THE SUBVERSIVE IMAGINATION

THE SUBVERSIVE IMAGINATION

The handle I’ve given my blog is The Subversive Imagination. It’s been floating through the ectoplasm since 2015, and I’m sure that it’s kicked up some dust by now; that is, curiosity if not concern. I figure it’s time to visit the term itself and attempt to enlighten readers as to its rightful place in the scheme of things.

The word comes from the Latin, subvertere, meaning “to turn from beneath.” And if one really understands “democracy,” he knows that one simply can’t exist without the other. Democracy is a messy business, always contentious, always questioning the status quo, and is never at peace with itself. Those thinking that democracy’s endgame is “peace” is confusing it with “utopia” – a common mistake in the conservative ranks.

The history of subversive politics is fraught with, as you can imagine, references to everything catagorically “evil,” since it challenges established power systems. Ever since the Paris Commune and Louise Michel waving of her “black flag,” political satire set out to demonize the subversive spirit in every way imaginable. Even today, in conservative circles, it’s still linked with terms like treason, socialism, communism, atheism, tyranny, heresy, espionage, conspiracy, and un-patriotic/un-American activism. Its trouble-making members don (Illuminati) masks, break windows, spit on law enforcement, and hold violent rallies in public squares. Such is the general image portrayed in the corporate media. – All of which says one thing: It absolutely must be a trigger-word for something vital and legitimate after all.

Subversion is adjoined with some notorious twins as well, terms with which it freely associates and shares common ground. One is libertarianism, another anarchy, and still another socialism. To mention the spirit of one is to in some way imply the others; though, to be clear, a socialist isn’t necessarily an anarchist, but an anarchist is always a socialist. It all begins with socialism and splinters into various subsets from there.

But what capitalists never acknowledge is the importance of holding on to them. Having to justify capitalism means having to contrast itself with what it isn’t – as in a figure to its ground. And Terry Eagleton said it best: “You can tell that the capitalist system is in trouble when people start talking about capitalism.” It fears what “turns from beneath.” The subversive does not have to nurture itself. Capitalism does that all by itself. In the end, “power takes to darkness, lightness erodes it.”

The term subversive (politically) means “an attempt to undermine or overthrow a political system by people working secretly from within.” It is to “corrupt through the undermining of morals, allegiance, or faith” (Webster’s Collegiate). If one cuts through all the bullshit, it becomes clear that what’s happening is a forging (from below) of new identities based on all that has failed above. It begins to replace the old notion of patriotism with international solidarity. In place of old hierarchies, we get self-management and self-determination. In place of patriarchy and racism, we get egalitarian humanism. Instead of competition, cooperation. Instead of unequal wealth, fair distribution. And instead of dominating nature, protecting it.

Today it would seem that these are already pieces to a very popular zeitgeist. But look again. The term is still used condemningly, to censor, dismiss, and undermine what faces a huge concrete edifice of tradition (the forces of deregulation, tax havens, bailouts, union-busting, monopolies, cartels, neo-liberalism).

Libertarianism in Europe has never meant what it means in America. There it has always been associated with socialism (or Marxism) and liberalis (L. the free man”). Marx has always been about addressing labor when it turns a man into a “machine” and strips him of his nature, his freedom to create and his right to fulfillment. Marx and libertarian socialism conceived of the individual who needs his fellow man in pursuit of self-realization. Real equality means not treating everyone like faceless clones (capitalists think socialism reduces everyone to a single mindset), but addressing everyone’s different needs equally. In addition, let’s be clear that, quoting Eagleton, “Marxists want nothing more than to stop being Marxists.” They would rather “get to the point where they would no longer be necessary.” But alas, as long as capitalism is in business, so must Marx be as well.

In America the term “libertarian” has been twisted and perverted to support a neo-liberal ideology (free-enterprise, rugged-individualism, entrepreneurialism). In other words, to “get government off our backs” so “free-enterprising” capitalists can work unhampered and unregulated. It’s not unlike corporations using the 14^th Amendment to declare themselves as “persons with civil rights” – hence the right to do as they pleased. This is the American libertarian today and what the Libertarian Party defends.

Most libertarians are Republicans who shamelessly (parasitically) feed off the misreadings of Jefferson, Lincoln, and “classical” (versus modern) liberalism. Power finds obfuscation and the blurring of history an effective tool. Confuse facts, reduce them to soundbites, trigger-words, and clever catchphrases, then edit out what you don’t like, and what you get are autocrats calling themselves presidents, fascists calling themselves freedom-fighters, and the political “right” calling “the center” the “radical/extremist far left.”

Anarchism is another term deserving of a full acquittal. It really isn’t a doctrine or political tactic. It is simply an “action” taken to detect structures of authoritarianism (hierarchies) and challenging them. It really is nothing more than the spirit of dissent which is core to any functioning democracy. Systems must constantly prove their legitimacy. They have to demonstrate that they are not simply self-serving at the expense of workers, the public, or the environment. Anarchists hold their feet to the fire. And the fact is, authoritarian systems fail to justify themselves everyday. The task of the anarchist is to see that they’re dismantled and restructured to facilitate equality and justice. This is the essence of the anarchist spirit. Nothing more, nothing less.

Nevertheless, anarchy is that singular term which has taken more abuse than subversiveness, Marxism, and socialism combined. It carries a stigma filled with highly emotional connotations. To say “anarchy” is to conger the intended synonyms of chaos and systemic breakdown, led by terrorists and agitators. Yes, it is “anti-capitalist” in view of capitalism’s purpose and history (it “opposes the exploitation of man by man” and “the dominion of man over man”). Which simply explains its censure and its power at the same time. It flies in the face of everything capitalism stands for. It’s the hornet’s nest buzzing around the desks of every corporate CEO and board of directors.

The term “anarcho-syndicalist” is also part of this drama. Syndicalism (syndication, syndicate) simply refers to a brand of trade unionism whose doctrine demands that workers take control of industry and government by means of general strikes. Everything was/is about being owned and managed by the workers – not unlike many “worker-owned” companies today run by majority vote. The first syndicalists in the early 20^th century used the anarchy principle first to call out the injustices of worker exploitation. The “anarcho-” prefix came in to root it out. Anarcho-syndicalism was a form of libertarian socialism practiced effectively until the 1930s (and the Spanish Civil War), before being destroyed by the Fascists and Western industrialists.

“Socialism” (like anarchy) has been so thoroughly white-washed and beaten up in the soundbites of conservative media as to be almost unusable. Not unlike “liberal” and “conservative,” both have been rendered almost meaningless. Yet the contrast in meaning and application between Europe and the US is as dramatic as is their respective differences about Marx. Healthcare is a prime example in delineating those differences. The US is the last remaining hold-out against universal (socialist) healthcare in the world. In Europe (and virtually everywhere else) it is simply “a given.” Healthcare is simply too important as a “moral right” to be reduced to politics. Every citizen has a right to the best healthcare on earth, just as he has a right to clean air and water. Capitalism attempts to put a price tag on it and offers the best only to those who can pay for it. Nothing has meaning (to Wall Streeters) without a price tag. – This is why Marx is vilified in the US and practically deified in Europe. There is the “western” Marx and the “eastern” Marx, and every college instructor’s tenure depends on how Marx is presented to his students (as opposed to Adam Smith).

Hence, a word about Adam Smith: First, he was a “classical liberal” (not a modern conservative). He believed people should be free and should not be under the thumb of authoritarian institutions. He was actually closer ideologically to Marx than he was to American industrialists. He liked markets, but only if they worked to maintain social and economic equality. He believed in human solidarity, community, and a worker’s right to control his own work. He also believed that “division of labor” was a terrible thing. He believed it would only destroy people’s lives (a point discreetly edited out in the modern presentations of Smith and Ricardo). This is why, as Chomsky said: “There are no two points of view more antithetical than classical liberalism and capitalism…. Smith was strongly opposed to all the idiocy they now spout in his name.”

But then nobody really reads Smith anyway, said Chomsky. No one gets to “page 473” in The Wealth of Nations. They read the first three pages and then call themselves scholars.

A final word on behalf of democratic socialism. America has always been one-half socialist in running itself. Everything prefixed with the term “public-” is socialism in action – public libraries, public, parks, public road and highways, public schools and hospitals, the post office, and yes, even the military – all paid for by taxes. Socialism is as “American” as baseball and apple pie. Yet try telling that to Republicans who defend privatization above all else and vow to “drown government in a bathtub” (said Grover Norquist).

In the end we can see how these turbo-charged words overlap and transpose. One is used to clarify and expound on the meaning of another. The bottom line is, the subversive imagination is that which constantly creates (“brings the unknown into being”), challenges anything which finds itself too comfortable, too permanent, without enough examination and scrutiny. It brings to light those spaces where complacency leads to arrogance and the presumption of entitlement. Where temptation steps over the line and tries to exploit the weak and vulnerable. When one begins to think that life’s purpose is all about acquisition and wealth regardless of the consequences (saying “tomorrow is somebody else’s problem”). It is the spirit of dissent, of democracy, of social justice, and the recognition of kinship (community).

So, the next time anyone accuses you of a “subversive” attitude or point of view, thank him. And let him know there will be lots more where that came from.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

LEADERS and FOLLOWERS

LEADERS & FOLLOWERS

With everything going on in the world, I had to wonder – how is it that “one” individual can garner so much power that at the waving of his hand the world’s entire geopolitical and economic system ends up “going south?” In the 21^st century I assumed that the world would have learned its lesson by now, that every powerful nation had some fail-safe mechanism in place designed specifically to avoid history repeating itself.

And yet we’re witnessing a man who thinks of himself as a pre-Revolution Russian Czar. His country is his own private empire which must constantly expand. He is worth $40 billion, and with some very rich confederates he dictates the rules of governing while planting his wealth all around the world in shell companies and tax havens. Which means he/they couldn’t give one wit about the Russian people themselves, as long as they conform, pay taxes, and never complain. A quiet Russian is a good Russian.

Said leader is also afflicted with the kind of psychological profile required for one to thirst for such incomprehensible power. His ego is enormous. He thinks of himself as a cross between a lady’s Lothario (having multiple mistresses), bears a Napoleon complex, fashions himself after Peter the Great, is emotionally isolated, and bears symptoms of paranoia. One of the symptoms of a leader (with paranoia) is creating a private security force (as Hitler had with his elite “SS” – Himler’s Schutzstafle) lest someone tries to assassinate him. Putin has his “National Guard” comprised of Interior Ministry troops, riot police, and SOBR special forces. This is separate from his military complex.

To ask the “hows” and “whys” an anachronism like Putin could ever rise to such power is to look into our own collective/historical psychological “baggage.” I think of Ernest Becker’s famous quote: “By losing yourself in the other, we create a false self.” Combine that with Andre Malraux’ “Man is not what he thinks he is. He is what he hides,” and Camus’ “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is” and some interesting “symptoms” surface which implicate ourselves in the choosing of leaders.

In fact, we as a society don’t really want the leaders we ask for. We really do not want to improve and grow. We find security, stability, and comfort in our limitations. We want not only to be led, we want to be “saved.” We leave all the heavy lifting to prophets and messiahs and want them to take us under their wing. On our side, all we need is “faith,” said St Mark. How easy is that?

There’s a phenomenon called the Messiah Complex – when a codependent relationship strikes up between a leader and his followers. One needs the other to survive. They know it but never confess to it. The contract is this: the “flock” agrees to follow him unconditionally if he promises safety, security, redemption and eternal salvation in return. As long as he delivers, he is protected mostly by “blind faith.” To question him earns a stern “ye, of so little faith,” and the infidel is cast out. The leader answers the call as long as he knows he’s needed. Should the day arrive when he’s not needed, his rainson d’etre vanishes. His ego and need to be worshiped, adored, feared, and loved suffers a death knell. The rarefied atmosphere so long in its making simply evaporates, and he slithers away into oblivion.

Contrast this with the earmark of a true leader. One who knows his limitations, who places hard demands on himself and his followers, who questions his thinking, and is his own worst critic. There’s the (alleged) quote from Mrs. Clementine Churchill to her husband: “You are strong because you are imperfect. You are wise because you have doubts.”

Think back on all the lecturers and authors you knew back in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, back when the political climate wreaked of a whole different brand of social unrest. They came out of the woodwork and led thousands down a rosy path to self-discovery. The times then changed, but many did not. People got tired of being angry (at the government, cops, men/spouses/parents, organized religion, God) and just wanted to move on. The lecture circuits and book sales soured, and their very personas came to a precipice. Some argued saying, “You’re not done with your anger. You’re in denial!!” It was a plea to come back into the fold. But more accurately it was a plea to keep everyone down at their own “level of recovery” – mired in the issues with which they themselves were not finished. Again, it was about re-validating themselves, not their followers.

But the public had had enough, and those who were once the angels of light, the bearers of truth, said goodbye to themselves. The venues which were once unbelievably large shrank to small meeting rooms, and listening to them was like hearing old tapes about old causes coming from crusty anachronisms. Some eventually adapted and evolved, and we still hear from them (those still alive). Others did not.

What is it that we really want from our leaders? When we describe them, we often speak about imaginary beings. But what we get is what we really ask for: amiable despots, smiling and uniformed figures with unswerving loyalties to the bond market, news media, and golden parachutes – benevolent American plutocrats (now legitimately called oligarchs) who ignore the trifles of self-interest only because they can afford to. Government for them is run expressly through philanthropy and ownership (of Congress), not anything as cliched as a democracy. When we’re asked for an image of the ideal role-model (“proof” of real leadership), we invariably mention military leaders, football coaches, police captains, and those whose tremendous wealth was inherited – people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Glenn, John Kerry, Clint Eastwood, Steve Largent, Bill Bradley, Jack Kemp, Donald Trump – and Putin. For some reason, money (war medals, athleticism, inheritance) confers the powers of omniscience about everything.

Somewhere lost in all that is the meaning of leadership itself. The word should be associated with morality rather than memories of someone’s winning touchdown, schmoozing with John Wayne, or buying up half of Manhattan. Leadership, as unpopular as it may sound, defines itself in the practice of telling the truth. A leader, said author/editor Lewis Lapham, “demands something difficult from other people, who imposes on himself as well as his followers, the burdens of conscience and self-restraint.” Somewhere along the line this was traded in for empty first impressions and proof “by association.” And it started a long time ago. “When Christ showed up in Jerusalem saying the kinds of things that leaders have an awkward habit of saying, the Romans quickly discouraged what seemed to them an overly zealous display of leadership.”

In that light, despite all our protestations and rants about despotism brokering in the markets of self-interest, we elect exactly what we really want. Again, we want to be told what to do. We want to be “saved.” Which is a green light for every demagogue (novice Messiah, newly authored prophet, Napoleonic ego) who can pay the price of admission in the political theater.

“Why of course the people don’t want war…. [I]t is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along…. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked [and] denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and expose the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” (Herman Goering, Luftwaffe Commander, 1946) .

The “psychology” once again, is intriguing: We elect our leader already knowing he is someone not to be trusted. We deny this and almost expect him to betray us. We’re shocked when he does, but not shocked at the same time. It’s not unlike the battered wife who finds a way to sabotage the relationship with a functional partner (unable to handle kindness and fidelity), then returns to the bar where only violent men gather. Then she complains that she can never find a “good man.”

We get what we ask for. If we want more, we must first accept that we deserve more. That means to become our own leaders, to take on “the burdens of conscience and self-restraint,” and the habit of telling the truth. If we do that, our leaders will follow suit. Then we’ll be done with the Putins of the world.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

WAR

WAR

In war identity is everything. It recruits, filters, cleanses, and simplifies the complexities of racial, cultural, religious, philosophical and political divides. It not only relieves the pressure of national guilt (of survival), it thins herds, and reduces competition for survival. One’s (divine) purpose and destiny are purified and re-established. The lines of good and evil are redrawn and man is given new direction.

It has its function, for sure. But it also evades the real lesson of what war is supposed to bequeath to us all. To know the lesson is to remember that war is supposed to be the exception to peace. Instead, peace is the exception to war (every 20 years on average). Peace is the preparation for the next one, and the economy stays on a full “wartime footing.” What that says is that profits and losses, winners and losers, take precedence over and above war’s universal message.

Thus, war is like a forbidden fruit we indulge, because we can. It teases and seduces the hormone of aggression and the urge to compete, conquer, and dominate. But the infant grows into a monster and takes ownership of that which gave it birth. It defines us, measures us, segregates us, unites us, and gives us purpose. Everything is diverted into the worship and careful maintenance of the war-god. Everything else is negotiable and expendable.

The lesson is this: It should be regarded as generic, and there are no winners. Everyone is a victim. There are no “good” versus “bad” people. War as an evil deity unto itself. It does not rely on who, what, where, or what circumstances that perpetuate it. Its existence anywhere, under any conditions, is wrong.

This is exactly why war-photography and propaganda must always intervene. Most in the world ignore this lesson, and they “invest” in war one way or another, though they prefer not framing that way. They invest because war identifies, and identity matters. The notion that winning is valid can only happen if the notion of losing is also valid. Hence the need for photography. Images of dead civilians and bombed-out homes fuels hatred and a renewed sense of who/what we are “not.”

The strategy is as old as time. And it’s almost baffling how we, collectively, have never stepped back to see these patterns for what they are – on both sides of a very gray divide. Vladimir Putin paints a picture of Russia as the victim of Ukrainian aggression led by “Nazis.” In the Spanish Civil War it was Franco who blamed the Basques for destroying Guernica to inspire indignation and a coup d’etat. Hitler blamed Jewish capitalists, Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia (Serbia blamed Austria-Serbia), Otto von Bismark blamed the French for forcing the German states to unite, etc., etc. The excuses were as evil as the wars themselves.

In that context, what matters is “who” is killed and by whom. The phenomenon of “suffering” is another point to look at. Psychologically, the witnessing of pain and suffering from afar (which victimizes others but not ourselves) satiates an important need — schadenfreude (enjoyment obtained from the pain of others). It happens at two levels. The first level is feeling relief (elation) that suffering is happening “over there” and not here. ”There but for the grace of God go I.” Secondly, it serves as a kind of religious deliverance, something rooted in religious thinking. We link pain to sacrifice, and sacrifice to exultation. “Hell on earth” is a “come to Jesus” rally-flag we share together as a human “family,” even if some don’t suffer at all. The suffering of others is answered with prayer and sympathy (donations, care packages) in a “Faustian” deal. Witnessing it is the same as suffering, which means that the spared have also paid their dues. They too have suffered enough.

The notion of suffering by proxy is as devoid of sincerity (not to mention character and courage) as paying others to go to war for us (as wealthy people did in the Civil War, as they still do by forcing the poor to fight the wars they wage). The rich not only evade war, they relish the schadenfreude captured on TV. We are consumers of violence, pros in creating proximity without risk.

Many succumb to this, though they won’t admit it. Many work in hospitals, for instance, because they feel more alive (“blessed” is a preferred euphemism) being around those who are sick and dying. Many working in “emergency preparedness” jobs are no different. We can call it a good thing; or we can call it a kind of twisted attitude, depending on what side of the fence you’re on. On the “dark” side, it’s been called “endarkenment,” and even “one-downmanship.”

Whichever the case, we hear the rally-cry again and again: Morts de Verdun, levez-vous! – “Rise, dead of Verdun!” The dead are summoned back to relive the dread of war. They cry out, “This is insane!” And once again it’s ignored. We can’t get enough of death. We “live” essentially to die. – It must be one of the most inscrutable of human ironies: to build fraternity and security in anticipation of destroying it, in anticipation of building it all up again, The suffering and dead wish to be alive again; the alive and well build up a wish for death.

There is the huge incredulity all over the world about what’s happening in the Ukraine. People everywhere are saying, almost in unison, “I just can’t believe it.” And yet – and yet. Intellectually, spiritually, war is again generically evil. It’s like COVID, a virus we all want eradicated. It unites us as one mask-wearing family. But then there’s the need for identity again and the re-validation of differences. We need corroboration, passion, direction, and purpose that only conflict and suffering can deliver. Too much unity (unum) destroys plurality (pluribus). The rules of duality and cause and effect are the axioms that define the “human condition.” It’s the sacred contract with war. There is no warmth without the cold sting of distress. Or, as the poet says, “no dancing to the musical flute without the sound of drums.”

The routes of reverence, the totems and slogans of good & evil, the guilt of survival, the choosing of enshrined images, all play into the wish to remain multicultural and distinct – a “patchwork quilt” instead of a “melting pot.” In a way we all participate in a kind of ritual ethnic (ideological, philosophical, spiritual, political) cleansing. We must all advocate for “unity” in “separate” ways, just as we crave war in a “united” way. No one denies the need for war to redraw the lines of identity.

This was the gist of Virginia Woolf’s argument over the “generic” assumption that “we” all hate war. Who was this “we?” she asked. We all look at the face of war and use the same words to describe it. We all express horror at it. But we also ask different questions and ask for details, and the devil is always in the details. Some (“men” mostly, said Woolf) inquire into the specifics of “who” is involved, at what cost, and in what circumstances. Those details are the endgame itself – versus — questions which simply confront the existence of war, anywhere and for any reason. One seeks “identities,” winners and losers; the other avoids them and refuses to get lost in “the rules” of war.

The final irony of war must be the experience itself. Most go into it believing in the “whos” and “whys” and the clear divide between good & evil. When (if) they come out of it, they read Virginia Woolf (and others) and ask how they could have not seen the light much sooner. Having survived, they finally see beyond borders, cultures, and nations, and simply see needless human suffering. They also begin to see the irony of needing the baptism of fire to bring them to that clarity. Add to this the additional tragedy/irony of looking on at the next generation of naive adolescents, filled with purpose, signing up for war again. There’s no stopping it or even slowing it down.

Edmund Burke said, ”There is no spectacle we so eagerly pursue, as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity.” Socrates related the story of the individual who witnessed the lining up of criminals along a wall with their executioner standing by. He was thoroughly appalled while drawn to it at the same time. He wanted to move on but kept looking back over his shoulder. Finally, the urge to see, to vicariously feel their fear won out. Schadenfreude had claimed its victim. He returned and, fully sensing the conflict within himself, ran up to the prisoners and yelled, “There you are, curse you, feast yourselves on this lovely sight.” His condemnation was at himself.

Socrates’ subject is played out everyday. He’s the same person who slows down to witness the car crash, gun violence in the city mall, the neighbor’s house burning down, the homeless camping out on the street, victims of tornadoes and earthquakes, and the parent’s saying goodbye to their son as he heads off to war.

It is the clarion-call we send back-and-forth daily at one another. But the “urge” is still too great. And it only exposes how primitive we are as a species. It is a war between body and mind, instinct and conscience, impulse and forbearance, savagery and civility. It is also, unfortunately, a conflict which must find a resolution, and fairly soon – since the terms of war have been upgraded to “nuclear.” We prefer the euphemism nuclear “option.” But it is not an option.

It doesn’t require literal containment of the human “dark side.” All it requires is the need for a different (functional) way of channeling aggression (which turns to anger, then rage, then violence, when not released). But first, we have to recognize it for what it is and contain it, before it contains us. Let’s consider it a challenge. Granted, it’s a tall order; but the fact is, war is now (will forever be) a non-option to conflict. This is because it never ends until someone wins and someone loses. And plutonium only hastens what Virginia Woolf tried to say 84 year ago. The only real enemy is war itself.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

THE HUMAN EXPERIMENT

THE HUMAN EXPERIMENT

Lots of attention has been given to the idea of the “American experiment,” intended to be synonymous with democracy, justice, and freedom. Alas, the devil appeared in the details and its definitions over time. We’ve since learned that democracy, for instance, is not the same “democratizing” other places. It’s more about “Americanizing” them, which is a whole different enchilada. There’s also a discrepancy about justice in principle versus practice. And we have very strange ideas about “freedom.”

Lately, it seems like the idea of an “experiment” has broadened considerably in the widening context of a “global” existence. The aperture has widened. Particularly since the smallest events ripple throughout the world. Villages, war and peace, have implications for a much broader “family” dynamic. And extinction for one is an extinction for all; thus, the penultimate consequence of war anywhere. – Since we’re thinking and seeing more broadly in those terms, it’s fitting (and timely) that we place the term “experiment” in that context too – as in the “human experiment.”

Sometimes I envision nature in the figure of a tree. And way off at the extreme end of one long branch extends a smaller branch, then an even smaller one. And finally – a twig. The twig contains the entire history of human evolution, from the first bipeds through to modernity. And nature looks at it and decides to shake it off once and for all. She sees that it’s gone through its entire cycle (youth, adolescence, maturity) and, like so many other twigs, has played itself out. And now it’s withering. It will soon be dead. Nature prunes itself and decides to shake it off. That sums up the entire insignificance of what was the human story.

Some of us see from that distant parallax. Most do not. There are paradigms, and then there are “paradigms” which reduce us to crushing insignificance. What is it that prompts us to imagine that we’re any more important than that? Do we really have a purpose and/or destiny that separates us from the rest of the tree – just because we can imagine it?

Trees are a wonderful metaphor. They delineate everything, from DNA mutations to ancestries and evolution over millions of years. And inside every seed is the whole evolution of another tree, and the “tree of life” keeps expanding infinitely. And then there’s the “tree of knowledge” which makes us aware of these infinitely interrelated branches.

To respect a tree is to respect this phenomenon, or at least understand it. To look at one is to see everything in one glorious outline pulsating with wisdom and indomitable strength. Even sprouts are “old” in their own way. Age is “ageless.” It’s so strange to stand over a sprout with the ability to crush it, knowing that even in its infancy it already towers over us. It gives us shelter. It protects and feeds much like a father and mother. It looks up and reminds us of this.

But part of its wisdom is to also deliver the truth about who “we” are. The tree has the deepest roots. While our roots are shallow. We think that dragging our knuckles around on earth for 2 million years qualifies us as “ancient.” At that, the tree laughs. We are, it is quick to remind us, just barely “out of the trees. ” We’re just now standing upright and using 9% of our brain capacity. We dress up in three-piece suits and impress ourselves into thinking we’re more advanced and civilized that our (arboreal) ancestors. But just wait for the slightest crisis to befall us – famine, drought, war, disease, power outage, food shortage – and our strongest instinct (self-preservation) kicks into gear, and we’re “animals” again in the ugliest (sometimes most savage) ways imaginable.

The worst fear of all, after centuries of religion telling us otherwise, is to discover that we are nature. And that by killing it, we kill ourselves. Even more sobering is the discovery that nature (from any angle) doesn’t care if we die off. We are as insignificant as everything else, and just as temporary – just another twig among many, an experiment that worked for a time, and then it didn’t. Everything is born, lives, and drops into the dust.

When we think about the human experiment we too often treat it in the plural tense, thus missing the point. We look at “experiment(s)” conducted by humans, not about humans. We must, after all, control the idea. To see ourselves in that precarious way is too humbling and demoralizing. It puts us in a category alongside everything else that lives and dies off. It also challenges every notion ever contrived about divine purpose and notions of an illustrious future.

Here is where (in my view) cosmologists and astrophysicists become the high priests, visionaries, and philosophers. Because they’re the only ones willing to see this far. And when they do, they go through a kind of metamorphosis. They may start out as religious people, but eventually become atheists (in that no one religion or deity can understand or encompass the entire universe and our place in it). Then, from there, they move into a kind of existential terrain, and finally to the end of a cycle. Where they end up is in a kind mystical (noumenal) space expressed through many “intelligences” – which nothing known can capture. Faute de mieux they become “spiritual atheists.” The operative terms of this non-religion are ones like “awe,” “sublime,” “unimaginable,” “inexpressible,” “grace,” “reverence” and “silence.”

In this context (and view) death becomes illusory and thanatological. That is, there is no death, just conscious change. It is a surrendering to cycles and paradigms that dwarf the “human” moment. To draw it out, as humans must do, is to, again, diagram a tree. Somewhere out on some insignificant and withered branch rests (precariously) the entire human story.

To indulge this dreamscape just a little further, it isn’t too outrageous to imagine ourselves seeing this whole process, if just for a moment, upon death. We see it all with perfect clarity – “eyes unclouded by longing” – not unlike peering above the waterline just long enough to look around, scope out the terrain, and then submerge again. And we say “oh, that’s right, I forgot.” Then we’re absorbed back into the tree’s circulatory and nervous system, with currents and eddies and channels and pathways that become endless incarnations.

The amazing thing about a tree is that it appears to always be reaching upwards and outwards. It’s always expanding. But again, one tree’s expansion is just another seed – cycles inside cycles, ad infinitum, and it’s all happening right now. And like humans, though one tree may appear to be germinating for the first time, it is part of a larger tree which has experienced countless incarnations.

With all this as a conceptual model, we need to step back and ask an obvious question: What is it that’s making this twig (our twig) wither and die? What is it that’s forcing mother nature to consider tossing us off into oblivion? Somewhere we lost track of ourselves. We allowed our so-called developed minds (egos) get ahead of us. Greed and arrogance took over, to the point of even killing the planet which gave us life in the first place. And now it’s seriously pondering “dropping us” altogether. When a mother wolf encounters a problem pup, she kills it to keep the litter intact.

It’s all very humbling. And I think it’s a perspective we all need to share in this (human-made) “eleventh hour.” We need to do what we can to eliminate suffering in the world, but we also need to “awaken” in a way that allows us to see our place in the scheme of things; that is, through the non-religion of our esteemed scientists. And from that, the ultimate irony which is “the dance” as T. S. Eliot called it. – “and there is only the dance.”

It’s not just about an awakening. It’s about preparing ourselves for what could be the final days of our species. The tree of life knows the fate of our family tree already. And it simply doesn’t care. Which is why we should, that is, if we want the tree to nurture this very small twig, this “spec of dust out on galaxy’s edge,” awhile longer.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

AN EXISTENTIAL MOMENT

AN EXISTENTIAL MOMENT

Is it now possible to fully appreciate the feel of teetering on a precipice, of knowing how precarious and tentative life is? Vladimir Putin has actually done us a favor. He’s reminding us that an entire fleet of nuclear submarines (each capable of “eliminating” the United State), not to mention hundreds of land-based missiles, are all pointing at us at this very moment. It reduces literally everything down to the simplest denominator – an acute awareness of each breath taken.

It’s a state of being which the practice of meditation has tried to instill in us for a very long time. But this approach actually succeeds. Nothing brings us back to ourselves (with a willingness to dump every other concern) like the thought of imminent death. Death which could arrive in seconds. It is a epiphany, but having no time to “prepare” for it (emotionally, mentally) is also a kind of blessing. Not having knowledge of its arrival saves us all from incredible panic. We’re like the horse being led out to be put down, thinking it’s going to get fed. And (for myself) living in a large city is “twice” the blessing. How so? It is most likely a target of at least one Russian missile, which means everyone will vaporize in a nanosecond (in a 10,000 degree ball of light) – hugely preferable to those still alive, stumbling around blind and cold and full of radioactive poison, in a world that won’t see daylight for years, where everything is either toxic or dead. The so-called “survivalists” will only prolong their suffering. – No thank you.

It certainly is a strange feeling. Those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 60s have always been keenly aware of this apocalyptic event. We’ve more or less inured ourselves to its possibility and contoured our lives around it. But today, with a Russian president showing signs of mental instability AND the power to end everything, the old feeling has been upgraded to something unprecedented. This is new territory irrespective of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the closest we’ve come to it thus far. Maybe it’s because of the sheer power one man can actually summon for himself. Or maybe it’s because of the increased sophistication in the science of killing. One thing for sure, the Doomsday Clock is now being counted in “seconds,” no longer in minutes.

The idea of one person having such monumental power elicits incredible disbelief and outrage, as it should. We allow it, even support it, until it takes on its own momentum and outflanks us. Then there’s no way to stop it (or him). On the other side of this, there’s what happens when one individual “realizes” just how much power he has. It goes to his head, and he loses touch with reality. The 40 ft long table separating Putin from is top lieutenants is a metaphor. “Symptoms” of isolation could almost be counted by the number of empty chairs between himself and his staff. The distance is compensated by the volume required to convey his message, and a speakerphone (a voice of terror) cancels out the distance. He never raises his speaking voice, while his actions reverberate spherically, in all directions, in sound-waves of ultimatums. Here sits Napoleon’s “complex” on a king’s thrown, thinking that he’s issuing decrees unto the world.

The immediacy of war (and death) for Americans is staved off by just a few more moments, just because it is taking place in Europe. We “watch” events unfolding abroad just as we did in World War II. We’re fighting from a relatively safe distance. But what was once a distance measured in weeks and months (75 years ago) is now one measured in “moments.” The nuclear option has us all facing ourselves together, good and evil, on one small “blue” island where there’s no escaping from anyone. We are now the ultimate (global) encounter group.

It’s the old story of mutual enemies discovering each other’s presence on one small south sea island. Initially they assume their roles as enemy combatants, but eventually realize two people working together doubles their chance of survival. Do they fight on, or do they put down their sticks and think about it? “Perspective” is about realizing they’re just two human beings fighting someone else’s war, that both have children and families, and they need/desire the very same basic things. It’s an existential question of “sanity – or – insanity.” It’s also a question of insubordination and treason in the face of their respective governments. What really is important in the final chapter?

The odds of choosing “wisely” today are weakened because of nuclear conflagration and a madmen who still believes in a military endgame. The window in which “to learn” is small. Conventional war gives us more time. Even incredibly sophisticated conventional weapons – like the Russian “thermobaric bomb” – gives us time. But what is “conventional” anymore?

Bombs like the thermobaric are conventional and yet just short of nuclear. It releases a chemical into the air, which then ignites, and it literally sucks the oxygen out of the lungs of anyone within a square block. It bursts eardrums, crushes inner-ear organs, causes concussions, ruptures lungs and internal organs, and blindness, In other words, it is as devastating as a bomb can get (minus radioactivity). The thermobaric bomb (and anything like it) is, by the way, illegal and constitutes a “war crime.” But then so is bombing civilians, using “cluster bombs” and poisonous chemicals, and a host of “ordnance.” It’s quite the moot point.

It makes us pause. The lengths to which military industrial complexes “calculate” human suffering (down to the smallest and most precise detail) – it will have to go down as the final testament and legacy of a species that “once” inhabited earth. Our greatest creative efforts (like it or not) went into the science of mutual killing – because we are now dead.

As a species, we’ve grown used to living on edges anyway. We seem to be fascinated with the specter of death and narrowly escaping it – as if the only way we can feel truly alive is to, first, feel (almost) dead. We’ve played Russian Roulette so many times, in so many “creative” ways, that it’s a miracle we’re still here. Short of missile crises, nuclear reactor meltdowns, toxic food and drugs of all kinds, and poisoned air, we’re now playing with the climate – as if to actually see how far we can indulge that problem before it kills us. – Our most prominent and popular weapon is “denial.” It says volumes about a species which simply can’t feel alive without it.

As an aside, I have to say that I have no children. So “clarity” comes to me with less effort. That said, I can just imagine the tremendous conflict which must go on in a parent’s mind. One side defending and actively supporting the madness of “norms” (just described) – institutions designed to “defend and protect,” etc. While simultaneously having no alternative but to believe in a tomorrow, knowing there may not be one at all (lest they betray their children). How those two forces square in their minds is what baffles me. Especially when those very children grow up enough to see what their parents bequeathed to them – the world as it is – and their response is nothing less than rage and betrayal. – Is this a world in which to even consider procreation anymore? Is it “morally” correct? We have to believe it is — but do we, really?

At this deeply existential moment for us all, there’s really nothing more to say, while needing to say so much more. All we can hope for is that we succeed (at least temporarily, once again) in pulling back from the precipice. And then we’ll all feel very alive again, as if on steroids and an extra shot of adrenaline. Perhaps this time, if we make it this time, do you suppose we might take a lesson from this “cycle of violence” once and for all?

I personally recommend a different lesson altogether. The one meditation has wanted to teach minus all the violence – the Buddhist ahimsa, or nonviolence, and detachment (from our own thoughts and emotions). In the long run it will yield a much bigger dividend, given that learning from the “cycles” of war is highly unlikely. It’s a hard sell, given that, as Virginia Woolf said, “men love war.” If they love war, how could they ever seriously fight it?

At the same time, what do two enemy soldiers end up “learning” on a desert island, given a chance to extricate from the real pandemic which eludes us all – insanity? Deciding between sanity and insanity is an “apocalyptic” event unto itself. It breaks all the rules. But we live to see another day. And even if we don’t, we’re in a better place when the end comes.

© 2022 Richard Hiatt

GUERNICA REVISITED

GUERNICA REVISITED

When a Nazi officer inspected Picasso’s painting Guernica in 1937, he asked “Did you do this?” Picasso responded, “No, you did.” Picasso reaffirmed his basic purpose which was to reveal the truth of the times. There was no art which was not socially engaged and immediately responsive.

Which begs the question: If Picasso were alive today, what would an updated Guernica look like? Would it be seen through another Blue period, Rose period, Cubist? What exactly would it entail as a mirror of the times? Would its primary theme be in response to a specific event, a series of events, or simply the times? What would it’s message be? Such questions are best served by those (geniuses) who could see what most of us do not.

Les Demoiselles d”Avignon was proof (as it saw through “rose” and “blue” glass). Itshattered the art world in 1907. It broke free of the Impressionists and took a radically new direction. It gave birth to Cubism and was actually a “proto-Cubist” inspiration (borrowing from Braque’s African influences). Upon “relative” completion (he never agreed that anything was ever finished), the reaction from critics and society was swift and severe. It unleashed outrage, and he never felt more alone or isolated. He said, “You think you are alone. And really you’re more alone than you were before.”

But Picasso lived in the cracks between two periods – the late 19^th century (Impressionism) and an unknown 20^th century. He lived in Montmartre which suited his need to experiment with all the turbulence of the fin de siecle and more widely the Belle Epoque.. The great artists of the previous decades were mostly gone – Van Gogh, Seurat, Lautrec, Gauguin (only Cezanne remained). Other great artists were carrying on the Impressionist school (Renoir, Monet), but most had moved beyond realism and into a more spiritual motif, called Symbolism.

It was in this climate that Picasso entered his Blue period, where he knew something fundamental was missing – something between past and future, between bright landscapes and “the tragic artist,” between “pre-Modern” formality and Freud. He felt it in his bones. The Bateau Lavoir was a laboratory, as was the cabarat Le Chat Noir (the Black Cat).

But Symbolism wasn’t it. Neither was Realism in any shape or form. A new energy found itself in a kind of cultural limbo, too radical for traditionalists but definitely not cutting edge. A few of the movements trying to capture this energy and give it a name/category was Neo-Impressionism, Symbolism, Synthetism, the Nabis, and others, But they all fell short. Where Picasso was going had no name for it.– A not so unfamiliar existential place we find ourselves in today. But instead of being between Impressionism and Abstraction, it’s now between Abstraction and (again) something else, something formless and undefined.

What would an artist’s Montmartre look like today? It was the heart of bohemian Paris, ground zero for the avant-garde and safe refuge for long-haired poets, painters, and anarchists – a subversive underground. One might surmise that the Symbolist influence came from the fact that alongside this community sat the hillside where ancient monasteries and abbeys existed. The name Montmartre means “Mount of Martyrs.” Hence, experimental and radical artistry sat alongside many sacred relics. But, the fact was, they had little to do with one another. There, again, sat a huge schism which remained an enigma for resident artists.

Picasso’s home was Bateau Lavoir – a ramshackle tenement from which he walked everywhere in the city. It has us imagining its appearance as it might look today – a rundown garret but with running water, unheated rooms, pizza boxes and beer cans, holes in the sheet-rock. As Bateau Lavoir was his base, “walking” the city was a kind of epistemology, a way of discovering himself. “Getting lost” was also a seed which gave way to the flaneur; being dislocated was how to find oneself – in the “alleyways of the mind,” he said. From his digs he watched the city “unspool.” But he also watched his mind cross over into a terrain of ambiguity and depression. Drawing from his roommate, Georges Braque dabbling in African themes, he found someone who, though initially shocked at seeing Les Demoiselles, became intrigued and supportive. “Picasso was very anxious, watching for my reaction.”

Figuratively speaking, is Montmarte even a place today” – New York’s lower eastside, Chicago’s southside? East LA and Watts? Or, is it more a mental geography we all inhabit? Between periods of (past) “stability” and the hope for stability? Is the art world again stuck between a “Pluralism” (abstract, conceptual, digital, technological, experimental, activist, “abstract realist,” multi-media) and something all the “pluralisms” in the world reach for but can’t find? – Pluralism, by the way, encompasses only techniques, tools, and approaches; hence, it really isn’t a “movement” per se, actually more the disavowal of one.

Picasso (as newly arriving artist) would be sitting in yet another “crack” – between those hating him and those instantly gravitating to a new message (whatever that is). Cubism caught on in society, but only after some turbulent months. Today (as we live in a perpetual “timelessness”), his message would find instant controversy, even as an unknown. Geniuses have a habit of getting noticed.

As for the artist’s favorite nerve center and watering hole, we might say the modern Le Chat Noir (cafe) is now the wi-fi cafe, the bookstore a collection of e-books, and theater a 3-D VR headset. The “cabaret” is a user-friendly room to everything digital and high-tech – including papered books. – The question is (all the garbage aside), is anything any different in terms of substance? Has consciousness itself shifted, or has it just been taken into another room with passwords and USB ports?

Which brings us back to a revised Guernica. It’s almost as if driving into Kyiv at this moment or the South Sudan and witnessing Spain in 1937 – all over again. Rubble is rubble, blood is blood. The sounds of crying children and grieving mothers never change. Neither does the pathology of tyrants, despots, and megalomaniacs. History simply repeats, and nothing is learned. The question is, while the canvass and paints remain the same, would the colors simply darken, the lines sharpen, the expressions be more strident? Would the painted faces become photos, the horses become tanks, the broken sword an automatic AK-47?

Or, would the portrait be dramatically different? What would Picasso say to (and about) us? We stand before an empty white canvass begging us to project the most honest feelings and emotions about nuclear endgames and conflagration. It’s the new auto-de-fe of the modern soul. It demands a full purging of transgressions. Do we need a Picasso for this? Is Picasso alive and well inside of us all?

We seem to paint a world portrait every morning, do we not? We start off with an outline drawn from the day before, and the day before that. We’re biased and indoctrinated and tragically lost. The hand that touches the keyboard and drives the car is the “brush from Barcelona” unknowingly contouring the day. What needs to happen is a convergence of “the day” into a framed (if not fixed) portrait. Picasso said that Les Demoiselles was never finished (nor was anything for that matter). He said: “Have you ever seen a finished picture? …. Woe unto you the day it is said that you are finished. To finish a work? …. What nonsense. To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it the final blow.” – A snapshot of the present moment is no different. It is a blur of moving vignettes – small aperture (F-stop), poor depth of field, a shutter-speed with subjects moving way too fast.

The title could very well be Futurism Redux. Part of what brought Picasso into his Cubist phase was this movement which in 1909 proclaimed “We intend to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and fearlessness… We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by… the beauty of speed.” It’s founder, Filippo Marinetti, wanted to demolish the past and celebrate speed and mechanization. As it adopted the Cubist motif, Russia also adopted the Futurist manifesto, as did many other schools and movements.

Beginning with Fauvism in 1904 (totally experimental, the most transient and least definable, never intended as a movement) came Suprematism, Orphism, Vorticism, Purism, Dadaism, Surrealism, de Stijl, and Constructivism. What they had in common was experimentation with technology, speed, non-clarity, objectivity, highly charged emotionalism, revolutionary purpose, destruction of society, the repudiation of world appearances, geometric forms, supremacy of mind over matter, sterile facades, and so on. The irony was claiming a clarity through non-clarity, and visa versa. In other words, though it preached sterility and objectivity, it focused in on a new social phenomenon – self-consciousness. It was a world of Kafka and Gertrude Stein’s “lost generation.”

“Clarity through abstraction” became an almost religious (cultish) obsession. It began to look like Oriental art, even Buddhist art. One artist said, “ Only blankness, complete awareness, disinterestedness … ‘vacant’ and spiritual,’ empty… the ageless ‘universal formula.” Carl Jung said that when reality is reduced to basic signs and symbols, we return to universal properties recognized everywhere and by all people. The senses are free to relinquish their conditioned responses and explore more deeply. Abstraction is not a devaluation of nature but an evolution into it. Nature is not left blind but experienced more deeply.

Such was the climate which was precipitated by Picasso’s Cubism in 1907 and which progressed all the way into the 1930s and the Spanish Civil War. A time when everyone chose sides with the rise of Fascism. Old friendships dissolved and new ones took root. Picasso, it turned out, became the official prophet of this era. The world belonged to Cubism (and Surrealism) in one form or another, to one degree or another.

The gray areas between mechanization, speed, revolutionary purpose, social destruction, mind over matter, sterile facades, geometric thinking, and emotionally charged messages IS today’s portrait – albeit on steroids. The Picasso of a century ago and his Guernica is amorphously showing up in the body politic. Call it a “second coming” – like the first Second Coming (the Grail) arriving in the form of “consciousness.” It’s a redemptive force attempting to surface inside street violence, guns, and terrorism. It tries to choose its own colors, canvass, and borders, but it never has a chance to start. The easel is toppled and crushed by no fewer that a dozen wars at any one moment (including armed conflicts and regional skirmishes). As we speak, there are 10 “official” wars and 8 active military conflicts. A total of 174 nations were at war in 2021. Only 23 countries and territories did not engage in violence against civilians, explosions, riots, or violent protests last year. – The portrait never has a chance to even frame itself.

Guernica was a semi-abstract painting in 1937. Today it is “pure” abstraction because no one thing or event can encompass it. And this presents another irony: The day its abstractness comes into focus (becomes figurative/representational) might also be the most dangerous day of all. Not unlike a “second coming” getting reduced to a literal form – messiahs, prophets, political revolutionaries, despots – or the Grail being misinterpreted as an object or real person – it could be the moment when apocalyptic change translates “down” into actual war (instead of new consciousness). – No, it’s best that it remains abstract and unreachable. Our work is not to bring it down to our level but to ascend to it.

Alas, the most powerful people on earth (as usual) are the ones who most misinterpret the Grail, and (at this moment) Vladimir Putin is no different. He is the Nazi officer asking Picasso as to the authorship of Guernica. “Did you do this?” – “No,” said Picasso, “you did,”

© 2022 Richard Hiatt