Cynicism

There are certain words whose proper meaning has been steadily vanishing through improper and repeated misuse. Certain words, whose power lies in the effect of its sound rather than in the precision of its meaning. Words who resemble gardens of reality infestated by the siren chants of mythology. Cynicism is one of these words.

How is it, exactly, to be a cynic? If you are called a cynic, you won't like it, for sure. You mightn't be able to understand exactly what you have been called, but you won't like it, as cynic sounds to despicable, immoral and shameless.

Cynicism is also a term whose actual meaning today might contradict the original one it held during the times of the Greek School of Phylosophy. And this is a point I wish to capture here today. The dictionary I have in my hands now defines a cynic as the person "who practices or persists in the error, justifying his actions with impertinence, shamelessly". I understand that, for example, if your friend boasts about his stealing of the network signal from a neighbourgh, he is a cynic. Or, another example, if your boss goes on vacation during a strike in the factory in order to receive full payment and, later, complains about his subordinates preferring to work rather than demonstrating, he is a cynic.

It is a matter of fantastic surprise the fierce impudence of so many today who happen not to understand these very simple cases. The heat of discussion gets you to the argument of living in society: "we live in a social environment, you cannot isolate yourself", you are told. And from there, the seed of corporativism against individual righteousness is just sown and harvested. And, here, most interestingly, the original definition of cynicim in my dictionary comes handy: "It belongs to the School of Anthistenes and Diogenes, whose life is a practical option against social conventions". Alas! Is it not right that going against social conventions, against immovilism leads you to isolation and to frontal clash with the cynics of today?

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Ay, Espana!

I have this story in my chest and I need to cough it up: finally, I found the way.

There is nothing new in the fact that the majority of Spanish politicians, who has sworn to comply with and enforce the Spanish Constitution of 1978 as a previous requisite to accept their positions, and whose salaries stem from it, failed to attend the official acts to honor our Constitution in its anniversary on the past 6th of December. There is nothing new either in the fact that, against the Constitution and the Country itself acts were organized by some of these politicians on the very same day. We are certainly getting used to it and expect no different.

Nevertheless, the circumstances are disgusting... Vomiting, as a matter of fact. The Spanish Constitution is being openly contradicted de facto, since years ago, starting from the realization that the sovereignty of the Spanish Nation is no longer represented in the Parliament, a consequence of the First Article of the Carta Magna. The beginning of the calamitous and fatal situation in which our country, my country, is now can be amply contemplated in the dark abyss lying between the ruling class and the un-ruling.

The past 6th of December, however -and this is new- groups of citizens organized by more or less political entities, rendered tribute to the Constitution and the Unity of our country -which, as a warning to readers sailing astray, it is an indisputable historical fact-. The brave one took place in Barcelona, a dissonant voice in that putrid pool of dictatorship and corruption, the only one probably in the whole year 2012. In central Madrid, a group established to defend the Unity of Spain, did its homage in La Plaza de Colon.

My heart is kept in anguish before this demonstrations because, although righteous and veritable, are insufficient to get us all in the same direction.

I insist that, in the core, those acts were a display of citizenship but groups of dim political color were behind. The fact that those groups were or, at least, are perceived, as right-wing, is an irremediable handicap, an impossibility for agreement. Unfortunately, the left of PSOE is in decomposition, the most fantastic dreams could not bring the communists to accept the rest and the decent left is too unimportant or just suspicious. In times of betrayal, everything looks suspicious, and is there any being more suspicious than the Spaniard? The beautiful version of the National Anthem sung by a Cuban woman, mulatto face known in TV, who lives a high-maintenance life in Marbella, looks suspicious; the beautiful version of the National Anthem sung by Elena Fernandez de Cordoba, an aristocrat, looks suspicious; the beautiful version with sensible lyrics of Jon Juaristi, a former ETA militant, looks suspicious. The old guys with Spanish flags shouting "Viva Espana!" while the host of the event congratulate the singer, looks more than suspicious to many. The terrible testimony of ETA victims seem opportunistic, the anniversary of massacres is getting forgotten and the claim from Basques and Catalans that Basques and Catalans are a fundamental part of Spain is ignored.

But, alas!, in this climate of hopeless desperation, when, on the morning of the 7th I was working early while listening to the news, and heard the National Anthem in this picturesque dress, faded away completely the stench of any dictatorship, I couldn't help but cry... In the dim light of the dawn, I was crying alone. Swift, but just for an instant, like a super-fast bolt, a hope crossed my mind: "maybe, not everything is lost".

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Columbine again

Yesterday, when I wrote my comment on Mishima's novel The Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea, I did have no news about the events in New Town, Connecticut. It has been only this morning, sunk in drowsiness, when I learned about it listening to BBC2 in bed. The coincidence is macabre.

My uneasiness in these cases is that, in looking for any motivations underneath such horrendous actions, the official versions normally leave me cold and unsatisfied. Explanations seem to me insufficient to sustain the reality of the facts and I always end up forgetting the story without speaking my mind up. I don't understand the psychiatric profiles -name tags for things we are unable to understand completely- nor its abstruse terminology and vague set of conclusions: "The guy was suffering from paranoia or manifested this and that syndromes, and that made him prone to..., likely to, with tendency to". However, the force that set the motherfucker into motion was not any sort of tendency or likelihood! But a real, specific thrust that made his muscles spring towards his purpose.

I happen to agree with those who claim that criminals of the type of Adam Lanza should be studied and not just piled up in prisons and forsaken -if not left them free if they are under-age. So, please, could we be more specific and study case by case? Who was Adam Lanza? What can we learn from his case?

When a case like this happens, whether becomes public or not -I just learned that, recently, a couple of similar cases were aborted, one in Palma de Mallorca (Spain), where a youngster planned to blow a school with a home-made bomb made out of fertilizers under guidance of the web-, I despised any blame blindly thrown upon Society. "Society" is our scapegoat, the concept that serves a large variety of purposes... Nah! I understand that Society, as a whole, might play an important role. For example, the effects of a long consumption of cocaine over time -out of excessive social permissiveness or inaction-, create monsters that commit terrible crimes out of the blue. However, I think that if the blame is to be on Society in general, responsibility will get diffuse, and will slow down any corrective policy. Society is not an entity in itself: individuals are.

For this reason, re-opening the debate of free possession of weapons in the States is off subject. It was, precisely, the acknowledgement of evil in the Heart of Men and, let's say, Society, what brought in the end the right to possess weapons to the Second Amendment into the American Constitution! Spotting individuals like Adam Lanza or Anders Breivik, and neutralizing them as much as possible is not a matter of sociology but of policy, law enforcement and police action. What difference does it make whether you have a gun or not?! The criminal kids of Mishima also killed, and did not have any fire weapon. I always remember this acquaintance of mine, N. who, being in the States when the shooting of Red Lake in Minnesota took place in 2005, I think, called me and exclaimed: "This is what happens after the culture of no guns: a crazy guy starts killing and you can't do anything. If guns were more freely allowed, someone would have taken him down and we would have to mourn less casualties". Well, it is just a point of view.

Seemingly, Adam Lanza knew what he was doing. He went to kill, that's it. As usually happens, the chronicles do not mentioned the most terrible detail of the event: before running to the school, he had killed his mother at home. The twenty kids their lives he wiped off before killing himself were pupils of his mother. The motive behind is connected, again, with a defective parent-son relationship, whatever it is. And, as usually is the case, Adam's mother was a wonderful person and a magnificent woman, while Adam was a strange boy, talked little, showed languid or deplorable body language and was totally careless of socialization. But, com'on! How many cases do you know? What is the percentage of youngsters in their tens or early twenties displaying a similar behavior? Be serious: what does it take to be a criminal, really?

Although Evil has long rooted into our hearts, I am sure much more can be done in the action realm, rather than in the slippery and treacherous plane of Ideals and Utopias. The shiny, little wand does not work, never did: our heredity is no fairy tale.

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We're almost fourteen

In times of decay, there is a past seen in the distance when politicians could speak and preachers moved; teachers, explained and masters, inspired; when writers wrote marvelously and thinkers deeply thought; times when professors actually knew and excellence was as much admired as pursued; times when parents were parents and kids just kids. Back in the past of glittering years, painting was not only a form of expression but an universal mystery to catch; arts demanded sacrifice and the tyranny of vested networks had not developed yet. Of course, garbage always amounts in heaps, but in the gleaming times of splendor, rubbish was as much exposed as avoided.

In those modern times -rather than post-modern-, criminals filled the emptiness with endless reasons for vindication. It is as they tried hard to exceed purposedly. Crime was a rebellious spot in the cosmos, which only those who deserve it could occupy. The unworthy was just petty and pitiful. In opposition, in times of mediocrity, even evil loses quality.

The 13-year old kids who -seemingly- will disembowel Ryuji Tsukazaki are post-romantic but have a cause to fight. Their reasons fit well in a logical scheme and one reflects -why not?- whether, in wasted times, the most atrocious infants are actually the most able.

Listen to their discourse: "There is no such thing as a good father because the role itself is bad (...). They stand in the way of our progress while they try to burden us with their inferiority complexes, and their unrealized aspirations, and their resentments, and their ideals, and the weaknesses they've never told anyone about, and their sins, and their sweeter-than-honey dreams, and the maxims they've never had the courage to live by (...). They're suspicious of anything creative, anxious to whittle the world down into something puny they can handle. A father is a reality-concealing machine, a machine for dishing up lies to kids, and that isn't even the worst of it: secretly, he believes that he represents reality. Fathers are the flies of this world. They hover around our heads waiting for a chance, and when they see something rotten they buzz in and root in it (...)".

The night when Fusako tells Noboru that Ryuji will stay and that things will change, she significantly underlined that Ryuji will start being the Father Noboru needs, that "everything I have done is for you", that you can "call him Father". Her speech, un-intently, brought everything to collapse. To seal the covenant of destruction, Ryuji's first words were: "Then I won't call you Noboru anymore. From now on, it's Son". I have to say that I was not expecting this declaration from a woman like Fusako, but rather something of the sort: "This is what I want, what I need. Would you accept it, my dear? I can't tell you how much this matters to me. Whatever happens you will always be my Son, the Son I had with the Man I loved so much". But, perhaps, it is just me and not the character; perhaps, those were different times and the psychology and the culture and all were also different. Nevertheless, the stunning conversion of Ryuji in Father and the decision to further judge Noboru as an infant, set the spark that the demoniac structure of the kids' world needed to blow. It was a non-return point. Whether Mishima forced it a little to make the story consistent or not is a matter of discussion. After all, there is always a pinch of irrationality in the most exquisite rational (and criminal) mind, and a group of teenagers is no exception.

The consecration of the murder on the eve is brilliant: "I'm sure you all know where our duty lies. When a gear slips out of place it's our job to force it back into position. If we don't, order will turn to chaos. We all know that the world is empty and that the important thing, the only thing, is to try to maintain order in that emptiness". The development of this analogy between the empty mansion in which the chief boy lives without parents around most of time and the senseless and empty world is well-suited. The boy follows: "We are guards, and more than that because we also have executive power to insure that order is maintained".

Furthermore, the plan of the execution is cold as cold is the iron anchor Noboru sees his heart to be. And here the diabolic reasoning of the boys touches ground and flows into a pool of reality so, so painfully. Mishima tells that the chief took from his briefcase an ocher law book and uttered: "I want all of you to listen carefully: 'Penal Code, Article Fourteen - Acts of juveniles less than fourteen years of age are not punishable by law". And he read it again, louder, and had the book pass around. And he said (his upper lip curled, I see it!):

"This law is the adults' way of expressing the high hopes they have for us. But it also represents all the dreams they've never been able to make come true (...). They've been careless enough to allow us here, and only here, a glimpse of blue sky and absolute freedom (...). This law they've written is a kind of nursery tale, a pretty deadly tale (...). And in a way, it's understandable. After all, up to now we have been nursery kids, adorable, defenseless, innocent kids.  But three of us here will be fourteen next month -myself, number one, and you, number three. And you other three will be fourteen in March. Just think about it a minute. This is our last chance! (...)".

At this point, the kid exulted in a disturbing shout, but quite familiar throughout history: "We must have blood! Human blood!". It seems that in the altar of their God of Order-in-the-Nihilism, animal sacrifices are not sufficient. "If we don't get it [human blood] this empty world will go pale and shrivel up. We must drain the sailor's fresh lifeblood and transfuse it to the dying universe, the dying sky, the dying forests, and the drawn, dying land". And he finished with the classic: Now! The time is come! "In another month they'll have finished clearing the land around our dry dock and then the place will fill up with people. Besides, we're almost fourteen".

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New men

I read somewhere that Miranda Kerr has recently declared: "I am a traditional woman: the man has to be quite manly". I confessed that both affirmations of the statement scare me a little. A traditional woman is an un-tameable creature, a being not completely comprehensible, much less vulnerable than any other woman and freer. A manly man is, on the other side, a chivalrous ideal, a life full of duties and responsibilities, with many backdoor escapes. Both existences are harder than any other. That might be the reason, however, why most of people, most of us, resigned, or tend to resign.

Ryuji, the sailor whom Mishima made fall from Grace with the sea, was a simple man in the eyes of Fusako. She "needed a guarantee for safety, for she had pampered herself too long, avoided danger in any form". It seemed vitally important to her that "the man with whom she was involved be down-to-earth". She was convinced, also, that "Ryuji was not the sort of man to burden her financially".

How many young women you know today who can say that the men they are with fail to comply with one or another requirements -if not both- Fusako was so sure about?

                                                           Miranda Kerr

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Political identity

My good friend V. said no, "I did not suggest you to read Animal Farm for vindi... What? But because I wanted you to realize that, the truth is, you are indeed an extreme leftist". She is so cute! When I get myself entangled in arguments with other people, and they get a little scandalized for my words, when V. is around, I sometimes heard her saying: "Don't worry, he's different, he is different from what he sounds".

Some other people have claimed the same in the old times. Years ago, the dear brothers O., warm and humane, creative and genuine, holders of a talkative heart as every good Spaniard since much before Don Quixote owns, out of one of their crazy games, a test of personality, stated to me: "Though seemingly conservative, you can be as liberal as Riego". They meant Rafael Riego. Conspiracy against the king, however, or against the Monarchy so to generally speak, is not necessarily a progressive move. It could be quite reactionary. In Spain, for example, in the feudal times, being Royalist and occupying tierras de realengo was a progressive and brave political trait, certainly preferred by many just because they normally were offered more freedom and autonomy that those in feudal lands and had to pay less taxes.

I mostly value independence. When I was a kid, I was taught to be myself, to have personality, as we were said, and to avoid being dragged and alienated by the pressure of the group or its charismatic leader. That was how good boys were supposed to be. My political interests did not come until much later, precisely in the eve of the so-called War on Iraq of 2003. My mentor in the initiation was A. I started to read and listen to comments and journalistic columns that provided a vision totally new for me. It was an awesome revelation. Most important, it seemed to me that those so writing or speaking were easy to understand, and that their words were clear and inviting: off the quicksands of dull and aseptic voices, and out of the confusion of what-it-is-said -I was no more political animal hitherto than the horses and hens of Animal Farm listening to the shady lies and leonine appeasements of Squealer-, there it came the distinct opinion of snipers, articulated in plain words, rather than the bombastic terms I was used to hear. Such snipers always directed the light of their lanterns to the side of the issue kept in the dark, covered with dust, and did so convincingly and, apparently, sincerely. That was the voice of Liberals, the heirs of the Austrian school of Hayek and Mises. In a country like Spain, without any real Liberal tradition whatsoever (being a few fundamental episodes despised or directly silenced), the discovery was like an earthquake to me. As any other natural catastrophe, it came to me and I had nothing to do with it.

So in this side I have stayed since then. Politically, I am very much convinced that liberal doctrines work much better than any interventionism or self-imposed social obligations. Along with my longing for independence it came a somewhat pompous stand for individual freedom. If you leaf through the pages of this blog, you might find plenty of examples of both.

There is a third element, less sung, but most important: the moral fabric in which I have been educated. You can also sniff the scent of this element all through the blog. The more I think about it, the more I get convinced of its capital importance. I can't stand falsehood and lies, egotism and self-centered actions and I don't take the usual rubbish around us daily. I never had any money so I am not in danger of becoming a dandy or a senorito, and the very same ethical fabric I was dressed into will prevent me from the outrageous cries of the self-pitiful left, up to morally save the planet, but always with a keen eye on to their (massive) current accounts.

The flawed part in the thinking of V. is to believe that one's political stand determines his disposition to care for others. In my opinion, no political system and no high or super-high education will make humans an inch better. At least, no directly. Quite the opposite, the illusion of seeing education and politics as the keys to definitely unlock the box of human happiness is the old, distorted dream of the Alchemist from which, of course, the evil profits. That power is, however, in the old book of Life, the Oracle to which the hero comes for advise, if you wish, and it is stored in the struggles of those who, mysteriously, incomprehensibly, base their lives in showing and disseminating little pieces of glittering goodness, in any form, either in friendship, professional or personal relationships or out of familiar duties. I am no more than one who was shown and now wants to show; I was given and now I am ready to give. Doubtless in my mind is that the eradication of this tacit cycle will bring this or any other civilization to an end. And there is no other knowledge or action in the world that can prevent it. One has only to remind the advocates of the global annihilation that not only the dinosaurs once reigned over the Earth, but also the Romans.

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The Freedom of the Press

It is a matter of vindication and self-assurance the reason that led V. to suggest me the reading of Animal Farm. This happened, I would say, in the face of certain personal or "professional" events that have been taking place lately. As a matter of fact, I have been able to find close parallelisms between recent situations and those narrated in the novel. As I mentioned here a couple of days ago, Animal Farm is more the lack of individual expression and the give-away of personal exploration and overcoming for the benefit of the group rather than any left-biased claim against dictatorship in abstract and fashionable ways. Naturally, something of the sort was at the beginning. The purpose of Orwell in writing the novel was to shout the silent cry of those betrayed by the usurpers of the Soviet Revolution, and such specific aim banned the publication of the novel by at least one of the four publishers who rejected it. George Orwell himself told the story: a general denounce against dictatorship would have simply done it.

Orwell had a neat and tidy style. His writing is complete and concise, and words seem to be precisely chosen for the job, without pomposity or vane fluorishment. The very beginning of Animal Farm I saw once written on the walls of the Metro in Madrid: "Mr. Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself  a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs Jones was already snoring". The amount of imaging of this opening paragraph is staggering. Sometimes (like that good woman from New York told me it is said over there), I say to myself: "Self, you gotta start reading novels by images rather than by symbols or sounds". Shall I ever learn?

Apart from a few interesting details, the most juicy taste of the novel has come to me, once again, from its outskirts. I bought a nice hard-cover edition, with an appealing letter style and an introduction by Christopher Hitchens. This is something a kindle will never give to you and why, if I have some petty cash to spend, I prefer more expensive editions. The edition I bought with the remnant money of a birthday voucher brings, happily, the preface that Orwell himself wrote for the novel and that never appeare: the document has been a fantastic discovery. For sure, Hitchens, who spends time talking in the introduction about the ups and downs of the novel in China, Burma, Zimbabwe and the Islamic World, and who even pointed at the stupidity of The Dial Press and the malevolence of the American right-wing and the CIA for using the novel for propaganda purposes, has not read what Orwell had to say in his Freedom of the Press. Amazingly, as Bernard Crick says in his 1982 study, it was "a blast against self-censorship" and, clearly to me, a description of the British press or the so-called English intelligentsia.

Orwell distinguishes between two types of censorship in the English literary intelligentsia: the one that is "voluntarily imposed upon themselves", and the censorship that "can sometimes be enforced by pressure groups". I have been hypnotically attracted to the first type, as it is the one that provides a fitting explanation to my personal, recent experience in this country, despite the fact that has nothing to do with the literary universe or the press world. Listen to this:

"The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone who has lived long in a foreign country will know of instances of sensational items of news (..) being kept right out of the British press, not because the Government intervened but because of a general tacit agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that particular fact (...). The British press is extremely centralized, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays, films and radio. At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the presence of a lady". And Orwell finishes the paragraph: "Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing , either in the popular press or in the highbrow periodicals".

Oh! It can be said louder but hardly clearer. Perhaps, it is just an irony of destiny that Animal Farm, beyond its clear portrait of the Russian Soviets, with their Stalin but without their Trotsky, with Napoleon but without Snowball, does reflect to the minimum detail the overwhelming pains and cold of the independent actor in the crowded and warmer stage of the accepted.

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Animal Farm

Following the suggestion of V. I am reading Animal Farm. A couple of times I have mentioned it to a couple of friends in a couple of different situations and, curiously, both replied in the same manner: "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others".

Throughout the story, as the spirit of the original Revolution becomes more and more corrupted and deserted, the initial Commandments are adulterated. This is certainly one of the sharper, self-exposed splinters of Orwell's message. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that, throughout the story, in so many occasions, the distortions of Squealer can't be argued because of lack of memory: the animals cannot remember exactly what happened, cannot remember the truth. Against the evident efforts to re-write the history, memory stands out as the most powerful weapon for such a task. Given my very weak memory to render remembrance to offences in past, this remark is a truly revealing point.

Perhaps, the savvy of pundits can put into perspective what the Soviet Union and the whole Communism world meant; how the cult of personality, the exalting of the shear force and the leveling dictatorship of the masses came together to write an outrageous passage of history. Orwell has his own reasons to write the story and, obviously, as he himself explained, had a very specific purpose. However, in my view, if Animal Farm is today in the hot-spot for the new generations is not to fight the old battle of the old ideals, nor to take any side for the Socialist against any form of extremism _either right or left. In my view, Animal Farm is the praise of the individual against collectivism, any kind of collectivism. The developments of the story and the evolution of the animals' behavior are quite familiar to all and all of us can, for sure, put the novel in parallelism with prosaic stories of our daily life. To me, this is the actual message of Animal Farm for us: the independence of mind has a prize.

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