Subversives

I don't know what they have to say;
It makes no difference anyway;
Whatever it is, I'm against it.

— Groucho Marx

"Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous," historian Henry Steele Commager observed. "They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive."

But all subversives aren't alike.  

Some enrage; others merely entertain.

Karl Marx did the former; Groucho Marx, the latter.

Challenging the status quo—as Karl did—rattles its guardians to no end; saying something delightfully pointless—as Groucho did—does, too.

It's mostly a matter of degree.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, when subversion could get you imprisoned or hanged, rich Europeans clandestinely collected the subversive writings of hacks, including snarky religious tracts, satires of court life, erotic books and pamphlets, and manuals of the occult. 

Living under an authoritarian church and state, the European elites thought that collecting the writings of witty upstarts was chic—a titliating form of entertainment; an urbane, but harmless, hobby. 

Then along came the sincerely subversive Condorcet to inflame the French Revolution and put a damper on the elites' collecting.

The 19th century saw the comparably cantankerous Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzshe attack church and state from their wholly new and explosive vantage points. These philosophers produced subversive ideas that shook society in the 20th century, and today inform the "woke" movement. 

Guardians of the status quo were not amused—and still aren't.

But, whether critics or clowns, subversives contribute to our wellbeing by making our efforts to conform to authority bearable, says political scientist John Christian Larsen.

Subversives act as steam valves to reduce pressure on our psyches.

"Letting off steam might be more important in social life than we’ve recognized," Larsen says. 

"Suppressing what we really think is widely understood to be bad for our emotional health. People who have had to hide their thoughts in order to appear as conformists to the prevailing orthodoxies have often developed deep psychological problems, which in turn can lead to ‘explosions’. 

"Meanwhile, if people can express themselves, even only clandestinely, they might be relieved of this pressure."

Reading and Survival

The man who can read and remember and ponder the big realities is a man keyed to survival of the species.

— John D. MacDonald

Worse than threatening democracy, illiterates threaten our species.

A fictional character aboard a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale concluded that 34 years ago.

In 1985, the National Endowment for the Arts asked the prolific paperback mystery writer John D. MacDonald ("John D" to his millions of fans) to contribute an essay promoting literacy.

John D described the 30-page result, Reading for Survival, as a "bad-tempered mouse of 7,200 words" that portrayed "the terrible isolation of the non-reader, his life without meaning because he cannot comprehend the world in which he lives."

The essay depicts a deskside conversation between John D's two best-known fictional characters, the freelance crimefighter Travis McGee and his brainy sidekick Ludweg Meyer.

Meyer does most of the talking. He theorizes that the human brain evolved into a warehouse of memories, because memories allowed prehistoric man to cope with the environment.

McGee responds, “Man learned and remembered everything he had to know about survival in his world. Then he invented so many tricks and tools, he had to invent writing. More stuff got written down than any man could possibly remember. Or use. Books are artificial memory. And it’s there when you want it. But for just surviving, you don’t need the books. Not any more.”

Meyer counters, no; books are essential. 

"The world is huge and monstrously complicated," he tells McGee. "Like our ancestors of fifty thousand years ago, if we—as a species rather than an individual—are uniformed, or careless, or indifferent to the facts, then survival as a species is in serious doubt.”

McGee doubts anyone could possibly comprehend today's complex environment.

"How do we relate to reality?" Meyer replies. "How do we begin to comprehend it? By using that same marvelous brain our ancestor used. By the exercise of memory. How do we take stock of these memories? By reading, Travis. Reading!"

Non-readers, Meyer continues, threaten the whole human species' survival. They're flat-footed and incompetent and, worse, give birth to more non-readers, who "become a new generation of illiterates, of victims." 

Non-readers' ignorance creates immanent risks, too, Meyer adds, because it makes them gullible. "Their basic lack of education, of reading, of being able to comprehend the great truths of reality has left empty places in their heads, into which great mischief has crept."

"And you have a cure for all this, of course," McGee teases.

Meyer's only solution (true to form) is to drink away their sorrows. "Let us trudge back toward home, and stop at the bar at the Seaview for something tall and cold, with rum in it," he says.

Flash forward three decades and our need to drink rum is only stronger.

The Pew Research Center says the population of non-readers in America is growing. Right now, one in four Americans doesn't read a single book—or even a part of a book— annually. That's up from one in five 10 years ago. No surprise, most of these non-readers are poorly educated and broke.

But not all. 

A lot of educated and well-off Americans have become non-readers, too, says Adam Garfinkle in National Affairs. Thanks to their "always on" digital devices, they are unable to read analytically. They have, for all purposes, given up "deep reading."

"Deep reading has in large part informed our development as humans, in ways both physiological and cultural," Garfinkle says.

"If you do not deep read, you do not cultivate a capacity to think, imagine, and create; you therefore may not realize that anything more satisfying than a video game even exists. Fully immerse yourself in digital 'life,' and timelines will flatten into unconnected dots, rendering a person present-oriented and unable to either remember or plan well. That permanently 'zoned out' person will become easy prey for the next demagogue with an attractive promise and a mesmerizing spectacle."

John D. was right—more than he dreamed. Our nation of one-time readers is going full zombie.

As a species, we may be doomed.

Poison

Fox News' latest conservaturd: the decision by the estate of Dr. Seuss to stop printing six of the author's books represents "cancel culture at silliest."

"A whole bunch of childhood legends are suddenly being put on cultural trial," Fox commentator Howard Kurtz says. 

"Past generations produced artists and politicians who upheld ideas that are utterly unacceptable today. But we have more important things to do than constantly trying to whitewash every book and show produced by our flawed past."

I'm happy to chide the champions of witless wokeness. But Kurtz and his network—as always—are dead wrong.

Dr. Seuss Enterprises made its decision not because it wants to "cancel" its sugar daddy (why would it?) but because, as a spokesperson said, the six discontinued books "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong."

But, racist zealots that they are, Kurtz and his network refuse to admit kids are influenced by books—and that some of those books are poison.

As caring parents, we keep poisons out of kids' reach for good reason. And poisonous books, too.

Consider, for example, The Poison Mushroom, a children's picture-book published by Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher. 

Used in German classrooms between 1938 and 1945, The Poison Mushroom enjoyed a vast, captive audience until the Nazi's defeat and the Allies' "denazification" initiative.

The book explains how, just as it's hard to tell a poisonous from an edible mushroom, it's hard to tell a Jew from a Gentile. 

The Poison Mushroom teaches kids to identify Jews through their purported actions: they abuse servants; kidnap, molest and murder children; rape pubescent girls; torture animals; cheat naive customers; and worship money and Karl Marx.

During the Nuremburg Trials, one jurist called The Poison Mushroom "obscene."

Given the strong resemblance between Julius Streicher's and QAnon's beliefs, I wouldn't be surprised to see Kurtz and his network next rail against last year's "cancellation" of The Poison Mushroom by Amazon.

Perhaps it's time to cancel Fox News.

Keynes Reigns

The rich, to be blunt, are shitting bricks.

Democrats' American Rescue Plan will jazz the economy by putting $2 trillion into the hands of peasants.

The rich aren't used to such unfair treatment. Pish posh.

What's it mean? 

Reaganomics is dead. Keynes again reigns.

Keynes claimed spending—by households, businesses, and the government—is the driver of the economy. That's spending, not siphoning, accumulating, banking, or hoarding. When households and businesses don't spend, government must.

Prepare for the brainless lackeys of the rich—the GOP—to begin recycling their three foundational cracker-barrel wisdoms:

• The government is a family. Families must not deficit-spend. Just think what would have happened had June spent more than Ward's salary. Wally and the Beaver would have lived their entire adult lives in poverty. (Don't bring up the fact that the Cleavers couldn't print money, set interest rates, or levy taxes.)
  
  
• Government only builds "bridges to nowhere." All government spending is wasteful. (Don't you dare mention the national highway system, space exploration, or the Internet. They were fake news!)
  
  
• Peasants are your moral inferiors. The rich shoulder the weight of the whole world, while peasants just loot from them. Handouts will only incent the latter to laze all day, sipping wine, texting, and birthing more brown babies. (Don't remind us the Kardashians do those things, too.)

Don't listen to the GOP's stale and quite stupid malarkey. 

Celebrate, instead, the triumphant return from exile of John Maynard Keynes.

On Junk

Buy buy, says the sign in the shop window.
Why why, says the junk in the yard.

— Paul McCartney

In the 14th century, the English word junk meant "old rope." British boat builders repurposed junk as caulk, threading it throughout hulls to ensure they didn't leak. The word was borrowed from the Latin iuncus, meaning "reed."

The meaning of junk was extended over the next three centuries to include any "nautical refuse;" and, by the 19th century, to include any "refuse you can reuse." Trash—an Old Norse word meaning "deadfall"—was worthless, junk was not.

Junker, meaning a "beat-up car," is an Americanism that came into use in the 20th century. I once asked my late father-in-law, a native Mississippian, why Southerners always kept junkers in their front yards. He patiently explained that, in the South, when cars ceased to work, they automatically became storage lockers for spare parts.

Up North, where I grew up, we were less practical: we hauled junkers to the junkyard. And we called them not junkers, but jalopies. Jalopy is another 20th century Americanism. In the 1920s, longshoremen in New Orleans called the abandoned cars they shipped to the junkyards of Jalapa, Mexico, jalopies. The name stuck.

I now live in the North again, in a pretty subdivision with an HOA. The HOA prohibits jalopies; indeed, it prohibits many things, and homeowners can only change their yards and houses with the express permission of an Architectural Control Committee.

I'm not currently a member of the committee, but I would love to be. Were I a member, I would print business cards bearing the title "Commissioner of Good Taste." That's a job I've wanted for as long as I can remember.

Italians have Commissioners of Good Taste. They work for regional governments and ensure local builders and residents don't junk up the piazzas and side-streets of their picturesque, ancient towns. 

If Italy can have Commissioners of Good Taste, why can't my HOA? I'd make it my mission to apply the brakes to what Edith Wharton called the "general decline of taste," and would use the power of my office to arrest shoddiness in all its manifestations—beginning with junk journalism.

Today I encountered this dreck in the morning news: "Governments in several countries used the pandemic to consolidate control, squashing opposition press or social media."

The journalist should know you squash a bug, but you quash an opponent. Squash means "to flatten;" quash, "to suppress."