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.

The Dragon Prince Season 2: How to do Representation in Fantasy

The Kingdom of Durin had two Queens. When this is first mentioned, the viewer is led to imagine that it was something like Sparta: where two rulers from different families oversaw different aspects of life. King Leonidas was free to lead a suicide mission, because he had a partner holding down the fort.  Smart idea for a country likely to be surprise-attacked, as the kingdoms in this show are.

Nope, these women were a couple, and they had a daughter. It's not mentioned whether this is Durinese tradition, but nobody seems to think it's an unusual arrangement. Even the show's villain, the manipulative Virin, is accepting. Indeed, Queen Anya's mothers are considered heroes in the kingdom of Katolis as well as in their homeland for dying as part of a gambit to save both kingdoms from starvation. It would appear, that this is a world where homophobia doesn't exist. Even Soren the stereotypical jock doesn't ever make a homophobic comment. This makes sense, this world has it's own unique history behind it. A group of human realms constantly besieged by outside forces far more powerful than them would need to minimize internal divisions just to survive. Indeed, in the episodes where this story is told, Virin is (insincerely) arguing for the necessity of solidarity between the Kingdoms.

Why is this a good example of representation? after all the Queens of Durin are both dead by the time the main show starts. Because it treats their relationship as normal.  They are treated as if they were any other couple, any other family. This is a story that could have been written about a straight couple. This is not a story about a lesbian relationship: it is a story about heroism that happens to star lesbians. What frequently gets forgotten is that gay people just want to be normal. They want to be considered as people first. Often, the only time a homosexual character is included in a show is so that the show can make a point about homosexuality. This is a problem, because it does not question the white heterosexual default. Here we have a homosexual couple included in the show not to make a point about homosexuality, but simply because homosexuals exist. In a real-world setting you can't treat homosexuality as normal, except maybe in a far future setting. Even then, it would be more realistic for bigotry to still exist even if it wasn't socially rewarded. Fully normalizing homosexuality and homosexual family structures is almost exclusively the realm of fantasy or science fantasy.

We also have a character who is modeling how to be "one of the boys" and make "locker room talk" without being a bigot. Soren is clearly immature, but that's to be expected since he is a teenager. He does boast, and often insults others: but his insults are personalized. This indicates that he sees these people as individuals. Soren is a rebuttal to claims like the one President Trump made, that his misogynist and homophobic comments were just "locker room talk". Yet, it is also a rebuttal to people who say that all crude language is evil and hurtful. There is nothing wrong with crude language, and it exists for a good reason. Crude language exists to help people laugh, loosen up and de-stress.  It helps people bond, by making them feel safe enough to be vulnerable. Of course, this mission is undercut when bigotry and crudeness are made synonymous.  These kinds of claims should be alarming to anyone who cares about our language. The endless capacity that English has for constructing creative insults is not a flaw, it's a feature. It's something that we should celebrate. We should not celebrate the uncreative use of offensive words and phrases. If you mean to insult someone, do it with passion and creativity. Call them a "sniveling lemming", not a "fag".  Insults aren't a bad thing, but insults that denigrate an identity group are.  

Bourgeois liberal society likes to encourage this myth that all hatred is bigotry, that there is no difference. However, this is incredibly damaging: because this is the logic behind the myths of reverse racism/reverse sexism. See, a minority person understands that people can be cruel without being bigoted: that hating someone for something they did is fine, while hating them for who they are is not. But very often, people from the majority group confuse the two. They rationalize their own bigotry by pointing to stereotyped or nonexistent character flaws. Other times, they start to feel that if someone hates them, that person must be bigoted. Of course, what is this actually? it's an immature ego talking.  This simplistic narrative of kindness and hatred advanced by liberals really doesn't help matters. Humans are capable of cruelty, of hatred: without any ideology being behind it. We cannot create a world without cruelty of any kind, nor should we expect to. We can create a world in which cruelty isn't based on a person's identity. Or, as Dr. King put it: where people are judged by the content of their character.

Of Many Blessings A Great Curse: Fingolfin's Divine Wisdom.

The Silmarillion, or to give it it's full name: I Quenta Silmarillion. A book that collects the material J.R.R Tolkien left unfinished, into a semblance of a story. It's not an easy read, but it's an important one if you want to understand Tolkien's mythos. Most people who read The Lord of the Rings are left hungry for more, drawn into the stories because these stories speak about the troubles we all face. And despite it's grand scale and disappointing lack of detail on occasion, the Silmarillion also contains stories that speak to us. Few moreso than the story of Fingolfin.

Finwe was one of the first elves, those who were not born but who awoke under the stars at Cuivenen. He accepted the invitation to Valinor from the Vala called Orome. The Valar are kind of like a cross between the Judaic idea of angels, and the ancient Norse idea of gods. Valinor is their homeland. Finwe followed the Vala alongside Ingwe and Elwe, on a long journey westward. At it's end was Valinor, lit by the magical trees Laureling and Tyelperion. Finwe, Ingwe and Elwe returned to the elves at Cuivenen, and persuaded them to take the long journey to Valinor. It took the elves centuries to make the journey, but they do not die of old age and so did not rush. The people of Elwe did not finish the journey, tarrying in villages and forests or taking to the sea but landing on the islands. The elves who dwelt on the islands would become known as the Teleri, and those who lived in Middle Earth would be known as the Sindar. Finwe and Ingwe finished the journey with their people, and set up homes in the lands of Valinor. Finwe married a woman named Miriel, and had a son with her: Curufinwe, nicknamed "Feanaro" or Feanor.  After bearing him, Miriel wasted away and went to the House of Mandos. This is what elves do instead of dying, their souls are bound to the world and so the house of the Vala Mandos is a peaceful resting place for them. Finwe married again to Indis from the tribe of Ingwe, and had two more sons: Ngolofinwe and Arafinwe. Ngolofinwe would eventually become known as Fingolfin. Some said Feanor caused Miriel's weakness, they said he had stolen her strength.

But that was only the first of the troubles Feanor caused. He made three gems in which he had trapped the light of Laureling and Tyelperion. They were beautiful, the most beautiful things ever made by elvish hands: so everyone agreed. So beautiful that Melkor, one of the Valar [also secretly evil], wanted them. He turned Feanor against the other Valar, making him believe that they didn't truly care about the elves but only their usefulness as servants. He wanted to get Feanor away from the protection of Finwe, Finarfin, and others. Then he destroyed the Two Trees. Feanor's Silmarils were the only pieces of them left: but Feanor would not part with the jewels. For this, Feanor was exiled. Angry, Feanor went to Alqualonde and stole ships from the Teleri elves there, killing some of them in the process. The Kinslaying. Though Fingolfin went with Feanor and participated in the Kinslaying, Feanor was too much in a rush and abandoned his brother. Fingolfin might have turned around and begged forgiveness of the Valar. But he did not.

Fingolfin chose to look on his brother with different eyes. So, he chose to lead the people who followed him across the Helcaraxe: the bridge of ice that connected Middle Earth to Valinor in those days. Meanwhile, Manwe had caught wind of Feanor's actions and cursed Feanor's family. Fingolfin was thus cursed, though less strongly than his brother. He had no desire in his heart to own the Silmarils, it was enough for him to admire his brother's creations and be proud of his connection to someone so skilled. He simply understood something that Manwe did not: it is never right to wrong someone just because they have wronged you. That simply escalates the conflict: it does nothing to solve the problem.  As Feanor's brother, it was Fingolfin's duty to support him. Just because Feanor abandoned him, didn't mean he should abandon Feanor. He decided to instead use their exile as an opportunity to defy evil directly.

Fingolfin chose to challenge Melkor to single combat, knowing he would lose. Now, Ngolofinwe means "Wise Finwe" in Quenya, so we must investigate this action. On the face of it, it seems stupid. He's the King, and he's going to ride to certain death in front of his people who have no home in this new land. What? Ah, but all is not as it first appears. Feanor's masterwork has been turned into a curse. Now Fingolfin's masterwork will turn the curse into blessings. He cannot keep Manwe's curse from taking effect: Fingolfin does not have the divine power of the Valar. What he can do, is modulate his own behavior. Manwe has cursed the creations of the Noldor to fade, be lost or destroyed. Fingolfin is going to turn that curse into the source of their strength. The strength they will need to oppose evil and defeat it, the strength to do the job the Valar are unwilling to do. Fingolfin is challenging Melkor, but he is also challenging Manwe. His actions are an indictment of the Valar and their self-centered ideology. This is necessary, because the Noldor have every reason to be angry with the Valar and Manwe in particular: even though they have done something very wrong, and which they know is very wrong. If this is not addressed, then the Noldor will be vulnerable to the manipulations of Melkor. But that is not all. He is also showing them the proper course of action in the face of suffering.

Indeed he was showing the proper course of action in the face of suffering not just to elves, but also to the Valar themselves. Elves have no reason to fear death, they go to Mandos when their bodies are destroyed to live peacefully in the blessed lands. But that does not mean they will necessarily oppose evil, or that they cannot be tempted into evil. Indeed, it means there is also no end to their suffering. That is the tragedy of elves which gives them their aura of mystery: they, like the Valar, are bound to the world forever. They must heal or go mad, and Melkor can easily hijack the process of healing from grief. He has every reason to do so. See, a mad elf is an orc. They are abused so much that they dissociate: the memories of their former elvish personalities locked behind a wall of rage and self-hatred. Orcs aren't evil because they are ugly, their bodily ugliness is the remains of the torture which turned them evil. Tolkien was intimately familiar with the ways that unhealed trauma could twist a person psychically or even physically: he'd seen his compatriots from the war destroy themselves with drink, obsessions and psychotic behavior. He furiously self-medicated with his art: and indeed that is probably the reason why his mythos seems so vivid. It was born from pain: not really constructed, but in fact begotten. And this leads me back to Fingolfin, through a concept that Tolkien called estel.

Take a deep breath, because we're about to dive into the linguistic deep end here. The stories that we know from the Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion are the mere tip of the iceberg when it comes to Tolkien. To him, they were secondary. To Tolkien, the whole point of the works were the languages. In particular, Quenya and Sindarin: the elvish tongues. Many thanks to the übernerd Helge K. Fauskanger and to the rogue of words Thorsten Renk. Thanks to their websites Ardalambion and Parma Tyelpellassiva I've been able to learn a lot about linguistics, through Elvish, and was able to work out this derivation. We start with a Base, a skeleton from which to form a word. Our word estel is Sindarin, but it seems to be a rare example of a borrowing from Quenya: which narratively makes sense, since this concept is connected to the Valar and Valinor. It would have started it's evolution as the Base SED, a proto-word that suggested the idea of "rest" or "calm" to the elves. But this base would only suggest a momentary phenomenon, and a fairly minor feeling of mere calm (for example, it also gave us the Sindarin words sidh, meaning "peace" with the digraph "dh" indicating the sound "th" as in "the"). It would simply suggest a period of little activity. We need a strong word representing an enduring phenomenon, not suggesting a lack of activity but rather an attitude of obstinate serenity that seems to defy logic. We need ESEDE: with the stem vowel reduplicated twice, both prefixed and suffixed. And we need a noun, while this base could represent any part of speech. There are several nominal suffixes, but the one we need is "-la", a suffix denoting a tangible thing: because we are talking about an attitude that can be spread to other people, not an emotion. Now we have a word: êsedela. The middle vowel in a word like this usually drops out: giving us esdela. Finally, short vowels at the ends of words had a tendency to drop out in Elvish, so we get esdel. In Noldorin Quenya, the cluster "sd" turned into "st", the "t" being influenced by the voiceless "s" giving estel.  In Vanyarin Quenya the opposite happened, and so the word turns out as ezdel: with the "s" being influenced by the voiced "d".

Either way, we have a word that is not readily translatable at least into modern English. The Greek word αποκαλυψε (apocalypse) comes close. Calypso is a verb meaning "to turn", and "apo" means "upwards". The upwards direction then as now was associated with goodness and hopefulness. But this word is burdened with many connotations by modern associations: estel is pure, being newly invented. This concept of estel is what Fingolfin understands which Melkor, and Manwe and virtually everyone else in the world, does not. It is not a momentary phenomenon, a place of quiet where rest can be easily found. It is instead the ability to look at bad situations and see them as opportunities to do good: not reacting out of fear, dismay or anger, but instead reacting with grace and love. Fingolfin didn't simply understand the concept of estel: his death exemplifies it.

His valiant death is an example of someone acting out of estel when confronted with evil. Melkor's overwhelming power is not a source of fear for Fingolfin: it is instead an opportunity to turn Manwe's curse into a blessing, and to show others how to turn Manwe's curse into a blessing. If the creations of the Noldor are doomed to be consumed by the passage of time: then let them be consumed for the purpose of opposing evil. If the Noldor are doomed to suffer anyway: then they might as well do something that would inevitably entail suffering, like oppose evil. Manwe's curse, through the application of estel, can become the thing which makes the Noldor into an unstoppable force for good in the world. In the end, in fact, Fingolfin will force Manwe's hand: Finwe and Finarfin upon hearing of Fingolfin's death along with Eärendil will petition the Valar to put an end to Melkor. He will also inspire some among the Maiar (that is, the lesser angels who are servants to the Valar) to come to Middle-Earth and help the creatures there to face evil directly: these would become known as the Istari, or the wizards. Manwe's curse is indeed great, and it was made from Feanor's abuse of the Valar's blessings. Yet in Fingolfin's hands, the curse becomes a source of blessings: for the Noldor and for those who chose to stand with them. And when the final members of the Noldor leave Middle Earth, they leave Estel behind: quite literally. In order to hide his true identity, Elrond gave Aragorn the name "Estel". Aragorn represents estel for Gondor: turning that city's curse, it's location close to Mordor, into a blessing instead of a problem. Gondor's location makes it vulnerable to the forces of Sauron, true: but only if it's leader lacks the strength to oppose those forces. But if Gondor's leader has the will to oppose evil: then it is well placed to lead the fight against the orcs. 

Most beautifully of all, this mythos was and is estel for our world. Tolkien saw the demise of the horse as a draft animal, and the introduction of the gasoline engine: and he didn't like any of this one bit. But far from simply being a curmudgeon, Tolkien was prescient: his criticisms of modernism are not those of a romantic apologist, they are rather the same ones that postmodernists would make later on. He didn't hate everything new reflexively, nor did he have any rose-tinted glasses about the recent past. His criticisms can be boiled down into three things: 1) environmental degradation, 2) lack of attention to quality, 3) cultural insensitivity. But far from despairing and giving in to depression: Tolkien saw an opportunity to effect change. 

He is directly responsible for the paradigm shift of the 1960s, when inventors abruptly shifted from developing labor-saving devices to developing communications technology. Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring was published in 1954. It fired the imaginations of young people instantly: speaking to the deep-seated problems that they had with their parents' attitudes. They were not rebels without a cause: they were rebels with a very real cause, even if they could not put their cause into words. Tolkien and the Beatles don't seem like they could possibly have anything in common: but they were driven by the same deep-seated dissatisfaction with modernism, and this same idea of estel. Nothing ever written in the English language exemplifies the concept of estel better than the song "Here Comes the Sun". The puzzling line "and baby I say, it's alright" seems to even hint that this indeed what they were trying to convey. Why would the speaker need to assure his significant other that the sunrise was a good thing? because s/he views the sunrise as simply the prelude to more pointless pain. When Lennon sings "and baby I say, it's alright" he is saying that the sunrise will indeed bring pain, but the pain is something you can use. It is not just a thing that you must endure: you can turn it into something good through your actions. That is estel: the divine wisdom of Fingolfin.

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.

The Madness of Athena: Ancient Responses to Mental Illness

We have only recently begun to talk about mental illness as a society, which can lead to the illusion that it is a new phenomenon. In the same way that laypeople observe the uptick in early diagnoses of autism and blame vaccines for them, many people blame modern social ills for mental illness. We must have more stressful jobs, or perhaps we live in communities that are uniquely unsafe, or perhaps we are overwhelmed by the amount of information that bombards us. Others will say that people are becoming weaker, less capable of dealing with the problems of the world. They will say that our modern comforts have made us fragile and unable to accomplish the kinds of feats our ancestors did. But both of these arguments are fundamentally wrong. Mental illness is not a new phenomenon by any means.

Normally it's hard to diagnose someone who lived a long time ago with a mental disorder (or, for that matter, a physical one). But Sophocles gives us a clear-cut example of what we would now call PTSD in his play Ajax. Sure, he uses the figure of Athena in order to induce the disorder: but she can be removed from the play entirely and the story still makes sense. Sophocles simply had to provide a cause for Ajax's madness that his audience would understand. The story takes place after the Trojan War: a ten year long conflict, where rests from the chaos of battle were few and far between. Ajax has fought bravely and well for ten years, only to find that there is no glory in war. What will Salamis, where his father is King, have when Ajax returns that it does not already have? So, he tries to win Achilles' armor to take home as a trophy for his city. When that doesn't work, Ajax slowly spirals into violence and then suicide. Some of the clear symptoms of PTSD that Ajax exhibits include: obsessive thought patterns and behavior, inexplicable mood swings, paranoia, a psychotic break, self-loathing and suicidal ideation.  Now, Sophocles was writing this story centuries later: during the Peloponnesian war. Clearly, he was arguing against going to war, by bringing up it's consequences. Athena is the goddess of strategy and a warrior goddess: she is simply a metaphor for the war itself. In Ancient Greek theology however, it is typically Apollo or Dionysus who causes madness, not Athena. Sophocles' audience would have immediately been intrigued by this choice. He knew he was writing for discerning theatergoers: the only thing the citizens of ancient Athens liked more than watching a play, was arguing about it. To portray Ajax's disorder with such clarity, Sophocles must have either suffered it himself or known someone who did.

That should not be a surprise either: all citizens of Athens were required to fight whenever the city voted to go to war. This was a measure to ensure that men did not go to war too eagerly: there was no getting out of fighting it. But, this was a warrior culture: this measure in no way prevented people from voting for wars that were in the city's interest. Athens had recently fought a very long drawn-out and costly war, with the Achaemenid Empire. Now, conflict brewed between them and their erstwhile allies-the Spartans- over trade matters. The machinations of Pericles' adoptive son Alcybiades were putting the city on edge. That is the context that framed the actor who played Ajax for the first time in the great amphitheater in Athens.

We do not know if this was the first, second or third of the tragedies that Sophocles presented that day, alongside a comic play.  But we can imagine his audience, with gyros in one hand and wine in the other, watching with growing horror as this terrible drama unfolds. We can imagine men crying, seeing their own pain or that of their loved ones played out on the stage. Perhaps we could even imagine them shouting at Ajax to stop his behavior, even though they know how the story ends. We can imagine women setting aside their meals, as the horror of this story unfolds: not wanting to eat or drink while Ajax suffers. It isn't a tragedy in the conventional or Aristotelian sense: where the hero's flaws inevitably lead him into darkness no matter how mightily he struggles against his fate. Here, Ajax does not struggle. He is lead to his death by his own desires, like a cow to the slaughter. We would perhaps call it horror, if it were written today. Ajax is not a hero, he is the protagonist of a story that is set up to critique his behavior. The message of the story is "don't be like Ajax".

But it is not an individually directed message: Greek society was fundamentally one that valued the community over the individual. This is a message directed at the community, the polis, as a whole. Ajax is the inevitable product of war: his madness is caused by Athena, a representation of war as a concept. He, like all of the Homeric heroes, is a representation of his city. It is the responsibility of the community, not of the individual, to prevent this kind of disaster. Ajax cannot prevent his madness, it was caused by a goddess. But the war could never have happened. This is an anti-war story.

There was no medicine available in the ancient world for PTSD, no professional therapy. The only responses available were acceptance, and prevention. War drives men mad, vote no on the war. The message would have been very clear to Sophocles' original audience. But the genius of this play, is that it speaks to the warrior experience. It's not an outsider scolding the military for their actions while they enjoy the benefits of those actions. It's a war story told by a veteran that speaks to a warrior's heart. Every man in that audience had probably seen a friend or relative go into this destructive spiral: some of them had probably seen a suicide similar to that portrayed in this play  before. Now they're having to decide whether to go into the mouth of the beast again, and maybe whether to send their sons into it. Sophocles wants them to go to the vote knowing exactly what they are signing up for. His prediction is chillingly accurate. The Peloponnesian War slowly destroyed Athens, as it compromised more and more of it's democratic values for the sake of short-term money-making. By the time the Spartans showed up at their doorstep, Athens was a hollow shell of it's former self.

Agent Hotchner: the Leader of Leaders

When your main cast are all cops, no matter of what description, you have a problem you need to solve. Law Enforcement attracts natural leaders, and if you are a woman or other type of minority you have to be a dominant personality to make it. Most cops are natural leaders, independent people who don't like those that interfere with them but try to interfere with others. Often they have deep-seated issues with authority. How do you keep a cast full of these people together? how do they cooperate effectively if none of them want to follow each others' instructions? how can they work together if they are constantly meddling in each others' affairs? There are a few ways of course. One is to have them all be recognized experts in a skill, and establish those boundaries firmly early on. This can set the story up for a devastating twist if one of the team members is lost. But, there's another route to take as well: one that allows the team to survive even if it's composition changes. A super-leader. A character who is inspirational enough that otherwise aggressively dominant people look to them for guidance and discipline.

Like Supervisory Special Agent Aaron Hotchner, from Criminal Minds. yeah yeah, that show again. I binge just like the rest of you ok. Hotchner, or "Hotch" as he is known is not the type of character you expect on this type of show. In fact, he's more like the typical hero of a Noir film or a Western: a man with a dark past seeking personal redemption. Hotch used to be a Federal Prosecutor, with the unsettling stare to prove it. It's never quite said: but it's clear what happened. Hotch hated putting people to death whom he believed had a chance to change. As an FBI agent he has both the ability to stop people from getting so far that they have to be killed, and the ability to offer plea deals so that they won't face that possibility. But there is one important respect in which Hotch is not like a typical Noir or Western film hero: he's not a loner. In fact, he was the one who assembled the BAU team: before him, BAU detectives worked alone as simple consultants for local police. What's particularly intriguing about him as a character, is that despite his position of authority he is not an aggressive man. Rather, he is a natural defender. He never threatens someone unless it's to protect someone else, nor does he ever shoot except to defend someone else. In the whole series, Hotch never attacks with a gun or even shoots to defend his own person: it is always to defend either a victim, a team member, or some other ally. Pretty surprising when you consider that just about every episode has a gunshot in it somewhere. Nor is Hotch ever aggressive towards his colleagues, even when he's angry. If he does get snappy, it's because pressure is being placed on him from outside. He is however, stubborn. Challenging him head on is an exercise in futility, he just digs his heels in deeper and deeper. He simply does not give up. This is a flaw, and sometimes it certainly drives the other characters nuts or even leads the team into danger. But it's also why he can do his job. Hotch can go toe to toe with the worst scum of humanity and not become like them himself because he is stubbornly committed to goodness.

That is not to say however that he cannot empathize with the killers. In fact, he does. Hotch's best quality is that he is unwilling to look away from them, no matter how horrific their actions. Hotch refuses to shy away from walking the tightrope between empathizing with the very real pain that many of these people feel, and condoning their actions. In fact, he is often the first person to confront them with the question of why they believe that their actions logically follow from their emotional experiences. Many are genuinely surprised to learn that others feel the same emotions they do, but don't feel the need to kill or hurt others because of it. That is, when the villain of the week isn't a good old fashioned psychopath. There are plenty of those on Criminal Minds too: for the non-dramatic filler episodes that they don't expect the audience to remember. Or for the multi-episode arcs where the killer attacks one of the team members personally. These, Hotch doesn't bother trying to empathize with because he knows it won't do any good. The only thing to do with them is to put them in the slammer.  But, a killer need not be a psychopath: and indeed the most common type of villain presented on the show is not. The most common type is the sexual sadist. Hotch is the perfect foil to this type of killer: because he represents everything they think they are (if they are also narcissists), or wish they could be. They fantasize about being dominant, and perceive themselves as underappreciated: but Hotch actually is dominant. He is in fact given genuine and undisguised fealty by other dominant personalities. Yet he has gained that place by doing exactly the opposite of what the killers think that dominant people do. These killers fail to elude him, no matter how smart they are, because they've been misled. It's a deconstruction of toxic masculinity, which is not what we expect from a cop show.

Yes, I did just say "fealty".  It's a word that Americans don't like and for good reason. But, it's warranted here. Several times, the tech analyst Garcia outright calls Hotch "my liege". Although she has a flair for the dramatic, it is very clear in this context that she isn't really joking. When Agent Jareau gets what is obviously a better job, Hotch actually has to twist her arm to get her to take it: and she comes back after only a few episodes. Now, Agent Jareau is one of these dominant personalities that Hotch nevertheless is able to command. Like I said before, in order to make it as a woman in law enforcement you have to be a dominant personality. In fact the show goes out of it's way to highlight how much of a dominant she is in the episode "Jones". In this episode the local NOPD detective, William LaMontagne Jr. a clearly submissive man trying and failing to fill his father's big shoes, falls for her while the team is working on a case there.  In the next season he reappears at Agent Gideon's resignation party where he and Jareau have a heartfelt conversation. This conversation ends with an astonishing twist: he commits to giving up his career as a cop in order to move halfway across the country, marry her and be a stay-at-home dad. She didn't ask him to do this, and it isn't presented as a sacrifice. It's clear that he actually wanted to get out of that job, and away from the gender expectations of the Cajun culture he was raised in. French-influenced Cajun culture does tend to place a lot of pressure on men to take leadership positions, as well as to be domineering in their personal interactions. When confronted with a naturally dominant woman he instantly throws all of that to the wind: showing maturity and unusual self-acceptance. Rather than seeing himself as cowardly or weak, he revels in playing a supportive role alongside an aggressive and tough leader.

Agent Jareau's aggression is emotional rather than physical, because she is female and fighting with larger stronger opponents wouldn't be very smart. But she is unafraid to attack a killers' delusions head on or hit them where it hurts in order to flush them out, even if it paints a target on her head. However, as a member of the BAU, she never actually has to make herself a target. Hotch always has her engineer the statements made to the press so that he will be the target of the killer's rage. And this is the primary reason why Agent Jareau feels the way she does towards Hotch. She knows he sacrifices his own safety to protect her on a regular basis.

Secondarily, despite being in a position of official authority, Hotch has no trouble letting Jareau be something of the team mom. She has the authority to decide which cases the team works on, and he allows her quite a bit of freedom in doing her job. He does not feel threatened even when she needs to be handed more authority. Once he even outright asks her to take on more authority for a case where her particular talent for communications is critical to getting a favorable outcome. He lets her handle meddling reporters, and his orders to her are deliberately vague. In other words, he does not question her loyalty to the team.

This is one of his most interesting traits. Although he is in a position of official authority, Agent Hotchner has never demanded personal loyalty from any of the team. This is precisely why he can do what he does: he demands loyalty to the team, but has no concern for whether people are loyal to him. This is of course because he isn't in this position for the purpose of having power: he's here on a personal mission. People are loyal to Hotch precisely because he doesn't demand it. In particular, Agent Morgan is fanatically loyal to Hotch, but he would never choose to follow a man who demanded loyalty. At one point, Hotch needs to give up his leadership position for the benefit of the team. Morgan is the one who takes over. But when Agent Rossi voices concern that Morgan might not be willing to give up his position, not only is Hotch unfazed he's actually dismissive. He is completely correct to be: Morgan hands over power without any question or trouble, as soon as Hotch is allowed to be back in charge. Now, Morgan is another natural leader: and also falls into the category of "could only have made it by being aggressively dominant" because Morgan is black. He's been willing to grab power for his own advancement before. But he is genuinely troubled when Hotch asks him to take over power, not because he believes that he's incapable of doing the job, but because it goes against what he views as the natural order of the world. This is why I used the word "fealty". Morgan isn't simply loyal to Hotch, he isn't simply willing to put his life on the line for Hotch. He believes that it's a violation of the world's natural order if Hotch isn't in charge of the team.

Now, not everyone on the team believes in the idea of a natural world order: Morgan is somewhat unusual in that regard. But there's nothing unusual about his feelings towards Hotch: when Agent Strauss (who is Hotch's boss) is attempting to remove him from power, the team members all speak up for him vociferously. They all not only believe he should be on the team, but that he should be it's leader: again, despite most of them being naturally dominant personalities.  These are not people who usually feel like they need a leader, they're more likely to resent authority figures than to feel like they need one. They can operate independently, and they are unafraid to question anyone claiming authority including Hotch. But, they become almost desperately afraid at the idea that Hotch could be taken away from them. Those team members who aren't naturally dominant, express their fealty in a more overt way. Garcia outright calls Hotch "my liege" more than once, and Dr. Reid shows him filial piety. Reid has issues trusting people, though with good reason: his mother is schizophrenic. But he trusts Hotch beyond what would be normal for a friend or battle comrade: not just with his life and his darkest secrets. No, Reid is willing to let Hotch hurt him for the greater good. He once comes up with a plan to outwit a killer that involves Hotch kicking him (so that he can steal Hotch's second gun and use it to incapacitate the heavily armed criminal). He is later genuinely surprised that Hotch was gentle with him. 

Now, yes, Reid is in need of a father figure. But why does he show this level of devotion to Hotch and not to Agent Gideon or Agent Rossi? Because Hotch with worthy. Because Hotch reacts to this love appropriately, by mirroring it back. When Reid is in trouble, Hotch goes on the warpath. The thing is, Hotch finds Reid annoying. They don't like each other, if they didn't work together they would probably never be friends. But because Reid expects Hotch to look out for his welfare, Hotch does an impeccable job of doing just that: without any expectation of reward. In fact, he faces punishment for doing that and doesn't care. And it is this which finally explains why he has the position that he has, why he deserves to be the leader of this team. Why, if there is such a thing as a natural order for the world, then part of that is Hotch being in charge. He goes all out for people he doesn't even like, even when facing punishment from superiors, without any expectation of reward. He can lead people who are natural leaders because he is selfless. When he decides what to do, the question he asks himself is "what does this person need?" not "what do I feel like doing?"

This is even true when he's dealing with the killers. He's not thinking about what they want, after all he knows what they want. He's thinking about what they need in order to grow as people, and be productive members of society. Many of them have compulsions or addictions, either to the killing itself or to torture. Jail and therapy could very well lead to them actually kicking their habit. An addiction to hurting people is not fundamentally different from an addiction to alcohol or drugs, in terms of brain chemistry.  Others, especially the younger ones, could simply outgrow their problems in jail. Many young terrorists do grow up to regret their actions, their youthful disaffection wearing off as they fully mature and their life situation changes.

Criminal Minds: Focus on the Heroes, not the Villains

Serial Killers often get romanticized. They are often handsome, charming, charismatic or perhaps just daredevils. Their twisted minds are fascinating to us neurotypical schmucks, their lives are full of danger and adventure appealing to the animal instincts in all of us. Their behavior satisfies our desires for deviance and rebellion: we start to see the victims as they do, as symbols of society's corruption. We forget that they were human beings just like us.  Sometimes the cops who catch them are even demonized or blamed for causing more problems, although the most loved ones commit suicide before they can be caught. The line between freedom fighter or soldier of God, and serial killer can get hazy. Some would say there is no line at all. Too often, Hollywood plays into this narrative about killers. This narrative that tells our boys that the way to solve their problems is with a gun or a knife.  Noirs are often full of gray morality, with the detective often being little better than the criminal.  Even worse: stories of murderous duos are made into romance stories or buddy stories. Like the classic Noir, Criminal Minds satisfies the audience's desire to examine the mind of a serial killer. Unlike a classic Noir, Criminal Minds does not glamorize the killer. It glamorizes the agents who take down the killer.
Now, the FBI that exists on the show is highly idealized even if still imperfect. It's response to racism, sexism and homophobia is what we would like to see from a governmental organization, but not what we actually see. What we actually have is an FBI that spends more time investigating the sex lives of kids who went to a nightclub rather than the life of the man who gunned them down. An agency that prefers to act as the morality police, while perpetrators get away thanks to corruption and local police incompetence or unpreparedness. The Behavioral Analysis Unit is real, but they're more likely to be reading this blog for signs of anarchist sympathies, than catching a terrorist or a murderer. The government we have is so far from understanding how real humans behave that they would seriously consider the possibility that terrorists used the general chat of a video game to communicate. A chat log that millions of people worldwide are reading in real time. In the age of Onion routers that seems highly implausible to say the least. Nevermind that reading these chat logs meant snooping on thousands of peoples'  sexual lives, as well as other private business. All of that however is unimportant for the show. After all, the purpose of fiction is to imagine what is possible: what could be but isn't.
What could be, is an FBI who truly tries their hardest to protect the citizens of this nation. What could be, is a BAU that turns their brilliant minds to catching the sickest criminals in the world. What could be, is a government that leverages every resource to keep it's citizens safe and help them live better lives. What could be, is a team of heroic agents who put their lives on the line for each other and the potential victims of killers every day. If they were soldiers, they would be the most decorated in the world after what they've been through during the series. They've sacrificed other careers, marriage, and sometimes their physical or mental health. Although they live in America among all the comforts of ordinary society, they have more in common with people living in war zones. They are five people with totally different personalities, all motivated by a common purpose: to deliver justice. They all know that despite their impressive talents, they cannot always succeed. They are all complicated people who make mistakes: but there is no question that they are heroes. When push comes to shove, they choose good over evil every time. That is what separates them definitively from the people they hunt: whether those people are troubled kids, vengeful victims, or remorseless psychos. But the show is not about the killers or about their kills. It's not about the victims like Law & Order SVU, or the crime scenes like CSI. It's about the BAU agents themselves. The villains and victims are foils for the agents, designed to bring out their character traits: to challenge them and make them grow.
This is not a reality show, nor is it designed to feel like one. Of course all the science is researched and at least plausible if not 100% agreed upon. All the theories that the agents use to profile the suspects are regarded as at least plausible by scientists, and the forensics is beyond controversy. But, the suspects are carefully thought out. They are not for the most part actual killers, although all the episodes are likely based on actual cases. But both the killers and the agents are based on literary tropes, and the structure of the episodes is literary.
The show has a standard villain-of-the-week structure: with the killer generally being apprehended at the end of each episode, even if he is going to appear again later. This structure is used to drive home the show's point: the killers are actually less interesting than the people who catch them. The most common types of killer are presented as actually being common: the sexual sadist, the pure psychopath, the home invader, the vigilante. This makes them, for the audience, routine: a filler episode. The audience knows to expect that the bulk of the episode will be spent on interpersonal relationships, not on the daring escapades or gory details of the villain. There won't be anything particularly interesting about the villain: instead we'll likely be introduced to a great side character, and/or treated to some team drama. There are of course the memorable villains: the serial murderers with huge body counts, the avengers, stalkers, terrorists, psychotics with lurid delusions, the mentally ill or impaired who accidentally kill, the teams, the weird cults etc. Here, the viewer knows, the villain(s) will be chosen as a foil to one of the team's members or for the team as a whole. These episodes might take some twists and turns, and even become half-season story arcs. But at no time is there ever a season-long villain. This has to be done on purpose, in the era when television is straying more and more towards long arcs and away from it's episodic roots. The purpose is to keep the focus squarely on the heroes. It is to reinforce the idea that the purpose of the killers is to test the heroes, to make them grow. There are season-long arcs, and it is important to watch the episodes in order: but they are focused solely on the heroes, whether it's about one team member's personal growth or the growth of a relationship between two of the team members. This is a meditation on the darkest parts of humanity, and the evil at the heart of our society: it only masquerades as a detective thriller.