Hawks's Red River - Epic Grandeur in the Western Genre

Red River [United Artists, 1948, filmed in 1946], directed by Howard Hawks, adapted to the screen by Borden Chase from his Saturday Evening Post story, is perhaps Hollywood's major effort at romanticizing the American West, the culmination of 20 years of Western-movie-making. There are many--serious critics among them--who seem to believe that The Searchers [Warner Brothers, 1956, John Ford directing] is John Wayne's premier performance, but I've never been able to understand, or appreciate, this opinion. John Ford's reputation for directing Westerns notwithstanding, Red River is certainly a more ambitious, lyrical and complex piece of cinema than anything Ford ever made.

Red River is the movie that the kids in Larry McMurtry's classic movie adaptation The Last Picture Show [1971, Columbia] screen to commemorate the closing of the local movie theater. No one knows more about the history of the Western genre than McMurtry, and the "last" picture show stands not only for the end of a whole era of Texas romantic nostalgia, but of the end of America's dream of the "olde West." 

       

The attempt to portray the exploits of prairie cattle-ranchers as heroic and picturesque was well-established by the time of the film's production (in 1946), but this was the first instance, really, that sufficient means were employed to bring to full fruition a vision of the sweep and scope of landscape, the size and scale and grandeur of the first cattle drive from Texas [in 1865]. The inspired cinematography and musical score--a great one by Dmitri Tiomkin [High Noon ("Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin"), The Big Sky, Giant, The Unforgiven, The Friendly Persuasion, as well as the familiar TV shows Wild Wild West,  and Rawhide themes]--hold the sprawling concept together, unifying the action with a mythic trope. 

Following the economic devastation of the Civil War, the market for beef in Texas had deteriorated. Texas had only become a state--was in fact "annexed" by the U.S.--in 1845--before seceding in 1861 as part of the Confederacy. The story, then, takes place right in the middle of a historical turning point, just as the "open range" (and the Mexican "presence") as a concept is being superseded by fixed boundaries and clear jurisdiction (The Compromise of 1850 reconfigured the State of Texas into its present shape). Dunson [John Wayne] and Groot [Walter Brennan] turn South from their westward-bound wagon train to settle in the Texas territory in 1851, and 15 years later begins the tortuous cattle drive--necessitated by the need to transport beef to markets in the North and East, connecting to mid-continental rail line routes--that is the ostensible focus of the narrative. The informal "adoption" of Matt Garth [Montgomery Clift] by Dunson contains all the classic step-relation tensions of illegitimacy, sexual competition, and disputed inheritance. Dunson has lost his sweetheard to an indian raid on the wagon-train he abandoned, and he's the bitter old grieving widower. Later, when Matt falls in love with Tess Millay [Joanne Dru]--in another indian  battle with a wagon-train--Tess offers to sleep with Dunson if he'll give up his vendetta against Matt (who's "stolen" the herd from Dunson in mid-journey). 

 

During the drive, Wayne's portrayal of the hardened older Dunson is the best acting of his career. Only 39 at the time, Wayne's version of a man in his sixties is completely convincing, a leathery old patriarch, a law unto himself, whose meanness and cruelty drive him to acts of unreasonable violence and revenge. As the hardships pile up, and hired hands begin to rebel and leave, Matt finally takes over the drive from a wounded Dunson, who in turn vows to kill Garth when he catches up with him. The tension here seems to transcend their step-parent/foundling relationship: Matt is no longer the sulking young would-be gunfighter, but an adult with a will and purpose of his own, which Dunson refuses to acknowledge. Would the relationship be different had Matt been Dunson's real son?

After the drive finally reaches Abilene, and the herd is sold, the two have their big showdown. In the final scene of the movie, Dunson [Wayne] is bearing down on Matt, preparatory to a gunfight. In the famous sequence, Wayne strides purposefully towards him (to the stentorian chanting music of Tiomkin) , but is interrupted by Cherry Valence [John Ireland], another gun-happy slinger hand whose thrown in with Matt. As Cherry draws on him Wayne wheels, fires, killing Valence, who manages to wound Wayne. Hardly missing a beat, Wayne keeps going, and finally faces Matt, who refuses to draw. Wayne fires several warning shots, but Matt holds his ground. Wayne slugs him a couple of times, then at last Matt hits back, knocking Wayne down. Just as things seem on the verge of tragedy, Tess [Dru] fires a pistol in the air and demands that they stop. In an atmosphere of synthesis and sublimation, as the two exhausted men lie bleeding and disheveled in the dirt, Dunson [Wayne] capitulates to fate, and, in one of cinema's most stirring moments ever, draws a new version of the Red River brand design in the sand, adding Matt's initial to his own on opposite sides of the line signifying the river symbol, concluding with the words "You earned it."

 

             

I can still remember clearly how powerfully that ending struck me when I first saw it in the movie theater as a boy. As the step-son of a much older than usual man, I wanted very much to be worthy of his regard and judgment. Though the terms of that conflict were different, the essential psychological outlines of our relationship were almost identical to those in the movie. I would never succeed in pleasing him sufficiently to deserve the "You earned it" encomium of approval which my oedipal demand required. That I perceived the dialectic in these terms goes a long way towards defining the psychic paradigm the movie explores. Boys wanting to be men; men wanting to be virile; and ultimately men wanting and needing love and confirmation but unwilling to ask for it.    

Announcing The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner - Stanford University Press - Jan 2010

Well, it's official!  Stanford University Press has formally announced the January 2010 publication of The Collected Poems of Larry Eigner, which Robert Grenier and I co-edited. A labor of over seven years--which involved the tracking down of obscure publications, pouring over an almost limitless mass of typescripts (some in imprecise versions), the meticulous exact setting of over three thousand poems (to establish reliable texts) whose formal organizations on the page were unique for each poem, and finally the creation of an error-free camera-ready copy transmitted directly to the printer--the finished work will arrive in 4 volumes, totaling 1868 pages. The image above is of the front panel, spine and front flap of the dustwrapper of volume I, whose basic design idea was mine; the succeeding three volume jackets are variations on this first one.       

The image above is the rear panel and rear flap. The whole image can be viewed in expanded form--derived from its original PDF format spread--by clicking on the image below, assuming your computer can display it.

 

The effort to bring this behemoth into existence owes its impetus to Robert Grenier, who pre-visioned the collection two decades ago when he began to assist Larry in establishing accurate, edited copies of his work. As those who would know about Larry's work habits and limitations at his writing desk, the task of undertaking this huge job would have been impossible without Bob's initial effort, over time, to produce over a thousand finished edited typescripts in collaboration with Larry--which constituted the major contribution to our joint labors. 

 

The existing major Eigner archive collections at Kansas and Stanford were both compared with all other known versions of Eigner's work, and thanks are due to the respective staffs of those two institutions, The Green Library at Stanford, and the Kenneth Spencer Library at Lawrence, Kansas. 

 

The project was supported by Larry's Brother (and copyright holder for the Estate) Richard Eigner, who was responsible for bringing Larry to Berkeley from the family home in Swampscott, Massachusetts in 1978; the whole project could not have been completed without his help and encouragement. The Collected Poems is a tribute to the affection and care which characterized the Eigner family's regard for Larry, throughout his life, and it's an inspiration, as well, to those afflicted with disabilities--as to us all!--that through understanding, intellectual and emotional nourishment, they can achieve great things.    

 

For my own part, I'm proud to have been able to contribute my energies and time. It was an adventure! You can't truly know the work of a great writer until you copy-read him for accuracy and content. Our joint hope is that a wider readership will finally be able to share our enthusiasm and wonder at Larry Eigner's poetry, presented for the first time in its entirety. 

 

Stanford University Press, which stood by us despite its present constricted financial standing, deserves everyone's thanks. The Collected Eigner, like the Press's previous five-volume edition of the work of Robinson Jeffers, is a tribute to its commitment to preserving and showcasing significant literary work, despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Our editor at Stanford, Norris Pope, was a true prince, throughout our long relationship, extending deadlines, and accommodating our need for more textual space. I can't thank him enough for his generosity, decency, and steadying hand.      

 

For those who may wish to pre-order their copy of the 4-volume set, you may go directly here (http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=8058) to Stanford University Press online. At $150 per set, it's a steal!  

Minor White & The Emptiness of Transcendence

I never saw or met Minor White, though there are hundreds--certainly thousands--alive today who did, either as friends, or students, or just stray bodies passing casually through the continuum. As a teacher, as a human being, as an artist, White was highly influential, to judge by what those whose lives were touched by his, or who had the occasion to see or know him directly, have reported.

 

 

 

Therefore, what I know of White, is limited to what I see or deduce from the images he left, and the words that he wrote or what was recorded of what he said. One very clear thing to be derived from White's words and images, was that there was something magical about the process of the transmission of human data via sensitized surfaces, or the symbolic meaning of words (language). For White, images, photographic images, could tell a story. Not the kind of story we think of by "once upon a time" but the very much more mysterious story that is built up out of a sequence of images, taken almost randomly (or not) over time, placed in some particular order, accompanied by titles or bridges or captions.

       

Alfred Stieglitz believed that what we "felt" mentally or emotionally could be visually represented, that there are correspondences in the physical/material world, to feelings and sensations that we may think have no substantiality or basis or consequence, except in our brains. Minor White took this notion to a different level. Whereas Stieglitz would often think of an individual image--static, still, fixed--as being an isolated instance of something, White thought to put multiple images into a kind of series of purposeful sequent parts of a greater whole, perhaps not a development from one time or place to another time or place, but in an abstract circle occurring inside a sort of mental carousel. (Indeed, "carousel" is the word for those old-fashioned circular slide film projector carriages we once used to project positives onto home movie screens.)

       

I have purposely not specifically reproduced one of White's equivalent sequences, because I think there's a value in not slavishly following the narrative that he chose to impose on his individual images. White lived a conflicted existence for most of his adult life. As a closeted homosexual, whose professional career required an official, public persona, much of his instructional effort and aesthetic preoccupation was focused on the alienation between life and medium which characterizes so much artistic compromise. But for White himself, there was an ironic non-disclosure about his own identity which drove his anxiety to "release" the mystical artistic response in photographers. Students and patrons felt an enormous pressure behind his work--a pressure that White himself could never address publicly, because of the contemptible consequences which would have ensued: Loss of job, loss of dignity, loss of reputation.      

  

 

 

White's work as a major theorist of the meaning and function of photography and as an exploration of self in the world, and indeed his own work itself, cannot be correctly understood outside the psychological and mystical dimensions in which he deliberately placed it, even though the separate images themselves stand alone as superior instances of successful vision, of powerful pictures which command our attention and awe. But White's private need to convey the crisis of his own creative secret--his love of men--drove him to make "stories"--barely camouflaged ballads and paeans to men, seen in the context of sequences of compellingly suggestive studies and surrealistic cul-de-sacs.     

   

 

White's big career monograph published during his lifetime--Mirrors, Messages and Manifestations--accurately defines the parameters of his aesthetic: 

Mirrors: What we see in the images we choose to take or to represent our version/vision of the world are like mirrors of who we are, what we see, how we think

Messages: Contained in our choice and realization of specific images are the subtly concealed secrets to our own identity, which--like the little riddles inside fortune cookies--offer clues to our fate, and our private nature

Manifestations: The world reveals to us its meaning through our apprehension of it through our senses--as photographers, that apprehension is visual

   

How we choose to interpret specific images may depend on the depth of our understanding of our own motives, of our relation to the language of visual phenomena; but whatever we may think of them, they exist apart from our ability to give them larger spheres of implication through language or music: Intuitively, we can respond in non-verbal or "emotional" ways to things we cannot explain, or which may affect us on levels we are not sufficiently in touch with to describe rationally.

  

In White's case, the gap between image and meaning, direct image and private secret, was never closed, and remained tacit and undeclared all his life. Thus, the ultimate celebration of private nature--the "coming out" of his desire and joy--could never be achieved, and remained unfulfilled. The sequences thus are only mute testaments to the constriction of his range.

      

 

In literature, implications about the truth of one's preoccupations in life are unavoidable, but in art, they may remain trapped in the ambiguity of messages that the world presents. In landscape photography, the choice of subject--as much as anything else--tends to narrow the available options for expression within a given frame. However we approach subject-matter, our will and identity will be expressed through it, despite whatever pre-ordained, over-arching interpretation or context we may wish to place over it. 

Several of White's injunctions about photographic practice, such as--

Let the subject generate its own photograph. Become a camera.

No matter how slow the film, Spirit always stands still long enough for the photographer it has chosen.

Be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence.

--clearly express his theoretical approach to image-making. They're intended to release the mental response in the photographer, to remove pre-conceptions and allow feeling and direct interaction with subject-matter to occur, without the interference of a priori rules and habits. 

     

But the riddle of identity is that we can never fully escape ourselves. Indeed, even when we may think we're acting--in some sense or other--"outside" of ourselves, this is only an illusion. The process of choosing, in photography, really plays a larger role in defining meaning and revealing our nature, than in deliberately attempting to "think outside the box" of our mental or emotional personal space.   

 

If, as White seemed to believe, our deepest insights are achieved unconsciously, without our conscious oversight, then what we know and how we act may be of little help in the search for meaning. If knowing--as the oversight that governs--dominates feeling, then it may be that dreams, or seemingly nonsensical or disorganized data or sequences, hold the true keys to personal revelation. 

      

 

But what happens when the truth of one's own nature is known, cherished, but suppressed by the mind? Freud believed that creative freedom was achieved when the contradictions in a life were explored, understood, and ultimately released, either in dreams, or analysis, or in altered behaviors. For White, photography was the medium in which he could explore the suppressed side of his nature. What he found in the world was what he already, intuitively, knew was what he was looking for. Himself.

White's wonderful images are the successful, partial composite of his own personality, the sum of his quest for a defining analogue of identity, in the world. This isn't an accident of fate, or the result of a victory over resistances, but--in White's case--the acceptance of a given set of options, of the conditions of life. The images speak through him, and become thus true transmissions of truth. But that truth will be different for each individual, or applicable in a uniquely useful way. Like Rorschach images, there is no "correct" answer to the question of existence, only touchstones and talismans, windows and mirrors: What we see is already there; "all the questions are answered with their own words"--Gertrude Stein   

Alien - Bizarre Nightmare of Abhorrent Metaphors

Ridley Scott's masterful sci-fi horror flick [Alien, 1979] succeeds quite nicely as a shock & awe narrative, but it's so much more: An absorbing, symbolic-visual exploration of the birth/death parasitic/symbiotic metaphors that leaves one breathless with alternatives. Camille Paglia once described sexual reproduction in the natural world in terms of plagues and hoards and swarms--which is not how we often think of it in a human context. But aggressive self-preservation and mindless consumption are everywhere we look in the natural kingdom, and there's nothing quite so terrifying as looking with unsentimental eyes at how sex and dominance and the hierarchies of selection are expressed at their most basic, concrete levels.

The highly sophisticated design of this production is in no small part due to the work of H.R. Giger, a Swiss surrealist painter and set designer specializing in weird sci-fi monster images ordinarily associated with genre illustration. Giger, who was brought on board to provide all the basic "monster" visuals, which formed the basis for all the alien and much of the high-tech constructs in the film, inspired the raw sexual templates which drive the narrative's momentum. The producers knew from the beginning that the focus of the story would be not on the actors, but on the meanings and implications of the social and technological ideas revealed in the plot, and appropriately stipulated that all the parts cast would be interchangeable, i.e., "unisex"--with the central characterization leading to a woman (Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the Warrant Officer). 

The futuristic vision presented is a drab, grey, routine, disorienting mining company's return trip aboard an enormous mining transport ship back to earth. Unlike the pristine, flashy, streamlined world of typical science fiction movies, this world is every bit as gritty and drab as a 19th Century coal mining operation, and the social relationships and conflicts are as familiar as they would be in any business operation. 

The first scenes show an eerie room full of covered sleep pods in which the crew are spending their long inter-galactic journey in a state of suspended animation. They are automatically "awakened" by the ship's computerized guidance system (referred to as "Mother" by the crew members--crucially named "Nostromo"--after Conrad's nautical novel) as a result of an apparent "SOS" transmission picked up from a stray "planetoid". Riding inside the belly of the corporate "Mother"-ship, these employees are sustained by the company, and dependent upon it for their lives (as well as their livelihood). 

The crew of seven are thus interrupted in their journey to investigate the source of the signal. What they discover in this very hostile outland is a derelict space-ship with what appears to be the long-dead remnants of a crew, along with some very weird large eggs on the dark floor of the ship's lower chamber. The interior structure of the ship, in addition to the peculiarly proto-human-like creature "melted" onto the "gunner's" position behind a huge cannon, all have suggestively phallic "erectile" ribs and/or conversely uterine walls. The effect is of an exaggeratedly sexual component, of male dominance gone extreme, or sexual energy taken to a bizarre edge. Upon examining one of the quivering eggs (which suggest carnivorous plant structures!), crew-member Kane bends curiously, perilously close, as one "fetal" form shoots out of the top of an egg straight through his helmet guard, attaching itself to his face! Attempts by the crew--upon bringing the victim onboard over the objections of Ripley whose imprecations to observe the "quarantine" procedures--to remove the thing from Kane's face prove futile (the creature, which holds him in its grip, is "keeping him alive" by artificially respirating him) because its "blood" fluid is composed of corrosive acid! This event suggests a sort of "impregnation" or parasitic "injection" of an "egg" or "seed" inside Kane's body, even of a kind of a-sexual "rape"--perpetrated through the oral cavity (oral penetration?). The creature itself is like a sort of reptile-octopus, with multiple jointed legs, with an underside mouth--with a long tentacular tongue (stinger? ovipositor tube?)--with a pouch-like internal body. As the "host" for the alien's seed (Kane thus "carries" the alien spawn within himself--another sexual reversal) we suspect that whatever transformation may occur within Kane's body will be harmful. Seemingly recovered, as he's sitting at the dinner table with the crew consuming a meal ("last supper") preparatory to going back into the sleep pods for the remainder of the journey, Kane becomes violently sick. As he's thrown onto the table on his back, the alien bursts from his stomach cavity, eating-tearing its way out in a bloody explosive raging Caesarean "birth," killing the mother-host. It "cries" out like a bawling infant, and scurries away to hide.

The ensuing struggle against the alien "inside" the Mother ship, occupies the balance of the action of the movie, complicated by one key sub-plot. It turns out that Ash, the ship's Science Officer, is really an android, whom "the Company" has put on board to engineer the capture and return of the alien. Its motives for wanting to do so remain murky, but it seems to suggest that it wants to harness the alien's power for some nefarious purpose. In the far-distant future, apparently, corporate greed and design is no more public-spirited than it is in our time!

Ripley, who is almost killed by Ash in his attempt to prevent her from scuttling the Mother ship in order to escape from the deadly alien's predation, manages to chop the android's head off, but not before he reveals to her his secret mission as the embedded "mole" of the crew. Before Parker incinerates him, Ash predicts that the other crew members will not survive. Realizing the danger of allowing the alien (like a virus or sinister super-life-form competitor) to be returned to earth, the remaining three crew members plan to arm the Nostromo's self-destruct mechanism and escape in the shuttle, but Parker and Lambert are killed by the Alien while gathering the necessary supplies. Ripley initiates the self-destruct sequence and heads for the shuttle with Jones, the ship's lone pet (a cat), but finds the Alien blocking her way. She unsuccessfully attempts to abort the self-destruct (swearing expletives at "Mother"), then returns to find the alien seemingly gone and narrowly escapes in the shuttle as the Nostromo explodes. Thinking herself at last safe, Ripley disrobes, only to discover--to her horror--that the alien has snuck aboard and is sleeping in a corner of the confined space of the shuttle. She puts on a pressurized space suit and opens the hatch, causing explosive decompression which forces the Alien to the open doorway. She shoots it with a grappling gun, which propels it out, but the gun is caught in the closing door, tethering the Alien to the shuttle. It attempts to crawl into one of the engines, but Ripley activates them and blasts the Alien into space. The film ends with Ripley and Jones entering stasis for the return trip to Earth. 

The design of the alien's body is based on the adaptive power of the beast to take on characteristics of its host-victim. An alien life form based on a different chemical paradigm and that carbon-hydrogen-oxygen protein model, it nevertheless gains by mating its own inherently more powerful survival components with a human structure and brain, becoming a frighteningly efficient killer. The transformational power of the alien suggests the adaptive power of viral agents to mutate into more elaborately elusive entities by "stealing" DNA. But viruses (like the alien itself) aren't truly "life"-forms as we would define them; except in the sense that, not being immortal, they need to reproduce themselves in order to survive. Can a thing which is not "alive" "survive" by exploiting true life forms for its reproduction? Not all parasitic agents cause the demise of their hosts, though there is nothing necessarily "friendly" about anything which can only live through the existence of another. Which is partly the point of all mindless exploitative agencies. If a purely destructive mechanism--such as an efficient soldier, or soldier-ant, or rigidly militaristic-fascist society--runs out of "enemies" or "hosts" then it, too, faces extinction.                                              

The design of the alien creature itself is a fascinating variation on the robot concept. The head of the alien suggests a phallus, but its vicious teeth--and, most interestingly, its compound mouth inside, like a tongue mutated into an "internal" set of jaws--suggest all kinds of metaphors, such as the phallus as sword, phallus as devourer, or collaterally, a vagina-dentata, or a phallus which devours (as in the female spider which eats its mate, or male fathers which kill or eat their young). In the movie, the alien is portrayed as a killing machine, without remorse, without ulterior motive, a kind of clone upon the human (or any available) form, adapting to its hosts in order to mutate over and over into successively more sophisticated forms of animate exploitation. 

The "company's" desire seems the most dominant motive trope in the story. Its human "workers" (as in an ant or termite or bee colony) seem only to exist for the good of the organization, a variation on the corporate paradigm of late 20th Century capitalism. The alien thus becomes a potential managerial super-race (or super class) of hybrid, mechanical managers whose only ultimate function is the perfection of the expanding power of the organization.                

From the Gallery of Heroes: H.L. Mencken

                                                                 H.L. Mencken in his prime

H.L. [Henry Louis] Mencken [1880-1956], was perhaps America's greatest iconoclast--a muckraker, satirist, critic and editor who came to prominence in the heyday of the popular American press--whose powers to offend, incite, provoke, confound, delight and entertain with his audacious wit and ruthless disdain, are unrivaled in the history of American journalism. Lacking a formal university education, Mencken started out as a newspaperman in Baltimore (his home town), but he read voraciously, and eventually became known, due to his erudition, as "the Sage of Baltimore." Mencken loved to make mischief, to stir things up. In the course of his long writing career, he eventually offended just about everyone--and was at the top of every legion of decency's hit list. A proud German-American, who liked beer halls and big cigars, there is a clear German cast to much of his thinking. His first important book was The Philosophy of Freidrich Nietzsche [1907]--in it, he identified with Nietzsche's signature social Darwinism, a sort of caste system of privilege (what Mencken called intellectual "aristocrats") in which the upper and upper-middle classes are imagined to be superior due to their greater aptitude and effort, rather than through accident of birth or financial good luck. Mencken was unquestionably an anti-semite in philosophical disposition, but he wouldn't have gotten this out of Nietzsche, unless he willfully misunderstood him. It's been noted that Mencken in practice was friendly toward Jews, and lobbied on their behalf during the Nazi persecutions, but this ambiguity does not constitute a salvation. Nevertheless, Mencken displayed a stubbornly contradictory attitude, alternately praising and reviling American Negroes and Jews.  

While his career as a journalist continued full-time, he began to publish collections of serious essays--A Book of Burlesques [1916], A Book of Prefaces [1917], In Defense of Women [1917], and six volumes of Prejudices [1919-1927]. Mencken was preoccupied with the perfectibility of man, and hence much of 19th Century thought regarding fitness and purity and achievement interested him. He was anti-Christian, and spent a good deal of energy heaping amused scorn on its followers. He regarded the American South as backward and provincial.       

         

                                      H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan by Irving Penn

In the 1920's, Mencken, along with drama critic George Jean Nathan, edited first The Smart Set [under his direction from 1914-1923], and then The American Mercury [founded 1924, until he resigned editorship in 1933]. Both contained fiction, commentary, and humor with subversive and satirical undertones, with by-lines including Eugene O'Neill, Carl Sandburg, William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, W.E.B. DuBois, James Weldon Johnson, Conrad AIken, Sherwood Anderson, Edgar Lee Masters, John Fante, William Saroyan, among others. Ever lusting after a good controversy, Mencken traveled to Boston in 1926 in order to be publicly arrested for the sale of the April issue of The American Mercury (containing an "obscene" article about a prostitute). Mencken was tried and acquitted. 

 

In the same year, Mencken's articles about the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in Tennessee, which pitted Clarence Darrow against William Jennings Bryan over the issue of the teaching of evolution in the public schools, became the inspiration for the 1936 play Inherit the Wind, later made into a movie which starred, among others, Gene Kelly as the Mencken-figure E.K. Hornbeck, and Spencer Tracy as the Darrow stand-in Henry Drummond ("We will hang Henry Drummond from the old apple tree!).

 

 

 

My introduction to Mencken was this edition of The American Scene [Knopf, 1965, Edited by Huntington Cairns], which I checked out of the library. Once I'd started it, I couldn't put it down. I recall distinctly sitting on mom's chaise lounge under our fig tree in the afternoon chuckling to myself. As old as the issues and subjects might be that Mencken was talking about, his prose was so boisterous (no other word for it) and fresh that it almost didn't matter whether what he was saying made any sense at all. I also had the distinct feeling--which I suspect was probably something that many of his readers shared--that I belonged in his "aristocracy" of taste and good breeding, an illusion that the tone and address of his writing subtly suggested. Certainly, I didn't think of myself as belonging to the "boob-ocracy"!

 

The great thing about Mencken was his enthusiasm and skepticism. This combination of appetite and disdain, which was always present in his work, has a particularly American flavor, which has always seemed admirable to me. As much as Mencken despised America's provinciality, its naivite, its hucksterism, its petulant bourgeois presumption, at the same time he loved its energy, innocence and joy. This affection is nowhere more evident than in his monumental three volume study of "American" English, The American Language--I put American in quotation marks, since at the time Mencken began his work, there were no officially recognized divisions among English speakers, but his work is a proof--if any were needed--of the uniqueness of American speech, in all its teeming centers, remote outposts, in all its variations of class, race, region, ethnic and obscure coinage. 

 

What immediately becomes apparent to anyone who would undertake to study the peculiar flavor of the language of a people of so large a national mosaic, is that to understand it requires that one comprehend just about everything that people does--their industry, their recreations, their habits, their interests--in short, the whole cross-section of their society and endeavor. No one who was not fascinated and intrigued and delighted by his subject, could have brought it off.  

              

You could with justice say that Mencken was somewhat un-American in his personal philosophy, that he didn't really subscribe to the true democratic ideals that form the basis of our national character. In reading over this quotation--

"Democracy gives the beatification of mediocrity a certain appearance of objective and demonstrable truth. The mob man, functioning as citizen, gets a feeling that he is really important to the world—that he is genuinely running things. Out of his maudlin herding after rogues and mountebanks there comes to him a sense of vast and mysterious power—which is what makes archbishops, police sergeants, the grand goblins of the Ku Klux and other such magnificoes happy. And out of it there comes, too, a conviction that he is somehow wise, that his views are taken seriously by his betters—which is what makes United States Senators, fortune tellers and Young Intellectuals happy. Finally, there comes out of it a glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done which is what makes hangmen and husbands happy."

--it occurred to me that this could serve as a very prescient comment upon the political career of George W. Bush, especially that part about a "glowing consciousness of a high duty triumphantly done" which seemed to characterize Dubya's Alfred E. Neuman smirk at the end of each of his speeches. Mencken saw in the typical American populist office-seeker the "man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum." 

                                                                           

Mencken published three volumes of his memoirs during the early 1940's, but much of his colorful biographical writings had to wait several decades to be published, due to their inflammatory content. Mencken's publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, recalled his Author's "brightly colored pajamas, his devotion to his mother, his gusto at the piano, his fear of air travel." He praised Mencken's taste in books and chuckled over his blatant disregard for Prohibition and despite his reputation "of being a burly, loud, raucous fellow, rough in his speech and lacking refined manners, as [he] learned a little later, displayed the most charming manners conceivable in talking with women. His public side was visible to everyone: tough, cynical, amusing, and exasperating by turns, but everlastingly consistent. The private man was something else again: sentimental, generous, and unwavering—sometimes almost blind—in his devotion to people he liked." Mencken's articles over the course of a long career suggest that his dislikes were many: Christians, Jews, President Roosevelt, the American public itself. If Mencken had any moral principle at the base of his prickly prose, it was a brand of libertarianism that, for him, was close to a religion. Nothing seemed to matter more to him than uncensored self-expression--an attitude which may explain my own peremptoriness in print! He did not always win friends, nor did he set any standards for politically correct journalism. But he remains a legend among American writers, and his words are unlikely to be forgotten. 

Nada to Islamic Minarets in Switzerland

The Swiss populace has spoken: No new Islamic minarets in Switzerland.

 

Let me be as clear as I can be about my reaction to this development: I am for religious freedom in principle, as long as it doesn't conflict with basic political freedoms embodied in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I am not a religious person; I don't practice any formal ritual; and I don't subscribe to any religious cosmology or dogma of behavior or ethical guidance. I was "sort of" raised Protestant, but there was no conviction in our family to speak of. I regard myself as a liberal humanist, and my politics is a hodge-podge of Left and Right positions, arrived at pragmatically on a case by case basis.

I resist the notion of a "Christian" basis for Western political ideals, despite the well-known fact that such religious ideas permeated the culture during the formation of our founding documents and institutions. I dislike the aggressive proselytization which many faiths engage in. 

I know little about Islamic faith, and I'm not particularly ambitious to know more. I accept the claims that radical, fatalistic Islamic extremist factions do not represent the core majority and emphasis of belief by most Muslims. 

Nevertheless, there are some basic tenets of Islam, which are not compatible with political and personal freedom as we understand it. These principles have historically been restricted to the Middle and Far East, though Islam has been expanding its influence and reach over the last half century--into Africa, Indonesia, parts of Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. This is no surprise, as Christianity did the same thing for centuries; was indeed the accompaniment and "justification" of much of the colonial exploitation and suppression of native peoples and cultures in the so-called Third World (i.e., the "White Man's burden"). 

History is not static. The face of the planet is now a collection of separate nations, many of which have historical ties and associations which bind them into natural alliances and blocs. Religion, despite what you think of it, has been one common theme in maintaining such alliances. Indeed, religion often transcends national borders, creating super-national spheres in the world. European nations share many such transcendent bonds. So do the nations of the Middle East which are dominated by the Islamic faith.

As Islam has begun to penetrate the European subcontinent, the question of its affect on the resident political and cultural traditions now must be addressed. Christianity has been so much a part of the fabric of European civilization (both Roman Catholicism and the Protestant faiths)--intertwined with the custom and belief and practice of daily life--for so long (centuries)--that it seems a precipitous upheaval would be needed to unseat its position there.  

In principle, any parliamentary democracy must enforce religious freedom. But what if a religion involves more than just a private obligation, more than peaceful congregation? What if a religion involves obeisance to a rigid code of practice that divides believers along sexual and racial lines, which rejects democracy and the freedoms which we understand to be consistent with equality and the privileges and entitlements of citizenship? 

Can such a religion "co-exist" inside a true democracy without eventually coming into direct conflict with opposing religions, or with non-believers? Can a religion--that makes de-facto slaves out of half of its members, rejects the freedom of others on principle, and creates in effect a separate society (or nation) unto itself--be accommodated inside a Western Democracy, without eventually causing deep conflicts between itself and the larger society of which it's nominally a part?

The question in Switzerland isn't simply a matter of pluralistic religious tolerance. It's a question of the degree to which the Swiss shall entertain the taking over of its society by an alien religious paradigm that is diametrically opposed to the principles it (Switzerland) adheres to. Does the construction of minarets and large mosques constitute a threat to Swiss society? The easy answer, at this stage, might be a naive "no." 

But the fabric of Swiss society is inextricably Christian. Should a society regard the aggressive spread of a foreign religion inside its borders as a threat to its identity, to its folk-ways and customs and institutions? The answer to that depends upon what value you put upon the continuity of the institutional fabric of your own national identity. 

It is not in the least irrational for the Swiss to believe that the unrestrained spread of Islam will have dire consequences for its cultural identity, as well as its political outlook. It is one thing to trade with Islamic countries, or to serve as their bankers, or to entertain them as vicarious tourists; it's quite another thing to allow Islamic cells to expand willy-nilly into your cities and towns. 

For Islam is more than a mere religion. It proposes a theocratic unity of state and church, in which all aspects of daily life are united. It is quite naive to think that a static Islamic presence will allow itself to be marginalized indefinitely by exclusions and restrictions of one kind or another. Its ultimate aim is the control of society. The means by which it achieves this is through religious doctrine. It despises secularism, and regards Western "freedoms" as variations of "sin." 

If the Swiss do nothing to restrain Islam, in another 50-100 years it could face internal convulsions, resulting in its transformation into an Islamic theocracy. Wherever Islam has gained a strong foot-hold among the populace, the secular political life has come under intense pressure. This is something the Swiss have decided they want to avoid. Whether restricting the construction of churches (or architectural features) as symbols of unwanted religious influence, will have any deterrent effect upon the spread of Islam in Switzerland, remains to be seen. Can you imagine hearing the Muslim call to prayer in Bern or Zurich or Geneva? Can you imagine a woman fearing to walk in "certain neighborhoods" because of the threat of attack for not being properly attired?   

Are the Swiss wrong to imagine that their way of life is in jeopardy?  You be the judge.      

Swiss Vote on Banning Islamic Minarets

The Swiss go to the polls today to vote on a referendum designed to halt the construction of Islamic minarets--the architectural towers, familiar in Muslim countries--which symbolize Islamic religious presence and are used to broadcast the "call to prayer"--the lyrical wail which is heard through the Islamic world each day.  

Switzerland has a history of non-involvement in European conflicts, and has maintained its reputation as a sort of island of neutrality in a sea of dispute and difference. This was accompanied by a cultural homogeneity--a sort of German/French/Italian hybridized model--designed to preserve a sense of its unique character, dignified and transparent. 

With the increasing portability of populations around the world, European nations have seen their respective national character and historical traditions challenged by huge influxes of African, Asian and Middle-Eastern people migrating North and West. Concerns have been raised in these countries about the threatened continuity of political, cultural and religious institutions posed by the radically different foreign paradigms. 

The official Swiss government position has held that bans against religious symbols (like churches) could have a damaging effect on Switzerland's reputation as an "open, tolerant and secure" place for the tourism and banking industries. Advocates of religious freedom and tolerance have decried the referendum as an example of irrational reactionary nationalism, racism, hatred and fear of the unknown. 

The history of the conflict between Islamic expansion and the West has been anything but peaceful. Spain was the cultural battleground between Islamic and Christian religions for hundreds of years. Both Christianity and Islam--in their purest expression--call for an integration between religious and political life which comes into direct conflict with principles of parliamentary democracy, individual freedoms, and the separation of church and state since the Enlightenment. 

For good or ill, the legacy of organized religion in the modern world has been largely one of intolerance: Intolerance of differing ways of life, intolerance of competing views of ethics and behavior, and of opposing religious practice and concepts. Western democracies would like to believe that religious tolerance, like political pluralism, is simply a matter of learning to be more tolerant.  

But if by tolerance we mean allowing harmful or dogmatic factions to dictate and overwhelm existing institutions and practice, then perhaps we need new definitions of tolerance. Islamic dogma contains several tenets which are anathema to so-called democratic, "free societies." I put "free" in quotes because, from an Islamic point of view, freedom to violate Islamic doctrine constitutes a deeply offensive liberality, which it considers intolerable. 

Islam, as it is practiced, is not compatible with Western democratic principles. The subjugation of women, and the insistence upon theocratic integration into all aspects of daily life, is in direct conflict with the separation of church and state, and the principle of equality which guides so much Western thought. 

This is not to say that Christianity, which continues to have a strong influence in the West, is an unalloyed good. On the contrary. Free societies still must resist religious dogma, in whatever form it presents itself.

But Islam doesn't have historical roots in Europe. For the Western democracies to entertain the notion that a growing Islamic presence is a harmless phenomena is indeed naive. Can Switzerland afford to allow Islam to establish a strong foothold, with the construction of huge mosques, with overarching towers? Is traditional Islamic practice compatible with a free society? Can Islam "co-exist" peacefully with other (Western) religions?  

If I were a Swiss citizen, I would be inclined to regard Islamic infiltration with skeptical caution. How far along the road to idealistic "tolerance" can a Western society go, before it relinquishes its freedom? To put the question another way, is an historically Christian nation justified in resisting the incursion of aggressive, expanding Islamic communities in its midst?