Annals Of Marriage - Library Book Romance, Nietzsche, And A Pound Of Flesh

The frustrated woman, second fiddle can only take her pound of flesh - but unlike Shylock takes it from a thousand cuts.  

Cassandra Evans never had a chance. Smart, but not quick, well-read but in the wrong things, library romance instead of deeper fare, she was frustrated in a marriage because she hoped for more, for better, but was never up to her husband's reach.  Her ripostes were off the mark, her remarks graspy confections, and her analyses dim. 

It was inevitable that the husband would leave and get away from the clucking of his wife who grappled for a toehold, never found the right step, and ended up a wounded duck.  

At the end of The Duchess of the Orient, a Faye McAllister romance about an American woman looking for love who travels to China and finds her Oriental prince only to be left on the streets of Shanghai replaced by the beautiful granddaughter of last Shantung emperor, Cassandra cried like a baby, so much did she empathize with McAllister's heroine, both left disconsolate by unfaithful men. 

She quickly borrowed the next in the McAllister series - An Oriental Love - a story which followed the heroine back to her farm in Iowa where she finds a new life of simplicity, purity, and healthy aspiration, only to return to China where her prince has been left alone and disconsolate by the emperor's granddaughter and is in need of Cassandra's solace and consolation. 

The two live in an idyll until the winds of change blow, the servants are dismissed, the princely gardens fall into a sad, neglected, flowerless bed, and the prince is arrested for treason.  

The story, not one of McAllister's best gets tangled up in Han Chinese politics and the fractious debates within the Communist party, but the prince is exonerated and he and his American bride find everlasting love in the Yellow Mountains. 

These library fugues were of course just temporary anodynes to Cassandra's suffering.  The more she demanded her birthright - to be treated royally or at least with the respect due to any woman - and the more she was ignored by her husband who thought only of extrication, the less satisfaction she could glean from the marriage.  It was a hopeless impasse. 

Had she read about Hedda Gabler, Rebekka West, and Hilde Wangel, Ibsen's Nietzschean women for whom male disassembly is a specialty she might have taken heart. Hilde seduces Solness, the Master Builder, convinces him that he, despite his failings and pedestrian ventures is close to God, and urges him to climb the steeple of the tallest church in the town from which he falls to his death.

She smiles.  She has taken over and controlled the will of another for no other reason that she could. What could be more fulfilling for a woman, asks Ibsen? 

Hedda Gabler takes over the will of her former lover, encouraging him to acts of bravery and heroism encouraging him to murder or suicide, and when he fails miserably and dies a disgustingly miserable death, she is left with nothing but an uxorious fool of a husband and kills herself in defiance of all convention.  She has exerted her will - the only validation of the individual in a meaningless world, said Nietzsche - and only her suicide, a refusal to capitulate to ordinary men, will do. 

Laura, the heroine of Strindberg's The Father, who wants complete control of her daughter and the family fortune - an impossibility in Victorian Scandinavian society - sets out to destroy her husband.  She suggests that their daughter is not his and playing on that chronic male weakness drives him mad, has him committed, and takes over everything. 

Cassandra Evans never got that far, so immersed as she was in the romantic life of Faye McAllister's heroines- women as far from Ibsen's Nietzschean characters as can be.  The heroines of her library books found romance, but it was always a pyrrhic victory.  It was a woman's fate to need love, to be cared for, to suffer at the hands of male duplicity, and to try and try again. 

As the McAllister romances piled higher on her night table, her desire for a pound of flesh increased.  She was bound and determined to turn misery into felicity, and the only way she knew how was to bring her dismissive, philandering husband to heel.  Weak as she was and no Ibsen or Shakespearean heroine, the only way she knew how was determined pettiness.  Eventually, if the pound of flesh were taken by a thousand cuts, he would come around, realize how his indifference was turning her shrewish and how realizing the error of his ways, he would offer attention, kindness, and a newfound love. 

Of course she was just whistlin' Dixie, a prisoner in her own skin, a woman without a clue, so hammered in by forces beyond her control that she could only flap about while her anger and resentment grew. It was a rock and a hard place - finding a comfortable resting ground between anger and desire was nigh impossible; and yet propelled by years of antagonism and an innate inability to act decisively, she kept up the nastiness.  

Her husband, of course, paid her no mind. The more irritating and demanding she became, the more he was out the door - his own flanking maneuver.  It would have been better had they both been more knightly - confronted each other directly, fought a fair fight, dismissed the innuendoes and petty assumptions of the past and moved on - but life is a duplicitous, petty affair. 

In Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, George and Martha flay each other to the marrow - brutal, savage honesty is the only salvation.  Too much anger, resentment, pettiness, jealousy, have built up for anything but a complete purge to set things straight.  For there to be any hope of reconciliation let alone harmony, a complete divestiture is required. 

Cassandra Evans and her husband never gave purification a chance.  She took her pound of flesh in small, annoying pieces which only served to infuriate, and he bolted at each slice.   By the time she had finished the job, the marriage was too far gone for resuscitation. 

By this time though, she was stymied - stuck in a marriage she didn't want because of age and sunken costs - and he had set his compass for other harbors. 

He got the best of the deal - he had a stack of get out of jail free cards that he played at the first sign of foul weather  He knew that eventually he would have to come to port - some port, but not any port, no country for old men, etc. - but that time was still far enough off not to have to worry about failing. 

He was set to put up with the quacking, the misshapen stories, the fabulist confections that were invented as quickly as she was challenged.  The pound of flesh included trying to gain traction even though she had to spin her wheels; and when it got too weirdly psychological - Cassandra's need for attention turned her shrewish instead of imprecatory - he withdrew to safe havens. 

To be fair, she couldn't help herself - born too early to avoid daddy-love and be a natural feminist; and born of an insecurity which owed much to time and place but was something she was born with.  How all this got convoluted into such frustration and petty meanness was question even her psychiatrist had trouble answering, but even if he had figured it out and helped her deal with it, it would have been too late. 

So, no George and Martha flaying to the marrow, no epiphanies, no coming to one's senses, no closure.  The marriage rattled on with its peculiar modus vivendi - but then again all marriages have their peculiar ways of getting on and getting through. 

However it ended - such marriages after all are too common to be followed to finality - is irrelevant.  Just another tale of Pauline warning. 'Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do'. 

Donald Trump, Iran, And The Missed Lessons Of The Civil War, Dresden, And Hiroshima - Total Victory Abandoned

Wm. Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the American Civil War marched through Georgia and South Carolina with a vengeance.  He left a path of utter destruction in his wake sending the unmistakable message to the populations left behind - the South shall never rise again. 

President Harry S Truman of the United States authorized dropping the atom bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, laying them to waste. Hundreds of thousands of civilians died in the nuclear holocaust, and Emperor Hirohito finally surrendered.  As importantly, the Soviet Union knew what was in store for them if they continued their territorial ambitions. 

The United States carried out a firebombing of Dresden, Germany to hasten the end of the war.  Like Hiroshima, the city was laid waste - a smoking rubble after American warplanes departed.  The lesson was clear - no one is safe.  Civilian casualties not only were not to be avoided, they were part of the calculus.  If the Germans understood that the Allies had no mercy in their single-minded pursuit of victory, they would think twice about resistance. 

The Israeli Defense Force has been no different.  In each and every one of the wars begun by its Muslim neighbors Israel has held nothing back.  Wars are for winning, not for some fractious, temporary peace.  Gaza has been reduced to rubble to ensure that Hamas would never again threaten the Jewish state.  Israel's attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon have been no less decisive. 

When American President Obama realized that Iran - sponsor of Middle East terrorism, implacable enemy of Israel was developing a nuclear weapon, he made a deal encouraging the mullahs to agree to cease the production of military grade fissionable material, and to stop the development of its nuclear program for ten years.  In return, Iran would be welcomed back into the commonwealth of nations. 

Because the treaty said nothing about Iran's support of its terrorist clients Hamas and Hezbollah, the regime continued its military and financial support for its clients and in so doing destabilized the region and threatened the nation of Israel. 

Iran  has always had a long-term perspective - the establishment of a world Islamic caliphate would take time. The ten year moratorium was nothing and during that short period it would be able to continue its nuclear program.  In short the United States got exactly nothing from the treaty.  Donald Trump had to authorize strikes on the country's nuclear facilities to destroy them once and for all; and expanded military action to decimate the terrorist-sponsoring theocratic regime. 

At first it looked like the campaign would be over quickly.  The ayatollah was laid to rest, the headquarters of the regime destroyed and its offensive and defensive capabilities neutralized.  But Iran was more canny, resilient, and determined than ever before. Thanks to its strategic deployment of missiles and drones throughout the country making complete destruction impossible, Iran fought back.  Then using its control over the critically important Strait of Hormuz, it put additional pressure on the United States.  

Facing increasing pressure from his own constituents and his party facing election in a few months, he took his foot off the gas and pursued a peace treaty, at this writing about to be signed.

It like Obama's treaty 'assures' that Iran will give up its military nuclear program but says nothing about its role as the sponsor of international terrorism.  In short, Iran got everything - the end of American and Israeli bombing, secured missiles and drones in underground silos, nothing about the draconian and murderous treatment of dissidents, and billions of dollars in exchange for 'peace'. 

It will rebuild its infrastructure, keep pumping and shipping oil, gradually rebuild its nuclear capacity, and help Hamas rearm and return to offensive strength.  Who won the war? Iran did. 

Israel is unhappy, for they know and understand Iran's intentions.  President Netanyahu encouraged Trump to finish the job, to lay waste to the country, to destroy it and send it the Sherman lesson - try this again, and you will be incinerated; but Trump demurred, perhaps wanting to go down in history as the peace president not The Destroyer. 

A serious mistake, and Netanyahu is livid.  What started off to be a decimating conclusion to Iran's violent ambitions has turned into a giveaway.  Israel is no safer than it was before the war.  Perhaps with the serious destruction of much of Iran's military capacity and the neutralization of Hamas there will be a peaceful interregnum, but Iran will come back as destruction-minded and hateful as ever. 

The criticism of America is that it is idealistic, short-sighted, and insistent on its moral exceptionalism.  It fought the Taliban in Afghanistan to a stalemate and then gave up. The Taliban now rule the country with the same theocratic oppression as Iran. 

The US attacked Iraq but quit once the statue of Saddam Hussein was toppled and the people cheered.  Rather than establish long term uncompromising military rule assuring that no terrorist cells would proliferate, the US went home and the results are clear.  Iraq is as far from the democratic idyll of the Middle East that Bush promised than ever. 

The United States could have won the War in Vietnam, but insistent on 'winning the hearts and minds' of the people, let up its military action and allowed both the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese regulars to consolidate their control of the South.  Ho Chi Minh laughed at American policy, dug in deeper, intimidated villagers to compliance, and showed a guerrilla warfare brilliance.  And America let this happen.  We are too humane to destroy the country a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Iran is a student of history - as it should be after thousands of years of the Persian Empire and regional dominance - and understands that America is a patsy.  It is Israel that the mullahs fear, not the United States. 

Soon enough Israel will act on its own, defiantly protective of its political sovereignty and its mission of post-Holocaust Jewish survival. 

Neville Chamberlain said that he was pursuing 'peace at any price' and in so doing capitulated to the barbaric Nazi regime and encouraged Hitler and his Nazi Anschluss.  Churchill warned Chamberlain, but he did not listen. 

 

Churchill also saw clearly the Soviet threat and insisted on taking strong action against it now that it had been weakened by World War II.  General MacArthur urged incursion into China to stop what was obviously Mao's intention to rule Asia, but he was fired by Truman for saying so.  As a result, China kept up its hegemonic intentions and the ultra Communist state of North Korea was formed and allowed to rule. 

Donald Trump gave away the store, and Israel is left to clean up the mess.  Iran will be back and another war will be fought.  The time for complete, ultimate Dresden-Hiroshima-Nagasaki victory has come and gone. 

Revisiting The Horrors Of The Telephone, The Automobile, And Television - How AI Terrifies The Limited Mind

Alicia Peters should have known better - graduate of a decent college with a good mid-level job in consulting, reasonable parentage and upbringing - but somewhere along the way she got loose-shunted. bumped aside from a path which should have taken her to finance or investment banking, but channeled her to the world's end reaches and then to political dementia. 

The West African country to which she was assigned was one of the region's and the world's sinkholes, a miserable place of disease, crime, dysfunction, and misrule.  

Alicia had been one her agency's 'bus driver' hires - not too dumb to avoid accidents; not too smart to get bored with long hauls and fall asleep. Her company needed to fill hundreds of posts around the world, saved the gems for the best and the brightest, and handed out 'starter' positions with the promise of advancement to stolid, limited vision but patient employees like Alicia  

She plugged away at donkey work, kept her own counsel, and presented a chipper face to colleagues and government counterparts.   Few Americans except international development consultants who had to visit the country ever set foot there. They were inevitably the targets of scams, intimidation, robbery, and assault and penniless, ended up charity cases of the US government.   

Alicia was overworked and disaffected by both the conditions of the country and those in which she worked.  Because the country was low on her company's list, it never got the logistical support common to other, more privileged places.  As a result, Alicia simply soldiered through; but a good bus driver, she never complained, never was the squeaky wheel, did her job, and hoped for the best. 

Perhaps because of this rather difficult experience and those to follow - she never was moved up as she expected, but got sent to one miserable African country after another - or some fleeting commiseration with the poor and destitute whose ultimate welfare she was to indirectly oversee - she became politically progressive.  Africa was just a microcosm of the ruinous history of capitalism.  

If it hadn't been for predatory colonial interests followed by collusion with the corrupt 'big men' who followed after independence; and had these countries followed the socialist example of the Soviet Union and developed a more equitable, just, and sharing society, they wouldn't be in the situation they were in. 

By the time she left international consulting she was completely disaffected with American neo-imperialism and the complicit role of Western governments and joined the ranks of progressive activism.  Whereas one person's efforts for world peace were only drops in the bucket, a unified, consolidated movement of likeminded people could make a difference. 

Because she was so limited in vision and understanding, the politics of idealism were perfect for her. There was no need for rational exposition, analysis, or exegesis when the truth was a plain as the nose on your face.  There was simply a right way and a wrong way, and the choice was clear. 

Modern progressives' forbears Brandeis, Lafollette, Gompers and other early Twentieth Century liberals were optimistic in their struggle for workers' rights. They valued both the capitalist engines of productivity that engineered America's rise to industrial power, and the labor it took to keep the machinery running they were not naysayers but constructivists. They fought on the side of labor but sought accommodation and compromise with capital as the only solution. 

Today's progressives see things quite differently, and are limited in their political viability by true belief and the isolated perspective it demands.  Everything in America is wrong, and everything the conservative opposition does or proposes only compounds the error and plunges the country farther into a capitalist morass. Ever evil derives from capitalism, is forever tainted by its greed. If capitalism were replaced by a more congenial, inclusive, fair and just political philosophy like socialism, the country could be righted immediately. 

Which is why Alicia and her progressive colleagues have been completely, utterly befuddled by the radical innovations in technology which will usher in the post-human generation. Artificial intelligence, complete electronic-human computer symbiosis and the ability to remake the human genome will make the human race unrecognizable to future generations. 

'Elon Musk is a racist', said Alicia when the conversation turned to the genius cluster of Musk, Huang, Brin, Zuckerberg. Rather than see them as a modern parallel to Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and J.P. Morgan - innovators, entrepreneurs, social revolutionaries, she could only brand them as racist tyrants who seek only to rob the poor and enrich themselves - wolfish predators, murderers, and dictators-in-waiting. 

Artificial intelligence was designed by this cabal of sorcerers only as a means of stealing the livelihood of working class Americans and black people. It is devilish, evil, and satanic; and the very idea of a post-human, technologically facilitated generation is horrific, an end to liberalism, compassion, consideration, an unholy hell of capitalist doing. 

The more she howled about AI and its perpetrators, the more agitated she became.  Not only was Musk a racist but an anti-Semite, pedophile, and serial misogynist.  The more she spoke, the more unhinged she became.  She was a woman possessed out of control, completely at the mercy of some violent eruption of unambivalent, excoriating hatred. 

'Conviction is the disease of the inferior mind', said Immanuel Kant in 1764 in his Critique of Pure Reason, and he could have been writing about the likes of Alicia Peters who was simply incapable of seeing anything clearly, so addled with conviction and true belief that she was.  There was no equilibrium in her intellect, no ability to see anything but the Faustian deception and corruption of the world. 

'She's nuts', said someone who had suffered through Alicia's harangues; and off her rocker she certainly seemed but she was part of whole movement which espoused the very same bilious hatred as she.  An entire political party had seemingly become unhinged. 

Alicia once completely untethered from the reasonable expectations of the gathering, wandered from one pus-filled sore to another - the continuing plight of the black man, consigned to desperation in ghettoes created by white racism and male privilege; the expatriation of legitimately needy asylees, the blaspheming of hopeful transgenders, the cronyism of unnecessary wars. Trump...Trump...TRUMP! she wailed. 

It was always thus and never thus. It is not surprising, therefore, that people at the turn of the century thought that the telephone was the end of the cohesive, respectful society of the day.  It would, they said, destroy the carefully-woven fabric of the community because women would no longer gossip over the back fence, friends would no longer drop in for coffee, and the personal contacts which assured social adherence and avoided larger disputes – engagements, arrangements, negotiations, and settlements – would disappear. 

More importantly the very character of America – farms, small town, and tightly-woven, friendly communities -would disappear. The country would become more impersonal, less concerned with the lives and well-being of others, selfish and enclosed.

The fear of course was unfounded, and the telephone expanded personal contact, facilitated social dialogue, and connected family members like never before.  The telephone facilitated commerce, increased efficiency, and became the centerpiece of rapid economic expansion.

Americans were wary of ‘The Horseless Carriage’ and ‘The Iron Horse’ for similar reasons.  The car and the train would disrupt a very pastoral, settled, and community life. They were not unlike the telephone, instruments of  social reconfiguration which would change the settled, predictable, and comfortable life of America forever.  

Smoke-belching, banging, and rattling trains disturbed the tranquility and integrity of the Great Plains. They cut through the heartland, disturbing its natural rhythms.  Connection to the land was not disrupted or disordered by the horse, just modified. The natural order of things – plants, man, and animals living together – remained intact.  The train, early critics said, would destroy this harmony, one that had existed forever.

Today's progressive is different - not only is there great suspicion of technological advances but condemnation of the economic system that produces them and most of all the individuals behind their creation.  Hatred all the way around.  A different algorithm, a different ballgame. 

'What can we do?', shouted Alicia about the onslaught of new technology and its co-opting of society, a dinner guest suggested that smart people always figure out ways of dealing with change and lead others.  To which Alicia now feverish with anger, shouted him down as arrogantly racist.  'Smart??', she yelled. 'Smart?? You mean white, privileged....'and on and on she went with increasingly warped non sequiturs. 

She was simply unable to understand the simplest notions of history, humanity, and human intelligence, so immured as she was within the walls of an intellectual prison of her own making.  

'Nuts is hardly the word for it', said another; and so it was that Alicia Peters already completely off the rails, ended - a crazed, possessed, demented woman called out for lunacy but obliged to creep back into whatever dark place she came from.  Insignificant, unnoticed, supernumerary.