Tag: Fascism

Monthly Reading

by MAÔ, posted in Reading

February 2018

Books Bought:

  • The Emerging Mind: The Reith Lectures – Vilayanur Ramachandran
  • Get in Trouble: Stories – Kelly Link
  • A History of Japan – H.R.P. Mason & J.G. Cainer
  • Magic Words: The Extraordinary Life of Alan Moore – Lance Parkin

Books Read:

  • Later Essays – Susan Sontag (unfinished)
  • Head Strong – Dave Asprey (unfinished)
  • On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century – Timothy Snyder
  • Astrophysics for People in a Hurry – Neil DeGrasse Tyson
  • American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For – David McCullough
  • Origin – Dan Brown

“Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a livin’ barely gettin’ by.” But, I’m usually at work at 8, which means leaving the house by 7. Hopefully I get home by 6 in the evening. Then rehearsals typically start at 7, though when the show started tech week on the 19th last month we were expected at 6:30. That means for the first couple of weeks of February, I didn’t get much reading time.

Tried to make up for it though! Went through a lot of essays this month, purely by accident. Had picked up the Sontag in January purely by happenstance. Have only read three essays in the book, the first three from Under the Sign of Saturn, originally published in 1980 and collected in Later Essays. The three are “On Paul Goodman”, “Approaching Artaud”, & “Fascinating Fascism”.

A week or so ago, I wrote in my journal: “…her seeming mastery of language and the written word is staggering. As I read (or try to read) her essays, the sheer polysyllabic content is overwhelming. I’ve never seen [contemporary] writing (that I can recall) of such eloquence and yet so confusing.”

I say this with respect and admiration, for as many times as I may have to reread a sentence, I know I’m getting something from it. I’m thinking. I need to read her with a notebook nearby, because ideas flow from her writings and I can’t help but grab them and get them onto paper.

Interestingly enough I purchased a secondhand copy of Antonin Artaud’s The Theater and its Double (still unread) several years ago, and while reading Sontag’s critique of Artaud I think I’ve decided to leave it unread, at least for the time being.

So as I delve into Sontag, I seem to be neglecting the prose that I’ve been accumulating (Resurrection Blues; To Kill a Mockingbird; A Darker Shade of Magic). The only fiction I managed to consume this month was Dan Brown’s Origin, a novel of the ever-vigilant symbologist Robert Langdon. (Cue Willem Dafoe’s, “Symbolism, symbolism…”)

The book had its triteness, certainly. But parts of it kept me guessing, and I love the research that goes into Brown’s novels. Also, a part of the story takes place in Budapest, which I visited last year for the first time, so it was enjoyable to hear about things that I recall seeing. (Just watched Red Sparrow as well, and it too had scenes in Budapest. I did very much like my time in Hungary.)

The technological futurism and physics-based universal beginnings had a through-line in my reading to Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics. This man is highly informative, fun, and I greatly enjoyed reading this book. My favorite part was in his describing of English astronomer William Herschel, who in 1781 discovered the planet Uranus. Herschel wanted to measure the temperature of light, and using a prism split a sunbeam into its component parts – red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. (Tyson: “Yes, the colors do indeed spell Roy G. Biv.”)

Placing a thermometer in each strand of colored light, and one for control just adjacent to the red, which he assumed would be room temperature, he took his readings. Yet, the “control” thermometer ended up rising higher than the red light. Again, Tyson:

“Herschel wrote:

‘[I] conclude, that the full red falls still short of the maximum of heat; which perhaps lies even a little beyond visible refraction. In this case, radiant heat will at least partly, if not chiefly, consist, is I may be permitted the expression, of invisible light; that is to say, of rays coming from the sun, that have such a momentum as to be unfit for vision.’

Holy s#%t!”

I had the pleasure of the audio book the first time through, so hearing Tyson saying, “Holy shit!” was worth the listen alone. But even prior to that, knowing that in the 18th Century this astronomer discovered basically the farthest planet from us in our solar system was attention-grabbing. Tyson loves this material, and it comes through in how he writes it, and how he speaks about it. And it makes the reader just a little more interested in the science, I believe.

Two more books of essays, On Tyranny and American Spirit had to do with what it means to be American, ranging from the beginning of our Nation to today. Enthralling, overall. From McCullough I learned about the founding fathers. About the feud between Jefferson and Adams and how they reconciled (I believe aided by Benjamin Rush), and that they both died on July 4th, 1826. Adams’s last words were, “Jefferson still survives,” yet Jefferson had just five hours preceding Adams.

Some of McCullough’s speeches, collected in American Voices, reverberate with hope, and love for the history of this Country. He shows great admiration for our founding fathers, and in reading his works I’ve found a renewed interest in the early American experiment (also owing to the successful Broadway hit Hamilton.) McCullough writes of history as Tyson writes of physics: with unbridled affection.

For all the optimism that Voices espouses, On Tyranny presents a more pragmatic and cautionary view of the state of our Nation. Snyder writes in his prologue:

“History does not repeat, but it does instruct. As the Founding Fathers debated our Constitution, they took instruction from the history they knew. Concerned that the democratic republic they envisioned would collapse, they contemplated the descent of ancient democracies and republics into oligarchies and empire… In founding a democratic republic upon law and establishing a system of checks and balances, the Founding Fathers sought to avoid the evil that they, like the ancient philosophers, called tyranny.”

What follows are twenty warnings, nineteen of which are accompanied by short essay, cautioning the reader that much of the divisiveness of the past two years looks frighteningly similar to the rise of fascism in Europe during the thirties and forties. The author, Levin Professor of History at Yale University Timothy Snyder, makes convincing arguments, and uses case study and rhetoric to show the potential danger. Yet he advises that the citizenry can make a difference, not to rely on populist sentiment, and be careful  as to avoid complacency.

Some might argue that On Tyranny is a thinly veiled criticism of President Trump and the way in which he ascended to the presidency. My response would be, we need more criticism, lest democracy itself die.

In my *cough* *cough* free time, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Some of my favorites are Marketplace, Echoes, On Being, and Bulletproof Radio. Occasionally I will drink my morning coffee bulletproof, meaning with butter and MCT oil (or coconut oil). Having been diagnosed with RA back in 2012, I recently decided that I wanted to see how far I could hack my system.

I’ve barely gotten into chapter one on Head Strong, so no progress to report yet.

The Alan Moore bio and Kelly Link book were remanded purchases. Any time I walk by those bins, I find myself fishing for at least ten minutes through the titles that they have available. A History of Japan was a purchase prompted by my brother asking me a simple question about imperial history, and I couldn’t recall. For years I was hypnotized by Japanese culture and history. I picked it up for reference, and have been begun Japanese language lessons to refresh my dismal vocabulary.

Emerging Mind is part of a larger collection of books on thought I’m acquiring, for something I intend to write later this year. One part philosophy, one part science. For the rest of March, I think I’m focusing on Sontag.

Until next time…

Fighting for something

by MAÔ, posted in Government

“On this Sabbath… in our homes in the midst of our American families, let us calmly consider what we have done and what we must do.”

– President Franklin D. Roosevelt

This introduction to a 1940 fireside chat was the result of troubling times in Europe, and the realization that Roosevelt had come to – that the United States would not be able to avoid that conflict. The fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, and Japan (the Axis powers) were fast becoming a threat to a Country trying to turn a blind-eye to the plight of non-Americans. The isolationists were content in believing that something in Europe was okay as long as it wasn’t happening to them.

Beyond the expansion, genocide and looming threat of the Axis were the fascists. “Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce, that came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe”.

Wilhelm Reich argued that fascism “does not spring exclusively either from the economic factors, or from the activities of political leaders. Much rather, it is the collective expression of average human beings, whose primary biological needs have been ruthlessly crushed by an authoritarian and sexually inhibited society. Any form of organized mysticism, such as the authoritarian family or church, feeds on the longings of the masses, and we must be forced to realize its potential destructiveness.”

Collective expression of average human beings. I think that we sometimes forget that all great things, all terrible things, anything of note that has occurred in recorded history, started with people – average human beings. Tragedy occurs, and its typically the loss of human life. Dictators rise, but before that, they were merely a cog in the system. Mussolini was a rifleman; Hitler was an Austrian draft dodger.

The anti-fascist movement, ANTIFA, has been receiving a great deal of attention. Fears over the Trump Administration, concerns of racism and, yes, fascism, have prompted the growth of these loosely organized groups. No leadership, no core mission, no real understanding of purpose that’s consistent throughout. It’s a response to what is felt to be wrong. A feeling that we’re all just average human beings, and how some of us are being treated is intolerable.

Nazism. White supremacy. Fascism.

So what to do? Is taking to the street, wearing all black and balaclava masks, carrying signs and weapons the answer? When the frustration boils over, violence is always possible. And the events in Charlottesville, VA, Berkeley, CA, and others show that clashes between ANTIFA groups and Alt-Right or white nationalist demonstrators are inevitable, and likely to be dangerous, perhaps even deadly.

Now I support freedom of expression, and I oppose white supremacy and white nationalist movements. To be frank, the climate in the US right now seems frighteningly like what I imagined the periods of the Civil Rights movement and the era prior to World War II to look like – nationalist sentiments, ethnic slurs, and turmoil.

Is there another way? During the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s and 60s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. trumpeted nonviolent resistance. “While others were advocating for freedom by “any means necessary,” including violence, Martin Luther King, Jr. used the power of words and acts of nonviolent resistance, such as protests, grassroots organizing, and civil disobedience to achieve seemingly impossible goals.”

I would advocate nonviolence as well. To refrain from resorting to “any means necessary,” it is important to remember that it is not antagonism that solves disputes, but in the opposition of error. Dr. King took many of his ideas from Mahatma Gandhi, who had led the Indian independence movement against British rule. It was accomplished through nonviolent resistance, which Gandhi felt was “infinitely superior to violence.” (47)

Gandhi wrote, “On the political field, the struggle on behalf of the people mostly consists in  opposing error in the shape of unjust laws. When you have failed to bring the error home to the law-giver by way of petitions and the like, the only remedy open to you, if you do not wish to submit to error, is to compel him by physical force to yield to you or by suffering in your own person by inviting the penalty for the breach of the law. Hence satyagraha largely appears to the public as Civil Disobedience or Civil Resistance. It is civil in the sense that it is not criminal.”

Ultimately, tolerance is needed for this Country to survive. Tolerance of immigrants, and ethnicities, and even political parties. Otherwise it’s just a disparate powder keg waiting to explode.

Hate groups, by their very definition, embody a lack of tolerance, and should be responded to accordingly. Nazis, and Neo-Nazis, are pretty clearly a hate group.

I would rather a group like ANTIFA to not be assailable in their actions – to not have members that may be classified as domestic terrorists. I want an organization, or a group of organizations, that promotes tolerance, that finds creative ways of fighting against inequality.

The violence is a symptom, revealing underlying fears and angers. I get it. I’m just as frustrated. And we can’t look to our politicians, because right now it seems that too few of them are there to help. But aren’t there some other ways of promoting tolerance? It feels as if the heart of the Country is broken, and that there are too few stepping up to help it heal.