Inasmuch as this is my web log, or blog, I think it
appropriate that I engage in some reasonably public navel gazing. For some time now, I have been deeply,
ungetoverably troubled, not to say unhappy.
I am not referring to elevated, sophisticated distress, the untergang des Abendlandes brooding we
intellectuals deploy as our shtick. I am talking about a pit-of-the-stomach
lying-awake-at-night unhappiness that is momentarily lessened, but not ever
dispelled, by a favorable round of polls or the victory of a Democratic
Socialist primary winner in a safely Democratic seat.
Lord knows, I have been unhappy about the way of the world
at least since Jack Kennedy invaded Cuba and America embraced its nuclear
weapons in a cosmic death hug. I have
seen Martin and Malcolm and Jack and Bobby killed, I have survived Nixon and
Reagan and Clinton. Trump is surely a
uniquely despicable man, but at least he has not yet started a war, which sets
him apart from a number of his post-1945 predecessors. Why then, when I am sitting quietly and the
facial muscles supporting my reflex smile relax, does my wife look at me and
say, with concern, “You look so unhappy”?
To be sure, I am eighty-four, and the end of my life is a
great deal closer than my middle years.
But my health is good, my children are flourishing, I am embarked on an
exciting new venture in New York, and I am, by any reasonable measure,
rich. I mean, the only other people I
know with apartments in Paris are my friends who live there. So why so blue? It is, as the King of Siam is wont to say in The King and I, a puzzlement.
The source of my distress is not the manifest evidence of
the sheer evil of our political rulers.
I have known that for many decades.
Rather, it is the recognition that half of my fellow Americans are ready
to embrace that evil when it is presented to them without the slightest simulacrum
of the appearance of humanity and decency.
Hypocrisy, La Rochefoucauld observed, is the tribute vice pays to
virtue. Fascism, we might add, is not
having to say you are sorry.
I have been sustained all these years by the belief that if
only the people could be brought to see the truth, they would throw off their
chains and seize liberation. Why else
write all those books unmasking the imperial aims of America’s “moral world leadership,”
those manifestos demanding the end to voter suppression? Why march for peace, for social justice, for
Gay liberation, for women’s rights?
With luck, we will flip the House. In 2020, we may take back the Senate and the
Presidency. But as I slip and slide into
my nineties, those scores of millions will still be there, ready to embrace the
next fascist poseur.
And after I am gone, as my grandchildren approach middle
age, the water level will rise and the world’s billions will be displaced by changes
that even then will be denied not only by the rich, who will have relocated to
higher ground, but by the swamped cheering, chanting masses who elect and
reelect them.
Is it any wonder I cannot sleep?
Now, when is my next canvassing appointment?
37 comments:
I am going to take your navel gazing a step further.
You care about all of this because you are a member of the species homo sapiens, and you want to believe that our species is an improvement on the evolutionary scale, and therefore you feel pangs of disappointment when you realize that not all – indeed a large number - of your fellow species members fail to display the degree of sentient improvement that is supposed to set us apart from all of the other species on the planet, and who lack the measure of mutual empathy for the pain we inflict on our fellow homo sapiens that you hope others would feel, as you feel, for their fellow humans. And you care, that, despite our purported intellectual superiority to other species, we may commit acts that result in our own, and perhaps their, extinction. Does not all of this represent the statistical principle of regression towards the mean?
But you are an atheist, as I am. It is God, in Genesis, who says that s/he has created us in his/her own image, and that we are the pinnacle of his/her creation. It is God who values our existence as his/her greatest creation. If you do not believe in God, or in Genesis as an accurate historical account, however, does the universe even care that we exist, even care about our intellectual pursuits, and whether we solve the riddle of how the universe began? Do we not, as a species, commit more harm to other species than they do to us? Are the baboons, tigers, komodo dragons, amoeba as impressed with our intellectual superiority as we are? And, in the long run, does it matter if we do, indeed, through our own actions, become extinct, before we have figured out the riddle as to how and why the universe came into existence, a question that appears to be an infinite regress, anyway, with every answer leading to more questions?
A friend of mine recently told me of a conversation he had, in which someone said that through our actions we are destroying the Earth. He responded, no, the Earth will be fine – it will restore itself. It is we who will be gone. And will the universe miss us?
When I despair of how short-sighted, thoughtless, greedy, unfeeling and unthinking most people are, which happens a lot these days, I turn to Schopenhauer, not so much the Schopenhauer of The World as Will and Representation, a young know-it-all, but the Schopenhauer of Parerga and Paralipomena, older, still a know-it-all, but less emphatic about it and no worse than young and I.
Schopenhauer is as almost as witty as Bertrand Russell and writes as clearly as any analytic philosopher. Like you, he is a Kant expert and like you, he detests Hegel.
Unfortunately, my own intellectual shortcoming is on display – “not all” and “fail” in the second sentence constitutes a double negative.
My therapy for weltschmerz is to take Woody Allen's advice in Hannah And Her Sisters and re-watch the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup.
As an aside, Elizabeth Warren should sue Trump for the $1 million.
In contract law, a contract is formed by an offer and acceptance, accompanied by what is referred to as “consideration.” The consideration can be money, but it does not have to be. Under the doctrine of what is called “promissory estoppel,” a party can accept and provide consideration, to form a contract, by performing a reciprocal action. For example, a millionaire offers you $1 million if you will climb Mt. Everest. You accept the offer, and provide the requisite consideration, by actually climbing Mt. Everest. The millionaire owes you $1 million, and you can actually sue in court to collect it.
Trump challenged Sen. Warren’s claim that she had Native American heritage. He publicly offered her $1 million if she could prove she had such heritage. She has taken him up on this offer, expended time and money to have a DNA test conducted, which indicates that she does, indeed, have Native American heritage. By her conduct, a contract has been formed between her and Trump, and he owes her the $1 million. I’d love to see her sue him in federal court to collect. (She can sue in federal court under what is called “diversity jurisdiction” – federal courts have jurisdiction over lawsuits between parties from different states, she from Mass., and he from N.Y.) How would “Justice” Kavanaugh rule if she were to sue and it went to the S. Ct.? Any guesses?
I do not know why, but I thought I entered MS for the last 2 entries, but they are posted as Anonymous. My eyesight must be failing me.
What is Woody Allen's advice?
s. wallerstein,
Allen, depressed about the state of the world, is contemplating suicide. He wanders into a movie theater in Manhattan which is showing the Marx Brothers film, Duck Soup. As he is watching the film, he appreciates the absurdity of life and concludes he should “Stop ruining my life searching for answers I’m never going to get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.” He sits back and enjoys the movie – which is about the absurdity of politics.
You can see the scene here, which is the final clip in the series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90Z98ZlvpPU
If you have not seen either film, I highly recommend both.
Thanks.
I've seen most of the Marx Brothers and everything by Woody Allen until around 15 years ago.
I'm a fan of both the Marx Brothers and Woody Allen. I just didn't remember what Woody Allen said in a movie I saw over 30 years ago.
Below is an edited version of an email that I just sent to Sen.Warren.
Dear Sen. Warren,
Since you are an attorney, you already know what I am about to tell you. You can, and should, sue President Trump for the $1 million he offered to pay you if you could provide proof that you have Native American heritage. Under the doctrine of promissory estoppel, by expending the time and money to obtain the DNA results confirming that you do, indeed, have Native American heritage, you have accepted his offer, provided consideration, and have formed a contract w/ Trump, by virtue of which he legally owes you the $1 million.
I strongly urge you to file suit, pro se, in federal court under diversity jurisdiction. If the Court follows the letter of the law, you are bound to win. Moreover, you can conduct discovery, subpoena his income tax returns and take his deposition. See, e.g., Jones v. Clinton. However, should he appeal his loss and take the case to the Supreme Court, I cannot guarantee how “Justice” Kavanaugh, and his conservative brethren would rule – but think of the fun you would have questioning Trump at a deposition.
Respectfully,
[M.S.], J.D., M.P.H.
I don't contra the Beatles think things are getting better all the time- but history is like the market, it does not stir in straight lines.
All of us share your foreboding, and many are ready for the struggle ahead
It's worse than you think. A good portion of this 50% are 2nd Amendment zealots. Why? To intimidate the disenfranchised, and to lie in wait should the socialists assume the slightest power. Why would I think there is a connection between that and the vote? The development of the handgun was instrumental for the franchise, at least according to Herbert Gintis.
Two million years ago, the hominin developed the ability to kill conspecifics from a distance with projectile weapons. Human political organization tracks the development of projectile weapons. Our current economic system depends on the use of projectile weapons as a mechanism of social control. If history is any guide (not that narrative history is any guide -- it is useless) the next form of human political organization, if there is one, depends on technological developments in projectile weapons.
But for some reason, this material fact is generally overlooked or dismissed--a source of perverse pleasure for me.
Colin,
What you are saying makes it sound like we have all been sucked into a game of Jumanji = and we may be stuck in the game for another six years.
I desperately want to get out!
The better original version of that Woody Allen scene occurs in the sublime *Sullivan's Travels".
David,
Why do you say better?
In Preston Sturges’ version, the plot is entirely different. Sullivan (Joel McCrae) is a movie director intent on making a socially relevant film about the plight of mankind. He is disabused of his mission when he watches a Walt Disney movie (not Duck Soup, and not a Marx Brothers movie) that makes him, and everyone in the audience (all inmates in a labor camp), laugh. The only similarity is that he is watching a movie that makes him laugh. Is it possible that this scene inspired Woody Allen? Perhaps, but I would argue that Allen improved it - Duck Soup is much funnier than the Disney movie Sullivan is watching and Allen’s world weariness is more profound. (I will debate anything with anybody – Joke.)
Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy Sullivan’s Travels and other Sturges films. I just don’t think that they are better than Woody Allen’s.
By the way, Sullivan’s Travels was actually the inspiration for the Coen Brothers’ movie, O Brother Where Art Thou.
So Colin, Trump obviously was employing some skill at salesmanship, that was obvious from day one- but he is no genius, just a very talented student of Cohn's techniques-
Is there a book at how to fight back to Cohn's techniques? Counterinsurgency, of sorts.
Plus, Trump is so freaking obvious that it might embarrass Cohn
Collin,
I know all about Roy Cohn. In addition to the facts about him that you refer to, he was a closet homosexual who, in public, viciously attacked homosexuals. He was the subject of Tony Kushner’s play Angels In America and died of Aids. He was, like his acolyte, a totally reprehensible human being. (Steve Miller, on Trump’s staff, also looks a bit like him. And, in retaining Michael Cohen as his personal attorney, was Trump hoping that the surname similarity would make his new attorney a reincarnation of his old mentor?)
I certainly hope that the points you make about Trump’s irrationality and his accumulating enemies does lead to his downfall. However, these points make sense in a rational world. I fear that we are no longer living in a rational world. How do you counter someone who persistently lies w/ impunity, who has no shame about lying, whose lies actually endear him to his supporters - which support, by the way, has not waned – and yet, who, to the cheers of his rally supporters, while he is lying, castigates others for allegedly lying, to which his supporters scream, “Lock her up!,” as they did when he accused Sen. Feinstein of lying about who leaked Prof. Ford’s letter to the press? His lies are entertainment, while the purported lies of others are grounds for incarceration. He continues to refer to Sen. Warren as Pocahontas and denies that he challenged her to prove her Native American ancestry, when video shows he definitely did. And even this is not enough to destabilize his support. See https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/15/opinions/elizabeth-warrens-big-mistake-maltby/index.html No rational argument flummoxes him, he just makes something up to counter it. Did you see his interview on 60 Minutes? Again, I ask, what poisoned well are his supporters drinking their water out of?
In my comment above, I compared our current situation to like being sucked into the game Jumanji. Actually, I think it is more like that old TV show, The Outer Limits – Do not adjust your TV; We control the vertical; We control the horizontal; You have entered THE OUTER LIMITS.
So, yes, we must soldier on, oppose him to the best of our abilities, hope that Mueller can come up w/ sufficient grounds to have him impeached, hope that the Democrats take back the House and/or the Senate so that he will be impeached, and engage in political action to enhance that prospect, hope that, if he is not impeached. the Democrats nominate someone who can defeat him in the next election, and engage in political action to enhance that prospect – and hope (“that thing with feathers that perches in the soul”) that the water in the poisoned well runs dry, so that a sufficient number of Americans will regain their senses so we can reclaim control of our TV sets – and our country.
Addendum
Regarding Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy, during the Red Scare two people were largely responsible for bringing down McCarthy – the attorney Joseph Welch, who, during the Army McCarthy hearings, indignantly asked Sen. McCarthy, who was accusing a young attorney on Welch’s staff of being a Communist, “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” And CBS commentator Edward R. Murrow, who, on his show See It Now, uncovered McCarthy’s duplicity. McCarthy was eventually censured by the Senate and finished his Senate career in disgrace. (By the way, one of the Senators who denounced McCarthy was Maine’s Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith – she delivered a speech titled “Declaration of Conscience” in which she criticized McCarthy’s smear tactics. Sen. Smith’s heir, Susan Collins, has no trace of the same moral fortitude.)
Now, today, we have no shortage of lawyers, public servants and TV journalists criticizing Trump, mocking him, ridiculing him, disclosing his lies – Anthony Avenatti and Michael Cohen (no reincarnations of Joseph Welch, to be sure, but they will have to do), James Comey, Madeline Albright, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, 60 Minutes, etc., etc. And yet, and yet – Trump continues with his antics, the support among his devotees unabating.
So, my question is this – has something happened in our culture since the 1950s that explains this difference between what happened to McCarthy and what is happening with Trump? I appreciate that the 1950s were no paradise of social consciousness – Jim Crow laws in the South, anti-abortion laws, restrictive sexual mores. And I know, of course, there is no poisoned well, per se. But is there some other sociological phenomenon that explains the difference? Has some factor or factors affected the ability of Americans to think rationally and analytically, or affected their willingness to take umbrage at moral lapses? Is it the internet, the propagation of cell phones, the popularity of reality TV, all of the above? What is it – and why? Or, am I imagining that there is a difference?
Haven't fear and tribalism always taken stronger hold over the human mind than reason, given the right circumstances?
I think Trump's biggest weakness, related to some of the details listed above, is that he is incapable of inspiring any kind of loyalty, demonstrating time and time again that he is very willing to throw all underlings under the bus the moment it suits his opportunistic needs. As related with many of the fascist leaders he's been compared to, or even with the mafia for example, no leader of this style can hope to last long at all without at least a small circle of diehard loyalists to insulate and protect him. Trump seems to have nobody - his only strategy is too hire and fire quickly, using fear while it lasts, before anyone can get too close. This cannot last long.
The intensification of capitalism in the 1980's and thereafter have made a huge difference in the mentality of people in the U.S. and elsewhere.
As Marx explains so eloquently in the Communist Manifesto, capitalism destroys traditional bonds which tie people together and leaves only "cash nexus".
Capitalism reaches in full force in the 80's as Reagan, Thatcher and Pinochet destroy the welfare state and unions, as Keynesian social-democracy is replaced by neoliberalism.
Post 80's many of us begin to wonder if we are "too idealistic" and feel a bit foolish about not being in it for the money since almost everyone seems in it for the money. In fact, in general one feels a bit of an outsider simply because one isn't in it for the money. That of course affects even the best of us (I'm not claiming to be one of the best), perhaps unconsciously and most everyone now consults their bank account and their retirement fund before standing up to power.
Anonymous,
Your statement “This cannot last long,” is ominous. Yes, there are ways that his lack of loyalty to his cadres can result in his removal – a military coup or assassination, for example. Neither of these would be helpful to our republic. And though I desperately want him to go away, I could not endorse either. In terms of the lawful ways of removing him, the only means that would preserve the republic, by impeachment, invocation of the 25th Amendment or election defeat, none of these prospects is enhanced by his lack of loyalty to his staff, administrators, etc. As long as Republicans control the House or Senate, he will be not be impeached, or, if impeached (should the Democrats win the House), not convicted. His disloyalty to his aides, etc., does not affect the loyalty of Republican Congress people to him. For the same reasons, there will not be enough support to invoke the 25th Amendment. Nor does lack of loyalty to his aides, etc., adversely affect the loyalty of his supporters in the electorate – they don’t care if he demonstrates no loyalty to those close to him. Don’t underestimate him – he can still get re-elected.
@MS
Well, first I think the key idea of the scene (a comedic film reminding the protagonist there are other joys and values (or however you to put it) than the ones depressing him) is the same. But second, Sullivan's Travels is by far the better movie. In fact, I think it is better than all but a hundred or so movies with which it shares the distinction of being one of the best hundred or so movies.
Also, the scene in Sullivan's Travels is much more political and less solipsistic than Allen's. In Sturges' version the character awakens in response to the other people in the audience reacting to movie.
David,
You say potayto, I say potaato, you say tomayto, I say tomaato.
Potayto, potaato; Tomayto; tomaato -
Let's call the whole thing off.
Well, things certainly could be much worse. It's a miracle humanity has had nukes for this long and managed not to blow up the world.
Best of all possible worlds?
Warning.
Anyone's comments on this blog can be easily googled and so please watch out before you speak about assassinating Trump, even in jest: the FBI does not have a sense of humor.
s. wallerstein,
Actually, there is a novel that was recommended by another commenter on this site several months ago which is about the assassination of a president by a U.S. senator. The novel is “Necessity,” by D. W. Baffa. After reading the comment, I borrowed the book from my local library. There is no question that the president in question is intended to be Trump (named Walter Bridges in the novel)– the novel describes the president as being extremely mendacious, with ties to Russia and includes claims of interference w/ the election by the Russian government. The descriptions of his aides and advisers are obvious caricatures of people in the Trump administration, e.g., Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Sanders. As I was reading the book, I wondered if the author had in fact been questioned by the FBI.
I cannot recommend the book. Initially I found it intriguing – the author peppers the book with various pseudo intellectual subjects, e.g., the assassination of Julius Caesar and its unintended consequences in fostering the establishment of the Roman Empire under Augustus; the show trials of Communist dissidents under Stalin; the legal defense of necessity as a rationale for killing the president (the senator openly confesses to his crime, claiming it was necessary to save the country from a destructive demagogue.) Some of the courtroom scenes are well written. However, after convincing the reader that he is engaging in a serious discussion of a momentous constitutional crisis that we are actually confronting, the author concludes the novel with a commercially motivated plot twist that I found extremely offensive. I emailed the author and castigated him for exploiting our current critical situation for his own financial gain.
So, there is already a work of fiction currently available that should, if anything, have attracted the attention of the FBI. Yet, it continues to be sold on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.
Correction.
The author is D. W. Buffa.
..we intellectuals..
Anecdotally, I am a philosopher of law who focuses on rule by law -- the use of the legal form as a cloak for arbitrary power. Over the last two decades, I have worked on my home jurisdiction (Malaysia). For the last nearly five decades, Malaysian law and politics have been ethno-authoritarian in ways that resemble what is going on in the US now. The government long advanced an ethno-national program that produced various pathologies that were at odds respect for legality, democracy, and human rights. Things seemed hopeless and unchangeable as the government continued to consolidate its hold on power, remaining unchallenged at the polls for fifty years.
Then in May this year, the government lost the elections and lo-and-behold, Malaysia has entered a period of political transition. Whether or not the transition will succeed is an open question. But my point is that one should not give up and lose hope. To do so is to succumb to the myth of the given -- the idea that social and political reality is fixed. I think it is a mistake to suppose that ideas and arguments by themselves can change things. But change is dependent upon ideas and arguments. And it is our task to continue to try to set these out as best as we can.
To be sure, as I reach middle age, I am less optimistic about the power of legal philosophy in the real world. But I don't think I have given up totally though admittedly I expect much less out of intellectual work. Long winded point: but have some faith in democratic processes and the prospect that people can see the truth.
'I have been unhappy about the way of the world at least since Jack Kennedy invaded Cuba and America embraced its nuclear weapons in a cosmic death hug.'
This is too Walt Whitman for me, hugs of death and cosmic kisses. don't we ordinarily communicate through words? Like, because that's our conventional conduit for expressing thoughts and feelings? But sometimes words feel inadequate. They can seem like a paltry tool for properly expressing ourselves. So we choose a different, supra-verbal tool: the cosmic death hug. I do not understand the point. What, that America embraced its nuclear weapons, like, on a Torah-guided, moral level or what? What, more precisely, is the point about Jack Kennedy? I know, though it's from before my time, that John F. Kennedy won the presidency by claiming that the Republican Party had allowed the U.S. to fall behind the Soviets into a missile gap. Is there some coherent position being advocated here, about Massive Retaliation as a military doctrine/nuclear strategy, versus Flexible Response? I know that Upon entering office Kennedy cited General Maxwell Taylor's book The Uncertain Trumpet to Congress for its conclusion that massive retaliation left the U.S. with only two choices: defeat on the ground or the resort to the use of nuclear weapons. I am abashed that I don't know more about it, but I think I'm meeting you more than halfway, is there a coherent point to be extracted here or what?
..we intellectuals..
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