Desperate Farmwives

The Farmer's Wife (SA/2023)

 

 

As the Little Greek poses at the gate of a nearby farm, I'm reminded that the (often sentimentalised) figure of the farmer's wife is a popular trope in art, literature, and cinema. 

 

I suppose some might even insist she's a figure with archetypal significance; an embodiment of the Earth Mother, representing ancient ideals of fertility and homestead, etc. Early rising, hardworking, resiliant and reliable, she is the kind of woman who loves her chickens and her vegetables almost as much as her husband and children.   

 

D. H. Lawrence famously provides a description of such women in whom the past (and perhaps the future) unfolds, in what many regard as his greatest novel, The Rainbow (1915). 

 

However, Lawrence subverts the conventional stereotype of 19th-century farmwives by suggesting that, in crucial contradistinction to their heavy-blooded, slow-witted menfolk, they are increasingly tempted by the life afforded by the encroaching world of modernity. 

 

Thus, whilst the men were content to put their very being into farming, the women were different:

"On them too was the drowse of blood-intimacy [...] But the women looked out from the heated, blind intercourse of farm-life, to the spoken world beyond. They were aware of the lips and the mind of the world speaking and giving utterance, they heard the sound in the distance, and they strained to listen.

      It was enough for the men, that the earth heaved and opened its furrow to them, that the wind blew to dry the wet wheat, and set the young ears of corn wheeling freshly about; it was enough that they helped the cow in labour, or ferreted the rats from under the barn, or broke the back of a rabbit with a sharp knock of the hand. So much warmth and generating and pain and death did they know in their blood, earth and sky and beast and green plants, so much exchange and interchange they had with these, that they lived full and surcharged [...]

      But the women wanted another form of life than this, something that was not blood-intimacy." [1]

  

What is it, then, that these women wanted exactly? Ultimately, it's the same thing that so beguiled Eve: knowledge. 

 

For despite occupying the supreme position in her own home - her husband deferring to her on almost all points - the Lawrentian farmer's wife is desperate to know "the far-off world of cities [...] where secrets were made known and desires fulfilled" [2]. 

 

She craved to know more and experience more; to have greater freedom and achieve a superior (more spiritual, less bestial) level of being. And if she couldn't achieve this, then she determined that at least her children would be educated and encouraged to aspire towards a different life - a bigger, better, finer life. 

 

Sadly, we know where all this leads: today, farmers are increasingly prone to mental ill health and suicidal tendencies, and often have to resort to online dating services in order to find a woman willing to marry them [3]. To paraphrase Nietzsche, all meaning has gone out of modern farming; yet that is no objection to farming, but to modernity [4].

 

However, like Lawrence, I can't quite bring myself to condemn those desperate farmwives. For whilst I might not wish for the triumph of the mind and the machine, I'm not sure I would be happy living a rural pre-modern life on the farm, rooted in blood, soil, and agrarian bullshit.  

 

 

Notes

 

[1] D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 10-11.

 

[2] Ibid., p. 11.

[3] Whilst the quality of data is an issue, research has suggested that farmers are at higher than average risk of mental illness and suicide and the UK Government acknowledges this is an issue of concern. 

      For example, whilst 64% of farmers recently surveyed by Farmer's Weekly were happy with their physical wellbeing, only 55% felt positive about their mental health and in 2019, there were 102 registered suicides in England and Wales by individuals working in the agricultural sector in England and Wales (this accounts for over 2% of suicides that year, whilst agricultural workers only make up around 1% of the workforce). 

      As for farmers having trouble finding wives, the magazine Country Living launched a unique dating service decades ago, based on the simple premise that if you live and work on the land it can be especially hard to find a partner. This grew into an online service and even spawned an award-winning TV series in more than twenty countries. If you are a farmer and wish to sign up, then click here. 

 

[4] I'm paraphrasing what Nietzsche writes in Twilight of the Idols of modern marriage; see 'Expeditions of an Untimely Man', §39.

 

 

For a related post to this one on the farmer's daughter, click here.   

 

Wilde About the Beautiful Game

T-shirt by philosophyfootball.com

Sporting outfitters of intellectaul distinction

 

 

Apparently, the FIFA Women's World Cup begins this week and we're all supposed to get excited by the opportunity to experience a tournament Beyond Greatness - whatever that means ...

Unfortunately, I don't share this excitement. 

 

In fact, when watching women running about kicking a football, all I can think of is an oft-quoted remark made by Oscar Wilde: that whilst it's all very well for rough girls, it's entirely unsuitable for delicate boys.

 

 

Amplifying Deviance and Danger: Notes on the Concept of Moral Panic

Tanya Brassie: Moral Panic 

dribble.com

 

I.

 

Stanley Cohen's concept of moral panic [1] remains a useful one for examining how an (often irrational) fear that a tiny minority of people threaten the values and interests of wider society can quickly become widespread (or go viral as we like to say in this digital age).

 

Of course, not all fears are irrational and whilst it probably doesn't help to panic, there are times when social anxiety is justified and expressing concern over perceived threats an understandable response, although we might question whether the manipulation and exploitation of fear by journalists and politicians - or those whom Cohen terms moral entrepreneurs - is ever a good thing.  

 

As Cohen points out, while a threat may be real, to exaggerate its seriousness is not helpful and often just results in new laws that restrict everybody's freedom. Further, if allowed to really take hold of the public imagination, there's the danger too that a social phenomenon that plays with public prejudice becomes a psychological issue and moral panic ends in mass hysteria (which is genuinely dangerous - often far more so than the perceived threat).       

 

 

II. 

 

I am reminded of all this when listening to the numerous reports and endless discussions on GB News and Talk TV about boat migrants crossing the Channel, drag queens reading stories to children, and transwomen competing in sporting events or accessing female toilets.

 

I might not want any of these things to happen: but I am also aware of the fact that whilst Piers Morgan and Dan Wootton, for example, are not consciously engaged in spreading hate speech, they do play a crucial (and questionable) role in the dissemination of moral indignation. For even when the above and their colleagues accurately report the facts, they often do so without contextual nuance and in a manner designed to generate viewer anger and trend on social media.       

 

So, what am I trying to say here? 

 

Perhaps, simply, that those with big mouths, strong opinions, and high-profile media platforms should also exercise a degree of caution when exercising their right to freedom of speech. Similarly - and this is a Nietzschean point - when demonising others it's best to take care lest this makes you monstrous in the process [2]. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Whilst moral panics have a long history, it was the sociologist Stanley Cohen who first named and explicitly formulated the concept in his seminal work Folk Devils and Moral Panics (MacGibbon and Kee, 1972). Although Cohen discussed the example of teenage mods and rockers, many other groups have also found themselves othered as a mortal danger to society, including satanists, communists, and homosexuals.

     It is worth noting that often it is not a group or community as such that triggers a moral panic, but a phenomenon such as drug use, football hooliganism, dangerous dogs, or internet pornography. Again, these things are often exploited by the authorities to justify a clampdown on civil liberties.     

 

[2] I'm paraphrasing Nietzsche writing in Beyond Good and Evil, 4. 146. 

 

 

D'notre amour fou n'resterait que des cendres (In Memory of Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg)

Jane Birkin (Dec 1946 - July 2023)

 

 

I'm very sad to note that - 32 years after the death of Serge Gainsbourg - Jane Birkin has died. 

 

Theirs may or may not have been the greatest (or even craziest) love affair of the 20th century, but it was certainly the one that I found most intriguing (and possibly the most touching).

So what, then, remains now that they are both dead? Only ashes, as they themselves anticipated?

 

No.

Jane and Serge leave behind a huge number of beautiful images, beautiful songs - perhaps the most beautiful ever written in French - and beautiful memories. 

 

And, in Jane's case, she even leaves behind a beautiful Hermès bag to which she lent her name. 

 

You can't hope for much more than that ...  

 

 

Note: the title of this post is a line from a track entitled Quoi, found on the 1986 compilation album by Birkin. The song - one of my favourites - was written by Gainsbourg and Cesare De Natale (arr. Guido & Maurizio De Angelis). Click here to play here and watch the video on YouTube.   

 

 

Reflections on Nietzsche and the Dark Triad

 

First proposed by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, the dark triad is a psychological theory of personality that collates (sub-clinical) narcissism and psychopathy with Machiavellianism [1].

 

Whilst these three things are conceptually distinct, they clearly intersect with one another and each is associated with often callous and manipulative interpersonal conduct [2]. Narcissim, for example, is characterised by self-obsession; psychopathy by anti-social behaviour; and  Machiavellianism by moral indifference to others. 

 

An individual located within the dark triad might not be prone to committing criminal acts, but they're almost certainly a cold fish at best, or a really nasty piece of work at worst.

 

Interestingly, however, although each of these personality traits are regarded as being problematic by psychologists, Nietzsche seemed to think they are vital to human well-being: man needs what is most evil in him for what is best in him, as Zarathustra famously says [3]. 

 

Nietzsche argues that a certain level of self-love is essential, for example - certainly preferable to self-loathing and shame; that narcissism has its place as an active joyful force within an economy of desire. Indeed, Zarathustra suggests that it is from out of such that a new type of virtue may develop [4].

 

As for Machiavellianism, well, whilst Christian moralists might react with horror at the thought of any one acting in their own interest rather than loving their neighbour, or indulging in self-sacrifice, Nietzsche thought highly of the arguments set out in The Prince, Machiavelli's seminal essay, published posthumously in 1532, and acknowledged as one of the founding texts of modern political philosophy [5].    

 

Does this mean, therefore, that the Übermensch is some kind of psychopath? 

 

Hardly. 

 

It might, however, indicate that there remains something troubling in Nietzsche's political philosophy (particularly in its grand phase) and it's interesting to note how individuals with dark triad personalities - and I would number my younger self amongst them - are often attracted to extremist ideologies and prone to authoritarianism (often at odds with the radicalism they dream of) [6].      

 

However, we must note in closing, this is true for romantic idealists on the far left of the political spectrum, as well as young fascists. Indeed, today, it is often the wokest amongst us who are the most darkly triadic and who, whilst masquerading as the compassionate, leap into the black hole of fundamentalism [7].      

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm aware that a fourth trait - sadism (defined as the enjoyment of cruelty) - has now been added to this theory of personality, creating a so-called dark tetrad, but here I'm discussing the original concept in relation to Nietzsche's philosophy as  proposed by Paulhus and Williams in 'The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy', Journal of Research in Personality, 36 (6): 556–563, (Dec. 2002).   

[2] In 1998, John W. McHoskey, William Worzel, and Christopher Szyarto provoked a controversy by claiming that narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism are more or less interchangeable. See their 1998 paper, 'Machiavellianism and psychopathy', in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 (1): pp. 192–210. Readers interested in having access to this text should click here.

 

[3] See the section entitled 'The Convalescent' in Book III of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I am quoting here from Walter Kaufmann's translation in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufmann, (Penguin Books, 1994), p. 331. 

[4] See also Herbert Marcuse writing in Eros and Civilization (1955) where he argues that narcissistic joy passes beyond immature autoeroticism and may possibly contain the germ of a different reality principle.

[5] Readers interested in the relationship between the two writers might like to see Don Dombowsky's 2004 work, Nietzsche's Machiavellian Politics (Palgrave Macmillan), particularly chapter 4 (pp. 131-167). In brief, Dombowsky argues that the foundation of Nietzsche's political thought is a radical aristocratic critique of democratic society, heavily influenced by his reading of The Prince:

"Nietzsche did not read Machiavelli as Spinoza or Rousseau did, as someone who revives republicanism and defends democratic freedoms [...] but adheres to what has been called the 'vulgar' conception of Machiavellianism. Rousseau would have considered Nietzsche to be a 'superficial and corrupt' reader of Machiavelli. What Nietzsche adapts from Machiavelli are his conceptions of virtù (at the operational basis of his ethics) and immoralism (at the operational basis of his political conception) based primarily on a reading of The Prince." (131-32)

[6] I discuss all this at length in Outside the Gate (Blind Cupid Press, 2010).

[7] Jordan Peterson is very alert to this and often warns about the zen fascism of those on the woke left who claim to act in the name of Love and social justice (or diversity, equity, and inclusion). So too is the writer, broadcaster, and satirist Andrew Doyle, and readers might find a recent discussion between these two figures on the political puritanism of our age interesting: click here.  

 

 

Interactive bonus: readers who wish to know if they perhaps have a dark triad personality might like to take a short online test: click here.

A Bastille Day Post (2023)

Man Ray: Portrait imaginaire de D.A.F. de Sade (1938) 

Oil on canvas with painted wood panel (61.6 × 46.7 cm) 

 

It's grey, wet and windy here in London this 14 juillet - La fête nationale française, or Bastille Day, as it is more commonly known in the English-speaking world where it is sometimes marked, but not particularly celebrated. 

For me, the storming of the Bastille on this date in 1789 - a key event of the French Revolution - primarily interests because that is the state prison where the libertine philosopher Sade wrote his most notorious work, Les 120 Journées de Sodome (1785), having being confined there the previous year for crimes of a sexual and blasphemous nature (despite never having been convicted of such crimes in a court of law).   

 

Famously, Sade wrote the manuscript in a miniscule hand on a long roll of paper that he kept hidden in a cell wall. Unfortunately, he was unable to finish his magnum opus before being transferred - against his will and naked as a worm - to the insane asylum at Charenton. 

 

This was on 4 July 1789; forty-eight hours after he reportedly incited unrest outside the prison by shouting to the crowds gathered there: They are murdering the prisoners! and ten days before the Bastille was stormed by the revolutionary mob looking for stores of gunpowder [1].

 

To his despair, Sade (mistakenly) believed that his manuscript was destroyed during the events of July 14; it had actually been discovered and preserved two days earlier. 

 

After his release from Charenton in 1790, Sade served in the new revolutionary government, although this was probably more from expediency rather than conviction and he was despised by many of his more radical (and bloodthirsty) new cohorts, not merely because of his aristocratic background, but due (ironically) to his modération [2]. 

 

Anyway, may I take this opportunity to wish all French readers - and all Sadeans - Joyeux quatorze juillet!

 

Notes

 

[1] It might be noted that by this date the Bastille was nearly empty, housing only seven prisoners. It was mostly kept open - despite the high financial cost of maintaining a garrisoned medieval fortress - to serve as a symbol of royal power.

 

[2] Readers interested in Sade's role in the French Revolution and the question of his politics might like to listen to a paper by the Michigan State University history professor Ronen Steinberg entitled 'Sex and the Bastille: the Marquis de Sade and the French Revolution' (2016): click here. 

 

 

   

How Anti-Bird Spikes Became De Rigueur Nesting Material Amongst Corvids

Photo of an anti-bird spike nest by Auke-Florian Hiemstra

 

 

No sooner had I published a post on urban birds using rubbish to build their nests - click here - than I came across several news reports on a Dutch study in to how super-intelligent crows and magpies are ironically incorporating technology designed to deter them from making a home into their nest designs, something that has astonished even those who have long admired corvids for their cognitive skills.

 

Apparently, nests recovered from trees in Rotterdam and Antwerp, were found to be constructed almost entirely from strips of those long metal spikes often attached to buildings in order to prevent our feathered friends from nesting, or even finding a place to perch for a few moments. Whilst the crows seem to have simply utilised the spikes as a sturdy construction material, the magpies may have appreciated their intended purpose, as they positioned most of the spikes on the nest's roof where they could deter predators, including other birds and mammals.

 

Interestingly, rather than merely finding old strips of anti-bird spikes at rubbish dumps, a researcher claims that crows and magpies may even be removing the metal strips directly from buildings in an act of avian vandalism.

 

As Dewey Finn would say: That is so punk rock!

 

 

Note: for more on this story visit the BBC News Science & Environment page: click here. 

 

 

A Bird in the Bush is Better Than a Bird Forced to Nest in Rubbish

The bird a nest, the spider a web, man pollution

 

 

There has been increasing concern over recent years about the fact that more and more species of birds are using rubbish as nest building material [1].

 

Obviously, one of the main reasons for this is necessity; uncontrolled human population growth and the associated spread of urban landscapes results in the destruction of natural spaces and the subsequent loss of natural nest building materials [2] and so birds - like other animals - have to adapt to survive.  

 

Unfortunately, not all bird species will be able to adapt to living in limited numbers in small isolated areas surrounded by people, cars, buildings, bright lights, etc. A big city lifestyle amongst the garbage isn't for everyone.  

 

But some birds are at least giving it a go and they constitute one of the most common groups of urban animals: 

 

"Their ability to fly allows them to move quickly between places to find refuge, food, or water inside cities. Additionally, several bird species are well adapted to urban areas because of their generalized diets (in other words, they can tolerate the majority of food resources available), large brains (allowing them to solve problems and use new resources), non-specific requirements for nesting places (can nest in the majority of available places), and small sizes (allowing larger populations to survive on small amounts of resources)." [3] 

 

However, whether using a diversity of waste materials - including plastic, wood, metal and rubber - as nesting material will prove to be beneficial or harmful to their survival in the long term remains to be seen. I suspect the latter [4]. For whilst there do seem to be some advantages to a nest constructed from artificial materials - for example, the nicotine found in fag ends is a known repellent against some parasitic insects - there are several negative consequences identified by researchers:    

 

"For example, one negative effect of the use of garbage for nest building could be an increase in the nest temperature when birds use plastic bags pieces, a situation that could negatively affect an egg's embryo development. Another negative effect may be an increase in nest predation if, by being more conspicuous, artificial materials make nests more easily detectable by visual predators. It is also possible to expect a decrease in chicks' survival because plastic or nylon ropes may attach and tangle around chicks in the nest, causing mortality." [5]

 

Let's just say that it isn't yet certain what the consequences will be of this new behaviour. But, having said that, I think we can agree that it makes the heart sink to read about baby birds reared amongst garbage and eating particles of microplastic.

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Such behaviour isn't new - indeed, it has been observed since the early 19th-century - but it is rapidly increasing as the natural environment becomes ever-more shaped (and polluted) by humanity.

 

[2] As two researchers in the field of urban ecology write: "The reduction in abundance of natural materials for nest building is probably the force incentivizing species to use artificial materials, which are becoming more, not less, available as human activities increase." 

      See Josué Corrales and Luis Sandoval, 'Our Garbage, Their Homes: Artificial Material as Nesting Material' (December 2016). To read this text online, visit The Nature of Cities website: click here.

 

[3] Ibid.

 

[4] For a report by Anjit Naranjan in The Guardian (10 July 2023) on a newly published European study concerned with the safety of chicks being reared in nests constructed from rubbish, click here. 

[5] Josué Corrales and Luis Sandoval, 'Our Garbage, Their Homes: Artificial Material as Nesting Material', op. cit. 

 

 

For a follow up post to this one on crows and magpies ingeniously using human technology (anti-bird spikes) to protect their nests, click here.  

A Brief Note on the Psychology of Philosophy

I think, therefore I'm ill

 

I. 

 

After a recent 6/20 presentation [1], someone in the audience surprised me by saying that she didn't really wish to address the philosophical aspects of the subject (mourning), as whenever she started to think about such ideas they made her feel unwell. 

 

This raises a question that the London-based writer Sam Woolfe discussed in an interesting blog post a couple of years back: Can Philosophy Harm Your Mental Health? [2]

 

Obviously, the answer is yes - what would be the point of it otherwise? However, I'd like here to briefly pick up on Woolfe's work on the relationship between psychological traits (if they exist) and philosophical beliefs (if that isn't an oxymoron). 

 

 

II.  

 

Although I'm wary of turning philosophy into just another all too human discipline rooted in the personality and biography of the practitioner, I have to acknowledge that Nietzsche would often do this in an attempt to expose the prejudices of philosophers and demonstrate how rationality is a peculiar abberation that has grown out of unreason (i.e., the unconscious forces, flows, fears, and desires of the body) [3].  

 

However, to conclude that philosophy is simply the attempt to turn the universe into a home for man by ascribing moral logic to it via an exploration of one's own temperament - as the neo-Platonic philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch concludes - is, ironically, too depressing a thought. 

 

Ultimately, I think Ray Brassier is right to argue that philosophy should do more than simply further human conceit and that its nihilistic destiny is to acknowledge the fact that thinking has interests that do not coincide with the feelings of the philosopher (nor, indeed, with his life and wellbeing) [4]. Whilst it might be fun, therefore, to look for correlations between psychological traits and philosophical beliefs, there's more important work to be done by those courageous (or perhaps crazy) enough to do it. 

 

 

III.

 

Having said that, like Woolfe, I found it interesting to discover from the work of David Yaden and Derek Anderson [5] that those who, like me, subscribe to a model of hard determinism tend to rank higher on the depression/anxiety index [6]

 

I've certainly been feeling fed up lately and perhaps that is due (in part at least) to my philosophical pessimism. However, I'd rather be down in the dumps but intellectually honest, than happy and full of false hope as a result of only reading optimistic authors who pangloss over the tragic character of existence. 

 

And, who knows, just as one can eventually transform suffering into a form of passion via which one discovers bliss, perhaps we might also transform the darkest depression and profoundest pessimism into a form of fröhliche Wissenschaft. As Woolfe notes, "it is certainly possible and consistent to live a happy, joyful, and meaningful life while taking philosophical pessimism seriously".

 

So, my advice is keep reading Schopenhauer and Cioran, invent new reasons to live each day and, when stuck in a hole, just keep digging and discover for yourself whether there's any truth in the China syndrome. 

 

For even if Woolfe is right to conclude that some philosophical ideas - such as antinatalism, solipsism, or existential absurdism - may contribute to or worsen poor mental health [7], so what? I sometimes think better madness (or at least a few sleepless nights) than the bourgeois model of sanity (or common sense) we are expected to preserve. 

 

 

Notes

 

[1] See the TTA Events page for an abstract to the talk 'In Praise of Mourning' (presented at Christian Michel's 6/20 Club, on 6 July 2023): click here.  

 

[2] Sam Woolfe, 'Can Philosophy Harm Your Mental Health?' on samwoolfe.com

      Whilst I'm not sure we'd agree on all that much, I admire the fact that Woolfe has maintained a blog since 2012 (the same year that Torpedo the Ark began) and that he describes himself as a writer with "a penchant for complex and challenging subjects that involve a multitude of perspectives".  

 

[3] See Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (1886). In §6 of the first chapter of this work - 'On the Prejudices of Philosophers' - he famously writes: 

      

"It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy has hitherto been: a confession on the part of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir [...]" 

      

I am using R. J. Hollingdale's translation of this work (Penguin Books, 1990).  

 

[4] Ray Brassier, Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), xi. 

 

[5] See David B. Yaden and Derek E. Anderson, 'The psychology of philosophy: Associating philosophical views with psychological traits in professional philosophers', Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 34, Issue 5 (Taylor & Francis, 2021), pp. 721-755. DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2021.1915972

[6] As Woolfe points out, for those who wish to posit a link between determinism and mental illness, it makes sense that a lack of belief in free will can be associated with depression, given that the latter is often characterised by feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.

 

[7] What Woolfe actually says is this: 

 

"I would not go so far as to say that reading or studying philosophy is likely to be the major defining cause of a mental disorder. But I am open to the possibility that some philosophical ideas - and philosophising itself - may contribute to, worsen, or vindicate poor mental health." 

 

The fact that he adds the idea of vindication is certainly striking and something readers might like to consider for themselves.

Well There's Nothing More Revolutionary Than Calling for Communism Then Diddling the Maid

Helene Demuth (1820-1890)

 

 

This morning, whilst reading on the subject of famous last words, I discovered that Karl Marx had little time for such death bed theatrics.

 

'Go on, get out!' he apparently barked to his housekeeper, who was pottering about his room in the hope of recording some memorable final statement: 'Last words are for fools trying to compensate for having said nothing of any significance in life!'

 

I have to say, I was shocked - not by Marx's attitude, but by the fact that he - a revolutionary socialist and author of a work calling for the establishment of a classless society - should employ a domestic servant.

 

Worse: it's alleged that his German housekeeper, Helene, [1] was impregnated by Marx and gave birth to an illegitimate son, in 1851, who was discreetly placed with a working-class foster family in London shortly afterwards [2]. 

 

If anything exposes the bourgeois hypocrisy (and the sexism) implicit within Marxism, it's this. As Elaine Benes might sarcastically note: There's nothing more revolutionary than calling for communism, then diddling the maid. [3]   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] The daughter of parents belonging to the peasant class, Helene Demuth began her life as a maid in 1840, aged 20, entering into the Marx household five years later, where she stayed until Karl's death in 1883. Helene died in London in 1890, and was buried in the Marx family grave (and later re-interred in the tomb of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery).

 

[2] Some scholars accept that Marx was the father of the child; a view based upon surviving correspondence from the Marx family and their wider circle, as well as the fact that Marx's wife had been on a trip abroad nine months prior to the birth. The child's paternity, however, remains a subject of controversy, and there is no conclusive documentary evidence as such to prove that Marx had been diddling the maid. 

 

[3] In the season 9 episode of Seinfeld entitled 'The Maid' - dir. Andy Ackerman (1998) - Jerry forms a sexual relationship with his maid, Cindy (played by Angela Featherstone). Although he tries to convince Elaine that the arrangement is somewhat sophisticated, the latter is not convinced. Click here to watch the scene on YouTube.  

    

To read an earlier post on the erotic fascination with maids in the pornographic imagination, click here.