"The White Lotus" and a Downside of Human Nature

 I was reading an Aug. 19, 2021,  New York Times feature on the television show "The White Lotus," which HBO has apparently decided to run for a second season, and getting more and more depressed in the process.

In a nutshell, the show offers what appears to be popular entertainment by depicting two young women who continually amuse themselves by making scathing judgements about other guests at a luxury resort.

Well, ok, this is a luxury resort so those who can afford to go there (including the college girls in question) have undoubtedly ripped the public off in one form or another (or their families have), so they deserve every insult or take-down they can get. Right? 

This notion evidently gives the show the sort of "pass" a similar show in which two young women continually derided people in a homeless encampment wouldn't get.

The point is: in human society, the perceived shortcomings of others are fair game for those who see ways of profiting from them.  In "The White Lotus," the profit is apparently only the notion that the girls can think better of themselves by putting down others, but in other instances, such behavior can bring wealth and power.

Consider, for instance, Donald Trump whose stock-in-trade consists of deriding and belittling virtually everyone who crosses his path, and many who don't. 

Or, consider Amazon Prime's wildly popular show "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel."  I watched it because a young woman I know wants badly to become a stand-up comedienne or at least write comedy for others and as one episode followed another, I was reminded again and again of Trump.  Mrs. Maisel's stock-in-trade was similar to that of the former President: she looked for shortcomings or sources of potential weakness in everyone she knew, or encountered, and exploited them for personal fame and profit, letting the chips fall where they might in the process.

There's nothing new about this, of course.  The examples above can be considered akin to the long-standing German concept of  schadenfreude,  or pleasure derived from the misfortune of others.

No wonder we don't seem to solving most of the problems currently confronting humanity.

Virginia Woolf on Politics

 In her 1928 gender bending novel "Orlando," Virginia Woolf had the following to say about politics:

"No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high. Whigs and Tories, Liberal party and Labour party -- for what do they battle except their own prestige? It is not love of truth, but desire to prevail that sets quarter against quarter and makes parish desire the downfall of perish."

I'll probably add more to this post in due course, but that's it for now.

 

"Superstition:" The Subliminal Power of Culture & Religion

 "Superstition," a short story by Sarah Braunstein, in the Aug. 2 New Yorker is about the lingering claims of culture and the almost subliminal power of religion.

Two teenage boys, conventionally dismissive of anything but what strikes their prevailing fancy, live with a permissive, understanding father, perhaps excessively so because the mother of the boys died some years earlier. They have been indulged with all manner of toys and youthful paraphernalia, now no longer valued. 

As is often the case with children in general, and particularly teenagers, the boys are into testing boundaries and at one point discover eBay. The story is set relatively early in the Internet age, before the advent of social media. 

One of the boys, named Lenny, suspecting the public is easily duped, makes up a lucky-charm story about a plaque-mounted fish he had once bought at Goodwill for a couple of dollars and sure enough, after a round of bidding, someone buys it for over ninety dollars. 

James, his brother, is impressed and wants to do likewise, but struggles to come up with something to sell about which a convincing story might be told.  Until he recalls a cross that he received at his first communion, kept in a velvet box.  Eventually he comes up with a story -- it had been in the family since 1915 and, when in the possession of a somewhat distant family member, had been blessed by Pope Pius XII, a controversial figure, James knows, because he "had been reluctant to intervene as a genocide unfolded in Europe."

As far as the plot goes, I will stop here so as not to spoil Ms Braunstein's tale, but suffice to say that James is far more entangled in the cultural and religious background of his family than he would care to admit if, indeed, he understands the genesis of his emotional crosscurrents. 

It's a story that is more interesting than initially appears to be the case and, no surprise, the New Yorker, in the usual author interview, fails to explore the seminal issue. (These interviews are frequently disappointing.)

The ending is an allegorical short cut, necessarily, I suppose because this is a short story. Ms Braunstein's topic is complex and as such, deserves a more sophisticated denouement.