Miles Watson's Blog: ANTAGONY: BECAUSE EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO MY OPINION , page 2

THOUGHTS ON THE DEATH OF SALESMEN

Third prize is you're fired. -- Blake

The other night I watched Glengarry Glen Ross, the classic James Foley-directed film adapted from David Mamet's play of the same name. Later that night, I scribbled the following lines in my journal:

"What is the playwright's obsession with salesmen, anyway? I guess the question answers itself. Salesmen are a sort of effigy of America – amoral hustlers selling worthless crap to credulous fools."

Painting with a broad brush is dangerous and only logical if we follow up with much finer brushwork, so let me expand on my remarks, because "the playwright's obsession" is important, and because my oversimplification of salesmen (which is insulting as well as ridiculously generalized) does possess at its core a few coarse grains of truth.

In 1949, Arthur Miller wrote "Death of a Salesman," a play which by acclamation is considered one of the best of the twentieth century. "Salesman" is a two-act tragedy described by one critic as the story of an "aging, defeated traveling salesman move inexorably toward self-destruction, clinging desperately to fantasies." Many see the play as an implicit criticism of the American dream, in particular the idea that Willy Loman disintegrates when he realizes he has failed to heed what Miller called society's "thundering command to succeed." Loman is emotionally and intellectually shallow and measures himself by external rather than internal standards: he is more concerned with the appearance that he is a good father and salesman than the actuality of these things. Even his modest prime as a salesman, which has already passed him by when the play opens, was based on the idea of ingratiation with important people rather than business acumen or personal integrity. As he ages, his ability to get by on this ability contracts, placing increasing financial and emotional stress on him and on the narrative he has created to appear more successful than he actually is. When Loman's complex delusional projection scheme can no longer evade reality, it bursts like a bubble floating into a nail, and he kills himself.

One critic attacked "Salesman" for its "Marxist" tone, and indeed, the play can be viewed as an attack on the emotional, intellectual and spiritual effect of the "get on or get out" mentality which exploded in America (and elsewhere) after WW1, and insisted that the measure of a man was his ability to succeed in business, i.e. to make money and purchase expensive objects. Any attack, implict or indirect, on capitalism, is always viewed as Marxist by those of right-leaning persuasion, in the same way that any criticism of one's own country inevitably triggers rage in nationalists: it is an instinctive response, and is often irrelevant even when entirely true. If I may presume to enter Miller's mind, I believe his motive was actually quite personal: Willy Loman is largely based on Miller's own uncle Manny Newman, a salesman who believed himself in competition with Miller's father both financially and in terms of fatherhood, and who ultimately committed suicide. Though I am not aware Miller ever said so, he pointedly noted that his own success as a playwright was not a source of joy for his uncle, reflecting perhaps, in Manny's mind, his own shortcomings as a father. And viewed in macroscopic terms, "Salesman" is about the tragedy of possessing the wrong dreams, the wrong standards, the wrong systems of self-measurement -- in short, the wrong value-system. And I think it inarguable, though many will die in a ditch arguing it, that the last 100 years of capitalism have elevated materialism and the competition over the appearance of success to a religion, albeit a false and a hollow one. The Golden Calf of the 20th - 21st centuries is "fake it 'til you make it," the projection of success as a presage to success. But what is "success?" The acquisition of money, wealth, fame and influence. Not keeping up with the Joneses, but blasting pass them at speed in a blur of cash, jewels, Martini olives, and carefully curated photos from your vacation in Bali. And in lieu of that, conjuring the illusion that you are more than you seem, the idea being that if enough people believe a lie, it becomes truth: a concept Willy Loman accepted as fact, and which is also distinctly Orwellian in nature.

Speaking of Orwell, in Keep the Aspidistra Flying, paints a horribly vivid picture of Gordon Comstock, a Londoner who works for a "read lead" advertising firm. Comstock believes "advertising the dirtiest ramp capitalism has yet invented," but another one of Orwell's characters, George Bowling from Coming Up For Air, would probably disagree. This insurance salesman believes that all sales are a swindle, and the question is merely whether the "cards are on the table" or no, i.e. whether the buyer is aware he is being taken or not. In fact, if advertisers are the strategists of capitalism, the boys from S-2 who fuddle with maps and compasses and tide tables and lunar charts and the types of artillery shells to be employed in an attack, salesmen are the footsoldiers, the infantrymen, the guys who storm the beaches. Capitalism as an economic system could probably endure in some form or other without advertising, because people will ultimately seek out their needs and in doing so, encounter their wants; but it could not survive a single week without salesmen. And yet, and is so often the case in life, the most necessary component of a system often occupies the most thankless, most hazardous, most stress-inducing space. In war, infantrymen die in greater numbers than anyone else in the service, and in capitalism, for every salesman who ends up like Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross, there are a half-dozen, or a dozen, or perhaps dozens, who end up like Shelly "The Machine" Levine, which brings us back to Glengarry -- or will, in a moment, as I have one more place to tarry before we return there, and believe it or not, it's WKRP in Cincinnatti.

WKRP was a 70s-era sit-com about a third-rate radio station in one of America's least -glamorized cities. Among its more memorable characters was Herb Tarlek, the station sales manager, concocted by showriters as a kind of walking, talking cliche of "unprofessional, bribe-taking desperate salespeople." Tarlek is sleazy, underhanded, frequently (but not consistently) inept, and favors horribly tacky clothing, mostly polyesther and white leather. His boss once laments, "I should have fired Herb Tarlek immediately. He's the worst salesman in the world. In the world." But Tarlek, as I pointed out, is not actually bad at sales: his failure is in ethics, and to a certain degree, morals. In Herb's mind, the ends justify the means, or the means justify themselves; in either case, the goal is to sell airtime, and to whom it is sold hardly ever enters into his calculations. I mention Tarlek specifically because his enduring popularity is reflective of the fact of how many Americans feel about salesmen: that they are liars, that they are untrustworthy, and that they lack ethics. There is probably a note, or several notes, of hypocrisy in this view, especially in a country whose cultural identity revolves around buying and selling things: nevertheless, it is widely held, and it is well to remember that Tarlek, although a nemesis for his fellow characters on the series, is also a pitable figure: lonely, insecure, and frequently desperate. It is not difficult to imagine him suffering the fate of a Willy Loman.

So -- Glengarry. Like "Salesman," it was adapted from a play. Unlike "Salesman," its most famous dialogue comes from the film rather than the stage version, in which an "alpha" real estate salesman played by Alec Baldwin viciously berates a group of salesman:

Blake: Let me have your attention for a moment! So you're talking about what? You're talking about...bitching about that sale you shot, some son of a bitch that doesn't want to buy, somebody that doesn't want what you're selling, some broad you're trying to screw and so forth. Let's talk about something important. Are they all here?

Williamson: All but one.

Blake: Well, I'm going anyway. Let's talk about something important! Put that coffee down!! Coffee's for closers only. Do you think I'm fucking with you? I am not fucking with you. I'm here from downtown. I'm here from Mitch and Murray. And I'm here on a mission of mercy. Your name's Levene?

Levene: Yeah.

Blake: You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch?

Moss: I don't have to listen to this shit.

Blake: You certainly don't pal. 'Cause the good news is -- you're fired. The bad news is you've got, all you got, just one week to regain your jobs, starting tonight. Starting with tonights sit. Oh, have I got your attention now? Good. 'Cause we're adding a little something to this months sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize's a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. You get the picture? You're laughing now? You got leads. Mitch and Murray paid good money. Get their names to sell them! You can't close the leads you're given, you can't close shit, you ARE shit, hit the bricks pal and beat it 'cause you are going out!!!

Levene: The leads are weak.

Blake: 'The leads are weak.' Fucking leads are weak? You're weak. I've been in this business fifteen years.

Moss: What's your name?

Blake: FUCK YOU, that's my name!! You know why, Mister? 'Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove a eighty thousand dollar BMW. That's my name!! And your name is "you're wanting." And you can't play in a man's game. You can't close them. And you go home and tell your wife your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this life! Get them to sign on the line which is dotted! You hear me, you fucking faggots?

(Blake flips over a blackboard which has two sets of letters on it: ABC, and AIDA.)

Blake: A-B-C. A-always, B-be, C-closing. Always be closing! Always be closing!! A-I-D-A. Attention, interest, decision, action. Attention -- do I have your attention? Interest -- are you interested? I know you are because it's fuck or walk. You close or you hit the bricks! Decision -- have you made your decision for Christ?!! And action. A-I-D-A; get out there!! You got the prospects comin' in; you think they came in to get out of the rain? Guy doesn't walk on the lot unless he wants to buy. Sitting out there waiting to give you their money! Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it? What's the problem pal? You. Moss.

Moss: You're such a hero, you're so rich. Why you coming down here and waste your time on a bunch of bums?

(Blake sits and takes off his gold watch)

Blake: You see this watch? You see this watch?

Moss: Yeah.

Blake: That watch cost more than your car. I made $970,000 last year. How much you make? You see, pal, that's who I am. And you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a shit. Good father? Fuck you -- go home and play with your kids!! You wanna work here? Close!! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you cocksucker? You can't take this -- how can you take the abuse you get on a sit?! You don't like it -- leave. I can go out there tonight with the materials you got, make myself fifteen thousand dollars! Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can you? Go and do likewise! A-I-D-A!! Get mad! You sons of bitches! Get mad!! You know what it takes to sell real estate?

(He pulls something out of his briefcase)

Blake: It takes brass balls to sell real estate.

(He's holding two brass balls on string, over the appropriate "area"--he puts them away after a pause)

Blake: Go and do likewise, gents. The money's out there, you pick it up, it's yours. You don't--I have no sympathy for you. You wanna go out on those sits tonight and close, close, it's yours. If not you're going to be shining my shoes. Bunch of losers sitting around in a bar. (in a mocking weak voice) "Oh yeah, I used to be a salesman, it's a tough racket." (he takes out large stack of red index cards tied together with string from his briefcase) These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you, they're gold. And you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. (he hands the stack to Williamson) They're for closers. I'd wish you good luck but you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it. (to Moss as he puts on his watch again) And to answer your question, pal: why am I here? I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to, they asked me for a favor. I said, the real favor, follow my advice and fire your fucking ass because a loser is a loser.

This scene lays bare, in Mamet's mind at least, the driving principle of capitalism, i.e. of sales, which is simply "to get them to sign on the line that is dotted." It doesn't matter what you're selling, or whether it serves a purpose, or whether the perspective buyer can afford it. It doesn't matter if the product is harmful to the buyer or to the environment. What matters is simply to sell, to close the deal, to take the commission check and move on, virus-like, to the next "sit." Your entire value as a human being is determined by this ability. Blake, the embodiment of conscience-free capitalism, makes special point of his disinterest in any other qualities. Indeed, the only successful salesman we see among the four downtrodden men who work for this branch of the firm is Ricky Roma, whose wiki describes him as follows:

"The most successful salesman in the office. He is ruthless, dishonest and immoral, and succeeds because he has a talent for figuring out a client's weaknesses and crafting a pitch that will exploit those weaknesses. He is a smooth talker and tends to maneuver clients towards a sale by means of grand but vaguely incoherent soliloquies."

Roma, who incidentally is not present when Blake excoriates the other three salesmen of the branch, is much more likeable than Blake, but almost indistinguishable in outlook. In the film, we see him slowly, patiently, and deliberately maneuever a drunken man into a purchase he cannot afford; later, when the desperate man tries to recant the sale, Roma unveils another elaborate set of techniques for regaining emotional control over the hapless buyer. The way the scene is written is crucial, because while we empathize with the hapless and desperate buyer, we also empathize with Roma. He has made a sale fairly and squarely in the sight of what Orwell called "The Money God," and has every right to use whatever means of persuasion he can conjure, including trickery and emotional manipulation, to retain that sale. In short, he is simply playing by the rules of the capitalist game, which boil down to "caveat emptor."

Glengarry (the play) is described as, among other things, "exploring themes of capitalism, masculinity and morality." The connection between capitalism and masculinity, or rather the concept of masculinity, is one that has not been sufficiently explored in the public discourse, at least not by my way of thinking. While it finds its roots in obvious soil (hypergamy, i.e. that women choose men based on their social standing and wealth rather than looks or emotional attraction), it is an extension of that idea, in which men judge themselves, and other men, by their ability to project social standing. Blake feels justified in humiliating and insulting the other salesmen because he, unlike they, possesses "brass balls." Because he drives a fancy car and wears a sharp suit and owns an expensive watch, he is not only more successful but more manly than they are. And indeed, when we consider Willy Loman, we must also consider that his ruin is dual in nature: first comes the actual failure of his life, then comes the failure of the delusions which serve as a narcotic to dull the pain of his larger, real-life failure. As a friend of mine, a lifelong salesman, never tires of pointing out, what a salesman is really selling is immaterial. The actual commodity being discussed is himself: every sale is a referendum on the salesman's skill in getting the perspective buyer to "sign on the line which is dotted" -- in other words, a referendum on his worth as a human being, and a man, under our system of economics. Because a salesman who can't sell, by extension, not only lacks brass balls, he lacks any balls at all. In our societal hierarchy, it is he and not the product which is unsellable.

Economic systems shape moral values and behavior. They are not the sole arbiters of those things, but it is folly to suggest that they do not play a vital role in everyday life. A person growing up in a hydraulic despotism will have a different outlook on life, and his place within it, than someone growing up in a communist, statist, or socialist economy. All economic systems have their built-in contradictions and cruelties, and capitalism is no exception. On the one hand, it tends to produce both technological innovation and levels of material prosperity that are lacking in some other types of economic systems. On the other hand, and especially since the technique of assembly line mass production was initiated a century ago, it has created a beast which needs to be fed. The citizen is now referred to as a consumer, and this is not by accident. Under our system, citizenship is now less important than consumerism, and indeed, the role of a citizen has been explicitly defined by some in power as the consumption, even the conspicuous consumption, of material goods, many of which are unnecessary and even harmful to the consumer in any number of ways. Modern capitalism, at least as its practiced in much of the West, is debt-based, and sells the concept of lifestyle, of material prosperity, to people who generally speaking cannot afford that lifestyle or those materials. The hire purchase system, also known as the never-never, which is what the British call buying things on installment, didn't appear until about 1890, and didn't get widespread societal traction until the 1920s. Prior to then, it was almost impossible for people to "live above their means," because credit had not yet replaced money as the principal means by which things were purchased, and this necessarily set limits on what people could physically acquire. The advent of installment plans and the widespread extension of credit to people with no collateral created a system in which the public demand for things was increased by many orders of magnitude. This in turn required more advertising and more salesmen than had ever before existed. The advent of internet commerce and the proliferation of cell phones meant a continuous blanketing of potential consumers who were once "only" exposed to radio, television, billboard and print advertising. But the changes in technology did not change the creed of the salesman. His job remained unchanged from the days when guys peddled soap powder, encyclopedias, or vacuum cleaners door to door. It was, then as now, to get people to sign upon the line which is dotted.

In the end, the salesman is a source of fascination because he is indeed an effigy for American values, American society, and the American dream itself. He represents two sides of a coin. On the one hand, the Blakes and Ricky Romas, who are successful because they are ruthless and admired because of their ruthlessness as much as their success; on the other, the Willy Lomans and Shelley Levines, who have lost or never quite possessed enough of an edge, who fail not only in their assigned task of selling the thing, whatever the thing may be, but in a larger societal sense because they have failed to sell themselves and in so failing, surrendered not only their dignity but their masculinity. In the successful salesman we see the core values of our capitalist society -- success for its own sake and material prosperity, especially material prosperity which can be flung in the faces of others. In the failed salesman we see the sickly pathos of the man judged and found wanting in his chosen field, the man who accepted societal values that he cannot measure up to. Because, to paraphrase Willy Loman, "The only thing you've got in this world is what you can sell." And when you can't sell yourself, well, you've got nothing. Coffee is for closers.

MEMORY LANE: REMEMBERING "THE OFFICE"

I love inside jokes. I hope to be a part of one someday. -- Michael Scott

It has been said that "remember when is the lowest form of conversation." I understand the sentiment, but I do not fully agree with it. Our purpose in coming to Memory Lane is to reunite with old friends and to see if they have anything new to teach us -- or, failing that, if they are as witty and loveable as we remember them to be. Well, it has now been twenty years since THE OFFICE debuted on NBC, and in perhaps unconscious tribute to this fact, I have begun a rewatch of this beloved sitcom. Aside from slight intimations of panic that it has been twenty years since it premiered (seriously, where the hell does time go?), I have to report that all my memories of the show are true and correct: this sitcom is just as funny today as it was in 2005. What's more, rewatching it has told me a lot, not so much about the world of '05, but the world of today.

THE OFFICE, which was derived from a British sitcom of the same name created by Ricky Gervais, ran from 2005 - 2013, and chronicled the farsical doings of employees at a dying-by-inches paper company called Dunder Mifflin, located in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The large regular cast was supplemented by a number of recurring characters, so in the interests of brevity, I will stick only to the most important:

Michael Scott (Steve Carrell): The regional manager of Dunder Mifflin Scranton is a deeply delusional man-child with impluse control problems and subzero self-awareness, who spends most of his time in a stylized denial of reality. While posing himself as a ladykiller, astute businessman, and razor-sharp wit, he is in fact none of these things, and his true talent in life is making his employees, and pretty much everyone else he meets, acutely uncomfortable with his foolish antics. Having neither much of a family nor any real friends, Michael has forcibly adopted his employees in both roles, projecting himself as a kind of patriarch: it is among his delusions that the uninspired drones of Dunder Mifflin are in essence his children, and love him accordingly. What makes Michael truly interesting is his chronic loneliness, his periodic flashes of genius, and his fundmental decency, which is admittedly buried beneath layers of selfishness. Steve Carrell's performance in this regard is nothing short of iconic. He takes what could be a simple buffoon and gives him unexpected depth, so that he can bounce erratically between protagonist and antagonist without ever stepping out of character.

Jim Halpert (John Krasinski): The classic "slacker" character of the 90s - 00s, the young Halpert is a bored, uninspired paper salesman who clings to his job at Dunder Mifflin primarily because he has fallen in love with unfortunately-engaged receptionist Pam Beasley. Halpert comes alive only when interacting with Pam, pranking his nemesis Dwight, or subtly encouraging Michael's delusions for his own amusement. Ultimately his love for Pam, and his attempts to win her over from her obnoxious fiance Roy, becomes one of the central themes of the series, as does his gradual transformation from slackerboy into purposeful young man. Although his deadpan performance is excellent, Krasinski carries a lot of the comedy of the series simply through facial expressions which have become the stuff of millions of memes.

Pam Beasley (Jenna Fischer): the downtrodden office receptionist, stuck in a seemingly endless engagement as well as a dead-end job, Pam is endlessly the butt of Michael's sense of humor, and tries to navigate her growing feelings for Jim as the series carries on. Like Jim, she represents untapped potential. Fischer is an example of perfect casting. She's cute without being unrealistically beautiful, and can communicate even better than Krasinski just with her face.

Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson): arguably a more iconic character even than Michael Scott, Schrute is Tonto to Michael's Lone Ranger, Robin to his Batman. As one fan site puts it, this eccentric paper salesman "is notorious for his lack of social skills and common sense," but Dwight's weirdness goes far beyond these two unfortunate traits. Descended from German farmers who followed bizarre, Amish-like family traditions, he is obsessed with rule-following and is immediately intoxciated by any taste of power, however small, which comes from his mostly made-up position as "assistant to the regional manager." Forever trying to bully and boss his coworkers, he is the butt of innumerable inside jokes and in Jim's case, complex pranks, which he falls for each and every time. Dwight spends most of his time sucking up to Michael, who treats him with contempt, but is forever scheming to supplant him as regional manager.

Toby Flenderson (Paul Liebowitz): I place Toby fifth in the hierarchy because although the bland and boring HR representative of Dunder Mifflin is, well, bland and boring, his very existence throws Michael into frenzies of cruelty and hatred. Michael, it seems, cannot abide the fact that Toby answers only to Corporate, and is therefore "not part of the family," though Michael is quick to add, "He's also divorced, so he's not a part of his family, either." Some of the most iconic moments in the show stem from Michael's irrational dislike of this harmless and utterly unoffensive man.

Other major characters included Kevin, a dull-witted, child-like accountant; Oscar, a closeted gay with a superiority complex; Kelly, an utterly vacuous customer service agent; Angela, the office bitch and Dwight's secret lover; Meredith, the office slattern; Phyllis, a frequent butt of Michael's cruelty; Creed, an enigmatic weirdo who never entirely seems to know where he is; Stanley, a humorless drudge who detests Michael; Daryl, the long-suffering manager of the warehouse; and Ryan, a shallow, self-serving temp who becomes the focus of Michael's creepy obsession. In later seasons, the cast is also joined by Andy, an emotionally unstable failure looking for an identity; Gabe, an obnoxious suit who struggles unsuccessfully to be taken as anything but a joke; and Erin, a naive woman-child with a bizarre past who limpets onto Michael as a father-figure.

THE OFFICE was first and foremost a satire of both the American workplace and the American worker. Like THE SIMPSONS, which reveled in depicting Americans as lazy, disinterested clock-punchers who simply want to avoid being fired, THE OFFICE makes a point of showing the effects that dull, dead-end jobs have on what might otherwise be colorful and interesting human beings. Aside from Michael and Dwight, who both revel in selling paper, Jim's spirit of fun is half-crushed by the monotony of his work and the stupidity of his colleagues, and he refuses to excel simply because "right now this is just a job, but if I rise any higher, it's my career...and if this were my career, I'd throw myself in front of a train." Pam is likewise unhappy, noting that "little girls don't dream of growing up to be receptionists." Stanley refers to the gig as a "run out the clock situation," and Ryan's main fear seems to be getting hired on full-time. The workers cling to their jobs out of economic necessity and apathy, not passion.

The show is not less brutal with its depiction of corporate life. Michael's boss, Jan, is shown as an emotional train-wreck whose problems almost amount to insanity, and the shareholders in Dunder Mifflin, when we meet them, as cruel and callous capitalist robber-barons who don't give a damn how many workers get laid off provided they get to keep their dividends. Indeed, Dunder Mifflin's financial instability, its tendency to close branches, downsize offices, and always look to cut costs, is a recurring theme in the show. An entire episode is devoted, for example, to the necessity of firing an employee; another, to cutting benefits to the bone. The employees are always teetering on the edge of a pink slip, and the company they work for, on the edge of bankruptcy.

It would be a mistake, however, to view THE OFFICE simply as a humorous attack on the silliness, or horror, of cubicle culture. It is first and foremost a romance story, or rather a series of romance stories, the most obvious of these is the long dance between Jim and Pam, which culminates ultimately in their marriage and the birth of their children in the later seasons. This romance is as much about the growth of the characters from passive slackers to active winners, "winning" here meaning not riches or fame but discovering the courage to go through life on terms, more or less, of your own dictation. There are also romance stories between Dwight and Angela, Andy and Erin, Kelly and Ryan, etc. In time, however, we begin to understand that the real story of the show is not the Pam-Jim romance but whether Michael Scott will ever find happiness. We are made to understand early in the series that Michael is terribly lonely and that the thing he most wants in life is a wife and children, but his many deficiencies of personality make his love life a embarrassing disaster. And because Michael despite his limitless flaws is ultimately likeable, we the audience become invested in his quest. The resolution of this problem in the seventh season is one of the more satisfying emotional closures in the history of television.

THE OFFICE had another dimension, which was family. As I stated above, Michael regards his employees as both friends and children, and in the end, it is shown that this is the actual relationship the two sides enjoy (or do not enjoy, as the case may be). As idiotic, selfish, delusional and immature as he is, his love for his people is real: he is the only person who bothers to attend Pam's art show (aside from Oscar, who makes snide criticisms) and even buys one of her paintings. He likewise counsels Jim never to give up on winning Pam's heart, and rescues the treacherous Ryan after his criminal conviction by rehiring him as a temp. Those weird flashes of business acumen he periodically displays (for he is a superb salesman, if a hopeless manager) save the company, or at least the branch, more than once, and he even sabotages Jan's lawsuit against Dunder Mifflin, which could have netted them millions, out of loyalty to the company.

Like all long-running television shows, THE OFFICE can be divided into various periods: in this case, the simplest would be cutting it into "Michael" and "After Michael." Carrell left the series toward the end of the seventh season, believing Michael Scott's character arc complete with the consumation of his romance with Holly, and seaons eight and nine comprise this post-Michael era, which revolve mainly around who will replace him as regional manager. It's fair to say these two seasons have many outstanding episodes and plotlines, but it's equally fair to say the show had no real purpose after Carrell's departure, except to keep allowing admittedly wonderful characters like Dwight room to entertain us with their idiocy. Like other successful shows whose studios couldn't bear to shut them down lest they slay a golden goose, THE OFFICE was permitted to meander longer than it should have, almost into irrelevancy: fortunately, a somewhat awkward final season was capped by a highly satisfying series finale. By a margin that was perhaps narrower than it should have been, THE OFFICE managed to exit the stage with its dignity and relevance intact.

So where does that leave us, twenty years down the road? Is THE OFFICE still relevant? What if anything can we learn from its time on television and the legacy it is left? Well, to address the last first, it turns out the answer to this is, "Quite a bit."

Whenever I discuss the show with others nowadays, the very first thing which is said -- always, inevitably -- is that "there's no way they could make a show like that today." And this, sadly, is the truth. THE OFFICE followed an ancient axiom of sit-coms, to wit, that the greatest humor is often found in the most uncomfortable situation. THE OFFICE followed a school of comedy practiced by Ricky Gervais, and before him, by John Cleese and others of similar outlook, that the core of humor lays in the act of slaughtering sacred cows. Michael Scott is funny in very large part because everything he says and does is highly inappropriate in a work setting (or in some cases, any setting). Although he is almost always free of malice unless Toby is involved, Michael is nevertheless constantly spewing opinions and comments which deride or demean the very groups progressives and wokeists regard as sacred: namely, gays, people with disabilities, and people of color. This constant pressing-down on the raw nerve of political correctness was hilarious in 2005 and it is not less funny in 2025, but what has changed is Hollywood's willingness to let comedians do what they do best, which is attack sensitive subjects without mercy or even good taste. Take one of the most hilarious, and infamous, of all episodes of THE OFFICE: "Diversity Day." In this story, Michael is punished by corporate for his repeated use of the N-word while imitating Chris Rock. In retaliation, he hosts his own "diversity training" which encourages employees to be as offensive as possible about every imaginable racial and ethnic stereotype. Many fans regard this as among the best episodes the show ever produced. However, a few years ago the brave souls at NBC decided to pull the episode from streaming. As the interwebs tells us:

The "Diversity Day" episode of THE OFFICE, particularly the extended cut, includes scenes and jokes that were removed from the original broadcast due to potential sensitivities related to diversity training and related topics. The "Diversity Day" episode was removed from syndication and some streaming services..."

And:

"Some versions of the episode, particularly in syndication and on some streaming platforms, were removed due to concerns about offensive content. This aligns with a broader trend in the industry of re-evaluating and sometimes removing content from the past that may be considered offensive or problematic in today's cultural climate.

"Problematic in today's cultural climate" is of course code, albeit code nobody with anything above their spinal cord needs to exert any energy to crack. THE OFFICE could not be made today any more than ALL IN THE FAMILY could be made, because the courage required to approve scripts of this daring a nature has evaporated from the gray souls of studio executives. Most humor today falls in the category of "safe edgy," meaning that it eviscerates nonsacred groups and entities (white people, men, Western culture, capitalism, Christianity) while avoiding by light years the sensitive toes of the sacred ones. If you want to grasp how truly low we have fallen in the creation of comedy for television, it is probably not necessary to go farther than Mindy Kaling's unwatchable take on the SCOOBY DOO franchise, called VELMA. Kaling, who ironically wrote 26 episodes of THE OFFICE, served as a producer on the show and also played the dimwitted and shallow Kelly Kapour for the entirety of the series' run, could presumably be trusted to understand the key principles of comedy as well as anyone in the game. Yet in VELMA, all she managed to do was apply "today's cultural climate" to a venerable cartoon character, and prove once and for all that there are no Woke comedians -- cannot be, by definition, since the whole goal of Woke, of the progressive movement generally, is to render huge swaths of the population immune from ridicule. (It's worth noting here that in dictatorships, the jokes considered funniest are always at the expense of the dictator, which just goes to show that humor and risk walk hand in hand. The hilarity of a joke is often in direct proportion to how risky it is for you to tell it.)

The legacy of THE OFFICE is therefore multifold. The show will always be relevant so long as people work in cubicles and mindless dead-end jobs continue to exist. The humor will always bite so long as people can unplug themselves from their Need To Be Offended long enough to see the humor in the sort of stupidity Michael displays. The witticisms and bumblings of Michael, Dwight, Kevin, etc. will continue to supply the internet with endless streams of GIFs and memes, and some of the show's more iconic physical comedy, such as Kevin dropping the cauldron of chili on the office carpet, will probably survive everyone reading this. And the "mockumentary" format, where the camera crew is part of the story and actors routinely break the fourth wall, is now now part of the sit-com toolkit. But the lasting legacy of THE OFFICE, the one that towers over all the others, is that it arrived at a time in Hollywood when comedy, really fearless comedy that played no favorites and spared no feelings, was still possible. It may be that when we were watching the show during its original run, we were witnessing among the last moments of genuine comedic freedom on television, without realizing it. And so I close this installment of Memory Lane with a fitting quotation from that hopelessly inept Dunder Mifflin salesman, Andrew Bernard, who put it best when he said, in the series finale:

"I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them."

AS I PLEASE XXXII: REMEMBER THE INFOBAHN?

Well, I lied. I said I'd get this blog back up and running last Sunday, and Sunday and came and went to the accompaniment of...crickets. The truth is I am still adjusting to working full time again. Six months off is apparently just long enough to forget how to adult. But you didn't come here for my worn-out bag of excuses, so let's get down to business.

I recently had occasion to stumble over the corpse, or rather the tomb, of a 1990s-era computer. You know, the type with the solid steel body and enormous, hernia-inducing monitor, equipped both with a CD-ROM tray and a 3" floppy disc drive, and driven by a Pentium I or thereabouts? I couldn't resist firing the old beast up, and wouldn't you know it, I was immediately transported back to some nebulous period around 1998, when I first began, however grudgingly, to move into the era of the internet.

My first encounter with anything approaching the modern internet occurred in childhood, or perhaps tween-hood, when I saw my father set up an old-style telephone modem in the den of our home in Maryland. He explained to me -- this would have been sometime in the mid-late 1980s -- that he could write an article for his newspaper on our home computer, plug our telephone into the modem, and send the story downtown to his office in Washington, D.C. To me, this was practically science-fiction, and I couldn't quite wrap my head around it. A few years later, when I was a freshman in college, say 1991, a friend of mine showed how he could access library resources from the comfort of his dormitory computer. This was if anything even more shocking: the idea of remotely accessing a database made a mockery out of years of me thumbing tediously through dusty card catalogs for school assignments, though I confess at the time I did not envision how rapidly such "old" systems, which had been around for decades if not generations, would be wiped out by this new invention, which yet to have an actual name.

It was this time, the time right around my extremely belated college graduation in 1997, that I began to hear the first wave of a great torrent of computer-inspired verbiage which annoyed the shit out of me. I heard about websites, and www.this and www.that, and e-mail and @ symbols, and pentium processors and routers and ethernet cables, all of which were related to this place that was not a place where you could go via a computer, if you happened to have one, and it had the right gizmos and gadgets. The word "chatroom" seemed to dominate conversations, though I couldn't quite understand what the hell a chatroom was supposed to be. One issue which rankled in particular is that nobody really knew what the hell to call the thing which had just been created or how to describe interacting with that thing: web, net, infobahn, going online, jacking in, information superhighway, surfing the net, surfing the web, cyberspace, etc., etc. And initially, what we now refer to as "the internet" was a bit of a joke, the province of nerds like The Lone Gunmen on "The X-Files" or Comic Book Guy on "The Simpsons." A place where you could look at highly pixilated images of naked women which very, very slowly downloaded onto your monitor, or get into arguments about television shows or sports with faceless people hiding behind fake names, or try and fail to watch something called "streaming" because your computer didn't have enough bandwidth, or had the wrong Flash player, or some fucking thing. In short, the interwebs, the infobahn, the web, the net, it seemed like a bit of a gimmick. It was kinda cool in its own way, but it was also kinda trash -- a product in its infancy, riddled with bugs, suggesting great possibilities without delivering them.

I am naturally resistant to change, especially technological change, and it wasn't until 1998 that I bought a Gateway PC which was equipped with the now-infamous 56K modem, the one you ran through your landline telephone jack, and which not prevented you from using the phone, but made that horrible computer shreik, accompanied by weird gonging noises, which everyone who lived through that era will remember with a shudder. I will not lie and say I didn't enjoy the hell out of that thing, especially in regards to playing video games like "Doom," "Panzer General 2," "Blood," "Resident Evil 2" and so forth, but my memories of the internet from that period are curiously sketchy. In retrospect the reason why is obvious: the internet itself was sketchy, and in more than one way. The late 90s and early 00s were a time when (to continue the metaphor) we had only the barest outline of what we now consider "the internet." The shading-in process was steady, but not particularly fast; or if it was fast, the area it had to cover partially defeated the speed. I have memories of going on Amazon for the first time in 1998; of visiting a boxing forum similar in a primitive way to Reddit with its topics and threads; of individual forays to places like Mapquest, and so on, and of course of using e-mail to communicate with friends and family. For me, however, the internet remained more of a toy than a tool. The huge computers of that era, sucking in power and blowing out heat through dust-caked vents, the squealing modems, the annoying 3" floppies that had virtually no storage memory, the whirring CD-ROM trays that broke so damned easily, the monitors heavy enough to cave in desktops, the cables that invariably stripped themselves from use and prevented the fucking printers from working, and the printer cartridges that cost a fortune and lasted about a week, are all far more vivid and clear in my mind than any direct benefit the internet gave me. Indeed, I have trouble remembering it even as a diversion. PCs were incredibly useful for games and word processing and printing things, and I was quite devoted to e-mail, but their larger dimensions were mostly wasted on me.

I am not writing, even in this slipshod of a fashion, a History of the Internet. I'm not qualified to do so. I'm speaking here only of my own initial forays into it, into cyberspace, through that clunky old technology. But lest you think I'm making fun of it, I want to stress that the feeling encountering that old beast of a computer engendered in me was actually a nostalgia -- not for 56K modems or Pentium I processors, but rather for the internet during its first decade or so, the period of the late 90s and early 00s. What distinguished this internet from the one we have today is not size, speed, complexity, depth, or any of that (though all of that applies); no, the main difference was that the pre-social media internet, the internet that died around 2006 or so, was not dominated or even much influenced by social media. (Myspace was not social media as we understand it today.) In these Old West days of the net, we saw the possibilities of the medium but not most of its pitfalls; we enjoyed some small benefits and few if any risks. The massive toxcicity that exists nowadays was not foreseen or feared: in its place was a feeling that we were entering the "information age" in which information would be totally democratized. Ignorance would disappear. Humans would have virtually free and unfettered access to the knowledge, the art, the literature of the ages...surely a golden age was coming? And in the meantime, the in-between time, we had fun, especially when instant messaging became popular. The internet was a mixture of convenience, silliness and pleasant diversion, which seemed to be growing into much more practical applications for conducting business.

I'm unashamed to say that I dearly miss that internet. I dearly miss the time when we looked at it with hope and wonder and humor, instead of dread and disgust. When the net was a toy becoming a tool, not a tool mutated into a weapon. When the nickname (how brief it was) of "infobahn" actually applied...as opposed to now, when aside from porn and malware, it's mostly a disinformation superhighway. I realize there is no going back, the genie is out of the bottle, Pandora's Box is open, but damned if I wouldn't like to turn the clock back a little, and recapture a little of that wonder, a little of that awe. There are times (it's maudlin but I admit it) when I'd like to see if my old AOL/IM accounts from, say, 2006 are still working, and see if long-silent friends I used to chat with are somehow still there, waiting to resume those rambling, silly conversations made to the sound of chimes, that we had back when the internet was fun...a long, long time ago.

BACK FROM HIATUS

I think this might be the longest break I've ever taken from writing Antagony since I started it eight or nine years ago. For those who follow or otherwise tune in here, I apologize. The fact is I have a new job, and as everyone knows, the only thing more stressful than a transitional phase in life is when the transition ends and the new beginning, well, begins. And that's where I've been for the last month or so. Nearly everything not related to hammering myself into shape for this new gig has been neglected, including my fiction-writing, YouTube channel, and various human relationships, so yeah, I have a lot of making-up for lost time ahead of me in the coming weeks.

I will resume my regularly scheduled blogging tomorrow. I plan on rattling off a review of three books by Charles Bukowski, another "As I Please" entry, a discussion of a fascinating, forgotten WW2-era book compiled for servicemen called The Psychology of the Fighting Man and a visit down Memory Lane to discuss yet another television show I think worthy of revisiting. So if you're still here, stick around, and if you've left, well, I hope you come back.

See you tomorrow.

HOW TO USE (AND NOT USE) MAGIC

I have had a "full, rich day" and as I begin to wind down for the evening, cold beer in hand, I want to discuss an oft-neglected aspect of storytelling, one which I feel is extremely important despite that neglect, and indeed, if properly addressed, would right much of what is wrong with books, TV series and movies which have supernatural and magical elements or themes.

If you read this blog -- and it's been years since Goodreads allowed us, the authors of G-reads blogs, to see a "view" count, so I have no idea how many do so anymore -- you know that one of my favorite TV shows is FRIDAY THE 13th: THE SERIES, which ran from 1987 - 1990 and had enormous, if usually unacknowledged, influence on many shows which followed it. I've discussed the show at least twice before so I won't do so again, except to say it's about a trio tasked with hunting down antiques whcih were cursed by the devil and each have unique powers which give something to the user...but expect (and demand) something in return. Well, today I watched a first season episode from that show called "Bedazzled." The cursed item in question is a brass lamp whose light can locate treasure buried at sea, but which demands in turn that the user shine the light on an unsuspecting victim, who is promptly, if painfully, incinerated. I enjoyed the episode, but I had to laugh at the numerous plot holes. They did not relate to the object, but to the bloodthirsty bad guys trying to retrieve it from our heroes. By the end of the story five people have been killed, including a power company lineman and a police officer: indeed, our heroes shop, Curious Goods, is a veritable battlefield, with corpses sprawled in and around it, not to mention the now derelict vehicles of the police and power company. Yet the next morning everything is presented status quo ante, as if nothing of import happened. No army of cops and crime scene investigators is present documenting the massacre. No newsmen are crowding outside the shop looking for a scoop. It's as if the horror-movie storm of the previous night simply washed away all the evidence.

To quote Thomas Magnum: I know what you're thinking. It's a show about antiques cursed by the devil which possess evil powers. The audience knows that going in. So why bother making the heroes worry about police interrogations, or pesky journalists, or even neighbors exasperated by the constant mayhem going on in Curious Goods? If the central premise is fantastical, it doesn't have to be realistic in other ways.

If you think that, you're wrong. The prosaic details that govern everyday life matter on a supernatural show as much -- no, even more -- than in one based in ordinary reality. I'll say this again: The more magic and so forth you have in a world, the greater the urgency to get the nonmagical things right. This is the bedrock of making the unbelievable, believable.

Years and decades ago, probably around 1985, I read an article in a film magazine ridiculing INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM not for its supernatural flummery, but for the fact things like the laws of gravity and physics are simply ignored throughout the film whenever convenient for the writers. Specifically, the writer referenced the "jumping out of the airplane in a rubber raft" scene, and the scene where a coal car, packed with our heroes, jumps its track at high speed, flies in the air, and then lands perfectly on a completely different set of rails and continues on its way. Both sequences are preposterous, but why should they matter in a movie whose central premise revolves around magical objects?

Well, the gist of his article was that we can accept the existence of magical happenings in movies, but not resistance to ordinary physical laws in nonmagical moments. A man can jump off a 20 story building and land soft as a feather if he has a magic amulent: we accept this sort of thing in fiction. Indeed, half the reason to read fiction (or to see it on screen) is because things can happen in it that cannot happen in the real world. But we also understand that if our man lacks this amulet, he cannot survive the fall, which is what creates dramatic tension in stories where there are powers which supercede the natural laws by which we normally operate. A man without the amulet is just a man; he is subject to gravity, physics, entropy, and all the rest of it. Shylock's famous rhetorical rant -- "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?" -- applies doubly to ordinary characters in a world in which magic or the supernatural exists. By balancing the "rules" of magic (its scope and limitations) with the rules which govern the real world, we help establish not merely boundaries, but that crucial sense of limitation, which fuels a sense of realism.

I wish I knew who wrote the article or what magazine it was featured in -- probably "Cinemafantastique" -- but I will say that I've kept this principle as a sort-of amulet of my own, to the point where I operate, in my own writing, from its principles, often without consciously thinking about it. Take my own novella, “Wolf Weather” as an example. This is a story about werewolves, or more specifically, about men fighting werewolves. There are supernatural creatures like Arabeth and Wolfgod in the story, and the very premise of werewolves is rooted in the supernatural, but the protagonist, Crowning, is anything but supernatural. He is subject to all the rules which govern the human being and the human body. In other words, he lives in a real world intruded upon by magic, but still has to cope with the woes and limitations of the real world. He must eat, he must sleep, he must relieve his bladder and worry about slipping on the ice and breaking his arm. The fact he is besieged by monsters does not mean he doesn't have to worry about drinking his posca every day to prevent scurvy. By keeping Crowning grounded in the physical world, one where cuts bleed and hurt and lack of sleep makes you stupid, the werewolves seem all the more abominable and horrifying. They are outside, like the Agents in THE MATRIX, operating by a different set of rules; you, the ordinary human however, do not have that luxury. Only intervention of magic can allow you to cheat the laws that govern existence. Where there is no supernatural, there is no super. You fall from too great a high and splat you go, whether magic exists somewhere else in the world or not.

The inversion, however, also obtains: I'm convinced one of the reasons BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER was so damned good is because although Buffy herself is supernatural, or rather in possession of supernatural powers, she resides in the real world and is constantly vexed and bedeviled by real-world problems. Her super-powers avail her nothing in the realm of dating, or schoolwork, or popularity, or her ability to make or keep friends or maintain a healthy relationship with her own mother. By tying her to the prosaic, petty, frustrating, and the tedious -- in short, by making her human despite being extra-human in ability -- Buffy's war against "vampires, demons and the forces of darkness" becomes relatable, and thanks to that genuinely magical power, "the suspension of disbelief," believable. It has a hard foundation, a clearly-painted backdrop. Buffy can save the world on Thursday night, but on Friday she's still got a pop quiz she didn't have time to study for and no date to the dance and a mother who wants to ground her anyway because her grades are no good.

All this is my way of saying that storytelling -- the sort of storytelling with magical or supernatural elements, or even storytelling which is drenched in all things fantastical, such as the works of Tolkien -- still has to operate by a two-tiered system of laws. The first governs the fantastic. It establishes that, say, vampires exist, but it also sets up boundaries for the vampires: sunlight, crosses, holy water, stakes through the heart. The second governs the real world, where we have to pay taxes, get our hair cut, sleep at least six hours a night, obey the laws of thermodynamics, and explain dead police officers on the floor of our antique shop. So long as the storyteller keeps this system in mind, he cannot go far wrong: his audience will happily and enthusiastically suspend disbelief. It's when he is slovenly with the rules he sets up for magic, or allows characters to break the laws which administer everyday existence without magical intervention that eyes begin to roll.

AS I PLEASE XXXI: WW2 EDITION

Just a quick note to let anyone who is interested know that I'm still here. Recent evens in life kept me away from the keyboard for almost a month. They are positive events, but have filled my time and mind to the point where all the intentions I had about keeping up with this blog got sent to wait at the back of the line. But like Douglas MacArthur or a bad check, I have returned with an especially neurodivergent edition of As I Please. Here goes.

* I just referenced MacArthur. Well, I also just watched a John Wayne war movie called "They Were Expendable," about a PT boat squadron based out of Hawaii in WW2. The movie is interesting because it is much less rah-rah than I was expecting for a wartime-produced movie starring the Duke, and therefore more realistic and gritty. The film follows the squadron as it fights the Japanese at sea in the early months of the war, and is finally whittled down to a few ragged survivors on Battaan and Corregidor who have to fight with rifles as they no longer have any boats. Most of the characters die or are left by the movie in positions where they are certainly doomed. In one scene, for example, a bunch of officers are awating evacuation to the States via the last cargo plane, but there is not enough room and several are pulled off the aircraft to meet their fate. Grim, grim stuff, but one thing that stuck in my craw was the depiction of the sailors as they evacuated General MacArthur from the Phillippines so he could fight another day. The sailors look joyfully privileged to be escorting their general to safety while they must return to the lost battle to die or be captured -- a fate equivalent to death, considering what the Japanese did to POWs. In reality, MacArthur was hated by many, perhaps most, of his troops, partly because they blamed his decisions for their defeat in battle, partly because he left them to their fate. This song, meant to be sung to the tune of "Battle Hymn of the Republic," was popular among them as they defended Bataan from the Japanese while he was assumed safe on Corregidor Island:

Dugout Doug MacArthur lies a shaking on the Rock

Safe from all the bombers and from any sudden shock

Dugout Doug is eating of the best food on Bataan

And his troops go starving on.

Dugout Doug’s not timid, he’s just cautious, not afraid

He’s protecting carefully the stars that Franklin made

Four-star generals are rare as good food on Bataan

And his troops go starving on.

Dugout Doug is ready in his Kris Craft for the flee

Over bounding billows and the wildly raging sea

For the Japs are pounding on the gates of Old Bataan

And his troops go starving on…

I mention all this because myth-making is a fascinating process both during and after the creation of the myth. Often it involves taking a disohonorable or cowardly action and turning it upside-down, so that it refracts the glow of military genius and civic virtue. It is an illusionist's trick which throws off a dazzle which, if you squint a little, allows you to see that it's all just stagecraft. But most of us do not squint. It is easier to applaud the illusionist than to point out the flaws in his trick. MacArthur is defeated in battle, runs away while his troops are left to die, and then goes on to crown himself, and to be crowned, as a kind of American Caesar, the man who won the Pacific War, ruled postwar Japan as unofficial emperor, and masterminded the Inchon landings in Korea. At any point this narrative falls apart under even the most cursory scrutiny (please see "The Legend of Dougout Doug," Episode 103 of the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War Podcast if you want details delivered by historical experts on the subject), but how often do we subject our national myths to even cursory scrutiny? In this age, it is more important than ever to put any narrative through a scientific wringer before even tentatively accepting it is true.

* I also watched another WW2-era war movie starring Errol Flynn called "Objective: Burma!" Now this was a really excellent film. Flynn gives a surprisingly warm and understated performance as an Army captain tasked with leading a raid on Japanese radar installations in Burma in early 1945. The grinning swashbuckler of Hollywood puts his grin and his swashbuckling aside to portray a quietly professional officer who does everything right, only to discover that everything goes wrong anyway. "Burma!" is surprisingly skilled in the craft of its narrative, bait-and-switching the audience by having our heroic paratoopers pull off their coup with ease. The movie seems complete a third of the way through, and then, well, shit goes south in a hurry, and instead of a smooth plane ride back to base, they must make a hellish 200 mile trek on foot, through malaria-ridden swamp in blistering heat, while being attacked and ambushed every step of the way by irate Japanese who show them no mercy. A "men on a mission" commando flick becomes a cinematic study in survival under pressure, as Flynn's character, fighting hunger as well as exhaustion, disease, despair and the Japanese army, tries to get his dwindling survivors to safety. I really enjoyed this movie, not merely because it is a surprisingly realistic depiction of battle for its time (1945), but because unlike John Wayne, in actuality a gifted actor yet who made a career playing essentially the same character over and over again, Errol Flynn sets aside his usual rakish grin and devil-may-care antics to show the burden of command on a well-trained professional struggling not to succumb to despair.

* I just finished "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo," a memoir by Captain Ted Lawson, of the famous surprise "Doolittle Raid" on Japan carried out by the US Army and US Navy on Japan in early 1942. As an account of a carefully and meticulously planned military operation, carried out in uttermost secrecy as a means of boosting American civilian morale during a period of defeat and despair, it is very interesting, but where the book is truly remarkable is in Lawson's depiction of the aftermath. His bomber, "The Ruptured Duck," crashed in China after the raid, and his crew were all badly injured, worst off himself -- he was thrown through the bullet-resistant windshield at 110 mph into the water, then washed up on the shore. His face caved in and his leg badly injured, he and the others had to be carried by friendly Chinese peasants from village to village over several hundreds of miles without any anesthetic or medical care, all the while being hunted by Japanese patrols. Then Lawson's leg became gangrenous and had to be amputated...it just goes on an on, bad to worse, to worse yet. A truly astounding story of human endurance and survival, and also of the human ability to suffer, and to endure, pain in every form. Indeed, when Lawson finally returned to the States, the plastic surgeons discovered the impact had driven some of his teeth into his sinuses, and when they were removed, the astonished surgeons found beach sand in the wounds. How he made it through all of this is beyond me, but Lawson, incidentally, lived to be 74 years old.

* In the back of my copy of "Tokyo," which is an original (1943 publishing date), there is an advertisement for a book called "Psychology For The Fighting Man." This is an interesting book which you can peruse for free on the wonderful Internet Archive (archive.org), cobbled together by a whole slew of psychologists, psychiatrists, military men and spies, to help the American fighting man, regardless of branch of service, cope with some of the challenges he faced during wartime: not just physical challenges posed by military life and combat, but loneliness, sexual starvation, resentment against superiors, et cetera and so on. A lot of the topics seem to fall far afield from psychology, venturing into things like sight, hearing, noise, color sense, use of camouflage, etc., but are eventually shown through a psychological lens, such as "how to find your way when lost." There are also chapters on leadership and organization, and how psychology plays into each. I found the book quite interesting simply as a discussion of the human condition, but also because it shows how science, biology, psychology and other disciplines come together to create a better fighting man. The great body of knowledge which exists in a society is harnessed to the goal of training men for war. When the book discusses caloric needs, sexual hygiene, colds and flus, temperatures, oxygen requirements, tolerances for noise, and so forth, it is all in the service of making the better and more efficient soldier. On the one hand, tremendous thought and care, and on the other, the full knowledge that all of this thought and care will be put into a body which may soon be blown to bits. The ethical and moral problems raised by this are fascinating, and it is interesting to ponder whether much of the knowledge we have, whether industrial, technological, psychological, medical or what have you, would have come about so quickly or at all if we did not spend so much time, money and effort figuring out ways to kill each other.

And with that, I bring "As I Please" to a close. If you noticed my absence from the platform, I apoligize; if you didn't, that is still my fault.

OH, CANADA

Canada is much in the news lately, and for once I feel as if I am ahead of the curve on a news trend, because Canada has been much on my mind for some years now. Unlike many people here in the States, I make a point of trying to consume quite a bit of foreign media and opinion, so I can get a better understanding of the wider world I live in, and this includes a great number of news shows, podcasts and entertainment coming from The Great White North.

The US - Canada relationship is a curious one, because it reminds me of the mountains I used to see every day from my front porch in Burbank, California. They were so present that I usually failed to notice them. It was the same during the month I spent in Tucson, Arizona: the first few days they were the only thing I saw, and after that they may as well not have existed. I had to be reminded of them and always had the same startled reaction -- "Look at those things!" They were simply too big for my eyes to see. For most Yanks, by which I mean Yanks who do not live in the border states or in close proximity to them, Canada is like that: the massive neighbor we never really think about until we have some cause to do so.

Although recent events have shown some Americans can be horribly condescending about Canada, there is nothing condescending in this particular attitude. Excepting Quebec, where the language is French and much of the architecture much more old-world European than modern North American in style, Canada is sufficiently similar to the States as to feel less like a foreign country to us than, say, Britain does, and of course it is hell of a lot closer than Britain, or Ireland...or Australia or New Zealand, for that matter. When a Yank is in Vancouver, he will certainly notice little differences here and there, but he will never experience the disorientation or discomfort he will certainly encounter if he is in France, or Italy, or Mororcco, or Japan, and he does not speak the language. Put simply, he is away from home but does not feel away from home. Part of this rests in the famous and largely well-deserved Canadian kindliness, which is so much like American Midwestern kindliness except even more pronounced; but most of it rests in the fact the cultural differences are small and pleasing rather than large and jarring. They are just obtrusive enough to give the Yank a romantic sense he is "somewhere else" without oppressing him with the scary knowledge that he is "somewhere else."

Now I must make a full and immediate confession. When I was in high school in Maryland, knowing nothing about Canada except that it existed, I occasionally made jeering remarks to a Canadian kid in my school that Canada was, you guessed it, the 51st State. This is a common American insult leveled at Canadians, though in my case it came from stupidity and not malice. Knowing jack-all about Canada's history, I viewed it as a kind of giveaway of the British Empire, the colonies that did not rebel, who were granted independence rather than taking it for themselves, and who were otherwise culturally indistinguishable from Americans. The existence of Canada, insomuch as I contemplated it at all, seemed weird to me. They were foreigners, but not really. They spoke our language, played our sports, shared our continent, watched our television, and exported large quantities of their citizens to work and play within our borders...citizens you didn't even know were Canadian until they told you, because what we refer to as "The Canadian accent" in the States is actually only the accent of certain areas and classes in Canada. Indeed, outside Quebec Province, where you naturally hear a lot of Quebecois-accented English, I can recall hearing only one "Great White North" accent anywhere in British Columbia when I was working there. Literally only one.

Please note my use of the word "our." It assumes an ownership of things which in fact I as an American do not own, such as the title of "American" or the English language. This Americocentric view of the world is one of the outstanding characteristics of people from the States, combining an ignorance of the rest of the world with a distinterest in learning anything that could be called stupidity, salted heavily with the arrogance of being born, post 1945, into a superpower, or, post 1991, a hyperpower. The reasons for this are complex, but they lie on a bedrock of geography which far predates our status as a great power. The United States, massive as it is, has exactly two contiguous neighbors, Canada and Mexico, neither of which have ever presented a military threat to us. Because of this, because to the north and south we have only neighbors and not threats, and because our flanks are protected by two mighty oceans, Americans have always been more occupied with themselves than anyone else. Our interest in Europe is really a modern, 20th century phenomenon, and then only the result of world wars, and then only a reluctant one. Our interest in Asia, outside the considerations of a handful of military strategists and diplomats, is purely commercial. Americans, as a rule, care about America and absolutely nothing else.

This attitude is partially forgivable, because the size of the United States allows an American citizen to see pretty much every known climate and geographical feature without leaving even our contiguous borders; throw in Alaska and Hawaii and some of the territories, i.e. Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands, and there is just about nothing you cannot experience right here in the USA.

Nevertheless, this attitude is aggravating and insulting to foreigners and deeply dangerous to ourselves. American conservatism, which finds its deepest root in the isolationist philosophy of George Washington, still clings to the idea that America can ignore the rest of the world -- that we neither need, nor need respect, dem forriners. The main trouble with this attitude is that we no longer live in the 1700s -- or the 1800s or early-mid 1900s, for that matter. Technology has for practical purposes shrunk the size of the planet while also dissolving its made-up frontiers. The global economy, an almost incredibly complex interweaving of stock markets, trade deals, military partnerships, cultural exchanges, mass migration and all the rest of it, none of which could have been anticipated by George Washington, is a fact of life, and short of an nuclear war it is not going anywhere. Isolationism is an effective emotional appeal, but it has no basis in economic, military or political reality: the world has grown too small, and its parts are too interconnected. What effects one effects all, no matter how hard you happen to sing "America the Beautiful."

And this brings me back north, to Canada. Until Donald Trump came back to the White House, the relationship of Canada to the United States could, I would argue, be likened to that between brothers who settle next door to each other. They have history, and history includes baggage; they have a definite hierarchy in the way that big brothers have with little brothers, which can prove insulting, exasperating or merely annoying; and their interests occasionally conflict. Each has a somewhat different way of viewing the world, of conducting their personal business...and each has its own individual tastes. Taken at a glance, however, they are remarkably similar, generally enjoy a friendly relationship, and whenever they sense a threat, immediately come together, sleeves rolled up, fists clenched, ready to handle their bloody business if need be.

Trump's "51st state" rhetoric strikes many Americans, by which I mean mostly the Americans who voted for him, as amusing. It is in their minds simply a verbalization of what many in the States have long thought about Canada. But there is a critical difference, actually several critical differences. Firstly, it is not a snarky remark uttered by a drunk from Newark at a Canucks - Devils game and therefore meaningless. It was made by the President of the United States, and moreover, by a President who has a habit of disguising very definite, concrete plans inside of hyperbolic rhetoric, and whose lack of understanding of domestic and international law is matched only by his lack of respect for it. In short, it is not merely an insult, it is a threat, and a very specific and alarming one at that. But let us discuss the insult first, because it is folly to assume that the primitive emotions aroused by being insulted do not play into international politics.

For the last nine years, Canada has suffered under the misrule of Justin Trudeau, a globalist whose stated intention was to turn Canada into a "postnational state." In Trudeau's vision, Canada would cease to be a sovereign nation and transition into an economic unit of the global economy, one which, through the process of mass immigration, would also lose any sense of cultural identity. Canada, in short, would flee into a post-national world-citizen identity identical to the cosmopolitanism of aristocrats two hundred years ago. The effects of Trudeau's policies are outside the scope of this essay but manifestly clear to anyone who can read a spread sheet on this like the effectiveness of Canadian health care, the power of the Canadian military, housing costs, rental prices or the number of hours of work is necessary for the ordinary person to work in order to keep a roof over their head. I mention them because the course Trudeau embarked upon, the course which would erase and was erasing Canadian identity, has been violently altered on an emotional level by the contemptuous threats of an American president. Canadians who understand American history have long harbored suspicions about America's ultimate motives for Canada vis-a-vis her natural resources, including water -- one of the better TV shows I ever saw, "Intelligence" which was created by Chris Haddock, tackled these topics in such an uncomfortably forthright way the CBC canceled the show rather than ruffle American feathers -- but the ordinary Canadian viewed 51st state talk as no more than cheap shot talk from their sometimes obnoxious but generally caring brother next door. Trump's rhetoric changed that. He not only insulted every Canadian, he said, in essence, that he wasn't sure little brother should have his own home, his own car, his own wife, his own kids, or his own dog. He said, in essence, that he didn't feel any particular need to respect the property line or little brother's status as an adult -- his agency, his independence. He said, in essence, "nice country you've got there, be a shame if someone came along and messed it up."

Trump's tarrifs and threats of tarrifs are proof that the 51st state talk is not merely the hyperbolic, trolling rhetoric Trump has often employed to please his base, but a definite statement of intent. Most Americans do not know this, but Canada was twice invaded by the United States, once during the Revolutionary War, and once during the War of 1812. Both invasions failed, which is of course why Americans don't know about them, and both invasions failed because they underestimated Canada's sense of identity, which existed long before Canada had been granted her independence from Great Britain. Notwithstanding a small minority of citizens who would find it convenient for personal reasons, Canada has never wanted to be part of the United States, and it understandably resents being denied recognition that it is indeed a very separate entity both politically and culturally. Now, Trump's
threats don't mean he necessarily intends to send the troops rolling over the border, but it does mean he understands that economic warfare is warfare and like conventional warfare can be employed to break the political will of the enemy...and like all warfare presupposes there is an enemy. And the effect of declaring Canada an enemy has been to erase nine years of Trudeauism, at least as it applies to Canada's sense of national identity. Canadians are not only mad as hell, they are conscious of being Canadians in a way that they have not been, collectively anyway, since Trudeau tried to brainwash them into thinking they were global citizens. When Canadians say "elbows up" they are referring to the fighting pose of a hockey player. They are saying that they are ready to drop the stick, toss the gloves and start throwing punches. It's sad that they have had to adopt this posture. It's sad that a country with whom we share a 5,525 mile border is now looking to the EU for its security guarantees and to China, India and Europe rather than the States for economic trade agreements when we are its largest trading partner and vice-versa. And it is even sadder for me as an American citizen to feel embarrassed at the clumsy, reckless, bullying, ham-fisted methods that have been used on our inoffensive neighbor. When I was in Montreal and Quebec City last year I could not have been treated any kindlier by complete strangers than if I were staying with old friends. Canadians have always taken for granted that whatever stupid jokes or insults we might periodically exchange, when push came to shove, America -- their fellow Americans from the States -- would be by their side, ready to fight with them and for them. Few of them ever dreamed we would be doing the pushing and the shoving. But here we are.

Kind of makes you think, eh?

GOODREADING 2025

Whenever I neglect this blog for any length of time, I experience the most curious resurgence of a feeling I used to endure regularly as a delinquent college student. It's a feeling of not knowing how I can walk back through that classroom door when I didn't show up for a month. I have indeed been remiss in my duties here at Antagony, so I guess I'll do what I did back in the 90s when a girl or a drinking binge kept me away from the books for way longer than any excuse could explain: grit my teeth, rush through the door, and get busy. Since we're on Goodreads, let's get busy talking about books. Specifically the books I've read so far as part of the yearly Goodreads Reading Challenge.

As you know if you visit this place regularly, my taste in books runs the gamut. I will read literally anything that is written well, and failing that, which tells a good story (one does not have to be a skilled writer to be a first-rate storyteller). In recent years I have shied away from novels more than I should have, finding history, autobiography, and memoir to use less of my imagination and therefore less of my energy, so I'm making an effort to read five per year regardless of how many other books I chalk up in the "read" column. Anyway, here is the unusually random selection (even for me) of what I've read to date:

"The Garner Files" by James Garner. I generally really like actor's autobiographies, because actors tend to have great backstories as well as plenty of interesting anecdotes from their professional lives. And the interesting parts of this book are very interesting. Garner, who is best remembered for his roles in "Maverick," "The Rockford Files" and "The Great Escape," was a Depression-born kid who walked away from Korea with two Purple Hearts and ended up, almost accidentally, as a contract player in Hollywood. His rise to fame and fortune came as much from his scrappy, principled, workmanlike attitude as his talents, and once he had established his success, he used it to indulge his hobbies (golf, racing) and fight for his causes (civil rights, fair play), never forgetting the little guys on set, either. Having worked in Hollywood myself in a pencil-sharpening capacity, I found his egalitarian, anti-bullying attitude refreshing. But the book can be a slog at times because, well, I don't give a shit about golf and if this age has proven anything, it's that a man's politics tend to be boring when discussed in public. Still, you can't put this book down without coming away with a healthy respect for Garner and the improbable and decent life he lead.

"On A Chinese Screen" by Somerset Maughm. I read this book because Orwell repeatedly mentioned it in his writings, and I'm glad I did so. Maughm was a high-level British spy in two wars, whose formal occupation was writing novels and travelogue. He did not both very well. "On A Chinese Screen" is a series of fifty-seven character and scene-sketches he drew up while living in China in the 1920s. It is beautifully written and paints lovely and brutally honest portraits of Chinese culture, British colonial culture, and all manner of eccentric individuals -- philosophers, rickshaw drivers, petty officials, businessmen, sailors, soldiers, wanderers and wives. It is a terrific book, full of weighty but easily readable insights into human nature and all of its absurdities and beauties and paradoxes. Maughm is one of those writers who allows his subjects to hang or exalt themselves, and doesn't tell the reader what to think. A few of the sketches bored or confused me but the majority are simply wonderful and I can't recommend this book highly enough as a kind of literary photo album of an extinct world, but a world whose existence can be plainly felt today.

"The Wager" by David Grann. This is what I call a Christmas Book, meaning not merely that I got it as a Christmas gift but that it's the type of book I'd never have read if it weren't handed to me free of charge by someone else, as it's not quite in my usual area of interest. I found it a superb read, better than many novels though it is pure history. It is the story of the HMS Wager, which shipwrecked in the 1700s in the treacherous waters between South America and Antarctica, and the almost unbelievable story of what followed -- the survivors found themselves on a near-barren rock without food or water or clothing, yet somehow managed (mostly), to survive for months despite a mutiny which broke the group into two warring factions a la "Lord of the Flies," and on top of that, to escape in jerry-rigged boats and make a perilous second voyage to Brazil...only to face court martial when the few who remained finally returned to England, because mutinity. These poor bastards survived rogue waves, storms, plague, scurvy, shipwreck, civil war, starvation, thirst and a Hail Mary journey over murderous seas on what amounted to a raft, and it's a shining testament to human ingenuity and the will to live. Grann does a lovely job of explaining what seafaring life was like in the 1700s (brutal, hazardous), and also delves into Byzantine Royal Navy politics and ocean combat. A terrific book.

"Over the Front in an Aeroplane" by Ralph Pulitzer. The name "Pulitzer" is an esteemed one in letters, and indeed, Ralph was the brother of Joseph Pulitzer, the man for whom the great prize is named. This forgotten little book, which I bought at a book fair in Miami when I (cough) was there to get the Reader's Favorite Gold Medal for "Sinner's Cross" (coughs again), is an account of Pulitzer's tour of the Western Front during WW1, specifically 1915 in the French sector. I found it quite readable and very detailed and interesting, because it gives a fascinating look at the mechanics of warfare at that time. Ralph flies over the front in a two-seater, visits the trenches and various headquarters and a training school, hangs out with artillery batteries and supply troops, and wanders devastated towns and villages which are still under fire. It's obviously pro-French and pro-Allied, presenting only their points of view, and there is a faint touch of naivete in some of his conclusions, but very little. He tries to be purely journalistic and mostly succeeds, and his general predictions for the war's future course were accurate. I found it a very interesting time capsule of a terrible time in history, and I was struck by some of the included photographs -- men dead 100 years at this point but whose humanity shows in the weariness of their faces.

"Post Office" by Charles Bukowski. I read this evil gem of a book in a single day. It was my first encounter with Bukowski's work but will not be my last. In this mostly autobiographical novel Bukowski, via the character of "Henry Chinalski," recounts the 14 1/2 wretched years he spent in the Postal Service in Los Angeles in the 50s and 60s, while simultaneously indulging his passions for the ponies, women, and most importantly, booze. Imagine Hemingway slamming into Henry Miller, and the two of them falling headfirst into any good pulp novel you care to name, and you have Bukowski: witty, immoral, contrary, lascevious, misogynistic and irresponsible, with just enough unwanted decency and sensitivity to make him (mostly) sympathetic. Bukowski uses that relaxed sort of style, a kind of stylishly sloppy prose, which is so easy to employ as a writer and follow as a reader, but he is also a keen if ruthless observer of human nature and modern society -- it's inhumanity, its pointless ugliness and mindless routines. Anyone who has suffered through bullying bosses and soul-crushing work routines will relate to his misery and his perpetual desire for escape through horseracing, sex and drunkenness. I loved this book, wicked though it is.

And that is where I have landed so far in the GRC of 2025. I don't use this platform anywhere near enough to talk about books, so I am recifying that mistake starting now. Among those slated for finishing or possible reads this year include:

Jackboot - James Laffin [currently reading]
Ashes to Ashes - Tami Hoag
Soul Boom - Rainn Wilson*
The Eldorado Network - Derek Robinson
Faust - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Undisputed Truth - Mike Tyson
True at First Light - Ernest Hemingway
Harry Sullivan's War - Ian Marter
The Infernal Machine - Steven Johnson

* When I met Rainn Wilson two years ago after his one-man show, I promised to review his book, which, since I haven't finished it, is a promise I've yet to keep. But I will.

Of course, like most bibliophiles/bibliomaniacs, I have far more books on hand than I will ever read, because I both buy books on a fairly regular basis and receive books yearly as gifts, and this in addition to the huge trove of books I inherited from my father, who was a voracious reader of history, biography and political science, and also read many historical novels. And on top of this, as if it weren't enough, there are the stacks of mysteries which are to be found everywhere in my mom's house. So this little list is neither inclusive nor definitive. The important thing is that I have managed, with some effort, to restore my habit of reading reflexively in my spare time, something I lost for several years. Interestingly enough, the reading muscle is like any other -- if you exercise it, it will stay healthy and strong, and will also twitch unpleasantly if you don't get it to the gym. If you let it atrophy, it will take some doing to get it back into form. So here's to me getting back in the ole reading chair. I hope you never left.

AS I PLEASE XXX: LAWS OF POWER

This, the thirtieth installment of "As I Please," finds me in a ruminative state of mind. It was a brutally cold, nerve-fretting, and in many ways disappointing day, the sort which brought out the worst in me and in the end could only be salvaged by eating hot food, drinking cold beer and watching episodes of KOJAK. But salvaged it was, and as I sit here, having my ruminations, I find a lot of unrelated thoughts which need sharing. So here they are:

* I have finally figured out that the difference between the cell phone/internet era and the era I grew up in is "atomization." The cell phone allows an individual to stay an individual at all times: he never submerges into the crowd of humanity, into the tribe. He is always individual and therefore always alone. No longer does the world go to public places for company or crowd around television sets in times of crisis: everyone has “company” online and everyone has their own television set in their purse or pocket. Go to any restaurant and you'll see five people at a table, and three of them are staring into their phones the entire time. Sometimes it's all five people simultaneously. Conversation is a stopgap between feeding the dopamine addiction. Even when I go down to the bar for a drink at night, I don't watch the television screen above me: that would be too communal of a well. Instead I nurse my drink and stare into my own little screen. We're only physically in proximity: we are not together. We've atomized society through – ironically enough – social technology. And then we wonder why people are lonely.

* R.U.R. is a 1920 Science fiction play by the Czech writer Karel Čapek, which is best remembered for introducing the word "robot" into the English language. It is fascinating to me that in R.U.R., which was written thirty or forty years before the first industrial robots were actually invented, the robots choose to exterminate their human creators. Why, going back 104 years, do humans always assume in fiction that robots will turn against humanity and try to exterminate us? I think I have the answer: because we know we've got it coming. We know that our technology, meant as a tool, will ultimately master us, and like all masters, will exercise its power through violence. It's a variation on Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN, a novel people forget was subitles THE MODERN PROMETHEUS: the idea that, like Prometheus, we're playing God, but woefully inadequate to the role, possessing only the power without the widsom and forebearance that goes with it. This thought has been much on my mind of late, in part because I've been slogging through various TERMINATOR films, and in part because every day I become a little more defeated and depressed by the existence of A.I. Which brings me to....

* George Orwell. You may think linking Orwell to JURASSIC PARK is a weird turn for this ramble to take, but nope, not a bit of it. In his book ON THE ROAD TO WIGAN PIER, Orwell bemoaned what he called the human “instinct to improve." He pointed out that this instinct, which developed only recently in terms of humanity's existence on this planet, has lead to an increasing tendency to develop technology for its own sake, independent of the consequences the existence of that technology will have on the human species. That humanity, unique among all species, strives to create systems which make itself redundant. He examples the idea of a machine which performs a function which used to require, say, 10 human beings. Now only one is required -- to operate the machine. The other nine are "terminated" from employment. And with each new labor-saving device more humans are "terminated" until at last millions languish without work, without a meaningful direction for their lives or a means to make those lives bearable or even liveable. He also noted that if humans can overcome this obstacle and mate with technology, the tendency will be toward what he called "the brain in the bottle" -- a transhumanistic being, more machine than man. Either way, technology trumps flesh, science trumps spirit, and we are left with Jeff Goldblum's immortal words in JURASSIC PARK: "You were so busy figuring out of you could you never bothered to ask whether or not you should."

* A.I. frightens me, in case you haven't figured that out, not only because it will make huge sections of the human population redundant, but because those who will not be redundant will only be so because they can service the machines. The "Morlock class" is already upon us: go on Linked In, and you'll see 80% of jobs are for humans to train A.I. to replace humans in various positions. What will become of singers, songwriters, poets, novelists, movie-makers, artists, and all the rest when machines can, by stealing the work of human beings and sythesizing it on a grand scale, produce simulacrums of creativity in an instant? They will lack soul, they will be works of plagiarism, they will be morally and aesthetically disgusting, but the public won't care, which in a sense makes me wish the real Terminators would show up and get down to business.

* I'm listening to Jordan Peterson psychoanalyze Donald Trump. Peterson at least understands the man is a “13 year-old bully” and amusingly remarked the American people “preferred the spontaneous lies of Donald Trump to the calculated lies of Hilary Clinton,” which is a wonderful remark becuase it is absolutely true. However, the underlying admiration a towering intellect like Peterson has for Trump is a little disappointing. (Not surprising, because he can't see through Elon Musk either, but disappointing.) There is a tendency among humans to admire genius for its own sake, regardless of what kind of personality and character that genius may be attached to, and I think Peterson admires Trump and Musk in the wrong ways. Both men are geniuses of a certain type, and both men are deficient in common humanity to a shocking degree. Both men are figures within a democratic government, and both men are threats to democracy. And a threat to democracy is no less a threat to democracy because the threat is presently giving the high hard one to people you dislike rather than you and yours. Peterson's own experience being mauled and slandered by the Left has clearly blinded him, consciously or unconsciously, to the lack of charracter in Trump and Musk, to their inability-cum-unwillingness to behave with ordinary human decency or respect for the law or the unwritten laws that allow democracy to survive. It's only natural, of course: Peterson was so viciously attacked in his own country that it's only natural he should seek any port in a storm. It's sad, however, that politics in the West have finally deteriorated to the point where it's little more than “let me get my hand on the whip this election cycle so I can thrash the daylights out of my enemies until the electorate or a term-limit pries my fingers off the handle.” Like we're all in some hideous turn-based video game where you have to grit your teeth while your opponent attacks you, until at last he's exhausted his offensive options and now it's your chance to be the aggressor.

* Having said that, and while stating for the record that I did not vote for him, I must be intellectually honest and say that Trump, for all the things I revile about him (including his disgusting admiration for the war criminal Putin, his enabling of the war criminal Netanyahu, and so forth), is where is for a very good reason. Half of that reason is what I call "butter and eggs," meaning that Americans knew that Bidenomics was a failure because their wallets told them so regardless of what the legacy media was claiming; the other half is that Americans have had quite enough of Woke, thank you very much, and this includes many millions who are not Republicans either in voting habits or even sentiment. The fact is that the Left overplayed its hand. In 2014, the exact moment it seemed they had won the culture wars and landed "on the right side of history," they violated the 47th law of power: "In victory, know when to stop." Having crushed their cultural opposition, the Left decided to keep grinding the boot against the necks of their seemingly defeated opposition. For ten straight years -- perhaps not coincidentally, the length of Justin Trudeau's reign of error in Canada -- we saw the hard, common-sense principles of the the Democratic Party sold out to a rainbow-haired, pronoun-wielding, neo-Marxist, joyless, vengeful, intolerant, weak-minded globalist mob, many of whose members were only dubiously sane, until at last those with sense were themselves being "canceled" by the monsters they had created and empowered. The question of "how far left is too far left?" was never answered because those on the Left were too frightened to do so: they had yielded their power and agency to this lunatic fringe. And in 2024, they were handed a crushing defeat of their own by a majority of the American voters. Whether they will learn anything from it is extremely doubtful. As I said in a previous blog here on Antagony, back in 2016 ("Why Trump? Why Now?"), the problem with the American Left is that their response to defeat is invariably to insist that the reason they lost is because they weren't Left enough. The fact is that a sharp move toward the center, towards "common centrism," quite possibly could have defeated Trump's bid to regain the White House: at the very least it would have salvaged the integrity of the Democratic Party. As it stands now, the Democrats are without power or integrity, and they have no one to blame for that but themselves.

On that snarky and self-righteous note, I exit "As I Please XXX." When I began this blog eight (or was it nine?) years ago, I never believed I'd last this long in the public space, however modest and shadowed that space might be, but here I am -- and if you happen to be reading this, here we are. And I'd like to say that that it is unimportant whether we agree on everything, or even anything: what matters is that, for now at least, that we remain free to disagree.

Until next time.

STORYTELLING AND THE MORAL COMPASS: THE EAGLE HAS LANDED VS. WHERE EAGLES DARE

Today I want to conduct a bit of a thought experiment. The issue is the moral compass as it works in storytelling. The subjects are both bestselling novels which also became hit movies -- "Where Eagles Dare" and "The Eagle Has Landed." I selected these films because of their very close similarities both in terms of genre, setting, time period and general plot points, and because of the sharply different way in which they behave on a purely moral scale. I am interested in the issue both as a storyteller myself, and as a consumer of stories in all formats, and because for some time now I have sensed a general decline in the efficiency of the moral compass as it relates to storytelling, and worry that the audience, too, is losing its ability to make moral judgments -- that it has become morally blind.

To begin with the basics:

"Where Eagles Dare" is a 1968 action suspense film, based on a novel of the same name by Alistair McLean, about a group of Allied commandos who dress up in German uniforms and parachute into the Third Reich, ostensibly to rescue an American general captured by the Nazis.

"The Eagle Has Landed" is a 1975 action suspense movie, based on a novel of the same name by Jack Higgins, about a group of German commandos who parachute into England dressed in Allied uniforms, ostensibly to kidnap Winston Churchill.

The similarity is obvious, but the films differ in two distinct ways. The first is in terms of realism, and the second is in terms of morality. Let us tackle the differences in order, because as it happens, the realism is to some extent an element in the morality of the stories.

"Where Eagles Dare" is realistic at first. The aim of the Allied team is not beyond belief -- commando raids are daring and improbable by nature, after all, which is why the men who carry them out are usually picked so carefully and so highly trained. Nobody exhibits any super-human characteristics, and things go very wrong early on for our putative heroes -- one of their number is murdered by a traitor or traitors within their ranks, and later, the location of two of the commandos, Smith and Schiffer (played by Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, respectively) is also betrayed by the double agent/s. Things going wrong, especially in military operations, is more likely than things going right, so the first act of the movie seems as realistic as can be expected given the demands of the genre and the movie business generally. However, beginning with the second act, where our protagonists begin making a bloody nuisance of themselves to the Germans, realism goes over the horizon and is ne'er seen again. The Germans, and the British traitors in their pay, prove to be completely helpless once all the scheisse hits the fan: they cannot shoot straight, their guns run out of ammunition at critical moments, they are cowards, they are foolish, they fall for every ruse and feint, leave themselves utterly vulnerable when they should be suspicious, blunder into every ambush, fail to heed any warnings, and die in droves. A more hapless group could not be found outside of the Three Stooges. The needs of the plot simply crush logic at every step. At one point, for example, Smith is shot through the hand by a German soldier. He wraps his hand in a bandage and then, mere minutes later, manages to A) leap off a rapidly moving cable car to another car passing at a slower speed; B) dodge a salvo of bullets fired through the car's roof at point blank range (the traitor conveniently runs out of bullets, something we never see the Allies do though they never stop shooting for the last half an hour of the movie), C) defeat both men in hand to hand combat despite having a bullet smashed hand, D) fix a bomb to the car, and E) leap back to the other car before the bomb goes off. I could go on, but you get the point. A movie that began more or less grounded in the believable becomes a kind if ultraviolent kill fantasy, a first person shooter on God mode with infinite ammo. What does this have to do with morality, you ask? We will answer this in a moment. Let us first go over the second of the two stories.

"The Eagle Has Landed" is as realistic as this sort of film can possibly be. The German commandos, recruited by a character played by Robert Duvall, are under suspended sentence of death from their own government because they tried to save Jews being sent to concentration camps. They are embittered men, now only loyal to their commanding officer, Steiner (Michael Caine), but they are promised a pardon if they pull off their improbable kidnapping mission. Aiding them is an Irish nationalist spy, Devlin (Donald Sutherland) who doesn't care for Germans all that much but hates the British far more. Opposing them are
American Rangers led by the oafish Col. Pitts (Larry Hagman) and his competent underling, Capt. Clarke (Treat Williams). Unlike "Where Eagles Dare," the Germans themselves in "The Eagle Has Landed" are depicted as first-class soldiers with a first-class officer, determined and efficient, even ruthless, but also humane -- their true identity as spies is discovered when one of their members sacrifices his life saving a British child from drowning. Indeed, "Landed" uses the moral compass frequently to remind the audience that while they may not be in sympathy with the Germans' aims, the Germans themselves are quite sympathetic. When combat breaks out between the two sides, the Americans are initially massacred, only the turning the tables when Pitts is mercifully killed off by a German spy and the competent Clarke takes over. This is a realistic depiction of warfare rooted in logic -- the Germans are well-trained, well-lead, and experienced, while the Rangers are well-trained, ineptly lead and inexperienced.

And this leads me to the moral element. "Where Eagles Dare" is a film which takes the stance that the heroes, by virtue of their affiliation (the Allies), are exempt not merely from the rules of war, but from all forms of basic human decency. The putative hero, Smith, seems to be a void of emotion when it comes to slitting throats and shooting people in the back, whereas his sidekick, Schiffer, shows distinctly sadistic qualities, which includes saying smiling and saying "Hi!" before he shoots some unarmed, unsuspecting clerk in the guts, and mocking a German he stabbed in the back for bleeding to death faster because he was afraid. The film's infamous climax features an almost incredibly drawn-out sequence in which Smith kills a double agent who is begging hysterically for mercy: there is even a close up of Smith smashing his boot into the man's face so we can see the blood on his teeth before he falls to his death, his last work, of course being a deafening "PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!"

"The Eagle Has Landed" does not merely contain a moral element, the moral compasses of its various characters are central to the entire story. Devlin, an otherwise rather cruel IRA gunman the Germans employ as their local agent, is partially undone because he falls in love with a local English girl: he should kill her when she tumbles to his identity, but he does not. Steiner, the German commando officer, ends up forced into his role as an assassin for trying to save Jews being sent to extermination by the SS. Sturm, a German sergeant, drowns trying to save an English child from drowning. And -- and this one is crucial -- Steiner instructs his men to violate orders and wear their own German uniforms beneath the Allied ones, so that in the event of discovery they can fight as soldiers and not as spies -- which is exactly what they do. And the final act of the German commandos is to sacrifice themselves so their commander can slip away to make a final effort to get to Churchill. As for the Americans, the Ranger lieutenant makes a brief if impassioned plea to the Germans to surrender without further bloodshed, noting "there's no such thing as death with honor -- just death." He respects his foes and wants to save them if he can, though he is quite willing to kill them if they refuse: a realistic and reasonable attitude.

These contrasts may strike some readers as naive. War, after all, is not conducted entirely, or even partially, according to any conventions or codes. In all wars without exception, all sides bomb civilian targets, murder prisoners of war, employ forms of torture to obtain information, and clothe agents and spies in enemy uniform to seduce, extort, blackmail, and assassinate enemies. The idea that all parties are equally cruel in war is, however, often manifestly untrue, and in any case, for the purposes of fiction, it is always necessary to establish differences between the hero and the villain, or the protagonist and the antagonist. "Where Eagles Dare" assumes that since the heroes are Allies, they can commit any outrage without compunction, where "The Eagles Has Landed" makes sure to let us know from the beginning that the German characters, though technically the bad guys, abide by a strict and uncompromising code.

Now we return to the element of realism, which as it happens is one and the same as morality, though this is hardly obvious at first glance.

I already noted the profound incompetence, cowardice and stupidity of the Germans and their agents in "Where Eagles Dare,"
but this goes hand in hand with the utter invincibility and perfection of the Allied characters, who never miss, never reload, never fail in their courage or resourcefulness, and exhibit super-human qualities whenever super-human qualities are called for. The character is Smith is not only fearless, immune to pain, and able to outfight two men on top of a cable car in freezing temperatures while nursing a bullet wound in his hand as I said before; he is always three steps ahead of all of his enemies and at least two steps ahead of his friends. There is no curve thrown at him he hasn't seen coming and no twist in the story he does not engineer himself. He is all-knowing as well as invincible. And this godlike mix of perfection and power make nonsense of the entire purpose of the story, which is to keep the audience in suspense. How can suspense exist when the hero is on, if I may be permitted to repeat myself again, God mode with infinite ammo? What's more, how can morality exist when the opposing party in a conflict are made up of extra-fallible mortals who not only won't likely win, but cannot win? The entire basis of heroism is courage, but Smith has no fear, so there is no "dare" in this particular eagle. Likewise, the entire basis of morality in film is the redress of power imbalance, i.e. the bullied and downtrodden fighting back, overcoming odds, and finally triumphing materially or morally over those who oppress them. In "Where Eagles Dare" it is not the Allies who are the underdogs, but the Germans. There is no hope for them: they cannot win, cannot even get some of their own back. The last act of the movie reminded me strongly of a bully brutally beating a helpless victim on a playground over and over again, but without even the belated intervention of an adult. It is a fulfillment of a masturbatory power fantasy, indistinguishable in a way from sexual sadism, and, ironically, just the sort of entertainment that would appeal to a fascist mind.

Let me linger on this point for a moment. If we accept Orwell's definition of fascism as "the worship of power" then "Where Eagles Dare" is a fascist film. In it the heroes are not invincible because they are right, they are right because they are invincible. Their legitimacy derives entirely from that invincibility. This is out and out Nazi logic. Ironic, no?

"The Eagle Has Landed," in contrast, presents the German case as nearly hopeless from the outset. The commandos themselves are doomed men already, having been sentenced to death for trying to aid the Jews: their mission, though basically suicidal, offers a glimmer of a chance at pardon. Steiner agrees to the mission only on that basis, and though he handles himself brilliantly, his insistence that his men fight as Germans and not spies ensures that the odds against him will lengthen even further. That pesky sense of morality again! That insistence that honor is more important than the mission, or even survival! This is not a thought that would occur to Major Smith, and certainly not to Lieutenant Schiffer, who in one scene shoots a woman (albeit a nasty one) in the back as she tries to run away from him.

The task of "The Eagle Has Landed" is to make the reader/viewer sympathetic with the German goal -- which is to kidnap Churchill and kill him if he won't be kidnapped. This is a monumental task for an English-speaking audience and the fact it is carried out so successfully comes entirely from fact that Steiner and Devlin are men of honor, even if they are fighting on the wrong side of the line. They are sympathetic because they are human and fallible, because their plans sometimes go awry, because not all of their bullets hit their targets, and because their enemies are not fools. In short, they are the underdogs, and audiences who not worship power for its own sake respond instinctively to the struggle of an underdog. They are not "right" per se, but they are right enough to root for, because they are not invincible.

The decline of morality in society was something Orwell constantly railed about, noting ascerbically that "we root for the big man over the little man, the overdog over the underdog." This, too, was a fascist outlook, a worship of success and power for their own sakes. He saw it metastisizing into the literature of the day, but did not live long enough to see it dominate film, as it did after World War 2 ended. It took some time for the film industry to smash its own moral compass, but it was well on its way to doing this by the time "Where Eagles Dare" was turned into a movie.

It's worth noting that McLean's novel, though convoluted and silly enough in its own right, is not as violent nor as cruel as the film adaptation. As I noted in another blog, Major Smith is considerably less eager to kill people in the book -- he drugs two Germans rather than kill them, and evem pulls an unconscious German soldier out of a burning car (in the movie, Clint Eastwood's character throws an unconscious soldier into that car and then blows it up.) I believe this is because McLean understood that heroes have to behave heroically, which in practical terms means more than just being able to kill large numbers of the enemy -- heroes, by dictionary definition, require a "noble quality," and there is no more noble quality than mercy. Caine's Col. Steiner is described by a Nazi in "Landed" as "intelligent, courageous, ruthless, and a romantic fool." Smith, if similarly appraised, would be all of that minus the "romantic fool" element. But its precisely that element which makes Steiner moral; it is precisely that element which makes him human. The entirety of his nobility lays in the fact that he has limits -- there are things he simply will not do, no matter how much they would help his cause, because either code or conscience will not permit them. Most heroism comes with a tragic element, and Steiner, too, checks this box. Smith, on the other hand, does not have limits, his ends justify any means whatsoever, and in lacking scruples he surrenders all claim to morality, humanity, and nobility. He is simply an infallible killing machine, and therefore neither relatable nor interesting, much less any type of hero.

Now, it may seem that I am making too much of action adventure novels turned into popcorn entertainment films. I disagree. The morality of a society is culturally indicated. Our books, our television shows, our movies, our music and all the rest of it are the best indicators of what we value, and what we abominate. The seeds of an utterly amoral, power-worshipping movie like "Inglourious Basterds" were laid with "Where Eagles Dare" and its ilk. The ectsatic public reaction to that film -- in which, again, the protagonist has no noble qualities, no morality or decency, no sense of honor, and will do anything no matter how bestial to achieve an end, because after all, might makes right, or as the Nazis would say, Sieg Heil! -- goes a long way to showing why the old-fashioned notion that something should differentiate the good guy and the bad guy besides who wins in the end, is very nearly dead indeed.