Fear, Lies and the Liar

"Fear is an idiot" according to Ambrose Bierce.  As I recall, his point was that fear is unintelligent, indeed stupid in the extreme.  Fear cannot think, according to Bierce; it has no brain.  Thus, when possessed by fear (the equivalent in some ways to being possessed by a demon) a person has no brain, doesn't think--cannot think, in fact.

Bierce was treating Fear as if it was a person, or being of some kind, to which human attributes may be ascribed.  In the same fashion and for the same purpose, we may say that Fear is a liar.

How could it be otherwise if Fear is an idiot, incapable of thought?  Fear can't speak the truth as it can't know the truth. Ascertaining what is true in a particular case requires inquiry into a situation.  As C.S. Peirce and John Dewey would say, inquiry is appropriate and effective when there is a problem to be solved, i.e. when we're confronted with something uncertain, unclear, confusing.  Inquiry doesn't arise, though, when interpretation of circumstances is preconceived or predetermined.  Then analysis of a situation becomes a kind of special pleading.  What seems to be uncertain isn't construed as uncertain.  Instead, the situation is deemed to be an instance of X or Y, and efforts are made to make the circumstances conform to the assumption made without taking them into account in any meaningful way.

H.L. Mencken wrote that to a government, the most dangerous person (he said "man," actually) is someone who can think things out without regard to the prevailing superstition.  That may be true.  But in these strange times, who is there who can think things out, let alone think at all?

Lies are ubiquitous now.  Social media and some traditional media are full of them.  Some lies are made with the intent to confuse or promote fear.  Some lies are merely circulated, as instantly as they're made, by those who believe them.  Some merely misstate the facts.  But it seems that lies are believed more and more as more and more lies are made and spread across the World Wide Web, and repeated again and again.

We live in a propagandist's paradise.  Joseph Goebbels would be amazed by the possibilities available, and enthralled by the opportunities presented.  It's so very easy to lie, easier still to spread the lie, now.

Which brings us back to Fear.  There are many liars and so there is much fear.  We have a president who according to available evidence lies virtually every instant.  This is unusual even in a politician.  

Fear is here, and is as ubiquitous as are lies.  Fear of the new, fear of the strange, fear of change, primarily; fear of violence, fear of division, fear of displacement, fear of others unlike ourselves.  Fear the liar takes advantage of Fear the idiot.  Fear the idiot accepts the lies of Fear the liar, without reservation. Fear the liar incites Fear the idiot to thoughtless reaction and to a thoughtless desire to be free from fear and thought, or the need for thinking.

 

The "Principleless" Platform of a Platformless Party

     

Brevity can be a desirable thing in American politics.  A political speech that is brief and to the point would be admirable, for example.  And as everything in a political campaign in our Great Republic seems endless, repetitive and squalid, it's understandable that any curtailment of the process seems prima facie desirable.

But alas, the Resolution adopted by the Republican Party at its convention this year, though blessedly brief, isn't remarkable for its brevity.  It would be possible, though unusual, for principles of a party or candidate to be stated succinctly.  It's remarkable because it states no principles of any kind.  Indeed, it doesn't even try to do so.  In fact, its language seems to express a kind of delight or relief that no principles need be identified, and concludes with a stern statement to the effect that no effort to formulate or promulgate any principles will be tolerated.  So perhaps there were some Republicans who felt it was important that the party at least seem to endorse principles and were being told that wouldn't happen.

Only a portion of the resolvedly unprincipled Resolution is shown above.  Most of the rest of it consists of claims that the fact that the Resolution contains no principles should not be taken to reflect adversely on the Republican Party and that it is wrong for anyone to to suggest that it does.  But the Resolution also states, more than once, that the Republican Party is united in support of the president.

This is most appropriate.  As close members of his family and others have noted, the president has no principles.  It's entirely fitting that a political party which eschews principles, or at least the expression of them, would support a person who is manifestly unprincipled.  

It's amazing, however, that a political party would flaunt its insistence that no principles may be espoused by it.  The rule is that in politics as in advertising appearance is significant, not substance.  So the expectation would be that a party, a politician and a candidate will at least pretend to be principled, pretend to stand for something, with varying degrees of sincerity or success.  But the Republican Party is so blithe in its dismissal of any effort to adopt a set of principles for this election that it's clear it has decided its failure to do so isn't a matter of concern.  Oddly, it doesn't even incorporate the prior election's platform, but merely mentions that there's no need to prepare another.

Does this mean that it has chosen to be honest about the fact that statements of political principles are meaningless, and generally disregarded, and so their preparation a wasted effort? There are portions of the Resolution which suggests that is the case.  That would certainly be extraordinary, particularly of a party which is moralistic and self-righteous to an extreme.  It has a long history of generating platitudes.  You'd think it would be an easy thing to resurrect those used in the past, or prepare new ones adequate to the task.  Probably, this is merely an effort to contend that it doesn't really matter whether it has a platform or not, in the end.

And that strikes me as an expression of profound resignation, if not cynicism; an acceptance of the relegation of a party to the whims of a single, self-obsessed person.  It's as if Republicans were saying "Screw it.  Principles?  A platform?  Come on!"

But it's hard to think that there is such a level of self-evaluation at work.  It's more likely, I believe, that the majority of the voting members of the party understand that the electors, or at least those who will vote Republican, don't care what principles are adopted or appear to be adopted.  Their cultish devotion to the president is such that they need have no reason to support him or those that facilitate his caperings.  

As a result, there's a concern that restating or reformulating the traditional principles of the party would merely make it, and them, look silly.  Whatever devotion there was to those principles has disappeared.  The Republican Party, as it now exists, supports the president because it has nothing else to support.  His largely incoherent ramblings and bizarre conduct have little to do with the nation or the best interests of its citizens.  The party knows this.  The members of the party are so craven that they don't wish to risk his displeasure by seeming to believe that he should concern himself with such things, instead of himself.  That's something he will not do, and he would resent anyone who tells him he should.

But it may be the case that most of the party has come to accept that principles are inconvenient in any event.  The less thought about them the better in this age of diminished people, things and ideas.

The Sad End of Napoleon Bonaparte

It's arguable that Napoleon Bonaparte was the most able person who ever lived.  

All know he was a military genius.  But I refer to his ability generally; of what it was about him that distinguished him from others in terms of talents, not merely what made him a great general.

By all accounts, his memory was vast.  He could recognize people he had met years previously and recall the circumstances of their meeting in detail. I'm not sure whether he had what's called  "photographic memory" but what he read in reports and correspondence he didn't forget, sometimes much to the chagrin of those that prepared or were mentioned in the reports.

He could focus on matters which were presented to him for decision intensely, and without being distracted by anything else.  He compared his mind to a cupboard:  "Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard.  When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another.  Do I wish to sleep?  I simply shut all the drawers and there I am--asleep." This intensity of directed thought to a problem must have been of great advantage to him.

He could also, however, manage while doing one thing, regardless of its significance and complexity, to address other things, sometimes minutia.  It seems that micromanagement for him was not a liability, but something easily achieved, and that he excelled at it.  He had enormous energy, and worked extremely hard.  He would dictate on different matters to several writers at the same time.  Those who worked with him found themselves exhausted when he was still eager to continue.  What he could accomplish and the speed in which he accomplished it amazed people.  He apparently slept for no more than 4 hours a day.  While dressing after sleeping he would sometimes tear his own clothing in his impatience to go about his day.

It was apparently this eruption of nervous energy which led him to indulge in long, hot baths--the only thing known to relax him.

He could also charm just about anyone.  He inspired real devotion in his soldiers and in others.  

He had all the qualities which could, and did in most cases, make him a superb chief executive of a nation and military commander.  He was remarkable.  B.H. Liddell-Hart, in his book Strategy, wrote that he thought generals like Napoleon and Frederick the Great had the advantage over other great captains because they were also chiefs of state.  What he overlooked, I think, is that at least in the case of Napoleon he was always highly involved in affairs of state, not just on the battles, even when on the battlefield or in his campaigns.  Running a state and leading an army at the same time would, to me, be more challenging than leading an army.

He died when 51 years old, exiled to the island of St. Helena in the middle of the Atlantic ocean, months travel from anywhere else on the Earth.  He lived there for 6 years, closely watched and guarded in isolation.  

It would have been a dreary exile for someone who had so much energy, let alone someone who had ruled Europe for years.  It seems that for a time he was as active as he could be on St. Helena, riding and walking about the island, preparing his memoirs.  He visited and had visitors.  Then, especially after Sir Hudson Lowe arrived at the island to take on the duties of governor, he gradually stopped doing most anything at all.  Sometimes the old energy would return, and he would take on the role of master gardener or landscape artist, laying the foundation for the lovely gardens which still grace the area around Longwood House.  But for the most part, his life became grim and boring, always seeing and interacting with the same small set of people, cooped up in a damp house on a damp, windy plain.  He spent more and more time in his small bedroom on one of the two camp beds that he brought with him to the island.

The English seemed to have chosen for him a place and style of exile which was the most painful available for someone of his characteristics.  They clearly had enough of him, as had all of Europe, and his escape from prior exile on the island of Elba no doubt made them wary of putting him anywhere close to that continent.  But the place, together with the petty and seemingly meaningless restrictions placed on him when escape was nearly inconceivable strikes one as cruel, or perhaps mere reckless indifference combined with spite.

A cruel end for such a man.  He nonetheless managed in combination with those exiled with him to create a glorious legend which survives to this day; the new Prometheus.  He was right to say that his jailors would be known to history only because of their treatment of him.  Was that his greatest achievement?

I can't help but wonder if it would have been possible for him to be more the First Consul, recreating the French nation from the ruins of the Revolution, and less the Emperor.  Then he may have remained a wondrously capable creator rather than a destroyer. But would he have been able to refrain from war?  Was war pushed upon him in some cases at least, and could he have devoted himself to civil pursuits only?  What would he have achieved then?  Was the world deprived of his extraordinary ability by circumstances or did he himself choose to devote them to his own glory?  He was certainly careful of his own glory.  He is compared by some to a condottiere, and to an extent was similar to the leaders of the Medicis, Sforzas and Borgias in their promotion of their families (which he came to regret) but I think he was more "entirely out of Plutarch" as was said of him by Paoli.

It's regrettable that he didn't address these questions while stuck on his rock in the middle of the ocean.  

Occult and a Cult

"Occult" when used as an adjective means closed, concealed, shut off from view.  As such it may refer to something mysterious, and so we see alchemy, for example, referred to as an occult art or science.  Above are pictured a set of symbols used by alchemists.  "The occult" is used to refer to something supernatural or unnatural.

A "cult" is used to refer to a group of people having certain beliefs and engaging in certain practices considered strange and generally sinister.  A cult is sometimes religious.  At times, "cult" may refer merely to a group which seems unusually, or even irrationally, attached to someone or something; a devotion which is extreme in context, as when devotion is to an individual not properly subject to worship in a religious sense.

One can see a similarity in the two words when something in the nature of religious devotion, beliefs or practices are involved, as religions may involve hidden things, i.e. things known only to initiates.  Although it may seem odd, occult may be used, legitimately I think, when used to refer to the secret practices or rituals of associations such as the Freemasons, although they are nominally not religious.  They are closed to people who aren't members.  Calling such associations "a cult" seems not entirely appropriate, though I've no doubt some consider them such.  But in these secular times, it seems to me that for all their ceremony and, it seems, exotic vestments, these associations are devoted primarily to benefiting their members in one way or another that promotes power, wealth and status and, presumably, fellowship.  I'm sure that in some cases they may even benefit non-members, and assorted "worthy causes."

A particular variety of cult is called a "cult of personality."  That's described by Merriam-Webster Online as "a situation in which a public figure (such as a political leader) is deliberately presented to the people of a country as a great person who should be admired or loved." It's unclear to me how a cult can be a situation.  It seems to me to be more proper to identify those who accept what's presented in such a situation as members of a cult, or "cultists" and the situation to be "cultish" if there is such a word.  But I think most of us know what's intended by the phrase.

Cults of personality have seemed to become more and more common as the means by

which a person may be presented as great, or worthy of devotion or love, became more sophisticated and the message and intent more easily and generally communicated.  There's no doubt that propaganda has been used for centuries to generate support for people, ideas and causes, but in a cult of personality it seems a prerequisite that a person be what is presented as an object of devotion (as opposed to an idea or doctrine, for example).  It also seems not to be a prerequisite that the person be great in fact, or worthy of devotion at all because of his/her talents, abilities or qualities as an individual.  That person may be altogether average, or the scum of the earth, or a psychotic or sociopath.

That cults of personality may be created or fostered regarding such people is a testimony to the efficiency of methods by which they may be presented as worthy of devotion, and those methods have become mighty indeed given the technology available to those making the presentation.  Unfortunately, it's also a testimony to the stupidity and gullibility of those who are members of such a cult.

Or is there something else involved?  Why were the majority of the people of Germany willing to follow Hitler to the terrible end has been a subject of speculation since the end of the Second World War.  So has the question why Mussolini was successful in Italy, a nation not known to harbor martial ambitions and not particularly nationalistic, being, some would say, fragment into regions having their own cultures and dialects.

I'm inclined to think that cults of personality, particularly in politics, derive from the serious and sometimes overwhelming fears and frustrations of a group of people, and the desire that those fears and frustrations disappear, but quickly, easily and simply, and through the efforts of others, without concern or thought regarding how they're removed and who they're removed by.  Members of a cult of personality act viscerally, not rationally.  They believe they're right and that those who don't believe like them are wrong and must be dealt with, by most any means.

When you think of it, there actually is something hidden in such cults, and they may be called occult as a result.  What's hidden, though, isn't something which is disclosed or known to initiates, or even thought about, and results from a deliberate blindness--the faults of the person that is the subject of the cult, and the reasonableness and humanity of those who oppose that person.  Ultimately, members of such a cult simply don't care about such things.  Nor, probably, do they think about them, as especially when it comes to serious and complicated issues which make us anxious, we prefer not to think at all.