Review: Glass Onion

A few years ago, Knives Out (2019) unexpectedly solidified the revival of the whodunit and introduced its modern-day master sleuth: Benoit Blanc. The primary appeal of the whodunit has always been smartly constructed plots that unfold slowly and culminate in a final reveal or unmasking that invites readers to reread in search of missed clues. The two early masters of this category of genre fiction were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie, both succeeding in making their fictional detectives iconic. Others followed their examples, though the genre arguably shifted onto (into?) the TV with shows such as Perry Mason, Columbo, and Murder She Wrote. No surprise, Hollywood transformed what might have been a one-and-done story into the beginnings of a franchise, following up Knives Out with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (subtitle displayed unnecessarily to ensure audiences make the connection — wouldn’t a better subtitle be A Benoit Blanc Mystery?). Both movies are entertaining enough to justify munching some popcorn in the dark but neither observes the conventions of the genre — novel, TV, or film — any too closely. Spoilers ahead.

I harbor a sneaking suspicion that Benoit Blanc is actually a bumbling fool the way poor, rumpled Columbo only pretended to be. Although I can’t blame Daniel Craig for taking roles that allow him to portray someone other than James Bond, Craig is badly miscast and adopts a silly Southern accent others complain sounds laughably close to Foghorn Leghorn. (Craig was similarly miscast in the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but that’s an entirely different, unwritten review.) So long as Blanc is a nitwit, I suppose the jokey accent provides some weak characterization and enjoyment. Problem is, because the film is only superficially a whodunit, there is no apparent crime to solve after Blanc figures out the staged murder mystery (sorta like an escape room) just after the vacation weekend gets started but before the faux murder even occurs. Kinda ruins the momentum. As a result, the film digresses to a lengthy flashback to establish the real crime that Blanc is there to solve. Maybe good mystery novels have partial reveals in the middle, reframing the entire mystery. I dunno but rather doubt it.

The plot is by no means tightly knit or clever as a whodunit normally demands. Rather, it employs lazy, pedestrian devices that irritate as much as entertain. Such as one of the characters (the real murdered character) having an identical twin who substitutes herself for the dead one; such as trapping attendees on a remote island without servants or transportation but largely ignoring their suggested captivity; such as uncovering an orgy of evidence better suited to misdirection and framing of an innocent; such as mixing faux violence with real violence, though none of the characters appears even modestly afraid at any point; such as bullets being fortuitously stopped by items in a breast pocket; such as sleuthing and detecting — done by the twin, not Blanc! — being presented in a montage of coinkidinks that demonstrate more luck than skill. I could go on. The worst cinematic trick is reprising scenes in flashback but altered to insert clues viewers would have noticed initially. Those aren’t reveals; they’re revisions. Moreover, instead of inviting viewers to rewatch, this gimmick jams supposedly unnoticed clues down their throats. How insulting. If Benoit Blanc is really an overconfident, dandified nincompoop, I suppose it’s better and more convenient (for bad storytelling) to be lucky than good. He doesn’t solve anything; he’s just there to monologue incessantly.

The weekend party is hosted by a character patterned after … oh never mind, you know who. I decline to provide the name of that real-life narcissist. Members of the entourage are mostly sycophants, originally good friends but later ruined in different ways by proximity to a hyper-successful fraud. As a group, they’re known as The Shitheads, which just about sums it up. Critics have observed a shift in entertainment toward depicting super-wealthy pretty people as heels of the highest order. Not sure what makes that entertaining exactly. I enjoy no Schadenfreude witnessing the high and mighty brought low, much as they may deserve it. It’s just another lazy cliché (like its inverse: the dignity of the downtrodden everyman a/k/a the noble savage) trotted out in the absence of better ideas.

Thomas Sowell the Closer

In sales and marketing (as I understand them), one of the principal techniques to close a sale is to generate momentum by getting the prospective mark buyer to agree to a series of minor statements (small sells) leading to the eventual purchasing decision (the big sell or final sale). It’s narrow to broad, the reverse of the broad-to-narrow paragraph form many of us were taught in school. Both organizational forms proceed through assertions that are easy to swallow before getting to the intended conclusion. That conclusion could be either an automotive purchase or adoption of some argument or ideology. When the product, service, argument, or ideology is sold effectively by a skilled salesman or spin doctor narrative manager, that person may be recognized as a closer, as in sealing the deal.

Many learn to recognize the techniques of the presumptive closer and resist being drawn in too easily. One of those techniques is to reframe the additional price of something as equivalent to, say, one’s daily cup of coffee purchased at some overpriced coffee house. The presumption is that if one has the spare discretionary income to buy coffee every day, then one can put that coffee money instead toward a higher monthly payment. Suckers might fall for it — even if they don’t drink coffee — because the false equivalence is an easily recognized though bogus substitution. The canonical too-slick salesman no one trusts is the dude on the used car lot wearing some awful plaid jacket and sporting a pornstache. That stereotype, borne out of the 1970s, barely exists anymore but is kept alive by repetitive reinforcement in TV and movies set in that decade or at least citing the stereotype for cheap effect (just as I have). But how does one spot a skilled rhetorician, spewing social and political hot takes to drive custom narratives? Let me identify a few markers.

Thomas Sowell penned a brief article entitled “Point of No Return.” I surmise (admitting my lack of familiarity) that creators.com is a conservative website, which all by itself does not raise any flags. Indeed, in heterodox fashion, I want to read well reasoned arguments with which I may not always agree. My previous disappointment that Sowell fails in that regard was only reinforced by the linked article. Take note that the entire article uses paragraphs that are reduced to bite-sized chunks of only one or two sentences. Those are small sells, inviting closure with every paragraph break.

Worse yet, only five (small) paragraphs in, Sowell succumbs to Godwin’s Law and cites Nazis recklessly to put the U.S. on a slippery slope toward tyranny. The obvious learned function of mentioning Nazis is to trigger a reaction, much like baseless accusations of racism, sexual misconduct, or baby eating. It puts everyone on the defensive without having to demonstrate the assertion responsibly, which is why the first mention of Nazis in argument is usually sufficient to disregard anything else written or said by the person in question. I might have agreed with Sowell in his more general statements, just as conservatism (as in conservation) appeals as more and more slips away while history wears on, but after writing “Nazi,” he lost me entirely (again).

Sowell also raises several straw men just to knock them down, assessing (correctly or incorrectly, who can say?) what the public believes as though there were monolithic consensus. I won’t defend the general public’s grasp of history, ideological placeholders, legal maneuvers, or cultural touchstones. Plenty of comedy bits demonstrate the deplorable level of awareness of individual members of society like they were fully representative of the whole. Yet plenty of people pay attention and accordingly don’t make the cut when offering up idiocy for entertainment. (What fun, ridiculing fools!) The full range of opinion on any given topic is not best characterized by however many idiots and ignoramuses can be found by walking down the street and shoving a camera and mic in their astonishingly unembarrassed faces.

So in closing, let me suggest that, in defiance of the title of this blog post, Thomas Sowell is in fact not a closer. Although he drops crumbs and morsels gobbled up credulously by those unable to recognize they’re being sold a line of BS, they do not make a meal. Nor should Sowell’s main point, i.e., the titular point of no return, be accepted when his burden of proof has not been met. That does not necessary mean Sowell is wrong in the sense that even a stopped close tells the time correctly twice a day. The danger is that even if he’s partially correction some of the time, his perspective and program (nonpartisan freedom! whatever that may mean) must be considered with circumspection and disdain. Be highly suspicious before buying what Sowell is selling. Fundamentally, he’s a bullshit artist.

Pocket Reality, pt. 1

/rant on

The ongoing epistemological crisis is getting no aid or relief from the chattering classes. Case in point: the Feb. 2021 issue of Harper’s Magazine has a special supplement devoted to “Life after Trump,” which divides recent history neatly into reality and unreality commencing from either the announcement of Trump’s candidacy, his unexpected success in the Republican primaries, his even less expected election (and inauguration), or now his removal from office following electoral defeat in Nov. 2020. Take your pick which signals the greatest deflection from history’s “proper” course before being derailed into a false trajectory. Charles Yu and Olivia Laing adopt the reality/unreality dichotomy in their contributions to the special supplement. Yu divides (as do many others) the nation into us and them: supporters of a supposed departure from reality/sanity and those whose clear perception penetrates the illusion. Laing bemoans the inability to distinguish fiction and fantasy from truth, unreality masquerading as your truth, my truth, anyone’s truth given repetition and persuasion sufficient to make it stick. Despite familiarity with these forced, unoriginal metaphors, I don’t believe them for a moment. Worse, they do more to encourage siloed thinking and congratulate the “Resistance” for being on the putative correct side of the glaringly obvious schism in the voting populace. Their arguments support a false binary, perpetuating and reinforcing a distorted and decidedly unhelpful interpretation of recent history. Much better analyses than theirs are available.

So let me state emphatically: like the universe, infinity, and oddly enough consciousness, reality is all-encompassing and unitary. Sure, different aspects can be examined separately, but the whole is nonetheless indivisible. Reality is a complete surround, not something one can opt into or out of. That doesn’t mean one’s mind can’t go elsewhere, either temporarily or permanently, but that does not create or constitute an alternate reality. It’s merely dissociation. Considering the rather extreme limitations of human perceptual apparatuses, it’s frankly inevitable that each of us occupies a unique position, an individual perspective, within a much, much (much, much …) larger reality. Add just a couple more axes to the graph below for time (from nanoseconds to eons) and physical scale (from subatomic to cosmic), and the available portion of reality anyone can grasp is clearly infinitesimally small, yet that tiny, tiny portion is utterly everything for each individual. It’s a weird kind of solipsism.

I get that Harper’s is a literary magazine and that writers/contributors take advantage of the opportunity to flex for whatever diminishing readership has the patience to actually finish their articles. Indeed, in the course of the special supplement, more than a few felicitous concepts and turns of phase appeared. However, despite commonplace protestations, the new chief executive at the helm of the ship of state has not in fact returned the American scene to normal reality after an awful but limited interregnum.

Aside: Citizens are asked to swallow the whopper that the current president, an elder statesman, the so-called leader of the free world, is in full control of this faculties. Funny how his handlers repeatedly erupt like a murder of crows at the first suggestion that a difficult, unvetted question might be posed, inviting the poor fellow to veer even slightly off the teleprompter script. Nope. Lest yet another foot-in-mouth PR disaster occur (too many already to count), he’s whisked away, out of range of cameras and mics before any lasting damage can be done. Everyone is supposed to pretend this charade is somehow normal. On the other hand, considering how many past presidents were plainly puppets, spokespersons, or charlatans (or at least denied the opportunity to enact an agenda), one could argue that the façade is normal. “Pay no attention to the man [or men] behind the curtain. I am the great and powerful Wizard of Oz!”

With some dismay, I admit that the tiny sliver of reality to which many attend incessantly is an even smaller subset of reality, served up via small, handheld devices that fit neatly in one’s pocket. One could say theirs is a pocket reality, mostly mass media controlled by Silicon Valley platforms and their censorious algorithms. Constrained by all things digital, and despite voluminous ephemera, that reality bears little resemblance to what digital refuseniks experience without the blue glare of screens washing all the color from their faces and their own authentic thoughts out of their heads. Instead, I recommend getting outside, into the open air and under the warm glow of the yellow sun, to experience life as an embodied being, not as a mere processor of yet someone else’s pocket reality. That’s how we all start out as children before getting sucked into the machine.

Weirdly, only when the screen size ramps up to 30 feet tall do consumers grow skeptical and critical of storytelling. At just the moment cinema audiences are invited to suspend disbelief, the Reality Principle and logic are applied to character, dialogue, plotting, and make-believe gadgetry, which often fail to ring true. Why does fiction come under such careful scrutiny while reality skates right on by, allowing the credulous to believe whatever they’re fed?

/rant off

The Cheerleaders, pt. 1

The famous lyric goes “haters gonna hate.” That reflexive structure is equivalent to the meaningless phrase “It is what it is.” Subtexts attach to these phrases, and they take on lives of their own, after a fashion, with everyone pretending to know precisely what is intended and meant. That was the lesson, by the way, of the phrase “Stupid is as stupid does,” made up precisely to confound bullies who were making fun of someone of apparently limited capacity. In light of these commonplace rhetorical injunctions to actual thought, it is unsurprising that practitioners of various endeavors would be revealed as cheerleaders and self-promoters (sometimes rabidly so) for their own passion projects. With most activities, however, one can’t XX about XX, as in sport about sports, music about music, or cook about cooking. If one plays sports, makes music, or cooks, exemplary results are identifiable easily enough, but promotion on behalf of those results, typically after the fact but sometimes in the midst of the activity (i.e., sports commentary), takes place within the context of language. The two major exceptions I can identify are (1) politicking about politics and (2) writing about writing, both heavily laden with speech. (A third example, which I won’t explore, might be celebrating celebrities. Ugh.)

Of the first example I have little to say except that it’s so miserably, ugly, and venal that only politicians, policy wonks, political junkies, and campaign strategists (now full-time political strategists considering campaigns never end) derive much joy or energy from the reflexive trap. The rest of us prefer to think as little as possible about the entirely corrupt nature of political institutions and the associated players. The second example, however, is arguably an inborn feature of writing that still commands attention. Writers writing about writing might be typically understood as fiction writers revealing their processes. A recent example is J.K. Rowling, who leapt from obscurity to international fame in one bound and now offers writing tips (mainly plotting) to aspirants. An older example is Mark Twain, whose recommendation to ward off verbosity is something I practice (sometimes with limited success). Writers writing about writing now extends to journalists, whose self-reflection never seem to wear thin as the famous ones become brands unto themselves (perhaps even newsworthy in their own right). Training attention on themselves (“Look mom, no hands!”) is rather jejune, but again, commonplace. It’s also worth observing that journalists journaling about journalism, especially those who reveal how the proverbial sausage is made (e.g., Matt Taibbi and his book Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another (2019)), are essentially self-cannibalizing (much like celebrities).

What strikes me lately is how many writers, journalists, and commentators (probably includes bloggers like me — bloggers blogging about blogging) have become cheerleaders for the media in which they work, which is especially true of those who have abandoned legacy media in favor of newer platforms to connect with readerships and/or audiences. Extolling the benefits of the blog is already passé, but the shift over to podcasting and YouTube/TikToc channels, accompanied by testimonial about how great are attributes of the new medium, has passed beyond tiresome now that so many are doing it. Print journalists are also jumping ship from legacy publications, mostly newspapers and magazines, to digital publishing platforms such as Medium, Revue, and Substack. Some create independent newsletters. Broadcast journalists are especially keen on YouTube. A fair bit of incestuous crossover occurs as well, as media figures interview each other endlessly. Despite having restricted my media diet due to basic distrust of the legacy media in particular, I still award a lot of attention to a few outlets I determined deserve my attention and are sometimes even trustworthy. Or sometimes, they’re just entertaining. I still tune in the stray episode of someone I find infuriating just to check in and reinforce my decision not to return more frequently.

Stopping here and breaking this post into parts because the remainder of the draft was already growing overlong. More to come in part 2.

Words as Violence

Continuing my book-blogging project on Orality and Literacy, Ong provides context for the oral tradition that surrounded the two great Homeric classics: The Iliad and The Odyssey. According to Ong, it took decades for literary critics and sociologists to overcome their bias, borne out of literacy, and recognize how formulaic are the two epics. They are essentially pastiches of commonplace plots, phrases, and sayings of the time, which was a notable strength when oral delivery based on memorization was how epic poetry was transmitted. In a literate era, such clichés are to be avoided (like the plague).

Aside: my review of David Serota’s Back to Our Future mentions the dialect he and his brother developed, filled with one-liners and catchphrases from entertainment media, especially TV and movies. The three-word (also three-syllable) form seems to be optimal: “Beam me up” (Star Trek), “Use the Force” (Star Wars), “Make my day” (Dirty Harry), “I’ll be back” (The Terminator), etc. This construction is short, punchy, and memorable. The first holder of high office in the U.S. to attempt to govern by catchphrase was probably Ronald Reagan, followed (of course) by Arnold Schwarzenegger and then Donald Trump. Mustn’t overlook that all three (and others) came to prominence via the entertainment industry rather than through earnest (Kennedyesque) public service. Trump’s numerous three-word phrases (shtick, really) lend themselves especially well to being chanted by adoring crowds at his pep rallies, swept up in groupthink, with a recognizable beat-beat-beat-(silence) structure. The rock band Queen stumbled upon this same elemental rhythm with its famous stomp-stomp-clap-(wait) from the anthem “We Are the Champions,” consciously intended for audience participation (as I understand it).

Further aside: “We Are the Champions” combines its iconic rhythm with a recitation tone sourced in antiquity. Make of that what you will.

Ong goes on to provide a discussion of the psychodynamics of orality, which I list here without substantive discussion (read for yourself):

• orality is additive rather than subordinative
• orality is aggregative rather than analytic
• orality is redundant or copious
• orality is conservative or traditionalist
• orality is close to the human lifeworld
• orality is agonistically toned
• orality is empathetic and participatory rather than objectively distanced
• orality is homeostatic
• orality is situational rather than abstract

Of particular interest is Ong’s description of how language functions within oral cultures distinctly from literate cultures, which is the source of the bias mentioned above. To wit:

Fully literate persons can only with great difficulty imagine what a primary oral culture is like, that is, a culture with no knowledge whatsoever of writing or even the possibility of writing … In a primary oral culture, the expression ‘to look up something’ is an empty phrase … [w]ithout writing, words as such have no visual presence, even when the objects they represent are visual … [for] ‘primitive’ (oral) people … language is a mode of action and not simply a countersign of thought — oral people commonly, and probably universally, consider words to have great power. [pp. 31–32]

If this sounds conspicuously reminiscent this previous post, well, congratulations on connecting the dots. The whole point, according to a certain perspective, is that words are capable of violence, which is (re)gaining adherents as our mental frameworks undergo continuous revision. It’s no small thing that slurs, insults, and fighting words (again) provoke offense and violent response and that mere verbal offense equates to violence. Not long ago, nasty words were reclaimed, nullified, and thus made impotent (with varying levels of irrational rules of usage). Well, now they sting again and are used as ammo to cancel (a form of administrative violence, often undertaken anonymously, bureaucratically, and with the assistance of the digital mob) anyone with improper credentials to deploy them.

Let me draw another connection. Here’s a curious quote by Walter Pater, though not well known:

All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it.

Put another way, the separation of signifier from signified, an abstraction conditioned by literacy and rationalism (among other things) is removed (“obliterated”) by music, which connects to emotion more directly than representational art. Similarly, speech within primary oral cultures exists purely as sound and possesses an ephemeral, even effervescence (Ong’s term) quality only experienced in the flow of time. (Arguably, all of human experience takes place within the flow of time.) Music and “primitive” speech are accordingly dynamic and cannot be reduced to static snapshots, that is, fixed on a page as text or committed to a canvas or photograph as a still image (hence, the strange term still life). That’s why a three-word, three-syllable chant, or better yet, the Queen rhythm or the Wave in sports arenas (a gesture requiring subscription of everyone), can possess inherent power, especially as individuals are entrained in groupthink. Music and words-as-violence get inside us and are nearly wholly subjective, not objective — something we all experience organically in early childhood before being taught to read and write (if in fact those skills are learned beyond functional literacy). Does that mean culture is reverting to an earlier stage of development, more primitive, childlike, and irrational?

For Sale: Journalistic Integrity

Already widely reported but only just having come to my awareness is an initiative by Rolling Stone to establish a Culture Council: “an Invitation-Only Community of Influencers, Innovatives, and Creatives.” The flattering terms tastemakers and thought leaders are also used. One must presume that submissions will be promotional and propaganda pieces masquerading as news articles. Selling advertising disguised as news is an old practice, but the ad usually has the notation “advertisement” somewhere on the page. Who knows whether submissions will be subject to editorial review?

To be considered for membership, candidates must sit in a senior-level position at a company generating at least $500K in annual revenue or have obtained at least $1M in total institutional funding.

Rolling Stone‘s website doesn’t say it anywhere I can locate, but third-party reports indicate that members pay either a $1,500 annual fee and $500 submission fee (one-time? repeat?) or a flat $2,000 submission fee. Not certain which. Just to be abundantly clear, fees would be paid by the submitter to the magazine, reversing how published content is normally acquired (i.e., by paying staff writers and free lancers). I’d say this move by Rolling Stone is unprecedented, but of course, it’s not. However, it is a more brazen pay-to-play scheme than most and may be a harbinger of even worse developments to come.

Without describing fully how creative content (arts and news) was supported in the past, I will at least observe that prior to the rise of full-time creative professions in the 18th and 19th centuries (those able to scratch out earn a living on commissions and royalties), creative work was either a labor of love/dedication, typically remunerated very poorly if at all, or was undertaken through the patronage of wealthy European monarchs, aristocrats, and religious institutions (at least in the developing West). Unless I’m mistaken, self-sustaining news organizations and magazines came later. More recent developments include video news release and crowd sourcing, the latter of which sometimes accomplished under the pretense of running contests. The creative commons is how many now operative (including me — I’ve refused to monetize my blog), which is exploited ruthlessly by HuffPost (a infotainment source I ignore entirely), which (correct me if wrong) doesn’t pay for content but offers exposure as an inducement to journalists trying to develop a byline and/or audience. Podcasts, YouTube channels, and news sites also offer a variety of subscription, membership, and voluntary patronage (tipping) schemes to pay the bills (or hit it big if an outlier). Thus, business models have changed considerably over time and are in the midst of another major transformation, especially for news-gathering organizations and the music recording industry in marked retreat from their former positions.

Rolling Stone had always been a niche publication specializing in content that falls outside my usual scope of interest. I read Matt Taibbi’s reporting that appeared in Rolling Stone, but the magazine’s imprint (read: reputation) was not the draw. Now that the Rolling Stone is openly soliciting content through paid membership in the Culture Council, well, the magazine sinks past irrelevance to active avoidance.

It’s always been difficult to separate advertising and propaganda from reliable news, and some don’t find it important to keep these categories discrete, but this new initiative is begging to be gamed by motivated PR hacks and self-promoters with sufficient cash to burn. It’s essentially Rolling Stone whoring itself out. Perhaps more worrying is that others will inevitably follow Rolling Stone‘s example and sell their journalistic integrity with similar programs, effectively putting the final nails in their own coffins (via brand self-destruction). The models in this respect are cozy, incestuous relationships between PACs, lobbying groups, think tanks, and political campaigns. One might assume that legacy publications such as Rolling Stone would have the good sense to retain as much of their valuable brand identity as possible, but the relentless force of corporate/capitalist dynamics are corrupting even the incorruptible.

All Cats are Girls, All Dogs are Boys (redux)

Years ago, I broke with my usual themes and styles to offer a listicle, mostly inanities and hyper-irony, which began as follows:

• All cats are girls, all dogs are boys. Everyone knows this from childhood. Additional discussion is moot.

I’m not a good writer of aphorisms, so I haven’t returned to that brief experiment until now. For inspiration, I’m quoting numerous examples by Caitlin Johnstone, who is a frequent and fantastic writer of aphorisms under the repeated subtitle “Notes from the Edge of the Narrative Matrix.” The long-running theme we share is that we are all being programmed and propagandized continuously through the shaping of narrative by folks with obvious agendas. Johnstone believes we are collectively waking up — as if from a nightmare — to the dark realization that our minds have been colonized (my term) and that a worldwide transformation of consciousness is currently taking place. I don’t quite see it yet, but I’m sympathetic to the possibility that, as in the famous rant from the 1976 movie Network, “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

• The essential character relationship of the 1% to the rest of us is predator/prey or strong/weak. Strong predators behave precisely as one would expect.
• Trying to restore peace using the same violent police force whose violence disrupted the peace in the first place is a bit like trying to put out a fire using lighter fluid. The same lighter fluid that was used to start it. (Johnstone)
• Rioting and looting are not constructive responses to society’s ills, but then, neither have various nonviolent forms of protest and dissent been effective at petitioning government for redress of grievance. Packing up and going home merely cedes the field of play to bad actors already stuffing everyone down.
• Believing cold war is no big deal because nuclear war hasn’t happened yet is the same as believing your game of Russian roulette is safe because the gun hasn’t gone off yet. (Johnstone)
• According to the movies, realizing one’s potential is achieved by developing punching/fighting/domination skills sufficient to force your will upon others, which is true for criminals, saints (good guys), men, and women alike.
• Ecocide will be a problem as long as ecocide remains profitable. War will be a problem as long as war remains profitable. Politicians will cater to profit-seeking sociopaths as long as profit determines what drives human behavior. (Johnstone)
• The most influential news outlets in the western world uncritically parrot whatever they’re told to say by the most powerful and depraved intelligence agencies on the planet, then tell you that Russia and China are bad because they have state media. (Johnstone)
• Wanting Biden because he’s not Trump is the same as wanting cancer because it’s not heart disease. (Johnstone)
• Capitalism will let you starve to death while sitting meters away from food. (Johnstone)

I wish more of them were my own, but the opportunity to choose some of Johnstone’s best was too good to pass up.

Cranky Old Men

Most of us are familiar with a grandpa, uncle, or father who eventually turns into a cranky old man during late middle age or in his dotage. (Why is it a mostly male phenomenon?) In the last three decades, Clint Eastwood typecast himself as a cranky old man, building on lone-wolf characters (mostly cops, criminals, and cowboys) established earlier in his career. In real life, these guys spout talking points absorbed from mainstream media and narrative managers, or if they are truly lazy and/or can’t articulate anything coherently on their own, merely forward agitprop via e-mail like chain mail of yore. They also demonstrate remarkably forgivable racism, sexism, and bigotry, such as Eastwood’s rather enjoyable and ultimately redeemed character in the film Gran Torino. If interaction with such a fellow is limited to Thanksgiving gatherings once per year, crankiness can be tolerated fairly easily. If interactions are ongoing, then a typical reaction is simply to delete e-mail messages unread, or in the case of unavoidable face-to-face interaction, to chalk it up: Well, that’s just Grandpa Joe or Uncle Bill or Dad. Let him rant; he’s basically harmless now that he’s so old he creaks.

Except that not all of them are so harmless. Only a handful of the so-called Greatest Generation (I tire of the term but it’s solidly established) remain in positions of influence. However, lots of Boomers still wield considerable power despite their advancing age, looming retirement (and death), and basic out-of-touchness with a culture that has left them behind. Nor are their rants and bluster necessarily wrong. See, for instance, this rant by Tom Engelhardt, which begins with these two paragraphs:

Let me rant for a moment. I don’t do it often, maybe ever. I’m not Donald Trump. Though I’m only two years older than him, I don’t even know how to tweet and that tells you everything you really need to know about Tom Engelhardt in a world clearly passing me by. Still, after years in which America’s streets were essentially empty, they’ve suddenly filled, day after day, with youthful protesters, bringing back a version of a moment I remember from my youth and that’s a hopeful (if also, given Covid-19, a scary) thing, even if I’m an old man in isolation in this never-ending pandemic moment of ours.

In such isolation, no wonder I have the urge to rant. Our present American world, after all, was both deeply unimaginable — before 2016, no one could have conjured up President Donald Trump as anything but a joke — and yet in some sense, all too imaginable …

If my own father (who doesn’t read this blog) could articulate ideas as well as Engelhardt, maybe I would stop deleting unread the idiocy he forwards via e-mail. Admittedly, I could well be following in my father’s footsteps, as the tag rants on this blog indicates, but at least I write my own screed. I’m far less accomplished at it than, say, Engelhardt, Andy Rooney (in his day), Ralph Nader, or Dave Barry, but then, I’m only a curmudgeon-in-training, not having fully aged (or elevated?) yet to cranky old manhood.

As the fall presidential election draws near (assuming that it goes forward), the choice in the limited U.S. two-party system is between one of two cranky old men, neither of which is remotely capable of guiding the country through this rough patch at the doomer-anticipated end of human history. Oh, and BTW, echoing Engelhardt’s remark above, 45 has been a joke all of my life — a dark parody of success — and remains so despite occupying the Oval Office. Their primary opponent up to only a couple months ago was Bernie Sanders, himself a cranky old man but far more endearing at it. This is what passes for the best leadership on offer?

Many Americans are ready to move on to someone younger and more vibrant, able to articulate a vision for something, well, different from the past. Let’s skip right on past candidates (names withheld) who parrot the same worn-out ideas as our fathers and grandfathers. Indeed, a meme emerged recently to the effect that the Greatest Generation saved us from various early 20th-century scourges (e.g., Nazis and Reds) only for the Boomers to proceed in their turn to mess up the planet so badly nothing will survive new scourges already appearing. It may not be fair to hang such labels uniformly around the necks of either generation (or subsequent ones); each possesses unique characteristics and opportunities (some achieved, others squandered) borne out of their particular moment in history. But this much is clear: whatever happens with the election and whichever generational cohort assumes power, the future is gonna be remarkably different.

Updates to Blogroll 04

This is an infrequent feature of this blog: additions to and deletions from my blogroll. Other bloggers attract my attention for various reasons, mostly the quality of writing and ideas (interrelated), but over time, some start to repel me. This update has several in both categories.

At Wit’s End, Three-Pound Brain, and Bracing Views were are all added some while back. The first two have new posts very infrequently, but the quality is very high (IMO). The last is far more active and solicits commentary openly. Subject matter at these blogs varies widely, and only the third could be accused of being an outrage engine. It’s a worthwhile read nonetheless if political dysfunction doesn’t ignite in you a firestorm of rage and indignation.

Dropping Creative Destruction, Gin & Tacos and Pharyngula. The first has been dead for a long time; nothing there to see anymore besides the backblog. I thought it might eventually revive, but alas, no. Updates to the second have dropped significantly as authorial attention shifted to podcasting. The commentariat there was especially worthwhile, but with so few new posts, the disappearance of whimsical history lessons, and irritating focus on racehorse politics, the blog has lost my recommendation. The third used to be a fun read, especially for being well argued. The tone shifted at some point toward smug, woke felation service of an in-group, by definition excluding everyone else. Like another unmentioned blog dropped from my blogroll some years ago, the author behaves like an omniscient bully: being absolutely correct about everything all the time. The lack of humility or tolerance for ambiguity — or even the very human admission once in a while “I dunno …” — is exhausting.

Final admission: traffic to and from this blog is chronically low, so no blogger cares about being added or removed from my blogroll. No illusions about that on my part. However, respectable curation is a value worth periodic updates.

Thought Police Muster Against Fiction

A year ago, I wrote about charges of cultural appropriation being levied upon fiction writers, as though fiction can now only be some watered-down memoir lest some author have the temerity to conjure a character based on someone other than him- or herself. Specifically, I linked to an opinion piece by Lionel Shriver in the NY Times describing having been sanctioned for writing characters based on ideas, identities, and backgrounds other that his own. Shriver has a new article in Prospect Magazine that provides an update, perhaps too soon to survey the scene accurately since the target is still moving, but nonetheless curious with respect to the relatively recent appearance of call-out culture and outrage engines. In his article, Shriver notes that offense and umbrage are now given equal footing with bodily harm and emotional scarring:

Time was that children were taught to turn aside tormentors with the cry, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me!” While you can indeed feel injured because Bobby called you fat, the law has traditionally maintained a sharp distinction between bodily and emotional harm. Even libel law requires a demonstration of palpable damage to reputation, which might impact your livelihood, rather than mere testimony that a passage in a book made you cry.

He also points out that an imagined “right not to be offended” is now frequently invoked, even though there is no possibility of avoiding offense if one is actually conscious in the world. For just one rather mundane example, the extraordinary genocidal violence of 20th-century history, once machines and mechanisms (now called WMDs) were applied to warfare (and dare I say it: statecraft), ought to be highly offensive to any humanitarian. That history cannot be erased, though I suppose it can be denied, revised, buried, and/or lost to living memory. Students or others who insist they be excused from being triggered by knowledge of awful events are proverbial ostriches burying their heads in the sand.

As variations of this behavior multiply and gain social approval, the Thought Police are busily mustering against all offense — real, perceived, or wholly imagined — and waging a broad-spectrum sanitation campaign. Shriver believes this could well pose the end of fiction as publishers morph into censors and authors self-censor in an attempt to pass through the SJW gauntlet. Here’s my counter-argument:

rant on/

I feel mightily offended — OFFENDED I say! — at the arrant stupidity of SJWs whose heads are full of straw (and strawmen), who are so clearly confused about what is even possible within the dictates and strictures of, well, reality, and accordingly retreated into cocoons of ideation from which others are scourged for failure to adhere to some bizarre, muddleheaded notion of equity. How dare you compel me to think prescribed thoughts emanating from your thought bubble, you damn bullies? I have my own thoughts and feelings deserving of support, maybe even more than yours considering your obvious naïveté about how the world works. Why aren’t you laboring to promote mine but instead clamoring to infect everyone with yours? Why is my writing so resoundingly ignored while you prance upon the stage demanding my attention? You are an affront to my values and sensibilities and can stuff your false piety and pretend virtue where the sun don’t shine. Go ahead and be offended; this is meant to offend. If it’s gonna be you or me who’s transgressed precisely because all sides of issues can’t be satisfied simultaneously, then on this issue, I vote for you to be in the hot seat.

rant off/