The Bliss Of Ignorance - Life Is So Much Easier With True Belief, The Saga Of A Credulous Woman

For Vicki Samuels there was not a scintilla of doubt that each and every item in the progressive canon was true and undeniable.  As such there was no reason to doubt or to question. It was all received wisdom - the climate, the borders, the black man, transgenders, capitalism, and racism. These were the philosophical pillars of American society, deep, strong, unimpeachable, and eternal.  It felt good every morning to know that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. 

Yet everything was wrong with the world - the black man continues to be oppressed in a world of white supremacy, the climate shows no signs of healthy reversal, the gay man, the lesbian, and the transgender are still marginalized and hated, needy refugees are turned back at the border or rounded up and deported once here, and Wall Street keeps up its predatory, acquisitive behavior favoring the rich and well-to-do; but everything is on the right path for renewal, transformation, and return. 

Vicki used to be a voracious reader, but the more she read now, the less she learned or discovered.  The world was exactly as forecast, on a downward spiral of hate, incineration, and misery.  There was no need to read about sea level rise and the barrage of Atlantic hurricanes because global warming was a fait accompli, an undeniable, unquestioned phenomenon.  Whatever the vicissitudes of weather, the trajectory was the same - a disastrous, violent, destructive climate Armageddon. 

Every day white, privileged men exerted undue power over the vulnerable, fomented hatred of all other races, genders, and ethnicities. Gestapo SS storm troopers were rounding up legitimate asylees, loading them on cattle cars and shipping them back to the concentration camps of origin.   Gay clubs and the lesbian beer halls of Bernal Heights were raided, and men and women were sent to far northern reservations far worse than Soviet gulags. Black men were hanged from sycamore limbs as often as during the days of Jim Crow and segregation. 

Vicki knew this absolutely and needed no confirmation for her beliefs.  The time for inquiry and investigation were over. 

Now, of course none of these assumptions were true, vetted, parsed, and studied. Vicki took them all on face value, matters of principle, divine injunction, and an almost Biblical faith.  

How did this viral possession of an ordinary, reasonably intelligent, uninspiring but good woman happen.  As a child she believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy; but as she got older forgot them, relegated them like old dolls she played with as a toddler, kept them in a favorite, soft part of her memory but never once looked at them as anything more than enduring myth. 

She was tricked by older children - stones collected from a giant's lair, a space alien's tooth, and the magical potion of wild berries and pine root - but those too were dismissed in normal childhood evolution.  

She believed boys were actually interested in her although she had none of the charm, beauty, and sexual allure of her classmates.  She primped in the mirror seeing only Helen of Troy, not the rather unattractive offspring of unattractive parents.  She believed it when class activists told her that she had a mission to reform others, and that the world needed young women like her. 

There was no indication that she would necessarily fall off the rails or into the deep end.  For a long time she retained her equilibrium, chose and acted sensibly; but as she grew older, it was as though all intellectual reserve had crumbled.  She had become a credulous, naive, and totally vulnerable woman. 

It wasn't that the progressive canon was so new, revolutionary, or existential. Far from it.  It was as fantastical as any other utopian movement, filled with aspirations, dreams, happy hopes for an impossible paradise of harmony, universal justice, and love but with no foundation, no historical precedent or relevance.  Vicki's immediate, whole-hearted, absolute embrace of the liberal canon was not based on logic, objectivity, analysis, or exegesis.  Something else was the matter. 

Professor Howard Rubenstein of Harvard, noted social scientist and bio-ethics researcher, had this to say about the nature of true belief:

True Belief, the passionate embrace of a utopian future, the jettisoning of rational doubt and in its place installing an altar to hopefulness is a common phenomenon, rooted somewhere in the dimly remembered events of childhood, maturing in the fiercely hostile world of adolescence, and growing inalienable in the heady atmosphere of political righteousness.  True Believers, unlike the normally skeptical and patient, wait for the illogical epiphany which will finally release them from the confines of the real world and let them gambol in fantasy. 

 

Vicki lives in a leafy neighborhood of Washington, DC, a politically uniform, universally liberal enclave of the city.  Each and every resident is of the same political absolutism.  No one needs look any farther than the mirror to confirm their hatred of Donald Trump and his MAGA followers.  There are things in the world that need no inquiry.  There is no need to deconstruct to discover political cadence, meter, or tone.  To a man and in complete lockstep Vicki's neighbors march to the same drummer. 

This unquestioning neighborhood of foundational belief was the perfect home for Vicki who by this time had rid herself of any niggling, residual doubts of progressive righteousness.  It was time to rest from debate and animus and lie back in the knowledge that history had come to an end. 

A few years ago the political philosopher Francis Fukuyama had concluded that with the fall of the Soviet Union, the world had come to 'the end of history', that is that it was now united in democratic principle, and would never more be subjected to tyranny and political evil. 

Where he got his news has always been a mystery, but for a few years after the demise of Communist Russia, the world believed him in a wave of idle hopefulness.  It wasn't long before the idyll ended and the world fell apart in a miasma of territorialism, religious fanaticism, and political hatred. 

So the residents of University Park should have known better.  History will never end, human nature will continue to drive territorial ambition, self-interest, and aggressiveness.  If there is such a thing as received wisdom it is the absolute ineluctability of human nature. 

Ignorance is indeed bliss for the True Believer who has chosen to escape the hurly-burly world of political difference and to reside in a world which needs no confirmation.  And who can blame them? Who would not want to live in an unencumbered, uncontested world? The happiness principle, the new ethos of political absolutism. 

Meritocracy - The China State Dinner Guest List, Not A Black Face In The Crowd

There they were surrounding the Presidents of the United States and China - Musk, Bezos, Brin, Huang, Ellison, Page, and Zuckerberg, America's genius cluster, neo-industrialists like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and J.P. Morgan of a hundred years ago, the men whose intelligence, creativity, ambition, will and insight have confirmed the country's premier position in high-tech, media, and business. 

China is the second biggest economy in the world, America's most formidable adversary, a country of remarkable achievement, in only a few decades rising from the poverty of the Maoist years to one of the world's wealthiest, most ambitious and best militarily prepared. 

Xi has made China's intentions clear. With its Machiavellian world view, its Confucian ethic, its imperial history, and a Communist system which insists on cultural integrity, patriotism and national pride, a deliberate, single-minded drive for international superiority, and a program to elevate millions out of poverty to wealth, it will preside over all nations. 

It owns much of the United States' debt, is on a path to control the natural resources necessary for modern, high-tech technology, to command the attention of Third World nations as it continues to make mutually favorable deals for mineral wealth and energy.  There are none of America's conditionalities applied to African nations, insisting on judicial and electoral reform as conditions of foreign aid.  The Chinese have negotiated an agreement with Angola - guarantee oil at a fixed, below-market rate, and we will rebuild your failing infrastructure.  

Morality and exceptionalism have no place in the Chinese geopolitical worldview  Every country is bound to further its national interest first, foremost, and exclusively.  It is up to recipient countries to reform if they see fit. As such, and guided by such a simple ethos, the Chinese have managed to assume political and economic hegemony over Africa and much of the rest of the developing world while the United States has dithered, mired in self-referential moralism. 

At the core of Chinese dominance is a socio-philosophical culture which values hard work, discipline, single-minded attention to excellence, and an indefatigable practicality.  One has to look no farther than the Chinese diaspora in America to see this ethos at work.  Chinese students are the majority at specialized high schools like New York City's Stuyvesant which takes students based on a highly competitive exam.  They predominate to such a degree at America's top tier schools that a Supreme Court case had to be fought to ensure that programs of diversity did not discriminate against them. 

So it is no surprise that Donald Trump brought out the big guns of modern industry at his state dinner.  America has been and will always be a world leader in economic influence.  China may be a worthy competitor, but these men sitting around the formal dinner table are not to be taken lightly.  They will engineer America's supremacy in AI, robotics, and the introduction of ultra-high technology throughout the economy. 

'Racist', said Bob Muzelle when the read the guest list in the Washington Post. 'Not a black face among them', but no comment could be more irrelevant.  Presidents Xi and Putin of Russia have had a good laugh at the circus of diversity, equity, inclusivity, and identity politics dividing America, focusing on irrelevant, historically ignorant, and febrile fantasies.  The more the United States is consumed by such idiocy and turns its vision away from the far more important if not existential geopolitical issues of the day, the better it is for the Machiavellian, determined regimes of the world. 

There was no politically driven, enforced mandate of diversity promoting the men of the genius cluster.  They rose to the top of the industrial pyramid and to untold wealth thanks to brains, ambition, will, and ingenuity.  There is no room for the less qualified in their intellectual aerie; no room for hopeful but intellectually laggard hopefuls. 

All formal White House events under the Biden administration were examples of diversity run rampant.  Guests were chosen to show off a 'rainbow coalition', an assortment of races and ethnicities with little regard for excellence, ability, or promise.  It was enough to show the world and assembled dignitaries that America was a cultural haven, a humane, considerate, compassionate place. 

There were no black faces around the formal dinner tables at the Trump dinner because the black community still lags far behind in educational performance, professional success, scientific achievement, intellectual brilliance, and uncommon character. This all may be in the cards, but not now.  

The head table at one of Biden's last state diners was a circus act, a side show, a collection of every possible variety of race, gender, and ethnicity - and not just tame, Armani-suited, examples of business demeanor, but the most exaggerated versions of each.  Not just gay men who looked like every other American man, but the swishiest, most outlandishly cabaret-ready ones.  Such diversity was far more powerful, telling, and indicative of geopolitical superiority than any collection of Silicon Valley and Wall Street so-called geniuses. 

To Bob Muzelle and his progressive colleagues, the guest list at the Chinese state dinner was a travesty, an expression of America's deeply-rooted sense of elitism, aristocracy, cultural separatism, and raw Darwinian competition. They howled when they saw the limousines pull up to the White House gate - billionaires and their white trophy wives - tall, elegantly dressed, stunningly beautiful consorts to the world's most powerful. 

And yet, all Bob could do when he made up his own diverse guest list was to come up with old, hackneyed retreads - Al Sharpton, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Cornel West, and Henry Louis Gates - men known more for their social media sites and public showiness than any real substance.  Of course there were hundreds of black athletes who dominate American professional sports, but all these men can do is throw or kick a ball, and would add nothing to the high octane fuel of state dinners. 

Progressives like Muzelle were stuck within the  confines of 'diversity' a political agenda which stopped at the surface and had no interest in the real high qualities of a nation.  He was hobbled by an irrelevant algorithm.  Given his political party's insistence on the superficial, insisting that race, gender, and ethnicity alone gave agency, respect, and title, he was forced to come up dry. 

Of course there were plenty of Asian Americans at the Trump dinner.  What would Silicon Valley be without them? But they don't count and don't belong in the racial pantheon of the liberal Left.  They are not victims, and that is what filters them out of the equation.  Diversity is not static, but a first step to raising the disadvantaged out of social poverty. No Asians, by and large successful, intellectually driven, professionally outstanding, and wealthy, fall into that category. 

'Your time is up', said a Yale classmate of Bob as kindly as he could, 'and about time', he added to himself; but to Bob the fight was now enjoined at the highest level.  Donald Trump was a maleficent, dangerous, opportunistic interloper who must be defeated, replaced, decommissioned and sent packing before he did any more damage. 

Yet, in his quieter moments, Bob, now a man of advanced years reflected on his life and saw only his shabby office, his split-level in the low-end suburbs, his penurious income, the failing public schools his children had attended, his exclusion from all the perks and advantages a Yale education should have afforded him.  The classmate who called him out for his penitential politics was about to head off to Nantucket for the summer in time to sail in the Yale-Harvard Alumni regatta.  He was to be joined there by other members of Bob's class of 19__, patrician, wealthy, influential men and their families of beautiful wives and children. 

He quickly shook off the awful vision and returned to the social activism which had sustained him for so many years; but there was that guest list, in indelible ink before his eyes.  America's best and brightest shown off to the world while his ragtag, motley diverse assemblage of racial, gender, and ethnic caricatures was nowhere to be seen. 

The Three Faces Of Eve - The Usefulness Of Falsehood In Love And War

Eve Harden never let on what she was thinking or feeling. She had learned that to keep secrets - whispered gossip - was easy, but to keep one's real intentions hidden was mastery. This sense of personal secrecy had worked since she was a child with her doting and credulous parents. Whatever she told them, they had a penchant to believe, and if later found out to be less than the truth, they gave her the benefit of the doubt.  Her sincerity, love, and desire to please overcame any censure or discipline. 

When she grew older this simple disingenuousness became charm.  A pretty girl and then quite a beautiful young women, she quickly understood how a smile, a favoring look, a delightful, light touch on the arm could resolve any issue, achieve difficult ends with little effort, and make her way in the world with ease and impunity. 

Ordinarily a girl who charms boys is hated by other girls.  Jealousy in adolescence is a rite of passage, and the natural instinct of Eve's classmates was to turn on her, claw, scratch, bitch and bite until she was cowed and their way forward was clear. 

In Eve's case, her classmates had no animus, no resentment, no hatred, for Eve's remarkable charm - now called public relations - was so unintimidating, so tame and unthreatening - that she always had her way. Each girl thought that Eve was her best friend, and as a group, they were as docile and following as a flock of sheep, 

Eve knew when to share a bit of gossip or innuendo, at such a right time and place that it gained in intimacy and credibility.  When she started the rumor about Mr. Finchley - entirely unfounded and untrue but cannily crafted and built around his eccentricities - it not only was believed by the girls and not only did it bring the poor math teacher up before an administrative committee, but it gave Eve a reputation for insight, sharing, and friendship. 

She always wondered at the ironic instance of her naming after the first woman, a deceitful, sexually manipulative character.  This Eve - Eve Harden - never thought of herself in such negative terms. She was only using her God-given talents to make her way in life.  

If God had created woman as a seductive, alluring, and irresistible being, then using that endowment was not negative but positive.  And if God created men as credulous beings, longing for adulation, and obsessed with sexual conquest, then they were there to be used as an accessory to profit. 

Now, the Hebrew authors of the Old Testament hedged a bit.  They knew what women were capable of, and how men needed to be on their guard from the get-go, but could not damn God's human creation, so they invented the snake, the Devil in disguise.  

They said he was responsible for Eve's canny seduction of Adam; but they knew that the snake/devil was just an artifact.  They knew that Eve was responsible for Adam's foolish bite of an apple from the Tree of Knowledge and the couple's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. 

Our Eve knew that her way in the world have its pitfalls - that she learned from Genesis.  Eve might have been acting according to her God-given nature, but she still should have known what might happen. Eve Harden would be much more careful. 

God's Eve was to be a model for all women, for she used all her canniness, her observant insights into the nature of men, her natural feminine allure, and her superior intelligence to deceive Adam, the first man.

God's Eve had only Adam to work with.  Our Eve had unlimited possibilities, unlimited sources of wealth, influence, and authority.  It was not enough to have seduced the girls of St. Anthony's High School into believing in her sainthood, to have tempted the boys into treating her like a queen, and to have gotten far better grades than she deserved from each and every teacher.  She would move on to greater successes, greater heights. 

Her success at college was legendary. President of this, chairwoman of that; social and academic honors, etc.; but it should not be assumed that she made her way only through this sexual nativism.  No, Eve was smart enough to lay the foundation for more personal add-ons. Brains plus charm is a heady mix. 

Eve's ambitions were many, and realizing her abilities, she would achieve them all.  She was a voracious lover and picked only the most sexually accomplished men. The same instincts that enabled her to find, see, understand, and use human gullibility gave her a finely-tuned animal ability to sort the most able and potent men from the weak and unreliable.  When she found the right partner, she became an irresistible sexual object and an indefatigable lover. 

When she turned her attention to the long term - a mate, a husband - she was equally calculating.  She vetted, sorted, sussed, triaged with a sense of demography, social dynamics, and a good sense for responsibility, duty, and fidelity. 

'This can't be', one was tempted to say.  How could one woman have all these incredibly useful traits, this inimitable drawing power, this multivariate talent? 

Yet these doubters never looked past the pedestrian and the ordinary. Although all women were God's Eve's descendants and like her had a native, undeniable sexual power, few realized it like our Eve.  They acted by fits and starts, influenced by social norms, feminist advocacy, Sunday School and Christian teaching, patriarchy and pregnancy and did not tap into their roots, realizing their full potential.  Our Eve did and then some. 

Life is not a bowl full of cherries, nor is it quite as bad as Hobbes thought (solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short).  It is to be lived, to be taken advantage of, to be exploited, a fertile field but one full of pitfalls, dangers, mine fields. 

On and on went the homilies, adages, and sane prophecies but the smartest among us, the Eves, disregarded both the warnings and the overblown optimism. Success requires understanding, plotting, determination, will, and guiltless action only. The rest is for true believers and pessimists. 

Eve's record is clear - notable notes in the Alumni Magazine, mentions in the Congressional Daily, New York Times references to her successes, blurbs in her home town newspaper.  A casual Google search will turn up hundreds of sites recording or reflecting her life, thoughts, and accomplishments. 

At one point however, she dropped out of sight, leaving everything behind - her two husbands, her lovers, her career.  All traces of her disappeared; but those few who knew her - really knew her for the complex woman she was - were not surprised. 

She was Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen's character in his play of the same name.  Hedda, like Nietzsche believed that the only validation of the individual in a meaningless world was the expression of pure will.  Her devilish manipulation of Lovborg, encouraging him, driving him to suicide was the apotheosis of this willful, amoral determination. 

So once it was all over, once Eve had left behind a thousand Lovborgs, won innumerable battles in love and war, had fulfilled every ambition, revered as a Colossus but smiling at adulators' credulousness and gullibility, she retired. 

'A remarkable woman', said a former lover.