Category Archives: Art and Ideas

Coincidence In Nabokov´s “Lolita”

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Anthony Uhlman on Vladimir Nabokov

“Brian Boyd, in his magnificent biography, shows how Nabokov developed an aesthetic method which at once focuses meticulously on unrepeatable particulars, and stresses the importance of pattern. Coincidences, apparently meaningless details, when examined, are shown to be linked by gossamer threads to something other, some still more complex pattern. Clearly, Nabokov could not have known, when he published Lolita, that a then three year old boy called Brian Boyd would grow to become Dr Boyd, author of numerous works on Nabokov, including the definitive biography. Yet, when Humbert first takes Lolita to a hotel after her mother has died and she is at last at his mercy, he meets a conference attendee in the Men’s Room who ‘inquired of me how I had liked Dr. Boyd’s talk, and looked puzzled when I (King Sigmund the Second) said Boyd was quite a boy’ (125).

What can we can say about a pure coincidence like this, one which shows little respect for chronological or logical plausibility? At present, through science, philosophy, sociology, and religion, we are able to say very little: only artists, like Nabokov, somehow help us to consider this, offering a shudder of recognition, allowing us to apprehend how apparently finite lives might achieve an intuition of the infinite.“

My Comment

Coincidences have fascinated me since childhood..probably because I always seem to walk into them..

I seem to evoke synchronicity quite mysteriously. So much so that it turned into an intellectual interest that led me to study Jung´s writing for a number of years and then many forms of symbolic language, mythology and analysis.

Psychic Income Versus Real Income (Updated)

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John Mauldin in Frontline Thoughts on one off balance sheet vehicle that might get us out of this crisis faster than we think: psychic income, our dreams for our future…

“Every night we go to sleep on our psychic income, and every day we get up and try to figure out how to turn it into real income……The future is never easy for all but a few of us, at least not for long. But we figure it out. And that is why in 20 years we will be better off than we are today. Each of us, all over the world, by working out our own visions of psychic income, will make the real world a better place.”

My Comment:

In response to RobertinDC, my loyal reader, who politely calls this a “crock,” I should add the context of Mauldin´s note, which is technological change.

Mauldin argues that even if the market stays flat or depressed in real terms, even if unemployment increases and the standard of living falls, none of us can know for sure what the future holds. In ten years time, the world may very well be a better place.. in terms of possibilities… than it is today because of technological innovation.

Is this implausibly “feel good” stuff?

Well, yes.

Of course.

It takes no great courage or imagination to imagine plausible scenarios.

Imagination is the ability…the very creative and fundamentally life-giving ability..to imagine implausible..even unbelievable scenarios and then make them not only plausible but inevitable.

And, again in a fundamental sense, that is how creativity in all fields works. Focusing solely on the negative is itself a form of delusion.

I don´t mean by this that you can wish yourself into any outcome you want. There are also physical laws at work that you have to accept. You cannot wish away a contraction of the economy because of overspending, for instance.  The economy has to correct.

But the effects of the contraction, the extent, and its resolution can in fact be ameliorated by a change in attitude.

And by staying alert to every possibilty, we can also sense when deterministic interpretations – such as, “this is the way capitalism is”  — are being used to cover up what is in truth a very manipulated reality.

In that case, what we should focus on is an imagined ideal, the way capitalism should be, which may be implausible or even a crock, in some views, but is our only true guide to a way out of this debacle.

This is why I wrote, in 2007, that the economy didn´t have to crash. It was in a PR piece for the book.This wasn´t because I lacked a healthy sense of reality. But reality in the sense that physicists understand it is a very different thing from the “common sense” understanding of reality. The physicists´view is actually closer to what might be called implausible or even unbelievable. But it´s none theless true. The same divergence between common sense perception and underying reality exists in the economy.  Cynicism is often right. But not always. Pessimism is often warranted. But not always.

There were fundamental problems in the economy in 2006-2007, but the way the crash occured struck me then as very strange.

I suspected at the time that some of the indices were manipulated…and now the deepcapture team (and others like Pam Martens) have shown how they could have been (see prior posts).

In time, you are going to find that this is true of many of the indicators we use to read the mood of the investing public. Markets are driven by emotions. And smart crooks with the ability to manipulate that emotion can make big money from the manipulation….

And if they can, it stands to reason they will.

What is surprising is only why it took so long for supposedly tough minded financial reporters to figure that out.

In any case, whether manipulation is proved or not, what ordinary people can do is to take for their model the good trader. Good traders are people who can “keep their heads when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you”..as Kipling said.

The hall mark of expert trading is to control the emotions and rein them in from succumbing to mass moods. What does that mean in practical terms?

It means when everyone is panicking, look for silver linings, and when everyone is complacent, learn to worry…

Hexagram 12: P’i – Stand still, Stagnation

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12 – Hexagram Twelve: P’i

StagnationHeaven and Earth move away from each other.

In the ensuing void, the small invade where the great have departed.

There is no common meeting ground, so the Superior Person must fall back on his inner worth and decline the rewards offered by the inferior invaders.

Difficult trials as you hold to your course.

ANALYSIS

It is natural to assume that, if Earth above Heaven forms the hexagram for Peace and Paradise, then the opposite configuration, with Heaven over Earth would represent the antithesis of Paradise, Hell.
Not so.

This hexagram is actually the Dark side of Peace, its unsavory byproduct, Stagnation.
In a time when most of our wants are provided, there is little need for the heroes, the artists, the great thinkers and innovators.

As they recede into the shadows, Idleness, Apathy, and Lassitude come to the forefront.
Peace has become boring, bland, unchallenging — Stagnant.
Now our attention turns to the quick fix, the instant celebrity, the fad, the one-nighter, the current buzz.

There is no room for depth.

If you are a passionate soul, you must wait for a better time to find kindred spirits. In these times, they are only curious legends, bas-relief, dead poets.

Totalitarianism: The Total Domination of Man

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From “Evil: The Crime Against Humanity,” by Jerome Kohn

The “total domination of man” was radically evil, in Arendt’s eyes, not only because it was unprecedented but because it did not make sense. She asked: Why should lust for power, which from the beginning of recorded history has been considered the political and social sin par excellence, suddenly transcend all previously known limitations of self-interest and utility and attempt not simply to dominate men as they are but to change their very nature; not only to kill whoever is in the way of further power accumulation but also innocent and harmless bystanders, and this even when such murder is an obstacle, rather than an advantage, for the accumulation of power?
(see “Ideology and Propaganda”)

There is no ready answer to that question. In Hitler’s case it is well known that his unrelenting dehumanization and destruction of those who presented no threat to him hindered his ability to fight effectively against his real enemies at the end of World War II. What is the point of dominating men at any cost, not as they are but in order “to change their very nature”? If it is for the sake of “the consistency of a lying world order,” as she went on to suggest, what is the point of a system that even if it succeeded in destroying the human world would not end in the creation of a “thousand-year Reich” or “Messianic Age” but only in self-destruction? Arendt, to be sure, never thought the suicidal “victory” of totalitarianism likely. That would first require global rule by one totalitarian power, and in that regard she believed that Hitler’s invasion of Russia in 1941 was symbolically significant in spite of his pact with Stalin two years earlier and in spite of the two leaders’ mutual admiration which she emphasized. Moreover, she saw that “no system has ever been less capable [than totalitarianism] of gradually expanding its sphere of influence and holding on to its conquests.” Most important of all, because plurality is the inescapable condition of human existence–“not Man but men inhabit this planet”–Arendt increasingly came to consider farfetched the notion that a single totalitarian regime could ever destroy the entire world.”

Forgiveness Without Repentance Is Un-Christian

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Several readers had questioned my rejection of the common understanding of forgiveness as it appears in Christian theology. In response to that, I’m posting what I consider a proper interpretation of forgiveness:

“A very dramatic example of confronting the offenders is seen in the life of John the Baptist, Matt. 3:7-10. Some of those who came to be baptized were clearly suspect and John sent them away unbaptized telling them to get a track record of repentance, then consider baptism. It was not just some words of repentance that John demanded before accepting them, he wanted some action commensurate with the confession to back it up.

In our day and age, we are so shallow in these things, we simply get some quick nod of the head about repentance and baptize them immediately. We would never do what John did, and I venture to say that many Christians are extremely uncomfortable with the fact such action on John’s part is even included in Scripture. It is an embarrassment to many fine Christian people that John did such a thing, and they secretly wish that it had not been recorded.

God expects us to take the right course of action even though it is difficult.”

That’s from the ministry of Gordon Rumford.

I’m quite sure that my philosophical and religious notions are a world apart from Pastor Rumford’s, but on the moral correctness of his position I’m in no doubt. I’ve verified that not just from argument and reasoning, or from the study of comparative religious ethics, or from my own personal experience, but also from lifelong observation of actions and consequences.

These are the real reasons why people think forgiveness can be granted when there’s been no acknowledgement of  wrong-doing, no repentance and no restitution:

1. They’re not reading the New Testament in proper context, but taking passages selectively as they wish. They need to examine the whole texture of the Bible (that is, the Torah) teaching, on which Jesus’ teaching was based.

(Update: I am adding a link here to the doctrine of Teshuva or repentance, expounded by Rabbi David R. Blumenthal, Professor of Judaic Studies, Emory University, as evidence.

Quote:

In rabbinic thought, only the offending party can set the wrong aright and only the offended party can forgo the debt of the sin. ……Teshuva is part of the structure of God’s creation; hence, the sinner is obligated to do teshuva and the offended person is obligated to permit teshuva by the offender.

The most basic kind of forgiveness is “forgoing the other’s indebtedness” (mechil). If the offender has done teshuva, and is sincere in his or her repentance, the offended person should offer mechila; that is, the offended person should forgo the debt of the offender, relinquish his or her claim against the offender. This is not a reconciliation of heart or an embracing of the offender; it is simply reaching the conclusion that the offender no longer owes me anything for whatever it was that he or she did. Mechila is like a pardon granted to a criminal by the modern state. The crime remains; only the debt is forgiven.

The tradition, however, is quite clear that the offended person is not obliged to offer mechila if the offender is not sincere in his or her repentance and has not taken concrete steps to correct the wrong done. Maimonides is decisive on this subject: “The offended person is prohibited from being cruel in not offering mechila, for this is not the way of the seed of Israel. Rather, if the offender has [resolved all material claims and has] asked and begged for forgiveness once, even twice, and if the offended person knows that the other has done repentance for sin and feels remorse for what was done, the offended person should offer the sinner mechila” (Mishne Torah, “Hilchot Chovel u-Mazzik,” 5:10). Mechila is, thus, an expectation of the offended person but only if the sinner is actually repentant. ….

…The principle that mechila ought to be granted only if deserved is the great Jewish “No” to easy forgiveness. It is core to the Jewish view of forgiveness, just as desisting from sin is core to the Jewish view of repentance. Without good grounds, the offended person should not forgo the indebtedness of the sinner; otherwise, the sinner may never truly repent and evil will be perpetuated. And, conversely, if there are good grounds to waive the debt or relinquish the claim, the offended person is morally bound to do so. This is the great Jewish “Yes” to the possibility of repentance for every sinner. “

Lila: Note that this is only one of three levels of forgiveness and it’s the only one that is obligatory, if the conditions are met. The other two levels, selich (approaching the offender with mercy and empathy) and kappar (purification or wiping out of sin, which can only be done by God) are not. Indeed, kappar is impossible for human beings.

2. They’re not placing the Gospel statements about forgiveness in the context of the sound teachings of other religions and of non-religious ethics, with which true religion should not be in severe conflict.

Thus Islam:

“The Arabic word used for self rapprochement is An-Nafs Al-Lawamah which refers to blame oneself and to feel sorry for ones sins. So this is recommended and good in the sight of Allaah and necessary to have the sin forgiven by Allaah.

Ceasing to commit the sin immediately. If the sin was against Allaah, then he should (1) stop doing it if it was an unlawful act, or (2) hasten to do it if it was an obligation that he abandoned doing. And if the sin was against a created being (such as humans), then he should hasten to free himself from it, whether by returning it back to him or seeking his forgiveness and pardon.”

3. They’re not taking into account prudence, reason, courage, and other moral virtues as being as necessary as kindness to moral development.

4. They’re not considering the duality of mercy–judgment, which is a cornerstone of Old Testament teaching (which itself is the foundation of Jesus’ ethic).  Mercy without judgment is not only not correct, it is an impossibility.  This is confirmed from the imagery and symbolism in the practice of magic in the western esoteric tradition, where the masculine form is invoked in contemplating mercy, so that the image of mercy/compassion doesn’t devolve into mere sentimentality. (More on that in another post, as it is a complex topic).

5. They’re disguising their cowardice and their fear of the repercussions of being outspoken, especially toward those more powerful.

6. They’re psychologically incapable of standing up for themselves and in need of therapy to become more assertive.

7. They have an excessive and immoral regard for “keeping peace” at all counts.

8. They’ve been abused or have low self-regard or do not consider injustice to themselves as injustice but part of religiously ordained suffering or “submission,” under authoritarian understandings of the Bible.

9. They have a streak of masochism that derives some psycho-sexual gratification or pseudo-religious exaltation from being injured.

10. They’re using public forgiveness as a technique of persuasion, as in 4th generation warfare (Gandhi was a master of the practice).

11. Their spiritual vanity is so great that they think they can out-Christ Christ, who certainly required his followers to confess their sins and repent.

12. They don’t like the notion of “judgment” and consider it unhealthy.

13. They’re confusing Christianity with some schools (and not the deepest, I should add) of modern psychology.

14. They’re emotionally and psychologically shallow.

15. They’re confusing Christianity with cultural Marxism, in which the notion of guilt and individual responsibility for wrong has been shucked off entirely to structural and societal causes.

Solzhenitsyn: Walk Away From the Gangrene

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Live Not By Lies

Monday, February 18, 1974

Following is the full text of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s essay ``Live Not By Lies.” It is perhaps the last thing he wrote on his native soil [before the collapse of the Soviet Union] and circulated among Moscow’s intellectuals [at that time]. The essay is dated Feb. 12, the day that secret police broke into his apartment and arrested him. The next day he was exiled to West Germany.

“At one time we dared not even to whisper. Now we write and read samizdat, and sometimes when we gather in the smoking room at the Science Institute we complain frankly to one another: What kind of tricks are they playing on us, and where are they dragging us? gratuitous boasting of cosmic achievements while there is poverty and destruction at home. Propping up remote, uncivilized regimes. Fanning up civil war. And we recklessly fostered Mao Tse-tung at our expense– and it will be we who are sent to war against him, and will have to go. Is there any way out? And they put on trial anybody they want and they put sane people in asylums–always they, and we are powerless.

Things have almost reached rock bottom. …..We fear only to lag behind the herd and to take a step alone-and suddenly find ourselves without white bread, without heating gas and without a Moscow registration……

When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: “I am violence. Run away, make way for me–I will crush you.” But violence quickly grows old. And it has lost confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally–since violence lays its ponderous paw not every day and not on every shoulder. It demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies–all loyalty lies in that.

And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, but not with any help from me.

This opens a breach in the imaginary encirclement caused by our inaction. It is the easiest thing to do for us, but the most devastating for the lies. Because when people renounce lies it simply cuts short their existence. Like an infection, they can exist only in a living organism.

We do not exhort ourselves. We have not sufficiently matured to march into the squares and shout the truth our loud or to express aloud what we think. It’s not necessary. It’s dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think…..

Our path is to walk away from the gangrenous boundary. If we did not paste together the dead bones and scales of ideology, if we did not sew together the rotting rags, we would be astonished how quickly the lies would be rendered helpless and subside. That which should be naked would then really appear naked before the whole world.

.. Either truth or falsehood: Toward spiritual independence or toward spiritual servitude….

And he who is not sufficiently courageous even to defend his soul- don’t let him be proud of his`progressive” views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a merited figure, or a general–let him say to himself: I am in the herd, and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and warm.

Even this path, which is the most modest of all paths of resistance, will not be easy for us. But it is much easier than self-immolation or a hunger strike: The flames will not envelope your body, your eyeballs, will not burst from the heat, and brown bread and clean water will always be available to your family…….

It will not be an easy choice for a body, but it is only one for a soul. Not, it is not an easy path. But there are already people, even dozens of them, who over the years have maintained all these points and live by the truth.

So you will not be the first to take this path, but will join those who have already taken it. This path will be easier and shorter for all of us if we take it by mutual efforts and in close rank. If there are thousands of us, they will not be able to do anything with us. If there are tens of thousands of us, then we would not even recognize our country…..

And if we get cold feet, even taking this step, then we are worthless and hopeless, and the scorn of Pushkin should be directed to us:“Why should cattle have the gifts of freedom? Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash.”

Thoreau On the Dangers of Comfort

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“We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven. We have adopted Christianity merely as an improved method of agriculture.

We have built for this world a family mansion, and for the next a family tomb. The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that the higher state be forgotten.

There is actually no place in this village for a work of fine art, if any had come down to us, to stand for our lives, our houses and streets, furnish no proper pedestal for it. There is not a nail to hang a picture on, nor a shelf to receive the bust of a hero or a saint.”

          —- Henry David Thoreau, “On Practicing Economy in Life”

The Spectacle of General Secrecy

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Political theorist Guy de Bord on the spectacle of public life:

“The concentrated spectacle

The spectacle associated with concentrated bureaucracy. Debord associated this spectacular form mostly with the Eastern Bloc and Fascism, although today mixed backward economies import it, and even advanced capitalist countries in times of crisis. Every aspect of life, like property, music, and communication is concentrated and is identified with the bureaucratic class. The concentrated spectacle generally identifies itself with a powerful political leader. The concentrated spectacle is made effective through a state of permanent violence and police terror.[edit]

The diffuse spectacle

The spectacle associated with advanced capitalism and commodity abundance. In the diffuse spectacle, different commodities conflict with each other, preventing the consumer from consuming the whole. Each commodity claims itself as the only existent one, and tries to impose itself over the other commodities:

Irreconcilable claims jockey for position on the stage of the affluent economy’s unified spectacle, and different star commodities simultaneously promote conflicting social policies. The automobile spectacle, for example, strives for a perfect traffic flow entailing the destruction of old urban districts, while the city spectacle needs to preserve those districts as tourist attractions.

The diffuse spectacle is more effective than the concentrated spectacle. The diffuse spectacle operates mostly through seduction, while the concentrated spectacle operates mostly through violence. Because of this, Debord argues that the diffuse spectacle is more effective at suppressing non-spectacular opinions than the concentrated spectacle.

The integrated spectacle

The spectacle associated with modern capitalist countries. The integrated spectacle borrows traits from the diffuse and concentrated spectacle to form a new synthesis. Debord argues that this is a very recent form of spectacular manifestation, and that it was pioneered in France and Italy.

According to Debord, the integrated spectacle goes by the label of liberal democracy. This spectacle introduces a state of permanent general secrecy, where experts and specialists dictate the morality, statistics, and opinions of the spectacle. Terrorism is the invented enemy of the spectacle, which specialists compare with their “liberal democracy”, pointing out the superiority of the latter one. Debord argues that without terrorism, the integrated spectacle wouldn’t survive, for it needs to be compared to something in order to show its “obvious” perfection and superiority.”

My Comment:

Thanks to reader J. T. Gordon for reminding me of this. I’ve posted before on de Bord and the notion of the spectacle of society. Like so much powerful analysis, this one too has roots in the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most productive thinkers of the last 150 years.

What should be noted here is that in the spectacle of secrecy, the greatest emphasis is placed on openness. Thus, “freedom of speech”  occupies a central position in the culture. By this means, all barriers to privacy are brought down, all psychological barriers between the individual and the crowd. Yet, this openness at one level (in public culture) operates side-by-side with secrecy at the highest level (governments and corporate leaders).

(More later)

Back…

Reading through this again, I feel I need to question De Bord’s division, which corresponds to communist, capitalist and liberal democratic. It’s too neat. In fact, things are much more muddy