#941-The Annual Obligatory Indulgent Essay about Writers Writing

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300 words a day, Aenema, Books about Writing, Christopher Hitchens, coffee, Commerce, Creative Writing, Honesty of the Artist about the Creative Process, Hooker with a Penis, Katy Perry, Katy Perry Wearing Red Velvet, letters to a young contrarian, Masturbation, Maynard Keenan, Oliver Queenan, On Writing, Purple Stuff, Ray Bradbury, Robot Chicken, Science, Scientific Theory, Stephen King, Tangerine Dream, The Departed, Thelonius Monk, TOOL, What the Fuck is Purple Stuff?, Writers, Writing, Writing about Writing

Two kids open a refrigerator looking for something to drink when they discover purple stuff.  It’s play on the old Sunny D commercial where somebody looks through the items in the fridge and notices something called “purple stuff” before noticing they have Sunny D.  I’m not sure why anyone would actively decided to drink Sunny D, but hey, people are allowed to have their own tastes, even if they’re wrong.  Anyway these kids stop and ask each other what “purple stuff” actually is when one of the kids asks his friend, “You think it will get us high?”  The first kid smiles and says, “there’s only one way to find out.”  The following scenes show the two kids beginning a series of scientific dialogues and in-depth academic research as the begin to compile data and formulate a hypothesis.  The act eventually culminates when one kid, following a heated argument about the final conclusions of their research, is hit by a car.  The first friend holds his dying companion and says he can’t die.  His friend, in the midst of choking on his own coagulating blood says, “Maybe I don’t have to, one, last, theory.”

At this point I threw my remote control through the television because no scientist would ever say, “just a theory.”  It was a hypothesis because at that point there were no solid experiments, and something only becomes a theory after decades of constant experiments. 

If something is scientific theory it’s because it has been tested millions of times by millions of scientists across the world at which point it becomes a fact.  Language is important damn it, and while I hate shitting on Robot Chicken, writers need to pay attention to the philosophies, education, and ideologies that define their characters.

None of this really has anything to do with books about writing, but I thought it would be a nice opener to an otherwise pointless topic: writing about writing.

 

[0] wHy I kEep dOing tHis

I’m honestly not sure why I keep doing this.  I’ve said it once before, but I find books that are about nothing but writing to be empty masturbation.  Though even that is incorrect because I hold respect for masturbation, it gives you pleasure and can help your body, over time, prevent certain types of cancer.  Books about books, and writing about writing, are rather useless because Stephen King summed everything a writer needs to know about being a writer in his book On Writing:

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.  There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.  (145).

After this, apart from specific guidelines about editing and finding an agent, everything else in terms of advice about writing is really bullshit.  Anyone can offer someone advice about what works for them personally as a writer, but the problem is that those offerings are ultimately individual opinions.  Writing is ultimately masturbation, a form of self-pleasure and -self-gratification that results in a tangle physical object, and only the individual person knows how they prefer to masturbate.  Hearing someone else’s opinions about writing is, at least in my experience, a lot like to listening to them prattle on about their mastubatory habits.  It’s not unpleasant, but it’s just not going to work for me.

And yet every year I always find myself thinking about what I would say if someone asked me what it takes to be a writer.  And every year I wind up reading at least one book or collection of essays by writers offering advice to aspiring writers.  Whether it’s Burn This Book, Zen and the Art of Writing, Letters to a Young Contrarian, or Walking on Alligators, I can’t seem to escape this pathetic inevitability.

Starting with Bradbury seems appropriate, but I think TOOL’s song Hooker with a Penis is a better place to start.

 

[1] Hooker with a Penis

Maynard Keenan is perhaps one of the few leading singers that still inspires me in Rock n Roll, because apart from Corey Taylor and almost the entirety of Heavy Metal, nobody sounds like they do on the record anymore.  I may be becoming one of those awful people who complain about auto-tuning, but for me it’s the matter of the live show because that’s where the bones of a band are made.  Maynard Keenan sounds on TOOL albums the way he does in concert and so when I heard that he was trained operatically I was impressed, and when I watched him sing the song Hooker with a Penis I had to go back to my Aenema CD and listen to discover that it was exactly the same.  Most of the time I’d been disappointed by singers in real life, their voices sounding tired, out of tune, or just different than the record, but with Keenan the man was singing what he could actually sing and it worked.

Looking at the lyrics of Hooker with a Penis though I found something rather interesting and that was the ethos of the artist speaking plainly.  The song is about Keenan listening to a fan who told him he thought the group was “selling out” and the remainder of the song is Kennan telling the guy to go fuck himself while also musing on the nature of art vs product.

So I’ve got some advice for you, little buddy.

Before you point your finger you should know that I’m the man,

If I’m the fuckin’ man then you’re the fuckin’ man as well

So you can point your fuckin’ finger up your ass.

All you know about me is what I’ve sold you, dumb fuck.

I sold out long before you’d ever even heard my name.

I sold my soul to make a record, dipshit, then you bought one.

All you read and wear or see and hear on TV is a product waiting for your fatass dirty dollar

So, shut up and buy, buy, buy my new record

Buy, buy, buy,

Send more money

Fuck you, buddy.

Fuck you, buddy

Fuck you, buddy

Fuck you, buddy.

Every artist has to determine for themselves what “selling out” means, and that in itself can become tricky.  For my own part I don’t believe I’ve ever sold out, then again someone has to want your writing before you can “sell” it.  I’ve “given” myself to my reader, largely because they haven’t had to pay for it.  They’ve paid me with their time and consideration and moderate attention while they wait for me to mention dicks or Finding Nemo.

Hooker with a Penis is a song that is much in the vein of a revenge tune, but as with everything TOOL this seemingly simplicity actually reveals a larger truth.   Though as I finish this sentence I have to ask myself when has TOOL ever demonstrated “seeming simplicity?”

Artists sell themselves, but often their writing is just a moment of themselves.  It’s a thought or feeling they were having that they then record and “sell” to people.  The consumer of an art product takes that moment and constructs meaning from it deciding whether or not the art is really significant.  But often the reader takes that feeling and allows it to become a facet of their identity, their spirit, their personal energy.  And, as is often the case, they allow themselves to think that they “know” an artist by reading this moment.

But all that you really know is what you bought, and so Maynard Keenan is able to write about writing and demonstrate to the reader that just because you have a nipple ring and new shoes doesn’t mean you know shit about TOOL.

 

[2] ZEN and THE art OF writing

Typically when someone announces that they’re a poet, when all they’ve ever written is prose, I tend to roll my eyes.  It’s not a discrimination against poetry because I love poetry.  What makes me roll my eyes is the fact that they have clearly bought into the hype of themselves and they believe they possess a grasp of language so that they could call what they’ve written poetry when an examination of their prose reveals they have not paid any sort of attention to how their work sounds or feels.  Words are there to present scenes and ideas, rather than inspire feelings.

Ray Bradbury is the only author I know who I give this a pass because there isn’t any other word besides poet to describe the man.  His prose isn’t just words strung together to create images in the readers mind which in turn are designed to tell a story and sell a book.  Every word of a Bradbury novel is carefully selected to assume a meaning in its form.  And in his book Zen and the Art of Writing, Bradbury is able to argue the merits of this form of writing, which is, in it’s simplicity, simply writing in a way so that the writer is honest with themselves.

He observes for his reader that often the “goal” of the writer is either to make millions of dollars with the fantastic best seller, or else to impress the intellectual elite.  But Bradbury observes that:

Nothing could be further from the true creativity.  Nothing could be more destructive than the two attitudes above.

Why?

Because both are a form of lying.

It is a lie to write in such a way as to be rewarded by money in the commercial market.

It is a lie to write in such a way as to be rewarded by fame offered you by some snobbish quasi-literary group in the intellectual gazettes.  (141).

This is something I am painfully familiar with because I have attained neither of these, yet I know, in my heart, that I am constantly desiring both.  I have written close to a decade relentlessly and received nothing in the way of commercial or critical success.  In fact for all my efforts, I tend to remain mired in obscurity and anonymity, my existence largely ignored by the general populace of readers.  And because I am the sort of man who desires near constant external validation, this absence is a physical pain that greets me every time I check my stats on WordPress and observe yet another person has only found me because I wrote about black dicks one time, or when I check my CreateSpace page and observe that no one has purchased any of my books for the sixth or seventh month in a row.

But what this emotion is is distrust, it’s distrust of the real process of writing which is the persistence.  The quality that grows from experience writing.  On my desk, specifically on my Christopher Hitchens shelf (we’ll get to him in a minute) is a notecard taped with black electrical tape.  It reads simply “300 words.”  There was once a time when that would have read 3000 words, and there was a time when that could be achieved.  Because I was a crazy young man who wanted to be a writer and who was willing to push his mind so that the words would come.  That experience, everyday pushing those words out, led me here, so that 300 words is not so little.  It’s simply an acknowledgement that the work has been made, and more work must come, and in that work is its own lesson.

Bradbury says later,

Work then, hard work, prepares the way for the first stages of relaxation, when one begins to approach what Orwell might call Not Think! As in learning to typewrite, a day comes when the single letter a-s-d-f and j-k-l-; give way to a flow of words.  (146).

Bradbury finds, in his argument, that there work becomes the quality and that in itself becomes the pleasure.  This sentiment seems like something that would be printed en masse on blocks of wood and sold at Hobby Lobby for $45 a piece.  But, experience yields to the wisdom.

Sunday is writing day.  I chug my coffee.  Sit on my ass.  Play my Childish Gambino or Tangerine Dream or Thelonius Monk and I write.  I haven’t nailed down the typewriter yet, but the completion of an essay is a better physical release than masturbation at times, and the spirit soars eternal when I the right sentence emerges.

 

[3]  BRIEF interlude

My wife makes fun of me for thinking Katy Perry is sexy.  She says that, like a number of celebrity women, Perry wear tons of make-up to the point that they become almost indecipherable when they don’t wear it.  I tell her I know and I understand, but there’s literally a picture of Katy Perry wearing a red crushed velvet dress, tights, and black boots  while straddling a motorcycle.  Katy Perry.  Red Velvet.  Tights and Boots.  I’m a puddle.

This doesn’t have anything to do with writing, or writing about writing, but I wanted to write about it anyway.

Thank you for your patience, I’ll end it on Christopher Hitchens.

 

[4] HitchslaPs BaCk

The late, great Christopher Hitchens said in his 60 Minutes interview, one of the last he gave before he finally shuffled off this mortal coil, that he was terrified that his terminal cancer would impede his ability to write.  The reason for this was simple as he explained, “Writing is something I am rather than something I do.”

Normally this sentiment is something I would immediately recoil from because it reeks of, well, sentiment.  Normally the sorts of persons who proclaim loudly that they’re writers and that they would die if they couldn’t write seem the sort who like the idea of being writers rather than actual writers.  And this in turn leads me to a quote from Martin Scorsese’s The Departed.

Oliver Queenan: [during Costigan’s interview] We have a question: Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to appear to be a cop? It’s an honest question. A lot of guys just want to appear to be cops. Gun, badge, pretend they’re on TV.

Replace the word “Cop” with Writer and then I believe my point is made.  Most people want to appear to be writers, but they don’t actually want to be writers.  Most people enjoy drinking coffee, talking about stuff they read, and looking like they’re deep and interesting but don’t actually want to do any sort of work when it comes to creativity.  I might be a tad harsh in my assessment of humanity, but it’s largely because I’ve known many people who want to be writers when all it really takes is just the will power to sit down and write at least 300 words a day.

My reaction to Hitchens was different though, because I recognized that that statement was rooted in truth.  Hitchens as a writer is a testament to the idea of what a writer should be, and that’s simply someone who writes.  The man, during his life, never stopped writing and arguing and speaking about his writing and arguments, and that regular dedication demonstrated his identity and ambition.

The problem arises that he rarely seemed to actually write about the process of writing with the exception of a few small essays and my favorite book of his Letters to a Young Contrarian.

Written as a series of letters to his students, the book was originally inspired by Raina Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet and attempts to tackle the numerous conflicts and realities one will face when one becomes a contrarian, and in this small but incredible book Hitchens manages to say a great deal about writing period.

Hitchens quotes Rilke directly, discussing the compulsion to write, and the necessity of that compulsion to define the writer.  He says,

With much less eloquence, this is what I have been telling writing classes for years.  You must feel not that you want  to but that you have to.  It’s worth emphasizing too, because, there is a relationship, between this desire or need and the ambition to rely upon internal exile, or dissent; the decision to live at a slight acute angle to society.  (16).

It may seem at first that Hitch has proven me wrong, that in fact the desire to write is a compulsion and some people really do need it. 

But if I can offer a final defense, that desire is exactly that, a desire.  Writer’s actively choose to isolate themselves from other people, they actively chose to spend their time alone and typing away, they chose to place themselves apart from the culture in order to write, and all those choices compile into a real statement: the need to write exists, but it has to be based upon a desire to write in the first place.

Books about writing honestly seem to me to be a complete waste of time, but that’s probably because I’ve reached a point where my desire has surpassed to the point where it has become a need.  So much of myself has been poured into the identity of writer, so much of my time has been spent writing, and for my efforts I have this blog, I have two self published books, I have a job at a public library, and I have an ever expanding collection of graphic novels.

I’m trying, more and more, to recognize in myself that the identity of writer is something that is me, and to own that part of myself, and perhaps in claiming that identity I need to give other writers a pass at their self-commentary.  Writing about writing is an exercise that feels to me largely mastubatory, but that might simply be because I’ve come to a place with my writing where the voice in my head is no longer questioning whether or not I’m a writer.

I’m writing, and that’s what counts.

 

[5] finaL conclusioN

I’m positive that my wife is correct about Katy Perry wearing tons of make-up, and I’m probably just another in a long line of guys creeping on an attractive celebrity, but I mean it when I say it, the woman looks great in red velvet and I like the song Peacock.

That thought doesn’t have anything to do with writing, but I still wrote it down anyway, and in its own way that has to say something.

 

 

 

*Writer’s Note*

All quotes cited from letters to a young contrarian were quoted from the hardback Basic Books edition.  All quotes from Hooker with a Penis were cited from AZlyricks.  All quotes cited from Zen and the Art of Writing were quoted from the paperback Joshua Odell Editions edition.

 

**Writer’s Note**

If Seth Green or any of the writers of Robot Chicken should stumble upon this article, please know I LOVE your show and hold a secret ambition to write a sketch for it.  So please please please forgive me for being passive agressive and know that I love the show.  As for my reader, who’s probably grossed out by my ass kissing, please enjoy the following sketch which inspired the opening of this essay:

 

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Falling (From Grace) Is So Hard on the Knees

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"pride goeth before the fall", Academic Book, Aerosmith, Albert Camus, Christopher Hitchens, Confession, Ego, existentialism, Hank Williams Sr., I've Been Down That Road Before, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, Jean-Paul Sartre, Laughter, letters to a young contrarian, Literature, Meursault, Michel Foucault, No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life, Novel, Philosophy, Ponts des Artes, Robert C. Solomon, The Fall, The History of Sexuality Vol.1, The Stranger

 

Now take the smart aleck in any town of him folks want no part He acts like his head was only made to hold his ears apart Now he might not like what I’m bout to say and my words might make him sore But I’m just tryin’ to be helpful cause I’ve been down that road before

–Hank Williams Sr, I’ve Been Down That Road before

Here’s what happened.  A man of strong character heard some laughter, got punched during a fight after a fender bender, didn’t help a young woman who committed suicide, and after these three perils he began to drink and fornicate until he was penniless and dying all while confessing these list of actions (or sometimes lack thereof) to a complete stranger.  Such is the last work of Albert Camus, the man who defined how to hold a cigarette in your mouth with no hands without looking like a jackass, and also one of the most important French writers and novelists of the twentieth century.  It should be noted though that it was the first part that made him famous.  Okay that’s a lie but I’m uncomfortable if I’m not making bad jokes that really aren’t funny and the book is not terribly uplifting so any and all humor I can slip in I can.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been listening to No Excuses: Existentialism and the Meaning of Life by Robert C. Solomon, a tenured professor of philosophy at UT Austen, and he began his series of lectures with the works of Albert Camus.  I wasn’t a stranger to the man or his work for I had actually read The Stranger, and even written a small essay about comparing it to the graphic novel Batman: Year One.  I had also managed to find a few books of his essays that belonged to my mother-in-law which I devoured that summer after I was married and living in her garage.  My wife got to sleep in the house and occasionally they brought me food, but tell you what those rats were vicious and my chains were thick.  I found solace in Camus, and even after I read his essay The Myth of Sisyphus I recognized that Camus was an author I should have been reading in high school rather than Tom Stoppard.  Solomon, to get back to the main point spent the first five lectures discussing Camus before he eventually moved on to Husserl (which he pronounced Huss-er-erl, dare you to try and pronounce that) and during one of the lectures he discussed Camus’s final novel The Fall.

I was curious about the book because I had absolutely adored The Stranger, and so when my family went to Half Priced Books I decided to grab a copy and begin reading.

Jean-Paul Sartre, a long time friend of Camus and the man who established Existentialism by giving the movement a name and direction, once referred to The Fall as Camus’s most misunderstood novel.  Part of it may simply be because the novel was the man’s last before he died in a car accident, a kind of death which Camus had called Un Morte Imbecille, but it may also be because of the actual contents of the book.  I’ve already provided a small synopsis of the plot, but a little more detail is necessary.

The protagonist of the book, the man who confesses his life story to the nameless stranger who at times becomes by extension the reader of the book, is Jean-Baptiste Clamence a former lawyer from Paris who has seemingly lost everything.  The book is written as a series of one-sided conversations by Baptiste who describes in detail his “fall from grace,” and after reading the opening of his first confession one can accurately refer to it as such:

A few years ago I was a lawyer in Paris and, indeed, a rather well-known lawyer.  Of course, I didn’t tell you my real name.  I had a specialty: noble cases.  Widows and orphans, as the saying goes—I don’t know why, because there are improper widows and ferocious orphans.  Yet it was enough for me to sniff the slightest scent of victim on a defendant for me to swing into action.  And what action!  A real tornado!  You really would have thought that justice slept with me every night.  (17).

He continues this on the next page:

Furthermore, I was buoyed up by two sincere feelings: the satisfaction of being on the right side of the bar and an instinctive scorn for judges in general.  (18).

Clamence has scorn for judges because he cannot perceive how a man could place himself in that position.  It stands that there is most likely a messiah complex going on in Clamence, for he perceives honor in defending the criminal against judges and he derives great satisfaction from this work looking upon himself almost as a kind of superman.  This isn’t hyperbole on my part for he actually says such:

Yes, few creatures were more natural than I.  I was altogether in harmony with life, fitting into it from top to bottom without rejecting any of its ironies, its grandeur, or its servitude.

[…]

To tell the truth, just from being so fully and simply a man, I looked upon myself as something of a superman.  (28).

Clamence then is ultimately driven by ego, and any seasoned reader will recognize the rather platitude that pride goeth before the fall.  Camus establishes his protagonist as a man who sees himself above the crowd of the masses, and even his supposed selflessness for the less fortunate becomes simply an extension for his ego.  Men like Clamence abound in our human societies, and while the attitude “don’t be a smarty-pants” can sometimes buffer a brilliant person’s ego, Clamence’s story becomes a fascinating exploration of how individual people can plummet in spirit, reputation, and individual strength.  Far better critics and theorists have poured over Camus’s final novel and derived lessons from it, and for my own part I wanted to understand at least the first part of Clamence’s fall from grace.

When the reader first hears Clamence speak he’s talking in a tavern in Amsterdam, his legal career long gone, and he spends most of his days drinking and debauching.  He informs the nameless listener that he came to this state after experiencing three individual traumas.  It’s the first trauma that stands out to me, for in many ways it is the most familiar.  Clamence describes the event after he has just won yet another legal case:

I had gone up on the Ponts des Artes, deserted at that hour, to look at the river that could hardly be made out now night has come.  Facing the statue of Vert-Galant, I dominated the island.  I felt rising within me a vast feeling of power and—I don’t know how to express it—of compulsion, which cheered my heart.  I straightened up and was about to light a cigarette, when, at that very moment, a laugh burst out behind me.  Taken by surprise, I suddenly wheeled around; there was no one there.  (38-39).

This passage may at first seem like something out of Stephen King, and when Clamence would turn the statue would suddenly have no face, and when he turned around there would be a gasp as a Lovecraftian nightmare would appear and drag him to the realm of the old gods and…well you can read it for yourself.  The point is that this laughter appears at the height of Clamence’s sense of victory and as he’s about to enjoy the simple pleasure of a cigarette the laughter emerges and cuts him to his core.  Now the sudden appearance of laughter is nothing malevolent for Clamence explains it out further:

At the same time I became aware of the rapid beating of my heart.  Please don’t misunderstand me; there was nothing mysterious about that laugh; it was a good, hearty, almost friendly laugh, which re-established the proper proportions.  […]  That evening as I rang up a friend, who wasn’t at home.  I was hesitating about going out when, suddenly, I heard laughter under my windows.  I opened them.  On the sidewalk, in fact, some youths were loudly saying good night.  I shrugged my shoulders as I closed the windows; after all, I had a brief to study.  I went into the bathroom to drink a glass of water.  My reflection was smiling in the mirror, but it seemed to me that my smile was double…  (39-40).

The Fall possesses no outright supernatural elements like ghosts, demons, imps, or aliens but the sudden appearance and disappearance of the laughter, coupled with this final impression of the mirror, both work together to heighten Clamence’s impression and distract him from his pleasures.  I have no intention of explaining these elements out as figures of otherworldly forces attempting to cause Clamence to fall, and in fact I’m positive neither does Camus.  During his life, Camus strived to explore the implication of action, not simply physical but also mental action, for in his novel The Stranger Meursault’s apathy is often a choice that leads him down a particular path.  By not caring that his mother is dead or shooting the arab on the beach he surrenders his ability to really make the choice to exist and be in the world.  Clamence likewise suffers a similar problem, however unlike Meursault who is guided by apathy for the world in general, Clamence is wrapped up in his passion for his work which is ultimately an expression of his own vanity.

At this point the reader may ask so what?  What relevance does Clamence hearing some laughter have to somebody on the street who’s never even heard of Albert Camus or The Fall.  By the sounds of it the novel’s just some guy bullshitting in a bar to make himself feel special.

My regular contester has hit on something in the final part of their critique.  Clamence is speaking to a nameless figure, he is confessing to a nameless figure and that distinction is important.  Unless you’re Catholic (I was raised Episcopal which, as Robin Williams so brilliantly put, is “Catholic Light, same religion, half the guilt”) the idea of confessing something to someone is a rather abstract concept.  It’s something people do in Soap Operas when they’ve cheated on their husband or wife.  Clamence at first doesn’t seem to have anything to confess.  He’s a failed lawyer and now a drunk, but looking back to the fact that the person listening is never named or described changes the way a person reads The Fall because over time it becomes clear Clamence is not addressing an unknown person, he’s speaking directly to the reader.

This is important then because the first question that emerges is: why is confessing to us?  The second question is: what power do we have over Clamence that he should confess to us?  And of course the third question would be: are we in any position to grant him any kind of pardon.

These questions aren’t without merit.  Michel Foucault, a man that many in the existentialist camp found frustrating and not just because he looked great in a turtleneck, explored this notion in his book The History of Sexuality Volume 1 when he describes the role of confession in human society:

The confession is a ritual of discourse in which the speaking subject is also the subject of the statement; it is also a ritual that unfolds within a power relationship, for one does not confess without the presence (or virtual presence) of a partner who is not simply the interlocutor but the authority who requires the confession, prescribes and appreciates it, and intervenes in order to judge, punish, forgive, console, and reconcile.  (61-2).

That was incredibly academic and thick, but breaking it down simply Foucault is suggesting that when a person is confession to another they are placing the listener into a position of power.  This really isn’t an unfamiliar concept.  When a friend shares a secret they are ultimately confessing it to you, thus giving you power over them.  By the way Jessica told me that Taylor totally, and I mean look at me, totally has a crush on Brandon.  Confessing is placing the self in the power of another person and so looking at Clamence a problem ensues: if he’s about his fall to us he gives us power over him.

The first part of the confession is about the laughter, for after he hears it his life begins to steadily unrail.  It doesn’t end, for there are two other events in his life that will break him, but the laughter begins his problems, and because he’s confessing to us he is by implication asking us to consider whether or not he is a weak man for failing at the sound of that laughter.  This is hard to say because I myself am not immune to this.  Whenever I hear laughter I assume that it is because of me.  Part of that may be being the un-athletic kid in school for many years, or my tendency to forget to zip up my fly which brings my wife endless amusement, but it’s also a narcissism on my part for I am in many ways a selfish and vain man.  Case and point, I honestly believe somebody gives a shit about my opinion on a novel by Camus.

This fear of laughter is hardwired into me and so I find it difficult to really condemn Clamence, though it does make me think of Christopher Hitchens.  I’ve written before about how one of my favorite books is letters to a young contrarian, a book which acts as a series of lessons for those who wish to prepare themselves for regularly challenging the established quo.  There’s one passage in particular that stands out to me as I consider this:

Laughter can be the most unpleasant sound; it’s an essential element in mob conduct and is part of the background noise of taunting and jeering at lynching’s and executions.  Very often, crowds or audiences will augh complicity or slavishly, just to show they “see” the joke and are all together.  […]  It’s therefore not true to say, as some optimists do, that humor is essentially subversive.  It can be an appeal to the familiar and clichéd a source of reassurance through shared hilarity.  (116).

Laughter is a sound that, by its nature, is built to deconstruct.  There’s a reason that dictators keep an eye on writers and comedians, because laughter can remind people that everyone is equal in their humanity particularly their weaknesses.  Looking at Clamance it’s no mistake that Camus decides upon seemingly source less laughter to ruin the man’s moment of vanity.  Clamence believed himself to be a superman, but for a moment he felt a real terror for the laughter reminded him that he wasn’t immune from weakness and thus begins his “fall from grace.”

There is more to the novel, but looking at this I wanted to explore the idea of one impression.  Laughter is what breaks Clamence, and as the reader considers their own life, and the burden of power as they receive the man’s confession, it falls upon them to decide whether or not they are implicated in the man’s fall, or at least, whether they can judge him without wondering if they could find themselves in the exact same place.

 

*Writer’s Note*

For the record the title is borrowed from a song by Aerosmith.  You can enjoy the song, and don’t worry its good early Aerosmith, by following the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEJah99qbL4

 

**Writer’s Note**

While I was researching for this one I did go to Wikipedia (bash me later) for resources (Ha, got you) and to see if there were any details in the plot that I missed (got me again) and I noticed at the bottom there was a link to a small essay about Camus’s use of religious imagery in the novel.  If you’re interested follow the link below:

http://maher.filfre.net/writings/camus.htm

a letter from a young atheist: what’s with all these damn letters anyway?

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Argument, Atheism, Blue Shell, Christianity, Christopher Hitchens, Franz Xaver Kappus, letter, Letter to a Christian Nation, letters to a young contrarian, Letters to a Young Poet, logos, Mario Kart, pathos, questions, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ronald Reagan, Sam Harris, Sir Rowland Hill, Stamps, The Iliad, The Odyssey, United states Postal Service Did NOT pay for this Letter

 

Dear B——,

What is it with atheists and letters? Seriously it’s like we don’t even know what twitter or emails are. I mean I’m just as guilty as the lot of these guys. Is it pretentiousness? Is it a fear of modern technology? Perhaps atheism is really just well hidden propaganda campaign by the United States Postal Service to get people writing real letters again. On an entirely different matter, did you know you can now buy Batman stamps for only 25 cents apiece? What a bargain! Talk to your post office today.

It’s been a while B—–, and I do apologize for the lateness of this letter. For whatever reason grad school decided, well, let me put it like this. There are semesters in which the gates of hell open up, and a wretched demon spawned from the loins of Beelzebub himself grabs you by the ankle and drags you down into the fiery pit…this was one of those semesters, for almost every person I met. As such I wasn’t able to continue our correspondence and offer up my support. I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you and Charlie, but by the sounds of it this new girl Kim seems like a good match for you, and the fact that she can kick your ass in Mario Kart…just get used to that, it happens.

But I wanted to address this matter of letters because it’s something I’ve noticed myself, but more importantly it’s also been observed by a friend on Facebook. The man in question is a former student, I think he’s working as a nurse right now and making me hate my body with every picture he posts of himself, but I love the guy because he’s one of my regular contester’s whenever I share these letters. I’ve spent a few nights chatting back and forth with him about Christianity and religion in general because he is a believer and also because I understand no matter how heated the conversations become there is always a mutual respect as well as the understanding between the two of us that neither is going to convert the other. When I posted the C.S. Lewis letter, the first one, his response stuck with me. I can’t remember verbatim, my genes didn’t code for an eidetic memory sad-for-me-oh-well but I do remember this remark, “these ‘letters from’ series are the most pretentious things I’ve ever read, and I can’t stop reading them.” The word pretentious got stuck in my head and whenever words or sentences stand out to you it’s usually because there’s some meaning or truth to them.

I know of at least two atheist authors that have used the “letter” format to critique religion, Joseph Harris and Christopher Hitchens, though I note moving forward that only the latter really excelled in this particular category.

Before I go any further B——-, do you like Ronald Reagan, because not long ago the united States Postal Service released the Ronald Reagan postage stamp, now only $10 for twenty of these collectables. Go in today and you can catch the Christmas times special, only $15 for forty stamps. What a bargain!

Joseph Harris’s Letter to a Christian Nation is a letter, but it’s often the kind of letter one receives from a spiteful ex-girlfriend or from collections agencies hospitals hire to find the bums who can’t afford the treatment they provide. Harris’s little book, which is not a derogatory statement it’s literally only 91 pages long and I read it in an hour and a half, is a point by point assault on the institution of Christianity, specifically how it infects the political realities of the United States. In one passage he observes:

Can you prove that Zeus does not exist? Of course not. And yet, just imagine if we lived in a society where people spent tens of billions of dollars of their personal income each year propitiating the gods of Mount Olympus, where the government spent billions more in tax dollars to support institutions devoted to these gods, where untold billions more in tax subsidies were given to pagan temples, where elected officials did their best to impede medical research out of deference to The Iliad and The Odyssey, and where every debate about public policy was subverted to the whims of ancient authors who wrote well, but who didn’t know enough about the nature of reality to keep their excrement out of their food. This would be a horrific misappropriation of out material, moral, and intellectual resources. And yet that is exactly the society we are living in. This is the woeful and irrational world that you and your fellow Christians are working so tirelessly to create. (56).

I recognize that the preceding passage will probably have a few Christian readers steamed, and that’s his point, but the literature major in me is kinda geeking out and picturing what that society would look like. What would Presidential debates be like? Would Republicans accuse Democrats on being soft on sacrifices to Ares, and would Democrats make snide sarcastic remarks when Republicans make wise-cracks about Apollo? Maybe instead of Christmas we would celebrate Zeusmas and read passages from The Odyssey while wearing togas. Instead of Christian rock bands we would have groups with names like Medea’s Love, Ajax’s Hammer, Hades Spawn. That would be epic right?…right?…oh whatever,, buy stamps.

The problem I have with Harris is that his approach lacks a real eloquence. The man is far more concerned it seems with knowing more than his reader than actually arranging out a real criticism and his “letter” suffers for it. Looking back at this passage if he had simply ended with “and yet that is exactly…” then his argument would have been a solid sting to the influence of Christianity in American politics. But Harris can’t just leave a good paragraph be, and the final line “This is the woeful and irrational world…” comes across as the minister pointing his finger at the crowd and shouting “shame.” I have expected Johnathan Edwards to appear telling Harris to “tone it down bro” before copying so notes down for his next sermon.

I won’t shit on Harris completely B——–, and isn’t that a lovely image (someone should put that on a stamp, no they shouldn’t actually), because within his book is an important passage. Earlier in the book he refutes the idea atheism as a kind of religion by explaining the identity outright:

No.

The entirety of atheism is contained in this response. Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, “atheism” is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a “non-astrologer” or a “non-alchemist.” We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people male in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 Americans (87% of the population) claiming to “never doubt the existence of God” should be obliged to present evidence for his existence—and, indeed, for his benevolence, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day. (51-2).

I’ll tell you B—–, when I read that passage I was incredibly happy and sad. I was happy because at that moment Harris had explained perfectly my stance whenever people ask me why I am an atheist. It’s not out of anger, or some pompous elitism driven by my desire to prove I’m better than everyone else (*cough cough*David Silverman*cough cough*), it’s because I recognize that whenever the matter of “proof of existence” occurs in our society it comes down to the person asserting the existence to provide evidence. That’s the reality of any philosophic question, and when it comes to the existence of god you cannot get more philosophical. Whether god exists is the ultimate question because it determines the foundation of our understanding of our reality and that’s probably why Christians and Atheists can become so cross when having this debate with one another. We’re not arguing just about whether a god exists, we’re arguing about the narrative of our reality and all of the sub-narratives found within each. Along with this Harris is able to nail the most important point which leads me to why I was sad when I read this passage.

Harris’s paragraph here actually comes after a lead-in to this point. Think about kittens, or the fact that the new STAR WARS movie has Han Solo and Chewbacca for a moment. Or think about stamps, stamps are cool, and CHEAP. Boy are they cheap. Okay. Here’s what came before this:

Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl. Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her. If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring at precisely this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most. Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings. The same statistics also suggest that this girl’s parents believe—as you believe—that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family. Are they right to believe this? Is it good that they believe this? (50-1).

Imagine my heartbreak B—— at reading the following passage after this one. Harris talks a great game about the logic and reason of atheism and then slings pathos ridden passages like this at his reader. It’s not so much the situation that disturbs me however, because I recognize this shit actually happens. No matter how much we want to believe about the good in people we should never forget that fuckers live amongst the, for-the-most-part, benevolent masses and pretending like rape, pedophilia, and torture doesn’t exist is just foolish. But Harris uses a fictional and hypothetical example, all the while pointing his finger at the Christian reader, and his argument becomes pathos, pathetic emotional diatribe that could have been substantiated by researching for a real instance rather than letting his reader simply imagine an event. Tragedy is not novel and this example leads me to the more successful example of the “letter” model.

But first:

In 1837 Sir Rowland Hill, the British Postmaster General, introduced the “Post Office Reforms” whereby the mail could go anywhere in the British Isles at the same rate (a penny a half-ounce); the postage was to be paid by the sender — not the addressee; and payment was receipted by placing a small piece of colored paper on the outside of the letter — THE STAMP! Of course Hill’s proposal was heavily debated for a few years, but after serious discussion the change was enacted and instituted in 1840. Thus on May 6, 1840 (first date of valid use) the first government-printed postage stamps were born (The American Philatelic Society, follow this link to learn more about stamps http://stamps.org/Stamp-History)

I’ve written a fair amount about letters to a young contrarian before B——, at least three times now, and each time I’m reminded why Hitchens was such a force and nightmare to people of faith. The man was, to quote a friend of mine, a beast. For me it is the inspiration for his book that demonstrates the superior rhetoric of Hitchens, for his book was partly inspired by several of the students that he taught at The New School in New York, as well as a the book Letters to a Young Poet. It should be noted that this book is a slim collection of only ten letters from Rainer Maria Rilke to the young poet Franz Xaver Kappus who was serving in the Thereiasn Military Academy in Austria at the time and was sending Rilke his work between the years 1902 to 1908. Typical Hitchens, the reference was vague, European in origin, and something only two or three people probably read in their lifetime, but the fact remains that the man decided he would follow the pattern set by a literary tradition, as well as a correspondence to encourage and guide young writers rather than preaching at them.

Midway through letters he begins his criticism of religion, for the book is in fact more designed to discuss being a public contrarian (someone who works against the grain of society for the purposes of education of the larger populace). After noting his obvious atheism he remarks:

You write to remind me that many exemplary people have been sustained by their faith. (Actually if I may be slightly strict with you, you don’t remind me of the fact. I was already quite aware of it. And I have read, and read of, Dr. Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and many others whom you mention). But let me ask you in turn: Are you saying that they’re religious belief was sufficient or a necessary condition for their moral actions? In other words, that without such faith they would not have opposed racism or Nazisim? (61).

This argument would come to be Hitchens’s mantra and ultimate rhetorical weapon when he was debating on his book tour for his later work god is not Great, and it remained a consistent strategy because there were few that ever attempted, or at least successfully, to answer this question. But more important B——- than the lack of a solid answer is the actual question itself. While Harris talked at his reader Hitchens asked a question of the faithful, and asking question is always a superior strategy. A friend and I discussed the current level of discourse and we both agreed the problem with religious, sexual, and political discussions is always the assault upon the “other.” People like to place themselves above others immediately and then try to change somebody’s mind and the problem is if you call someone an idiot and then try to change their mind you’ll just be met with emotion and ego.

I know you’re immediate challenge B——-: Doesn’t Hitchens talk down to his reader?

No.

Hitchens from the very beginning of his book, much as Rilke did in his, establishes his letters as challenges designed to get his young writer/reader to think. Rather than employing pathos simply to attack his reader he employs real examples to get his young reader to question their perceptions.   Take a later passage:

As the great Eugene Debs used to tell his socialist voters in the 1912 election campaign, he would not lead them into the Promised Land even if he could, because if they were trusting enough to be led in, they would be trusting enough to be led out again. He urged them, in other words, to do their own thinking. (63).

This of course is followed by my favorite line, and probably the best sentence Hitchens ever wrote during his life:

I repeat: What really matters about any individual is not what he thinks, but how he thinks. (63).

This has been a long letter be, which means I’ll have to spend more money on postage, but hey the Post Office is offering great holiday rates on their Christmas Time #343 Christmas stamps so it won’t be too bad. But I wanted to make up for the long gap and also to understand why atheists are always writing letters, whether or not that format is really affective in establishing real challenges to religion, and whether the trend is really, to quote my Christian friend, pretentious. As so often happens in life, the hippie English teacher from high school who drove a Chevy nova with only half a paintjob was right: it just depends on the situation.

I read Harris and I realize his concern is not so much to challenge religion, but to call people idiots and enjoy being the “smart one.” I read Hitchens and I am engaged in a real conversation, and while he demonstrates knowledge and asks tough questions, there is still the understanding that the reader is allowed to make up their own mind, and it’s this model that I’ve tried to fashion in our own correspondence B——. Your mind is your own and you need to figure out for yourself what you believe. As for how to keep your girlfriend from using a blue tortoise shell against you when playing Mario-kart…there is the struggle of man in the twenty-first century my friend.

 

Sincerely, yours in the best of confidence and support,

Joshua “Jammer” Smith

 

P.S. I was just kidding about the whole United States Postal service secretly paying atheists for promotion, and I definitely, DEFINITELY, am not receiving kickbacks for promoting the Charlie Brown Christmas Forever stamps, now only 49 cents apiece. Just put that out of your mind. Follow the link below.

 

https://store.usps.com/store/browse/category.jsp?categoryId=buy-stamps

An Elephant Never Forgets

Tags

1984, artistic integrity, Authorial Integrity, Ayatollah Khomeini, Christopher Hitchens, Essais, Essay, fatwah, fear, Fear of Laughter, George Orwell, imperialism, Individual Will, Laughter, letters to a young contrarian, Literature, Michel de Montaigne, Not Dead Yet, Salman Rushdie, Shooting an Elephant, The Satanic Verses, Totalitarianism

Orwell begins his essay Shooting an Elephant with the lines, “In Moulmein, in Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me.” I must confess reading these lines I feel a twinge of envy, for no one has ever really despised me, to my knowledge. I fear sometimes, despite the tone of these essays I am actually quite a socialite and unfailingly kind, damn obnoxious really, that I am not doing enough to be truly despised. The hatred mankind may inflict upon others is truly marvelous inspiration for it can achieve, dare I say it, miraculous wonders. The hatred felt towards Orwell eventually led to him shoot the elephant, I believe the phrase spoiler alert is often cited in instances like this, which in turn inspired the essay that is as well remembered as many of his other essays. That last sentence was an attempt at humor (another character trait that rarely emerges in these essays of mine).

I seriously doubt many people outside of a few English majors, and honestly you’d be surprised by how few of them know it either, know that Orwell wrote an essay entitled Shooting an Elephant, or that he wrote several others such as Such, Such Were the Joys… chronicling his childhood years in a boarding school, Inside the Whale discussing the idea of creating reality in fiction, or Why I Write which is an amusing anecdote about tap dancing star fish. The essays of Orwell are a discovered treat to many scholars of literature, though perhaps I am being unfair for there may be one or two excellent professors and teachers who bother with Orwell and give their students a few snippets of his work. Along with my regular readings of Orwell I have spent most of my summer freedom reading the works of Christopher Hitchens, both his biographies (though they’re really only that in name because the Dewy Decimal System has yet to spawn a section entitled Justifiable Character Assassination, I particularly enjoyed the Clinton book and now find it difficult to enjoy the Family Guy jingle “This is one fine day to be nude”) as well as his collections of essays. I recently managed to finish his essay Not Dead Yet which works as both an assault upon religious bigotry and incompetence, it is Hitchens after all, as well as a retelling of the, grief is a rather sour phrase to say it best, barbarism inflicted upon Salman Rushdie and his publishers following the release of his misunderstood novel The Satanic Verses.

For those unfamiliar with the history behind the text, the former head of the Iranian sect of Islam, the now gratefully dead Ayatollah Khomeini, announced a fatwah against Salman Rushdie because of the belief that Rushdie was attempting to mock the prophet (Muhammad at one point is supposed to have received one his regular, sometimes conveniently placed, visions in which he supported polytheism but later recanted and speculated that he was under the influence of Satan rather than angels, thus the Satanic Verses of Islam came into consciousness). A fatwah, for clarification, is a public assassination contract that transcends national borders; many publishers of Rushdie’s novels suffered all manner of hellish grief including, but not limited to, death threats, physical assault, assault with firearms, and death in the instance of his Japanese publisher. Hitchens’ essay is spot on to attack the ignorance usually employed in these vicious attempts at censorship by those who have not even bothered to pick up the book which has inspired so much of their rage, but to my mind Hitchens’s seemed to make the mistake, yes I said it and I hope old Hitch would have appreciated the chance to have his work critiqued, of placing all the blame upon religious individuals. He hit only half the target. He says of many writers following the announcement of the fatwah, “Most bizarre of all, though, was the noise emitted by a number of eminent writers and authors, John Le Carre, John Berger, Roald Dahl Hugh Trevor-Roper, and others began a sort of auction of defamation in which they accused Rushdie variously of insulting Islam, practicing western style cultural colonialism and condescension and damaging race relations. (They also accused him, most amazingly of all, of writing for money. What next?)” This is all of Hitchens’ critique of his fellow writers when there is an entire essay in this travesty itself. I will not invoke a pathetic tribal sentiment of “We’re writers, it’s us against them,” for that would reveal me as something I am not, an idiot (though my wife may disagree with me when I bring home the wrong type of olive oil from the super market). What is most heinous about the Rushdie criticism received from his fellow writers is that it is an instance of hypocrisy. Those interested in the craft of writing should understand that the artist must be free to pursue their impulses regardless of concern for the sensibilities of the audience. That is not to say vulgarity and barbarism should be employed for their own sake, for sensationalism is a cheap and temporary aesthetic result, but should an artist require “controversial” material for the work they embark upon, there should be no worry either of their own personal safety or for the safety of others. The reaction of his fellow artists and writers is appalling for it demonstrates they are willing to submit their creative impulses for the sake of the continuance of subtle totalitarian influence. The fatwah did not succeed. Rushdie’s work continues to be studied and read. And Hitchens, my great influence, missed a tremendous opportunity.

You began this work with hatred I believe?

Yes I did, however hatred is not the central concern as of this writing. What is the central core of this effort is to understand the essay and how Orwell succeeds in his effort.

Before I return to Orwell I’ll discuss briefly the history of essays themselves. The origin of the essay is as conflicted as the supposed origin of the musical genre Heavy Metal. In that I mean it can create heated conversations most often ending in drinking contests following a vicious physical brawl. While speaking to a fellow student of literature the topic of the essay came up and I shared some information that I had learned most recently in my Reformation Europe class. In this course I learned about a figure known as Michel de Montaigne, a French public official who acted as a sort of mediator between the Huguenots and Catholics during the Wars of Religion that dominated the country of France during the late 16^th century. Montaigne, following the concluding of his judicial career, retired to his estate known as the Tower of Chateau in Dordogne which included a personal library of over 1500 hundred books and it is in this space, much to my personal and intense envy, Montaigne was able to spend his days reading, writing and meditating, all the while crafting his collection which were eventually called Essais. Perhaps the title sounds familiar. The contemporary word “essay” is partially derived from this word, which roughly translated means “trial” or “attempt.” Immediately the standard reveals itself and a perception of what the essay should stand for emerges, but before I continue allows me to finish the story. My creative Writing Instructor, whose name I will withhold for I can never effectively judge his humors, began an assault in which he argued Montaigne in no way, as I suggested to my friend, created the modern essay. In this respect he is correct. The essay has existed as far back as the ancient times for the writings of men such as Plutarch, Thucydides, Tacitus, and Cicero are, despite their length, essays; works of prose that “attempt” to impress some idea upon the reader. The essays of Montaigne however remain in many eyes the first “modern” attempts at the essay, for Montaigne employed himself and his various “humors” as the delivery mechanism.

It seems lackluster by today’s standards of the post gonzo news paradigm, but Montaigne’s work of over 150 essays remains the first “modern” attempt at such a feat. Tackling history, religion, marriage, imperialism, etc, he effectively established the medium of the individual experience and how to “attempt” to communicate said experience.

In Shooting an Elephant Orwell “attempts” to address his suspicions of imperialism, demonstrating it to be nothing but a farce, while at the same time revealing a truth about peer pressure and revealing the travesties that may arise from it. The standard interpretation, or at least the one your professor or high school English instructor will inflict upon you is the latter. The impulse to cave into the majority will is the essence of totalitarianism. Orwell demonstrated this best with his novel 1984 with the inevitable breaking of Winston Smith with the threat of Room 101. In the case of Winston Smith, there is the threat of physical violence coupled with intense psychological trauma. In the case of Orwell himself, and in this sense I feel that Hunter S. Thompson’s credit of inventing gonzo journalism seems a little suspect, it is something far worse: laughter. Hitchens in letters to a young contrarian, and may I interrupt to comment that my continued insistence in quoting this book comes not out of sycophancy but instead because the man just seemed to capture everything right, relates his experience with laughter:

“Laughter can be the most unpleasant sound; it’s an essential element in mob conduct and is part of the background noise of taunting and jeering at lynching’s and executions. Very often crowds or audiences will laugh complicity or slavishly, just to show they “see” the joke and are all together.”

Orwell notes in Shooting an Elephant the power derived from this auditory stimulate:

“And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at. But I did not want to shoot the elephant. […] The Sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian on the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do. There was only one alternative.”

Laughter, the auditory push that forces Orwell’s hand into a viscous action he ultimately regrets, is so great a factor for the man’s consciousness that he is willing to alter his own will for fear of being mocked. How tender is the ego indeed. I would not be so crass however to attack Orwell, for that impulse to change one’s will is a trial every human being has at some point lost. We should not mourn these losses, instead we should learn from them. Orwell is frank enough to reveal the end result of his attempt to stave off laughter:

“It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open—I could see far dawn into the caverns of his pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart should be. The thick blood welled out him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not ever jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly, and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even able to finish him. […] In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die.”

It is at this point that the teacher attempts to laud the suffering of the beast as the result (and that dreaded yet briefly necessary word “symbol”) of peer pressure. In that I will not contest. What I will challenge is the end of the analysis at this moment. The death of the elephant is tragic due to the suffering it experiences from Orwell’s hand, and because there is something that strikes many human beings about the animal as distinctly human, whether it be their tendency to mourn their dead (a practice that is seen as exclusively human) or their habit of developing personality (elephant paintings have quickly become psychologically fascinating as well as a quick way for zoos to profit from veiled incarceration). It would be a mistake to suggest that I should not concern myself over the animal’s physical suffering, but it would be a tremendous blunder to ignore the greater issue of peer pressure and majority will. In this one instance the totalitarian impulse has resulted in an unnecessary violent act that has robbed a beast of its life, Orwell does note that the animal had gone mad, however he does leave this purposefully vague to establish his overall point. What of the future? The great agony derived from the passage of the elephant’s death is that it is a direct result of the mob that crowded Orwell and inspired fear of damage to his ego. In this instance this fear has resulted in unnecessary suffering, and Orwell allows us to see the bigger picture, that this fear of laughter translated as a fear of being outside the majority will has allowed him to part with his integrity and act in a way that now causes himself emotional pain.

Therein moves us to the more important point of analysis which Orwell is gracious enough to give us:

“Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd—seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him.”

The power structure of imperialism is dissected to reveal the troublesome condition of the entire enterprise. Those in power no longer possess any kind of actual freedom, because the rhetoric they have employed to assert their own power leaves them incapacitated to act freely. This observation reveals the peer pressure as nothing but a self perpetuating loop in which those who desire power must constantly prove their title as the superior race while those below then reinforce that position by reminding those in power that they need their help. The elephant is not simply an elephant. Do not fear. The words “it is a symbol” will not follow that statement. Instead I will say the elephant is a testament to the travesty of imperial desire, and the pitfalls of totalitarian will.

There will never be a true end to majority will, and instances like the topic of this essay will continue as long as the individual finds his or herself outside the “know” of society. What is important to note is how effective Orwell’s essay or “attempt” comes across. Orwell from this point on would begin to focus more and more of his attention upon social inequity and write numerous essays over the course of his career, each of them a demonstration of his real ability as a writer, and I dare anyone who bothers to pick up his collections to test me on this ground. They will fail. Not because every essay is scintillating, I could never make that argument (I have tried reading, for the record, his essay Boy’s Weeklies numerous times and found it difficult to progress past a page or so), but because each essay is a careful treatment of the form that is the essay. Orwell’s work is a careful and well executed “attempt” to convey both his experience as well as his idea.

It is this standard that I have tried to bring to these essays. Michel de Montaigne brought the essay inward to express his own humanity in an attempt to inspire human thought and imagination. I believe in this idea of the essay. Our writings do not, and should not always be grand intellectual masterpieces (though it would not be a travesty should we attempt to make them so), but they should continually challenge us to push ourselves as writers and thinkers into a new stage of intellectual development.   Whether it be the rise of the Police state in Ferguson, the continual open slaughter of young black men free of repercussion, the continual abuse of power by the bully figure of Vladimir Putin, the pathetically veiled genocide in Israel, or the continued pardoned social imperialism of religion, the tyranny of majority must be understood and combated.  For my part I have attempted only ever to challenge what I feel to be the basis of dictatorship, and I will continue to do so.

And hopefully, one day soon I can imagine, somebody will despise me for attempting to do so.

We Interrupt This Program…Wait, What Do You Mean “WE”?

Tags

Authorial Integrity, Christopher Hitchens, Conformity, letters to a young contrarian, Pronoun, Totalitarianism, We, Writing

I must interrupt these regular broadcasting for an important announcement and apology to my readers. Recently I have been re-reading Christopher Hitchens (I use this word far too often) essential and wonderful book letters to a young contrarian. Going at one chapter a day, every day as I first wake up(a better jump-starter has yet to be discovered in my experience), it has been marvelous to be reminded what it takes to be a true dissenter as well as an opportunity to regularly challenge myself to see if I still follow the course of my own path.

This morning as I was reading my chapter I came to the end and was terribly shocked when I came to this passage:

P.S. A note on language. Be even more suspicious than I was just telling you to be, of all those who employ the term “we” or “us” without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that “we” are all agreed on “our” interests and identity. Populist authoritarians try to slip it past you; so do some kinds of literary critics (“our sensibilities are engaged) Always ask who this “we” is; as often as not it’s an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs […]* Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves.

Shocked is too pale an adjective for my reaction to these words. Mortified is more appropriate. For the past month I have posting these essays, an attempt to legitimize literature and demonstrate its social relevance to society while warning of the dangers of conformity and authoritarian control. Yet it appears I’ve been employing a ridiculous and base rhetorical device. The word “we, our, and us” now echo through each of these essays calling you the readers into a club of thought that you might not even want into and calling myself to a label of mediocrity that is humiliating and yet rewarding for the wisdom it awards me.

The role of my work has been to encourage individual thought, not conscription into one frame of mind. My reader can freely accept or reject my writings at any time, as is their sanction. In short I apologize to my readers if it appears that I have given them no other option but to believe the sum total of my writing.

I do not mean to sound sycophantic to Mr. Hitchens as I write this, however as I have admitted time and again to be an admirer of the man, if it should emerge that I have missed such an obvious tenant I would have the proverbial “egg on my face.” Totalitarianism demands and insists upon the collected “we” and “us” in order for an individual-void society to flourish and blossom into its own. (Any who have the stomach for such thick material should consider Ayn Rand’s most bearable text Anthem to see the full effect that pronouns can place over psychology).

If a writer has made a mistake they should and must atone for it, lest it become a weakness that dogs their career and drains their voice of sincerity. I have a made a mistake and it is likely one that I shall continue to make in the future. If I should employ the “we” again, understand that is meant only to mean those that have read the text or are willing to participate in this momentary discussion. It does not dictate alliance to my academic philosophy and penchant. (On a brief note I find it fascinating how literature develops a sensitivity to words, simply writing the word alliance sends a chill down my spine and a sour taste in my mouth).

Totalitarianism is not a distant threat known only to those unfortunate enough to be born in the Middle East. Dictatorship has emerged in our lifetime as both a physical and psychological state; therefore those of us that possess liberty must be constantly on guard lest such influence begin to infect us. Some may feel that my shock and disgrace is simply an over-reaction, but all it takes is a single laps to dictate further behavior. How often have I employed “we” or “us” (and not just in the previous sentences of this paragraph) in these essays, automatically assuming that any casual reader may arrive at the same conclusions? That assumption of will is an impulse to manipulate and control another’s psychological state and bring them over to my line of thinking. In short I have been an ass.

Like Mr. Hitchens, and many writers before him, the purpose of writing is to generate independent will, and in my next essay I will discuss the importance of that will as demonstrated through two brilliant texts: The Stranger by Albert Camus and Batman: Year One by Frank Miller. I will continue to defend literature as a viable and important institution, necessary to sustain and encourage healthy development in human beings. For this I will never apologize. What I will account for is making the assumption that you automatically agree with me and that my will is unalterable, for that is the root of all dictatorship.

Thank you again as always Mr. Hitchens for reminding me that sometimes the greatest jeopardy to the ethos is our own mistakes. See, I made it again.

We now return to our regularly scheduled program, or, if you prefer allusions to brilliantly written and produced British comedies: “And now for something completely different.”

**Author’s note**

The […] indicate continued text that have been carefully excised from the above quote due to their lack of direction for the argument. The material I did not include is a small tangent on Hitchens part to demonstrate the use of the “us” as a conscriptive tool, as opposed to a rhetorical aid. However, ff you should desire to know what it is(reading good writing is its own reward and keeping authors accountable is deliciously fun) that I have removed, go to the last two pages of chapter XIV (fourteen for those uneducated with roman numerals, don’t feel bad if you are I usually don’t make it past fifty myself) and you will find this wonderful quote at the end.

Encomium for Christopher Hitchens

Tags

Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, Essay, god is not Great, Hitch-22, letters to a young contrarian

On December 15th 2011 Christopher Hitchens took his last breath on this planet, and I’m sure if he exists in an afterlife he would (apart from being pleasantly surprised albeit simultaneously exasperated) lament that he did not have one last chance to remind the society he lived in of the dangers of blind faith and the importance of questioning the established quo. I got into Hitchens late, meaning that I discovered the man and his work near the end of his life. I count it among my many mistakes. I became aware of Christopher Hitchens via The Daily Show where he subtly announced his stage four cancer that would later rob him of life. Curious as to this character of this eloquent man I purchased a copy of his memoir Hitch-22. This first book is nowhere near the importance in my mind of two of his other works: god is not Great and letters to a young contrarian. I have elected to explain Hitchens through these two books, for more often than not human beings take shape in my mind through their written works.

Let us begin with the most controversial idea and therefore we must begin for me with letters to a young contrarian. You may question this as an obvious move to make you laugh at my sense of wit, but I assure this is not the case(I’ve never possessed any iota of wit, just ask my wife). You see Hitchens carefully and eloquently as always, presented to me through this work how radical a position it can be to be a contrarian. Through this small book Hitchens demonstrated to me the importance of the individual to develop not just an intolerance of ignorance and dangerous majority will, but to be ready to question yourself. He says:

“I repeat: what really matters is not what one thinks but how one thinks.”

This is a simple quote but in this sentence Hitchens dramatically altered my perception of belief and learning in my mind. I began to question whether or not I accepted many things in this world just because I had always believed them or if they had been taught to me. Hitchens statement led me to question whether or not we members of contemporary society are really encouraged to think; whether we are taught to critically perceive the reality around us. The individual mind is marked because it is individual. It perceives fault and does not falter from acknowledging fault which, and here’s the tragedy, is often perceived as a threat. Hitchens was often a source of public squabble (that’s a polite word for the debates he often participated in) because he was unflinching to attack hypocrisy where he saw it whether it be dictators, despots, politicians, religious officials, and even the divine. His insistence to speak often presented itself as him simply trying to “rock the boat” or “be an asshole,” but what his critics often neglected (carefully I might add) was that his critiques were ladened with truth. Letters to a young contrarian carefully guided me to the belief that if we are to live in this world, it is without compromising our integrity or sense of justice, for often the path of evil asks us to temporarily and then completely abandon both. I conclude with a line from the book when he says,

“If you want to stay in for the long haul, and lead a life that is free from illusions […], then I suggest you learn to recognize and avoid the symptoms of the zealot and person who knows that he is right. For the dissenter skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle.”

I did not feel comfortable calling myself an atheist until concluding letters and then the second work of Hitchens: god is not Great. I will admit that reading this book depressed me, for at that time I was still clinging to the battered and tattered remnants of my faith in god. Whether it was out of a sense of familial devotion or existential angst I cannot be quite sure, but whatever the case Hitchens provided me, not with a biased rant against organized faith and ideology, but instead a rational critique for the foundation of religion within the minds of man. I will cite two sources that I feel made the most impact upon me. He says,

“There still remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that is wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum of servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result of and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking.”

Rather than submit to pathetic arguments Hitchens employs logos and carefully attacks the inconsistencies and corruptions that are derived from obsessive religious devotion. Hitchens could have turned his book into an emotional rant against organized religion, but instead he chose an intellectual argument. He wanted to create a conversation that would ask everyone to challenge their faith and lack-there-of, and in my mind that will always be the hallmark of virtue. We as human beings should always attempt to talk first before submitting to emotions that cloud our judgment. This of course leads me to the second quote for he says,

“And here is the point about myself and my co-thinkers. Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, open-mindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake.”

As a young man I had always been uncomfortable with hypocrisy and blind devotion that never questioned itself, and in a few sentences Hitchens had stated clearly what had always troubled me about religion. He illustrated what exactly I wanted to be: an independent mind. Hitchens was openly atheistic but he never went so far as to argue that atheism should become the predominate ideology of humanity; instead what he was arguing for was independent thought. Hitchens attacked the divine because it is the ultimate source of assurance for many people, in that they accept it’s presence without bothering to question it’s foundation, its negative side effects, and the violence it seems to inspire. What he shows us throughout god is not Great, is that if an ideology is not questioned or challenged reasonably then it is never given the opportunity to prove faulty or given the chance to reform and fix its weaknesses.

Hopefully I have illustrated thus far that what Hitchens was preaching (I use that word loosely because, in Hitchens’ own words, the English language is often poor to provide us better verbs) throughout his entire life was questioning the totalitarian will power of the “assured” masses. He saw as many before him did, that the individual will often come under the scrutiny of those who feel a part of a larger system that they do not question, and therefore the individual must be prepared to defend themselves. Hitchens was not afraid to call bullshit. In that I mean he was undaunted in the face of conflict and was not afraid to be challenged when he spoke out against bigotry, intolerance, and ignorance. That bravery and strength of will is something I have always aspired to and I regret terribly I will never get the chance to meet Mr. Hitchens and thank him for such inspiration.