I have avoided being snarky about Palin as much as possible. I have tried to take her seriously, and give her credit even when it is not due. But this snark about fruit flies is over the top, beyond the pale. And really betrays ignorance that is no longer funny and rather quite frightening.
What is so unnerving about the statement is not so much the idea that she wants to repeal a specific earmark, but rather the dismissive nature of her tone and the self righteous indignation she conveys about a subject she knows so little about. It shows just how arbitrary and capricious she would be as a political leader.
I just wish she would actually learn about the things she belittles. She just might learn how important fruit flies are to helping us to understand the inner workings of “all of god’s children”.
I have been reading a short philosophical tract by William Hazlitt, On the Pleasure of Hating. A relevant passage for our times:
The pleasure of hating, like a poisonous mineral, eats into the heart of religion, and turns it to rankling spleen and bigotry; it makes patriotism an excuse for carrying fire, pestilence, and famine into other lands: it leaves to virtue nothing but the spirit of censoriousness, and a narrow, jealous, inquisitorial watchfulness over actions and motives of others. What have the different sects, creeds, doctrines in religion been but so many pretexts set up for men to wrangle, to quarrel, to tear one another in pieces about, like a target as a mark to shoot at? Does any one suppose that the love of country in an Englishman implies any friendly feeling or disposition to serve another, bearing the same name? No, it means only hatred to the French, or the inhabitants of any other country that we happen to be at war with for the time. Does the love of virtue denote any wish to discover or amend our own faults? No, but it atones for an obstinate adherence to our own vices by the most virulent intolerance to human frailties. This principle is of a most universal application. It extends to good as well as evil: if it makes us hate folly, it makes us no less dissatisfied with distinguished merit. If it inclines us to resent the wrongs of other, it impels us to be as impatient of their prosperity. We revenge injuries: we repay benefits with ingratitude. Even our strongest partialities and likings soon take this turn. ‘That which was lush as locusts, anon becomes bitter as coloquintida’; and love and friendship melt in their own fires. We hate old friends: we hate old books: we hate old opinions; and at last we come to hate ourselves.
This statement should go into any public record as a comment on the legacy of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kristol, and all the other neocon liars that we have suffered in this nation over the last several years.
Where this will end? In the Abyss, one may prophesy; whither all Delusions are, at all moments, travelling; where this Delusion has now arrived.
For if there be a Faith, from of old, it is this, as we often repeat, that no Lie can live forever.
The very Truth has to change its vesture, from time to time; and be born again. But all Lies have sentence of death written down against them, in Heaven’s Chancery itself; and, slowly or fast, advance incessantly towards their hour.
~Thomas Carlyle
I have a confession. I have been cynical. Deeply cynical. As a strong holdout for Hillary I have had my doubts about Obama. Even been reserved in my support. But in the back of my heart I get it, I get the optimism, the guarded hope for the future. This nation has been disrupted and beaten down for so many years. Long before Bush, the spirit of this country was hushed and beaten into a submissive, bitter cynical mode. I stand here now ready to believe in the future. Ready to believe in Obama, ready to believe in the greatness of a nation renewed again.
What has brought me to this? Well it has something to do with these two videos.
I would much rather embrace the spirit of the latter and keep at arms length the spirit of the former.
We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
We shall overcome because Carlyle is right—”No lie can live forever.”
We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right—”Truth, crushed to earth, will rise again.”
We shall overcome because James Russell Lowell is right—
Truth forever on the scaffold,
Wrong forever on the throne.
Yet that scaffold sways the future.
And behind the dim unknown stands God,
Within the shadow keeping watch above his own.
What immediately caught my eye was a photo of Mickey Rourke, brought in on driving under the influence charges. While I have no sympathy for anyone driving while intoxicated, I do find myself compelled by his enigmatic smile.
It betrays an inner peace. Or perhaps he is just “really, really high”. Who knows. But I do think it is a face of a person in control, master of their immediate domain. As a visual contrast take this photo of Kumari Fulbright, a former beauty queen, brought in on kidnaping charges and assaulting her boyfriend with a handgun.
Now obviously I do not know the precise and specific details of either situation, so I am left to read the photos for any additional meaning. And apart from the apparent nihilism of life what I do read is a deep chasm of difference. In the former we have an image of a man who conveys confidence, in the latter we have the visual of an apparently deeply disturbed individual. As a psychological portrait I don’t know which image of Fulbright I find more disturbing. The deeply troubled and traumatized girl on the left who obviously is under duress, or the gun toting soon to be trainwreck on the right. And I find myself moved to an emotion of pity and simultaneous urge to keep that kind of force away at arms length. As for Mickey Rourke I have always held a certain inexplicable contempt but nonetheless grudging respect for. This is in no small part due to his over the top portrayal in the film Barfly, based on Charles Bukowski’s work. Despite Mickey Rourke’s performance, it was one of the most memorable movies I have ever seen.
So what kind of conclusion does any of this lead to? None really, only a logical nihilism that looking at any photo must provide. Only affect. I am not there, I am not that which I see. A photograph is a hollow kind of being, into which we pour our own meaning. But I am lead to conclusions nonetheless. I am lead to a thought about the fragility of life, and the tenuous psychological fabric that either holds us together or tears us apart. In the two photos I find a most remarkable contrast, I don’t think there could be more opposite responses to having one’s mug shot taken. In one we find life in the other death. One conveys a spirit of affirmation, the other a spirit of total destruction and sense of panic as one confronts the void. Both serve as a model of how one can conduct one’s life and the emotions we may lay bare when we face consequences of our conduct. But the story is universal. Our life is our life and we may some day be held to account for our action. And in that moment we will have a choice. A fleeting moment before the camera or the gaze of others in which we can try to explain who and what we are and what belies our inner nature. And in this moment we can either affirm or negate. Will you greet it with an enigmatic smile or a spectacle of trauma? Strength or weakness? Hope or doubt? For how we make that choice is the key to our redemption. Our life is our life, and what we make of it is ours. We can confront it with an inner laughter or despair. The rest is truly meaningless. Because it is only in our choice that redemption comes forth.
Of course Charles Bukowski put it a little more poetically:
I always liked the phrase “conventional wisdom zombie” that Arianna Huffington and other bloggers have used to attack the mindlessness of the MSM. I recently stumbled across a related quote from the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith:
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
Of course there are others in the past who looked with great skepticism on the idea of “public opinion” which is a relatively modern invention. The philosopher Kierkegaard for example had a very negative view of the press and its role in shaping this notion of public opinion. He viewed it as a leveling force in society.
In order that everything should be reduced to the same level, it is first of all necessary to produce a phantom, its spirit a monstrous abstraction…and that phantom is the Public.
I just bought Dylan’s Bootleg Series Vol. 8 and I must say it was one of those perfect purchases. The music just comes shining through in all its subtle glory. There are many delightful alternate versions of several recent Dylan classics including “Mississippi” and “Most of the Time“. The net effect of this album for me is that it puts me at ease. With the world on fire as it seems to be this not an emotion that is easy to come by. But Dylan delivers and it has been good for my psychological state of mind and my adjustment to the unravelling we are witnessing all around us. At the moment I have a guarded optimism about the future, but also a heavy feeling that it is going to take a lot work to put it all back together.
The end result is that I feel at ease “most of the time”.
Most of the Time
My head is on straight
Most of the Time
I am strong enough not to hate
I got enough faith I got enough strength
I keep it all away way beyond arms length
I can smile in the face of mankind…
Most of the time.
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