Homage to Camille Paglia

 

Perhaps this is premature as I've read only a few of her books (most recently Provocations).  But I've enjoyed them, admired the clarity of her writing and more often than not agreed with what she has to say, and that I think makes her praiseworthy.  Not many persons are worthy of praise in these days of the decline of our Great Republic, or so I think.  Thus this post.

I like reading brief commentary and essays on culture, society, polics and events.  Brief commentary may be the only writing which has a chance if  being read, now, most everything else being texts, emails and social media (and blog) posts.  The days when geat essays were written may be gone.  Gore Vidal and Christopher Hitchens are two recent essayists I would consider among the great, and they're both dead. But I can't read everything.  Paglia seems more than capable as well.  It requires a certain focus. We seem to have difficulty focusing.  We move from one provocation or concurrence to another, searching for whatever will outrage or placate.

She strikes me as something of a contrarian, in the sense that she isn't afraid to challenge the various maxims of established liberalism, and for that matter those of the shrilly outraged who represent themselves as conservatives these days.  Self-righteousness and sanctimony are characteristic of the denizens of the Right and the Left now, but I find nothing of that in her work.  She has strong and sometimes controversial opinions but argues persuasively in their support.

I'm reminded of Aaron Burr's statement--"The law is whatever is boldly asserted and plausibly maintained."  More than the law, I think.  She manages to be bold, but is plausible.

She has interesting things to say which I think establish that she values the application of intelligence in meeting what we encounter in life and taking responsibility for our actions and decisions.  She criticizes those who play the victim. Even better, she refuses to be one.  She seems irritated by the reluctance of so many to come to conclusions or even to believe that rational conclusions or judgements can be made; something which I think would make her unpopular in the Academy but reflects an attitude I admire.

So, Ave Camille Paglia.

Felix Dies Natalis

 

Another year of my life, as we measure it, has passed.  Too many years have passed, in fact.

In my less happy moments, I wonder why we say "Happy Birthday." I don't mean to say that birthdays aren't happy.  I do, however, think that birthdays aren't necessarily happy.  Not all birthdays are happy, in other words.  But that's not to say all birthdays are sad.

The birthday in question in this case is neither happy nor sad.  It's a day like any other.  I suppose most of us come to think this way as the years go by.  A birthday becomes less and less a cause for celebration.  It's still marked, as a kind of milestone on the road from birth to death, but is more a reminder than anything else.  Journey's end, and whatever comes after, lies ahead.

Cicero, Seneca and others wrote of old age as the crown of life.  That seems to me somewhat excessive.  Both body and mind diminish, and that isn't a cause for celebration either.  One does what one can to forestall the diminishment, but aging is relentless.  Perhaps sometime soon we'll find a way to extend our lives.  Will that make the crown heavier?

Taken to its logical conclusion (if one may use the word "logical" here) the Christian view would seem to be that life is unimportant.  What is important is life after death, which may be joyous or horrible, depending on how we spend our life before death.  That makes life before death important, though, doesn't it?  Or is it important only if we believe in the Christian God?  According to Augustine and others, we can only be saved by Jesus.  If he doesn't save us, our lives may be full of good works but we still go to hell.

Antinatalism, the cheerful belief that it's wrong to procreate as those born are exposed to harm without their consent, probably doesn't encourage us to continue living.  It may be said to provide reason for us to look forward to death, however.  Perhaps it gives us a reason to look forward to the death of our parents as well, since they failed to get our consent to be born while we didn't exist.

The Stoic view is that life is preparation for death. By this they seem to mean that we should be aware of death, of our own mortality, as we live our lives.

I doubt any of this impacts our view of birthdays to any significant extent.  Stoicism would at the least teach us that birthdays should be matters of indifference, which l suppose is my view.

What I find curious, though, is that people expect that your birthday is a cause for celebration, and expect that you'll feel the same way.  They ask what you'll do to commemorate the day.  They'll ask if you had a happy birthday and seem at a loss if you haven't.  You disappoint them if you don't have a happy birthday.

Which should make your birthday even more a disappointment to you, if it isn't happy.  

Unless, that is, you're a Stoic.

On With The Show

 

On with the show this is it, as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck would say, or rather sing.  And what better place to put one on than Madison Square Garden, even if the show is a wedding? 

When MSG (as it's being called) was first rumoured to be the venue for this spectacle there could be no doubt that it was the place for it, climate change and expense be damned.  Close entire streets of the sweltering city but line them with black SUVs, engines running, packed with stars to join the stars of the show.  Not the tourists one would normally see, but those worthy of an invitation and the additional security and police doubtless needed.

It isn't clear that a wedding should necessarily be a show, but it's clear that in this case it could only be one.  These are, after all, show people.  They put on shows as a living.  The show they're performing, now, is a wedding. Does that render it less real as a wedding, or is everything a show, the wedding being merely a part of it, or one of a succession of shows?

Is it a show because one is expected in this case or because it was desired by those who put it on? I find it hard to believe anyone would want their wedding to be so gigantic and public an event. Perhaps they would, though, if everything about them and their lives is gigantic and public.  It would seem appropriate in that case.  Perhaps it would be impossible for someone who lives to put on shows to conceive of anything subtle and simple.

But in a sense weddings are characteristically excessive, in most cases.  They're intended to be great moments in the lives of those being wed; perhaps even the greatest moment.  They're meticulously planned, and then memorialized.  Not just photographed, but made into a kind of movie.  Yes.  A show, in fact, though not an enormous one, typically.  It becomes a matter of scale, and like most everything in our world, a matter of money.

This is unfortunate given the fact that it's more likely than not that those who are wed at these wedding-shows are ultimately divorced, no matter how splendid, costly and sizable the matrimonial spectacle may be.  The divorce rate is such that it's even likely that those who attend weddings expect that after some time they'll dissolve, and the relics of the ceremony will be forgotten, never to be reviewed or called to mind.

Will that happen even to a wedding held at Madison Square Garden?  Perhaps in that case the dissolution of the marriage, the divorce, will be a show as well.  It's unlikely that show will take place at MSG, though.