tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68691070412913229852024-02-22T12:53:04.610-08:00J.T. Storey's Official BlogThe thoughts and opinions of author J.T. Storey.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-50992849997683626432011-08-01T23:08:00.001-07:002011-08-02T13:15:36.453-07:00The Potato Eaters<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAj6Cvf_LJOmYNg7DoosL0-_pOESW52cCTyI5SJpnhbCmXFI25AJcae14LzfpgH0twNnxCr544xELqcVyhxe43rjqIaJ2671CnAxdyotMT9ksPfrTPWzDL_ieC1neJT56hrmJEx9pM-UI/s1600/800px-Vincent_Van_Gogh_-_The_Potato_Eaters.png" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAj6Cvf_LJOmYNg7DoosL0-_pOESW52cCTyI5SJpnhbCmXFI25AJcae14LzfpgH0twNnxCr544xELqcVyhxe43rjqIaJ2671CnAxdyotMT9ksPfrTPWzDL_ieC1neJT56hrmJEx9pM-UI/s320/800px-Vincent_Van_Gogh_-_The_Potato_Eaters.png" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636329249084008050" /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; "></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Regardless of the travails we face in modern times, there is some tacit recognition that centuries ago people had it worse, and that therefore whatever problems we may have now with our existing system are fairly mild relative to the problems that existed in the past.</span></span><div><br /></div><div>What work of art doesn't exemplify that idea better than <b>Van Gogh's '<i>The Potato Eaters</i>'</b>? The Potato Eaters are a dirt poor European family - farmers, field workers, etc. - huddled around a meager table in dim light eating.... potatoes... and generally looking grim. Yes, the painting is striking, just in the sense that Van Gogh is able to capture a certain type of misery before he went truly mad and began painting in more vivid colors, eating his pigment, applying thick brushstrokes to cypress trees and starlit nights and so forth. </div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7gYdQ__iua4JWJuDyPDA-oalC91AL_sUDgRTeKWelH0DS7oAOEPtRZTJlK6CnMd1AxIsupAi-f6ooX5Q5Nl2X81dVK3CzcR8kvk8M9LooVr5TDLdJThWv7RBXFKO3jtk85aQ4_kvW6uQ/s320/gogh.eglise-auvers.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636329540158494338" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 254px; height: 320px; " /></span><div>I do not say this in jest as Van Gogh suffering from madness created some of the most beautiful art the world has ever known.</div><div><br /></div><div>Nevertheless it must be noted that Van Gogh's 'The Potato Eaters' represents an earlier period of dull, drab, lifeless colors - a commentary on the miserable conditions of the poor and exploited working souls of Europe.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today, despite whatever concerns we may have regarding the current state of events - the passage of our debt ceiling, the housing bubble bursting, the rate of unemployment, etc. - there is some implicit understanding among our collective gestalt that no matter what happens we will never again occupy that miserable state of affairs that effected the legendary Potato Eaters!</div><div><br /></div><div>Indeed, the huddled masses fled Europe in droves! They came here to find their fame and fortune - to rise like a Phoenix from the ashes, only to forget those bland fruits they ate on bitterly cold nights under the most grim conditions in the Old World... </div><div><br /></div><div>It is the American way!</div><div><br /></div><div>Or is it?</div><div><br /></div><div>I submit to you that if we examine 'The Potato Eaters' more carefully we will find a woeful tale of modern social neglect - so much so that were Van Gogh alive today, we wonder just which subjects he would deem suitable to paint! </div><div><br /></div><div>Who are the Potato Eaters of today?</div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Zo3OSqdq9WmurI_2JPQYkjAHqeUjwj1hs1FUc7MlHfE1ZuqoN-RTtZ5uyO70P54mxNjmpeuBQKvcipe1kckcXsnvcefgWmjN6jTtNr7sFZl0s-gy_hicYmYtWHYtkjoeS7uu469s0Ug/s1600/McDonalds_Fat_Kids.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 226px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Zo3OSqdq9WmurI_2JPQYkjAHqeUjwj1hs1FUc7MlHfE1ZuqoN-RTtZ5uyO70P54mxNjmpeuBQKvcipe1kckcXsnvcefgWmjN6jTtNr7sFZl0s-gy_hicYmYtWHYtkjoeS7uu469s0Ug/s320/McDonalds_Fat_Kids.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636330152293119938" /></a><div>Why, they are the poor souls who lack two critical ingredients - time and money - to do anything but feed their families french fries from McDonalds.</div><div><br /></div><div>Who eats at McDonalds? Who consumes the Taco Bell burritos - the subject of controversy because no one is entirely sure if their meat is really meat or not!? Who has pulled up to the drive through and ordered a 'happy meal', turning a blind eye to the quantity of saturated fat dripping from their children's chins!?</div><div><br /></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYGlByWywqriDfIWAm4SZtV39p-mws5cz_6RMMEREAuZsuLG9hUoh3FwPU7x4ELye_e_WHVVTItdclNd4Sjw7L9Uf9M1to9Nj5_aaxw6HOwfuLQqVUdunUbEAfhQ_GiSKNzuwHJzqbmbE/s1600/omnivores-dilemma.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 208px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYGlByWywqriDfIWAm4SZtV39p-mws5cz_6RMMEREAuZsuLG9hUoh3FwPU7x4ELye_e_WHVVTItdclNd4Sjw7L9Uf9M1to9Nj5_aaxw6HOwfuLQqVUdunUbEAfhQ_GiSKNzuwHJzqbmbE/s320/omnivores-dilemma.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5636330796075543538" /></a><div>We know that issues of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, clogged arteries, and so forth are placing a heavy burden on our already problematic 'health industry' (which should be an oxymoron, but sadly isn't), and yet we fail to hold the fast food industry culpable for its negative effect on our population. </div><div><br /></div><div>Today's Potato Eaters consume french fries. In large quantities (yes, super-sized, well covered territory at this point). We could ridicule them for making such a poor choice, but the fact is their choice is just that: poor. They lack time and resources for making 'slow food' with expensive fresh ingredients. They have never read '<b><i>The Omnivore's Dilemma</i></b>' and even if they had, they lack the funds to follow up on the solutions suggested therein.</div><div><br /></div><div>Those solutions are for you and I: we, marginal members of the aristocracy (or petit bourgeoisie, middle class - whatever you want to call it) gain from these wonderful suggestions of fresh and unprocessed food. We avoid corn meal like the plague, we spend the extra few dollars on the range-chicken eggs, we share bags of fresh produce from our eco-conscious neighbors, we dine at restaurants with the hotest fusion chefs and coolest latino valet dudes. </div><div><br /></div><div>In short, we leave the exploitation of bodies and souls to the fast food industry, which preys on poor people no less ethically than the terrible injustices of the past so nobly captured by Vincent Van Gogh.</div>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-53584902466781348172011-06-16T16:36:00.000-07:002011-10-13T12:19:25.807-07:00My Correspondence with Tim Westergren, Pandora Founder<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1gFAcedjX-WpUQBkA_EzrRLHp7c-DgXg7PoJ9LU-vUxQo_spTfOy5GdrdRGBP3Fpz_xmusIdVHOw1S_FzbBfPYVL89UdigwZKZzP0ck_ydikV2IyCGAVVJ-MMhE1xp7MnYyrDu2FghNc/s1600/pandora-message.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWV3_XJW65UZFbr14h3KOweJvQirAje2j-9AIRrI2YNWdg3RVZaSSXxd75H2XPeZMKLe4ERuKV-wB_3Pe-d0uinUCnF1ube7XkXwqMZTvMxyhYj7mrrfYvb7aRkjEFo0IEHw2u6V0KPpM/s1600/pandora.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 81px; height: 81px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWV3_XJW65UZFbr14h3KOweJvQirAje2j-9AIRrI2YNWdg3RVZaSSXxd75H2XPeZMKLe4ERuKV-wB_3Pe-d0uinUCnF1ube7XkXwqMZTvMxyhYj7mrrfYvb7aRkjEFo0IEHw2u6V0KPpM/s320/pandora.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618975830342719170" border="0" /></a>In light of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pandora</span>'s recent I.P.O., I thought I'd publish my July 2009 email correspondence with founder <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tim Westergren</span>; a short exchange that started with the following bulk email he sent out to his users:<br /><br /><p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> Hi, it's Tim-</p><p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';">I hope this email finds you enjoying a great summer Pandora soundtrack. </p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> I’m writing with some important news. Please forgive the lengthy email; it requires some explaining. </p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> First, I want to let you know that we’ve reached a resolution to the calamitous Internet radio royalty ruling of 2007. After more than two precarious years, we are finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates – thanks to the extraordinary efforts of our listeners who voiced an absolute avalanche of support for us on Capitol Hill. We are deeply thankful.<br /></p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> While we did the best we could to lower the rates, we are going to have to make an adjustment that will affect about 10% of our users who are our heaviest listeners. Specifically, we are going to begin limiting listening to 40 hours per month on the web. Because we have to pay royalty fees per song and per listener, it makes very heavy listeners hard to support on advertising alone. Most listeners will never hit this cap, but it seems that you might. </p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> We hate the idea of capping anyone's usage, so we've been working to devise an alternative for listeners like you. We've come up with two solutions and we hope that one of them will work for you:<br /></p> <ul><li> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> Your first option is to continue listening just as you have been and, if and when you reach the 40 hour limit in a given month, to pay just $0.99 for unlimited listening for the rest of that month. This isn't a subscription. You can pay by credit card and your card will be charged for just that one month. You'll be able to keep listening as much as you'd like for the remainder of the month. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable - the same price as a single song download.<br /></p> </li></ul> <ul><li> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 9pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> Your second option is to upgrade to our premium version called Pandora One. Pandora One costs $36 per year. In addition to unlimited monthly listening and no advertising, Pandora One offers very high quality 192 Kbps streams, an elegant desktop application that eliminates the need for a browser, personalized skins for the Pandora player, and a number of other features:<a style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 9pt; color: rgb(51, 102, 153);" href="http://broadcaster.pandora.com/t?r=927&c=901377&l=38138&ctl=174B7C1:7505132B841047FCC58BF4BB3B6BC746050542759970026E&" target="_blank"> http://www.pandora.com/<wbr>pandora_one.</a><br /></p> </li></ul> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> If neither of these options works for you, I hope you'll keep listening to the free version - 40 hours each month will go a long way, especially if you're really careful about hitting pause when you’re not listening. We’ll be sure to let you know if you start getting close to the limit, and we’ve created a counter you can access to see how many hours you’ve already used each month.<br /></p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> We’ll be implementing this change starting this month (July), I’d welcome your feedback and suggestions. The combination of our usage patterns and the "per song per listener" royalty cost creates a financial reality that we can't ignore...but we very much want you to continue listening for years to come. </p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> Please don't hesitate to email me back with your thoughts. </p> <p style="margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New';"> Sincerely,<br /></p> <table style="width: 49px; height: 63px;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr> <td align="left" valign="top"><br /></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <p style="border-width: 0px; margin: 0pt 0pt 1em; padding: 0px; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;font-family:verdana,arial,sans-serif;font-size:12px;"> <span class="il">Tim</span><br /><em>Founder</em></p></td></tr></tbody></table><br />I had a few issues with this email. Because I had never met 'Tim', I didn't like that he addressed me as if I knew him personally, which I felt (and feel) is an abuse of basic <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizf4mAVA0LoTMwRSpkA2ssq-MIJMNHmkPy83URpLyovo4i35QbO9A_oeyXbDN3QdPtl49Y2zQv5-_VT_AjHzOq-44PHOnA2vzLZdqEQS8uCKsA1ze2OlaQXj3Ii-LK0rRMM3Fapql-qbw/s1600/managed_heart.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizf4mAVA0LoTMwRSpkA2ssq-MIJMNHmkPy83URpLyovo4i35QbO9A_oeyXbDN3QdPtl49Y2zQv5-_VT_AjHzOq-44PHOnA2vzLZdqEQS8uCKsA1ze2OlaQXj3Ii-LK0rRMM3Fapql-qbw/s320/managed_heart.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5618975056984058034" border="0" /></a>human manners and decency in the interests of making money. Don't make me feel like your friend in order to ask me for cash. Don't show images of intimate family life with moving music and then have the good-natured father character turn to the camera and say, 'Shouldn't you be insured with us?' Don't force employees to blatantly fake their emotions in the course their work; there is genuine service and then there is that psuedo-service stuff that is painful for everyone involved. In sociology they call this 'The Commodification of Affect' which can range from a cashier telling you to 'Have a Nice Day' (my sociology professor used to jokingly reply, 'Thanks, but I have other plans.' - I think I was one of the few in the class that found that funny) to a complete stranger extending his hand only to reveal his effort at solicitation, to a waiter forcing a smile, etc.<br /><br />This is not trivial; it belies much deeper and more fundamental concerns regarding the permanent effect of commodification on our emotional and personal lives. After a certain point we unconsciously accept and embody much of this fake shite - shite has no bearing on true emotional expression and resonance.<br /><br />There is an excellent (well, very dull, academic, and soporific) book on this subject: "<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling</span>" by <span style="font-weight: bold;">Arlie Russell Hochschild</span>.<br /><br />Anyhow in light of these sensitivities of mine I sent poor Tim a mean email:<br /><br /><span class="il"><blockquote></blockquote></span><blockquote style="font-family:courier new;"><span ><span class="il">Tim</span> -<br /><br />The subscription model isn't going to cut it for your nascent service; while appealing on some fronts (unique music delivery, discovery of new music), it is problematic enough on others (redundant song selection, intrusiveness) that I'm not ready to pay for it. In other words, in the event this new "cap" effects my experience, I'm just not that attached to pandora to do anything but leave. It already asks me if I'm "still listening" far too often.<br /><br />Alarm bells should go off anytime you are compelled to write a lengthy letter to a consumer. I don't know you on a first name basis, nor you I, so don't pretend that you do - it's evil. To commodify affect is wrong; don't fool yourself into doing it. A friendly message asking me to pay for something is one I learned long ago to ignore. The proof of your consumer sincerity is in the user's experience - nowhere else - and you are already sliding down a slippery slope.<br /><br />If you cannot make money off of advertising, then you have a problem, as yours is already too invasive. Constantly apologizing for it only makes it worse.<br /><br />Whether you like my blunt message or not, in me you have an ideal<br />early adopter. Yours is the type of service, if executed properly, that I would and have told others about. So why penalize what should be the segment of your consumer base you value most?<br /><br />Good luck,<br />J.T. Storey </span> </blockquote>To my complete shock Tim himself actually responded. This I rather liked; here's what he had to say:<br /><br /><span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial; " >Hi Jeff -<br /><br />Thanks a lot for taking the time to write such a lengthy and thoughtful reply. These really mean a lot to us – even if it’s something we don’t enjoy hearing!<br /><br />Blunt is just fine.<br /><br />Regarding the points you make, let me take a shot at responding:<br /><br />Subscription is not something we expect more than a small percentage of listeners to choose. We know people rarely pay for such things. What we’re really saying is we can only afford 40 hours per month free per listener – that reflects the reality of advertising revenue.<br /><br />You certainly make a worthy point on the mass ‘personal’ email. But I’m not sure what is a better alternative. We mean every word, and feel it’s important to provide an explanation to listeners who want to know why things have changed. Also, if anyone replies, we answer EVERY note personally and directly, like this.<br /><br />In terms of making money off of advertising, if you feel our advertising is already too invasive, then I think subscription is the right answer for you. Services have to make money somehow, and the federally-mandated royalties are very high. That leaves advertising – and advertisers want to be noticed. If they’re not, they won’t pay for the placement. We try to be as elegant as we can, and I feel we strike a reasonable balance.<br /><br />I welcome your advice on what we should do instead.<br /><br />Thoughts?<br /><br />T. </span></span><br /><br />Here's my reply:<br /><br /><span class="il"></span><blockquote style="font-family:courier new;"><span ><span class="il">Tim</span>,<br /><br />I truly appreciate your personal reply - on that front you have<br />completely won me over and culminated a certain degree of loyalty,<br />therefore it was well worth your effort.<br /><br />If i can offer any - perhaps less blunt - value in return, I'll tell you my thoughts solely from a consumer point of view, which I know you probably welcome. The last thing you need is a sycophant.<br /><br />I am the type of consumer for whom everything on the web is still<br />"free". I don't pay for any service, and if one wants to charge me, I will find an alternative until one no longer exists (which hasn't happened yet). So that's out. I'm willing to bet I'm not alone and that your income from subscriptions is nominal.<br /><br />By capping me you're actually encouraging me to find that alternative. So this week, for instance, I started listening to <a href="http://last.fm/" target="_blank">last.fm</a>, something I'd never bothered to do before. Thus in effect you're chasing away an "early adopter" at the most critical time in the game. In five years the number of consumers using these kinds of services will be exponentially larger, so my suggestion is simply to hold on to what you have and do everything you can to grow your audience. Reward your heavy users, don't penalize them. The short term monetary gain pales in comparison to the long term benefit of a "word of mouth" consumer like myself. I spread the word, which has tangible value.<br /><br />As far as advertising, I might ask if your site is really set up to fully utilize advertising potential. The layout seems an afterthought. Is it necessary for <span class="il">pandora</span> to be flash-based? To what end do things need to glide and move? (For example, if I dislike a song, up glides a window that I then have to close, which says only that it won't play the song any more. That sort of thing could be designed more elegantly.) These things use up valuable real estate that could be making you more money.<br /><br />Bottom line: "intelligent" radio is a revolution in music listening that will quickly become ubiquitous. <span class="il">Pandora</span> is right on the crest of that wave. The rewards of preserving long-term vision are right around the corner. It will pay off to stick diligently to the principles that got you here: preserving the consumer experience.<br /><br />Thanks again for your reply, much appreciated<br />- J.T. Storey</span> </blockquote>A bit more; he actually replied back to this:<br /><br /><span><span style="font-family: Calibri, Verdana, Helvetica, Arial; "><span ><span>Thanks, Jeff. Really appreciate all the thought you put into this.<br /><br />Alas, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying – and know that this impact is not going to be a good one. But I still don’t see an alternative.<br /><br />Believe me, we’re doing everything we can to get the monetization engine running. It’s just a bloody expensive service to run !<br /><br />I also think companies like ours need to be careful about competing with free. Eventually, anyone wanting to offer something like this either has to cope with the same economic realities as us, or become illegal. It hurts to get negative feedback, but I don’t know there’s another way.<br /><br />Cheers. T.</span><br /></span></span></span><br />My last reply:<br /><span style="font-family: 'courier new'; "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" >Thanks <span class="il">Tim</span>. Rooting for you and will continue to spread the word. Best of luck and hope my feedback helped.<br />- J.T. Storey</span></blockquote></span>In this last bit I'm afraid I was still a bit caught up in the novelty of receiving an actual reply. Because of the Pandora subscription fee I did indeed switch over to last.fm (vastly superior). To further illustrate my fickle nature, in the last few months I have moved from last.fm to grooveshark.com, which actually allows you to type in any song and create a library that you can play in any order, giving me no reason to ever purchase a song again (not sure what the purpose is of the iCloud, for instance, when with grooveshark you can listen to any song on demand. Then again, not sure how grooveshark is even legal, but I digress).<div><br /></div><div>My latest foray is Spotify, which has a litany of annoyances - foremost the ads (which bear no resemblance to the type of music I'm listening to, an epic 'music genome project' failure). If advertising is so important, why not advertise intelligently? Effectively? If I am listening to Debussy, I don't want to hear a Lady Gaga ad!!!! Their radio sucks too, but I digress again (the only two radios are last.fm and pandora, and last.fm is winning that battle by a long shot).<br /><br />Having exposed myself to all these services, my initial criticism of Pandora stands firm: their catalog is too limited (a 'radio station' quickly starts playing repeats), their algorithm is limited (experts should group and link genres/songs, not similarities in sound waves; this generally has a ways to go), and their interface is very poor (go away flash!). UPDATE: Interface is changed for the better! But radio station loop identical to a year ago - same bloody songs!!!<br /><br />Anyhow all this aside, I did appreciate my latest update from Pandora. It wasn't personal, but it was validating:</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1gFAcedjX-WpUQBkA_EzrRLHp7c-DgXg7PoJ9LU-vUxQo_spTfOy5GdrdRGBP3Fpz_xmusIdVHOw1S_FzbBfPYVL89UdigwZKZzP0ck_ydikV2IyCGAVVJ-MMhE1xp7MnYyrDu2FghNc/s400/pandora-message.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663056192573417954" style="float: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 0px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px; " /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><br /></span></div>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-73149726570271396312011-04-07T10:57:00.001-07:002011-04-12T09:59:39.340-07:00What would Alexis de Tocqueville say Today?Was reading <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one-percent-201105"><span style="font-weight: bold;">this Vanity Fair article</span></a> the other day; it ended with an interesting historical reference, driving home a point I believe is utterly lost in our contemporary political discourse: that the fate of every member in our system is inherently tied together, not in an egalitarian sense, but in a practical one.<br /><br />Here's the quote:<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiHK44MaXQCg8mMj1V_uc8xNilHMT46p90vlG9OV9JYZdUp4E3a5Sg5inHdsMGjVOzxb4hv9og5KfhsrPmd1rx7c4cPjw_doV2uuYZ8Ii_u_p5d24BuDSuUkqTEOP9wGVinXR906QGOCI/s1600/250px-Alexis_de_Tocqueville.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 237px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiHK44MaXQCg8mMj1V_uc8xNilHMT46p90vlG9OV9JYZdUp4E3a5Sg5inHdsMGjVOzxb4hv9og5KfhsrPmd1rx7c4cPjw_doV2uuYZ8Ii_u_p5d24BuDSuUkqTEOP9wGVinXR906QGOCI/s320/250px-Alexis_de_Tocqueville.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5592910842622974498" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:130%;">"<span style="font-weight: bold;" class="dc">A</span><span style="font-weight: bold;">lexis de Tocqueville</span> once described what he saw as a chief part of the peculiar genius of American society—something he called “self-interest properly understood.” The last two words were the key. Everyone possesses self-interest in a narrow sense: I want what’s good for me right now! Self-interest “properly understood” is different. It means appreciating that paying attention to everyone else’s self-interest—in other words, the common welfare—is in fact a precondition for one’s own ultimate well-being. Tocqueville was not suggesting that there was anything noble or idealistic about this outlook—in fact, he was suggesting the opposite. It was a mark of American pragmatism. Those canny Americans understood a basic fact: looking out for the other guy isn’t just good for the soul—it’s good for business.</span> <p><span style="font-size:130%;">The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late."</span></p>This notion was really quite novel at the time. A new, fresh, and contemporary principle that trumped previous social structures and contributed greatly to the success of this country.<br /><br />So why would we so foolishly abandon it now?<br /><br />It is in the best interests of the aristocracy (why call it anything else?) to encourage and maintain as large and thriving a middle class as possible. When aristocrats begin to greedily sabotage our revolutionary American class structure (a structure perhaps more important than Representative Democracy itself, I would argue), then bad things will inevitably follow.<br /><br />No matter where you stand on this issue, the pattern of 25% of wealth in 1% of the populace is indisputably wrong (unless you believe in a tiny elite class!). It is also a very familiar pattern, a mere shadow of the true social stratification evident in Europe in the 19th century and all over the world today.<br /><br />To return to such a structure is absolute insanity, particularly when an historical precedent already exists regarding how such structures typically come to an end. We already know what will happen: systemic economic collapse, revolution, civil war, human suffering, etc.<br /><br />And yet, there seems to be a movement afoot of near-giddy, gleeful destruction of basic programs and services. It is one thing to advocate small, streamlined government and a rigid scrutiny of how our public funds are used and misused.<br /><br />Bravo.<br /><br />It is another thing altogether to cut into the bone of basic American principles - for instance, the right of every child to receive a quality public education (no matter what your view on union power, etc. that right is indisputably in peril).<br /><br />More important than ideology (as we all have valid and reasonable opinions, ideas, etc. on how society should work), are the emotional patterns that resonate throughout this debate. A polarizing fracture is underway consisting of seemingly innocuous complaints, poor jokes, innuendo, etc. - that belies a deeper and more fundamental schism tied up in long-standing notions of race, class, and culture.<br /><br />Let us tackle difficult social issues (like a bloated and unsustainable deficit) with ethical integrity and empathy for our fellow man. This should be true of all of us, but particularly those so fortunate to reside in positions of relative privilege, power, and wealth.<br /><br />If you make more than a few dollars a day, that's you!!!!J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-30688465821902768492010-11-23T14:53:00.001-08:002010-11-23T16:43:18.721-08:00Partisan fools, come to your senses!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hC45XJsuYZeD-mUlrvWPIkNhdn_EZjHIgQpN5ZIXdNir0za9UlG4NXx5vPpS81F-Ut4XrWW_140wXzM2NwsIM20AG3WZytB7NgSMWxsTzFtqe97qkQAWq5f42J_ESBuWvWky7GV7thA/s1600/463px-Rosie_the_Riveter.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 247px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7hC45XJsuYZeD-mUlrvWPIkNhdn_EZjHIgQpN5ZIXdNir0za9UlG4NXx5vPpS81F-Ut4XrWW_140wXzM2NwsIM20AG3WZytB7NgSMWxsTzFtqe97qkQAWq5f42J_ESBuWvWky7GV7thA/s320/463px-Rosie_the_Riveter.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542904478936309602" border="0" /></a>Partisan fools, come to your senses!<br /><br />If you call yourself '<span style="font-weight: bold;">American</span>', let me ask you: What is remotely American about pointing fingers over our problems? Aren't we great pragmatists? Don't we roll up our sleeves and get the job done? As far as I know, this country was not built on blaming each other, but rather on working together to find real solutions, putting our petty quarrels aside for the greater good, always the <span style="font-weight: bold;">GREATER GOOD</span>.<br /><br />If any of you are able to project into the future (and clearly, based on your childish behavior, you aren't), what do you suppose all this partisan posturing will ultimately lead to?<br /><br />Do you see matters somehow miraculously resolving? Do you see 'the other side' somehow coming to their senses and agreeing with everything 'your side' believes?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRP2fSGVR7RUpRaNd_nRgtYCqzgAf0c76FBUIdnfuaf1ybuHZ22MfhUsqnCnX20o_M-o2L3ZzvINpJzJ4dukUMPsyjotR3W6anupV8nmHX0_fjjrPE58hd5y-8qLpkn_z7oXPMF_REqms/s1600/tea_party.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRP2fSGVR7RUpRaNd_nRgtYCqzgAf0c76FBUIdnfuaf1ybuHZ22MfhUsqnCnX20o_M-o2L3ZzvINpJzJ4dukUMPsyjotR3W6anupV8nmHX0_fjjrPE58hd5y-8qLpkn_z7oXPMF_REqms/s320/tea_party.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542905850513445442" border="0" /></a>Based on how viscerally you condemn one another, how wholeheartedly you distort each others' beliefs, ideas, and perspectives, you don't. (and HISTORY for the love of God! Where have all these 'historians' come from!?! Never have I witnessed such incredible interest in early American history, and never have I seen said history so painfully manipulated! With apologies to the ancestral residents of <span style="font-weight: bold;">BOSTON</span>, that fine Atlantic city!).<br /><br />You see, when the two sides ignore the Greater Good and begin to behave only to spite, to inhibit, to arrest the other, then things do not miraculously get better, they GET WORSE. The behavior of one provokes a similar response from the other and vice versa - <span style="font-style: italic;">tit for tat</span> so to speak (that should be French) - until the two perspectives are so divided that 'divided' is indeed the only way to describe them!<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span><blockquote style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:130%;">My sense is that most Americans still don’t understand this reality. They still imagine that when push comes to shove, our politicians will come together to do what’s necessary. But that was another country.<br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">- Paul Krugman, NY Times</span><br /></div></blockquote><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCz9BtlAC8Y6cYHvAzK9Ksd5ejiyacTFsIRw4SyRnonYpSFDFmBN7wT2WJFjgU37pvPAfr6_s7XaZKhAw2OcqzSyRzblZaks8vYMRCmfVFYvps6XhXLLfN1OKcDzJwjeIBXf42Zh7FjCc/s1600/paul_head.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 207px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCz9BtlAC8Y6cYHvAzK9Ksd5ejiyacTFsIRw4SyRnonYpSFDFmBN7wT2WJFjgU37pvPAfr6_s7XaZKhAw2OcqzSyRzblZaks8vYMRCmfVFYvps6XhXLLfN1OKcDzJwjeIBXf42Zh7FjCc/s320/paul_head.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542906479718532130" border="0" /></a>In our recent election we had some paid 'progressive' political activist holding up a provocative sign and generally acting foolish until she was tackled by a cohort of 'tea partiers', one of which stepped on her head so violently she received a concussion. The media discussed things ad nauseum, the partisans pointed fingers at one another, the campaign suspended the fellow, the girl gave her interviews, all neither here nor there.<br /><br />The real point was simple: <span style="font-weight: bold;">violence</span>.<br /><br />Of the mildest variety.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaak_hS5lEU2KWM2Ta0dOsKR0ZmN7QEijZBVgZMxxKD0RimySfrzSsZGbFH4qkq69TyTxLv9aW6U7yU2LZfXzxov-Z4H9SoKHBvFu893a0RHKF8-ojfh8AnFnHxF39eVTSOF5wX2spX-0/s1600/boston_massacre.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 179px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaak_hS5lEU2KWM2Ta0dOsKR0ZmN7QEijZBVgZMxxKD0RimySfrzSsZGbFH4qkq69TyTxLv9aW6U7yU2LZfXzxov-Z4H9SoKHBvFu893a0RHKF8-ojfh8AnFnHxF39eVTSOF5wX2spX-0/s320/boston_massacre.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542907466312802786" border="0" /></a>Sooner or later we will see more of said violence, and it will be far bloodier. Someone will be killed. Maybe many. It will be spontaneous, reactionary, chaotic, and sudden, like all violence in history that portends what is to inevitably come - a fracture, a schism, a divide - reconciled only by... God knows.<br /><br />And all the partisan folk (which apparently is everyone, as no one can think clearly enough to act in genuinely conciliatory and solution-oriented good faith), yes all the partisan folk will condemn this act of violence as the fault of 'the other'. It will only reinforce and reiterate all the things they already believe, and both sides will perceive it only as an attack on them, no matter how nuanced (or not, such things are rarely nuanced, are they?) the truth may really be.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-kZMYp5r9a3JxKj2IutoUg8a35CbHZDllUGWcdzPWqYLizs9DC8-zC8Cd7tOO2IEQEGH0HqhkW_cexqJ7ritTAuMeLi90Dj7K0MVk4DOlKNCT8kDCVSrvxSke4LmQ8JMYk6cHUW9r98/s1600/Example.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 274px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA-kZMYp5r9a3JxKj2IutoUg8a35CbHZDllUGWcdzPWqYLizs9DC8-zC8Cd7tOO2IEQEGH0HqhkW_cexqJ7ritTAuMeLi90Dj7K0MVk4DOlKNCT8kDCVSrvxSke4LmQ8JMYk6cHUW9r98/s320/Example.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542907784640166866" border="0" /></a>And when people begin to spill blood over the divide, if history is any guide there is no going back (there is probably no going back now, but when blood is spilled, there is no going back from spilling more blood). And so we have....<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Civil War</span>.<br /><br />A real one. Ugly. Horrific. As terrible a thing as we poor living creatures have ever known. Apparently our memories are short and we have forgotten that the last <span style="font-weight: bold;">American Civil War</span>, a mere <span style="font-weight: bold;">150 years ago</span> (but a second of history), left more casualties then all other American wars combined, before or after.<br /><br />At the moment we seem to be senselessly, almost <span style="font-weight: bold;">gleefully</span>, wishing this on ourselves, and that, in my humble opine, is <span style="font-weight: bold;">foolish</span>.<br /><br />If you think I exaggerate, or go overboard, then how is it you see the future? Everyone kissing and making up later? All of this hyperbole and rhetoric evaporating into the ether? Perhaps 'YOUR' party taking power, solving everything? Have you really thought about that?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNqSa2kWcQRgt_zeHb491P2qIM8hvO1aiNBG-a9dL9JhoERD6-sy2Txn-KBYoZpz4zgdUKNCcl9FYjcY0f2sXSfV3Bx33VXHKi9p0YzDJyAAvJc0fiENSIMy08sA905O_gp-vAUAxYAI/s1600/8573_lord-of-the-flies-02.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 154px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdNqSa2kWcQRgt_zeHb491P2qIM8hvO1aiNBG-a9dL9JhoERD6-sy2Txn-KBYoZpz4zgdUKNCcl9FYjcY0f2sXSfV3Bx33VXHKi9p0YzDJyAAvJc0fiENSIMy08sA905O_gp-vAUAxYAI/s320/8573_lord-of-the-flies-02.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542910173211878546" border="0" /></a>In the present milieu, if the country, a faltering ship in heavy seas, tips liberal, the conservatives scream and shout and do everything they can to prevent whatever they can. When they '<span style="font-weight: bold;">START</span>' to undermine policies that they would clearly otherwise support, it is all a sham. All they want is power. The <span style="font-weight: bold;">conch shell</span>. And if the country tips conservative, remember all those masses marching in the streets not so long ago? Do you think they will be marching so peacefully? And what will you be doing to stop them? And how effective will it be?<br /><br />Fracture. Divide. Tell me it isn't so.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEN76vrZIvJ6FGUct48Jv6JhQpB3r-wTNL4J2zMnSaOQWiCRaladJLvZMamCX_CnCG261clN-rfwHnspp87CsMY-FXi8cmvsuNido_Cf3XFLdnDXIaSXp4bCphNJPJSEaHkyjE7uxFYg/s1600/tolstoy_kingdom_of_god.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQEN76vrZIvJ6FGUct48Jv6JhQpB3r-wTNL4J2zMnSaOQWiCRaladJLvZMamCX_CnCG261clN-rfwHnspp87CsMY-FXi8cmvsuNido_Cf3XFLdnDXIaSXp4bCphNJPJSEaHkyjE7uxFYg/s320/tolstoy_kingdom_of_god.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5542909112305885570" border="0" /></a>I haven't lived long but I've read enough to see all the identical signs happening now that have, in the past, preceded terrible civil conflict. The parallels are astonishing. And once the dominoes are lined up it is only a matter of time before someone tips one over. Really, we have come that far (I think), and in today's accelerated, senselessly media-magnified world we would be surprised if what once took 50 years to happen now took but five.<br /><br />What fools we are! I feel like <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pierre</span> in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tolstoy</span>'s '<span style="font-weight: bold;">War and Peace</span>', looking around wonderingly at everything, marveling at that unseen force that compels us to move and act so wretchedly, so inhumanely!<br /><br />Partisan fools, come to your senses!<br /><br />If it is not already too late, reach out to your brother or sister and roll up your sleeves to genuinely work together! The lives of your loved ones may depend upon it!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinion/22krugman.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Paul Krugman</span></a> of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">N.Y. Times</span> is the first credible figure I know of to first state what to me seems very obvious. Read his article <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/22/opinion/22krugman.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a>.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-24892949582222876912010-10-29T16:17:00.000-07:002010-10-29T16:19:23.788-07:00The Morning Benders - Excuses<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7jgmgE-QDzA?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7jgmgE-QDzA?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-35368549124212364782010-10-11T06:40:00.000-07:002010-10-11T06:43:05.435-07:00Donald Duck and Glenn Beck Remix<object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/HfuwNU0jsk0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/HfuwNU0jsk0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-74116182106996538992010-09-14T09:53:00.000-07:002010-09-17T11:48:20.452-07:00Anna Karenina, Morality, and the American Economy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvZlgUpjjdvf2MmnNXEHaHZAFyrcHXRuonuskprkdQWbEAyRVJ1ezJ2BBBIfhXzRBRZZxzPBXxBa1JC8ui4mB-qpjdYFuCZ2GLeXVYfe-lYJuoZGIplM_XLfi5cx3ToWXfN9tSytuDw7Q/s1600/tolstoy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 197px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvZlgUpjjdvf2MmnNXEHaHZAFyrcHXRuonuskprkdQWbEAyRVJ1ezJ2BBBIfhXzRBRZZxzPBXxBa1JC8ui4mB-qpjdYFuCZ2GLeXVYfe-lYJuoZGIplM_XLfi5cx3ToWXfN9tSytuDw7Q/s320/tolstoy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517771996026445122" border="0" /></a>In reading <span style="font-weight: bold;">Russian Literature</span> and studying <span style="font-weight: bold;">Russian History</span> I have often noted the problems, issues, and patterns of late Imperial Russia bear an uncanny resemblance to those of contemporary America. I intend to elaborate generally on this in a future post (surely you wait on bated breath); today I will focus on a few salient passages within <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lev Tolstoy's Anna Karenina</span> pertaining to socioeconomic and ethical/moral subject matter.<br /><br />Published in segments from <span style="font-weight: bold;">1873-77</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Anna Karenina</span> occupies a most ideal temporal location for sociopolitical discussion: mere years removed from the <span style="font-weight: bold;">emancipation of the serfs</span> (and <span style="font-weight: bold;">American Civil War</span>), mere years from the publication of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Darwin's </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">On the Origin of Species</span>, but a few years from the publication of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Marx's </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Capital</span>, and amidst a growing/continuing storm of discontent among the Russian people.<br /><br />We, the reader, are recipients of the most wonderful gift literature can bestow upon us: we are allowed to eavesdrop on lives literally frozen in time upon the page. The issues of the age, the personalities, the characters, the society, and so forth are preserved (perfectly, thanks to Tolstoy) for us to observe and admire. We are so fortunate for it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7bIhO5HzZHi69PHrv4F2JR0e-lN3qudAN7tL0w0G-riwU9xLDFGvJ9vNezrhQ67uJfFN8zaJ_zAOiqbTLJ-HxrAm39a2qrxf5MpFqc7uViGW5WLYoe-Z2kgDC664vfHH7aaEdlMRmTTo/s1600/anna_karenina.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 181px; height: 279px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7bIhO5HzZHi69PHrv4F2JR0e-lN3qudAN7tL0w0G-riwU9xLDFGvJ9vNezrhQ67uJfFN8zaJ_zAOiqbTLJ-HxrAm39a2qrxf5MpFqc7uViGW5WLYoe-Z2kgDC664vfHH7aaEdlMRmTTo/s320/anna_karenina.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517771353492641826" border="0" /></a>What I find interesting is how the topics of debate back then are not terribly dissimilar to now. What is different, however, is the cognitive framework in which these discussions take place.<br /><br />Social issues, for instance, are rooted in individual morality, an <span>inversion</span> of how today's social sciences tend to construct what is essentially the same thing. (<span style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsky's "<span style="font-style: italic;">What is To Be Done?</span>"</span> follows this same pattern of inverted self/society).<br /><br />Thus when the characters of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Anna Karenina</span> examine socioeconomic issues, we see a greater connection between the larger, general problem and the moral/ethical basis of the individual actions comprising that general problem.<br /><br />Take, for instance, this fascinating discussion between <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky</span> (a very likable, but sort of morally lax fellow), <span style="font-weight: bold;">Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin</span> (more rigid), and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vassenka Veslovsky</span> (more or less a fool). In this scene Oblonsky is describing his visit to the very lavish estate of a nobleman who had "made his money by speculation in railway shares." The debate that follows is this:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="line-height: 24px;font-size:130%;" >"I don't understand you," said Levin, sitting up in the hay; "how is it such people don't disgust you? I can understand a lunch with Lafitte is all very pleasant but don't you dislike just that very sumptuousness? All these people, just like our spirit monopolists* in old days, get their money in a way that gains them the contempt of every one. They don't care for their contempt, and then they use their dishonest gains to buy off the contempt they have deserved."<br /><br />Oblonsky smiled. "I simply don't consider him more dishonest than any other wealthy merchant or nobleman. They've all made their money alike: by their work and their intelligence."<br /><br />"Oh, by what work? Do you call it work to get hold of concessions and speculate with them?"<br /><br />"Of course its work. Work in this sense, that if it were not for him and others like him, there would have been no railways."<br /><br />"But that's not work, like the work of a peasant or a learned profession."<br /><br />"Granted, but its work in the sense that his activity produces a result - the railways. But of course you think the railways useless."<br /><br />"No, that's another question; I am prepared to admit that they're useful. <span>But all profit that is out of proportion to the labor expended is dishonest</span>."<br /><br />"But who is to define what is proportionate?"<br /><br />"<span>Making profit by dishonest means, by trickery</span>," said Levin, conscious that he could not draw a distinct line between honesty and dishonesty. "<span>Such as banking, for instance,</span>" he went on. "<span>It is an evil - the amassing of huge fortunes without labor</span>, just the same thing as with the spirit monopolies, it's only the form that's changed. <span style="font-style: italic;">Le roi est mort, vive le roi</span>. No sooner were the spirit monopolies abolished then the railways came up, and banking companies; that, too, is profit without work."<br /><br /></span></blockquote>What is most striking about this is the <span style="font-style: italic;">degree</span> of moralizing taking place: Levin (and apparently others) find profit gained via "speculation on the railways" to be dishonest! Today such gains would be considered either shrewd or lucky; inherently dishonest does not enter the equation.<br /><br />That is because we find the idea of "profit out of portion to the labor expended" an entirely foreign one. Consider Levin's next culprit: <span style="font-weight: bold;">banking</span>. He does not condemn a corrupt bank or an irresponsible lender - no - he condemns <span style="font-style: italic;">banking in general</span> as an evil: an example of the 'amassing of huge fortunes without labor'.<br /><br />This, it seems to me, does indeed resonate with some of the earlier arguments I have made pertaining to contemporary America. Doesn't that sound like '<span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional wealth</span>'? My own position does not go remotely so far; I am concerned with artificial and/or predatory means of pumping up a market, their necessity to <span style="font-weight: bold;">economic obesity</span>, and the inevitable consequences that follow: inequity, social stratification, widening disparity between rich and poor, etc.<br /><br />I suggest we quickly begin to reconsider this question in a contemporary light, only perhaps we frame it so:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:130%;">"profit out of proportion to real/true value"<br /></span></div><br />And where do find profit out of proportion to real value?<br /><br />Everywhere!!!<br /><br />But let us first return to Anna Karenina and another conversation, this time between our good friend <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stepan Arkadyevitch Oblonsky</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alexey Alexandrovitch Karenina</span>:<br /><blockquote><span style="line-height: 24px;font-size:130%;" ><br />"I consider, and I have embodied my views in a note on the subject, that in our day these immense salaries are evidence of the unsound economic </span><span style="font-style: italic; line-height: 24px;font-size:130%;" >assiette</span><span style="line-height: 24px;font-size:130%;" > [basis] of our finances."<br /><br />"But what's to be done?" said Stepan Arkadyevitch. "Suppose a bank director gets ten thousand - well he's worth it; or an engineer gets twenty thousand - after all, it's a growing thing, you know!"<br /><br />"<span>I assume that a salary is the price paid for a commodity, and it ought to conform with the law of supply and demand</span>. If the salary is fixed without any regard for that law, as, for instance, when I see two engineers leaving college together, both equally well trained and efficient, and one getting forty thousand while the other is satisfied with two; or when I see lawyers and hussars, having no special qualifications, appointed directors of banking companies with immense salaries, I conclude that the salary is not fixed in accordance with the law of supply and demand, but simply through personal interest. And this is an abuse of great gravity in itself, and one that reacts injuriously on the government service."</span></blockquote>The notion that a salary ought to conform to supply and demand, is, from a contemporary point of view, nearly incomprehensible. 'Immense salaries' in disproportion to the actual value of a position are so commonplace today that we really don't even consider the moral/ethical abuse inherent in them, as does Alexey Alexandrovitch in the example above. The best some of us can do is feebly protest the very highest, most ludicrously astronomical salaries (ever-decreasingly assigned via merit). Indeed, this sort of consideration falls entirely outside our lexicon.<br /><br />The point is that in matters of economics today when it comes to ethics and morality we are able to offer only the most rudimentary considerations. Our country is young; thus we are suffering from a sort of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Old World</span> (and its global influences) <span style="font-weight: bold;">amnesia</span>. We have chosen to ignore the moral/ethical consequence of the 'immense salary' (<span style="font-style: italic;">i.e.;</span> corporate management, wall street bonuses, etc.) and the 'huge amassed profit out of proportion to real value' (<span style="font-style: italic;">i.e.;</span> 'housing debacle', predatory lending, etc.).<br /><br />Due to this amnesia we are rediscovering and reinventing the very same world we once streamed out of in droves, and unless we are able to first acknowledge and then expel (forcefully) these immoral and repugnant practices, the promise and possibility that America represents will wane.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSNI8uERq1Ieb9o_-Lf5z0GNd2ZfTa8zJExjyQy2cStkLc3HkRYRD7Z_2hrS3aeaSKaOCN9otr_AR_wgaMPHs5jQAKlBuIjCeULbKdsXIjZBGJHy0V3095IchWTkws7hKffxEEOpNegk/s1600/ceo_salary.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSNI8uERq1Ieb9o_-Lf5z0GNd2ZfTa8zJExjyQy2cStkLc3HkRYRD7Z_2hrS3aeaSKaOCN9otr_AR_wgaMPHs5jQAKlBuIjCeULbKdsXIjZBGJHy0V3095IchWTkws7hKffxEEOpNegk/s320/ceo_salary.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517775194123470690" border="0" /></a>Thus <span style="font-weight: bold;">senior corporate management</span> earning obscene amounts so wildly out of line with <span style="font-style: italic;">what they actually do</span> has a literal socioeconomic consequence and, in light of this, a moral one as well. In today's world we see virtually none of our actors taking moral responsibility - or even consideration - for their actions; instead they seem too busy defending and rationalizing indefensible positions. They want to have their cake and eat it too.<br /><br />Anywhere we can identify a set value wildly disproportionate to a product or service's real value, we know that trouble will eventually and necessarily ensue. We are slicing from a <span style="font-weight: bold;">finite pie of social value</span><span>:</span> where one place receives some absurd amount disproportionate to its value, the other loses it. And where and who is this 'other' place? The poor, of course, hence the growing discrepancy.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdStSx3rjoCqQJhYajMowXxlxEG6qQhynAk2ozRW7VKg-W8UEE1XFTM0uC0lzw05QZmg5sApZFC5dbiNod_Jzln1gC2DRz6x8fp_NiHHEpduXctHZLzSNLPbyOSepUcn1RmgrFUxunuhA/s1600/hospital_bill.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 203px; height: 152px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdStSx3rjoCqQJhYajMowXxlxEG6qQhynAk2ozRW7VKg-W8UEE1XFTM0uC0lzw05QZmg5sApZFC5dbiNod_Jzln1gC2DRz6x8fp_NiHHEpduXctHZLzSNLPbyOSepUcn1RmgrFUxunuhA/s320/hospital_bill.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517774643367180306" border="0" /></a>The <span style="font-weight: bold;">medical and insurance industries</span> are perfect examples. Insurance companies, when they are in fact accountable for a bill, only agree to pay a portion of it (meaning the bill in full is a fiction). In response to this the hospital hikes its fees, and a game of cat and mouse ensues in which the consumer (or rather, the patient) becomes the ultimate victim, because in the event they must pay their own outrageous bill, they (for some reason) lack the leverage/rights afforded to the insurance companies to pay a reduced amount. They are stuck with the <span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional value</span>, so absurd most just throw up their hands and declare <span style="font-weight: bold;">bankruptcy</span>.<br /><br />The fee hike is fictional because it is arbitrary. It does not reflect the real value of the product or service. Evidence of this is simply the obscene profits of insurance, medical, drug companies, etc... Something is out of whack, and it will necessarily catch up to us in terms of our overall economy, just as did the fictional wealth created by the banks and the housing market.<br /><br />It is money unjustly made.<br /><br />When we think of our economic health in an ethical sense - is profit derived from hard work? Ingenuity? Creativity? Persistence? Innovation? That is <span style="font-weight: bold;">health</span>. Is profit derived from trickery? Deception? Irresponsibility? Neglect? Predation? These are signs of <span style="font-weight: bold;">sickness</span>.<br /><br />In short, call a doctor.<br /><br />We need to return to a true sense of individual, moral/ethical accountability if our system is to have any future.<br /><br />I heard on the radio today a woman talking about how their bank was 'unhappy' when she and her husband decided to purchase a house below their approved amount. As she put it, "<span style="font-style: italic;">We</span> wanted to decide what we could afford, not the bank." The truth is they were very wise. The bank has some (MBA derived) equation that maximizes the very limits of affordability. They care absolutely nothing for their customer; it is all a means to derive the largest profit possible on the very margins of risk. That is wrong (as is the artificial cost of a home relative to earnings, but that is for another post).<br /><br />Our economy and nation would be a far better place if we could only realize that genuine (not fabricated) consumer/citizen care and consideration results in a healthier life for all.<br /><br />The current consumer/citizen is woefully exploited, especially the lesser among us. It is high time we realized the moral depravity of our current system.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CvH_0TRuCk4iSe8MakUwuR94rxesfzL8zhyVKwp__pfiEaVvfNagPXdobuNEx4UteFgdnXiNDJsM24343HJYr_Af3ZT-ARo7GiSM7Aag6flXHxq7l-_9JNHoL4psbXj4UqwPGGFbmLA/s1600/louis_vuitton.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 137px; height: 166px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2CvH_0TRuCk4iSe8MakUwuR94rxesfzL8zhyVKwp__pfiEaVvfNagPXdobuNEx4UteFgdnXiNDJsM24343HJYr_Af3ZT-ARo7GiSM7Aag6flXHxq7l-_9JNHoL4psbXj4UqwPGGFbmLA/s320/louis_vuitton.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5517780257081675346" border="0" /></a>Instead we seem hellbent on irrationally defending it. On the subject of 'immense salary', for instance, why is it a whole slew of Americans are engaged in a bizarre hero-worship of these very same characters who control a grossly disproportionate percentage of our nation's wealth (23.5%)? We seem no better than adoring sycophants. The best we can muster is jealousy, the worst a sort of delusional imitation. Sorry, but a fake <span style="font-weight: bold;">Louis Vuitton</span> purse, or for that matter a real one, does not make you a wealthy aristocrat!<br /><br />To conclude, not too long ago these sorts of issues were discussed and considered quite freely among Americans. But since then, somehow, this notion of unrestrained capital - devoid of ethics, of morals, indeed of honor (to coin an oft-used word of late) - has sought and found refuge behind a protective shield of jingoism/patriotism. That, it strikes me, is a shame.<br /><br />And not a terribly wise place to hide.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">* Spirit Monopoly: The taxes on vodka became a key element of government finances in Tsarist Russia, providing at times up to 40% of state revenue. In 1863, the government monopoly on vodka production was repealed, causing prices to plummet and making vodka available even to low-income citizens</span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"></span>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-65547630092052276352010-09-06T20:13:00.000-07:002010-09-10T11:25:02.793-07:00How to End the Great Recession - No, Seriously, This is How<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcw0ct8SUh8OCptGZsWy1jrDyjBeYYmpAcnAeQDP7Hs4SmYiVuZ5zJz35n4vTrRewyqgVrzMughJWgAUNHfJ_0FHERdSoOhDXl_61aGC2ozW9o3SNJ6MW5PwQzX2fyj-hCtb6pOJTQSBQ/s1600/american_way.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcw0ct8SUh8OCptGZsWy1jrDyjBeYYmpAcnAeQDP7Hs4SmYiVuZ5zJz35n4vTrRewyqgVrzMughJWgAUNHfJ_0FHERdSoOhDXl_61aGC2ozW9o3SNJ6MW5PwQzX2fyj-hCtb6pOJTQSBQ/s320/american_way.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514026729245483410" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html">This</a> recent op-ed piece in <span style="font-weight: bold;">The New York Times, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">How to End the Great Recession</span></a> by Robert B. Reich</span>, reinforced many of the points I was making in my previous <span style="font-weight: bold;">GM/AmeriCredit</span> post.<br /><br />(By the way, the language used and accepted by the media, particularly "<span style="font-weight: bold;">double dip recession</span>", is comical. If the only market to 'recover' was the stock market, and the stock market is by nature speculative, then - because nothing has really changed, if only worsened - the market's speculation of 'recovery' was in absolute error! Thus there was no recovery other than a <span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional/errantly speculative</span> one and any notion of a "double dip recession" is misleading. But how we try to pigeon-hole reality into our robust explanatory economic models!)<br /><br />In any case, I found the below segment of particular relevance:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:130%;">"But for years American families kept spending as if their incomes were keeping pace with overall economic growth. And their spending fueled continued growth. How did families manage this trick? First, women streamed into the paid work force. By the late 1990s, more than 60 percent of mothers with young children worked outside the home (in 1966, only 24 percent did).<br /><br />Second, everyone put in more hours. What families didn’t receive in wage increases they made up for in work increases. By the mid-2000s, the typical male worker was putting in roughly 100 hours more each year than two decades before, and the typical female worker about 200 hours more.<br /><br />When American families couldn’t squeeze any more income out of these two coping mechanisms, they embarked on a third: going ever deeper into debt. This seemed painless — as long as home prices were soaring. From 2002 to 2007, American households extracted $2.3 trillion from their homes.<br /><br />Eventually, of course, the debt bubble burst — and with it, the last coping mechanism. Now we’re left to deal with the underlying problem that we’ve avoided for decades. Even if nearly everyone was employed, the vast middle class still wouldn’t have enough money to buy what the economy is capable of producing</span>.<span style="font-size:130%;">"</span><br /></span></blockquote><br /><span>In other words we are <span style="font-weight: bold;">economically obese</span> and lack the means to keep up with our own <span style="font-weight: bold;">insatiable consumption</span> except by a nonexistent (<span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional</span>) or unhealthy trans-fat (<span style="font-weight: bold;">predation</span>) avenue.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br />Debt</span> is far and away the number one <span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional AND predatory market</span> in America, both among our citizenry and government.<br /><br />We are woefully addicted to debt.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJe2why4ibqxQ-qRuFGM5uLqAyw8DCOALYRbh-hl82VHxbGCIaCzAlFhGo7joRM1RWhY6OW6G70j3Lrw1pBVWHJ0IQzwf_6uVJ_GfEacMOHa59xaNBpomg12sIzLLGqWcEMBPPQhJEzmk/s1600/credit_card.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 166px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJe2why4ibqxQ-qRuFGM5uLqAyw8DCOALYRbh-hl82VHxbGCIaCzAlFhGo7joRM1RWhY6OW6G70j3Lrw1pBVWHJ0IQzwf_6uVJ_GfEacMOHa59xaNBpomg12sIzLLGqWcEMBPPQhJEzmk/s320/credit_card.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514029963816700370" border="0" /></a>In order to become a functioning member of society (<span style="font-style: italic;">i.e.;</span> obtain a strong credit score), you must in fact go into debt! (Not to digress once again, but this is an absurdity. We must include non-debt behaviors that demonstrate a potentially reliable debtor - things like paying bills and rent on time, etc. To penalize a citizen for "insufficient credit history" is to penalize the wisdom of avoiding debt altogether - hard to comprehend.)<br /><br />The ludicrous interest rates, inability to pay off the principle, etc. is (much like the subprime loan) a classic example of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">institutionalized swindle</span>. And yet, our citizenry seems to accept this as an example of their own failings, rather than a corrupt and exploitative manipulation of the most vulnerable among them.<br /><br />By no means do I make light of personal responsibility; that is not the point. Again the credit card debacle gets back to an <span style="font-weight: bold;">inherently predatory business model</span>: profit is derived primarily from <span style="font-weight: bold;">consumer failure</span>. Because it is in the best interests of the credit companies to nefariously (sorry, I have beaten all the life out of this wonderful word) sucker their prey into agreeing upon the most obscene terms and conditions, you cannot blame the credit card companies for it (slew of eager and inscrupulous <span style="font-weight: bold;">MBA</span>s notwithstanding). It is the structure itself that is to blame.<br /><br />Surely there are some who might disagree and say "free market - fair game!" To those I simply point to the fundamental issue: <span style="font-style: italic;">the growing discrepancy between rich and poor</span>.<br /><br />As Mr. Reich points out:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">In the late 1970s, the richest 1 percent of American families took in about 9 percent of the nation’s total income; by 2007, the top 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total income.<br /></span></blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7wZKi_j0mRWL-8O5pH2mn5iYWyXWDIrM6Q2v8xqFZRVASw4NNWNbLVFRsqNhhJNuo_Hq0Me1z1L3VHHR6_e19kUMY5Nu03fu3oDgo70E6gIKN2fqZSW4Muvw7rl9ufIHneiOvNZ3I9I/s1600/meg_whitman.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 185px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7wZKi_j0mRWL-8O5pH2mn5iYWyXWDIrM6Q2v8xqFZRVASw4NNWNbLVFRsqNhhJNuo_Hq0Me1z1L3VHHR6_e19kUMY5Nu03fu3oDgo70E6gIKN2fqZSW4Muvw7rl9ufIHneiOvNZ3I9I/s320/meg_whitman.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514030245645541938" border="0" /></a>It is this figure that should, more than any other, <span style="font-weight: bold;">sound the alarm</span>. It is truly more epic than "one if by land, two if by sea" (to borrow the revolutionary symbolic abuse of the historically ignorant "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Tea Party</span>" - vitriol for another post!).<br /><br />Our citizenry remains benightedly clouded in issues of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tyranny/Divine Right of Kings</span> vs. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Representative Democracy</span> - which we somehow equate to "freedom" - when in truth <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">degree of social stratification</span> is a far more accurate measure of a relatively equitable society.<br /><br />Right??? We're (ostensibly) not big on rhetoric - the proof is in the pudding!!!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu8d04_KNkAPL5ht2SA7-bLfdNFyiwF_9NSsUmPlDVnWHz1WzglpQvlfqRLOT-DM9cZLSVl4GM3jRSK9CUAA_4ely2YU3ltXAlIWc68E12_jYwA1uHJ9BkefzV4O1_eqNMdCfFia5i1wY/s1600/princess-madeleine.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 242px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu8d04_KNkAPL5ht2SA7-bLfdNFyiwF_9NSsUmPlDVnWHz1WzglpQvlfqRLOT-DM9cZLSVl4GM3jRSK9CUAA_4ely2YU3ltXAlIWc68E12_jYwA1uHJ9BkefzV4O1_eqNMdCfFia5i1wY/s320/princess-madeleine.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514030649934599666" border="0" /></a>When the billionaire <span style="font-weight: bold;">Meg Whitman</span> spends more money running for Governor of California than any candidate in history, we might want to stop kidding ourselves about the <span style="font-weight: bold;">principals of equality </span>inherently embedded in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Representative Democracy</span>! We might as well return the country to a <span style="font-weight: bold;">monarchy</span>, at least then we might have someone better looking!<br /><br />Again I digress. Clearly I'm jealous of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sweden</span>... Dearest Princess Madeleine... Decree whatever you like! (It has long been proven Swedes live the most fulfilled/happy lives; here we have some hint as to why!)<br /><br />Adolescent joking aside, the very grave point is that at the moment we have a <span style="font-weight: bold;">massive</span> problem in America, greater than any we have faced in our nascent history: <span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >We are coming to resemble the very societies we once despised</span><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">. </span></span><br /></div><br />The true test of our fortitude - literally of the revolutionary principles upon which the country was founded - is to bring this alarming, immoral, and growing social discrepancy into more <span style="font-weight: bold;">equitable</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">humane</span> proportions, particularly before our <span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional</span>, <span style="font-weight: bold;">unsustainable</span>, and <span style="font-weight: bold;">unfathomable</span> wealth catches up to us and exacerbates (to put it mildly) tensions that are at the moment so tepid they might be easily ignored altogether.<br /><br />If we do not address this issue of growing stratification at once and with all our heart and souls, we are absolutely doomed.<br /><br />What we have <span style="font-weight: bold;">yet</span> to ask ourselves (but will inevitably arise, you watch) is this simple question:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Does the top 1% have the </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >right</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" > to 23.5% of the nation's wealth</span><span style="font-size:130%;">?<br /></span></div><br />The answer, obviously, is <span style="font-weight: bold;">no</span>; the means by which this is ultimately resolved, however, is a matter we should all consider most carefully. As I stated before, it is a question of life and death; if history is any guide, the sooner we realize this, the better for all of us! Do not be lulled by sirens into a false sense of security when it comes to issues of a civil nature, particularly when we live in a world accelerated by technology and information, turning changes once attributed to centuries into mere decades, mere decades into years.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-1765236893991680652010-09-03T21:20:00.001-07:002010-09-03T21:22:26.929-07:00Penguin Cafe Orchestra - Perpetuum Mobile<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/FvbCV6E0Wro?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/FvbCV6E0Wro?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-15520367279010292362010-08-25T10:41:00.000-07:002010-08-25T19:36:53.923-07:00Mikhail Lermontov - A Hero of Our Time<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226378.A_Hero_of_Our_Time" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="A Hero of Our Time (Penguin Classics)" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1218327002m/226378.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/226378.A_Hero_of_Our_Time">A Hero of Our Time</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15538.Mikhail_Lermontov">Mikhail Lermontov</a><br /><br />My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/118532397">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />This novel is so good we really need to start with the translator's note.<br /><br />First published in 1840, '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">A Hero of Our Time</span>' was translated to English by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Nabokov</span> in 1958, framing the experience wonderfully for the modern reader. We have been directed here by the highest of references and are being led through by his very capable hand, as if a master chef not only recommended a fine restaurant, but went with you and helped order and explain all the courses. One is thus pleasantly reassured before even beginning (good also, because the book starts slowly and gets better as it goes, to its spectacular finish).<br /><br />From <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Nabokov</span> one can learn a great deal about an artist's point of view, simply because he is so fearless in his evaluation of writing and literature. His opinion is simply his own, unswayed by convention or fad. "Though of tremendous and at times somewhat morbid interest to the sociologist" he begins before discussing the social significance of the protagonist, or "this is a ridiculous opinion, voiced by... Chekhov, and can only be held if and when a moral quality or social virtue is confused with literary art" when discussing the book's literary merit.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Nabokov</span>'s critical barometer is also appropriately sensitive - sometimes scathing (perhaps tinged with the occasional professional jealousy) - which makes for a good read: for instance when he describes a reference in the footnotes as "a vulgar novelette, ending in ridiculous melodrama, by the overrated French writer, Balzac".<br /><br />Vanity plays a humorous role, as <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Nabokov</span> spends an inordinate amount of time essentially apologizing for <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Lermontov's</span> prose, much of which he attributes to the literary conventions of the age (11 cases of eavesdropping) and the rest to the author's personal inadequacies. "His similes and metaphors are utterly commonplace; his hackneyed epithets are only redeemed by occasionally being incorrectly used" or "thus in the course of [the book:] the faces of various people turn purple, red, rosy, orange, yellow, green and blue." Its really quite funny how Nabokov so carefully dissociates himself from the writing, all whilst underscoring the vital, painstaking importance of creating a translation faithful to the original text.<br /><br />On to the novel itself. Morbid sociological interest aside, this novel fills in a critical gap in my understanding of Russian literature. The main character, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Pechorin</span> - well educated, handsome, strong in spirit, etc. - suffers a sort of existential ennui: he is bored with life and thus plays rather recklessly with his own fate, often at the expense of those (usually women) around him. He is the "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Byronic hero</span>", inspired by both <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Lord Byron's "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Childe Harold's Pilgrimage</span>"</span> and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Pushkin's "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Eugene Onegin</span>"</span>. (The tradition continues: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Coetzee's "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Disgrace"</span></span>, which I read recently, places this same Bryonic hero in contemporary South Africa, with morally complex, sometimes shocking, results...).<br /><br />There exists strong resemblance in character and personality of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Pechorin</span> to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Turgenev's Bazarov</span> in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"Fathers and Sons"</span></span>, the 'nihilist' considered to be the first Bolshevik. In 1850 <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Turgenev</span> wrote <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"Diary of a Superfluous Man"</span></span> (next on my list) with a character similar to Lermontov's Pechorin; the connection is very direct and clear.<br /><br />As I (and many others, I assume) have discussed elsewhere, we can then draw a line from Turgenev's Bazarov to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsky's Rakhmetov</span> in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">"What is to be Done?"</span></span> (Chernyshevsky's narrative style, in which he toys with the reader regarding his own moral purpose and perspective, is very similar to Lermontov's) and then of course from Rakhmetov as the fictional character idealized by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Vladimir Lenin</span>. This complete path from the Byron-inspired Russian "Superfluous man" to the Russian nihilist to the idealized Bolshevik character (I suppose we shouldn't restrict to Bolshevism, but you get the idea) is one of great interest to me, essentially tying culturally-embedded heroes or idealized personality-types to eventual idealized sociopolitical personality-types. The extent to which these were or were not misunderstood is very significant to the course of human history.<br /><br />Alright, surely that qualifies for morbid sociological interest. Sorry Nabokov.<br /><br />Back to the story itself. In the beginning, one wonders just what is so special about it, and can't help agreeing with many of Nabokov's not so subtle points regarding the quality of Lermontov's prose. But it just gets better and better as one goes. The two final stories, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Princess Mary</span>" and "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">The Fatalist</span>" are both extraordinary - dramatically gripping and filled with interesting musings and insights. I'll conclude with one of them, to give you a sense of Pechorin's character and hopefully inspire you to read "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">A Hero of Our Time"</span></span>.<br /><br /><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:large;">"The moon, full and red, like the glow of a conflagration, began to appear from behind the uneven line of roofs; the stars shone calmly upon the dark-blue vault, and it amused me to recall that, once upon a time, there were sages who thought that the heavenly bodies took part in our trivial conflicts for some piece of land or some imaginary rights. And what happened? These lampads, lit, in the opinion of these sages, merely to illumine their battles and festivals, were burning as brightly as ever, while their passions and hopes had long been extinguished with them, like a small fire lit on the edge of the forest by a carefree wayfarer! But on the other hand, what strength of will they derived from the certitude that the entire sky with its countless inhabitants was looking upon them with mute but permanent sympathy! Whereas we, their miserable descendants, who roam the earth without convictions or pride, without rapture or fear (except for that instinctive dread that compresses our hearts at the thought of the inevitable end), we are no longer capable of great sacrifice, neither for the good of mankind, nor even for our own happiness, because we know its impossibility, and pass with indifference from doubt to doubt, just as our ancestors rushed from one delusion to another. But we, however, do not have either their hopes or even that indefinite, albeit real, rapture that the soul encounters in any struggle with men or with fate."</span></blockquote><br />Rapture. Let this novel stir it within you.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-44421775175679040282010-08-12T16:14:00.000-07:002010-09-02T19:03:38.560-07:00GM and AmeriCredit: How Our Economic Obesity is Dependent Upon Fiction and Predation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEB-tZMrThQsOT-jKtnOg_1kJJIyZeBKaIopQWhkyTZgaR00ESnZ0UTHGb2O-OX8TZ5YNgBdMZrFPUVBbtj7xSnAP8PU5S7PyYyGe9JQWBbl3M2ANwaspQNb40ohGiRnbWG5gheN_L5KM/s1600/gm_americredit.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 73px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEB-tZMrThQsOT-jKtnOg_1kJJIyZeBKaIopQWhkyTZgaR00ESnZ0UTHGb2O-OX8TZ5YNgBdMZrFPUVBbtj7xSnAP8PU5S7PyYyGe9JQWBbl3M2ANwaspQNb40ohGiRnbWG5gheN_L5KM/s320/gm_americredit.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504711401206349298" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">GM</span>'s recent $3.5 billion dollar purchase of subprime loan company <span style="font-weight: bold;">AmeriCredit</span> barely caused a ripple in the news. I blame no one for this; personally I was far more concerned with how many days <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lindsay Lohan</span> would spend in jail! Still, this was big, wasn't it? It was not long ago that <span style="font-weight: bold;">GM</span> was teetering on the verge of collapse, rescued only by a massive government bailout.<br /><br />It is now owned, nominally, by the People. So let's have a look at our investment.<br /><br />Why would <span style="font-weight: bold;">GM</span> buy a subprime loan company?<br /><br />A few pundits did offer their thoughts, most poignantly the <span style="font-weight: bold;">New York Times' <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/10/business/10sorkin.html">Andrew Ross Sorkin</a></span>, who explained, "G.M. plans to prod sales of its vehicles by using AmeriCredit to extend loans and leases to automobile customers with questionable credit. (That’s why they are called subprime loans.) These are the same customers who could very well be denied a loan by other lenders." He then asks the question of the hour: "Did we really spend $50 billion of our money just to revive the kinds of practices that led to the credit crisis?"<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5z6M2MRygryfMUJ42vmSyM-CyDaI0bx-dhBjO5Y7PAlrHKqA2PioqFiD6KnlDxGSQm8CQLTyX3RhDITj9nfAkknslk7cZVL2lUTi_8YrbBCV2UTeV27JTCQx8QmYNUpqoHHND6Lxv7o/s1600/sorkin-articleInline.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 190px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5z6M2MRygryfMUJ42vmSyM-CyDaI0bx-dhBjO5Y7PAlrHKqA2PioqFiD6KnlDxGSQm8CQLTyX3RhDITj9nfAkknslk7cZVL2lUTi_8YrbBCV2UTeV27JTCQx8QmYNUpqoHHND6Lxv7o/s320/sorkin-articleInline.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504711403558244914" border="0" /></a>Yes, we did.<br /><br />But why?<br /><br />I believe the answer belies a deeper, more fundamental and possibly fatal flaw in our economy.<br /><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><span style="font-size:85%;"></span></span><span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:130%;" ><br />"If you liked our first-quarter financial results, stay tuned for our second-quarter financial results!"<br /><span style="font-size:85%;">- GM Chief Edward E. Whitacre</span></span><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span>Before I digress into this cheerless topic let us first examine why it is in <span style="font-weight: bold;">General Motor</span>'s interests to buy subprime lender <span style="font-weight: bold;">AmeriCredit</span>. The answer should be very simple: subprime loans expand the consumer market base by loosening restrictions to lending. New markets are good; they provide the growth necessary for the company's vital return to profitability.<br /><br />That's it! Right?<br /><br />Were it only so.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">AmeriCredit's Business Model is Inherently Predatory</span></span><br />It is terribly ironic that despite so much <span style="font-weight: bold;">retroactive moralism</span> (we seem to excel in this), we apparently have no issue with a government-owned (or private!) company adopting a method of profitability that embraces the very practices that - not long ago - we ostensibly found abhorrent.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaETsqJDrD4bGecLNprcAUc2YdrDL3PQYKshNuoyaOWei8Z7RB8cc7mdUac892qSnxL0DoiHAUMTOIjBKD2gOl7XCd8fZsCg7i_3uZHyF4p0KX08vYumAFJGnjAbQzmW6N50C6Z2wrns/s1600/car-loan-application.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAaETsqJDrD4bGecLNprcAUc2YdrDL3PQYKshNuoyaOWei8Z7RB8cc7mdUac892qSnxL0DoiHAUMTOIjBKD2gOl7XCd8fZsCg7i_3uZHyF4p0KX08vYumAFJGnjAbQzmW6N50C6Z2wrns/s320/car-loan-application.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512370344054305186" border="0" /></a>The fact is, <span style="font-weight: bold;">consumer failure</span> is at the heart of the AmeriCredit business model. In order to offset the risk/loss of defaults, the model is dependent upon the very significant percentage of consumers who fail to keep up with payments or are only able to make a minimal payment, thereby either incurring serious financial penalties or effectively making no impact on the principle. Profit is thus derived from the exorbitant fees, penalties, and high interest added to the purchase price, resulting in revenue far above and beyond the actual market value of the car.<br /><br />Fortunately (and for reasons I cannot reveal here), I happened to be hiding under the table in the GM board room when the AmeriCredit epiphany transpired, eavesdropping while <span style="font-weight: bold;">G </span>and <span style="font-weight: bold;">M</span> discussed their evil plan. Transcript as follows:<br /><blockquote><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">M</span>: (<span style="font-style: italic;">looking glum</span>)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">G</span>: What's the matter, M?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: (<span style="font-style: italic;">sighs</span>) We've run out of people to sell cars to.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Bummer.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br />(a brief, melancholic silence</span>,<span style="font-style: italic;"> pregnant pause, etc.,</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">follows</span>)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Wait, I have an idea.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: Do tell.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Let's loan money to people that really shouldn't have money loaned to them.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: Sounds intriguing, I like it already.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Here's how it will work: We'll advertise like hell, bring poor credit types on the lot, blow a lot of smoke up their ass, then dangle our carrot in front of them - a new car!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: A new car!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Once we've hooked them in, we'll seduce them into agreeing on an absurdly overvalued purchase price by breaking down the elusive total cost (which we will only reveal at the point of death) into <span>'affordable monthly payments'</span>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: Affordable monthly payments. Nice ring.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: There's more! We'll assure them they won't have to pay a penny today. Zero down! 'Worry about it tomorrow!' we'll tell them.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: Never do today what you can do tomorrow!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Next we'll employ psychology. Right when they think the car is theirs, we deliver the dreadful news: their loan might not be approved! Their credit <span style="font-style: italic;">is</span> dubious, after all. We leave them in a small room, let them sweat a bit, peer in anxiously from time to time, and then: bingo! Approved!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: But who in their right mind would approve the loan?<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">G</span>: We would! We own the loan company! AmeriCredit!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: You're good. But I'm afraid you have a little problem.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Impossible.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: When you loan money to people you really shouldn't be loaning money to, very often they don't pay you the money back.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: But that's the whole idea, M!!!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: What?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: If they don't pay, we threaten to repossess that brand new car they've been driving around.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: I see. So then they pay?<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: No, of course not! They couldn't afford the car in the first place! Remember? They have bad credit!!! And now they're behind with late fees, penalties, compounded interest, all of it!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: We've backed them into the proverbial corner. I love it.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />G</span>: Yes, all they can do is make a <span style="font-style: italic;">minimum</span> payment. If that!!! Ha, ha!!! They can't even put a dent in the principle! A vicious cycle! We'll make a fortune! Money from nothing! And in the end, we might even get the car back after all! Or sucker them into another one!<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />M</span>: Come to my arms! Genius!<br /><br /></blockquote>Forgive me, a brief, ill-advised attempt at levity; sadly we now return to the grim topic at hand.<br /><br />The point: the AmeriCredit model is <span style="font-style: italic;">inherently</span> predatory. Without these penalties, late fees, exaggerated interest rates, etc. embedded in its profit model, it falls apart. It thus cannot be rationalized or regulated or manipulated to look like anything other than what it is. We are, in effect, generously rewarding the <span style="font-weight: bold;">swindler</span>.<br /><br />I find all this highly problematic.<br /><br />But what is the alternative?<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Healthy Economy Should Derive Profit from its Products and Services</span></span><br />In the case of GM, their product, a motor vehicle, has a value. That value, very simply, should be sufficient to create profitability for the company. If it can't create profitability on its own, then it follows that there is a serious flaw with the company and/or product itself.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_A49zw4N_dzFZjEpDuPY-S95s9dHTXH1t-o_6ZvdF1s_kEAGqv2IHtfGJn_XuJFYEo4p2UxjyvSmBv7DRpxa8E22PiFzII5RN7yix9K-6a4KJLIMcY2a-_-Eketd6I2yy0uHxdCNby-E/s1600/Oldcarcrash.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_A49zw4N_dzFZjEpDuPY-S95s9dHTXH1t-o_6ZvdF1s_kEAGqv2IHtfGJn_XuJFYEo4p2UxjyvSmBv7DRpxa8E22PiFzII5RN7yix9K-6a4KJLIMcY2a-_-Eketd6I2yy0uHxdCNby-E/s320/Oldcarcrash.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512328940247242322" border="0" /></a>We don't sidestep that problem (whatever it may be - a failure to innovate, myopia, hubris, etc.) by resorting to a means of profitability wholly unrelated to the company's primary product, <span style="font-style: italic;">particularly when that means is fundamentally nefarious</span>. That is not to say there is anything wrong with ancillary revenue streams, even clever ones, but when they consist of precisely the same ingredients that have very recently led our economy to near ruin, we should have cause for concern.<br /><br />In the case of AmeriCredit, profit is derived from <span style="font-weight: bold;">failure</span>. If money is a symbol of an exchange in social value, we should be alarmed when our system generates wealth from <span style="font-weight: bold;">deception, fear, intimidation, irresponsibility, ignorance, foolishness</span>, and the like. These are desperate means of creating wealth. These are also immoral, unethical, and potentially inhumane means of creating wealth.<br /><br />We want our wealth to be derived from things like <span style="font-weight: bold;">innovation, knowledge, freedom, creativity, hard work, persistence, commitment, individual empowerment, merit, the can-do attitude</span>, etc. In short, the increasingly elusive, so-called American Spirit.<br /><br />There is a great social cost to the predatory model: <span style="font-style: italic;">we reinforce our social shortcomings and problems by making them an integral component to our own economic health</span>.<br /><br />Why are we doing this? Why are we, as a people, effectively endorsing a company like AmeriCredit?<br /><br />My answer should (hopefully!) disturb you.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Our Economy Relies on Predation Because it Must </span></span><br />To sustain our rate of affluence, our economy needs to grow. To grow, we need to find new markets. In the unlikely scenario there are no more new markets to find, then our rate of affluence will have to slow down. Pretty simple. But what if we <span style="font-weight: bold;">really, really, really don't want to slow down our rate of affluence</span> and yet still are unable to find any new markets substantial enough to sustain the very growth we require?<br /><br />Well, we might make them up. We might create revenue out of the ether. We might make a <span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional market</span>.<br /><br />That is precisely what recently happened. The true cause of the recession was to lose our suspension of disbelief, albeit reluctantly. Fueled by the pressing need to create new markets where there were none to be found, we simply drummed them up and pretended they were real. The difference between the true value of a house and the fictional value it was imagined to be worth (all with 'borrowed' money) created a vital revenue stream that in reality did not exist at all. No one could really afford to pay the inflated loans offered by the banks for assets that were not really worth the prices we invented for them.<br /><br />Now why would we do something that dumb? Because this need to create artificial wealth is due to an unwillingness to accept a very ugly truth about our own society: we are <span style="font-weight: bold;">economically obese.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Economic Obesity</span></span><br />We have a sickness<span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>. We are full, but we don't want to slow down. Our appetite is insatiable, and yet we are running out of real nourishment (real products, services, and new markets) to feed it. As a result we are opting to eat either a lavishly nonexistent meal or to indulge in the equivalent of economic trans-fat: predation.<br /><br />Thus the fundamental problem with our economy is that our rate of affluence is so high we cannot sustain its need to grow without relying on artificial or predatory mechanisms of market creation.<br /><br />In other words, houses became wildly overinflated because they had to. Predatory subprime loans are a part of the automobile industry because they have to be.<br /><br />GM vehicles (the real product) are not adequate on their own to support the size of waistline our economic obesity demands. Similar to artificially bloated housing prices, the interest, penalties, fees, and so forth added to a subprime loan represents the <span style="font-weight: bold;">fictional value</span> of the automobile industry. It is not surviving on fumes, it is surviving on something that is at worst predatory, at best socially valueless. It is creating a 'market' by resorting to unethical means of obtaining wealth.<br /><br />In order to sustain our own economic obesity, we must feed nefariously on ourselves!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">So What?</span></span><br />An artificial market will, sooner or later, reveal its illusory nature, with severe economic consequences. The housing bubble crashes, etc. A predatory market, however, is indeed a viable source of nourishment to a free market, providing it is devoid of ethics.<br /><br />So what's the problem?<br /><br />Embedded in the predatory business model is a not-so-subtle component of social exploitation: the sum effect is to enable the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer.<br /><br />Let us take the AmeriCredit case. How the demographics of subprime car loans break down precisely is beyond me, but I suspect those with credit issues are very often those with less money to begin with. If you cannot generally afford things, you are more vulnerable to the suggestion that you might be able to have them anyway, particularly when you have been emotionally clubbed over the head that you are utterly inadequate if you don't (we call this advertising - a topic I intend to write about at length elsewhere).<br /><br />What's so strange about that, you ask?<br /><br />Absolutely nothing.<br /><br />If you peer into history, you will find that invariably, every society gradually succumbs to severe social stratification, surviving on these very same corrupt and immoral methods to squeeze every penny of value from the poor, making them only poorer.<br /><br />When we allow our own economy to become reliant on the same mechanisms from which we once fled in terrified droves (<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>or huddled masses), we know that the destiny of this country is no <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2KLo1gZezdjnOlaVgb10kzkLUtKQphMTKB5CYNPbvFMqw7kCfjso0145FNAVQBaVHXRHcFD8Rzr85gh-QFDXjceNHMZZ2AkUPyt5Mu2m0pxoH6ymn62CqLJpMDLXF2PY0awsCzEQkbM8/s1600/ps-haves.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 287px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2KLo1gZezdjnOlaVgb10kzkLUtKQphMTKB5CYNPbvFMqw7kCfjso0145FNAVQBaVHXRHcFD8Rzr85gh-QFDXjceNHMZZ2AkUPyt5Mu2m0pxoH6ymn62CqLJpMDLXF2PY0awsCzEQkbM8/s320/ps-haves.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5512446731771770802" border="0" /></a>different from those we have so valiantly attempted to differentiate ourselves from. And indeed, social stratification in the United States has already reached such a point that the wealthy class is <span style="font-style: italic;">entirely out of touch</span> with just how much money they make, and just how little the poor do not.<br /><br />We are recreating those societies as we speak; the sooner we all realize this, the better.<br /><br />Our economy, simply because this country is so enormously, unfathomably rich, will of course recover from our 'recession', and recover relatively quickly. But (until we corral our economic obesity) we will learn nothing from it because <span style="font-weight: bold;">we can't</span>. We are dependent upon these fictional revenue streams until the system breaks down completely, which it ultimately will (if history is any guide), upon which we will suffer through a terrible recalibration of actual and imagined wealth. I shudder to think how this will play out, but again, if history is any guide, the stakes are truly life and death.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-71708234088659790082010-08-11T22:16:00.000-07:002010-08-11T22:17:19.402-07:00Penelope Fitzgerald's The Bookshop: A Brief Review<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319388.The_Bookshop" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="The Bookshop: A Novel" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1267596033m/319388.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/319388.The_Bookshop">The Bookshop: A Novel</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3222.Penelope_Fitzgerald">Penelope Fitzgerald</a><br/><br />My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/116381900">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br /><br />Penelope Fitzgerald is a brilliant writer; in terms of prose this book holds up with all the classics. She is very funny too - if you enjoy that dry, subtle English sense of humor you will love this novel.<br /><br />I found the theme of the novel to be so much more than the book jacket indicated. This was about the pending shift from the old power structure to the new. The protagonist is perfect because she is a middle-aged woman, seemingly harmless, but she has the courage and gumption to take on the establishment, in her own very adorable way. She is conscious of the danger but unwilling to yield her principals. She is the new England: the 'commoner' that becomes a business owner, dares to tackle culture, undaunted by aristocracy and its mechanisms of suppression (political, legal, nepotism, cronyism, etc.). And she makes headway. From this it is clear the power-structure is teetering on the brink of change, as a result the old machinery is in a state of panic. This is the irony - they are threatened by no more than a little bookshop.<br /><br />Meanwhile, she has the sympathy of this mysterious old fellow who is also a symbol of perhaps the more benevolent, gallant side of the waning English aristocracy. Anyhow I won't say anymore except that without recognizing these larger themes the book wouldn't have been nearly as interesting as it was, so I wouldn't look at it as little more than a character study of quaint village life. I just finished 'Remains of the Day' before reading this and found many parallels.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/831328-polomoche">View all my reviews >></a>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-87216069561918077822010-08-11T21:33:00.000-07:002010-08-25T11:36:47.031-07:00Gladkov's Cement: A Brief Review<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143523.Cement" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Cement (European Classics)" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172155860m/143523.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143523.Cement">Cement</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82960.Fyodor_Vasilievich_Gladkov">Fyodor Vasilievich Gladkov</a><br /><br />My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/27970434">4 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />Most Westerners familiar with Russian Lit immediately cast this book into the 'not worthy of real literature/soviet propaganda' dustbin (I suspect because their prof told them to and, I would imagine, without even reading it). Comments I read on Goodreads, for instance, summed up the general sentiment: "This book is only of academic interest... written as stalinist agitprop... bereft of any characterstics that would qualify the tome as literature."<br /><br />A shame, because '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Cemen</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">t</span></span>' is a fascinating insight into the (granted, naive) spirit of post-revolutionary Soviet Russia. Historically it is a little like<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"> John Reed's 'Ten Days That Shook the World'</span>: it captures very vividly a moment in time that is vital to understand if one wishes any insight on modern Russian History. <br /><br />In terms of literature, while not on par with <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Turgenev</span>, what writer is??? If we were to use the 'great russian writer or bust' criteria for evaluation we'd eliminate the vast majority of novels ever penned. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Gorky</span> isn't there either (though better than <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Gladkov</span>), but he's very good. Gladkov has his moments. His style is sparse, pithy, certainly prescient in terms of what was to come. Aesthetically something is afoot, mirroring the revolutionary changes taking place in the arts during this period - graphic art, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Shostokovich</span>, etc...<br /><br />In short, a must read for anyone interested in the spectrum of Russian Lit. Give it a chance before you chalk it up to Soviet propaganda.<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">UPDATE</span></span>: Having just read <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Lermontov's '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">A Hero of Our Time</span>'</span> (highly recommend), I must say there is a terrible double standard in Russian literature. We forgive Lermontov's shaky prose just as we forgive <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Gogol</span> for burning a good portion of '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Dead Souls'</span></span> in his fireplace - all because of the moral, social, and historical merit that makes both novels extraordinary. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">'Cement'</span></span> is just as extraordinary in this sense, yet for whatever reason is not forgiven for fairly mild literary shortcomings. </div><div><br /></div><div>And yet we do know the reason. Criticism of 'Cement's mild literary shortcomings is merely a ruse for a general attack on the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Soviet propaganda machine</span>. And for good reason: we justifiably abhor the extent to which the Soviets oppressed people generally and the arts specifically. </div><div><br /></div><div>But to make "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Cement</span></span>" a scapegoat for Soviet censorship, oppression, etc., is a serious mistake. This is a novel that captures very beautifully not only an important moment in history but also the nascent emergence of many modern issues and practices transcending early Soviet life. The emergence of day care, for instance. Or the rights of women. The novel in fact is centered very much on the difficult adjustment <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Gleb</span> and <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Dasha</span> must make in reuniting; their newly-defined relationship certainly resonates with contemporary issues. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Franz Boas</span> would have a field day. </div><div><br /></div><div>It is time to dissociate the crude connection between <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Gladkov</span> and what is now a very impotent/obsolete political discourse, and rediscover the worthy place '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Cement</span></span>' occupies in Russian literature.</div>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-59501903316009213202009-11-13T08:41:00.000-08:002009-11-13T10:13:56.532-08:00Meeting with Doug Hollan<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusizB-mNzNI7WC69hWvkp3YYGnAUxLfIo4mzfurMp072LRjQBzIpinO_-2zrAhHJ70T1IJMvcOZrncpWDuScd8pAX9K3kuVPc9Ythw_Ok0QWPxvvRhHzo4ZbP10wQBDzyiv21f-klrJ8/s1600-h/d_hollan.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 100px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgusizB-mNzNI7WC69hWvkp3YYGnAUxLfIo4mzfurMp072LRjQBzIpinO_-2zrAhHJ70T1IJMvcOZrncpWDuScd8pAX9K3kuVPc9Ythw_Ok0QWPxvvRhHzo4ZbP10wQBDzyiv21f-klrJ8/s320/d_hollan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403646437246897090" border="0" /></a>I had the good fortune of meeting recently with my old mentor, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr. Douglas Hollan,</span> a Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UCLA. He is also an Instructor at the Southern California Psychoanalytic Institute and President-Elect of the Society for Psychological Anthropology. <span>His theoretical interests include psychological and cultural anthropology, ethnopsychology, cross-cultural psychiatry, and person-centered ethnography. He conducted his fieldwork among the Tana Toraja in Indonesia.<br /><br />His impressive academic credentials notwithstanding, he is most importantly a tremendous teacher. Thus far in my life no one single person has influenced me more in terms of my general world view and specific academic theoretical and methodological perspectives.<br /><br />In the course of our conversation one of my primary impressions was the extent to which, having once been a promising student, I am now - much to my chagrin - a full-fledged layman. The discipline has progressed into new territory with which I am utterly unfamiliar, to say nothing of the vague, cloudy haze representing all prior knowledge I once possessed on the subject matter.<br /><br />No matter; I took in this reality with a certain sangfroid, reassuring myself that one's predisposed inclinations, talents, gifts, etc. will eventually - given a serious, diligent, and persistent work ethic - prevail over a self-imposed period of academic dormancy.<br /><br />I will admit, however, incredulity regarding how the discipline could have possibly carried on without me! Surely the massive, nearly insurmountable intellectual and creative void left in the wake of my departure left Anthropology reeling - perhaps academia in general. In any case, apparently they have somehow recovered.<br /><br />In giving consideration to resuming an academic career, it strikes me that before tackling the painful and loathsome process of applications, standardized tests, letters of recommendation, etc. it makes sense I should immerse myself in - heaven forbid - the actual material I might be studying.<br /><br />Dr. Hollan (everyone calls him Doug; due to some sort of built-in decorum I am incapable of calling him anything but Dr. Hollan) has graciously allowed me this opportunity through a course he teaches, Mind, Medicine and Culture, and I have been very excited to dive in and read, read, read.<br /><br />From time to time I will post my impressions here, beginning with a few excellent articles written on <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stigma</span>. Now, </span><span>In communicating my own thoughts, it should quickly become clear that </span><span>while I am a true proponent and champion of Anthropology, I am not a sycophant. I have a strong and often very critical point of view, derived from a true passion for the discline and its potential influence on other perspectives. Indifference will not enter the equation. </span>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-55437744902796447532009-10-06T16:36:00.003-07:002009-10-06T17:07:39.468-07:00The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Conspiracy of CultureIn this entry I examine the John F. Kennedy assassination from a unique, and - so far as I know - new perspective, relying heavily on anthropological constructs but adding a few of my own as I go. Let's dive right in.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">I. Cultural Context: Dallas, TX in 1963</span><br /></span>Dallas in 1963 represented perhaps the polar extreme of America's right-wing animosity towards John F. Kennedy's liberal policies. A number of exhibits clearly reflect this exaggerated sentiment: <span style="font-weight: bold;">1</span>. the Assault of Adlai Stevenson on October 24, 1963; <span style="font-weight: bold;">2</span>. An eerily prescient November 17th article in the Dallas Morning News calling for an "Incident-Free Day"; <span style="font-weight: bold;">3</span>. A "Wanted for Treason" pamphlet distributed week of visit; and <span style="font-weight: bold;">4</span>. A "Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas" advertisement placed in the Dallas Morning News signed by Bernard Weisman. Let us examine each:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/stevenson.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 186px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/stevenson.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. "Dallas Has Been Disgraced": Assault on Adlai Stevenson</span><br />On October 24, 1963 - a month prior to Kennedy's visit, U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson was assaulted by hecklers outside Dallas' Memorial Auditorium Theater after delivering a speech on United Nations Day. Struck over the head by a picket and spat upon, the incident was condemned in an article in <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875296,00.html">Time Magazine</a>, an editorial in the Dallas Times Herald, and by Governor John Connally, who called what transpired, "an affront to common courtesy and decency". (Read the original Time Magazine article <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,875296,00.html">here</a>).<br /><br />One important takeaway from this earlier, more mild (but nationally noteworthy) incident was the reaction it provoked from Dallas civic leaders: <span style="font-weight: bold;">condemnation</span>. Though it seems obvious, that they didn't explicitly endorse the behavior illustrates a second dimension of our cultural analysis: while on the one hand there existed a streak of strong anti-Kennedy sentiment, on the other there also existed an ethic of hospitality to visitors and, more importantly, decorum and sanctity towards elected American officials. As I will discuss later, these two ethics were in irreconcilable conflict with one another, two sides of a cultural dilemma that would ultimately play out on a larger stage: an earthquake in culture, redefining American ethos.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/incident-free.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 78px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/incident-free.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">2. "Incident-Free Day Urged for JFK Visit"</span><br />After the Stevenson assault, the potential to further jeopardize the national reputation and image of Dallas was clearly enough of a concern that on Nov. 17th the Dallas Morning News ran the remarkably prescient headline "<span style="font-style: italic;">Incident-Free Day Urged for JFK Visit</span>". The article identifies both evidence of general preexisting animosity and the spirit of hospitality leaders wanted to preserve.<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">"The President of the U.S. represents the highest and proudest office in the world. And he will be welcome. Our reputation as the first city of Texas and the friendliest town in America has been earned and won by Dallas people through the years."</span><br />- <span style="font-size:85%;">Robert B. Cullum, President Dallas Chamber of Commerce</span></span></blockquote><br />We now know, of course, a drama of the deepest national gravitas was about to be acted out on the Dallas stage. What is most extraordinary, given the above headline, was that tickets were sold in advance. Taken from a wide lens, the news of Kennedy's pending assassination was portended several days earlier in virtually every publication.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/civil.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 172px; height: 104px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/civil.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>I will later argue this represents indirect evidence of premeditated and unconscious collective knowledge of what was to come, something I call <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cultural Prescience</span>. A watershed moment in American history was momentarily to occur; it is plausible that given the weight of the pending act, we might identify indicators of early unconscious collective recognition, worry/anxiety over pending danger, etc. Such headlines are, at a minimum, a recognition of elevated tension and agitation. Certainly we see unconscious remorse once the act is committed, something I will discuss later.<br /><br />For now let this merely serve to illustrate the heightened state of animosity/tension surrounding Kennedy's visit to Dallas.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/treason.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 346px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/treason.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">3. "Wanted for Treason"</span><br />This handbill was distributed in the streets of Dallas in the days preceding Kennedy's arrival, illustrating again the degree of hostility located at the extreme of the Dallas cultural spectrum.<br /><br />Of particular interest in our analysis is the language of this and the following article. In the list of grievances, words pertaining to "Communism" occur with significant frequency (i.e.; "He is turning the sovereignty of the U.S. over to the communist controlled United Nations", etc.). "Communism" - rooted squarely in the middle of the Cold War - was a powerful cultural symbol, that is, an idea widely discussed/shared, emotionally laden - an integral component of the Dallas sociopolitical vernacular. That such a charged symbol might be idiosyncratically manipulated by one of its marginal actors should come as no surprise, as we will discuss in a moment.<br /><br />Aside from the language, this and the following are examples - again - of the degree of hostility present in the political extremes of Dallas culture, and therefore represent a fundamental constituent of the spectrum of meaning associated with President Kennedy and his visit.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/welcome.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 313px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/welcome.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">4. "Welcome, Mr. Kennedy, to Dallas"</span><br />This political advertisement, placed in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dallas Morning News</span>, also is heavily laden with "Communist" accusations, and on face value would serve only as additional evidence to substantiate the general anti-Kennedy animosity present in the Dallas cultural spectrum.<br /><br />Its importance, however, extends further.<br /><br />The advertisement had particular relevance to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jack Ruby</span> (Oswald's assailant). The bottom of the page was signed by a "Bernard Weisman, Chairman of the American Fact-Finding Committee". Ruby, who was Jewish (Jacob Rubenstein) apparently worried that an advertisement disparaging the President had been endorsed by someone of Jewish descent. According to his later testimony, once the President had been killed, Ruby was fearful the assassination would somehow be tied to a Jewish conspiracy. Were he able to demonstrate - on his own - the loyalty and courage of a Jew, he would therefore be able to counteract this potentially devastating stigma.<br /><br />Irrational, but nevertheless extremely important logic (i.e.; <span style="font-style: italic;">his</span>) to what I will discuss in more detail later: Ruby's marginalized and distorted idiosyncratic expression of a cultural ethic shared by all.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >CONTEXT ANALYSIS PART A:</span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >An Elevated Probability</span><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" > </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >for Action</span><br />The Stevenson assault and the Kennedy assassination can be made similar by reducing our descriptive variables to more general ones. We find then they differ only in terms of amplitude:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/action.gif"><blockquote><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; display: block; cursor: pointer; width: 628px; height: 210px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/action.gif" alt="" border="0" /></blockquote></a></div><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><br /></span><span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />By the above definition, the said ACTION described took place in Dallas once in October, then again in November. That one happened to be an assault and the other an assassination is, in the manner we have defined it, a matter of semantics - a difference only in amplitude. In short, a recurring phenomenon.<br /><br />Now, we can reasonably assume not every citizen in Dallas was capable or inclined to club Adlai Stevenson over the head with a picket, and certainly not to shoot the president. It is thus likely neither Oswald nor Mrs. Fredrickson represented the average Dallas citizen. Something behaviorally idiosyncratic must have separated them from a normative mean (we of course know this was the case with Oswald; so far as I know Mrs. Fredrickson's past is unknown).<br /><br />Despite a lack of familiarity with our beloved Mrs. Fredrickson, let us suppose both Lee Harvey Oswald and Mrs. Fredrickson occupy the margins of Dallas culture where this particular ideal is concerned. We will label them <span style="font-weight: bold;">cultural extremes, </span></span>following<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Ruth Benedict's</span> (1934) category of deviance: an individual too much like the cultural stereotype or valued ideal. A cultural extreme is thus a person just like everyone else, only more so; a caricature of an ideal. <span><span> "Anti-Kennedy" anger/hostility shared in varying degrees by all within the unconscious Dallas ethos is expressed and experienced more significantly in these particular actors</span>. </span> This may be roughly analogous in some respects to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Devereux's</span> (1956) analysis of "sacred" disorders:<br /><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;">...his conflicts are simply more intense than those of other members of his group, though fundamentally of the same type and involving the same segment of the personality, the ethnic unconscious. He is quite often like everyone else - 'only more so'.</blockquote><span>Under static cultural circumstances, </span><span>a given ideal is generally not volatile enough alone to propel an actor - even one located on the extremes - into atypical or abnormal behavior. The likelihood for deviance, however, is increased significantly under conditions of <span style="font-weight: bold;">cultural agitation</span> such that existed in Dallas in 1963 as we have previously described. In the case of cultural agitation, all members are "buzzing", much like molecules in a heated beaker. The most marginal or unstable of those members - residing closer to the metaphorical "boiling point" - are most likely to deviate into unusual or atypical action:</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/culture.gif"><blockquote><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 526px; height: 215px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/culture.gif" alt="" border="0" /></blockquote></a></div><span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><span><br />From this pattern we might posit the following:</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypothesis</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> A</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">In 1963, general sentiment against Kennedy and his perceived agenda had reached a degree of amplification in Dallas culture, such that certain marginal actors within it - thrust into atypical circumstances - were more likely to cross normative behavioral boundaries</span>.</blockquote></div><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span>Let us now look at the sources of this general cultural "agitation".</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;">CONTEXT ANALYSIS PART B:</span></span><span style="font-size:130%;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Conflicting Pillars of Culture</span><br />To set the contextual stage of November 1963 in Dallas, Texas, we thus have identified the following ideals in conflict: <span style="font-weight: bold;">1.</span> a component of extreme animosity towards President Kennedy and his politics; and <span style="font-weight: bold;">2.</span> a contrasting component of cultural hospitality and American Patriotism, punctuated by a reverence/love for the sanctity of the highest American public office.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/dallas_texas_r.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 260px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/dallas_texas_r.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>In this light, John F. Kennedy was both reviled and revered, loved and hated. His politics were treasonable; his office was sacred. It is this <span style="font-weight: bold;">contradiction</span> I argue was the <span style="font-style: italic;">true engine</span> of elevated agitation in Dallas. A <span style="font-style: italic;">President as Traitor</span> should evoke hatred, even violence. But a <span style="font-style: italic;">President as Sacred</span> must be revered and respected. The two ideals were irreconcilable. Were culture a distinct, complex organism, these two fundamental and inflexible pillars would represent unsustainable seeds of internal conflict for which dramatic resolution was necessary.<br /><br />Consider, if you will, a scenario in which the <span style="font-style: italic;">only</span> amplified ideal present was "President as Traitor." Were there no ambivalence - no complementary component of "President as Sacred" - then the degree of cultural agitation would be significantly lessened. There would in fact be no conflict at all: the President is a traitor, he must therefore be removed/deposed. Once he was gone we would see no sadness, grief, or remorse; the act would be culturally approved, even rewarded.<br /><br />By adding the dimension of Patriotism - of sanctity, of loyalty, of reverence, ultimately of love - we create true cultural conflict, both unsustainable and demanding resolution. (I will argue later the result of the Kennedy assassination was, in fact, a collective resolution of the above conflict).<br /><br />There is another issue, however, we must address before we continue. One might argue it would be simplistic to reduce the "President as Traitor" ideal as one generally applicable to Dallas and not isolated to the radical far-right from which it originated. To this reasonable assertion we would respond by pointing to strong evidence of the ideal's <span style="font-style: italic;">cultural resonance.</span> Though the intensity of the sentiment was greater to the right, the ideal was understood and grappled with - to varying degrees - among the full spectrum of Dallas culture.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/slug.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 263px; height: 103px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/slug.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>In this sense, if we view a change-state culture as one in motion (i.e.; perpetual transition) then what takes place on its periphery is extremely important to the normative whole, because its periphery represents a potential future: a frontier of uncharted psychocultural territory which - in the event said "migration" is sanctioned (via resonance) - will eventually become absorbed into the larger gestalt. Thus a marginal ideal, particularly if resonant, will receive unconscious attention and require cultural reconciliation before it might take its place among the existing emotional/symbolic framework. This is one of the ways we might explain a phenomenon such as <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cultural Prescience: </span><span>analogous to the extended "feelers" of a slug, exploring new terrain before committing to a given direction</span>. <span><br /><br />For instance, extreme cultural agitation (i.e.; revolution, war) might propel even normative types into "deviance", potentially allowing the eventual sanction of whatever might then transpire. Given, then, such potentially high stakes, as culture becomes agitated, sensitivity towards peripheral action takes greater import: a slug extends its feelers only when it begins to move.</span><br /><br />To view the American President viscerally - as an enemy, a traitor - was something new in the context of post-WWII American affluence/jingoism. Though the bulk of this sentiment may have resided in the polar regions of the cultural ethos, that it <span style="font-style: italic;">resonated</span> with the larger group - even in lesser degrees from its point of origin - required redefining the definition/emotional investment of the shared symbol "President of the United States" in the general sense. It was necessary, in a nutshell, for the general ethos to lose some degree of innocence, naivete, and ultimately cohesion, in order to cope emotionally with a future world of increased political polarization and - possibly - civil fracture. That we see similar patterns in today's political milieu - even after readjusting our degree of emotional investment in the office of President - pays homage to the prevailing strength of this long-standing cultural dilemma.<br /><br />In any case, I digress. For the moment let us posit the following:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypothesis</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> B</span>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dueling/Conflicting cultural components of animosity versus sanctity towards the symbol of "President" fueled general cultural agitation in Dallas, triggering idiosyncratic attempts at unconscious "resolution" among its peripheral actors.</span></blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><span>Note that the problem, illuminated in this particular light, should be very troubling to anyone wary of reductionist cultural explanations for individual behavior. This concern I quite understand and share; however the ideas I will present, though focused on culture, I argue are no means mutually exclusive of person. Idiosyncratic personal expression is, in fact, vital to my analysis (perhaps explaining why I use the word "idiosyncratic" with such frequency!).<br /><br />Preexisting examination of this event in American history has focused too vividly on the individual actors (in particular, fixating on what I would call their "manifest" rather than "latent" motivations), wholly neglecting the larger and more revealing cultural context. The only manner in which the larger context has been addressed (peculiarly, I will argue) is in the form of <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">conspiracy</span>.<br /><br />In other words, there exists a collective suspicion of some larger framework lurking behind the Kennedy assassination, but this suspicion can only be expressed through a search for conscious, tangible connections, rather than in unconscious relationships. In a search for a collective culprit, we have persistently fixated on concrete red herrings (i.e.; "Oswald took orders from Castro!" or "Ruby was a hitman for the mob!") rather than uncomfortably acknowledge our own collective culpability in what was ultimately a necessary cultural "crime" fundamental to repositioning our collective psychology in order to adapt/cope/keep up with a changing world. </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/cronkite.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 224px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/cronkite.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><span>I have thus very intentionally framed the conflict as a collective one. These clashing, friction-causing pillars of culture, so situated, were not only the internal conflicts of the individual actors in question, but rather the conflicts of essentially all its cultural members - experienced in varying degrees </span><span>and from varying perspectives - but understood by all</span><span>. <span style="font-style: italic;">Everyone</span> familiar with the Dallas milieu was confronted with some degree of unresolved, persistent conflict between two dueling, deeply ingrained values. In the context of post WWII jingoism, </span><span>an American Patriot</span><span> could not possibly view his/her President as a despised traitor, yet in a changing world of increased political polarization, it was precisely this possibility banging tirelessly on the door, begging for introduction into the broader cultural spectrum. Culture, in order to move "forward", required an essentially colder, less intimate view of the symbol, "President"; </span><span>a cultural shift was necessary away from the degree of emotional investment required of its conventional placement in the collective psyche. </span><span><br /><br />The myth of Camelot, in short, had to end.</span><span><br /><br />What is most unusual is that a such a vital collective problem would be played out by the culture's most peripheral and marginal actors</span><span>.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span>I believe the reason for this is that culture is cruel: we nominate the weakest and most peculiar among us to do our dirty work.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span><span>Let us now examine the two most prominent of these actors, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lee Harvey Oswald</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jack Ruby</span>, each as a personification of the above components in conflict.</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">II. Lee Harvey Oswald: A Communist in Dallas</span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/oswald_wife.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 272px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/oswald_wife.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Given the context as I have described it, a Communist in Dallas is an oxymoron. That the assassin could have been a Communist seems (and seemed) absurdly misplaced; Dallas was probably the last place on Earth you might expect to find one. While we have identified preexisting conditions portending an act of violence, the source of said act should have - by all accounts - emerged from the extremes of the far-right, not the far-left!<br /><br />So why didn't it?<br /><br />The answer is it absolutely did.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lee Harvey Oswald</span> will forever remain a riddle as long as we try and decipher him as a true Communist (it should be noted every attempt to do so thus far has failed). Viewing him in this light is at best baffling and at worst comical; any close analysis has concluded his various attempts to adopt a Communist identity, while certainly not lacking in panache, were a dismal and complete failure - nothing short of a joke. The pursuit of Oswald as a legitimate Communist is a small sanguine fish by any other name.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/oswald_smile.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 173px; height: 250px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/oswald_smile.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>We only begin to understand <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lee Harvey Oswald</span> when we consider "Communism" within the context of the culture from which he emerged. The symbolic location of "Communism" in 1963 American culture was laden with a laundry list of stigmatic linguistic associations. This very stigma, combined with the allure of a powerful, enigmatic, foreign movement placed in opposition to all that threatened him - was precisely what attracted Oswald. "Communism" was Oswald's bedfellow solely because of its uncanny similarity to his own troubled interpersonal history and oppositional frame of reference. He was not a Communist at all; he was a marginalized personality desperate for an identity to empower his own need for grandiosity and place. For this reason he could never genuinely embrace life in the Soviet Union; it ultimately didn't interest him. His true interest was in a fantasy of antithesis to his own culture - nothing more.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypothesis C: Lee Harvey Oswald was not a Communist, but rather gravitated towards the stigmatized </span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> role and </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">location of "Communism" within his own culture, because it reflected and reinforced his own marginal and rejected place within it. </span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The True Identity of Lee Harvey Oswald: A Dallas Misfit </span><br />Oswald's self, defined in <span style="font-style: italic;">opposition</span> to the shared modal type, only underscores its inescapable and vice-like hold on him. As such, his identity can be measured only by the Dallas cohort, rather than by the farcical "Communist" costume he was trying so unsuccessfully to wear.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/cuba.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 173px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/cuba.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Thus his adoption of a "Communist" identity in a fiercely anti-communist environment is a peculiar means of expressing unconscious <span style="font-style: italic;">allegiance</span> towards the very ideas he seemed so adamant to oppose. Given his psychological instability, it should come as no surprise that collective expression would resonate most strongly and peculiarly in this particular actor.<br /><br />Note also it is not a coincidence that the language contained in the far-right handouts and newspaper advertisements were riddled with references to "Communism" while the eventual assassin was similarly decorated. That they stood in ostensible opposition is a falsehood, a triviality; both were <span style="font-weight: bold;">saturated in the web of meaning</span> surrounding the core cultural conflict in question.<br /><br />If his motivation was to oppose his own cultural milieu, his fight was a futile one. In truth he was <span style="font-style: italic;">more</span> vulnerable and susceptible to its suggestions than perhaps any other actor within it. He was fundamentally weak: an impressionable personality with no solid emotional ground upon which to stand, and thus highly susceptible to the “Cultural Agitation” present in Dallas in November of 1963.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypothesis D: Lee Harvey Oswald - not a Communist, but a Dallas misfit - was subject to his own culture's ideals and in fact more vulnerable to their amplified internalization and </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">idiosyncratic </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">expression.</span></blockquote><br />The resonance of general sociopolitical "anti-Kennedy" agitation would have taken particular strength in his troubled character. The subsequent expression of that impetus, while extreme, might be viewed (from someone very cold and objective) as nothing more than his continued idiosyncratic manipulation of his culture's symbolic lexicon, in a failing effort to resolve interpersonal conflict (of course Oswald, given his grandiose needs, tended to prefer the biggest fish in the lexical pond). Just as he manipulates the cultural symbol of "Communism" to suit his own unique psychological purposes, so does he also manipulate the symbol of the "President of the United States".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/oswald_life.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 250px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/oswald_life.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The common thread of his symbolic manipulation is <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">grandiosity</span>. He did not quietly become a "Communist"; his defection received national attention. His choice of symbol was intentionally provocative to his peers. Nor, of course, did he quietly shoot a public figure; it was this element of attention, of notoriety - more than any other - that drew him to a target otherwise difficult to explain.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/focus.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/focus.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>His true motives become particularly clear in analyzing Oswald's actions after the assassination. It seems odd Oswald did not make any serious attempt to flee; in fact he did rather the opposite. Savvy enough to escape the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Texas School Book Depository</span> (even after being stopped by an officer), he went to his apartment, took a pistol, and essentially returned to the crime scene. That he was able to initially escape undetected but then be captured so shortly thereafter (after shooting a police officer, no less) demonstrates his true psychological need in committing the act to begin with: recognition. His calm, confident, and almost smug demeanor after his arrest is further evidence of the psychological gratification his capture provided him. It was ultimately what he wanted and why he did it. He seemed to be enjoying himself because he was.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >THEORETICAL APPLICATION: Why Kennedy?</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/kennedy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 237px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/kennedy.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Let us examine the second most important mystery of Oswald's act: <span style="font-style: italic;">Why Kennedy?</span> (The first most important question, <span style="font-style: italic;">Did Oswald have any help?</span>, I address later as the crux of my argument).<br /><br />When viewed from our initial, erroneous position - "Oswald the Communist" - the facts just don't add up. In the months preceding the Kennedy assassination, Oswald attempted to shoot and kill <span style="font-weight: bold;">General Walker</span>, a right-wing zealot Oswald considered a "fascist". Despite gallant conspiratorial efforts, no one has been able to successfully explain why Oswald would suddenly shift from a radical right-wing assassination target to one located squarely on the left (A "Frontline" special on this topic did their very best to dramatize this dilemma to full effect: asserting it was a question Oswald "had taken to his grave" and ending with a macabre shot of his tombstone).<br /><br />By framing Oswald correctly, we might provide a more satisfactory answer.<br /><br />If we examine Oswald as a "Dallas misfit" - vulnerable to the general collective ethos - his choice of target makes perfect sense, no more or less logical than Mrs. Fredrickson hitting Adlai Stevenson with a picket. As a marginal actor - a cultural extreme - in the Dallas milieu, the "anti-Kennedy" ideal had potential to make the strongest unconscious impression upon him. "Anti-Kennedy" fervor - cultural agitation - was the perfect blanket to settle over his grandiose interpersonal needs. His conscious motivation (to be someone, to do something extraordinary) masked his true unconscious motivation (to express/actualize a valued cultural conflict/ideal).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/motorcade.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 210px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/motorcade.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>His plan was impulsive. The path of the motorcade past the Texas School Book Depository was pure happenstance (proof of this lies in how his job there was arranged: spontaneously, by his wife's friend Ruth Paine two weeks prior to the motorcade). In his desperate search for a target, one magically presented itself to him (thus were the motorcade route never printed in the newspaper, the assassination would never have transpired). The target resonated not only because of the elevated status of the President (appealing to his need for grandiosity) but also because of the general "anti-Kennedy" agitation in Dallas (resonating brightly within him and reflecting his ultimate and deep-rooted need for group <span style="font-style: italic;">inclusion</span>, not exclusion). Because of his marginal location and fragile sense of self, Oswald was more susceptible to this agitation than most, so much so that he acted upon it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/cop.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 163px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/cop.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Oswald, in this light, strangely and peculiarly personifies the ethic "President as Traitor". Violence was not Oswald's solution alone; it was a sentiment familiar to many within the Dallas milieu: voiced, desired, just not acted upon. The idea was an emergent property of individual thoughts and experiences; assassination resided in the organism of culture. Troubled, weak, needy, impressionable - it was Oswald who received the nomination to act out a terrible but necessary collective deed.<br /><br />Once committed, however, the tables were immediately turned. Given the two competing/dueling ethics at work, the moment one was fully expressed, the other was allowed to grieve. "President as Sacred" - ultimately the loser in this battle - now had a brief, remorseful moment in the sun, not only for Dallas but the entire country.<br /><br />This ethic too required a volunteer from the cultural margins. The sacred President was a value in equal need of personification. The full expression of both components of cultural conflict was vital to its resolution.<br /><br />Enter Jack Ruby.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">III. Jack Ruby: <span style="font-style: italic;">You Killed My President, You Rat</span>!</span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/shooting.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 300px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/shooting.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>In order to understand <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jack Ruby</span> and his actions with any degree of clarity, he must first be properly identified within his general cultural context - similarly to as we have done with Lee Harvey Oswald. Like Oswald, Jack Ruby was little more than a troubled, marginal character, vulnerable to a "buzzing" cultural ideal. Like Oswald, he is best understood as a cultural extreme, only his ideal was the complementary pair to Oswald's: the opposing pillar of culture - "President as Sacred" - in irreconcilable conflict with "President as Traitor".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypothesis E: Like Lee Harvey Oswald, Jack Ruby was also a Dallas misfit, more vulnerable to the amplified internalization and </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">idiosyncratic </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">expression of broader cultural ideals. The ideal "President as Sacred" was particularly salient to him, strongly resonating on both psychological and cultural levels.</span><br /><br />Again, if we attempt to consider Ruby as <span style="font-style: italic;">anything</span> other than a marginal misfit - whether a pawn of the mob or a hitman carrying out the final act of a conspiracy - we come up absolutely empty-handed. Despite a remarkably persistent effort (a persistence for which we can account for, as I will in a moment), repeated attempts to force Jack Ruby into some conspiratorial hole have proven futile.<br /><br />When, however, we examine him as a troubled, marginal Dallas character, we are rewarded with tomes of supporting evidence.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Effect of Kennedy's Death on Jack Ruby</span><br />It is reasonable to say Kennedy's death had <span style="font-style: italic;">cultural resonance</span>; the profound effect of his assassination on the American populace is indisputable. But like any cultural event, how it was experienced <span style="font-style: italic;">varied</span> among its individual actors, according to their location, degree of symbolic identification, relevance to individual psychodynamics, and so forth. The Dallas population was, for instance, perhaps generally more emotionally effected by the assassination, given their close proximity to it. Certainly the small group with direct contact to the Dallas Police station were exposed to an immediacy not shared by others and therefore had greater potential to experience the impact of Kennedy's death more profoundly.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/strip.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 255px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/strip.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Jack Ruby lived on the margins of this small "Dallas Police Station" group. His "after-hours" club, the Carousel (let's just call it a strip club, a rose by any other name), catered to Dallas police officers; for this reason he was well known among them. He served them gratis drinks, gave them exceptional treatment, etc., and in return they turned a relatively blind eye to his frequent and well-documented acts of temperamental violence. Ruby considered himself a friend of the police, and in fact he was. That he was granted such easy access to the Dallas Police Station only underscores their connection.<br /><br />Ruby was thus a marginal member of the group with closest proximity to events and characters surrounding the assassination. Such membership, however, was far from sufficient criteria to shoot someone. There were certainly others similarly situated (even other marginal members, I would imagine) who would never have killed Oswald. We must therefore assume that in order for Jack Ruby to commit such an extraordinary act - to so grossly violate existing social norms - Kennedy's death had to resonate within him <span style="font-style: italic;">more significantly</span> than with those sharing similar proximity to the event itself.<br /><br />Let us consider the cultural and psychological dimensions behind this exaggerated resonance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cultural Resonance: Like Everyone Else, Only More So</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/press.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 190px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/press.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Jack Ruby exhibited a number of peculiar behaviors prior to his murder of Oswald illustrating how profoundly Kennedy's death effected him. Foremost among them was the closure of his business (it might be interesting to discover what percentage of Dallas businesses closed their doors, and for how long, following Kennedy's murder - I doubt many shut down for three days). In mood, he was said to have agonized over the assassination. Certainly, it received his undivided attention: Ruby attended all the various news briefings at the police station and lingered there constantly in the days following Oswald's arrest.<br /><br />The actual shooting was spontaneous. Ruby placed a telegram next door to the station and in a span of 90 seconds walked down a ramp into the basement area where Oswald happened to be being escorted out at the same moment. The timing was serendipitous (perhaps not the correct word); Ruby simply pulled out his gun, pulled the trigger, and proclaimed, "You killed my President, you rat!"<br /><br />Note Ruby did not say "You killed <span style="font-style: italic;">the</span> President" but rather, "You killed <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">my</span> President". The location of "President" in Ruby's internal symbolic web was significant enough to warrant a place of intimacy and familiarity. Further, his identification with the police - the very band of characters whose role was to enforce the consequences of Ruby's own violent behaviors - allowed him indulge in a sort of delusional role-reversal. Suddenly, it was Ruby's turn to enforce an obvious and much-needed consequence, desired overtly by all. It was his chance to be a hero. Only he, Ruby, possessed the courage and gumption to act upon what everyone else ultimately wanted. It was this "buzzing" collective ideal - combined with a desperately desired positive/valued cultural role - that spurred Ruby to take matters into his own hands. Like Oswald, he was a marginal character, weak and (unlike Oswald) mentally unstable, the perfect candidate for an ideal to resonate with an unusual and peculiar brightness.<br /><br />Again, the <span style="font-style: italic;">desire</span> to shoot Oswald - the urge to act out this collective need for vengeance - was by no means Ruby's alone. When it was reported Oswald had been killed, the audience outside the Dallas police station <span>broke out into applause</span>. After his arrest, Ruby received many letters expressing appreciation for his deed. In fact, directly after committing the act Ruby was convinced he would indeed be hailed as a hero. That he was arrested and charged came as something of a surprise.<br /><br />Thus again we see a shared/collective ideal expressed through an individual actor. This alone, however, is not adequate to explain such an extraordinary deviance from normal spectrum of action; it is necessary to identify an additional layer of individual psychological resonance.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Idiosyncratic Vulnerability: Ruby's Ambivalence Towards His Jewish Identity</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/crazy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 202px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/crazy.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>To compound his marginal status, Jack Ruby suffered mental instability at the time of the Kennedy assassination and during his imprisonment thereafter. Prone to paranoid delusions, his individual state of mind was such that we might understand more easily his idiosyncratic behaviors.<br /><br />The primary expression of his delusions came in the form of a deep-seated ambivalence towards his own Jewish Identity.<br /><br />For a Jewish businessman in 1963 Dallas, Texas, concerns over anti-Semitism were by no means unfounded. There were valid reasons and pressures to anglicize one's name; the result, however, was to present difficult and unique challenges in self-identity and place in culture. For Jack Ruby, ambivalence towards his own Jewish identity was only a small portion of a very troubled background for which again I leave to elsewhere. The reason I isolate this aspect of his person is because it comprised the idiosyncratic language and context of his symbolic manipulation.<br /><br />Jack Ruby's idiosyncratic motivation was rooted in paranoid delusion. He believed that the killing of Kennedy would ultimately be tied to a local Jewish conspiracy, a fear connected to the name "Weisman" on the anti-Kennedy advertisement he had read earlier and been angered by in the paper. By killing Oswald, he could defend an unwarranted and brutal attack on Judaism (already taking place - in his mind - in the form of torture at the building where he was housed). His paranoia is evident in a letter to his brother Earl:<br /><span style=""></span><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style=""><span style="font-weight: bold;">...you still may be able to save Israel. By getting to Miami either hitch-hike or some-way. You won't be able to fly because they will be watching for you. From Miami you must find a way to Cuba, by pretending to rent a boat to go fishing, and get to Cuba someway. From there you must find a way to Russia. Then you tell the Russians how Egypt has been using them all along, but they are much closer to Johnson, because of what is happening to the Jews in the U.S. Then they will understand what kind of person Johnson is, and then they may be able to save Israel.<br /></span></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style=""><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:85%;">- Letter from Jack Ruby to his brother Earl</span></span></span><br /><span style=""><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style=""> </span></div></blockquote>Thus the motivation behind Jack Ruby's spontaneous act of shooting Lee Harvery Oswald was compounded in layers from the idiosyncratic (exacerbated by mental illness), to the collective: a general resonance of grief and anger surrounding the death of the President, resonating within him with particular strength. Only in this manner - as a marginalized character personifying a shared ethic - are we able to explain his actions with any degree of clarity.<br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Two Troubled, Fragile Actors Residing on the Margins of Culture</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/mugshots.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 193px; height: 250px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/mugshots.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>We have identified both <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lee Harvey Oswald</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Jack Ruby</span> as persons residing on the margins of culture, from troubled backgrounds, lacking psychological stability, desperate for identity, and thus susceptible to the idiosyncratic expression of shared ideals, particularly those strongly resonating with personal struggles/crisis, both real and perceived.<br /><br />Viewing both characters as such results in a more robust explanatory framework accounting for the vast majority, if not all, of the activities and behaviors surrounding the assassination.<br /><br />Why, then, the persistent and stubborn preoccupation with <span style="font-weight: bold;">conspiracy</span>? The exercise is riddled with inconsistencies, scrutiny in one area and leaps of faith in another. Such patterns are always indicative of a latent agenda. One of the odd aspects of our collective suspicion, for instance, is the imagined culprit: the identity of the "true" conductor(s) behind the orchestration of Kennedy's death really makes no difference to us. It could be the CIA, Castro, the Russians, the mob... Who cares? What is more important is that someone - <span style="font-style: italic;">anyone</span> - else was involved in addition to these two miserable characters.<br /><br />Indeed, when we look at them closely, do either of these two gentlemen appear to be candidates for the starring roles in a conspiratorial play? Were you coordinating an elaborate plot to assassinate the president, would either men come to mind in your casting of the most vital parts?<br /><br />My suspicion is no.<br /><br />And yet, that is precisely what we have done. We picked the most fragile and broken among us to do the work of the collective whole - to express in action an attempted resolution of a cultural conundrum.<br /><br />What is most striking about our strong and lingering fixation with <span style="font-weight: bold;">conspiracy</span> is less what it has yielded in terms of tangible facts (essentially none), than what it has revealed in terms of residual collective need. Our collective psyche <span style="font-style: italic;">wants</span> a conspiracy - demands it - but again and again an examination of the facts reveals nothing but a few flimsy straws. Even with the assistance of science to disprove empirically a number of the more originally plausible assertions (i.e.; multiple shooters, magic bullets), the suspicion of conspiracy persists. Why?<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span><blockquote><span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Hypothesis F: The search for a conspiracy will never be satisfied because, in fact, there was one: a conspiracy of culture</span></span><span style="font-weight: bold;">. </span></blockquote><br />It is this phenomenon which is the crux of my argument and one I would now like to examine in greater detail.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">IV. The Assassination of John F. Kennedy: A Conspiracy of Culture </span></span><br />John F. Kennedy's murder did not involve the CIA or the KGB, a second shooter, or the grassy knoll. The assassination was executed by the general populace, an emergent property of our own collective psychology, in an effort to resolve an irreconcilable collective conflict. The unusually persistent quality embedded in our search for a conspiracy is, in essence, an admission of collective culpability and guilt.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The End of Camelot</span></span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/camelot.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 175px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/camelot.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>John F. Kennedy's death was a defining and sharply transitional moment in American history, since described as "the end of Camelot". Indeed, the President and the First Lady, both young, attractive, and charismatic, were celebrated and romanticized much like monarchs of yesteryear.<br /><br />Certainly, the connection to monarchy was not a coincidence. The symbolic language of Representative Democracy blankets nicely over longer-standing and more traditional forms of government. For this reason a "President" has historically resembled a monarch, or collective father figure, in terms of emotional identity among our culture's individual actors. This was particularly true among the jingoism and national affluence following WWII.<br /><br />It was precisely this growing emotional investment which had to - facing a changing world - reverse course and assume far less significance in the collective psyche.<br /><br />Kennedy's assassination was sobering and grave, not only because of his loss, but also because there existed a collective recognition that something had changed culturally. There was no going back to what was - a sort of naivete, an innocence, a denial of our society's capacity to inflict harm upon itself. That an American citizen - even a radical one, located on the social margins - could shoot an American president was an added blow to the grief and suffering caused from the loss of a symbolically significant person. It was this, more than Kennedy's death itself, which caused such extensive shock. Something in the act had compromised the general American cultural cohesion.<br /><br />The moment marked the resumption of American political polarization, delayed by post-WWII jingoism and general material affluence.<br /><br />The reason polarization had to resume was because the symbolic framework belied a cohesion in America that was no longer possible; it was now <span style="font-style: italic;">necessary</span> for the extremes - given changing socioeconomic conditions, issues, etc. - to continue distancing from one another. What once had unified them had now to make way. The spectrum of culture had to be extended to accommodate both the changing world and the differing views regarding what to do about it. All corresponding symbols therein therefore required recalibration in terms of normative emotional investment.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Camelot had to end</span>. Between these two conflicting pillars of culture, something had to give, simply because their inherent resiliency had made their dual existence obsolete and impossible.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/tsar.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 350px; height: 184px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/tsar.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The <span style="font-weight: bold;">assassination of Tsar Alexander II in Russia in 1881</span> follows a very similar pattern. The Tsar, at the time, moved freely among the people - a fundamental and celebrated ideal in Russian culture. For what Tsar could not mingle among his subjects? He was, after all, ordained by God to rule benevolently, revered and admired by all, etc. And yet, at the same time, worsening socioeconomic conditions and inherent inequities had given birth to an oppositional cohort who viewed the Tsar as a bitter enemy and target. His assassination thus represented the end of a vital ideal: very simply, a Tsar could no longer mingle among his subjects because some of them wanted to kill him. The cultural spectrum has expanded to such a degree that what had once been a cherished value now had to be collectively (and, in some cases, bitterly) repositioned. The world had forever changed; Tsar Alexander II's assassination sent seismic waves in all directions throughout Russian culture with great future implications on policy, perspectives, and so forth.<br /><br />Deeply grounded ideals linger. They are both resistant to change and inflexible. Therefore, when placed under strain they at first do not budge an inch, even in the face of absurdity. When the strain becomes insurmountable, they do not bend, they shatter. The result is an abrupt, seismic shift in culture.<br /><br />Let us look back at the assassination with the benefit of time and perspective, and ask ourselves how our collective perception has changed.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >A Contemporary View</span><br />Today, we look back at footage from the Kennedy assassination with incredulity. Why? Because it strikes us as odd that a motorcade could parade through a city with a President so carelessly exposed: no shield, no bullet-proof windows, etc. Today, the President in his public appearances actually wears a bullet-proof suit. His vehicle consists of an "eight inch thick body, tear-gas cannons and inner Kevlar tires that keep moving after a burst". In other words, today we are less naive; we recognize the possibility - or inevitability, if given the opportunity - of potential political violence among the general citizenry towards its leaders.<br /><br />Today, the polarized spectrum of politics in America is a reality we no longer question. There might be some form of residual collective longing for a more unified country, but even that seems to be waning. Harmony is hardly the new black.<br /><br />In retrospect, looking back at the reaction of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Walter Cronkite</span> to the death of the President seems - while touching - almost sappy. We would be hard-pressed to find a contemporary commentator who, when thrust into similar circumstances, might genuinely express such sentiment (there certainly would be plenty willing to fake it). Today we are - again, in terms of relative degree - colder, harder, and more emotionally distant to our politicians.<br /><br />Our culture has changed.<br /><br />I don't intend to sound cynical, but rather to illustrate how difficult it is to find sustaining examples of "pre-assassination" political and social culture. Of course, we live in a different world for a myriad of reasons that extend far beyond the Kennedy assassination. The significance of the moment (and our subsequent preoccupation with conspiracy) is to show the collective roll of an abrupt cultural shift. So exaggerated and amplified were these events in our collective psyche, we are able to see hints of phenomena that are everywhere in our cultural and psychological lives.<br /><br />I quote from an AP article written a year after the assassination, reflecting upon the prevailing sentiment:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-weight: bold;">...for the people, at this time, there is still nothing except the feeling of a cruel, blunt blow. It deprived them of an unexpected beauty. It removed, not so much leadership which Mr. Kennedy had scarcely begun to reveal and which is not lacking in the country now, but the promise of something quite remarkable. </span> <span style="font-weight: bold;">It was just possible, Americans now realize, that Mr. Kennedy would have rephrased their message to the world and to themselves in a way that would have made the <span style="font-style: italic;">changes they know to be inevitable</span> not sad, not tortuous, but exciting. </span><span style="font-size:85%;">- AP, 1964, my emphasis</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Conclusion: Understanding Conspiracy</span><br />Given that the actors in this play were merely extremes of the Dallas milieu - and, by extension, the American milieu - their indictment is ultimately an indictment of ourselves. Their actions were the logical expressions of cultural ambivalence towards a changing world. The casualty was a cultural symbol (sadly an actual person, John F. Kennedy). The perpetrators were the entire American Culture.<br /><br />What followed – the search for a conspiracy – was a tacit cultural acknowledgment of the collective nature of the assassination. There was no actual conspiracy – no 2nd shooter,etc. – proven after decades poring over volumes of evidence; there was rather a <span style="font-style: italic;">cultural</span> conspiracy, a sharp shift in culture making Kennedy's assassination one of the more important events of the 20th century: the end of Camelot, the collapse of the myth of President.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Going Further: The Potential Connection Between Cultural Prescience and Historical Determinism</span><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/marx.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 299px; height: 353px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/blog/marx.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Let us pretend, for a moment, we are <span style="font-weight: bold;">Marxists</span> (we probably aren't, hence the need to pretend). Nevertheless, if Marx was correct, and material conditions dictate the inevitable progression of social development, then it follows that on a psychocultural level we will be constantly left with <span style="font-style: italic;">lags - </span>gaps between how we understand the world and how it really is. If materialism leads the way for sociocultural to follow, then we are forever (in a change-state society) in need of reconciling our collective psychology with new and ever-changing conditions.<br /><br /><span>Thus</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> if</span> determinism in the economic/materialist sense is grounded in empirical reality, <span style="font-style: italic;">then</span> determinism in the psychocultural sense should also follow closely thereafter (That one might precede the other - and in which order - is an interesting and unanswered question, so far as I know). However, the larger point is that theoretically you <span style="font-style: italic;">cannot</span> have one - economic/material determinism - without the other - <span style="font-weight: bold;">psychocultural determinism</span>.<br /><br />In this sense, collective cultural events may be more preordained then we have previously imagined. Granted, a radical notion, but one - at a minimum - warranting extensive and thorough investigation.<br /><br />From the point of view of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Cultural Prescience</span>, assassination resided in the organism of culture <span style="font-style: italic;">for a purpose</span>: the unfortunate, tragic consequence of collective culture abruptly and seismically transitioning to a revised perspective more consistent with the pending future.<br /><br />It is this aspect in particular of my humble analysis I intend to explore further, covering a wide-range of relevant topics.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-7731270961427567292009-09-25T14:03:00.000-07:002009-09-25T14:33:03.370-07:00More Statistics!<p>Virtually every news network is trumpeting the "breakthrough" in an HIV vaccine trial, citing a "31.2%" reduction in the risk of being infected!<br /></p><p><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></p><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;"><p><span style="font-size:130%;">"In the three-year experiment, 74 of 8,198 people who received placebo shots became infected with HIV compared with 51 of 8,197 people who received the vaccine, suggesting the vaccine regimen could have reduced the risk of being infected by 31%.</span></p> <span style="font-size:130%;">The NIH said the results are statistically significant."</span></blockquote>Statistically significant? Really?<br /><br />Considering that less than 1% of either group contracted the HIV virus, how on earth can comparing the two be "statistically significant"??? Couldn't virtually any rare occurrence break down with a similar disparity in distribution?<br /><br />Even if the results are "statistically significant", is it really responsible to conclude the vaccine has resulted in a "31.2% reduction"? That seems a very misleading number to me. Throw in a few isolated cases to one side or the other and the percentage would change significantly. <br /><br />I am no statistician but it seems to me you might come to such numbers arbitrarily, substituting virtually any rare phenomenon.<br /><br />Had the study consisted of 80,000 people, then these results might be interesting. But to come to such conclusions with so few actually contracting HIV seems highly, grossly irresponsible.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-45568204989219496492009-09-13T09:18:00.000-07:002009-09-14T13:10:23.631-07:00The Dangerous Mathematic Slant of Economic Theory: On 'Rational' Free-Market Behavior<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html">Paul Kruger's recent article in the NY Times</a> made an impression upon me; the gist of his argument is essentially this:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"...the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth."</span><br /><br />This got me thinking about how absolutely dangerous mathematics - and "empiricism" in general - can potentially be. The reason these are dangerous is because they appear neutral. Value free. Objective. Based on observable phenomena.<br /><br />In the realm of human behavior, the golden rule - Garbage In, Garbage Out - is an aphorism for virtually any "empirical" study.<br /><br />Economics, it seems to me, relies far too heavily on math. The result is a slew of sycophants, gleefully justifying the free market with clever little equations, giving everyone the impression of a system grounded in fundamental behavioral truths.<br /><br />Economists love to talk about "rational" behavior. The emergent property of consumers - all making independent, rational choices in a free market - results in a near-perfect system.<br /><br />Their attraction to the rational, unfortunately, is not merely derived from its ostensible resonance with observable behavior, but rather from its capacity for quantification. Rational behavior is predictable, measurable, and plugs right into an equation. This, from a strictly scientific view, is a <span>bias</span> that should set off alarm bells. Any behavior that lends itself to a desired methodological approach should be rigorously scrutinized.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5pHsuWDNPM2tS3VMBSrpRgKAdxXg2nJyb1za2LID-BzFtDznCC071uGu6xOF9DS7L7vo-Z20Wsbl67G6eCqRw_aE8-nMc0hIFOR99nh4mP5SahdELtF3WDTNAig6ORDv5XNO2crKlPxI/s1600-h/weber.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 229px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5pHsuWDNPM2tS3VMBSrpRgKAdxXg2nJyb1za2LID-BzFtDznCC071uGu6xOF9DS7L7vo-Z20Wsbl67G6eCqRw_aE8-nMc0hIFOR99nh4mP5SahdELtF3WDTNAig6ORDv5XNO2crKlPxI/s320/weber.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381004974416217362" border="0" /></a>It is not as if there aren't other perspectives. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Max Weber's</span> "<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism</span>" cites <span style="font-style: italic;">irrationality</span> as the <span>defining</span> quality of capitalism:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:130%;">"...The earning of money... thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so irrational from a naive point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence."<br />- Max Weber<br /></span></blockquote><br />So, there appears to be some conflict, or at least irony, in the the idea - on the one hand - that the we should trust in the free market, guided by the collective rational decision-making of its actors, and - on the other - that the very spirit of capitalism itself (the Calvinist-inherited notion of vocation, making money as an end in itself rather than a means to satisfy material needs) is <span>irrational</span>.<br /><br />When we observe our economic system at work, we see all kinds of 'irrational' behavior. It must drive the economists mad. Because there are more factors involved in life-decision making than purely market-driven sensibilities. But Weber's point is a much larger one: irrationality in capitalism extends to <span style="font-style: italic;">even those making the ostensibly correct decisions</span>.<br /><br />To infer the existing system as we know it is grounded in some empirical reality, governed by objective mathematical laws, is both foolish and extremely dangerous. Fortunately it is also false; reality has sent a discipline mired in hubris scrambling for the calculator! I suggest they crush the bloody thing with a hammer and start doing some actual thinking.<br /><br />I do not mean to criticize mathematics - obviously a robust explanatory tool when accounting for a full range of predictable behavioral phenomenon within a contained, rule-governed environment. But the scientific method becomes absolutely overwhelmed when dealing with the Real World, simply because it is impossible to isolate variables or even to identify them all!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcZ0szyWzDqoPX-3oaJTIyBrt98fQNe4HWvP4eG-hmhr_sT49hl_bg6Aa3ardcTnxiLAcS6mVnu9-lns8ofZZ0uYxdPflnlnlSC7Kd-dUdZqway3pV8XgVNBI5_pdBLyO5FXuGIKC8Qg/s1600-h/conclusions.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 177px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUcZ0szyWzDqoPX-3oaJTIyBrt98fQNe4HWvP4eG-hmhr_sT49hl_bg6Aa3ardcTnxiLAcS6mVnu9-lns8ofZZ0uYxdPflnlnlSC7Kd-dUdZqway3pV8XgVNBI5_pdBLyO5FXuGIKC8Qg/s320/conclusions.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381005752368541458" border="0" /></a>And yet they do try, don't they? And what happens? In study after study, not just in economics but virtually any discipline, <span style="font-style: italic;">causal</span> relationships are made from mere <span style="font-style: italic;">correlations</span> (and that even in cases where most of the variables have been accounted for). This results in all kinds of reductionisms: biological, economic, etc. - all of which merely reinforce our general cultural hegemony. Instead of opening up our world, we use science to close it. An institutionalized myopia.<br /><br />That little island in <span style="font-weight: bold;">The Phantom Tollbooth</span> comes to mind: Conclusions. You have to jump to get there.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-50209333257881727582009-07-31T22:43:00.000-07:002009-08-05T16:10:35.891-07:00The Two Conflicted Selves of Turgenev and Chernyshevksy's Need To Respond To One of Them<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD2E6onVTM-rmnCOnwlH4xmClOpTgUSHWDueg_CJcPT0YAUH5SumeC7xmS_ysg5Sius77_uUo0GXTQJ49waGnfKngjzfiTA8sSJ8ItdEDE6zFRoBn1Mm48IkpiSZyd0h-5NNP65rGkJhk/s1600-h/turgenev.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 262px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhD2E6onVTM-rmnCOnwlH4xmClOpTgUSHWDueg_CJcPT0YAUH5SumeC7xmS_ysg5Sius77_uUo0GXTQJ49waGnfKngjzfiTA8sSJ8ItdEDE6zFRoBn1Mm48IkpiSZyd0h-5NNP65rGkJhk/s320/turgenev.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364879273273185458" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Turgenev</span> is someone I truly identify with, not as a writer (a dream, to write so) but as an individual conflicted with two competing identities: one, the liberal <span style="font-weight: bold;">Country Gentleman</span>, fond of nature, romanticism, decorum. Progressive, a humanist, but subject to the comforts of pleasant, secluded life. The other: the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Stern Conscience</span> - provocative, demanding, intellectual, uncompromising. A humanist for whom reform is not sufficient. The table should not be cleared, its legs should be kicked out. Rigorous, disciplined, haughty, and - on some level - hypocritical. <br /><br />Not a terribly flattering portrayal. But I believe <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fathers and Sons</span> is a true projection of Turgenev's conflicted inner world; this - combined with the profound and disruptive resonance the novel created in Russian culture - is precisely what makes it one of the greatest works ever written. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bazarov</span>, the young nihilist, is his Stern Conscience. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nikolai Petrovich</span>, the Country Gentlemen, is his weaker but ultimately more genuine self, hence the internal conflict. <br /><br />Turgenev's life story absolutely reflects this pattern. His hero, the critic <span style="font-weight: bold;">Belinsky</span> (an early pre-nihilist revolutionary, himself the subject of a future post) who died earlier in Turgenev's life, almost jumps out from the grave in demanding Turgenev adhere to his strict moral obligations, while time and time again Turgenev tips his hand with ambivalence towards both the rigors of his responsibilities and the new generation in general. <br /><br />While he desired their approval, their friendship, their sanction, ultimately his opinion of the nihilist revolutionaries was low: <br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"[He]... could not bear their fanatical rejection of all that he held dear - liberal culture, art, civilized human relationships. But they were young, brave, ready to die in the fight against the common enemy, the reactionaries, the police, the State. Turgenev wished, in spite of everything, to be respected by them.<br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">- Isaiah Berlin (p.24) </span></div></blockquote> <br />This leads us to the fundamental question of Turgenev's novel:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><blockquote>Is Bazarov a positive or negative character?</blockquote></span></span><br />That this remains in dispute only further underscores Fathers and Sons' brilliance. My own thesis is that he was a negative character; the fate and portrayal of Bazarov tips Turgenev's hand. <br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Enter Chernyshevsky</span></span><br />Now one of these fellows Turgenev desperately sought approval from was an editor of a radical paper (<span style="font-style: italic;">Contemporary</span>) named <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dobrolyubov</span>, who wouldn't even speak to him. He would literally turn away and face the wall. That Turgenev tried so fervently to seek Dobrolyubov's respect, even under such conditions, shows just how deeply his psyche needed his Stern Conscience to validate his weaker but more authentic Country Gentleman self.<br /><br />The radical Dobrolyubov's fellow editor was a chap named, surprise surprise, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsky</span>.<br /><br />"<span style="font-weight: bold;">What is to be Done?</span>" was written in large part as a response to what <span style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsk</span>y and his cohort considered an affront to their movement: Turgenev's negative portrait of the nihilist Bazarov.<br /><br />That <span style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsky</span> felt he needed to correct the image <span style="font-weight: bold;">Turgenev</span> had created, only underscores Turgenev's true opinion of Bazarov. <br /><br />Why is all this important? Well, Bazarov is often referred to as "the First Bolshevik". Thus Turgenev's opinion of him - historically speaking - is no small trifle. Further, placing the two novels in context with one another helps us understand them both.<br /><br />A cursory and off the cuff analysis, but whatever. Next I will discuss the relationship between "<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">What is to Be Done?</span>" and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dostoyevsky's </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Notes From Underground</span>, as well as the charater <span style="font-weight: bold;">Roskolnikov </span>as an antithesis to the positive/ideal<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Rakhmetov</span>. There is a sort of circular portrayal, fluctuating from the negative, to positive, then back to negative, that has had an enormous impact on subsequent philosophical thought, politics, etc. etc.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Bazarov </span>(ambivelant/negative)<span style="font-weight: bold;"> --> Rakhmetov </span>(ideal/positive)<span style="font-weight: bold;"> --> Roskolnikov </span>(anit-Rakhmetov/negative)<br /><br />Each is a response to the last; anyhow more on this later...<br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-21008203524531554862009-07-30T23:10:00.000-07:002009-08-05T16:10:35.891-07:00What is To Be Done? In Literary and Historical ContextIn the next few posts I intend to discuss the literary and historical context of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsky's "<span style="font-style: italic;">What is to Be Done?</span>"</span> In order to do so I felt it handy to create the diagram below as a point of reference. I may - likely - will add to it, but first want to discuss each individual connection, starting with the relationship to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Turgenev's <span style="font-style: italic;">Fathers and Sons</span></span>. I find this relevant to the general understanding of the Russian Revolution, its relationship to some great works of Russian literature, as well as the various philosophical strains that evolved from the fundamental question it poses. <br /><br />Without further ado, here's the chart (note I've avoided for a moment the progeny of Dostoyevsky because it gets too complicated too quickly. But I will discuss shortly - I'm sure you can't wait):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/images/book_chart.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 600px; height: 1020px;" src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/images/book_chart.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-81271866452330925512009-07-29T17:35:00.000-07:002009-08-05T16:10:35.891-07:00Life As A Finite Pie: George M. Foster's image of limited good<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZfMxtFdigJX5AIT_GQ11S_x_7QuWYOy60Tc6tbKlLI6Fqjlrsyg6SnkgSXfp3b7itdNv-pMcsmfOelG1_n3BxiXZQjLd-k2ge5VvNAWRIGhhTQK0EYQAifkX5j1kroVzS4Q17oZtvDQ/s1600-h/foster.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 187px; height: 239px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZfMxtFdigJX5AIT_GQ11S_x_7QuWYOy60Tc6tbKlLI6Fqjlrsyg6SnkgSXfp3b7itdNv-pMcsmfOelG1_n3BxiXZQjLd-k2ge5VvNAWRIGhhTQK0EYQAifkX5j1kroVzS4Q17oZtvDQ/s320/foster.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5364059019846379138" border="0" /></a>The notion of <span style="font-weight: bold;">life as a finite pie</span> is correlated to the <span style="font-weight: bold;">image of limited good</span>, a term famously and controversially coined in 1965 by Anthropologist George M. Foster (yes, I know, old white guy) to explain peasant behavior:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"peasants in all societies share a common 'cognitive orientation,' which he calls the <span style="font-weight: bold;">image of limited good</span>. Since nothing can be done to increase the resources that peasants divide among themselves, one person's gain is inevitably another's loss. ...[This] accounts for a great deal of otherwise puzzling peasant behavior. For example, people who believe that good is limited will understandably be secretive about their own successes and envious of others'; they will avoid cooperative work situations for fear of being cheated; and they will resist innovations that, in their view, cannot increase the available good. ...this 'image' often persists into an era in which cooperation and acceptance of modern techniques could lead to a better life for all. Peasant communities have strong sanctions against innovation: 'The villager who feels the need for Achievement and who does something about it, is violating the basic, unverbalized rules of the society of which he is a member'..."</span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:85%;">-(<span style="font-style: italic;">Rethinking Psychological Anthropology</span>, Bock p. 144)</span><br /></div></blockquote><br />The above is essentially a verbatim definition of how one might be expected to behave in our world of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers and Fools</span>. Thus the predicament in Russia - one of 'cognitive orientation' (which sounds so - I don't know - sterilized) - is not a unique one. (On a side note, the controversy boils down to essentially that his conclusions were a little too general; probably true, but shouldn't undermine the larger and very valid point.)<br /><br />What is of interest, in my view, is that ultimately we aren't giving those holding the <span style="font-weight: bold;">image of limited good</span> enough credit, when perhaps we should consider such a 'cognitive orientation' may stem from an actual reality: a material world whose resources are indeed limited and finite.<br /><br />Foster's view is in this sense ethnocentric, because the underlying assumption is that in truth, life is <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> a finite pie, but one of possibility, freedom, and liberty. The benefit of one does not necessarily entail the detriment of another.<br /><br />If we accepted the premise that a world exists somewhere in which good is indeed limited and finite, then we run into a bit of trouble when it comes to creating Liberty there:<br /><br /><blockquote style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Liberty consists in being able to do anything which does not harm another.<br /></span><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;font-size:85%;" >- Declaration of the Rights of Man</span></span></div></blockquote><br />Well, in the world of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers and Fools</span>, you can't do much at all that benefits you without harming someone else!<br /><br />Thus we have a bit of a problem on our hands.<br /><br />This is why the <span style="font-style: italic;">spirit</span> of the Russian, French, and American revolutions were all essentially the same: models committed to the preservation of human liberty against - <span style="font-style: italic;">in spite of</span> - what seems to be an inevitably rising tide: increased discrepancies between rich and poor, a greater gap between haves and have nots, increased corruption, greed, croneyism, nepotism, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.<br /><br />One might argue the question, "What is to be Done?" has yet to be adequately answered.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-76345639595727201212009-07-03T16:02:00.000-07:002009-07-05T11:15:43.416-07:00Enter RakhmetovIf you read my last few posts (introducing in a very crude way the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Russian nihilist</span>, tying him in a very crude way to the dichotomy between faith and science, and then providing a very crude sketch of his world - the world of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fools</span>) then it is now time to dig a little deeper and get into the meat of what this is all about.<br /><br />So let's meet one of these nihilists in person, starting with arguably the most important one: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span>. As you will soon discover (particularly once you see his photograph), his influence on Russian history cannot be understated. We will look at him as both hero and caricature, and after that we'll meet his better-known antithesis (and one of the greatest characters in fiction): Dostoyevsky's <span style="font-weight: bold;">Raskolnikov</span>. Then we will tie all of these elements together in a nice revolutionary bow.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYotFuocxfuzANbvN6mf-hmHg4Bi1qIJGNsg3bkjZt5JkWv4Pytl_alNgf910paIA5_ZerPSD8sGM4k-5rogFIhDYCfexxpRbwKQliECA4H9NBBVOa3RdhyphenhyphenZlkngmY9Go1LeC7fiKtrQ/s1600-h/chernyshevsky.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYotFuocxfuzANbvN6mf-hmHg4Bi1qIJGNsg3bkjZt5JkWv4Pytl_alNgf910paIA5_ZerPSD8sGM4k-5rogFIhDYCfexxpRbwKQliECA4H9NBBVOa3RdhyphenhyphenZlkngmY9Go1LeC7fiKtrQ/s320/chernyshevsky.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354471067910571218" border="0" /></a>This is going to be so exciting! But let's back to the task at hand. To meet <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span>, we must return to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Chernyshevsky's </span>novel <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">"What is to be Done?"</span> We must return also to the world and paradox of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers and Fools</span>. Why? Because <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span> has been historically interpreted as Chernyshevsky's answer to this very severe and most fundamental problem - perhaps the most daunting problem of modern civilization.<br /><br />Notice first that both Chernyshevsky's description of the problem and his solution are embedded in the language of characters. You can play the role of either a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindler</span> or a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fool</span>. You can develop into a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vera Pavlovna</span> (the novel's female protagonist). You can model yourself after a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span>. Everything is framed in terms of the individual. This is because his entire approach is - in accordance with the time in which it was written - one of <span style="font-style: italic;">personal character</span>: personal moral and ethical virtue is what interests him; the structure of society is only significant in how it shapes the self.<br /><br />In other words, if society is soil, he is interested in the plant, and from the plant the crop. The soil is only relevant in how it nurtures the plant - it must be rich with nutrients, it must drain well, etc., but in essence his approach is an inverted contrast to the manner in which these issues are discussed in social science today. But I digress, more on that later.<br /><br />Now come on, let's meet <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span> already!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXY_BI4iq1pcvDtSdqKygT32ot3RcLe-PCUpH77OBYKZb7TFdU4uRyI6VnAsjtfHI37V2aUoRioab8dRgOAQYtQ0ISef0BzYpwOrHmOQDPbDwKpsbadGASIlex-JfiMWpAcMHB06nDhy0/s1600-h/fathersandsons.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 128px; height: 198px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXY_BI4iq1pcvDtSdqKygT32ot3RcLe-PCUpH77OBYKZb7TFdU4uRyI6VnAsjtfHI37V2aUoRioab8dRgOAQYtQ0ISef0BzYpwOrHmOQDPbDwKpsbadGASIlex-JfiMWpAcMHB06nDhy0/s320/fathersandsons.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354471325000375010" border="0" /></a><span>It should come as no surprise that</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> Rakhmetov</span> is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">nihilist</span> (Remember "Nothing exists except that which can be observed by the senses"? Hence he is a student of the Natural Sciences) very much like <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bazarov</span> in <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Fathers and Sons</span>.<br /><br />And like the other central characters in Chernyshevsky's novel, he is <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">neither a Swindler nor a Fool</span>. He rejects the Swindler, but he won't subject himself to be the Fool, either. He declares this dichotomy as false and breaks it over his knee, his only weapon his mind.<br /><br />But he is something a bit more too.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Rakhmetov</span> is a moral ascetic hero, an ideal. While most in Chernyshevsky's novel are people willing to dedicate their lives to the greater good, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span> has gone further: he has truly sacrificed his. He lives in the most austere way, selflessly, his actions governed exclusively by the needs of the cause, guided by "principles and not passions, according to convictions and not personal desires.” He eats raw meat, sleeps on a bed of nails, reads voraciously, that sort of thing.<br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">There are only a few of them, but through them everyone’s life will flourish. Without them life would wither and go sour. There are only a few of them, but they make it possible for all people to breath; without them people would suffocate. There’s a great mass of honest and good people, but there are very few people like them. But these few people are within that mass, as thine is in tea, as bouquet is in fine wine. They are its strength and its aroma. They are the flower of the best people, the movers of the movers, the salt of the salt of the earth.</span><br /></blockquote><br />He is, in essence, a professional revolutionary.<br /><br />So why is this all important?<br /><br />Well, in order to explain that I must tell you the story of the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Brothers Ulyanov</span>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpXZSKfm00rvedvGw9rDVfU61wAzBb2RLokjNtxH62TUsZd7nNvdiqZzQv7HV6DSkQCUbVvacLiVDhBIbY_KUvpXJkUUziTAkDWAWOuUkRlfs35o83vHv-OJNfF0wIsYkxnfzq_gaLJng/s1600-h/Aleksandr_Ulyanov.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 165px; height: 236px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpXZSKfm00rvedvGw9rDVfU61wAzBb2RLokjNtxH62TUsZd7nNvdiqZzQv7HV6DSkQCUbVvacLiVDhBIbY_KUvpXJkUUziTAkDWAWOuUkRlfs35o83vHv-OJNfF0wIsYkxnfzq_gaLJng/s320/Aleksandr_Ulyanov.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354467525470288850" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE BROTHERS ULYANOV</span><br />Now, a long time ago, there were two very bright brothers, the Brothers Ulyanov. The elder one, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Alexander</span> (pictured left), went off to University and was arrested for his role in a plot to assassinate the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Tsar Alexander III</span> with a bomb planted in a textbook.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvs9Cntpm7Bet-yzxSuzwZHPeHEbXQ5-IycFFbLvDSfL-VObB6ktfmc0k_slTZXyk3zUlBcwYBpTvOu4Lrdc3_lzKIqkpJK6___PI4bOBVHJzda0xR_J1Q21jafVbSXc2gZBqAfHySIz8/s1600-h/mourning.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvs9Cntpm7Bet-yzxSuzwZHPeHEbXQ5-IycFFbLvDSfL-VObB6ktfmc0k_slTZXyk3zUlBcwYBpTvOu4Lrdc3_lzKIqkpJK6___PI4bOBVHJzda0xR_J1Q21jafVbSXc2gZBqAfHySIz8/s320/mourning.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354473771460833874" border="0" /></a>The event essentially destroyed the family, already struggling with the premature passing of their father the year previous. Alexander was hung, his sister Anna was exiled for her role in the plot, and thus one can only imagine the effect this all had on the surviving younger brother, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Vladimir</span>, and his mother.<br /><br />Indeed,<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">Vladimir Ulyanov</span> realized he knew nothing of his elder brother's political beliefs. One night he went into his brother's room, sat down on his empty bed, and took "<span style="font-weight: bold;">What is to be Done?</span>" from the bookshelf.<br /><br />He read it six times that summer.<br /><br />He modeled his remaining life after this moral ascetic character <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span>. In 1901 he outlined his revolutionary blueprint in a paper entitled, not coincidentally, "<span style="font-weight: bold;">What is to be Done?</span>"<br /><br />Thus the character <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span> came to life in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Validimir Ulyanov</span>, much better known for his revolutionary moniker than his real name. Here is his photo, or rather his mugshot from his first arrest as a youth. I'm sure you'll recognize him. Now, regardless of your opinion of him, whatever it may be (and please, don't make any presumptions about mine; I might surprise you) as I mentioned before his effect on history cannot be understated.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Wt7JbOFffP_SxiAoNDzfsUb3d0wHNqEJ6MTpEaVjGjep1ncSVCZtNV7F4CHlMfdXZE8td7MjQN2t4GeTTMl6lKurcw2zULgXbwpt4_KTVyPy0sLs_mMI-PJumoqg1Dd6u-NidYCVSjo/s1600-h/Lenin-1895-mugshot.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 295px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Wt7JbOFffP_SxiAoNDzfsUb3d0wHNqEJ6MTpEaVjGjep1ncSVCZtNV7F4CHlMfdXZE8td7MjQN2t4GeTTMl6lKurcw2zULgXbwpt4_KTVyPy0sLs_mMI-PJumoqg1Dd6u-NidYCVSjo/s320/Lenin-1895-mugshot.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354467111216817842" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">"He plowed me up more than anyone else... After my brother's execution, knowing that Chernyshevsky's novel was one of his favorite books, I really undertook to read it, and I sat over it not for several days but for several weeks. Only then did I understand its depth... It's a thing that supplies energy for a whole lifetime." - Lenin</span></blockquote><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_Wt7JbOFffP_SxiAoNDzfsUb3d0wHNqEJ6MTpEaVjGjep1ncSVCZtNV7F4CHlMfdXZE8td7MjQN2t4GeTTMl6lKurcw2zULgXbwpt4_KTVyPy0sLs_mMI-PJumoqg1Dd6u-NidYCVSjo/s1600-h/Lenin-1895-mugshot.jpg"><br /></a>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-39905891617745960492009-04-15T16:11:00.000-07:002009-04-15T21:54:11.099-07:00The Adventures of Pinocchio: More on Swindlers and Fools<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTB5cJ5Vfja3fNFFON0gggCoujUcOxLKNN07ExzZVGgD_XI3SSqzPfQpKJtjw2Sr8wCncWLpAZAstzPrLpX2TkTsnAbZMFUm9kDgQ9SdfIqpKPcWu25M4GA1gzt4DGqnQfcbHoE1PeaBQ/s1600-h/pinocchio_cover.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 212px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTB5cJ5Vfja3fNFFON0gggCoujUcOxLKNN07ExzZVGgD_XI3SSqzPfQpKJtjw2Sr8wCncWLpAZAstzPrLpX2TkTsnAbZMFUm9kDgQ9SdfIqpKPcWu25M4GA1gzt4DGqnQfcbHoE1PeaBQ/s320/pinocchio_cover.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325090463407489442" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Carlo Coloddi's "<span style="font-style: italic;">The Adventures of Pinocchio</span></span>", first published in <span style="font-weight: bold;">1880</span> and the inspiration for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Disney</span>'s animated classic "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Pinocchio</span>", is also set in a world of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers and Fools</span>, to the point of caricature, which makes illustrating the idea a bit easier. Pinocchio is obviously a gullible Fool; the Fox and the Cat are Swindlers, and so on.<br /><br />The scene I was most struck by was one neatly capturing the concept of <span style="font-weight: bold;">life as a finite pie</span>: one in which you will be lucky to get a few crumbs; slices reserved only for those who take at the expense and suffering of those around them.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Life as a finite pie</span> is - I would argue - a foreign concept for most of us, simply because we have never experienced it firsthand. We are lucky, because if we did, it is very likely that in short while most of us would be <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fools</span>, and a few of us would be <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers</span>. Most of us would have nothing, while a few of us would have more than their share.<br /><br />But let's get back to the example. In the scene, the Showman<span style="font-weight: bold;"> Fire-eater</span> - the basis for the character "<span style="font-weight: bold;">Sromboli</span>" in the watered-down Disney version (the cricket, incidentally, is crushed and killed by Pinocchio in the original) - calls on his two puppets, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Harlequin</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Punchinello</span>, to bring Pinocchio to him:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"> "Bring that puppet here: you will find him hanging on a nail. It seems to me that he is made of very dry wood, and I am sure that if he were thrown on the fire he would make a beautiful blaze for the roast."<br />At first Harlequin and Punchinello hesitated; but, appalled by a severe glance from their master, they obeyed.</span></blockquote><br />So Harlequin and Punchinello bring in Pinocchio pleading desperately for his life, and the Fire-eater (who "had not a bad heart") for whatever reason takes pity on him. He is saved.<br /><br />Remember, however, that in this world <span style="font-weight: bold;">life is a finite pie</span>. If Pinocchio is not going to burn for the mutton, something - or someone - else will. And that is precisely what happens:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"> "...as you can see I have no more wood with which to finish my mutton, and to tell you the truth, under the circumstances you would have been of great use to me! However, I have had pity on you, so I must have patience. Instead of you I will burn under the spit one of the puppets belonging to my company. Ho there gendarmes!"<br />"Take Harlequin, bind him securely, and then throw him on the fire to burn. I am determined that my mutton shall be well roasted."<br /></span></blockquote><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnDGfcsreddIk7GukOF58zKTbq1jKPBVEt8Zx9kWLRRtHzAM1OeeXxS-wroBw5SF6sW3jBYxYvxJVPfF2bfHAcJJqPMuAmx95MLrM7DmfXsYYHvpH4_V6ZplMxoyywdMw3dV_M7NEvEk/s1600-h/Pinocchio.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 207px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcnDGfcsreddIk7GukOF58zKTbq1jKPBVEt8Zx9kWLRRtHzAM1OeeXxS-wroBw5SF6sW3jBYxYvxJVPfF2bfHAcJJqPMuAmx95MLrM7DmfXsYYHvpH4_V6ZplMxoyywdMw3dV_M7NEvEk/s320/Pinocchio.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5325090810984490850" border="0" /></a>The gendarmes grab Harlequin. Pinocchio, beside himself, now pleads for the life of his friend Harlequin, all to no avail. Finally, Pinocchio - for the first time in the novel - shows he may just have what it takes to become a real boy. He says:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"> "In that case, bind me and throw me among the flames. No, it is not just that Harlequin, my true friend, should die for me!"<br />These words, pronounced in a loud, heroic voice, made all the puppets who were present cry. Even the gendarmes, although they were made of wood, wept like two newly born lambs.</span></blockquote><br />Fire-eater, similarly touched, grants a pardon to both Harlequin and Pinocchio. Note, however, what he has to say about it:<br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote> "I must have patience! Tonight I shall have to resign myself to eat the mutton half raw; but another time woe to him who chances!..."</blockquote></span><br />Thus life is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">finite pie</span>. Every act has a measurable consequence; for every give there is a take. Pinocchio is spared, therefore Harlequin must burn. Harlequin is spared, therefore Fire-eater must eat his mutton half raw.<br /><br />But wait a minute, you say. Eating mutton half raw is a great deal different then being burned alive!<br /><br />Yes, that is true, but that is just the point also. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire-eater</span> is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindler</span> (albeit one, apparently, with some relative measure of compassion); <span style="font-weight: bold;">Harlequin</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pinocchio</span> are <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fools</span>. The consequence for <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire-eater</span> is inversely proportionate to his slice of the pie.<br /><br />In a world where life is a finite pie, stratification becomes inevitable because if someone must swindle for gain, someone else must therefore be fooled for loss. In such a system, when gain for one invariably results in loss for the other, we are left only with some sense of moral ethics (individual character, compassion, empathy, courage, virtue, sacrifice, etc.) as the sole counteractive force tempering suffering and oppression. And when that fails, if we are lucky and happen to live in a place that allows it, we are forced to resort to laws (in this light, a litigious society could therefore be viewed as one of individual moral failing)...<br /><br />Now in the world I personally have had the good fortune live in, none of this could happen of course. Because in my world, although you could make a strong argument there exists a <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire-eater</span>, he happens to have a large pile of wood for his fire, and therefore it is vastly easier for him to pardon <span style="font-weight: bold;">Harlequin</span> and <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pinocchio</span>. He has no dilemma or conflict; he never has to consider whether or not his mutton will be half raw at their expense.<br /><br />In this same world I have had the good fortune to live in, one could argue also that the large pile of wood is rapidly dwindling (and one could also argue that this same pile was itself derived from a world of Swindlers and Fools, hidden from us behind a curtain, across an ocean, or over a border).<br /><br />The question, then, is what will happen to this world when the pile of wood runs out - when the only way that <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fire-eater</span> can get his mutton properly cooked (as he prefers it) is by tossing one of his puppets into the fire?<br /><center><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/n75nvdP12Nw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/n75nvdP12Nw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="265" width="320"></embed></object></center>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-57242683313486626422009-04-11T17:06:00.001-07:002009-07-05T11:12:54.312-07:00Swindlers and Fools<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig9Ekr8rFhjCu-EvQJakNgPQFGSlW46LdOxJtlfeDTbufTRqn_5q4-BPli_FqGJwwjaSdR5ziDLuHeVupOPemVjJUg8624pX4XJjV3-SX3-d_ixIjhD5aO4kPScxJvHsJ7-ICNCVYP4o/s1600-h/chernyshevsky.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjig9Ekr8rFhjCu-EvQJakNgPQFGSlW46LdOxJtlfeDTbufTRqn_5q4-BPli_FqGJwwjaSdR5ziDLuHeVupOPemVjJUg8624pX4XJjV3-SX3-d_ixIjhD5aO4kPScxJvHsJ7-ICNCVYP4o/s320/chernyshevsky.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323620243255712818" border="0" /></a>Before I even begin a discussion of Nikolai Chernyshevsky's "<span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">What is to Be Done?</span>", I want to talk about his world of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers and Fools</span>, for in order to appreciate the characters in his book, it is important that we first accept the parameters of the ethos from which they emerged.<br /><br />The basic idea of <span style="font-weight: bold;">Swindlers and Fools</span> is this:<br /><br />Suppose that life offers absolutely no possibility whatsoever except arduous and unrewarded toil, oppression, and suffering. Life is a <span style="font-weight: bold;">finite pie</span> from which you will be lucky to get a few crumbs, and the only souls who receive a slice are those that do so at the expense and suffering of those around them.<br /><br />In such a world, one has only two choices: either (<span style="font-weight: bold;">A</span>) become a <span style="font-weight: bold;">swindler</span> - someone willing to take whatever they can get from others for their own personal gain, regardless of how it effects those around them; or (<span style="font-weight: bold;">B</span>) remain a <span style="font-weight: bold;">fool</span> - someone who resigns themselves to their dismal lot in life and accepts its innumerable cruelties.<br /><br />In Chernyshevsky's own words:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;">Your entire previous life led to the conclusion that people are divided into two categories: fools and swindlers. “Anyone who isn’t a fool is surely a swindler,” you thought, “and not to be a swindler means that you’re a fool.” This view, Marya Aleksevna, was very accurate; until quite recently, Marya Aleksevna, it was completely accurate. </span></blockquote>At the time his novel was written (1863), Russia was very much this kind of world: a world of extreme social stratification, class inequity, poverty, inhumane working conditions, devoid of human rights, absolutely no opportunity, etc.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1-UGdbX_fI0bfqa7Qf8XEwQq3ormYMfuV9M9bMkI0eFyNtD7HpVuE7TkJjrBxUJktWpEJWEzUWi-Vy-GswjxYqScGF7azpn5B8cL0PXMg9Y4v9L-pcgBwvaTjIfPP14MHwE5kEZgz6s/s1600-h/slumdog.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 208px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgf1-UGdbX_fI0bfqa7Qf8XEwQq3ormYMfuV9M9bMkI0eFyNtD7HpVuE7TkJjrBxUJktWpEJWEzUWi-Vy-GswjxYqScGF7azpn5B8cL0PXMg9Y4v9L-pcgBwvaTjIfPP14MHwE5kEZgz6s/s320/slumdog.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323625909764643586" border="0" /></a>Unfortunately a description that could and can be effortlessly applied to many parts of the world both then and now (including Russia). In fact, I was struck last night by a scene in <span style="font-weight: bold;">Slumdog Millionaire</span>, which presented the "Swindler or Fool" moral dilemma very well. Now, this film has received both criticism and praise, but no matter what you think of all that the moral dilemma holds true:<br /><br />Early in the film, the gangster Maman has enticed Mumbai street children into his "orphanage" in order to train them to beg for money. To increase the children's earning potential, Maman uses chemicals to blind those who can sing well (to make them more sympathetic). One night, Maman and his cronies blind a boy in front of Salim and present him with his moral choice:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Choice #1</span>. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Go get your brother Jamal and bring him to us. We will blind him too, but it will benefit you. You will become one of us. By helping us, you will get things the others don't. More importantly, you will learn that swindling others is the only way to avoid being taken advantage of yourself. Now in order to do this, there is only one caveat: you must become ruthless and heartless, like we are. So let's start with your brother Jamal</span>."<br /><br />- or -<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Choice #2</span>. "<span style="font-style: italic;">Remain a fool and remain someone who will forever be taken advantage of by people like us. You will get nothing, just like the others. In fact, who knows what will happen to you? Perhaps we will blind you instead</span>."<br /><br />The entire premise of this world is that these are the <span style="font-weight: bold;">only two choices</span>. If you accept the premise (as millions have and do) then you <span style="font-weight: bold;">must</span> choose one or the other. And the sad part is, of the two, anyone remotely clever or wise or ambitious will (if they can) opt for choice #1 - the swindler!<br /><br />Don't dismay; this should be heartening, in some respects, because in terms of human nature, it means that in a <span style="font-style: italic;">different</span> world operating under an alternate premise (one, suppose, that offered a few more choices), there might be fewer swindlers (and therefore fewer fools as well). It means that swindlers have the potential to be more humane and compassionate, if given more plausible alternatives. Good (or rather, improved) soil yields a healthier crop.<br /><br />In many parts of the world, the soil has indisputably improved. There are still massive problems, of course, but the fact that we all know there aren't only two choices is relative progress. As is the possibility that life is not a finite pie. Our rejection of this premise is a given, so much so that it is difficult for us to imagine a world of Swindlers and Fools. It is a luxury we have - no, it is a <span style="font-style: italic;">right</span> - a right that many, many people in this world still do not.<br /><br />The most wonderful thing about this right is that it requires nothing but a change of thinking to claim it.<br /><br />Back to <span style="font-weight: bold;">Slumdog Millionaire</span>. In the "feel good film of the decade", at least, there is hope.<br /><br />Salim opts for:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Choice #3:</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Grab brother and run like hell</span>.<br /><br />Hope embedded in this action lies in its potential to prove Swindlers and Fools to be a false dichotomy. Yet Salim never truly escapes it; he remains conflicted by this moral dilemma throughout the story, and ultimately opts to become a Swindler, to his and moreover others' detriment.<br /><br />Chernyshevsky presents a character in his novel that is a "third" kind of person, neither a Swindler nor a Fool. His name is <span style="font-weight: bold;">Rakhmetov</span> and I'll talk about him in my next post. What's great about him is he just so happens to be a Russian nihilist, not unlike <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bazarov</span> in <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Fathers and Sons</span> - but with a wonderful twist - and thus we'll see how all this begins to tie together.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-33918794461527140802009-04-07T10:19:00.000-07:002009-04-08T08:02:02.388-07:00Russian Nihilism: Faith, Science, and the Bitter AtheistLet us suppose that you believe in God, very deeply (if you do, this will obviously require less imagination then if you don't).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvFE00eF8jqekq6ZCrqZAO23p_GzaIZPJ2c1rxeTQ8l3m-E8EZchHE3baAu29eIFtsDBw-9tQhwbCbYwc4wwslRNZCxs6-yDMlXZBSDxWhJ8QjE_aQg7CSNg5Q-ejM_3k818L_Et_UtM/s1600-h/tsar.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 178px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcvFE00eF8jqekq6ZCrqZAO23p_GzaIZPJ2c1rxeTQ8l3m-E8EZchHE3baAu29eIFtsDBw-9tQhwbCbYwc4wwslRNZCxs6-yDMlXZBSDxWhJ8QjE_aQg7CSNg5Q-ejM_3k818L_Et_UtM/s320/tsar.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322059401062389266" border="0" /></a>Let us suppose that you also believe in the <span style="font-weight: bold;">Divine Right of Kings</span> - that is - you believe (again, very deeply) that God has placed a single person to rule over your Land: an Emperor, holy and sacred. Your faith in this Emperor is no different than your faith in God; they are one and the same.<br /><br />Whether you believe in God or not, this second item will likely require more imagination, as there aren't a whole lot of people left in the world who still believe in the Divine Right of Kings, and for good reason. It hasn't really worked out too well in the modern age.<br /><br />Anyhow, there you are, happily feeling this way, when things take a turn for the worse: you and your family begin to suffer. There has always been suffering, so that's nothing new (not to make light of human suffering) but this time, when you attempt to figure out why this suffering has come to be, you and those around you cannot help but notice the Emperor and his policies seem to be causing all the trouble. Try as you may to lay blame elsewhere, the facts point back to that you have always held most sacred.<br /><br />In other words, for the first time you find fault in your own <span style="font-weight: bold;">unquestioned core beliefs</span>.<br /><br />In an instant, everything you ever believed in is a falsehood. For to call the Emperor into question is to call God into question - and ultimately to call belief itself into question. Suddenly one's entire world is unstable rather than sound. What is true? What is real? It is like a game of jenga (I know, bad analogy): pull one piece out and the whole thing topples.<br /><br />Why? Because profound contradictions against an unquestioned world view create pressures so extreme that when core beliefs finally rupture, the result is not to crack but to shatter. Core belief is resilient; it holds on as long as it can, even in the face of absurdity, so when it finally goes, it goes in style. It bursts like a dam.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNYKJqlVx4tZq1hDrJkpuiaVksI2N1Gw1BzfoHZGGV-gayOiKmUGgaGM9f4ncwSzCriJqDURbK9ifMH8mtzWtE6Nn8zRske53PNCTA4w1xtMV6eZjrk4QgEgXog_yfbzAKx8G2_gpNaHY/s1600-h/VanGogh1.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 289px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNYKJqlVx4tZq1hDrJkpuiaVksI2N1Gw1BzfoHZGGV-gayOiKmUGgaGM9f4ncwSzCriJqDURbK9ifMH8mtzWtE6Nn8zRske53PNCTA4w1xtMV6eZjrk4QgEgXog_yfbzAKx8G2_gpNaHY/s320/VanGogh1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322060869590886066" border="0" /></a><span style="font-weight: bold;">Van Gogh</span> described himself as a "<span style="font-weight: bold;">bitter atheist</span>". I always loved this idea: a "bitter atheist" - someone who has been terribly disappointed, betrayed. Someone who once had a profound faith, and then lost it. A very, very different someone than the fellow who turned to atheism out of logic or reason or upbringing, without the accompanying companion of shattered faith (booooring!). Yes, a "bitter atheist" and an "atheist" are not the same thing at all. The former has more to paint about.<br /><br />We live in a <span style="font-weight: bold;">change state </span>culture, that is, a culture where rapid and profound change is the norm, where each generation presents a disconcerting "gap" (not true of all cultures and societies), where each advent in technology presents new social challenges, and thus where, when things break, indeed they tend to shatter...<br /><br />Leaving a lot of bitterness to go around, I suppose.<br /><br />But I digress. Back to nihilism. Back to the poor soul who has just realized everything is a falsehood. Let's help this fellow out at once! Apparently he has a few questions...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Q: So, if I have recently learned that everything I believe in is not true, then how do I go about discovering what </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">is </span><span style="font-weight: bold;">true?<br /><br /></span>A: Well, you begin by clearing off the table:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:130%;">If everything I know is a lie, then nothing exists</span>. </span> </li></ul><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Q: Nothing? That's no fun. There must be something, right? Some truth? How do I find it?</span><br /><br />A: Very, very carefully! Trusting nothing as given (throwing out every assumption you have ever known) you must observe the world around you and make note of everything you can see, touch, hear, smell, feel, etc., no matter how trivial. Later you will look at what you have observed and see if any patterns emerge. Then you will put these patterns to the test and discover if they reveal any truths. Thus:<br /><br /><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-size:130%;">Nothing exists, except that which I can observe with my senses</span>.</span></li></ul><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Q: A little less vague, please?</span><br /><br />A: You will eventually refine this approach into a concrete method: you will create a hypothesis of what might potentially be true, then you will do your very best to prove it isn't, using your full powers of observation and reason. Thus:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><ul><li><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >Nothing exists, except that which you can prove empirically </span><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;font-size:130%;" >to be</span><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></li></ul><br />Now that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Yes, that sounds like a scientist. And the method sounds like the scientific method. Because it is. From this idea - <span style="font-style: italic;">nothing exists except that which you can observe with the senses</span> - modern science is born (or at least refined).<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">FATHERS AND SONS</span></span> by Turgenev<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2bBoKFbwsQSQxHpezZ1KsOv43DCn4yc9BEkhACOCKykQh5DaE1SS0fffzZTKMVoI6Ct5vRk_FcBmOEarpgUdhXXXqTipbbyFXGjo9bK3lhtFXil3ocgH9f8rDWWaZu9RqPSCJHzxyhPg/s1600-h/fathersandsons.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 182px; height: 280px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2bBoKFbwsQSQxHpezZ1KsOv43DCn4yc9BEkhACOCKykQh5DaE1SS0fffzZTKMVoI6Ct5vRk_FcBmOEarpgUdhXXXqTipbbyFXGjo9bK3lhtFXil3ocgH9f8rDWWaZu9RqPSCJHzxyhPg/s320/fathersandsons.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322066632021877970" border="0" /></a>Thank you, Russian nihilism. Now let us look at one of the greatest books ever written, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Turgenev's </span><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Fathers and Sons</span>, to illustrate this extraordinary paradigm shift in point of view.<br /><br />In the white corner, we have <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nikolai Petrovich</span>. He is the father; he loves and admires nature, he believes deeply in the Tsar and God. Nature is divine and poetic to him.<br /><br />In the red corner, we have <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bazarov</span>. He is a nihilist: nothing exists to him except that which he can observe with his senses. Therefore, he recognizes no authority. He does not believe in God or Tsar; he generally has disdain and contempt for any institution supporting what he cannot logically prove to exist.<br /><br />In the middle we have <span style="font-weight: bold;">Arkady</span>, Nikolai Petrovich's son. Arkady looks up to Bazarov, but also admires his father, setting up a wonderful moral dilemma and tug of war. To illustrate, while Nikolai Petrovich cites verse (essentially divine, c'mon its Pushkin), Bazarov has little regard for his sentimental, romanticized view of nature...<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>"Yes, this is spring in all its glory," said Nikolai Petrovich. "Though I agree with Pushkin - do you remember those lines in <span style="font-style: italic;">Eugene Onegin</span>?<br /><br />To me how sad thy coming is,<br />O spring, O spring, sweet time of love!<br />What-"<br /><br />"Arkady!" shoted Bazarov from the tarantass. "Send over a match will you, I've nothing to light my pipe with."</blockquote></span><br />Meanwhile, <span style="font-weight: bold;">Pavel Petrovich</span>, Nikolai Petrovich's aristocratic brother, is far less tolerant of Bazarov than Nikolai Petrovich himself:<br /><blockquote><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />"What is Bazarov?" Arkady smiled. "Would you like me to tell you, uncle, what he is exactly?"<br />"Please do, nephew."<br />"He is a nihilist!"<br />"A what?" asked Nikolai Petrovich, while his brother lifted his knife in the air with a small piece of butter on the tip and remained motionless.<br />"He is a nihilist," repeated Arkady.<br />"A nihilist," said Nikolai Petrovich. "That comes from the latin <span style="font-style: italic;">nihil-nothing</span>, I imagine; the term must signify a man who... who recognizes nothing?"<br />"Say-who respects nothing," put in Pavel Petrovich, and set to work with the butter again.<br />"Who looks at everything critically," observed Arkady.<br />"Isn't that exactly the same thing?" asked Pavel Petrovich.<br />"No, its not the same thing. A nihilist is a person who does not take any principle for granted, however much that principle may be revered."<br />"Well, and is that a good thing?" interrupted Pavel Petrovich.<br />"It depends on the individual, my dear uncle. It's good in some cases and very bad in others."<br />"Indeed. Well, I can see this is not our cup of tea. We of the older generation think that without principles (Pavel Petrovich pronounced the word as if it were French, whereas Arkady put the stress on the first syllable) - without principles taken as you say on trust one cannot move an inch or draw a single breath. <span style="font-style: italic;">Vous avez change tout cela</span>, may God grant you health and a general's rank, but we shall be content to look on and admire <span style="font-style: italic;">Messieurs les</span>... what was it?"<br />"Nihilists," said Arkady, speaking very distinctly.</span></blockquote>Later on:<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>"What have you got there, leeches?" asked Pavel Petrovich.<br />"No, frogs."<br />"Do you eat them or breed them?"<br />"They're for experiments," Bazarov replied indifferently, and went into the house.<br />"So he's going to cut them up," observed Pavel Petrovich. "He has no faith in principles, only in frogs."</blockquote></span>Pavel Petrovich has little regard for Bazarov:<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>"What a calamity it is to have spent five years in the country like this, far from mighty intellects! One becomes a complete fool. You struggle not to forget what you have learned - and then one fine day it turns out to be all rubbish, and they tell you that sensible men no longer have anything to do with such nonsense, and that you, if you please, are an antiquated old fogey. What is to be done? Obviously the younger generation are more intelligent than we are."</blockquote></span>And Bazarov has little regard for Pavel Petrovich:<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>"Do you think I'm going to pander to these provincial aristocrats! Why, its all personal vanity with them, the habit of being top dog and showing off... But enough of him! I've found a rare specimen of water-beetle, <span style="font-style: italic;">Dytiscus marginatus</span> - do you know it? I'll show you."</blockquote></span>Note that <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Fathers and Sons</span> was first published in <span style="font-weight: bold;">1861</span>, while <span style="font-weight: bold;">Darwin's <span style="font-style: italic;">On the Origin of Species</span></span> was first published in <span style="font-weight: bold;">1859</span>, roughly the same time and intellectual milieu. Thus the natural extension of "<span style="font-style: italic;">nothing exists except what can be observed by the senses</span>" is essentially equal to "<span style="font-style: italic;">look at this very interesting idea I have just observed with the senses</span>!"<br /><br />Perhaps this explains the often visceral juxtaposition between faith and science. A shame, really, because when you compare <span style="font-weight: bold;">Nikolai Petrovich</span>'s divine love for nature with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bazarov</span>'s emprical/revolutionary love for nature, the bottom line is they both love nature! Whether one recites Pushkin or the other mumbles in Latin makes very little difference, one could argue.<br /><br />A false dichotomy. But a dichotomy nevertheless, and one worth examining in more detail.<br /><br />Considering that we are living in the "period after the fallen Emperor in which the principles of nihilism have supplanted principles of the divine, to varying and unsettling degrees", it seems to me we should spend some time looking at the Russian revolution, at Chernyshevsky's "What is to be Done?" and some other items, from a new, modern angle (not a Marxist one), in order to see if we can make some sense out of what is happening today. I'll do that in my next few posts.<br /><br />Of course, there may be no relevance to this at all... And most people find looking back at history so incredibly dull, anyhow. For them I leave this description of Nikolai Petrovich's servant:<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><blockquote>Everything about him, from the single turquoise ear-ring to the dyed pomaded hair and his mincing gait, proclaimed him to be a man of the advanced modern generation.</blockquote></span>1850s, baby. Now <span style="font-style: italic;">that's</span> punk rock.<br /></div>J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6869107041291322985.post-24499697675416601342009-03-05T07:26:00.000-08:002009-03-05T07:43:11.683-08:00The Mysterious Case of the Fiat Lorry and Rudolf LacherWhen describing the Ipatiev House, the word "courtyard" turns out to be as misleading to the Romanov story as "corset"<br /><br />To often, when envisioning the house, we fail to do so taking BOTH wooden palisades into account, along with their corresponding gates. We imagine the Fiat lorry to have backed into the "courtyard" located within the walls of the Ipatiev property, when - I hope to prove - that was either quite impossible or enormously difficult, particularly under the circumstances. When rereading the text and thinking of what was really meant by "courtyard", much becomes clear - so much, I believe, that the evidence linking one of the alleged shooters - Rudolf Lacher - is cast into serious doubt.<br /><br />First, let us examine each item:<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE FIAT LORRY</span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.searchfoundationinc.org/Truck_that_carried_Romanov_Remains.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="258" width="372" /><br /><br />Article 1: the Fiat lorry - incredibly important to the crime - and yet so rarely examined in any great detail. "a one-and-a-half ton Fiat, with a flat, open bed of wood slats measuring just 6 by 10 feet and enclosed by wooden side rails." (FOTR, p.300) Think also about this: no rear view mirrors, very crude gear and clutch mechanisms, no power steering, poor turning radius (just have a look at the wheels!), low HP<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE IPATIEV HOUSE GATE</span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.romanov-memorial.com/Out/Ipatiev_House_24.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="162" width="245" /><br /><br />Article 2: The gate to the house, built in 1897, was never intended for motorcars, but rather carriages; as you can see, it was quite narrow with two sizable stone pillars on each side.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE NARROW LANE</span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.romanov-memorial.com/Out/Ipatiev_House_54.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="307" width="450" /><br /><br />Article 3: This is VERY IMPORTANT: "Voznesensky Prospect, some FIVE FEET HIGHER than the Ipatiev house, was separated by a steep bank and a narrow, secondary roadway marked by a small, ornate shrine dedicated to St. Nocholas.<br /><br />One COULD NOT exit or enter Voznesensky Prospect from the Ipatiev Gate (as is so often described). One could only turn onto the narrow lane. Here is another view; you can see, to some extent, the embankment and line of trees separating the smaller road with the broad prospect:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.romanov-memorial.com/Out/Ipatiev_House_60.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="279" width="374" /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE OUTER PALISADE:</span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.romanov-memorial.com/Out/Ipatiev_House_32.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="191" width="360" /><br /><br />Article 4: There are many photos, 3D models, etc. of the Ipatiev House; inexplicably none include a crucial part of the landscape: the external wooden palisade. Remember there were <span style="font-weight: bold;">two</span> fences at the time of the murder, an internal and external. This created a DRIVEWAY or COURTYARD <span style="font-weight: bold;">between</span> the Ipatiev House and Outer Wooden Palisade.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE PALISADE GATES</span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/outergates.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="270" width="450" /><br /><br />Article 5: The outer palisade lined the steep five foot bank and enclosed the narrow lane; the trees were included within the fence. Now - this is also very important - there were TWO palisade gates, one to ENTER and one to EXIT the PALISADE:<br /><br />"The second fence had two gates - one facing the Vosnesensky Lane, the second right opposite them, in the opposite side of the fence, close to the gate of the house... ...The [second gate] was built when we were there, AS IT WAS FOUND THAT AUTOMOBILES HAD MUCH DIFFICULTY LEAVING THROUGH THE FIRST ENTRANCE ON ACCOUNT OF A STEEP HILL. That was the reason why the gates facing the Vosnesensky Lane were constructed. The motor cars entered through both gates, but they left only through the gate facing the Vosnesensky Lane." (Last Days, p.168)<br /><br />Why was it important? Because to go the effort of building a second gate meant there was clearly trouble with the first one - and not with trucks, with automobiles. Notice that the main house gate isn't even mentioned here; it was never used for motorcars.<br /><br />CONCLUSION: THE LORRY NEVER PARKED INSIDE THE "COURTYARD" NEXT TO THE HOUSE. It couldn't: the lane and fence made the confined space TOO NARROW for the turning radius of a long Fiat truck into the narrow house gate.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/errant.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="270" width="450" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/correct.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="270" width="450" /><br /><br />Why does this matter? Because, as I hope to show, it helps create a reasonable doubt for the involvement of one of the alleged shooters, Rudolf Lacher (it also helps us better understand the timing, movement of bodies, etc.).<br /><br />Let us now examine the testimony by following the journey of the Lorry on the night of the murder from the Ekaterinburg Military Garage to the departure from the Ipatiev House (that is all that concerns me here; the remainder of the night I leave to others). I quote often from King and Wilson's FOTR as it gives a great blow by blow account.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE DRIVER</span><br /><br />Serge Lyukhanov, official chauffeur to the House of Special Purpose. This is quite important, as it means he was all too familiar with the difficulties of driving up the hill, turning into the wooden palisade gate, and exiting out the second wooden palisade gate. He'd done it often with automobiles, and it was likely his complaints which led to the construction of the second palisade gate leading out to Voznesensky Lane. This, however, was not an automobile, it was a truck, and one about to be weighed down, both literally and figuratively, by a henious crime.<br /><br />The truck was supposed to have arrived at midnight; instead it arrived at 1:30 a.m. Having informed Botkin to wake the others, Yurovsky "retreated to his office."<br /><br />"Within a few minutes, through the open windows, Yurovsky heard Lyukhanov's truck; with the curfew, it was the only vehicle on Voznesensky Prospect. The Fiat rumbled passed the square and turned through the open gates of the palisade into the sloped courtyard... Yurovsky told Lyukhanov to drive to the opposite side of the square where he was to wait for further instructions. He left the Fiat parked next to the cathedral, while he himself stood in the dusty street, smoking; above him stretched the dark sky, dotted with twinkling stars." p.301<br /><br />Here "courtyard" clearly means the driveway between the outer palisade and the house, not the internal courtyard withing the property walls. If it was possible to park in the internal courtyard, as so many picture, it would have taken quite an effort. And in the end Yurovsky would have told him, "Graceful parking job, old boy, now head over to the church and wait for my command", leaving Lyukhanov with another delicate job of getting out again. The reality was that Yurovsky probably simply called out his direction through the open window and L. drove directly out the 2nd gate.<br /><br />At this point Yurovsky moves into action handing out pistols, briefing men. Medvedev makes rounds and informs outside guards. The Romanovs are ready, Yurovsky brings them into the infamouse cellar room, tells them they "would have to wait until the arrival of a truck; he then disappeared... Yurovsky found Ermakov, and sent him across Voznesensky Prospect to summon the truck." (p.305)<br /><br />This is an extremely tense moment; the Romanovs are actually waiting in the little room while all this is taking place! So getting to the house and parking the truck quickly, particularly given how behind schedule they already are, is CRITICAL. Here is what happens:<br /><br />"Lyukhanov hopped into the cab, driving the Fiat across the prospect and through the open courtyard gates [here, again, "courtyard" is used interchangeably]. Because of the steep slope of the courtyard, he decided to BACK THE TRUCK through the gate, leaving it at the top of the incline beneath the archway; once loaded, he worried that the weight of the corpses would prevent the truck from making its way back up the incline and out the gate." (p.305)<br /><br />The word "gate" and "courtyard" are very ambiguous, considering there are not one but THREE gates, and not one but TWO courtyards. In truth, Lyukhanov, having been through this before, was worried about the steep slope exiting THE MAIN PALISADE GATE. Such difficulty, after all, was the precise reason they constructed the second palisade gate. This places the lorry not in the internal IPATIEV HOUSE COURTYARD but rather in the area in front of the house enclosed by the palisade. <br /><br />Let us suppose there was the remote possibility of backing the lorry in the narrow house gate. It would - at a minimum - have taken several guards, a very patient driver, forward, reverse, forward again, reverse again, wheel cranking, cursing, lurching into gear, etc. All while the Romanovs sat in a tiny room and wondered what on earth was going on. No, time was of the essence and even if it were possible, they could not afford to spend it on arduous lorry driving manuevers. And, for that matter, why? The entire area was enclosed by a massive fence!<br /><br />Now, let us examine how the vehicle departs, with its eleven bodies and six additional passengers:<br /><br />"Lyukhanov started the Fiat's engine, and slowly the truck eased its way up the sloping drive and out of the Ipatiev House courtyard onto Voznesensky Prospect. It passed down the borad, deserted avenue, bereft of all traffic." (p.315)<br /><br />COURTYARD here clearly means the area in front of the house enclosed by the palisade. For if the lorry were parked in the INTERNAL IPATIEV COURTYARD, according to these directions, in order to turn onto V. Prospect it would have had to drive up a five foot embankment and through a wooden palisade! Quite unlikely... <br /><br />Now imagine the truck parked in the area in front of the house, enclosed by the wooden palisade: the truck eased up the sloping drive of the narrow lane and turned right out of the front wooden palisade gate onto Voznesensky Prospect. Voila.<br /><br />By now you are very likely dying to know, WHAT DOES ALL THIS HAVE TO DO WITH RUDOLF LACHER?<br /><br />I will not hesitate any longer. <br /><br />First of all, he was a real person; if he has any relatives, they carry with them the burden of the accusation of murder, a burden I hope to dispel, or at least cast all that should be necessary to exonorate him: REASONABLE DOUBT.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">RUDOLF LACHER</span><br /><br />Here is his photo:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/lacher.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="322" width="252" /><br /><br />A good looking chap. The facts: Austrian prisoner of war. "Joined the Habsburg Army in 1914 and was sent to the Carpathian Front. In 1915 captured by Russian troops in Galicia and sent to labor camp in Urals. After the revolution, 'allowed to do work... provided I had authorization'... secured a job in Verkh-Isetsk factory, largely on strength of linguistic talents... speaking German and Russian... acted as official interpreter... rising quickly through the ranks of his comrades until he came to Yurovsky's notice. (FOTR, p.270)<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE ALIBI</span><br /><br />He claimed on the night of the murders "Yurovsky had locked him into his room at midnight... insisted he had watched through the keyhole of his door as the victims passed, noting that all of the grand duchesses were sobbing as they descended the staircase. Later, he said, after a number of shots, he climbed on his bed and peered out of the window, counting 'eleven bloody bundles' as they were loaded into the waiting Fiat. (p.591) <br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE CASE AGAINST RUDOLF LACHER</span><br /><br />"Lacher's room, directly beneath Yurovsky's office, had one small window, with double panes of glass, sunk deeply into the two-foot-thick stone wall; between it and the courtyard gate, into which Lyukhanov had backed the Fiat, the first palisade was attached to the eastern facade of the Ipatiev House and, beyond this, the main stairs, with high concrete piers on either side, further obscuring the view and eliminating any possibility that Lacher could have seen what he claimed." (p.591)<br /><br />The ONLY other evidence is "inferential": "Netrebin, who recalled that, of his comrades, only Lepa and Verhas did not participate in the shooting." (p.591)<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ANALYSIS</span><br /><br />Let us look at the case, point by point. We need to first see where this window and room were located.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/window.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="142" width="343" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/window_02.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="261" width="354" /><br /><br />You can see that photos of this window are hard to come by; nevertheless while the stairs obscure a small portion of the line of site, virtually all activity in this area in front of the house, once enclosed by a palisade, is visible from this window.<br /><br />"Wait a moment!" says the prosecution. "What about the first palisade! Did you not read the testimony? "the first palisade was attached to the eastern facade of the Ipatiev House" thus obscuring his view.<br /><br />"Have a closer look," says the defense. "The first palisade meets the wall precisely between the commandant's windows, splitting Lacher's window in two. He could, in fact, see quite clearly virtually any activity in this outer courtyard."<br /><br />Here is a muddy photo of the first palisade (this too is often misplaced in models). You can see (barely) the visible half of the window. Look closely, it is indeed there. And more importantly, by viewing the placement of the fence directly between of the upper two windows, based on the location of the window in other posts one can better visualize the 50/50 split.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/window_03.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="295" width="340" /><br /><br />"But if the lorry was in the internal courtyard..." objects the prosecution weakly.<br /><br />"No!" says the defense. "We have spent two previous posts and several hours proving otherwise!"<br /><br />Recall the approximate location of the lorry, based on evidence and testimony:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/correct.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="270" width="450" /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CONCLUSION</span><br /><br />Observe, if you will, his line of sight from said location:<br /><br /><img src="http://www.jeffreystorey.com/lineofsight.jpg" alt="" border="0" height="270" width="450" /><br /><br />"THEREFORE," thunders the defense, "Rudolf Lacher could very well have witnessed the loading of bodies into the lorry. Given the evidence surrounding the true location of the lorry, it is certainly far from IMPOSSIBLE he did not, casting REASONABLE DOUBT to his involvement in the shooting."<br /><br />The judge, aroused from his slumber, looks about dazedly, finds Rudolph Lacher and claps the gavel. "Given the new evidence on the location of the Fiat lorry," he states judiciously (for isn't that what judges do), "You sir, are hereby free to go!"<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">A FINAL NOTE</span>: Having read quite a bit about the murder of the Romanovs, do I believe that Rudolph Lacher was one of the murderers? Well, he certainly could have been. But as his attorney my job is only to demonstrate the weaknesses in the evidence against him, which I have done. Taking off that hat, because of the number of "Letts" used in the execution and Lacher's linguistic skills, it seems logical he may have been one of the shooters. We will never know for sure.J T Storeyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01867585479362487067noreply@blogger.com2