MR. BREIVIK: A TASTE OF THEIR OWN MEDICINE

It is no secret that a large number of Christian leaders and their flock have an extremely negative view of Islam, habitually going so far as to equate the Moslem religion with Islamic extremism, and even with Al Qaeda terrorism. We know, however, that many professing Christians are no angels themselves. Under the guise of Christianity, they are prone to inciting hatred and even committing acts of violence against Islamic communities, Koran burning, etc. They have declared a “war of civilizations,” supporting America’s current and prospective wars in Islamic countries not as specific political wars for whatever reasons, but each as a perfectly natural part of a generic global religious war against the Islamic culture.

The current surge of Christian anti-Islamism is consuming so much energy that certain formerly rampant outbursts of ultra-Christian intolerance, such as bombings of abortion clinics and acts of individual violence against ideologically unacceptable targets, have recently faded into the background. Today, the name of the enemy is Islam, Islam, Islam! A suicide bomber somewhere?---Islam! Any act of terrorism?---Islam!

Not surprisingly, on hearing the tragic news from Norway, some conservative American commentators were trigger-happy to repeat the anti-Islamic mantra: Terrorism?---Islam! The conservative political commentator and popular talk show host Laura Ingraham is of course a famous case in point.

But now comes the very unpleasant revelation that Mr. Breivik was not a Moslem at all, but a self-righteous “Christian warrior,” and the New York Times quotes Norwegian police describing him thus: “What we know is that he is right wing and a Christian fundamentalist.”

And immediately there is an outpour of indignant protest from the same quarters where Islamic terrorism has long been equated with Islam: How dare you call this monster a Christian? He is not one of us!!!

I have no desire to equate Breivik with any Christian denomination or with Christianity as such. This would be outrageous. But I hope that the inevitable multiple occurrences of having Breivik and Christianity in one sentence may today give those Christian bigots who are by now quite used to putting terrorism and Islam in one sentence, a taste of their own medicine.

POST-COLDWAR NOSTALGIA FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM

“…Some things are too hot to touch

The human mind can only stand so much

You can’t win with a losing hand…”

That was, of course, from Bob Dylan’s immortal song Things Have Changed. Things have indeed changed in the last twenty years, but I still do care! Those before were surely better times--- for the world and for America. Everything was simple then, and made sense. Us and them;  America and Russia, the two superpowers, with the rest of the world taking sides. Freedom and democracy American style were mostly the luxury of the rich, while the proud poor preferred their own type of democracy, usually authoritarian, but striving for the more effective totalitarian, and opted to stick with the Russians not so much out of love for the Russians, as out of their nationalist distrust of what they realistically saw as America’s neo-colonialist ambitions.

We had an unpleasant name for those days: cold war. Nobody seemed to like it, but then nobody seemed to have thought out an alternative. Paradoxically, it was during the cold war that America’s enemies had more furtive love for her in their hearts than even the best of her friends. They also had one common dream--- one might even call it their “American Dream,” but it was a different kind of dream than the Americans have had, for America was their dream. The poor often dream of being rich, and America was the Neverland of their dreams; and nobody, except America herself, could take that dream away. America could, though, by failing to measure up, but in those days, when everything was simple, when the Soviet Union was seen as the other superpower by the Americans themselves, and thus, the most important component of a benign relationship: mutual respect, was always there, never diminished, but only accentuated by the mutual name-calling, which was, of course, part of the “noble enemy” ritual,--- it was hard for America not to measure up.

…It is easy to love from afar. One’s own dirt feels like the dirtiest of all dirts, while other people’s dirt can’t be seen behind the glitter of the faraway glamour, or, should I say, it is deliberately overlooked, so as not to spoil the beauty of the fairytale? That’s how the world loved America, and there was nothing wrong with that kind of love. One cannot deny another the privilege of fantasy!

With the disintegration of the USSR, in the early 1990’s, America’s perception of the respectable adversary had suddenly given way to an indecent gloating and a crotch-grabbing frenzy. America lost respect not just for Russia, but for the whole world.
And, as a result, the world’s American dream dried up too. In the place of a beautiful dream, there was only the ugly reality of a bullying brute, insolently staring everyone in the face and demanding submission.
At first, the exhilaration of winning the Cold War was like an extra glass of whiskey for America: great for the moment, but portending ill for the next morning. And, alas, the next morning has now finally arrived.

No longer can America make the mistake about a new “love” of a “New Europe,” not too long ago taken for granted! There is no love there, as most national polls taken there had been shouting into deaf ears. As good news, though, we may cite a drastic reduction in the ranks of those obsequious self-serving conmen, whose syrupy flattery and You-are the-Man! nonsense, used to make Washington politicians proud. Many of those have by now realized that there is little milk left in that trans-Atlantic udder, and moved on to new milking habits. And there are fewer and fewer declarations of love these days, just as the price of the American milk keeps going down...

But there used to be a love and a warmth behind the contentious rhetoric of the past… America blew it big time in those early nineteen-nineties, and thereafter! Today, by the admission of none other than one of the staunchest apologists of the New American Century Doctor Daniel Pipes, the American world has shrunk to “us, Israel, and Taiwan,” and even this “new reality” is most suspect!

“…People are crazy and times are strange…” Some deal America made, “winning” the cold war!

THE FANATIC AND THE FRAUD

(At first sight, this is a “dated” entry, going back to the Presidency of George W. Bush, when it was, indeed, written. But, as I noted on several occasions already, certain negative patterns in American political life and ideology cannot be relegated to and confined within the Bush-Cheney time frame, as they had started before their political ticket had come to Washington, they continue still under the current Obama Presidency, and they will be still with us, I am afraid, when Mr. Obama ends his run of the White House. It is, therefore, proper to regard this entry as one dealing with a general long-standing subject.)

In this day and age in America, when the neoconservative ideology has seized the reins of government in Washington, the big question to ask appears to be, whether we are being ruled by the fanatic or the fraud? Which of the two is more dangerous? According to Nietzsche’s immortal wisdom, “Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.” This is probably true, because the lies can be disposed of by their public exposure, but convictions can only be trounced in a fierce struggle to the end.

The tragedy of American national confoundment (if I may employ this unusual word honoring JK Rowling’s cleverly coined term “confundus charm” of the Harry Potter fame) is that the said neoconservative ideology is driven both by the manipulative fraud, at the source of this ideology, and by the illiterate and incompetent fanatic who has found for himself a one-dimensional cause to stick to. In this unholy symbiosis, the fanatic’s zeal is fed by the lies of the fraud, and the lies of the latter are somehow given credence by the great zeal of the former, to the detriment of all.

The good news, if anything positive can be gleaned from this sad picture, is that with lies, sooner or later, the chicken come home to roost, and the lies, eventually exposed, will bury under their rubble not only our stupid fanatic, with his dangerous convictions, but also the clever fraud, whose cleverness might otherwise have allowed him to escape the exposure, but not with the fanatic so tightly attached to him, and constituting the fraud’s Achilles’ heel. As the dumb fanatic falls under the heavy weight of the fraud's lies, so does the fraud, with all his cleverness, courtesy of the clumsy company he keeps.

…Some very wishful thinking here, perhaps? Maybe, but it is such a good feeling to imagine that one day, in the words of Maxwell Smart, the forces of niceness will triumph over the forces of evil… Yes!

KAISSA AND THE BEAST: A COMMENT ABOUT CHESS

A Response To Grandmaster Rustam Kasimdzhanov’s Open Letter on the Commercial Future of Competitive Chess.

For the readers of my blog: I interrupt my ongoing "Variations on the American Theme" to register an immediate response to this most recent piece of chess news, which I have found quite interesting. 

(Note: Kaissa is the apocryphal Muse of Chess, and my allusion to Beauty and the Beast is also very proper. The French fairytale has some rough riding in it, but a happy end, which is exactly what I wish for, in the ongoing tale of chess. Incidentally, Kaissa and the Beast is a cluster title, originally representing my chess entry Man Against The Machine, which will be posted later on.)

Readers of my blog may not be aware of it, but in my youth I used to be an expert chess player, and a long-time member of the Central Chess Club of the USSR, until the demands of my primary professional career were to reduce my love of chess to an occasional indulgence, somewhat fueled by my sporadic participation in team chess competitions, on behalf of my Institute of USA and Canada Studies of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.

It was this particular preoccupation with chess, where I was able to reach a very high level of understanding of the game, yet could not back it up with professional home preparation and active participation, due to the lack of time, which still feeds my ability to follow the current events in the magical world of chess (to some extent, it can be compared to the enchanted world of Harry Potter, as opposed to the Muggle world of non-chessed citizenry), and to be compelled from time to time to write about it from a rather unusual perspective, yet not so esoteric that only an involved chess player could understand it---far from it! For the benefit of the readers of my blog, I will be posting a few of these in a not too distant future, but, for the time being, here is this one.

On July 21, 2011, several leading international chess publications published the following open letter to the International Chess Federation FIDE by the reputable Grandmaster and one-time FIDE Weltmeister Rustam Kasimdzhanov, raising the serious subject of the commercial future of competitive chess, with a suggestion how to raise the mass appeal of the game, to allow it to enjoy a popularity on a par with, say, tennis. Here is that letter, quoted from the acclaimed German source ChessBase.

(July 21, 2011.)

Dear chess friends,

I am writing this open letter, addressed both to FIDE and the entire chess playing world, due to a certain crisis in which our noble game finds itself lately. This crisis is not only defined by a general dissatisfaction, coming from sponsors, organizers and amateurs; also among the professionals there has been some growing distress. Quite a number of traditional tournaments are no longer organized; in those still out there an ever growing number of extremely strong players is competing for the same money. At the same time voices from all around are expressing serious concern about lackluster play in some top tournaments, and notorious short draws.
To understand the reasons why our sport has never made it to the heights it deserves, I find it useful to take a look at a sport very similar to ours – tennis. Both games feature the battle of two personalities, showing a whole array of technical weapons in their fight, competing in speed and precision, in patience and wisdom. Why, despite these apparent similarities, despite the fact that many more people worldwide are capable of playing chess properly, do we stand light-years behind tennis in everything that defines success in professional sport?
The reasons are numerous, no doubt, but the main problem, as I see it, is the existence of a draw as a result in chess. Short draws (and I also have made a number of those) make our game look more like an insider academic activity, rather than sport; but they can’t be avoided – the preparation of today and the inherent qualities of chess are such, that a draw, and in fact a short draw, is a most likely result in a game between strong well-prepared players. Still, in a well-organized tournament, top players, getting up to go to their hotel rooms after a ten minute draw, do not add attractiveness to chess.
Returning to tennis, the main attraction is, as I see it, the fact that every single fight produces a result--- a winner and a loser--- at the end of the day. And there is a thrill for every spectator to see, say, Nadal and Federer, come to court, and know with certainty that one of them will triumph, and the other one will lose. In short, to put it figuratively, there will be blood. And there will be great champions.
In our game, however, things are different. We also have great champions, but their greatness is sometimes limited to insiders of the game. In order to be successful outside of our little world, in order to make front pages and TV, and thereby also the finance that comes in the package, we need champions that appeal to the general public, even to a public far from intricacies of chess. Such was the winning streak of Novak Djokovic this year, for instance. Something that a win in a chess super tournament with 8 out of 13 simply cannot match.
And now comes my proposal. If we want success, sponsors, public and the rest of the package, we need to abolish those draws in classical tournaments. And not by Sofia rules – tournaments with Sofia rules have produced as many draws as any other; and not by the 30-move rule, where players are often just waiting for move 30. We need something entirely different. Like a tiebreak in tennis. We need a result. Every single day.
And here is how it works. We play classical chess, say with a time control of four to five hours. Draw? No problem – change the colors, give us 20 minutes each and replay. Draw again? Ten minutes each, change the colors and replay. Until there is a winner of that day. And the winner wins the game and gets one point and the loser gets a zero; and the game is rated accordingly, regardless of whether it came in a classical game, rapid or blitz.
This way the expectations of the crowd will never be deceived. There will always be a winner, there will always be blood. There will come an age of great champions, since with this system there’ll be times when Vishy (Anand, current world champion from India) or Magnus (Carlsen, Norwegian youngster and prodigy, currently ranked #1 in the world, above Weltmeister Anand!) will win Wijk-aan-Zee (one of the "grand slam" tournaments of chess) with 13 out of 13; and there’ll be winning streaks when some of the great champions will win 50 games in a row. We’ll make front pages.

And much more than that. It will be good for our sport. Not just sponsors, and attention, and prizes. It will be essentially good for our game. People will try extremely hard with white (color considered advantageous as it gives the player the right of the first move), in order to decide the issue now, and not in a black (color considered disadvantageous as opposed to white) rapid game. Instead of offering a draw in a slightly better ending, in order to save energy and catch a movie, chess players will show their whole ability and will win these endings. As a matter of fact, this will develop classical chess.

And there is so much more. Often players playing white, feeling rough in the morning, get to the game with an attitude “I'll just make a draw today.” Imagine, what will happen to this attitude? Chess will become a true sport. We’ll wake up to win or to lose that day. We’ll come to the board ready to play chess. And, just like when we come to see Federer play, -– we see his whipping forehand, his effortless slice, his hammer serve and immaculate return –- same will happen in chess. Every single day we’ll see players like Aronian (Armenian player ranked #3 in the world) or Grischuk (one of the best Russian chess players) pressing with white, wriggling out of trouble with black, and showing some blitz skills to an ever larger public. That is something I would like to watch and play.
Grandmaster Rustam Kasimdzhanov.

And now my comment.

I applaud GM Rustam Kasimdzhanov for his energetic tackling of the extremely important question of how to increase the popularity of the game of chess among the general public. This question ought to have been more vigorously debated by chess professionals than has been the case, and although some interesting steps have already been taken in that direction, they have obviously been not enough, and something is obviously missing in the proposed solutions. I am referring, for instance, to the attempts to get the public interested in the “sci-fi” dimension of chess, by promoting the seemingly promising concept of man against the machine which, however, did not go well enough, as the soulless machine’s mechanical success over man’s humanly flawed performance was hardly inspirational for the public, to join the battle on the presumably losing side.

Another attempt was built around the Norwegian child prodigy, today still a youngster, Magnus Carlsen. To put it in a nutshell, he was presented to the public as a chess-playing fashion model, and to be honest he was up to the job, in the sense that by now he has perhaps become almost as recognizable to the “Muggle” world at large as the late genius Bobby Fischer.

Good for Carlsen (who in fact deserves generous sponsorship, even in the technical chess sense, by bringing an extra measure of excitement into the science of the game), and sort of good for chess, by the trickledown effect, but perhaps not good enough in the long run. Fischer’s and Carlsen’s personal popularity has hardly transferred to the game itself for the trickledown to open the floodgates. Something is still missing from the picture.

And so, here now comes Rustam Kasimdzhanov with a brave new proposal whose principal merit is that it addresses not so much the man (or the boy) overshadowing the game, as the game itself. Let us make it as exciting, sportwise, as tennis, let the public see blood, and, hopefully, increased revenues will start flowing in… Well, you have read the letter.

Love-forty… game, set, and match!!! So far so good, and I’m too a tennis fan. But, frankly, there is so much easy entertainment in tennis, besides the scoring system, which chess cannot provide. It also takes a special kind of literacy, reaching far beyond school and even college literacy, to understand and enjoy everything that goes on on the chessboard. Without special training (which tennis obviously does not require), an average spectator would not be all that much moved by the hypothetical blood on the scoring sheets. At the very same time, I have a feeling that many more than a handful of serious chess players and admirers of the game would be turned off by the circus atmosphere created by the scoring fest.

In other words, although I agree with Rustam that drawing quickies ought to be forcefully discouraged, I am not in favor of going that far. I would rather make some serious adjustments in the allotment of prize money in favor of well-fought battles, including, yes, good draws, while penalizing short colorless draws simply by making them far less profitable to such players. I am sure that developing a system of such incentives is not hard to do. Some such incentives are already practiced in certain tournaments, but they are not enough, for sure.

And now the other aspect of my comment, what I would call a “positive option.”

Chess is by its nature an elitist sport, which means that, unlike tennis, it requires specialized training not just from the players, but from the audience as well. At the same time chess can offer us far more excitement than a less intellectual sport, and the way to capitalize on the game’s inherent strengths is by educating the public about the fact that chess is a much higher type of scoring game than any of those most popular ones. In this regard, I think it may not be enough to repeat the familiar mantra that chess is not just a game, but a science and an art, etc. It is necessary to emphasize that chess is indeed a superior game of wits, and that its known advantages naturally transfer to life, becoming potentially indispensable to business success and improved human and international relations… As long as the public is allowed to understand the advantages of chess education for the average person, the floodgate will surely open and stay open for good. How many moms and dads are sending their beloved babies almost since their early walking age to karate schools to learn the rudiments of martial arts to develop the essential skills of self-defense? Well, I am aware that at the highest level, particularly in Asia, but also in certain special military training elsewhere, martial arts represent a very sophisticated and advanced type of psychological training, mental discipline and all, but this kind of training, I am afraid, is not available commercially to even the most eager consumers…

I am convinced that by far the most glaring failure of the chess advertisers to the public so far has been their inability to communicate the most basic thing about chess: that it is one of the most promising disciplines of developing superior psychology. Like the best of martial arts training, chess ought to prepare youngsters for mental combat, where learning some basic psychological aspects of the game may help them prevent such situations where they have to rely on their perhaps questionable Karate skills to defend themselves.

It may be argued that, like opera singing or orchestra conducting, chess requires special inborn talent, sine qua non. This may be true in the sense that our average student will never be able to compete commercially at the professional level of chess. But the lack of chess talent would never stand in the child’s way in so far as his psychological skill coming from the training goes.

It is true however that most chess trainers of the public have so far done an inadequate job in highlighting this crucial psychological aspect of chess to the trainees and their parents, particularly its transferability to the more general area of human relations. I am also aware that in some places, such as Las Vegas, Nevada, certain chess trainers promote cheating and on-paper-only success in attaining inflated ratings without any success in either performance or even elementary comprehension. That’s capitalism, of course, where one is always able to sell snake oil as long as he can find buyers for it.
But talking seriously, even the best chess trainers and popularizes of the game have not succeeded so far. Had they done so, chess would have quickly become a popular and highly respected sport, with spectators flocking to chess events if not to understand every move, then just for the thrill of being there, and naturally, the money would start pouring in immediately in far larger quantities than before, so that no destitute chess player would have to switch to poker, just to make his or her ends meet.

As far as the special powers of chess psychology are concerned, I know very well what I am talking about. The great world chess champion Mikhail Botvinnik, a distinguished Doctor of Science in his own right, was a frequent advisor to the Kremlin and to a number of other Soviet government organizations, not just on the questions of computer technology, where his contribution is widely known, but also privately, with no public record, on certain questions of psychology, which he scientifically derived from his chess experience. It is therefore not surprising at all that Henry Kissinger, an avid, albeit unexceptional chess player, was always reluctant to play chess with the Soviet Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Dobrynin, as he had very good reasons to suspect Dobrynin, a superior chess player and an adept of the Botvinnik school of psychology, of being capable of studying Dr. Kissinger’s character by studying his game habits and coming to certain conclusions which Moscow could then use in the larger field of superpower politics.

…No offence to professional psychologists, their domain is not exactly a restricted country club. Anybody who has more than a fleeting interest in psychology and a sufficient mental discipline for regular study can do wonders with that, and in some cases become a self-trained psychologist to the extent that his patients would not know the difference. The problem is however that it is not very easy to stumble on the right track and stay there. The game of chess can get you there, as long as you are prepared to see it first and foremost as a battle of wits. Every good chess player is a psychologist ipso facto, but many of them are too busy with the challenges of the limited chess world of their opponents, somehow overlooking this special larger aspect of the game, which is its transferability to the outside world. On the other hand, I repeat, even a bad chess player can become well trained in the psychology of human relations simply by understanding the basics of the game of chess and by making the right psychological applications.

…The public will just love this hidden aspect of chess, and every professional chess event will see crowds attending it, and the sponsors will be there too. Not at the expense of physical exercise, of course, but as a brainy complement to it, it is up to the champions of the game of chess to make it as attractive to moms and dads as kiddie martial arts, and possibly even more attractive than tennis.

A CHARLATAN BEFORE THE JURY OF HIS PEERS

(Written during the period of the George W. Bush Administration and the heyday of neo-conservatism, this entry has by no means lost its incisive currency, as the “changing of the guard” from the Republicans to the Democrats in 2009, from Mr. Bush to Mr. Obama, has apparently changed nothing in the strategic thinking at the top, while the same people as before are still in charge elsewhere. For this reason, this is not a “dated” entry of the Scrapbook kind, but a general entry, which clearly belongs to the American section.)

For anybody who cares about the future of America and the fate of the world it must be seen as a tragedy of historical proportions that this great country has been taken over by a dastardly clique of agenda-pushing ideologues, none of whom is even a tolerable scholar, but all charlatans and cheats. But then, who is to judge their qualifications, when both the judges and the jury are equally deficient in competence? Take note of the following insightful passage from the 30th Chapter of Hobbes’s Leviathan, and observe how perspicaciously relevant it sounds in the context of our modern times:

"The ablest counselors are they that have least hope of benefit by giving evil counsel, and most knowledge of things that conduce to the peace and defense of the Commonwealth. It is a hard matter to know who expects benefit from public troubles, but to know who has most knowledge of public affairs is yet harder; and they who know them need them a great deal less. For to know who knows the rules of any art requires knowledge of that same art, because no man can be assured of the truth of another’s rules, but he who is first taught to understand them. But the best signs of knowledge of any art are much conversing in it and constant good effects of it. Good counsel comes not by lot, nor by inheritance; and, thus, there is no more reason to expect good advice from the rich or noble in matter of state, than in delineating the dimensions of a fortress; unless we think there needs to be no method in the study of politics, as there does in the study of geometry, but only to be lookers on; which is not so. For the politics is the harder study of the two."

Alas, everything we can figure out about the ideologues of the so-called neoconservatism clashes with the wisdom of this Hobbesian passage. Each and every “counselor,” grazing on Washington’s fat pastures, has not just hoped to benefit, but has actually benefited from his or her counsel, tremendously and shamelessly. Their knowledge of things that conduce to the peace and defense of the Commonwealth is not just little or perhaps purposely concealed, it is trivialized in its uselessness, as they do not require any of it, to promote their ideological agenda; and their utter incompetence, even when glaringly exposed, does not serve as an immediately disqualifying factor, as their lack of knowledge is shielded behind the brazen presumption of unknowability: yes, they do not know, but nor does anybody, because what they do not know is unknowable, which, of course, is a lie, but they are getting away with it by means of brainwashing the public, as Hobbes explains well in the same passage: "But to know who has most knowledge of public affairs is yet harder, for to know who knows the rules of any art requires knowledge of that same art, as no man can be assured of the truth of another's rules but he who is first taught to understand them.. and politics is the harder study."

The public, accordingly, has been brainwashed into believing that the skills of politics are a product of the special scientific learning and classified access, and it grudgingly bows to the authority of politicians, and the political experts, presumably, behind them, and, should the latter’s nonsense clash with common sense, the discrepancy is, then, attributed rather to an insufficiency of public knowledge than to a conspiracy of the so-called experts, for the truth of the matter is that while the real knowledgeable persons have been removed from the public debate, the charlatans at the helm are applauded by the charlatans of the jury of their "peers" and at all times judged by that jury not on the merits of their knowledge and understanding, but solely on their forcefulness in promoting the common agenda of the conspirators.

ROMAN CULTURAL MAGNANIMITY AND MODERN AMERICAN LITTLENESS

The whole First Book of Marcus Aurelius is giving credit to different persons for good contributions to his education, upbringing and character building. Credit is given both to his fellow Romans, which is of course natural, but also, and to a much larger extent of gratitude, to the Greeks, particularly, to his tutors (who, as a matter of fact, must all have been slaves, or at least recent slaves, magnanimously granted freedom by their Roman masters). The Romans must have been astoundingly munificent, to recognize, and non-grudgingly accept, the cultural and intellectual superiority of the Greeks without any feeling of inferiority on their own part, without a ressentiment, to use Nietzsche’s famous word. They had, probably, managed to compensate for that little shortcoming of theirs by the pride in their military prowess and political superiority, neither of which qualities had been among the strengths of the Greeks, or, as a matter of fact, of anybody else besides them at that time. After all, it was Rome who ruled a colossal Empire, and the Greeks, their prodigious brain capacity notwithstanding, could not even manage their tiny city-states, and ended up in the abject misery of the Roman slavery.

As we can see, Rome could well afford to be fair to the foreigners. But does the United States, another great power of history, possess a similar benign attitude toward the foreigners? If so, she is in no hurry to exhibit it. I even wonder sometimes, if the notorious dumbing-down of the American culture proceeds (among other factors mentioned elsewhere) from a misplaced sense of its cultural inferiority. No, I am not suggesting that the great American culture, culminating in the Declaration of Independence, and maintaining its historical umbilical cord to its mother-culture, known as Western Civilization, for yet another two centuries, could be inferior to any other culture on the face of the earth. What I am suggesting is that a cultural rebellion of sorts has taken place in America against her own culture, turning modern American society, sorely ignorant, uneducated, and actually proud of it (success in America is now measured not by how much a person has learned, but by how much money he or she is making, so who should care about culture at all?!), into some kind of cultural Luddites! Say, watch the quality of today's most popular television programs and tell me I am wrong!
 In that case, it would be a real tragedy, both for this country and for the rest of the world, where people, no matter what, are still looking up to America and watching what is going on in this country as though it were a personal concern of theirs.
Anyway, no matter what, I myself still wish this country well, and grieve over her sad shortcomings…

PSYCHOLOGY OF DISPARATE PERCEPTIONS

Continuing the theme of The Full being no Friend to the Hungry from an earlier entry, here is an immensely valuable insight from Nietzsche’s Menschliches, which I am happy to make an extensive quote of, although with a few minor cuts:

“Misunderstanding between the sufferer and the perpetrator. When a rich man takes a possession from a poor man (as when a prince robs a plebeian of his sweetheart), the poor man misunderstands. He thinks that the rich man must be a villain, to take from him the little that he has. But the rich man does not feel the value of a particular possession so deeply, because he is accustomed to having many. So, he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man, thus, he is by no means doing as great an injustice, as the poor man believes. Each has a false idea of the other. The injustice of the mighty, which enrages us most in history, is by no means as great as it appears. Simply the inherited feeling of being a superior being, with higher pretensions, makes one rather cold, and leaves the conscience at peace. Indeed, none of us feels anything like injustice, when there is a great difference between ourselves and some other being, and we kill a gnat, for example, without any twinge of conscience. So, it is no sign of wickedness in Xerxes (whom even all the Greeks portray as exceptionally noble), when he takes a son from his father and has him hacked to pieces, because the father had expressed an anxious and doubtful distrust of their entire campaign. In this case, the individual man is eliminated like a pesky insect; he stands too low, to be allowed to keep on arousing bothersome feelings in a world ruler. Indeed, no cruel man is cruel to the extent that the mistreated man believes. The idea of pain is not the same as the suffering of it. It is the same with an unjust judge, with a journalist who misleads public opinion by little dishonesties. In each of these cases, cause and effect are experienced in quite different categories of thought and feeling; nevertheless, it is automatically assumed that the perpetrator and sufferer think and feel the same, and the guilt of the one is therefore measured by the pain of the other.” (From Menschliches #81.)

As applied to modern times, and considering the exceedingly unfavorable impression America makes on the rest of the world, when this rich and powerful nation wishes to meddle in other peoples’ affairs (which is, of course, an everyday occurrence), the good news is that America’s guilt should not be measured by the pain she inflicts on others, in other words, it means that she is not really evil, as so many others assume about her, but that this is a case of some misunderstanding, and she is not actually terminally bad, to the point of being beyond redemption. But the bad news is that she is thus esteemed by the others, hence the shocked aversion of the world, and something has to be done about it. That something is simple: she must educate herself in psychology, where Nietzsche might serve her as an outstanding teacher, and learn how the realization of the fact of disparate perceptions, that is, of the simple fact that others do not think like her, nor view the world in her categories, may help her, on the one hand, to become, say, more tactful, and then, usefully, to develop a better predictive capacity about other people’s logical reactions, which is currently close to nonexistent, not so much through some chance neglect or some kind of psychological block as through a willful, deliberately sustained ignorance.
Ironically, a quarter of a century ago, as I was, rather naively, envisioning my way of "fitting in," within this nation’s framework of political thinking, and contributing to world peace as a result of this, I saw my own main importance not just in the uniqueness of my political and historical knowledge, but, even more so, in the uniqueness of my perspective, opening Washington’s eyes to what it misses the most: the psychology of disparate perceptions. Alas, never had I realized, how self-assured Washington was in its superior magical powers, how unwilling it was to learn about the ways of others, as long as it had a constant supply of those happily obliging sycophants who had learned one thing about this country, which I the fool never set great store by: that the surest way to succeed as an immigrant in today's America was to tell them solely what they wished to hear, and never-ever to commit the worst capital offence of all--- of telling them the truth.

PATRIOTISM AND FREEDOM

Having probably shocked my reader, in the earlier posted entry This Land Is Your Land, by my iconoclastic suggestion that without protest there is no freedom, with the natural inference that there is no freedom in an authentic patriotic formula, I have an intellectual obligation to explain what I mean.
To further rub it in, I dared to assert that Irving Berlin’s beautiful patriotic hymn God Bless America (which I admire as one of the best American songs ever written) has no “freedom” in it, and I am asserting now that any true patriotism amounts to a total voluntary renunciation of personal freedom, representing an absolute, albeit glorious, form of slavery.

...For those faithful readers who are still with me after this horrific attack, I am going to support my claim by drawing the most natural parallel with religious faith.
All devout Christians call themselves “slaves of God” (rabý bózhii, in Russian), or “slaves of Jesus Christ.” It is rather unfortunate that in the English translation the intensity of the original word “slave” (“doulos” in Greek; “servus” in Latin [does “serf” sound familiar?]) is somewhat diluted by the substitution of the milder form of the same etymology: “servant.” There is no such ambiguity in most other languages, such as, say, in Russian, where rab (slave) cannot be mistaken for a servant (slugá), and in the Bible’s New Testament, the Apostles Paul (Romans 1:1), James (James 1:1), Simon Peter (2 Peter 1:1), to name just these three explicit cases, unequivocally declare their bondage as slaves of God and Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, there is very little difference of principle between a religious man’s allegiance to God and a Patriot’s allegiance to his country and his people. The Russians call their nation “Svyatáya Rus, Holy Russia,” which effectively equates their allegiance to God to their allegiance to their Motherland. Anybody who fails to see the connection is probably not a Patriot at heart. For, patriotism is indeed a glorified form of slavery, and we simply cannot wiggle out of this ostensible paradox.

Does this mean that a free spirit cannot be a patriot? Well, man is a tragically conflicted creature! Without a conflict, there is no creativity, there is no consciousness, there is no genius. Oh, that Nietzschean “tension of the bow”! A free spirit and a patriot tearing at each other inside one human soul… What a truly magnificent contradiction! Ecce homo!

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND...

In the previous entry, I quoted from the lyrics of the world-famous song by the American folk musician “Woody” (originally named Woodrow Wilson, after President Woodrow Wilson!) Guthrie, which has long become universally known as This Land Is Your Land.
What is less known is that the original intent of this presumably laudatory patriotic song was to be a song of protest, and a sarcastic reaction to Irving Berlin’s definitive American classic God Bless America. Guthrie’s song, for this reason, was subtitled by him God Blessed America For Me. Here are the full original lyrics of the song that can still be found in this version on its official Internet site, although it is never performed in its entirety for the reason which will presently become clear:

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
(God Blessed America For Me)
words and music by Woody Guthrie

Chorus: This land is your land, this land is my land,
From California, to the New York Island,
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters,
This land was made for you and me.

As I was walking a ribbon of highway,
I saw above me an endless skyway,
I saw below me a golden valley,
This land was made for you and me. (Chorus.)

I’ve roamed and rambled and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts,
And all around me a voice was sounding,
This land was made for you and me. (Chorus.)

The sun comes shining as I was strolling,
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling.
The fog was lifting, a voice come chanting,
This land was made for you and me. (Chorus.)

As I was walkin’--- I saw a sign there,
And that sign said, no tress passin’
But on the other side.... it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me! (Chorus.)

In the squares of the city, In the shadow of the steeple,
Near the relief office--- I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me. (Chorus (2x).)

This is indeed an authentic song of protest, and, to America’s eternal credit, nobody would ever think of putting Woody in jail for writing and performing it, or for his other leftist political transgressions. Perhaps, deep in her heart, America has always known that without Woody and without protest as such, there is no freedom.

Remarkable though, how propaganda works, and here is the rather curious part of this song’s story. Without its last two stanzas, the song does sound like a powerful, well-nigh picture-perfect glorification of America’s claim to excellence. It is only the said remainder of the song that makes it into an immensely powerful song of protest, as intended by its author. Thus, the clever solution is to cut off the negative, retaining the positive, and, lo and behold!, God Blessed America starts toeing the same line with Irving Berlin’s God Bless America (a splendid patriotic song, by the way, but that’s not the point), and everything is now just as peachy as the proverbially perfect peaches of Georgia…

Perfect? Yes! But, unlike in Guthrie’s song of protest, there is no freedom in it. Freedom is always rebellious, and never picture perfect.

THE FULL IS NO FRIEND TO THE HUNGRY

(The title quotes a very common Russian proverb, not so popular in the West.)

Yet another variation on Mind your own business, Stupid! One doesn't have to be a Marxist (whatever this word means these days) to agree with Karl Marx that Dasein, that is, the economic and social circumstances of one’s life, determines one’s general outlook, that is, the consciousness of each respective reality. If we are so obsessed with changing other nations’ consciousnesses to conform to the American way, why don’t we start by changing their Daseins as well, by, say, declaring them the new states of our Union, or at least, by providing them with the necessary funds to ascend to America’s level of economic prosperity, hoping that by facilitating the development of a consumerist consciousness in them, it will be easier for them to understand what exactly America is talking about? If the current fourteen-trillion-dollar-and-counting national debt that has been accrued largely from engaging in unnecessary and counterproductive wars, has not bankrupted this nation yet, there is an excellent chance that printing another ten trillion dollars worth of money to spend on far more constructive non-intrusive enterprises, shouldn’t do it either, at least not until America has been able to reap some more palatable fruit of her global experiment in social engineering…
Without going any further with this harangue, it must be quite obvious by now what my title The Full Is No Friend To The Hungry implies. There is just one way for the full to placate the hungry, at least temporarily, which is to fill his empty stomach without asking for anything in return.

As one of my reasons for being skeptical about America’s intention, even if most sincere, to take the leading role in “achieving the survival and success of liberty” (as President Kennedy called it in his 1961 Inaugural Address), I made the following comment in my correspondence with a certain notable American politician-scholar:

“I believe that America’s policy of promoting liberty around the world is both inconsistent and incredibly counterproductive. Promotion of noble ideas has to be a thoroughly altruistic effort, if one is to succeed in the delivery of one’s message, but here we have a clash with the practical nature of America’s legitimate self-interest, which is already creating a contradiction. Even worse, she is hardly promoting either, as she is trying to promote both, with complete disregard for the natural nationalist backlash, and with very poor understanding of the forces at work in the new world order.
“The world is still divided into rich and poor nations. America’s idea of “liberty” is most appealing to the wealthy nations, who have a greater capacity to enjoy civil rights than the less privileged, who have other things on their mind. Unless the rich propose to make the poor equal to themselves, by redistributing their wealth, which is hardly ever the case even in the best of times, the inherent conflict of master versus slave in this situation, especially the conflict of perceptions, can’t be reconciled. I think that this point has been missed altogether.”

Plutarch tells an educational story about the Spartans. In fact, he finds it so instructive that he tells it slightly differently in two different places, but the essence remains the same. It revolves around the favorite Spartan meal, which may not quite suit a wealthy foreigner’s taste.

“A thing that met with especial approval among them was their so-called black broth zomos… They say that a certain king… having heard much of this black broth of theirs, sent for a Lacedaemonian cook on purpose to make him some, but had no sooner tasted it, than found it revolting, which the cook observing, told him--- ‘O King, to relish this broth, you should have bathed yourself first in the river Eurotas!’”

The point of this story, in application to our context, is that the didactic food that America has to offer today might be properly relished, perhaps, anywhere “from California to the New York Island; from the redwood forest to the gulf stream waters” (in the immortal acerbic words of Woody Guthrie), but elsewhere around the world people bathe in the waters of different rivers, and may not quite relish the same food as America does.
To further summarize this entry, those who have much are incapable of understanding those who have little, and the only kind of advice the rich can give to the poor is… cash, but, mind you, with no strings attached.

LIVE AND LET LIVE AS THE FOUNDATION OF FREEDOM

Perhaps the simplest definition of freedom is contained in the familiar adage “Live and let live.” We want to live as we wish, therefore we let our neighbor live as he wishes, and as long as our wishes do not collide, we are OK. We understand, of course, that if my music is too loud, the neighbor will object, just as I will object if his music is blasting just as I am trying to fall sleep. But both of us are perfectly willing to compromise by restraining our respective freedoms through goodwill and common sense, and everything is fine. In case of a serious disagreement, God forbid, we shall go to arbitration, of course, but let us hope that this would not be necessary.


Live and let live applies to countries just as much. If they don’t mess with us, we shouldn’t be messing with them. Let other nations have their own governments, as long as they do not try to teach us what government we must accept for ourselves. Our freedom is our freedom, and theirs is theirs. That’s freedom.

In cases of serious disagreements, there can be only one organization legitimately authorized to address and redress them. It is none other than the United Nations. If it is not very effective, let’s make it more effective, but it is still better than taking the matter into our own hands, expending blood and treasure on unnecessary wars.
I was told on more than a few occasions by the detractors of the United Nations that the UN cannot be seen as a legitimate organization, because it ostensibly legitimizes illegitimate governments which persecute their citizens and deprive them of their human rights. Well, the world is not a perfect place, and in most countries majorities do oppress minorities, or rich and powerful minorities oppress poor and powerless minorities, just as Marx observed, offering a communist revolution as a remedy… But, seriously, what can be done about it, or about the scourge of poverty, etc. A regime change? One oppressor exchanged for another at the price of countless lives, knowing full well that oppression as such and poverty as such aren’t going away anywhere? Come on!
Rogue nations? Let the international community deal with them through the United Nations. Whenever their behavior is truly egregious, we shall hopefully get a consensus and something effective might be worked out after all. (This is of course a prescription, and, alas, not the actual practice in some cases.)
Now, should one of them commit a crime against us, and we must act fast, all right, then. Forget the United Nations! Let us hit them back fast and hard, but then, let us call it “punishment,” or “retribution,” but please not “freedom”! Let us not make a mockery of a good word.

Unfortunately, there is only one way to deal with countries we just don’t like. Leave them alone! Unless, of course, we are prepared to invite them and the whole world to join us as the “United States of the World,” to share our wealth with them, under our Constitution, our legal code, and, yes, our definition of freedom.

Otherwise, we may talk as much as we like about some kind of generic freedom, but there is only one kind of such generic freedom, “one-freedom-fits-all,” and that is---
“Live and let live.”

FREEDOM OF ASSEMBLY

(This is a continuation of the previous entry Freedom Of Political Correctness.)

Having briefly quoted from Schopenhauer’s Parerga and Paralipomena in the last entry, now is the time to quote the same passage at greater length:

“All society necessarily involves, as the first condition of its existence, mutual accommodation and restraint upon the part of its members. This means that the larger it is, the more insipid will be its tone. A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom. For, it is only when he is alone that he is really free. Constraint is always present in society, like a companion of whom there is no riddance; and in proportion to the greatness of a man’s individuality, it will be hard for him to bear the sacrifices which all intercourse with the others demands, Solitude will be welcomed, or endured, or avoided, according as a person’s personal value is large or small--- the wretch feeling, when he is alone, the whole burden of his misery; the great intellect delighting in its greatness; and everyone, in short, being just what he is.” (Councils and Maxims: Chapter II Section 9.)

This remarkable passage, like any Schopenhauer essay, is a gold mine for several explorations, particularly, into the heart of the notion of freedom. It is from the previously discussed notion of social restraint (see my entry Freedom of Political Correctness) that the unexpected yet perfectly logical conclusion about freedom as such follows, and to highlight that conclusion, I have taken the liberty of underlining the most significant sentence in this passage, as it becomes the core of the present entry.

"…For, it is only when he is alone that he is really free."

Let me make this clear: I am not in favor of escaping from society into the desert, for the sake of attaining a satisfactory degree of personal freedom. The desert does not make one free: although presumably free from society, one becomes dependent on the elements, and his basic needs can only be met by a compromise with nature and perhaps inevitably with the society left behind. Practically every membrum ordinis eremitarum is still necessarily dependent in some way upon civilization, in other words, on society, and to suggest that one is capable of becoming a hermit in the absolute sense of the word smacks of sheer hypocrisy, unless we are not supposed to take the meaning of hermit that far.
Having thus disposed with the hermit as a hyperbole, we are left with the hermit as a metaphor, and here the meaning of the Schopenhauer passage finally becomes clear. Unless one is capable of spending a couple of hours alone by oneself without getting bored, but rather enjoying this experience and even eager to repeat it, one is probably not ready to absorb the meaning of the concept of freedom. Otherwise, the case is surely hopeless.
...Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong in liking company. I used to like company (and still do), especially of family, friends and of people with whom I had things in common. But, at the same time, I never felt miserable just by myself. Thus, it all boils down not to the question: Do you like company?, but to the question whether you hate being alone? Paradoxically, in the freest country on earth, most Americans I’ve known, either directly or indirectly, hate being alone. There is an inordinate desire on their part to participate in all sorts of public activities, which reaches the point of compulsion. (Today this also includes watching television, surfing the internet, and the newest friend of the lonely, texting.) Unlike my experience in the Soviet Union, where mass public events were usually regarded as a nuisance, and ordinarily shunned, if it could be helped; in America I have found a much more voluntary collectivism on the part of the individuals, which I find not a little bit surprising, considering that individualism of free societies has traditionally, even in Russia, been contrasted to the socialistic-communistic collectivism, which, come to think of it, exists only in nationalistic and generally patriotic events, whereas in America, collectivism mostly exhibits itself in partisan affairs, or special interest events (like various ethnic celebrations, marches, or gay parades, etc.), or most commonly in all sorts of “feel-good” gatherings of no particular purpose or significance, except to avoid the frightening alternative of being alone.

…Ugh! I feel that I may have been too unkind in generalizing my personal experience of America. For the sake of objectivity, I invite all American readers of this posting to comment on it, by specifically addressing the question: “Can you ever be happy by yourself?”

FREEDOM OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

How much is America preoccupied these days with the word freedom! Much more, it seems, than when no such preoccupation was in evidence, in the good old days, when the Americans certainly practiced freedom more than they talked about it.
I have written at length on the reprehensible perversion of the word freedom (similar indignities have been perpetrated against the words humanism, socialism, and others), but in this entry I wish to stress one single aspect of this perversion: the fact that the fundamental concept of freedom is incompatible with the current practices of Washington and of modern American society as a whole. Apparently, there is no understanding of what the concept of freedom implies, insofar as free speech is concerned, none at all! I am referring to the so-called political correctness, both explicitly and implicitly forbidding all sorts of taboo talk, which covers not only what is actually being said, but even the choice of subjects for the Tischreden.
This by now generally accepted in America practice of self-censorship (woe to him or to her who refuses to abide by this vital prerequisite of political survival) is undoubtedly inimical to individual freedom. I am not considering the tremendously harsh restrictions on the freedom of speech in Germany, and in other parts of Europe, having to do with the legacy of the Third Reich, and as such not quite in the same category with the American phenomenon of political correctness. Those restrictions have a specific historical basis: they were introduced as punishment against the losers of World War II, purposely designed as deliberate restrictions on certain countries’ freedom of speech, whereas the corresponding American phenomenon has no such excuse.

Mind you, I am by no means advocating “absolute freedom,” which is inimical to the principles underlying social organization in the first place. The origin of restrictions on individual freedoms lies in the very nature of society itself. As Schopenhauer puts it, “constraint is always present in society” and ironically, “it is only when he is alone that [a man] is really free.” Thus, the demagogue who complains too much about the fact of restrictions as such, does not get my sympathy for his cause.
The problem with political correctness is mostly due to its notorious excesses and glaring inconsistencies in its application. It is not the fact that it restrains free speech, but that it takes restraint to great lengths in some areas, while allowing virtual permissiveness for other “selective” types of “free expression.” It is politically correct in America to burn the American Flag (unless a special Constitutional Amendment makes it illegal), to promote extreme brutality, rape, and murder through a virtually unrestricted sale of videogames (see the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on this issue), to insult and desecrate unprotected world religions (most commonly, Christianity and Islam), to encourage pornography, profanity, promiscuity of all sorts, as well as other types of aberrant behavior, elevating all of them to the status of social norm. All right, we may say, as long as such permissiveness protects all free speech, including our own. But this is not so, as we know. Political correctness is not a blanket license for all. It is also a scourge, and woe to him or to her who does not know the difference between the allowed and the forbidden. Poor souls, how are they supposed to find it out when even asking an innocent question on a forbidden subject is immediately deemed anathema?!

THE BEST EXCUSE FOR MINDING ONE'S OWN BUSINESS

The nations of the world can attain the blessed state of peace by taking either of the following two courses. One is by buying peace like an essential commodity, in which case it will be, like in paying the blackmailer, never quite enough, and never for keeps. The other course is surprisingly by becoming blatantly selfish, that is, by sticking to their vital national interest no matter what, and by renouncing all compromises on it, while at the same time, abandoning all unhealthy excesses, including meddling in other people’s business. You may be surprised how preciously few genuine conflicts will remain in the world, if nations are thus reduced to minding their own businesses, and leaving others’ alone.
It is in this sense that Nietzsche’s dictum “Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul” makes some extra good sense, and serves as an excellent rule of thumb in the conduct of foreign affairs, as long as the word "egoism" is properly understood, conforming to Nietzsche’s precise philosophical meaning! (For instance, I believe that Teddy Roosevelt was a healthy egoist in his conduct of American foreign policy, whereas in the last twenty years Washington has been moving in the entirely opposite direction.)
The trouble with American foreign policy today is that Washington habitually makes other nations' business its own (the more, the merrier!), and, because the basic premise here is morbidly false, both the practicality and the concept itself of legitimate American interest is diluted, trivialized, and rendered virtually impotent, as its impostor substitutes are welcome to fill its legitimate space.

The best way to conduct national foreign policy is to actively mind one’s own business, literally!

SLAVES OF FREEDOM

(This entry’s direct counterpart Freedom Of The Unfree will be posted later on.)
The title of this entry, Slaves of Freedom, refers to two closely related phenomena: when freedom is used as a banner by the strong to enslave the weak, and also, when the concept of freedom rots in the psyche of the winner, turning it into an offensive caricature and a source of sickly self-deception.
Let us start with the first case. It must be understood that freedom cannot be harnessed, like a yoke. It is one thing to free captives from their captivity and let them go, and quite another thing to become the new master for them, telling them what to do and how to use their newly acquired “freedom.” The American example of such misuse is staring us in the face, and it is only fitting to use it in this American section.
The best characterization of such imperialist mentality, epitomized by the inglorious Bush Doctrine, as well as the best capsulation of the first instance of misuse of the idea of freedom, is found in Nietzsche’s Jenseits 19:

“I am free, ‘he’ must obey.”

(The meaning of this entry’s title Slaves Of Freedom with this comes into a haut relief, so that even the blind can feel it, if they wish to touch it.)
Taking the American superiority for granted, the rationalization of such assumed superiority is conveniently formulated as the superiority of the free over the unfree, and, America being a perfectly free society, at least in popular demagoguery, it follows that the whole unfree world must now bow down to ‘freedom’ American style, which is the most recent expression of the old concept of Pax Americana.
One would be very naïve to presume that the concept of freedom stands on its own, in this line of reasoning. In fact, there is just one criterion for freedom here, which is toeing Washington’s line. Hence, it is uncannily perceptive of Nietzsche to capsulate the idea of freedom for the weak in the eyes of the strong, as above.

There is another take on the philosophical subtleties of the concept of freedom. Without attempting to offer an indiscriminate equivalent of yet another exceptional passage in Nietzsche’s Jenseits 260, I may however recommend that it be carefully analyzed. America’s origin was that of a free-spirited nation (providentially, this free spirit was kept alive and well in the pioneer spirit, and in constant struggle against the adversity of the elements and other circumstances; it was only through settling down in a petit-bourgeois manner that the glorious free spirit would start to ail!); and free spirit is hardly compatible with the level of coercion applied by Washington on the weaker nations, all in the name of freedom. Such close association of the concept of freedom with the coercion of others, self-centered ulterior motivation, and underlying selfishness, can only do damage to the national psyche, where the idea of liberty and freedom rests, corrupting the national soul in a terrible way, with the eventual necessity of purification becoming an increasingly harder task, demanding a degree of repentance and admission of shame that the great-power pride may never agree to bear. (But if it does, a level of self-cleansing would be so great that such a nation can readily be accepted by the rest of the world as a shining example of greatness, worthy of universal admiration and the desire of emulation.)

So, here is that promised Nietzschean passage now, containing an interesting twist, that makes me wonder:

“One last difference: the longing for freedom, the instinct for happiness, and the subtleties of the feeling of freedom belong just as necessarily to slave morality and morals, as artful and enthusiastic reverence and devotion are the regular symptoms of an aristocratic way of thinking and evaluating.”

I wonder, whether the current promotion of freedom, done by slave-masters trying to recruit slaves for their private use, is also a reflection of the underlying slave mentality not on the part of the American nation, of course, but on the part of the policy-making ideologues, whose cynical manipulation of the term “freedom” leaves no doubt about their real attitude toward this terribly complicated concept, and about the true nature of those, whose own “spirit” is more than suspect.

GREAT SOCIETY

The Fourth of July is a great American holiday, and I wish to celebrate it with something especially uplifting, but also of a more recent origin. Looking back for such an event, and counting backwards, I have found nothing more recent and more appropriate to fit this glorious occasion, than the following excerpt from President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” speech, dating back to May 1964. (LBJ delivered it during his election campaign against the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater.)---

“The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to rebuild and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce, but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods.”

Despite the dark cloud of JFK’s assassination hanging over LBJ’s presidency, and the tragedy of Vietnam, which took control of his destiny like a runaway train, while he seemed powerless to stop it, we must never forget or diminish President Johnson’s best achievement in office, which was, of course, his Great Society Program.
To be quite honest, the passage quoted above is so heavily poetic and so naively impractical that I am having a hard time trying to reconcile it with my mental picture of LBJ. There is little doubt in my mind that he could never have written something like this by himself.
But let us put it this way. Had this excerpt been credited to some "Joe Johnson," as its real author, it wouldn’t have amounted to too much, except as a syrupy piece of wishful-thinking “dreamery,” something to shed a tear over, for a fellow poetic soul, and probably nothing more than that.

It is certainly to LBJ’s greatest credit that he delivered this momentous speech, imbuing it with the power of the Presidency, and that he also followed through with some significant practical steps. “Great Society” is therefore by far the greatest part of President Johnson’s historical legacy, by which primarily he ought to be remembered.

…Happy Fourth of July!