Of Fantasies and Fantasists

I've commented briefly about our current, rather prevalent, indulgence in fantasy in past posts.  I comment on it more extensively in this post.

Above is an image from the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts.  I don't know if I saw the film when it was first released, but was a preteen, at least, when I first saw it, at a drive-in theater, I think.  I was quite impressed by the fighting skeletons, and the appearance of the gods in various parts of the movie.  Poseidon was there, as I recall, standing in a pool of water pushing what I assume were fiberglass cliffs apart to allow Jason's boat passage.  There must have been others.  I think there was a hydra.  I can't remember if the Furies were involved or not.  They were in some movie I saw back then, in any case.  I enjoyed these garish displays.

Curiously, fighting skeletons figure in our fantasies once again.  Entire armies of them in various states of decay appear now and then in Game of Thrones.  There must be something about them we find attractive.

I can understand how a preteen and even a teen might enjoy fantasy films along the lines of Jason and the Argonauts.  I find it more difficult to understand why an adult would, but it would appear they did, and do.  They would have to, in order for such films to make money.  Of course, adults may have been and may still be required to attend fantasy movies with children, like those churned out relentlessly by Disney, but it isn't clear to me that they would enjoy doing so.  I saw quite a few of those myself when my daughters were young.

I may be wrong, but it strikes me that young and old now are consumed by fantasy, far more than they have been in the past.  Games and all forms of media are devoted to it.  I have no figures on which to base a comparison, but my guess is that there are far more fantasy stories, games, films, TV, books than there are history, or biography, or documentary non-fiction or historical fiction, and even science fiction.  Perfectly respectable and able writers of science fiction such as George R.R. Martin and C.J. Cherryh have lept into fantasy as a genre, creating wizards, mages, dragons, knights, quests of all sorts to entrance us.  It's like the second coming of Sir Thomas Malory.  This isn't even to mention the vast mound of fantasy erected by J.K Rowling and others, or comic book fantasy like that involving X Men, or Captain America, or Superman, Batman and assorted other super or supra men and women which permeate popular entertainment.

Has this always been the case?  I doubt it.  I suspect it's more a phenomenon that arose in the 20th century, when the written word and film became more readily available to us all.  Technology makes media omnipresent and even more available now.  Magazines, comic books, novels, TV and movies were all available in the 20th century, but now are almost obsolete as computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones provide access to everything to everyone.

Fantasy and magic were common in the ancient world but were common because what was thought to be real included them as part of our lives.  Gods were everywhere, as were stories involving them, and divination and magic, sometimes by or of the gods and sometimes of demons or those men and women who knew how to invoke their power.  Even those philosophers who doubted the common myths involving the gods took them seriously, recognizing that they were real and powerful to most others.  They had a profound practical impact on daily life.

That's not the case now, however.  Now our reality, our lives, are godless, without magic, without heroes.  We can't believe in them, or are in any case wary of appearing to believe in them as part of our day-to-day lives.  But we want them to be or at least wish they were.  We may even hope or possibly believe they can be, if only....something.  The world, as we know it to be, is not enough.

So our dreams and imaginations are populated with them.  They're everywhere but "here."  And they mean more than anything else because we can't accept their absence.  But though there may have been a time when the supernatural or fantasy figures which were made part of religion after the fall of paganism, and which incorporated much of the pagan, sufficed to allow us to tolerate the real, that time seems to be gone.  We're more likely to believe fantasy than religion, however fanciful that religion may be.

 

The Quality of Mercilessness

Who better represents the quality of mercilessness than Ming the Merciless?  The quality is even a part of his name.  Seen here is Ming as played by Charles Middleton, who was the Emperor in the three Flash Gordon series cranked out in the late 30s, early 40s of the last century.  Flash (played by Buster Crabbe) flew about in spark-emitting spaceships suspended by wires, foiling Ming's plans.  I don't remember Ming as twirling his mustache like Snidley Whiplash, but he clearly could have done so if he wished.  Perhaps those younger than I am (an increasingly large group) will remember Ming as played by Max von Sydow in the 1980 movie.  He had enormous fun with the role, it seemed to me, though the movie was predictably characterized as discriminatory in later years, like so much else.  Like us, in fact.

All, or most at least, know the part of Act IV of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in which the quality of mercy is extolled by Portia, or at least its first line: "The quality of mercy is not strained."  Portia is "disguised" as a lawyer, as indeed are some who call themselves such.  The quality of mercy may be an "attribute of God himself" as the disguised Portia says.  The quality of mercilessness, though, is an attribute of we his creatures, if indeed we are his creation, in which case one must wonder regarding the implications of the claim that we are made in his image.

But rather than speculate on God and God's attributes, let's instead consider the undoubted mercilessness of we humans.  

It's interesting that the "quality of mercy" speech is directed to Shylock, the Jewish merchant of Venice.  Jews, then as at other times, weren't extended mercy as a rule.  Shylock himself, as portrayed, certainly has none.  That a Jew is chided for being merciless by those Christians typically merciless towards Jews is an oddity.  There are those who believe Shakespeare was really expressing sympathy for Jews in this play, but I think that's a hard case to make.  I think it more likely he was indulging a Christian conceit that the Jews' obsession with the language of the Law above all else demonstrates that their religion is inferior to Christianity, which encourages love and mercy.

But, our curious history supports the view that we're merciless far more often than we're merciful, whether we profess to be Christians or something else.  In fact, we seldom have mercy for anyone or anything--unless it's to our own benefit, or at least does us no harm or requires no significant effort.  We're an inordinately selfish species.  It's not possible to claim otherwise with any degree of reasonableness.

It's been said that we're at our best when things are at the worst.  It's been pointed out that in times of crises we act unselfishly.  That may be the case.  But consider how infrequently these mercy-motivating crises take place.  Hurricanes, tornados, fires, earthquakes--natural disasters--certainly occur, and it would be incorrect to say they're so unusual as to be of no account.  However, when we take into account the time we live and have lived without them, our method of responding to them can hardly be said to be representative of our nature.  Crises are crises precisely because they're infrequent.  In most cases, in the usual course of our lives, we're indifferent to the plight of others at most times at best.

At other times, we seem to actually take satisfaction in the misfortune of others.  This may simply be the kind of satisfaction which we feel due to the fact that their misfortune is not ours.  Or it may be the satisfaction we feel when we believe that their misfortune is caused by their own misconduct, or by their failure to do what's appropriate, or what we would do or have done in their place.  We're smug.  

Sometimes, of course, we're actually responsible for the misfortune of others, by intent or without intent.  When we intend harm we're not inclined to be merciful to those we harm.  When we don't intend to harm, we look on the harm we do as being justified as we're looking out for ourselves.

I've felt and may have expressed for some time that philosophies and religions that espouse love and mercy don't actually motivate us in any important respect.  That is to say, though we pay them lip service, we don't truly love our neighbors as ourselves, nor are we charitable if it requires us to take any more than casual action, nor are we merciful unless shamed into being merciful or overwhelmed by sudden, extreme fellow-feeling we experience in moments of crisis when directly confronted with misery of the kind we cannot ignore.   Those we love are few in number, and are our intimates.  It's disingenuous and hypocritical to maintain otherwise, and in urging us to love one another and be merciful to all these philosophies and religions betray a spectacular misconception of human nature.

A more honest and effective stab at being moral and merciful would be one that encourages not love, but respect, and discourages selfishness and self-regard.  It would not raise as a standard or ideal a conception of human nature based on the occasional moral highs we experience in remarkable circumstances or our feelings normally limited to those close to us.

I've made no attempt to disguise the fact I have a high regard for Stoicism, so it won't come as a great surprise that I think that a more reasonable ethics is found in the first few paragraphs of the Enchiridion of Epictetus (or if you prefer of his student Arrian modeled on the teachings of Epictetus).  It is simple and easily understood, and doesn't require that we be saints or heroes.  It's a common sense guide to limiting our selfishness and desire for things and power over others which is at the basis of our misdeeds.  

We can't be merciless when we don't concern or disturb ourselves with things which are not in our control, as we'll not in that case act in a way which will harm others.  

 

Doomed to Repeat

The insight, or at least the statement, that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it (with some variation in words used), has been attributed to several figures of note in our history.  George Santayana, Winston Churchill and Edmund Burke are some of those who are said to have made this claim.  The statement implies that those who know history aren't doomed to repeat it.  That may be true, but it remains the case that they may repeat history or are even likely to do so; they're just not doomed to do so.

The fact is that we repeat ourselves, in more ways than one.  Repetition is a constant in our affairs.  Repetition is even said to be useful in some respects.  It may strengthen memory or memorization, for example.  It may in ways not entirely clear to me guide us to concentrate in meditation, as in the use of a mantra, which in turn in ways not entirely clear to me may guide us to wisdom or enlightenment.  On the other hand, it may bore or annoy us.  But we do it.  As I've said (though not yet repeatedly).

But the claim, I believe, promises too much if only by implication, and is in that sense misleading.  Merely knowing history does very little for us.  History may be taught each minute of the day in schools of all sorts and we may even remember the history we're taught, but knowledge of history doesn't necessarily translate to knowledge of human nature, or provide lessons in how to conduct ourselves now and later, unless we're also taught to think.  

We're not taught to think, particularly in elementary and high schools as they're called here in our Great Republic.  Perhaps it's more accurate to claim that those who don't know how to think are doomed to repeat history. 

For example, the danger posed by demagogues, and the tricks employed by them to sway people and even to commit violence, has been known and been the subject of study since the 5th century B.C.E., and perhaps even earlier.  We know of Cleon, Alcibiades, Publius Clodius Pulcher from ancient times, religious rabble-rousers from medieval times, the fanatics of the French Revolution like Marat, and of course more recently Mussolini, Hitler, McCarthy and Huey Long, and demagogues are rife in our current politics.  Most of us know at least some of the members of this rogues gallery, and at least some of what they did, and it makes no significant difference to their--repetition.  Demagogues abide.

I think of the demagogue as an example of our propensity to repeat history because it's that time of year in our Glorious Union when politicians vie for our favor in what we're pleased to call elections.  Perhaps there are parts of the country where TV, the Internet, and all other forms of media are not crowded with political appeals, but in the place where I reside those appeals are ceaseless, and omnipresent.  And there can be no better examples of demagoguery than these appeals.  Sanctimony, fear-mongering, pandering, polarizing tactics, misrepresentations, evasiveness, lying, appeals to emotion, authority and bigotry...all of the usual characteristics of this practice are present in abundance.  The appeals are incessant.  

It's at least possible, and more likely probable, that those bombarded by this treacle, by these disingenuous if not outright dishonest commercials made by and for glorified carnival barkers, are aware of demagogues of the past and may even think them despicable.  But their ubiquity indicates that they're effective (they cost money, and money is most important), and if they're effective that indicates that our knowledge of history be damned, were doomed to repeat it.

I tend to agree with John Dewey's insight that we only think when confronted with problems.  Otherwise, we act based largely on habits accrued over a lifetime.  But we must believe a problem exists before we have recourse to thought, i.e. the use and application of intelligence.

We don't believe repeating the mistakes of the past is a problem, unfortunately.  Perhaps we believe we're doomed to repeat the past no matter how much we're aware of it.  

We know history or don't, AND are doomed to repeat it regardless.