The Great Charade

In an interview she gave in 1980, the eminent British writer Doris Lessing said the following: "I can't remember any time in my life where I wasn't sitting looking at the grown-up scene and thinking, this must be some great charade they've all agreed to play." On an intuitive level, I had a similar perception about my childhood environment when I was about 8 or 9, and subsequent events have only served to reinforce that perception. It's one reason why I have been attracted to Lessing's novels, some of which reiterate this theme--in particular, Briefing for a Descent into Hell, which I occasionally assigned to my classes when I was teaching at various universities.

"The Great Charade" is a theme that goes by other names, in particular "The Emperor's New Clothes," a story by the Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (it has been translated into more than 100 languages); or "Orwellian Newspeak"; or "The World Turned Upside Down," the title of a book by the British historian Christopher Hill. A more accurate title might be "Reality Turned Upside Down," for that is what we see in the MSM and their interpretation of daily events. I frequently read the 'news' and say to myself, Has everyone gone completely nuts? Like Jack Kennedy with the Russian missiles in Cuba in 1962, Vladimir Putin saw that he had to safeguard his country's borders against America and NATO, which finally necessitated invading the Ukraine. This obvious fact is recognized by only a tiny handful of astute political analysts (Mearsheimer, Ritter, Pilger, Sachs...); the rest of the world is appalled at Putin as some latter-day Hitler, ignoring what the Russian foreign minister correctly described as a proxy war against Russia, in which the Ukraine is nothing more than fodder. Self-righteous Americans, deluded up to their eyeballs, jump up and down and wave the Ukrainian flag, while American universities actually think it makes perfect sense to cancel courses in Doestoevsky(!!).

A similar charade pervades the coverage of, and reaction to, Hamas' uprising against Israel. Most of the 'analysis' of causes is plainly stupid: it was caused by a failure of Israeli intelligence. Wha?? Much to my amazement, only the NYT seems to have gotten it right: this 'intelligence' thesis is a load of crap, and the real cause goes back to 1948, when the Jews drove 700,000 Palestinians off their land. (I reproduce excerpts from the Times article in the previous post.) Meanwhile, the whole world is outraged at the Hamas uprising, when they too would be retaliating if something similar had happened to them. Excepting Palestinian commentators, the NYT emerges as the sole voice of sanity amidst--once again--a great charade.

One great danger posed by Donald Trump--and I agree that it is a danger--is that of falsifying reality, in Orwellian style; a charade, turning black into white, up into down, and so on. The raw empirical truth is that Trump lost the 2020 election, pure and simple. But if Mr. Trump wins the election of 2024 and ascends to the White House, that complete falsehood will become The New Truth. My question is: How is that different from making Russia the culprit in the Ukraine war, or making Hamas the culprit in their attack on Israel? All of it--Trump, the Ukraine, Israel--is reality turned upside down: a charade, as Doris Lessing said, that grown-ups have all agreed to play. Some grown-ups, is all I can think to say.

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A Revolutionary Act

It was George Orwell who said it: "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

There can be no doubt that we are living during a time of universal deceit. America, among others, is soaking in it. The Trumpite claim that Biden stole the 2020 election is an obvious example of this; his demagoguery is classically Orwellian. The phony proxy war against Russia via the Ukraine, the "reportage" of the NYT and others that is little more than propaganda--another Orwellian pile of crap. The fomenting of war for "democracy": you have to be brain damaged to believe such nonsense.

What can one blog do? We aren't on the radar screen of intellectual debate, and never will be. Even leading critics of America, of both its domestic and foreign policy, are ignored by the MSM and shunted off to YouTube, at best. But it is still worthwhile, for those few of us who see that the emperor has no clothes, to point it out. This is the hard rock at the bottom of all the bullshit, all the gaslighting.

Truth, like virtue, is its own reward.

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The Deepest Truth

For many years now, I have been fascinated by the life and work of Remedios Varo (1908-63), a Spanish Surrealist artist who died in Mexico City at the age of 54, after having lived there for 22 years. I just read, for the third time, the superb biography of her by Janet Kaplan, which reproduces a good many of her canvases:

Remedios Varo: Unexpected Journeys: Kaplan, Janet A.: 9780789206275: Amazon.com: Books

I have in mind paintings such as (in English translation) Toward the Tower, The Escape, Rupture, and To Be Reborn, but my all-time favorite is Breaking the Vicious Circle:

Museum Art Reproductions | Breaking the vicious circle by Remedios Varo (1865-1911, Spain) | WahooArt.com

The vicious circle is the script or narrative that consciously or (mostly) unconsciously governs our lives, as I described it in my book Healing:

Healing: The Defining Root of Our Existence: Berman, Morris: 9798393548681: Amazon.com: Books

I could have easily used this painting for the front cover. For me, Varo exemplifies a life of authenticity, and a rejection of a life of conformity. This theme occurs in many of her paintings, but is most dramatically presented in Breaking the Vicious Circle. Varo was searching for the deepest truth, in her own life and in life in general. She calls to mind a quote from Virginia Nicholson’s book, Among the Bohemians, which I cite in Healing (she was a niece of Virginia Woolf):

Among the Bohemians: Experiments in Living 1900-1939: Nicholson, Virginia: 9780060548469: Amazon.com: Books

"There are people in the world who will not make compromises with life. Their faces are turned like sunflowers towards the source of light, and even when battered and broken they refuse to give in to old age, sorrow, loss, defeat."

I believe the deepest truth is what I have called the Healing Vector, the force within us that is pushing toward the light. It is the motive force of life, sometimes referred to as “entelechy.” The deepest truth is to live in Reality. I’ve struggled to make this my path, as best as I have been able; it is a lonely road, since most people—certainly, most Americans—are not interested in it. America is living in illusion, which is why it is dying. And most Americans are living in illusion, which is why so many of them are angry and depressed. My guess is that it won’t end well for them, and it certainly won’t end well for the US. (Just look around.)

Let me conclude by alerting you all to the current exhibition of Varo’s work going on at the Art Institute of Chicago:

Remedios Varo: Science Fictions | The Art Institute of Chicago (artic.edu)

Really wish I could go. Those of you Wafers who do go, please report back, let us have your reactions.

Arriba!

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Our Common Humanity

The following text is from a Canaanite (Ugaritic) tablet, early third millennium B.C. It was from the Canaanite people that the Jewish people eventually emerged. The Canaanites were polytheistic; the Israelites, centuries later, were monotheistic (worshipping Yahweh). The speaker here is Baal, the Canaanite god of fertility, and storms. He is addressing another deity.

"I have a word to tell you, a message to recount to you: the word of the tree and the whisper of the stone, the murmur of the heavens to the earth, of the seas to the stars. I understand the lightning that the heavens do not know, the word that people do not know, and earth's masses cannot understand. Come, and I will reveal it."

Ugaritic is very close to Hebrew. Many of the Psalms are direct translations of Ugaritic poetry into the Hebrew language.

The Soul of Russia

Wafers-

My book on Russia, hardcopy edition, just got listed on Amazon, and should be available for sale sometime within the next two weeks. The (cheaper) paperback edition will be listed soon after that, or so they tell me.

https://www.amazon.com/Soul-Russia-Morris-Berman/dp/1648373623/

Enjoy, my friends. This book took a while, but was a true labor of love.

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Schmegegge

Wafers-

Truth be told, I'm running out of things to say. How many events, facts, and bits of evidence of our degradation/disintegration/debasement/collapse can we point to, on a daily basis? The sheer self-destruction of the country is right there, before our very eyes; every day, we sink deeper and deeper into it. Everything we do, every action, is an abysmal error. Years ago, I predicted 2030 as the endpoint of the nation, but I'm wondering if I should move the date up. Our slogan, "Onward and Downward," may have to be revised: "Onward and Rapidly Downward." The whole country amounts to nothing more than baloney. The government is baloney; the MSM is baloney; and the American public is baloney. The Yiddish word for this is schmegegge. Look it up on Google (it's sort of like putz squared). America is a schmegegge, a hopeless, pathetic collection of hot air.

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