The Prizefighter

There is a tragic quality about a prizefighter. He can be champion one day and dead in the streets the next. It is what makes him a compelling figure. The prizefighter is a piece of meat, but he embodies the strength and frailty of our humanity.

The rise and fall of a fighter has been played and replayed over the hundred or more years of organized boxing. As a fighter rises, we wait for his demise. That is why Mike Tyson is still a compelling figure in boxing. We want to see him succeed again, because we know that his fall will be all the more spectacular. It would be naïve to present the prizefighter as a glorious figure of success. Many are decrepit and pathetic human beings. However, it would be inaccurate to merely portray them as victims of an exploitive culture of violence and entertainment.

A PBS documentary on the first recognized "black" World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson demonstrated how he was a skillfully self-promoting and financially successful champion. Of course Jack Johnson, in spite of his savvy in and outside of the ring, eventually fell victim to his own proclivity for women, with a little help from trumped up charges of prostitution (violating the Mann Act). But what brought Jack Johnson down is precisely what makes him a compelling figure. The arrogant braggadocio, the confident and supremely talented showman who appears utterly invulnerable, attracts audiences and animates the spectacle. But people do not want heroes who are invulnerable, even Superman had to die.

Jack Johnson was never a hero and never claimed to be. He told the world to fuck off when they questioned his relations with white women, because who would make him do otherwise? Jack Johnson was an intimidating human specimen, and when he told the world off, no one was going to change his mind.

But of course there is a Hobbesian quality to the downfall of a hulking champion. In the state of nature, Hobbes contends, even the most strongest and capable individual will succumb to the subversive activity of the weakest. Those who loathed the sight of a black champion schemed to depose Johnson. A man’s downfall is never exclusively the product of conspiratorial action; he himself plants the seeds of his demise. He relished the role of a promiscuous, virile, and dominant pugilist. In the end, he was not invulnerable. Jack Johnson, to paraphrase a modern wrestling promoter, screwed Jack Johnson; and that is why is he a legend.

To fall is to be human. To plummet from great heights makes a man legendary through infamy. The one who falls and falls hard, we eulogize. Johnson, Liston, La Motta, Foreman, Tyson, and the list goes on and on. Whether it was Foreman in Zaire 1974, Liston in Miami 1964, or Tyson in Tokyo 1990, they were all unstoppable beasts that were stopped. They all reinforce what Hobbes intimated, “nobody is naturally invulnerable”. Indeed, we find comfort in that and find even greater comfort in the spectacle that tears down the most intimidating figure. Modernity has a taste for scandal and failure-as-spectacle. It is bemusing in profoundly superficial ways.

Where have you gone Winona?

So I’m staring at a Rolling Stone cover hanging on the wall. It has the following plastered over it: Hot 1991 – Winona Ryder / Who’s Hip, What’s Funny, And How To Stay Cool / The Famous Hot List. So what has changed since 1991? Well, Winona Ryder is a clichéd punch line for celebrity kleptomania. Who’s Hip? That tagline is no longer sexy enough for Rolling Stone. Circa 2005, Hip is Lame. This cover, a decade and a half later, would be more hardcore. How about Christina Aguilara nude with a guitar covering her naughty bits? Or Britney Spears doing a faux-Lolita spread? The Winona Ryder cover may have been scandalous in 1991 – her in a nightie flashing her bedroom eyes. But now, “sexiness” is to let the deep down hardcore slut bust out. The justification is that “Daddy don’t preach”, that personal freedom and expression means getting right in your fucking face. Sure, the body is the property of the self. But please don’t think that a magazine cover spread or constant commodification of one’s self-image somehow furthers the cause of women around the world. I'm not that naive.

The engine of colonialism is not fueled by military aggression. What drives colonialism is cultural propaganda. At the heart of any society is its cultural customs.

The west, from the time of Rome to that of Great Britain’s colonial empire, has understood the importance of exporting customs, in addition to hawking products and methods of governance. Culture is an integral part to the governance of a territory. To build or “construct” a system of meaning or a means to contentment, it assuages rebellious inclinations any indigenous peoples harbour in opposition to an external sovereign power. Power, hence, cannot be exercised merely upon the body politic, but in shaping the collective consciousness and, more importantly, particular wills of a people. Culture builds and sustains the illusion. That is not to say that the illusion is fearsomely evil. That is no always the case. But precisely because cultural propaganda, if executed shrewdly, can appear neither fearsome nor evil is how it has effectiveness at all.

Pericles' Panegyric

Three days before the ceremony, the bones of the dead are laid out in a tent which has been erected; and their friends bring to their relatives such offerings as they please. In the funeral procession cypress coffins are borne in cars, one for each tribe; the bones of the deceased being placed in the coffin of their tribe. Among these is carried one empty bier decked for the missing, that is, for those whose bodies could not be recovered. Any citizen or stranger who pleases, joins in the procession: and the female relatives are there to wail at the burial. The dead are laid in the public sepulchre in the Beautiful suburb of the city, in which those who fall in war are always buried; with the exception of those slain at Marathon, who for their singular and extraordinary valour were interred on the spot where they fell. After the bodies have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the state, of approved wisdom and eminent reputation, pronounces over them an appropriate panegyric; after which all retire. Such is the manner of the burying; and throughout the whole of the war, whenever the occasion arose, the established custom was observed. Meanwhile these were the first that had fallen, and Pericles, son of Xanthippus, was chosen to pronounce their eulogium.

When the proper time arrived, he advanced from the sepulchre to an elevated platform in order to be heard by as many of the crowd as possible, and spoke as follows:

"Most of my predecessors in this place have commended him who made this speech part of the law, telling us that it is well that it should be delivered at the burial of those who fall in battle. For myself, I should have thought that the worth which had displayed itself in deeds would be sufficiently rewarded by honours also shown by deeds; such as you now see in this funeral prepared at the people's cost. And I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity. However, since our ancestors have stamped this custom with their approval, it becomes my duty to obey the law and to try to satisfy your several wishes and opinions as best I may.

"I shall begin with our ancestors: it is both just and proper that they should have the honour of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valour. And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation. Lastly, there are few parts of our dominions that have not been augmented by those of us here, who are still more or less in the vigour of life; while the mother country has been furnished by us with everything that can enable her to depend on her own resources whether for war or for peace. That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valour with which either we or our fathers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a theme too familiar to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by. But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form of government under which our greatness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang; these are questions which I may try to solve before I proceed to my panegyric upon these men; since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may properly dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may listen with advantage.

"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition. The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbour for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.

"Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own.

"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger. In proof of this it may be noticed that the Lacedaemonians do not invade our country alone, but bring with them all their confederates; while we Athenians advance unsupported into the territory of a neighbour, and fighting upon a foreign soil usually vanquish with ease men who are defending their homes. Our united force was never yet encountered by any enemy, because we have at once to attend to our marine and to dispatch our citizens by land upon a hundred different services; so that, wherever they engage with some such fraction ofour strength, a success against a detachment is magnified into a victory over the nation, and a defeat into a reverse suffered at the hands of our entire people. And yet if with habits not of labour but of ease, and courage not of art but of nature, we are still willing to encounter danger, we have the double advantage of escaping the experience of hardships in anticipation and of facing them in the hour of need as fearlessly as those who are never free from them.

"Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.

"Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause.

"Indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose, and also that the panegyric of the men over whom I am now speaking might be by definite proofs established. That panegyric is now in a great measure complete; for the Athens that I have celebrated is only what the heroism of these and their like have made her, men whose fame, unlike that of most Hellenes, will be found to be only commensurate with their deserts. And if a test of worth be wanted, it is to be found in their closing scene, and this not only in cases in which it set the final seal upon their merit, but also in those in which it gave the first intimation of their having any. For there is justice in the claim that steadfastness in his country's battles should be as a cloak to cover a man's other imperfections; since the good action has blotted out the bad, and his merit as a citizen more than outweighed his demerits as an individual. But none of these allowed either wealth with its prospect of future enjoyment to unnerve his spirit, or poverty with its hope of a day of freedom and riches to tempt him to shrink from danger.

"No, holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonour, but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

"So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defence of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honour in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valour, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer.

"For this offering of their lives made in common by them all they each of them individually received that renown which never grows old, and for a sepulchre, not so much that in which their bones have been deposited, but that noblest of shrines wherein their glory is laid up to be eternally remembered upon every occasion on which deed or story shall call for its commemoration. For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart. These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valour, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!

"Comfort, therefore, not condolence, is what I have to offer to the parents of the dead who may be here. Numberless are the chances to which, as they know, the life of man is subject; but fortunate indeed are they who draw for their lot a death so glorious as that which has caused your mourning, and to whom life has been so exactly measured as to terminate in the happiness in which it has been passed. Still I know that this is a hard saying, especially when those are in question of whom you will constantly be reminded by seeing in the homes of others blessings of which once you also boasted: for grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed. Yet you who are still of an age to beget children must bear up in the hope of having others in their stead; not only will they help you to forget those whom you have lost, but will be to the state at once a reinforcement and a security; for never can a fair or just policy be expected of the citizen who does not, like his fellows, bring to the decision the interests and apprehensions of a father. While those of you who have passed your prime must congratulate yourselves with the thought that the best part of your life was fortunate, and that the brief span that remains will be cheered by the fame of the departed. For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness.

"Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no longer in our path are honoured with a goodwill into which rivalry does not enter.

"On the other hand, if I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether for good or for bad.

"My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have received part of their honours already, and for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in this race of valour, for the reward both of those who have fallen and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

"And now that you have brought to a close your lamentations for your relatives, you may depart."

Hannah Arendt on Pericles' Oration

From The Human Condition (205-06):

"The words of Pericles, as Thucydides reports them, are perhaps unique in their supreme confidence that men can enact and save their greatness at the same time and, as it were, by one and the same gesture, and that the performance as such will be enough to generate dynamis and not need the transforming reification of homo faber to keep it in reality. Pericles' speech, though it certainly corresponded to and articulated the innermost convictions of the people of Athens, has always been read with the sad wisdom of hindsight by men who knew that his words were spoken at the beginning of the end. Yet short-lived as this faith in dynamis (and consequently in politics) may have been - and it had already come to an end when the first political philosophies were formulated - its bare existence has sufficed to elevate action to the highest rank in the hierarchy of the vita activa and to single out speech as the decisive distinctive between human and animal life, both of which bestowed upon politics a dignity which even today has not altogether disappeared.

What is outstandingly clear in Pericles' formulations - and, incidentally, no less transparent in Homer's poems - is that the innermost meaning of the acted deed and the spoken word is independent of victory and defeat and must remain untouched by any eventual outcome, by their consequences for better or worse. Unlike human behavior - which the Greeks, like all civilized people, judged according to "moral standards," taking into account motives and intentions on the one hand and aims and consequences on the other - action can be judged only by the criterion of greatness because it is in its nature to break through the commonly accepted and reach into the extraordinary, where whatever is true in common and everyday life no longer applies because everything that exists is unique and sui generis. Thucycdides, or Pericles, knew full well that he had broken with the normal standards for everyday behavior when he found the glory of Athens in having left behind "everywhere everlasting remembrance [mnemeia aidia] of their good and their evil deeds." The art of politics teaches men how to bring forth what is great and radiant - ta megala kai lampra, in the words of Democritus; as long as the polis is there to inspire men to dare the extraordinary, all things are safe; if it perishes, everything is lost. Motives and aims, no matter how pure or how grandiose, are never unique; like psychological qualities, they are typical, characteristic of different types of persons. Greatness, therefore, or the specific meaning of each deed, can lie only in the performance itself and neither in its motivation nor its achievement."

Buber - "More on Civil Disobedience"

Buber - "More on Civil Disobedience" from A Believing Humanism

(192-93) "It is, therefore, finally necessary again for us to put an end to questioning and answering in general concepts and to make it unmistakenly clear that, questioning and answering, one must keep the situation continually in sight."

(193) "Those who today make all-embracing preparations deny themselves the image of what possibility opens up through just these preparations."

(193) "In other words, instead of the usual "political" talking past one another about mighty fictions, will they learn to talk to one another about the reality?"

(193) "Must not a planetary front of such civil disobedients stand ready, not for battle, like other fronts, but for saving dialogue."

Notes on Dialogue

(BMM 22) Limitations of Dialogue

1) establishing a living mutual relation...
- rare..."borne on behalf of the continuance of the organic substance of the human spirit".

2) technical dialogue; prompted solely by the need of objective understanding
- "sterling quality of 'modern existence'".


3) monologue disguised as dialogue; "...strangely torturous and circuitous ways".
- a debate...thoughts are not expressed in the way in which they existed in the mind but in the speaking are so pointed that they may strike home in the sharpest way, i.e. a friendly chat.

(BMM 23) [near the bottom of page] "solitude...for him..."; the monological individual.

(BMM 24) "Being, lived in dialogue, receives even in extreme dereliction a harsh and strengthening sense of reciprocity; being, lived in monologue, will not, even in the harshest intimacy, grope out over the outlines of the self."

(BMM 24) "Dialogic is not to be identified with love."
"...love remaining within itself - this is called Lucifer."

(BMM 24) Dialogue between mere individuals is only a sketch, only in dialogue between persons is the sketch filled in.

(BMM 25) "If everything concrete is equally near, equally nearest, life with the world ceases to have articulations and structure, it ceases to have human meaning."

- does this address the distance problem? Only with distance there is meaning.

(BMM 25) "But nothing needs to mediate between me and one of my companions in the companionship of creation, whenever we come near another, because we are bound up in relation to the same centre."

(BMM 26) *modern man rendering turning to the other as "sentimental" or "impractical" -> confesses his weakness of initiative when confronted with the state of the time.

(BMM 26) The basic movement of monologue -> "reflexion"; perceiving the other as an extension of self.
- this is "the other I", as Friedman puts it in The Life of Dialogue, 60
-> note the description of this on the bottom of BMM 27; respect for the other's particularity

(BMM 28) "For then dialogue becomes a fiction, the mysterious intercourse between two human worlds only a game, and in the rejection of the real life confronting him the essence of all reality begins to disintegrate."

(BMM 29) "Unity of life...unbroken, raptureless perserverance in concreteness, in which the word is heard and a stammering answer dared."

(BMM 30) "To all unprejudiced reflection it is clear that all art is from its origin essentially of the nature of dialogue."

(BMM 30) -> "inner court" -> "not the arising of the thought but the first trying and testing of what has arisen."
- pp. 30-31: an intellectual relationship with oneself.

(BMM 32) Feuerbach quote atop p. 32; from The Essence of Christianity, "between I and Thou"

(BMM 38) The mass collectivity marching into the common abyss - totalitarian mass?

(BMM 40) There is no ordering of dialogue. It is not that you are to answer but that you are able.
- potential of dialogue, not the structure of dialogue.

(BMM 40-41) -> there is no expertise for dialogue, because it is a primal quality present in man to be actualized in action?

(BMM 41) Dialogue..."is a matter of creation, of the creature, and that he is that, the man of whom I speak, he is a creature, trival and irreplacable."

(BMM 42) "And nothing is so valuable a service of dialogue between God and man as such an unsentimental and unreserved exchange of glances between two (people) in an alien place."

(BMM 43) "...blind to possibility..."

(BMM 44-45) "...people will try to use his "procedure" without his way of thinking and imagining."

First, the distance problem is naturally one that can be addressed in two sentences.
1) If everything concrete is equally near, human meaning is effaced. Is this a response to Honneth and neo-Kantian categories of morality and universal humanity?
2) "Distance expanding" is compouned and solidifed by monologue, refer to BMM 25.

Albert Camus - Reflections on the Guillotine

(611) "I am far from indulging in flabby pity..."

(612) "Society is not taking revenge; it merely wants to forestall."

(613) He goes into why society does not believe in the exemplary affect of capital punishment
--> executions are no longer public.

(614) "It takes a terrifying spectacle to hold the people in check." (Tuant de la Bouverie)

(614-15) There is a connection to theme of Kafka's penal colony; admiration and obsession regarding their contraptions.

(616) "...the transparence belongs to life, but their fixity belongs to death."

(617) "...crude surgery..."

(618) "The man who enjoys his coffee while reading that justice has been done would spit it out at the least detail."

(619) "Indeed, one must kill publicly or confess that one does not feel authorized to kill. If society justifies the death penalty by the necessity of example, it must justify itself by making publicity necessary." -> refer to the earlier quote from Gambatta.

(621) "But law is always simpler than nature. When law ventures, in the hope of dominating, into the dark regions of consciousness, it has little chance of being able to simplify the complexity it wants to codify."

(622) "...the instinct for self-preservation is matched, in variable proportions, by the instinct for destruction."

(629) "But not knowing whether or not you are going to live, that's terror and anguish."

(630) "The animal that is going to be killed must be in the best condition."

(630-31) Hemlock; for the Greeks, it gave them a choice - death or suicide.

(631) "We must read between the lines that the condemned made no noise, accepted his status as parcel, and that everyone is grateful for this."

(642) "There is a solidarity of all men in error and aberration."

(649) "Society indeed has lost all contact with the sacred."

(650) "Those who cause the most blood to flow are the same ones who believe they have right, logic, and history on their side."

1) Capital punishment has no exemplary value.
- the reasoning behind the exemplary argument is faulty. As Camus points out, most people who kill did not plan it or knew whether they were going to do it before shaving in the morning.

2) The condemned is something different from bare life; keeping one fit for death.
- killing and the sacrifice: anthropological implications and culture?

Grow Up or Blow Away?

They said they were going to castrate him and kill his brother if his parents did not bring them his weight in gold. He manically paced back and forth in the stables, pondering what to do next. Had he been younger, he would have raced to his parents with tears of confusion streaming down his face. But the night forced him to abandon childish naiveté. He stared coldly at the beaten, limp, and lifeless body of his servant - which still reeked from contents of a smashed jug of rice wine. Once fear passed through indifference into rage, he was going to act.

They had beaten him unconscious, smuggled him into their mountain lair, and tossed the rice bag filled with the child into a rusty cage. Returning to the wagons, they unloaded them. The enormity of their score was revealed. Piled in the middle of a room was a variety of swag: fine rugs, vases, jade pieces, silks, and jugs of rice wine. In a spirit of celebration, wine flowed festively. The first bowls were not served to one of the three bandits; it was presented to their deceased parents. In spite of their unsavory vocation, they believed in the proper performance of ritual. And showing appreciation for their good fortune, they burnt incense and poured wine onto the tribute plates of their mother and father. After a brief observance, staid respectfulness gave way to hedonistic elation as they divvied up their plunder, all the while descending further into the throes of intoxication.

Once anger arrived he decided to go. His parents had taken their horses on a trip to Guangzhou, the finest horses had been stolen, and he was left with the oldest one in the stable. After procuring a cleaver lying aimlessly on a table in the Lychee Orchard, he grabbed a torch, patiently lit it, and proceeded into the night.

In a collective state of inebriation, the bandit brothers rolled around in large swaths of silk, giddy about the prospects of more plunder. During the course of their revelling, the key to the rusty iron cage dropped onto the floor. Intoxicated and overjoyed by the events of the night, each began to wonder aloud about what the future had in store. The eldest brother was going to open a restaurant – for he loved food; the middle brother wanted an opium den – for wine was not his only opiate; and the youngest dreamed of marrying their beautiful cousin – whom he dreamed about every lonely night. The orphaned men, as individuals and as brothers, believed that the unfathomable was soon to be realized.

After riding at a deliberate pace for a short time, he stopped to plan his next step. While sitting in front of a make shift fire, he noticed that the old horse was agitated by a smell on the ground. He went in for a closer look, dipped his finger into the soil, took in a breath, and instantly recognized the scent of rice wine. However, while stooped over the spot, flames from the torch stealthily licked at his right hand. The heat overwhelmed his youthful flesh and the torch crashed onto the earth. Surprisingly, it did not extinguish. Rather, it ignited a trail of fire. Upon discovering this newly lit path, he retrieved the torch with the help of a loose tree branch, got on his horse, and rode frantically, as expediently as the creature could go, to as far as the trail of flames would lead.

After countless trips to the wagon filled with plundered wine, the bandit brothers retrieved the largest jug. They noticed that it was light for its size. Following a casual inspection, a slight crack on the container was discovered. They shared in a hearty laugh and thought no more about it. With one last voluminous gulp, each would succumb to the drink. The youngest brother fell onto a pile of rugs, mumbling the name of his beautiful cousin. The middle brother fell asleep beside his younger sibling, hugging his sheathed sword. And the eldest of the three chided the others until even he succumbed to the iniquitous effects of their revelry, falling asleep beside his parents' shrine.

The flames lead him to the base of a mountain. He looked up and saw two lanterns illuminating the entranceway to an abandoned temple. While leading the horse carefully on a short trek up the mountain, fear reemerged. A miraculous trail of flames lead him somewhere, but would it lead him to a proud and foolish end? It was an unfamiliar situation, unfolding in a strange place. The events of the night shattered the certainties once thought to be inalienable. But now, he was compelled to step into the unknown - inexperienced, frightened, angry, and unsure of how he ended up leading a withered old horse up a mountain in pursuit of certain disaster.

He stepped through the entranceway, cautiously examined the surrounding area, and slowly stepped into the compound. He moved ahead and arrived at a dilapidated courtyard. Erring towards caution, he observed the nearby area for light, catching a glimmer emanating from one of the rooms. He tied his horse and slowly approached the door. Listening attentively as he moved towards the room, he tried to catch the slightest noise in order to situate himself in alien surroundings. All he could hear was a low rumbling sound, a snore. He kneeled outside the room, licked the tip of his forefinger, poked a hole in the rice paper panel, and peered in. In an instant, he recognized them in the image of bandits fast asleep surrounded by flickering oil lamps, empty rice wine jugs, and an assortment of plunder. And at that moment, fear gave way to anger. Bursting into the room, he ran towards the rugs, pulled out his cleaver, swiftly slit the throat of the middle brother, and callously ripped the sword from a weakening, lifeless grip. He saw life rapidly drain from the body and remorse emerged to briefly drown out his anger.

With blood dripping onto his quivering fists, he noticed the youngest bandit stirring from his slumber. In a moment of desperation, he pounced and slashed the sword across the gullet of the awakening thief. His head rolled and settled in time to see a bloody sword soaked in his blood and quietly moaned the name of his beloved one last time. The eldest brother picked up on the commotion, opened his eyes, in time to see his brother’s sword thrusted into his neck. And as his head crashed onto the ground, his eyes gazed up at his parents - together at last.

Holding a bloody sword in one hand and a now crimson-stained cleaver in the other, he stood over the three lifeless bodies. All he could hear was the bloodcurdling threat the middle brother made earlier in the night. A vertiginous confusion overwhelmed the boy, as he slashed wildly at the remains. Having expended his tantrum, he regained control, somewhat cognizant of what needed to be done. He dropped the sword and the cleaver and walked back into the courtyard, returning to wagon of wine that led him to this damnable place. After pushing cart after cart into the room, he emptied the remaining jugs over and around the bodies of the bandits. He retrieved the vases, jade pieces, and rolls of silk unstained by blood and entrails, placed them onto the wagon, wheeled it back into the courtyard, and returned to finish the task. But just as he was about to toss an oil lamp onto the wine-soaked bodies, he remembered his brother. Finding a crude looking key lying on the floor beside a swath of stained silk, he procured it and went in search. After some time, he found the rusty cage in an adjacent room, pulled his still-unconscious brother out, and carried him out to the wagon.

The only memory the younger sibling had of the night was the tremendous sight of flames and billowing smoke emanating from the side of a mountain. He distinctively recalled a stream of smoke spiraling around the peak up towards the celestial sky. The abandoned structure collapsed, sending ashes and dust high into the heavens. As they rode home atop the finest horse in his parent's stable, he held tightly onto his older brother, who gazed unflinchingly at the distance to come.

"Football Season is Over"

"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun—for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax—This won't hurt."

-Hunter S. Thompson
1937-2005
Circa February, 2005

Wither Television?

Why has television displaced the theatre? When a young person is first introduced to Shakespeare, the Bard's colloquial appeal is a popular point of entry. Although his plays are often the subject of academic study and "intellectualization", the true genius of Shakespeare was his uncommon ability to affect the common person, to tap into - and define - zeitgeist. In the golden age of theatre, plays were sources of edification and entertainment.

The common critique of television is that it is expected to entertain, edification be damned. Of course, profitability trumps all in the business of entertainment. What about art? is no longer a valid question. The bricolage of images and sounds pose as art, without meaning or substance. The individual spectator consumes and accumulates mercilessly. Prostrate before the altar of 'cool'. The television, for better and for worse, is the central medium of my generation.

Many of my colleagues would readily admit with little equivocation that they have been raised by television, that their most profound influences come from the small screen. The cartoon 'Family Guy' is demonstrative of pop culture revealing its inclination towards self-cannibalism. The 'jokes' work in a 'wink wink' manner. Hey, you remember the Kool-Aid man, right? Or this or that 80s band? Or this or that 80s cartoon? "You get it or you don't" is the common defence of this brand of humour. It no longer is about observation of a common condition, the way standup comedy - a one-man theater show, some would say - often produce jokes. How come a show, such as Family Guy, which grows increasingly ensnared in a mimetic universe of bricolage remain so utterly popular? Maybe it is because television is the paramount outlet for modern individualism? You "get" it or you don't? Those who "don't get it" are quickly dismissed. Those who "do" count themselves somehow exceptional, distinguished from the rabble rabble. How can aristocratic sensibility grow so comfortable in the bosom of the liberal bourgeoisie?

But of course there are shows that appeal to the 'common denominator', a sexy, intriguing, or wholly grotesque appeal to populism. You have your Fear Factors, your American Idols, or your CSIs. Each taps into an ostensibly rudimentary drive for baseness, while, in the case of CSI, reasserts the reign of rationality over the whole of society. The veil of Isis has been peeled away.

Increasing visibility is a defining aspect of reality television. There are no mysteries. Television cameras show almost everything. The voyeurism inherent in all this is obvious and uninteresting. The creation of new celebrities is also an obvious corollary, but it is not a simple case of hero worship, because most of the 'famous' reality show 'stars' are detestable ones, such as Omarosa from the Apprentice.

The relative boredom of modern liberal society demands that people find something to stimulate feeling. It doesn't matter whether the feeling is outrage, sorrow, anger, or jealousy. Feelings are safe. Feelings reinforce the individual's desire for self-actualization. Rather than alleviate modern alienation, indulgence in mere feeling only pushes the individual further away from others. The television, hence, facilitates a destruction of interhuman meeting. There no longer is any need to leave one's home, except on occasion to engage in mutual exploitation.

So why does everything on TV suck? Maybe I have outgrown television. Even worse, I think I have outgrown it only to realize that I am tragically dependent. There was a time when thoughtfulness emerged through the meeting of serene minds. The veritable speed culture of modern life demands action prior to thought, decisive action and retroactive rationalization; it is sensory overload designed to avoid and to escape.

Escapism, admittedly, has a role to play. Without it, life would be without leisure. But unabated escapism is tacit capitulation; isolating the individual in a world of dreams and insulating him or her from "everything else". So the dilemma is whether one disengages from this defining source of zeitgeist, desiring purity from its temptations, or does one seek to engage with the medium as well as the content in forcing it to recognize its own contradictions?

On the edge of Opus (aut non tentaris aut perfice)

On the edge of Opus (aut non tentaris aut perfice)

If it’s true that every one falls into 15 minutes of fame, everyone is also capable of producing their own magnum opus, a masterwork. For some it may only be a finger-painting frozen in time on their parent's fridge. For others it may be something supposedly more substantive and influential. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding an opus, a masterwork marks a beginning as well as an end. One may not recognize the importance of the work until much later. We call these individuals many things: modest, oblivious, and artistic. There are, of course, others who overestimate the importance of their work, who try to elevate themselves to an immortal place embedded in the collective consciousness of humanity. We call these people many things as well: accomplished, successful, arrogant, deluded, and megalomaniacal. It is natural that we admire the latter and pity the former. According to Hobbes, human beings are naturally violent, destructive, and uncontrollable. This is not a point exclusive only to Hobbes. Freud, as the obvious example, conceptualizes work and play as merely sublimations of one's innate sexual-animal urges. We simultaneously hate and admire the arrogant self-promoter, yet feel pity for the "unaccomplished" artist. Success is now derived from acclaim and fanfare, afforded by the spectator gaze. But, accomplishment is not a matter of fanfare for the artist. He envisions something, something that may be seen as unpractical and "unproductive". But he senses a rigour and importance about his work outside of the criteria of acceptance. For him, the very activity of creation is fulfilling. Fulfillment and accumulation are linked in a pursuit of success. One accumulates to find meaning in the act of accumulating. What is important to the provincial ground of 'success'? It is the accumulative process. For the artist, fulfillment cannot be achieved only pursued. Dream inextricably about untenable horizons, the artist says.

T found success early. Book deal. Three million copies. Self-help queen. What else could she want? Helping others before one can help oneself is often the price of success. Because we all have to be reminded of the relevant cliche, there is a price to success. The following is not a magnum opus, just a story about one. T graduated from Wesleyan summa cum laude, interned at the Boston Globe, wrote for rags that ranged from the Wall Street Journal to Cosmopolitan. And on one beautiful night, her fiancee, Theo Hunter, CEO of Yorkton Communications, proposed to her; she accepted. She thought her life as blessed and arranged for her baptism, so she could share Theo's faith. And like any would be Christian, she sought the opportunity to proselytize. She wrote her bestseller Chaste Excellence, touting the virtues of a disciplined and pious feminism. The bible belt ate it up. Once again, three million copies and countless stints on Oprah later, she was a media darling thanks to her book, although filling out a dress in the right places doesn't hurt either.

Now, dear reader, you must be asking, how is any of this at all interesting? Well, like any story of success, most of it is a lie. Theo Hunter was CEO of a Fortune 500 company and did not live in a monastry. T thought her 'cutie-poo' was pure as the driven snow, when in reality he liked lines of snow a bit too much. Yes, not the stuff that falls on the ground. And he enjoyed whores too. But that shouldn't surprise anyone. T? Was she an angel? No, nobody's an angel. She was indeed driven and disciplined and pious, as the title of her little book suggests, but she had her own skeletons. Wesleyan summa cum laude has a story behind it, which is better left for later on for if nothing else dramatic effect.

Although she never mentioned it, T had an older sister. Her name was Karina. Karina worked in the adult entertainment business after running away from home at 15. She obtained a fake ID and worked for a man named Peter Lindo, founder of Lindo Entertainment Ltd.. From most accounts Karina was genius, scored off the charts in IQ and standardized tests. However, she had a rebellious streak. When her parents, John and Joan, locked her in her room after they found her performing oral sex on a boy, Karina did them one better, packed a bag and hitchhiked from Hartford to Beverly Hills. Of course Karina did not perform under her given name. From the moment she lost her virginity on screen to Lindo to her untimely demise, she was Susan Sunshine.

Home is where the heart is?

There is tremendous excitement about going home. It has newness that is not new. Its a visit to the clinical doppelganger of one's youth. Everything is peachy keen in hindsight. Everybody can smile and giggle about what was once awkward and mortifying. Time heals all, evidently. It allows one to have that blissful experience, that of forgetting. Well, its not quite forgetting, its more like selective recollection, fashioning what has come and gone into something idyllic and lasting. Visiting home is always like that. Remembering what was with gloss and polish, to create rather than recall the past.