Humanism

Laura Loomer (photo: Gage Skidmore)

Is the whole humanistic project shot? During the last election, you may have started to hear angry town halls in red states where democracy itself was questioned. The economy in fact is still the big issue (though the fact of its continuing decline does unleash the irrational element ofTrump's base remaining loyal despite the adverse affect on their pocket books). Democracy was up until recently a source of pride for most Americans. However concepts like "due process" and "inalienable rights" can be sophisticated and hard to grasp. Along with the discountenancing of ideals has come a skepticism about institutions such as universities which by their very nature propose a liberal aka humanistic agenda. How far away the disciplines of english and sociology still less intellectual history appear in this era. The ivory tower, where campus life provided an oasis from the world, has become discredited  Along with the New Deal and The Great Society, which were arguably products of academia, the great ideas of the Enlightenment have been thrown by the wayside. A new Dark Ages looms where knowledge itself is being undermined by quackery, mysticism and unverifiable conspiracy theories (the purge of the NSC propagated by Laura Loomer being the most recent example). Repetition and insistence are the organizing principles of this new tautological reality. 

read "An Incident of Defenestration" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Is Trump Caligula or Caligari? Caligari could have picked his cabinet. His executive orders intentionally take aim at literally every humane governmental intervention of the past 50 years. Indeed, vengeance seems to be the overarching mandate of this second Trump presidency. Would Bob Guccione have made a movie about him using Access Hollywood as a starting point? But the Dark Ages also come to mind. There's Laura Loomer and QAnon against the background of a plague. On a daily basis one gasps at the latest impossibility ie voodoo economics, book burning and the repudiation of science. Humankind has devolved to an earlier more primitive state where war to quote Clausewitz is a definition of diplomacy. Where is my Roy Cohen? was title of a film taken from a Trump quote. Remember Camelot and The Great Society?This is the age of a presidential advisor who walks around with a chainsaw, Steve Bannon, Tucker Carllson,  a pillow manufacturer named Mike Lindell (creating his own mathematics) and a Vice President who charges refugees with eating pets. 

Question of the day: Will Trump be reincarnated as a caddy?

Liberation Day

Trump should be given credit. He has joined the exclusive club of tyrants who were capable of annihilating civilizations. MAGA Republicans are the Visigoths plundering Rome. Trump is Alaric. What is occurring is nothing left than the destruction of modern Western values (including Democracy) and culture. It turns out he is the most effective proxy the militant face of multiculturalism has ever had. Pete Hegseth should be cast in a remake of Fahrenheit 451. The National Council For the Humanities and Arts have been destroyed in one fell swoop, along with the Kennedy Center for which Trump has appointed himself director. Genghis Khan, Attila, Alexander the Great. Later Hitler and Stalin, Kim Jung-un and Idi Amin would simply murder. Remember the Nazi show of "Degenerate Art" in l937? "Liberation Day" day augurs not only the destruction of free trade, but the corpus of legal structures and mandates that allow for the seamless functioning of the judiciary, legislative and executive branches of government. 

read "An Incident of Defenestration" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

King Kong

(1933)

There are psychodynamic parallels to geopolitical actions. Irredentism/reconstitution, isolationism/defensiveness. The MAGA zeitgeist is that of King Kong brandishing the struggling Fay Wray while threatening to takedown the Empire State, literally and metaphorically. Imperial America a notion Retrumplicans now share with Putenescas reflects the urge to colonize. Both the T and P words are unabashed in their desire to annex. The notion of Canada as the 51st state started as a joke. Now Greenland and Panama have both been thrown into the kettle. The Empire Strikes Back is a good title for this movie. Under Gorbachev and Perestroika, Russia became a wounded giant which is exactly how Trump portrays the US ie as the laughing stock of NATO--this latter having taken advantage of their powerful ally’s good will. To Trump the US is a fat cat other countries lean on. It’s not the first time a paranoid view of the world has provided the springboard to tyranny. In the next episode of The Man in the High Castle,Trump and Xi Jinping take over Taiwan, dividing the spoils into East and West Berlin.

read "An Incident of Defenestration" by Francis Levy, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

and listen to "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" sung by Luciano Pavarotti and James Brown

Shen Yun

Peyronnie's, 1-800-Cars-For-Kids and Mesothelioma ads are being muscled out by Shen Yun. There are not only ads filled with testaments from dickheads who just love the dance troop but also ads countering the criticisms of Shen Yun, a Falun Gong spin off with dubious labor practices. BTW the ads are for performances at Lincoln Center. What is going on? What was it Joseph N. Welch, the lawyer for the Army once said at the McCarthy hearings, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" It would be funny if Shen Yun was connected to Pizzagate and QAnon. And what about Peter Hegseth, Mike Waltz and Signalgate? Should it be considered free speech to have generals letting the enemy know attack plans? It's a topsy turvy world, but you'd think Ro Sparks, the latest erection enhancer, composed of both Cialis and Viagra, in the way an H bomb has an A-bomb warhead, would push Shen Yun out of the airwaves. If Shen Yun is a "must see," then Ro Sparks is just a plain "must." Remember Vance Packard's The Hidden Persuader's, which unlocked the secrets of the 50s Mad Men? It's surprising Xi Jinping is spending so much time and energy on Taiwan when it's Shen Yun that's the imminent threat to the Communist Party.

read "Never Brush Again" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star

Comment of the day: "Duke, Duke, Duke..."

The Inferno

"The Map of Hell" by Sandro Botticelli

Death is painless unless of course you're Dante and believe in hell. Hell is other people is the famed Sartre iteration, but that's not the problem with the Underworld which sounds like it may be a liquid suspension. Broiling in oil is not just a very hot tub you endure with other sufferers. There’s no strength in numbers when it comes to misery. Solitary is the vigorish Satan gets. Buy let’s say you're an Epicurean or a follower of Lucretius who believes only in the present. Dying is anesthesia. You may try to catch the moment you lose consciousness, but you’re out before you've had a chance to let go. So take your pick. Suffer alone while retaining a muted form of consciousness or it’s simply lights out. In either case you've lost your voting rights.

Question of the day: Knock fucking knock...knock, knock...knock, knock, knock...knock, knock, knock, knock

Soren Kierkegaard's Die Hard With a Vengeance

Die Hard With a Vengeance was the third of the series starring Bruce Willis. "Die Hard" sounds a little like Fear and Trembling.  Epicureanism has become the existential condition du jour with the help of Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve, which popularized Lucretius’ De Rorem Natura. Taking away the Christian notion of the afterlife is the basic premise from which the great poem begins. But the thing about philosophical premises is they're hard to interpret and even harder to live by. Heidegger said that those who were not aware of death led an inauthentic existence. But death itself is open to interpretation. Batteries die, but how does that compare to organic matter, consciousness? Epicurus who shared Lucretius' stoicism  believed in “the golden mean.” Living in the present was not a  invitation to gluttony. Where does pleasure fit in? And what about pain? Is suffering itself optional, as the saying goes?

Questions of the day: Knock knock? Who's there?