Closing Argument in Defense of Derek Chauvin . . . , 13 pp., 2021.


               At this writing, in mid-May, 2021, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted by a jury of second-degree
               murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd during Floyd’s arrest.  The first charge carries
               a maximum of forty years in prison.  I watched the defense closing argument on television, which brought up questions for me and
               prompted this writing.   Read the article here.

 

          • Robert S. Griffin, Hemingway’s Truth: A Consideration of Across the River and into the Trees, 9 pp., 2021.

                           

          I don’t consider Across the River and into the Trees a major literary accomplishment, so why am I putting energy into writing about it?
          It’s because after I finished the book I did what I often do with books and films, cruised the internet reading what other people,
          including scholars, have said about it and it hit me that if the people I read are right I misread the book’s plot in a big way, and that intrigues   

            me.   Read the article here.

 

           • Robert S. Griffin, Three Fine Films, 4 pp., 2020.

                                     

           In late December of 2020, I wrote a thought for this site called “On the Working Poor.” It was based on three films that, tied together,
           I found artistically superb, personally moving, and very thought-provoking.  I decided to expand it into an article.  Read the article here.


          • Robert S. Griffin, Was “Eyes Wide Shut” A Cultural Watershed?, 10 pp.. 2020.

                                                                   

           “Eyes Wide Shut,” released in 1999, was the last film of the legendary director Stanley Kubrick.   I watched again recently, and while I found
         its merits wanting to say the least, I speculate that it may have been a watershed in our collective life, a turning point, an historical moment in
         the core culture.  Read the essay here.

       

         • Robert S. Griffin, Looking Into “What’s My Line?” 9 pp., 2020.

                                     

          When I was a kid, around eleven or twelve I suppose--this was way back in the 1950s, Saint Paul, Minnesota--in an upstairs room Mother,
          Dad, and I rented in Mr. Jensen’s house—he and his family lived on the first floor--all alone, I watched a game show called “What’s My
          Line?” on CBS at 9:30 p.m. on Sunday nights on our 17-inch black-and-white Zenith television set that looked like a small refrigerator,
          never missed the show.  Read the essay here.

 

          •  Robert S. Griffin, The White Wolf, 2020. 

 

             See the image here.                              

                        

         • Robert S. Griffin, Competing with the Negative Story About Whites, 21 pp., 2020.

                                    

          We need to put forth a positive narrative of the white race to counter the negative one being propagated from all sides.  Read the complete
          article here. 


        • Robert S. Griffin, Getting Control in Your Life, 11 pp.,  2020.

 

         This writing began with a meditation on a slogan of the authoritarian, repressive Party in George Orwell’s dystopian novel,
         Nineteen Eighty-Four, often referred to as 1984, published in 1949.  I let the process take me wherever it did and it turned out to be some
         advice to young people especially.   Read the complete essay—I think that’s what this is—here.

       • Robert S. Griffin, The Tale of Bob Mathews, 12 pp., 2020.

                                     

          In 1983, The National Alliance—a white activist organization founded and headed by William Pierce—held its annual convention in
        Washington,  D.C.  A young mine worker from the Pacific Northwest by the name of Bob Mathews was scheduled to give a talk at the  
         convention.  Mathews had been an Alliance member for three years and actively recruiting new members for the organization among the
         farmers  and ranchers and working people around where he lived in Washington state.   Dr. Pierce asked Bob to tell the people at the
         convention how his efforts were going, and about the situation generally in his part of the country.  Read the tale here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, A Suggestion to American White Advocates:  Root Your Arguments in This Country’s Core Political and Cultural  

           Ideals, 10 pp., 2020.

 

        This is a shortened version of the article just below on this site, The White Racial Movement’s Historic—and Unfortunate--Embrace of the
         Far Right.  It was posted in the internet magazine, The Occidental Observer, in June of 2020.  The edit required a change in title.   Read
         this version of the article here.

 

         • Robert S. Griffin, The White Racial Movement’s Historic—and Unfortunate--Embrace of the Far Right, 15 pp., 2020.

                                                 

        The cause of white people has historically been linked to the far-right end of the social/political spectrum, which I find problematic
        both philosophically and practically.  Read the article here.

 

         • Robert S, Griffin, More on a Recent Article About COVID-19, 5pp., 2020.                                 

 

          I wrote an article on the public response to the COVID-19 virus called “Thoughts from a Leather Couch on Covid-19.”  This article expands
          on it.  Read this article here.

          • Robert S. Griffin, Thoughts from a Leather Couch About COVID-19, 11 pp., 2020.

                         

         Yesterday’s (March 30th, 2020) New York Times headline was “As U.S. Death Toll Climbs, Washington Weighs New Emergency Steps.”  Today’s is “Virus May
         Kill 100,000 to 240,000, Experts Say.”  I read the Times online, but what I would call the front page had 13 stories—every one of them was about the
         current COVID-19 crisis.  There were 11 opinion pieces on the front page—same thing.  Read the complete article here.

        • Robert S. Griffin, A Rejoinder to “The ABC’s of the Alt-Right: A Guide for Students by Thomas Dalton, Ph.D,” 16pp., 2019.

                                     

        I read with interest Professor Thomas Dalton’s article in The Occidental Observer (an online magazine) posted on December 8th, 2019,
        “The ABC’s of the Alt-Right: A Guide for Students.”  My experiences and analyses have led me to different conclusions and proposals
        than Professor Dalton expresses in his article.  I hope what I set out here in response to Professor Dalton’s article will prompt reasoned
        dialogue and debate.  Read the article here.

 

       • Robert S. Griffin, Why I Owe Jim Bakker an Apology and Thank You, 14 pp., 2019.

        In the mid-1970s to the late-‘80s, Jim Bakker and his wife Tammy Faye hosted a daily Christian talk show called “The PTL Club,” which
        was seen widely on a satellite network Jim had created.  It was never clear what PTL stood for--Praise the Lord or People That Love, one of
        the two or both—later on, after Jim and Tammy got in trouble,  people said it stood for Pass the Loot.  Read the full article here.

         • Robert S. Griffin, “Midnight Cowboy” Revisited: Making New Sense of an Iconic Old Film, 14 pp., 2019.

                                                    

        The film “Midnight Cowboy” has turned out to be one of the three iconic American films of the 1960s—the other two, “The Graduate” and
        “Easy Rider.”  One’s understanding of that time in American history is enhanced by a consideration of the social and cultural significance of
        these three films, how they both reflected and shaped collective and individual life.  And since one thing leads to another, giving attention to
        them will shed light on contemporary reality and how it got to be this way, which includes how you, if you are an American, and perhaps
        even if you aren’t, think about things and conduct your life. This writing considers artistic merit of “Midnight Cowboy” and three themes
        in the film.   Read the article here.


        • Robert S. Griffin, Who Shall Remain Nameless: Al Hanzal and Democracy in Action, 14 pp., 2019.  

         In Saint Paul, Minnesota, a parent at the Linwood Arts Plus School brought his concern about the Monroe part of the school’s name to the
         school’s Parent-Teacher Organization.  James Monroe, he offered, isn’t the kind of person the school ought to be named after. The PTO
         co-chair sided with the parent: “It’s a critically important issue that James Monroe was a slave owner, and that doesn’t reflect the kids that
         go to Linwood-Monroe in the slightest.”  The Linwood-Monroe name change looked to me like a done deal.  But not so fast.  On to the
         scene comes Al Hanzal.  Read the full article here.                               

       • Robert S. Griffin, Where is Calvin Coolidge When We Need Him? 10 pp., 2019.

                            

         People who have done the talking all of my life don’t like presidents like Calvin Coolidge.  Read the article here.

       
          • Robert S. Griffin, Who Will Sign Bryce Harper? How Media-Derived Narratives Shape Our Perceptions, and What Am I Doing with
          My Life?,  12 pp., 2019.

                               

         At this writing, a story dominating the sports headlines—ESPN, the sports pages of newspapers, and so on--is the fate of baseball free
         agents Bryce Harper and Manny Machado.   Free agents are players who aren’t under contract with any team and thus able to sign with any
         team for  any period of time and for any amount of money.   See the complete article here.

 

         • Robert S. Griffin, William Gayley Simpson on Christianity and the West, 9 pp., 2018.

 

              "Someone else you might want to include in this [book] project [The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds]," William Pierce called out to me as
          I was leaving his office at the end of one of our evening talks, "is William Gayley Simpson.  Do you know about him?"  Read the full
          article here.