"Let's to it pell-mell..."

 

According to dictionaries I've seen, to do something pell-mell is to do it in a confused, disorderly manner.  Pictured above is a copy of a painting by William Trego called The Pell-Mell Charge.  I'm uncertain whether it's intended to portray the charge depicted as being confused and disorderly, or to indicate that the result of the charge is a confused, disorderly fight.  One would think an effort would be made to avoid a confused, disorderly charge.

The title of this post is a portion of a sentence appearing in Shakespeare's Richard III.  It's from a speech given by the character Richard to his troops prior to the final battle of his kingship.  The full quote is: "Let's to it pell-mell; if not to heaven, then hand in hand in hell."  In this context I think going to battle "pell-mell" means rushing to it defiantly and recklessly, without care but with wild fury.

On a silly note before indulging in grim reflection, I note that "pell-mell" is not to be confused with Pall Malls cigarettes, renowned by ad writers in days past for their "natural mildness."  Pall Mall cigarette packs were emblazoned, inexplicably I think, with the motto In hoc signo vinces (in this sign, conquer) which is said to have appeared along with a cross in a vision granted to Constantine the Great before the battle of the Milvian Bridge.  It's a kind of curse to be saddled with a memory which recalls such trivia.

I find myself thinking that voting in the forthcoming election for president is something best done pell-mell.  If we don't find ourselves in heaven after it takes place, then at least we should be hand in hand in hell.  Voting in this case is a kind of expression of defiance; defiance of the misinformation, deceit, venality, malice, pomposity, dithering, group-thinking and ignorance which has typified the campaigning and media coverage of this freak show, 24/7 as we like to say.  It's clear to me that one of the candidates is despicable, a horror inflicted on the nation, but how to explain or even understand the fact that a significant number of people favor him without condemning them as dupes or evil actors, something which should be avoided in characterizing one's countrymen or countrywomen (or whatever they think themselves to be)?

But in these times, is it possible or prudent to believe what we hear, read or see regarding the election or, indeed, anything else transpiring as related in the media or in social media?  So much of what is communicated can be manipulated now.  Lying is ubiquitous, unsurprisingly as most of us are exceedingly gullible--why bother learning or speaking what is true in this climate, where so many are compelled to believe whatever they think satisfying, or whatever is repeated endlessly?  We must vote our conscience no matter how confused and disorderly our politics has become.

Ultimately, it may be that now all we can rely on in making a judgment is the character of the candidates as presented.  Not that character cannot be faked; it can.  But one of the candidates hasn't tried to hide his nature and his plans.  He may be incapable of doing so, being so perfect in his self-regard, so convinced of his own superiority and the homage of his followers, and the craven nature of those who are members of the political party he has corrupted.  And the character displayed is that of someone who shouldn't be trusted with power over others.

So, let's to it pell-mell.  We'll get the president we deserve; and let's hope we're not undeserving of a good one.

Reflections on the Glass Ceiling

It's been some time since I posted here.  Much has happened worthy of comment, but I've felt no real desire to do so.  Call it a kind of disgust at worst, resignation at best.  Despite the fact that the presidential contest has become more interesting, I remain baffled by the fact that the Republican candidate remains popular with many of the voters here in God's Favorite Country.  It's a testament to the fact that a liar--not just any liar but a kind of titan or demi-god of lying, though the argument can be made that he's simply vastly deluded--can capture the hearts and minds of people who are citizens of our Great Republic. It doesn't speak well for us.

But I feel inclined to comment on the metaphor of the "Glass Ceiling" normally used to refer to a sort of invisible barrier which, wrongly, prevents certain people from achieving a higher place in the hierarchy in question.  More specifically, it refers to that barrier which will, presumably, be demolished if a woman is elected president of our Glorious Union.

The fabled Glass Ceiling figured in an earlier presidential election, as we all recall.  If I remember correctly a representation of it was on display, ready to be broken, at the campaign headquarters of Hilary Clinton on election night in 2016.  But while it seems her victory was anticipated, it remained unbroken.  Too much was taken for granted.

We males have historically been confused in our understanding of women generally, but especially in particular where politics and positions or events of importance are concerned.  It's interesting to consider whether our conception of them is most unrealistic and inaccurate when we become consumed by the belief that they are either inferior or superior to men; either better or worse than men.

If a Glass Ceiling exists preventing them from obtaining positions of power or importance, one would think it does because they're considered inferior in certain respects; or at least lacking in certain respects or by nature unable to be adequately concerned with certain matters.  But a Glass Ceiling also may be a barrier even when they're considered superior to men.

They have been considered superior to or better than men throughout our history in specific ways.  Most obviously they've been so thought of with respect to raising children and minding a home.  For a very long time that was considered to be their place in life, an obvious inference some thought from the fact that women, not men, bear children.  That view in itself would be sufficient to create a Glass Ceiling.

They've also been considered superior throughout our history, again in specific ways.

Sometimes, this conception of superiority is expressed by implication, sometimes expressly.  Boethius, for example, portrayed Philosophy (capital "p") as a woman, come to chide him for his weakness when a captive of Theodoric the Great.  She recalled him to Philosophy, and the knowledge that success, fame, fortune, persecution and death were trivial things, like life on Earth in general.  She was the incarnation of Philosophy, the best of us, in his Consolation of Philosophy which he wrote while imprisoned.  It's to be hoped she provided him some consolation while he was bludgeoned to death by his captors.

Dante in his Divine Comedy was guided by the pagan Virgil through Hell and Purgatory, but of course a pagan could not enter the kingdom of heaven and so the woman, or spirit of a woman, named Beatrice was his guide in Paradise.  Beatrice may or may not have been based on the woman, also named Beatrice, Dante loved in a courtly fashion--which is to say not physically.  In any event she served to represent religious faith, grace, enlightenment and love as portrayed in this work, a higher being than Dante himself, and men in general.

Then there is Goethe, who ended his Faust with an idealized woman redeeming the protagonist, and the words "Eternal Woman (or the Eternal Feminine) draws us upward." (Das Ewig-Weibliche ziet uns hinan).  Woman is in a sense nobler, more attuned to God, wiser, more spiritual than man; a kind of goddess.  This is Goethe's Faust; Christopher Marlow in his Doctor Faustus ended his play by having him dragged down to Hell where he damn well belonged.

But this perception of women as better...sometimes much better...then men also serves to bar her from earthly affairs such as politics and business and the professions because she's JUST TOO GOOD.  A woman cannot bear with or make decisions regarding the matters and people which and who must be dealt with, let alone serve as a commander in war.  Hence women are precious, to be protected, put on the proverbial pedestal.

So the Glass Ceiling where women are concerned is the result of conceiving of them as both superior and inferior to men.  Kipling of course took a different approach.  He famously wrote that the female of the species is more deadly than the male.  This interesting view seems to be based on a portrayal of women as reckless and even fanatic in some respects and in some manner, related primarily to the protection of the family.  But again, this would disqualify women from reasonably making decisions that must be made in the world of affairs.

Perhaps we're just too enamored with categorizing in our thinking.  Perhaps this tendency is a kind of bequest to posterity by Aristotle, that Relentless Categorizer.  That hinders us in our acceptance of possibilities.  The Glass Ceiling may be broken if we can recognize each other as humans, far more alike than different.

Let's Kill all the Pundits

Shakespeare's line "Let's kill all the lawyers" has attained a certain popularity, due to the fact that lawyers are, surprisingly, unpopular.  So many things and people are these days, of course, so perhaps this is a suggestion applicable to others as well.  

In fact, Shakespeare was writing of a plan to establish an autocracy.  It was recommended that the lawyers be killed as a first step of the plan.  Perhaps lawyers were actually being praised, then, as protectors of the freedom and rights of the people.  If so, I doubt whether that conception is very widespread now, though the recommendation still is.

I propose that this sentiment is more properly applicable to political pundits.  They infest the media.  They're omnipresent, and I can't understand why.

If news consists of the reporting of events of importance, it no longer exists, if indeed it ever did.  It would be refreshing if that actually took place.  More significantly, it would be useful without being merely the expression of opinions and speculation.  Imagine if what was reported in the media were merely events and actions.  For example, it would be noted that so-and-so gave a speech somewhere, at some time.  The content of the speech wouldn't be described.  In most cases, the content may be inferred in any event, as political speeches are largely repetitive.  The speech itself wouldn't be broadcasted.  What joy!

We would no longer be subjected to the ponderings and speculations of those deemed experts.  Several of them are now produced whenever anything happens.  Questions are asked of them by whomever it is that's supposedly reporting the news, and they respond.  Sometimes those selected disagree, but in most cases they agree.  We're told they know what they're talking about.

For me, the inherent fault of this manner of reporting the news is that for the most part, the news itself isn't reported, or is at best merely noted as fodder for an extended discussion.  Instead, what some person or other thinks about the news and their interpretation of it and its consequences is reported, and in detail.

My difficulty is that I don't particularly care what that person thinks.  They're entitled to their opinions, of course, but if I wanted to know them, I'd seek them out in some fashion.  That they're foisted on me by media lackeys is something I resent.

Then one must recognize that these experts may be stupid, ignorant, in someone's pocket or prejudiced.  They may not in fact be experts. In simple words, their opinions and statements may be wrong.  Why, then, are they presented as news?  Why dignify them?  Why give them influence?  Why foster the belief that what they say is factual...is in fact news?

It may be too late now to stop the ascension of punditry.  It must have become a kind of trade or industry by now.  People no doubt hold themselves out as experts willing to squawk obligingly and winningly on the various "news" networks and make a good deal of money for doing so.  It's no longer the news that's important; it's what a select group of people think about the news.

 

The State of Gracelessness

As shown above, "gracelessness" has two meanings, one being secular, the other religious.  Our state, I propose, is one of gracelessness in both senses.

According to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, grace in its religious sense is of two different kinds.  It's first a kind of favor or boon of the Almighty, encouraging us to seek and obtain what's needed to become Children of God; it's then what the soul has as a result.  Note the favor--we're not worthy of being God's children to begin with, presumably because of Original Sin.  So God in his goodness must provide the opportunity.  If we accept the gift given, then we may enter heaven, though most of us must burn, though full of hope, in Purgatory before we have access to it.  If we don't, then to Hell with us.  We're irretrievably nasty.  We are as is noted above, depraved, corrupt.

A person is graceless in the secular sense if lacking elegance.  A graceless person is clumsy, has no sense of propriety, and is lacking in wit and socially awkward; in a word, is unattractive.  An oaf.

That we're graceless in a secular sense is established by many things and in many ways.  Most publically perhaps it's apparent from the popularity of the personage I'll call for purposes of this post "Agent Orange" (or should that be Aging Orange?).  Now matched with a baby-faced clone or Mini-Me, he is to all appearances gracelessness incarnate.  His demeanor and speech may also be described as ugly.  His efforts at wit are mere insults; so for that matter are his efforts at argument.  He's boastful and crude.  His followers are equally crass when they're not simply moral cowards who lack the courage to defy him or denounce him publicly.  

It's unsurprising that his followers treat education as something secondary, and seek to regulate it.  It's also unsurprising that their attacks on the person who is now Agent Orange's opponent involve fearmongering related to education.  Education may expose people to grace in the secular sense.  If there is one thing they fear in particular, it's that their children may be different than they are.  Because of the American fascination with sex, their primary concern is that their children will be different from them sexually, but they fear also that through education they'll become less ignorant of the world than they think they should be, and be exposed to people and ideas different from them as well.

That we're graceless in a more religious, less secular sense is apparent given the examples, or perhaps more properly the exemplars, of depravity and corruption littering our social culture.  It's significant that the most prominent exemplars are Justices of our Supreme Court.  One of them complains he's not being paid enough though the Court is in session for only nine months of a year, perhaps seeking to explain his propensity to accept handouts.  But perhaps the most prominent of the examples of our depravity and corruption are, I think, the amounts being spent in connection with out elections.  One can't help but wonder how such money should be spent.  Imagine if it was devoted to remedying poverty or repairing infrastructure, instead of assuring the election of compliant and complicit servants, and those who promise to benefit those donating funds.

Of course that won't happen.  

I won't dwell on whether were offered grace by God, though I think it clear that any God who is what we claim God should be would have tired by now of trying to encourage us to make our souls full of sanctifying grace as it's called, and that any God of the kind I would find worthy of reverence isn't one who would make our salvation dependent on whether we accept his favors rather than, for example, being virtuous in our lives.

But it seems clear enough to me that we live in a state of gracelessness here in our Great Republic (for now).

 

On A Carousel

Oswald Spengler, a kind of historian and philosopher of the early to mid-20th century, wrote a book called The Decline of the West.  Being German, he was unable to keep himself from using words like "being" and "becoming" as he wrote what he called, modestly, his complete explanation of world history--the only true one, others being counterfeit.   It strikes me that his initially interesting insight that human history was organic thereby degenerated into a kind of mysticism.  He opined that we pass through inevitable and successive phases of time he described as "culture" and "civilization."  The latter is an aspect of decline.  In antiquity, Greece was a "culture" and Rome a "civilization."  The modern West he thought had entered into the "civilization" phase which he predicted would be governed by "Caesarism" much as Rome was after the Republic, for the next couple of hundred years.

I'm leery of efforts at constructing grand, all-encompassing explanations of complicated phenomena, but think there is an element of truth in the claim that our history is in some sense cyclical, which is to say that we repeat ourselves, swinging pendulum-like from one extreme of social consciousness to another.  I'm inclined to attribute this to an inability to learn and to think, however.  This isn't to our credit, but it generates optimism of a sort--we can at least imagine that the current fad for autocracy and sameness, and the repression of contrasting views and lifestyles, will dissipate in time, as we ride the carousel of our history.

Thus, the prospect of an aging, scatter-brained and astonishingly self-centered snake-oil salesman becoming president once more need not terrify us, and it may be hoped that no permanent harm will be done to the nation.  The recent, relentlessly clownish, convention might merely be a tawdry circus rather than a horrifying glimpse of things to come.  

But assuming we survive the upcoming election as something resembling a Republic, what kind of a nation will we be?  We already are an oligarchy, or more properly a plutocracy.  Our legislators are for sale; the justices of our high court look for handouts and appear more and more like panhandlers wearing black robes.  What do we call a nation governed by gluttons and hoarders?  I don't think Aristotle came up with a term for a land of Trimalchios.  

We must emulate Montaigne, who wrote: "Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and if they will not adapt to me, I adapt to them."  We must become nations in ourselves.  Not like the silly so-called "sovereign citizens" who live in a fantasy world much like a roleplay game, but rather as individuals mindful of their own interests and seeking peaceful co-existence with others but taking intelligent steps and making intelligent decisions for their own protection.