On the Etymology of the Word Hamas

People often ask: What's in a name?

Well, quite a lot when that name happens to be Hamas: an acronym of Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, which rather conveniently spells out the Arabic term for enthusiasm.

As we know, this Islamic resistance movement - designated a terrorist organization by, amongst others, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union - has governed the Gaza strip since winning a majority of seats in the 2006 Palestinian elections. Since then, it has certainly demonstrated an enthusiasm for indiscriminately firing rockets into Israel and building an extensive network of tunnels in which to conceal weapons and through which it might send suicide bombers. 

Obviously, as one who values irony, indifference, and insouciance, I have little time for those who enthuse in this manner; i.e. with such militant sincerity. In fact, as an anti-theist, I hate the very term enthusiasm, which is derived of course from an ancient Greek root, ἐνθεός [entheos], meaning to be possessed (or inspired) by a god.   

Such is the intense level of enthusiasm displayed by the members and supporters of Hamas, however, that I think we might more accurately translate their name as zeal and understand them not merely as enthusiasts, but true zealots; i.e. fanatical and uncompromising, in both their religious faith and their political ideology.

Interestingly, the English word zealous can also be traced back to an ancient Greek origin; indeed, if Maria remembers her mythology correctly, then Zelus [Ζῆλος] was the son of the Titan, Pallas, and the river goddess, Styx, and he personified dedication to a cause.
 

However, it is important to note that he also personified other traits, including envy (the modern word jealousy is also derived from his name), resentment, bigotry, and insecurity (thus his need for complete consensus and his desire for the total annihilation of his enemies).

What's in the name Hamas? More than they might care to acknowledge ...

On the Joy of Flirting and the Experience of Beauty

 Ayaan Hirsi Ali

 

Flirting is one of the great joys of life, which, regardless of intent, is always an innocent form of sexual play at the level of language and gesture; by this, I mean it lacks the consciously cruel and manipulative aspects of teasing.  

People who do not know how to flirt are like those who do not know how to laugh; they lack that insouciance which is so lovely in wild animals and flowering plants and in men and women who intuitively understand the mystery of beauty.

 

For beauty, ultimately, is the key thing: when we flirt, we communicate the happiness that arises out of an experience of beauty. We find others sexy and appealing when we find them beautiful. But, as Lawrence rightly argues, living beauty is not a fixed pattern or a conventional look which comes ready-made or photoshopped. This is why even the most skilled cosmetic surgeons fail to produce a truly beautiful face, despite an almost perfect arrangement of features. And this is why there's nothing flirtatious about a sex doll.

Because beauty is something felt and something which can be shared with others, even the plainest person can be beautiful and flirt successfully. On the other hand, even the most attractive person in the room can seem ugly and undesirable when they lack the warm glow of beauty and don't know how to communicate joy. Only when the sex-glow is missing, writes Lawrence, do people move in ugly coldness like "one of those ghastly living corpses which are unfortunately becoming more numerous in the world ... and whom everybody wants to avoid".

Today, it takes a rare woman to genuinely rouse a sense of loveliness; and a rare man to have the courage to respond to her loveliness and to flirt in a spirit that is neither lewd nor crude, but generous and playfully tender, with perhaps just a touch of irony. Luckily, however, there is an example of such to be found on YouTube and involves a very touching and amusing public encounter between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christopher Hitchens; he full of old school charm and she smiling and giggling in an almost coquettish manner.

Perhaps, as well as everything else, flirting is an important sign of freedom ...

Notes: 

Readers interested in viewing the encounter between Hitch and the very beautiful Ayaan Hirsi Ali at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington DC, on Feb 13 2007, should click here.

The line quoted from D. H. Lawrence can be found in the article 'Sex Appeal', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 146. 

The Picture of Douglas Murray

Douglas Murray: Photo by Martin Pope

The writer and commentator Douglas Murray may not be made out of ivory and rose-leaves, but he certainly embodies several of the virtues that make beautiful and make manly, including courage, for example; courage in the face of often violent opposition and the courage to speak his mind with an openness lacking in most other public figures and politicians.

I might not always agree with what he says, but I can't help admiring him and, after first seeing Douglas on YouTube, I was conscious of the curious effect that he exerted: I knew that I was watching someone whose personality is so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would threaten to absorb my whole nature and whose neoconservative ideas are so dangerously seductive that, if not careful, they might infect my own thinking on the issues that face us today.

I do not know if we are destined to meet and to know each other. But I suspect, sadly, that we could never be friends. Indeed, I would find it difficult to even stay in the same room as this wonderfully handsome young man, with his finely-curved scarlet lips and frank blue-eyes full of candour and passionate purity; for how could one not feel inferior in the presence of someone so palpably better-read, better-travelled, and better-looking?

My one hope is that Douglas finds time to write more works of literary biography - like his brilliant study of Bosie, written when he was still an undergraduate - and that he doesn't squander all his time and talent listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless, or fighting against the ignorant, the base, and the fanatic.

Just Say No

Viktor and Rolf: A/W 2008

 

'You're always so negative and critical', she said - rather ironically by way of criticism. Like many of the things that came out of her mouth, it wasn't entirely true. But, even if it were, so what?

For just as in saying yes to something in particular we automatically say no to everything else in general, in saying no to things - particularly things, ideas, or people which we once loved uncritically in the past - we say yes to the future and a strange new unfolding of the self. 

Nietzsche writes:

"When we criticize something, this is no arbitrary and impersonal event; it is very often evidence of vital energies in us that are growing and shedding a skin. We negate and must negate because something in us wants to live and affirm - something that we perhaps do not conceive as yet."

- The Gay Science, Book IV, 307.

To want to have done with judgement and make an affirmation of life as it is, does not mean depriving oneself of any means of distinguishing between modes of existence; nor does it mean renouncing one's critical faculty as born and developed not within the ideal realm of higher values, but within a beating heart that knows of love and hate.

 

Richard Dawkins on Rape: Good Logic, Bad Thinking

In an attempt to illustrate what philosophers know as a syllogism (i.e. a statement of comparison between two terms that does not necessarily endorse either), Richard Dawkins tweets: "Date rape is bad. Stranger rape at knifepoint is worse."

As a piece of logic, it's fine. But as an example, it's extremely unfortunate and one does wish he had simply stuck with the algebriac formula of x and y. For whilst clearly not sanctioning date rape, Dawkins nevertheless perpetuates the myth that it's a less serious crime because carried out by someone known to the victim in what are deemed to be less aggravating circumstances.

Such circumstances, however, remain external to what essentially constitutes the crime itself; i.e. fucking someone against their will. If consent is not fully and freely given to sexual penetration (or, in the case of minors, cannot legally be given) and you stick your dick where it isn't wanted and shouldn't be, then that's rape professor!

Indeed, the law is pretty clear on this. So critical opposition voiced on Twitter by those who were troubled by his choice of syllogism is not necessarily proof of their moral absolutism, or inability to think logically; rather, it might simply demonstrate their superior legal knowledge, their more sophisticated understanding of rape, and their rather more sympathetic sexual politics.

Ultimately, rape is rape, just as murder is murder. The story of someone killed with kindness - perhaps a lethal dose of diamorphine discreetly administered before bedtime thereby allowing the victim to slip away peacefully in their sleep - lacks the sensational horror (and thus newsworthiness) of someone hacked to death with a chainsaw, but either way a vile crime has been committed and there's a body lying dead at the end of it.

Now, whilst speaking about degrees of violence and mitigating circumstances doesn't make much difference to a corpse, for a prominent public figure to imply that if a woman happens to know her rapist (and chances are she will) - and that if he comes carrying flowers rather than a weapon - this somehow makes the crime less serious (i.e. hardly even worth reporting), well, that makes a lot of difference - both to women who have to deal with the reality (and existential threat) of rape and, indeed, to the men who refuse to accept their shameful behaviour for what it is.      

In the end, as my friend Zena rightly argues, it's not up to men - even very clever men like Professor Dawkins - to try and define women's experiences of sexual violence.

Sadly, even good logic can result in bad thinking ... 

A Short Lesson on Lawrentian Zoology

And the baboon, almost a man, or almost a high beast, arrested himself and became obscene; 

a grey, hoary rind closed upon an activity of strong corruption. - D. H. Lawrence

One of the well-known things about D. H. Lawrence is that he was fascinated by non-human life and the wonders of the natural world. 

A wide variety of animals move freely throughout the pages of his books, although, sometimes, they have logs thrown at them, or are chased round the room with a hanky. Or - if they happen to be porcupines - they are shot and beaten to death with a stick. And it's important to remember this: for whilst Lawrence might respond with an extraordinary degree of sensitivity to the sheer otherness of animals, he didn't sentimentalize them and he certainly didn't love them all with equal affection.

In fact, there are some creatures which Lawrence seems to hate and to fear with an almost insane level of intensity. He might like fish, to whom so little matters, and delight in porpoises playing by the side of his boat; he might value mountain lions and admire the indomitable character of a baby tortoise, but Lawrence doesn't care for any of the following: vultures, hyenas, baboons, and beetles.

These animals are accused by Lawrence of arrested development; i.e. of preserving their own hard static forms about a centre of seething corruption. They are, he says, forms of shit-eating anti-life; asserting themselves static and foul, triumphant in inertia and will. And they fill him with unthinkable horror. 

Indeed, for Lawrence, even the snake in comparison is beautiful with vital reality; for although the snake is a creature of the underworld and the oozing marsh, it shares in the same life as mankind: "He struggles as we struggle, he enjoys the sun, he comes to the water to drink, he curls up ... to sleep". 

We can and must make peace with the serpent and let him take his place among us; it will, writes Lawrence, be a sign of bliss when we are reconciled in this fashion. Unfortunately, however, more and more men and women seem drawn in the direction of carrion and insects and baboons; desperate to remain ideally intact and feeding on putrescence. 

See: D. H. Lawrence, 'The Crown', in Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, ed. Michael Herbert, (Cambridge University Press, 1988). The line quoted in the text is on p. 297. Line quoted beneath the photo of a baboon is on p. 295.

Nietzsche and the Question of Corruption

Corruption, writes Nietzsche, is merely a nasty word for the autumn of a people. 

That is to say, corruption is a term which, whilst often loaded with negative moral connotations, simply describes those periods in which the fruits of a society - sovereign individuals - ripen and fall from the tree. 

It is these extremely rare types who carry the seeds of the future and become founders of new states and communities, as well as new ways of thinking and feeling. Often, such singular men and women care only for the moment and for themselves; and yet, for Nietzsche, they justify all the stupidity and cruelty of the past and redeem the suffering of the many. They are what nature has been aiming at all along.

Nietzsche provides us with four signs to look out for, should we wish to determine the degree of corruption within a social body: 

(i) Superstition: understood by Nietzsche to be a symptom of enlightenment and spiritual progress. He writes: "Whoever is superstitious is always, compared with the religious human being, much more of a person; and a superstitious society is one in which there are many individuals and much delight in individuality."

(ii)  Exhaustion: although a society in which corruption is ripe is often accused of being exhausted, Nietzsche points out that actually all the energy previously expended in war by the state, is simply now sublimated into countless private passions. Indeed, there is probably a greater than ever exercise of power; the individual squandering resources in a manner which would have previously been unimaginable: thus is it precisely in times of corruption that "great love and great hatred are born, and that the flame of knowledge flares up in the sky".

(iii) Refinement: it is also mistakenly believed that times of corruption are more humane (i.e. softer, kinder, perhaps more feminine); that cruelty declines drastically, or is sharply curtailed. But again, Nietzsche says this is not so: "All I concede is that cruelty now becomes more refined and that its older forms henceforth offend the new taste; but the art of wounding and torturing others with words and looks reaches its supreme development ... it is only now that malice and the delight in malice are born."

(iv) Tyranny: corruption allows for the emergence of tyrants; "they are the precursors ... of individuals". It is invariably in the age of a Caesar that the individual will also ripen and culture achieve its highest and most fruitful stage; not on account of the tyrant himself, but because he provides the necessary external conditions - the peace and stability - that is needed. Whilst he makes life safer and secure, they set about making it more beautiful and profound.

So you see, we need our decadents and quasi-feminine types; our corrupt egoists. But not in the way or for the reason that the followers of Ayn Rand imagine. We value them not as wealth creators, but as culture creators and the founders of discursivity; they are free spirits - not merely free marketeers!     

   

Note: All quotes from Nietzsche are from The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books, 1974), I. 23, pp. 96-8. 

Wenn Ich Kultur Höre ... The Rise and Fall of Hanns Johst

 Hanns Johst (1890 - 1978)

When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver!

This oft-quoted line - commonly, but mistakenly, attributed to Hermann Goering or one of the other Nazi leaders - continues to resonate with us today and to mutate into new and often amusing forms. 

But it has perhaps still not quite been understood that whilst the original speaker - a character called Friedrich Thiemann, in a play entitled Schlageter - is indeed expressing his preference for paramilitary violence over all intellectual or artistic pursuits, the author, Hanns Johst, had a rather more developed racial understanding of the culture question.

    

For Johst, like many other writers and thinkers at this time, there was traditional German culture on the one hand, which he loved and wished to defend; and then there was modern Jewish culture, which he despised and wished to combat, fearing that it would otherwise infect and corrupt the purity of the former. This is why he joined the nationalistic and anti-Semitic Kampfbund für deutsche Kultur (Militant League for German Culture) in 1928 and why, four years later, he became a committed member of the Nazi Party.

Schlageter, which tells the story of a proto-Nazi martyr, was in fact written solely to express his support for National Socialist ideology, including its arts policy which declared that only works which conformed with classical standards and expressed the Aryan ideal would be allowed; those which failed to do so were notoriously branded as degenerate. 

In 1935, Johst became the President of both the Writers' Union in Germany and of the Akademie für Dichtung. By 1944, now an officer in the Waffen-SS, he was named as one of the Third Reich's most important artists. 

After the war, Johst was interned by the Allies and eventually received a three-and-a-half year prison sentence. Unable to successfully re-establish his writing career following his release, he was reduced to placing poems written under a pseudonym in Die kluge Hausfrau - a magazine published by that great bastion of all things German, Edeka, a large supermarket chain.

 

When I hear the word kultur, I reach for my price gun ... 

Informal Economics: The Triumph of System D

People, cattle and vultures all enjoying the benefits 

of an informal economy

I recently attended an interesting talk given by Dr Marianna Koli, Senior Lecturer in Economics at NCH, on crime, development, and democratization in Latin America, using Mexico, Columbia, and Brazil as her case studies. Central to her paper was a concept which, apparently, has become increasingly popular amongst economists and sociologists, namely, that of informality.

Informality is a term that is used to refer to the unofficial, unregulated, and frequently illicit activity carried on by people either marginalized by the state, or self-excluded and self-employed from preference (often because they resent paying tax, or having to comply with restrictive laws and regulations).

We used to refer to this informal sector as the black market, or shadow economy, and many of those who objected to its existence might point to its flirtatious relationship with the criminal underground. But now, it seems, we are invited to view it in a rather more positive light; i.e. not as a sign of social division and corruption, but as a flourishing of entrepreneurial know-how and urban ingenuity involving skilled professionals and creative individuals and not just the poor and dispossessed desperate to earn a few dollars, or provide basic services and amenities for themselves and their families living in 'non-stable communities' (i.e. what we used to call slums or shanty towns).

Indeed, it is claimed by admirers and advocates that informal activity is not simply a feature of advanced capitalism, but the very engine of such, driving production and innovation forward. Libertarians - keen to do away with the State entirely - are particularly quick to argue that governments should give up their futile attempts to control or combat informal activity and celebrate, expand, and learn from it instead.

For such political optimists, ur-capitalism (or agorism) provides a working model for the future; we can all be free to earn less and do without public services and provisions (such as health care); we can all live hand-to-mouth like those happy-go-lucky Latin Americans, or other peoples who opt for a more traditional lifestyle free from government and state regulation, but not from poverty, exploitation, violence and insecurity.

Who needs civilized society with its boring formalities, material benefits, and universal rights when we can have culture - developed organically from within the conditions of actual lived existence - allowing every individual to shape their own future and stand on their own two feet atop the garbage heaps of the world ...?


Afterword

Dr Marianna Koli has kindly commented on this post below and made her own position clear. I would hope it's understood that the views expressed in this post are mine alone - as are the errors and distortions made. 

Obviously, the post is a piece of polemic written by someone lacking in expert knowledge or experience in this area. Nevertheless, I stand by the central argument that informal economics is simply another way of saying laissez faire capitalism and, as such, something likely to attract the attention of libertarians and those of an Ayn Rand persuasion (i.e. those I regard as political opponents).  

In Memory of James Garner

James Garner (1928 - 2014) 

as Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files

The Rockford Files is one of those '70s American TV shows that everyone who remembers it, remembers it fondly. Just as I'm sure the lead actor, James Garner, who, sadly, died yesterday, will also be remembered fondly by family, friends, and fans alike. 

The thing with Garner was that he was both very good-looking and a very good actor, capable of playing both comedic roles and more serious parts with the same grace and charm, whether on the small screen or the silver screen (he was one of the first Hollywood stars to move between the two). 

Among his many movie roles, that of Flt. Lt. Robert Hendley, known as the Scrounger, in The Great Escape (1963), is a personal favourite. But, it's primarily as the LA-based private investigator Jim Rockford that Garner most impressed himself upon my young imagination: I liked the way he dressed in sports jackets and open-necked shirts; I liked the equally casual manner in which he approached his work and handled the cops; I liked the fact he lived in a trailer on the beach; and I liked his lawyer and on/off girlfriend Beth Davenport (played by Gretchen Corbett).

Thanks to syndication, DVD, and YouTube, it's easy to still enjoy episodes and to delight in the show's fantastic theme tune (composed by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter), as well as Garner's great performance. The man had style - and that's the highest you can say of anyone. 

 

Geoff Dyer

Photo by Matt Stuart (2011)

geoffdyer.com

Someone - not quite a friend, but not, I think, someone motivated by any real enmity either - writes to tell me what is wrong with this blog and why it fails to find an audience of any size: It's too random, he says, too much made up of bits and pieces that lack any coherent theme or continuity.  

This, of course, is not untrue, but it somewhat misses the point; i.e. that I'm very deliberately subscribing to a fragmented method of writing which encompasses as wide a range of concerns and interests as possible, all of which are assembled in a single space, but without being coordinated or synthesized into any kind of unity or whole. Obviously, such a non-systematic (and anti-systematic) approach is indebted to several of the writers I love the most, including Nietzsche, Baudrillard, and Roland Barthes. 

Geoff Dyer understands: for he shares in this love of the fragmented and whimsical and has built a successful non-career by following wherever his imagination and his desire has taken him, producing a variety of original works, without any regard for a target audience, that speak of his admirable (and enviable) freedom as a writer. 

By learning how to loiter, as Dyer says, on the margins of everything, "unhindered by specialisms ... and the rigours of imposed method", one becomes not merely a man of letters, but a homotextual - i.e., one whose life is virtually synonymous with their writing.

I might not particularly care for all of his books, or share all of his passions or opinions; I might even find him something of a fraud. But, in Dyer, I recognise a degree of kinship and so can't help feeling a little friendly and fraternal towards him - whilst not entirely sure this would be reciprocated ...

Note: Geoff Dyer is the author of four novels, two collections of essays, and several genre-defying books. The line quoted is from his Introduction to Anglo-English Attitudes: Essays, Reviews, Misadventures 1984-99, (Abacus, 2004), p. 4. 

Post 333: Invocation of Choronzon

Club Choronzon 333, by deadguy333

www.deviantart.com

According to Pythagoras, three is the first genuine number - as well as the first natural number and first male number. It is also the noblest of all figures, as it uniquely equals the sum of all the numbers before it. 

Even if we might challenge its authenticity and its engendered high status, it nevertheless remains an important number within mathematics, philosophy, and many of the world's religions; think of the Christian Trinity, for example, composed of the consubstantial expressions Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (i.e. three distinct entities, but sharing one divine essence). 

Or, for that matter, think of what our friends in the neo-pagan community refer to as the Triple Goddess - i.e. three female figures portrayed as Maiden, Mother, and Crone symbolizing different stages in the female life cycle or phases of the moon, who are nevertheless aspects of a greater single deity. For like many other hypostatic idealists, including Christians and Platonists, neo-pagans share a profound belief in the fundamental unity of being. 

In other words, whilst the number three has a certain magic and mysticism to it (three's a charm, as they say), it's the number one and an instinctive hatred for plurality which ultimately determines the thinking and theology of the religiously-minded - including Jung and Robert Graves, who are responsible for much of what passes for goddess worship in the modern world.               

For those of us who loathe monotheism and metaphysical notions of synthesis, stability, and identity, however, the will to oneness is - to paraphrase Nietzsche - the one great folly, the one great lie, the one great intrinsic depravity which betrays a lust for revenge upon life; the latter understood as a demon of chaos and innumerable becomings and called by Crowley Choronzon, the Dweller in the Abyss, whose number is 333.

From Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z

Still from The Simpsons episode 19, season 7

© 20th Century Fox Film Corp.

It's amazing to observe how, after forty-odd years, the Planet of the Apes franchise continues to capture the imagination of a global movie-going audience. People, it seems, just can't get enough of those crazy sci-fi simians and militant monkeys. 

The latest cinematic installment, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, dir. Matt Reeves and starring Andy Serkis as Caesar, opened in the US a few days ago, immediately topping the box office and taking $73 million in it's first weekend. The film also received extremely positive reviews; not just for the stunning special effects, but also as a piece of well-crafted, intelligent story-telling. British audiences will be able to decide for themselves how successful or otherwise this sequel to the series reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), is when it finally opens here tomorrow (July 17th). 

Sadly, however, I won't be going.

And the reason I won't be going is because, for me, as for many others, it's simply become impossible to view any of the great ape films without remembering the classic Simpsons episode which featured Troy McClure appearing in a musical adaptation of the original 1968 movie, mockingly entitled Stop the Planet of the Apes - I Want to Get Off!

Flashbacks of apes break-dancing to a brilliantly rewritten version of Falco's 1985 classic track, 'Let Me Rock You Amadeus', still result in tears of joy - and tears of joy streaming down one's face don't allow you to watch a clichéd, over-earnest and super-serious action thriller, which ultimately attempts to make monkeys of its audience as well as its lead actors. 
   

Notes: 

The Simpsons episode to which I refer - 'A Fish Called Selma' - was directed by Mark Kirkland, written by Jack Barth (before being revised by the usual in-house team), and guest starred Phil Hartman as Troy McClure. It originally aired on 24 March, 1996. 

The song 'Dr. Zaius' - one of the funniest musical numbers ever included in the show - was primarily written by George Meyer. The now classic line "from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z" in the final song of the musical was written by David Cohen.  

Thanks to Joe22c for uploading this clip on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/47069867   

That Queer Riviera Touch

Film poster by renowned Italian artist Arnaldo Putzu (1927 - 2012)

One of the films that made happy as a child was shown yesterday on Film4 - That Riviera Touch (1966), dir. Hugh Stewart, and starring Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise playing versions of themselves.

There is a plot, involving a jewel thief and a large sum of money won at a casino, but it's basically just the two English comics fooling around on the French Riviera and competing to win the affection of the beautiful Claudette, played by Canadian-born actress Suzanne Lloyd.

I have to confess, it didn't quite amuse as much as it did when first watched on TV in the 1970s, but it did still interest - particularly the ending, which is somewhat queer to say the least and openly hints towards the establishment of a ménage-à-trois of some kind. 

In other words, the two inseparable friends each get to get the girl; Claudette happily marries both men, thereby voluntarily committing an act of bigamy. In the final shot, Eric turns to the camera and says with a knowing smile: "We'll cross that hurdle when we get to it", seemingly referring to the question of who will first fuck the bride.

However, one couldn't help suspect - knowing the intimacy of the relationship between Eric and Ern - that they might be inclined not simply to share their new matrimonial duties in a cordial and civilized manner (one taking Mon-Weds, the other Thurs-Sat, leaving Sunday as a day of rest), but agree to pleasure Claudette simultaneously.  

Indeed, it's tempting to imagine that whilst all three are naked in the honeymoon suite, there might even be explicit sexual contact between the boys. This is not to suggest that all men are secretly tempted by the prospect of penetrating one another or aroused by the thought of hairy male legs, but it's amazing how often the presence of a woman - serving as an alibi of sorts - facilitates experimentation of a bi-curious character in such circumstances.       

And why not? For as Eric would say: They can't touch you for it. 

If You're Human and You Know It Clap Your Hands

According to some religious lunatic featured on a recent Dispatches report made for Channel 4, whilst the achievements of a good Muslim should be recognised, they should not receive a round of applause; for clapping, by diverting attention to the individual, robs God of the glory and praise which he alone deserves. It is thus a sound which pleases only the ears of Satan.

I have to admit, I've never thought of it like that before, but I've never much liked clapping either; both giving and receiving a show of appreciation in this manner always makes me a little ashamed. For whether one claps oneself like a trained seal hoping for a fish, or is the recipient of a doubtless generous and often warm hand, there's just something humiliating in such a socially sanctioned display of approval.

One wonders if people couldn't be encouraged to do something else: John Lennon once rather amusingly asked those in the expensive seats of a Royal Variety Performance at the Prince of Wales Theatre not to clap but simply rattle their jewellery instead. Unfortunately, this only provoked laughter (with which I also have problems) and, ironically, additional applause.

Like it or not, applause is simply too ancient and too universal a habit - too human, all too human, as Nietzsche would say - for either my opposition or that of the Taliban to really make much difference. As long as people have hands, they'll doubtless continue to scratch, fidget, and clap. Indeed, were they not taught to put their hands together in prayer, or given holy books to hold, merely in order to limit such activities ...?

Aspasia

Aspasia on the Pnyx, by Henry Holiday (1888) 

Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre

According to Nietzsche, great philosophers - like great artists - are sensual individuals full of excess vitality; lovers not just of the wisdom that resides in language, but of the truth located in bodies. Thus it's no surprise to discover that even old Socrates couldn't help being crazy with desire for Aspasia; the beautiful and accomplished courtesan who captured the heart of Pericles.

As a member of that class of women known as hetaerae, Aspasia enjoyed a level of independence and influence far above that of most other women in Greek society at this time. Renowned for her artistic and intellectual abilities, as well as her skills in the bedroom, she actively took part in symposia alongside male members of the social and political elite and her opinion was both highly respected and frequently sought out. Indeed, despite her somewhat illicit reputation, Plutarch informs us that many of these men even encouraged their wives to listen to her converse. 

Of course, she was not loved by all and Aspasia faced many personal and legal attacks from those envious of her fashion sense and her powerful position. She was accused, for example, of corrupting the young women of Athens due to her distinctive style and put on trial for impiety. Aristophanes even attempted to hold Aspasia responsible for the Peloponnesian War - labeling her the new Helen.

After Pericles died in 429 BC, Aspasia took up with Lysicles, an Athenian general. Unfortunately, little is known of her after this date. She is believed to have died shortly before the execution of her admirer Socrates in 399 BC.

Her name and her fame, however, have significantly lived on and not only does she appear in numerous works of modern art and literature, but, like Sappho, she is an important source of inspiration for many feminists, poets, and philosophers (both male and female).

An untimely figure, Aspasia both embodied and abolished all history in her person. She lived beyond judgement; accepting the abuse of those who spoke against her with stoicism and a wry smile. We can only ask: what's not to love about this astonishing woman?  

London Yawning: Lawrence and the Problem of Big City Boredom

Photo of a London hipster wearing red trousers posted 

by Monsieur Henri de Pantalon-Rouge on 15 Dec 2012

on the brilliant blog look at my fucking red trousers

In an article published in the Evening News on 3 September 1928, Lawrence writes of the queer horror for London that immediately grips his soul whenever he returns to the city:

"The strange, grey and uncanny, almost deathly sense of dullness is overwhelming. Of course you get over it after a while, and admit that you exaggerated. You get into the rhythm of London again, and you tell yourself that it is not dull. And yet you are haunted, all the time, sleeping or waking, with the uneasy feeling: It is dull! It is all dull! This life here is one vast complex of dullness! I am dull. I am being dulled. My spirit is being dulled! My life is dulling down to London dullness."  

One can't help wondering if this isn't simply a sign of weariness and ressentiment caused by early-middle age and rapidly failing health; Lawrence is, by this date, very ill with tuberculosis and has only a year-and-a-half left to live. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. Or so they say. 

But, perhaps anticipating this response, Lawrence in part refutes it by denying that the sense of excitement and wonder which he used to experience when living in London has in any way faded, or deserted him with age: "True, I am now twenty years older. Yet I have not lost my sense of adventure. But now all the adventure seems to me crushed out of London."

And for this, Lawrence - like many a cyclist or pedestrian today - blames the traffic:

"The traffic is too heavy. It used to be going somewhere, on an adventure. Now it only rolls massively and overwhelmingly, going nowhere, only dully and enormously going. ... The traffic of London used to roar with the mystery of man's adventure on the seas of life ... Now it booms like monotonous, far-off guns ... crushing the earth, crushing out life, crushing everything dead."

Even the cheeky London red buses, says Lawrence, lack fun and crawl along routes which terminate in boredom. For what's to do, he asks, except drift about on your own, or meet up with friends in order to have fun and engage in meaningless conversation: "And the sense of abject futility in it all only deepens the sense of abject dullness ..."

Again, that's Lawrence speaking, but it could be a young friend of mine complaining from the heart of hip and happening Hackney earlier this week. 

I'm not sure what Zena would suggest in order to counter and overcome this urban ennui, but I'm pretty certain she'd not share Lawrence's solution which he arrived at in a related article, also first published in the London Evening News, which involves an ironic dandyism. In other words, for Lawrence, the cure for metropolitan dullness is to be found in humour and fashion.

He writes:

"In the ancient recipe, the three antidotes for dullness, or boredom are sleep, drink, and travel. It is rather feeble. From sleep you wake up, from drink you become sober, and from travel you come home again. And then where are you?"     

This is very true. And, sadly, it's also true that the sovereign solution of love has become an impossibility today, despite what Match.com might pretend. But we can still laugh and learn how to treat life as a good joke; not in a cynical, sarcastic, or spiteful manner - but in a gay and carefree fashion:

"That would freshen us up a lot. Our flippant world takes life with a stupid seriousness ... What a bore! 

      It is time we treated life as a joke again, as they did in the really great periods like the Renaissance. Then the young men swaggered down the street with one leg bright red, one leg bright yellow, doublet of puce velvet, and yellow feather in silk cap.

      Now that is the line to take. Start with externals ... and treat life as a good joke. If a dozen men would stroll down the Strand and Piccadilly tomorrow, wearing tight scarlet trousers fitting the leg, gay little orange-brown jackets and bright green hats, then the revolution against dullness which we need so much would have begun."

This, then, is my call (and challenge) to the organizers of and participants in the International D. H. Lawrence Conference which is coming to London in the summer of 2017 - dare to revolt into style like the young man pictured; get yer red trousers on!

Note: The lines by Lawrence are taken from 'Why I Don't Like Living in London' and 'Red Trousers', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22 and pp. 135-38. 

Gandhi: Holy Fool and Hypocrite

It has been officially announced by government ministers on a visit to India that a statue of Gandhi is to be erected in Parliament Square. 

Obviously this shameful gesture is being made because Britain is keen to develop stronger commercial ties with one of the world's largest and fastest growing economies. But, according to the Chancellor, George Osborne, it's high-time Gandhi took his place in front of the Mother of Parliaments; his monument serving as an inspiration to people around the world and as a permanent reminder of the friendship between our two countries (this coming the day after a new £250m arms deal was signed). 

Gandhi might be thought of today as a peace-loving civil rights activist (thanks in no small part to Richard Attenborough's deceitful and sentimental 1982 film) - a saintly figure in a loincloth who courageously resisted violent imperialism - but this is a ludicrous caricature and his legacy is, arguably, a highly dubious one.      

Certainly it's worth remembering a few things about this shrewd but rather sinister and often cynical figure; a religious fanatic who wanted India to reject modernity and revert to a primitive 'spiritual' society; a holy fool who held bizarre views on sex, diet, and sleeping arrangements that were as much rooted in the puritanism of the late Victorian era as they were in ancient Hindu teachings.

           

For a start, Gandhi was initially a great supporter of the British Empire and an admirer of its power; he only changed his mind and called for Indian independence once he sensed the weakness of the latter and thus his own chance to succeed with a campaign of civil disobedience. During the First World War, for example, he joined a government campaign that encouraged Indians to enlist in the British Army. 

Similarly, when living in South Africa between the years 1893 and 1915, he supported the regime and its policy of racial segregation, merely petitioning for the increased rights of civilized Indian gentlemen like himself within the system. He certainly didn't advocate racial equality and did nothing for the black majority whom he referred to in his writings as kaffirs. 

Gandhi continued to express his attraction to (and flirtation with) powerful regimes during the Second World War, sending his dear friend Adolf Hitler a letter in which he expressed his conviction that the Führer was not the monster described by his enemies, but a brave and devoted nationalist obliged to commit unbecoming deeds. He openly called upon the British to Quit India in 1942, when they were critically and almost fatally weakened by their struggle with the fascist forces. In effect, therefore, Gandhi the pacifist allowed soldiers from the Imperial Japanese Army to do his fighting for him whilst he sat smiling at his spinning wheel.

Interestingly, as Christopher Hitchens notes, there was already in India at this time - and had been for decades - a strong alliance of secular leftists who had laid out the case and won the argument for Indian independence. Thus there was "never any need for an obscurantist religious figure to impose his ego on the process and both retard and distort it".

In a killer line, Hitchens concludes: "Just at the moment when what India most needed was a modern secular leader, it got a fakir and guru instead".

This is certainly regrettable, but, thanks to an assassin's bullet, at least Gandhi did not live to implement his Year Zero agenda which would surely have resulted in mass starvation and misery for tens of millions of people.   

     

That a British government - and a Conservative led government at that - should plan to erect a statue of this little weasel is deeply depressing.     

See: Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great, (Atlantic Books, 2008), pp. 184 and 183.

The Rainbow

 Joseph Anton Koch:  

Landschaft mit dem Dankopfer Noahs (1803)

 

Yesterday, a lovely rainbow across the skies of West London: even Hounslow was briefly redeemed by this trick of the light and band of faint iridescence colouring the heavens. But any joy is short-lived and, ultimately, there is always something threatening rather than hopeful in this mythological and meteorological phenomenon and one starts to feel oppressed. 

For despite symbolizing gay pride and the hope of social and political equality in the secular imagination, the appearance of a rainbow invariably takes us back to Genesis 9 and God's post-diluvian pledge to Noah and sons:

I now establish my covenant with you and your descendants and with every living creature: never again will all life be cut off by the waters; never again will be there a flood to destroy the earth. I have set my rainbow in the clouds and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and all life on earth. 

This is all very nice, though it might be thought too little, too late and hardly compensating for the global catastrophe caused by the very same loving Father who sent the rains for forty days and nights in the first place, ensuring that every living thing perished and was wiped from the face of the earth. It also provides significant wiggle-room; for in promising not to send another global flood, God carefully avoids promising not to exterminate life via some other means in the future. In effect, he is saying that whilst there'll be no more drownings or water torture, he doesn't promise not to one day burn the earth to a cinder.

The rainbow, however, doesn't exclusively remind us of the Old Testament deity playing his games of abuse. We also think of Lawrence's great novel of 1915 and particularly the closing passage in which Ursula sees the rainbow as the promise of a new day and a new evolution - though one which again noticeably follows an act of violent destruction:

"And the rainbow stood on the earth. She knew that the sordid people who crept hard-scaled and separate on the face of the world's corruption were living still, that the rainbow was arched in their blood and would quiver to life in their spirit, that they would cast off their horny covering of disintegration, that new, clean, naked bodies would issue to a new germination, to a new growth, rising to the light and the wind and the clean rain of heaven. She saw in the rainbow the earth's new architecture, the old, brittle, corruption of houses and factories swept away, the world built up in a living fabric of Truth, fitting to the over-arching heaven." 

- D. H. Lawrence, The Rainbow, ed. Mark Kinkead-Weekes, (Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 458-59.

Why are those prone to genocidal fantasies so seduced by rainbows? Is such sentimentality inherent within the psychopathology of those who thrill to the thought of apocalypse and dream of utopia at any cost? 

Beware of the grand idealists who say creation of the new can only follow the total destruction of the old. And beware of those who place, chase, or even sing rainbows ...

Domesticity Kills

 Photo by Annabel Mehran from a fashion spread entitled 

'Last Words' in the 2013 Fiction Issue of Vice Magazine.

Styled by Annette Lamothe-Ramos. 

To be trapped between a rock and a hard place may sound like an unpleasant dilemma, but for the poet and philosopher it's infinitely preferable and far less dangerous than being caught between a cushion and a soft place. Or, as in poor Sylvia's case, a gas oven and a pile of dirty nappies.

It's unfortunate, but domesticity and parenthood invariably prove fatal to many an artist. For just as home-cooking makes fat and sharing a marital bed destroys desire, so all life's little comforts and the endless daily chores involved in keeping house and bringing up baby crush the spirit faster and more effectively than Domestos kills germs.   

I would seriously warn any younger readers of a sensitive and creative persuasion against performing any of the following activities on a regular and voluntary basis: hoovering the carpet, mowing the lawn, walking the dog, watering the plants, washing the dishes, making the bed, having kids, changing the curtains, wearing slippers, visiting parents, and shopping at Sainsbury's.    

Start by avoiding these things and, perhaps, you'll manage to preserve a little freedom and sanity and keep from slitting your wrists.

Good luck!

Reflections on the 2014 FIFA World Cup

2014 FIFA World Cup Official Logo

During certain periods, in certain societies, says Barthes, the theatre had a major social function; namely, it united the entire city within the joy of a shared experience and knowledge of its own passions. 

Today, it is sport - and one sport in particular, football - that in its own fashion performs this function. 

Football today, however, is a global phenomenon and obsession and it's no longer just a city which it brings together, or a nation, but, in a sense, the entire world - as we currently witness in Brazil at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.

Of course, just like the modern Olympic Games, the World Cup is a monstrous and insane corporate-media spectacle; one which is reportedly as rife with corruption off the field, as it is tainted by undignified behaviour on it (Suarez, really, what were you thinking?).

At best, the World Cup is merely posing as a noble sporting event with ancestral significance and only pretending to further the highest ideals of humanity. The opening ceremony - always carried out with great formality - fools no one and bores the spectators as much as it often bemuses the commentators. 

We all know football is now played by vain and greedy millionaires who are more concerned with selling their image rights and securing extremely lucrative sponsorship deals than with kicking a ball about and that the fans are treated as little more than a bovine source of revenue; the super-fat in their over-priced replica shirts supporting the super-fit for the entertainment and further enrichment of the super-wealthy.

And yet still we watch, still we care, and still we believe ... Such is the magic of the beautiful game. 

      

Pessimism (In Affirmation of the Oncoming Train)

Still from Broken Down Film (1985), by Osamu Tezuka 

For details visit: michaelspornanimation.com

Arguably, pessimism is not a philosophy as such, more a philosophical attitude or disposition; what we might term a style of thinking. 

Thus whilst there is no school of pessimism, there are nonetheless certain very great thinkers whom we regard as pessimists and between them they constitute a noble tradition within philosophy. For pessimism is ultimately a form of intellectual integrity; that is to say, a form of honesty, courage, and realism in the face of the universe as it is (inhuman, non-vital, and accelerating towards annihilation). 

The term pessimism was first used scornfully by priestly critics of Voltaire to characterize and condemn his satirical attack upon the optimistic view held by Leibniz and others that this world - as the creation of a loving deity - was the best of all possible worlds. If you believe this - and thereby make an implicit theological commitment to metaphysics - then of course you will find yourself in opposition to every form of impersonal negativity, such as pessimism, or, in its more aggressive form, nihilism.

But of course, there are different forms of pessimism, as Nietzsche was at pains to point out.

On the one hand, he writes of a romantic pessimism born of suffering and impoverishment, which he associates most closely with the work of Schopenhauer and Wagner. On the other hand, he writes of an altogether different kind of pessimism that is neo-classical and futuristic in character; a Dionysian pessimism which refuses to sit in judgement and says Yes to all that is evil, absurd and ugly - not out of perversity or wilful decadence, but out of strength and richness.

Nietzsche's greatest insight is surely this: tragedy is a form of affirmation and pessimism can be an expression of the greater health; something that gives wings to the spirit and welcomes the oncoming train.             

Thanks to Simon Thomas for suggesting this post.

Black Holes

Watercolour by Dan Bransfield

thebolditalic.com 

Twinkle, twinkle little mother how I loved you like no other -

shining like a star above and flowing sweet with milky love.

You gave and gave yourself away and laughed to see your children play.
But mother-suns can't burn eternal and so there comes a collapse maternal:

Upon the self they turn and fold, as hearts once warm grow bitter-cold

and offspring whom they once loved true become a source of food anew.

Thus what was a blood relation ends with wilful, dark negation; 

life once given is swallowed back, with malice by the mother-black. 

Stephen Alexander, The Circle of Fragments and Other Selected Verse, 

Blind Cupid Press (2010).    

Kidney Stones of the Soul

Thomas Hirschhorn: Resistance-Subjecter (2011) 

Gladstone Gallery, NY and Brussels

According to folk psychologist James Hillman, there are psychic crystallizations formed by material experience and memories which potentially cause blockages in the unconscious. 

I suppose we might think of these as kidney stones of the soul; equally discomforting, though perhaps far more hazardous to the health and well-being of the individual if they can't find a way to dissolve these deposits and release the energy they contain in a positive manner. 

Ultimately, if you don't learn how to piss the past away then you run the risk of ever-increased calcification; that is to say, if you obsessively keep looking back upon a life gone by, then, like Lot's wife, you'll turn into a pillar of salt - and that's never pleasant.    

All of which brings us to Thomas Hirschhorn's terrifying sculpture entitled Resistance-Subjecter (2011), in which a group of mannequins - bodies violently exploded or eaten away from within as evidenced by gaping wounds and cavities - are in a process of becoming-mineral.     

I'm aware that the politically-engaged and philosophically-informed Hirschhorn has his own very clear ideas concerning his work. As a Marxist, he's obviously concerned with what he would think of as the hard reality of things and this piece could, for example, be read in these terms. 

But, for me, this work is more than that and more than simply a rather banal reflection on the objectification and commodification of the human being within consumer capitalism as one critic suggests; more too than merely a warning about the corrosive effect of the gaze. 

Rather, it's a reminder to drink plenty of water and never allow tiny elements of the self to harden too much: love that which melts into innocence and forgetfulness; hate that which solidifies and endures.      

Notes: 

The above work by Thomas Hirschhorn can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 14 September).

Thanks to Dr. Simon A. Thomas for the insight into James Hillman. 

 

These are a Few of My Favourite Things: Pop Singles (Top 40)

I have spoken elsewhere on the political and philosophical importance of lists, but we should not overlook the pleasure aspect: quite simply, lists make happy; they are fun (if sometimes tricky) to write and fun to read. 

So, here's a list of some of my favourite singles, assembled not in order of preference nor following a critical assessment of artistic value, but alphabetically by the name of the singer, group, or producer that I associate most closely with the track. 

For compiling lists should not be simply another excuse to exercise judgement and construct hierarchies. I love all of these records - not equally, but in any order that one might choose to play them and the only logic that links them is the fact that they continue to give pleasure and make me want to sing, dance, fuck, cry, or start a revolution. 

Six further points to note concerning the selection:

(1) I've chosen only records that were released from 1972 onwards; i.e. from the year when I bought my first 7" single: The Osmonds, Crazy Horses. Obviously, there's a bias towards songs from this and the following decade, but I've included one or two more recent tracks and I'm certainly not of the view that things were better when I was young than they are now - musically or in any way. 

(2) I've chosen only one single by any one artist. Obviously I could list several by those artists of whom I am especially fond, but I didn't want to do that.

(3) I have also limited the list to a top forty, which invariably means that some favourite songs and some favourite artists are absent.

(4) Although there are different genres of music represented on this chart (such as punk, disco and rap), I don't see why anyone would object to them all being referred to ultimately as forms of pop. I have no time for snobbery in this area. 

(5) The dates refer to the year of release as a single and not year of composition, or first appearance on an album.

(6) Finally, all these songs (with accompanying videos) can be found on YouTube if interested. Enjoy!


Abba, The Winner Takes It All (1980)
Adam and the Ants, Stand and Deliver (1981) 
Alex Guadino, ft. Crystal Waters, Destination Calabria (2007) 
Beyoncé, ft. Jay-Z, Crazy in Love (2003)
Black Eyed Peas, Pump It (2005)
Bow Wow Wow, C-30, C-60, C-90 - Go! (1980) 
Britney Spears, If U Seek Amy (2009)
The Creatures, Right Now (1983)
The Cure, Why Can't I Be You? (1987)
David Bowie, Life on Mars (1973)
Dead Kennedys, Holiday in Cambodia (1980)
Donna Summer, I Feel Love (1977)
The Darkness, I Believe in a Thing Called Love (2003)
Eminem, The Real Slim Shady (2000)
Fat Les, Vindaloo (1998)
Fugees, Ready or Not (1996)
Gary Glitter, I Love You Love Me Love (1973)
Iggy Azalea, Pussy (2011) 
Joy Division, Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980)
Kate Bush, Hounds of Love (1986)
Killing Joke, Adorations (1986)
Lady Gaga, Bad Romance (2009)
Malcolm McLaren, Double Dutch (1983)
Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)
The Osmonds, Crazy Horses (1972)
Public Image Ltd., Memories (1979)
Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody (1975)
Regina Spektor, Us (2004)
Sex Gang Children, Sebastiane (1983)
Sex Pistols, Anarchy in the UK (1976)
Slade, Cum on Feel the Noize (1973)
Soft Cell, Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (1982)
Sparks, This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us (1974)
The Specials, Ghost Town (1981)
Suzi Quatro, Devil Gate Drive (1974) 
Sweet, Block Buster (1973)
t.A.T.u., All the Things She Said, (2002)
The Undertones, My Perfect Cousin (1980)
Underworld, Born Slippy (1995)
X-Ray Spex, Identity (1978)

Who's That Girl?

Paul MacCarthy: That Girl (T.G. Awake), 2012-13

Photo: Copyright © Hauser and Wirth, 2014

If any artwork has ever solicited (and problematized) the viewer's gaze in a more challenging and slightly unnerving manner than Paul MacCarthy's That Girl (T.G. Awake) then, if I'm honest, I'm not sure I want to see it. 

Although not billed as the main attraction of the current Hayward exhibition on contemporary figurative sculpture, MacCarthy's hyperreal and clone-like figures - three silicone versions of the same girl sitting naked, legs apart, on glass-topped trestle tables - are nevertheless the stars of the show and, I think, deservedly so.

For whilst there might be issues of cynical exploitation and rather lazy porno-sensationalism, one ultimately comes away wanting to know more about the young woman who so courageously dared to expose herself in this manner and submit to the intensive, intimate, and extremely messy modelling process (as documented in the accompanying video T.G. Elyse (2011)).  

And this desire to name and to provide a personal history or biography - to effectively bring a dead object to life - is to experience what obsessed and tormented Pygmalion. Thus, in this way, MacCarthy achieves something extraordinary; he allows us to directly share in the primal (erotic) fantasy of art and to feel what he feels, not simply see what he sees.    

Notes: 

The above work by Paul MacCarthy can be viewed as part of The Human Factor: The Figure in Contemporary Sculpture, an exhibition curated by Ralph Rugoff at the Hayward Gallery, London (17 June - 7 September 2014).

That Girl is Elyse Poppers; a twenty-something American actress who has effectively become a muse to MacCarthy, having appeared in two of his films - Rebel Dabble Babble (2012) and WS (2013) - as well as in the work discussed above.