So, What Was Aragorn's Tax Policy? Economic Philosophy in History and Fiction

 That question "What was Aragorn's tax policy" has been attributed to George R. R. Martin, and cited as an inspiration for his books. This, despite the fact that his books don't really answer questions of that nature. Though it does support my previous assertion that Martin is less trying to tear down fantasy and more trying to steer the genre in a better direction. While Martin writes a great deal about the political machinations of the courts: he mostly ignores questions of actual policy. The Westerosi economy is as much a mystery as the Gondorian one. But that mystery is lesser than it first appears. Because in fact, many clues about the economics of various societies within Middle-Earth CAN be deduced from the text.  I will be confining my analysis to the societies presented in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Now the first clue to Gondor's economy is in Tolkien's text itself: Gondor uses money. The exact denominations are given, but they aren't particularly important. Gondor has a currency, made of metal. That is important. It is also significant that Gondor's currency is the only one known to be used in Middle Earth. Perhaps the Easterlings have their own currency, we cannot know for sure. It is also significant that Smaug lies on a bed made of coins: but the dwarves don't seem to care at all about these coins. They care only about the items with a use-value. The coins, clearly, have limited use for the dwarves: which makes sense if they can only be redeemed for value in the markets of Gondor. Of course, just because Gondor has a currency doesn't mean that all or even most transactions involve currency: most likely, the vast majority of trades are by barter. This was true for most of human history. The original function of currency was as a substitution for trade items that were immovable: such as land. However, there is no mention made of credit. The Hobbits pay for their rooms in the Prancing Pony, but the meal and beer seem to be included. This suggests that the value of resources is extremely low. This makes sense if most societies in this world do not even have a market economy. As indeed, neither the elves nor the dwarves seem to. 

An incident in The Hobbit illustrates how the non-human residents of Middle Earth view material possessions. Thranduil takes the Arkenstone, a large and valuable gem. Thorin becomes offended. However, neither party even bothers to tally up how much the Arkenstone is worth compared to any other item. Tolkien doesn't even bother to tell us what type of gem the Arkenstone actually is. One would think that would be important to the characters who are arguing over it. From the description it could be several different things: a star sapphire, jadeite, agate, jasper, quartz, or a pale turquoise. Obviously, those gems would have vastly different values given their wildly varying hardness and qualities. It seems to be an uncut gem as well, which would further decrease it's intrinsic value. Despite it's size, in other words, the Arkenstone isn't likely all that valuable: not valuable enough for two Kings to fight over. But, it's intrinsic value is not of concern to Thranduil.  He doesn't care what the stone is: only what it looks like. He wants the Arkenstone, because it reminds him of another gem: the Silmaril once worn by King Thingol of the Sindar. 

The Arkenstone's value for Thranduil then, is in it's use as a memento. But what about for Thorin? Well, he's a dwarf. Dwarves, above all else, like to craft stuff. Furthermore, the Arkenstone is a symbol of his clan. So again, the Arkenstone's value for Thorin has nothing to do with it's intrinsic value. It's value for him, is as a symbol of power and as a potential crafting material.  A market economy then, simply wouldn't make sense to either Thranduil or Thorin: demonstrating their inhuman psyches. So what does this mean for Gondor then? well, full-blown capitalism simply wouldn't function in this world. You can't make people pay for milk with gold if elves will accept feathers as payment or dwarves will accept seaglass. Gondor's market economy then, such as it is, must be confined to those things that humans consider luxurious or special. Even here, prices can't be firmly fixed. An elven merchant might want silver coins over gold, and a dwarf might be more concerned with the gold's purity than with the coin's established value. Haggling would be the norm, and non-standard forms of payment would probably be acceptable.

So what is Aragorn's tax policy? well first of all...does he even have one? Does the King of Gondor levy taxes? One might think "well duh, he's a king, of course he does". Actually however, the evidence points to the answer being "no".  But wait...the Kings of Gondor are wealthy. Look at the grand palace, look at the clothes they wear and the priceless jewels they are crowned with. They have staff, who have to be clothed and fed. Well yes, but the mere fact that they have wealth does not imply they are taxing their subjects. Elendil brought staggering wealth with him, when he fled Númenor: wealth which has been invested over time. Aside from this: Aragorn inherits all the wealth of Elrond and Galadriel as well. In other words, Aragorn doesn't need a tax policy. He has more money than he knows what to do with dumped on his lap. The Ring of Barahir alone, a ring forged in Valinor, is worth more money than exists in the world today. The Elessar from which he derives his throne-name, is not only an intrinsically valuable gemstone but also magical. If Aragorn is levying anything, it is soldiers: not taxes. This then is the answer. Aragorn's "tax policy" is military service. 

See, the thing about Aragorn is that his position is technically not what was called a "king", historically. In Latin, the term "rex" denoted a tribal chieftain: although it is usually translated in texts as "king".  While I've been calling him the King of Gondor here, he's technically not that at all. He is the King of the Reunited Kingdom: not truly a successor to Eärnur, but to Elendil. This means he is not a "king", but a High King. Indeed, his full title is spelled out in the King's Letter quoted in the Appendices to LotR: "Aragorn Elessar, King of Gondor and Arnor and Lord of the Westlands." What this actually means is that his Kingdom was even larger than that of Elendil: for it included what had been the realm of Lindon in the Second Age, and had become Rivendell and Lothlórien. Of course, the elves who had inhabited those realms in the Third Age were now gone: and Rivendell itself was now uninhabitable without the power of Vilya to hold back the furious Bruinen. However, the point remains: Only Rohan and Mirkwood were not under his rule in any shape or form. 

Unlike the Kings of Gondor, Aragorn has sovereign leaders as vassals: Thain Peregrin Took, Mayor Samwise Gamgee of the Shire, Master Meriadoc Brandybuck of Buckland, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, Prince Faramir of Ithilien, King Bard II of Dale, and King Dain Ironfoot of Erebor. He was in this sense a High King as that term was used historically in the real world. This is a position very different from that of the medieval monarch we associate with the word "king".  His realm is far more akin to the Commonwealth of Great Britain, and his authority is similarly limited. Aragorn is not so much a direct ruler, at least outside the city of Gondor or the rebuilt Annuminas, as he is a military and cultural leader. His role is primarily to defeat Sauron's forces, and to be a model of righteous behavior. In other words, everything the rulers in A Song of Ice and Fire are decidedly not. But this does make him akin to the Biblical kings of Israel: who again, were technically High Kings. They ruled over the twelve tribes of Israel, each of which had it's own sovereign ruler. 

So Aragorn is not levying taxes. If he is levying anything, it is soldiers. His underlings might or might not tax their people: the hobbits don't seem to pay taxes, and it would be surprising if the Princes of Dol Amroth levied anything since again their wealth derives from Númenor. No dwarf would willingly hand over gold, no matter how much he loved his King. The Kings of Dale don't seem to have any wealth to speak of, nor do they seem to much care about acquiring it.  Only Faramir might be levying taxes, since he needs to rebuild Minas Ithil, and that's a big IF. Faramir's family also has Númenorean wealth after all, presumably invested in Emyn Arnen. Indeed, given their suspicious habit of naming themselves after people specifically tied to the hero of the first age Húrin Thalion, it could be that Faramir's family is illustrious indeed: and in possession of artifacts that could rival the Ring of Barahir for value. They may not be hurting for money in the slightest, so he might very well be only levying labor.

It is not the King's job to see that the city streets are clean, or the sewer is working: presumably Minas Tirith has a mayor.  This is the person levying taxes in order to ensure public services then. In ancient and medieval times, this tended to be how things worked. Only in modern times do states concern themselves with infrastructure, with a few noteworthy exceptions like the ancient Persian highway system. This is of course because ancient states rarely had any infrastructure large enough that it was necessary to pay for it by levying taxes. Even Rome paid for it's roads with the loot from foreign conquests, not through taxation. 

Without full-blown capitalism, Gondor doesn't need to provide welfare services the way that Rome did. Bread and circuses are not required. Additionally, it should be noted, wealth cannot buy you power in any way shape or form.  There are no elections, and offices cannot be bought. Neither can marriages: the concept of a bride-price or dowry does not seem to exist. There are poorer and richer citizens of Gondor, but no one is so poor that they must depend on the state for assistance. It's not even clear that land is bought and sold. Even if it is, during the reign of King Elessar the price of land would plummet. The freeing of Ithilien from the orcs would open up lands that have been off-limits for centuries. Éomer and Faramir would be giving away land left right and center as they pushed the orcs back farther into Mordor. Anyone willing to work hard, would be able to get themselves a plot. At the same time, Aragorn is also opening up lands in the Northern Kingdom. For those who don't want to farm, a townhouse in Annúminas and plenty of work would be easily attainable. 

For the past few centuries, Gondor has been desperately clinging to the Anduin river valley. Other settlements existed on tributaries. The Shire is cut off, an island of peace in a sea of turmoil. The lands of the North are inhabited only by wights and regrets, with the Kingdom of Dale as the sole remnant of the splendor that was Arnor. It is a world grown cold with paranoia, which even the events of The Hobbit did little to thaw. This is the world created by the Witch King, at the bidding of Sauron. But in this cold world some lights still burn. Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and the Dúnedain. A web of light is woven centered on Rivendell, and the undying love of Elrond for all his kin. It is not hope that keeps the men of Gondor fighting, but pride. It is not hope that makes Aragorn and the Rangers get up each day and watch the borders, but love. It is not hope that keeps Galadriel fighting Sauron, but sheer bravado. Hope has to be brought in from outside of the world, by Gandalf. 

The situation at the end of Return of the King could not be more different. Hope reigns in this world, and spreads out over all the world. King Elessar is not merely a beacon of hope for the men of Gondor, but for all the Free Peoples. And indeed, for those who were once Sauron's subjects too. He makes peace with the Haradrim, and retakes Umbar for Gondor. The downfall of Sauron is the end of the cold and dark, the end of night and the beginning of day. It is not the end of evil for all time, of course. It is however a golden age, a time of hope for the future. In short, King Elessar creates the social conditions necessary for people to be good. They have a leader they can trust, full bellies, and the promise of a better future. Anyone can be generous, forgiving and kind in those circumstances. Even the most uncaring people have no reason to be cruel if there is neither scarcity nor animosity. Only the most twisted would have any reason to cheat, kill, or steal: and they would be rightly afraid of Aragorn's wrath. This is why they call him "Envinyatar", which means "redeemer".

An economy based on wages presupposes that if wages aren't paid then no one will work. It supposes that people are intrinsically lazy. Biology contravenes this idea. Animals, and we are animals, are hard-wired to work for their livelihood. The idea of taxes presupposes that people need money as a motivator: either it's a bribe to the state, or it's a means for the state to bribe private actors. But Aragorn needs no such extrinsic motivation. He has been protecting and nurturing his vast kingdom for his entire life, without pay or thanks. Love and hope, and a thousand years of simmering righteous anger, are all he needs to get up and push the frontier forwards every day. Nor does it seem likely the men who follow him have a need for such crude motivators as money. "what was Aragorn's tax policy?" is thus entirely the wrong question. The real question is why do we think he needs one. 

Tolkien was making a point about human nature. It's not hard to be good when you live in a good society. When all the incentives are for being kind, very few people will refuse to show kindness. If you have it good, it's easy to feel generous. The harder things are for you, the harder it is to feel that you should help even those less fortunate than yourself. And if you cannot trust your country's leaders, it's hard to trust your fellow citizens as well. Paranoia is the cause of most atrocities in the world. Anyone can become a concentration camp guard with the right mix of paranoia and ego-mania: unless they actively resist such thinking. Science bears out Tolkien's conclusion. Perfectly normal college students were willing to give their fellow students, who had done nothing wrong, electric shocks that would result in severe burns. But while all of this sounds bleak, it's really not. What if I told you that we have been able to feed the world since the Bronze Age? 

Greedy kings and then corporations have taken what the people produced, and wasted it. There, that is the history of the Iron Age and the Industrial Revolution, the modern age and the postmodern age in a single sentence. The people of Gondor might call Aragorn a "king", but he is not a king as we tend to think of them. Nor is he the product of Tolkien's vision. He is Isaiah's Messiah. Funny what you realize when you try to translate Christmas Carols. Not the Christ of the Gospels, but the Emmanuel spoken of in the final book of the Old Testament: a warlord with divine powers of healing and inspiration. If such a man were to exist in the real modern world, he would not be called a "king". But perhaps he might be called "commandante". 

You've Always Known What Police Really Were

 We, by which I mean Europeans, have always known that police are morally corrupt. We have all always known the true purpose of police, every single one of us. 

Raise your hand if you've seen Les Miserables. 

Yes, that's right, all of you have. Some of you have probably even been in a production of it. A good portion of you might even have read the book on which the play is based, by Victor Hugo. 

But what is it about? 

Well, the answer to that question is both complicated and simple. The simple answer, is that it is about police brutality. Indeed, it is a meditation on the nature of police brutality and the reasons why it occurs. The conclusion of the author is a stunning one: but I doubt you've realized what his conclusion was. 

Ever asked yourself this: Why does Javert commit suicide?

Because Javert is a good man. 

He is a good man, who has realized that his desire to be good was used to commit evil. His suicide is a natural response to that realization. Police are not brutal because every policeman is a bad person.  Police are brutal, because that is the nature of the job. Javert cannot change the system from within, instead he has become infected by the evil of the system. This is not an Aristotelian tragedy and he is not the hero. His brutality is not an individual flaw, an individual lack of empathy. In fact, as Jean Valjean would be the first to say, Javert has acted with restraint throughout the story: he could have done much worse. Javert cannot act with empathy towards Jean Valjean, no matter how much he would like to. He depends on his job for his livelihood, to feed himself and his family. He is stuck in a system where he must decide between putting food on the table and leading a moral life. 

As so many of us are. As people have been and still are far too frequently. Leading a moral life should not be a privilege reserved for those who have money and power: indeed, that takes all of the purpose out of morality. For morality to mean anything at all, it must be for the common person and attainable by them. It must be something that the person who has nothing can do. The poorest beggar can speak kindly and respectfully, can use your pronouns and pronounce your name. But beyond that, their ability to live a moral life is limited. Thou Shalt Not Steal is one of the 10 Commandments, and for good reason, but we have created a society where people must steal to survive. Jean Valjean can no more not steal bread than Javert can not punish him with hard labor for his crime. The system is set up in such a way that this must happen: regardless of what either of them would want. 

How do we create a society where people don't have to steal to live? 

Simple: change what can be owned, the nature of that ownership, and who owns things. Make a system where Jean Valjean doesn't have to steal bread, by removing bread from the list of things which are bought and sold. People need bread in order to live. If people have an inherent right to life, then the buying and selling of bread violates that right: because if something has a price that means someone somewhere can't pay that price. Nobody needs to steal a big screen TV to live, it's not a necessity of life. But food is. Medical care is. If it's a necessity, it should simply be provided because "All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It hardly matters that those words were written by a hypocrite: I believe that they are true. And if they are true, then capitalism is unjust. There's no two ways about it. 

And this is why I said the answer to our original question "But what is it [Les Miserables] about?"  was complicated. Because Victor Hugo was not just against police brutality, he was also a socialist. He recognized almost at the birth of modern policing, that there was an inherent connection between capitalist and policeman: between bourgeois laws and the brutality of law enforcement. If the laws were just after all, there would be no need for such brutality: a firm but gentle hand would suffice. Brutality by law enforcement serves the purpose of intimidating oppressed communities, much as terrorism does and indeed there can be overlap. It is a well-known fact that town sheriffs presided over the lynchings of black Americans in the 19th and 20th Centuries.  At best, police departments turned a blind eye to the systemic racism in their communities: at worst they were active perpetrators of it. This is not because they were corrupt. It is because they were police. 

Not city guards. The medieval City Watch was in one critical respect very different from a modern police department: watchmen were elected, and they were from the community they guarded. A person didn't decide to be in the city watch, it was a responsibility that their community placed on them. This meant that people didn't become watchmen for the wrong reasons: they were chosen because others knew they were both willing and able to serve the community. It also meant that they were from the community they served. They knew the people they were dealing with firsthand: including their personal and cultural quirks. And finally it meant that they were answerable to the community for their actions, responsible to those who had chosen them. Indeed, in a medieval Free City, the watch was the usually the organization which represented the common person: wielding de facto political power on behalf of those who were not part of guilds due to their monopoly on the use of force. The dissolution of this organization was a major step towards building the bourgeois state: and the police department was the bourgeois state's replacement for the city watch. A way to have the security that the old city watch had provided, but in a way that was more easily controlled by the bourgeois ruling class. 

Socialism, real socialism, cannot include police: not in the way we know them. In a world without private property, their raison d'être is gone. That is not to say that it does not include people whose job it is to protect their communities from internal and external threats, with whatever amount of force is required. Threats will always exist, after all: no matter how much work is done to improve people's lives. Some will always choose, for reasons both good and silly, to threaten the lives and livelihoods of others. How we deal with those people however, is the true test of our society. Our modern society fails spectacularly in this regard: and we have known it would since the very beginning. 

All of us asked "but why?"  when we were children. All of us were told the same thing "life isn't fair".  All of us silently wondered why life wasn't fair, and precisely none of us ever got an answer. As we got older, we just figured that this was the way things are: life isn't fair, Mondays suck, some people are poor and some are rich. Nobody told us that it didn't have to be that way. So I'm telling you now. It doesn't have to be that way. Life has been more fair at some points in history than it is now, and it could be again. But it will only be so if you and I work for it.

Charles Xavier: Capitalism Corrupts Christ

Charles Xavier, the all-loving hero who gave his unusual middle initial to the X-men.  He's "the good guy" in all the X-men films.

Or is he?

Oh, he is indeed all-loving. He is literally incapable of hatred, because he is telepathic. And he is a good man, saintly even. He is self-sacrificing: willingly feeling the pain that others feel, physical or mental. He is loving, but is he just? Is his ideology justice?

No.

Magneto is just. He is working for justice. He is working to prevent genocide. He is standing up and demanding a place for mutants in society. He is fighting the human-made power systems which keep mutants oppressed. He is doing justice. Magneto, actually, is the "good guy".

How? Why?

Charles Xavier, Professor X. This title and initial is not a coincidence. The Latin letters "P" and "X", don't have any meaning. But they look like letters that do: the Greek letters "Rho" and "Chi". These are the first two letters of the word christos, in Greek (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ). He's meant to be Christ.

But there's a problem. Charles Xavier's power, is telepathy as I mentioned. This too points to him being a Christ figure. "God knows already what is in your soul" says the gospel. He wields divine power, and having that divine power is what makes him so all-loving. He knows the good inside each person, so he cannot help but care for them.  He cannot help but sacrifice for them. But there is a problem.

Charles Xavier, is born into privilege. He is a member of an oppressed group, but he has passing privileges. He inherits wealth from his family, and has access to well...anything he wants. The only hardships he has ever known, have been the ones he chose to suffer on behalf of his friends. He can be so willing to sacrifice himself, because his life is so otherwise idyllic. He can be a teacher, because he doesn't have to fight for survival. He alone of all the mutants learned to accept himself at a young age, because living was not a constant struggle.

Magneto has no such privilege. Nor do any of the others. Magneto, is a Holocaust survivor. He's Jewish, in addition to being a mutant. His life is anything but idyllic, it has been a series of hardships. He can't be tolerant. He can't slowly coach humans into understanding. He must tear down the structures that oppress the mutants which were built by humans. And if humans have to die, so be it. He isn't bloodthirsty. His desire for revenge was sated by the death of his personal tormentor. Magneto now fights in the name of doing justice.

He is Samson to Charles Xavier's Jesus. There are, of course, more parallels between Samson and Jesus than you would first think. What is Samson famous for doing, after all? Destroying a temple. Well, Jesus smashed a temple too. It's an uncomfortable moment in the scripture, because this is the closest Jesus comes to being violent. There are money-changers in the temple: that is, businesses operating within sacred space. Jesus flips out, and does everything short of actually striking them. He turns over their tables and drives them out with the threat of a whipping. Samson of course, pulls apart a pillar causing the roof of the temple to fall onto the Philistine Princes who were holding him captive.

Both stories are examples of God's justice being visited on those who have sinned. But there is a fundamental difference between Samson and Jesus. Samson is a warrior. Jesus is a teacher.  Samson lived his life as a second-class citizen in his own native land, subject to and forced to serve the will of a conqueror. He was born with divine power, but had to be tricked into using it to bring justice to Israel presumably because his oppressors had exploited that power.

 Magneto's story is similar. He was born in a land hostile to him, where he lived as a second-class citizen in his own native country. He was born with mutant powers, which his oppressors exploited. In order to unleash his full powers, he had to be tricked by Charles Xavier. And he too is destined to become the instrument of his people's justice. Most Nazis were never punished for their crimes. But in the world of X-men, there is Magneto. He is the divine justice which pursues them to the ends of the earth, because mortal systems of justice failed.

But the flip side of Samson crushing the Temple's pillar, is Jesus dying on the cross. And in X-men: First Class, we see Magneto and Charles Xavier act out these two things simultaneously. Magneto driving the coin into the brain of a Nazi is the wrath of Israel incarnate: the focused rage of all the Holocaust's victims. But in order for Magneto to do this, Charles Xavier had to mind-control the Nazi. He feels everything that Nazi feels. And he does not let go. He refuses to spare himself the pain, because he knows this is not about one man's quest for revenge: because he is fully aware of the drama playing out even if Magneto is not.

Charles Xavier understands that he is Christ on the cross, and that this too is divine justice. He understands that it is not only Nazis who have to pay for the crimes of the Nazi regime. It's rich British guys like him too, who are comfortable in their riches, sampling ideologies along with wines. That's why as he lies on the verge of death in Magneto's arms: he smiles. If he had died there, he would have been happy and satisfied. 

The one thing that Charles Xavier is blind to, that he can't understand, is this: in our world, being Christ is an option only for the 1%. Magneto can't be like him, not because of a character flaw but because of his class. Under capitalism, telling a worker to be kind is an act of oppression.  Under capitalism, telling a worker to sacrifice is an act of oppression. Only the capitalist is able to sacrifice himself. But Christ is supposed to be a model for all humans to follow. Capitalism, makes being the perfect human into a privilege: an option which only a select few can even chose. Thus, no matter how well-intentioned, in a capitalist system the church is oppressive.

But if there were no capitalists, then the church would not be oppressive. Charles Xavier and Magneto could have remained sworn brothers. Magneto would not wear his telepathy blocking helmet, and would not need to dismantle the systems built by humans. It is capitalism which oppresses Jews, and capitalism which oppresses mutants. If there were no capitalists, then loving and respecting people across the boundaries of culture and identity would be easy.  It would not require a telepath, or personal sacrifice.

Teaching Racism: PC Culture and Interpreting Shakespeare's Othello

Othello has often been a difficult play for English-speaking audiences, from the day it was written. It's difficult for several reasons, but the chief one among them is the villain's racism. Linguistic changes have recently rendered Iago's racism difficult to interpret for the untrained, and thus have made the play more palatable to contemporary society. But, the play is still unavoidably about race. It's hero is a black man, and it's heroine is a white woman. The fact that their marriage is interracial is central to the play.

However, that is not what you will hear if you attend a high school class where the play is interpreted. This holds true whether you are in a public elementary school, or in a private school. Probably even in a charter school. You will hear this play being erroneously held up as an example of Aristotelian Tragedy. Shakespeare did write an excellent example of that type: Macbeth.  Though even here he mixed it up by having not one, but two, tragic heroes: Macbeth and his wife. Both are undone by their increasing paranoia: led down a path of tyranny and bloodshed, which alienates even their once loyal vassals, giving Malcolm the power he needs to take them down. But Othello is not an example of this type. It is not his flaw which is his undoing, for he is not truly undone in the usual sense.

Othello does have a flaw: jealousy. He is indeed very possessive of his wife, Desdemona. Is his jealousy unreasonable though? let us remember our setting: it's a military camp. The men here are bored out of their skulls waiting for the Ottomans to show up, and Desdemona is the only high-status woman around.  Othello also knows that many of the men resent him being in command, since he is a foreigner and black. Messing with his wife would be a way of shaming him, to discredit him and make him lose his position. Especially because their marriage was secret, Othello's worry is understandable and totally warranted. His jealousy does blind him to Iago's machinations, but it isn't unreasonable or unwarranted. It is a flaw, but it is not what leads to his death.

It is true that Othello kills Desdemona believing that she has slept with another man. But we, the audience, know that isn't true. We know that this is Iago's plan, because we overheard him making the plan with Brabantio in the first scene of the play. While this scene is often removed when the play is performed, it is always in the versions that kids read at school. But, nevertheless, teachers insist on saying that Othello is undone by his jealousy.  What Iago didn't count on however, was that Othello would kill himself after killing Desdemona. He did not count on Othello loving her that much, or having that much honor. Desdemona is the victim of an honor killing: Iago simply got Othello to do the actual dirty work for him so that he wouldn't get in trouble. Her crime however was not adultery, but rather anti-racism. Iago uses the accusation of adultery to kill Desdemona: but Shakespeare is very careful to make sure that the audience knows this accusation is false. Othello kills himself because it is the only way he can retain his honor. It's not really out of guilt, but rather because he realizes Brabantio will use his killing of Desdemona to discredit him.

Othello is not just a foreigner, he's a defector. He left the Ottoman Empire voluntarily, and Brabantio at one point protected him. But, Brabantio is only fine with Othello being around if he stays the hell away from Desdemona. Both race and class are factors here: Othello may be a general, but in the world of Renaissance Italy (when the play is set) that doesn't get you much in the way of status. Brabantio is a wealthy merchant, and he wants his daughter to marry into royalty. Othello would not have been a good match if he were white: but Brabantio might very well have let it be if Othello were not also a black foreigner. Remember Lord Capulet's reaction in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet is forced to spill the beans? He kicks her out of the house, but he doesn't have her killed: and that would be the expected reaction to a disobedient daughter. While the plan to kill Desdemona is Iago's, the fact that Brabantio agrees with it damns him as well. Othello likely knows exactly what would wait for him if he were turned over to the Ottomans: castration and slavery. Othello would rather die like a general, like the Roman and Greek and Egyptian generals of old: by his own sword.  Shakespeare does not treat Othello's suicide as ignoble or as an undoing: just like he doesn't treat Juliet's suicide as ignoble. Whatever Shakespeare the Catholic might have thought of suicide, he knows he's writing for an audience that is in love with all things Greco-Roman: and that in Greece and Rome, suicide was considered an honorable death. The plays he uses as inspiration are written through that framework. So that is how suicide usually appears in Shakespeare.

Claiming that Othello was undone by jealousy is teaching racism. It exonerates Iago and Brabantio: absolving them from guilt in causing Othello's death. Othello was not undone, he died with honor.  Iago and Brabantio are to blame for his death, and for Desdemona's. Othello's jealousy prevented him from seeing them for what they were, dirty cowards and scumbags: but it did not bring him down. He did what he believed to be right based on the evidence he was presented with. Confronted with the fact that he had believed a lie and done something horrible as a result: Othello prefers death by his own hand rather than deportation and bondage. Iago and Brabantio are responsible for the lie that Othello believed causing Desdemona's death: a lie which they knew he would believe because of his flaw, jealousy. They conspired to cause Desdemona's death at Othello's hands, and then Othello's death by his own hand: for it is Iago who ultimately reveals what he did to Othello. Iago and Brabantio and their racism are responsible for what happened here. Students should be told that in school. This is a play about race, and indeed it is a play about racism. It is about an interracial marriage, and it is about a racist society. It is about how poisonous and destructive racism is. Shakespeare is writing a play slamming racists.

This should not be a surprise. Shakespeare was a Catholic, as I mentioned before.  Here's the thing about Catholics in England: they're not very big on Empire and Colonialism. It has to do with that whole being a minority religion in a theocracy thing. Those who benefited from England's various imperial adventures were largely Protestant, the descendants of the traditional gentry rather than aristocracy. Catholic kings might have been perfectly happy to conquer various French towns, but they had no particular desire to set up plantations worked by slaves in far-flung locales. Their claims to these French towns were based on heritage, not economics. Shakespeare lived at the time when the British Empire was just getting started: and he likely had very little love for any of the political machinations of Empire-building that were happening around him. The Queen wasn't terribly keen on it either, she had more pressing concerns like Mary Queen of Scots and her bothersome Spanish cousin Philip. She was all for building up trade and a strong navy, but not for using it to get slaves or force out Indian princes. It was the House of Commons who had the Imperial ambitions: as it was full of gentlemen looking to make a quick buck wherever they could. Unlike most at his time however, Shakespeare must have seen the connection between Empire-building and racism. That shouldn't surprise us either: he was a man highly attuned to the literal word on the street. His plays were so wildly successful in part because his characters talked like ordinary people would, using all the newfangled words and expressions that were a part of everyday life. Shakespeare likely didn't make up most or any of the vast number of words that he was the first to use in print: but he likely did overhear them in the street. He would have noticed the uptick in casual racism before anyone else did: and he would have seen it's connection to Empire-building easily, simply by observing who was racist and who wasn't.

Othello is an anti-racist text. If there's one thing Shakespeare knows how to do, it's how to make us empathize with a character. He pulls out all the stops for Othello, because he knows that there are racists in his audience. Hearing people from the 18th and 19th centuries talk about Othello, it's clear that they also sympathized with him. But, they were racists, and needed to preserve a racist system. So they invented this explanation that he was "undone" by his jealousy. Yet deep down, they know. They know that Othello was not undone at all, much less by his jealousy. They know that Othello was in fact killed by racism. Iago is such a despicable person in nearly every way that it's hard not to feel wrong exonerating him. Likewise, Brabantio is agreeing to a plan to kill his daughter: a crime against nature. High school students are rarely satisfied with the explanation that they get from their teachers that Othello is undone by his jealousy. However, they are teenagers, they chalk it up to teachers being idiots. Later on, they have the same motivations as the people in the 18th and 19th centuries: to preserve a racist system, they must preserve the racist explanation of Othello's death.

This is deliberate. Kids are not encouraged to question this interpretation and they are not given the tools to do so. Even the very analytical minds in your classroom are unlikely to work out the truth because they don't have any knowledge of the play's historical context (due to the deliberate failure of your colleague the World History teacher).  If the student goes on to study the 17th Century, they're likely not going to think much about Shakespeare or Othello. But just in case one of your students does bring up the historical context: postmodernism can save you. Postmodernist literary theory takes the principle of Death of the Author to it's logical extreme: saying that not only do the author's intentions not matter, but the historical context of the work do not matter. This however misses the point. Death of the Author is indeed true: but not because the Author's identity doesn't matter. Rather it is because the Author's intentions don't matter: that is, what the Author consciously believed he or she was doing.

A good example here is JK Rowling. She may very have had it in mind that Dumbledore was gay all along. She failed to drop anything resembling a good hint: except for one line in the Prisoner of Azkaban, maybe. So, when she revealed it at a press conference, people called queerbaiting. Conversely, she may not have intended to write Sirius Black and Remus Lupin as lovers: but she kinda did. That's really the only way that McGonagall's behavior towards Lupin and her comments about James Potter make any sense (keeping in mind the politics of the 70s).  She may have originally envisioned Hermione as black or mixed-race (probably the latter), but then she didn't tell the casting director that for the movie.  It was a detail that should have been in the book if it had been intended because knowing that detail would cast Malfoy's behavior towards her in a strikingly more sinister light. If she's white, then he's just a normal bully. If she's black or mixed then he's a racist. In the end, it's probably good that Hermione is white though, because then there's no mistaking the Death Eaters' ideology for what it is: evil. Because there is no physical difference between the people they are preying on and themselves, they are clearly abusive and evil. If physical differences were introduced, then this would be made less obvious.

Rowling's intentions do not matter since they can only be speculated on, they would have no relevance for me if I were critiquing her work. Her identity however is something anyone can find out. When she started writing her books she was a white, lower-middle class single mom, and a neophyte writer. This helps to explain why although she might have envisioned characters in a certain way she might have forgotten to put those details in: she didn't really know what she was doing when she sat down to write the first book. Fair enough. Understanding that she was a neophyte writer IS immensely important for me as a critic.  She has said plenty about what her inspirations were behind various characters, and that is all important and valuable information for a critic. Her class background is also important: her text is very much about class struggle. She is none-too-subtly pointing out the crypto-fascism of the British elite. So is the political atmosphere of the 1990s. One has to analyze the books in the context of a good economy, relative global stability, and a zeitgeist of hope superimposed over the reality of a socially restrictive society.  She could hardly include sympathetically portrayed openly gay characters in a kid's book in 1995: so it's understandable that she ended up queerbaiting by accident. If she were writing this book today, neither Dumbledore nor Lupin would not have felt the need to keep their sexuality secret from Harry or anyone else. Coming off the heels of the Satanic Panic in the 1980s, a book portraying wizardry in a sympathetic light was pretty dangerous already. Her political beliefs can also be read from the book, and anybody can check up on what they are pretty easily since voting registrations are public record. She definitely seems to align with Labour, given her overall message of working-class solidarity, and her portrayal of Viktor Krum. Realizing this is important because it explains a lot of the backlash in certain places to her book.

We certainly cannot know on Shakespeare's intentions. But, if we teach his plays without their historical context then we are perpetuating the biases handed down to us by older generations. To understand Othello we must know both Shakespeare's historical context, and Othello's.  While it's great to set Othello in different time periods and see what happens: one must first understand the setting of Renaissance Italy. And one must understand the setting in which the playwright worked. Furthermore, we do not just need to know the politics of the 17th Century, we need to know our playwright's place within them. What group does he align with? why? Shakespeare is with Queen Elizabeth, but in opposition to the House of Commons. Although a commoner, he aligns more closely with the traditional aristocracy due to his Catholic faith. Remember Kaidu? Well, Shakespeare is kind of in the same boat: a revolutionary conservative. His vision of a good society is partly a romanticized picture of the Medieval past: but with some modern elements like better social status for women. This we can easily glean from the work he left behind. His intentions are irrelevant to us, because we cannot know them. But we do not need to know his intentions in order to say that Othello is an anti-racist text: we only need to know his identity.

When he wrote the text during his career or what he might have been responding to, we can't know for sure. But we can know that Shakespeare was a man from the lower-middle class, a Catholic, and against Empire-building. We can know that racism is intrinsically connected to imperialism: because the reason why people bother to be racist is to justify economic exploitation. Thus it follows logically that Shakespeare would be against racism, for no other reason than that the people who were his political enemies were racists. By situating his story in 14th Century Venice he is softening the ego blow, but without dulling his message. Othello was a historical figure that people would have known about. While this story is probably entirely invented, the hero at it's center is not. This means that the audience has no way of getting around the fact that Shakespeare's message is applicable to real life. There is no supernatural element here. The focus is entirely on the human evil of racism, and the human flaws of the characters. Racism leads you and those around you into sin. That's the message of The Tragedy of Othello.

BlackkKlansman: The Reason to Take Subversive Action

The movie BlackkKlansman is an incredibly nuanced look at how to accomplish liberation. On the surface, it's conclusion seems bleak: subversion is not enough. The System can and does either silence or absorb subversion. To make the system crack, one must attack it from the outside. But, is there a point to subversion? Yes. Ron Stahlworth and Flip Zimmerman were indeed silenced. Their investigation of the Ku Klux Klan went unknown and unrecognized for thirty years. Yet, that is not to say they accomplished nothing.

1. Ron Stahlworth did break the color barrier, and there are now black police officers in most jurisdictions. Indeed, many jurisdictions are mostly policed by black and brown officers. This did not, of course, eliminate racism in the criminal justice system. A racist system does not need racists to run it. It only needs people ignorant enough to not understand how their individual actions connect to the wider oppression of a community.
2.  The two police officers did manage to kill a Klan member, with the bomb he made himself: shedding light on the Klan's self-destructive nature, in a highly visible way. And, not incidentally, saving the lives of many many people who have gone on to have descendants and effected change on our society.
3. David Duke has not forgotten, even if everyone else did. His speech given at Charlottsville clearly demonstrated that (and really only makes sense if you know about this story).  Ron Stahlworth didn't just investigate the Klan, he also wormed his way into David Duke's heart. When Stahlworth revealed his identity, Duke was genuinely hurt. David Duke has a MASSIVE chip on his shoulder, and has been pushed to embrace ideas he once rejected as a result.
4. Society's view of the Klan has changed dramatically, in part because of the incident detailed in the movie (and because of many similar incidents, and other factors as well).  The Klan does not have the same supporters it once did: either in academia or religion. The forces of bigotry are indeed rising again, after thirty years of remaining relatively quiet. But, the battle lines have been redrawn. It isn't black people against white people anymore. It's racists against anti-racists: the ideological battle can no longer be hidden behind smokescreens.  Not after the death of Heather Heyer. The plot that seemed fantastical when the Black Panther comic was written, has now been made poignantly real. White people are now willing to die for black liberation, not out of self-loathing: but because they wholeheartedly believe that black liberation would be a good thing for them.

Patrice is indeed correct: you cannot bring down the system from within. The movie fully acknowledges that point: by showing us the ways in which the system is still in place. But it questions her assertion that it is therefore useless to participate in the system, useless to subvert the system from within: by showing us what has changed. Ron Stahlworth successfully used one part of the system as a weapon against another and struck a lasting blow: that's not something to be discounted, sneered at, or overlooked. Strategic use of the system to subvert it is not a bad thing, although such actions will not bring about liberation in the absence of attacks from the outside. Patrice's problem is that like most young people she sees things as either/or: either you are outside the system, or you are a puppet of the system. But Ron is older and smarter: realizing that if he can weaken the system from within, then it can be more easily attacked from without. Subversion is not useless if it is genuine subversion. Not the insincere edginess of a Banksy or a "grunge" band (a band not brave enough to be punk or funk): but honest and searing critique of the system. Although even this stuff is not bad per se. The presence of such edginess does give people permission to talk about their real disillusionment with the system and their desire to bring it down, even if the piece itself can't be used meaningfully to those ends. But a true subversion strikes a blow to some part of the system, even if it uses another part of the same system to do so.

This is ultimately Spike Lee explaining his own choices. He is a famous director, and a rich man now. He has chosen to work within Hollywood, even though he understands that black liberation cannot be accomplished wholly from within Hollywood (no matter how many mostly black cast movies get made, or how many awards they win).  He understands that there is a fundamental problem with the hashtag "OscarsSoWhite": which is that the Oscars can never be anything other than white, no matter how many black people win awards. Yet, he has chosen to work within this system and is telling others that they should too. Why? because the media can be used against other parts of the system that keep black people oppressed: like the criminal justice system or the government. Hollywood can, and often has been, weaponized against the government and the justice system. The man holding the weapon right now, is Jordan Peele: expertly using the horror genre to attack complacent liberal whites, and upend racist tropes. His movies are finely crafted with intelligence and finesse, like the classics of Hitchcock or the Expressionists: yet they come out at a rate that would tax large studios (every other year? does this man sleep?), even further increasing the sense of unease and creeping horror. How's that for genius eh?

Love it or hate it, Hollywood controls public perception to a large degree, although it is also influenced by public perception. Hollywood movies can influence what genres people like: as when Lord of the Rings suddenly made fantasy mainstream in the early 2000s. Hardly surprising, given that this was a movie adaptation of the book that literally invented the genre, but still a demonstration of Hollywood's ability to influence taste. Hollywood movies can influence how people see certain ideas: such as how movies have warped peoples' ideas of how science works, or how to sword-fight, or the nature of serial killers. Working within Hollywood gives you the power to change peoples' minds. Changing minds is a part of liberation, because as Hamlet said: 

"the undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bear the ills we have than fly to others we know not of". 

He spoke of death, but the same is true of liberation: for liberation is a kind of death. It is a death of one's old habits, one's old ways. Those who imagine that liberation can be achieved within the confines of our current Constitution, and our current system of international politics, are deluding themselves. But that hardly means that working within the current system is useless.

Great British Baking Show's Radical Foundation.

The Great British Baking Show, it's a reality tv show just like all the others that just happens to feature cooking right? It's a fun romp through British culture, with plenty of British humor but not fundamentally different from things like RuPaul's Drag Race or Project Runway right?

Wrong. so wrong.

No, it's not different because it is more inclusive or more feminist or because they brought on new judges who are "edgy". No, it's because of something very much foundational to the show: something built into the show's design. Something incredibly radical, but which goes unnoticed. It's not the cakes and pies and breads. It's something much more basic than that. It's the underlying ethic of compassion that the show's incentives are set up to maintain. There is no room for the greedy and ruthless competitor in this show: tactics like lying, cheating and stealing are not rewarded. Honorable conduct is enforced by the very structure of the contest and by the behavior of the judges. Not through fear, but through the simple fact that you cannot lie to Paul and Mary. If you skimped on something, or did something wrong and tried to cover it up they will notice. Your mistakes are not something you can hide from, you must own them. But they are also not something to be ashamed of: the only thing to be ashamed of is falling short of your personal best. We have an irrational fear of being seen as less than perfect: but when we are put in a situation where hiding our flaws is impossible it does not turn out to be as bad as we expect.

Yes, this is a show where someone has to go home at the end of every episode, and this is a show with a single winner. But, that's not in itself a bad thing. This is because each episode is broken down into three contests: the signature challenge, the technical challenge and the showstopper challenge. The show also never has fewer than three contestants (thus, one contestant is always safe from threat): and does not rely on the fact that someone can be sent home for it's drama. The drama is instead found in whether the contestants can complete the challenge they have been set in the time alotted, and what they will do if something goes wrong. Contestants are not punished for bad luck: they are punished for not creatively dealing with bad luck.  More importantly, the judges genuinely want the contestants to do well. An experimental idea that fails is "unfortunate", not "naughty".  The winner is not likely to be the person who was the most impressive in the first week: in fact, more often than not that person doesn't make it to the final. The winner is going to be the person who can learn over the course of the whole show, from their own mistakes, from the other contestants, and even from their successes. The point of this show is to inspire people to bake, not to scare people off it. It's to put on display Britain's baking tradition, and to track it's evolution in real time. Paul and Mary don't simply rate each bake: they give nuanced and detailed feedback. How the contestant responds to that feedback, affects whether they get sent home or not. Mouthing off to the judges gets you nowhere, though that obviously doesn't stop some guys from trying it. But although Paul Hollywood may be fit and dress like a 20-something, he's not and he has the gray hair to prove it. He knows how to deal with overeager alpha males, he knows all the tricks men like that use. Not that this happens often, it's a show about baking after all.

But, Paul isn't there to scare you.  There was a contestant once who put his failed signature challenge in the trash, because it didn't work the way he'd hoped. Instead of getting angry, Paul just looked at him with genuine sadness. He said: "why did you do that? If I can't see it, I can't help you." This contestant had failed to understand what the GBBS is about: learning. It's about learning new recipes, learning new ways to make old recipes. It's about trying new things, and sometimes not succeeding. Destroying your mistakes means you can't learn from them, and indeed means that you aren't interested in learning from them. Many would even say, it defeats the purpose of baking. Art is not about doing things perfectly, because perfection is by definition unattainable. Art is about doing your best, and presenting it even when it has glaring flaws. It is about making something in reaction to the world around you, and about taking in the reactions to your art. Baking is art, and that is the point of the Great British Baking Show.

That is why this show is radical: it is taking something which for centuries has been overlooked and undervalued, and revealing it for what it truly is.  Baking is art and a baker is an artist in their heart: just because their medium is food does not mean it is any less artistic than painting or music or drama. The Great British Baking Show is a piece of art about art, about the process of creating art which is itself a work of art: a drama that usually unfolds behind closed doors and is a secret carried in a single person's heart. It is about the high of artistic success, and the sadness of artistic failure: and it is about the ordinary people who are extraordinary artists. Baking is an art that anyone can engage in, without needing special equipment. Indeed, it is perhaps one of the first arts humanity ever engaged in: the clay oven is one simple step up from the spit over an open fire. But because it was an art that was by definition domestic, and the role of the woman, it was overlooked. It was then undervalued by feminists, who charged into a new world of factory-made meals without considering the consequences to individual and social health. The point of the Great British Baking Show is to celebrate British culture: and the overlooked people who are shaping it's future. The contestants on this show are not just hobbyists: they are the heirs of a long and complex tradition, practicing it in a world that sets up numerous obstacles for people like them.

A culture is not something you have. It is not something you can put in a box and jealously guard. It is something you practice. It is something you do. Because it is something that you do, it will naturally evolve. Only a culture that has ceased to exist can be pinned down and separated distinctly from what happened around it. But cultures rarely cease to exist, precisely because they are something that people do. Cultures can outlive the people who created them, sometimes to a ridiculous degree. Constantinople fell in 450 BC, yet the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire survived through the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Rus: not the blood descendants of the Romans who created it, but the tribe of Germanic warriors they hired as bodyguards who fled northwards taking their customs, their religion and their artifacts. Empires rise and fall, but cultures live on.

The Achaemenid Empire fell, and the Hellenistic era ended, the Ottoman Empire rose and fell in it's turn. But if Cyrus the Great were brought to modern Iran he would know his own people, and they would know him. He would recognize the tongue they speak, the clothes they wear, the government they have, the buildings they build, and the food they eat: how they think and act on a daily basis, especially the actions they don't think about. If Shi'ism was explained to him, he would chuckle: knowing that of course his countrymen would create this sect, since it is precisely how he himself would modify Islam. If he were told of the Iranian revolution, he would not be surprised. But he would be equally unsurprised to hear that now the revolution is unpopular. He would laugh, and clap his hands in pride if shown the Twitter war between President Trump and Iran's present leaders: glad to know that his countrymen are still the consummate diplomats and patient masters of strategy that he knew and loved. Much has changed for Iran since his time, but the Iranians have not essentially changed.

Culture is born from the hearth fire, not from the palace. A truth the ancient Greeks recognized. As Hesiod said: "Hestia has no temples, and yet is the greatest of all the gods." Hestia is not a goddess of cooking or even of the home: she is the embodiment of Greek culture. Without her, none of the other gods would exist. Culture starts at home, with the necessities of life: the food, the tools, the clothing and the dynamics of family. Culture starts in the kitchen: when mom opens the fridge and discovers sixteen eggs, six containers of half-eaten veggies, one sausage and two quarts of cream. So was born the Christmas frittata in my house. It is the actions we take when we are not thinking: the things we think of as normal and mundane.  We love to watch Koreans eat meals because the way they eat is so different from how we do. The same is true in reverse. They aren't thinking about their eating process any more than any of us would.

We create and practice culture every moment of every day. We simply are not usually conscious of it. What something like the Great British Baking Show does is it makes the unconscious, conscious. Which is what any good piece of art should do. Yet, that is something incredibly radical in today's world of deliberate obfuscation, where people of European heritage are told lies every day about what culture is, and about theirs in particular. This is not being done by some shadowy cabal of outsiders, Jews or Muslims or blacks etc. It is being done by other Europeans, and it is the method being used to control Europe. Culture is a threat to industrialization, to corporate capitalism. Oh, the veneer of it is fine of course: the symbols of it, packaged neatly and ripped out of their context. But culture in it's entirety is a threat, precisely because it originates from outside of the corporation and it's evolution cannot be controlled by the corporation. Fascism is the mechanism for corporate control of culture. And that is why The Great British Baking show is radical: because it gives the middle finger to the corporation. This is a show about amateur bakers, who circumvent the factories and create things that they cannot. The mistakes and flaws and even collapses are not "naughty" they are something to be celebrated, because they are the byproducts of the creative process: the process that this show puts from and center.  It shows that the soul of Britain is still in the kitchen, despite the industrialization and then post-industrialization of the country. The contestants on the Great British Baking Show are the people who will determine it's future, not the Prime Minister or the Queen.

Another Nazi Found, But It Will never Be Enough

Massive TW for holocaust stuff.

As you probably know, another former KZ guard was finally deported to Germany earlier this week.


 I'm glad to see the sscumbag being sent to where people might at least pretend to care about what he's done. Of course, the best justice would to be to build a #FascismProofWorld, which takes some more doing!

Today, I'm thinking about the music of holocaust survivor Ernst Busch, a Gay Communist from Kiel who was caught in 43, and was tortured and blinded by the Nazis, and by the grace of the Red Army, survived to sing again.

This is one of his, called "As long as the murderers live in the world". it's a song promising vengeance on surviving Nazis, sung in character as the ghosts of the dead. I don't think it's a particularly strong piece, largely because of the almost gleeful, melodramatic tone he's using. The thing is, I KNOW he could do sad songs better- listen to Suliko, Martyred in a Dungeon, Peat Bog Soldiers, or Wait for Me and you'll hear it too.

I was kind of baffled why this virtuoso didn't bring his a-game to this piece, arguably one of the most important of his post-war career. And that's when it hits me- this man who went through so much, expressed so much felt by so many, who fought his entire life for a better world, who stared down his country's bombs and sang for the people. this voice of us all, had to turn a switch and sing this as if it were a joke. He could express pain and rage just fine, but he couldn't here. Maybe, as Lin Manuel-Miranda wrote, this was a time when the words didnt reach, or they did and he had to put up some walls. He could express the suffering of billions, he could make his Prussian officer's voice low and wracked, and go from the gleam of a sabre to a slow outpouring of dark wine. I have always felt that he sings for me and for so many others, whether about lost love or about surviving fashy or marching to certain death in the struggle. And sometimes about winning in the cause of the workers and oppressed peoples, too.

What does it say that these words were too much for him to open up? How terrible must have his experiences been to blunt him like this?

I think we already know.

Anyway here's the song, I don't know who wrote it. The translation is mine, going for meaning, not rhyme or meter. Do listen to it- "not one of Ernst Busch's best" is still a long way from a bad song.

"Some night when the flames slither
And the conveyor belt stirs my ashes
I rise as maddened smoke from Dachau's chimneys
Down I fly and through the hall I dash
I want to avenge myself, come up behind
on those who think i'm nought but ash
How can I lie in peace in the earth,
So long as the murderers live in this world?
For hell is already full of sinners
Yet it's empty of certain architects
so my song chases down each devil
and brings them to face their crimes
Following them through the crowded masses
to punish swiftly by the light of our hatred
How can you appear so peaceful, o blue sky
As long as the murderers still live in this world?
Arise, oh murdered children of years past
the hangman's goons who slew you stand right there
Throttle them in their fine robes
in the name of all children yet to come!
And those who still survive, haunted by their nightmares
in Warsaw, minsk, Paris, on the Rhein and on the Danish Belt
As long as the murderers live in this world


In jenen Nächten da die Flammen lohten,
und Ofenzug durch meine Asche fuhr,
stieg ich als Rauch empor aus Dachaus Schloten
und sank herab lebendig auf die Flur.
Ich wollt mich rächen meinem Tod entstiegen
an manchem der mich noch für Asche hält
wie kann ich ruhig in der Erde liegen:
Solang die Mörder leben auf der Welt,
Solang die Mörder lebena uf der Welt.
Die Hölle ist schon vollgepfercht mit Sündern
doch fehlt dort manche zünftige Figur.
Da ruft mein Lied die Opfer jener Schinder
und bringt sie den Verbrechern auf die Spur.
Geht fahnden durch Gedränge und Gewimmel,
geht ahnden rasch vom heißen Haß erhellt.
Wie kannst du ruhig leuchten blauer Himmel
Solang die Mörder leben auf der Welt,
Solang die Mörder leben auf der Welt.
Steht auf ihr Kinder die ihr schon vor Jahern,
von Henkersknechten totgemartert seid.
Ergreift die Mörder richtet in Talaren,
im Namen alller Kinder künftger Zeit.
Und ihr die ihr noch lebt aus diesen Tagen,
in Warschau, Minsk, Paris, am Rhein, am Belt:
Erinnerung soll aus dem Schlaf euch jagen:
Solang die Mörder leben auf der Welt,
Solang die Mörder leben auf der Welt.

#ErnstBusch #NaziHunting #RotFront #NoPasaran


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6IYRYNQ0lY

The Fool and the Rose. Shakespeare's "As You Like It" as Political Propaganda, Economic Treatise and Cultural Phenomenon

As You Like It, by William Shakespeare. It's one of those plays where many words are said, but not very much actually happens. He has three of these: the others being Love's Labours Lost and Much Ado About Nothing.  What could I possibly have to say about this play? A good chunk of the dialogue is barely intelligible, being as it is said by the lovably pompous court jester Touchstone. But within the play's premise itself is embedded something interesting. This play is actually about female leaders, maturity, legitimacy, and tyranny. It is also yes, a play whose main characters are a butch bisexual and a femme lesbian but that is not why it's a feminist work. It is a feminist work because of how it updates a classic story to be about a female ruler: and indeed supports a specific female ruler.  It is about a girl becoming a duchess, a child becoming a leader. It is a rewriting of one of the oldest stories ever created by humans which is still around today: Jason and the Argonauts. First written down by Hesiod in the 8th Century BCE, it is likely much older than that. Much older. Very likely, this story is about that same mysterious civilization that predated the rise of Mycenae: that was, and yet was not, Greek. Perhaps it originated in Mycenaean times: or just perhaps, the half-burnt male figure found at a temple on Crete represents Jason. We cannot say for sure. What we can say: is what this story is about. It is about what it means to be a good ruler, and how to make a child into a good ruler.

Rosalind, the main character of As You Like It, is the daughter of a Duke. She will one day have a position of leadership. However, she cannot simply become a leader overnight. She must be taught how to lead. In order to learn how to lead, Rosalind needs to enter the forest. The forest in Shakespeare is never simply a place. The forest always has a magical property: it removes illusions. Everyone in the forest has no choice but to be who they really are. Rosalind believes that she is disguised, but in a very real sense she is not. How can we tell? well, in the court Rosalind was afraid to speak to Orlando (because she is attracted to him). She didn't know what to say or do. This tells us that Rosalind is putting on a show of being a "good girl".  She doesn't know how to act in this situation because it wasn't one she has been taught to be in. Likewise, Orlando is tongue-tied. Again, because he is putting on an act: in his case of an athlete and manly man. But in the forest, Rosalind can speak to Orlando the way she would speak to anyone else: and Orlando can declare his affection for her to anyone who will listen (including the trees).  In the forest, the duke cannot distinguish himself with fancy clothes and a big palace. He sleeps and eats with his followers, works and hunts with them too. In the forest, it is his quality which makes him a duke, his nobility that makes him a nobleman. He deescalates conflict, shares generously, models good conduct for his followers, practices solidarity with those who are physically or mentally left behind, and seeks to build relationships with everyone. He is wise enough to see desperation behind violence, fear behind a false show of anger. He knows that men do not simply hold other men at knife-point because it is fun. He is a duke in the forest, because that is his true self. He is a man who leads other men: a dux in the truest sense of the word.

But, so often we think of our identities as being innate: something we are born with. This is only half true. While we are born with certain traits and desires, our perspective shifts as we enter new states of being. This can be a new stage of life, a new socio-economic class, a new emotional state, or just a new place. Taking medication for anxiety or depression can entirely cure the problem because the medication changes your brain chemistry such that your perspective shifts. The pressures you face are the same, the challenges you need to get through are the same, your life is just as bad as it was before: but your perspective on it has changed. Shakespeare's forest has a similar effect for his characters. Oliver, Orlando's elder brother, enters the forest. He goes there to find and kill his brother, whom he is paranoid about. He believes strongly that his brother is plotting against him, to take his share of their father's land and wealth. But when he enters the forest his perspective shifts: because the economics of the forest are different from the economics of the court. The court enforces the economics of scarcity: hoarding resources and always seeking to obtain more resources is what everyone is expected to do. Oliver believes Orlando has bad intentions because he is in an environment where having bad intentions is expected. The forest however enforces the economics of abundance: hoarding resources doesn't get you anywhere. Only by pulling together and sharing resources with a group can you survive in the forest, because it's resources are harder to get.  

A deer is capable of killing you with a single kick, hunting it alone would be foolish. You can't manage a farm or a flock of sheep alone, these tasks require more skills than one person could possibly ever have. In this environment, Oliver can see that his beliefs about Orlando were patently false. Orlando never asked for anything except what was promised to him by their father, and protested his treatment only because it was oppressive. Rather than killing Orlando, Oliver makes up with him. Everyone always has enough, no more and no less, in the forest because they share their skills and resources to make the most of their situation. They waste nothing, no one has extra but no one is lacking.

If you really hate spoilers, stop reading now. But it isn't really a spoiler, because all Shakespeare's comedies end the same way: everyone gets married. As You Like It is no different: all the major characters pair off.  But this brings me to something that can make a modern audience uncomfortable: the way that the character of Phoebe is seemingly forced to settle for second-best. However, I would suggest there is something else going on here: Phoebe has unrealistic expectations and is looking for the wrong things in a relationship. Like most women, she has been taught to expect a particular type of man by literature.  "Ganymede", Rosalind's alter ego, more closely fits that type than Silvius does. When Rosalind reveals that she is female, Phoebe realizes that what she was looking for in a man doesn't exist: but that the man who will truly make her happy is right in front of her. Silvius does in fact love her, he makes this clear by helping her to court Ganymede. He puts her wishes above his own desires, and that is what true love is. He may not be wealthy, he may not be handsome: but he will do whatever it takes to make her happy. Like many women, Phoebe has been taught that high status will make her happy. The obviously high status Ganymede, therefore attracts her attention.

It is Rosalind's task to bring the people from the court and the people from the forest together. 

However, the play does not end with her receiving a title at court. It ends with a marriage in the forest. There is no return journey here, because Rosalind cannot return. The person Rosalind is, cannot exist in the court. Nor can she, in the court, be married to Orlando. Oliver cannot return to the court either: he has changed his thinking and his behavior and is now incapable of functioning at court. Having realized how his abusive behavior harmed both himself and his brother he cannot go back to it. Even Touchstone cannot return, although he seems utterly oblivious to the evils of the court. Even he has changed, because he has come to appreciate the ways in which the forest society is honest. The Exiled Duke has no plans to return, after all the type of society he has created in the forest is still impossible in the court. The tyrant cannot simply be overthrown: the people must move from the tyrant's court into the forest. Of course: the court and the forest are states of mind, not really geographical places. In today's parlance, we might say the people need to get woke. The community in the forest will take in anyone who comes: but they cannot venture beyond the forest. The tyrannical system will remain until there aren't enough people left to prop it up.

Now, it is important to realize one thing: Rosalind's name was not chosen by accident. Nor is it an accident that this one of only two non-history plays that Shakespeare wrote, which is set in England. It is also set in a specific forest, not just the general forest of A Midsummer Night's Dream: the Forest of Arden. That is not simply a euphemism, this is a very real place near Shakespeare's childhood home in Stratford-upon-Avon. Indeed, Shakespeare's mother was Mary Arden, a descendant of the family who once owned the local manor house and the forest. But the name Rosalind refers to a person who would have been in Shakespeare's original audience: Queen Elizabeth I. The German name Rosalind means "gentle rose": Queen Elizabeth Tudor's insignia was, of course, a five-petaled rose. This is a play about the Queen. Except this monarch is only called a "Queen" in retrospect. She signed her letters Elisabetta Rex, Elizabeth the King. Until Queen Victoria: the role of the Queen was entirely separate to that of the King in English society. This goes back to the Anglo-Saxon (pre-Norman) idea of a Cyning and Cyninga: two equally important rulers with distinct roles. Elizabeth Tudor was not a Queen by the description of her own people: she was a female King. Shakespeare is walking on eggshells here, putting a blatant representation of the reigning monarch into his comedy of morals. But that is the reason that Rosalind's masculine attire and demeanor are portrayed so lovingly. Elizabeth is a woman doing a man's job, so she must look and act the part. He's making a statement about what gender means. To Shakespeare: a person's social role is not defined by their gender, their gender is defined by their social role. Perhaps a response to others who felt that 

Elizabeth would be too weak to handle power because of her femininity.

Elizabeth Tudor rewarded Shakespeare for his daring implicit support of her unconventional behavior. He became her favorite playwright, shoving out his college-educated colleagues Ben Johnson and Christopher Marlowe. Eventually she chose him to lead and write for her personal troupe. In the end, William Shakespeare, the son of a glover from sleepy Stratford-upon-Avon became a gentleman. Although never exactly rich, he was able to keep his family comfortably: and more importantly, he had a coat of arms.  Much ink has been spilled about the meteoric rise of William Shakespeare. Indeed he is the subject of one of the oldest conspiracy theories still in existence: with many people claiming that Shakespeare is not the author of the plays we attribute to him. But a more critical examination turns up a more likely truth: that Shakespeare succeeded not on wit alone, but also on the strength of ideology. The ideas he espoused were in some ways old-fashioned, hearkening back to a medieval era that was barely remembered and already romanticized. But in other ways his ideas were far ahead of his time, particularly his attitude towards women as reflected by the stories he tells about women. These attitudes however, far from getting him in trouble: helped him succeed in a country where a ruler was setting out to change notions of female leadership. 

Together, the indomitable Virgin Queen and the mischievous playwright redefined the idea of female leadership, and indeed the idea of what it meant to be a woman. Shakespeare wrote in the 1600s, only a half-century after Joan of Arc was burned at the stake for the sin of dressing like a man. Granted, in her case, this was simply an excuse (the real "crime" was supporting the French King): but it is still telling that it was considered a valid excuse. In that context, Shakespeare's characterization of Rosalind which seems so tame to a modern audience is incredibly radical. It is of course a blow softened by the fact that a boy is playing Rosalind: and so you have the hilarity of man playing a woman pretending to be a man. Still, we have a cross-dressing woman as the hero of our story. Indeed she isn't just a cross-dressing woman, she's a sexually (or at least romantically) deviant woman. It doesn't get less subtle than "close beyond the natural bond of sisters" for circumlocutions: it's a stretch to even call that a euphemism.  Rosalind's actions towards Orlando are not precisely what one would call loving, but may indicate genuine desire. However, it is certain that Celia shows no sign of desire or love towards Oliver (beyond simply not disliking him). Thus, what I said at the beginning: our heroines are a butch bisexual and a femme lesbian, in today's terminology. It seems more than a little probable that Orlando and Oliver are basically beards for Rosalind and Celia.

Long before the novelists of the 19th century popularized stories of quasi-romantic friendships between preteen girls: Shakespeare gave us the words to speak about such relationships, to speak about women behaving in unfeminine ways, and to speak about women taking the lead whether in a romantic or political relationship. After all, the two overlap more than people usually admit (a "marriage of convenience" usually denotes a political alliance not an actual marriage for example). Indeed, while this kind of relationship was common in English literature in the 19th century: it was generally not found in the same period in works produced in other languages. The notable exception of course being Russian works, understandable given Russia's almost totally distinct history vis a vis western Europe.  It would take until the 1920s for German and French writers to start talking about such relationships in books and plays. It was largely Shakespeare who allowed that to happen by creating literature that simply could not be ignored and could not really be censored either. While the relationship can of course be downplayed by cutting certain lines: it is not possible to truly remove the homoerotic content. As You Like It was too popular and had too much merit to be shunted aside even to please the morality police. Besides, they were too busy laughing their silk stockings off.