LAW:

It is no mystery when an act of police brutality is documented that the People experience a collective sense of righteous indignation. Objectively, three Ideals are subverted in such an instance: Life, Peace, and Order. While the valuation of each of these Ideals is restricted to the domain of philosophers, there can be no doubt that when a man dies at the hands of Law Enforcement, without Due Process, by inherently violent means, his Life has been cut short, and the violent miscarriage of justice upsets both Peace and Order. The question of his RIGHT to Life, Peace, and Order remains nebulous, in the sense that philosophers often joke about the meme of Inherent Rights, but this theoretical problem does not present a SOCIAL problem, since human beings are known for fabricating that which Nature does not provide; in the absence of any Natural Law that protects Individuals, human beings invent Laws of their own. These Laws remain, in our contemporary Day and Age, the only convention which is at once ubiquitous and readily understood.

While, clinically, most people tend to score low in terms of Moral Reasoning, most people, if asked to define the Law, would probably express considerable faith in the Institution, at least in terms of Spirit. What is or is not “legal”, while it is not always synonymous with what is or is not Right, remains a matter of common principle and understanding, often regarded as the best FORMAL approximation we have for such abstract concepts such as Justice and Freedom. It is because legislators, litigators, enforcers, and civilians agree to the social contract that at least the PURSUIT of an objective, transcendent Morality is possible. In the absence of any unifying Church, Political Party, or Syndicate that holds itself accountable to the Public in the manner that Law does, striving for the absence of bias, secular, contemporary Society relies upon Law for all questions of Authority which would otherwise be impossible to answer without appearing pretentious and partisan.

Presupposing that the simplest explanation is the most credible, so long as it is confined to the objective, we may dismiss the ominous factor of “race” from the equation. If one asks why more “white Americans” are not interviewed regarding their experiences with “racism”, it is not uncommon to suggest that they do not “go through it”, implying a subjective phenomenon without scientific basis, devoid of value. Having established this as a projection, it becomes imperative to regard acts of violence reported by the Mass Media as isolated incidents. One reason for this lies in the fact that Law not only empowers individuals by preserving their Rights, (which might not exist outside of Law, except as fantasies,) but that it holds individuals accountable for their own actions. As such, we do not require conjecture about the MOTIVATIONS driving any act of police brutality, which can be classified as street violence far more credibly than it may be classified as “Law Enforcement”. People die from violence every day; what sets police brutality apart lies in that we hold agents of enforcement to a Higher Standard. This remains, of course, an INDIVIDUAL Standard. To suggest that any one act of brutality is NOT the product of a [wo]man’s moral shortcomings but rather of some sort of conspiracy is not only absurd but demoralizing, since such a conspiracy would thereby become indistinguishable from Law Itself.

Since folkways, mores, and social conventions are often inane and ridiculous, peer pressure is a force reserved for perpetual adolescents. Civilians are just as likely to judge moral behaviour by hairstyle as by ideological conviction. Only the Legal System enables members of opposing groups to mediate conflicts. Hence any isolated incident of police brutality can never be symptomatic of an illicit conspiracy, since that conspiracy would have, by its very nature, to be the only truly objective standard by which we judge things to be either illicit or legitimate. “That’s messed up” doesn’t cut it, for it is nothing more than the expression of emotion. It is also absurd, since we know that Law is so ubiquitous that its agencies of enforcement are divided into autonomous precincts that only partially answer to any Federal Authority.

It is therefore important not ONLY to see the irony in acts of protest which in themselves become Violent, Disorderly, and Deadly, subverting the same Ideals which the initial tragedy threatened. It is just as important to regard these acts, too, as isolated incidents, for we must have Hope in that the average person, outside of the heat of the moment, would admit that such acts of protest are ALSO, equally and unequivocally, failures of enforcement and Miscarriages of Justice.

[({R.G.)}]

The IRONY of ANARCHY:

It’s always ironic when, in the aftermath of a publicized act of police brutality, some people find license to publicize their own gripes about law enforcement. Not only does this trivialize the tragedy, but it also engenders an even more dangerous prejudice than whatever it was that produced the brutality, unless of course we presume that all forms of brutality sprout from the same primeval Source.

There is of course a peculiar place that a lynching holds in the hearts and minds of ordinary people. All forms of street violence are disturbing, not only because they are threatening, but because they are insulting to Humanity. French Philosopher Gilles Deleuze described something known as the “shame in being human” we experience when we see people behaving with excessive harshness, as though we internalized their own guilt for them, by association within the species. In instances such as these, we witness a side of Human Nature which we do not customarily expect. What we see often incites rage within us, but only to the same extent that we are ourselves prone to it; Jungian Psychology refers to this as “Shadow Projection”; outside of this irrational rage we are confined to shock and indignation.

One sees a young man getting beaten up outside a Cleveland hotel in broad daylight as bystanders cheer his assailant on. Do they know what he did to deserve this? Or do they presume that he “had it coming”, much as women often presume that men who are single are single “for a reason”, thereby perpetuating those men’s condition? When one witnesses behaviour such as this, though it is not always tantamount to a child getting murdered by gangs, it reveals what could be called the “Natural” state of Humanity, as opposed to its purportedly Civilized State.

Lynchings are especially disturbing not because they are acts of murder, but because they are carried out by a mob, operating outside of Legal Due Process. Even if the victim is condemned by Law to Death, we expect Law to do more for him. What is offended is not only the Pride in Being Human; it is the expectation that Law will redeem us. When one witnesses an abuse of police power, the tragedy is only secondarily the loss of Human Life; people die on the streets every day, and their deaths are celebrated, often publically, by their assailants. This is Reality.

What sets acts of Police Brutality apart is in that they are errors of Enforcement. Intuitively, perhaps instinctively, we recognize the Law as one of our forms of Saving Grace. We EXPECT for Law to protect us from not only one another but ourselves, for we know that, without it, the State of Nature would prevail, and those who retained the luxury of civilized thought would swiftly fall prey to unimaginable acts of predation by the planet’s Leading Carnivore: Man. It is for this reason that we hold Agents of Enforcement to a Higher Standard; they represent all civilized interests.

When we witness an act of Police Brutality, it says nothing about the Police. What we are witnessing is thoroughly typical HUMAN Behaviour, carried out without the bounds of Due Process, but using the full force of Law Enforcement in its service. In the wake of such a tragedy, the only sensible recourse is to unify in SUPPORT of the Law and those who continue to enforce it with conscientiousness and dexterity. It is only by doing so that we preserve Individual Rights, which are, after all, social constructs, and it is only by doing so that we preserve Individual Accountability, thereby resisting the primal temptation to so identify with a group that these prejudicial reactions are likely to recur. It is therefore ironic that, in the aftermath of a publicized act of police brutality, and in the wake of a tragedy which is most properly called a Miscarriage of Justice, there are some of those among us who would think to supplant the Law Itself, as though the failure of People to live up to our own Civilized Standards were the product of Civilization and NOT intrinsic to Nature. No serious anarchist is without a gun and a vendetta.

[({R.G.)}]

PARAS!TE: FULL REV!EW.

THE ETHOS:

In the eighteenth century, during the European Enlightenment, morality plays took a turn in favour of revolutionary views, the likes of which Marx and his followers adopted to varying degrees of success and atrocious failure in the centuries that followed. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni is a prime example of this subversive trend; the librettist who wrote those ingenious lyrics which Mozart set to music later moved to the United States. Retelling the tale of Don Juan, the four-hour epic depicts an ignoble nobleman who terrorizes peasants who are extremely civilized. (Of course, our own Slavoj Zizek might take issue with the term “civilized”, but in so doing he represents part of the problem I describe.) Admittedly, most of what Don Giovanni does throughout those four hours might even pass for admirable achievement in our present day, but only because so many men are either self-absorbed or easily pushed over. His only sins that stand the scrutiny of time are rape and murder, though one must keep in mind that, according to the old morality, the former would be hardly worse than the remainder of his lechery, since personal consent was less important, even during the Enlightenment, than conformism to standards, and even the most radical Enlightenment thinker wouldn’t have dared to suggest that chastity, as a social imperative, was simply the product of envy.

By illustrating the poor in a noble light and the noble in a poor light, the greatest dramatists of the Enlightenment managed to draw a sharp distinction between social hierarchy and moral hierarchy. Nobility was not a quality either exclusive to nor guaranteed within the Nobles, even if it was in fact the Noble Class which had produced it as a standard. So long as you could romanticize peasants as behaving like chivalrous princes, contending with a lecherous rich man, you could not only expose the corruption which wealth is heir to but also you could begin to Universalize Nobility as a standard transcending social station. The Cardinal Virtues are not simply behaviours which the Priesthood adopts because the Church can afford to sponsor them; they are archetypes that live within the very Heart of Human Nature, planted there by God, available to any thinking man. Rafael, the Angel of Forgiveness, is no different in quintessence from Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, of whom the Dalai Lama is the avatar. Goodness and Evil transcend cultural boundaries, and they are untethered by the mortal norms of class.

This flame was not so easily extinguished by modernity as we might suspect. While Breaking Bad might have set the stage for shows like Ozark, wherein every character is deplorable, its artistic achievement was twofold: that it not only presented a sympathetic villain, but it established such a stark contrast between his villainous fate and his heroic beginnings that viewers could not help but to end up blaming the same man they were rooting for. This was precisely Vince Gilligan’s goal: to teach viewers that “actions have consequences”. His genius was in creating villains so engaging that there was no sympathy left by the end; we had already expended it.

Even more successful artistically to this end, if not commercially, is the prequel Better Call Saul. As Jimmy McGill transforms into Saul Goodman, his stoic counterpart Mike becomes a hitman. The central themes are usually conveyed by Mike himself, who doubles as a Wise Old Man and as a Gatekeeper, eventually becoming a tragic hero. One of Mike’s earliest monologues, addressed to an upstart criminal named Pryce, (an I.T. specialist who decides to sell stolen pharmaceuticals for a profit,) is upon the difference between a “criminal” and a “bad guy”. “You took something that wasn’t yours, and you sold it for a profit, which now makes you a criminal. Good one? Bad one? That’s up to you.” Mike recognizes that our moral standing in Life is independent of our legal standing. It follows logically that it is also independent of our economic standing, especially if economics can be reduced to social standing in an institution such as the Law. Mike repeatedly refuses money, even when his family’s in dire straits, when he believes that he has not earned it. This sets him apart from Ignacio Varga, who can sympathize with Mike’s robbery of a drug lord’s trucks, but not with the vendetta which motivated it. Nacho Varga doesn’t have the sorts of responsibilities which Mike has, since Mike acts also as a provider for his widowed daughter-in-law and his granddaughter, whereas Nacho’s father has always planned for Nacho to inherit a thoroughly decent family business. Mike simply retains his devotion to the Spirit of the Law, even after having quit his post as a cop in an extremely corrupt precinct. Ignacio, who has chosen to defy his father’s wishes by allying himself with the Cartel, ends up fending for life, enabling a string of murders and injuries in his wake. When he receives a blood transfusion from one of a pair of iconic Cartel twins, it represents both the duality of his nature and his transformation into a drug lord.

THE PATHOS:

By far, the evilest villain in the film Parasite turns out to have been the patriarch of the parasitic family. Not only does he do nothing to stop his family from committing the original con, acting as far less than the stoic source of moral fortitude and equanimity which his initial character foil, Mr. Park, exhibits, but his profound envy for this gentleman sparks a neurosis which, over a very short time, escalates into the most senseless act of murder. It is by no mistake that the two men wear the feathers of Native Americans at the climax of the film, for what they represent is that rage which, either robbed of civilizing grace or having never seen it, lashes out with infantile destruction at the alien world of wealth and sophistication. What the patriarch of the parasitic family represents is self-entitlement, expressed as the raw will to destroy that which it desires. Mr. Kim wants to live Mr. Park’s life; he even goes so far as to covet the wife. Yet it is his negligence, his heavy-handed arrogance, one alien to seasoned criminals, (the likes of which we see in Breaking Bad, for instance, or even Death Note,) that dooms his family, for when they have the perfect opportunity to plan their grand ascension to the plane of wealth instead they waste it, pilfering the secrets of their hosts, intoxicating themselves in a manner only native to the unaristocratic. They know neither the reserve to leave the door unanswered when the old housekeeper comes to knock, nor do they feel the shame and the disgust which would in such a matter warrant sympathy for her and her husband. It is because they fail to answer for their sins against the family, creeping about within the dark, that Kim bears witness to the act of love between Park and his blushing wife. Park and his wife are also envious, their act of love modeled after some fantasy of rundown life, but it’s a fantasy that has been planted by the daughter of the Kims, and they do nothing but to act it out in what they falsely think is privacy. The Parks are kind enough to hide their civilized disgust when they discover panties in the back of their own car, and it is nothing short of this that lands the parasitic patriarch his gig at the expense of someone younger and more qualified, if not yet “needy”, so to speak. Yet how can this Mr. Kim deplore them for what they should say in privacy? It is offense to which he only walks by his own secret path, rather than a directed insult. What he hates is not what his host DOES, but rather what the host PERCEIVES, and in that rests the seeds of a psychosis, for the narcissist, refusing to perceive his own foul stench, hates most the thought that others turn their noses up at it behind his back. It is for this reason that Mr. Kim winds up living down in the crawlspace, in the place of the same maniac who nearly killed his son and stabbed the hosts nearly to death. It seems that all is lost during the struggle between the recluse and the Kims’ son, but as it turns out it’s the early victim who will live to tell the tale. At that moment when the ritual of decency is interrupted by an act of madness, Mr. Park behaves the most responsibly, lifting the car keys from beneath the carcass of the man who nearly killed his wife and child. There is no question at this moment that Park is the Better Man, but as the stench of his assailant fills his nostrils Mr. Kim is so reminded of this stark superiority between them that he is possessed, as if by Cain, to kill the father right before the wife. Kim’s wife and son survive, but at that moment the Parks’ lives are over, where before there had been yet a feeble hope at dignity and even healing. Let us not forget that all of this went on without the Park’s say-so or knowledge; they had no idea, thinking themselves kind. Their one sin was living that one life which all the others wanted; their one error was permitting others even partial access to this life. A rational man would rejoice, knowing that at least someone kindly had been able to enjoy what he was yet to know. Yet madness works in other ways. Kim’s lust for “simple” Mrs. Park is clear when he first holds her hand, and hearing Mr. Park fondle her breast and all the while denounce his stink engenders jealousy the likes of which not even I can fathom. A True Man would sooner have confessed to all his sins in that one moment than to let the ruse go on. But the coward had no recourse but to crawl back into poverty, a circumstance that would arouse our pity but not our solidarity, for in that moment it was chosen by the victim. Kim had the capacity for murder then, but he had not the plan to do so, leaving it up to his son’s device. The women in the family, by this point, came to recognize the lodgers underground as equals, where before their senseless rivalry for ample resources had doomed them nearly to exposure. Yet the lies the daughter wove came back to haunt them, for just as the ladies of the family were ready to thus offer up their peace, the lady of the Parks came carrying a cake which had been baked not just to celebrate the birthday of her son but to help him to cope with trauma, a trauma fabricated by the Kims. It’s in this moment that their son tries to murder the lodgers, all for wanting what he had, just as his father kills their host for having only what they wanted. Hence the madman becomes the latter foil for Kim.

THE LOGOS:

One of the peculiar qualities of the Park family which is typical of underdeveloped characters (in developed countries) is just how little we truly know about them. This fact renders it impossible to blame them without making irrational inferences from outside the text, which would be a major faux pas in the Post-Derridean contemporary world. For instance, we cannot call them “capitalists” in the Marxist sense any more so than we might call Andy Bernard’s ancestors “slave owners”; though neoliberal Oscar Martinez would love to be able to prove Nellie’s inflated claims to be factual, Bernard is accurate in describing his ancestors as “moral middlemen”: conscientious, hardworking participants in a corrupt Social Order which, by a Kantian estimation, required them to conform in spite of personal reservations and subjective doubts. As far as we are aware, the Host Family in Parasite is most likely tantamount to this, only because most people in their estimated income bracket (presuming upon the quality of their luxuries) are in the same position: they are not business owners, so they are not capitalists in the Marxist sense. If they were brought up in a “bubble”, they surpass in dignity those nouveau riche who have had to “work to get there”. While it is charming and sadly endearing to hear people from the ghetto share their dreams of wealth and power (and one often does, as I have, having spent a lot of time in urban sectors and encountered many locals,) one recalls that, were they better educated, they would not speak so proudly of their entrepreneurial dreams and realities. By the most economically left-leaning, liberal definition available, the one supplied by the notorious Karl Marx, those who manage to move up the social ladder by their will and work alone are in fact MORE corrupt than those who are born into “privilege”, since such upward mobility requires them to make a PROFIT, which Marx systematically proves to be directly proportional to and, in fact, synonymous with, exploitation, selling out their fellows in the process. This process of “selling out” is precisely what the Kim family demonstrates. Conversely, the Park family exhibits behaviours which are far more emblematic of another archetype, that of the Child: Innocence. While their patriarch exhibits the stoic condescension of his station, his actual choices, though they always portend unrelenting cosmic retribution, are invariably advantageous to the Kims, whom he grows to trust as much as his childlike wife does. The Parks, though they retain internal feelings of disgust, never allow these personal biases to skew their public behaviour, extending an attitude of trusting compassion even to their hired help, except for when they are MISLED, calculatedly, to make cancellations. While this ideal is one to which we might feel rightfully entitled, it’s not a frequent fact, so we ought to be grateful to the Parks, for they exhibit all these graces willingly and willfully. To the same extent as it is “easy” for them to be good, it is just as easy for them to be evil, and their choices therefore act as the definitive arbiter in the revelation of their character. If the Kim family finds within the depths of that character a private contempt, it is only because the Kims have betrayed the trust of the Parks by creeping into their private, innermost lives. When government entities in countries purported to be Leftist behave in this manner, Snowden supporters worldwide profess that the government betrayed both the People and its own Ideals for them.

If Parasite is a metaphor, then who are we to read it just one way? Are the Kims not, in fact, more akin to the capitalists in the works of Marx than the Parks are? Foremost anti-capitalist Slavoj Zizek holds a similar interpretation of subtext in The Sound of Music, insisting that the more subtle viewer will notice extremely proto-Fascist tendencies in the villagers who serve as that film’s protagonists, whereas the Germans they defy are tantamount to a Nazi’s conception of the Jewish Elite. If we can systematically demonstrate that the Kims exhibit the violent, sociopathic, and exploitative tendencies of a nineteenth-century Industrialist, then how can we continue to sympathize with them, as liberals?

Hidden Leeches: So, Who Were the Parasites?

Of course, here the director himself offers a counterintuitive interpretation of his own work, by suggesting that the Parks were Parasites as WELL. Of course, such an observation could never absolve either party of its crimes, for crimes are often crimes not just against an “exploited party” but also against an Overlying Law; if anything, being equated with the Parks in dignity gives Mr. Kim far less excuse for envy, unless he cares nothing for dignity itself. Yet such a degree of sophistication in moral calculation is probably lost already upon any class of people that calls the Parks “parasites”.

The most narcissistic delusion is that of Godhood, and since a God can deny his own delusions from a position of Divine Authority, any man who believes himself to be a God is the most hopeless case in this regard. What is the significance of Divinity? A Deity is like a genie without the shackles; he or she can will anything into existence, at least enough so as to satisfy his or her own needs. It is only in Buddhism that the Gods are considered unhappy in direct proportion to their power, and that is only because Buddhism rejects power.

A self-made man is a God Incarnate: an entity who fashions, by his or her own volition alone, the entirety of his or her own conditions. It does not take a Freud or Jung to see this grandiosity for what it is. Yet, somehow, when we see people relying upon other people, we treat them as though they were less than human, as though human beings were Gods and Goddesses. While cooking and driving are hardly metaphysical powers, (I, myself, possess at least one of them) it’s not a mark of shame to hire a private cook or a driver. This is because human beings are communal creatures; as Alasdair MacIntyre said, (and as I quote, quite shamelessly, for I agree with him*:) we are “dependent, rational animals”. The Parks are not exploiting the Kims by providing them with a source of income in exchange for a service. While the most cursory reading of Marx would call this “exchange-value” into question, the seemingly generous NATURE of the Parks, already exposed by their willful and “easy” goodness, leaves it up to them to decide how MUCH to pay the Kims, and it leaves it up to us to infer that it’s probably a “fair amount”, hardly synonymous with exploitation.

*Not only do I quote him because I agree with him; I am also unashamed in doing so, because I agree with him that there is nothing to be ashamed of herein.

Post-Shamanic Human Beings form societies based upon the division of specialized labour, and while this division lends itself to hierarchical structures it also makes possible a state of interdependence wherein ethics and commerce, working hand in hand, ensure both the production and the distribution of resources which possess Marx’s “use-value”. Yet the lingering credibility of Marx, especially in the current Zeitgeist, is not in his depth of research into the statistics of the prior centuries, an academic rigour the likes of which we do not find in millennials. It’s rather in the shocking accounts of factory conditions that Marx sets his morality play, in terms so plain and detached that they prefigure the ominous stylings of Realism and Modernist Theatre. At first blush, the Kim family’s living circumstances seem most reminiscent of these stark conditions. Yet no tragedy is complete without a villain and a tragic hero. In the case of the Kims, they are both, because of their choices.

Since ethics remain ethics irrespective of personal conditions, and as we have demonstrated that the most liberally sound people are those who do not change social class, wherever they may be situated, it would be daft to agree with Mrs. Kim’s drunken assertion that the Park family’s kindness is inauthentic because it comes easily as a function of privileged wealth. Our only warrant would lie in an even baser presumption: that people only do good things to feel good, and only when it requires neither effort nor sacrifice. When you see how instinctive depravity is for the Kims, it’s unsurprising.

The Sins of Kim:

We know very little about the Parks, but we know almost all there is to know about the Kims. The son betrays his best friend in the first half hour of the film, if I am not mistaken, seducing a young girl whose death he eventually brings about, thinking only of his own alienation. This same son, an adolescent boy scarcely older than Yagami Light, takes it upon himself to murder a man far less fortunate than he, who in turn attempts to kill his “Gods” upstairs. The Kim family’s matriarch shows no recrimination in getting members of their fellow working class fired to make room for narcissistic dreams of upward mobility. Where is that sense of Marxist Solidarity in the Sub-basement, when for the first time the Kims have to confront the impact of their enterprise upon an even lower class? Are these the sorts of people to presume that wealth is heir to malice? If so, it’s clearly the poor characters who are living in a bubble, unaware of even themselves, for it would take just one look in the mirror (provided by the character foil of the Squatters) to see that, in this Universe, wealth is not inversely proportional to loyalty and kindness, but directly so. The poor people are the most murderous, the wealthy are the most generous, and if this were not so, we wouldn’t need to stoop to the childish claim that it’s “easy for them to be good”. Yes: it WOULD be easy, except that the Kims, simply by CONTENDING this, make no attempt to BE good, sealing by this excuse the fates of all involved. Their power is neither that of privilege nor labour, but of duplicity and ruthlessness. While it seems tautological at first to use their claims against them, since it was precisely that same claim about privileged morality that I sought to disprove, a simple accounting of willful immorality ought to expose that claim for what it is: a pragmatic LIE, one believed by the liar, as all narcissistic fantasies are. It’s iconic, therefore, that the one member of the Kim family who dies, rightfully, is the daughter, for of all of them this counterfeiter is the most blatant con artist, without whom none of the criminal enterprise would have worked. If you can be fooled into sympathizing with her family, you are among the naïve.

The Park Family is the only family which lives a Good Life, both morally and financially. Yet hundreds of years of progressive theater and Leftist economics prove that this is not always the case. Often, rich people suck, and poor people rock. Yet what you find in the Parks is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Critics who grow queasy at the sight of a Westerner interpreting Korean economics and reinterpreting Modern Korean Art would do well to recount the North Koreans who protest Modern Art; dissent can be manufactured under authoritarian regimes. While we DESERVE artistic license, Nature does not entitle us to it. By the same token, while Nature does not entitle everyone to the Good Life, financially, we all DESERVE it, insofar as we are willing to work towards it MORALLY. The Parks do not exploit anyone to get ahead, so they are not capitalists. Yet they use their wealth in a thoroughly moral fashion, suggesting, with dramatic irony, that it would be wasted upon their hired help, though they themselves never seem to believe this, even inviting their employees to their son’s birthday party. The Parks cannot be expected to give it all up to charity and to join a protest in the streets, and this is precisely BECAUSE they live in South Korea, whose closest neighbor to the North would gobble up a Leftist uprising in a jiffy. (Probably taking a full accounting of resistors to the fight, ensuring that their families would be cursed for future generations.) As a Moldovan citizen born in Moscow in 1991, believe me when I say that I am NOT just your typical white American in holding this position. The complacency of the Kims is only natural, and, in Asian fashion, they elevate Nature to an Art. If you still believe that they should be Marxists instead, consider how much sympathy the poorest of the poor characters – the Squatters – have for North Korean propaganda.

IN SUMMARY:

Bong Joon-ho’s submagnum opus Parasite is not a film about “class” any more so than the O.J. Simpson trial was about a red-handed glove. (Of course, that trial was hardly about “race” either, by the same token.) Parasite is a film about parasitism, envy, sociopathy, madness, and the murder of innocents for socioeconomic, ideological reasons. The truest tragedy is that the men who wrote and created the film don’t even seem to recognize what they have done. Mr. Kim bewails his own sin and resolves himself to his retribution. The lingering sympathy that conventional viewers apparently feel for him is symptomatic of a far more devious sociopathy.

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

L!FE:

If a Human Life is an inalienable value, and if this value is the basis for an ethic that preserves a Human Life, and if this ethic is to have any practical application whatsoever, resulting in the preservation of a Human Life, then all agents of action must be held to this standard. It becomes fruitless to speak of the “integrity of the individual will” once one begins to conceive of a situation wherein an Individual becomes aware of the danger posed to that Life but willfully abstains from its salvation. The same principle that is binding upon the man who discovers the danger and feels compelled by the entire force of dignity to redress it is therefore binding upon all other men, including those that left to their own devices would be unwilling, because to refuse such a service is to disadvantage not only the life in danger but all so the well-being of the conscientious actor who aspires to save such a Life. Because both Life and the means for preserving Life are inalienable values, these two individuals, as representatives of these two values, the respective ends and means, are of a superior value to any man’s will that is deviant from this binding ethic. It follows that ethics of any import must be Universal rather than relative to the actor. This is most noteworthy in situations wherein a Life is put in danger or remains in danger because it is taken out of the supervision of a conscientious man and put into the hands of an unconscientious agent with ulterior motives. Because it is human to demand justice in this situation, and because it is practical to do so, because all ethics strive towards a teleological goal, such as the preservation of Human Life, and because only the lesser part of human nature which does not serve this teleological goal can stand in opposition to it, the transgressor is all ways bound, whether by force of his own conscience or by force of external will, to act as a redresser for the grievances of all afflicted parties. Hence the critique that “being forced to do the right thing” is perverse becomes absolutely and unequivocally null and void, and upon recognition of this fact force is permissible, by extension, in silencing the question entirely, for it is of a lesser value than Human Life and all so stands in direct and parasitic opposition to it. Most human beings, furthermore, would gladly submit to Authority if they are convinced that the Authority is working towards the Common Good, whereas they grow dismissive of all pretenders to authority when those same agents falsely accuse them of seeking the depravity of self-interest. Exploitation can only be felt when one is falsely accused of working for one’s self rather than for the Greater Good, for only then is one forced into isolation and marginalized. Most people would sooner elect to be threatened by force to do the Right Thing than threatened by force to do the Wrong Thing, simply because the possibility of defying authority is only tempting if the “authority” in question is corrupt. It makes sense to defy a tyrant that tells you to kill your best friend, but it makes no sense to defy an authority that forces you to feed and house him, only because you would do so anyway and, in the authority’s position, you would do the same thing as the authority has done to you. There is nothing in the Human Soul that would die just to kill someone else; survival itself becomes absurd under such circumstances, and Human Life would have no meaning because it would itself have no value. Only SOME human beings would survive, left to fabricate artificial meanings instead of performing the only Intrinsic Human Duty: to preserve the lives of One Another, for by so doing the Individual transcends the illusion of his own isolation and vindicates his own existence by extension. There is no self-interest in this vindication, because it is simply consistent with the Absolute principle that that Individual upholds. This principle cannot be called arbitrary, simply because it is literally given by Nature and precedes all rational thought. Not only is it true that I think, therefore I am. It is all so true that I AM, therefore I think. Hence all values stem from Life Itself, and as such the negation of all values do so as well. Even if Death is regarded as a part of Life, to that same extent its contemplation must serve the will of the Whole of Life; hence Death cannot be cited as the source of Life’s negation, and professors of Death are still bound by Life to be agents of Life. Only the Death of the Ego can be conceived by the Rational Mind, because beyond the threshold of Death the Rational Mind cannot reach. And it is only the half-life of the ego that pretends that these facts are not so and that keeps the will in a state of perversion, to the detriment of All Beings.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]

How to Build a Ghost:

In the Past, War was an easy Business. You simply planted something incriminating on whatever country that you wanted to invade, and then you went to war with them. It was not hard to get people to hate their neighbours if the neighbours looked strange and exotic. The tribal mind has a neat little attribute that it can skew the rational mind in its own favour. We are not WIRED to “like Others”; we are wired to like ourselves, except for those few who’ve developed their civilized minds.

Thankfully, civilization lets everyone join the club, ESPECIALLY in egalitarian (American) society. You don’t have to ACT civilized to FEEL civilized; you can be a total bitch, and no one can tell you not to be. Matter of fact, neither can YOU tell them NOT to tell you to stop being a bitch. And it’s that mutual enmity, that totalizing passive aggression that loves to judge but does not let itself be judged, that is just how you know the System Works. It’s what we all want!! To be infallible, but to appeal to human-all-too-human error when the ruse is too expensive to perpetuate.

There never was a racist person. There were only stupid people: people whose opinions could systematically be molded by their governments. You think that those Koreans who protest “modern art” were forced to do so? Maybe. But you can damn well bet that they believe in it. You know why? HERD IMMUNITY. The Herd Mentality. The Human Animal wants not just to be Right, but to be Popular. So you appeal just to the Tribal Mind in People. That’s where all the fun stuff happens. Us and Them. The Tribal Mind sees Other as a Threat to Us. And although it’s constantly the enemy of Rationality and Civil Rights, it can be PERSUADED that it lays a claim to Those Great Virtues of the Reasonable Animal. WE are now the “civilized” society, and THEY’RE the brutes.

The irony is sweet, a sweetness in proportion to the fact that it is lost upon these people who partake in it. And when I say “these” people, I do not mean THOSE people. THOSE people, in the Distance, whom we have to bomb because they’re animals (why not put them inside a Zoo instead?!) know very well that WE’RE Insane. But that is just the thing: they do not have the strength of arms to prove that point. And arms are all one needs. Call it just what you like: Patriotism or Fascism. We can skew the ethics in our favour. If people start to Wake Up to the fact that we’re not enemies but FRIENDS, you call the Scientists. They’ll dig up fossils that will prove that Friendship is Genetically Impossible. If that falls through, you call the Media. Show the World JUST how much we NEED to be there, not for our own sake, but rather for THEIR sake and for the Sake of Civilized Society. If that won’t do it, win the Liberals. They don’t like “racism”, right? They still think that it exists, because they’re part of it; every attempt they make to put a stop to it is just what we need: tribal people donning civilized masks and condemning those whose primitivity is bald-faced. If the enemy is “racism” rather than Ignorance, who will attack the GOVERNMENT? Wherever THAT shot comes from, it will NOT be from the Left. It won’t be from the Right only because the Right does not want to evolve; that’s what “conservatism” means. A lot of them do not BELIEVE in Evolution at all!!

But now we have a new snag to worry about. The Internet is powerful. If I can snapchat with some woman in the Middle East who just lost her one son to a Drone Strike, perhaps I question the Nobility of War. How do you sell THAT loss? I COULD tell you that we were there for her own good, but if our drones destroyed her life then we’re no better than her “patriarchal” husband. And we can hardly BLAME her just for BEING there. So nationalism has its limits. We can bully weaker nations all we want, but nothing will stop them from rising up against us, with help from within our own borders, UNLESS we can somehow SELL Nationalism TO those nations. And then what? Well: it’s not hard to do if they can be persuaded that not only do we have THEIR interests at heart, but that their neighbours DON’T.

So we have this situation: we can no longer just PICK a nation and suck it dry by calling its people names. And whatever we do, we absolutely MUST make sure that nations, just like citizens within our nation, prize their own autonomy even as they all work to sponsor US, for their protection. A skilled propagandist knows EXACTLY how to pull this off; he’s lived his life just DREAMING of the Day that he can prove it. You invent an enemy that HAS NO NATIONAL AFFILIATION, but that can BEHAVE JUST LIKE A NATION. Here’s how the fiction works: its People are all, By Their Very Definition, Terrorists and Savages; otherwise they are not part of the club. Next: they are collectively as STRONG as any Nation, so an Other to be Reckoned With. But there’s no way to Measure just how strong they are, since no one knows who is in charge. Finally, they are spread out all over the World. So any nation that we see FIT to attack we do so, just as always, only this time we’re not KILLING all those people; we are SAVING them, and they are BEGGING for our crusade of salvation.

Don’t you see the very GENIUS of it now?!? Think about it: in the PAST, you couldn’t wage war on a COUNTRY with an easy stomach. Liberals would tear you down at  every turn for doing GENOCIDE, that last great vestige of tradition. One civilian casualty in Germany or Iraq, and we are to the pious mind all scum and murderers. But if The Enemy HAS no civilians, because its legion is entirely composed of Thieves: well, that’s MYTHOLOGY. THAT is the long-awaited Holy WAR!! All of our longings for heroism are contained within that fantasy, for it is coded into our very BONES. You can make a movie about war that preaches pacifism, and yet will not disrupt hegemony; people will simply be less LIKELY to defy the GOVERNMENT on Their Own Terms.

In the PAST, men followed their Own Hearts. Some of them beat in unison with a patriotic drum, whereas others found their Calling conscientiously off of the battlefield. Some fought, others loved. The lovers gave up war to seek the hearts of Women, and those women wanted nothing more than to find a man WORTHY, tender and sentimental, hence a GENTLEMAN. Gentleness has no place in our business.

In the PAST, women would light the way for Men to Find Themselves; their very sensitivity encouraged civilized man to EMBRACE his Anima – his Interminable Spirit. The whole QUEST was one of finding Love akin to the Mother’s Breast.

But no more!! It’s hilarious, if you will think about it.

We destroyed the Damsel in Distress; she doesn’t need saving. We sent all of our women out on an eternal errand. Great!! More people in the military, fewer in the nursery. More people in the office building means fewer at home. More people to enforce Our Laws, even if it DISSOLVES the Family. No one is around to teach a new generation of boys and girls how to THINK, so they resort to Television and that very Internet that we now have made Our Own. Morality is relative in That World of Virtual Reality, since actions have no worldly consequences. One man’s dystopia is an other man’s PARADISE. And why not, right? Who am I to judge? Just some filthy stinking rich white MALE. That’s all they see me as, regardless who they are. And I made sure of it, for BOTH our sakes: yours and mine, so YOU don’t get any ideas.

THIS is how we created our contemporary Enemy. There is a saying in Taoism: solve small problems before they can turn to big ones. If the Enemy is a Ghost, no one can kill it. It must possess a body. Tell me now: how many people must I BOMB before some Radical takes arms against me? One hundred? Two thousand? Because you KNOW that we have the technology, as WELL as the Incentive and Consent.

Yes: given pause you may be so inclined to rationalize. Why, for instance, would we allow Civilian Casualties at ANY rate, ESPECIALLY if we’re not TARGETTING a Nation but a Group?

Ahh, but when those Radicals fight BACK, possessed of ZEAL to match our own, inspired by their one last hope – GOD ALMIGHTY – then we don’t think; we act. It’s how we’ve all been raised. The boss isn’t all ways right, for he’s not God, but we’re not “radicals” who will believe in Him. Nay!! We are RATIONALS that can move PAST him. Yes: we DO have the technology.

You see? The boss is not infallible, but he is still the Boss. And that’s us!! WE say “go to War”, and THEY will do it. WE say “send the Drone”, the Bomb, the hateful text, and They Will DO IT.

Now you see, right? Who is stronger than US? And by what criteria are we NOT justified? By God? God is a suit that we put on when we succeed and just a jacket we put on for when we fail; He’s not an Ethic, because those who USE Him as an Ethic are the ENEMY.

So we created that same Enemy. It’s like I said to you beforehand: those Koreans who protested modern art did so wholeheartedly. So do the radicals who march under the banner WE created for them. They want what all tribal people want who have no use for Reason in a hostile world: Solidarity. They don’t hate freedom; it’s just at this point to be found only in a suicide bombing. We love that when we see it in movies because WE’RE the Good Guys, all ways. It’s just how we’re wired, am I right? We all want to be Heroes. But if men and women cannot save each other, for they’re forced into some brutal competition for the Emperor’s Amusement, what choice do they have but to assimilate, donning the helm and shield of valor, minus that sword of discretion that will give them any fighting chance!?!

HAHAHAHA.

This is Our World, my friend, entirely for Our Amusement. If a man can’t save a woman, at least he can save the World and win that woman’s favour. If he has to be a fighter to match hearts with Mother Mayhem, for she is no longer dainty Damsel in Distress, then there is no longer any lover who is not a fighter, and all fights are those WE supervise. You want the proof? See how the media depicts the martyrs who kill our precious colosseum fodder. They only give the tribal mind reason to FEAR True Individuality, and by so doing to disown True Reason. I don’t think that guy who shot up country music fans in Las Vegas was crazy. He was just a gambler. But I’m not going to tell THEM that; they wouldn’t even listen to me. Bless their Souls.

No one knows when next the Ghost will strike. If it is omnipresent as the Devil, it can come from anywhere. No foreigner is safe, so Nationalism thrives under our Totalizing Supervision. You train people to ACCEPT this, and they will rationalize it with the entire FORCE of Reason. It takes an EXTREMELY subtle mind to recognize it for insanity. And he is most often, as you’ve figured out by now, my friend, deemed Insane.

Dm.A.A.

Opium for the Masses:

In case you did not believe in Astrology:

Alasdair MacIntyre and Zac de la Rocha, both seminal figures in the new wave of Communism, despite their distinct backgrounds, communities, and styles of approaching the matter, share a birthday.

January 12.

Capricorn. (The Cardinal Earth Sign.)

Decan: Mercury.

Karl Marx was himself a Taurus (Fixed Earth Sign) with a Mercury Decan.

Mercury rules Communications. It follows logically that the three men (MacIntyre, Rocha, and Marx) are known more for their messages and activism than for fighting the battles they prophesied. This has called them into question on accounts of hypocrisy. Be that as it may, their message and facility with language is impeccable, so if they were civilians of a Communist Utopia they would preserve their integrity as teachers. They remain admired by many.

Dm.A.A.

Paradox:

Paradox.

Honestly: with all the time that I spend thinking, am I going to reprimand myself for a few conclusions that will eventually require revision? Categorically and imperatively (as well as definitionally): No. Because I know my intent, and nothing will either justify nor require me to waste energy reprimanding. As for a break from thought: I can dig that. Reprimanding is revision; that is all ready the beginning to think again. But I can reprimand those whom I know to mean ill. They are transparent to me. And this is no longer any relative matter. Even relativism was a step towards the teleological conclusion. It was a step in the proper direction, surely. Hence it was all ready an expression then of that peak from whence I speak now. And I do not delude myself into believing that all beings are intrinsically inclined to make this climb. I will help those on their path. I will annihilate those who would slow the ascent. They may get behind me.

Dm.A.A.

The Tragedy of Andrew Bernard:

The Tragedy of Andrew Bernard:

I still don’t and will never understand why Andy Bernard does not end up marrying Erin in the ultimate episode of the Office. His romance to her is by far more relatable and beautiful and desperately nail-biting than Jim and Pam. I understand the schtick that Jim is The Guy Who Gets Away With Things Inexplicably, hence questions arise surrounding his mental health. But how is it that Jim gets away with being gone so long (pursuing a career instead of upholding a tradition or seeking enlightenment in the Caribbean Islands) in Season Nine and the Nard Dog, who is only gone for three months (DURING WHICH TIME THE COMPANY PROSPERS, BY THEIR ADMISSION, AS THE OSTENSIBLE RESULT OF HIS CHOICE) is ABANDONED by his girlfriend? I was totally unmoved when Erin’s birth parents showed up to the Seminar because it was totally devoid of meaning. Not only does the formerly perfect girl embrace them with total abandon devoid of righteous fury. Throughout the entire forty-minute finale she pays absolutely NO HEED TO HER LOVER ANDY, preferring the company of the Nameless Douchebag Alcoholic whom she ended up cheating on Andy WITH. This mystery is only seconded by the fact that all of this happens in the wake of Andy’s bold act of vulnerability going “viral”. I do not understand how it is possible that the second-most-heroic character in the series is LAMPOONED for his breakdown before the impersonal and inhuman judges, which include the grossly untalented Clay Aiken. Dave Grohl wouldn’t put up with this. Why should Andy? When I watch or read Hamlet, which the nard-dog probably has memorized, I feel every heartstring quiver with every line. And this is how I feel for Andy Bernard. And it is not just because I sympathize with him, whereas I do not remember my past lives in orphanage. Ethics are impersonal (in the positive sense of the word) and they are objectively universal to all rational beings. There is simply no Universe in this Multiverse wherein Erin can forgive her parents for having abandoned her for thirty-something years, only to take out her feelings of abandonment on a man who was coping with the disintegration of his own family. There is nothing that can really make this story sentimental or relatable. I’ve only known a few people in my entire life who wouldn’t have their heads spin at the thought of it. And all for what? For HAPPINESS? Andy honoured his Family tradition and returned a Changed Man, but no less intense is he then than when he took his leave of the Office and drove all the way down to FLORIDA to find Erin. If I wrote a sequel for the Office, it would follow the demise of Pete and of course Toby’s adventures in Europe, chasing Nellie. Andy’s respect for the traditions of a family that visibly DEPLORED him is by FAR more sympathetic a sob story than Erin’s quest for “Happiness” (Again: how do you MEASURE that? And don’t you DARE say endorphins) or her abandonment by a Mother and Father who never receive their due come-uppance. Much less comprehensible is the rise of Daryll to the top, alongside Jim, even when he CONFESSED to an aversion to Work Itself. Even less so is Toby’s being single. Even less so is Nellie’s ongoing and irrational aversion to him. Even less so is that Oscar, whose sodomistic affair (WHY DOES WORD NOT RECOGNIZE THIS WORD?!) with Angela’s Husband, by no means selfless or principled, even by his own hypocritical standards, is allowed into Public Office and even becomes GODFATHER TO ANGELA’S SON. How can the ends justify THOSE means? How is Dwight rewarded for his aggression towards Andy but Andy is only caught where he began: at Cornell University? Why is Erin’s Happiness greater than his Rights? A hero MUST uphold those same values with which he defends every woman he has ever been with and every organization that he had ever pledged his loyalty to, even if contemporary cultural complications compel him to choose love over station, tradition over love, or station over tradition, from time to time. The Underdog even had his ARSE TATTOOED, yet in the end the World won’t THROW HIM A FUCKING BONE.

If it seems like I am unraveling, I am. I might have nothing left to live for. The prosperity of every other character on this show, against all odds and decency, only makes Andy’s Tragedy that much higher when weighed on a Scale of Justice that hoists it in proportion to the weight of his adversaries. May he ascend to Heaven if he kills himself in such times as these. May the Internet forever bewail the Irony of his Loss of both Angela and Erin, to say nothing of the family name that was his birthright. May we forever remember the Tragedy of Andrew Bernard, borne pure into the only true poverty, in a wasteland that mistakes it for wealth even as it sees him as its victim and that overlooks the irony of its own envious contempt, which should be considered the first symptom of its OWN poverty. And if my own envious contempt casts doubt on my sincerity, may it be remembered that I did not deny my own poverty. Andrew Bernard is the only true hero next to Michael Scott, hence Michael bestowed upon Andy the burden of Management. Jim and Pam are nothing compared to Andy and Erin, the two lost orphans, like the Gemini twins, one of whom dies in war. Andy is not a cis-white-male. He is the only man who never played the race card and who even had the courage to defend his ancestors, who were only ever moral middle men in a slave trade that started on the African Continent. Like them, he performed his duties to the best of his worldly abilities. They simply outweighed those duties that one elects arbitrarily, as does an entrepreneuring sociopath like Jim Halpert, because he was BORNE INTO THEM, and hence they are closer to God than any career choice for which a man may be blamed. Virtue is inescapable, and Andy makes no attempt to run from it. Yet every step he takes in one righteous direction, prompted by his fellows, is mistaken for treachery, not because it does any harm to any one (which it invariably does not; even when Erin misses him to the point of fury, she has to live with having prompted him to do so) but because it is MISTAKEN FOR BEING ARBITRARY by a gang of ARBITRARY PEOPLE who feel INCONVENIENCED BY IT. At no point does the Nard Dog break a promise, violate the Categorical Imperative, create an adversarial situation, (except to spite Erin, just to prove a point, and rightfully) betray a friend, or disobey an order or social cue. (Except when he stands up to a Panel of Judges that dismiss him without cause.) Andy DOES EVERY THING RIGHT. And he is left empty-handed as all of his fellows prosper. Perhaps he NEEDS Erin in order to ground him. Perhaps Erin needs to be grounded. Pun intended. But  how many WOMEN would HONESTLY judge of a man in need that they would not themselves volunteer to help? If Woman is EQUAL to Man, is she not burdened by the same altruistic task? Is that not the life-blood of Society and Human Compassion?

When people like Andrew Bernard are condemned for doing the RIGHT thing, it only opens the floodgates for degenerate sociopaths, without either noble birth OR moral conviction, to be praised and comforted for doing the WRONG thing. Phyllis is pardoned for blackmailing Angela. Dwight is rewarded for bullying Andy. Jim is praised for hitting on Pam in spite of Roy. Etc.

What did Jim ever do right? He only PRETENDED to be AMBIVALENT to Pam when it so pleased him, rather than STANDING UP FOR HIMSELF as he ADMITS HE SHOULD HAVE. Andy is the Old Soul of the Office who, like Michael Scott, is capable of seeing the finish line before the rest of the crowd knows it is running a race. And ironically enough he is the least competitive of any of them. He only craves that which all of them receive as a reward for their own sloppiness. He is condemned only for his own cleanliness. And as Pam Beasley said: wanting things to be clean has nothing to do with being rich. Andy is the only TRULY ENTITLED character, and he KNOWS it. No one can hold a candle up to him, yet all of them enjoy the fruits of HIS labours and even the prosperity brought on by his calculated and inspired absence. HAD Jim and Pam NOT WASTED TIME that they REGRET HAVING WASTED, would they not all so have appeared self-entitled? Andy suffers not from excessive Desire but from Conviction. Yet any TRUE Drama or Comedy REWARDS that Conviction when it is properly oriented. It does not confuse it for vice as it treats actual vice as though it were virtue. So may it last of all be remembered that at no point am I opening the gates of sympathy that they might flood out the flame of justice in its persecution of the narcissist and deviant. I would rather that it buoy us up to an altitude from whence we might again recall the distinction between TRUE entitlement and the passive aggression of a silent, manipulative self-interest. There is a reason that Hamlet stabs Polonius behind a curtain. In a more decent time, Jim would have met his come-uppance, and Andy would have died a beloved Prince. The sword of discretion must again be used not to defend one’s self when one is in the wrong, but rather to segregate virtue from vice. And insofar as Andy wields it in accordance with a just assessment of his own value, his service to Humanity as an Artist, and in the overlying context of a civilized culture and rich tradition of principles, he has earned that right that Americans mistakenly consider a Universal Entitlement for which one does not have to fight: to fend for one’s own self. To defend oneself.

Dm.A.A.

Rêve Vingt:

Dream Twenty:

Perhaps it is as the result of having watched Nelly last night, or perhaps it is a continuation of my dream wherein I am Biggie Smalls. (which I am having trouble finding in my record at present, but I am sure if you keep digging you will find me.) At any rate, I attended Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s funeral. During the service a eulogy was intoned by that one upstart kid on YouTube who left a comment, I.A.L, on “Got Yo Money”, singing O.D.B’s praises as though the drug-addled gangster was some sort of a role model. In the Dream, this young man, who proved to be a weedy ginger kid from the suburbs, said that Dirty Bastard (whom he mistakenly called “Dirt Nasty”, at some point) ate everything that he wanted to eat and fucked everything that he wanted to fuck, (the boy’s words exactly, if memory serves) and that he was a Great Man. Upon the Tomb Stone, which was produced by a company owned by the redhead’s father, a member of the Redheaded League of Scotland, there was inscribed an engraving that translated to: “Here Lies a Happy Animal”, roughly. The Father was so moved to tears by the boy’s “sermon” (his words exactly!!) that he ordered a Tomb to be built to house both O.D.B. and his son’s ashes. But his son protested, complaining that he all ways wanted his ashes to be cut with heroin that would be spread via the “drug trade in Chi-town”. After much dispute and tearful embrace, the compromise was granted by the patriarch.

I was eating Shrimp at the Wake when I was approached by a member of the Wu Tang clan. He introduced himself as “Goatface Killah” and insisted that I was the Clan’s prime suspect for the murder of O.D.B. I decided not to hurt their pride by arguing that the Bastard had killed himself with drugs. So I spun a tale wherein a rival of mine had supplied him with the drugs, which were deliberately laced with a drug called Fallen Angel Dust. Goatface promised to avenge by friend O.D.B.

As I took my leave of the Wake I was approached by RZA and GZA, dressed as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I asked them if they weren’t supposed to be dead, too. RZA replied that they had found enough evidence to convict O.D.B’s killer, but that they were afraid to present it to the Police, for fear of violating Omerta. GZA told me that they all knew now that I had no vendetta against O.D.B. They peaced, and I was left baffled. I had no idea that my story was true. I thought that maybe this was proof for Confirmation Bias: that the more you want to believe in something, the more evidence you will. But it was at this moment that a cop car pulled up next to me.

I had to appear before a Court that investigated the murder. Not unlike the Ricin Scene in Breaking Bad, I had first to endure an investigation by two F.B.I. agents who wanted to know how I could have known what I did if I had had no involvement in it. They could let me off the hook if I supplied the information. But I had not the heart to tell them I had made it all up.

In Court, I could not tell whether I was a Witness or a Defendant. The Plaintiff was the Father of the Redheaded boy. He argued ferociously with my legal counsel, who was GZA, that I had deliberately poisoned O.D.B. and lain a false trail. He argued that I had a vendetta against O.D.B. from the very beginning. I replied that I had nothing against O.D.B. in particular. It was rather that I hate his entire kind.

Perhaps I lost the support of the Clan. But the Judge ruled in my favour, and I got to go home. I still could not help but to wonder: had my rival ACTUALLY killed O.D.B? The evidence was overwhelming. But then I realized that O.D.B. had CHOSEN to take the drug. Along the way, I past a rehabilitation clinic. A woman sat outside it with a sign reading “will suck for food”. I asked her what happened. She told me that she was a nurse who used to help her patients back to sobriety, but that O.D.B, by his sheer presence, had driven her out of business by selling prescription drugs for cheap.

I took her home. Along the way I wondered whether or not O.D.B. had deserved to die. But then I realized that people would pardon him all his sins in Death. If this woman, an aspiring Healer, could be reduced to victimhood by the sheer presence of a competitor, forced to watch all her patients die as victims of O.D.B’s tyranny, then surely, fucked up as it was, (my words exactly) O.D.B. would all so, at some point or an other, be remembered as a Victim. In an age without virtue, anything was possible. So at least the animal had died loved.

DM.A.A.

Dream Eight: 1341.

I came to on an other planet. I felt hungover. I guess that this must have been how the writers for Great Glass Elevator felt when they penned their psychedelic hit “Drunk on Another Planet”. A little water droplet fell from the sky, waking me from sleep in a false awakening. I brushed it from my eye and I beheld Sue.

Happy Chang’s had relocated to an other solar system. I think it was Altarf or something. It was insanely bright, but we were far from it. And it was night.

Sue explained. At some point she was approached by a paranormal investigator, disguised as a Drug Enforcement Agent, who confided in her that there were extraterrestrials in their very home town. He offered her husband release from prison for the Health Code violations if she complied with his project. She agreed to act as human bait for the Aliens. But when she met them she was converted. They came from a planet that had for nineteen thousand million years (19,000,000,000) suffered from suicidal depression. Happy Chang’s was relocated to this planet plagued by sadness in order to heal it.

Sue and I took a transport towards the City Hospital in order to visit the White Knight. As we rode a mechanical Trilobite over the landscape, I realized that we were in the midst of the largest junk yard that I had seen since Wall-E. She explained to me that this entire Nation was an enormous Landfill for other planets to dump their refuse into. Hence its Capital City was called Garbage. And we were on our way there.

Upon arrival to Garbage National Hospital, we were escorted by two twin robots up two separate spiral staircases that interlaced like a double-helix. Finally we reached a dome-shaped room who[se] exterior, save for the floor, of course, was entirely translucent to the skyline. At its center lay the White Knight, writhing in restraints as various instruments operated upon him with laser beams. Sue explained to me that his D.N.A. was being re-written. He would be reborn a more loyal friend and potent ally, and his betrayal of Earth would be pardoned because Earth had herself betrayed its people, and to be loyal to the disloyal is foolish and only obligates us, by the example that it sets, to sacrifice ourselves for those who had betrayed us.

I asked Sue how she felt living in Garbage Nation on Planet Xanax. (A reference of course to the Radiohead song that was supposed originally to have been so entitled.) She laughed and told me that happiness is no good if you do not share it. I accepted that.

Later, I was granted access to an Observatory. Here there was a Library and a Computer entirely for my use. The other planets had donated it as mere refuse. Upon this rock I built my Church. I had not given up yet on Earth. I vowed to one day come back down to Earth and to finish the Chess Game. And this time, I would play for keeps; no stalemates. I had too much to avenge.

This much was my initial theory:

WHITE:

Rook One: Rob.

Knight Two:

Bishop Three: Stephanie.

White Queen: Awilda.

White King: Arthur.

Bishop Six: Joker?

Knight Seven:

Rook Eight: Mike.

BLACK:

Rook One:

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight. (convert.)

Bishop Three: Stephanie. (convert.)

Black Queen: Alanna?

Black King: Dmytri.

Bishop Six: Joker?

Knight Seven: Kyle?

Rook Eight:

After some time, I gave up trying to figure it all out. But upon waking I realized that Arthur had not even made an appearance in this DREAM SERIES. So I revised my chart. Here it is reproduced, to the best of my ability:

(The waking was of course a false awakening. I woke up next to the White Knight. I returned to the Observatory. Dawn was breaking; it would be fatal to stay here for long. I knew what I had to do, though. I began by typing up my final guesses:)

WHITE:

Rook One: Rob.

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight,=.

Bishop Three: Stephanie.

White Queen: Bianca.

White King: Kresten.

Bishop Six: Joker.

Knight Seven: The White Knight.

Rook Eight: Mike.

BLACK:

Rook One: Kyle.

Knight Two: The Blackened Knight. (convert.)

Bishop Three: Stephanie. (convert.)

Black Queen: Alanna.

Black King: Dmytri.

Bishop Six: Joker. (double-agent.)

Knight Seven: The White Knight. (Convert.)

Rook Eight: Sue.

It was the best that I could do. As azure light swam in I created a flow chart. I had to figure out how all of this had happened. Again: I reproduce it for you now only to the best of my Earthly Ability:

1.        Rob and I had to rescue the dogs.

2.      Kresten followed us.

3.      We lost Kresten’s tail.

4.      He was picked up by the Joker.

5.      The Joker, urged by Kresten, began to follow us.

6.      If the Joker was Anthony, which would make sense considering that Anthony had dreamt of driving the same van, then Anthony did this prior to visiting the Theatre. (Again: pardon the revision. At least I did not revise the chronology.)

7.       After the flood Anthony was picked up again by Kresten. Around this time he acquired a Flame Thrower.

8.      The van was a Police Van, so they had to keep it out of sight of Schrader. They waited for Schrader to leave before they paid a visit to the Antique Disposition.

9.      Shortly thereafter they spotted me and W.K. trying to leave. They identified those bikes as their own. At some point (again: pardon me.) their bikes, which appeared in Anthony’s Dream, were stolen from the Van and sold to a Pawn Shop.

10.   They pursued us. Anthony shot Kresten in the face. He ran over the Head of the Scapegoat. Kresten became the Faceless Man. Anthony, dressed as the Joker, escaped.

11.      The faceless man found some means of Time Travel. Perhaps Anthony showed it to him when he found out how to warp space-time in His Dream, so that he could go back to his old Elementary School, seeing it EXACTLY AS IT HAD BEEN WHEN HE LEFT IT, (proving, granted that Chaparral could afford renovations since we graduated from it, that he had literally travelled back in time) and then warp into the Theatre.

12.    Kresten went back in time through the same portal so that he could be in the Theatre on the night of the Performance. His intent: to assassinate Rob.

13.    Having failed to do so, he traveled further back in order to stage a dognapping that would set all of these events in motion. He all so tailed Mike, the other rook, and slashed his tires. He thought that this would undo history. But that only reflected his own, rigid causal view of time. In fact, he had only produced what was inevitable. A determinist would theoretically understand this. But in reality it was never Determinism but rather Teleological Progression that had produced these events. Reality did not come causally OUT of the past INTO the Future; it came FROM THE FUTURE INTO THE PAST. Hence Kresten’s time-traveling produced the foundation for its own occurrence IN THE PAST.

I had yet to figure out what all of this had to do with Korea. At this moment, someone barged into the Library that I would never have expected: my parents. They were out of rehab, and they told me to come home. I told him that I did not want to, lying, of course, because I intended to without their knowledge or interference. Mother told me that Pumpkin had gotten better. The shot had only ever been medicine for his leg to heal.

As she spoke her face came ablaze. The Sun Altarf was Rising. I told my parents, laughing manically, that everything would be all right. “I will fight no more forever. I’m gonna be perfect from now on.” So relieved was I that I would not move until we were all swallowed in Blazing White Light.

And I awoke.

Dm.A.A.