The Unseen Environment

 The campus protests that have roiled the country for the past week-plus have posed something of a political and electoral mystery: why do young voters—many of whom were scarcely aware of the Israel-Palestine conflict a year ago—suddenly care so much about this issue? And why do they seem to pin the blame entirely on the current Democratic administration, in spite of evidence to the contrary?

Of course, many will retort that this is no mystery at all: the war has been horrific, and it makes sense that people would have a strong emotional reaction to the stories of civilian death and famine coming from Gaza. And I would agree with this, up to a point. But it also has to be said that the war has been horrific on both sides of the conflict, and it's not clear why only one has received the attention of the young. 

A Free Press

 A recent essay by an NPR editor, accusing public radio of a liberal political slant, has generated another round of predictable backlash from Republicans. In reality, NPR is no more liberal now than it's ever been, and nothing it is accused of doing in the essay departs from what all the other major players in journalism were doing in the same era. But every few years, it would seem, conservatives need to have a renewed outbreak of partisan furor about this—"your tax payments are going to fund liberal news!"

The truth, of course, is that public subsidies make up a tiny fraction of the funds that actually keep public media afloat. Their real business model relies on donations. But this hasn't stopped Republicans from making hay out of the image of complacent left-wing journalists fattening on the public purse. Nor does it prevent them from inferring a conscious or unconscious political bias from their business model. Because they receive public funds, the argument goes, they will inevitably support "big government." 

Coalition Politics

 There is a great deal of attention being paid right now to the difficulties Biden faces in pulling together the increasingly fractious Democratic coalition. The New York Times's "On Politics" newsletter yesterday dealt with the challenges Biden may face from the current round of campus protests over the Israel-Hamas conflict. 

The problem, as they rightly point out, is that the Democratic coalition not only includes people with different views on this issue—it includes people whose views of the conflict are diametrically opposed to one another. As a result, many analysts are looking with great trepidation at the upcoming August Democratic Convention, when protesters are likely to pour into Chicago en masse to challenge Biden's response to the war. 

Why is Apuleius Still So Entertaining?

 Almost two millennia after it was written, The Golden Ass is still a rollicking good read. I recognize that this may in part be thanks to the translator (I was reading the Kenney version in the Penguin Classics edition); but I think it is also attributable to the book's mastery of the fundamentals of narrative construction. To study it, therefore, is to gain some insight into the basic elements of effective storytelling. I propose to offer such a structuralist reading here. 

I would challenge anyone to pick up the novel (the only full-length work of its kind in Latin to survive from classical antiquity) and not be drawn in. What first wins one over to the book is the author's confiding tone. He introduces us to a hapless but fundamentally plucky narrator (who shares more than one trait in common with his creator, including a career as an advocate). And from the first paragraph of the book on, the author/narrator promises us a good time, including lots of juicy gossip. 

Wizards

 I mentioned in a recent blog that, after Trump was hit with the civil fraud judgment in the New York Attorney General's civil case against his businesses, I briefly felt sorry for him. I couldn't help it. As much as I loathe Trump, the size of this liability struck too close to the heart of my own worst financial nightmares for me not to feel a twinge of anxiety on his behalf. The judgment, after all, was close to half a billion dollars in total. And even without any legal analysis of whether it was deserved or not, I felt like this was a fee I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. 

No doubt this was "the wrong kind of pity"—the politically sterile and misdirected kind—as a central character in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh would call it. "Pity the monsters," to quote Robert Lowell—and here, if anywhere, was a case of monster-pitying. But I couldn't see how anyone could be hit with a civil judgment that size and survive it. I was still thinking, you see, in terms of normal people and their finances. I was thinking about it rationally, and asking the kinds of questions I would have to ask if I were in his position: is he going to lose his home? Will he have to sleep in his car? 

Hair Loss

Jóshùá, áre you gríeving, over gólden gróve unléaving? Yes, I am. More specifically, I am grieving over the gradual unleaving of my pate. 

I still can't be entirely sure it's happening. In front of certain mirrors, in certain lighting, I can still convince myself that my head of hair is as full as it's ever been. It's only when I dare to lift my bangs at an angle that I see the peak steadily creeping up my scalp. And no matter how high I remember this peak being, when I dare to think about it, it seems higher still when I bring myself to look at it a second time. 

Dead End

 Last year, the New York Times published an essay about the eventual extinction of consciousness. Its point was that, according to our current cosmological models, entropy will ultimately spell our doom. Therefore, there will at some point—however many billions of years in the future—be a "last thought" and a last human consciousness. 

Even if humankind manages to survive the risk of asteroid collisions, nuclear annihilation, zapping themselves into an alternate dimension through misfiring a particle accelerator, or any of the other "existential risks" so often talked about these days—even then, that is to say, the universe will still eventually flatten out in a high-probability state of chaos and disorder. 

Tomorrow the Borysthenes

 Yesterday, after Mike Johnson announced his determination to hold separate votes on various foreign aid packages—including aid to Ukraine—Ohio Senator J.D. Vance took the bizarre step of heading over to the House to badger his colleagues in the other chamber to vote "No" on any Ukraine bill. Trump, meanwhile—Vance's svengali—is doing his best per usual to whip opposition to any further aid funding to Ukraine as well. And all of this comes as Ukraine is by all accounts in a dire position. Their backs to the wall, they will imminently lose terrain to Putin if the U.S. does not come forward with more aid. 

What is utterly bizarre about the situation is that the MAGA gang is not even pretending to have some morally cognizable motive for their opposition. It's not clear what benefit they stand to gain or principle they seek to vindicate by blocking Ukraine aid. Yet, they are so profoundly dug into this position! Vance seems to nurse an outright grudge against Ukraine. He actively seems to want Putin to win this conflict. Same goes for Trump. And I don't even know why.  I can't come up with any policy explanation, apart from just having an outright love of dictators and contempt for U.S. allies.  

Pareto's Prophecy

Vilfredo Pareto's Rise and Fall of Elites is often read as a foundational text in the modern disciplines of sociology and political science. Or else, it is viewed as a proto-fascist right-wing screed. Reading it for the first time yesterday, however, I found it to be neither of those things. More than anything, the book is an outstanding work of literary satire, directed—like all the best satire—not toward any one ideology, but against the excesses and hypocrisies of social mores writ large. 

Perhaps the most unexpected thing about this short treatise (which can easily be finished in an afternoon) is how funny it is. And indeed, this appears to be consistent with Pareto's intentions. His literary hero in the book is the ancient satirist Lucian. And in tone, the book puts one in mind more than anything of a Tom Wolfe essay about bourgeois radicals circa 1968. Or, to take a nineteenth century example, Pareto seems to be writing in the tradition of Matthew Arnold's Culture and Anarchy. 

Theories of Laughter

 One time, during a work meeting, we were all sitting around the conference room at the office discussing sports injuries. I had none of my own to contribute, so I tried to offer one from my family's experience. "We went skiing one winter," I explained, "and my mom tore her ACLU." 

I immediately turned beet red. Everyone else laughed. Of course, I had meant to say "ACL," the common abbreviation of the knee ligament that is so frequently destroyed in ski collisions. But, having started on those first three letters, my mouth unconsciously went on to shape the fourth letter of the other famous acronym that begins in the same way. I had been guilty of an automatism. 

Why, though, was this slip of the tongue funny? It seems to me that here is a good opportunity to test the rival theories of humor that have been propounded over the ages. 

The Two Sets of Parents

 In his pioneering effort in the psychoanalytic study of myth, the famous Myth of the Birth of the Hero, Otto Rank takes his point of departure from the fact that societies all over the world have told versions of the same story about their chosen founding figures and culture-heroes. The birth-story of Moses provides a particularly well-known and archetypical example, but there are countless others. The archetype still recurs in modern pop culture as well. Think of the origin story of Superman, which is essentially the Moses legend with a space opera twist. 

In its basic form, the story goes like this: an originally high-born hero faces some sort of persecution from birth, designed to prevent him from coming into the world (frequently, in the myth, there has been some prophecy that he will grow up to destroy and/or supplant his father). He is therefore hidden or left exposed, only to be rescued by humble parents, who raise him in ignorance of his true origin. Through a course of events in adulthood, he eventually discovers his true parentage and takes his rightful place at the head of the nation's destiny. 

Esteem Systems

 Back when the rising generation of MAGA acolytes were still seen as news, one often heard people complaining about how the Josh Hawleys and Elise Stefaniks and J.D. Vances of the world were supposed to be smart enough to know better. "What's the matter with these people?" they would ask. "They all have Ivy League educations! They all went to Yale or Harvard for undergrad and/or law school. Yet, here they are catering to the lowest common denominator in our politics. They have become right-wing culture warriors, opposed to everything that higher education is supposed to inculcate in people, despite their own elite educational pedigree!"

To my mind, though, there was never any paradox about all this. Nothing could be more predictable. The same type of people with the inner drive to wedge their way into the U.S. Congress will also be the type of people who will wedge their way into elite institutions of other kinds. They tend to be people who crave power: and getting into certain academic institutions is a path to power, just as entering politics and parroting the emergent ideology of one's chosen party is a path to power. 

Parent as Deity

 My sister was telling me the other night about a theory of childcare she recently came across. It holds that the ideal parent should act toward their child in much the same way as an ideal God would act toward humanity. In other words, you should love your child unconditionally, but your will should also be ironclad. You should exist above and beyond your creation; you should not long for its approval; and its pleadings and negotiations should have no power to divert you from your purpose—so long as your purpose is fundamentally just and beneficent. Which, of course, it will be; because you are God. 

Admittedly, Freud would say that the reason for this family resemblance between the parent and God is not accidental—since the latter is merely a projection onto the cosmos of our primal recollection of childhood dependence, which some of us then carry with us into adulthood. And so too, it is no coincidence that our individual conceptions of God will often mirror our experiences of our own parents—or our cultural expectations of parenting in general. If we had angry and capricious parents in our lives, we will probably conceive of God in much the same style—and the contrary is also true. 

Twilight vs. Vampire Diaries

 I have only seen one Twilight movie, and I have only seen one episode of the 2008 CW series The Vampire Diaries. But I already feel it is clear that the latter is a much better show than the former. Why? How could that be, when the two properties are so fundamentally similar? 

After all, both are supernatural romantic dramas in which actors in their mid-twenties pretend to be high school students. Both feature broody male vampires as their primary love interests. Both male leads are trying to go vegan, but struggle to tamp down their vampiric urges. Both find their taste for blood is especially aroused by the female protagonist, for whom they nurse a devouring passion that may be either a passion that devours or a passion to devoir—or both. 

Success

 I was watching Brian De Palma's excellent Hitchcockian thriller Sisters (1972) the other night. The movie perhaps goes off the rails a bit in the final quarter, but I greatly enjoyed the first fifty minutes or so. What I especially liked was that there was a plucky left-wing journalist character in whom I could project an idealized version of myself. Here was a character who, by my lights, had the perfect life. The walls of her apartment are covered with clippings from the ornery opinion columns she has written, criticizing the local police force and corrupt politicians. She writes these pieces for a local paper in Staten Island which, despite being local, is nonetheless apparently able to pay her a living wage. 

And I thought: isn't it so typical of the era that this character is portrayed as frustrated in her career and ambitions, in spite of her apparently idyllic existence. People back then didn't realize how good they had it. They had no idea how fortunate they were that such things as local media still existed; that journalism as a middle-class career was still viable; and that the worst thing that could happen to you if you entered it, back then, was that you might struggle for a time in your twenties on the profession's lowest rungs, before scoring a big scoop. Working for merely local media was seen as the worst-case scenario. Not to me! If I had such a life, I told myself, I'd be sure to appreciate it. 

A Rambunctious Nation

 I was chuckling tonight about a recent episode of the Lawfare podcast, Rational Security, in which the hosts explained a chart one of them had drawn about the likely effects of Trump delaying his trials before the election. The drawing shows the effects of the trial delay bottoming out shortly before the November election in a deep gully that the co-host labeled the "black hole of awful." 

And then I was thinking about how much fun we've all had in this way over the last eight years, discussing how miserable Trump has made our politics—what an easy way it has proved to win an ingratiating chuckle of understanding from relative strangers, once you have assessed their politics, to make some mention along these lines of the ghastly horribleness of U.S. politics under Trump. 

Disloyalty

 Politico ran a piece today quoting some wistful comments from Sen. Mitch McConnell about the isolationist turn his own party has taken. And it is indeed staggering how quickly the Republicans have pivoted to an inward-looking nationalism reminiscent of the 1930s. Another piece in the same outlet today quoted a Republican member of the House explaining that he won't back Ukraine aid because it would "perpetuate war." The self-described "America First" right (who cribbed their slogan from precisely the 1930s isolationists who abetted Hitler's rise) have seemingly dropped any pretense now that they are merely holding out for concessions in the Ukraine negotiations. They have come out in the open: they are admitting they don't want to back aid for Ukraine because they don't actually support it.

If you had told me just fifteen years ago that the Republican Party would make such an unrecognizable U-turn on this issue in the next decade, switching from being the party of war hawks to the party of isolation, I might have said that sounded like a good thing. Coming out of the George W. Bush era, it seemed like a little more foreign policy restraint might be exactly what the party needed.