Francis Fukuyama: 'Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment' (2018)

Francis Fukuyama: Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.

On this centenary of the end of the First World War, Identity is relevant to an understanding of that conflict and today's world.

"The great struggles in American political history -- over slavery and segregation, workers' rights, women's equality -- were ultimately demands that the political system expand the circle of individuals it recognized as having equal rights." (p. 22)

With identity politics in the 21st century, however, "desire for equal recognition can easily slide . . . into a demand for recognition of the group's superiority" -- for example, among nations, tribes, religious sects and ethnic groups. (p. 22)  

"Individuals come to believe that they have a true or authentic identity hiding within themselves that is somehow at odds with the role they are assigned by their surrounding society. The modern concept of identity places a supreme value on authenticity . . . (p. [25])

The "Arab Spring" begins in Tunisia on December 17, 2010. (p. [42])

Various uprisings sparked by desire for dignity. (pp. 44-48). Scapegoating used by rulers to divide opposition. 

"The desire for the state to recognize one's basic dignity has been at the core of democratic movements since the French Revolution." (p. 49)

Gemeinschaft (village) to Gesellschaft (urban) demographic shift over time, especially since 1900. "The dislocation . . . laid the basis for an ideology of nationalism based on an intense nostalgia for an imagined past of strong community in which the divisions and confusions of a pluralist society did not exist." (p. 65)

Deterioration of "middle-class status may then explain the rise of populist nationalism in many parts of the world in the second decade of the twenty-first century." In the USA, "the working class, defined as people with a high school education and less, has not been doing well over the past generation." (p. 87)

". . . resentful citizens fearing loss of middle-class status point an accusatory finger upward to the elites . . . but also downward to the poor, whom they feel are undeserving and . . . unfairly favored." (p. 88).

"White nationalism has a long history in Europe, where it is called fascism." (p. 121) Ethno-nationalism, ethnic cleansing. Anti-immigrant sentiment is back on the rise due to refugee crises, especially since the Arab Spring, blaming the refugees rather than the causes. 

"National identity begins with a shared belief in the legitimacy of the country's political system, whether that system is democratic or not . . . [It] also extends into the realm of culture and values. . . what it takes to become a genuine member of the community." (p. 126). Diversity. Resilience. Resistance to complete homogenization. (p. 127) 

"National identities can be built around liberal and democratic political values, and the common experiences that provide connective tissue around which diverse communities can thrive." (p. 128)

"Citizenship is a two-way street: it endows citizens with rights that are protected by the state, but it also enjoins duties on them, above all, the duty of loyalty to the country's principles and laws." (p. 148)

Results of the American Civil War. XIII, XIV and XV Amendments. "Identity has to be related to substantive ideas such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and human equality." (p. 171)

A thoughtful book.

Today's Rune: Strength. 

John Binder: 'UFORIA' (1981, 1985)

John Binder's UFOria, a low budget gem made in 1981 but not released until 1985, somehow fell through the cracks of mass consciousness. 

I was lucky enough to see the film many years ago on video, and never forgot it. It hasn't to date been released on DVD or Blu-ray, nor has it been chosen for salvation by the Criterion Collection, but it sticks with me. In fact, rather magically, I was able to see it again recently! 

UFOria makes up in dialogue, good-natured satire and an excellent cast of characters what it lacks in budgeted technical virtuosity. All the actors fit their characters seamlessly, whether they have a lot of lines or just a choice few. These include Cindy "I am gonna be Noah" Williams (Laverne & Shirley), Fred "get the net, boys" Ward (Henry & June), Harry Dean "I believe I'll have a drink" Stanton (Big Love, Twin Peaks: The Return) and Hank "just for playsure" Worden (Twin Peaks).  The whole script is quotable -- I could still remember many of UFOria's juiciest lines years after last watching it. And: the soundtrack is perfectly attuned to the characters. 

Today's Rune: Fertility. 

Yi T'aejun, 'Dust and Other Stories' (2018), Part II

Yi T'aejun, Dust and Other Stories. Translated by Janet Poole. New York: Columbia University Press, 2018.

"Unconditioned." The passage of time, evocations worthy of Marcel Proust. "Perhaps it was because two or more of those decades had passed during which the mountains and rivers are said to change, but does that mean we can't even trust the mountains and rivers over time? . . . The whole area seemed to have been filled in and the mountain razed, to be replaced by a red muddy track going up the slope." (pp. 140-141)

"Before and After Liberation." ". . . no words were necessary for the feelers of their desperate hearts to clasp onto each other, and they had already grown quite intimate after only a couple of meetings." (p. 155)

"U.S. [A]rmy [J]eeps . . . wriggled like a swarm of whirligig beetles."  

"'The blue waters and green mountains remain the same, 
While the rain merely washes the moss on the rocks.'"  (p. 187)

"Tiger Grandma." Literacy drive. "'Why don't you leave us living corpses alone? What does it matter if we can read or not when we'll be on the way to the public cemetery tomorrow or the next day . . .'"  (p. 190)

"'There's a saying that even saints must follow the times.'" (p. 192)

Manguri, a basket with a slip pf paper to forget worries. (p. 194) Heap of stones. Rice and greens for crows and magpies, "a shaman's 'scolding.'" (p. 195)

"Just then, three or four hens come tottering out of the kitchen, chased by a cockerel." (p. 198)

"Dust." "The businessman's complaints were endless." (p. 239)

Japanese imperialism replaced by American imperialism. "All of a sudden the children selling American cigarettes and gum scattered into the alleys to hide, crouching like a flock of birds spooked by a hawk."  (p. 244)

"Conservative? But that's not who I really am! The conservatives are noxious pests who block the progress of their country and society in any age. Am I really conservative?" (p. 259)

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Allen Ginsberg: 'The Best Minds of My Generation' (2017). Finale

Allen Ginsberg, The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan. New York: Grove Press, 2017. Foreword by Anne Waldman.

On Gregory Corso. "He's dealt with truth,  god, love, hate, hope, beauty, so it's actually very interesting. He's taken what he would call the biggies, the big themes, and dealt with them in one or two lines each. Appreciation, but nonattachment, not getting addicted." (p. 341)

William Blake. "The Eye Altering Alters All" [circa 1803.] (p. 347)

William Carlos Williams, 1953: "For man and poet must keep pace with his world." (p. [359])

Ginsberg: "I was high on grass and so it was triply awesome or doubly awesome, the realization that the mind could be spaced out and then come back and focus. . . an aspect of the notion of a gap or jump from one phase of consciousness to another, one unconscious daydreaming to a real place, a focus on the external phenomenal world." (pp. 364-365)

". . . I started looking . . . to ordinary-mind observations for visionary perceptions." (p. 366)

William Carlos Williams: "'. . . make a coordinate point where others can see, compare their perceptions with your perceptions.'" (p. 367)

Ginsberg: "We'd burn all night on the jackpine peak, seen from Denver in the summer dark . . ." (p. 372)

"Old love and remembrance -- I resign
All cities, all jazz, all echoes of Time . . ." p. 381)

"As in movies, the poignancy or charge or visionary aspect or satori or sunyata or mental electric comes from setting up one pole of thought form or word or picture and then setting up another pole. Then the mind has to fill in the space between by connecting them. . . like an electric charge between the two poles . . . One minute it's somebody talking, the next minute it's a tombstone." (pp. 388-389) 

"Naturally there's going to be a little brain pop." (pp. [390]-391)

". . . the constant awareness of setting something down which other people will read." (p. 393)

"Howl." "The precursors to this were things like Apollinaire's poem "Zone." The parallel texts . . . in addition to . . . "Zone . . . were Christopher Smart's "Rejoice in the Lamb," which has the same construction."  (p. 395)

Surrealistic method. "Hop up your image with some totally opposite zonk. You zonk the image with something so weird that people will ask, 'How'd you get to that?'" (p. 396)

Can you dig? 

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Allen Ginsberg: 'The Best Minds of My Generation' (2017). Part III

Allen Ginsberg, The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan. New York: Grove Press, 2017. Foreword by Anne Waldman.

Early 1950s. "Kerouac was really a solitary genius, innovating and going forward into as yet unrecognized and unmapped areas of composition all by himself, with the courage necessary to do it . . . He had no support, not only from 'society' but also from his friends, his wife, his mother, or anyone." (p. 225) 

"It was my impression that very few people had a grasp of the phantom, or samsaric, or elusory nature of existence. They didn't have any idea of alternative modes of consciousness . . ." (p. 238)

"Jazz was a kind of speech that went round the world and influenced every country. The only art form, the only cultural push, that came out of America that transformed the political structure of the world through the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and rock'n'roll and . . . youth culture." (p. 243)

"[Walt] Whitman thought . . . that unless the nation were made up of comrades democracy couldn't work." (p. 246)

"Kerouac saw new jazz as a clarion of a new consciousness. It wasn't only bepop, it was the whole notion of American blues and black music." (p. 247)

"Nobody had looked on jazz musicians with that kind of insight, except other jazz musicians." (p. 249) 

". . . archetypal recollections were the very angelic bricks of their own lives, the foundation of their lives. Their early childhood thrills and symbols were the basis of all adult judgment and opinions and trips to the moon. . . a whole hidden memory life . . ." (p. 252)

"Jack's in there writing all by himself, for himself, for his own ear or for some universal consciousness, just for pure art." (p. 259)

Herman Melville poetry. (p. [260])

Sketching: "'like a painter but with words . . .'" (p. [264]) 

Little notebooks: "sketching to total mind's eye." (p. 266)

Gregory Corso. "Tailoring" poems, writing. (p. 278)

Corso: jazz, poetry. Charlie Bird Parker and Miles Davis and "Don't Shoot the Warthog." (p. 294)

From "Hello:"

"Do I wear the cloth of a man who has failed?
Am I the looney man?
In the great serenade of things,
     am I the most cancelled passage?" (p. 299). 

Today's Rune: Joy. 

Allen Ginsberg: 'The Best Minds of My Generation' (2017). Part I

Allen Ginsberg, The Best Minds of My Generation: A Literary History of the Beats, edited by Bill Morgan. New York: Grove Press, 2017. Foreword by Anne Waldman. 

Anne Waldman: "Denver, the place of all possible crossroads." (p. x)  "The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. (p. xi)

Each core member of the Beats "literarily had had some form of break in the ordinary nature of consciousness . . . as the central preoccupation, concern with the very nature of consciousness and with what you would call visions or visionary  experience." (P. 26)

"The element of aggression, of ideological insistency, was considered unhip and by unhip I mean lacking in awareness." (p. 29)

"I'm thinking of 'salt peanuts, salt peanuts,' or some squiggle of rhythm in [Jack] Kerouac's head that follows that off accenting, the irregular accenting, the noniambic accenting of [Dizzy] Gillespie." (p. 35)

With the death of his father, Kerouac "got interested in becoming the recording angel of the dream scene, and began recording his dreams, literally, as well as the dream of life itself." (p. 44) 

"The world hanging in space, the skyscrapers hanging in space . . . you'd realize you were not standing in New York City but you were standing in the middle of the universe, the vast open sky . . . It was the first discovery [by the main Beats, in the 1940s] of a crack in consciousness, that we were made of the same suchness, that we were ghosts. ' ' There's this early hint in On the Road of mind which is already Buddhist-oriented. Appreciating the phantom nature of things, of ourselves, an awareness of the mortal . . ." (p. 52)   

On meeting Jack: "Kerouac was a very mellow, shrewd, observant, tolerant person, so there was mutual curiosity." (p. 55)

Kerouac later "used to stand in the backyards at night when everybody was eating supper and realized that everybody was a ghost eating ghost food. Or that he was a ghost watching living people." (p. 56)

On meeting William S. Burroughs: "When we all went to see Burroughs, it was for that laconic, mellowed-out, cooled-out experience." (p. 86) 

Louis-Ferdinand Céline as a major influence. "I think it's one of the great moments of Western literature, when the hero wakes up in the middle of the battle and realizes that everyone around him is crazy and figures he better get out of there. I would say that is hipness, that attitude . . ." (p. 88)  

". . . little puppets of eternity, clawing each other in their vanity, with great clouds brewing overhead in the empty sky." (p. 96)

". . . panoramic consciousness or time consciousness . . ." (p. 98)

Kerouac: ". . . the flitting ghost-ends of a brood who will grow . . ." (p. 99)

Today's Rune: Wholeness. 

Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part V

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

The Afghanistan War (1979-1989), according to Aleksandr Konstantinov: "'an absurd stupidity.'" (page 263) Olga Martynkina: "'terrible and unnecessary.'" (ibid.)  Gennady Ivanov: '"Besides heroism, it gave us nothing but cripples and drug addicts.'" (page 265)

"Diluted state repression remained an element . . . mostly because it constrained people's choices by switching on their self-censorship. Few Baby Boomers had direct run-ins with the KGBm but all felt its presence." (page 265)

Glasnost. Aleksandr Babushkin: '"You have to understand that any cultured person, intellectual, is able to distinguish between true and false information.'" (page 286)  

Perestroika. Olga Gorelik: "'it gave freedom to several strata of the population, to the intelligenstia, for example. But, on the other hand, it created complicated economic problems. Not everyone can restructure themselves, namely our generation.'" (page 288)

"For some [Soviet] Baby Boomers glasnost meant fulfilling a life-long dream of traveling abroad . . ." (page 295) 

Collapse of Soviet Union. "[b]y 1994, 67 percent of the population had no savings or extra cash . . . murders, suicides, and divorces reached extreme levels . . . Between 1992 and 1997 life expectancy for men fell from 67 to 57 years and for women from 76 to 70 . . . (page [312])

"The emergence of fifteen independent states from the ruins of the former Soviet empire . . . complicated life for the Cold War generation." (page 317)

Religion and Philosophy. Resurgence of Orthodox Church. New Age. Osho (Rajneesh). Buddhism. Scientology. Transcendental Meditation. (page 322)

Robber Barons. Oligarchs. Crime "five times higher" (page 323). "Privatization" gave "rise to a class of rich businessmen, as well as to a cohort of entrepreneurs who had accumulated massive fortunes . . .oligarchs, who acquired enormous holdings through insider trading . . . The resulting social inequality and effrontery of the new rich fed disillusionment with market economics and the democratic political system. Retirees looked back upon the Soviet days with nostalgia." (page 327)

Yelena Kolosova on Boris Yeltsin:  "'He was a massive man who drank, and therefore could be trusted.'" (page 329)

21st century. Vladimir Putin. Chechnya. "Russian liberals and others backing a free market system believed political freedoms remained as important as a strong leader; however, Russian Communists, nationalists, and supporters of Putin's umbrella organization, Unity, stressed the need for an authoritarian order in the country." A blueprint for Donald J. Trump in the USA: "Either Russia, will be great, Putin pronounced, or it will not be at all."  However, unlike Trump among Americans, Putin enjoyed "the backing of almost 75 percent of the [Russian] population." (page 334)

Lyudmila Gorokhova on Putin: "'Although he's not handsome, he has a great deal of charm. . . His range of interests is indisputably wide, and he's intelligent.'" (page 336)

A Russian doctor: "'I believe today's youth are awful. . . the wars contribute a lot. We see many Afghan vets, and many more after the wars in Chechnya. Military action has a very negative effect on people. As a rule, they become apathetic and depressed." There is "widespread alcoholism." (page 343)

Youth are adrift and slack in the mind; what happened to intellectual curiosity?  Vladimir Kirsanov: "'In the past, we had to get hold of information on our own by reading books, and by researching something, and this always makes the brain work more actively, but now information is absorbed passively. This is the main thing that distinguishes the two generations. Today's students don't like to read.'" (pages 344-345)

Anna Lyovina: '"The future is with people who have seen the world, analyzed things, compared, and took what they liked that was good and interesting, from wherever.'" (page 348)

A summary of the Soviet dream: pages 360-361. There was in Soviet society a double-consciousness, the projection of a public persona and the development of a private person. Raleigh doesn't use this term, but it seems equivalent: "there were two truths 'one for everyone, and the other that's inside you.'" (pages 366-367). This is how life is everywhere, to varying degrees up and down the spectrum. But would you rather live in Amsterdam, or Pyongyang?  

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part IV

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

"The Soviet practice of sending work cohorts on vacations together made it complicated for families to travel together, giving rise to vacation romances." (page 206

Families became smaller. "At the end of the 1970s, 52 percent of Soviet families with children had only one child . . ." (page 206)

On Lithuanians: "The people . . . are very peculiar  . . ."  (page 208)

Marina Bakutina, guide-interpreter: "'I could think whatever I liked, but not say it.'" (page 209)

"The Baby Boomers also continued to have vicarious encounters with foreign cultures through movies and books . . ." Olga Kamayurova: "'I like the films they used to show at film clubs, that is, complicated, sophisticated films not for ordinary viewers . . . They showed us lots of such films, including, my heavens, Fellini and Antonioni. It was like food for us movie lovers . . . Sometimes, when they picked some sensational film, I would think . . . this is so extraordinary.'" (page 210)

When some of the Soviet Baby Boomers moved to the USA, they were appalled by the high cost of health care and education (page 217).  

Travel: "'It's better to see something once than to hear about it seven times,'" goes the Russian proverb."

Viktor D. on the late Soviet era: "'health care was free and unequivocally on a higher level than now. Education was free, including higher education and graduate school . . . People received apartments, they had confidence in tomorrow. Maybe everything was on a lower level than in America, but there was stability.'" (page 237)

The Brezhnev to Chernenko era became an embarrassing gerontocracy, "'an awful spectacle.'" (page 240) "Yelena Kolosova recalled asking, 'Who's Chernenko? He was even worse than Brezhnev, absolutely nothing more than a joke.'" (page 243)

Oddly, at the New World resort in Crimea, some Russian Baby Boomers became New Age types, or joined Osho (the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh movement that spread worldwide, with a "Zorba the Buddha" style colony in Oregon) . (See page 246)

Ideas of existential freedom. L. G. Ionin: "'The Soviet people chose from among the available choices and understood freedom as having choices from among what was.' In this regard, for a free person, the Soviet Union was a free society. Freedom existed as a real choice, as an individual emotional experience." (page 249)

[to be continued.]

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Donald J. Raleigh: 'Soviet Baby Boomers' (2012), Part I

Donald J. Raleigh, Soviet Baby Boomers: An Oral History of Russia's Cold War Generation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

An absorbing look at the world through the hearts and minds of the Soviet high school graduating class of 1967. Specifically, via two elite high schools, one in Moscow and one in Saratov, a city on the Volga River that is about 850 kilometers / 528 miles southeast of Moscow. From the perspective of "the Sputnik Generation," one also gets at the entire arc of the Soviet Union, from beginning to end, and then onward right into the Vladimir Putin era. 

Their grandparents' generation, generally speaking, experienced the First World War, Bolshevik Revolution and Russian Civil War; and their parents, the Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) era, including mass repression, the Second World War, and the Nikita Kruschev (1894-1971) "Thaw" after Stalin's death. 

The Baby Boomers benefited from the Thaw, were excited by Sputnik and Kruschev, but eventually became embittered during the Leonid Brezhnev era (1906-1982), especially toward its end; then on to Mikhail Gorbachev (born 1931), glasnost, perestroika, the breakup of the USSR, Boris Yeltsin (1931-2007) and Putin (born 1952).

Most of the interviewed boomers were the children of "third tier" elites -- those immediately below nomenklatura and second tier elites -- that is, they were children "of the mass intelligentsia -- professionals (doctors, research scientists, professors, engineers, architects, artists, teachers, librarians, etc.)," the kinds of bourgeois specialists who tend to help maintain a semblance of civil society (not only in the Soviet Union but also in 'The West'). (page 22)

Stalin, a brutish nationalist and proponent of the Cult of Personality (namely his own), turned against those with a more internationalist sensibility, and aimed, almost right up to the time of his death in 1953, "to root out 'cosmopolitanism,'" partly a code word for Jewish intellectuals, sophisticated urbanites and their "fellow travelers."  (page 32) Luckily for most, in the wake of Stalin's death came "the Thaw," which relaxed the atmosphere a bit.

As for attitudes and actions over time, Raleigh notes: "Within any historical situation, people pick their fates and live their lives both as passive objects and as active agents." (page 64)

Teachers were very important to the elite Baby Boomers: they "'had very colorful personalities' and played an enormous role in shaping their charges' worldviews' . . . 'They taught us to think, not only to learn things by heart' . . . 'Actually, all of the teachers were excellent! Except for a few individuals, they were all interesting.'" (page 91)

[To be continued.] 

Today's Rune: Signals. 

Halle Butler, 'Jillian' (2015), Part I

Halle Butler, Jillian. Chicago: Curbside Splendor, 2015.

I read this twice in a row, first to see what happens and secondly, to see how things happen. 

Musing on Butler's style and substance, I had a vision of Diablo Cody (Juno, Young Adult, Tully) working with Werner Herzog (Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Bad Lieutenant) to create a variation on Charles Schulz's Peanuts. It's wacky, sad and right on.

The setting is not overplayed, but there are clues that the location is Chicago (North Side, Far North Side, Northwest Side, Palatine or thereabouts), and the time is the 21st century, with lingering vestiges of the 20th (an office fax machine, for instance).

If you approach the main characters with the Dalai Lama's discussion of Compassion in mind, you will truly empathize with them. "To be genuine, compassion must be based on respect for the other, and on the realization that others have the right to be happy and overcome suffering, just as much as you. On this basis, since you can see that others are suffering, you develop a genuine sense of concern for them." (The Essential Dalai Lama: His Important Teachings, edited by Rajiv Mehrotra, New York: Penguin, 2005, p. 22).

Jillian Bradley is, on the surface, recklessly optimistic, while her office co-worker and foil Megan is heedlessly cynical. Both are unmoored, lost, nearly alone (socially alienated, trapped in their own minds) as they deal with contemporary life, complete with its endless economic constrictions, demands and expectations. The raucous humor of Butler's approach underscores the daunting realities of their lives. It's a bit like Ulysses through the scrim of two 21st century adult female workers who must deal with the indignities, absurdities and possibilities of daily life. 

Another post will delve into additional details, but the main things to keep in mind for now are that Jillian has a young son, Adam, and she adds a dog, Crispy, to the volatile mix of her household economy; while Megan, depressed and cutting -- wickedly so, at times -- has a dubious paramour, Randy, and even more dubious frenemies to contend with. It is through their interconnecting social -- and socio-economic -- relations that Jillian and Megan must operate, and with which many readers will undoubtedly relate. 

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Jon Meacham's 'The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels' (2018), Part I

Jon Meacham, The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels. New York: Random House, 2018.

A thoughtful overview and discussion that helps put crazy times in perspective. Well-documented. 

In the introduction, Meacham brings up Richard Hofstadter's concept of "the paranoid style in American politics," a phenomenon even more widespread in 2018 than it was in 1963. There is always grand conspiracy, the End Times approach! "Time is forever running out." (page 17)

Just a few days ago, I came across a perfect example of the paranoid style in American society: TV evangelist Jim Bakker (born January 2, 1940), now broadcasting from Branson, Missouri. 

Jim continues to shriek about the End Times, but meanwhile, audience, send lots of money, buy containers of dried food, buy books and recordings. 

It doesn't add up. Bakker claims that Christians are persecuted and suppressed in the USA, even while he continues broadcasting away, one of legions of dedicated channels that spotlight tax-free Trump-supporting Christian evangelicals. 

Bakker's show is a perfect combination of paranoid, crazy, greedy and delusional, and somehow it's also crudely entertaining.

In The Soul of America, Meacham provides plenty of excellent quotations. Here's a snippet of Ike Eisenhower: "you do not lead by hitting people over the head. Any damn fool can do that, but it's usually called 'assault' - not 'leadership' . . . I'll tell you what leadership is. It's persuasion -- and conciliation -- and education -- and patience. It's long, slow, tough work." (page 39). 

From Robert Penn Warren: "a crazy man is a large-scale menace only in a crazy society." (page 53).  That's Trump in a tiny American nutshell.

One of the most perceptive of American thinkers that Meacham cites is Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), who comes across as more 21st century than 19th century in his outlook. Douglass' analysis of Robert E. Lee and Abraham Lincoln within an American context is brilliant. 

The current president, thinking Douglass still among the living, claimed early last year that "Frederick Douglass is an example of somebody who's done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more, I notice."

Early on Douglass came to understand the value of reading and learning -- a good role model for all. Meacham gets it, too, even if a man named Trump never will. 

Today's Rune: Wholeness.    

Raoul Peck: 'The Young Karl Marx' (2017)

Raoul Peck's The Young Karl Marx (2017) spotlights the intellectual rise of Karl Marx and "Fred" Engels in the 1840s. It's a fun, interesting film, perfect for lively and intelligent audiences.

For a brief review of I Am Not Your Negro, Peck's powerful 2016 documentary about James Baldwin, here's a link.

Main characters in The Young Karl Marx include Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Jenny von Westphalen, Mary Burns, Lizzy Burns, Helen "Lenchen" Demeth, Pierre Proudhon and Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (the anarchists), Wilhelm Weitling, et alia. The actors are uniformly excellent. The international aspects of the film make clear the cosmopolitan nature and universalist appeal of Marx and Engels' ideas. 

"Mary from Tipperary:" her parents emigrated from Tipperary, Ireland, to Manchester (where Mary was born), for work. She becomes Engels' main paramour.

"Happiness requires rebellion." - Jenny Marx.

"Everything is subject to change. Nothing lasts." - Karl Marx.

"All social relations -- slavery, serfdom, salaried work -- are historical and transient. The truth is, current conditions must change." 

"Do we not have all history before us?" -- Pierre Proudhon. 

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune. 

Spike Lee: 'BlacKkKlansman' (2018)

When all the smoke clears from our current Trump era, Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (2018) will endure as a cultural document, a permanent indictment of White Power racism and other forms of atrocious stupidity. At some point, Trump will be long gone and the world will be looking back aghast and in amazement. In the meantime, this film is well-worth seeing on the big screen for maximum impact here and now.

With BlacKkKlansman, there's a lot to respond to, but for the time being, here are only a few observations. One is digging the way Lee shows consciousness raising in the 1970s. During a Black Power meeting featuring Kwame Ture (aka Stokeley Carmichael, played by Corey Hawkins), we see "floating faces" absorbing Ture's incisive analysis of race relations and power imbalances. In its sequel, Stallworth (John David Washington) and Dumas (Laura Harrier) advance in the direction of a burning cross, pistols drawn, ready for direct action as needed. (I've seen the latter technique referred to as a "People Mover" shot).

Also, we see a range of White Power behavior, institutional (as Ture termed it) within the Colorado Springs Police Department and personal; we also see a range of intensity of commitment and engagement in both the White Power and Black Power movements. Within the KKK, there's a local men's club figurehead, a clown, and a terrifying psycho (played by Ryan Eggold, Paul Walter Hauser and Jasper Pääkkönen, respectively). Somewhere in between these three at the national level is David Duke (Topher Grace). There are other characters to consider, too, such as the one played by Adam Driver (Flip Zimmerman). Dig it! 

Today's Rune: Possessions. 

Yann Demange: ''71' (2014)

Yann Demange's second film, White Boy Rick, is set in Detroit in the 1980s. In advance of checking it out, I had the opportunity to see his first film, '71, which is set in Belfast, Northern Ireland, during The Troubles.

Starring Jack O'Connell as British soldier Gary Hook, '71 is harrowing and absorbing, with an on-the-ground feel. Riot scenes in the Catholic sector are particularly exciting, followed by various chase scenes. 

The extra winning aspect is that one might be inspired by the film to learn a little more about British and Irish history. 

Sectarian fighting occurs just about everywhere, to varying degrees. 

Though Northern Ireland is no longer embroiled in The Troubles, trouble has, since the turn of the latest century, found plenty of other homes to wreak havoc in. 

In '71, Demange keeps one on edge, as befits the theme. His visceral, sometimes frenetic style feels somewhat akin to that of Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club, Sharp Objects), Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You), Sean Baker (The Florida Project), Jordan Peele (Get Out), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) and others.

Notate bene: 

David Bowie gets a mention in '71 -- and in Spike Lee's latest film, BlacKkKlansman (2018), too. 

Did you ever wonder what the anagrams in Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the UK" (1976) stand for? All but the first tie directly into "The Troubles."

"Is this the MPLA
Or is this the UDA
Or is this the IRA
I thought it was the U.K.
Or just another country
Another council tenancy"

MPLA = Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola
UDA =  Ulster Defence Association
IRA = Irish Republican Army
UK = United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland 
Council tenancy = public housing unit

Today's Rune: Partnership.