Witches Versus Trump

News that a coven of American witches, assembled via Facebook and including the singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey among their number, met up outside Trump Tower in New York a couple of nights ago for the purpose of casting a powerful binding spell on the President and his supporters, doesn't really surprise me; for I am well acquainted with the delusional vanity of those who believe they possess magical powers.

Conservative Christian groups have reacted with predictable moral outrage and called for action to be taken against those who have, they say, committed an act of spiritual warfare against not just the current administration, but the United States as One Nation Under God. 

But, really, they needn't worry or get too het up; these ludicrous women don't possess diabolical or supernatural powers; just some old candles, a pack of tarot cards, and a disturbing inability to accept the fact that Hilary lost the election. 

Ultimately, this is more about political denialism than pagan occultism ...

                

Carry on Plautus: The Romans in Films and on TV

Frankie Howerd and other members of the cast trying hard 

not to titter on the set of Up Pompeii (BBC TV 1969-70)

According to Barthes, the method favoured by Hollywood to signify Ancient Roman masculinity is the insistent use of a particular hairstyle. In MGM's 1953 adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, for example, all the male characters are wearing fringes: 

"Some have them curly, some straggly, some tufted, some oily, all have them well combed, and the bald are not admitted, although there are plenty to be found in Roman history. Those who have little hair have not been let off for all that, and the hairdresser - the kingpin of the film - has still managed to produce one last lock which duly reaches the top of the forehead, one of those Roman foreheads, whose smallness has at all times indicated a specific mixture of self-righteousness, virtue and conquest."   

The fringe and forelock method, says Barthes, is a sign system operating in the open that not only affords the actor instant historical plausibility, but also provides the audience with overwhelming evidence that they're watching a realistic on screen portrayal of Ancient Rome. Even the non-Romanness of Anglo-American faces doesn't overly distract or amuse; everyone is reassured by this simple technique.

But, one might ask, what of the Roman women; how is their femininity signified within popular culture (and the pornographic imagination)?

Unfortunately, Barthes doesn't provide us with an answer, although he does note how, in the same film, Portia and Calpurnia are both awoken during the dead of night and their "conspicuously uncombed hair" not only expresses their nocturnal surprise, but their inner turmoil and vulnerability (he calls this a sub-sign in the category of capillary meanings).

Given his interest in the language of fashion, I suspect that, had Barthes chosen to analyse this subject, he'd almost certainly have done so in terms of clothes and make-up and related his remarks once more to the cinema. But for someone of my generation and background, growing up in late-sixties/early-seventies Britain, the key point of reference and source of all knowledge about the world (be it true or false, laudible or reprehensible), is television.

Thus it is that my idea of the typical Roman matron was formed by Elizabeth Larner as Ammonia in Up Pompeii. And my stereotypical fantasy of saucy Roman sexpots is similarly shaped by the nubile young actresses in skimpy outfits performing alongside Frankie Howerd, including Georgina Moon as Erotica.  

However, whilst Up Pompeii can be discussed from many critical perspectives, I'm not sure it's possible to read it semiotically. For its signs lack any ambiguity and are neither extreme nor intermediate in the Barthesian sense of these terms.

In other words, Up Pompeii aims neither at realism nor artifice; nor even the duplicity peculiar to bourgeois art (i.e. the hybrid form of naturalness). Viewers are not asked to believe in what they're watching, but neither are they obliged to suspend disbelief; they're simply invited to enjoy the show in all its Carry On style campness and vulgarity. 

Barthes would probably have found it boring; not even a degraded spectacle. But I've a suspicion that the Roman playwright Plautus, whose Greek-style comedies relying upon crude puns and stock characters such as the scheming slave and lecherous old man inspired the writers and producers of Up Pompeii, would have laughed at the antics of Lurcio and company ...

  
See: Roland Barthes, 'The Romans in Films', Mythologies, trans. Annette Lavers, (Hill and Wang, 1978), pp. 26-8.    

Another Brief Note on the Case of Milo Yiannopoulos

Photo of Milo Yiannopoulos by Jill Greenberg

for a feature-interview by Chadwick Moore

in Out Magazine (21 Sept 16)

Among several interesting announcements by a conservatively dressed and contrite sounding Milo Yiannopoulos at his recent New York press conference (called in response to the media hoo-ha over his apparent endorsement of paedophilia), was the fact that he intends henceforth to primarily entertain and educate his audience, rather than outrage his opponents first and foremost.

In other words, Mr Yiannopoulos is attempting to reinvent himself as a kind of pedagogic clown, on a mission, like the great English essayist and playwright Ben Jonson, to mix profit with pleasure, rather than simply act as an alt-right provocateur and internet super-villain.

I wish him luck: the trouble is, however, that in order to succeed he must quickly find a way to make people laugh and demonstrate he has something insightful to say about the world and I'm not convinced he's funny or thoughtful enough to do so. Bill Maher's fawning description of him as a "young, gay, alive Christopher Hitchens" is clearly overly generous. As Peter Bradshaw writes, in comparison to the latter, Milo is dull, suburban and straight. He's certainly no Hitch.

Further, one suspects that his demons will sooner or later lead him back towards what he's perversely good at: pissing people off and arousing hatred. Ultimately, Milo Yiannopoulos is what he is: X (readers are invited to fill in the space by providing their own thoughts and projecting their own fantasies).

He's probably not someone who genuinely wishes to enrich people's lives by informing, educating and entertaining; we have Brian Cox for that. And although he often refers to free speech, he doesn't seem to care about opening up debate or advancing any cause.

For ultimately, he's into chaos - and the cash that comes from chaos; a kind of sex pistol, if you like, spreading a stylish and subversive form of shallow, nacissistic nihilism. And I suppose that's why I can't help having a degree of affection for him - that and the fact he's just so good-looking.


Those interested in the case of Milo Yiannopoulos might like to read a related post: click here.

 

Post 777: Three Sevens Clash

Party flag of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB)

For those who believe numbers carry symbolic weight and magical significance, the number 777 is loaded with cultural, religious and political symbolism. 

Kabbalists, for example, consider three and seven as perfect numbers, thus three sevens side-by-side suggests a form of hyperperfection, which, surely, must be a way to describe God. Christian mystics develop this idea with their insistence that 777 represents the threefold nature of the Holy Trinity. Either way, it's seen as a divine number that counters and eventually triumphs over the Number of the Beast (666).

The esoteric traditions of the East also get excited whenever the number seven appears, as they believe it's the fundamental number underlying (and holding together) the entire universe; thus they babble on about the seven heavens, the seven planes of creation, and the seven sacred openings of the body - 777.

Of course, Aleister Crowley couldn't resist subscribing to this mystical nonsense and absorbing it into his Golden Dawn inspired teachings on the Law of Thelema; a collection of his papers, edited by Israel Regardie, was given the title 777 (first published anonymously in 1909).

Even today, in this modern secular age, 777 is thought to be lucky and signifies a jackpot on many fruit machines. Some readers, however, may recall it being used in a far more sinister context by the neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement; the black numbers arranged on their party flag in a menacing triskelion design so as to resemble a swastika and set on a pure white disk against a blood-red background. 

It's always interesting to note, is it not, how occult mumbo-jumbo and dubious theology invariably sustain a reactionary and authoritarian form of politics ... 

Sympathy for the Devil: The Case of Milo Yiannopoulos

Photo of Milo Yiannopoulos by Jill Greenberg 
for a feature-interview by Chadwick Moore 
in Out Magazine (21 Sept 16).

 

Darling of the alt-right and troll provocateur, Milo Yiannopoulos is, without question, an irritating and often obnoxious little prick; someone who mistakenly believes that because he has a beautiful mouth, he can get away with saying ugly things.

However, I would absolutely defend his right to say those ugly things and think the decision by Simon and Schuster to cancel publication of his autobiography, Dangerous (due out later this year and for which they reportedly paid him a $250,000 advance), is as absurd as the moral guardians at Twitter placing him under a lifetime ban from their news and networking service.

For it seems to me that freedom of speech has to cover what many would identify as hate speech or abusive language, in order to be worth defending. If it only guarantees the right of snowflakes to hear what they want to hear in the comfort of their safe spaces, or merely serves to reinforce liberal values and public opinion, then we may as well rip up the First Amendment.

Similarly, if you pride yourself on an ideal of tolerance, then, my friend, you must learn to tolerate that which and those whom you find intolerable. Only tolerating that which and those whom you find tolerable is nothing to be proud of - in fact it's nothing at all; a mere pretence of sufference in order to hypocritically virtue signal.

Simon and Schuster’s decision followed outrage over the release of a recording in which Yiannopoulos was said to endorse paedophilia. What he actually says, however, is that the age of consent is purely arbitrary - which, obviously, it is - and that a pederastic relationship between a younger boy and an older man can be a hugely positive experience - which, as the ancient Greeks demonstrated, can certainly be the case (I suggest Milo's outraged critics read Plato).

Thus, claims that Yiannopoulos advocated or endorsed the sexual exploitation of children are false and far more scurrilous than anything he has ever said or written. And so, whilst it's hard to feel too sorry for him, I nevertheless find myself sympathetic on this occasion - doubtless thereby earning the contempt and stern, po-faced disapproval of the anti-Milo that is Owen Jones ...


Note: those who are interested in this debate might like to read Owen Jones's righteously indignant piece in The Guardian entitled 'Milo Yiannopoulos's enablers deserve contempt - and must be confronted' (21 Feb 2017): click here.
   
See also the related post on Milo Yiannopouos: click here. 

Lex Oppia: On Women, Cosmetics and Austerity in Ancient Rome

Julie Ege as Voluptua in Up Pompeii, 
dir. Bob Kellett, 1971

The noblewomen of Ancient Rome - being sophisticated and molto moderne - understood that everything that served to display their beauty and enhance their status, including make-up, was of crucial importance. Via a bold and striking use of white foundation, black eye-liner and red lipstick, for example, they struck a blow for their own sex in a patriarchal society and exploited the glamorous power of cosmetics.    

Originally used only for ritual purposes, expensive cosmetics and perfumes imported from far away lands, quickly became central to the life of the privileged few women - and the prostitutes - who could afford to purchase these items and had skilled slaves (known as cosmatae) to help apply them throughout the course of the day.

In 215 BC, however, at the height of the Second Punic War, a law was passed - the Lex Oppia - which aimed not only to limit women's wealth, but any conspicuous display of wealth; specifically, it forbade any woman to possess more than half an ounce of gold, to wear multi-coloured clothing (particularly garments trimmed in purple), to ride in an animal-drawn vehicle through the city streets, or use designer cosmetics. 
  

The Lex Oppia was thus more than merely an economic measure drawn up in response to serious financial crisis; it sought to establish an era of austerity by restricting the freedom and splendour of women. The basis for this sexist moral concern with luxury was the assumption that these things were signs of decadence; they encouraged greed and self-indulgence and, it was said, undermined male virtue.  

Following victory over Carthage, however, fortunes soon revived in Rome as riches from the newly conquered regions began to flow into the hands of the ruling elite, giving them - and their women - the opportunity to lead more excessive lifestyles. Thus, there was a radical change in mood and in mores; with financial woes left behind, there was no reason not to live large or to have dowdy wives and mistresses. 

Any continuing efforts to legally prohibit displays of wealth or deny feminine beauty proved unpopular and largely unsuccessful and it was eventually proposed that the Lex Oppia be repealed, despite vehement protest from Cato the Elder, who argued that the law had removed the shame of poverty and vice of envy because it ensured that all women dressed in a very similar, very simple manner and didn't disguise themselves like whores with too much make-up. 

Cato - a senator well known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization - further insisted that women's insatiable desire to spend money beyond their means on shoes, clothes, cosmetics, perfume, jewellery, and elaborate hairstyles, was an incurable disease that threatened the well-being and good order of Roman society. Once they had been corrupted by luxury, he said, women became like wild animals; no longer to be trusted to restrain thelmselves from rushing headlong into an orgy of lavish and immoral behaviour.

Whilst the men continued to endlessly debate the issue, the women of Rome took to the streets, demanding the right to wear the clothes and make-up of their own choosing and ignoring their husbands and the magistrates who ordered them to return home and remain silent. Amusingly - and impressively - this persistent proto-feminist revolt into style proved successful and the Lex Oppia was formally repealed in 195 BC, much to the delight of the women who paraded victorious in their now legal finery around the Forum. 

On How Not to Be a Feminist - A Guest Post by Maria Thanassa

Spot the difference: Sweden's Minister for EU Affairs and Trade 
and Iran's Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, 
modestly sign a deal in Tehran, 11 Feb 2017
 Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi / AP

It takes so much more than a grand statement of intent on a web page to pursue a feminist foreign policy ...

The Swedish government's decision to suspend its own principles in Tehran because it wasn't the right opportunity to take a stand, is sadly not the first instance of the West failing to put its money where its mouth is; nor will it be the last (especially when its economic interests are threatened).

Disappointing as it may be, the failure of Sweden's government to acknowledge the rank hypocrisy of its actions is therefore hardly surprising. Nor is it any wonder that the mayor of London - all too willing to march in protest against gender inequality in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration - saw no incongruity in an EU member state signing trade deals with a theocratic regime that systematically persecutes gays and violates the freedom of expression for women.

I suppose it's far easier - and far less dangerous - for western politicians to condemn the pussy-grabbing sexism of the US administration or the burkini ban in France, than the murderous, state-approved violence against women of Islamic cultures. The question arises, however, why so few feminists dare criticise Islam when criticism is patently due.

Consider, for example, The Women's March on London: the organisers stated that the march was "for the protection of fundamental rights and for the safeguarding of freedoms threatened by recent political events". They further declared that the event would "send a bold message to the world that women’s rights are human rights ... that an attack on one group is an attack on us all." Complacency, they insisted is not an option.

One might reasonably expect, therefore, that images of female Swedish politicians deferentially veiled during an official trip to Iran, would attract some attention and some anger amongst at least some of the self-appointed champions of liberal values. To paraphrase Iranian feminist Azadeh Davachi, if western women are concerned about Donald Trump's cabinet and his views toward women, surely it follows that they have to consider women's rights in Iran.

But no, hardly a word on the matter. Regrettably, one is led to conclude that western feminists are so obsessed with dismantling capitalist patriarchy and swatting WASPs, that they are blind to female oppression within Muslim communities - including those established in towns and cities across the West.

This is the kind of partisan feminism that sees the speck of sawdust in its brother's eye, but fails to spot the beam in its own ...


Athens-born Maria Thanassa is a teacher of Greek language, literature, and film. She has a Ph.D. from Kings College, London and is the founder and director of EKON Arts. She also writes a blog that combines her love of baking, photography and poetry: Moonshine and Lemon.

Maria appears here as part of the Torpedo the Ark Gastautoren Programm and I am very grateful for her contribution and her kind permission to edit and revise this post.  

How Religion Makes Monkeys of Us All

Image from the theatrical poster for Bill Maher's

Religulous, dir. Larry Charles (2008) 

Scientists working in the Republic of Guinea recently produced intriguing visual evidence suggesting that chimpanzees may have a spiritual side to their nature. Having set up remote cameras in what remains of the forest, Laura Kehoe and her team captured apes performing activity which might possibly be characterized as ritualistic. 

Sometimes, the chimps would gently place stones in the hollow of a tree - as if leaving offerings at a shrine. On other occasions, they might strike the sacred tree with a rock in order to produce a distinctive and, for the participants, clearly meaningful sound. 

Of course, this isn't definitive proof that chimps believe in or worship a deity of any kind. Further observation and experimentation is needed before we can interpret the above with any degree of certainty. However, it does indicate that their behaviour is far more complex and has a greater symbolic component than previously realised, or, indeed, is admitted by those who wish to maintain the anthropocentric conceit of human exceptionalism; they're not just thinking about bananas.

More, it also provides weight to Nietzsche's contention that virtue originates in the animal kingdom; that our highest values, our sense of awe and of reverence, our will to transcendence and subordination, do not make us distinctly human. Rather, they show just how little we've evolved.

Religion, one might conclude, is not only a form of violent tribalism and savage superstition; it effectively makes monkeys of us all ... 

Note: those interested in reading more on Nietzsche's animal philosophy should click here.

On the Difficulty of Death for Old Ladies

Tony Luciani: Internal Reflection,
 from  Mamma: In the Meantime (2016)
(A series of photos and paintings featuring his 93-year-old mother, Elia.)

The comic actor, Steve Martin, once conceded that he'd never made a great movie. But, he went on to say, he had made several films that contained genuinely great scenes. I think something similar might be said about the verse of Michel Houellebecq; no really great poems, but many that contain genuinely great lines. 

Those critics who characterise his work as callow and clichéd, or dismiss it as insipid and ineffectual, are not so much mistaken as beside the point. For these things, of necessity, belong to a body of work that is bold enough and big enough to incorporate them; a form of writing that affirms what Nietzsche terms a general economy of the whole.

In other words, the secret of really interesting poetry, like Houellebecq's, is not the fact that it contains powerful and original elements, but that it's unafraid to make mistakes and display its weaknesses. Further, it parades intertextual indebtedness with pride and invites readers to hear echoes of other authors.
        

But this post isn't intended to be a defence of Houellebecq as an artist, nor a comprehensive review of his new dual-language selection of poems entitled Unreconciled. Rather, I want simply to indicate how some of Houellebecq's reflections on old women approaching death resonate with my own observations and experience ...

Death is difficult for old ladies who are too rich, says Houellebecq, referring to the kind of women who own antique furniture and wind up in cemeteries: Surrounded by cypresses and plastic shrubs. But, actually, death is often difficult for many women - even those whom he calls the council-flat old / Who imagine till the end that they are loved and wind up at the crematorium: In a little cabinet with a white label.

For many women - particularly mothers - simply refuse to let go and die. Men, as a rule, die sooner and with less fuss, less bitterness; they know when the game is up and they'll be best off out of it, as my father would say. Women - particularly mothers - aim to stay for as long as possible in their sordid bedrooms where they keep little objects tucked in their wardrobes - the insides of which reveal just how cruel and how futile life can be.

On and on these undying women persist; watching TV without quite catching what is said (despite the increased volume) and eating their meals without appetite (despite the added salt); growing older and increasingly feeble in mind and body: You see clearly the nothingness awaiting them / Especially in the morning when they rise, pale, / And moan for their first cup of tea.

In a very moving couple of stanzas, worth quoting in the original French, Houellebecq writes:

Les vieux savant pleurer avec un bruit minime,
Ils oublient les pensées et ils oblient les gestes
Ils ne rient plus beaucoup, et tout ce qui leur reste
Au bout de de quelques mois, avant la phase ultime,

Ce sont quelques paroles, presque tourjours les mêmes:
Merci je n'ai pas faim, mon fils viendra dimanche,
Je sens mes intestins, mon fils viendra quand même.
Et le fils n'est pas là, et leurs mains presque blanches.

This is mostly true and, sadly, often the case. Though, not wanting to be defined as a son by my absence, I'm doing what I can to provide care and ensure my mother doesn't become just another unloved body dying without mystery. It's hard work though; depressing, tiring, frustrating, boring, etc.

But so are many jobs and at least caring affords me the opportunity to listen to the little birds in the garden and read poetry on my birthday ...  


See: Michel Houellebecq, Unreconciled: Poems 1991-2013, trans. Gavin Bowd, (William Heinemann, 2017). All the lines quoted, in full or part, are Bowd's translations from the French and are taken from three untitled poems, pp. 29-33. 

For those interested in the work of Tony Luciani, click here to access his website, or here for information about his exhibition, Mamma: In the Meantime, at the Loch Gallery, Toronto, Canada.

What are Poets for ...?

Hölderlin's question - which became Heidegger's question also - wozu Dichter in dürftiger Zeit? remains, for those of us who are interested in such things, a matter of some urgency. 

For in a time of fake news and a general poverty of thinking - these things characterizing our own destitution - clearly we need to acknowledge the importance of those who have the ability to attend closely and carefully to language and its limits (poets) and those who might theorize such a method of thinking in relation to the world we live in today (philosophers).     

Of course, this doesn't mean we need poets to simply set the facts straight, nor signal their moral and political idealism by speaking truth to power - a cant phrase coined by Quakers in the 1950s and adopted ever since by would-be warriors of social justice and so-called activists. If I want to hear opinionated idiots express their beliefs, then I can follow them on Twitter.

Poets must never assert anything as all-knowing subjects. And poetry must free itself of any conceited humanism, becoming Machiavellian in its objective purity; sans mélange, cru, vert, dans toute sa force, dans toute son âpreté, as Nietzsche would say. We don't speak such poetry; it speaks us. And, more, it transforms the world; not through noisy direct action, but through silent deferral that opens up the possibility of Newness.

In other words, poets are not there to serve as commentators on world events - verse is not a type of flowery journalism. Their task, rather, is to provide the preliminary conditions necessary for a demonic Event: something that unfolds in time, but which is nevertheless Unzeitgemäße and Unheimlich in the sense that it comes from Outside; something which radially changes our understanding of reality and allows us to scrape off the viscous covering of doxa protecting categories of the present.

Poets, then, still have a profoundly important role to play in this era of despots and crackpots. But, alas, I sometimes think the real question we should be asking is: Wo sind die heuter Dichter?