Which Dystopia?

Let's cavil no longer, and admit what is clearly the case.  We live in a dystopia, a bad, harsh place according to the ancient Greek on which the word is based; a society in which its inhabitants live wretched, dehumanized and fearful lives according to Merriam-Webster Online.  Thomas More used the word "utopia" in his novel of the same name, a word meaning "no place."  His utopia was a nearly perfect society, but of course did not exist, being nowhere.  There can therefore be no utopian society, but certainly can be a dystopian one, as we have proved or may be in the course of proving.

Various authors have imagined dystopias, some famously.  But if we live in one now, which of the fictional dystopias is it most like?  Such things may concern some few of us who are citizens of this one in particular.

Some fictional dystopias commonly result from some kind of cataclysmic or apocalyptic event, such as nuclear war or natural disaster.  I find it hard to isolate the cause of our own dystopia.  There's probably no one cause.  In any case, lacking such an event I think we can't compare our dystopia to those depicted in such novels as The Road by Cormac McCarthy or The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard.

As a citizen of God's Favorite County, the U.S.A., I can imagine with relative ease a dystopia created by the machinations of a particular religious sect as in the case of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The Abrahamic religions are inherently intolerant and exclusive, and the version of Christianity most popular here has always been particularly restrictive, though its adherents are notably flexible in their interpretation of the appropriate path whenever it suits them, which is to say for the most part whenever it limits their self-interest, selfishness and bigotry.

I doubt our dystopia can be called religious, however, as there is so much more contributing to the woeful condition of our society.  Economic inequality, for example.  I don't know that plutocracies have ever been considered dystopias, however.  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged has been called a dystopian novel, but the plutocracy it idealizes, which separates itself from the rest of the world, is characterized as a utopia, made up of insanely wealthy geniuses some of whom seem to be aficionados of rough sex, like Ms. Rand herself.   It's unclear whether she considered a fondness for rape roleplay to be common among her super-men and women, if not a necessary condition of their exalted nature, but it figured prominently in her fiction.

The prevalence of violence in our dystopia, particular among the young, is reminiscent of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.  Our suspicion of books and tendency to restrict what is taught brings Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 to mind.  I don't think Orwell's 1984 is similar to what we have achieved to date, as we aren't quite as regimented and regulated, or unified enough, to be compared to its version of dystopia.  Also, our society isn't as puritanical.  We love our pleasures, and are committed to them and manipulated by them.  In that sense, it may be that dystopia as depicted by Huxley in Brave New World is more similar to ours than not.

Which brings me to The Garden of Earthly Delights, the peculiar masterpiece of that peculiar artist, Hieronymus Bosch, pictured above.  Paradise is on the left, hell on the right, and in the center is our world, in which we cavort.  Bosch portrays us as engaged in a grotesque romp.  The people he painted are silly, stupid, carnal, frenzied and mad.  Hell is obviously their destination--indeed, they seem to be rushing towards it.

One thing which I think has been lacking in fictional dystopias is the fact that we're quite capable of making our world a harsh place in which we live harsh and fearful lives simply by being stupid and ignorant.  I don't think it an exaggeration to say that stupidity and ignorance are two of the primary causes of our current dystopia.  What we accept and believe today as true is remarkably preposterous in certain respects. That we accept things as true without hesitation or efforts at verification is extraordinary in itself.  It's hard to think of other times when we've been so credulous, so willing to believe what we're told, particularly when it comes to our politics.  

As elections and primaries grow close here, we're inundated with commercials so pitiful, so corny, so clearly biased that it's difficult to believe they can be taken seriously by anyone.  Do those who create these vile, pandering, unintentionally comic advertisements really believe we're so shallow, so stupid, so easily manipulated?  Are we, in fact?

We all know the saying "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  It's been attributed to Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill.  That may well be true, but our dystopia may have come about not because we've done nothing to prevent the triumph of evil, but because we've been too stupid to recognize the evil taking place, or understand what is good, or do good.  

I don't think a novel with this theme will be forthcoming.

American Randstand

No, this is not about the stylings of Rand Paul, but about those of the woman for whom he was so happily named, the operatic Ayn Rand.  She is beloved by many in our Glorious Union who would likely be appalled at some of the opinions she spouted so dramatically while reviling so many in her time on this Earth.

While not quite the equal of Frantic Freddie Nietzsche (one the philosophers she borrowed from) when it comes to histrionics, she was a marvel of melodrama and self-promotion.  It's sad, in a way, that she failed in the Hollywood career she hoped for when first in this country.  It may be argued she was made for Hollywood.  But I think she would have succeeded there only as an actress in silent movies, making the grand gestures and casting the feverish and longing glares and glances required in that medium; not as a screenwriter.  One shudders when one thinks of the author of the immense and preposterous Atlas Shrugged writing screenplays.

While she said and wrote many sensible things, I can only wonder how and why she has become a kind of totem of the American Right Wing.  The fact she is not popular with others is not so difficult to understand.

Her philosophy seems to have been almost entirely derivative, mostly of Aristotle and certain of the ancient pagan philosophers who lauded happiness as the greatest good, but with some Nietzsche and others thrown in.  Aristotle it is said was something of a dandy in his dress, and so may be considered a bit showy, but it's hard to imagine him as a hero to this woman who seemed to feel that only heroes, and spectacular ones at that, are worthwhile (or perhaps it's more accurate to say worthy of her, or desirable to her).  She was not a careful, analytic writer, preferring like Nietzsche to make grand statements and proclaim what she felt was the truth.  Although a proponent of reason, she seemed uncomfortable or impatient with reasoning.  For her, truth was self-evident, and it was or should have been self-evident that she knew the truth.

Her fiction is filled with heroes, but strangely self-regarding heroes, all of whom are geniuses and beautiful, and all of whom are beset by evil, dwarfish figures out to thwart them in their unending production of works of genius, or at least to leech off them.  Her novels are overblown, garrulous fairy tales where all is black and white, good and bad.  The fairy tale is sometimes interrupted by lectures given by a stern, elite figure.  She seems to me to have been an elitist of the first order.

That's one of the reasons why I wonder at her popularity among those on the Right.  I would think that her vision of a world dominated by a kind of technological and scientific elite, along with her atheism and favorable view of abortion, would appall her political admirers.  She is not a democratic thinker at all, and her hatred of collectivism seems tinged with a contempt for the "common herd."  But this doesn't bother those who claim to be her followers or devotees.  They seem to be very selective in their enthusiasm for her work.  But perhaps this implacable admiration of her is a peculiarity of the modern Right only.  Whittaker Chambers, a communist who became a conservative and so something of a zealot of the conservative cause, wrote a devastating critique of Atlas Shrugged when it first appeared.

Henry Hazlitt, a friend of hers for a time at least, wrote an engaging little book about the Stoic philosophers.  Rand was clearly not a Stoic, though, as she seems to have been excessively focused on people and things not in her control.  She certainly allowed them to disturb her mightily, and resented them greatly.   Her worship of greatness (or her view of it) is also problematic from the Stoic perspective, as it devolves into a desire for success of a material kind.

Perhaps this is what makes her attractive to some.  She is a kind of apologist for success and the successful, and better yet is one who attributes success to self-regard and the disregard of others but oneself and those few who merit one's attention or are one's respectful followers.  It must be gratifying to learn from someone who believed herself to be and is considered by many to have been a great philosopher that one owes to others nothing at all.  Philosophers have speculated regarding the attributes of the ideal or wise man, the man of virtue.  The Stoics' ideal man was the virtuous Stoic Sage.  If her novels are any guide, Rand's ideal man was essentially an asshole.

The Idiocy of Selfishness

It will be recalled that Ayn Rand, who was apparently so insecure as to be unsatisfied with the name with which she was born but was otherwise exceedingly self-involved, wrote a book of essays which she decided to call The Virtue of Selfishness after the assasination of President Kennedy (she had another title in mind before he was murdered--she was planning to castigate him as a fascist).  Having first redefined "selfishness" in the most self-serving manner to fit with her thesis (quite appropriately, of course) she proclaimed it the source of all good.

Obfuscation can sometimes be pleasing, but there are limits to it which even a lawyer like myself must acknowledge, and this bit of sophistry on the part of Rand has always struck me as particularly sad.  But I think it even sadder that selfishness seems to be the source of much we think and do.

Now I must struggle to be clear, here.  To a certain extent, we must always be self-regarding.  That is our nature.  We are for example very concerned to continue to live, and thus much of what we think and do is devoted to doing so.  This is unremarkable.

But our self-absorbtion can be mystifying when it is considered that the place we hold in the universe is incredibly small.  Consider the vastness of the universe, and then consider that we indulge in such fantasies as a creator of that universe who is vitally concerned with our well-being and success; indeed, who even has much the same goals and desires as we do (if not the same form)--who even became one of us for our salvation.  And astonishingly, when we are compelled to conclude based on the evidence that we are not the reason for all things, and have no purpose on which the rest of the universe depends, we despair or are miserable, and believe our lives are worthless.  Apparently, our self-love is such that we believe either the universe is all about us or it serves no purpose whatsoever.

There is something comic about our pretensions, and you would think that would cause us to reconsider our wants and needs in the context of the rest of the world, and the others who inhabit it, before we die and are forgotten.  But we seem incapable of doing such a thing. 

Much is said today about our sense of entitlement, but it strikes me that none of us understand that this sense is the basis not only for the demand for jobs or benefits but also for claims that we have certain rights and liberties that cannot be violated, and that others should act in a manner or think in a fashion we deem appropriate.  The self-righteous are full of self-regard.  We have more to fear from the Pharisee than the beggar.

A realistic appraisal of our limitations and acceptance of our unimportance in the grand scheme of things can be sobering, and we have need for the sober in these times.  Neither the giddy nor the weepy are of much use to anyone but, possibly, themselves.

A Kind of Gluttony

Perhaps it is the debate over whether to extend the "Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy" or the current urge to do something to benefit from the unseemly large profits of Big Oil, or perhaps it is the omnipresence of the walking, talking caricature of a nouveau riche boor that is Donald Trump, but I find myself given to speculate regarding what it is that compels some of us to want to be very, very rich and do all that is possible to achieve that status.

I think it is common to want to be comfortable, to be able to eat and drink well, have leisure time, have and enjoy certain material goods, give our children certain economic advantages.  However, we can achieve such things without being exceedingly wealthy.  Some of the more regrettable personalities intruding upon us these days have referred to those most would consider to be well-off as being "comfortably poor" but I doubt it is necessary to be "poor" even in this fashion to be comfortable.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be comfortable, and I would go so far as to say it would be good, or at least nice, if all of us were.  But what is it that drives a person who is comfortable in this fashion to want to be very rich?  To want, in other words, more, more and yet more of that which allows him/her to be comfortable?

The very rich are sometimes justified by themselves and others (usually Republicans in this Great Republic) because they are said to benefit us in some vague manner.  They "make jobs" or do something by being wealthy which is good for the economy.  The wiser of their fans and advocates don't presume to claim that this is why they are wealthy, or that the wealthy eagerly dedicate themselves to making others richer.  In fact, those like Ayn Rand and her Randriods do not merely acknowledge, but rejoice in, the selfishness of the rich and powerful.  The benefit to others is apparently a function of their mere existence, their being, as it were; they radiate our benefit much as God is said to radiate Grace.

Thus there are those who resent it if they are being taxed more than others merely because they are wealthier than others.  Why should they be made to pay more to the State merely because they have more to pay?  Do they not already benefit us all by being wealthy, buying so much, consuming so much, thereby "making jobs" or whatever it is they are supposed to accomplish by doing so?

Frankly, I'm not adverse to the position that they should not be required to pay more than others.  I would be pleased if they paid as much as others did, proportionately.  If we must have an income tax, I confess to being fond of the idea of a flat tax--that all should pay the same percentage of their income as taxes to our benign government.  Get rid of all deductions and exemptions, pay the same percentage, and we would have a wonderfully simple means of taxation it seems to me, and one which is at least arguably fair.  But no doubt this is far too simple an idea to be effective.

Regardless, I don't think the very rich can "justify" themselves in this fashion, nor do I think they should.  They should, however, acknowledge what they are--gluttons of a sort, and pathetic as a result--and we would all likely be better off if they exercised self-control.  They need not devote themselves to the benefit of human kind.  They would do us all a great favor, though, if they weren't very, very rich, and declined to be so because being so is unnecessary to their welfare, and undermines their dignity and indirectly the dignity which should be accorded to others.

Gluttony is, of course, the practice of excessive eating and drinking, and greediness in doing so.  It is in a certain sense disgusting (I don't mean to refer to those with eating disorders, but rather to those who indulge in this kind of excess simply because they are greedy for the pleasure it brings them).  It is infantile self-indulgence in a particularly unpleasant form.  Those who strive to be or are much richer than they need to be to be comfortable indulge in a similar type of unnecessary excess and greediness.

Once one is comfortable, what else would account for the desire to have more and more money and things?  The need to be more and more comfortable, to be very comfortable?  What can compel this kind of acquisitiveness for money and things when there is no longer any reasonable need for them, but a kind of gluttony?

I don't advocate the forcible redistribution of wealth.  But self-control is to be advocated in a time of dwindling resources, and is admirable in any case.  Nobody needs to be exceedingly rich, and it is absurd to claim they do.  The incidental benefit that may result from the excesses of the gluttons for money and power don't compensate for them.

The Dangers of Rereading

I suppose it's not unusual to find that authors you once were fond of, particularly during your adolescence, are not what you thought they were on a second reading.  I remember reading a good deal of Nietzsche, once.  Now, I'm not sure why I took the time to do so.  I suppose he can be said to have proclaimed quite a few things, some of them interesting, but it seems he did not think it significant to explain his many assertions in any reasonable manner.  As I grow older, I tend to think explaining is important; it's a good indication that one has actually thought about what one is contending.  There was a time I read Ayn Rand with something approaching pleasure, delighting in some perverse sense in her solemn and relentless sermonizing.  Now, I find it hard to read her without giggling.

I was surprised, though, to find myself disappointed when reading Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad.  I recalled Twain as being an insightful and thoughful critic of human affairs, and as a great American comic writer.  It was depressing to read his little sketches about this trip to Europe by what appeared to be a number of stock American comic characters, some of whom were characterized as mere buffoons, all of whom were uninteresting.  They seemed to lack all credibility.  Was Twain playing up to some readers back home, who actually found such stuff amusing?  Even his description of the sights of the Azores, Gibraltar and Tangiers, for example, were uninspired.  The foreigners are dirty and smelly, and so for that matter are their cities.

Now, I must confess that I simply stopped reading.  I found myself dreading to read any more, after a time.  It's quite possible that he eventually gave up his hackneyed descriptions of the antics of his fellow voyagers, and that he came to make interesting observations on the people and places he visited.  If so, I didn't have the patience to read on.  This work, and his other works, are apparently the subject of intense study by academics and creative writers.  Perhaps I'm at fault.

But it seemed shoddy stuff, and even if the quality of his writing is attibutable to the fact that he was writing on a deadline, as a journalist, I think he comes off looking rather shabby.  Mencken would have done far better with such subject matter.  Some creative writers can be outstanding journalists as well, e.g. Stephen Crane.  Did they have more respect for the intelligence of their readers, and their own intelligence, than old Sam?  I wonder if he came to be a tiresome parody of himself in time--the folksy humorist.  For that matter, Thurber would have done a better job making the characters amusing.

Ayn Rand, Romanticism and Napoleon

The recent publication of new biographies of Rand prompts me to express some thoughts about her and her status, or perhaps I should say etiology.

Like so many, I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and was impressed by them on first reading.  I was, however, an adolescent at that time.  I was also impressed by the works of Nietzsche in those days.  Now, though....

She chose to call her philosophy "Objectivism."  She seemed to consider herself something of a realist. But, I think of her as being very much in the Romantic tradition.  There is something Napoleonic about her fictional characters (although Napoleon would never have had the time or the patience to indulge in the lectures her characters indulge in, all too often) and the legend of Napoleon, if not the man himself after his youth, was a Romantic creation.  She doesn't just favor the individual and expound the importance of individual rights--she glorifies the individual, who is invariably a genius of some kind in her fiction.

Her vision is a very unrealistic vision, I think.  Wisdom involves the rational acknowledgement of  limitations.  This doesn't mean the unthinking acceptance of them, but a recognition that they exist.  To deny their existence is stupidity, and ultimately is of no benefit; one must know a problem in order to solve it, and solving it may involve cooperation with others.  Goethe, if I recall correctly, said of Napoleon that he was as intelligent as a man can be without wisdom, and as great as a man can be without virtue. For all his ability, he cannot be said to have been great benefactor of humanity.  That seems to me a fair description of the Randian Ideal Person.  Rand was a Romantic, and Romantics are not known for their thinking.  Philosophy involves more than chest-pounding.