I'm Sorry, Who Are You Again? - The Selectiveness Of Memory, Filtering Out Irrelevant People

Hanna Barbera couldn't believe it.  Her husband who had sat at the dinner table with Joan Perkins, ate a three course meal, and laughed about the Grand Canyon, could not remember either Joan or the dinner. 

 

When his wife had reconstructed her friend - her origins, profession, looks, attitude - and Arthur still couldn't remember, she shook her head and said, 'You're impossible'. 

Of course he couldn't remember Joan Perkins.  Why should he?  She was one of a long list of incidental guests invited by his wife to fill Saturday evenings.  There were some he remembered for a while - the Barkers, for example, a nasty, dissatisfied couple who picked at each other; Helen Redding, a tarty member of the DAR who kept talking about George Washington; or Martha Overton, a grizzled woman with a barking laugh - but that was only like an irritated stomach lining, reflux at bad moments.  As far as the rest who ate his wife's pot roast and flan, nothing. 

Hanna on the other hand remembered everyone who had ever crossed her path.  'You remember my second cousin, Rachel...you know, the sister of my Aunt Betty's husband Dick...' and, 'We should go back to Rehoboth, we had such a good time with Bea and Penny...'

She could recall each and everyone of her mother's cousins, what they wore at birthday parties, how stringy the chicken was at Uncle Harold's birthday party, or what Granddad wore with his starched collars and boutonniere - a string of incidental, random memories stored for unknown reasons and recalled for reasons equally unknown.

Arthur Barbera didn't have the heart to tell his wife that the reason he couldn't remember any of these remote relatives or passing acquaintances was because they meant nothing to him. There was nothing about the litany of Alice Lipton recited by his wife that vaguely interested him.  Her interest in bears, or her delight at finding spotted spurge on the prairie, or her grandson Dick, the only pharmacist in Lone Lake who compounded drugs. 

As for everything else in the human experience there is a spectrum.  Some people have a catch-all, indiscriminate memory - everything seems to stay put once archived - and others have a very selective memory. Why clog the pipes with unnecessary drainage? 

Vladimir Nabokov called himself a 'memorist'.  From a very young age, he had an instinctive sense of the importance of the events he was living, and deliberately, carefully, and painstakingly committed to memory people, places, and events he suspected would be seminal. Summers at the family dacha in Russia or at their villa in Cannes; the dresses his first love Elena wore on Sundays; the color of the water off St. Tropez.  

Nabokov never explained in his memoir, Speak, Memory, how he knew what would be important for future recall, but suggested it was a preternatural sense of belonging to a time and place.  As child of ten, he could have none of his later philosophical constructions of time ('The present is but a matter of milliseconds, the future only a possibility, but the past, lived, experienced and remembered is real, the only reality') but he could sense importance like a feral animal.

Most people's memory without the disciplined reconstruction of Nabokov is more fiction than fact.  When all the Barbera relatives ate Easter dinner at Aunt Leona's, no one could agree on what Lou Lehman did or didn't do to the Lincoln or why Aunt Tilly ran off, or the color of the Ponte's first house on Whalley Avenue. 

Eyewitness accounts never tally.  In a recently publicized criminal case three people witnessing a drive-by shooting saw completely different things.  The driver was either black or white.  The car was either a Ford or a Chrysler.  They either wore ghoulish masks or no masks at all. 

Robert Browning, Lawrence Durrell, and Kurosawa all wrote about how different people see and remember different things depending on their past, their character, personality, and what they ate for breakfast that day. 

So it should not have been surprising to Hanna that Arthur did not remember what she did, but she had the niggling suspicion that his feeble memory had something to do with her.  She, despite their long marriage, might have been peripheral to his vision. 

She was right, of course. There was no one in the parade of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues invited to 71 Lincoln Street of the slightest interest to her husband.  Out of courtesy and longevity, he showed some interest no matter how desultory - a balm, an unguent for suspicion. 

Of course she was just as dismissive of his sharp recall as he was of hers.  His life was being led abstractly, disinterestedly, hypothetically - what else could his collation of verses from abstruse poetry be? His life was largely fictional, novelistic, impressionistic with no grounding in reality.  He was indifferent to things as they were, only interested in how someone else saw them and confected them into poetry or drama. 

This 'faulty hinge' as his wife called it was troublesome only once.  When he worked at one of Washington's international banks, a woman called him up and wondered if, after so long, he would like to have lunch.  He had no recollection whatsoever of ever meeting the woman let alone knowing her, but since her greeting was so warm and familiar, he agreed. Besides, once he saw her in the lobby, he would recognize her and everything would come back. 

On the day of the lunch, he waited for her call and took the elevator to the lobby, but he could recognize no one in the group of people milling about.  'Arthur!', an attractive woman in her mid-fifties exclaimed when she saw him, and putting her arms around him and giving him a kiss on both cheeks, said, 'My, but it has been a long time.'

It would come to him, he reasoned, as the lunch went on.  He nibbled around the edges, indirect questions about her work, her travels, her colleagues, but nothing conclusive.  He was as lost as he was an hour before. 

Their lunch was enjoyable, lots of talk about books, movies, and restaurants; and they left promising to 'do this again soon'; but Arthur still had no idea who she was. 

What did that mean? he wondered.  The other people who passed unnoticed and unremembered in his life were strangers or minor acquaintances. This woman and he had obviously had more than that.  How was it that he had not even recorded it at all? All the more perplexing because he actually liked the woman. 

'I had lunch with a woman who knew me but whom I couldn't remember', he told his wife. 

'Not surprising', his wife replied, an old sore reopened. 

Because Nabokov was right - the past is relevant and intimately personal - people are destined to lead separate lives and attempts to coincide will always fail. Communication is based only on the present and the future - plans, programs, anticipations - but can never touch the reaches of the past that are the only levers to open consciousness. 

'And don't forget', she concluded, a familiar dig, 'we're having dinner with the Roberts tonight'. 

'Who?', he replied.  

Cancelled For Calm? - The Perils Of Stoicism In A Rabid Political Age

Baxter listened to his friend go on about the state of the world - wars provoked by an arrogant, intellectually disinherited President, black people still oppressed by white supremacy, gays, lesbians, and transgenders scurrying for cover to flee a Christian Gestapo, desperate asylees hunted down like dogs, and a warming climate 

'What? Have you nothing to say?'

Baxter was worried about his longtime friend, a man he had known since childhood who was seemingly coming apart at the seams.  The friend reached into his briefcase and pulled out a sheaf of clippings, reprints, and dog-eared reports, and thrust them in Baxter's face.  'What's wrong with you?', he said.

Bob never used to fly off the handle like this.  Something had come loose somewhere and it showed. 'White around the gills' was the way Harry Angstrom described his son in Updike's Rabbit at Rest. Bob instead was purplish, a worrisome cardiac color in a man of his age which only deepened the more he insisted on Baxter's complicity.  

 

Bob had not always been this way, and in his bright college years was a happy-go-lucky Yalie, eager to please, a comedian, a dissident angry only at Paul Weiss's 'adumbration' and philosophical quagmires. 'Speak English', Bob hollered at the painting of John Trumbull, patron of Trumbull College, imitating the firebrand he imagined himself to be, harmless, outspoken, with the proper diffidence in the presence of the great man. 

It was only when the Reverend William Quimby Parsons, university chaplain and civil rights activist convinced him that he was nothing without commitment, and wasting his time parsing Blake and Coleridge was not exactly it.  Join me, the parson said, on a Freedom Ride; and from that moment on Bob got religion. 

  

Baxter on the other hand had grown up 'Mediterranean' - la cultura de la hamaca, let sleeping dogs lie kind of sybaritic leisure - a pleasurable, enjoyable, uncomplicated love of mild interest in church, passionate interest in family, and an equal love for cooking.  'Ronzoni, sono buoni' the advertising slogan for a popular Italian American macaroni became the meme for the family - not Italian exactly but adopted in spirit, an eclectic mix of Latin que sera sera and the sunbaked ease of the Mezzogiorno. 

The Stoic ethic espouses a deterministic perspective.  In regard to those who lack Stoic virtue, Cleanthes once opined that the wicked man is "like a dog tied to a cart, and compelled to go wherever it goes." A Stoic of virtue, by contrast, would amend his will to suit the world and remain, in the words of Epictetus, "sick and yet happy, in peril and yet happy, dying and yet happy, in exile and happy, in disgrace and happy," thus positing a "completely autonomous" individual will, and at the same time a universe that is "a rigidly deterministic single whole. 

 

And so it was with Bob, thought Baxter, a dog tied to a cart and compelled to go wherever he goes. Nothing in his upbringing could have led him to such fidelity, such political certain, such impossibly prophetic visions.  No, Bob liked bladderball, trips to Smith, summers on the Vineyard, and panty raids on Hadley Hadley Hall.  

'It was Quimby', said a classmate, who reminded him of Cotton Mather and the New England Puritans who had a hand in founding Yale - 'sour, dried up old men who couldn't get enough of God, horny bastards who burned women at the stake because they couldn't have them.  Quimby paraded through campus like he owned the place, sanctimonious prick that he was, and Bob fell for him hook, line, and sinker.'

Baxter wasn't sure.  Such a transformation from the Mediterranean devil-may-care spirit he inherited somehow to the impossibly sanctimonious tart he had become could not have been the work of one man, no matter how seductive he might have been. 

In any case shortly after Bob's harangue about the horrific state of the world, he cancelled Baxter. It was bad enough to have former colleagues who were Republican, conservative, and right wing, another altogether to have one who simply didn't care. Diffidence in the face of evil was the worst sin of omission. Commission - political activism although on the wrong side of right - was far more acceptable than this lack of will, this sickening flotilla of indifference. 

Baxter wasn't surprised and saw it coming.  Bob had definitely turned a corner from around which there was no return. His timbers had been shivered, he danced with St. Vitus and Turkish dervishes.  He had become untethered. 

Nick Carroway, a principal character in Fitzgerald's book The Great Gatsby, expresses this patient, respectful stoicism of Baxter this way:

In my younger days and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone', he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages you've had. 

He didn't say anymore, but we've always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that.  In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me a victim of not a few veteran bores. 

 The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person, and so it came about that in college I was unjustly accused of being a politician, because I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men...The intimate revelations of young men, or at least the terms in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions.  Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. 

And so it was that Baxter made his way easily through life until the American culture became toxic and politically unbearable when good people like Bob became fevered and intolerant and had no use for the kind of Christian stoicism practiced by the fictional Nick and the real Baxter. 

'Keep your head about you when those around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you', said Rudyard Kipling in memoriam of the calm resolve that characterized good breeding and self-confidence; but warned that the composed, non-judgmental person may misunderstand the nature of such ignorance. 

Baxter did not misunderstand or misjudge Bob.  On the contrary he understood quite well the nature of true belief, a seditious infection, a viral disassembly of reason and judgment from which no absurdity was surprising. 

Well, let it be, said Baxter characteristically.  His summers were delightful, his winters cozy, and his unencumbered life a pleasure. 

How's That Iran War Workin' Out For Ya? - Genghis Khan, Hiroshima, And The Perils Of Limited Engagement

Donald Trump, his Secretary of War Pete Hesgeth, and his aides were meeting in the War Room of the White House to discuss progress in the war with Iran. Memories of George W. Bush on the deck of an aircraft carrier smiling at the camera and saying, 'Mission accomplished' were vivid.  The mission in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein was by no means accomplished, for not long after Iraqis danced around the toppled statue of the dictator, militias quickly armed themselves and set out to gain control of the country. 

 

Instead of imposing military rule and a draconian 'shoot-to-kill' order for any civil disobedience and putting in place an indefinite military occupation, the US packed up and went home.  The result was predictable - the rise of Islamic militias and the descent of the country into chaos. 

It was 'hearts and minds' all over again.  The persistent Vietnam era policy of avoiding civilian casualties and winning the populace to the idea of democracy and civil rule - a policy which not only did not work but in its military reticence led to Viet Cong and North Vietnamese victories. 

The Viet Cong had their own means of winning hearts and minds - terror and intimidation. In the movie Apocalypse Now the Kurtz character describes it.  The American army had vaccinated the children of an entire village, and when the Viet Cong learned of it, the chopped off the vaccinated arms of every single one of them.  'The will', says Kurtz. 'The absolute, powerful, bright, brilliant will'; and with that knew that the war would be lost. 

Kurtz ruled his mountain region of Cambodia with such will.  As Willard and his crew sent by Saigon to assassinate Kurtz motor up the river to Kurtz's headquarters they see bodies hanged from trees, corpses lying decapitated, and smell the stench of death everywhere. 

As Willard read in Kurtz's dossier, Viet Cong activity under his command had dropped to zero. His summary executions of suspected Viet Cong and heartless pogroms did the trick. 

The accounts are fictional, but based on fact.  The movie was based in part on Michael Herr's firsthand account of the war - atrocity as an instrument of war was used without hesitation by the Viet Cong. 

'Hearts and minds' persisted in Afghanistan where the United States, in its exceptionalist view of foreign policy, set up a puppet 'democratic' government and made overtures to the Taliban to join the 'new' Afghanistan.  Of course the Taliban, like the Viet Cong were fiercely nationalistic, and having beaten the far more powerful Russian invader were in no mood for compromise.  The war ended, the Taliban regained power and Joe Biden brought the troops home.  Another war lost because of reluctance, hesitation, and overconcern. 

General of the Union Army, William Sherman had no such doubts.  His scorched earth campaign through Georgia and especially South Carolina, the state which began the Civil War, was brutal and effective.  'The South shall never rise again', he said, and the lesson was clear - raise a finger against Washington and all hell will rain down upon you. 

The emperor of all emperors, Genghis Khan marched down from the central Asian steppes with his Mongol-Turkic armies and conquered the world from far eastern China to the Danube, the biggest empire the world had ever seen. 

There have been many successful armies in the world.  Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, Pompey the Great, and Marcus Agrippa were as brilliant generals as Genghis Khan, and brought Roman organization, discipline, and management to the battle.  They won because of superior ability, armaments, and military thinking; yet it was Genghis Khan who, with an almost untamed savagery, conquered the world. 

Genghis Khan was a brilliant strategist, canny politician who through tact, intimidation, and offers of great spoils, enticed the warlike Turkic tribes to join his armies, nearly doubling their strength.  However, it was not only the might of his imposing armies, nor his ability to manage, discipline, and control such a large and diverse military force; nor even his tactical acumen and understanding of calculated risk which assured victory.  It was his indomitable, absolute, unalloyed will. 

Khan had no qualms, moral reservations, or ethical hesitancy.  Wars were for winning, civilians were complicit enemies, and total annihilation of any opposition was his modus belli. Not only would defeated populations be without the wherewithal to mount a resistance or counterattack, they would never dare to incite the bloody, murderous, savage wrath of the conqueror.

Curtis Lemay, US Army general and independent candidate for Vice President in the electoral campaign of 1964, was known for his hawkish views on military action. Impatient with Lyndon Johnson's measured approach to the Vietnam war, he proposed to 'Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age'.  Although he was ridiculed, he had history on his side.  The United States did exactly that reducing Hiroshima and Nagasaki to rubble with atomic bombs and firebombed Dresden and Tokyo, incinerating both.  

Populations were considered complicit in warfare, so Harry Truman had no compunction whatsoever in using the A-bomb against the civilians of Japan.  That would show Hirohito that we meant business. 

Donald Trump's war in Iran is different because the Iranian population is in full support of regime change, having suffered for almost fifty years under the oppressive theocratic regime of the ayatollahs.  A Hiroshima/Nagasaki attack is not possible; and because the current Iranian regime knows this well, it holds many cards. The limited response by the US and Israel is unlikely to annihilate the Republican Guard, the Secret Police, and loyal factions of the army. Winning a war of total destruction while destroying the population along with it is an impossible option. 

There can only be 'acceptable collateral damage' - i.e. blowing all headquarters, government buildings, military and oil depots, missile silos and above-ground installations to smithereens with minimum but significant civilian casualties. 

'This is the compromise the Iranian people will have to accept', said one military adviser in the War Room with the President. 

The aide's hawkish options were 'off the table', for the Administration was confident that with total control of Iranian airspace, precision bombing and the neutralization of missile defenses was possible. 'This is not total war', said the President. 

Yet of course it should be. If Iran is as dangerous an enemy as Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany, then it should be destroyed and like the American South, never allowed to rise again. 

Under President Richard Nixon, the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign was unleased.  Giant B-52 bombers released full loads of high-powered explosives up and down the Ho Chi Minh trail to completely eliminate the enemy's north-south supply lines and destroy him in the process. 

This massive bombing campaign such as the world had never seen, did no good.  The little black pajama, bowl of cold rice Vietcong, simply went deep underground during the bombings, came up when the planes had returned to base, and rebuilt the damaged trail.  Because air power was ineffective and land troops were hamstrung by 'hearts and minds', the war was eventually lost. 

'Boots on the ground' - that last ditch effort to search and destroy the Iranian enemy - will undoubtedly be necessary.  The war in Europe was won thanks to D-Day, the Normandy invasion and the march of Allied troops across the continent to Berlin. 

The lesson of Iraq is unavoidable. Even if the regime leaders are eliminated, armed militias fighting on their home territory will be a resistant, difficult, implacable enemy.  Urban combat as American troops learned in Hue, is bloody and discouraging. 

So, 'Bombs away and praise the Lord' is the modus operandi for now; but the Iranians are not stupid, and more than likely will pause their missile attacks hoping to give the impression that they are destroyed. Absent American ground troops, the Iranian army and Republican Guard will be able to regroup, and just when the Israeli-American axis feels confident enough to send in occupying troops, the Iranians will exhume their deep underground missiles and begin combat again. 

Iran is no patsy.  It has spent nearly fifty years in offensive and defensive armament, creating an extensive political machine, and used its oil wealth to pay for absolute fealty.  It will not roll over and die, and is likely to fight to the last man. Particularly now with much of its infrastructure destroyed and images of its destruction gone viral, the will to resist is even stronger. 

Most of those in the War Room wished that it wasn't so bloody complicated, and many channeled old Curtis Lemay.  Bombing the suckers back to the Stone Age would be too good for them; but reality bites, and after much consideration, debate, and lack of consensus, there was only one option - move more firepower into the region and all hands on deck.