After After Virtue: an Unflinching Critique of MacIntyre.

After After Virtue: an Unflinching Critique of MacIntyre. 

(Written upon Completing my Second Reading of After Virtue, though not the Nineteenth Chapter, for Obvious Reasons.)

MacIntyre’s crystallized perfection cracks under the hammers and sickles of those Marxist apologists and Nietzschean dreamers whom MacIntyre so translucently despises, but the bulk of the crumbling deconstruction of After Virtue is performed by MacIntyre himself, once his devotion to his dreams of public accountability and his eager resistance to any sort of Nietzschean or Sartrean detachment from Public Life compel him to “defend” his work with a far duller instrument than he employed for its construction: a useful tool repurposed into a weak weapon.

Hardly, if even, three years following the publication of the First Edition in the United States MacIntyre caved into publishing an ominous Nineteenth Chapter wherein, for the first time over the course of his comedic history of moral thought, the playwright himself appears onstage as a caricature, breaking the fourth wall of historicity in order to address the hecklers in his audience. He hardly breaches the top of the third page of this addendum without reducing himself to a stock character at the turn of the leaf: “Morality which is no particular society’s morality is to be found nowhere,” quoth the Learned Scot of Notre Dame, continuing to cite some of his most iconic examples as one-liners: “There was the-morality-of-fourth-century-Athens, there were the-moralities-of-thirteenth-century-Western-Europe, there are numerous such moralities, but where ever was or is morality as such?”

Yet even in writing that previous sentence I am forced to confront the fact that MacIntyre is no longer a Scot, nor has he been one for about half a century, and while the shelter of American Academia might allow this “something of an intellectual nomad” (quite probably his own words) to escape the evils of ethnic profiling, his own ethical aims do not, though they DO allow him the privilege of “doing as the Romans do” within the safe confines of an Institution that is every bit as much a product of liberal Individualism as is Nietzsche, if not far more so.

MacIntyre’s central sin is a contradiction which Aristotle would most probably have laughed at. On the one hand, MacIntyre claims that morality is entirely topical, particular to groups and times, devoid of that universality which thinkers as diverse as Kant and Kierkegaard equated it with, and to be recognized within the context of a plurality. On the other hand, (perhaps not the shaking hand) MacIntyre rejects pluralism, especially with regards to Individuals as Rational Beings.

Yet how does a “nomad” manage to avoid becoming an Ubermensch? Clearly, the chief advantage to leading a nomadic lifestyle within the “fallen” modern world is in that one needs NOT simply to adapt to whatever culture one finds one’s self within, thereby sacrificing that romanticized “continuity of narrative” which comprises After Virtue’s most beautifully crafted chapter, but rather one can avail one’s self of a variety of perspectives and use Reason to decide among them which path to take. Constancy is not lost but gained in such a postmodern wilderness, though the temptation towards inconstancy remains, more tempting than ever before, though more threatening and fearful to the wary and experienced. In offering us the long-lost boon of moral objectivity, how does MacIntyre justify his own subjective biases, biases which by his own definitions MUST be intrinsic to his lifestyle as a transatlantic immigrant? (Perhaps I should note that, in this respect, I feel for him, but only as a character foil.) How does a seasoned nomad “settle down” into the mandala-shaped enclosure of the modern Academic city-state?

Apparently, it is by seeking to subvert the cornucopia of admittedly irreconcilable cultures (“admittedly” by the author’s own admission) and subcultures of the Present Age to the authoritarian rule of one Greek alpha male, severing all ties with competing intellectual traditions, (Camus is mentioned only once in After Virtue, as an unflattering example, and he does NOT appear within the Index of the Third Edition, twenty-six years later; Deleuze, Derrida, and Foucault do not appear at all.) and casually commenting, with boyish naiveté, that it is not virtue but bureaucracy which inspires despotism.

Yet who is better suited to contend with bureaucracy: Nietzsche or MacIntyre? One defines himself entirely by his role as does a chivalrous knight; the other uses medieval writs for wastepaper. Camus achieves more by “charm”, Jung more by “intuition”, and Kierkegaard more by sweeping generalizations than does the bookish, cozy Alasdair MacIntyre, at least with respect to not only appealing to the moral conscience but empowering it in persons. Deleuze, even in rejecting personhood as more than a product of multiplicities, is far more thorough in his investigation of cultures, mythology, and the effects of both upon the internal psyche (thanks in large part, we might presume, to his co-author Felix Guattari) than the Scottish-American historian who idealizes most the Greek and Scandinavian myths, (pity that he and Nietzsche never met to drink to that; intellectual history might have turned out differently) so sequestering himself to those cultures which were directly touched by Aristotelian meddling (at times: an Alexandrian Conquest tantamount at least to Manifest Destiny, though MacIntyre seems to prefer the former to the latter, having tried the fruits of both) that his prologue still lists “Chinese and Japanese” as though it were “also” an alien category to be distinguished from “English, Danish, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, and Turkish”.

Is such myopia not OBVIOUSLY the consequence of a pluralism which rejects all universal claims? Is the infantile idolatry of Aristotle via Jesus not TRANSPARENTLY a reaction to one’s own temperamental insecurities? When the natural conformist, sworn enemy of the Nietzschean Superman, can no longer feel safe leading a nomadic lifestyle, for his home is devoid of patriotism and continuity, what better course of action for him remains but to take up refuge in an academic convent, ally himself with Catholicism out of utility, (especially to appear “consistent” to his students, thereby preserving status and security,) to preach Aristotle to a world tired of it, awaiting the return of the Saviour whom academia will recognize? If Nietzsche cannot be credited for anything else, is it not for arming Jung with the language with which to expose such neuroses?

Who among us has not sinned in this way? Men look to powerful figures like Aristotle or privileged princes like Christ to save them when they find themselves in new and hostile territory. Failing to adapt, we seek to adapt our environment to ourselves; failing to adapt our environment, we seek someone else to adapt it FOR us. One needn’t even consider Nietzsche’s primary project: the rejection of Socrates, without whom Aristotle would have amounted to little. The last line of After Virtue even seeks to place the author in the position of a cleric working towards the recognition of this Saviour; tired of waiting for Godot, the embodiment of hope whose “absence says more than his presence” (as does the wandering Taoist sage whom Watts loved and who surely inspired Nietzsche’s Ubermensch) MacIntyre resolves himself to waiting for St. Benedict. Yet apparently St. Benedict is already among us, and it is MacIntyre himself!! Yet this is just humble enough to stop short of Nietzschean narcissism, for MacIntyre is not herein analogous to Christ; that is Aristotle.

[({Dm.R.G.)}]

VOTAT!ON:

One day, a group of chimpanzees assembled on an Island and decided to form a Democracy. The wisest of the tribe said: “as our first legislation, we should take into consideration the fact that no one likes to feel inferior, and as such a unanimous vote will protect all of our kind from this poor fate, and by so doing we shall impress outsiders with our civility, humanity, and the efficacy of Our System.” But then a second chimpanzee spoke, for he was strongest of will, and he said: “most apes want to feel superior, so let’s do that instead!!” And most of the apes cheered, except for the first to speak. And the first ape rebutted: “You fool!! No man can feel superior without having at least implied that another is inferior.” But then the vote was cast and it proved that most of the chimpanzees preferred to feel superior to a situation wherein all of them were equal. And it was established that the System of Democracy worked.

Dm.A.A.

Biff, Syrrus, and Achenar: Sex and Power in Two Contemporary Works.

I feel as though I dodged a bullet by electing to pursue music and game design instead of film, not out of disregard for the medium, but rather because of its corruption by the entertainment media. Every time it seems that I try to find something resembling cohesion or purpose online when it comes to reviews or Hollywood “culture”, my most fringe suspicions of space aliens controlling and systematically dehumanizing the industry are affirmed and some old, anarchist funny-bone begins to vibrate.

Perhaps most triggering presently is the website Looper.com. Somehow I found an article entitled “Messed Up Parts of Great Movies Nobody Talks About”. Of course, I should have remembered the Wattsism “Sages never gossip” prior to just DELVING in, but the face of Biff from Back to the Future was one that I could not say “no” to.

The particular piece about Biff argued that because he nearly “sexually assaulted” the protagonist’s mother he should not have been hired to wash cars for the McFlies at the end of the film. This had not occurred to me, but of course my immediate reaction was that the ending stood as a good one because Biff had finally been made to serve a social purpose, whereas he would have potentially remained a nuisance if unemployed (only because of his character) and if Marty’s father had allowed himself to hold a grudge against Biff after all of these years then he would have implied by so doing that Biff ought to REMAIN unemployed. Admittedly, I was never one to extend a helping hand to anyone that I KNEW to be a sex offender. But then again: Biff never actually succeeded in the enterprise. At any rate, social norms from the nineteen-fifties are still lost to me, so it’s surprising to hear them criticized at all. In many ways Biff was only following the customs of his time, so he was what Andy Bernard’s forefathers were: a moral middle man. Marty’s Father, the chivalrous rescuer, was drawing on an even OLDER tradition than Biff was. Frankly, I am not even aware that what Biff was trying to DO when Marty’s Father intervened was even LEGALLY “rape” at the time.

This draws my attention to an other thought that has haunted me since I finished playing Myst: are Syrrus and Achenar evil? From a neo-Liberal perspective, the likes of which would have been popular in the early nineties, their father represents the naivete of history. His Idealism, which Nietzsche would have described in his first book as “Alexandrian” and of inferior appeal, SEEMS to be a road to Hell paved with Good Intentions. His sons, depicted as harmless and enterprising boys in the Father’s Records, prove to be fully-grown men, the apparent elder of the two corrupted by megalomaniacal greed and the younger with the madness that apparently infects a Westerner who has been typecast to play God for a tribe of Treepeople (not to be confused with the AWESOME BAND).

Yet are they EVIL? After all: we cannot argue that Power is INTRINSICALLY Evil, because by so doing we would preclude the possibility of using it towards Noble ends. Nobility Itself would be reduced to an arbitrary expression of power, a la Nietzsche, and moral discourse would by necessity have to end. Furthermore, we would become guilty of DISEMPOWERING those who are Noble enough to heed us, only to EMPOWER their deviant aggressors who do not care for moral discourse.

It is not Power that corrupts, nor is it culture that enriches. Both Good and Evil must be regarded as transcendent of any sociopolitical turn of events if Heroism is to be preserved in any climate. It is not that Syrrus was “spoiled” by his well-meaning Father and “corrupted” by Power; it is rather that, supposing that he WAS Evil (which we never in fact learn for certain, except by his stereotypical semblance to a Villain) then Power would have turned his internal shortcoming into an external tragedy.

Nor is it that Power corrupted Achenar. The generic presumption is that Power robs the man of both Heart and Mind, and in this manner Syrrus would be regarded as a Loss of Heart whereas his brother would be regarded as a Loss of Mind. But aside from the comedia del arte routine that is Achenar’s antic disposition, is he ACTUALLY insane? A great deal of what he claims to be the case about Syrrus is verifiable or at least verifiably BELIEVABLE. And even if we establish him as a “Madman”, why should that make him a VILLAIN? Being “crazy” doesn’t make you EVIL, per se; it only puts you into opposition with “sanity”. Yet not all INSANITY is devoid of Reason. Hamlet himself says that there can be method in madness. The Joker, as interpreted by Alan Moore, is “hypersane”, depicting a lot of the symptoms of an intellectual nervous breakdown, the likes of which most GREAT philosophers and geniuses have exhibited at one point or an other. (Nietzsche himself was notorious for it.) Besides: not all Reasoning is Moral Reasoning. A madman is still totally capable of discerning right from wrong; he is simply unadjusted to Society, which may in fact be IN the wrong.

This question is raised, therefore: if Society was wrong to allow Biff the privilege of a sexually satisfying date, then was BIFF wrong for having complied with its dictates? Put plainly: of course not!! Biff’s shortcomings would have been by necessity products of circumstance insofar as he was conforming to the Zeitgeist of his generation. A man can no more be held responsible for that sort of thing in the nineteen-fifties than an employee of the Slave Trade can be held responsible for the Slave Trade Itself. Alasdair MacIntyre was right to condemn the Sartrean concept of radical accountability because not only does it confine us to setting an example that no one is allowed to follow without falling into Bad Faith. It all so would, taken to its initial extremes, hold Marty’s MOTHER directly responsible for having gotten into that automobile in the first place. Most of our contemporary liberal pretensions about “individual responsibility” are just watered-down Sartreanism, filtered through the feminism of that Marxist school wherein Sartre became popular as well as the psychiatric institutions that adopted logotherapy and then turned its tenets against patients and towards selling drugs to people who “should have known better” than to break with social norm but who “must have not known” because of some intrinsic defect.

The concept of an intrinsic defect is one that I have all ready entertained, but it was not without reservation. At the very least I might argue that it has nothing to do with genetic predisposition or with sanity or insanity. Nor is it the product of social circumstance, and by extension those errors which ARE the product of a society do not reflect upon the virtue or vice of its people. So Biff is in many respects only a villain of the sow; his annihilation as a threat is simply necessary for Marty to not only exist but to live happily. For all we know, BIFF might be the Hero in his own mind, and this would only be an error IF we can appeal to something OUTSIDE of the individual mind as a moral frame of reference. Without any sort of Moral Absolutism, there is no such thing as a “delusion”, because even if a Group of people can come into agreement and power about a certain “truth” it does not imply that each of them cannot simply be PRETENDING towards Solidarity in a fundamentally alienated and amoral modern environment.

From Biff’s perspective, he DESERVES to be with Lorraine, and this is in fact Noble. She might disagree with him, but she seldom cites a case AGAINST his entitlement that would classify it as self-entitlement. Both of them might be dismissed as arbitrary in their opinions, and even less so would be Marty’s father and even Marty himself, leaving the only truly MORAL agent in the play to be the Mad Scientist who made the entire possibility of Revision and Reform possible. When Lorraine resists Biff’s claims, despite having agreed to accompany him as a date to a public function, Biff attempts to employ force in order to actualize his view of what is or is not right. He is only overcome by Marty’s father, whose use of force against Biff is at best equally arbitrary and at worse moreso.

The use of Force itself is, as I’ve pointed out, not INTRINSICALLY evil, if Force is to fall under what is called “Power”. I return to Myst: if either Syrrus or Achenar is CORRUPT, it is not BECAUSE either of them was given control over the Ages. A neo-liberal reading of Myst would interpret the books to be a metaphor for History. Atrus’ account “conveniently glosses over” the barbarism of his sons in the manner that “no one talks about” the “messed up parts” of “great movies”. This is a typically Nietzschean pretension: the notion that History is written by the Conquerors and that all claims to good will and virtue are embellishments gilding the intrinsic brutality of human life. AT the very least we can agree that Nietzsche had the DECENCY not to ROB humanity of its Will to Power; contemporary society seems to condemn it on principle, falling victim to its corruption as punishment for lacking discernment in how to wield it.

Interestingly enough the “egalitarianism” of Hollywood is lost to the “elitism” of offering people privileged knowledge. To say that “no one talks” about a given Truth is to open an esoteric door. It is to set the reader APART from the Masses. It is to appeal to an Enlightened Individuality rather than an existing and Informed Solidarity. This tendency, typical of Liberal Individualism, which MacIntyre and even Zizek distrust, admits by implication that Society is ITSELF off kilter. Yet this must by definition raise the Question: is our Society’s treatment of sexuality ethical enough to be considered infallible, so much so that we might judge not ONLY of the society that preceded it by a span of half a century at least, but ALL so of the SOULS of every single moral agent that had complied with that Society’s Norms? And if progress is exponential, how long will it be before WE must suffer condemnation for what WE considered to be an “appropriate” expression of the Human Will? Will it not be even sooner than half a decade from now? Will it not cast doubt then upon how arbitrary WE are in passing judgment? With everything WRONG with Society, why must we PRESUME upon a sexual ethic that in itself is written by the Conquerors, be it a testament to the prevalence of Feminism in Media or of a lingering Machismo in daily life?

The Machismo of Biff is essentially Matriarchal because it PRESUPPOSES that he deserves to mate with Lorraine, simply because he EXISTS, he WANTS to, and she has all ready CONSENTED TO DATE him, which implies that he should have a physical incentive to leave Home, even on a Weekend, and to go through all the mechanical motions of social life that simply lose meaning without a biological incentive to humanize them. Put simply: Biff is entitled, under matriarchy, to be a lover, simply because he is all ready a Son to his own Mother, who would want him to prosper and whose Will is Binding.

The relatively contemporary machismo of Marty, which he teaches to his father, is PATRIARCHAL, because it implies that Marty’s father should mate with Lorraine in the context of a much more complicated social structure that will ultimately enthrone him as a patriarch, the reasons being that he has bested Biff in combat and that BY SO DOING he has WON THE FAVOUR of the woman. The fact that Lorraine CHOOSES Marty’s father does not for even a moment redeem the patriarchy of this ethic, simply because she CHOOSES HIM FOR PATRIARCHAL REASONS; if she chose him out of affect alone, it would cease to BE an ethic, for her affect would be out of accord with Biff’s affect, and there remains to be made a case that his desire to mate with her is inferior to her reluctance, because she has not foregone mating as a whole, as evidenced by Marty’s existence in the final version of the film’s timeline of events.

One particular critic of this line of thinking is Slavoj Zizek. Yet Zizek abounds in contradiction when he defends the supposedly “intrinsic rights” of tribes to remain “uncivilized”. He does admit to the “evils” of pre-colonial Americans when he derides Political Correctness and the Noble Savage stereotype that Disney fetishizes, yet he goes on to define the “rights of a People” (whatever in Hell that means, since it seems paradoxical and even oxymoronic to speak of what is “right” and to use the plural form “people” in the same breath) as being dependent UPON the capacity for Evil. Beyond that point, he criticizes the entire notion that an “uncivilized” people can BE civilized BY a superior race of people. Yet at this point the Arian Revolutionary commits intellectual suicide.

Myst can be read to be a similar criticism of colonialism, arguing that it begins with good intentions and technological reform and ends with despotism and destruction. Yet no sensible, rational adult can encounter an inferior people and resist the most basic human instinct, which is TO REFORM. Not only Atrus but his entire family SUCCEEDS in this task, but they only do so in different ways. Not one of them is EVIL simply for following this instinct, rather it is that the Instinct Itself is the very LIFEBLOOD of Goodness. The only true Evil I can imagine is to deny the rights of any person to do so, for if I had to accept a fallen species as being EQUAL to myself, then I would have to return to my own civilization with the conclusion that its entire nobility is arbitrary and pathetic. And this would be a lie.

What I loved most about the game when I first played it many years ago was of course the Trees, for they represent the striving of Earthbound creatures towards Heaven. Heaven in itself is an Absolute Teleological Goal that is unbound by human invention, be it technological or social. So it is that any human being, in order to be a moral agent, must presuppose his own moral instincts to be God’s Will. The road to Hell is NEVER paved with Good Intentions; it is only made possible by turning on them and behaving as THOUGH rights and wrongs were arbitrary and relative.

So it follows that Biff might have been RIGHT to try to force Lorraine into sexual relations, simply because he would have KNOWN whether or not he DESERVED this PRIOR TO her dissent. If Morality is Absolute instead of Relative, then ANY man or woman, given Reason, can figure out what course of action to take, and if Power Itself is not an Evil but rather the very LIFEBLOOD of Goodness, as it is depicted in the Hindu Kundalini, (the Solar Plexus whose energy feeds the Untouched Heart) then he was simply doing his duty as a Reformer by setting Lorraine right. This of course allows me to see the “bully” in a revised light, for I can sympathize, having spent the better part of two years entirely absorbed in one project: to persuade the woman that I loved not to commit suicide but rather to join me in romantic bondage, both of which I knew for a fact to have been superior courses of action to snorting cocaine in exchange for sexual favours which she provided, despite her ostensible asexuality, (which might have either preceded or followed the cocaine use, in either case reflecting poorly upon the predicament) to one of her suppliers, who had taken advantage of my own trust (surpassing even the unconditional love of Atrus, if that is possible to conceive) and the emotivist environment in order to gain her favour, an act of consent which, given the strong likelihood of intoxication, turns out to have been, in THIS society … (drum roll, please) Rape.

At least BIFF might not have been doing something ILLEGAL AT THE TIME. But I don’t know; I don’t even know what was considered ETHICAL at the time!!

This is something that people in my generation don’t seem to get: that you can and in fact MUST comply with social dictates that you personally disagree with. A great deal of my own pain was the result of schizophrenic social programming that told me that I HAD TO resist the System BECAUSE the System Itself had told me to. In this case, Life is not unlike the Stanley Parable, except that there is more to It than just the social machine. Neo-liberals reduce it TO a machine when they demand a priori respect to GROUPS of people and deny a priori rights to INDIVIDUALS.

When Slavoj Zizek defends the rights of tribes, he is all so defending all of their depersonalizing institutions. In many tribes that Campbell describes men had their first sexual experiences at the age of fourteen, and women did not have a say in this matter.

At least BIFF has the entire force of White Civilization backing up HIS sense of biological entitlement!! Biff only tries to take ADVANTAGE of Lorraine after she has made an Individual Choice to date him.

Of course throughout most of this essay I have spoken in hyperbole and satire. I do not mean to encourage ANY one to be like Biff. I strive only to remind them of the manner in which they are all ready bullies.

Relativism is an ethic that is weak of character but strong of will. It is Power without discernment: amorality at best and immorality at worst, the enemy of Morality in both instances. Relativism cannot defend itself absolutely; it can only do so relatively, and whilst this might seem to be to its own credit, that it is consistent in doing so, it remains by its own definition the EQUAL of Absolutism. Thus it must perpetually ACCOMMODATE Absolutism, which is superior on its own terms. Any sort of teleological progress implies Absolutism, for it is only in Absolutism that we find the moral discernment necessary to OVERCOME the mires of the Past and to Progress towards our Final Fate.

I know for a fact that if it were not for the promise of becoming better, not only better than what I was before but all so better than others, who would be made to answer to me, then I would not bother to leave the House. What would be the POINT? How can you claim to tolerate a group of people that you are not yourself a part of? Only this: the tribal midbrain can allow for it. For whereas our present knowledge suggests that the tribes of the past refused to tolerate one an other and that made them Evil, we should consider that we are Evil now for that same tolerance. What value does a man uphold when he allows women to suffer being raped because that is “their culture”? Biff is considered a villain because he is perceived to be an Individual. But an entire CULTURE probably backed him up on this AT THE TIME. The only value seems to be that of the Group; by defending the rights of an Outgroup to Simply Be, one preserves one’s own Group towards the same end, separate but equal. Perhaps therefore it was this same attitude of Tolerance that was directly responsible for the Schism between Black and White Education in the first place, the immediate consequence of which was that Black Education blamed White Education for the Schism, calling it “segregation” rather than “tolerance”.

So who is to blame? Obviously: it’s invariably those same people who PREFER to inhabit groups and who ONLY FEEL SECURE IN GROUPS. And these are the TRULY Ignoble Savages, for they will not allow their Groups to come under the Leadership of Reformers who would help them to attain a transcendent teleological goal (God’s proverbial Will) and to thereby reach towards Universal Solidarity devoid of factionalism, dogma, and war. They may defy their Society at the earliest opportunity and yet they will use social norms to their own advantage in a totally random, emotivistic, and self-serving way, earning perpetually the favour of their fellows even as they get away with rape and murder. They even scapegoat their victims by pretending to be their own victims’ scapegoats, taking advantage of the fact that society forgot that scapegoats are without sin to begin with and that only a true victim can ever be MADE into a scapegoat, and this can only happen when the victim is not treated to Justice and his grievances redressed. They are pathological narcissists and enemies of both Solidarity and Individuality, looking forward to any social outing NOT as a bitter but noble duty but rather as an opportunity to drain energy from noble people and to steal sexual, material, and social resources from their moral superiors as they march not towards Unity but rather towards Fascism.

These people are usually called
“extraverts”. And everything they claim to know about morality, in their own self-defense, they learned from introverts and bastardized.

Apparently, most of the Planet is occupied by these people. And it’s all ways been this way.

If ALL of us were this way, then Morality would only ever BE the expression of the Private Will, and only the preservation of this Will as Autonomy could be used to define sexual ethics. Emotivism would be true, MacIntyre would be wrong, and Lorraine would be responsible for all most getting raped. Yet Humanity is redeemed by those people who take their cues NOT from Society but rather from GOD, and who are thereby appointed to reform the former in accordance with the Latter and against the Latter’s Enemies.

These people are called Introverts. And we have all ways been a minority. We are defined by our will to power. Extraverts are defined by their will towards sexuality. And according to the Hindu Kundalini, the former rests above the latter. We depend upon you. But we will never be able to truly treat you as Equals. It is not in our character to do so. And you have to accept that as our inalienable right, by an authority surpassing any you could ever dream of.

Again: I speak by exaggeration, just to demonstrate a point. Being more attractive at a given moment does not make you right. Choices are not right by default of being chosen, and hence being chosen does not make you the proper choice. Consent proves nothing. Voting solves nothing. And if this was not the common sense of your society, then its norms were never binding Universals. Your tribe SHOULD be eradicated to make way for something better if it has been deemed OBJECTIVELY to have fallen behind. Your Life WOULD be forfeit if you were proven to be a sinner. The most inalienable right is not towards the preservation of one’s own life but towards the annihilation of an other’s. A solitary shooter in a hotel room will all ways surpass the soldier in dignity when the soldier would serve a corrupt government and the shooter dies a martyr in an act of protest. And if your superiors deem your life worthy of preservation, you have no right to take it.

Another part of the same article argues that for a nerd to impersonate a jock in order to sleep with a girl is a form of assault.

Is it not transparent now what this is? Is it not a blatant hegemony by a dying breed of alpha-males? What right does the woman have to reject one in favour of the other, when she can be so easily FOOLED as to be incapable of telling them apart? Is she informed by an Absolute Power when she falls into this error? If so, It probably wants her to reward the clever nerd, despite her PERSONAL pride and reservations about what ape will fertilize her egg. Anything else would be an abuse of her own God-given Will, which never belonged to her to begin with, for it was only ever a loan by God Himself.

Emotivism is a falsehood. There is never any moral proclamation that could simply be REDUCED to self-interest and personal convenience. Once any one man is guilty of it, he waives the right to blame his victims. And his guilt must be made known, objectively, in the context of a Society that attains its virtue not by the Will of its People but by the Will of a Transcendent Principle that lives in all of us. Hence the last of Kohlberg’s Stages of Morality is Religious: because we need some sort of God conception in order to coexist as Interdependent, Conscientious Individuals. Amen.

Dm.A.A.

Dream Six!!

The White Knight and I opened an antique shop called Antique Disposition. This was to be one of our bases of operation, which I guess made the Headquarters the mobile home on the fringes of the Reservoir, which we had christened with the code name “Shell Station”. The building was formerly a restaurant, so we had a giant freezer to avail ourselves of just so long as we could keep the electricity necessary running. To make additional ends meet towards this end, we would sell a privately published newspaper called Penseés, a French word for “Thoughts”. The idea was mine to publish all of our thoughts in a Communist Newsletter of our own independent publication. At first, the White Knight proposed the title “Gedanken”, based on a book that his great-great-grandfather had once published when Marxism was first becoming popular, but we decided that in the wake of World War One a French title would be more appealing to the Leftist Readership. The business scheme was tricky; we had to sell enough antiques to keep the magazine in publication, so that we could keep the freezer running. The triangle was complete only if we used the freezer for something that could then help us in turn to sell antiques. We were of course most comfortable breaking even, so as neither to defile our reputation nor our collective (and collectivist) conscience.

We figured out a way. Nearby was a restaurant called Happy Chang’s, as in Actuality. After Randy was run out of business for selling undercooked Duck, his wife Sue took over the business. This put former customers of Randy, who had had to wade through several years of corporate ownership as the establishment shifted hands time and again, in a unique position of privilege, because Sue would hook old regulars up with discounts and free tea and bread and McDonald’s-style apple pies if she remembered them. I would know; I once worked in their kitchen. And the duck thing was real.

The immediate result of Sue’s generosity is that starving students (a Communist Entrepreneur’s Sacred Cow) would need a place to store their leftovers overnight so as not to be wasteful of their scarce resources. And that was where we, for a price affordable in proportion to the student’s Needs and Abilities, came in. Antique Disposition was all so a sort of Rental Freezer and Storage. We made ends meet.

One day, we were visited by Hank Schroeder. Officer Schroeder was apparently investigating something, yet he would not tell us what, nor even would he confess to the obviousness of his intentions. He brought in the head of a Goat that he claimed to have acquired at Sue’s. We agreed tacitly to store the ugly, staring head. As my comrade took it back into the Freezer, Hank stood, mad-dogging me and making conversation. I offered him a newspaper. He looked through the rack, doing a poor imitation of consumer indecision, and finally withdrew an old copy of Gedanken. He plopped it down on the counter and then asked why we were peddling a radical German paper. I felt dry lines forming on the inside of my throat, so reflexively I stammered: “These Thoughts are old.” I pointed him to the latest copy. He flipped through it stridently, impressed with the French title, did a corny imitation of a nasal laugh, and finally put it back on the rack, upside-down.

“Some real antiques you guys got here,” he said.

My comrade returned. He told Hank that we could store the Goat for up to a week before we had to throw it out, since it could be diseased and its neck still had wet blood in it. Hank rushed my comrade along, insisting that he did not need a lesson in “Dryology”. He asked for our sum. Intimidated, I said it was On the House. He eyed us, intently, and muttered: “Figures.” He left then.

We waited for his car to have been gone for five entire minutes. We waited in silence so mutual and uncalculated that it could have counted for consent. Then in one motion we both went for the freezers.

It took us only ten minutes to find a Tape Recorder in the Left Eye of the Goat. In the process, I realized something: this was the same goat that had been in the Mylonakis Residence. Hank had gotten this from Kyle. What did Kyle have to do with it?

We destroyed the evidence. I called up Mike, but I was met with a metallic voice that informed me that Mike was “currently roaming”. Wondering where the hell Mike might be, I decided to call Rob instead. Rob would not pick up. Frantic, I asked the White Knight to drive me. He agreed. We locked up shop, and not unlike Randall and Dante, we hit the road.

Kyle asked the White Knight to use the bathroom. White Knight agreed to. Kyle then asked me in private what the guy’s name was. I replied “W.K.” He asked, smiling, “like ANDREW W.K?” I smiled back. Kyle’s old sense of humour made me feel at home. I told him that we were visited by a Drug Enforcement Agent who brought in the head of Kyle’s Father’s Goat. Kyle replied that his father was a longtime sponsor for their Fun Runs. I asked if Kyle knew any thing about a recording device. Kyle told me that he had himself planted that device in order to spy on the D.E.A, who he suspected of having it in for his dad.

When W.K. and I returned home to our antique shop, the place had been ransacked. Apparently, Hank had known what he was doing. Or at least someone did. Upon the walls, in lines of blood (most probably goat’s blood) that had all ready dried, read the words “Pinko Gringos”.

It took us the rest of the day to clean.

Dm.A.A.

Post 890: 1331 Words.

This record was started on January 29^th. I only finished the Episode just now.

The only thing that can justify my decision to struggle through the Office today is this log of my infuriations, which little by little Andy is beginning to reflect with confidence. When Andy returns, he returns to an amoral war zone. Every one is unified against him for taking a leave of absence that Erin herself encouraged (not knowing the extent to which a Spiritual Quest can extend, nor how lucky she was for getting off with three months, considering how long military wives have to wait for a much less Noble Cause than Inner Peace) and their unity in semblance only underscores their egocentric division in actuality. Some of them pretend towards an equality which is not theirs, and those who are just as pretentiously elitist back them up. People take breaks at their leisure without consulting the AUTHORITY of their LEADER, and in place of a justifiable Reason they present his own choices (as though they were arbitrary and not noble) as though those same choices were without Reason, and as though the observation of one arbitrary choice can merit an indefinite number of them. They treat his Authority with the same regard as he is presumed to have treated David Wallace, even though by so doing they establish a naïve, working class notion of the Boss that is as hierarchical and dogmatic as the Hindu Caste System or the Medieval Social Order. It must surely be the mark of a true serf that he will try to level with his superiors by appealing to the authority of THEIR superiors, as though his superiors were not closer to their own superiors in virtue and thereby in possession of certain inalienable and inimitable Knowledge. They treat Andy’s Reasons (measured in not only psychological need but, naturally, duty to Self, Family, and God) as though they were merely HIS Reasons, and not the very reasons for Human Life Itself. Three months is a laughably short time for a once-in-a-Lifetime opportunity, especially for a Hero who saved the Office and who (thereby demonstrably) possesses the moral discernment necessary to recognize the value of a family heirloom and birth-right. But what the egalitarians lack in common sense the elitists, by their very nature, one-up. Oscar, the degenerate homosexual cuckolder with an excuse for every one of his own foibles, the very voice of Corporate Liberal Hypocrisy, especially when he (like all such diabolical voices) points out hypocrisy in Others, tells Andy that Andy is not entitled to that one transcendent virtue that Andy has left in a world of hypocrites and thieves: the Truth. When Andy reads Erin’s texts, Oscar preaches at him, representing the Will of the Tribe, telling him to mind his own business. But then Andy retaliates, pointing out the irony intrinsic to the fact that Oscar is not only involving himself, at that very moment, in ANDY’S business; Oscar too is, by extension, involving himself in Erin’s affair (and I mean that word in most senses of it, if not all.) and that is much LESS Oscar’s business than it is Erin’s, especially considering that the “formal” breakup, which Andy had initially talked her out of with unassailable dignity and Reason, was produced on an impulsive and (I dare say it) hormonal pseudo-reason: her own happiness, which is hardly any kind of virtuous eudaimonia in the context of its injustice towards Andy.

At this point I must point out that I am only ten minutes into Episode Sixteen of Season Nine. I have an other half hour ahead of me. I would have simply entitled this section “Episode Sixteen: The First Ten Minutes”, but considering all the psychosis in this Office, I had reason to suspect, as any man would, that going back and adding a title that was not the first thing that I wrote (even though the title of the Word Document will prove that, and in a way that would not so much incriminate me as it would give me liberty by virtue of its own honesty, which trickles down to its Creator) will be some sort of falsification of evidence. It’s crazy, I know, to consider this in one’s own Private Journal, for fear of what would happen if one chose to make something so unassailable as one’s own Private Thoughts Public. But it underscores my point: that Andy is the least Draconian of all the Office staff, and that he alone remains a fair and levelheaded leader, despite the fact that even people like DWIGHT scorn him for observing certain seemingly arbitrary procedures. He is not an aesthete, but the aesthetes cannot tell him apart from them. Should he bother? Should I? Why bother even to explain this to the Public? Was it not shock upon shock at their stupidity that produces my reservations in writing even my own private thoughts? Whatever. Maybe I will append whatever title I need. If I do so in the Spirit of either exercising an Intrinsic Artistic License or in fathoming the Absolute Depths of Aesthetic Perfection, I need not answer to the Oscars who tell me I did it wrong.

Dm.A.A.

THE NEXT FIVE:

I got five more minutes in to the Episode when I had to stop again. Several things happened:

1.        Andy made me laugh.

2.      Andy stood up for himself. (Here it comes.)

3.      Pete tried to defend himself in a manner reminiscent of Gabe, asserting his own right to violate not only his fellow man’s happiness, but his Boss’s Moral Authority. (It’s still coming.)

4.      Andy tried to fire Pete. (Someone’s going to get it.)

5.      Toby tells Andy Bernard that he cannot fire people over Grudges. (Angry Andy is nearing the Boiling Point.)

Now I see why Michael hated Toby, and why I hated Toby on Michael’s behalf, as well.

The truth is that Andy has the right and DUTY to fire Pete. He had the right to fire Nellie as well, though perhaps not the duty. Andy was merciful and relented when the matter was simply professional, but with the hippie candor of a Michael Scott he says “that was professional; this is personal”. Of course, Stickman Stickler Toby Flenderson greets the ejaculation with a remorseful but irreverent silence, as though to say: No. Personal feelings are less important than professional concerns. Your Life does not Matter. Only efficiency does. And we shall blame you for any acts of justice that you try to take that might disrupt Office Efficiency.

Recall that it was Andy’s Leave of Absence, for which he is still inexplicably BLAMED, that was the ostensible source of the Office’s most Efficient Quarter.

If the System turns on you, it’s through no fault of your own when it suffers under your Will. Your Will is simply coming into alignment with Cosmic Justice, and by turning on you they have turned AWAY from that.

Honestly. And I thought this was a Christian Nation.

Dm.A.A.

Finally I was ready to conclude the Episode. To my delight, my suspicions that the core characters are based on the archetypes of the Tarot was affirmed unequivocally in the closing scene. Oscar, whom I had identified very quickly as the Hanged Man, very early on into my fascination with this program, (and perhaps before I made any other parallels, even between Michael Scott and the Fool) ends the episode by hanging upside-down from an exercise bar that he purchased in an advertisement online; he hangs himself by his own neo-Liberal hypocrisy, so to speak, acting as the moral(istic) Vox Dei of the Office whilst he steals company time to lose himself in consumerism.

The sheer length of the episode all so corroborates my theory that one can watch the Best Of the Office by viewing every fourth episode consecutively, as well as the Season Finales, because the show follows a format wherein every Story Arc is four episodes long.

Dm.A.A.

1001 Words: Satchmo and Miles.

Satchmo and Miles.

A short film.

A rivalry with Egyptian imagery.

1895.

I can do it by myself.

The dream featured prefiguratively various famous jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis. It felt like a music history class, esp. a History of Jazz the likes of which Prof. Weller teaches ostensibly as though it were a Theory class.

In the Dream Narrative I was surprised (even as a Dream Witness) to discover that in fact both Satchmo and Miles recorded their seminal albums in the Year 1895. Eager to commemorate them, I arranged a short film with my old crew, the Suburban Shamans. We even got the real Louis Armstrong to play himself in the short biopic. Miles Davis was dead, so we got a guy to play him. The guy was relatively short on melatonin, but we managed somehow (by means that might be too politically incorrect to utter) to make it work halfway.

The film was chiefly an improv. Job. In the format of a Rap Battle, except save for the rhyming, the two Black Legends were to roast one an other. Satchmo started. His attacks upon “Bitch’s Brew” and the like atoned for his relatively spaced introduction to the works and foibles of his adversary. But even without that saving grace note Louis would have won against the slew of slander that followed.

Either Miles or his Actor (in the former case, we presume the actor to have challenged Miles Himself) knew apparently nothing about Louis Armstrong. He began to harp incessantly about the Egyptian Imagery and the Oppressive Symbols that the “Satanic Degenerate” Armstrong had so frequently employed. Time and time again Louis made a point of clarification, proving systematically that the imagery in question belonged to various Heavy Metal Bands, such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Slayer. By the end of it, Miles looked like Aziz Ansari in Flight of the Conchords. Having been informed that it was Heavy Metal that he hated, and not the revered Jazz Trumpeter, Miles ceded the competition, which had been intended, from the start, to be a friendly game, and which had been corrupted and all most lost to a private vendetta based on misconception.

The guilty conscience would interpret this so: that Miles, the pale criminal who tried to emulate a minority, was myself in Debate. But that is only one angle of it, and at that it is the very conservative angle that Awilda (who is married to a nigger-hating homophobe) would have assessed. The truth is that I AM a minority. I WAS borne in the Soviet Union, at the end of the Cold War. I DO recall those kids at Ikea who would not play with me because I was a Russian, back in Maryland. I AM an introvert. I WAS misdiagnosed by psychiatry. And I AM a virgin in his late twenties, in America.

The self-confident conscience, which emulates Tom Waits in place of Elliott Smith, interprets the matter in this way: that I am Satchmo. Louis Armstrong is a Leo (even though so was Elliott), and as such he represents the Ego. In this situation, my Ego emerges a victorious Lion, roaring with laughter like the trumpeter himself. (Incidentally, towards the end Miles criticized Louis’ trumpet playing, which Louis corrected him about by pointing out that “That was Dizzy, not me.”)

These are two warring factions of my own personality: the Ego and the Shadow. The Ego protects himself against all naysaying by keeping to the Facts and staving off all sorts of cynical pessimism. In this sense, Miles represents not only my own reactionary period* but the entirety of the Social Justice Movement which destroyed Debate in my place, and which Awilda warned me (hypocritically, of course) not to fall into.

*Which was inspired by a dream about Arthur, Awilda’s husband.

Miles is that part of me that shares a radical bone with the proto-Fascism in Debate, but that turns that bone in on itself until it snaps. He is not necessarily “accurate”, but he is precise. His false evidence nonetheless HINTS, by its very dubiousness, at an underlying TRUTH: that Slavery was not a white invention. Louis deflects this, by asserting what the Ego loves most to assert, when it is Healthy: its Individuality. Louis did not enslave the Jewish people; that was someone else. BY THE SAME TOKEN: Andrew Bernard did not take part in the Slave Trade. His ancestors were moral middle men; they did their social role, just as Kant would have wanted them to, and even as participants they might likely have been critics. This is not hypocrisy; it never was. It is Duty. Otherwise how am I to regard my Military Neighbour who drove all the way down to the fields of Rancho Bernardo High School in search of my dog when Pumpkin inexplicably got out?

The Dream was totally devoid of blame or finger-pointing. The rap battle, gone sour, was ultimately thrown by the very naysayer who had taken an ill turn. And besides: he was only ever an actor!! All the while, some hipster was seated nearby, directing the entire thing. It only ever was a game. And whatever aggression lingered in that realm was shed in its last moments of sportsmanship.

11:55 A.M.

February Fourth, 2018.

Epilogue: the last moments of the Dream had me as the Director. I must have been struggling to unearth the True Nature of Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong, if not the entire history of Jazz and Rock and Roll. Someone had told me that Slavery was invented a long time ago by white people, because at some point in ancient history African people themselves were white (a reversal of contemporary genetic common sense) and that that was when THEY got the idea to establish this Peculiar Institution.

The only bad thing American whites ever did was take credit for it. But my protagonist had to PROVE this. And he insisted on doing so, Alone.

Dm.A.A.