"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.

My Take on the U.S. Presidential Election

In a nutshell, my take on the recent U.S. presidential election is that we came very close to losing American democracy. It was saved, for the time being, by election officials and workers in the individual states who did an amazing job in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The court system gets credit, too, but largely because the states presented the judiciary with such clean results. And the much-maligned Post Office deserves credit for getting huge numbers of pandemic-induced mail-in ballots delivered on time.

As Donald Trump’s Attorney General William Barr said, his department found no evidence of irregularities significant enough to change the outcome.

One can also view it as a vindication of Federalism and the division of power.  Imagine if a single federal agency had been in charge of carrying out the election and certifying the results.

Trump was clearly counting on chaos and, indeed, had said as much in the lead-up to the election. If the vote failed to show him the clear winner, he appeared to believe the outcome would be messy enough to render the results invalid.  Who knows exactly what would have come next, but I doubt it would have been a peaceful transfer of power in line with the provisions of the Constitution as we have traditionally understood them.  The storming of the Capitol could easily have been far worse.

To me, the most astonishing aspect of the election was that Trump got about 10 million more votes in 2020 than in 2016. One might argue that was because overall turnout was significantly larger, but despite his appalling behavior, he got half of the additional votes. And there was no rush by the people who voted for him the first time – most significantly white Americans, -- to acknowledge a mistake and sweep him back out.  Not at all! And there was even evidence that Trump had found new pockets of support in unexpected places.

Having read a great deal of commentary and analysis on what produced Trump’s 2016 victory, I would say that in broad-brush terms there were two significant trends: changing demographics signaling the coming end of a dominant white majority combined with persistent economic stagnation and even decline of much of the white middle class, and particularly those with less education. Many white Americans seem to fear they are in danger of sinking below layers of both new, non-white arrivals and the traditional Black “underclass.” To them, the presidency of Barak Obama seemed a harbinger of their decline.

Recent books that help shed light on what is going on include: “Strangers In Their Own Land,” by Arlie Russell Hochschild; “Brown Is The New White,” by Steve Phillips, and “Caste,” by Isabel Wilkerson.

Toward the end of her book, Wilkerson relates a conversation she had with the historian Taylor Branch, the author of a trilogy on the life of Martin Luther King. She quotes Branch, who she identifies as a friend, as saying: “People were angry when the projections (that whites would fall into minority status by 2042) came out. People said they wouldn’t stand for being a minority in their own country [my emphasis]. … So the real question would be, if people are given the choice between democracy and whiteness, how many would choose whiteness?”

That’s clearly a concern Wilkerson herself strongly feels. But quoting Branch, who is white (she is Black), serves to give the notion, which Trumpism clearly embodies, more force and credibility.

Biden’s victory was a relief, but the down-ballot outcome was sobering, suggesting significant problems lie ahead. Democracy, as we have known it, may indeed not be the top priority of a significant number of Americans in years to come,

An Ode to U.S. Post-Election Developments

 

If you lie, make it bold
Those who like it will behold
Their savior now a martyr made
To arms they call, a new crusade

He incites, they soon comply
On the hill, their flags do fly
Doors are breached, the sanctum stormed
Desecration of the norm

A New Yorker Story More About the Parents Than the Child

 The latest New Yorker short story, "Hansa, Gretyl and Piece of Shit." by Rebecca Curtis, raises more interesting questions about the parents of the chief protagonist, a young girl named Gretyl, than it does about her. She's a passive girl who tends to blame herself for anything that's wrong and as such, is not that interesting,

Some might argue that's a description of all-too-many girls, and perhaps that's the point. If so, it seems just a bit out of date.

Gretyl's parents are the key to this distressing tale, albeit one with a politically correct ending.

In a nutshell, this is a family of three daughters considerably spread out in years and by the time Gretyl is coming of age, the parents do little more than feign interest in their last offspring despite her increasingly distressed physical condition.  Gretyl's mother is into the nice things of life and her father, a pilot often away, has begun to wonder if he should start over again with a new wife who can give him a son.

Gretyl is depicted as singularly passive and accepting of her plight as an illness, now routine if quickly addressed, takes a devastating hold. Her only friend, a stray cat she secretly feeds, meets a dreadful fate, seemingly becoming a nail in Gretyl's own coffin. But they will be reunited in the afterlife, or so Gretyl eventually appears to believe.

Saved by an immigrant intruder, Gretyl also marries one and becomes a workaholic anesthesiologist not in San Francisco, but in Oakland. And as we all know, there is no there there, at least not a there one wishes upon oneself. Loyal and supportive of her criminally apathetic parents as time passes, she's depicted as a saint.

With the German fairy tale a structural device, the ending is appropriately a mostly happy one -- far too happy when it comes to Gretyl's parents.

The bottom line: Ms Curtis has a prose style well suited to story telling, but she needed a better story to tell. It did serve to remind me that it had been a while since I had listed to Englebert Humperdinck's opera "Hansel and Gretyl" and it's beautiful "Prayer Duet." Now if only one could have come across something like this while reading the story. And hmmm -- in the opera, Hansel is generally played by a woman. Nothing new in opera, but in tune with these times of gender fluidity. perhaps Ms Curtis will consider incorporating something along those lines for her next offering.

- - - - - 

After I posted this review, I got to thinking there might be another way to look at this story. Perhaps it can be viewed as a political allegory even though Ms Curtis made no mention of that possibility in her author interview.

The backdrop is President Donald Trump's run for office in 2016 plus various subsequent statements. Central to his election campaign was a call to strictly limit cross-border immigration ("rapists and murders") and to, if possible, halt all immigration from Islamic countries. In conjunction with this, Trump was widely viewed as seeking the continuation of "white supremacy" when it comes to who controls the U.S.

In brief, the chief protagonist of the short story in question, a teenage girl named Gretyl, is near death as a result neglect by her lily white parents.  Outside, a seemingly threatening, non-white man appears to be lurking and there are reports of break-ins and robberies in the neighborhood.

But in the end, the immigrant, a man originally from Palestine, but who grew up in Kazakhstan (Islamic regions) saves Gretyl and she goes on to marry a Persian-American and, except for one thing, leads a productive life focused on helping people who are disadvantaged. 

The moral: the long-dominant white population Trump wants to preserve and protect are losers and our salvation lies with immigrants and especially, in this case, if they have an Islamic background.

Perhaps Ms Curtis could be encouraged to comment.

What Happened to Newspapers?

What Happened to Newspapers?

As a former journalist, I get asked from time to time to explain what happened to newspapers and where journalism is headed.  In that context, a friend recently sent me a book by Joe Strupp called “Killing Journalism: How greed, laziness [and Donald Trump] are destroying news and how we can save it.”

Suffice to say that while the book contains interesting insights, the title is misleading. This sort of sensationalism is exactly what Strupp accuses all too many publications of doing: in fact, it is one of his major themes. Why do it? Because it sells, which brings me to one point readers need to keep in mind: the old Pogo adage of “we have met the enemy and he is us.”

What is to Come: The Matriarchy

Well, Ok, this is another post that is not about fiction -- unfortunately.

Since the election of Donald Trump as President, many commentators have said that even when he is gone, U.S. politics will never be the same again.

And recently we have had some evidence that they are correct.

I'm thinking here of Rashida Tlaib, recently elected to the U.S. Congress after previously serving in the Michigan state legislature.  The other day, in public remarks, she referred to Trump as a "motherfucker." In the view of New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg, Tlaib's use of such terminology was perfectly justified -- for a variety of reasons -- (even though either Goldberg herself or her editors declined to print that word in her column).

Back in the 1980s and 90s, when I was covering various Congressional issues as a reporter, one of he most irascible members of the House of Representatives was David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat. Very liberal, he had little use for many if not most conservative members of Congress and who knows in what terms he may have referred to them in private.  But in public, Obey was careful to say that he held such and such a member of Congress "in minimum high regard."  Translated, that meant Obey considered him a total scoundrel, or worse.

Those were back in the bad old days when "the patriarchy" pretty much reigned supreme and especially in Washington DC.

Well those days are over, it seems, with Democratic voters returning a flood of women to Congress. So much for toxic masculinity.  In its place, we can apparently look forward to equally toxic femininity.

Who is to blame?  Well,  the name Trump will undoubtedly come to the lips of many.  He broke all the rules of civility in public life and most importantly, deliberately and without apology, arguably thus thrusting open the floodgates for all that is apparently to come.

But I'm afraid it's really back to Pogo declaring "we have met the enemy and he is us."

We the people collectively elected Donald Trump even though he failed to win a majority of the popular vote, and even though we knew exactly who he was and how he operated based on his conduct during the primaries and the run-up to the general election.

Yes, things have changed. Welcome to the world of Rashida Tlaib and the impending "matriarchy."

Societal Change: The Rise of Tribalism in the U.S.

As per its title, this blog is focused on fiction, but with one or two exceptions, what I have had to say on that topic has attracted little interest.

This, one could argue, opens the door to other subjects, such as where we are in the wake of Donald Trump's election as President of the United States.

An important factor seems to be that as America's traditional white majority shrinks in size and various categories of non-whites demand seats at the country's various tables of power -- political, social and cultural -- tribalism is on the increase.

This Sunday, the New York Times magazine tackled the topic in its "First Words" column.

For most of the post-war period, and particularly in the wake of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that led to Southern conservatives switching from Democrat to Republican, the country has been pretty evenly divided between the two parties. And until recent years -- according to regular American National Election Studies surveys -- most people were not strikingly dissatisfied with the opposition party.  As a result, disputes were mainly based on policies and compromise was often possible.

More recently -- and particularly since Barack Obama was elected president -- there has been an important change: the percentage of survey respondents expressing extremely negative views of the opposition party has risen dramatically.

"In the post-war era, the coalitions that made up the Democratic and Republican Parties were haphazard and incongruous, bearing little resemblance to the tribes of today," the NYT article says.

More than any other politician -- and perhaps because he wasn't previously a seasoned politician conditioned by what went on  before -- Donald Trump has tapped into this apparent new reality. Among other things, he has clearly determined that his tribe -- very largely white -- wants everything associated with former president Obama overturned or erased. That's not so much because Obama's policies were too far left -- they weren't -- but because Obama's very ascension to the top elected office in the U.S. represented a major real or symbolic shift away from those who traditionally sat at American tables of power. Or at least that seems to be the way in which many who voted for Trump perceived it.

It is tough for partisans to say that in a straight-forward manner.  "Racist" remains a very uncomfortable label. But many can quite comfortably vent their feelings or frustrations by being opposed to immigration, particularly since unlike the past, the vast majority of those seeking to enter the U.S. now do not look like them. With something like 20 million people living illegally in the U.S. already and the possibility of terrorism ever present, many can feel comfortable backing strict border controls and in so doing hopefully slow the country's increasing racial and cultural diversity.

That seems to be where U.S. socio/political realities stand at present.

Trump as a Character from a James Joyce Novel

President Donald Trump could be a character created by James Joyce based on the way he thinks and communicates.

That’s the view of an unnamed national security expert, as reported by General Michael Hayden, a head of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency under former president George W. Bush.

In an interview published in the May 6, 2018, New York Times Sunday Magazine, Hayden was asked what it was like for analysts to brief a president who ignores intelligence with which he disagrees and embraces information that suits his policy needs.

Trump's Tactics and The Two Narratives

The current flap over whether Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is in some way responsible for Tuesday's apparent terrorist attack that killed eight individuals in Manhattan is illustrative of two trends I have been writing about.

The most straight forward is a salient element of President Donald Trump's modus operandi and one that his supporters love: the best defense is a strong offensive.

The U.S.: A Nation of Competing Narratives?

Instead of talking about fiction, here's a brief word about society and politics.

Like a lot of people I have been puzzling over how we got where we are and in the course of doing so, I have been reading a lot more conservative commentary than I used to.

"The Little Foxes:" a Play for Our Time

I just saw the current Broadway revival of Lillian Hellman's play "The Little Foxes," first performed in 1939 and subsequently made into a film starting Bette Davis in 1941.

Hellman was a Southern, Jewish, ultra-liberal author and playwright (she was a member of the Communist Party for a couple of years) and "The Little Foxes" depicts how the rapacious pursuit of wealth in a capitalist environment crushes human values, destroying marriages and families in the process.

The Art of The Deal & The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight

Time out for some important news from our Nation's Capital, otherwise known as Washington D.C., or in the words of the incumbent President, "the swamp."

Well what's been going on?

"The Donald" (that's our president) and most Republican legislators campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare.  It was going to be all so simple and in the words of the President, "everyone" would end up "beautifully insured."

Today in Congress, this critical issue -- getting rid of Obamacare -- came to a head. When all was said and done, they couldn't do it.

The Gang That Can't Shoot Straight (that's the majority House Republicans) met "The Art of the Deal" (that's The Donald) and the result was a continuation of Obamacare.

As the old cartoon character Pogo famously put it: "we have met the enemy and it is us." That, in a nutshell, was what is was all about for Trump and the Republicans.

What next?

Trump Seeks To Insulate Himself From Blame if Terrorits Attrack

"I, The Donald," our so-called President, has sought to insulate himself from any blame should terrorists attack the country.

You might think this strange since he is, after all, the Commander in Chief, but then the first notable military action during his regime was a complete fiasco.  The raid in Yemen killed many women and children, resulted in the death of a veteran U.S. special forces combatant and the loss of a $70 million U.S. helicopter.  Our forces retreated without achieving their objective.

Not a great start.

We Could Do Without Courts "I, The Donald" Suggests

So-called President Trump's authoritian tendencies were on display yet again as he railed on Twitter against the legal obstacles that have arisen to his intemperate immigration ban,

Remember that TV series about one of the worst Roman emperors, entitled "I, Claudius?" Well, how about "I, The Donald?"

Another Tweet From Our So-Called President

First, let me say I wish I could identify what follows as fiction.  That's what this blog is supposed to be about, right?  But real life intrudes.

As most if not all readers already know, a federal judge appointed by former president George W. Bush, a Republican, and confirmed by the Senate without opposition, issued an order that has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's recent ban on entry into the U.S. by citizens of certain countries.

Or perhaps we should more accurately refer to him as "so-called President Trump."

Humpty Dumpty, Lewis Carroll and Donald Trump

In earlier posts, I've talked about how fiction can be used to predict the future, or perhaps foreshadow what is to come, citing George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty Four" as particularly noteworthy when it comes to trends in the United States and perhaps elsewhere.

Today, in the same context, I want to turn to another British author, who went by the pen name of Lewis Carroll.  When "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" proved to be overwhelmingly popular, Carroll wrote a sequel called "Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There."

Silicon Valley Upset By Trump, But Partially Responsible

Ok, this post is not about fiction -- unfortunately.

But, as we are learning hour by hour, President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration has caused chaos, not just at airports and other points of entry into the U.S., but around the world.

Next for Fiction: Trigger Warnings and Safe Pages?

I recently read an article on Literary Hub entitled "On the Use of Sensitivity Readers in Publishing" and it got me thinking: will we soon see novels with trigger warnings appearing at certain interior points, directing readers to "safe pages" within the book, where they can rest and suck on lollipops, certain that they won't encounter any micro aggressions before cautiously proceeding.

"Identity" is where it's at these days, in politics as well as in culture, and woe be it to anyone who offends, even inadvertently, a marginalized group to which they don't belong.  What is a marginalized group?  Well, pretty much any group other than white males, it seems.

Which brings me back to sensitivity reading, which Lit Hub  to its credit admits is a somewhat problematical activity. Is political and cultural correctness compatible with free literary expression and the role it has traditionally played in intellectual life?

The Lit Hub  article gives three views on sensitivity reading: that of a writer, that of a sensitivity reader and that of a publisher. Sadly, no effort appears to have been made to determine what the reading public thinks about this.

Is that important?  I don't know, but one could argue that a failure of certain elites to pay much attention to what was happening on the ground in significant areas of the country led to the election of Donald Trump -- for better or for worse. And one thing Trump repeatedly dismissed during his campaign was political correctness.

Identity Politics Viewed As A Threat To Fiction

During the recent presidential election, America arguably shifted significantly from policy-based political affiliations to affiliations based on cultural and racial identities.

Most notably working class whites living in the so-called Rust Belt states switched in significant numbers from the Democratic candidate for president to a man running as a Republican even though he had attacked the GOP establishment as aggressively as he was attacking the Democrats.