The Earth in Anarchy

The Earth in Anarchy

This is most likely the last thing I will ever write in this space on mass shootings.

This is not an issue I prefer to comment on for a very large number of reasons, the most emphatic of which is that it has become clear to me that it is precisely the writing and proclaiming and glorifying of such events that is most responsible for their continuation, as a virtually unique, imitative, mass-media-driven phenomenon. Mass shooters commit mass shootings first and foremost because they have heard and read about other mass shootings, have become deeply impressed by the cultural and social and political impact of such events, the fear and grief and anger they inspire, the iconic and symbolic nature of the killings, the manifestos and disaffection and claims and identities of the killers, and the deep, universally-acknowledged sense of meaningfulness about all the above, and so have decided to imitate them. The most directly impactful thing I, and probably most of you, can do to prevent mass shootings is to ignore them unless you are directly or indirectly affected by them. Even then, it is quite clear to me that the mass-media and political circus around such events deeply harms the actual victims of shootings, preventing them from grieving and moving forward by cynically channeling their grief into the news cycle. I have no desire to participate in any of the above, however remotely.

Nonetheless, in the current mass media landscape, such events as these are supposed to lead to conversations and policy debates about "gun control" and "gun violence." These conversations now commonly involve direct accusations of opponents being responsible for murder and the death of children, and lead, in practice, mostly to an increase in the generally violent valence of American society. 

Despite the above cautions, probably for the only time, is my own contribution to this discourse. It will not be repeated.

I should perhaps repeat at the outset that I do not own a gun, have no desire to own a gun, and in fact possess a fairly strong personal aversion to firearms, which was perhaps inherited from my maternal grandfather, who despite owning a firearm as a practical necessity (in his career as a cattle farmer), had a strong aversion to guns and avoided using them as much as possible.

City of Valleys

City of Valleys

I want to write something about the place where I was born.

Birmingham is the largest city in Alabama, but it is hard for me to think of it as a city at all. Here is a definition of a city: a place where the signs and efforts of human habitation have overwhelmed and defined the landscape. This is not what I feel when I am in Birmingham.

The people who built Birmingham were businessmen. Far from what was then considered civilization, it was discovered that the mountains contained iron ore. Railroads were built, and certain industrialists succeeded in getting them to intersect here, instead of somewhere else; and with an odd but characteristic mixture of simplicity and grand aspiration, they decided to name this conjunction for the greatest industrial city of the contemporary world.

Beginning as an aspirational Birmingham, England, it gradually transitioned into an aspirational Pittsburgh, "the Steel City of the South." Now, the steel furnaces, mills, and factories that once darkened the sky have disappeared so entirely that it is difficult to believe they were ever there; and Birmingham has passed to presenting itself as an aspirational Atlanta.

All these urban and civilizational trappings sit lightly on Birmingham. When I am there, as I was recently, it is not these things of which I think.

The End of the Armistice

[A new concept: after years of reading G.K. Chesterton's newspaper columns, I have really come to like the format. There is something interesting about seeing an essayist with a broad variety of interests comment in real time on things as they come up, whether general events or politics or religion or literature or life. This is not true of most modern newspaper columns, which are short and narrowly focused on partisan politics. With this in mind, I have set myself the task of writing a weekly "column" in which I comment on whatever the hell I want, with very little editing, and while limiting myself in length (c. 2000-3000 words) and complexity. I make no claims whatsoever that these "essays" will be even a hundredth as interesting as Chesterton's.]

The End of the Armistice

Prices are high, cost of living through the roof, inflation peaking, workers desperate for steady employment and higher wages, businesses desperate for labor, productivity down, resignations endemic, corporate profits through the roof, traditional sectors of the economy being hollowed out and replaced by new, creative forms of gambling and get-rich-quick schemes, reports of new, localized but increasingly apocalyptic conflicts appear daily on the news, there are rumblings of labor strikes and even revolution, and many people seem to find it impossible to do the most basic things.

What year is it? 1920.

At the beginning of the event known colloquially as "the Pandemic" (much as people in 1920 spoke colloquially of "the War"), I made a few observations and predictions which I have had no cause to retract:

1) That the Pandemic was the most significant global event since the World Wars, precisely because it was an event affected almost everyone, in every stratum of society throughout the world, immediately and extremely.

2) That in predicting how society and individuals would respond and react to the Pandemic, we should look to the World Wars.

3) That therefore the period after the Pandemic, like the periods after both Wars, would be marked by significant societal and political and international instability.

4) In particular, I believed that the immediate impact of Pandemic conditions would lead to an increase in stress and stress-related behaviors, a sense of personal and global instability a la "anything can happen," and therefore to simultaneous and staggered increases in both extreme risk-averse behavior and extreme risk-prone behavior. That is, faced with the knowledge that Events with extreme personal and global effects can happen apart from normal, societally- and intellectually-approved calculations and systems, people would spend a significant period of time oscillating between an irrational desire to flee from all dangers, and an equally irrational desire to risk anything and everything since they're probably doomed anyway. And the result of both of these impulses would be social and political instability.

Mary Worth & French Postmodernism: 2/3/22

 

Pope St Martin I, Epistola XVII

Another quick translation for the feast of Pope St. Martin I:

"We always have every desire of consoling your love with letters and alleviating that anxiety which you have about us: and along with you also all the saints and our brothers who care about us because of the Lord.

Look, I am writing to you for the present about the things that oppress us. I speak the truth in the name of Christ our God. For we have been removed from all earthly disturbance, and separated from our sins, and look, we have even been deprived of life itself.

If only the people who live in this region were all pagans! Indeed the people who are known to dwell here have accepted pagan morals, and no longer have that love, with abundant compassion, which human nature shows even among barbarians. God knows that this is how it is, except in regards to the people from the ships which come from 'Romania,' as those who are here call those regions, that is to say, that is what they call the regions of Greek Pontus. For from this region I have not once been able able to get hold of even a single trimensis of grain or food of any other kind, except, as I said above, from the ships which rarely come here to depart again loaded with salt. In this way we have been able to buy with money three or four measures of grain during the period up to the present month of September. And til now we have not been able to buy any fresh produce except four measures for one coin.

I have been amazed, however, and I still am amazed at the lack of understanding and lack of compassion of all those who once belonged to me, even my friends and family, because they have entirely forgotten my plight, and do not even want to know, as I have learned, whether I am above the ground or not. I have also wondered much more at those who belong to the Most Holy Church of Peter the Apostle, because they have given so little effort about their own body and their own body part--that is, my love--in order to bring us back, and are without concern even for the necessities of my body and my daily needs. For even if the Church of Holy Peter does not have gold, nevertheless by the grace of God she does not lack grain and wine and other necessities, so that she could show her concern by giving me even a little.

What sort of conscience do you think we have to display before the tribunal of Christ, at that time when all people, who have arisen from the same mud and the same mass, will accuse and render accounts? What fear is this which has fallen upon people so that they do not at all do the commandments of God, or what fear can there be where there is no fear? Or have malignant spirits buried us in slander to such an extent? Or have I appeared to be an enemy of the whole fullness of the Church, and their enemy?

Nevertheless may God, who wills that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth, through the intercession of Holy Peter preserve their hearts in the Orthodox Faith, and strengthen them against every heretic and every person opposed to our Church, and guard them immovable, especially that pastor who is now appointed to preside over them, and therefore let them neither fall away, nor turn away, nor let go of, any of those things which in the sight of God and his Holy Angels they have professed in writing, even to the smallest part, and let them, together with my humility, obtain the Crown of Justice of the Orthodox Faith from the hand of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

For the care for this humble body of mine will belong to the Lord himself, as it pleases him to govern it, whether in unceasing troubles, or in a little respite. For the Lord is near; why am I anxious? I certainly hope in his mercies, because he is not now delaying in bringing an end to my race, to which he ordered me.

Keep safe those who belong to you because of the Lord, and all those who for the love of God have had compassion on my chains. May the Most High God with his powerful hand protect you from every trial, and keep you safe for his kingdom."

 -Pope St. Martin I, Epistola XVII

Mary Worth & French Postmodernism: 1/30/22

"The reabsorption of critical negativity is echoed by an even more radical form of denial: the denial of reality.

In simulation, you move beyond true and false through parody, masquerade, derision to form an immense enterprise of deterrence. Deterrence from every historical reference, from all reality in the passage into signs. This strategy of destabilization, of discrediting, of divestment from reality in the form of parody, mockery, or masquerade becomes the very principle of government, is also a depreciation of all value.

The question is no longer of a power or a 'political' power connected to a history, to forms of representation, to contradictions and a critical alternative. Representation has lost its principle and the democratic illusion is complete--not as much by the violation of rights as by the simulation of values, general uncertainty and the derealization of all reality. Everyone is caught in the signs of power that occupy the entire space--and that are shared by everyone communally (take for example the resigned, embarrassed complicity in the rigged workings of the political sphere and polls).

From there, the system works exponentially:

--not starting from value, but from the liquidation of value.
--not through representation, but through the liquidation of representation.
--not from reality but from the liquidation of reality.

Everything in the name of which domination was exercised is terminated, sacrificed, which should logically lead to the end of domination. This is indeed the case, but for the sake of hegemony.

The system doesn't care a fig for laws; it unleashes deregulation in every domain.

--Deregulation of value in speculation.
--Deregulation of representation in the various form of manipulation and parallel networks.
--Deregulation of reality through information, the media, and virtual reality.

From that point on: total immunity--one can no longer counter the system in the name of one's own principles since the system has abolished them. The end of all critical negativity. Closure of every account and all history. The reign of hegemony.
[...]
The most serious of all forms of self-denial--not only economically or politically but metaphysically--is the denial of reality. This immense enterprise of deterrence from every historical reference, this strategy of discrediting, of divesting from reality in the form of parody, mockery, or masquerade, becomes the very principle of government. The new strategy--and it truly is a mutation--is the self-immolation of value, of every system of value, of self-denial, in differentiation, rejection and nullity as the triumphant command."

-Jean Baudrillard, The Agony of Power

Mary Worth & French Postmodernism: 1/9/22

"At the supreme moment of the crisis, the very instant when reciprocal violence is abruptly transformed into unanimous violence, the two faces of violence seem to be juxtaposed; the extremes meet. The surrogate victim serves as catalyst in this metamorphosis. And in performing this function he seems to combine in his person the most pernicious and most beneficial aspect of violence. He becomes the incarnation, as it were, of a game men feign to ignore, one whose basic rules are indeed unknown to them: the game of their own violence.

It is not enough to say that the surrogate victim 'symbolizes' the change from reciprocal violence and destruction to unanimous accord and construction; after all, the victim is directly responsible for this change and is an integral part of the process. From the purely religious point of view, the surrogate victim--or, more simply, the final victim--inevitably appears as a being who submits to violence without provoking a reprisal; a supernatural being who sows violence to reap peace; a mysterious savior who visits affliction on mankind in order subsequently to restore it to good health.

To our modern way of thinking a hero cannot be 'good' without ceasing to be 'evil,' and vice versa. Religious empiricism sees matters in a different light; in a sense, it confines itself to recording events as it sees them. Oedipus is initially an evil force and subsequently a beneficial one. It is not a question of 'exonerating' him, because the question of blaming him, in the modern moralistic sense of the term, never arises.

[...]

The beneficial Oedipus at Colonus supersedes the earlier, evil Oedipus, but he does not negate him. How could he negate him, since it was the expulsion of a guilty Oedipus that prompted the departure of violence? The peaceful outcome of his expulsion confirms the justice of the sentence passed on him, his unanimous conviction for patricide and incest.

If Oedipus is indeed the savior of the community, it is because he is a patricidal and incestuous son."

-René Girard, Violence and the Sacred