Hello and welcome, reader.
As ever, it’s my pleasure to have you join me.
The thing is, the older I get, the more I believe in practice. I’m not sure why, but it could result from spending my younger days in a booze and drug addled haze. You know, the pain of regret, lost youth, and all that.
All the same, I’ve taken some needed rest. Only time will tell if it helped. But, you know, how can you miss me if I don’t make a habit of going away? Anyway, let’s get to sorting through this madness that brings us together here.
See, when taking the latest break from this life and the work that drives it, I indulged a few of the habits that ever threaten the careful discipline protecting it, too. For a by-now lengthy search has confirmed, well enough for me, anyway, that I am perhaps the laziest man who ever lived.
So, aside from listening to music, reading, or watching films and sports on television, I accomplished little but canine fornication here over the last seven weeks.
Despite the lengthy bout of what I’m calling rest, I could not escape the endless clamour of the times. Instead, in between baseball games on TV, I listened in, bemused, as the world’s assault upon the individual kept on running amok. The result? Waves of collective tyranny, alongside cancelled culture, history, and people. In short, the slow death of freedom.
The online revolution, like all earlier examples, brings plenty of misery.
The question, for me, is, where’s H. L. Mencken when we need him? Or, at least, a literate contemporary less focused on reaping the low-hung rewards of division? Why? Well, because a world filled with minds clouded by the virtual hive of social media has lost the ability to see their emperors wear no clothes.
So, a tyranny of minorities threatens the rule of law. An online mob lends false courage to those without it. The wheels of freedom spin, unable to find a grip in the mire of vitriol. And nearby, the leering ditch of an autocratic future waits beyond a cultural divide.
For those who deny the past condemn not only themselves, but everyone else, to repeat it.
Likewise, to those offended by Mencken’s rep as antisemitic, bigoted, and racist, I must insist on separating the man from his work. So, to those who prefer beheading statues or defacing art, the exit is here. Good riddance to you.
After all, we say ignorance is bliss because the truth most often hurts.
Thus, I’ve no trouble saying I admire Einstein as a genius of physics. At the same time, I regard many of his ideas about people and politics as the foolish ramblings of a naïve ignoramus. Not only that, but I suggest his private writings reveal him as a poor judge of character.
For the genius Einstein, like the brilliant Mencken, was also an elitist and favoured a world governed by scientists and intellectuals.
Western society long ago split the ugly reality of Einstein’s private beliefs from his work. We did so to get the great public benefits found there. Without having to deal with his personal thoughts.
The popularity of Mencken’s public writing, meanwhile, far outweighed the latter discomfort caused by his then unknown personal feelings.
C’est la vie. Nothing, and no one, is perfect all the time. And those living in glass houses should know better, or something like that.
Not only that, but Einstein and Mencken remain two of my favourite people, despite their warts.
For context, what follows is a writing device called an aside.
I’ve told you before how I spent much of my life travelling. What I should have added is that my endless wandering was for work of one kind or another. I was not then, nor have I ever been, a tourist. The fact is, I enjoy few things less than travel.
All the same, I’ve done more than my share of it. And, no matter where or when or for what purpose, meeting people was always part of the deal. Sometimes, there were compadres and colleagues and companions who came along for the ride, too.
The reason I mention the travel is that those miles taught me we’re all different. In practice, if not form. So, the way we do things in one place is often quite different from the way we do much the same in another spot. Because it turns out, local culture and experience, teach what works best for a population.
I, in contrast, am both a living remnant and byproduct of colonialism. So, me and a few hundred thousand distant mixed race cousins speak of a different philosophy. Though far less clear, it takes but a single word to sum it: globalization.
A word to describe my deal is paradox. That is, a situation, person, or thing that combines contradictory features or qualities. And the one shared with you above is, of course, most important to me. See, for me to be, plenty of contrary ideas related to those described had first to mingle. In the most personal of ways.
I’ve spent much of my life conflicted about that.
But I’m not here to debate the left, right, wrong, shoulda, coulda, and what-have-you related to this place in which we live. No. As usual, my concerns are specific and rooted in experience. And my choice of Mencken and Einstein as today’s examples speaks to them.
So, let’s return to the rumination.
The so-called culture wars must end. The practice of reviewing the past by the light of the future is both prejudiced and narrow-minded. In the near-term, it demonizes history and encourages division. In the long term, it impedes both learning and progress.
That is because those who would cancel the past condemn the future to repeat a cycle of ignorance. They also prevent the world learning from it. And no matter the reason, those who seek to justify such cowardice commit crimes against the society to which we all belong.
And, like it often does, life once again presents us there, with another somewhat ironic paradox. For we must suffer the pain of learning the unfortunate details of our shared history if we are to improve our future.
Ain’t it grand?
My belief is they exist to remind us of the random and uncertain nature of the place in which we live. Thus, I think of life and its assorted ironies as the universe sharing a Newtonian response to a Quantum equation.
For a laugh, maybe?
Well, after all, I don’t know about that. But for me, the lives of Einstein and Mencken raise one question above the many. Because, you know, writer. And thus, arrogant, obsessed, self-centred, and all that.
So, how does knowing the background and private life of a writer change the way a reader perceives their writing?
After all, both Einstein, and Mencken, held private opinions about many topics. Were they living today, keeping them that way would prove all but impossible. And once they became known, the cancel culture would dispose of them without remorse.
But are we obligated to cancel people for their private opinions? Are we obliged to remove them from public life now, for opinions held then? If so, why? And, if we are thus duty bound, how can we justify use of their ideas? What about the public good?
As we can see, a lengthy and fast-growing list of paradoxes soon emerges. Not to mention the host of existential angst that comes along with all that navel-gazing.
Instead, let’s use another literary device, the outline, and the storytelling method, to illustrate the point.
Here’s what I mean. Let’s say our hero is born into the working class. He could also assert his youthful talents included dropping out of school. It then wouldn’t surprise a reader when earning a living shaped his younger days. So, too, learning he retired early from the ring, and spent his twenties swinging a hammer in the trades, should also make sense. News a return to school led to white collar success in his thirties and the freedom to choose in his forties would then cause a reader no great shock, either.
With the known popularity of rags-to riches stories, this one is shaping up. As background, it sets the protagonist up for sympathy.
Now, what if our story told of his life as a working stiff, and how it made the writer’s career play second fiddle through the early part of it? What if it also included school-age success? Or told of decades making music and writing part time before it got to be a full-time gig? Then, what if he spent years in obscurity until a minor hit record in his fifties, followed by a niche market bestseller as he enters his sixties?
After all, every plot must have enough twists to keep a reader turning pages.
To maintain our story’s arc, we must take the next step in this writer’s tale. So, let’s have him tell us that like many, he thought himself a late bloomer, too. He could then declare that for him, it’s because he thinks of the past only when writing about it. He should also claim a more accurate metaphor for his life is that of a perennial, to better fit the narrative. To further move the plot, he could then tell us how, in most aspects, he enjoyed a seasonal parade of high and low periods.
From here, the action falls, for the tale must soon resolve. Often, a writer loses his way there, too, much as his story’s hero might, were any of it true.
However, because the hero yet lives, it’s a story with an unknown end. So, the next part might go something like this. He could start by telling how, before falling off a series of injury cliffs to start his fifties, he enjoyed a long athletic career. He might tell us about little league baseball and high school football, and pro boxing in his twenties, power lifting in his thirties, and trail running into his advancing years. Then, he might close with an uplifting comment about the value of discipline, sport, and fitness training.
Just like that, we’ve got an ending ambiguous enough to let the reader think.
Much like life, though our story doesn’t end, its hero’s journey is complete. It also fits a standard narrative arc well enough to serve our purpose. But was it fact? Or fiction? And, either way, how might knowing it affect a reader’s experience of its writer?
As near as I can tell, the answer is unknowable. I didn’t have to deface any art to figure that out, either. Though it appears I’ve stumbled across another paradox.
Either that, or a bit of nonsense to enjoy with a morning coffee. As usual, I’ll leave that for you to decide.
Until we meet again, thanks for being here, and for sharing this with anyone who might want to read it.
TFP
September 14, 2024