Goin' Courtin

There are nine Justices of the Supreme Court of our Glorious Union, not seven as there are brides and brothers in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a genial if odd musical which includes a song the title of which serves as the title to this post.  It's hard for me not to feel some fondness for a musical which includes a song and dance about "The Sobbin' Women" even if it serves as a reminder that rape is what's being portrayed as something charming for our entertainment.

But this post, alas, isn't a tribute to that strange product of the American imagination.  Instead it is not a tribute to what's taking place now, during a very strange election--the strange appointment of someone to the highest court of the land.

These shows (and they have been shows for quite some time now) are not entertainments, though they seem to entertain some.  They're more shows in the sense that show trials are trials.  All know the outcome, so what becomes of significance is the quality or lack of quality of the performances of those called upon to play the parts assigned.  Those opposing the appointment are limited to strenuously displaying their disapproval and the reasons for it.  Those supporting the appointment are required to justify their support, enthusiastically.

Certain things are expected of the nominee.  Answers to questions are to be vague, particularly when it comes to matters of importance, when answers are given.  Answers are to be avoided if possible.  The actual opinions of the nominee on certain issues are not to be sought.  One can't ask questions directed to religious beliefs, sexual preferences, or politics for example.  Nothing of importance is subject to inquiry, except perhaps professional qualifications, which it seems concern nobody.  One can note certain things about the nominee, and make inferences about them.  Rarely is there more involved in the process, unless there is a direct accusation of some misconduct, in which case the show becomes even more of a show as the performances take on a melodramatic character.

Where professional qualifications are concerned, it appears the current nominee is well suited to be what she has been for the most part--a professor.  She didn't practice law much at all.  She's been a federal appeals judge for three years.  I argued before the 7th Circuit in 2018, and for all I know she may have been on the panel hearing arguments that day.  I can't recall.  She clerked for judges.

My personal feeling is that a judge of an appellate court, and so a Supreme Court Justice, benefit immensely from having been a practicing lawyer, or a judge, for quite some time.  They should have some sense of what actually takes place in a courtroom, and what's involved in representing clients in civil or criminal practice.  They should have observed what the law and what courts do to actual people, what it's like to be a part of the legal system and to encounter it.

Ambrose Bierce described litigation as a machine which you enter as a pig and leave as a sausage.  It's something that should be experienced by those who sit in judgment of litigants and lower courts if they are to have any grasp of the law as it functions, not merely as an abstraction--in practice, not merely in theory.

There can be no question where her sympathies lie.  It would be naive not to expect her personal preferences on great issues to influence her decisions.  The only hope is that in her case and in others there is such a respect for the law that personal preferences will be restrained to the extent that what is the law won't be confused with what is believed should be the case.  The law is the law, not morality, not religion, not politics, not ideology.  If what I read of her religious preference (you know, like sexual preference) is accurate, and she identifies (I can't stop myself, it seems) as a charismatic, pentecostal Christian, it can be hoped that she'll seek inspiration when it comes to decisions of the court from the law rather than anything else.

The world we live in, though, doesn't encourage optimism in this respect.  It doesn't encourage optimism in general, in fact, as it encourages thoughtlessness and quick, emotional responses to any problem.

 

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 Flaunting of Corruption

Ambrose Bierce, a remarkable man, has been mentioned by me before in the blog.  Soldier of the Union in the Civil War, journalist, author, wit (though a bitter wit; hence his nickname "Bitter Bierce").  He vanished after leaving our Glorious Republic for Mexico in, I believe, 1917.  We don't know his fate.  Before disappearing, he said and wrote many things which I think astute.  You can read one of them, above.

From out of the past, a quote which seems utterly appropriate to the present.  But what was sardonic humor then is now a statement which can fairly be called "unimpeachable" (pardon the pun), meaning not to be doubted, entirely trustworthy.

That the statement is true has been demonstrated in the (un)impeachment proceedings in the Senate of our Great Nation.  Not only has it been demonstrated, however.  It has been expressly stated by Republicans and their lawyers, who have claimed repeatedly that politics is indeed the conduct of public affairs for the benefit of a particular individual, in this case the president.  Therefore, there is nothing wrong with it, or at least nothing impeachable about it.  Most significantly, it constitutes a defense against all claims of corruption or abuse of power, as far as these worthies are concerned.

There is something odd about the claim that the authors of the Constitution did not mean impeachment was appropriate in the case of abuse of presidential power for the president's own benefit.  How likely is it that the drafters of the Constitution believed that a president could be impeached only if guilty of a crime?  Were they concerned that the president would rob a bank, kidnap someone, murder someone, vandalize something, beat his wife?  No doubt such crimes would result in impeachment by any reasonably sane members of the Congress, but is this what they feared?  It strikes me that what they feared was that the president would abuse his power in some fashion; he would use the powers of his office to commit wrongdoings.  That, after all, is what their concern ultimately was in establishing a nation--the use and misuse of the power of government.

That there are lawyers who would gladly make the argument that impeachment cannot be based on abuse of power reminds me of why the profession I chose is held in low esteem.  To an extent, a lawyer is required to make the argument his client wants him to make, so it may be said that these particular legal practitioners are just doing their job.  But a lawyer generally is not required to represent anyone, and it is terribly short-sighted to take the position that in effect sanctions the presidential use of power for his/her own benefit.  Sometimes a fee shouldn't be a lawyer's only concern.

If our politicians have accepted that they may conduct public affairs for their own benefit, and are eagerly seeking to convince us that is the case, as seems quite clear, it appears that our system of government has been perverted.  But it also appears that our politicians know this and are content with it.  Perhaps they relish it.  They certainly seem to be flaunting this corrupt conclusion.

Perhaps the president should be credited with realizing the depth to which our government has sunk.  Being what he is, he is simply taking advantage of it.

Being what we seemingly are, we don't particularly care that he does so, or that many of our political leaders want only to be of assistance to him.

The Phenomenon of Prohibition

 

I'm overwhelmed with wonder whenever I think of the Eighteenth Amendment to our Constitution, by which the production, sale and transportation of intoxicating liquors, and their importation to or exportation from our Great Republic and its territories, was made illegal.  Ratification of the amendment by the "several legislatures" of 36 states was achieved on January 16, 1919 and it became effective, by its terms, one year later.  I anxiously await the 100th anniversary of ratification, next year.

The wonder I experience is in part due to the fact that I find it difficult to believe any nation existing in the 20th century would adopt such a measure, and in part due to astonishment that the Temperance Movement and its allies managed to convince the legislature of 36 states of the Union that such a law should be imposed throughout the country.  It was a remarkable achievement.  It was also, and proved to be, a remarkably bad law.

The Internet gives us the opportunity to review the editorial cartoons and other illustrations supporting Prohibition.  One appears above.  I long to know how it was determined that alcohol causes "Atheists."  Others depict a mother holding a small child, a boy, and asks our help in her efforts to keep him pure; or an army of anthropomorphic beer barrels on the march, carrying standards on which are displayed slogans such as "We Make People Poor" and "We are Against Progress" and "We Cause Poverty and Crime."  Children are pictured, asking for votes against liquor "for our sake."  An American soldier asks if we will back him, or back booze.  Those, it seems, were the choices available.  Soldiers were apparently adverse to alcohol in those days.

In some sense these seem examples of propaganda in its infancy.  But we see the same themes employed by those eager to impose, or at least "sell", their political, social and cultural positions in this age, though the means by which they do so are more varied and sophisticated.

Someone told me recently that Prohibition was the child of the Progressive Movement in American politics.  I'm not so sure, myself.  It seems to have had its origin in the Temperance Movement and in certain Protestant churches and denominations of a puritanical and zealous bent.  I don't see that movement or these churches as "progressive." I think that persons like Carrie Nation and the Reverend Billy Sunday had no progressive bones in their alcohol-free bodies.

H.L. Mencken noted the religious origins of Prohibition, associating them with Puritanism,  and of course strongly opposed it.  The Sage of Baltimore is famous for defining (in the manner of Ambrose Bierce) Puritanism as "[t]he haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."  I think there was something in the push for Prohibition that had its basis in the thought that alcohol was too much enjoyed, and that too much enjoyment is, inherently, a bad thing.

But whatever "ism" was behind Prohibition it shared with other "isms" the staunch belief of its followers that it is what was best for humanity in general and for those in the United States in particular.  It was thought that alcohol ruined lives and was the cause of poverty, crime and most of all sin.  So, it was thought entirely appropriate for it to be prohibited by law.

It's clear, I think, that Prohibition's advocates felt that the ill effects of alcohol were most prevalent in the working class and the underprivileged in general.  They were most inclined to drink it to excess, most inclined to commit crimes, abuse their families and to be irreligious--to be sinners.  It evidently didn't occur to Prohibition's proponents that there may be other reasons for poverty, crime and abuse, and that the consumption of alcohol itself may be their result rather than their cause.  It also seems to have been felt that immigrants brought to the United States a culture or cultures of drinking and so the drinking of alcohol had to be curtailed. 

Prohibition was, I think, a very Protestant phenomenon (imagine a largely Catholic country banning the production and sale of alcohol).  The goal sought by its advocates was, particularly when it came to the poor and working class, a citizenry that was sober, hardworking, church-going, amiable, humble, muted, content, passionless and not too inclined to think.

It failed miserably, of course, though it took thirteen years to repeal.  Thirteen years in which alcohol continued to be produced and sold, illegally, and consumed.  Prohibition is the great example of why it is foolish and dangerous to legislate morality.  We still want to do so, though.  Most of all we'd like to regulate thought.  Our Great Republic is full of those who, for moral and religious reasons, wish to prohibit others from doing things by law.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

Every now and then (in fact, more now than then) I think wistfully of what great journalists, essayists and satirists would write of our times. Specifically, I wonder what someone like Mencken, or Bierce or Juvenal would have to say, if only they were alive to bear witness to our folly. In that mood I revisit what I've read by them, and sometimes find what I haven't read before (to discover something I haven't read is particularly delightful).

I've been reading Mencken mostly. The Sage of Baltimore had an incisive mind, his writing is clear, erudite and witty, and he was more often right than wrong, though he had his prejudices and didn't hesitate to voice them. What struck me most as I read was that seemingly very little has changed since his death. Granted, he didn't die all that long ago, but it seems long ago and it seems we've come to think of most everything which happened more than a decade into the past as being ancient. Such are the expectations and inclinations of those of the age of Twitter.

The chapter (if I may call it such) of the Bible called "Ecclesiastes" makes several neat little observations about life which seem commonplace now, but perhaps were not so then. One might not think the members of a Bronze Age tribe would make them, but they were made nonetheless. Some have a Stoic tinge to them. What's referred to in the title to this post is the one which is paraphrased as "there is nothing new under the sun." Let's give the ancient author his due and quote him here: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (King James' version).


This saying came to mind while I was reading an article Mencken wrote in 1924 regarding immigration. The government was taking steps to stem the tide of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, then. That's more or less where my ancestors come from, as I'm largely of Italian and Polish descent My ancestors would not have been affected by the law, as they were in the first wave of immigration from those parts, so to speak; the late 19th century. That assumes the law wouldn't have retroactive application, of course, but I think that would be pushing anti-immigration sentiment too hard; making it too obviously contrary to the Constitution.

I think the rhetoric used to justify such a law at that time would have been similar to the rhetoric we hear now about Mexican immigrants. Mencken in his article doesn't dwell on the Italians, especially southern Italians and Sicilians, being undesirable in the many ways they were thought to be undesirable in 1924. Instead, the article sets forth an argument that if the immigration of such people is prohibited, then the Americans Mencken called "Anglo-Saxon" would be forced to do the manual or factory labor being done by the immigrants. This made no sense to Mencken, because the lower kind of Anglo-Saxon not only wanted to avoid such work, but were no longer capable of doing such work well or diligently. The higher kind of Anglo-Saxon, of course, would not even consider doing such work in any situation, according to Mencken. Mencken, as a devotee of Nietzsche, was inclined to speak of higher and lower kinds of people.

The claim that immigrants are needed to do the work we don't want to do, but which nevertheless should be done, is an argument we hear today as well. So it isn't new, and nor is the claim that immigrants from particular areas or nations are undesirable, which is to say unlike Americans who are descendants of northern Europe or England. It is only new to the extent it addresses new people.

Though we're often called a nation of immigrants, America has always been unkind to immigrants. Irish, Chinese, Italian throughout the 19th and even into the 20th century; now Mexican and Muslim. The Irish, Chinese and Italian have been accepted for the most part; perhaps more properly assimilated. The prejudice against them reduced over time. Perhaps that will happen as well with the newly undesirable, and they will have their turn at objecting to immigrants in the future. It seems to be the American way.

It's claimed by some that restricting the immigration of Muslims is a special case, as it impacts our national and personal security. The same was also said of others, though. Italians promoted crime and even organized it. Eastern Europeans were communists. Italians could be anarchists as well, of course, like Sacco and Vanzetti.

Mencken wrote, wisely I think, that people don't really want liberty. Instead, what they want is security. What was truly said is that which shall be truly said, to paraphrase Ecclesiastes. We seem most willing to sacrifice our liberty--and those of others, of course--in the hope that sacrifice will provide us with security. Immigrants like many other things make us feel insecure.

Mencken thought democracy to be a destructive form of government given his contempt for the masses who through it would run the show, and remarked that its result in America would be that someday the common people would achieve their dream of electing a complete moron to the presidency. It may be that dream has come true at last, and that it has come in part due to our desire for security.

I suspect Mencken and other great cynics and critics of the past would therefore be inclined to write much like they did in the past if they lived now. There seems indeed to be nothing new under the sun at least as far as human conduct and misconduct is concerned, and so those who comment on human conduct are fated to make comments already made. But they would make them in with much more skill and wit than can be found these days, as skill and wit in communication are actively discouraged, the act of communicating instantly being of greatest importance in these unhappy times when talk is quick and cheap.

America Does the Limbo: How Low Can We Go?

My father, an intuitively perceptive man now dead over four years, would remark now and then upon the adage that in mass marketing of all kinds success was achieved by appealing to the "lowest common denominator."  In other words, success was obtained by appealing to the least discriminating audience or target group.  Especially now but it would seem throughout the history of popular and semi-popular government, politics has been little more than marketing.

H.L. Mencken, the great Sage of Baltimore, wrote that:

"When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. "

Mencken had his faults; he was an unabashed elitist.  But it would seem to me that this is prescience.  Prescience, that is, regarding what has become the tendency of voters in our democracy, such as it is.

I don't think, though, that democracy is itself inherently defective or that Mencken even thought it to be such.  What Mencken objected to about democracy, or more properly democratic forms of government (our nation isn't a democracy, strictly speaking) was the place of people in it.  He loathed most people, and was contemptuous of the intelligence of the mass of people.  Consequently, he loathed government by the people or any government which is dependent in any significant sense on the whims of the people.
 

The problem with people he refers to specifically in what's quoted above is that their thinking "is done in terms of emotion" and their "dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand."  This seems to be true, and seems to become increasingly true here in our Glorious Republic.

 We "dread" when we greatly fear something we anticipate will happen.  The relationship between fear and hate is well known; we hate what we fear.  And fear, as Ambrose Bierce noted, is an idiot.  In this recent, seemingly endless, presidential campaign and election, fear, hate and idiocy have been much on display, and have been exploited.  As Mencken noted, it's probable that the successful candidate will be the one that is most devious and mediocre.  That would seem to be the case in this case.

I can't find it in me to mourn the fact the losing candidate lost; I simply wish she had lost to someone else.  She has never struck me as an admirable person, and was, to put it mildly, uninspiring, just as she has always been.  The editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant, whose work I greatly miss, used to draw her as a cat sitting on pillow or with a princess crown on her head, the image of entitlement and smugness.  I think that portraying her as a cat was unjust--to cats.  However, I've never hated her with the fanaticism some have and still do.

Her secretive and suspicious nature and self-righteousness made her so unappealing that I doubt she would be successful in most circumstances; she was overwhelmed in the last election, and was nearly pushed aside within her party in this one.  But I didn't think that even she could lose to this particular opponent.

I venture to say that no reasonable person can maintain her successful opponent is qualified for the presidency, having never served in public office of any kind, elected or appointed, or the military.  Nor do I think it can be said it's been established he has any unusual ability in business.  He pretends to expertise in a variety of areas, but it seems his claims must be taken on faith, as they have been unsupported.

More disturbing than his lack of qualifications, his ignorance, his boorishness, however, is his courting of support through exciting and exploiting the "worse angels of our nature" so to speak.  Parallels have been drawn with both Hitler and Mussolini, and those comparisons aren't altogether absurd.

More disturbing than that, though, is the fact that so many were sold on his message.  One can understand frustration with the system, the establishment and the feeling that it must change (though how it could be changed wasn't addressed).  The specter of a global society, government, economy, is I think not one to be frightened of much.  The desire to retain sovereignty is understandable, but as far as I'm aware that isn't in any serious danger, except perhaps in the minds of those who live in fear of the Illuminati, or the Council on Foreign Relations, or some other focus of our many conspiracy theorists.

The message was more (and less) than this, unfortunately.  It included contentions that America is imperiled by those who are believed to not be Americans or to be un-American, and they include Jews, Muslims, Hispanics (mostly Mexicans), immigrants, Gays, and virtually anyone who is not white and Christian and straight and was born either in the United States or Europe.  The message also was that something must be done to protect America from those folk, and this would make America great again.

What many of us succumbed to, therefore, was an appeal to emotions of the worse kind, primarily hatred and fear.  So we were exactly what Mencken said we would be, which I think isn't what we could and should be, if only we would think.  But thought wasn't sought and so wasn't given, either.  We bought the claims made, pure and simple.  We wanted to believe that our problems were caused not by ourselves, but by others.
 

We sink low and it's reasonable under the circumstances to ask how low we can go.

Homage to Stephen Crane

He was 28 when he died, at a health spa in the Black Forest of Germany.  What had we achieved by that age, reader?  For my part, very little.  Perhaps you achieved more, or much.  But it's his age at death that makes him most remarkable, in light of what he did in his short life.

I wonder if they still make students read The Red Badge of Courage in high school.  It was during that four year--what?--that I read it.  I suppose that by making us do so at the time, it was intended in some respect to honor Crane.  I think that requiring books to be read during those years does an author a disservice.  It's difficult to enjoy or appreciate a book one is required to read.  But I suppose something else was intended as well, enjoyment and appreciation not being something to be expected by high school students in their studies, at least.

That particular work of Crane made quite a stir when published.  It was, for the time, a different depiction of war.  It's difficult to think of any other depiction in novels of the same sort up until then.  Ambrose Bierce served in the Civil War and wrote some striking short stories about it, but such as Tolstoy were too busy making grand moral points or indulging in Romantic fantasies to do it what can be called justice.  Unlike Bierce, however, Crane had never experienced war when he wrote that book.  It was entirely a work of his imagination, though considered by most to be unusual in its realism.  Crane experienced war subsequently in his capacity as a newspaper correspondent, "embedded" as we (curiously) say now with soldiers fighting the Greco-Turkish and Spanish-American wars.

I remember the words "realism" and "naturalism" associated with his works.  I read now that "impressionism" is associated with them as well.  It's difficult for a mere reader like myself to keep track of literary categorizations, let alone understand them.  But certainly he wrote of things that took place in life and that were not evidently such as it would be unlikely to encounter in life.  He's been compared, I see, with the prolix Emerson and the less prolix Thoreau among American writers.  I don't see it, really, especially the comparison with Emerson.  Crane was far too direct and spare an author to be compared with Emerson, who bloviated on many things; too many things, in fact.  One can understand why Hemingway thought well of him.  Now and then, Hemingway seems to have expressed admiration for certain writers already dead.  Hemingway thought well of Henry James and Mark Twain also.

Twain is an author I was also forced to read in high school and so neither enjoyed nor appreciated at the time.  I revisited him later, and alas was unimpressed.  That's not the case with Crane.  I confess I've paid no attention to James.  Perhaps I'm unduly concerned as it's been claimed that he wrote novels like a philosopher, while his brother William wrote philosophy like a novelist.  The thought of a philosopher writing a novel troubles me.

I think Crane was at his best writing short stories.  The Monster, The Blue Hotel, The Open Boat are certainly among the best I've read.  Short stories have an unfortunate reputation.  It seems to me that they're not taken seriously enough; all are looking to write or read The Great Novel.  Novels invite excess, however, and imprecision; or so it's seemed to me, and I've read my share of them.  Unless, that is, their chapters are written as short stories themselves, as a kind of serial or series of scenes in the life of a person or event.

With apologies to such as Chekov and others, I think it may be said that American authors have written the finest short stories, and it may also be said (by me at least) that this is to be expected.  American civilization isn't quite what Oscar Wilde claimed it to be (nonexistent) but it doesn't seem to encourage extended reflection or effort on any particular thing, and this would be a prerequisite for creating a novel. 

I'm not a fan of Crane's poetry.  His poetry makes him appear immature, while his prose does not.  His prose was innovative in a way we can't understand now, being used to Hemingway and others who succeeded in extending its precision and simplicity in description.  I'm old now, or old enough, and am astonished he wrote as he did and by what he did so young.  Certain geniuses (Mozart, Schubert come to mind in music) are at once prolific and intensely focused, and are enduringly special and unique as a result.  Crane was one of them.

Regarding Al Capp

I'm not sure what brings him to my mind, but here he is wandering about it, that most perplexing cartoonist, Al Capp.  Liberal in the 1950s, conservative in the 1960s and 1970s, unbearably smug and insulting at times as when visiting John Lennon and Yoko Ono during their much touted time in bed (not Lennon's finest moment, true); creator of the comic strip Li'l Abner, and very much a public figure of his times.  There must have been something about those days which prompted intellectuals of sorts to appear on various TV shows, and something about such as Johnny Carson (and before him Jack Parr) and Dick Cavett which prompted them to seek them out as guests.  That doesn't seem the case any more.  Perhaps there are no public figures who purport to be intellectuals anymore, or nobody to patronize them, no audience for them.

I suspect he's been brought forth by my memory as a kind of tonic in response to these remarkable times here in our Great Republic, and the sense of foreboding I feel, given the likelihood that its President will soon be one of two people for whom I have no respect or liking.  Also the sense of chagrin at what seems to be a potentially catastrophic failure of our political system, already necessarily corrupt due in part to the ruling of those who are supposed to be among the greatest jurists of our land.

 I' ve often wished Mencken or Bierce were alive to comment on this dark age.  I'd settle for someone like William F. Buckley, Jr., or his old friend, Gore Vidal; Walter Lippmann would provide solace as well.  Christopher Hitchens would have gone into a frenzy.  When it comes to editorial cartoons, I wish Pat Oliphant was still working.

Those old enough will remember that, depending on his mood, Capp could be quite the satirist; and, somewhat remarkably for a cartoonist, he could even be rather subtle in his satire.  I cherish the memory of the Schmoos and the Kigmies.  I even think fondly of Fearless Fosdick, now and then.  Sadie Hawkins Day, Dogpatch and the Yokums are part of Americana.   But Capp was by most accounts a very disagreeable, angry and vituperative man, with several unfortunate characteristics, such as propositioning uninterested women.  Like too many artists and intellectuals, his ability doesn't entirely surmount his personal flaws and this leads me, at least, to doubt his worthiness.

Still, he and others like Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo, were more adroit satirists than cartoonists of our time because they were more subtle in their political and social satire.  There's no question that cartoonists now lampoon political and cultural figures, but they do so in a more obvious manner.  Those figures appear in cartoon strips and do and say what one expects them to given the opinions of the artist.  This is sometimes funny, sometimes too blatant to be very amusing.  Now, Capp and Kelly would do much the same thing now and then.  I remember a character in Pogo clearly based on Spiro Agnew, and Capp wasn't above putting such as Ted Kennedy in his strips as characters under other names.  The case of Joan Baez appearing as Joanie Phoanie is notorious, and resulted in litigation.

But given his angry and seemingly malicious character, I have to wonder whether he would if he lived now merely contribute to the choleric nature of our politics, which I think contributes to the current chaos.  I wouldn't necessarily object to the mocking of either of what are being called the "presumptive nominees" of their parties, provided it's done well.  But I imagine him as being not content with satire, and inclined not merely to draw but to rant and not just in his cartoons.  At every opportunity.  He likely would, in other words, do little more than add to the thoughtless noise.  And we have more than enough of that now.

Fear is an Idiot

Fear is much on my mind these days, or I should say the prevalence of fear.  More specifically, the prevalence of fear here, in God's favorite country.

I suppose this is to be expected now, as we are in the midst of a seemingly endless political campaign for the presidency.  The great Sage of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, noted that it is the goal of practical politics to keep the people alarmed, and our politicians, practical or not, are busy doing so, none so diligently than Mr. Trump.  Mencken also knew (and said) that people value security more than liberty.  Napoleon commented that the two levers which move mankind are fear and self interest.

One can of course find other quotes about fear with considerable celerity, thanks to the Internet.  But one which seems particularly appropriate at this time is the statement by Ambrose Bierce to the effect that fear has no brain, and is an idiot.

Bierce was no stranger to fear, having fought in several battles of the Civil War, including the battle of "Bloody Shiloh."  He seems to have been reasonably successful in keeping his wits about him during combat, but there's every reason to believe he was correct in concluding, as I think he did, that those overwhelmed by fear are thereby overwhelmed by stupidity as well.

These are fearful times; quite literally fear-full.  The fear seems to arise more and more from the random violence which results from, or is inspired by, terrorism.  If the fear is also caused by random violence otherwise inspired, though, it seems that fear is given less attention, particularly if that fear relates to the use of firearms by those who are not terrorists.

The surplus of fear  may be due to the fact that in the politics of the moment, simple answers are sought, but not sought as much as simple characterization of problems.  Good and bad, black and white, Muslim and Christian, Americans and immigrants.  It's desirable to characterize these problems in a simple manner as by doing so our politicians--and media--may better maintain that they may be answered simply as well, and whine when they aren't answered quickly.  Simple answers to complex problems are stupid answers, but stupid answers appeal to the fearful, fear being, as Bierce noted, an idiot.

Sadly, among the Republicans, many seem enamored of a man whose political ability and acumen (for all I know he is a very able businessman) seem to me equivalent to that of the know-it-all one may always find at the local bar, and who is likely to respond much as that know-it-all would to questions after perhaps three drinks.  That is to say, loudly and without thought.  His popularity may be attributable to the fact fear has no brain. It's to be hoped that such an individual won't become president, but fear being an idiot anything is possible.  It's disturbing that it seems many understand him to be dangerous, but it doesn't seem to matter.  It must be wondered whether Mencken was correct about democracy and that we will, inevitably, eventually elect a moron to the presidency. 

That fear is an idiot may work to the advantage of our politicians, but provides us with little hope of resolving the problems we face.  It may instead lead to more problems, or rather an increase of problems of the kind we experience.  Events such as that which took place in San Bernadino seem to have at least one predictable result; the increase in the sale of firearms.

The possession of firearms isn't, to me, objectionable in itself.  But I think when fearful people have firearms, it's likely they will use them and use them ineptly, accepting as I do Bierce's description of fear.  I question whether those who buy firearms out of fear will go to the trouble of learning how to use them well and safely. I also think it likely that angry people will use them if and when they can, if they're very angry.  Anger may be an idiot as well.

FDR famously noted in those bleak times that we had nothing to fear but fear itself.  Sadly, fear itself gives us good cause to fear in these all too interesting times.

Homage to Ambrose Bierce

I'm reading Ambrose Bierce's recollections of the Civil War, and am impressed once again by him as a man and as a writer.  I find his descriptions of the battles of Shiloh and Chickamauga particularly striking, for reasons unclear to me.  They are direct, cool reportage of mass slaughter by a participant in the chaos, and the prose is significantly different from that he would employ in his fiction, where he could sometimes be baroque, and his highly acerbic critiques and essays regarding various topics.   He does criticize some of the generals, true, but his criticism is unusually mild.  And he writes very little of himself and his deeds; when he does so, he shows no self-regard.

"Bitter" Bierce he was sometimes called, as was noted by Mencken in a piece he wrote about his encounter with Bierce at a funeral of a fellow-critic, and it seems Bierce did not disappoint on that occasion.  Mencken writes that he described in considerable detail and with amusement unfortunate cremations he had witnessed and their consequences.  Bierce and Mencken had later encounters as well, and would correspond in a friendly way, but Bierce was much older than Mencken, and despite their common contrariness and iconoclasm it seems that Mencken's view of the older man was ultimately somewhat uncharitable.

For my part, much as I admire the Sage of Baltimore, I think Bierce the more rounded and sophisticated man and writer.  Mencken had no experience of war, and like many who have not been soldiers could be somewhat cavalier about it.  Mencken was not a traveler, and Bierce seldom stopped wandering.  Finally and at a fairly mature age he ventured into Mexico during the days of Pancho Villa, and may have departed this life as he "predicted" in a letter--stood up against a wall and shot.  It's not known how he died or where he was buried, if indeed he was buried.

Bierce wrote fiction which was at times almost fascinating, similar to that of Poe as in the case of Occurrence at Owl Creek.  The war story he wrote in which a child encounters a group of wounded soldiers slowly crawling in an effort to reach water is chilling.  Bierce was a poet, an epigrammatist, as well as a journalist and critic.  Mencken, wisely I think, didn't venture into those areas.  Mencken was a critic, always.  He was a good one I believe, but his position as an amused, educated, intelligent observer became at times too elevated.  He had elitist tendencies, and was too quick to condemn people based on such characteristics as race and culture; thus his fondness for Nietzsche and his uncomfortably kind review of Mein Kampf.

Bierce was an honest and fierce man who was able to use words well and so was able to communicate peculiarly American experiences in a manner which was direct but also could be ornate, in a classic style.  I doubt he shared with Mencken, Hemingway and others the belief that Huckleberry Finn was the great American novel.  Perhaps in expressing that doubt I'm expressing my own feelings for that work of Twain; it's not a book a favor.  Bierce like Poe and Stephen Crane doesn't have the reputation other American authors have, but I think him far more interesting than most of our writers.

It's unfortunate such people are not given the same regard as the more popular artists we tend to laud excessively, for various reasons.  They are more attractive politically, more easily taught (always important in our Great Republic, where most of us are only taught art), more romantic, more erotic, more normal.  They are not interesting, however.

The soldier-adventurer-author is an attractive figure (and was to such as Hemingway, who longed to be one), and can be a Romantic figure as well.  Bierce was all that but it isn't possible for me to think of him as a Romantic.  The Civil War was in no sense a Romantic war, and Bierce wasn't inclined to rhapsodize about anything.   He was too much of a cynic, in the modern sense at least.  What a life he lead!  One must admire a man who lived as he did.

Homage to Hitchens

I've just finished Christopher Hitchens' short biography of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, and being reminded thereby of how well he wrote thought I'd devote some time and thought and space, here, to express some admiration for him and his work.  I tend to think a little less of Jefferson than he did.  In fact, I think of Jefferson as being in many respects something of a self-righteous hypocrite, but there's no doubting his significance.  But with Hitchens its possible to read and enjoy even when his subject matter is disagreeable.

I haven't read the books by which I assume he is, or perhaps even will be, remembered--his denunciations of religion and defense of atheism.  I know well enough his views on these topics, I think, from reading those shorter denunciations which would appear now and then online or in certain magazines, and his work on Thomas Paine.  I'm familiar enough with the arguments and the examples, at least as familiar as I want to be.  I think he was a bit extreme in some of his comments on these and other issues and people; he didn't understate, ever, though of course he could be ironic.

I admire his style and am sympathetic with many, but not all, of his opinions.  I sometimes wonder why I am so impressed by those who can write well.  Perhaps it comes from being a lawyer.  Legal writing is seldom eloquent and almost never witty, though it generally manages to be clear.  My admiration of style in writing leads me to forgive or at least tolerate those with whom I disagree who can write well.  Gore Vidal, who once considered Hitchens a kind of successor, wrote very well I think, but would express opinions now and then I thought absurd.  Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading him almost always.

Those that pass for intellectuals in these sad times often seem incapable of writing admirably, though they are more than capable of writing extensively, even relentlessly.  Most of our commentators seem to have adopted a declamatory style which I find tiresome.  Those that comment verbally are either boorish or pedantic.  This in combination with the fact that they are ubiquitous leads me to despair now and then, but also now and then I encounter someone capable of writing well, and feel a kind of tranquility.  Encountering someone who can think well and write well is an increasingly rare joy.

I find it interesting that what we call 9/11 resulted in a change in his status among the intelligentsia.  His railings against Islamic fundamentalism seem to make perfect sense given his views on religion generally, so the fact that his former comrades on the Left turned against him because of his support for actions against that fundamentalism is somewhat surprising.  This can be explained in part if their disagreement was with his support for certain actions, like the war in Iraq, but it seems broader-based.  He also burned bridges by his contempt for Bill Clinton and other liberal icons.

It strikes me that he was, for the most part, consistent in his thought and writing--based on what I've read, in any case.  He was a self-described contrarian who was just that.  Individuals are becoming scarce, though many claim to be individuals.  Self-styled individuals lurking in their bunkers awaiting government agents are merely deluded, however.  Anger doesn't make an individual, though it can make trouble for others.

Those who have wit and style, those that can write well, seem to be less objectionable than others, at least to me.  Even when they support acts or state views I oppose, I find them interesting and worthy of respect.  When I respect someone, I don't take them for granted, I don't treat them lightly.  It's impossible to feel contempt for those you respect or to disregard them.  One has to take them into account.

That's why respect is important, far more important than love, I think, because love is always reserved to a few.  The key to tolerance of others, the only thing that might save us yet, is respect.  Self-respect may even do the trick, as self-respect assumes the existence of thoughts, emotions and conduct which are unworthy.

I think we must add Hitchens to Mencken and Beirce as fierce, witty, eloquent critics of our society, culture and times, and mourn his passing as we mourn their absence.

Ambrose Bierce, the Law, and Lawyers

I can't help but enjoy reading most anything by Ambrose Bierce.  "Bitter" Bierce, as he was justly called, strenuously criticized and lampooned everything, so far as I can tell, and this is an endearing trait as far as I'm concerned.  In The Shadow on the Dial and Other Essays he targets the legal profession, among other things.

He writes what one would expect him to write, generally speaking.  To a certain extent, what he writes is unsurprising; but, we are a hundred or so years down the road from when he wrote, so perhaps his excoriation of the profession was original in its time.

He focuses for the most part on particular areas of the practice of law which presumably most irked him--criminal, domestic (divorce) and estates, and I haven't had much exposure to any of those areas, though I've had enough involvement in wills, will contests and estates to know I'd rather not be involved in them any further if it all possible.  I suspect this is the case because these areas are what would primarily attract the attention of a newspaper man back then (and perhaps now), or perhaps it is more correct to say are what a newspaper man would have been compelled to cover.

His suggestion that criminal defense attorneys be subject to cross-examination regarding their vested interest in their clients' success regardless of guilt or innocence is amusing, though I suspect no juror, then or now, would find this surprising (I personally find it surprising that such a renowned cynic as Bierce apparently found this worth noting).  More interesting to me, though, is the fact that he seems to assume that criminal defendants are virtually always--if not always--guilty of the crimes of which they are accused.

One might maintain that such an attitude should be expected from a cynic.  That may be so, but one would also expect a cynic would have a healthy scepticism regarding the ability of the state to locate and honestly prosecute someone actually guilty for a crime.  I find Bierce's furious denunciation of the fact that defendants are protected against self-incrimination to be somewhat baffling, as a result.  If all men are criminals, then it would seem prosecutors would have criminal inclinations as well as defendants--and of course their lawyers.  Prosecutors, though, don't seem to be subject to his wrath.

The law of divorce seems to have been so strange at the time he wrote I have trouble understanding it.  However, he makes an interesting argument against the rights of testators to determine who receives their estate and how they receive it, which is to say that for the most part he vilifies these rights and in some cases those who exercise them.

It is understandable that parents would want their children to receive what assets they have at the time of their deaths.  I suppose that just as a person may make whatever gifts they decide to make while alive, they may decide how their assets are to be disposed of after they can no longer gift.  But there is something disturbing and unseemly, and perhaps even macabre, about the dead excluding specific persons from having the use of assets after they have become what Bierce might call worms-meat because of some real or perceived slight in life or because they were disappointed in them while living for what may not have been good reason.  Placing conditions on access to assets after death--the dead can reach out from the grave to control the assets they once owned--can be disturbing for the same reason.  Nevertheless, the law holds wills and trusts to be controlling.

Nothing can be quite as disgusting, or depressing, as the spectacle of children fighting tooth and nail (a wonderfully evocative phrase) over the leavings of their parents.  Perhaps it would be better for the law to simply provide that assets be disbursed on death in a particular manner, regardless of the wishes of the deceased. 

But such a law, and the repeal of laws protecting defendants, would have deprived "Bitter" Bierce of a good deal of what he found despicable in the human race, and so would in some respects have deprived us of the pleasure of reading him as he ranted against our many failings.

Regarding the "Mount Vernon Statement"

I've been asked by a conservative friend to "sign" the Mount Vernon Statement.  Actually, he sent me a canned email message I assume he was provided when he electronically accepted it himself, and was thereupon encouraged to foward to the email boxes of unsuspecting others.

It seems a relatively harmless statement, as such silly statements go.  Doubtless it was carefully drafted to be acceptable to most of that ideological persuasion.  There seems nothing especially weird about it.  No insistence, for example, on the United States being a "Christian" nation, whatever that is supposed to mean, or being the instrument of God's will in this evil world (one wonders what battles were fought to exclude such pretentions).   And, being of a libertarian bent (which does not mean Libertarian, my dear readers), if I have any political position at all, I'm not automatically adverse to all those who call themselves conservative, though certain of them--all too visible in these tiresome times--make me groan.  I have no intention of signing it, however.

First, I'm fearful of what would happen if I did.  Would I appear on some dreadful electronic list, and be bombarded with exhortations and appeals from such as Limbaugh or Beck or, worse yet, the Republican Party or its members?  There may be worse fates, true.  I could be subjected to communications from the Democratic Party as well.  The idiots and venal creatures infecting our politics are legion; I wish there was some Ambrose Bierce for our time, who would shower them with the splendid vituperation they deserve.

Second, I'm hesitant to identify myself with any political group which holds itself out as being, somehow, wise, or at least wiser than others.  Why bother to do so?  Being something of a pragmatist, I understand that I will never agree with such and such group or party on all things, because I believe that intelligence, properly applied, is not rigid.  Intelligence, as I believe Dewey would say, is a method of resolving problems; it isn't a set of select standards to be applied in each case, or a recipe to be followed in every instance.  There may be certain things we have found to be most, or more, effective in bringing about desirable results over the years; it may be that certain forms of government have been shown to be more likely to result in the free application of intelligence and freedom of thought, and the freedom to live our lives most productively in accordance with our own desires, than others.  But, purporting to commit ourselves to such things as "family, neighborhood, community and faith" to paraphrase this statement, to the extent it means anything at all, is either to commit ourselves to a limited and possibly (and most likely) exclusivist point of view, or to something so vague as to be practically meaningless.

The statement is merely another aspect of the increasing polarization taking place in our politics, I fear.   There is no need to make a such a statement.  There is a need to identify problems and attempt to resolve them, in a realistic and non-ideological manner.

H. L. Mencken and the Art of Journalism

Reading Mencken's articles makes me wonder how it was possible, then, for someone with his intelligence and lucid, interesting and sometimes even learned style to be a journalist, and even-it seems-a journalist who was widely read.  I know of no journalist or columnist (or even blogger!) of our time who can compare.  Were those who read and wrote newspapers in his era simply more intelligent, or better writers or readers, than we are now?  If so, why?

It's important to note that I am speaking of articles in newspapers, not essays or articles in sophisticated journals.  He wrote for newspapers in Baltimore, of course, but also in New York and Chicago (and probably elsewhere also).  And, he wrote (I think) very well indeed, on a number of topics.  I confess to a fondness for the great "bathtub hoax", but he obviously could and did write on many serious subjects.

Unlike Ambrose Bierce (another personal favorite), he did most of his writing for newspapers in the 20th century, so one would think his audience was wider than was Bierce's, and not so much of an identifiable "elite."  Do current journalists and those others who feel they must tell us their opinions, and are allowed to do so by various media, feel they must talk down to us, or is it simply the case that they know no better?