Removing Jefferson

In Gore Vidal's novel Burr, Thomas Jefferson is sometimes referred to as "Massa Tom" by some of his contemporaries who were not his admirers (most notably Alexander Hamilton).  I don't know whether he truly was called this by anyone, but clearly the reference made is to his ownership of slaves.  He apparently owned many.  

The fact he was a slave owner is, presumably, the primary reason for the decision made by a committee of the New York City Council to remove his 7 foot tall statue from New York's City Hall.  New York City's local government must struggle along its way without its presence in the future.

If memory serves, I wrote a post on the fairly recent urge of some in our Great Republic to remove statues of historical figures from the various locations in which they've been placed.  It's something which seems to concern many who declaim for or against it, and is like so much else in these sad times a cause for outrage, real or pretended.  It's something I think shouldn't be of much concern, though it may be in some circumstances.

The circumstances I think would make removal of a statue a cause of concern are very limited.  I don't particularly care if statues of presidents or kings or others are raised or razed.  Normally, they're not history or parts of history except in the most broad sense (they were raised or razed sometime).  Sometimes they are a part of history, due primarily to their age and their place in historical events.  A statue can be a work of art, in which case there's an argument it should be preserved.  But I confess that generally it's difficult for me to maintain that statues should or should not be placed or removed.  It may not be to my credit, but I'm generally indifferent to statues.

In many respects Jefferson was flawed.  Among the Founding Fathers I personally prefer John Adams, who was less a hypocrite.  But Adams had his faults as well.  The institution of slavery was loathsome, and is in a sense a taint or curse on the nation still.  I doubt this or any other statue of Jefferson is intended to be a monument to slavery, or to commemorate him as a slave owner.  Statues don't fill me with revulsion normally, so the existence of this particular one doesn't cause me pain or concern.  But it isn't clear to me that he, or anyone else for that matter, should have a statue made of him and displayed somewhere, nor is it clear to me that once a statue is made, it should not be unmade or removed.  

The reasons for removing or destroying a statue are sometimes considered good or bad, however, even if the statue itself is neither.  For example, ISIS or whatever it may now be called, and other religious zealots now and in the past, have destroyed statues (some of great antiquity) because they believe them prohibited an affront to God or to represent demons.  There is no reasonable basis for that belief.  A statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled at the end of the Iraq War.  Nazi symbols and Nazi inspired statutes were destroyed at the end of the Second World War.  

So, it's possible that the motivations for removal or erection of a statue may be subject to judgment.  That would seem to me to be the only thing of significance in the fight over statues in which we seem to be engaged.  What are the reasons for the removal of the statue in question?  What are the reasons for maintaining the statue where it is now?  What difference does it make if the statue is removed?  It will make no difference at all to Jefferson's achievements.  As to those, no statue is required.   If those are what he's to be honored for, the statue is unnecessary, and its removal isn't a cause for outrage or anger.  

Happy Birthday, H.L. Mencken. Wish You Were Here.

 

Today H.L. Mencken would be 138 years old, if only he was still alive.  How I wish he was.

The Sage of Baltimore was not a religious man and did not believe in an afterlife.  If there is one, though, his rightful place in it would not be in heaven, of course, nor even in purgatory, but instead in the First Circle of Hell according to Dante along with other great pagans.   If it's possible to return from the afterlife and, if nothing else, haunt this sorry world, I think he would be with us now, if only to enjoy the increasingly perverse course of our Great Republic and congratulate himself for having anticipated so well the decadence of our democracy.

I think Mencken had his faults, and have described them previously in this blog.  But I know of nobody in the history of American journalism or opinion who wrote so well, and so savagely, of American politics and politicians, and American culture (I can almost hear him say "such as it is") with the exception of Gore Vidal.  I regret that he can't write of the current occupant of the White House and the rogue's gallery of our national leaders.  How well he would excoriate them, revile them!

We have people enough in journalism and elsewhere who do or would do the same, of course, but either the times or the people have changed.  Criticism as we now know it is crude and often vulgar, if omnipresent thanks to the Internet and social media.  Now people of all kinds, regardless of levels of intelligence, wit, literacy or sophistication, can express their opinions regarding current events and figures of significance and popularity, and do so with some relish.  Unfortunately, they for the most part are incapable of doing that well.  Just read what passes for commentary these days, or worse yet the comments readers can now make regarding the commentary.

And yet I think that those who are today professional commentators and pundits, who express their opinions weekly or daily on television, newspapers and journals are, in an odd way, actually more restrained than Mencken was in his heyday.  Read what Mencken wrote of such worthies as Woodrow Wilson and William Jennings Bryan, for example.  There's nothing like it being written now.

Perhaps "limited" is a better word than "restrained" though.  Limited, that is, in ability, knowledge and intelligence.  Someone with great powers of expression, like Mencken, can mock and revile far more effectively than someone who is merely consumed with hatred and self-righteousness as so many are today.  Today's political figures, and especially our current president, are barely capable of expressing themselves, verbally or in writing.  Against Mencken they would appear embarrassingly overmatched. 

And I think it would do our nation a great deal of good if they were overmatched, overtasked and overwhelmed by a great writer and critic.  They would be shown to be the mediocrities which, at best, they are, and the strikingly small and pitiable people they are and which, perhaps, we've become. 

If you can return, Mencken, please do.  And hurry.

The War I Missed



I turned 18 in 1972.  That was the year the last draft lottery took place.  The lottery applied only to those who had been born in 1953, though, and I was born in 1954.  I duly registered for the draft, but consequently wasn't drafted.  My draft card lies somewhere among the debris I've accumulated over the years, but there is no other token of the Vietnam War among that debris, nor did I become debris of that war as many others did.  The Burns/Novick production The Vietnam War serves to remind me of the war I was fortunate enough to miss.

I didn't know when I registered that there was no chance I would be drafted, unless another lottery was held.  In fact, I knew little enough of the war itself.  Though a Boomer, I wasn't an old enough Boomer for the war to have a great deal of impact on me personally.  I knew no veterans at the time.  As far as I can recall, there wasn't much discussion of the war among my friends in high school, or even in college.  We weren't threatened by it, not really.  By the time I graduated from college, of course, the war had ended.

What I remember of the war and those times is what I saw on TV or read in the newspapers.  Like most whose exposure to the war was thus limited, I knew very little, relatively speaking.  I never participated in a protest march.  I never protested.  I was 14 at the time the 1968 Democratic convention took place in Chicago, and saw footage of the rioting, heard the speeches at the convention, or some of them, watched the now famous, or infamous, Buckley/Vidal debates with what comprehension I had as a 14 year old, which I think wasn't much.

I'm a fairly avid reader, though, and read of the war as I grew older.  I knew, for example, that in purely tactical terms the Tet offensive was a miserable failure for the North long before the work of Mr. Burns and Ms. Novick appeared on our TV sets, and knew also that our nation wasn't particularly impressed by that fact.  I knew the argument that we should have won, but could not win as the war wasn't supported by the nation.  I knew that this lack of support was sometimes blamed on liberals or the liberal media.   I tend to think that an empire failed to do justice to its soldiers, and failed even to recognize that it was an empire engaged in a war of empire, between empires.

I knew the argument we should not have been there in the first place, knew of the incursions into Laos. the troop withdrawals late in the war, the largely ineffective "peace talks", Kent State, the march on the Pentagon (I read Norman Mailer's The Armies of the Night; also Miami and the Siege of Chicago), the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the campus protests.  Much is called to mind in watching Burns/Novick's version of the war.

What I didn't know, most of all, was what happened to those who fought or otherwise served in the war.  This documentary does us a great service by informing us of what happened to them, and what they thought and think about it. 

I think that if I had been drafted, I would have been one of them in some capacity or another.  I had no objections to the war which would have sufficed to prompt me to seek refuge in Canada, and didn't think of myself as a conscientious objector.  What I find most remarkable, and disturbing, is how little touched I was by a war that took the lives of many of those but a year or two older than I was; it's an unsettling fact.  Perhaps our sense of history is ultimately selfish, or perhaps mine is, in any case.

 

Very few of those appearing in the documentary come out looking well, outside of those who fought.  For them I find it impossible to feel anything but pity and respect.  Those objecting to the war appear small.  It's possible, of course, that objections to the war could have resulted from the belief that the war was immoral, but the protesters preening in front of the cameras hardly seem heroic or lit with the fire of righteousness.  Pity for them is appropriate when they're killed, as were those at Kent State, or beaten, or jailed if for merely expressing an opinion.  How many of them were, though?  The politicians seem even smaller, in fact despicable. 

 

In the end, America did what was politically expedient.  Arguably, that's what it did when it became engaged in Vietnam in the first place.  Arguably, that's what it does now and what it will always do; what is all it can do.



Vidal's Messiah

I've read a good deal of Gore Vidal's work, but only recently read his Messiah, though it was published in the 1950s and so has been available for reading for quite some time.  There are other works of his I haven't read.  I haven't read Myra Breckenridge, for example, or The City and the Pillar.  Perhaps I will some day.

I'm an admirer of Vidal the author, but not necessarily of Vidal the person or TV personality.  His personality doesn't intrude on the books I've read; that is to say, his personality as it appeared on TV talk shows of the past.  It can be a mistake, I think, for good writers to appear on such shows, as they're asked to participate in order to provoke and do so gladly, which I think diminishes them.

This particular novel describes the origin and "progress" of a religious movement based on the insight of a curiously charismatic former mortician's assistant that death is not just something we shouldn't fear, but something we should want.  The protagonist of the book is given some similarities to Vidal himself, as when he first begins his portrayal of the "messiah" in question and the way in which the movement developed, we find that at the time he met the man, he was involved in researching the Emperor Julian for purposes of writing about him.  Vidal of course wrote a novel about the emperor entitled, unsurprisingly, Julian, which was published ten years after Messiah.

For reasons not entirely clear, the message that death is desirable is enchanting to all who hear it; or, at least, all who hear it while seeing the one who speaks it, called John Cave in the novel.  People find it liberating as it extinguishes the fear of death.  Vidal or the Vidal figure, called Eugene Luther, is one of Cave's first converts though he is as might be expected a reluctant one.  Luther is aware of the fact that the claim that death isn't to be feared is not a new one, even in the form expressed by Cave, who thinks it to be an endless sleep, without any form of personal immortality.  It is in fact ancient, and one can see it in the works of Lucretius and the Stoics and Epicureans before him.  But wanting to die seems an odd premise for a religion.

Early in the book, it's hypothesized by Luther and others that Cave's remarkable appeal is the result of some kind of hypnosis.  Cave himself is portrayed as a simple and unassuming man, interested only in his rather narrow message, however; he doesn't seem at all intent on mesmerizing people or taking advantage of them in a sinister manner or indeed in any manner.

Cave and his message are taken up, though, by a publicist who milks the machinery of the media to its utmost in popularizing them both and broadcasting the message far and wide.   That machinery was formidable even in the 1950s.  Rich donors and converts appear, a corporation is formed.  Luther himself is retained to prepare a kind of introduction to Cave and his message, referencing and expounding on the philosophical basis for the message.  A kind of religious business is established.  The message spreads with great speed, throughout the world.  There is opposition from established religions, eventually there is violence against Cavism and the Cavites and ultimately violence by the them as they become well established and become the establishment, wielding political power to stamp out opposition.

The book is written as the recollections of Luther, who became a leader of a kind of heretical sect which thought the message death was not to be feared should be used to enhance life, not make death seem desirable and went into voluntary exile.  His writings which once formed the basis for the religion have been expunged.  The message is rewritten by those who didn't know the founder; the religion has become something different, something powerful, intolerant, oppressive, intent of saving and thereby dominating the world.

In researching the Emperor Julian, Vidal became quite knowledgeable about his attempt to restore paganism and eliminate the favors and status granted Christianity since the reign of Constantine.  He became aware of the manner in which Christianity became an institution over time and assimilated the Roman Empire, knew its holy books were written decades after Jesus lived, knew that other books regarding Jesus were proscribed, heresies were quashed, an orthodoxy established. 

I tend to think this satire by Vidal was primarily intended to reflect his views on what happened to Christianity, on the triumph of the Church rather than the message of Jesus which clearly appealed in a dramatic manner to many, but was over time changed, ignored, extinguished as deemed necessary by Christians when and after they accepted the "gift of Constantine" and gained the world while losing their souls.  There are too many parallels between the rise of Cavism and that of Christianity for me to think otherwise.  Another thoughtful book of Vidal the author, so much more admirable than Vidal the personality.

Thoughts on "Muscular Christianity"

The Victorian Era is famous, or infamous, for a number of peculiarities.  What's been called--rather uneasily, I think--"Muscular Christianity" is one of them, or so I believe.

"Muscular Christianity" is the name of a movement of sorts which associates Christianity with physical exercise, physical health, team sports and such, not of humans generally but of men specifically.  It's a very if not exclusively manly Christianity.  Ostentatiously manly, in fact. 

It's said to have had its genesis, as it were, in British authors like Charles Kingsely and Thomas Hughes.  Hughes, it may be remembered, was the author of Tom Brown's Schooldays, a kind of celebration of the life experienced by boys in the English public schools of the time.  Hughes, his book and his hero were spoofed by George MacDonald Fraser in his wonderful series of books which were the supposed memoirs of Harry Flashman, a rogue and scoundrel who, in Hughes' book, also attended Rugby when Tom Brown was there until expelled for drunkenness.  Frasier's Flashman manages to be present at virtually all significant event of the era and though he's a coward and reprobate also thrives, and is in fact honored.

In the U.S., this form of pious muscularity has been associated with Teddy Roosevelt (called "The Great American Sissy" by Gore Vidal, by the way) and the YMCA.  It's adherents seem to maintain that this kind or brand of Christianity looks back to medieval chivalry in that it champions protection of the weak by the strong, and it's been claimed that it has a basis in Scripture.

This seems dubious.  From what I've read, the story of Jesus' anger at the money changers is considered scriptural authority or sanction for "Muscular Christianity."  It's beyond dispute that muscles were required to tip over the tables of the money changers (unless Jesus, being God after all, and so not required to make use of muscles, threw them about by other means).  However, Jesus presumably used his muscles for most everything he did as a man, and that's the case with normal men as well.  So the use of muscles in and of itself would not seem to be peculiarly Christian or Christ-like.

It would seem then that what is considered important by Muscular Christians is the manner in which Jesus used his muscles in this case; that is to say, violently.  But if violent conduct, even righteous violent conduct, is what's being touted there are difficulties with contending that this is what Christianity is or should be.  According to the Gospels, Jesus was a great fan of nonviolence, as in turning the other cheek for example.  Paul's references to athletic events are also referred to, but the ancient pagans often used such events as analogies even when philosophizing, e.g. Epictetus.

If ancient times or early Christianity are to be considered, it's much easier to find evidence of Muscular Pagans than Muscular Christians.  Most Christians refused to even serve in the Roman military, at least until Christians began to become prevalent in the imperial administration.  They condemned the Roman games.  The early Christians could hardly be said to have emphasized the perfection and beauty of the human body.  They were more likely to complain of it and damn it as sinful.  Ascetics were idolized by early Christians, not athletes.

Of course, in the 19th century it would have been difficult for most in England and America to think of physical exercise of any kind as being anything but a manly pursuit.  Women who engaged in it were likely considered odd, abnormal in a particularly disturbing way.  So to the extent physical activity of the kind involved in sports, hunting or war were deemed religious activities or thought to be activities which could be engaged in for religious reasons, it's unsurprising that it was taken for granted that the actors would be men.

But the idea of manly Christianity as a special, better kind of Christianity, or of Christianity as being a manly religion, seems rather odd these days; even risible, in fact.  For someone like me, alas, the old SNL skit about the good ship The Raging Queen and the manly ports at which it called comes to mind whenever the word "manly" is used.  The relationship between Muscular Christianity and idealization of  English public schools (and the YMCA at least as portrayed in a certain popular song) similarly encourages association with a particular kind of manliness, one which may be seen now and then when the female and the feminine are absent from the life being lived.  It was arguably very much on display in ancient Greece, where women simply had no place in social life.  But perhaps I'm too inclined to mockery.

Assuming I am too much so inclined, though, I still think the idea of a Muscular Jesus, exercising regularly, engaged in roughhousing and wrestling or whatever sports were popular at the time in Palestine, to be untenable.  Romans of the time, at least of a particular age, regularly patronized the public baths in which it was common for these activities to take place, but Christians weren't known to frequent the baths any more than they did the ludi.

Muscular Christianity, then, has nothing to do with early Christianity.  I think it likely it has much to do with Victorian values, instead, certain of which remain significant to some even in these times.  I suspect that there is behind it a belief that certain kinds of physical exertion serve to keep the mind occupied and so incapable of erring in other ways; the idle mind being the Devil's playground.  It may also be thought to channel physical exertions away from our base sexual urges and into something more desirable, something which requires discipline and conformity, like sports or, if appropriate, war. 

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.

Gravitas non Grata

Gravitas, which has been translated variously as dignity, seriousness, weightiness in one's bearing and conduct, was a trait much admired by the Romans, especially in their leaders.  Like pietas (faithfulness, dutifulness) it was considered a distinctly Roman virtue, a characteristic of Romans since ancient times, a part of the mos maiorum, the ways and customs of their sometimes legendary forbears.

It's a familiar enough Latin word, though likely not as familiar as the phrase persona non grata (plural, personae non gratae), meaning an unwelcome person.  And so the title of this post, intended to convey that the virtue of gravitas is unwelcome here in our Great Republic, particularly in our leaders and those who wish to be our leaders.

This is apparent in the tiresome gaggle seeking to preside over these United States, honking platitudes and boasts, fear-mongering, pandering and posturing continually throughout the seemingly endless horror show of the presidential campaign.  But it's apparent even more so among us citizens, because we permit them to do so and even, God help us, encourage them to do so.  Worse yet, we eventually vote for one or the other of them.

Look what we have done to ourselves.  We tolerate circumstances where the highest office in the land is pursued by a rogue's gallery including a snake oil salesman; a blustering, boorish brat; a secretive, artificial person who seems venal and narcissistic; a well-meaning but clueless old man; a right wing demagogue and holy roller.  These are only the more popular of the candidates.

Perhaps I exaggerate.  But I think it accurate to say that not one of them possesses the characteristic of gravitas.  One in particular is even juvenile in demeanor, and this apparently delights his supporters.  It's impossible to think of him as having dignity, or being dignified.  He doesn't seem to aspire to dignity in any case.

To be fair, there are few presidents or candidates in recent years who had gravitas.  Certainly our first president did; it seems to have been his primary characteristic.  This was appropriate given the Founders' evocation of Rome in our institutions and laws.  The fond recollection of the real or not so real Rome of the Republic can be seen in The Federalist Papers, and fondness for it and its traditions was prevalent during the Enlightenment.

Among more recent presidents, one may have to go back to Eisenhower.  He had of course accumulated considerable regard and respect from being Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII, and this certainly accorded him great weight as a public figure.  Nixon seems to have struggled to obtain gravitas, but his own personal flaws and the slings and arrows of those he angered kept him from it.  Reagan, I think it's fair to say, appeared to have gravitas on occasion.  But he was an actor (Gore Vidal liked to call him "The Acting President"), and whether he had gravitas or merely was able to act as if he had it on solemn occasions isn't clear.

Sadly, "gravitas" isn't a word that comes to mind with respect to any of the our candidates, or anyone in national office for that matter.   They are all small, petty, venal and nasty climbers and necessarily for sale in our money-driven political system.

This lessens our standing in the world.  Our leaders' lack of dignity results in our country's lack of respect.  This lack of respect baffles some of us, and it seems those baffled think we must be obnoxious in order to regain respect (I suspect that too many of us associate obnoxious conduct with being powerful and respected).  But those people or countries who lack dignity, seriousness, and weight in bearing and conduct are not respected, though they may be hated.

R.I.P. Gore Vidal

No sooner do I mention him in my little comment on Mencken and Gore Vidal dies.  He succumbed to age and that which it seems is often the end of the aged, pneumonia. 

He was a celebrity, of course, and in that sense was not remarkable except for his acidity.  He didn't seem to care whether he pleased or not when he acted in that capacity, appearing on television talk shows, primarily, and for that indifference he must be honored--generally, celebrities are tiresome in their zeal to evoke pleasure in their audience.  He is of course remembered for his "debates" with William F. Buckley, Jr. during the 1968 Democratic convention in my beloved Chicago.  I vaguely remember watching those, and feeling pity for Howard K. Smith, the amiable but overwhelmed moderator.  Neither Vidal nor Buckley benefited from that encounter; both were probably at their worst.  Vidal of course later mocked Buckley through the device of William de la Touche Clancy, a character who now and then would appear in Vidal's wonderful series of novels of American history commencing with Burr.  Clancy was the editor of a right-wing publication and a notorious pederast.  Vidal had very well known encounters with Norman Mailer as well.

Regardless of his celebrity status, however, he was in fact quite remarkable as a writer and stylist, in my opinion at least.  His writing was generally elegant and insightful and distinguished by a magnificently dry wit.  He wrote enchanting novels--historical novels in particular (my favorite being Julian).  He is, with Patrick O'Brian and Mary Renault, one of the best writers of historical novels I've ever read.

But he was especially able, I think, as an essayist and critic.  He may well be the last of the great essayists.  In this age of Twitter, and, yes, blogs, none of us seems capable of extended thought; our technology doesn't encourage it, and in fact discourages it.  He had lapses, it's true.  At least as he grew older, he seemed to either indulge in or propound conspiracy theories regarding Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and what we have chosen to call 9/11.  I've always wondered, though, whether he was pulling our collective leg when he wrote such things.

He seemed to know lawyers (good ones, I mean) quite well.  I'm not sure why he knew them well, but I judge this to be the case by his characterization of them in his novels, and specifically his portrayal of the proceedings in the case of the United States v. Aaron Burr.  He also seemed to know politicians quite well, and this is unsurprising as he was part of a political family, and actually ran for office himself.

He was also a critic of American interventions, military and otherwise, in the affairs of other nations, which I think sensible in most cases.  He seemed to long for the time when the United States was not an imperial world power, which would I think take us back to before the Spanish-American war (although the Mexican-American war was a most egregious land-grab and a shameful enterprise as noted by one U.S. Grant).

Unless there is some change in the way our culture seems to be heading, I doubt we will see his like as a writer again.  Christopher Hitchens is the only one I can think of who (recently) could write as well, and they fell out, perhaps inevitably.  But I'm a pessimist, and my feeling that we have become a society too concerned to speak, think, write and emote as quickly and briefly as possible may be unwarranted.  I hope that's the case.

Homage to H. L. Mencken

I've been reading the series of articles, or columns, or editorials the Sage of Baltimore wrote for The Baltimore Evening Sun regarding the Scopes trial.  They evoke admiration and wonder--admiration for the author, wonder that so little has changed in our great land since 1925.

They're part of a book of his works graced by an Introduction written by Gore Vidal, another formidable writer, written it appears during the administration of the second Bush.  Vidal admires Mencken as well, which is no small thing as Vidal is generally sparing in his praise.  That admiration is not unqualified, however, and neither is mine.

Mencken is a joy to read, though he had his faults.  One of them in my opinion was his fondness for Nietzsche, and he was somewhat less a fan of democracy than I am (which is not unexpected given his fondness for Nietzsche) and of women.  But he always wrote well, wittily and intelligently which is a marvelous thing in a journalist, regarding a vast variety of topics.  One can't help but compare him with the journalists of today, and sigh.

He wrote wittily and intelligently regarding the Scopes trial, but didn't try to hide his "bias" in favor of the defense (one of the things Vidal writes of in his Introduction is the grim and ever increasing tendency of critics of thought in these dark days to ferret out any hint of bias in speech and the written word).  He is particularly hard on William Jennings Bryan (the "old mountebank" as he refers to him).  He heaps disdain upon him, an old, spent force at the time, though it is hard not to understand why given his declamation that humans are not mammals and the other antics he and the proponents of the prosecution engaged in throughout those hot summer days in Dayton, Tennessee.

If Mencken's version of events is correct, even accounting for witty exaggeration, the proceedings were indeed farcical.  The lawyers of the local bar, and even of Tennessee generally, don't come out looking particularly well (not to mention the presiding Judge), nor do the politicians of the state.  All are either in fear of or in thrall to those who took Genesis literally and expected others to do so as well.  Mencken was, of course, a notorious freethinker.  He describes visiting a kind of revival or tent show at night in which the zealous spoke in tongues.  In those far off times when I was in high school, I visited a gathering of Pentecostals in which tongues were spoken, and I was disturbingly reminded of the experience as I read what Mencken describes as a "religious orgy."  What I attended was not nearly as riotous as the event he witnessed, but it was oddly frightening in its own way.  Some people spoke what seemed gibberish and others translated it into unsurprisingly biblical sounding English.

Mencken was a pessimist, but he indulged in a bit of optimism writing at the end of the proceedings.  He felt the scorn with which Tennessee was apparently treated as a result of the trial would ultimately lead it to become more enlightened as he would have it.  I wonder what he would feel, and write, now as Tennessee adopted anti-evolution legislation of a somewhat more sophisticated kind in 2011.

He might be inclined to speculate on just what it is that drives certain Americans (and only Americans, it seems) to legislate against the teaching of science in their schools, or more precisely the teaching of any theory which appears to be contrary to treasured religious beliefs.  The Catholic Church doesn't indulge in this fantastic limitation on thought any longer, so it would appear to be a kind of function of American Protestantism.  Presumably, such legislation is motivated by fear that the young will become in some fashion irreligious as a result of the teaching of evolution.  But religion need not be inconsistent with evolution, or science.  Only particular kinds of religion have much to fear from them.

Will there be similar laws in the next century, here in our great Republic?

The Age of the Dilettante

I was reading William Hazlitt's essay on Jeremy Bentham, and it struck me that a well-written essay is a very fine thing.  If well-written, an essay may invoke admiration even when one disagrees with the author.  I don't disagree with much of what Hazlitt writes concerning Bentham, but think that certain of his assertions regarding that remarkable man and his work would send Bentham spinning in his grave, if he was in a grave and not for the most part sitting stuffed in a chair at University College London.  I think though that one might disagree with a skilled essayist and still enjoy and benefit from reading his/her essays.

A good essay is a coolly intelligent, witty, ostensibly analytic, discerning bit of observation and commentary, and so I fear essays will become rarer and rarer in these exclamatory, frenetic times of mere assertion.  Montaigne is generally considered the inventor of the "modern" essay, and remains a model.  I can think of few I would consider able essayists in recent history.  Gore Vidal wrote some fine ones indeed, but seems now to lack the patience needed to engage in this kind of effort.  The late Christopher Hitchens wrote some admirable essays, though he became more of a polemicist than an essayist over time.  The same may be said of his fellow "new atheists" in my opinion.  They say John Updike wrote formidable essays, but I must confess I have never been inclined to read anything he wrote.  George Orwell was an impressive essayist; Graham Greene was as well.

The technology which now allows us to spray our opinions over the world with little or no effort (and which makes this blog possible, of course) may lead to the extinction of the essay, or at least of any extended essay--and perhaps much else.  We bloggers, texters, Twitterers, etc. become used to expressing ourselves effortlessly, and unfortunately that which is done without effort is often done without thought, or at least without skill, and skill is essential to a good essay.  It's useful to pause, now and then, to see if one is making any sense, or is capable of making sense out of what one is observing or reading and to pause today is to not react, and reacting immediately is what we seem to feel is appropriate if not necessary.  And react is something we most certainly can do; we can respond to most anything in an instant, without reflection or effort, and are increasingly inclined to do just that.

A good essay is an examination of someone or thing, and examination requires reflection.  Reflection is not encouraged when one may be incessantly interrupted, or when one seeks intrusion, through the nominally beneficial technology we have with which to amuse and enlighten ourselves.  Those commercials where smug possessors of technology mock others as being "so 15 seconds ago" are amusing in some respects, foreboding in others.

We may be seeing the beginning of the Age of the Dilettante, where all are not by choice but necessarily somewhat knowledgeable regarding but without real commitment to any art, theory, subject, philosophy, person, association simply because we may know them superficially with such ease.  We must strain ourselves to learn something well, indeed to even to think, when information is forthwith available.  I wonder if we will find the effort to be too much of an inconvenience.