The Final Solution: Freddy's Dead?

 Freddy Kueger (Robert Englund)

"The Cost of Trump’s Aid Freeze in the Trenches of Ukraine’s War,"NYT, 10/24/19 "Trump’s Syria Troop Withdrawal Complicated Plans for al-Baghdadi Raid,"NYT, 10/27/19 are two recent headlines. Besides the concerns about domestic policy mixing with foreign affairs, the first story continues suspicions of an unholy alliance between Trump and Putin. But what about the mission which lead to the killing of the ISIS leader? In a sense there’s no rationale for the withdrawal of the troops.That's what’s upsetting. It’s almost comforting to look at Trump as a mastermind, concocting elaborate machinations in comparison to the other suggestion that there’s no method to the madness. It’s like the difference between murder #1 and second-degree murder or manslaughter. The lack of premeditation is cause for concern. Conspiracy theories reek of purpose, but what seems to be emerging is the idea that the President should get a DWI since he’s like a drunken driver en route to a head-on collision with every policy his predecessor ever created. NAFTA, Globalism, DACA, Paris environmental accord, Iran nuclear agreement, transgender bathrooms. "Trump Administration Considers a Drastic Cut In Refugees Allowed to Enter U.S.," NYT, 9/6/19 was a story from The Times which could have been a satire from The Onion. It’s all like one of those horror movies where the killer is constantly returning to reek havoc. Is Trump really the Lord of Misrule, a Freddy Krueger character who returns to attack Americans in their dreams?

The Final Solution: Getting With the Program

Black Standard used by ISIL

Many states have outlawed conversion therapies for minors ("Colorado Bans 'Conversion Therapy' for Minors," NYT, 6/1/19), a move that reflects a broader understanding and acceptance of gender and sexuality, in all its forms. But what about terrorism? What if your child’s a terrorist and went off to join the Caliphate? Now that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed, there will undoubtedly be an influx of ISIS members seeking to return to their countries of origin ("Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS Leader Known For His Brutality, Is Dead 48," NYT, 10/27/19). In American Pastoral, Philip Roth’s emblematic central figure Seymour, “Swede” Lvov, has a daughter who’s a 60s style radical responsible for a bombing in which someone has been killed. Once a pickle, no longer a cucumber. There’s no turning back, at least in the case of poor Swede.  He will never get his daughter back--at least the ideal that once existed in his imagination. That’s the problem with millenarian ideologies, they’re the incubus or succubus that sexually implants itself into their hosts. It’s all a little like the horror classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers in which people became inhabited by pods. The fictional condition actually has an analogue in neurology, Capgras Syndrome, where imposters appear to be inhabiting an otherwise familiar seeming person. "Nxivm: How a Sex Cult Leader Seduced and Programmed His Followers," (NYT, 6/14/19), ran The Times headline, detailing the machinations of Keith Raniere. ISIS plainly has no monopoly on violently transformative behavior. On a mass scale the Cultural Revolution in China and the genocide that occurred in Cambodia under Pol Pot illustrate the powerful hold of ideology which can turn the relatives and friends you thought you knew into a frightening strangers.

The Final Solution: The Return of the Living Dead

Trump is one of the most reviled presidents in the history of the country. Is he hated as much as Nixon was, or Clinton who was hated by those who hated him (like apparently Lindsay Graham) or for that matter Andrew Johnson, the only other president besides Clinton who was formally impeached. Anecdotally it appears that Trump may be abhorred by his opponents more than say Clinton or Nixon. John Hinkley shot Reagan and of course there was the Kennedy assassination. There are many people who wish Trump would face a similar fate. The only problem is that it opens up alternately a Pandora’s Box or hornet’s nest. For example, if Trump is no more you have Pence, who could conceivably be worse, since he doesn’t possess an almost humanizing narcissistic disorder and could conceivably be more effective than Trump ever was. In addition, killing  has become a viral matter. The population should definitely be inoculated against murdering presidents (or anyone else) for fear that murder is an equal opportunity employer. Would that Trump were like the Wicked Witch of the West whose Kryptonite was water! However, you have to feel sorry for a president whose vulnerability may lie in his impregnable veneer. He's like the vampire in the horror film that keeps waking up from the dead and breaking out of his coffin. Now the Justice Department is initiating a criminal investigation into what inspired its own inquiries into Russian meddling in the 2016 election ("Justice Dept. Is Said to Open Criminal Inquiry Into Its Own Russia Investigation,"NYT, 10/24/19). People hate Trump all the more because he keeps coming back, like a fighter who taunts his opponents into exhaustion. Sounds like Mohammed Ali doesn’t it? If Ali heard himself compared to Trump, he’d probably turn over or even rise from his grave.

Stuffed

Remember the dioramas in the Museum of Natural History, where nature and in particular Mesozoic era creatures come alive. That’s a starting point for understanding Erin Derham’s Stuffed. Currently playing through Tuesday at Film Forum, the movie deals with the art of taxidermy, something between lepidoptery of the kind that Nabokov practiced and serial murder. As portrayed in the movie taxidermy is everything from a commercial practice to an art, but it involves an odd congeries of aspirations since there are down home taxidermy conventions in which talent is judged and practitioners who exist in a higher of realm of endeavor. “Once it dies,” one practitioner remarks about the process, “you have a relatively short window of opportunity to do anything to it.” This can be a relatively complex matter since it involves rendering the personality of the animal. Lonesome George was the last of a line of Pinta Island tortoises. Capturing certain quirks which apparently included the passive aggressive quality of his character was an essential element in immortalizing his form. Most of the taxidermists interviewed in the film are animal lovers though one  makes the show stopping comment that “hunters are the greatest conservationists.” Food for thought? For instance, the one anecdote used to describe Carl Akeley, who fathered the discipline, relates to his strangling a leopard with his bare hands. As depicted in Stuffed, taxidermy is a subculture filled with enthusiasts united by what at times seems like a perverse obsession. There are by the way specialties like "cryptozoological taxidermy", which involves the creation of quasi-chimeras, and "Victorian taxidermy." In its heyday, the latter made fashion statements that resulted in the eradication of certain species.

Death Mask

"Death and the Maiden" by Hans Sebald Beham (Art Institute of Chicago)

So called Narcissism is a normal part of human personality. Who's going to love you, if you can’t love yourself? Of course, the kind of narcissistic grandiosity that leads to feelings of impregnability is a perversion, simply because it’s not true. Joshua may have fought the battle of Jericho, but one man can’t hold back an army. Narcissism can also lead to feelings of specialness and the idea that the normal rules that inure to everyone else no longer are applicable. One of these is the fact of death. Literally everyone maintains the secret hope and wish that they’re different, that no matter how many times they tempt fate by admitting their own mortality, they secretly hone to the notion that their intonations of acceptance will somehow exonerate them, making them the exception that will free them from their fate. Day after day as age brings generations closer to those who will fall before them, both fear and denial are at work. Like micro-aggression, human beings experience successive mini traumas as they realize they’re next in line, while at the same time battling the reality with the endorphin rush produced as the mind goes into shock and ignites overactive defense mechanisms. By definition, everyone thinks they’re different. You will harbor the wish and hope you’ll be spared right up until the last minute of your dying day—until the legacy of your once living self is simply a death mask. 

The History of Philosophy

"The School of Athens" by Raphael (1509-10)

You’re not going to ask if reality is a subjective fantasy when a car is coming right at you. Solipsism is an aristocrat who lives in a ivory tour occupied by those who have the leisure to contemplate such matters. Deontology or moral philosophy illustrated by Kant’s categorical imperative may come in handy in everyday life. Do the ends justify the means is a question that falls into this category and it’s something you might find yourself asking in a situation where you’re determined to win at any costs. At what point does the immoral way in which something is done color or tarnish the result? If you’re a phenomenologist like Husserl, Heidegger or Merleau-Ponty, you’re going to be thinking about intention. Here subjectivity rears its head again, but not in terms of whether things exist. Rather it’s a matter of how one perceives them. Individuals have intention toward objects which shapes their idea of them, whereas inanimate objects like tables and chairs, which don’t think, just exist. Sometimes the idea of being a piece of furniture or say a wallflower can be appealing, particularly if there's a hurricane in the offing and you don’t have to worry about your fate—which, if you’re a piece of porch furniture, may be in flying off the patio. How many angels can dance on the top of a pin was a famous question posed by the medieval philosophers? However, don’t forget Buridan’s ass the unique situation, named after a 14th century French philosopher, of an animal dying since it cannot decide whether it wants to eat or drink. It’s by the way reminiscent of “Zeno’s paradox” about Achilles and the tortoise from the Eliatic school of pre-Socratic philosophy (and don't forget the Milesian School, Heraclitus, Anaximander and Thales, who argued the opposite position, that the world is in flux). Of course Achilles is going to beat the tortoise, just like the ass is going to eat his Wheaties, but the impossible situations in which creatures find themselves is always a pretext for conjecture.  

Homo Peleton

Peleton on Amazon

This is the heyday for people who aren’t going anywhere. Peleton the spinning company epitomizes this stay at home mentality since it provides the illusion that you're in a bike race with others while not forcing its patrons to so much as attend classes in a gym. Retail is dead and most people acquire their wardrobes and practically everything else on Amazon which was once better known as the name of the famous rainforest in Brazil. It remains unclear why you would need much in the way of clothing by the way, if you’re not going out, but that poses another question: is fashion dead? There are undoubtedly couples who connected on dating sites, but have never actually met. There may even be those who have gotten married on line and have yet to meet. Remember those Neanderthals (Johns) who bought and sold sex (streetwalkers) on the corner. Now you go to chat rooms with live webcams. You don’t have to go anywhere or physical engage another human being for sex. Thinking of a vacation? Why not try virtual reality or a simulated universe like Second Life, which can all be accessed on your laptop (if you don't feel like getting out of bed)? Surely even hot spots like Club Hedonism, with only a slim connection to reality to begin with, must be considering franchises in the virtual reality universe. There are many pluses about going outside, particularly on a beautiful day when the sun is shining, but they’re outweighed by the potential inconvenience of being mowed down by killers armed with semi-automatics, particularly if you make the stupid mistake of deciding to go to the mall.