A Most Unhappy Halloween

Halloween is particularly well placed in the calendar this year, shorn of its festive cloak due to what the Pontifex Maximus, for reasons unclear to me, referred to as "the lady" Covid.  Perhaps ladies are generally pestilent to the Catholic clergy--except, of course, for one Lady in particular.  Barely festive at all, in fact, for the children who benefit from the holiday in its largely secular form.

But what could be more appropriate at this very unfestive time?  Fear stalks the land in the form of someone as orange as a pumpkin, though not great in any good sense, along with the pandemic which seems to be growing.  Fear fostered by many for the most cynical reasons.  By politicians, that is to say, or at least those of them who are motivated primarily is not exclusively by the desire to retain power.  Fear also of uncertainty.  Fear of people wielding guns at polling places; fear of what might come of a Supreme Court whose latest member has minimal experience in law and seems to have been chosen for purely political reasons; fear of violence; fear of fraud in the election; fear that voting will be repressed.

Yes, Halloween will be scary this year if only due to the harrowing and hectoring political advertising to which we're exposed and the proximity to election day, which may or may not decide our fate, or which may or may not merely prolong the period in which we wait to know our fate depending on what options are available in the courts (I won't call them "legal" options for fear--what else?--of giving them more dignity than they merit).

Unfortunately, we can't take comfort in the wise, gentle and humorous traditions of this time of year, like the celebrations associated with the Day of the Dead.  There our deceased loved ones are thought of as still living and parts of our continuing families.  But imagine what our ancestors would feel if they could truly share our time with us.  They could only be angry of what we've become, or full of sorrow for us in our sorry state.  As for the saints of All Saints Day?  Well, perhaps they could at least intercede for us, assuming they would be heard.

Perhaps a mass exorcism is in order.  Priests brandishing the Rituale Romanum and reciting its text on exorcism should be walking among us, or perhaps driving among us in vehicles sporting loudspeakers, together with fundamentalist preachers casting out devils as some of them do on television.  Why not give it a try?  What do we have to lose?  Certainly not our dignity, which is long gone.

Jonathan Swift's Gulliver, in one of his travels, encounters the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses, wise, reasonable, and benevolent who rule over deformed, ignorant creatures resembling humans called Yahoos.  Though taken in, he's eventually banned by the Houyhnhnms for being too much like a Yahoo, or even a Yahoo himself.  He despises Yahoos, though, and when he returns to England can't stand living among his fellow humans.  He becomes a recluse, and spends his time in the stables talking to the horses.

He also more famously encounters the Lilliputians, a tiny people who are concerned with trivial matters and are obsessed with displays of authority and power.

I'm not certain whether we're more Yahoos or Lilliputians, now.  A combination of the two, perhaps.  If we could celebrate Halloween traditionally, we should dress up as both.  Or it may be no costumes would be required.

 

The Allure of the '50s

An organization previously unknown to me called the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)  issued a report in 2016 on the views of Americans regarding, roughly speaking, whether American Society has changed for the better, or for the worse, since the 1950s.  According to the report, most would say it's changed for the worse.  A majority of the majority were white, Christian and Republican.  Perhaps that goes without saying.

What is it about the '50s that makes most of us, apparently, think it better than what's been the case for the last 70 years?  An argument can be made that the '50s were white, Christian and Republican, at least on the surface and as the country was portrayed in the media.  It was also for many of us Baby Boomers the time we spent as children.  There are many Boomers, after all, and some of us look back on our childhood with nostalgia.

It was a time when televisions began, and continued to, appear in the homes of the middle and upper classes, and the America portrayed in the medium was beneficent indeed.  America fought evil then, successfully.  Whether in the Old West as shown in The Lone Ranger and Gunsmoke, fancifully as in Superman, through law enforcement as in The Untouchables, Dragnet and Highway Patrol, America and Americans promoted "Truth, Justice and the American Way" as stated in the introduction to Superman.

American families on TV were genial, sometimes comic, but always loving.  Their problems were reassuringly mundane, and resolved.  American women were sometimes ditzy, sometimes wise, but almost always motherly and beautiful when part of a family.  In other contexts they might be femme fatales who were beautiful but bad.  Even in that case, though, chances were excellent they had hearts of gold and had been led astray by bad men.  American men were generally brave, sometimes fatherly, sometimes rich, sometimes befuddled and comic, sometimes poor, always patriots and on the side of good unless crooks or spies in place to be bested.

Economically, times were generally good.  America had come out relatively well, economically, from the Second World War, in comparison with a great part of the world.  One can understand that many would feel content, even smug, in light of American prosperity.  Militarily, it seemed for a time at least that America was predominant.

But the Korean War didn't end nearly as well.  And the Soviet Union got the bomb, and put a satellite in space, and the communist scare began.  The '50s were the heyday of McCarthyism.  Not all was well, but the Red scare served to highlight the fact that America was good, communism bad.  So in a way the vision of goodness and the tendency towards self-righteousness were enhanced by America's problems in that time.

Nor did TV and other media uniformly portray our society as prosperous and benign.  There were stirrings of disappointment if not discontent.  The writers, musicians and poets of the Beat Generation were different from most of that time.  There were some shows, like The Twilight Zone, which raised questions about American society.  But that was late '50s, when things had begun to change, slowly.

Perhaps the Boomers who grew up watching Looney Toons, Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Howdy Doody became disillusioned in the 1960s and 1970s with the American Dream as it was dreamed by them in the '50s.  Perhaps they recognized that it was a dream.  Or, perhaps they felt that they had been betrayed somehow, by someone.  Not all was as clear as it was in the '50s, nor were they treated with the kindness and love they felt their due; they weren't entertained as they were in the past.   All the gunfights we saw on TV didn't make the Vietnam War less bloody or more understandable.  So the '50s at some point came to be mocked by the Boomers it created.  It was their parents' time; they weren't children any more.

But something happened as we grew old.  We want to be children again.  We look back beyond the '60s as we grow satisfied and content, but at the same time cautious and fearful.  Perhaps we even grow senile, in a way--culturally and politically.  Our second childhood reminds us of our first.  We find that our first was infinitely better.  Many of us find it more peculiarly American.  More particularly American in a particular way.

Whatever it was back then, those of us who were children at that time remember what we experienced as children, and for some and perhaps most of us what we experienced was what we saw on TV or as a result of efforts to mimic what we saw.  Suburbs, vacations, big cars, sports, highways, diners, drive-ins, rock and roll, country clubs, good food, money, good and evil easily distinguished and evil always vanquished.  Why can't it be like that again?

Ask those who think we've changed for the worst.  They'll tell you.  I think one of the things they'll tell you, unfortunately, is that what they see now isn't what they were shown on TV then.  More specifically, that the people they see now aren't the people they saw on TV then.

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.

 

Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin

According to the Book of Daniel, Belshazzar, King of Babylon, was enjoying a feast with his friends and courtiers using implements taken from the Temple of Solomon when he was surprised to see a hand, attached to no visible body, scribbling the words of the title to this post on a nearby wall.  As these tales usually go, all else failing one of the captive Jews, the Prophet Daniel, was summoned to explain the writing and the words (I see "parsin" used for "upharsin" sometimes).  As one might expect, Daniel informed the King that the hand was that of God, and the writing informed those interested that Belshazzar and his kingdom had been weighed and assessed, and their days counted, and they would soon come to an end.  And so they did eventually, courtesy of Cyrus the Great and his Medes and Persians.

This is the famous "Writing on the Wall."  When you see that writing, you know it will soon all be over for yourself and other persons and things.

Did we see the "writing on the wall" last night, in a presidential debate which it may be said will live in infamy like Pearl Harbor Day?  For our Great Republic and for some if not all of us as its citizens?

No ghostly, or godly, hand or writing appeared, but much else did, none of it worthy, all of it unworthy.  In fairness, it may be noted that efforts were made by the moderator and one of the participants in the debate (or what passes as a debate here) to act with a certain dignity of the kind which should attend these proceedings.  But the other participant acted with no dignity whatsoever and with a clear intent sought to deprive the debate of any usefulness or merit, assuring it would be merely unseemly and chaotic.  Much as he is, it's sad to say.  His pandering to adherents of white supremacy was more than unseemly, of course, but that is part of his character, such as it is.

Recent political debates here have not been impressive as a rule.  We haven't seen and apparently will never again see the likes of such debates as those engaged in by Lincoln and Douglas, for example.  However, it has at least been possible for participants in a debate to state, if not explain, their positions on matters of import, and to appear as if they were adults worthy of a minimum amount of respect, credible if not especially intelligent or honorable representatives of their constituents.

In this case, though, it was as if the rules that govern responsible and intelligent public conduct among adults had been forsaken, and we were spectators, on a global scale, of a dispute taking place on a playground among elementary school level contestants.  This is our politics, now; these are our politicians; this is the picture we present to the world.  It's a picture than must delight some, given the American tendency to pontificate regarding morals and conduct.

We must expect that Republicans, who it seems have become the most craven and appeasing of our politicians, will at most say nothing at all about the conduct of the candidate of their party.  It must be expected as well that what the media delights in calling the president's "base" will tolerate and even applaud his latest caperings.  Unfortunately, we've come to expect and even hope that disagreements among us appear to be bar-fights or exhibitions of chest-pounding.  We're now convinced that life is what it's portrayed to be in TV, movies and video games, or at least should be that.  It's no surprise that professional wrestling is so popular in our Glorious Union.

What, if anything, has been written on our wall?  Not necessarily the end of our nation.  But it may be the end of pretensions to being a civilized, superior, nation.  If we're willing if not eager to have our leaders engage in spectacles of this kind, or to have leaders who are incapable of acting any other way than with a thoughtless and crude belligerence in public forums in which important issues are supposed to be addressed, than we've become brutal.  We have no basis on which we can claim to teach or lead the world.  The days of our preeminence in world affairs, of being a force for the good of humanity, have been counted, I'm afraid.  In that respect, at least, we are being found wanting.

 

Welcome to the Fifth Circle

The Fifth Circle of Hell as described in Dante's cheery Divine Comedy is populated by the wrathful, those condemned by their indulgence in the sin of Anger, broadly speaking.  Anger expressed, and Anger repressed.  Those souls condemned for the expression of Anger spend their unending time fighting each other near the surface of the river Styx, or the mud or marsh associated with that river.  Those that are condemned for the repression of Anger, the sullen, are lodged farther beneath the surface, complaining or perhaps better yet stewing at the bottom of the fiery mud and water.  Their complaints appear as bubbles on the surface.

It seems we're in the Fifth Circle of our own peculiar hell.  Medusa and the Furies may not be in evidence as they we're in Dante, but we have plenty of figures that resemble them among us.  

We're possessed by a curious anger, I would say.  At least some of us are.  For a president to refuse to accept the outcome of an election before it takes place, should it go against him, is obviously unprecedented in our Great Republic.  Therefore, it's also unprecedented that this fact seemingly leaves many of us unconcerned.  Our commitment to representative government as well as the rule of law is questionable.  We've heard of such doings in the past in connection with other nations, called "banana republics."  Have we become one?  Ben Franklin famously said we have a republic, if we can keep it.  Perhaps we no longer can, or no longer want one.

If so, how and why did this transformation take place?  One tires of comparisons with the Roman Empire, but are the satires of Juvenal, coming as they did after the Roman Republic was replaced by the Roman Empire, suggestive?

The People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions...everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.

 Or perhaps Cicero is more apropos:

The evil was not bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies for the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never achieve.

The consuls and the Senate handed out just about everything in the Roman Republic, except when a dictator was appointed, and not the "people" as we would understand that word, so Juvenal may be said to exaggerate.  Also, the real people may have been more concerned with their bellies then than now.  But we love entertainment as much if not more than the people of Rome did, although they were less adverse to the sight of blood and death than we are, as a rule, except as portrayed in TV and movies and, of course, video games.  And, if the "bread" referred to by these ancient writers is thought of broadly as securing continued life, in a more or less comfortable condition, I think there is something analogous involved.

Personal security and self-satisfaction seem of particular concern to us now.  Provided we're not interfered with, called upon to do things we need not do (particularly for others), and are reassured with some frequency that our way of life is proper and indeed admirable, we're content.  We're perfectly happy if someone else makes the important decisions.  It bothers many of us not at all.  We resent having to make such decisions and, worse yet, having to think about what's involved in making them.

We particularly resent any implication that we can or should be better than we are or that there are others less fortunate than we are, who should be given assistance.  That makes us very angry.  We fear the less fortunate, and being selfish we are suspicious that that they're selfish too, and so envy us and wish us harm.  We want security, sameness and salvation from the perceived evils of others and the world at large.  We want a leader who thinks as we do, and will protect us from those who don't.