Critical Vision

"The Rite": A Movie Review.

2011-01-29T17:27:00.044-05:00

March 28, 2011 at 12:12 P.M. Spacing has been altered several times in this essay. As a result, I have been forced to use "quotation spacing" and to restore the appropriate spacing between paragraphs several times this morning. The delights of sadistic cruelty are always sexual for proponents. I am flattered.
March 27, 2011 at 11:58 A.M. A single word was deleted from a sentence since my previous review of this work. A society that indulges in this spectacle of sadistic cruelty and censorship, publicly, is in steep decline and has abandoned its values. I have corrected this inserted "error." I cannot say how many other writings have been altered or defaced overnight.

March 11, 2011 at 3:53 P.M. "Error" inserted overnight will now be corrected.
March 10, 2011 at 11:07 A.M. An alteration and inserted "error" was introduced into the text since my previous review of the work. I will now correct all newly inserted or re-inserted "errors."

March 2, 2011 at 11:17 A.M. This essay had been left alone for a while, but it was attacked overnight, alterations have defaced the text. I will do my best to correct these inserted "errors." ("Incoherence in 'The New York Times'" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?" then "Let's win one for the gipper.")

January 30, 2011 at 8:44 P.M. Another word was deleted from this essay since earlier this evening. I have now restored that word to the text. I have also corrected a number of essays which have been altered or vandalized today. Numerous intrusions into my computer from New Jersey or the Times (?) may have allowed for these developments. My security system has been disabled. ("S.L. Hurley on Beliefs and Reasons for Action.")

January 30, 2011 at 5:07 P.M. Additional "errors" inserted in this text since this morning will now be corrected. "Possessives" have been altered by a very sick person. I will do my best to keep up with the regular insertions of "errors" by a person with access to government technology in New Jersey. ("Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")

January 30, 2011 at 9:48 A.M. One letter was removed from a word overnight and a title was altered. Otherwise, there were fewer inserted "errors" than I expected. I am afraid that additional inserted "errors" must be expected, especially when a review is perceived as better than what appears in The New York Times.
"The Rite" (2011) Directed by Michael Hafstrom; written by Michael Petroni (bravo); suggested by the book by Matt Baglio; director of photography Ben Davis; edited by David Rosenbloom; music by Alex Heffes. Starring: Anthony Hopkins (Father Lucas -- Oscar worthy performance); Colin O'Donoghue (Michael Kovak); Alice Braga (Angeline); Ciaran Hinds (Father Xavier); Toby Jones (Father Mathew); Rutger Hauer (Istvan Kovak); Marta Gastini (Rosaria -- Oscar worthy debut!); and Maria Grazia Cuccinota (Aunt Andria).

I. "You cannot win without God."

I was fortunate to see "The Rite" on the evening of its New York premiere. The film is subtle and theologically interesting, drawing on important twentieth century meditations by Catholic thinkers concerning the mystery of evil. I am thinking especially of Thomas Merton, Hans Kung, Edward Schillebeeckx, as well as others, including John Paul, II.

Interestingly, the script writer is also responsible for the text in the Narnia movies based on C.S. Lewis' allegory of Christianity. Mr. Lewis was a devoted Christian, a protestant, whose concern with the problem of evil in theology is visible in works such as God in the Dock, The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, but most especially in the film of his life where Anthony Hopkins portrayed Professor Lewis, Shadowlands.

In fact, "Shadowlands" -- the earthly realm of illusions and unreality is where we find ourselves in "The Rite" -- surrounded by a "cloud of unknowing." This identification is signalled for the audience in the name of the restaurant to which the leads are drawn: Il Sogno. ("The Dream.") The earthly life is a dream or an "unreal" striving for the ultimate meaning or purpose of our existence, in Christian teaching, which is unity with God or love.

It is love alone which defeats evil. The ability to love another person more than oneself (or as oneself) not merely brings us to God, but is God. More on this later. ("The Soldier and the Ballerina" and "Out of the Past.")

We begin our story with a young man who is directionless and skeptical, suffering from the disease of postmodernity -- nihilism, an embrace of the nothingness that we are. Hence, the constant rain and dreary conditions that externalize a Kierkegaardian despair that defines evil in the contemporary world. Augustine reminds us that the world is "all idle talk and play and nothingness."

The West's surrender to this nothingness was a source of suffering for the Russian Nobel laureate, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, A World Split Apart: A Commencement Address Delivered at Harvard University, June 8, 1978 (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), pp. 47-51, also for his predecessor Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings (London: Penguin, 1987), pp. 81-231. (Tolstoy's writings concerning the truth in religion and interpretations of the Gospel story are highly recommended.)

Michael Kovaks seeks to escape the life made available to him in his father's funeral parlor where he has mastered the art of embalming the dead (that's all of us who are non-believers and himself at the outset of this cinematic journey, corpses). Godless humanity is living in a "shadowland" of material consumption and meaningless sex, greed and will-to-power where everything is relative. The devil is the ultimate relativist and postmodernist (see Malcolm Bradbury's "Dr. Criminale") echoing Friedrich Nietzsche in this film: "God is dead!"

Michael decides to attend seminary classes to get an education without necessarily intending to join the priesthood, essentially finagling a higher education under false pretenses. But we are reminded that it is "God who has chosen you, Michael." The mere fact that we exist, according to Catholic teaching, suggests that we all have been chosen because our lives serve purposes that we see only through a glass darkly. Michael will become a priest. We will all do what we are here to do. For any one of us to take the life of another person, for example, is to assume a God-like prerogative to which we are not entitled. (''The Matrix': A Movie Review.")

The film becomes a work of Christian exhortation, instructing us against the "devil's deceptions and mendacity." The devil's greatest deception is to convince us not only that he does not exist, but that God is nonsense because love is "unreal." We are unworthy of God's love. We cannot love one another. If you accept this demeaning view of humanity as naked apes and nothing more, the devil wins. Yes, these film characters may be seen as metaphors and symbols. You do not have to be a religious believer to appreciate the scriptures or this movie:

" ... I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us ... the observers [audience members] ... every person in this house. [The movie theater.] And I think -- I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy. And there lies the heart of it, perhaps: in unworthiness. For I think belief in God is not a matter of reason at all; I think it is finally a matter of love; of accepting the possibility that God could could love us. ... "

William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist (New York: Harpertorch, 1971), pp. 352-353.

To know that "God loves us" is a way of stating in religious language that we are capable of loving others and deserve to be loved. On the other hand, if we accept that "God is dead" and if we are convinced that "God is not here, priest!" -- as the Hopkins' character says under possession -- then we must live in a world without ultimate hope or love. For this reason, Father Lucas (as the demon) says to Michael: "even your father could not love you." ("Is it rational to believe in God?")

Lovelessness is a state of utter despair. This so-called secular "life" ("there is no hope here!' says the devil, quoting Dante) is hell. Hell is a place without love or hope -- a land of total darkness and surrender to our fallen and worthless state -- as "sinners." Gilberto Garcia? It is curious to see two of our best actors -- George Clooney and Anthony Hopkins -- making similar spiritual journeys. If "God is love," then the absence of God is a world deprived of love. Such a loveless world is not one in which human beings can live happily. Indeed, any fully human life implies the existence of love or at least the capacity to love others.

Nothing pleases the evil person more than inducing a sense of despair or hopelessness in his or her victims, usually through communicating the futility of resistance to oppressive and unjust power. The constant insertions of "errors" may be concerned with this absurd notion that "resistance is futile." If a victim accepts that it is pointless to resist against evil uses of power, then he or she will certainly become a slave. This we must never do. We must never accept slavery, even death is preferable to slavery. (Compare "'The American': A Movie Review" with "'Michael Clayton': A Movie Review" then "The Rite" and "Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

In the era of Charlie Sheen, the concepts of sinfulness or excess must seem bizarre to audience members regarding this contest on-screen as a battle between heavenly powers. It is your inner struggle between forces of moral self-destruction as against self-realization that matters in Christianity and in this movie. Hence, the pull between psychiatry (which only takes us so far) and religion (which takes us to salvation). Art or politics may do the trick for you. The battle in the heavens depicted by John Milton in "Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained" is internal to the modern soul. (''Drawing Room Comedy': A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script" and "Faust in Manhattan.")

Sent to Rome to meet an experienced exorcist, Michael will learn through a confrontation with the undeniable reality of ultimate evil, the wisdom of this film which is -- at least, partly -- the work of religious believers. God is always where you are if you love deeply and want that love (i.e., presence); evil's "nothingness" disappears by comparison. Love is the torch that disperses the darkness. Compare and contrast L. William Countryman, "Love is a Phoenix," in Love Human and Divine: Reflections on Love, Sexuality, and Friendship (London: Moorehouse, 2005), pp. 54-55 with Mary Midgley, "Selves and Shadows," in Wickedness: A Philosophical Essay (London & New York: Ava, 1984), pp. 113-131.

II. "Not believing in the devil will not protect you from him."

We live in a time that is -- like our alter ego on-screen, Michael -- deeply suspicious of mythology. We cannot read the texts of our ancient fathers and mothers, nor view them with respect as communications of the most profound wisdom which our ancestors possessed and sought to convey to their children. The language of archetypes is nearly lost to persons today. Even educated Americans display a level of cultural unawareness that constitutes what, I describe, as severe deprivation. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

Americans suffer deeply from the poverty of the rich. This poverty is a misery of aesthetic capacity, loss of imaginative sympathy, shallowness and ignorance. I am distressed to say this because I am the father of a young person being inducted into this diminished intellectual culture. I am doing my best to provide a little extra education, despite my awareness of my all-too human limitations. There is no other explanation for the drivel published in once esteemed publications, like The New York Times. ("Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")

Many of the brightest people in the world are in this country. We are among the richest people on the planet in genius, whether in the arts or sciences, but we are failing to communicate intellectual passions to the young or to beguile ordinary people into enjoying high culture. This failure is dangerous for America's future. ("Is this atheism's moment?")

There certainly is a love-story in this movie, but it has nothing to do with a romance between Michael and his guiding "angel" (Angeline played by Sonia Braga) who explains that he "cannot win without God." The New York Times reviewer got this detail wrong. Several other "errors" marred the evaluation by the reviewer. Linda Blair played the girl possessed by the devil in "The Exorcist" and not Mercedes McCambridge. Stephen Holden, "Giving the Devil His Possessive Due," in The New York Times, January 28, 2011, at p. C10. (This critique is another embarassing example of a reviewer failing to appreciate most of what is communicated in a good film.)

The real love depicted in "The Rite" is between the priest and his young charge, Philemon and his pupil, the knight and his squire -- together they slay the dragon of evil. Several Arthurian references are quite distinct and, again, may refer to Aslan the Lion who defeats the Evil Queen in Narnia. The images accompanying the lectures in Rome should be studied carefully. ("'I am Legend': A Movie Review.")

This rarely depicted love between teacher and student serves as the analogy to God's love for all of us "revealed" in Michael's (St. Michael against Lucifer) willingness to forgive his father's apathy and coldness, while accepting the death of his mother, thus restoring Michael's mature relationship with God:

"The modern age," Terry Eagleton writes, "has witnessed what one might call a transition from the soul to the psyche. Or, if one prefers, from theology to psychoanalysis. There are many senses in which the latter is a stand-in for the former. Both are narratives of human desire -- though for religious faith that desire can finally be consummated in the kingdom of God, whereas for psychoanalysis it must remain tragically unappeased. In this sense, psychoanalysis is the science of human discontent. But so, too, is theology. With Freud, repression and neurosis play the role of what Christians have traditionally known as original sin. In each case, human beings are seen as born in sickness. But they are not beyond redemption."

On Evil (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010), pp. 16-18.

Professor Eagleton, whose Catholic education is obvious, hits the nail on the head:

"Evil as I see it is indeed metaphysical, in the sense that it takes up an attitude toward being as such, not just toward this or that bit of it. Fundamentally, it wants to annihilate the lot of it. But this is not to suggest that it is necessarily supernatural, or that it lacks causality. Many things -- art and language, for example -- are more than just a reflex of their social circumstances, but this is not to say that they drop from the skies." Finally, "In the end, evil is indeed all about death -- but about the death of the evildoer as much as that of those he annihilates."

On Evil, pp. 16-18 (emphasis added).

The corpse laid out on the table emphasizes associations to the writings of T.S. Eliot. ("The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.") Suicides are persons who reject the gift of life. Evil is turning away from God through the inability to love, disdain for all of creation ("everything is shit"), abandonment of morality ("there is no good or evil"), loss of truth ("there is no truth"), and the worship of power, pleasure, manipulation and delight in the pain of others. This may be the moment to insert another "error" in this essay. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")

"A crowd flowed under London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many."

T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland," I. The Burial of the Dead, in John Wain, ed., The Oxford Anthology of English Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 622. In an interview with William F. Buckley, Jr., Malcolm Muggeridge defined the modern world as the choice between "a clenched fist and an erect phallus." They may amount to the same thing, Mr. Muggeridge. I certainly prefer the latter to the former. ("What a Man's Gotta Do" and "America's Love of Violence.")

"It has long been abudantly clear to me that I was born into a dying, if not already dead civilization."

Malcolm Muggeridge, "A Part in Search of a Play," in Chronicles of Wasted Time: An Autobiography (Washington: Regnery, 1972), pp. 14-15 and Malcolm Muggeridge, "St. Augustine," in A Third Testament (New York: Ballantine, 1976), pp. 38-41. (" ... because it is God's will.") The "dying civilization" is Christendom. And yet, the "Gates of Hell shall not prevail against love." ("Is it rational to believe in God?" and "Pieta.")

Finding himself in this "Wasteland," Thomas Merton sought to understand phenomena like the Holocaust and neverending warfare because he understood that the monastery is also in the world, even as monks -- or all clergy -- are fallen or sinful men and women like other persons:

"And so I ask myself: what is the meaning of a concept of sanity that excludes love, considers it irrelevant, and destroys our capacity to love other human beings, to respond to their needs and their sufferings, to recognize them also as persons, to apprehend their pain as our own? Evidently this is not necessary for 'sanity' at all. It is a religious notion, a spiritual notion, a Christian notion. What business have we to equate 'sanity' with 'Christianity'? None at all, obviously. The worst error is to imagine that a Christian must try to be 'sane' like everybody else, that we belong in our kind of society. That we must be 'realistic' about it. [adjust!] We must develop a sane Christianity: and there have been plenty of sane Christians in the past. Torture is nothing new, is it? We ought to be able to rationalize a little brain washing, and genocide, and find a place for nuclear war, or at least for napalm bombs in our moral theology. ... Even Christians can shake off their sentimental prejudices about charity, and become 'sane' like Eichman. They can even cling to certain Christian formulas, and fit them into a Totalist ideology. Let them talk about justice, charity, love and the rest. These words have not stopped some sane men from acting very sanely and cleverly in the past. ..."

"A Devout Meditation in Memory of Adolf Eichman," in The Non-Violent Alternative (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1980), p. 161.

Is this "adjustment" how a Jew becomes Mengele? Judaism's instruction that moral life is a struggle against human imperfection through acceptance of God's moral law, especially love for one another, makes "adjustment" to evil impossible for good Jews. A Jewish person can never accept evil for this is to reject the Covenant with God. An evil person cannot live a Jewish life, cannot live as a Jew, because evil committed against any other person is, in the deepest sense of the word, not kosher. ("Martin Buber and Diet Judaism" and "The Sleeping Prince.")

The priest must love the suffering victim of evil in order for any "exorcism" to succeed. In a sense, an actor "possessed" by a character, must identify -- or even love that dramatic character -- without judging the persona that he or she creates if the aesthetic experience is to become real or compelling for audience members. This is quite a challenge when playing someone profoundly evil or disturbed. This is to speak of Mr. Hopkins' genius and patience or generosity of spirit in creating this powerful illusion on screen. The devil -- or Adolf Eichman -- unwittingly, becomes a means of moral instruction and even a pathway to God. Good movies may be used as vehicles of moral instruction or therapy as well as aesthetic works. ("The Wanderer and His Shadow" and "Out of the Past" then "What you will" and "God is Texting Me!")

Literature has been described as "an imaginary garden with real toads in it." (Anne Sexton) Perhaps we are reminded in this movie that religious narratives are mythologies containing genuine wisdom and truth. In this movie, truth is conveyed through some very real-looking toads and scary horses and cats. All of these creatures have been associated in folklore with demons. Please refer to The Chronicles of Narnia and the proceedings of the Most Holy Inquisition.

Anthony Hopkins is not Father Lucas. However, like Father Lucas, Mr. Hopkins wishes us to learn from this "insubstantial pageant" ("The Rite") what is most real and worthy in our lives. Reality is not necessarily Oscar awards or fame and fortune -- for these things are also illusions, they are dream-like -- but it is the love that we give and receive for the few moments when we are here, in the audience, applauding stellar performances and welcoming the arrival of new actors who can thrill us. Every great artistic performance is an act of love. ("'Revolutionary Road': A Movie Review.")

The Times reviewer was under the impression that the film argues for psychiatry and against exorcism or the reality of evil. The exact opposite is true. This movie suggests that evil is real and that the protagonist has entered the struggle against the darkness in the world as a Catholic priest -- a task for which he was chosen after all -- only after discovering his own capacities for love and courage. ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")

Marta Gastini almost steals this movie from the wily Mr. Hopkins. How exiting to wonder when we will next see Ms. Gastini's work. Mr. Hopkins will be playing Odin in the soon to be released film, "Thor." From a lowly priest to a god. Who needs an Oscar when you can be the king of Valhalla?

The foregoing sentence was altered through the insertion of a word not found in previous versions of this text. I am sure that much of what I have said in this review is confirmed by the experience of seeing the work damaged in this way as a result of a twisted kind of envy and hatred. If you are a religious person, please pray for the individuals capable of such malice. (See Bill Maher's "Religulous" and think of all that Mr. Maher is missing about religious experience for millions of people in America.)

"The Rite" is a B movie elevated to an A film by writing and acting that is outstanding.

Murderer is Murdered by Law.

2010-10-29T09:21:00.017-04:00

December 19, 2010 at 7:00 P.M. Attacks against my computer have prevented me from "defragmenting" or "defragmentalizing" my hard discs (choose your favorite term). I will try again tomorrow to perform this action.
November 15, 2010 at 10:53 A.M. A single quotation mark was removed from this text since my previous review of the essay. I have now restored that quotation mark to the text. John Schwartz, "Murderer Executed In Arizona," in The New York Times, October 28, 2010, at p. A16. Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song (New York: Warner Books, 1979).

... the Warden said, "Do you have anything you'd like to say?" and Gary looked up at the ceiling and hesitated, then said, "Let's do it." That was it. The most pronounced amount of courage, Vern decided, he'd ever seen, no quarter, no throatiness, right down the line. Gary had looked at Vern as he spoke.

"The state of Arizona executed Jeffrey Landrigan on Tuesday night after the Supreme Court lifted a lower court's injuction blocking the lethal injection." "Last-minute appeals for Mr. Landrigan, who was convicted of murder in 1990, focused on the origins of one of the drugs used in the state's three-drug execution protocol."

"Shortages of barbituates have led to delays in several states. The only domestic manufacturer approved by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] to make sodium thiopental, the barbituate used in Arizona, suspended production of the drug a year ago."

"With no supplies coming from sources approved by the F.D.A." -- the F.D.A. is concerned about the safety of lethal injections? -- "Judge Roslyn O. Silver of Federal District Court in Arizona had demanded that the state provide information about the origins of its drug, in order to know whether there were risks of impurity or efficacy that could violate Mr. Lanigan's rights under the Eighth Amendment barring cruel and unusual punishment." ("The Allegory of the Cave.")

The FDA will not approve just any drug that will kill you. In order for the FDA to give its "blessing," as it were, the lethal drug must kill you "nicely." Notice that this concern has nothing to do with the medications used to put someone to sleep before the lethal substance is administered. I recall an American general's response to criticisms of his methods in battle: "There is no nice way to kill people."
There is no potential increase in suffering for the victim to be executed regardless of the drugs used because the person will not be awake or conscious when the legally-sanctioned poison is administered. Evidently, the concern by the FDA is that an individual not be writhing on a stretcher (or convulsing) and providing an ugly spectacle for the good folks witnessing the death who may want to snap some pictures of the event. Refreshments may be served in Texas executions in the future. (See Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet in "The Life and Death of David Gale.")

"The state refused to detail in open court, the origins of the drug or the process used to obtain it, citing confidentiality laws, though officials said it had come from England. Thus 'the court is left to speculate,' Judge Silver wrote, 'whether the non-FDA approved drug will cause pain and suffering.' ..."

It is undisputed that the drug will cause death. The company that manufactures this lethal drug to be used in executions is British. The Brits have outlawed the death penalty, like all EU nations, but the owner of this company or primary stockholder is probably someone who has been knighted by the Queen.
"A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the order. After the full Ninth Circuit refused to rehear the case, the state appealed to the Supreme Court."

"In a one-page order issued Tuesday night" -- this decision must have been written by Justice Thomas -- "explaining the 5-to-4 vote to vacate Judge Silver's temporary restraining order, the Supreme Court stated that Judge Silver's reasoning was flawed because the case affirming the constitutionality of the three-drug execution method Baze v. Rees, [sic.] had a high standard of proof that an execution method would cause harm."

I think the Supreme Court of the United States of America should take judicial notice of the fact that execution methods are intended to and do in fact cause harm. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that execution methods often result in the execution of persons, i.e., in death or ultimate harm. (Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal.")

In a nation in which several jurisdictions still use hanging or firing squads as execution methods, where "mistakes" have resulted in MULTIPLE execution attempts of the same individuals, this concern as regards lethal injections seems a tad puzzling. I always suspected that Justices Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito were bleeding heart liberals and fond of coddling criminals, but this squeamishness about execution methods is surprising from them.

"The Court stated that 'speculation' cannot substitute for evidence that the use of the drug is 'sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering.' ..."
What a relief. In other words, let us try the drugs from Britain and see what happens. This way it will not be necessary to "speculate" on whether they cause "needless suffering" or "serious illness" because we will be able to tell right away whether persons subjected to the drugs die quickly, quietly, efficiently as opposed to "suffering serious injury or illness."
I describe this U.S. Supreme Court decision as an example of what Lord Coke (pronounced "Cook") described as the "artificial reason of the law."

Philippa Foot on Desires, Reasons, and Actions.

2010-10-20T08:18:00.041-04:00

November 17, 2010 at 9:51 A.M. My deepest sympathy is extended to Congressman Charles Rangel (for whom I have voted more than once) whose frustrations and concerns at not being confronted with witnesses against him is something understandable. Mr. Rangel appears to be a victim -- along with several other African-American politicians -- of a Right-wing attack machine featuring many Cuban-American political figures that operates "behind-the-scenes." This is entirely apart from the merits or faults in Mr. Rangel's actions.

Mr. Rangel is accused of underpaying his taxes. Rangel then paid the necessary taxes with a penalty. If you wish to see real crime and unethical conduct, see "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead." Jeffrey Toobin, A Vast Conspiracy (New York: Random House, 1999). (Where do anti-Clinton warriors go after the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal? Miami.)

October 27, 2010 at 11:33 P.M. The General Assembly voted 180 to 2 (U.S. and Israel alone voting against the majority) to end the embargo against Cuba. I believe that this was the correct vote as a matter of human rights and international law. I hope that, some day, the U.S. will join the global community on this issue. I realize that by making this true statement I am risking my life and making further state-protected crimes against me, together with public censorship, inevitable. However, there are times when we must speak truth to power. ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba" and "Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

My support for Israel has not changed. I did not expect Israel to vote against the U.S. I still support sovereignty and peace for the Palestinian people. Although I disagree with the administration on the Cuba issue, I am highly supportive of Obama administration efforts to renew the peace talks in the Middle East. Despite the successes for Republicans in the interim elections there is still no viable alternative to Obama/Biden/Clinton on the Republican side. I wish to make it clear to readers, as I have on many prior occasions, that I have more in common with any Republican than with a nihilist. Violence is never a solution and must always be deplored, especially when the inocent suffer, as they usually do. ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

October 26, 2010 at 5:01 P.M. "Errors" inserted since this morning will now be corrected. The goal of repetitive or induced frustrations and constant harassments is to generate an intemperate remark or violent reaction that proponents of these methods can point to in justification of their crimes. While I doubt that such tactics will work with me, I am sure that they have been used effectively against many people in many parts of the country, especially inmates and patients in institutions, in order to "control" persons or enslave "trouble makers." One responsibility of intellectuals in a democracy is to be "trouble makers," gadflies for the powerful who are held to account for their actions. Noam Chomsky, Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship (New York & London: The New Press, 2003), pp. 47-50.

October 25, 2010 at 11:35 P.M. A new "error" mysteriously appeared in this essay which had been left alone for a few days. I have now corrected the inserted "error." On Wednesday (October 27, 2010), the UN will hear arguments concerning the US embargo against Cuba. Cuban-Americans who favor the embargo -- mostly for financial reasons, since many of them make money from the embargo -- will cause the US to be embarassed, again, by a losing vote. My support for ending the embargo may explain the sudden insertions of "errors" in several essays, including this one, together with increased computer crimes committed against me. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

October 22, 2010 at 11:11 A.M. A number of obstacles created, I believe, by Cuban-American opponents of my views with political protection made it difficult for me to reach these blogs today. At any time I may be prevented from accessing the Internet. These writings may be defaced or destroyed. I will continue to struggle against these obstacles in order to write essays and short stories, plays and film scripts. If necessary, I will attempt to reach public computers later today. I have reason to believe that several of these writings are appearing in non-U.S. media. Like the famous "Big Mac," I am being globalized.

October 21, 2010 at 9:00 P.M. "Errors" were inserted in this essay, possibly by Cuban-American racists horrified at the prospect of a lecture by Professor Cornel West that is promoted, by me, here. I will make the necessary corrections. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" and "Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

October 21, 2010 at 11:56 A.M. Several essays have been altered. I will try to make necessary corrections over the next few days. Among the works in which "errors" were inserted is "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz." I believe that I have now corrected the alterations of that work. Professor Derrida was not a Communist. Jacques Derrida called for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Among those echoing that call are Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro.

Friday, October 29, 2010 at 7:00 P.M. at "Harlem Stage - Aaron Davis Hall, 150 Convent Avenue at West 135th Street, Cornel West and Carl Dix in Dialogue: 'What Future for Our Youth?' Please be there. I will certainly be attending this discussion."

Naturally, a conflict now makes it impossible for me to attend this event. I will do my best to be in two places at once. I expect continuing defacements of this text in response to this posted notice. Revolution Books, 146 W. 26th Street, NY, NY and (212) 281-9240. http://www.harlemstage.org/ ($20.00 or $10.00 with student i.d.)

October 19, 2010 at 2:08 P.M. As part of the continuing psychological warfare and computer crime, my cable signal was blocked causing my computer to shut down in the midst of a security scan. I will do what I can to update my protection and continue to write despite these censorship and harassment efforts condoned by N.J. authorities. Continuing abuse of government power violates America's Constitution and insults the memory of the men and women who have died for our endangered freedoms. I will try, every day, to run a security scan of my computer. I will correct, every day, the "errors" inserted in my writings by New Jersey's hackers. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")

Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), $9.00 at Strand Books.

Recently, I learned of the death of Philippa Foot. I am dismayed by the decline in numbers among first-rate philosophers -- especially women -- in the English-speaking world. Philosophy is in a bad way. There has never been a time when philosophy was not endangered. Philosophers are always predicting the imminent demise of their subject. Also, philosophers are always getting into trouble. We need philosophy to be "rescued" on a regular basis. This will require philosophers to get into trouble.

Why do I say this? Well, philosophy must be concerned to question the shibboleths of society. Philosophers must be skeptical and internationalist in their attitudes. Philosophy is not ideology. Philosophy is not necessarily "patriotic." Like science, philosophy is concerned with truth and ways of knowing truth, regardless of authority or prestige, power or wealth of would-be proponents of truth. Ideas are -- or should be -- examined on their merits, not on the basis of their proponents "influence." ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.")

Universities today are embarassed by philosophy. A tiny number of academics in elite universities soldier on, teaching the difficult techniques and scholarship to young persons, or "non-traditional" students, among whom there may be another David Hume or Baruch Spinoza, Mary Wollstonecraft or George Santayana. These brave souls in academia must endure the condescension of their colleagues in lofty areas -- such as industrial studies and marketing -- colleagues who teach "useful" subjects have little patience for this abstract discipline called "philosophy."

Philosophy, we are told, may be very nice but it is not useful or "practical." I disagree. I am sure that philosophy is among the most useful subjects a person can and should study, especially early in life. From the point of view of an observer, a marginal person in American society more amused than angered by the stupidity and insanity that seems more prevalent today than ever before, this absurd disdain for philosophy is also tragic because it translates into suffering for many people. The importance and meaning of suffering will be relevant to my substantive argument.

Many of our greatest errors today are philosophical blunders. We are going to bring "democracy" to Iraq and Afghanistan, for example, and we will teach people to "move on" from religion. Good luck in those efforts. Democracy is a philosophical concept of government dating from the ancient Greek world which may be impossible without the historical preconditions that societies must develop, usually painfully, that allow democracies to endure.

It is possible to call a government a "democracy" which is really another form of government, like dictatorship. Sadam Hussein called himself "President" and held "elections." I would not classify Hussein's Iraq as a democracy. Religion is an expression of the spiritual component in human nature which will express itself in other areas of life if it is denied in traditional religious forms. One can be a "religious" -- indeed, zealous -- atheist, a "believer" in non-belief and proselytizer, without joining a traditional religious organization of any kind or club of fellow non-believers. (Richard Dawkins?)

"A Spot of Bother."

Philippa R. Foot (1920-2010) may be one of the last members of a British generation that could refer to Hitler and Nazism as a "spot of bother" recalled from her youth. She was related to Grover Cleveland, one of the more obscure American presidents (deservedly, obscure) and Bernard Bosanquet, a distinguished idealist philosopher. Mrs. Foot was related by marriage to Michael Foot, a successful Labour politician and, if I recall correctly, a Prime Minister. I seem to remember that Mr. Foot was a leader in the effort to end the nuclear armaments race and a good socialist. My kind of guy.

Philippa Foot did not marry Michael Foot, as I always thought, but (I believe) she entered into conjugal bliss with Richard Foot, an historian. Bernard Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State (London: MacMillan, 1951). David Cameron has decided to cut the British budget in order to cope with a high deficit. Travel vouchers for members of Parliament will not be touched. Unhappily, the BBC fee will be frozen and there will be drastic reductions in programs and "services" offered by the network. I suggest to Brits that a second Civil War may be necessary. Where is today's Oliver Cromwell? Surely, the National Health Service is beyond these "shenanigans"?

Philippa Foot attended Oxford University with a witches' coven of fascinating and, often, beautiful as well as slightly mad British women at the mid-twentieth century high point of English-language philosophizing just before the great catastrophe struck. There is a delightful and charming tradition of British eccentrics, persons who seem to have emerged unscathed from the pages of Evelyn Waugh or Noel Coward. Mr. Coward was a house guest at my family's home in Havana, I am told, many years ago. Think of the dazzling wit and seductive charm of that great eccentric, Gordon Brown. ("A Philosophical Investigation of Ludwig Wittgenstein.")

One expects these women to traipse into a room holding a cigarette in a long filter in one hand and a martini glass in another, wearing an evening gown, a string of pearls, and roller skates -- like Boy George. Perhaps this is only a typical entrance for Kate Winslet or a slow and dull evening for Helena Bonham Carter. Naturally, these women may fit easily into my extended family. All of these women and most British philosophers write very well. Professor Foot (she eventually taught somewhere in California) is best known for defending a form of ethical objectivism and cognitivism:

"Best known for her work in moral philosophy, Professor Foot wrote two highly influential articles in the 1950s arguing against prescriptivism, the analysis of ethical belief and judgment propounded by R.M. Hare. In these papers ('Moral Arguments' (1958), 'Moral Beliefs' (1958), she argues that moral beliefs must concern traits and behaviour that are demonstrably beneficial or harmful to humans, and that what shall be regarded as beneficial or harmful is not a matter for human decision. [emphasis added] Moral beliefs cannot, therefore, be dependent on human decision. ... More recently her work has been concentrated on virtue theory [Aristotle, Aquinas, Elizabeth Anscombe,] and on the limits of utilitarianism. For many years a fellow of Sommerville College, Oxford, she has also held many posts in America."

Ted Hondereich, ed., The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), at pp. 283-284. ("Bernard Williams and Identity.")

I mentioned the beguiling and curious British women who were Mrs. Foot's colleagues at Oxford University and in the philosophical profession. Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, later Elizabeth Anscombe and Mary Warnock were among these women. There is a secret and shared experience among these fine ladies which has not been noted by comentators.

All of these brilliant women (with the possible exception of Ms. Anscombe who attended Oxford and mostly taught at a place called "Cambridge University") were tutored by Donald McKinnon at Oxford. All of them read F.H. Bradley's Appearance and Reality under McKinnon's supervision at about the same time. McKinnon guided them through the grand tradition of Western thought as the darkness approached England's shores. Several of the best philosophers in Britain during the post-war period happened to be women. They described these university intellectual experiences with McKinnon as among the most important in their lives. Mary Midgley, The Owl of Minerva: A Memoir (New York & London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 116-117:

"In the autumn of 1940 Iris and I were moved from our boring and cautious essay tutor to be taught philosophy for the rest of our time by that remarkable character Donald McKinnon. This was an enormous stroke of luck, without which I might well have drifted away from academic philosophy altogether. McKinnon is a kind of Oxford legend because of his eccentricity, but he was an amazingly good teacher. This was entirely a matter of his direct response in tutorials, not of his lectures or his writing. It was when he shared a question with a student that he drew on his enormous powers of intellectual digging." ("The Allegory of the Cave.")

Not every Oxford tutor and lecturer wished to teach a difficult subject like philosophy to "ladies." Many of the older dons were still displeased by the presence of women on campus during the twenties and thirties, even the forties. Donald McKinnon relished the prospect of tutorials with students he regarded (correctly) as among the finest at the university. As a result, Mr. McKinnon earned the distinction of having taught several of the best philosophical intellects of the century, women who have made outstanding contributions to philosophy, while also making a fine comment himself on developments in twentieth century ethical theory. D.M. McKinnon, A Study of Ethical Theory (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1957), pp. 61-121. (Yes, I have read works by all of these persons.)

Mrs. Foot felt lonely at Oxford until, during a period of illness, she was nursed back to health by Iris Murdoch who became a close friend for life. The loss of Iris Murdoch's first love, Frank Thompson, in the war is the unexplored and life-altering event in Murdoch's life that fits the pattern shared with so many of the greatest thinkers in the Western tradition. Ben-Ami Sharfstein, The Philosophers: Their Lives and the Nature of Their Thought (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), at pp. 380-395.

I believe that the best tribute to any philosopher is what philosophers in other parts of the world would describe as a "dialectic," debate or discussion with a thinker's expressed views. This is my way of saying goodbye to Philippa Foot. I will focus on Mrs. Foot's essay "Reasons for Action and Desires." Peter Conradi, Iris Murdoch: A Life (New York & London: W.W. Norton, 2001), at pp. 127-128.

"A Streetcar Named Desire."

Professor Foot's essay appeared as a review of Michael Woods, "Reasons for Actions and Desires," in Proceedings of the Aristotelean Society, Supplemental Volume (1972), no page number is given. Woods, like Philippa Foot, wishes to argue against the view that all reasons for action are reducible to "desires." Mrs. Foot concludes that Mr. Woods' arguments for rejecting this classical empiricist position that is usually associated with utilitarianism are inadequate even as she agrees with his substantive position.

Mr. Woods is closer to the truth than Mrs. Foot realizes when he insists that some actions are motivated by more than desires because they reflect aspects of our natures that have nothing to do with desires or happiness, narrowly understood, since our actions are or must often be concerned with human "flourishing." Mrs. Foot is not a hedonist nor does she define "happiness" as "the maximizing of desires." She is more of an Aristotelean and Bradleyean (teleologist) who regards happiness as concerned with "the full development of our human powers." This general philosophical position is shared with Elizabeth Anscombe.

"Full development" frequently has little to do with "happiness" in vulgar terms. As those unapologetically vulgar Americans say, "it ain't a barrel of laughs." ("John Finnis and Ethical Cognitivism.") What this means should become clearer from what follows.

"Happiness" -- as defined by Aristotle and Aquinas -- amounts to something like "human flourishing" or "self-realization" (F.H. Bradley), as I have noted, and has little to do with the maximizing of desires in the utilitarian tradition. Happiness is not about material possessions, necessarily, beyond the minimum required for human life nor is it, primarily, a result of satisfying strictly material desires or maximizing pleasures. Aristotle has been called, "the first socialist." This observation is sacriligious in America. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me'" and "'The Constant Gardener': A Movie Review.")

"Eudaimonism teaches that the supreme help a man gives to others," David L. Norton writes, "subsists in his integrity and self-responsibility, and cannot be predicated upon the ruin of these. Thus our preliminary social excursion returns us to stand once again before an intractable personal integrity that constitutes the core of prescriptive eudaimonism."

Personal Destinies: A Philosophy of Ethical Individualism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), at pp. 14-15. (Communitarian socialism.)

The position that both of these philosophers, Foot and Wood, correctly reject has become conventional wisdom in America -- probably, also in Britain -- as one result of the triumph of social science thinking over what were once called the humanities. With the completion of a university degree in any of the traditional areas of the humanities or social sciences, law and psychology very much included, a young person today develops an attitude that is known in Europe as a "hermeneutic of suspicion." ("Why I am not an ethical relativist" and "Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

Love is really a desire for sex. Religious devotion is concealed will to power or hypocrisy. Politics is the hunger for power among politicians. At the bottom of all of our motivations to action -- post-Sigmund Freud and Friedrich Nietzsche -- is desire or will to power, nothing more. Interestingly, the discussion between scholars and the place for this debate today is among psychologists who usually display a level of ignorance of the classical literature dealing with this controversy that would have been shocking in an unusually stupid undergraduate only a generation ago. Adam Phillips is a rare exception on this point. "On What We Need," in Equals (New York: Perseus, 2007), at pp. 118-143 and Andre Compte-Spontville, "Love," in A Short Treatise on the Virtues: The Uses of Philosophy in Everyday Life (London: Vintage, 2001), pp. 222-290.

The concept of "fidelity" in love is a complex one in Christian and non-Christian thinking within the teleological tradition for a thinker -- like Ms. Anscombe -- who regarded her affection and closeness to Wittgenstein as a kind of non-marital love.

"Prudential reasons seem to provide the most obvious counter-examples to the thesis that all reasons for action depend on the agent's desires. By 'prudential reasons' I mean those having to do with the agent's interests. [emphasis added] There are of course problems about the limits of this class, but these need not concern us here. It will be enough to take some uncontroversial example of a prudential reason." (Foot, p. 149.)

Mrs Foot offers the example of a man who knows he will go hungry tomorrow unless he shops for food today. Under normal circumstances it would be inadequate or absurd to speak of a "desire" not to go hungry tomorrow. Temporal factors slide into the discussion. One may speak of an "interest" in good health and welfare or beliefs concerning the most likely steps necessary to bring about "optimum conditions" at such time as predictable desires arise. Desire and, indeed, interests are concepts twisted and turned to make views concerning what we "ought" to desire fit such ostensibly scientific and rational theories that claim not to be concerned with "oughts."

Much of the philosophical work of the twentieth century, especially in the UK, develops as philosophers struggle to escape the straightjacket of the fact/value distinction and divide, something Iris Murdoch managed to do in the fifties. Iris Murdoch, "Fact and Value," in Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals (London: Penguin, 1992), at pp. 25-57, then Iris Murdoch, "The Idea of Perfection," in The Sovereignty of Good (New York & London: Ark, 1980), at pp. 1-46.

Ideas defended in these works by Ms. Murdoch received their first articulation in works written during the fifties and sixties, such as Iris Murdoch's famous essay on Sartre which was the first in England dealing with this thinker's works. Elizabeth Anscombe also rejected the fact/value distinction from a Thomistic direction and in development of Wittgenstein's late views in his Philosophical Investigations. Discussions in terms of facts or arguments concerning values may be seen, in Wittgenstein's terms, as compatible or overlapping "language games." (Again: "A Philosophical Investigation of Ludwig Wittgenstein.")

All forms of behaviorism are inadequate. Human flourishing is a meaningful term only in light of an understanding of human nature that makes fourishing universal for all persons as distinct from a matter of desire for any individual. The good of humanity is not and cannot be "all relative." What constitutes human flourishing or realization is an "objective" matter instantiated, to some degree, in every human life because it is the realization of our "natures":

"What we want here is a use of 'desire' which indicates a motivational direction and nothing more. ... Can wanting create a reason for acting? It seems that it cannot." (Foot, p. 149.)

We end by attributing a desire to the agent to act in a manner X when (and only when) the agent acts in a manner X. This seems a tiny bit circular. Unlike hampsters or squirrels, persons have "reason" and not only "desires" as that great philosopher William Shakespeare has taught us. Hence, we may desire without acting. Furthermore, we may take actions we deem necessary and good even when we do not desire either the outcome or the action. However, where the consequences of actions are foreseeable, we must be prepared to accept and deal with the likely moral implications of what we say and do. ("What is it like to be censored in America?" and "Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")

Unless the words "desire" and "interest" are elongated, like used chewing gum, to lose all of their normal meanings and flavors these realities of the human condition are inadequately accounted for in this excessively thin view of persons' motivational options that are reducible to behavior. Desire = action. Every action is only the expression of a desire. The key terms in this paragraph being "human condition" and "persons."

I am about to summarize a very Catholic understanding of these philosophical issues which is explicable in strictly secular terms that are shared with Jews and Muslims as well as ethical atheists. I appreciate the hostility to this insistence on human dignity, but I fail to understand the hatred of all that elevates humanity. Perhaps that hatred is on display in the attacks against these writings.

The phrases "human condition" and "human nature" are forbidden in contemporary academic discussions of these matters. We are animals with biological "desires" and needs, nothing more. In fact, I suggest that we are very special animals with biological needs and desires to be sure -- this is a point granted by Mrs. Foot -- but also with spiritual needs and aesthetic aspirations and, thus, a powerful directedness towards both beauty and goodness. We want both sex and eros. Indeed, these things (beauty and goodness) may be identical fulfilments of our human nature. Compare Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry (New York & London: Routledge, 2001), at pp. 19-69 with Charles Larmore, The Autonomy of Morality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), at pp. 69-129. (A self-proclaimed anti-Kantian whose sub-rosa ideas of human nature seem to come from the Greeks and who is much less of an anti-Kantian than he realizes.)

Elizabeth Schellekens, a gifted young British philosopher and another of those annoyingly brilliant English women that are as common in the UK as the famous "rain in Spain that stays mainly on the plane," anticipates everything that I would say on this subject and several things that I would not have thought to say in a recent book entitled: Aesthetics & Morality (London: Continuum, 2007), at pp. 45-95. (I hate when women do that.)

A classic examination of the human nature controversy is Mary Midgley, Beast and Man (New York & London: Routledge, 1995), at pp. 42-49. ("Aristotelean and Kantian Beasts.")

We do not desire suffering, but we may welcome suffering as the price of remaining human, for example, by loving someone despite the pain involved in that love. We may not seek or want pain, even if we recognize that human dignity may require that we endure and live with pain, for the sake of others, with some forebearance and strength. The word "desire" will not do in this context. I revise this essay today, after defacements and attempts to destroy the work (I think) because it is good, recalling the sadness and strength of a man I knew as an adolescent who experienced what I am enduring now. That man's response to evil was pity. ("Stephen Hawking's Free Will is Determined" and "Pieta.")

Moral suffering and spiritual agony may be conducive to full human development, as persons, in mysterious ways that we do not fully understand, as is commitment to struggle. As Shakespeare has also taught us in King Lear, life probably will require all of us to "take upon us the mystery of things." ("William Shakespeare's Black Prince.")

It is in this sense of abdicating or violating his nature that a wicked or immoral man is irrational, a point missed by Professor Foot in her otherwise shrewd analysis. This profound wisdom is part of the mystery of the crucifix and other religious symbols, such as the Star of David at the Holocaust Museum placed near barbed wire from the camps. What is more, this insight that a wicked person surrenders his or her humanity is, partly, also derived from the Greeks. The idea is constitutive of the Jewish heritage of every person born into our Western civilization:

" ... the judaization of culture is culture's passing through the prism of moral-self-questioning. It can be so construed by virtue of two criteria proposed by the late Steven S. Schwartzchild: first, 'the primacy of Practical Reason,' the idea that human beings are moral agents before they are cognitive subjects [Aristotle, Maimonedes, Aquinas] and that logic, epistemology, and metaphysics are therefore the instruments of ethics; and second, the transcendence of the rational, the hypothesis that the ideal cannot be realized in the world of phenomena and 'that everything in the world is fallible and subject to critique.' ..."

Religious insight says that it is reason which discloses unavoidable mysteries (death, evil) and the need to struggle, eternally, for comprehension of all that may be incomprehensible in ultimate terms. Persons must endure a tragic component in life, according to Miguel Unamuno and Martin Buber because our languages (including the arts) always mean more than they say. We feel more than what we understand. We do much more than what we desire to do, usually with sinister and unintended effects:

" ... for Steiner tragedy is concerned with the blind working of fate alien to the Judaic sense of the world. By contrast, 'the Judaic spirit [exemplified in Job] is vehement in its conviction that the order of the universe and of man's estate is accessible to reason.'" Edith Wyshogrod, "The Mind of a Critical Moralist," in Nathan A. Scott, Jr. & Ronald A. Sharp, eds., Reading George Steiner (Baltimore & London: John Hopkins University Press, 1994), at pp. 154-155. George Steiner, "Our Homeland the Text," in No Passion Spent: Essays 1978-1995 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1996), at pp. 306-307. ("The sensibility of the Jew is, par excellance, the medium of the bitter struggle between life and thought ...")

Can there be a struggle between life and thought if all action is reducible to desires? Everything I do is a matter of what I want regardless of my nature, as a person, under such theories of desire. Thus, I have no need to "struggle" against my impulses, since such a struggle would also be reducible to my desires, making the theory ultimately incoherent. For a defense of reason as motivating actions, apart from desires, see Thomas Nagel's classic The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), at pp. 79-143. ("The Wanderer and His Shadow.")

Like it or not, Jewishness is central to Christianity and all Western models of transcendence (psychoanalysis is only one such model) as well as ethics. Irrational is tantamount to inhuman in terms of moral awareness. If a person were to witness the slow dismerberment of a child and then discussed the event dispassionately or clinically -- especially if the child were his own offspring -- we would regard that behavior as evil or irrational in the extreme. Any individual displaying such heartless behavior would be regarded, rightly, as seriously disturbed due to his or her absence of emotional coloring or sense of moral "location." We would say that such a person fails to "appreciate" all that is happening.

In today's newspaper we find an account of David Tarloff whose "reason" for hacking to death a psychologist on the Upper East side is that he desired to be provided with deluxe accomodations in prison. I am sure that the person seeking to destroy my writings has a similar means-and- ends kind of rationale for his or her actions. Here we see a "desire" and selection of means that are highly likely to achieve the desired result or ends. Discussion of ends or the "goodness" of desires is placed beyond consideration by would-be scientific types as "subjective" and therefore not amenable to quantification or scientific discussion. Mr. Tarloff's actions were, arguably, entirely rational given his objectives from this Humean perspective. John Eligion, "In a Schizophrenic's Trial, Both Sides Agree," in The New York Times, October 18, 2010, at p. A31. ("Robot bombs?")

An "error" was inserted in the foregoing paragraph illustrating my observations in this essay. I have corrected this inserted "error." Perhaps it was Mr. Tarloff who committed this terrible computer crime?

I am reminded by Mr. Tarloff's shrewdness of Britain's publishers who are every bit as clever as this distinguished New Yorker, Mr. Tarloff. I am very interested in Howard Jacobson's Booker Prize-winning novel, The Finkler Question (London: Bloomsbury, 2010). British publishers -- seeking to capitalize on the notoriety received by the novel -- have failed to provide sufficient copies of the book to many Manhattan bookstores where the novel has, mostly, sold out. More brilliantly, these astute business people have failed to provide copies of any of the authors' previous novels to Barnes & Noble bookstores. This is the roar of the British lion in 2010. (I finally managed to purchase the book in a single Barnes & Noble bookstore in exchange for $15.00 and my immortal soul.)

Again, a pure instrumental analysis in behaviorist terms of Mr. Tarloff's interesting project would lead to the conclusion that he acted "rationally" on the basis of his desires. David Hume would be compelled to agree based on his view that reason says nothing about what we should desire. For Hume, we are told, reason can only be concerned with means to desired ends because reason is the "slave of the passions." ("David Hume's Philosophical Romance.")

Immanuel Kant and other philosophers with a fondness for the quaint notion of transcendence and objective features of human nature ("transcendental ego") would object that the "ends" chosen by Mr. Tarloff are in violation of his full humanity and hence, irrational as well as evil. Interpretive rationality examines both means and ends for cogency in terms of proper or natural human life, or flourishing. Stuart Hampshire, Thought and Action (Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982), at pp. 280-281. (This is the Afterword added to the 1959 original of this classic study of intentionality.)

Rational human agency serves as a constraint on what may be accounted appropriate ends for persons. Accordingly, seeking to destroy the creative works of others would not be considered a moral end for a rational subject quite apart from whether the persons responsible for such evil can "get away with it." I am not a "means" to your political or other "ends." Neither are my family members "means" to your "ends." (Again: "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")

I think the Kantian tradition is right on this issue. Mrs Foot roughly agrees based on the Aristotlean and Thomistic traditions within Christianity. Kantian Critical theory leads to both an acceptance of instrumental rationality in the practical sphere of politics or social life and interpretive rationality primarily in the aesthetic/spiritual spheres of human life because both are concerned with valid aspects of human-being-in-the-world-with-others. Please see one of the greatest essays in philosophy that I have ever read: Iris Murdoch, "On God and Good," in Existentialists and Mystics (London: Penguin, 1999), at pp. 337-362. ("William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.")

"We readily accept private affection [love] as giving reasons for action without the least hint of self-interest; why should a more extended fellow-feeling not do the same? If a man has that basic sense of identification with others that makes him care whether or not they live wretched lives," -- for example, care that others not be made to suffer by being deprived (unnnecessarily) of the presence of loved-ones in their lives -- "has he not the best possible reason for charitable action? And would it not be misrepresentation to speak of this as a charity dependent on the feelings and inclinations of the moment, since both public and private affections endure through periods of coldness, and lack of inclination never destroys the reason to act?" (Foot, p. 155.)

"Tea and Sympathy."

Mrs. Foot rightly acknowledged the difficulty of resolving the mysterious connection between reasons and actions. There were hints in her writings originating in those magical tutorials, I suspect, under the watchful eye of Professor McKinnon and the spell of F.H. Bradley, when she suggested that our capacity for identification with the other, care and concern as well as other "prudential' considerations -- "tea and sympathy" for those who suffer more than we do -- had something to do with explaining how it is that we can act for good reasons despite our desires.

What leads us to pity and hate genuinely evil conduct is precisely this immediate sense that the evil person has suffered a terrible loss of humanity or feeling, something hideous has come to resemble the ordinary and seemingly pleasant person we thought we knew. Jeffrey Dahmer is a good example of the phenomenon that I describe because Mr. Dahmer's bland unconcern with the effects of his actions was entirely sincere. The ultimate challenge for the Christian or just ethical person is to "love one's way through the darkness in the world." This demand for love means that we must feel what Mr. Dahmer will not feel for Mr. Dahmer's sake and for the sake of his victims.

We must be good persons in order to do good in the world. Mrs. Foot's life unfolded at a time when these value words had a powerful meaning in people's lives. They seem to matter much less today. (See the films "Atonement" and "Enigma.")

I once heard a famous British novelist -- who was not so famous then -- respond to a question concerning his placement of characers in a World War II setting. He said: "Things were more important then." There were consequences to every action and every second was freighted with meaning and value because it could well be one's last moment on earth. Yet it was also a time when few people -- despite the enormity of the sacrifice for an entire generation of young men and women -- questioned the need for this sacrifice or the importance of the task at hand. Please see Robert Harris, Enigma (New York: Ivy Books, 1995) and Ian McEwan, Atonement (New York & London: Anchor, 2001).

What many of these amazing people who resisted Hitler (especially when it looked hopeless) and their equally amazing American counterparts did not appreciate at the time -- although Iris Murdoch did come to this insight -- is that the evil they fought against and defeated then will always be with us. 9/11 was a reminder of this truth for everybody in this city. The bombings in the London underground railway system is another reminder of this sad truth.

I experience something like the equivalent of those bombings at these blogs every day. The goal for the persons damaging these writings and me, also for the terrorists killing innocent civilians anywhere is to intimidate law abiding persons into accepting their orders. I doubt that such a tactic will work in Britain or America. I also seriously doubt that anyone will intimidate or prevent me from writing to the best of my ability from some location in the city. Sadly, such criminals may be able to count corrupt officials among their "enablers." ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")

The experience of evil has a wonderfully cleansing aspect for survivors. When facing evil, we learn what matters. We discover things about ourselves. We appreciate what it means to love and live with dignity. Finally, we learn all that we can and will do without necessarily desiring our actions, but because we recognize that they are morally demanded of us or that there may be no other person who can perform the needed tasks, when life itself is on the line, as it was for so many persons on 9/11. As an example of the courage and dignity that I admire, I include Guillermo Farinas and Mumia Abu-Jamal, Liu Xiaobo and Angela Davis or Noam Chomsky.

This admiration has nothing to do with whether I agree with the opinions of any one of these persons. (For the opposite of what is admirable, see: "American Hypocrisy and Luis Posada Carriles.")

Despite the value found in this moral lesson, and the actions that we take every day because of what we have learned, few of us will "desire" the experience of having to make difficult or ultimate choices between desperate options. We look at our children and at all of those persons we love, then we do what must be done. This is one lesson that I have learned from Philippa Foot and a few other distinguished philosophers of the twentieth century.

"And How!"

2010-09-27T09:37:00.024-04:00

October 19, 2010 at 7:17 P.M. A message from "James McNiff" was somewhat difficult to decipher. A red light on my security system warns of new attacks and intrusion attempts. I will keep struggling against computer crime from New Jersey. Is it the "ordinary Joe" again?

October 7, 2010 at 10:01 A.M. One letter was removed from a name "Marco Rubio" since my previous review of this essay, possibly as a response to my views on the Cuban embargo. ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba" and "Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'")

October 3, 2010 at 7:06 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. ("Jennifer Velez is a 'Dyke Magnet!'" and "Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!" soon "Sybil R. Moses Joins the Lesbian Love-Fest!")

Perhaps Iliana Ross-Lehtinen is next? Does "Ilianita" Ross-Lehtinen -- or someone on her behalf -- write in the name of "Janet Maslin"? These tactics will hurt you in the Right-wing Cuban-American community much more than they will hurt me.

Physicians at John Hopkins Medical School, working with colleagues at Harvard University, today concluded a five year study seeking to "map" the sections of scientists' brains that cause them to "find" and believe reductivist scientific explanations of complex human cultural and social phenomena, such as romantic love or creative activity, evil, or commitment to social justice. The study was declared a "complete success." Lead scientist John Pumpernickel, III, M.D., Ph.D., commented in The New York Times:

"It took us a whole year to figure out that it would be difficult to take notes on the results of tests that we were performing on ourselves. Despite my best efforts, for example, I found it difficult to write while undergoing a self-administered brain-scan and two attempts to perform brain surgery on myself were only partly successful. So we recruited students from the Humanities Center, who seem to have a lot of time on their hands, and had them videotape our efforts and take notes for us, as we attached electrodes to one another."

Dr. Pumpernickel mentioned all of the elite "researchers" who participated in this effort, reserving special praise for Frau Doktor-Doktor Eva Hottvixxenschein, of the Einstein Institute in Munich, who found it necessary to perform elaborate experiments on all portions of his body -- experiments which Dr. Pumpernickel, in the interests of scientific integrity and thoroughness, repeated twice daily and once in his hot tub in the evenings.

It seems that "scientism," known prosaically as "pseudo-scientific bullshit," is explicable in terms of increased activity in the right frontal lobe of the brain, which the scientists have dubbed the "bullshit center." This reductivism is combined with an inability to read good books, and explains flawed scientific efforts to decipher all of the mysteries of human subjectivity and boil them down to a formula. Sam Harris and a few other American academics display an awesome talent for such bullshitting with a pseudo-scientific gloss. Kwame Anthony Appiah, "Science Knows Best," in The New York Times, Book Review, Sunday, October 3, 2010, at p. 12. (Review of Sam Harris, The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (New York: Free Press, 2010), 291 pages, $26.99. Reinventing the wheel, Sam?)

The newly-charted cerebral territory is unusually developed, according to the research data, in politicians and lawyers, but even more in persons of all races and ethnic backgrounds and of both or any number of genders working in the advertising industry, with academics not far behind, as it were. Yet the all-time champions in enhancing this region of the brain are writers, especially writers of fiction, and some self-proclaimed "scientists," notably behavioral psychologists.

Explanations for the development of this faculty are evolutionary in nature. It seems that beginning around 1950, scientific or quasi-scientific sounding explanations for all human phenomena acquired exceptional prestige in academia and the elite professions. Persons with a mortgage as well as an orthodontist's bills to pay, who were in search of tenure or promotion, found that success or "survival" required a facility for expressing banalities in the language of scientific discovery, together with a blurring of the distinction between the "coincidence" or precondition of a particular brain state with a subjective experience and the "causing" of that subjective experience by the brain state.

For examples of this tendency, see Carl Zimmer, "Sizing Up Consciousness By Its Bits," in The New York Times, "Science Times," September 21, 2010, at p. D1 and Kent A. Khiel & Joshua W. Buckholtz, "Inside the Mind of a Psychopath," in Scientific American, September/October, 2010, at p. 22. (Marco Rubio?)

Dr. Pumpernickel has received a 50 million dollar grant from the United States government to determine whether persons with this gene for "scientism" can be identified in vitro, so that these persons may be tracked and encouraged, at the appropriate stages in their lives, to enter the professions at which they may then be expected to excel. It is too soon to tell, but there is a distinct possibility that Dr. Pumpernickel will be the first scientist to identify a future President of the United States by isolating this single gene. ("On Bullshit" and "Richard Dawkins and the Atheist Delusion.")

Along with Dr. Hottvixxenschein, who remains a trusted and admired colleague, Dr. Pumpernickel plans to move his facility to California, where he expects to "fit right in," in a manner of speaking, since he believes that there may be religious insights to be gained from his findings -- not to mention, a potential benefit to the manufacturers of hot tubs.

Dr. Pumpernickel has already been approached by a number of psychologists seeking to develop "therapeutic strategies" that benefit from his empirical research and has been invited to Hollywood.

Wistfully, Dr. Pumpernickel sighed and offered this reporter a cup of coffee, as he remarked that: "We live in an age of wonderful discoveries."

With a knowing smile, Dr. Hottvixxenschein agreed. "Ja," she said, "and how!"

Not One More Victim.

2010-07-23T18:04:00.072-04:00

April 1, 2011 at 10:10 A.M. Due to a "worm" or computer crime from New Jersey, the text in the essay which appears below was damaged. I have done my best to repair this work which offends so many people in the Cuban-American community residing in the suburbs of the Garden State. ("More Trouble for Ridgewood, New Jersey.")

March 4, 2011 at 11:07 A.M. "Errors" inserted in this essay since my previous review of the work will now be corrected. ("And Yet, it Moves.")

February 5, 2011 at 3:18 P.M. A new wave of attacks against these writings has resulted in the removal of letters from a number of essays that were left alone for a while. I surmise that thugs have been permitted to continue to engage in these tactics as a response to my criticisms of New Jersey's pervasive mafia influence and Cuban-American participation in Garden State corruption.

I cannot say how many essays in total have been altered in violation of copyright laws and the U.S. Constitution or how many journalists are aware of this situation but are too frightened to cover the crimes that you are invited to witness.

October 26, 2010 at 9:01 A.M. "Errors" not previously found in this essay have suddenly appeared in the text. I will do my best to make all necessary corrections.

September 15, 2010 at 10:27 A.M. During the period when my computer's cable signal was blocked, "errors" were inserted in this text, alterations of my list of sources, also further vandalisms of this essay and other writings have taken place. I will do my best over the next few days and weeks to correct these inserted "errors." The protocol for "induced frustration" as a component in "touchless torture" techniques is discussed in "Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory."

August 28, 2010 at 1:04 P.M. Continuing cybercrime prevents me from writing today. I will try to find another location at which to comment on developments in New Jersey. Attempts to run a full security scan of my computer result in blocking my cable signal to my computer. I will continue to struggle to write from some location every day.

August 27, 2010 at 3:10 P.M. For several days, at irregular intervals and usually when I try to run scans of my computer, the cable signal to my computer is blocked. I find it necessary to reboot my computer. I cannot say how many writings have been altered in violation of the U.S. Constitution and copyright laws. I will do my best to run scans of my computer and to continue to write. If more than two days pass without a new post in these blogs, it means that I am prevented from writing. ("Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey" and "David Denby is Not Amused.")

August 14, 2010 at 5:20 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. Once more? I cannot say how many other essays have been damaged or altered.

August 12, 2010 at 3:22 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected as Mr. Marino of Englewood, New Jersey faces criminal fraud charges. What a coincidence? I wish Mr. Sarlo a speedy recovery after his recent "appendectomy."

July 24, 2010 at 7:06 P.M. Attacks against my writings will intensify over the next few days as rumors suggest arrests are likely in New Jersey, again. I will do my best to make corrections of all inserted "errors." I can never be sure of writing from one day to the next. I will continue to struggle.

July 28, 2010 at 11:16 A.M. The numerous attacks on writings, defacements of texts, together with the need to defend the writings and run multiple scans every day, makes it impossible to work on creative fiction which cannot be produced under such conditions. However, I can do other types of work and post writings, quickly, from multiple computers. Continuing attacks on my computer and security system are designed to increase anxiety in addition to the constant pressure to correct "errors" inserted dozens of times. I cannot say how many inserted "errors" remain uncorrected at this time.

Naturally, philosophical and other scholarly work cannot be created under such circumstances. I will do my best to write what I can when I find opportunities to do so. I will also do my best, legally, to make those responsible for these tactics -- and anyone who cooperated with them -- regret their actions. It takes a special sort of person to make use of these tactics of cyberwarfare. Observers who do nothing may be worse.

I am sure that these efforts to bring about a kind of nervous collapse will not succeed. I've been through these kinds of attacks at my sites many times -- attacks that are reconstructible from my security records. Publish America? MSN? Luckily, I have kept copies of this material and relevant telephone records. ("What is it like to be censored in America?" and "How censorship works in America.")

Introduction: "Postmodernism, Or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalist Society."

Efforts to create "conscious" machines or so-called "artificial intelligence" (A.I.) seem laughably absurd, to me, also to many scholars and thinkers focusing on the phenomenon of consciousness or mind in Western thought and experience.

As currently understood, efforts to develop conscious machines are doomed to fail. This is because of flawed assumptions made by scientists about the nature of consciousness and what it means for something or someone to "be" conscious. I will comment upon these efforts, briefly, although this problem area is not my primary concern in this essay.

Please note that I am referring to both philosophical or conceptual difficulties and mathematical-logical problems with the modelling of A.I. programming discussed in science magazines. Fuzzy logics (plural) are known to me, but Madelbrot's fractal geometry and chaos thinking may be more relevant to these efforts to theorize "ambiguous option selection puzzles" at an abstract level.

If you are seeking to duplicate the creative potential of organisms in reacting to environmental-logical challenges, it may be necessary to fuse these creative mathematical approaches with biological-chemical work on "recombination" studies usually dealing with fruit flies. (Gribbin, In Search of the Double Helix, pp. 62-65.)

Another and more important set of related difficulties -- or "issues" as they say in law school -- that are often unrecognized by scientists arise in what may be called the "political economy" of the machine. Mounting pressures to create automatons or "cyborgs" (Donna Haraway) that can "ape" the movements, reactions, appearance and emotions of persons are revealing indications of our increasing alienation from one another and from our religious traditions as well as political-legal institutions, also proof of our addiction to distractions, cotton candy for the mind. A female person boarded a Manhattan bus yesterday with a button attached to her bag that said: "I thank God that I am an atheist." ("Mind and Machine" and "On Bullshit.")

The objectifications of human beings by means of our everyday interactions as social "role players" produces weird pathologies reflective of our entanglements with technology and a kind of all-consuming mechanical logic that refuses to go away. Commercialization, commodification, reification -- we have reached levels of obscene and almost cartoon-like unreality in our culture. This unreality is internalized by people who choose a suicidal surrender of genuine selfhood (to the extent that such a thing still exists) to professional and other roles -- roles as cops, lawyers, government workers, teachers, movie stars, advertising executives, therapists, journalists, university professors, and so on.

Madness, exploitation -- endemic or structural exploitation -- have become so routine and invisible that they are expected aspects of America's social nightmare. The psychological consequences and casualties of this state of affairs may be seen every day, especially among young women. (Luis Althusser)

The failure of our human connections and -- to use that dreadful psychobabble term that is everywhere these days "relationships" -- creates the need for substitutes. Among the substitutes are phenomena like economic and cultural consumption, these are overlapping categories. Buying things replaces sex for many people.

Norman Mailer said that, when he was a young man, a beautiful blond standing before the new car in an advertisement was the promise that -- if you bought the car -- you would get laid. Today, he said, buying the car is getting laid. Cultural products substitute for authentic or spiritual experiences, even as the opportunities to encounter "real art" (think of the need for that phrase) reflective of these anxieties also multiply. The consequences for our condition of "petrifaction," (R.D. Laing) dehumanization, sexism, racism and sanctioned forms of cruelty are visible in the front pages of newspapers.

The culture industry (Adorno, Horkheimer), advertising, politics, war, our corrupt and often failed legal system work together to destroy persons, usually persons who take these absurd roles a little too seriously. Perhaps this is what these forces are intended to do -- destroy people -- as the ultimate conclusion of their own twisted logic in late Capitalist societies, like ours. (The word "Capitalism" will be capitalized to designate the contemporary form of this means of economic organization in America and the Western world as distinct from theoretical models of capitalism.)

We flush young women away. Poor men also get destroyed. The reason for the destruction, ostensibly, is that women have fulfilled the needs of others or that men "refuse to cooperate" with destructive efforts of one kind or another, or that they decline to "obey" orders. The idea is to make way for new "models" more conducive to our needs and more obedient to the dictates of power. Isn't that evolution? No, that's exploitation. Also, it is the new slavery. ("Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey.")

This process is brutally on display in Hollywood or in the fashion industry. The idea that most women in the "entertainment industry" must accept is that they are to satisfy audience members' "needs" but never to display needs of their own. Women in such "roles" (sex goddess, vixen, femme fatale, or all of the above) are asked to accept an inhuman condition by being disposable "items." This is to insist that all women -- and not only women -- be prostitutes in contemporary culture. Welcome to America's amusement park culture. ("'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")

Society as an amusement park and entertainment spectacle is deliberately infantilizing for obvious political reasons. Thus, even someone like Noam Chomsky, is told that he should not bother with foreign policy matters because they are "too complex." It is not difficult to imagine the lessons taught, surreptitiously, to women like Brittany Murphy or (this week) Lindsay Lohan, along with many others, about what they can know or say, what and/or who they should wish to be. Christina Aguilera may be the latest victim of this asylum-like culture of surreal commercialization.

Members of the "lower orders" questioning their self-styled "superiors" about these limitations imposed upon them will be killed or destroyed one way or another. They will be called "crazy" or "antisocial," criminals, prostitutes, "unethical," or "witches" perhaps. Delusional? This is what I mean by structural means of destroying people. When a Jew (of all people!) who has become Mengele presumes to comment on my ethics, I know that I need not be bothered by his disapproval, even if it is sanctioned by his judicial "enablers." This would be a good time for New Jersey's hired computer criminals to insert more "errors" in my works. Let us count the attacks on this text. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

Maybe what I think is "crazy" is different from what you think is crazy. I am more than prepared to defend my understanding of sanity or ethics in any intellectual setting. I welcome the opportunity to do so. I invite readers to come to their own conclusions concerning the "ethics" of persons like Stuart Rabner, Deborah T. Poritz, Neil M. Cohen, James McGreevey, Robert Menendez and so many other "distinguished" members of the New Jersey bar -- indicted and unindicted -- whose exploits are detailed in my essays as compared with my conduct. Sadly, such persons are typical of the individuals holding positions of authority in America at this dismal moment in our history. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

I am sure that "normality," or adjustment to the horror and evil that I have seen in public life is what I call crazy. To keep this hierarchical "entertainment and consumption" system in place and operational, an army of elite professionals has been developed -- lawyers, judges, therapists, security people and mass media "operatives" have become instruments of control and not liberation in our National Security State.

People (like me) who presume to criticize mainstream culture for radical political or moral reasons will be trivialized and suppressed, denied outlets for forms of expression -- creative expressions may even be destroyed as part of the silencing effort, even as our ideas are stolen by less talented writers and thinkers. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "'Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review.")

Among the depressing realizations for many American radicals during this decade is the complicity of our corporate media with government control of the political conversation in society. Coverage of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has been orchestrated by the Pentagon; media silence is often eloquent in its stigmatizing or trivializing of dissent; genuine thoughtful critics of American power are eliminated if necessary. This may explain the U.S. media's silence concerning my experiences and life. ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

If consciousness (or self-awareness) is a matter of degree and if the system requires the unawareness of its victims, as well as many of its operators, then how "conscious" are we of the ways in which all of us have become "machine-like" as our devices become more human?

"The media's evacuation of the human through the image" -- this is especially true of women victimized through glossy "representations" -- "has to be understood, though, in terms of the broader problem that normative schemes of intelligibility establish what will and will not be human, what will be a livable life, what will be a grievable death. These normative schemes operate not only by producing ideals of the human that differentiate among those who are more and less human. ["ROXXXY" and/or "Brittany Murphy, Movie Star."] Sometimes they produce images of the less than human, in the guise of the human, to show how the less than human disguises itself, and threatens to deceive those of us who might think we recognize another human there, in that face. But sometimes these normative schemes work precisely through providing no image, no narrative, so that there never was a life, and there never was a death."

"It never happened" is, much too often, America's response to criminal guilt for atrocity:

"There are two distinct forms of normative power: one operates through producing a symbolic identification of the face with the inhuman, foreclosing our apprehension of the human in the scene; the other works through radical effacement, so that there never was a human, there never was a life, and no murder has, therefore, ever taken place. [Robot bombs.] In the first instance, the public realm of appearance is itself human; in the second instance, the public realm of appearance is itself constituted on the basis of the exclusion of that image. The task at hand is to establish modes of public seeing and hearing that might well respond to the cry of the human within the sphere of appearance, a sphere in which the trace of the cry has become hyperbollically inflated to rationalize a gluttonous nationalism, or fully obliterated, where both alternatives turn out to be the same. We might consider this as one of the philosophical and representational implications of war, because politics -- and power -- work in part through regulating what can appear, what can be heard." (Butler, Precarious Life, at pp. 146-147.)

There are persons who cannot "appear" or be heard in America. I am one of them. I hope to examine some of the reasons for this exclusion of voices and subjectivities in our culture and some consequences of this situation of exclusion and silencing. Silencing is often what happens to women in American society. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be censored in America?" and soon: "What is it like to be raped?" then "How censorship works in America.")

Please see "Donald G. McNeil, Jr., "U.S. Infected Guatemalans With Syphilis in '40s," in The New York Times, October 2, 2010, at p. A1. As far as I know, no one has related this story to the reports of 74 drone attacks on Pakistani villages during the past month alone that have resulted in "collateral damage" in the form of killing mostly women and children in addition to alleged Taliban targets. This is probably when New Jersey's computer thugs will wish to insert another "error" in my essay. ("Little Brown Men Are Only Objects for Us.")

I. What is consciousness?

A. Brains, Bodies, and "Things."

"Consciousness ... is experience or awareness. Human mental life has a phenomenal side, a subjective side that the most sophisticated information-processing system might lack. To paraphrase Thomas Nagel, there is something it is like to be in a conscious mental state, something it is like for the organism itself." (T. Hondereich, Oxford Companion to Philosophy, at p. 152.)

Comparisons may be found between proponents of A.I., like Daniel Dennett or (perhaps) the Churchlands, and skeptics concerning A.I., such as Colin McGinn, John Searle, or Thomas Nagel. What does this highly technical debate in philosophy have to do with raging political controversies? Why should feminists care about the mind/body problem?

Well, the mind/body problem is concerned with figuring out how it is that subjective, "technicolor" phenomenal experience (qualia), "coincides" with duplicable information processing by organisms or machines (that is, if machines ever become conscious) "accessing" facts in data banks. No effort to deny subjectivity or reduce "qualia" to behavior is very persuasive, especially when the denier is informed of his or her own pending death. James Garvey, "Hacker's Challenge," in The Philosopher's Magazine, 4th Quarter, UK, 2010, at pp. 23-32. (An "error" was inserted in the foregoing sentence since my previous review illustrating much of what I am saying in this work.)

At the heart of much of this discussion are rival paradigms, different a priori assumptions concerning what is at issue when we speak of consciousness and the only conscious entities that we know of -- i.e., persons. To suggest that computers can be conscious is to imply that computers can be persons without being human beings. However, proponents of such theories of so-called "strong A.I." -- I call these theories "ideologies" -- fail to realize that this contention about conscious machines as persons involves the further suggestion, or "analogous entailed proposition" as analytical philosophers say, that some human beings may be "object-like," or single-function machines, like computer criminals from New Jersey.

Our dominant culture still sees women as, essentially, sexual objects or providers of satisfaction to others. In other words, women are single-function entitites. The logic of this externalist mechanical discourse regarding consciousness implies that some humans are less than fully conscious entities, that is, less than persons. For example, the mentally ill, possibly members of some disfavored minority groups or races, or all women. ("Is Western Philosophy Racist?" and "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

Traditionally, in terms of the mind/body duality inherited from Christianity, by way of Descartes, women were associated with the body; men were identified with mind or thinking. This denigration of feminine intelligence required centuries of conceptual struggle to overcome, to the extent that it has been overcome. As beings lacking in cognition, premodern understandings of women, dictated that women were more "object-like" than men. The consequences in terms of the sales of women as brides, concubines, possessors of dowries, prostitutes is well documented by feminist scholars. ("John Searle and David Chalmers on Consciousness" and "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/body Problem.")

The desire to transform others into "objects" worthy of control, manipulation, or use by self-proclaimed "superiors" -- who insert "errors" in texts, perhaps -- leads to political philosophies and behaviorist psychologies that make persons into "things." In America, some persons today -- like beautiful women or movie stars -- are more likely than others to become "things." ("Richard A. Posner on Voluntary Actions and Criminal Responsibility" and "Behaviorism is Evil.")

Under Capitalism, almost all persons become commercial objects or products, that is, "things" that are for sale. The difficulty that then arises, however, is that users of "things" or "commercial products" need to fill the void of a world increasingly deprived of rival subjectivities. Thus, the yearning to create things that serve our needs or fulfill our purposes without expressing needs or claiming rights as well as purposes of their own. This may explain sex robots or persons asked to perform the functions of sex robots -- like the various kinds of prostitutes thriving in our society, some of whom enjoy great social esteem -- like many politicians or advertising executives. What follows should make it clear that the mind/body problem is a metaphysical discussion, but it is more important as a political debate in sexist society. Terry Eagleton, "Was Marx Right? -- It's Not Too Late to Ask," in Commonweal, April 8, 2011, at p. 9. ("Senator Bob, the Babe, and the Big Bucks.")

This bizarre situation also explains our popular forms of slavery, disposable fashion models, insatiable thirst for novelties in the celebrity realm, teen vampires, sex goddesses, some porn -- male and female "idols" -- also many images in advertising and art. What is missing from our interactions (or Dr. Phil-like "relationships") is the messy reality of free subjects to rival our interpretations of the world. The dominant ethos underlying this controversy and set of issues reflects values that are overwhelmingly sexist. The Cartesian "I" is and always has been male. Today, sadly, the Cartesian "I" is reduced to what can be expressed in a "twitter." Peggy Orenstein, "I Tweet, Therefore I Am," in The New York Times Magazine, August 1, 2010, at p. 11. (Look past the social science babble to the unrecognized ideas and philosophical assumptions in this article.)

Science is and will remain irrelevant to what is fundamentally a political and ethical decision not about how consciousness emerges from, or is produced by, cerebral processes -- something we may figure out some day -- but what is consciousness and in what terms do we define the ontological level to which consciousness instantly elevates those who possess it, those who "are" conscious, regardless of whether this category will someday include machines?

"It is precisely thus that the for-itself apprehends itself in anguish; that is, as a being which is neither the foundation of its own being nor of the Other's being nor of the in-itselfs which form the world, but a being which is compelled to decide the meaning of being -- within it and everywhere outside of it. The one who realizes in anguish his [See what I mean?] condition as being thrown into a responsibility which extends to his very abandonment has no longer either remorse or regret or excuse; he is no longer anything but a freedom which perfectly reveals itself and whose being resides in this very revelation. But as we pointed out at the beginning of this work, most of the time we flee anguish in bad faith."

Sartre, "Freedom and Responsibility," in Existentialism and Human Emotions, at p. 39.

Must my freedom come at the expense of the liberty of others? Sartre feared this was necessarily so. I suggest that this is a highly masculine-aggressive view of freedom and rational agency. Simone de Beauvoir's use of these ideas, for example, allows for the inclusion of the feminist revolution within the metaphysics of mind/body duality and dual-aspect thinking.

Other people cannot be objects for you to "fix" in accordance with what you think is for their own good. You cannot do things "to" people without their consent because you believe that it would help them. You cannot disregard their needs, wishes, hopes and emotions or rights to "affect" them. To do such things to others is to violate their autonomy as subjects. Ironically, many women suffer from this bizarre delusion that they are entitled to "alter" others to satisfy their own notions of what is right and/or good, perhaps as a response to being altered by the suffocating expectations of social sexism. There is no "remote control" for other people. Not yet. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz" and "David Hume's Philosophical Romance.")

Consciousness frightens people. We feel a need to deny consciousness or subjectivity to others. This is especially true of women who have been denied autonomy themselves by powerful men -- fathers or abusive husbands. More astonishingly, many people feel a need to deny consciousness to themselves. As Erik Fromm suggests, persons try desperately to escape freedom. This accounts for Darwinian explanations and dismissals of mere "behavior" or "events" as opposed to "actions," as evolutionary drives, or Freudian subconscious drives, Marxist economic determinations, and many other efforts to avoid the reality of subjective choice and construction -- not always conscious to be sure, but quite real -- of those annoying "lesser" others whom we need to "fix," like women, racist stereotypes, "inferiors," "crazy people," Communists, terrorists, muslim fanatics, "detainees," Democrats or Republicans. For some reason, these others do not want us to "fix" them. ("'The Matrix': A Movie Review" and "'The Island': A Movie Review.")

"Rejecting his own existence, the nihilist must also reject the existences which confirm it. If he wills himself to be nothing, [an object?] all mankind must also be annihilated; otherwise, by means of the presence of this world that the Other reveals he meets himself as a presence in the world. But this thirst for destruction immediately takes the form of a desire for power. The taste of nothingness joins the original taste of being whereby every man is first defined; he realizes himself as a being by making himself that by which nothingness comes into the world. Thus, Nazism was both a will for power and a will for suicide at the same time. [Senator Robert Menendez?] From a historical point of view, Nazism has many other features besides; in particular, beside the dark romanticism [Ayn Rand] which led Rauschning to entitle his work The Revolution of Nihilism, we also find a gloomy seriousness. But it is interesting to note that its ideology did not make this alliance impossible, for the serious often rallies to a partial nihilism, denying everything which is not its object in order to hide from itself the antinomies of action."

Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, at pp. 55-56. ("'The Rite': A Movie Review.")

Tragically, this nihilistic impulse and will to power will result not only in suicide, but also in the destruction of persons surrounding desolate and despairing individuals trapped in their moral nothingness or squalor. ("More Censorship and Cybercrime" and "Censorship!")

II. Can you buy persons in America?

A. Electronic Slaves at the Megaplex.

Two features of our culture are relevant to my discussion (of women mostly) in these very weird situations of so-called "celebrity." Celebrity is somewhat different from the older word and concept of fame. Fame seemed to point to something more lasting and related to positive achievement of some kind. Celebrity is a kind of fancy notoriety or object-status. Jean-Paul Sartre was famous; Mamie Van Doren was a celebrity. If you ask "who?," then you have proven my point. ("Celebrity" and "Pulp Fiction.")

Entanglement of America's twin deities -- sex and money -- which are usually in bed together, as it were, round out the picture of our contemporary "reality." Commercialization, commodification, packaging accompanies the notion of a "movie star." It is not simply that movie stars are and have always been commercial entities (or products). Smart "stars" and all women in Hollywood have always known this is one price of success in the movie business -- being transformed into a joke. I think this recognition that she had been made into a dirty joke had much to do with the tragic death of Marilyn Monroe. ("Of Women and Their Elegance.")

What is new in American culture is the displacement of the iconic status of celebrity not only into products, but as a single, all-consuming (right word!) action and event that matters: BUYING THINGS. Stardom is about "buying things" with your newfound wealth, even as other people buy you, through purchasing your image on "things." Persons used to have souls, now they have "images" and "image-consultants" instead of priests, which may be an improvement:

"Aside from the changes in society as a whole, developments like hedonistic consumerism and the constant need of stimulation of the body, which make any qualitative human relationships hard to maintain, it is a question of breakdown in cultural resources, what Raymond Williams calls structures of meaning. Except for the church, there are few potent traditions on which one can fall back in dealing with hopelessness and meaninglessness. There used to be a set of stories that could convince people that their absurd situation was one worth coping with, but the passivity is now overwhelming. Drug addiction is only one manifestation of this -- you live a life of living death, of slower death, rather than killing yourself immediately. [The goal of torturers and powerful officials in many places -- including quite a few in America, like New Jersey -- is to instill nihilism by denying the value of anything or anyone that you care about.] I recently spoke at a high school in Brooklyn, and the figures are staggering: almost 30 percent had attempted suicide, 70 percent were deeply linked to drugs. This is what I mean by 'walking nihilism.' It is the imposing of closure on the human organism, intentionally, by that organism itself. Such nihilism is not cute. We are not dancing on Nietzsche's texts here and talking about nihilism; we are in a nihilism that is lived. We are talking about real obstacles to the sustaining of a people."

West, The Cornel West Reader, p. 293.

You purchase the identity, role, or status of the action hero of your choice with the acquisition of the official t-shirt, or other item. You buy the t-shirt and you become the One. Batman underwear is available at Target for $4.95. For an extra dollar on the item price, you can probably get your Batman underwear bearing the signature of Christian Bale. Soon "Inception" t-shirts inviting you to "Take the Leap of Faith!" will also be available at K-Mart and fine stores everywhere. The Batman underwear features the bat logo on the fly, as it were, and "Inception" may feature a spinning top in the place of honor. ("'Inception': A Movie Review.")

The predictability of response from others is what commodification promises. You pay your money and you get the quality of the product (or woman) associated with your "fantasy image" along with your expectations. People want reliability, predictability, every time, in terms of the reactions of others, as with electronic appliances. This expectation is very distant from the often painful and messy reality of sharing a love with and for another subjectivity, where the mystery and inner pain of the beloved is shared, where one must love without full understanding, sometimes, and respecting the boundaries, privacy, silences and needs of another person. ("Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and "Sexism, Race, and Incarceration," then "Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison.")

Genuine love grows and deepens with pain and the passage of time; the commercial form of what is called "love" is about purchasing or getting a newer model. Love may increase and live with a person in the absence of the beloved, despite the loss of someone with whom a life has been shared. Love is a lifetime deal. ("'The English Patient': A Movie Review.")

Transferral of these needs and cultural expectations, which are still overwhelmingly and uniquely American, to the sexual realm and encounter means that sex is abstracted into a symbolic exchange, a mediated encounter coded in movie "icons." Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, DiCaprio and Winslet on the Titanic are found at the local wax museum. This museum is an externalization of our collective subconscious in America. People magazine. Our only "real" shared territory these days -- given the differences between many factions of the society -- is entertainment culture. We are beginning to treat one another as we treat lap tops, I-pods, DVD players, cars. ("'Diamonds Are Forever': A Movie Review.")

We have deviated "recognition" of the other, as a person, into abstract fictional identities associated with Hollywood characters as "avatars." (See Bruce Willis in "Surrogates.") Look at human behavior in New York bookstores, sidewalks, shopping areas. I am sure that you will find yourself in the company of any number of Scarlet Johanssons, Kate Winslets, Zoe Zaldanas or Leonardo DiCaprios, Denzel Washingtons, Harrison Fords. The reason we are projecting our inner needs and desires on to Hollywood fictions and commercial products, also actors (Carmen Luvana, Jenna Jameson), is because they are more convenient and better at meeting our "needs" than "real people." ("Drawing Room Comedy: A Philosophical Essay in the Form of a Film Script.")

This is a hell of a burden to impose on artists. This is to make movie actors "unreal." Yes, movie actors are real people, but not in their capacities as "stars." As movie stars, persons become commodities. Smart actors in the movie business never forget that truth. We have made it impermissible not only for movie stars to age, become sick, commit a crime, but we have deemed it an affront when a movie star dies. Harrison Ford said to an interviewer: "I figured out that Hollywood is about money early on." ("A.I.")

"I do think that the influence of Skinnerian behaviorism in the United States can actually be discerned in certain fragments of American life. Most people in the United States believe that they have to be trained to do things (even to make love), and then being trained they must wait for the approriate conditions to be realised. [sic.] Then, like automata, they will routinely produce the necessary actions. Renting a car in the United States is a fascinating example of this. The beautifully trained Avis girl [sic.] says the same thing from coast to coast, talking exactly like some automaton from Dr. Who, and one can see somehow that that person deeply believes that this is the way the human psyche should function. [The word "function" is used without irony.] The idea of doing the thing a little bit differently each time, perhaps instead of saying 'take care how you go now, do you hear,' saying something else instead, even outside the exigencies of a job, would threaten the kind of routinisation in American social interchanges that goes well beyond the ritual of custom. [Courtrooms may be worse examples of this phenomenon despite the hard truth that justice is always individual.] I think one of the elements in this assumption of scientism that has somehow filtered down through the teachers' colleges, through the business schools [law schools] -- a legacy of the idea [of] humans as fit subjects for experimentation, that simple or complicated they are ultimately automata. That I think is not a scientific principle, but a moral view which I would wish to repudiate."

Rom Harre, "An Analysis of Social Activity," in Jonathan Miller, States of Mind, at p. 172.

The "girl" in the Avis office has a counterpart in every office that you will visit in America, whether in banks, hospitals, shops. This depersonalized attitude to "dealing with" others is becoming common throughout the culture, together with the false and evil assumptions concerning humanity from which they derive. These philosophical assumptions -- for this is what they are, bad philosophical ideas -- have produced horrors like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but they will do much greater harm unless they are challenged now. Persons are not and should not be "cyborgs." ("A Doll's Aria" and, again, "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem" then "Good Will Humping.")

Being treated like a thing will generate a "thing-like" response. The phenomenon of "black rage" -- which is a real and highly understandable condition -- is a response to dehumanization. One would have to be deaf to the meaning of words and blind to the realities of our lives in America to believe otherwise. It is either because one believes in an inherent "superiority" of one race over others or because of social conditions that African-Americans are incarcerated well in excess of their share in criminality as compared with whites in the United States, that they suffer from emotional illnesses, higher suicide rates, worse poverty rates, denials of education, publication, or other creative opportunities in comparison with whites. Few people will admit to being racists these days. This choice between rationalizations leaves only one intellectually respectable response to what we see and live with -- it is called "racism."

Compare Ray Rivera, "In Calm 911 Call, a Killer of 8 Spoke of Wanting to Kill More," in The New York Times, August 6, 2010, at p. A1 with Margalit Fox, "Marilyn Buck, 62; Imprisoned for Brink's Holdup," in The New York Times, August 6, 2010, at p. A21. "New York's Prisons Fall Short Again," (Editorial) in The New York Times, March 22, 2011, at p. A26 and David Kaiser & Lovisa Stannow, "Prison Rape," in The New York Review of Books, March 24, 2011, at p. 26. Concerning New Jersey's continuing plunge into the sewer of pervasive child molestation, see John Petrick, "Paterson Man Gets 12 Years for Sexual Assault of Girls, 9," in The Record, March 30, 2011, at p. L-6 and Erik Shilling, "Garfield Man Charged in Sex Assault," in The Record, March 30, 2011, at p. L-3. ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey and "New Jersey Prosecutors and the Mafia.")

The logical inferrence that can be drawn from an examination of a great deal of American social science, penology, social psychology and forensic science included, is that there are persons (experts) whose goal is to generate criminality from oppressed people through the use of frustrations and denials of self-esteem. I cannot imagine what other reaction persons expect from individuals in prisons or inner-city settings targeted for experimentation in such horrible ways and bombarded with contradictory messages concerning consumption and violence. I am sure that one goal of the obstructions to my communication efforts are to generate a violent or pathological response from me. I doubt that such efforts will succeed with me. However, I am sure that -- if such tactics are used against vulnerable people -- many victims will be made to destroy themselves by torturers. http://www.justdetention.org/ (Torture as sex in America's prisons, especially as regards women.)

Tragically, hatred of women is matched by the hatred of many social scientists (often females!) for men or women on display in efforts to condition acceptable behavior from inmates in U.S. prisons. Such torture as therapy is always a sexual act. ("'Shoot 'Em Up': A Movie Review.")

The utterly harassed individual -- even non-human animals -- who react to cruelty by lashing out at torturers or "trainers" is providing the expected response to "conditioning" that will be used to rationalize the racist and other evil assumptions motivating the so-called "research" to begin with. Violence is what America wants from young African-American or other minority males. Sex is what America wants from young and desirable women. As crazy as this sounds, there is no other way that our social reality makes sense. It is possible that these "wants" are not fully conscious for many of our leaders and social scientists. We teach these same sexually-heightened young people that they should abstain and be "good." Result: schizophrenia or suicide. R.D. Laing, The Divided Self (London: Tavistock, 1960), pp. 58-61. D.D. Jackson, "A Note on the Importance of Trauma in the Genesis of Schizophrenia," in Psychiatric Quaterly, Vol. 20, p. 181.

Is the goal of the constant "error" insertions in my writings to produce a violent reaction, breakdown, depression, or is it all of the above? I will continue to write.

III. "An Essay on Liberation": Prostitutes, Performers, and "Products."

A. Andrea Adams, Brittany Murphy, Lindsay Lohan, Kristin Riordan.

Relations among persons as well as between individuals and government agencies are depersonalized as never before. This impersonality or depersonalization is typical of the interactions that are inescapable for everyone in postmodernist cultures. I think this feature of our society and aspect of our lives has now become worse than depersonalization, more like inhumanity. The inhumanity becomes structural and systematic, a feature of the social hirerarchies that we create and that then create us, speaking our subjectivity, as a language of cultural/commercial exchange. ("Antonio Gramsci and Hegemony" and "Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Redemption" then "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

Others are seen as obstacles to one's goals or means to achieving them, instruments and not ends in themselves. Get that promotion by doing whatever is necessary, make sure that things run efficiently, meet one's sales quota at any price, be seen as having satisfied officially-set objectives whatever the reality may be and regardless of the human cost. After all, we are told, there is no "objective" reality under the dominant contemporary ideology beyond self-defined strategies and goals, specifications that simply are reality, persons merely become statistics. ("'Michael Clayton': A Movie Review" and Michael Caine in "A Terrible Shock to the System.")

This fiction in which we live enters even into punishment in the legal system:

"Moreover, the prison sentence, which is always computed in terms of time, is related to abstract quantification, evoking the rise of science and what is often referred to as the Age of Reason. We should keep in mind that this was precisely the historical period when the value of labor began to be calculated in terms of time and therefore compensated in another quantifiable way, by money. The computability of state punishment in terms of time -- days, months, years -- resonates with the role of labor-time as the basis for computing the value of capitalist commodities. [Brittany Murphy] Marxist theorists of punishment have noted that precisely the historical period during which the commodity form arose is the era during which penitentiary sentences emerged as the primary form of punishment."

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, at p. 44.

Not only are you an object, but you are an object reducible to a certain amount of money. This status as a "commodity" is true of every movie star, including those who are also genuine artists. Celebrities are not real persons for audience members. People on red carpets are rarely viewed as themselves audience members or occasional shoppers in grocery stores. Celebrities become, for lack of a better word, "tokens," icons for display, whose status and value are precarious. ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")

Like baseball cards, today's trendy beautiful actress appearing on a magazine cover will be gone tomorrow, or on a reality show, "traded in" for a younger, more beautiful, trendier version of herself appearing in Hollywood, seemingly, every day. To gain one pound (size 4) or age from the median ideal in today's media circles (age 19) is a terrible offense which makes one's professional life even more precarious. Like a fancy car, whose value declines the moment one drives it out of the show room, beautiful women are old at 30 in Hollywood, especially if they play ingenues. Worse, it may be that women in all of American public life are "old" at 30 years-of-age. (Again: "'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review.")

To buy into this system of meanings and shallow scheme of values is to guarantee misery for yourself and tragedy for all. It is essential for women placed in such absurd and evil situations to realize that these corporate commercial values are just that: all about money, not about people. Who you are is reflective of those you love and the people who love you. What matters is what you find meaningful, satisfying, creative, or important and not what others tell you is worthwhile (money, for example, or political power). You and only you can define your purposes, meanings, loves. No one, certainly no so-called "therapist," torturer, cop, lawyer, judge, or other "expert" can presume to define your subjectivity, nor can anyone (legitimately) deny that inner realm to you by making you a slave, or an object of conditioning. In terms of depersonalization, Marilyn, there is no difference between your situation and the plight of someone like Lyndsay Lohan. ("An Open Letter to My Torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli" and "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")

There will always be plenty of people trying to do exactly that to you -- to enslave you. In the curious phase of culture we now occupy, there is an effort underway to possess "electronic slaves" through the consumption of DVD's and magazines. We are projecting absurd emotional needs on to celebrities whom we, too often, worship as substitutes for the gods of the ancient pantheon. Meeting celebrities in the flesh will almost always be less interesting than studying their works. The AMC t.v. shows "Mad Men" and "Rubicon" are examining some of these issues from very different perspectives. ("'The Prisoner': A Review of the AMC Television Series.")

No one can tell you what you must find beautiful or good. This conclusion that a film or book is "good" or "great" is less important than the finding of the conclusion, experiencing art, wrestling with its meaning and importance is what matters. The destination is the journey with all cultural experience as opposed to consumption. The point of seeing a movie is to see/experience that movie for yourself and decide what it means, or whether you like it, certainly not to be able to tell your friends that you saw the movie or to adopt the views of a famous critic in a newspaper. ("David Denby is Not Amused.")

No one can tell you what to feel. The purpose of any human life is to live it, fully and on your own terms, as a person. In my judgment, this requires a moral outlook on life and most importantly, the capacity to love deeply and truly. These emotions and capacities are also threatened today by the shallowness of our public culture and decline in education, alienation, consumerism, rampant nihilism, official inhumanity, and the loss of spirituality regardless of what you think of religion. We no longer really see one another or feel one another's pains and losses. Why should it surprise us that our reactions to works of art are so inadequate? Social life is meant to be inadequate, sometimes non-existent. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld" and "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")

Absence of feeling and imagination explains the death of 18 year-old Andrea Adams who "jumped from the tenth floor of the Tower Block in which she had spent the last few months of her life." The indifference of overworked and burned-out civil cervants, the almost deliberate destruction of all ego supports and coping mechanisms (did they obstruct her writings?), separation from the one person who genuinely cared for this young woman -- all of this amounts to a kind of murder by ironically-named "social welfare workers."

The cruelty barely concealed behind psychobabble platitudes and New Age drivel, or policy wonk talk and legalisms, is shown to be what it is -- lethal platitudes offered as a smoke screen for murder or indifference amounting to murder and greed for public money:

"At the inquest, coroner John Pollard identified 23 separate failings of individuals, organisations and authorities that had contact with Andrea during the critical stages prior to her death, yet ruled that none of the apparent failures had a direct causal link with Andrea's death. 'Rather, she was completely overwhelmed by the apparent hopelessness and worthlessness of her situation.' ... "

Worse, is malice, sadism, delight in cruelty that become common experiences for powerless young women in Europe and/or America, especially in places like Hollywood. There are so-called "experts" in America who produce feelings of helplessness in persons targeted for destruction for a "small fee." ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "Psychological Torture in the American Legal System.")

"In their own internal inquiry into Andrea's death, the Greater Manchester police condemned the officers' lack of action and failure to contact Andrea's mental health worker." (The Guardian, July 7, 2010, at p. 7.)

It is difficult not to see the death of Brittany Murphy -- whose failed effort to remain 19 years-old forever is both heartbreaking and absurd -- as closely related to the death of Ms. Adams. Seeing Ms. Mulligan's face on a magazine cover or Ms. Wasikowska's success as "Alice," I feel great concern for their future welfare. (Both of these new young stars look to be about 19 years-old and wear a size 4, I believe.)

Moreover, dozens of other young women, like these two victims, Ms. Murphy and Ms. Adams, die in America and the UK on a daily basis. I have known some of these victims. ("Would you have helped Katherine 'Kitty' Genovese?")

The result of incarcerating Lindsey Lohan, for example, may be disastrous in the long term:

"There is a horrible inevitability to the news that Lindsay Lohan is going to prison. After all, this won't be the 24-year-old actor's first period of incarceration. In 2007, she was convicted of driving under the influence and cocaine use after a meeting between her Mercedes-Benz and a Beverly Hills tree. She spent 84 minutes behind bars, her one-day sentence having been reduced as a response to prison overcrowding. This time she'll need to pack a toothbrush." (The Guardian, July 8, 2010, at p. 14.)

A jail sentence is the best way of destroying what remains of this young woman's self-esteem, reinforcing the negative assaults upon her worth, after surviving a broken home and difficult upbringing in the Disney-like asylum of Hollywood. It is a miracle that Ms. Lohan is not more disturbed than she is. ("The Art of Melanie Griffith.")

If Ms. Lohan is allowed to use her talent -- which is clearly her way to cope with adversity -- to help others (by teaching drama to persons traumatized by rape or other violations, for example) as part of a creative and mixed non-custodial sentencing package, I believe that Ms. Lohan is much more likely to do well leaving self-destructiveness behind. Someone who has so much to give the world should not be consigned to this oblivion of a jail sentence for what is, obviously, a cry for help. ("The Art of Robert Downey, Jr.")

This optimum result is more likely with the right relationships in Ms. Lohan's life. The yearning of power-wielders to impose their will on persons they may secretly envy or despise for their talents and intellect is a very ugly and visible aspect of many judicial or expert decisions in celebrity cases. Being a famous movie star can help you in a courtroom, but it can also hurt you. Many judges are addicted to the tributes and humiliations of persons who come before them, so-called therapists may be worse. Ironically, this is usually more true when judges encounter celebrity defendants or exceptionally gifted persons who are required to genuflect to them. I suspect that this was part of the problem in Robert Downey. Jr.'s experience with the legal system: judicial ego run amok. (Again: "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

Kristin Riordan -- the "prostitute" to New Jersey media -- is a human being, a person and not a "thing" or sex robot, who deserves a second chance to make something of her still young and redeemable life. The tragic loss of one young woman's life should not produce yet another victim of forces of control and pacification of women that have grown monstrous, much to the delight of judges in what is widely acknowledged to be America's most corrupt and mafia-controlled jurisdiction, New Jersey.

Saying these things has much to do with the criminal censorship to which my writings are subjected. Assaults on an envied intellect will not make you any smarter, New Jersey Cubanoids. At any time New Jersey officials may suppress, censor, alter my writings or destroy my cable signal to prevent me from writing further. I do not believe that these actions are taken because my writings are ineffective. I cannot believe that daily violations of copyright laws and plagiarisms, censorship and suppressions of speech as well as computer crime can take place without the cooperation of government in America. ("What is it like to be censored in America?")

"The construction of a free society would create new incentives for work. In the exploitative societies, the so-called work instinct is mainly the (more or less effectively) introjected necessity to perform productively in order to earn a living. But the life instincts themselves strive for the unification and enhancement of life; in nonrepressive sublimation they would provide the libidinal energy for work on the development of a reality which no longer demands the exploitative repression of the Pleasure Principle. The 'incentives' would then be built into the instinctual structure of men [and women]. Their sensibility would register, as biological relations, the difference between the ugly and the beautiful, between calm and noise, tenderness and brutality, intelligence and stupidity, joy and fun, and it would correlate this distinction with that between freedom and servitude. Freud's last theoretical conception recognizes the erotic instincts as work instincts -- work for the creation of a sensuous environment. The social expression of the liberated work instinct is cooperation, [mutuality of concern,] which, grounded in solidarity, directs the organization of the realm of necessity and the development of the realm of freedom. [Karl Marx's "Essay on the Jewish Question."] And there is an answer to the question which troubles the minds of so many men of good will: what are the people in a free society going to do? The answer which, I believe, strikes at the heart of the matter was given by a young black girl. She said: for the first time in our life, we shall be free to think about what we are going to do."

Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation, at p. 91.

Conclusion: How much longer?

To remain passive in the face of a near plague of dying young women, or African-American men and all kinds of women being lost to pathologies resulting from out-of-control nihilism and commodification, is to share in the guilt for these crimes by the culture. To witness torture and do nothing is to become a torturer. ("How Censorship Works in America.")

We are reducing young women -- more than ever in human history, I believe -- to sexual objects and destroying the self-esteem of those young women early in their lives. Women who do not meet the transitory and sometimes absurd standards of beauty of any given society are in deep trouble today. ("America's Holocaust.")

We are injuring young women, hurting them every day, making them feel more guilt for the slightest imperfection, aging -- soon breathing -- will be something women should feel guilty about. We are turning girls and women into "things" of little value. Not every young woman will look like the latest fashion model. No one should feel that they have to look a "certain way." Beauty can mean many things. We must be aware of the suffering and uncertainties that young women experience in a media age, when self worth may involve identification with celebrity alter egos or ideals that become impossible to emulate. Loss of self-esteem has taken too many lives for us to remain indifferent to further losses. Let us hope that Brittany Murphy and Andrea Adams are the last victims of this scourge.

Are these the thoughts that you wish to censor and suppress or plagiarize in America?

Titles will be altered in their alphabetical order, letters will be deleted from words as part of the continuing cybercrime and harassment efforts from New Jersey. Some corrections of inserted "errors" in this work will be made many times. Spacing between paragraphs will be altered, regularly, by hackers from Union City. This display of public illegality and cruelty from Trenton may illustrate my argument in this essay. Disagreement is fine -- even welcome -- censorship is or should not be acceptable in America. Shame on you, Mr. Menendez.

Sources:

Periodicals:

Peggy Orenstein, "I Tweet, Therefore I am," in The New York Times Magazine, August 1, 2010, at p. 11. (Forget the psychobabble and look to the underlying ideas.)

Julie Bindel, "Driven to Despair: The Lonely Death of Andrea Adams," in The Guardian, July 8, 2010, at p. 4. (Harrowing account of psychologists lethal indifference to cruelty.)

Donald G. McNeil, Jr., "U.S. Infected Guatemalans With Syphilis in '40s," in The New York Times, October 2, 2010, at p. A1. (Who cares about the little brown people?)

Ryan Gilby, It's Not Too Late, Lindsay," in The Guardian, July 8, 2010, at p. 14.

"I, Sexbot," in Harper's Monthly, March, 2010, at p. 25. http://www.truecompanion.com/

The foregoing article describes a company that offers "ROXXXY" the world's first autonomous sex robot. Designed by artificial intelligence engineer, Douglas Hines, ROXXXY is available in six different personalities, including "Frigid Farah" and "Mature Martha," and is priced starting at $7,000.00. Only six personalities? The same society that allows for the sale of this sex robot criminalizes slavery and prostitution for persons engaging in sex acts for money. See the film "Cherry 2000" which dates from the late eighties. ROXXXY is the identity prepared for many women in America. Is this "robot" what many men want when they "marry" a woman? I hope not. ("'The Stepford Wives': A Movie Review" and "The Art of Melanie Griffith.")

Benedict Carey & John Markoff, "Students, Meet Your New Teacher, Mr. Robot," in The New York Times, July 11, 2010, at p. A11.

U.S.C. researchers developed a robot called "BANDIT" to interact with children suffering from autism whose parents or significant others are "too busy" for such encounters. Soon these robots may be built to resemble celebrities, like Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, Lindsay Lohan or Brittany Murphy, Melanie Griffith and Robert Downey, Jr. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

Jaron Lanier, "The First Church of Robotics," (Op-Ed) in The New York Times, August 9, 2010, at p. A19. (Confused Op-Ed essay, spoiled by over-editing, echoes my comments in this essay and elsewhere that "machines become more human as we become more machine-like." A citation to my work would have been appreciated, Mr. Lanier. Please see "What is it like to be plagiarized?")

Caitlin Flanagan & Natasha Vargas-Cooper, "Sex and Porn in the Age of the Internet," in The Atlantic Monthly, January/February, 2011, at pp. 87-104. (Further borrowing of ideas or reactions first published in these blogs without acknowledgment.)

Kira Cochraine & Hadley Freeman, "Feminist Icon? The Lady Gaga Debate," in The Guardian, September 17, 2010, at pp. 4-6. ("I am not a piece of meat!")

James Garvey, "Hacker's Challenge," in The Philosopher's Magazine, 4th Quarter, 2010, at pp. 23-32. (November-December, 2010.)

Juan Galis-Menendez, "Magic, Technology, and the Self," http://www.geocities.com/newyearswithjuangm/philosophy.html

Juan Galis-Menendez, Audietur et Altera Pars, http://laingsociety.org/colloquia/polofdiagnosis/etaltera.htm

Juan Galis-Menendez, "R.D. Laing and Evil," at: http://www.laingsociety.org/colloquia/peaceconflict/natureofevil.jgm.htm

I am very grateful for this publication and for the creation of a link to this blog at that site. One of these essays has also been selected for inclusion in a Critical Psychiatry web site in the UK which has also linked to these blogs. http://www.uea.ac.uk/~wp276/article.htm (I am told that several of my writings are available in Cuba and elsewhere in Latin America.)

A link to this article and to my blogs is found at http://www.rosemadder.com/

Dennis Overbye, "Is Gravity Real? A Scientist Takes On Newton," in The New York Times, Science Times, July 13, 2010, at p. D1. (The "ideal" nature of gravity and its "illusory" properties are set forth, allegedly, by daring physicist and Kantian, Erik Verlinde.)

Ray Rivera, "In Calm 911 Call, a Killer of 8 Spoke of Wanting to Kill More," in The New York Times, August 6, 2010, at p. A1. ("Black Rage" and see Charlize Theron in "Monster.")

Margalit Fox, "Marilyn Buck, 62; Imprisoned for Brinks Holdup," in The New York Times, August 6, 2010, at p. A21. (Every crime committed by a woman in America, often unknowingly, is a political act.)

Previous Writings Dealing With Similar Issues: "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem," "A Doll's Aria," "John Searle and David Chalmers on Consciousness," and "Would You Have Helped Katherine 'Kitty' Genovese?" then "Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and "Foucault, Rose, Davis, and the Meanings of Prison" also "Mind and Machine" and "Good Will Humping."

Scholarly Works:

Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum, 1993).

Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London & New York: Verso, 2004).

Omar Calabrese, Neo-Baroque: A Sign of the Times (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992).

David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Andrew Collier, R.D. Laing: The Philosophy and Politics of Psychotherapy (New York: Pantheon, 1977).

Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories, 2003).

Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity (New York: Philosophical Society, 1948).

Terry Eagleton, On Evil (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2010.)

Stephen F. Eisenman, The Abu Ghraib Effect (London: Reaktion Books, 2007).

Susan Estrich, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987).

Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage, 1973).

Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Vintage, 1965).

Marilyn French, The Women's Room (New York: Summit Books, 1977).

Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

Marjorie Grene, Introduction to Existentialism (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1948).

John Gribbin, In Search of the Double Helix (New York: Bantam, 1985).

Donna Haraway, Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York: Routledge, 1991).

Frederic Jameson, "Postmodernism, Or The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," in Thomas Doherty, ed., Postmodernism: A Reader (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 62.

Frederic Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as Socially Symbolic Act (New York: Cornell University Press, 1981).

R.D. Laing, The Divided Self (London: Tavistock, 1960).

R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience (New York: Pantheon, 1967).

Norman Mailer, Of Women and Their Elegance (New York: Tom Doherty, 1980).

Herbert Marcuse, An Essay on Liberation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969).

Colin McGinn, The Problem of Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (New York: Dover, 1999), (1st ed., 1869).

Roger Penrose, The Emperor's New Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Katha Pollitt, Learning to Drive and Other Stories (New York: Random House, 2007).

Rick Roderick, Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986).

Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual (New York: Vintage, 1994).

Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions (New York: Kensignton Books, 1957).

Roger Scruton, Sexual Desire: A Moral Philosophy of the Erotic (New York: Free Press, 1986).

John H. Smith, Dialectics of the Will (Mich.: Wayne State U. Press, 2000).

Claudia Springer, Electronic Eros: Bodies and Desire in the Postindustrial Age (Austin: University of Texas, 1996).

Mark C. Taylor, The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).

Roberto Mangaberia Unger, Passion: An Essay on Personality (New York: Free Press, 1984).

Jessica Valenti, The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession With Purity is Hurting Young Women (New York: Seal Press, 2010). http://www.feministing.org/

Cornel West, The Cornel West Reader (New York: Perseus Books, 1999).

Elizabeth Wurtzel, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (New York: Random House, 1988).

The Proust Questionaire.

2010-07-17T17:00:00.050-04:00

July 17, 2010 at 5:18 P.M. Several writings may have been damaged after my posting of a review of "Inception." I will "struggle" to make all necessary corrections.

"Despite her journal sketches, she no longer really believed in characters. They were quaint devices that belonged to the nineteenth century. The very concept of character was founded on errors that modern psychology had exposed. Plots too were like rusted machinery whose wheels would no longer turn. A modern novelist could no more write characters and plots than a modern composer could a Mozart symphony. It was thought, perception, sensations that interested her, the conscious mind as a river through time, and how to represent its onward roll, as well as all the tributaries that would swell it, and the obstacles that would divert it. If only she could reproduce the clear light of a summer's morning, the sensations of a child standing at a window, the curve and dip of a swallow's flight over a pool of water. The novel of the future would be unlike anything in the past."

Ian McEwan, Atonement (New York: Anchor, 2001), p. 265.

"I am Myra Breckinridge whom no man will ever possess. Clad only in a garter belt and one dress shield, I held off the entire elite of the Trobriand Islanders, a race who possess no words for 'why' or 'because.' Wielding a stone ax, I broke the arms, the limbs, the balls of their finest warriors, my beauty blinding them, as it does all men, unmanning them in the way that King Kong was reduced to a mere simian whimper by beauteous Fay Wray whom I resemble left three-quarter profile if the key light is no more than five feet high during the close shot."

Gore Vidal, Myra Breckinridge (New York: Bantam, 1968), p. 1.

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

Not what, but who.

What is your current state of mind?

Determined.

What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Every love is the greatest love of my life.

Which living person do you most admire?

Nelson Mandela.

What is the quality you most like in a man?

Loyalty.

What is the quality you most like in a woman?

Grace.

What is your greatest extravagance?

Books. Movies. Music.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Cruelty.

What is your greatest fear?

A growing withdrawal of love and compassion from human societies.

What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Social adjustment.

Which living person do you most despise?

Feel anger, struggle for justice, demand a confrontation with evil, but do not "despise" anyone. Pity them. It is not easy, I know, because hatred combined with disgust are overwhelming emotions sometimes. Still, pity them. Evil persons are dead and do not know it.

When and where were you happiest?

In Paris, with two women. (Interpretation required.) And in Rome with friends and someone I love very deeply.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"Happily," I refrain from overusing words -- like "mad cool"! -- and others "too." (I am also reluctant to use quotation "marks" or exclamations!!!)

Which talent would you most like to have?

I am torn between singing Otello and writing like Vidal, then I recognize that they are the same talent -- communication.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I would be six feet tall.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

You mean, again?

What is your most treasured possession?

Photographs of people I love, and an imagined picture of someone that I keep in my mind. I only keep the picture in my mind. The person is and always will be, FREE. I hope that she will be ...

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

One of America's worst prisons, including an emotional cell that I sometimes inhabit.

What do you value most in your friends?

Loyalty.

Who are your favorite writers?

Shakespeare, Byron, Marti, Hugo, Dickens, Austen, Hemingway, Mailer, Vidal, Styron, Jacobson, McCarthy, Parker, Chandler, Fowles, Amis, Hitchens, Maugham, McEwan, Burgess, Fuentes, Borges, Barnes, Lively, Byatt, Murdoch, Jong, Baldwin, Davis, Hughes, Roth, Rushdie, Roy, West and many more, to say nothing of other philosophers, historians, scientists, painters and film makers, whose works must be "read." And someone named "Gore Vidal." Did I mention him?

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Myra Breckinridge and/or "as" Gore Vidal.

Who are your heros in real life?

In alphabetical order: Hilda, Isabel, Marilyn, Silvia, ... Alas, I don't know many people in real life.

What historical figure do you most identify with?

Baruch Spinoza. On July 27, 1656, this was the anathema pronounced on the "unethical and evil" Baruch Spinoza:

" ... having long known of the evil opinions and deeds of Baruch de Spinoza, [we] have endeavored by various ways to turn him from his evil ways. But having been unable to reform him, but rather, on the contrary, daily receiving more information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and taught and about the monstrous deeds he did, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and born witness to this effect in the presence of said Espinoza" -- that's better than the OAE! -- "[we] ... have decided ... that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. ... Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up. Cursed be he when he goes out and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him, but the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven."

Mathew Stewart, The Courtier and the Heretic (New York & London: W.W. Norton, 2006), pp. 33-34.

"What matters is not what others think of us but what we think of them." (Gore Vidal)

How would you like to die?

On a high note after my 101st birthday.

What is your greatest regret?

Missing, aching for someone dearly loved.

What is your motto?

Struggle.

Walker Percy on Symbols and Semiotics.

2010-07-07T14:02:00.008-04:00

May 30, 2011 at 4:29 P.M. "Errors" were reinserted in this essay as part of the continuing computer crimes against me. In the absence of my personal computer I must repair the harm done to my works by N.J. officials or their hackers at public computers throughout New York city. I cannot say how many texts have been damaged in this latest wave of attacks. ("How censorship works in America.")
December 2, 2010 at 3:18 P.M. From a public computer: "Errors" reinserted in this essay have been corrected.
July 28, 2010 at 3:01 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected in this essay which had been left alone for a while. Copyright protection and the U.S. Constitution have no meaning for these New Jersey legal officials. This means that we can expect future vandalism of this essay and others aimed at causing psychological harm to me through what they call: "induced frustrations." Lots of luck.
July 7, 2010 at 2:23 P.M. I notice that one of my essays examining the work of Norman Mailer was deleted from this blog against my will by New Jersey's hackers. I will write another essay about Mailer to replace the deleted work, which will probably appear under someone else's name in print. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and ''Brideshead Revisited': A Movie Review.")

Walker Percy, "Symbol, Consciousness, and Intersubjectivity," and "Symbol as Hermeneutic in Existentialism," in The Message in a Bottle (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1983), pp. 265-287.

Walker Percy, "A Semiotic Primer on the Self," in Lost in the Cosmos, The Last Self-Help Book (New York: Washington Square, 1983), pp. 86-140.

Henry Kisor, "Dr. Percy on Signs and Symbols," in Lewis A. Lawson & Victor A. Kramer, eds., Conversations With Walker Percy (Jackson: University of Mississippi, 1985), p. 193.

Charles Sanders Peirce, Chance, Love and Logic: Philosophical Essays (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1998), pp. 238-301.

John P. Hogan, Collingwood and Theological Hermeneutics (Latham: University Press Inc., 1998), pp. 167-196.

More good stuff about my book: http://www.forbesbookclub.com/authorbrowse.asp?letter=g

Walker Percy's essays and novels are philosophical in the sense that works by Camus and Sartre, Mann and Tolstoy are also philosophical meditations on ultimate life-issues by way of narrative structures. Percy's writings illustrate forms of awareness and a concern with wisdom, which is enriched by Percy's Christian faith and familiarity with the tradition of Biblical scholarship and reflection. Percy was a physician and biologist, so he was up to date on scientific issues. Also, Percy is a Southern boy.

Two of Percy's essays in a collection entitled The Message in the Bottle, are especially relevant to my interests. You can read chapters 12 and 13 together, for example, as explorations of the role of symbolic thinking in our self-understandings, particularly in coming to terms with the puzzle of consciousness, also in physics and mathematics. Both of these superb essays nonetheless suffer, I believe, from a failure to make use of key insights in the writings of Paul Ricoeur.

Percy begins by stating the issue dividing the two basic approaches to the mystery of consciousness: 1) the "explanatory-psychological" (behaviorist or scientific) view of consciousness; and 2) the "phenomenological-hermeneutic" (humanistic or interpretive) view. The first of these approaches seeks knowledge of causes and workings of consciousness from an external or objective perspective; the second seeks understanding of consciousness from an interpretive or hermeneutic perspective.

Neither of these approaches is likely to be sufficient on its own or to eliminate its rival from the intellectual scene. Pluralists concerning descriptive vocabularies, like me, are convinced that we need both to know and/or understand the "unitary phenomena of man and woman." Much depends on what aspects of human beings interest us. When it comes to the human realm of meanings, phenomenology wins; when it comes to understanding empirical reality, science wins. Men and women must be understood in both ways because we live in dual realities. Percy says:

"One can either look upon consciousness as a public thing or event and as such open to explanatory inquiry; or one can regard it as an absolutely privileged realm, that by which I know anything at all -- including explanatory psychology. As exemplars of these two approaches I shall refer to ... the work of George H. Mead [behaviorist-externalist] and Edmund Husserl [phenomenologist-idealist-internalist]."

I adopted a similar strategy in comparing Owen Flanagan with Paul Ricoeur. Both Percy and I wish to use other thinkers as "place-holders" to mark the spot (roughly) that each occupies on the philosophical map, then move from one to the other (Ricoeur, for me; Mead for Percy), choosing one, finally, as home base -- in order to analyze consciousness and language philosophically -- so as to establish an accomodation with the rival position. Percy is best thought of as a scientific-phenomenological-existentialist.

No doubt Percy's existentialism was at least in part the result of his bout with Tuberculosis and stay at a sanitarium during the forties. Mr. Percy died some years ago. This experience of illness and training as a physician may also explain the Catholic novelist's fascination with Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain.

The "quest" is for a synthesis of these rival views, aufheben, or a form of "transcendence" (reconciliation is the "Holy Grail"). The problem for both positions results from the need to account for what Percy calls "intersubjectivity." I will speak of the "encounter with the Other" or of making the "Ogival crossing."

It may be best to pause in order to define some key terms that people often find puzzling. I happen to be reading Dan Brown's pulp novel The Da Vinci Code, which is not literature. But it is fun, if you recognize how silly it is and do not take it seriously. All of Percy's novels are better that The Da Vinci Code. Regrettably, many people do take that pulp novel seriously. Some of the subtexts in that popular book are not very pleasant. Yet one also cannot help laughing at some of the blunders in Brown's novel.

For one thing, Brown's hero (Robert Landon) is a "symbologist" who teaches at Harvard. There is no such academic subject. There are no university departments of "symbology." There are people who are experts in "semiotics," which is the "general study of symbolic systems, including language." A key text in this discipline is C.W. Morris, The Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938), all the way up to Umberto Eco's A Theory of Semiotics (1976). Julia Kristeva makes use of the term "semiotics" in her own system, mostly to confuse everyone, which sounds like fun. A neo-Marxist tradition that interprets the language of commodities as a system of signs is associated with postmodernist sociological theory, as in the writings of Jean Baudrillard.

"Hermeneutics" is "the theory and practice of interpretation." It is a modern method or discipline developed early in the nineteenth century in Biblical criticism, which was extended by Schleimacher and Dilthey to cover the whole of human existence, distinguishing human from natural world concerns in social theory or "the human sciences" -- especially as developed by phenomenologists -- in a tradition including thinkers from Hegel (The Phenomenology of Mind) to Heidegger, especially Gadamer and Ricoeur in our times. American legal theory has made creative use of the field.

Back to Percy. Neither of the two basic approaches to the study of consciousness does very well in accounting for social reality or intersubjectivity because behaviorists are stuck on the "outside" of people, with what is observable, which is public and social; whereas phenomenologists are stuck on the "inside" of people, with their inner lives and intentionality, unable to get to the public world of others. John MacMurray and Gabriel Marcel, among others, help with this problem by making love the path to the other, an other who is always already with us.

Percy says -- I agree -- that many of these difficulties result from a failure to appreciate the crucial importance of symbols, especially words as symbols. Sources for this insight include Ernst Cassirer and Susan K. Langer. An appreciation of the peculiar role of symbols in formulating or constituting subjects ("and don't forget power!" Foucault says) will leads us to:

" ... (1) confirm in an unexpected way Mead's thesis of the social origin of consciousness, (2) reveal intersubjectivity as one of the prime relations of the symbol meaning-structure, (3) provide access to a phenomenology of consciousness, not as a transcendental idealism, but as a mode of being emerging from the interrelations of real organisms in the world."

The failure to refer to Ricoeur is a major problem for Percy because Ricoeur's project begins from the insight that the "other is always with us already" (hey, I said that too!), to the extent that we are formulated or shaped in and by languages that define us and that we also help to redefine, all the time, in a kind of energy-exchange, bringing us close to idealism again. "The symbol gives rise to thought," says Ricoeur. Symbols make thought and identity possible in community. A symbol is necessarily a social space.

We look for the self not "inside" the mind in a Cartesian meditation or by way of Husserl's epoche, but "outside" of the psyche, in collective mind or shared cultural meanings, through a "truncated ontology of the sign." This is Ricoeur's Kantian move, which leads him in a Hegelian direction. You can do better than Mead, folks, and avoid all of the absurdities and ethical problems of behaviorism, while still achieving the objective and external perspective so beloved of those who are "into" scientific psychology and pragmatism. "I am objective," says the science major. Ricoeur answers: "So am I." Lawyers ask: "What would you like me to be?" ("Behaviorism is Evil.')

French philosophers and literary theorists are way ahead of us in this area. True, from a Continental perspective, Percy is reinventing the wheel. However, he is doing so very well and translating these weird European ideas into an American idiom:

"Semioticists take due notice of the relation of denotation in semantics, which is that dimension of semiotic which has to do with the RULES by which a symbol is said to denote its denotatum. ... ... Signification is essentially and irreducibly a triadic meaning-relation, whereas symbolization is essentially and irreducibly a tetradic relation. The three terms of the sign-response are related psycho-causally. The schema, sign -- organism -- significandum, has so persistently recommended itself as the ground of meaning, human and sub-human, because it deals with physical structures and with causal relations and energy exchanges between these structures."

In other words, for Percy, an organism is always merely "responding" (yes, but how freely?) to an environment in formulating an identity, even when the environment is a "sign-structure." Now we need Derrida and Chomsky -- but also John Austin -- to remind Percy that language has a constitutive power. Every human environment is a language. Languages, however, are more than environments. ("Immanuel Kant and the Narrative of Freedom" and "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

Sign-mediation is more than an environment for a subject, since such mediation creates what it describes. Think of mathematics and the years of effort to cope with such items as the Reiman hypothesis or Fermat's last theorem. (Austin's "How to do things with words.") This linguistic essence is even more true of symbols. Just head down to Thompson Street and play chess with the hustlers. You will find yourself in a universe of knights and castles, "king's indians" and "queen's gambits." Wait, that's Manhattan! ("Sinbad's Excellent New York Adventure" and, soon, I hope, Ms. Jane Bond's adventure in "A Quantum of Malice.")

I heard Derrida address these themes concerning the constitutive power of language, referring to Austin specifically (which was surprising), in a French language public lecture I attended at New York University's French Studies Center. Legal training comes in handy at this point, since American Constitutional theorists have found poststructuralist and hermeneutic theory useful for their interpretive concerns. In U.S. jurisprudence there are often legally-mandated terms ("magic words" ) that must be spoken in order to alter legal reality.

"I now pronounce you man and wife." When a statutorily mandated set of requirements are satisfied, a judge may speak these words creating a new entity, in fact, merely through the use of words. The life-world of those about and to whom such words are spoken is recreated, instantly, by their use. Indeed, the entire society's legal reality is altered by such a pronouncement because the network of legal obligations changes for those with a new status and all other legal subjects. They (and we) stand on new common ground in a shared world of language-relations or meanings, after such words are spoken. Denotation, the act of naming, requires the TWO, namer and hearer. My calling this thing a chair is another way of saying that it "is" a chair for you and me. Get this move:

"Every symbolic formulation, whether it be language, art, or even thought, requires a real or posited SOMEONE ELSE for whom the symbol is intended as meaningful. Denotation is an exercise in intersubjectivity. The two are suddenly no longer related as organisms in a nexus of interaction but as a namer and hearer of a name, an I and a Thou, co-conceivers and co-celebrants of the object beheld under the auspices of a common symbol." ("Is it rational to believe in God?")

I reach for my copy of Judith Butler's and Gillian Rose's books and for John MacMurray's writings. What does it mean to tell me that "Latinos are not smart enough to be philosophers?" What reality are we creating by doing this, saying these words, to a young person? How about this: A judge holds his or her nose and says, "You are the personal injury lawyer from the storefront office, right?" Am I your "inferior," Mr. Rabner?

What place is created for you, if you accept that label? What if you are "the Defendant"? Or "offender"? What if a woman is called a "filthy whore" or a "fat pig"? What if you are told in an American courtroom to "sit on the last bench in the room"? Do you embrace the label that seeks to dehumanize you and transform it? Or do you reject the entire discourse and create another? What is the best form of resistance to such stupidity and injustice? Ethics? You must be joking. ("New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" and "New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" then "What is it like to be tortured?")

The trial or legal proceeding is already over when you can refer to a defendant on the front page of the newspaper in town as "the prostitute." When a judge can say before the trial of Mumia Abu Jamal "I am going to help them to fry that nigger!" the outcome is predetermined. Welcome to America's legal system! ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal" and "America's Holocaust" then "Race, Sex, and Incarceration" and "Abuse and Exploitation of Women in New Jersey" and, finally, "Foucault, Rose, Davis and the Meanings of Prison.")

I choose struggle. How about you? You have forty-five minutes and may use any sources that you like to answer these questions. Finally, citing Marcel's "intersubjective nexus," Percy concludes:

"If we wish to study the knowers themselves, the I-Thou relation, we must use some other instrument, speak some other language, perhaps an ontological one rather than physico-causal."

Then, the Turandot phenomenon:

"Awareness is not only intentional in character; it is also symbolic. ... I am not only conscious OF something; I am conscious of it as being what it is for you and me. ... The 'I think' is only made possible by a prior mutuality: 'we name.' ..."

We name. Mutual naming is only possible, in turn, because persons always share a common language of images or archetypes. In fact, that capacity for language is part of what it means to be a person, together with an aptitude for other forms of discourse or non-verbal languages -- art, for example -- and a set of collective memories or a deep, shared or universal subconscious, which is expressed in those archetypal symbols. ("'Inception': A Movie Review.")

It is these symbols which (at the most profound level) locate or place each of us, like it or not, in the lives of all others. ("Daniel Dennett and the Theology of Science.")

Such a bizarre experience of "heightening" awaits many cinema stars who, usually through no choice of their own, tap into mythic or archetypal images and become undying (and often unwilling) symbols. Kate Winslet was faced with a Jaguar automobile named after her. This is a heavy burden, which must take a psychological toll on anyone. 12 cylinders, Kate? ("'The Reader': A Movie Review.")

Even in death, these persons or their images (Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley) are used or exploited for purposes and reasons which are not their own. One is reminded of the mythology of shadows and of the theft of shadows, as in the story of Peter Pan. ("'Finding Neverland': A Movie Review.")

Something deeper than words is involved in symbolizing by way of primal and archetypal images, for we reach that universal or fundamental humanity where we must stand together. And this "something" is captured in a few of our greatest symbols: Star of David (which is an abstract expression of all that is in Da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" and more), Enlightened Buddha under the tree, and crucifix, all are representations of the point at which human and universe (God, if you like) meet, where all opposites are transcended and resolved -- including masculine and feminine -- in or by love. The crucifix is a symbol of ultimate community and our only possible total reconciliation of fate with hope. Tragically, given the bloody history of humanity, it is (like every other important symbol) ambiguous.

If I were to meet the proverbial anthropologist from Mars (suppose he looks like Woody Allen or Marilyn Monroe, see what I mean?) and he or she asks me: "What is your species?" My answer would be to point at such symbols -- for me, this means a crucifix most of all -- and then to give him or her (it?) a "name." Through naming we escape necessity.

Michel Foucault and the Authorship Question.

2010-07-01T14:24:00.009-04:00

July 11, 2010 at 5:45 P.M. The following essay was subjected to numerous attacks when I first posted it at MSN and here:

New "errors" inserted into a number of essays, together with obstructions and problems accessing this site, have made it difficult to write today. I will continue to struggle to do so.

July 20, 2007 at 10:05 A.M. I am blocking:

http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1442731/1-transparent (NJ)http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N763.networksite.ww (NJ)

I have not replaced the image accompanying this essay, which has been blocked by hackers. Sometimes, blocked images are restored -- after a security search or restarting my computer, only to be deleted again. I believe that these hackers are affiliated with the disgraced legal system of New Jersey. It is a federal crime to violate (or conspire to violate) civil rights, including free speech rights. The persons engaging in such violations -- in response to legitimate and legal criticisms -- are entrusted with enforcing the law, including civil rights laws. The persons engaging in this unethical and criminal conduct, publicly, will then judge the ethics of others. Please see "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court." This horror is made possible by political bosses providing protection for such criminality. Is a nation engaging in secret psychological tortures of its own citizens losing the authority to comment on the human rights records of other countries? Ethics? ("Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")

I. "What is an author?"

Michel Foucault once asked the question: "What is an author?" In seeking to answer this question, Foucault said: "I want to deal solely with the relationship between text and author and with the manner in which the text points to this figure that, at least in appearance, is outside it and antecedes it." (p. 101.)

All of my citations are to Foucault's essay "What is an Author?," in Paul Rabinow, ed., The Michel Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 101.

Prior to modernity there were simply stories. Story-tellers were the inheritors of an oral tradition of narration. The adventures and religious dreams of a people were sung or repeated from memory and taught to the young for centuries, without much concern for attribution. Even after the arrival of writing, there was little worry about attribution or identification of the teller of the tale.

The emergence of the author as an even more central figure than the hero of the story had to do with such material and concrete considerations as the development of copyright laws and the explosion in the earning power of authors resulting from the spread of literacy to the middle class, after the industrial revolution. In fact, accounts of the arrival of Charles Dickens in New York to offer "dramatic" readings from his works in a sold-out Broadway theater suggest a level of celebrity for authors by the middle of the nineteenth century well in excess of anything cinema or rock stars can experience today.

The still young Foucault -- under the fading spell of structuralism and using terms like "signifier" and "signified" at the drop of Magritte's hat -- is fascinated by Beckett's riddle for the contemporary reader: "What does it matter who is speaking?" It does not matter much at all, Foucault suggests, because "writing unfolds like a game [or "playing"] (jeu) that invariably goes beyond its own rules and transgresses its limits. In writing the point is not to manifest or exalt the act of writing, nor is it to pin a subject within language; it is, rather, a question of creating a space into which the writing subject constantly disappears." (p. 102.)

Perhaps the "real" Dickens -- for us -- is not the nineteenth century man arriving in New York with a lingering backache, but a voice or presence found in or created by sentences strung together in a text, black marks on white paper, words appearing before the eyes of the reader. Today, the words might just as well appear on a computer screen. For me, the essential literary gesture is an invitation to the reader to share in the author's consciousness. It is a request to be seen and heard. ("Beauty and the Beast" then "John Banville's 'The Newton Letter.'")

Shakespeare promised to make his lover immortal with a Sonnet. He may well have succeeded, despite the mysteries that gather around his own name. Yet the living person inspiring those passions is now long gone. With the creation of a text -- say, a novel -- separated lovers can be reunited in a narrative and the "wounds of the spirit may heal," while also allowing for a final defeat not only of life's most cruel injustices and painful separations, but also of that "villain" time. One excellent reason to write is to get even.

Is an author merely a name? The arrival of the author and the new prominence of texts in modernity is not unrelated to the crafty strategies by which writers seek to outwit death. Foucault says:

"Our culture has metamorphosed this idea of narrative, or writing, as something designed to ward off death. Writing has become linked to sacrifice, even to the sacrifice of life: It is now a voluntary effacement which does not need to be represented in books, since it is brought about in the writer's very existence. The work, which once had the duty of providing immortality, now possesses the right to kill, to be its author's murderer, as in the cases of Flaubert, Proust, and Kafka." (p. 102.)

What about Shakespeare? Since Foucault is saving Shakespeare for later in his essay, it seems only fair that I do the same. Comparisons abound at this point, everything from Julian Barnes' novel Flaubert's Parrot to George Perec's writings come to mind to illustrate Foucault's point. In the Michael Frayn novel The Trick of It, a puzzled academic follows "his" author to discern the magic that the unlikely figure conjures in order to perform this elusive trick of becoming an "author" and of producing a narrative, only to find himself more bewildered in the end; worse, this puzzled academic finds himself pinned, like a rare butterfly, to the page of the very book the reader holds in his or her hands, ostensibly written by someone named "Michael Frayn." Nabokov's fascination with butterflies is understandable because these beautiful creatures are symbols both of the human soul and linguistic meaning. ("Lolita, Light of my life.")

I will set aside Nicholson Baker's exercise in Updike fascination entitled U and I, since I have written a long essay on Updike myself. I am planning an even longer one about Gore Vidal to be called, V and Me. Vidal anticipated all of this fancy Left Bank theory, as demonstrated by the discussions in "French Letters: Theories of the New Novel" and in Myra Breckinridge, but even more by his reinvention of the Gospel narrative in Messiah, then again in Live From Golgotha. Here is a hint: Read the last paragraph of Messiah before you read the first. Colin McGinn, "Nabokov's Formula," in Ethics, Evil and Fiction (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), pp. 108-113.

This disappearance of the author has led to a concern on the part of critics with several other notions meant to supplant the author in our investigations, as readers. One is the notion of the "work." What is the extent of the writerly "corpus" (interesting word!) of the author? How much is to be included in the writer's works? A grocery list? Jacques Derrida famously wonders about the inclusion in the Nietzsche Nachlass of a note: "I have forgotten my umbrella." Where do we draw the boundary around a group of texts so as to call that group a single text? Are the Tales of the Thousand and One Nights only one "work"? What about The Decameron? Or The Cantebury Tales? What about the U.S. Constitution and the centuries of case law interpreting its abstract provisions? Does the original document and the set of interpretations generated by it constitute a single "work"? What about ... "and then"?

The only possible response to these questions is the philosophers' favorite phrase -- "That depends on what you mean." For Jean Paul Sartre there could be no author and no work until there was a reader. In his essay "What is Literature?," Sartre insisted: Literature demands "the conjoint effort of author and reader . ... There is no art except for others." (p. 37.)

In deciding between the idea of the author as exclusively the empirical reality of Charles Dickens with his backache and upset stomach arriving in New York, and the author as the persona standing behind the narratives appearing under the name "Charles Dickens," Foucault suggests that we play off "one against the other, two ways of characterizing writing, namely, the critical and the religious approaches. Giving writing a primal status seems to be a way of retranslating, in transcendental terms, both the theological affirmation of its sacred character and the critical affirmation of its creative character." (p. 104.)

This last statement by Foucault was merely the left jab which he follows up with this beauty of a right cross:

"To admit that writing is, because of the very history that it made possible, subject to the test of oblivion and repression, seems to represent, in transcendental terms, the religious principle of the hidden meaning (which requires interpretation) and the critical principle of implicit significations, silent determinations, and obscured contents (which gives rise to commentary)." (p. 105.)

We live in a suspicious and literal time, a time that is wary of the imagination and its products; dismissive of the non-factual and brutally reductive in its understanding of truth. We prefer "masculine toughness" in thought to feminine "sensitivity." The absurdity of these categories should be apparent, as I never tire of insisting. The religious notion of the author as akin to a Kantian noumenal or "transcendental ego" floating above the page or within the tradition, like a guardian angel, is deeply unsettling to literal- but not literary-minded academics in America -- who, nevertheless, like to think of themselves as "rigorous" and "powerful" thinkers. Hence, some may wonder whether the questionable mathematical capacities of women indicate an inherent "inferiority," not realizing that it is only their own imaginative and intellectual inadequacies that such a question reveals. ("David Stove and the Intellectual Capacities of Women.")

Is it really not possible to imagine any other explanation for a difference in performance on math tests by young girls as compared with boys than so-called "intellectual deficiency" in young girls? Does a culture that makes the notion of a "math geek" even less acceptable for girls as compared with boys not have something to do with this situation? Scholars in the humanities tend to suffer from "science envy." When Foucault throws in talk of the transcendental "excess of the text's meaning in relation to the author," professors panic, wondering whether law school is still an option. In fact, Foucault is only warming up. He will turn to the nature of the author's name and then to the author's function, before offering some conclusions. This would be a good time to insert more "errors" in this essay. ("David Stove and the Intellectual Capacity of Women.")

II. "The other one, the one called 'Borges' ..." -- Jorge Luis Borges.

The disappearance of the author has been duly noted by Foucault, but then who or what is it that is disappearing? What is an author's "name" and is that all that we mean by authorship? Is an author only a "linkage" from the text to a name? What function does the author's name perform in a text, besides that of identification? Foucault says:

"The author's name is a proper name, and therefore it raises the problems common to all proper names. [Foucault cites John Searle's work concerning "speech acts."] ... Obviously, one cannot turn a proper name into a pure and simple reference. It has other than indicative functions: more than an indication, a gesture, a finger pointed at someone, it is the equivalent of a description." (p. 105.)

The distinction between denotation and connotation will not be all that helpful, much to the chagrin of analytical philosophers and literal-minded lawyers, because names of authors not only serve as labels attached to specific human beings, but also as general descriptions. To describe a situation as frightening may amount to saying that it was a "Steven King moment," while a nightmarish experience with bureaucracy becomes "Kafkaesque." Hence, an author's name is both an identification of a historical individual and a description of a set of qualities that exist in the mind which are understood, through language independently of the actual presence of a physical or empirical individual fulfilling or displaying those qualities. An appeal to Derrida's work is useful. (See the story entitled: "Sherlock Holmes and The Case of the Missing Author" and "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

The same goes for great literary characters, like Sherlock Holmes. To speak of sharp powers of deduction and flamboyant investigative techniques, for example, of the peculiar, embodied characteristics unique to Holmes, is instantly understandable to readers all over the world, regardless of the non-existence in the "real" world of a person possessing those specific mannerisms and history. Theological issues are highly analogous in this ostensibly "post-deistic culture." Is our Western culture "post-deistic," I wonder? Foucault states:

"The proper name and the author's name are situated between the two poles of description and designation: they must have a certain link with what they name, but one that is neither entirely in the mode of designation nor in that of description; it must be a specific link. However -- and it is here that the particular difficulties of the author's name arise -- for the links between the proper name and the individual named and the author's name and what it names are not isomorphic and do not function in the same way." (p. 106.)

Samuel Clemmens is a name attached to a specific individual, who is now gone; Mark Twain is an author associated with certain texts in a mysterious relationship, who is very much alive within those texts, amusing many and troubling others with unanticipated questions. Twain's disturbing essays on religion did not appear until after his death. There are distinct and philosophically puzzling relationships between those two names and what or "who" they identify. A single inserted "error" in this essay since my previous review is very disappointing, New Jersey.

If it turns out that we were mistaken about the house in which Shakespeare was born, to take another example, so that tourists have been led around for decades in what turns out to be the home of, say, Shakespeare's taylor and not his own dwelling, then this would have little bearing on the use of the name "Shakespeare" in connection with his plays, or on what that name means for us. On the other hand, if the author of Shakespeare's plays turned out to be the Earl of Oxford, Queen Elizabeth, or a visitor from another planet (I lean towards the third possibility), then the use of the name which has been attached to a set of specific texts becomes much more problematic.

We become less certain that we know who Shakespeare was or is, or with whom (with what historical personage) the qualities of the dazzling authorial intelligence that we associate with his great works is to be linked. What matters most to me, as a reader, is the possibility of encountering that intelligence -- not the name attached to it by scholars -- when I open my volume of The Collected Works of William Shakespeare.

To say that Homer, for example, did not exist may only amount to suggesting that several writers were brought together under that name and it would have no bearing on the quality of the texts which we associate with the name "Homer." Similarly, the intelligence and subtle humor emerging from the plays and poetry associated with the name "Shakespeare" continue to exist, even if we decide to call that organizing intelligence by another name, "Elvis" perhaps. This is because the value in the experience of the great works that we think of as "Shakespeare's plays" is not altered at all, and neither is the meeting with the genius to be found "in" them, by such a change in attribution.

Who is the author of Kierkegaard's texts? Victor Eremita, Climacus, Anti-Climacus, Frater Taciturnus, Constantine Constantius, are each narrators of different levels of intelligence and values, and different degrees of reliability. Kierkegaard is not usually regarded as a literary author, but as a writer of non-fiction, a philosopher, so that his texts are found in the philosophy section of the bookstore. Assuming for the moment that philosophy is best thought of as non-fiction, which is not at all clear, then it seems that the philosopher's name exists only to the extent that it performs a certain function. The author's role simply is that function -- to bring together and organize a number of texts. Also, the author establishes relationships between texts. For example: "this was written before his messy divorce, but after his conversion to Communism" may be a typical critical observation. Kierkegaard's device of deliberately fragmenting the literary self in order to avoid schizoid division in life -- or in the quest for Regina Olsen -- has not been surpassed. ("Magician's Choice" and "Metaphor is Mystery.")

Scientists have found the notion of a "Deus Principle" similarly helpful in theoretical understandings of the workings of nature. This is a point reinforced and not challenged by the principle of parsimony. I am not suggesting that God is scientifically provable. I am suggesting that the idea of God may help "readers" to understand the meaning of what is "known" scientifically and is fully compatible with that knowledge. Others may prefer an "Anthropic" principle which may amount to the same thing. ("Is it rational to believe in God?") Foucault summarizes his conclusions:

"It would seem that the author's name, unlike other proper names, does not pass from the interior of a discourse to the real and exterior individual who produced it; instead, the name seems always to be present, marking off the edges of the text, revealing or at least characterizing, its mode of being. The author's name manifests the appearance of a certain discursive set and indicates the status of this discourse within a society and culture." (p. 107.)

Foucault concludes:

"The author function is therefore characteristic of the mode of existence, circulation, and functioning of certain discourses within a society." (p. 108.)

Authors only exist in societies where modes of discourse make the concept necessary. Within our own culture, Foucault identifies four functions of the author's name: 1) the authorial function allows us to make texts or discourses "objects of appropriation," property, in other words; 2) it allows for the categorical differentiation of texts for scientific as opposed to literary purposes; 3) the author function does not merely develop spontaneously, so that it serves to "construct [socially] a certain rational being that we call an author" (p. 110.); 4) finally, the author provides the principle of a certain unity of writing.

Foucault might have added another function: The author becomes an identity, or the performance of a role, for that taciturn and shy person sitting at his computer keyboard constructing a narrative by which to transcend his or her physical and other limitations. It is this penultimate function that provides the link to the tradition governing the attribution of Scripture and brings Foucault to the currently fashionable method of "hermeneutic reconstruction" -- which is a fancy way of saying "figuring out how or why some writing exists." Here is Foucault being brilliant again:

"The author is also the principle of a certain unity of writing -- all differences having to be resolved, at least in part, by the principles of evolution, maturation, or influence. The author also serves to neutralize the contradictions that may emerge in a series of texts: there must be -- at a certain level of his thought or desire, of his consciousness or unconscious -- a point where contradictions are resolved, where incompatible elements are at last tied together or organized around a fundamental or originating contradiction." (p. 111.)

Think of the author as a magician who pulls not a rabbit, but him- or herself out of a hat, as part of the set of "tricks" presented to an audience. (In my case, the audience is really one person.) The literary conjuror's theatrical gestures, robes and wands, smoke and mirrors, must be seen as part of the literary "performance." I often use the example of the narrator's opening monologue in "The Glass Menagerie" -- "... [The author] is the opposite of the stage magician. [The magician] gives you illusion that has the appearance of truth; [the author] gives you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion." ("God is Texting Me!")

Notice where all of this is leading Foucault and all of us, as readers, for he extends his reasoning to the interpretation of traditions within languages that "speak" authors. This is to touch again on the sacred or religious origins of authorial power. ("Sinbad's Excellent New York Adventure" and "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem.")

III. Is the author dead?

"It is easy to see that in the sphere of discourse," writes Foucault, "one can be the author of much more than a book -- one can be the author of a theory, tradition, or discipline in which other books and authors will in their turn find a place. These authors are in a position which we call 'transdiscursive.' This is a recurring phenomenon[.]" (p. 113.)

Marx, Freud, or the authors of the American Constitution are, accordingly, "authors" of an entire mode of discourse, in which there is a recurring pattern of return to an original sacred or revered text (or texts) for re-authorization of the interpretive and constructive license to add or contribute to that tradition. The tradition operates as a constraint on authorship, setting the preconditions -- as do general social conditions and needs -- for what will be written and why. ("Is it rational to believe in God?")

The social setting creates the author, along with the language used. The point to bear in mind is that the author is distinct from the person who writes the texts that we admire. Neither will be "found" by searching for the other. Do not look for Samuel Clemens in the writings of Mark Twain, or you may be disappointed. Foucault concludes:

"How, under what conditions, and in what forms can something like a subject appear in the order of discourse? What place can it occupy in each type of discourse, what functions can it assume, and by obeying what rules? In short, it is a matter of depriving the subject (or its substitute) of its role as originator, and of analyzing the subject as a variable and complex function of discourse." (p. 118.)

The language and historical moment "speaks" the author, according to Foucault. The author is only a functional principle of inclusion and exclusion, one that becomes less important with new modes of discourse. Foucault wrote before the advent of the Internet, which seems to confirm some of his more dire predictions. As discourse spreads and morphs -- becomes a shape-shifter in cyberspace -- it acquires additions and variations, while continuing to undergo transformations, an alter-ego borrows a text from another, then takes that text (in its altered form) to a third location in a constant process of ever-wider dissemination. By such means, traditional authorship becomes more and more irrelevant.

The point may be clearer with cinema, where a vocabulary of images is quickly shared among directors, writers, actors in the ultimate collaborative medium. Much the same may be said of celebrity and identity in the age of images when a famous persona is fashioned in the way that an actor creates a character on screen. Leonardo DiCaprio must invent a movie star persona and an everyday self. Most of us can barely manage to create one identity, it is easy to see why famous people suffer from psychological "vertigo," as it were. ("Serendipity, III" and "'Inception': A Movie Review.")

I disagree with Foucault's most extreme claims. Without authors, without authorial vision, coherence and finally relevance both disappear from texts. Authors can never disappear entirely, they do not even fade away. "Authors" only become more complex entities in our brave new communicative environment. ("Beauty and the Beast.")

"Look for me, find me," the author says, "in the magic castle of the text." The reader must understand -- I know that this is paradoxical -- that by finding the author in any complex work, he or she will also be finding the unique personal truth of that work. If you find the author in the text, then you will have found yourself in it. At the center of the linguistic labyrinth there is always a mirror, which is held by the author. Analogies to the scientists' task of reading the book of nature should be obvious, along with the theological implications of this observation. Guess who has been waiting for us all this time? ("Is it rational to believe in God?" and "Is this atheism's moment?" then "Pieta.")

This is the advice to keep in mind, when coping with the mystery of Shakespeare. Do not get bogged down in the historical clues about the Stratford genius, where he slept or what he ate. Search for Shakespeare in that glorious poetry of the plays and you will find him ... always smarter, wiser, more forgiving than yourself, telling you who you are. The analogies to religious thinking, again, are obvious: At the center of any great "work" is the possibility of an embrace (abrazo) with an authorial intelligence that, through that experience of absorption alone, results in the giving and receiving of something precious. ("Shakespeare's Black Prince.")

If it is true that every text is better for a good than for a bad reader, then it is equally true that every good reader is made better by a rich and complex text, which is the priceless gift of a good author. Morever, the text is also made better by good readers. ("'The Reader': A Movie Review" and "'Revolutionary Road': A Movie Review.")

Writing and reading well is a kind of "energy exchange," as Erica Jong has said. This may be even more true of cinema. Good and active viewers will always get more out of movies than passive viewers of films. (See my reviews of "The American" and "Inception.")

"I think that, as our society changes, at the very moment when it is in the process of changing, the author function will disappear, and in such a manner that fiction and its polysemous texts will once again function according to another mode, but still within a system of constraint -- one which will no longer be the author, but which will have to be determined, or perhaps experienced." (p. 119.)

Does it make a difference who is speaking? Despite Foucault, I think that it always will. The deepest connection in communication by means of language is always with an absent subject of discourse -- it is a human connection. I choose to read (and re-read) what a favorite author writes, not the writing than I then check against its source to determine who wrote it. If the text speaks to me, then I know who wrote it -- regardless of the name attached to the work. I defy anyone not to recognize the haunting voice of Myra Breckinridge on the page as contrasted with the Chandler-like style of, say, crime novelist Edgar Best. ("Master and Commander.")

Much the same may be said of film directors: I know when Steven Spielberg is directing in about two minutes. Readers are changed by those authors whom we cherish, finding ourselves saying things in a new style as we absorb the admired qualities of the favored literary persona. Among the most spiritual forms of love (and no, "love" is not too strong a word for serious readers when it comes to some authors) is that curious relationship that may arise between some writers and readers, between readers as the co-authors of the texts that they admire most, and writers hoping to be understood (above and beyond their texts) by their best readers.

It has been suggested that "we read in order to know that we are not alone." Maybe it is better to say that we create texts (and read them?) in order to find (or create?) our "other selves," those perfect readers who will know that we were here and feel our absence when we are gone, sharing in our perceptions and pains, in our laughter and rage at the powerful, which is another way of saying, who will love us. Think of Virginia Woolf's "ideal reader." Those of us in search of missing lovers and truths, especially, will seek for -- and maybe find them -- only on the page. Please recall E.M. Foster's advice: "Only connect."

Race and the Challenge of Community in America.

2010-06-26T13:20:00.010-04:00

June 28, 2010 at 5:31 P.M. "Error" inserted and corrected in this essay.

June 26, 2010 at 1:27 P.M. This essay has been vandalized and altered, letters have been removed from their place in the text posted at "Philosopher's Quest." I am denied access to this essay at that blog by N.J.'s cybercriminals. Hence, I will repost the essay here. I believe that racism may have something to do with this censorship effort. I will struggle to continue writing. Please inform the media and law enforcement in your area of these criminal events.

The photo accompanying this essay has been blocked by New Jersey's hackers. This essay is a defense of American principles of fairness and equality as well as free speech. ("Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution.")

I wish to comment on Robert Bernasconi's essay entitled "The Invisibility of Racial Minorities in the Public Realm of Apperances," in Walter Brogan and James Risser, eds., American Continental Philosophy: A Reader (Bloomington: Indiana U. Press, 2000), p. 353.

It is difficult to know where to begin because there is so much that I admire in this essay, not least the willingness to tackle the subject of race and of America's painful history of slavery and racism by making use of the tools of philosophy -- specifically, of phenomenology and hermeneutic method. This is what philosophy is "for," to help us think about pressing and difficult public issues and not merely to allow some of us to display our cleverness in performing intellectual figure-eights before an appreciative audience of colleagues. I heard Robert Nozick -- a Republican and outstanding Harvard philosopher -- make this point to an interviewer shortly before his premature death from cancer.

Professor Bernasconi is an expert on the ethical thinking of Emmanuel Levinas and is a subtle and original philosopher. His discussion is, thus, much richer and more profound than anything one is likely to encounter in the popular media. I begin with a summary and exposition of Professor Bernasconi's argument; I then offer some of my reactions. By way of conclusion, I offer speculations concerning the possible direction of a continuing philosophical dialogue on race in America and the possibilities of community.

I.

The United States is the classic example of a society born out of the Enlightenment conviction that fundamental human rights must be regarded as universal and also from the contradiction that the original understanding of a "universal human nature with its inalienable rights" excluded, for most political purposes, all women together with men and women of African ancestry trapped in the "peculiar institution" of slavery. This contradiction and its consequences is the "trauma," literally the "unhealed wound" in the national psyche. Professor Bernasconi states the issue:

"... the focus of this paper is not the history of the contradiction between the principle and the practice [of thinking in terms of a universal human nature,] but the underlying phenomenological truth that racial difference, as what is most visible, is within the public realm rendered invisible to the extent that the dominant group succeeds in overlooking a minority, denying its members their place in the sun." (p. 355.)

Is it possible for African-Americans to think of themselves primarily in terms of their American national identity, as members of a multiracial and multicultural but politically unified community? Or is the brutal and primary fact of race made inescapable, as a form of consciousness, in a society coping with the legacy of slavery and the effects of "separate but un-equal" institutions for most of its bloody history? Must the "African" come before the "American" in one's hyphenated sense of self to the extent that one wishes to remain both dark-skinned, physically and even more culturally, proudly African and American? Or can it be the other way around? ("America's Holocaust" and "Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.")

Hannah Arendt suggested that being hated as a Jew by the Nazis required her to respond as a Jew to that hatred. Must African-Americans similarly respond to the demonization of blackness by "being black," in confrontational ways, thereby seeking to challenge and undermine the belittling stereotypes that have aimed to hurt them and those they love? This is an issue on which, even great leaders like Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., have disagreed.

This is also an issue which neither Professor Bernasconi (nor I) can hope to answer with great confidence, much less to answer for others. Each African-American in the U.S. should wish to come to terms with this problem for him- or herself. Let us recognize that men and women of good faith, of any race, may have different opinions on this matter. No one has a monopoly on virtue. And the situation of other minority groups in American society is sufficiently analogous and comparable to the predicament of African-Americans, though never exactly like that unique (and uniquely tragic) situation, that the choice between community and separatism is inescapable for all of us.

A point to bear in mind -- especially if you are a separatist -- is that what hurts African-Americans and those they love also hurts those of us who love them, who love and are grateful for their great artistic or cultural gifts to us. It is not so easy these days to separate the various components of American national identity, to think in terms of "us" and "them" -- because we have come to realize that, like it or not, it is all "us." (See the film "Crash" for a compelling dramatization of the effects of Balkanization and the fact of interdependence in contemporary America.)

I suggest that part of being an American in our time, regardless of one's ethnicity or race, involves devoting some time and serious thought to understanding the African-American experience and dilemma, to a study of the forms of resistance developed by an oppressed people, especially the important role of culture in that resistance -- which has served to strengthen a tortured people while enriching others, including their own oppressors, in an inspiring example of the human capacity to "transcend evil through love" and by means of the creation of beauty. "If there were no racism," Cornel West asks, "then why were these people singing the blues?"

For myself, the answer to this question of separatism versus community has been slow to arrive, but it is one to which I am firmly committed and with which I am satisfied. I believe that community may be founded upon the notion of a shared fundamental humanity expressed in national identity and in other ways, which is primary over all other forms and categories of identity.

I am an American first, and only then do I see myself as a Latino, or in terms of my cultural particularity. I am also, even more fundamentally, a human being. I see the free choice of being an American as the acceptance of pluralism and not its denial, since I believe that the United States is not only the essential Enlightenment society, but also, paradoxically, what today might be described as the postmodern society. Besides this unapologetic and clear-eyed Americanism, I think of myself as a humanist.

In its best self-understanding the United States is committed, from its origins, to the acceptance of diversity, to the free self-creation of the individual, and to the forging of a unique national identity -- at the level of moral principle -- which celebrates our different origins. Self-invention is what the frontier was all about.

An American is a person engaged in a life-long task of self-creation (Kantian freedom) that becomes a shared project of "community-creation" (Hegelian Stillichkeit) under the vision of the Constitution. Think of the trajectory from Jefferson to Lincoln, Holmes to Warren.

This is also relevant to the expansive understanding of what we mean by an "individual." In other words, I accept the possibility of the American "miracle," which I have seen and experienced at first hand, by which out of the many sources of ourselves one people is created. E pluribus unum. This is not to minimize the difficulties in this task. I say this while recognizing that for African-Americans, the challenge of coming to terms with themselves "as a problem" (to use W.E.B. Du Bois's ironic term), complicates the issue greatly.

The attempt by white America to make Africanism "invisible," to deny the reality of the crushing burden of race for most of the nation's history, for millions of people, could only make the affirmation of race a necessity. "One does not in the standard case see another human being as simply that, another human being. If one did, it would not have been necessary for the Memphis sanitation workers to line the streets with the signs that read: 'I AM A MAN.' " (p. 358.)

It is also significant, I think, that those Memphis workers did not carry signs that said: "I AM A BLACK MAN."

Toni Morrison explores the related phenomenon of the denial of the presence of Africans, as the defining "others," in American literary self-understandings. The presence of persons of African ancestry, Professor Morrison writes, "... was, I have come to believe, one of the most furtively radical impinging forces on the country's literature. The contemplation of this black presence is central to any understanding of our national literature" -- and of ourselves as Americans -- "and should not be permitted to hover at the margins of the literary imagination."

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination (New York: Vintage, 1993), p. 5.

In a revealing passage, Professor Morrison places herself within this problematic history:

"I am interested in what prompts and makes possible this process of entering what one is estranged from -- and in what disables the foray, for purposes of fiction, into the corners of the consciousness held off and away from the reach of the writer's imagination. My work requires me to think about how free I can be as an African-American woman writer in my genderized, sexualized, wholly racialized world."

Playing in the Dark, p. 4.

This is the challenge for every great artist: to address the universal concerns of human beings, while retaining the idiom of the particular struggles and inheritance of a single artist as creator, to become F.H. Bradley's "concrete universal." It is a challenge that Professor Morrison has faced with great success, revealing in this passage and others in her essay, I think, a form of humanism that I accept. It is fitting that this great essay by Ms. Morrison (like my essay) has been attacked, defaced, "whipped," maybe "lynched." I am struggling against persons who seek to enslave those with whom they disagree. For such persons to speak of "ethics" is absurd. ("Manifesto for the Unfinished American Revolution" and "For America to Lead Again: A Speech for U.S. President Barack Obama.")

Yet the political challenge for all Americans, I believe, is that Ms. Morrison's lack of freedom resulting from gender or race must be seen as every other American's lack of freedom by those other Americans. This is because such a deprivation of freedom undermines the Constitutional scheme which gives meaning to the idea of any of us being an American in the first place.

II.

I now turn to the specifics of Professor Bernasconi's argument which consists, on the one hand, of denying or challenging the idea of a universal human nature, then of suggesting, on the other hand, that even if we accept the reality and validity of the universal -- that is, of a fundamental aspect of persons in the American context that transcends specifics of gender, ethnicity, race, religion and so on -- that this ideal of universality is unavailable to those who are systematically denied meaningful participation (or made "invisible") through racism.

"The double bind that racism imposes on its targets lies in demanding assimilation while at the same time denying its possibility. Racism says, 'Become like us,' while always asserting under its breath, 'You can never become like us, because you are not one of us and we will not mistake you for one of us.' " (p. 360.)

I can certainly understand this predicament. It is the dilemma of every immigrant. To become American, is to give up some of one's identity, knowing that many of one's fellow citizens will never accept one as fully equal. Conversely, many members of the immigrant's ethnic group will reject that individual's successful assimilation as a form of betrayal, or a display of excessive "whiteness."

For me, and others like me, being "white" in skin color, if not necessarily in all or even most aspects of culture or sensitivity, complicates the issue -- since we fit the somatic norm of the society and yet have the consciousness of the outsider and minority group member. Culturally and politically, we can never be "white," whatever we may look like on the outside. This means that we are outsiders everywhere.

Come to think of it, this is ideal for writers and artists of all sorts -- to be the observer, the one who is different in every group. Ironically, many of those who reject new immigrants as "not American enough" forget that their own grandparents were similarly rejected by earlier arrivals.
African-Americans face the additional difficulty that race is not a hidden characteristic, but something immediately visible and at the center of the most painful issues in the nation's history, thus making persons instantly hateful (and in a way, very much invisible) to some others, usually powerful others, exclusively on the basis of this immutable characteristic. In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Carolene Products case, race is a visible identification of persons as members of one of the "discrete and insular minorities" that are worthy of additional judicial protection from public discrimination. Actually, "discrete and insular" sounds like something I would wish to be.

Setting Sartrean pessimism aside, I still think that it is possible to regard my neighbor as, first of all, an American -- regardless of race or other characteristics. I worry that those who wish to discard that which unites us, national identity or universals, fail to appreciate the danger of violent division in our complex society and world, in which all of us have become targets for America's enemies. On 9/11 African-Americans, Latinos, Jews, Christians, Muslims, men and women, rich and poor died together. We must not lose sight of that fact. (Think of the final image in the film "Glory.")

I am reminded of Michel Foucault's writings and warnings concerning the techniques by which power seeks to constitute ALL of us as subjects, including methods of social division and fragmentation that are internalized by selves:

"The first mode of objectification of the subject is somewhat cryptically called [by Foucault] 'dividing practices.' The most famous examples from Foucault's work are the isolation of lepers during the Middle Ages; the confinement of the poor; the insane, and vagabonds ..."

Paul Rabinow, "Introduction," in The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 8. (See the essay "Judith Butler and Gender Theory.")

In Foucault's words: "The subject is objectified by a process of division either within himself [or herself,] or from others."

Michel Foucault, "The Subject and Power," in Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, eds., Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 208. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz" and "Michel Foucault and The Authorship Question.")

Even the "antihumanist" Foucault might suggest that the ultimate victory of the racist is to prevent African-Americans from seeing themselves as not racially defined, so as to unite with others in the recognition of a common humanity that transcends race, thus achieving a true community. In Peter Gabel's terms, the goal is that "unalienated relatedness" (I prefer, like Dr. King, to call it "love") for which we all yearn.

Among those wounded or killed while serving with America's military in Iraq and Afghanistan are hundreds of Muslims. Many Muslims died in the Twin Towers on 9/11 -- many more Muslims were victims of the strikes against the buildings in Manhattan than committed those great crimes. Do we really wish to burn the Koran? Whose Scriptures will be next to be thrown into the fire?

Traditionally, women assigned to the ostracized categories of "witches" or "prostitutes" -- these were often the same women and the identical category -- were excluded from humanity less for qualities they displayed (usually impermissible independence or originality) than because they called into question the shibboleths of society. This is always the role of the other: to insist that we think about our concepts of normality and identity anew. Those who are "different" make the defenders of normality and sameness nervous and uncomfortable. This self-questioning is a good thing in a free society.

There is a lesson in this insight for the Palestinian people in their struggle: It may be that their most important potential allies are Israeli Jews sympathetic to their plight. A commitment to non-violence and peaceful negotiation would go a long way towards winning that alliance as well as a just and lasting solution to their struggle. Is Hamas the greatest obstacle to peace in Israel?

If I am correct in seeing the essence of humanity as a kind of freedom which is universal, then the attempt to limit that freedom by confinement to a category, whether racial, ethnic, or gender-based, is merely a more subtle and recent form of slavery -- call it intellectual, or conceptual, or philosophical slavery. It is time to break those chains too, recognizing that it is for African-Americans and for each of us, individually, to decide who we are, as an exercise of a hard-won freedom. In making that choice, no matter what it might be, each individual demonstrates what I mean concerning what we are: free human beings. (See "Hilary Putnam is Keeping it Real.")

The racist wins only by instilling a "divisive" separatism that relies on a consciousness of "race as difference," which is precisely the racist credo. Not surprisingly, James Baldwin -- possibly the finest African-American essayist of the twentieth century and one of the greatest American writers of any ethnicity or race of his generation -- anticipated Foucault on this point and he would have agreed with me in calling simply for "love":

"I wanted to find out in what way the specialness of my experience could be made to connect me with other people instead of dividing me from them. ..."

Recognizing that leaving the country only made it clear to what extent, even as an African-American, Mr. Baldwin was and could only be an American to the rest of the world, he says:

"Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy. And we have what they sorely need: a new sense of life's possibilities."

So that:

"[We are led] to wed the visions of the Old World with that of the New, [that of the blacks to that of whites, and in doing so] it is the writer, not the statesman who is our strongest arm. Though we do not wholly believe it yet, the interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world."

"The Discovery of What it Means to be an American," in The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non-Fiction of James Baldwin 1948-1985 (New York: St. Martin's, 1985), p. 171. ("Carlos Fuentes and Multiculturalism.")

To insist on one's "visibility" is just one more way of being American, of making one's dreams for the nation into a reality. There's nothing more American than insisting on your rights. Relying in good faith on one's ability to make one's case or one's demand for visibility in the public square, may lead to the surprising discovery that others -- including very different others -- will be persuaded to accept the moral validity of one's request for recognition.

If we complain that we are being treated unfairly, then there is a chance that other Americans may agree with us and join in our call for equal rights. This certainly happened during the civil rights era. All sorts of Americans joined in that struggle freely, sometimes paying the ultimate price for it. And this sharing in struggle also speaks to the fundamental decency and integrity of most Americans, especially those who are not particularly powerful or influential. ("Is there a gay marriage right?")

I am certain that the humanism underlying the U.S. Constitution directs us to respect the equality and freedom of others as rights-bearing persons, whose welfare we should identify with our own. This means that among racists, we should all see ourselves as members of the racial group that they despise; among anti-semites, we should all see ourselves as Jews; among misogynists, we should all see ourselves as feminine; among homophobes, we should all identify with gays.

This ideal of "visibility" as opposed to "invisibility" amounts to a request for recognition in the "gaze of the other" (Emmanuel Levinas), while community means the equal willingness to confer that recognition on all others. If we want to call this a new "politics of meaning," with Lerner and Gabel, that is fine by me. Conservatives may prefer the language of community in our founding or foundational principles. Philosopher Hadley Arkes, a more rigorous and powerful thinker than any other I have read among Republicans or Conservatives, suggests much the same in his discussion of foundational principles emerging from the Lincoln and Douglas debate. See First Principles (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 30-85.

This is to read into the U.S. Constitution an ethics of love, which need not be identified with Christianity or any other religion, but which can be seen as part of the humanism which is essential to modernity in the West that is certainly part of the philosophical background to the writing of the Constitution. This humanism is found in the correspondence of men like Thomas Jefferson -- despite his own historical blindness and moral flaws -- and the authors of the Federalist Papers, whether "deists" or not.

There are important Constitutional theorists, such as Michael Perry (who speaks of an American Israel and of "prophecy" in terms similar to those of Cornel West), while R.M. Dworkin's work may be read, creatively and selectively, to lend support to these ideas. ("Civilization and Terrorism.")

When I mention these beliefs, people on city streets tell me that the American Constitution is "bullshit" and that the courts and government in this country are corrupt. Yes, there is corruption in the U.S., as there is everywhere else in the world. No doubt much of what happens in any courtroom, anywhere in the world has to do with power and politics, but -- perhaps in a naive manner given some of my own experiences and my personal failures in life -- I continue to believe in law as an aspiration and a possibility, if nothing else. It is my secular prayer. More importantly, I continue to believe in the principles contained in the founding documents of the U.S., also in the good faith and general competence of most courts. Keep your fingers crossed and stay away from New Jersey.

By "failure," I mean a past reluctance to confront New Jersey with the racism and evil that, I am sure, too often characterizes the state's failed legal system in betrayal of the U.S. Constitution. ("America's Holocaust" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System" then "Driving While Black [DWB] in New Jersey.")

I continue to regard the U.S. Constitution as one of the greatest liberating achievements of humanity. American hopes for law as an institution are both necessary and real, no matter how excessive they may seem to others. I continue to believe in the basic integrity of the American judicial process, despite its many human flaws -- and I very much cherish the universality of the principles at the heart of the American experiment. I like to quote the comment of a debator defending American idealism: "If America is a disappointment this is only because America is a hope."

Can each of us not say exactly this about him- or herself? This American religion of hope is more necessary now than ever before. It sure is necessary for me to hang on to some hope in my moments of despair. If America remains a secular prayer for me, then the U.S. and its Constitution are more than hopes for many others, both should be aspirations for humanity. For millions of people -- many of them African-Americans, like Dr. King and Justice Thurgood Marshall in their day -- America was and must now continue to be a secular faith.

Events such as the recent tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo undermine public and international appreciation and understanding of these core American values. Apart from the intrinsic evil of those events, they have and will hurt U.S. interests for decades to come because they diminish U.S. credibility on human rights issues. Much depends on how the U.S. deals with the reality of torture by punishing those responsible, wherever it occurs, so as to enforce Constitutional guarantees and make it clear what are the true values of this society. Defacements of this text indicate how unreal these hopes for America have become. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie? then "America's Unethical Medical Torturers.")

III.

African-Americans and all of us should see the celebration of race and its affirmation -- the right to be "visible" in terms of race -- as consistent with what is fundamental to national identity for all Americans, but also, I believe, with what is most universally human. Nothing is more fundamentally human than the insistence on dignity and freedom, especially the freedom to define oneself.

The possible extensions in the application of this principle are obvious enough, especially when considering the plight of all who are defined as marginal to what is central in our culture, whether with regard to sexual preference or gender-identity, or in terms of the distribution of power for women as compared with men. The insistence on freedom must be compatible with equality, but both values must be compatible with the ultimate quest for community or social justice in the United States and throughout the world.

My Argument With Ayn Rand.

2010-06-22T15:16:00.010-04:00

A link for this essay has been created at the home page of the Objectivism Reference Center at http://www.noblesoul.com/orc/books/rand/pwni.html for which I am grateful. Sadly, this essay has been vandalized and censored, I believe, by Cuban-American Right-wingers. Many people believe that "Right-wing" and "Cuban-American" are coextensive terms. I am sure that this assumption is false. ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba" and "Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'")

Ayn Rand, Philosophy: Who Needs It? (New York: MacMillan, 1982), $11.00.
Jonathan Chait, "Wealth Care," in The New Republic, September 23, 2009, at p. 46.

The name of Ayn Rand is usually mentioned in discussions of philosophy in the U.S. This is bizarre because Ms. Rand was not really a philosopher. Among academic philosophers there is intense disagreement about the merits of her work. She is much admired by some far Right luminaries (who now wish to be called "neo-conservatives") and disliked by almost everybody else, yet she continues to be a popular writer for many people throughout the world.

I thought it appropriate, therefore, to examine one of Rand's essays in detail and then to publish my reactions to it. Anyone who wishes to respond to what I say is welcome to do so. I have selected a fairly typical essay entitled: "From the Horse's Mouth" dating from 1975, which appeared in her collection Philosophy: Who Needs It? (New York: MacMillan, 1982), at p. 77.

This brief work is highly representative of Randian method and conclusions. There are, literally, hundreds -- even thousands -- of pages written by Ms. Rand on roughly the same level of competence and analysis concerning basic philosophical issues. To know this essay is to have a pretty good idea of the quality of her philosophical writings.

Before turning to my criticisms of that essay, I should acknowledge what I consider to be Ayn Rand's very real talents and achievements. She writes well, for one thing, with clarity and elegance, vividly, while displaying a gift for metaphor and imagery which is rare among writers of philosophical prose. In a person whose first language is not English, this is remarkable. Not surprisingly, she is first and foremost a novelist. While I do not consider Rand a great novelist -- a novelist on a par with, say, Tolstoy or Dickens, Cervantes or Melville -- she is certainly a competent literary artist.

Literary skills are a virtue in a would-be philosopher or in anyone who feels a need to communicate by means of the written word and are not to be underestimated. The literary talents of thinkers such as Plato, Nietzsche or Schopenhauer -- or Iris Murdoch in our own day -- accounts for a great part of their success.

Regrettably, literary skills alone are not sufficient for a philosopher. A powerful intellect is also needed to do original philosophical work. Even with both of those qualities, a thinker who lacks a thorough and accurate knowledge of the history of philosophy (and knowledge of a great deal more besides), simply cannot produce philosophical work at the highest levels in the twentieth century and beyond. This is because of the great technicality and complexity of the subject.

An "error" was inserted in the foregoing sentence since my previous review of this essay. I have corrected that "error." However, the process of defacing these writings will continue indefinitely. The goal of this process is to enhance and create long-term emotional harm for the victim of these tactics. Experiments with "frustration-inducements" have produced nervous breakdowns in some victims. Others subjected to such barbarism become indestructible and motivated by intense hatred resulting from the experience of torture. Psychological torture is a dangerous weapon to use. ("What is it like to be censored in America?" and "More Cybercrime and Censorship.")

Philosophy is impossibly difficult. Iris Murdoch says: "Philosophy, unless one is a genius, is a mug's game." Some of us, who are quite ordinary in our talents and aptitudes, have no choice in the matter and find ourselves drawn to the subject, to this "mug's game," writing on philosophical topics as a matter of being human. We have to think "philosophically" and sometimes resort to writing stories out of frustration -- as did Murdoch and Rand, along with Sartre and Camus -- often discovering our best philosophical ideas, in altered form, in those stories.

Writing what Truman Capote called "non-fiction" stories and novels, or allegories, can also be a way of coping with painful trauma in our lives. Not many of us will be great philosophers, but all of us will benefit from philosophical study and effort, especially those of us concerned to examine fundamental political and legal ideas. I agree with Ms. Rand's famous response to her own question. After asking: "Who needs philosophy?" She answered: "We all do."

I suspect that Ms. Rand meant this statement to apply to scientists as well as the rest of us. We need philosophical stories or myths to make sense of things. (For one view of Rand's ideology in cinema, see "High Noon.") Keep your fingers crossed and we may avoid inserted "errors" for a while.

Ms. Rand's greatest deficiency, however, is that there are obvious and visible gaps in her knowledge of the writings of the great philosophers which no amount of literary talent can conceal even from the alert student (like me), let alone from the professionals. She has no formal training in philosophy and has not read enough independently -- or maybe, not systematically enough -- to compensate for this lack of training, so as to master the subtleties of philosophical doctrine at a highly sophisticated level. When examining the writings of philosophers such as Immanuel Kant, for example, she is simply way out of her depth.

Ms. Rand begins her essay by remarking that, during a period of illness, she came to read Friedrich Paulsen's 1898 work Immanuel Kant: His Life and Doctrine -- "I saw the long, dismal, slithering disintegration of the twentieth century held implicitly in a few sentences. I wanted to scream a warning, but it was too late."

Naturally, this sounds dramatic. But I want to focus on what is actually being said and whether it makes any sense. Friedrich Paulsen was a dry nineteenth century commentator on Kant. He is hardly worthy of being deemed a "threat" to a century that has mostly ignored his work. To lay the great crimes of a bloody century at his doorstep is absurdly excessive. Ms. Rand really wishes to attack Kant himself (the man she loves to hate), but abdicates her responsibility to actually read Kant -- all of Kant -- or most of the important texts. Although her essay is entitled "From the Horse's Mouth," she has concentrated on the wrong horse.

Only after having read at least some of Kant's writings, should she turn to the commentators, like Paulsen, as well as any of the others since, who have agreed or disagreed with Paulsen's once influential interpretations. For example, Kant is criticized and admired by thinkers from both ends of the political spectrum. This is a tribute to his achievement. There is little doubt that Western thought may be divided into "before" and "after" Kant eras. Western philosophy is still working out the implications of the dialogue between Kant and Hegel, a dialogue to which later thinkers contribute in important (if lesser) ways -- thinkers including Marx and Nietzsche, James and Wittgenstein, Husserl and Sartre, Foucault and Derrida, Rorty and West.

More "errors" inserted and corrected. In a way, it is flattering to realize that, if I were not better than the people doing such things, they would feel no need to cheat in these ways. What is disturbing is not the resort to such tactics, but the ability to get away with such crimes thanks to corruption. It was not always so in America. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "What is it like to be censored in America" then "What is it like to be plagiarized?")

To initiate a discussion of the highly difficult ideas of Immanuel Kant -- possibly the most important philosopher of the last 200 years and one of the most difficult -- with a sweeping generalization based on a casual reading of the introduction to a commentator's book from the last century, is simply not acceptable scholarly practice. If you want to fake it, something all of us who were college students have done at some point, then at least read a number of commentaries on Kant's work. Much can be learned about the richness in Kant's writings just from the disagreements among commentators about the meaning and value of his ideas. Ideally, you should not "fake it" at all.

After reading one of Kant's most famous essays, I find it surprising how much more accessible he is than I remembered. (Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals.) Kant is very readable, especially in new translations. Best of all, why not actually quote the words of Kant to which one objects? My guess is that Kant simply does not say or believe the things that Rand thinks he does, but that she refuses to be deterred by this fact from ventilating her hostility to a set of despised ideas that, for some reason, she believes are derived from Kant.

One of the major disadvantages of not having read Kant -- nor even much about him -- is that one is likely to be mistaken about what Kant actually said and believed or advocated. Maybe the person disfiguring this essay is a loyal Randian upset at discovering that her heroine has clay feet. ("Anne Milgram Does it Again!")

We all make mistakes in reading difficult thinkers. Fortunately, there are ways to minimize the risk of this. My policy is to quote the offending passage from a text that I wish to attack. That way, if I am mistaken in my interpretation, someone can point this out to me or can direct me to a text that does so. The Rand method of not reading your adversary's work at all, not even quoting from it, is unwise for many reasons: for one thing, one is apt to find oneself arguing with a strawman, constructed by oneself, on the basis of platitudes and half-truths. This is what I think Ayn Rand does for the most part.

Gore Vidal and other critics have commented on Ms. Rand's unattractive lack of charity and absence of compassion for the poor in what is best described as a nineteenth century brand of liberalism that falls just short of endorsing slavery. Also, there is no excuse for failing to supply footnotes that might help the reader to identify interpretations and/or verify their accuracy. Significantly, again, in an essay that turns into a total rejection of "Kant's" ideas, there is not a single quotation from or reference to Kant's published works. The reader is expected to accept Ms. Rand's oracular comments about what Kant allegedly "believed."

I am less concerned with what Kant "believed" than with his arguments and philosophical conclusions. These Kantian arguments will not be found in Rand's critique. Ms. Rand's substantive criticism begins: "Existentially (i.e., in regard to the conditions of living, scale of achievement, and rapidity of progress), the nineteenth century was the best in Western history. Philosophically, it was one of the worst." (p. 78.)

This is a startling thing to say about the century of Hegel, Bentham, Mill, Niezsche, Schopenhauer, Compte, Bergson, James and many others. One of the worst? As compared with, for instance, the sixth or ninth centuries? I doubt it. The sheer explosive production of ideas in the nineteenth century -- agree with them or not -- should preclude such a judgment. At the very least, Ms. Rand should explain why this is so. She goes on to say:

"People thought they had entered an era of inexhaustible radiance; but it was merely the sunset of Aristotle's influence, which the philosophers were extinguishing." (p. 78.)

In fact, the "sunset of Aristotle's influence" dates from no later than the seventeenth century. But there is more:

"If you have felt an occasional touch of wistful envy at the thought that there was a time when men went to the opening of a new play, and what they saw was not 'Hair' or 'Grease,' but 'Cyrano de Bergerac,' which opened in 1897 -- take a wider look. I wish that borrowing from Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris, someone had pointed to the Paulsen book, then the play and said: 'This will kill that.' ..." (p. 78.)

To suggest that poor Professor Paulsen (and/or Kant) from their respective armchairs, are responsible for the alleged decline in aesthetic standards since the nineteenth century is controversial and wildly speculative, but this conclusion is not even defended by Rand; rather, it is simply anounced as fact. While it is true that "Cyrano de Bergerac" opened in 1897, so did quite a few terrible plays. Worse, the terrible plays were usually far more popular than the good ones, just as in our own time. One has only to think of the potboilers of William Somerset Maugham for the London stage of the Edwardian period to relish the prospect of a performance of "Grease."

In our time, plays by Miller, Williams, O'neil and Beckett have opened alongside middle-brow trash like Lloyd-Weber's glitzy (but fun!) "Phantom of the Opera" and pop rip-offs of Puccini's La Boheme, like "Rent." Are these works by great contemporary authors and composers not every bit as good as what was available in 1897 in New York or London? I think so.

Ms. Rand's method is not to argue the point on the basis of the available evidence or a close reading of a text, but only to offer a startling and sweeping generalization, or to throw out a value judgment that appeals to the emotions of the reader, and then to assume that her generalization is established. None of these generalizations are even adequately stated and defended, let alone proven. At last she is ready to attack Kant directly:

"Kant gave to science the entire material world (which, however, was to be regarded as 'unreal'), and left ('conserved') one thing to faith: morality. If you are not sure which side would win in a division of that kind, look around you today." (p. 79.)

Nowhere does Kant suggest that the phenomenal (i.e., empirical) world is "unreal." On the contrary, he regards it as the very real source of sense data for the categories of the understanding. See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed., (1787), Introduction, Part I. It was Ms. Rand's next statement that took my breath away:

"The Kantian division allows man's reason to conquer the material world, but eliminates reason from the choice of goals for which material achievements are to be used. Man's goals, actions, choices and values -- according to Kant -- are to be determined irrationally, i.e., by faith." (p. 79.)

This is false. Kant is the ultimate Enlightenment thinker who celebrates freedom and the ubiquity of reason. For Kant, morality is very much a matter of practical reason, it is a necessary inference from the fact that we know ourselves to be free. To suggest that Kant regards morality as a matter of "faith" or "eliminates reason" from moral life is simply totally inaccurate. Here is what Kant has to say on this subject:

"But inasmuch as reason has been imparted to us as a practical faculty, i.e., as one which is to have an influence on the will, its true function must be to produce a will which is not merely good as a means to some further end, but is good in itself. To produce a will good in itself reason was absolutely necessary, inasmuch as nature in distributing her capacities has everywhere gone to work in a purposive manner."

Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, p. 9.

Kant insists also that rationality or reason dictates the necessary framework for experience and ethics. We simply know ourselves to be free, again, and this is to accept ourselves as moral subjects, necessarily, who are responsible for their actions. In its emphasis on intention and duty, Kant's ethics reveals Chritianity's influence on him, and in its attempt to ground duty in reason, Kant's theory showed him to be a thinker of the Enlightenment. By positing freedom as if it were based on a "synthetic a priori truth" (for without freedom, there can be no ethics), one can derive an ethical structure from Kant's minimalist foundations in reason.

Notice that Kant is referring to the unimpaired rational agent capable of reasoning. Kant is well-aware that not everyone is equally free, nor is everyone free in the same way. He certainly understands that some people are mentally impaired or otherwise constrained in the exercise of freedom. These impaired people like to deface the writings of others. Contemporary criticisms of the Enlightenment rational subject -- criticisms which I share -- wish to expand the scope of the concept of a "rational subject" to include previously excluded persons, not to deny rationality in human life. ("Immanuel Kant and the Narrative of Freedom" and "Is Western Philosophy Racist?")

Being a rule-guided activity, for instance, reasoning itself is based on a respect for law and rules. The rules of logic dictate that A = A. One cannot claim to disregard such rules and yet continue to reason logically. The difficult issues arising in the twentieth century and beyond have to do with the connections between sound logic and reason (if any) and empirical reality (whatever that is). I am aware of subsequent revolutions in logic. All attempts to challenge classical logical principles or understandings should begin by being clear concerning what are those principles of classical logic, not by starting from zero. I urge readers to ponder Bradley's writings on relations in logic, then P.F. Strawson's discussion of the same topic in The Bounds of Sense.

From a comparable respect for the requirements of "practical" rationality, Kant deduced his ultimate moral command, the "categorical imperative": "So act that the maxim of your action can be willed as a universal law." (Groundwork)

In the Critique of Practical Reason, the formulation is slightly different: "So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means."

Notice that this second formulation involves two distinct principles: (1) the "universalization principle"; and (2) the "principle of ends." The first says that all moral acts can be derived from principles that can be generalized rationally without contradiction. The second insists on the dignity of each person and demands that you not use people as a means to your ends. "We are all sovereigns," Kant says, "in the kingdom of ends." Hence, Kant was among the modern philosophers to reject torture and slavery -- or experimentation without consent on persons -- as a way of "using" people for purposes that are not their own. (Again: "Is Western Philosophy Racist?" and "John Rawls and Justice.")

Kant's work, thus, represents a great intellectual achievement with unique influence on subsequent humanistic reforms -- reforms having to do with the recognition of the dignity of every person, with concepts such as equality before the law, with the notion of the universality of human rights. These ideas bear no resemblance to the caricature constructed by Ayn Rand, so that she might tear it down. I find recent Leftist critiques of rights equally unsatisfying.

We need the concept of rights as fundamental and universal attributes of human nature, now more than ever. The very people who criticize "rights-talk," will then complain (rightly!) of the violations of human "rights" by torturers and dictators. Among the worst such violations is the denial of rights to self-expression through censorship or the alteration -- even destruction -- of the writings of persons with whom we disagree. To deny words to a person is to deny that human being's status as a person. For this reason, slaves who learned to read were risking their lives. ("Is there a gay marriage right?")

The tortures I have described and defacements of my writings at these blogs, witnessed by readers from many places, are examples of the sort of evil to which I refer. Furthermore, I am sure that Ayn Rand would agree with me on that point, even if many Cuban-Americans -- whose fanaticism and despicable racism embarasses me -- would reject this principle in practice. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'")

"In Kant's ethical system," writes Rand, "morality has nothing to do with this world, nor with reason, nor with science ... " (p.79.)

Well, I have no idea what Rand means by claiming that Kantian ethics "have nothing to do with the world," but it seems pretty clear to me that Kant's ethics is all about reason. The Kantian system has everything to do with reason, as I have indicated in my summary, so that one does not know where to begin to correct these misimpressions. Rand, once again, offers no citations to support her claim because she is in her "guru" mode. Fair criticisms of Kant may challenge his understanding of reason or autonomy. ("Jacques Derrida's Philosophy as Jazz.") However, even such contemporary critics acknowledge their indebtedness to Kant's formulation of the essential issues in Modernity as a "philosophical project that is still underway." (Jurgen Habermas)

When my daughter was seven, she won all arguments by pausing and holding her open hand before my eyes, while uttering the immortal words: "Talk to the hand!" At that age, unknowingly, my child was a Randian Objectivist. Now, of course -- as a teenager -- she is a postmodernist-deconstructionist-nihilist of the "Whatever" school. Anyone seen "The Colbert Report" recently? As a student at an "elite" (expensive) university -- some time has passed since my previous review of this work! -- my child is developing a feminist postmodernist elaboration on Judith Butler's theory and novel brand of pragmatism inspired by Cornel West.

When a "Randian" critique of Kant's philosophy appears in print under the name of a writer one otherwise respects, who wishes to be taken seriously as a philosopher, the result is only embarassment for intelligent readers and students of philosophy. However, for readers whose understanding of the subject is even more nonexistent than Ayn Rand's superficial summaries, Rand's pontifical pronouncements may seem profound. They sure sound good, even if they do not amount to much. Rand concludes her essay with this remark:

"[Kant] sets philosophy against reason, i.e., against man's power of cognition, to turn philosophy into an apologist for and a protector of superstition." (p. 82.)

She does not quote the passage from Kant's writings in which he supposedly does this. In fact, once again, the opposite of her conclusion is true: Kant's work was an attack on traditional forms of speculative metaphysics and a plea for the application of reason to matters traditionally clouded in superstition. Kant is a symbol of everything that Rand wishes to be.

Finally, it occurs to me that the most important question for readers to consider today is not how such an ill-informed and poorly argued essay gets into print and how its author manages to be taken seriously by so many people, but how is it possible that the educational system in the U.S. can fail to provide most people with the modicum of philosophical learning necessary to identify such an essay for what it is? ("Nihilists in Disneyworld.")

Prominent American politicians and others continue to invoke the name of Ayn Rand as an important philosopher of the twentieth century, something that I do not think can be plausibly maintained, as opposed to a polemicist or novelist of influence. Ayn Rand is simply not a great philosopher. Maybe there can be no hope for moral progress and genuine social justice in U.S. society until we do something about our appalling and prevalent philosophical ignorance. Even among university graduates in related fields -- like psychology, politics and history -- real philosophy is a non-subject. If I am right about this, then a sound critique of Ms. Rand's essay may be a good place to start to build an awareness of the difference between what is truly philosophically respectable and what is the opposite.

There is so much fascinating philosophical work being done right now -- much of it by American thinkers -- that the thought that most American students will know only the name of one "philosopher" and that it will be "Ayn Rand," is frustrating and depressing for me. Frustration and depression are things one learns to overcome in a torture chamber. Read Ayn Rand, if you must, but you will be much better off reading her novels than her philosophical works -- and neither will be as good as anything written by, or about, Kant.

As for contemporary American and British philosophers, here is a partial list of my favorites: Richard Rorty (often wrong, but fun and fascinating to read); Martha Nussbaum (literary sensibility combined with philosophical rigor); Cornel West (excellent and provides a much needed perspective in America and a keen synthesizing intellect); Hilary Putnam (writes exactly as a surgeon uses a scalpel, except that he is apt to change his mind at any moment, performing an appendectomy instead of the planned vasectomy on the unsuspecting patient-reader); Robert C. Solomon (existentialist-phenomenologist, witty, clear, prolific, often agreeing with me and hence, right about most things); Camille Paglia (literary theorist, crazy, but fun and sexy, because she is not afraid of sex as a topic); Roger Scruton (usually fox hunting when not "doing" philosophy, but the best teacher of the subject out there); Bryan Magee (very readable); Bernard Williams (genius); Rick Roderick (wonderful lecturer, makes Habermas comprehensible); Iris Murdoch (superb writer, great novelist, British and an existentialist, but still made it to the National Portrait Gallery in the UK); Paul Ricoeur (elegant, almost superhumanly learned, the philosopher from "Central Casting"); Angela Davis (Hegel and Marx combined with the African-American tradition of resistance, Frankfurt School heavy theory by way of California dreaming).

Any one of these people, and lots of others, offer a much better reading experience than Ayn Rand. Read, study, write about philosophers and philosophy. "Know yourself."

U.S. Crimes Without Punishment.

2010-06-07T16:09:00.021-04:00

James Risen, "Study Cites Breaches of Medical Ethics in Investigation of Terrorism Suspects," in The New York Times, June 7, 2010, at p. A7.

Many persons, including Americans not accused of any crime, may have been experimented upon, secretly, by U.S. physicians developing psychological torture methods for state and federal government "entities." ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "The Experiments in Guatemala.")

The following letter by David Cole appeared in a recent issue of The New York Review of Books:

"Readers will not be surprised to hear that authorizing US officials to strip suspects naked, deprive them of sleep for up to eleven days straight, hit them, slam them into walls, force them into painful stress positions, and waterboard them violates a number of binding legal obligations."

I am sure that the insertions of "errors" in my writings, as a strategy, is only one part of a deliberate psychological torture campaign emanating from New Jersey government. ("American Doctors and Torture.")

"The federal torture statute, 18 USC 2340A, makes it a crime to subject an individual to torture. [This includes psychological torture, rape, choking persons in their home and other such offenses, among these offenses are induced frustrations, censorship, isolation, slanders, suppression and destruction of creative works.] At the time the memos were written by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Administration's Justice Department, the federal War Crime's Act, 18 USC 2441, made it a felony to breach any of the guarantees of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which requires that all wartime detainees be treated humanely. (After the Supreme Court made clear that the Geneva Conventions applied to the conflict with Al Qaeda, Congress then watered down the War Crimes Act, making prosecution under that provision somewhat more difficult today. But that does not erase the fact that the conduct was criminal at the time that it occurred, and at the time that the Bush lawyers and Cabinet officials authorized it.)"

"In addition, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, a multilateral treaty that the United States has signed and ratified, prohibits both torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and allows no exceptions. (It also obligates its signatories to investigate for criminal prosecution ANY credible allegation that a person within the nation's jurisdiction has been complicit in torture or degrading treatment.)"

I suggest that America's treatment of female inmates especially, but also of all inmates, may violate these provisions of law. Certainly, the treatment that I have received at the hands of N.J. public officials and attorneys merits criminal investigation by the authorities. I have retained copies of security records showing the number of intrusions into my computer. I am sure that Mr. Cole and many other legal scholars will agree with this claim. I am publicly raising this issue and inviting the world to make note of my requests for the truth concerning my life from Paula Dow, New Jersey Attorney General; Stuart Rabner, New Jersey Chief Justice; Christopher Christie, New Jersey's Governor; and Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General. Silence on the part of these officials can only be understood as complicity in atrocity.

"Moreover, international law recognizes torture as one of the few crimes that is subject to 'universal jurisdiction,' meaning that it can be prosecuted anywhere, regardless of where torture occurred. [This includes Cuba which is a member of the United Nations.] The reason for this is that countries may be reluctant to hold their own agents accountable -- as President Obama's actions since coming to office have confirmed."

"So the question is not whether laws were broken by the Bush administration and its lawyers. They clearly were. The question is whether we the American people will insist that the laws be enforced. As I have argued in these pages ['The Torture Memo Lawyers,' NYR, October 8, 2009], what is critical -- as a moral, historical, and legal matter -- is that we acknowledge in some official manner that what was done in our name was not just a terrible idea, not just an unfortunate mistake whose consequences we will live with for a long, long time. It was illegal. That accountability can take many forms. But what is unacceptable is to proceed as if no wrongs were done." (emphasis added)

Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner? As you wear your judicial robes and comment upon the legality and ethics of others, Mr. Rabner, should you not display some concern to behave ethically and legally yourself in your soiled tribunal while presiding over what is now, demonstrably, the most corrupt and criminally failed legal system in America?

Mr. Rabner, you disgrace the office that you hold.

(AP), "Cuba: Disidents Support U.S. Bill" [to end the embargo against Cuba] in The New York Times, June 11, 2010, at p. A10.

"Seventy-four Cuban opposition activists signed a letter Thursday supporting a bill in the United States Congress that would lift the American ban on travel to Cuba and increase American food exports to the island. 'We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government, while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society,' said the letter, whose signers include the blogger Yoani Sanchez, ... the hunger striker Guillermo Farinas, and the human rights leader [philosopher] Elizardo Sanchez."

Please add my name to that letter and let us make the letter available to the world. The harassments and obstructions I experience may prevent my writing at any time, further slanders are always expected, together with additional economic harms against me. Continuing silence in the American corporate media must be expected.

For as long as I am able to write, I will join these dissidents in Cuba -- as well as American dissidents -- in calling for peace and an end to the embargo. If I should suffer a fatal accident, this will continue to be my protest: It is time to end the embargo against Cuba. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" then "How Censorship Works in America" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")

A Report Card for President Barack Obama.

2010-06-03T11:42:00.036-04:00

July 31, 2011 at 6:15 P.M. Spacing was altered in this essay since my previous review of this work. I will try to repair the harm done from a public computer in New York. I cannot say how many other writings have been altered or damaged by New Jersey's hackers. I will struggle to discover and correct any and/or all additional inserted "errors" in my writings by making use of public computers in New York city.
June 8, 2010 at 12:06 P.M. "Errors" inserted overnight have been corrected, once again. ("Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory" and "More Cybercrime and Censorship.")
June 6, 2010 at 12:19 P.M. Any time that the e-mail address in this essay is altered or incomplete, it means that N.J.'s hackers are still permitted to get away with their crimes. This spectacle has become symbolic of America today.
June 4, 2010 at 11:46 A.M. The e-mail address that was corrected after several inserted "errors" yesterday was altered, again, overnight. The goal of these methods is to maximize psychological harm to the victim. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "More Censorship and Cybercrime.")
June 3, 2010 at 11:19 P.M. The e-mail address cited in this essay has been corrected three times during the first day that the work was posted as a result of hacker-inserted "errors." The correct address may be found in The New York Review of Books page 17, where it is also listed, in the event that the web site address continues to be defaced. Sadly, this vandalism is very likely due to New Jersey corruption.
June 3, 2010 6:51 P.M. "Errors" were inserted by hackers several times after my posting of this essay today. I expect more alterations of the text over the next few days in violation of copyright laws and the U.S. Constitution. Have you no shame, Mr. Rabner? Mr. Menendez, do you condone these crimes? ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")
As I type these words it is early in the month of June, 2010. Barack Obama's presidency has settled into a comfortable cruising speed. Some reflections and assessments may be in order. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I voted for Obama and wish him (like any American president) to do well for the nation.
During an interview after his first year in office, Mr. Obama gave himself a B+ as president. I would have given him an A, at that time. Today, I concur with his assessment and award Mr. Obama a B+ for his efforts. Faced with the same candidates, I would vote for Obama again.
The interim elections will not be good for Democrats. As America's first African-American president, a B+ may not be good enough. I want many more African-Americans in the White House. Excellence is a moral obligation for Mr. Obama.
The stagnation in Afghanistan and Iraq, dangerous spreading of the cancers of fanaticism and international terrorism, armed conflict, revolutionary movements and religious fundamentalism that is, essentially, anti-Western -- all of these forces are worse today than when the president took office. How much of this reality may be attributed to Mr. Obama is difficult to say. It is impossible to deny that President Obama inherited a catastrophe from Bush/Cheney.
At the end of July, 2010 we are witnessing the most bloody month in terms of American casualties since the conflict in Afghanistan began. Things will get worse before they get better -- if they get better in Afghanistan. The revolutionary movement in India and the deepening chaos in Pakistan are highly worrisome developments -- as is China's increasing power in the world and intense displeasure at the evident disasters in the making in the Middle East, Korea, South Asia, and elsewhere. China does not wish the US to remain in the neighborhood forever.
Like many people in the farthest and most dismal places on earth, this soon to be "rival Superpower" wonders who or what (if anyone) is in control in America? No wonder China is creating its rival global news source for the world in the English language. I do not believe that China -- or the U.S. -- will be "prodded" in one direction or another by anyone. To suggest such a thing -- that a huge country can be "prodded" to do something by a rival -- is to insult people.
I wish I could say who is in charge in America. We continue to deliver mixed and/or confused messages, appear ignorant and ill-informed on the issues, indulge in torture and our own forms of censorship and terrorism (i.e., "robot bombs" dropped on villages to kill one man, maybe), then make decisions behind closed doors that contradict our public protests and promises. This hypocrisy is not missed by observers in the world.
Torture is not a trivial issue for billions of persons on the planet in danger of losing their faith in America. ("What is it like to be tortured?") A nation with 16 independent intelligence agencies is bound to lack coordination and efficiency in information flow to the top, that is, we are not effectively synthesizing or filtering data. It is possible that we will fail to prevent a future attack because of this inefficiency and inadequate interpretive mechanisms.
The U.S. intelligence community and military seem to ignore the president and American courts, notably in the continuing public criminality which you are witnessing at these blogs, also in hideous forms of cruelty to detainees, or even unfortunate members of the population, like inmates and all poor women. Government is spying on Americans to an astonishing extent and shows no sign of revealing the whereabouts of information gathered about each of us. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")
New Jersey is a spectacle of corruption, mafia control of police and courts, inept and bribed officials top-to-bottom that is horrifying and unacceptable in countries like Brazil or Chile, even Peru and Cuba, to say nothing of Europe. People have begun to wonder whether the United States of America is in irreversible decline or still exists as anything more than a pale shadow of what it once was. The feds cannot control Trenton. How will they control Iraq?
New Jersey's level of corruption in government cannot be tolerated in America. Any more "errors" to be inserted in this text? Tim Arango, "Iraq War Defies a U.S. Timetable," in The New York Times, July 3, 2010, at p. 1 and Richard A. Opel, "Bombers Hit U.S. Aid Compound in Afghanistan," in The New York Times, July 3, 2010, at p. A8. (1,134 U.S. service people killed in Afghanistan alone.)

Living in New York affords the intelligent and attentive person who reads and thinks -- I do a little of both -- ample opportunity to listen to people chatting in several languages, often at fancy locations, thus picking up items of information that provide a good notion of what people on the street are saying in many places in the world. At the moment, we are not highly regarded or very impressive to foreigners. I wish America to be both -- a marvel to the world and the "City on a Hill" that all of humanity admires and emulates.
With all our faults, we have been exactly that ideal during much of the twentieth century. We must be that political ideal once again. I am referring to a moral and political-legal ideal, I emphasize this point, not weapons or military bases. The U.S. once provided the standard to the world on human rights and legality. No one makes this claim for the U.S. today.

Mr. Obama's promise to close the Guantanamo facility will not be kept. The photographs of U.S. atrocities will not be made public to the media or people. 1,000 photos of American tortures of detainees are being suppressed. Denials and cover-ups are never the answer to a crisis of legitimacy. The protection of friends and cover-ups after the disclosure that U.S. lawyers and doctors participated in this Holocaust-like evil undermines respect for the medical and legal professions in this country -- deservedly, in the state of New Jersey, especially, whose tribunals are adjuncts to the mafia -- diminishing American credibility on human rights issues throughout the world.
We still refuse to join the world criminal court. "Holocaust-like" is not an inappropriate analogy considering the one million plus deaths in the aftermath of the two Iraq wars, Afghanistan, Pakistan and "elsewhere" and (by some reckonings) this includes 500,000 children. Philosopher Joy Gordon has documented this death toll with compelling thoroughness.
"In some respects this is worse than Bush. First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of 'terrorism,' merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the C.I.A., something Bush never claimed publicly. Second, Obama says that the government can detain you indefinitely, even if you have been exonerated in a trial, and he has publicly floated the idea of 'preventive detention.' Third, the Obama administration, in expanding the use of unmanned drone attacks, argues that the U.S. has the authority under international law to use extrajudicial killing in sovereign countries with which it is not at war." ["Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'"]
"Such measures by Bush were widely considered by liberals and progressives to be outrages and were roundly, and correctly, protested. But those acts which may have been construed (wishfully or not) as anomalies under the Bush regime have now been consecrated into 'standard operating procedure' by Obama, who claims, as did Bush, executive privilege and state secrecy in defending the crime of aggressive war." http://www.worldcantwait.org/ (305 Broadway #185, New York, N.Y. 10013, 866-973-4463.)
This e-mail address is altered, periodically, by New Jersey's hackers: "WORLD-CAN'T-WAIT.ORG" ("Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory" and, again, "Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me."")
8 million jobs lost from the economy. A few hundred thousand new jobs created after the stimulus will not make much difference, especially if they are temporary census jobs paying peanuts. Michael Powell, "U.S. Reports Job Growth Lagged in Private Sector," in The New York Times, July 3, 2010, at p. 1. (9.5% jobless rate as labor force shrinks -- people stop looking for work -- means a rise in crime rates in about 30 days. Real unemployment is over 10%; officially, the rate is 9.6% of Americans are jobless.)
Obama's broken promise to close Guantanamo and our double standards increase the dangers and will reduce the options for dissidents throughout the world. We cannot condone or be a part of torture, rape, secrecy, betraying the rule of law on fundamental human rights issues, like freedom of speech and religion. Sanctioned cybercrime and censorship, burning the Qu'ran, raping and murdering tortured detaineees, who are often uncharged and unconvicted of any offense, takes our legal system back to the ninth century before Magna Carta. (Again: "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")
"Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has refused to prosecute any members of the Bush regime who are responsible for war crimes, including some who admitted to waterboarding and other forms of torture, thereby making their actions acceptable for him or any future president."
"Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Commits Them," in The New York Review of Books, May 17, 2010, at p. 17. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "What is it like to be tortured?")
Is this our commitment to legal ethics? Mr. Obama seems indecisive or powerless to do anything about this horror for which history will not be kind to America's first African-American president presiding over the enslavement of brown people from the Third World. "Magna Carta" may or may not be italicized, depending on the writer's choice. ("America's Holocaust.")
The American economy is "failing to adjust" to new circumstances in the world. We are not "moving on" from the fiscal meltdown. ("How Censorship Works in America.")
We are falling behind in research and development, losing brilliant minds to incarceration, criminality, corruption and cronyism in many key industries, even academia in addition to the arts is losing amazing people to Asian competitors. Excellence has become a category of guilt. Mediocrity is celebrated as a form of democracy. Genius is deemed "offensive" also as a category of guilt, especially among minority men. It is a fault to "try to be better than everyone else" at anything. Genius is dismissed as the result of "lots of practice." This sort of effort to achieve excellence was once deemed a virtue. A few inserted "errors" since earlier today, but fewer than I expected. ("More Censorship and Cybercrime" and "What is it like to be censored in America?" then "Is Humanism Still Possible?")
Our educational system reflects this collapse into listless "averageness." We are now 20th in the world in intellectual achievement among college graduates. Most of my fellow citizens will not read a single book during their adult lifetimes, many are incapable of doing so (especially among N.J. judges), while ephemera like "Grey's Anatomy" or "Glee" produces orgasmic rapture among critics in once respected publications such as The New York Times. ("Nihilists in Disneyworld" and "Manohla Dargis Strikes Again!")

You are invited to draw your own conclusions, once more, concerning the spectacle that you are witnessing at these blogs. A review of "Robin Hood" has now been altered at least five times in a 24-hour period by hackers using N.J. government computers. U.S. media is untroubled by this public censorship.
Who will be next? What publications will be subjected to organized content-based computer crime and harassment by persons using government technology in the future? Violations of my Constitutional rights are the potential violations of anyone's rights. ("What is it like to be plagiarized?" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")

The oil spill in Louisiana has made it abundantly clear that federal reactions have been slow and incompetent, no better than under President Bush when Katrina struck the same territory. Many people in the Gulf area will suffer for generations to come and the ecosystem will be severely damaged. Happily, Dick Cheney is feeling just fine. If Mr. Obama is not careful, this oil spill will become emblematic of his presidency, a fitting symbol of forces of contamination permitted to grow out-of-control. New Jersey? Iraq? Public censorship, organized crime controlling an American jurisdiction cannot be permitted to stand, Mr. Obama, even when it is Democrat territory. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
I appreciate that we have a docile corporate media in this country, but it saddens me to realize that we also have a corporate government. It really does not matter all that much who occupies the White House, the executives at BP and other megacorporations "gotta get theirs." Normally, this would be O.K. Lately, average Americans have been getting screwed on a colossal scale by these corporations and paid-off politicians. (New Jersey!)
Please see "Is Congressman Steven Rothman (D) on the take?" A friend said: "They're all on the take." This corruption charge does not include Mr. Obama, whose honesty is beyond question. Working and poor families do not seem to matter to anyone in Washington -- after election day. Rural folks may not matter much even on election day if politicians can win the big cities. This is not O.K.
$20 billion will not solve the environmental disaster resulting from an oil leak that is still not under control in terms of the environmental damage we have suffered. This estrangement from our values is not what Americans expect of their government at this difficult moment in our history. There is a great deal of anger and frustration expressed by ordinary people. These emotions may explain the Tea Party's success, so far. This is probably when N.J. should try to insert more "errors" in this essay or to alter some of the names mentioned. ("What is it like to be tortured?" then "What is it like to be censored in America?")

Mr. President: People are hurting beyond the beltway. There are few jobs, not many educational or other opportunities, sexism is rampant, racism is still with us, women suffer from persistent and evil forms of sexism in jobs and schools, children are at greater risk than ever from child-porn and -prostitution which has become yet another protected criminal industry in New Jersey.
State officials inserting "errors" in these essays make it clear to the world that our commitment to free speech is a lie, unless we happen to be media millionaires. ("More Child-Porn and -Prostitution in New Jersey" and "Judges Protect Child Molesters in Bayonne, New Jersey.")

Judicial appointments to the U.S. Supreme Court are a plus for the president. It is sad that such appointments have recently become opportunities to debate everything except competence and intellect, especially "representation" for various groups. We will no longer have a white male Protestant on the High Court after Mr. Stevens departs to write his memoirs. I suspect that "White Male Protestants" have become America's latest minority group.
Some people feel that they are not being remembered by decision makers despite bearing the bulk of the load in American history. I see their point. I think this recognition of the plight of "working poor" families, especially in rural areas, made John Edwards an attractive candidate in the primaries. Maybe that is why the attack machine went after Mr. Edwards. I suspect that some of the people inserting "errors" in these writings disapprove of Mr. Edwards because (like the rest of us) he is a flawed human being.
Why are you worrying about poor and rural whites, Senator Edwards? They don't have big lobbyists, do they? Well, they have the Constitution just like everybody else. That's Communism! No, it's called "fairness." Either "T-Party" or "Tea Party" is fine by the way.
Poor people includes whites, browns, blacks and many Asians. Arizona demands to see their "papers." Fifty states creating fifty immigration policies is not a very good idea. Recently, Arizona legislators have suggested denying and/or revoking the citizenship of persons BORN in the U.S. whose parents are (or were) illegal immigrants, despite the provisions of the Constitution.
We also do not have much of the Bill of Rights left as the Conservative Phalanx continues to chip away at the exclusionary rule, Miranda rights and the 6th Amendment right to counsel, as well as allowing for occasional torture, rape, and eavesdropping by the government without "good cause." Evidently, the 5th Amendment's protections against being made to testify against oneself and the 4th Amendment's requirement of "reasonableness" in searches are "plots by the Taliban" to make us unsafe. I hate to say it, but I think we are more unsafe than ever thanks to the C.I.A.
Based on what you are seeing at these blogs, you decide how much of the First Amendment still stands. ("Morality Tale.") What the hell? Are you with Al Qaeda? Don't you wanna get Ossama bin Laden? Dead or alive? Well, then? Whatever it takes. The rights of ordinary Americans are being lost in this "War on Terror." What will we do when the terror comes from our own government?
We have abandoned the peace process in the Middle East. As a result, there is no control over the actions of Israel -- including the appalling embargo which is causing so much suffering to many people in Gaza and in Turkey, the one Islamic country with a previously cordial relationship with Israel -- and there is a further heightening of the tensions in the entire region. We must be more active in bringing the parties to the negotiating table.
Mercifully, we have health insurance. Unmercifully, we will need that health insurance soon unless we control the polluters and do something to cure the AIDS epidemic. MILLIONS continue to die from AIDS, including many children, as we cut funds for research. Please provide all the help you can to organizations such as "AIDS Walk, New York." I would rather spend $1 billion per month on research to end the AIDS epidemic and in the fight against cancer than in the continuing Iraq/Afghanistan military efforts.
Despite the proclamation of "ending the military component" of our efforts in Iraq, 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq for the foreseeable future; Iran's nuclear program will require "attention"; and Afghanistan's Taliban brigades continue to make Pakistan and "other places" their home away from home. Al Qaeda has spread to Africa and Latin America.
What exactly have we accomplished with these wars -- other than the removal of Mr. Hussein in Iraq and his replacement by the Ghandi-like honesty of Mr. Karzai's government in Afghanistan -- after so much effort? Is Mr. Karzai a true democrat?
Mr. Obama, much of the hope and romance associated with your candidacy has vanished in a morning after fit of depression as we appreciate just what we got ourselves into. We need your best efforts to cope with this Hydra-headed monster called "America's decline" against which we struggle.
The state of the American Union is uncertain and endangered. Peace and prosperity appear to be things of the past. The future for America's young people looks very grim indeed. We need reason to hope that things will be better. The number one word spoken by persons asked about the Obama administration -- in New York's liberal centers! -- is "disappointment." What is it like in the rest of the country? ("Obama Says: 'Torture is a Secret!'")
The following letter by Jeremy Varon was published in the Times, July 2, 2010, at page A24:
The failure of President Obama to use the powers of his office and his personality to make good on his pledge to close Guantanamo Bay is despicable. If the detention camp was a moral blight and a foreign policy liability on Day 1 of the administration, it certainly remains so today. That the administration would claim credit, as a senior official says, for "trying to close" the prison, while actually failing in its goal, is a level of cynicism that is mind-boggling. I voted for Mr. Obama on the basis of his promise of real change. With respect to Guantanamo, there has been none. For this reason he has lost my vote. On some things, like undoing a legacy of extrajudicial detention and torture, there can be no compromise.

C.I.A. Tapes and Washington Days.

2010-04-21T11:26:00.023-04:00

May 13, 2010 at 3:38 P.M. Only one new "error" since my posting of allegations concerning the much-noted partnership between Cuban-American Right-wingers and the big drug cartels. I hope that I have made all necessary corrections -- until the next wave of attacks against these blogs. Tell your friends in law enforcement about this situation.

April 25, 2010 at 11:40 A.M. Several essays were, once again, altered overnight. I cannot say how many writings have been damaged. I will do my best to make all necessary corrections. The following advertisement appeared at this blog just now:

"Al Gore Website, Join Millions of Americans and Fight Climate Change. Sign Up Now! http://www.repoweramerica.org/ "

El Domingo, 2 de Mayo -- Unete con miles de personas de todo el mundo para eliminar las armas nucleares. Queremos acabar con las guerras, empleo y justicia para todos. http://www.peaceandjusticenow.org/ 646-723-1749. Festival internacional de la paz, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, en la calle 47, entre 1 y 2 Avenida, 4-6 PM.

April 20, 2010 at 3:55 P.M. An attempt to insult me or denigrate my suggestions concerning America's commitment to Human Rights and international law, together with trivializing our former Vice President, Al Gore (who has been recognized by such minor entities as the Swiss Nobel Committee and the Los Angeles "academics" at the Oscars), while ignoring concerns over climate change, has resulted in the imposition, illegally, of the following advertisement on this blog:

"Al Gore Website, Join Millions of Americans and Fight Climate Change. Sign Up Now! http://www.repoweramerica.org/ "

I do not believe that this advertisement came from "Al Gore's Website." I do not believe that it came from "Ads by Google." I believe that Right-wing Cuban-Americans -- together with their friends in Florida and New Jersey -- are responsible for this offensive comment on Mr. Gore and his worthy campaign to do something about climate change. I am happy to agree with Mr. Gore on that subject. I find nothing ridiculous about a concern with climate change and global warming. It may be "ridiculous" not to care about such matters.

I also continue to object to the PUBLIC violations of copyright laws and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by persons defacing and altering, suppressing and obstructing my writings. This is to say nothing about computer crime. This episode of public criminality and philistinism should embarass you, if you are a Cuban-American. The Cuban Revolutionary Government looks good by comparison with these people from Miami and New Jersey. ("How Censorship Works in America.")

Mark Mazzetti, "C.I.A. Document Details Destruction of Tapes," in The New York Times, April 16, 2010, at p. A17.
"Spying, Civil Liberties and the Courts," (Editorial) in The New York Times, April 16, 2010, at p. A26.
Marc Lacey, "Why Is Mexican Drug Trafficker Still at Large? Cartel Documents Hint at an Answer," in The New York Times, May 12, 2010, at p. A4. (Fugitive drug lord, JOAQUIN GUZMAN, may have Mexican and American intelligence officials on his payroll, including -- rumors say -- several prominent Cuban-Americans with C.I.A. credentials.)
Mark Mazzetti & Charlie Savage, "No Criminal Charges Sought Over C.I.A. Tapes," in The New York Times, November 10, 2010, at p. A12. (Obstruction of justice is just fine.)

"WASHINGTON -- Porter J. Goss, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, in 2005 approved of the decision by one of his top aides to destroy dozens of videotapes documenting the brutal interrogation of two detainees, according to an internal C.I.A. document released Thursday." (emphasis added)

This is called "obstruction of justice" and is a federal crime. ("Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?" and "Senator Bob Struggles to Find His Conscience.")

"Shortly after the tapes were destroyed at the order of JOSEPH A. RODRIGUEZ JR., then the head of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, Mr. Goss told Mr. Rodriguez that he 'agreed' with the decision, according to the document. He even joked after Mr. Rodriguez offered to 'take the heat' for destroying the tapes."

Mr. Rodriguez may be the rogue agent identified in journalistic accounts only as "Deuce Martinez." Mr. Rodriguez, reportedly, has documents indicating that he is Puerto Rican. Rumors suggest that this individual is really a Cubanazo -- also a possible double agent for Cuban intelligence -- although officials of the Cuban government will neither confirm nor deny these rumors as they "do not speak English." Only one new inserted "error"? ("Havana Nights and C.I.A. Tapes.")

This could be because many Cuban intelligence agents attend a notorious English language school in Miami run by Cubanazas from Coral Gables. Anyone who may be tempted to be sympathetic to Cuban-American critiques of the Cuban Revolution will be dissuaded by this disgusting spectacle of public criminality and censorship for which Cuban-Americans and corrupt officials are responsible. You are not helping yourselves by continuing to insert "errors" in my writings. You are verifying much of what I am saying. ("Cubanazos Pose a Threat to National Security" and "Miami's Cubanoids Protest AGAINST Peace!")

Recently released documents "including two e-mail messages from a C.I.A. official whose name has been excised, [Felix Leiter?] were released as part of a Freedom of Information lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union."

I welcome and invite the ACLU to file a lawsuit to obtain documents pertaining to the tortures to which I have been subjected by New Jersey. No response to my DAILY requests for these documents has yet been received from Trenton officials. Public censorship of these writings continues on a daily basis. Did I wake you up, Mr. Christie?

Perhaps the tortures and thefts to which I have been subjected since 1988 are part of the "War on Terror"? Mr. Christie? Ms. Dow? What happened to the promises of "transparency in government"? "Sunshine" laws? Zero tolerance for criminal conduct by OAE officials? Does the "E" in "OAE" stand for "ethics"? ("New Jersey's Office of Attorney Ethics" and "Crimes Against Humanity in New Jersey.")

"The e-mail messages also reveal that top White House officials were angry that the C.I.A. had not notified them before the tapes were destroyed. The e-mail messages mention a conversation between Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, and John A. Rizzo, the C.I.A.'s top lawyer, in which Ms. Miers was 'livid' about being told after the fact."

Ms. Miers was hoping for "plausible denial" (Anne Milgram?) and claiming that she was not told about this destruction of evidence may provide just that ability to "obfuscate" if she is forced to testify concerning the matter. Lawyers love to, shall we say, "dissemble." Right, Ms. Milgram? Sybil Moses? ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")

I am sure that Ms. Poritz was "livid" about overwhelming evidence of her incompetence (or worse!) while serving as Chief Justice in New Jersey. Diana, Debbie? Are you two gals still an "item"? ("Jennifer Velez is a 'Dyke Magnet!'" and "Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!")

" ... 'Rizzo is clearly upset, because he was on the hook to notify Harriet Miers of the status of the tapes because it was she who had asked to be advised before any action was taken,' according to one of the e-mail messages." ("Sybil R. Moses and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey.")

"In 2002, C.I.A. operatives in Thailand videotaped the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two Qaeda suspects whom the C.I.A. was holding in secret in that country. More than a hundred tapes were made, and many were kept in a safe in the C.I.A. station in Bangkok. According to former C.I.A. officials, Mr. Rodriguez ordered the tapes destroyed in November 2005 because he feared that it would put undercover C.I.A. officers in legal and physical jeopardy." ("Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?" and "Legal Ethics Today.")

The C.I.A.'s own tapes (allegedly) reveal sexual assaults, brutal violence, intense psychological tortures, maybe even murders for the gratification and amusement of officials in Virginia. I am doubtful that any valuable information was obtained through the use of these tactics. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "What is it like to be tortured?")

"According to one of the e-mail messages released Thursday, Mr. Rodriguez told Mr. Goss that the tapes, taken out of context, would make the C.I.A. 'look terrible; it would be devastating to us.' ..."

I wonder why Mr. Rodriguez would feel this way if everything done by the agency is legal? ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" then "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")

The OAE in New Jersey may "appear" to be the negation of the rules they are required to enforce and embody. When a legal ethics establishment personifies the corruption, cruelties, mendacity and dishonesty of a failed legal system that is in denial about its poisonous condition no genuine "healing" can take place. Think of this observation as therapeutic and intended only for your own good in Trenton.

"The destruction of tapes is part of a Justice Department criminal investigation that has stretched on for more than two years. [1988-today?] The investigation is led by John Durham, a federal prosecutor in Connecticut."

Mr. Rabner, when may I expect all of the records that I have requested? ("Stuart Rabner and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and, again, "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?" then "No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!")

"Succumbing to the politics of fear during the 2008 campaign, Congress seriously diluted the First and Fourth Amendment rights of Americans by changing the 1978 law that governs electronic surveillance."

None of this trashing of civil liberties can be applied, retrospectively, to persons whose rights have been violated as part of a conspiracy predating the events of 9/11. In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, "there can be no ex post facto laws."

"In addition to providing RETROACTIVE approval for President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping, the FISA Amendments Act vastly expanded the government's ability to eavesdrop without warrants in the future. It gave the National Security Agency authority to monitor the international phone calls and e-mail messages of Americans who are not engaged in criminal activity and pose no threat to national security. The measure weakened judicial supervision of how these powers are exercised, making abuse far more likely."

"Abuse" is a mild term for what I have experienced and described. ("Psychological Torture in the American Legal System" and "America's Unethical Medical Torturers.")

The Obama administration is seeking to UPHOLD AND DEFEND these Bush usurpations of civil rights protections by opposing a news media and activist's law suit to guard e-mail messages and other "sensitive items" from disclosure to government. The matter is before the United States Circuit Court, Second Circuit (New York).

The issue on appeal has been couched in terms of "standing" -- which means that civil plaintiffs bringing the action may be excluded and could lose their suit because, allegedly, they have no direct interest in the matter -- that is, they need not care about their own privacy nor the security of their documents. What the hell. A father may lack standing to object to the planned assassination of his Muslim cleric son, an assassination that is to take place without trial or charges against the proposed victim who is an American citizen.

Another reason for N.J. ignoring me, perhaps, is the terror that a tortured and raped individual, like myself, may have very direct "standing" to contest Nazi-like laws granting secret power to the federal and state governments. I look forward to seeing all of you in New Jersey soon. ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "New Jersey's Legal System is a Whore House.")

I am grateful for the international attention that, "I have reason to believe," is being given to my struggle against public criminality and censorship in New Jersey's befouled legal system. Thus far, the only response received is sabotage leading to shutting off my computer. I cannot say how many persons visit these sites nor whether my books are still available at Lulu. No images can be posted at these blogs. Approximately, one out of ten hits is counted at these blogs. American news publications may be frightened about covering these events or prevented by corporate lawyers or cops from doing so. I will continue to write. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

"Che": A Movie Review.

2010-03-31T13:47:00.010-04:00

April 9, 2010 at 10:05 P.M. A letter was removed from a word in this essay that had been left alone for a while. I invite the reader to draw his or her own conclusions concerning the people doing these things and the state making their cybercrimes possible. ("Law and Ethics in the Soprano State.")

March 31, 2010 at 2:39 P.M. This essay has been reposted against an onslaught of cybercrime and harassments. I will do my best to keep up with "errors" inserted in the text by Cuban-American hackers from New Jersey and Florida. ("Miami's Cubanoids Protest AGAINST Peace!" and "Cubanazos Pose a Threat to National Security.")

Benicio del Toro, mysteriously, has not been recognized by the Golden Globes or Oscar nominations, so far. "Denials of earned recognition ..." Mr. del Toro is the winner of the Cannes Film Festival award for "Best Actor" and Spain's Goya award, also as "Best Actor," in Che.

Attacks on this essay and on all of my writings will be constant. Access to MSN is still obstructed as of 5:15 P.M. on February 27, 2009. Despite the success of my first book, approaching 7,000 hits (possibly, much more), my second book will not be sent to book sellers, even at my own expense. I cannot post images at my sites, intrusions, viruses, obstructions are designed to frustrate my writing efforts. All of this takes place in a society ostensibly committed to freedom of speech and privacy for every person in the country and throughout the world. My requests for the truth concerning the tortures (including rapes) to which I have been subjected by New Jersey are ignored.

How can persons in other countries believe that the United States of America is truly devoted to the cause of political freedom and expression for everyone when American dissidents are tortured and silenced, publicly, on a daily basis?

I. "Che was the most complete human being of our age." (Jean Paul Sartre)

I planned to see a new film based on the life of "Che" Guevara. Unfortunately, I may not be able to see the movie at this time. I expect that the film -- or an edited version of it -- will receive a wider circulation sometime in the Spring of 2009. I hope to see it then -- if not in a theater, then certainly in a DVD version, eventually. Being unable to see this movie has fostered an interest in the life and writings of Che Guevara. I have decided to read Guevara's essays along with some biographical material. I will then write a commentary examining Guevara's mind and achievements. I have studied Guevara's work over the years. I plan to do so more seriously in the future.

After writing the foregoing paragraph, I did see the movie starring Benicio del Torro. I think it is a great movie with an epic quality, a film worthy of David Lean, which should have received greater recognition in the U.S. than it did. The cameos in Che are worth the cost of the DVD. An especially unexpected surprise was (I believe) Franka Potente (?) as "Tanya." Also, Matt Damon speaking flawless Spanish is not to be missed.

I thought it was the best cinematic treatment of Guevara's life and the events of the Cuban Revolution. Benicio del Toro was compelling and effective in the title role, whatever one may think of the person and events that inspired the film. This is a movie about political romanticism and ideals, struggle and tragedy. The film suggests that meaning is essential to any life-project, which then requires each person to define commitments for which he or she will make the ultimate sacrifice. Che's final victory may have been the orchestration of his own death in such a manner as to advance his cause through the transformation of his life into a symbol for the world.

For me, aside from family loyalties and loves, there is the principle of human dignity and rights, including rights of expression, that are worth dying for -- because without those rights, we become something less than human. I will continue to write despite anticipated efforts to destroy these writings. Fascism is always offended by intelligence and artistic beauty, even more by the independence of any individual's conscience in the continuing global struggle for social justice. I can respect a person's courage and sincerity without necessarily agreeing with his politics or opinions.

I will make it a point to seek out materials pertaining to the life and work of this man, whose ambiguous legacy inspires such continuous hostility from the same people, I believe, who are censoring and threatening me. I never met Guevara. I am not a Communist. However, I have "experienced" (there is no other word for it) harassment from the sort of persons who routinely demonize Guevara. At his worst, there is no way that "Che" could be as stupid or evil as these Cubanazos, whether Miami-based or Jersey tomatos. I am a democratic socialist. Accordingly, this commentary is from the left of the political spectrum.

I prefer the company of any opponent of the fascist "normality" that a strand of mainstream American culture crams down the throats of so-called "weirdos." I shudder to think of the progroms and concentration camps that would immediately emerge if these rabid and anti-intellectual Cubanoids were ever given political power anywhere. I am mortified at the thought that they have, in fact, been given (or stolen) political power in parts of the United States of America, like New Jersey or Florida.

My problem with many Cuban-Americans, whose politics happens to be different from mine, is that they seem not to understand the idea of toleration and rights to disagree. I am just as insistent on their freedom of expression to disagree with me, publicly, as I am to express my opinions. The essence of democracy is the right to disagree.

My feeling in reading about and studying the life of "Che" Guevara is that, as a devoted revolutionary who sought to change the world -- more than most, Guevara succeeded in the effort to do just that -- "Che" also felt the pull of ideas and was drawn to philosophy as an essential component of his revolutionary efforts. Guevara read Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche and many other philosophers, engaging in dialogues with Sartre and many leading intellectuals of the twentieth century.

I place the word "Che" in quotation marks because it is a nickname, a Cubanism, based on affection for an Argentinian hero in the Cuban national pantheon. "Che" (the word means "what?" in Argentinian Spanish) is also used as a trivializing diminutive by the same bourgeois elements that seek to denigrate all progressive movements as childish or unrealistic, "unmanly" and "naive" -- these terms are applied to Guevara -- who would have laughed at them.

"Che" is transformed into a patronizing epithet in some quarters. Hobbesian fascists are always suspicious of ideals or values that seek to elevate humanity. Right-wingers see human beings as beyond redemption, fallen, so that social meliorism is a waste of time. An "error" was inserted in the previous sentence which is not found in earlier versions of this essay. I believe (along with Secretary Clinton and President Obama) that "we can always make things better." A British concern with decorum, for instance, is seen in this summary:

" ... properly [emphasis added] Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (1928-1967). Argentinian Communist revolutionary leader. He graduated in medicine at the university of Buenos Aires (1953), then joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary movement in Mexico (1955), then played an important part in the Cuban revolution (1956-1959)" -- and beyond, as a symbol? -- "and afterwards held government posts under Castro."

Chambers Dictionary of Biography (Edinburgh: Chambers-Harrap, 1990), p. 637.

A t-shirt with the image of Guevara morphed into a "Planet of the Apes" creature is worn by some Cuban-Americans. "Che" as a term of affection is great; "Che" as an insult for a fallen fighter is unnecessary, whatever one may think of Guevara's politics and life. Save the insults for the living. Have the decency to deliver them face-to-face. After twenty years of behind-the-back attacks against me, I am beginning to understand what Guevara must have felt. As I write these words, noise fills the room where I find myself struggling.

"The philosophers have only understood the world," Marx sighed, "the point however is to change it." "Che" is among the first generation of revolutionary philosophers who appreciated that understandings of the world are also transformations of reality for billions of powerless people. This is especially true in a symbolic order and system of meanings that has become dynamic and fluid in ways unsuspected, even in "Che's" lifetime.

Malcolm X came to the same realization of his own global responsibility for persons of color in a world that deprives billions of people -- people, like me, who are silenced -- of meaningful self-images. To be a "revolutionary" is a calling and responsibility that some persons cannot avoid, much as they would like to avoid that fate. Angela Davis and Assatta Shakur fall into this category of persons called by history to play a role in political events. ("What is it like to be tortured?")

There is no question that Guevara was at least twenty years ahead of everybody, except for a handful of thinkers during the fifties and sixties -- including Castro and Malcolm, Dr. King and Robert Kennedy -- in appreciating media not only as a weapon in political revolutions, but as itself the locus of political struggle and meaning for the future. Our battle today for freedom must take place in a realm of images and meanings. Hence, Fidel's latest comments concerning the importance of ideas to the future of revolutionary struggle. What real artists must do in postmodernist cultures is to bring about revolutions in consciousness. This will remain true whatever you think of Fidel Castro. ("The 'Matrix': A Movie Review" and "Guernica.")

"Subjects of knowledge are embodied and practically engaged with the world, and the products of their thought bear ineradicable traces of their purposes and projects, passions and interests. In short, the epistemological and moral subject has been definitively decentered and the conception of reason linked to it irrevocably desublimated. Subjectivity and intentionality are not prior to, but a function of, forms of life and systems of language; they do not 'constitute' the world but are themselves elements of a linguistically disclosed world. [cinema?] ..."

The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, p. ix (Thomas McCarthy's "Introduction.")

May we refer to the dance of image and reality, Being and ideas as a "dialectic"? Guevara once said to Fidel that their friendship and discussion was a "dialectic." There are many kinds of dialectic, including the "discussions" in which we find ourselves placed in Afghanistan and Iraq. The persons inserting "errors" in these writings have made it very clear that the language of civilized discourse is not one that they speak. These N.J. goons are "suicide bombers" and terrorists of the Internet. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be censored in America?")

I welcome a "dialectic" with my Cuban counterparts that is respectful of equality and human dignity. If only New Jersey were capable of such a dialectic, so much human suffering could be avoided. Claire Heinrich & Lisa Fleischer, "$29.4 BILLION Budget Deal is Reached: Lawmakers Ease Blow to Poor and Disabled," in The Record, June 22, 2010, at p. A-1. (As a result of decades of massive theft of public money and other corruptions, poor and disabled residents of New Jersey will suffer more than all other sectors of society from essential budget cuts.)

Today's guerrilla fighter lives in the underbrush of televisual imagery and cinematic forms, Internet discussions and imagery -- hence, movies become a common discourse or language of politics and law, justice and interpersonal relations for the people who then become what Mao called: "the ocean in which revolutionary fish must swim":

"We have predicted that the war will be continental." Guevara writes: "This means that it will be protracted; it will have many fronts. ... It does not matter, so far as the final result is concerned, whether one or another movement is temporarily defeated. What is certain is the determination to struggle which ripens day by day, the consciousness of the necessity for revolutionary change, the certainty that it is possible."

"Che" concludes:

"This is a prediction. We make it with the conviction that history will prove us right. An analysis of the subjective and objective factors in America and in the imperialist world points to us the accuracy of these assertions based on the Second Declaration of Havana."

Guerrilla Warfare: A Manual, pp. 90-91.

Again:

"We socialists are freer because we are more complete; we are more complete because we are freer."

"Che" laughingly says, again, "this is called dialectics." Then,

"We will forge ourselves in daily action, [aesthetic and political creativity,] creating a new man [and woman] with new technology."

Man and Socialism, p. 138.

It is because ideas, images, poetry and politics are properly feared that persons (like me) must be silenced or destroyed. This concern with culture and humanistic Marxism, the power of ideas to shape and reflect material economic conditions -- which Guevara already perceived as increasingly fluid -- also expressed itself in his concern with the early idealistic Marx's logic in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. (See Guevara's Biographical Introduction to Marx and Engels, p. 24.)

II. "Our freedom and its daily maintenance are paid for in blood and sacrifice." ("Che")

Guevara's response to the Cubanazos is found in a quotation from Marx reacting to the criticisms of his alleged lack of concern with money. In an interview with Richard Goodwin, the U.S. special envoy for Latin America who finagled a box of excellent Cuban cigars from "Che" (at a time when they were prohibited under the embargo!), Guevara laughed, again, as he took the initiative by sitting on the floor, smoking "Romeo y Julietas" and "Montecristos" at the Plaza Hotel, I believe.

Mr. Goodwin found it difficult to do the same in his expensive business suit from Brooks Brothers. "Revolutionaries are more comfortable than imperialists." Che should have said to Goodwin, who kept the box of cigars (mysteriously emptied) in his living room in New York and refused to think of himself as an "imperialist."

"If one chose to be an ox, one could of course turn one's back on the sufferings of mankind and look after one's own skin." Karl Marx said: "But I should really have regarded myself as impractical if I had pegged out without completely finishing my book, at least in manuscript."

A Biographical Introduction to Marx and Engels, p. 46.

Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were both always in debt up to their eyeballs. They were uninterested and oblivious to how the next set of bills would be paid. Jefferson was unable to free his slaves not for lack of will, but because they provided the only security for creditors always threaning to take everything Jefferson owned, including Monticello. Jefferson's "slaves" may have been among his creditors and were certainly among his family members.

"Che's" struggle was to establish a new intellectual and political identity for Latin America, walking a high wire between U.S. power and the Communist block. It is the same struggle faced today by African intellectuals and Asians caught between China's new superpower status, India and the West. The goal was always social justice, self-determination, socialism and assertions of dignity for peasant populations and disenfrachised workers.

The U.S. decision to oppose this people's struggle -- while understandable as a reaction to nationalization of assets of U.S. nationals and corporations as well as human rights abuses following the revolution for which "Che" personally bears some blame -- was a great mistake. The issues dividing Cuba and the U.S. were resolvable. They still are. Soviet influence could have been kept out of the new world with creative diplomacy and mutual understanding. We missed an opportunity. Let us not repeat the mistake today. ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")

As a Palestinian in exile, Edward Said comments of the revolutionary intellectual's challenge:

" ... the meaning of an effective intervention [in the public realm] has to rest on the intellectual's unbudgeable conviction in a concept of justice and fairness that allows for differences between nations and individuals, without at the same time assigning them to hidden hierarchies, preferences, evaluations. Everyone today professes a liberal language of equality and harmony for all. The problem for the intellectual is to bring these notions to bear on the actual situations where the gap between the profession of equality and justice, on the one hand, and the rather less edifying reality, on the other, is very great."

"Speaking Truth to Power," in Representations of the Intellectual, p. 94.

Fidel Castro's final assessment of "Che" Guevara -- Castro is rumored by Cubanoids to have betrayed "Che" to the CIA -- is filled with what is clearly genuine respect and affection:

"It is not easy to find a person with all the virtues that were combined in him. It is not easy for a person, spontaneously, to develop a personality like his. I would say that he is one of those men who are difficult to match and virtually impossible to surpass. But I would say that the example of men like him contributes to the appearance of men [and women] of the same caliber."

"Che," p. 5.

At the intersection of aesthetics, politics and religion is where Guevara found his interpretation of Marxism, as Critical Theory, providing a foundation for the romantic reinventing of the world by young revolutionaries everywhere. Many are taking up this challenge today in India:

"With this aesthetic utopia, which remained a point of orientation for Hegel and Marx, as well as for the Hegelian Marxist tradition down to Lukacs and Marcuse, Schiller conceived of art as the genuine embodiment of communicative reason. ["'The Reader': A Movie Review."] Of course, Kant's Critique of Judgment also provided an entry for a speculative Idealism that could not rest content with the Kantian differentiations between understanding and sense, freedom and necessity, mind and nature, because it perceived in precisely these distinctions the expression of dichotomies inherent in modern life-conditions. [Schiller] held on to the restricted significance of aesthetic judgment in order to make use of it for a philosophy of history. He thereby tacitly mixed the Kantian with the traditional concept of judgment, which in the Aristotelean [Thomistic] tradition (down to Hannah Arendt) never completely lost its connection with the political concept of common sense. So [Schiller] could conceive of art as primarily a form of communication and assign to it the task of bringing about harmony in society. ..."

Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, p. 48.

The sense of a beautiful quality in a life lived for others, for future generations enjoying greater freedom and peace, is "Che's" life-long motivation. Like Dr. King, "Che" arrived at a sense of transcendence -- achievement of what Hegel called, "a beautiful soul" -- that allowed him to see beyond his own death:

"Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear, and another hand reaches out to take our arms, and other men come forward to join in our funeral dirge with the chattering of machine guns and new calls for battle and for victory."

Che Guevara Speaks, p. 159. ("Would Jesus be a Christian?")

I am deeply saddened to discover new vandalisms of this essay and others as men and women in uniform continue to sacrifice their lives to protect our increasingly non-existent Constitutional freedoms. I will do my best to make all necessary corrections quickly. Spacing of the works listed below has also been affected. The names of some scholars have been altered as insults or threats.

Primary Sources -- Writings by Guevara:

Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Marx & Engels: A Biographical Introduction (New York: London Press, 2008), entirety. http://www.oceanbooks.com.au/
Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Our America and Theirs: Kennedy and the Alliance for Progress -- The Debate at Punta del Este (New York: Ocean Press, 2006), especially "Economics Cannot be Separated From Politics." http://www.oceanbooks.com.au/
Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Che Guevara Speaks (London & New York: Pathfinder, 1967), entirety. Ernesto "Che" Guevara, El Socialismo y el Hombre Nuevo (Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno, 1977), pp. 3-27.
Anthony Lane, "Che's Way," The New Yorker, January 19, 2009, p. 72. (The actual subheading of this "review" is "Scenes From a Revolution.") No fashion tips for well-dressed revolutionaries? Fidel Castro, "Che Guevara," John Miller & Aaron Kennedi, eds., Revolution: Faces of Change (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2000), pp. 3-7.

Supplemental Sources -- Scholarship and Commentary:

Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual (New York: Vintage, 1996), entirety.
Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Random House, 1994), pp. 62-97 ("Narrative and Social Space" and "Jane Austen and Empire.")
Angela Davis, Autobiography (New York: International Publishers, 1974), entirety.
Angela Davis, Abolition Democracy: Beyond Empire, Prisons, and Torture (New York: Seven Stories, 2005), entirety. (The name of "Angela Davis" has been altered in a number of essays.)
Jurgen Habermas, The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity: 12 Lectures (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991), entirety, esp. pp. 45-50 ("Excursus on Schiller's 'Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.'")
Rick Roderick, Habermas and the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986), pp. 73-87.
Magnus Magnusson, ed., Chambers Biographical Dictionary (Edinburgh: Chambers-Harrap, 1990), p. 637.

Periodicals:

Claire Heininger & Lisa Fleischer, "$29.4 BILLION Budget Deal is Reached," in The Record, June 22, 2010, at p. A-1. (Years of mafia theft, corruption, protected child-porn and -prostitution will be paid for by the poor and disabled who suffer most from lost public services in New Jersey.)
David Johnson, "Security Net Wraps Capital For Inaugural," The New York Times, January 15, 2009, p. A1.
William Glaberson, "Torture Acknowledgment Highlights Detainee Issue," The New York Times, January 15, 2009, p. A21. (A letter was deleted from this title by Cubanoids. I have now corrected the inserted "error.")
Laurie Goodstein, "Religious Groups Seek Swift Ban From Obama on Torture," The New York Times, January 15, 2009, at p. A21.
John Leland, "Swindlers Find Growing Market in Foreclosures," The New York Times, January 15, 2009, p. A1.
David Segal & Alison Leigh Cowan, "Madoffs Shared Much; Question is How Much," The New York Times, January 15, 2009, A1. (No question mark in original headline -- irony?)

Havana Nights and C.I.A. Tapes.

2010-03-30T14:20:00.013-04:00

I. Harassment.

April 25, 2010 at 11:21 A.M. This essay was disfigured, again, by cybercriminals who (I believe) acted with the cooperation of corrupt officials in New Jersey or Florida, maybe also elsewhere in America.

March 30, 2010 at 2:26 P.M. This essay has been subjected to numerous alterations and defacements. I have experienced great difficulties in transferring the work here from elsewhere in these blogs.

March 14, 2010 at 7:47 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected, again.

December 18, 2009 at 10:07 A.M. Several essays were vandalized yesterday and today -- "Raymond Chandler and 'The Simple Art of Murder'" and "'Holy Smoke': A Movie Review." I have done my best to make all necessary corrections. I will search for additional inserted "errors" throughout the day. (Soon: "Sybil R. Moses Joins the Lesbian Love-Fest!")

October 14, 2009 at 5:40 P.M. This week dozens of essays and other writings have been vandalized or altered by Cubanoids and their mafia-political friends in Trenton. Efforts to persuade law enforcement in the U.S. to take action have been unsuccessful. I will continue to write. ("Fidel Castro's 'History Will Absolve Me.'")

Massive attacks against my computer, interference with my Internet signal, and other obstructions make it very difficult to write today. I will do my best to continue working on these essays, every day. Efforts to use my computer yesterday to purchase emergency bus tickets to see my daughter were obstructed for some reason. This was on December 18, 2009. Renewing my computer's security system may be prevented at any time. My second book will not be sent to on-line booksellers. ("How Censorship Works in America" and "Censorship and Cruelty in New Jersey.")

March 5, 2009 at 2:48 P.M. "Errors" inserted and corrected. Rumors of yet another child-porn and -prostitution ring in New Jersey are unconfirmed. Arrests are said to be "forthcoming." Enjoy your holidays, Debbie Poritz.

II. Sources.

AP, "Castro Dons Uniform in High-Profile Speech," in The Bostom Globe, September 4, 2010, at p. A3. (Fidel Castro spoke in full uniform before thousands of students at the University of Havana for 35 minutes to powerful applause from his audience. There are unconfirmed rumors that Fidel was asked about these blogs, perhaps privately, but declined to answer at this time -- except for some generous comments towards their author. I disregard all such rumors.)
Andrew Sullivan, "Dear Mr. Bush, You Approved Torture -- Only You Can Fix the Damage," in The Atlantic, October, 2008, at p. 78. (Ms. Poritz and Mr. Rabner, How does a Jew become Eichman?)
Neil A. Lewis, "Memos Reveal Scope of Power Bush Sought in Fighting Terror," in The New York Times, March 3, 2009, at p. A1.
Adam Liptak, "Finding the Facts of a Case Via Video," in The New York Times, March 3, 2009, at p. A12. (Video refutes efforts at obfuscation by proponents of police brutality.)
Mark Mazzetti, "U.S. Says C.I.A. Destroyed 92 Tapes of Interrogations," in The New York Times, March 3, 2009, at p. A16. (Cover-up by lawyers? Obstruction of justice? Lying? That's not "unethical"?)
Kirk Johnson, "Cheney Deposition Is Ordered in Lawsuit by Protester," in The New York Times, March 3, 2009, at p. A13.
Solomon Moore, "Study Shows High Cost of Criminal Corrections," in The New York Times, March 3, 2009, at p. A13.
Mark Lacey, "Castro, With Entourage, Is Spotted on Strolls in Havana," in The New York Times, March 3, 2009, at p. A8.
Mark Lacey, "U.S. Turns Off News Billboard Atop Its Mission in Havana," in The New York Times, July 28, 2009, at p. A4. (Allegations that Maurice Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy PAC, is homosexual, if true, must be deemed irrelevant to his opposition to ending the embargo against Cuba. Perhaps we should introduce Mr. Claver-Carone to Mr. Rubio?)
Ginger Thompson, "Bill in Senate Spurs Debate Over Easing Ban on Cuba," in The New York Times, March 5, 2009, at p. A12.
Simon Romero, "Peru's Ex-President is Convicted and Given 25 Years for Killings and Other Abuses," in The New York Times, April 8, 2009, at p. A8. (Mr. Fujimore enjoyed a close relationship with C.I.A. officials and the approval of former U.S. administrations.)
"Cuba: Fidel Castro Meets With U.S. Lawmakers," in The New York Times, April 8, 2009, at p. A8. (Fidel enjoyed a meeting with leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus in Cuba, despite U.S. government suggestions that Mr. Castro is dead.)
Sheryl Gay Stolberg & Damien Cave, "Loosening Cuba Restrictions, Obama Leaves the Door Ajar for More," in The New York Times, April 14, 2009, at p. A6.

III. Report.

After attacks against this essay and my blogs, I can no longer supply italics or bold script in these writings. Subsequent postings of this essay may solve this problem. Numerous distractions, viruses and cyberwarfare are always expected. Hundreds of intrusion attempts against my computer are routine, every day, and no images can be posted by me. I am denied access to my own books, one of which is suppressed. I cannot see my writings at MSN groups. My e-mails are interfered with or blocked periodically. I can only hope that my phone is tapped.

U.S. officials urge other nations to respect human rights and freedom of speech. Some day such officials will provide the same respect to dissidents within the United States of America. At any time, I may be prevented from writing further essays and these works may be destroyed. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

I hope that, some day, America will also respect freedom of speech and human rights for Americans, including those of us urging the nation to abide by the Constitution. Compare Atul Gawande, "Ordinary Torture," in The New Yorker, March 30, 2009, at p. 36 with "The Dysfunctional Human Rights Council," (Editorial) in The New York Times, April 11, 2009, at p. A16. Both Cuba and the U.S. will be seated at this "Human Rights" council. There may be important reasons for cooperation between the two countries.

" ... 'It was the Commandante,' insisted one of those who spotted him, using the nickname of Fidel Castro, the convalescing 82-year-old former president who had not been seen in public since he underwent emergency intestinal surgery in July 2006."

Several reports by Cubans and non-Cuban visitors to Havana of Fidel Castro enjoying an occasional stroll through shady neighborhoods in this charming old city seem to be confirmed. At the same time, reports of substitutions in key government positions indicate that the wily Castro brothers were "roping the dopes" in the opposition into emerging from their hiding places to reveal possibly counterrevolutionary tendencies now that the tiburon ("shark") was no longer in residence. In fact, the tiburon is picking his teeth at the moment, as usual. Some commentators predicted as much. ("The Winter of the Patriarch," July, 2006.)

"Mr. Castro's brother Raul officially took over the presidency last February, after more than a year and a half as interim leader. On Monday, Raul Castro took a big step toward putting more of his own imprint on the government, replacing or demoting several veteran leaders who had served in his brother's administration and were considered possible successors in a post-Castro Cuba."

"Among the ousted, according to an anouncement on state television, were Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, a former personal secretary to Fidel Castro, and Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodrigues, as well as numerous others."

No doubt many of these "others" are cooperating with the authorities in locating questionable elements or areas of improvement in the society. Perhaps some of these people have been playing the various sides all along. How shocking. That sounds like New Jersey or Florida, where Cubans celebrated Mr. Castro's death on the day when his retirement was anounced. Were any of the deposed officials named "Brent Schundler"? No wonder Castro consistently defeats his Cubanazo opposition. On the bright side, when Fidel passes away he will still be able to draw a salary from a public job in New Jersey. My guess is that both Castros will outlive their Miami opposition leaders. ("New Jersey is the Home of the Living Dead.")

I have met many brutal and stupid people. Among the worst specimens of humanity that I have had the misfortune to encounter, I must include the far Right-wing Cubanoid fascists from Miami and New Jersey together with their hired politicians. Any more attacks against my computer today? These Cubanoids display hostility to China because it is a Communist nation, racism, antisemitism, paranoia and genuine hatred of women not the b.s. kind of politically correct "sexism." They are ignorant and intolerant, offensive and crude, fond of censorship and brutality. I look forward to meeting them in a federal courtroom.

"A State Department spokeswoman declined to comment on what the United States government, which has declared Fidel Castro to be on his deathbed in the past" -- beginning in 1959! -- "knew about Mr. Castro's current health."

"The [$750 BILLION Stimulus Package] spending bill working its way through Congress this week has become an unlikely platform for debate about United States policy toward Cuba."

In February, 2010 we are looking at an additional $100 BILLION in deficit spending:

"The bill ... includes some provisions that would ease some travel and trade restrictions enacted under the Bush administration. These changes would effectively allow Americans with relatives in Cuba to visit more frequently and would no longer require cash in advance when agricultural products are shipped to Cuba." (emphasis added)

Cuba is not waiting for American charity. Marc Lacey, "Dreaming of Cuban Profits In a Post-Embargo World," in The New York Times, March 29, 2010, at p. A9.

"Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz says Cuba is not waiting for the Americans."

China, Russia, and most other nations of the world are already trading with Cuba. These countries are well-positioned to respond to changes in the dynamic of the Cuban Revolution in the decades to come. It is unwise for the U.S. to remain outside the Cuban trade relation, especially in light of new oil and gas reserves in Cuba as well as advances in the biogenetics field by Cubans which have received global attention.

Mr. Castro's warning concerning the dangers of a nuclear confrontation between the U.S., Israel, and Iran (which may already possess nuclear weapons) is taken very seriously by many persons in the world. Pakistan also possesses nuclear weapons and is in the midst of a meltdown of authority. It will not take much for a fundamentalist faction to acquire control of a nuclear device. This is to say nothing of the tensions in the Korean peninsula largely defused by China.

New U.S. laws will also allow for a broader definition of the kinds of products that may be sent to Cuba, eventually, including more pharmaceutical items, besides (I hope) computer and other technology. American academia should be international. We should be open to a dialogue with all who wish to study and learn with us. It is a crime that books and other essential materials pertaining to the new science of the quantum age are so difficult or impossible to find in Havana and in many other places in the world where talented young people could make use of them.

Openness and tolerance of diversity are values much praised by Castro's Cuban-American opposition. However, in practice, Cubanazos and their bought and paid-for American politicians have been anything but tolerant of political or philosophical opposition. My experience may be unique, but I am sure that some of my cyberenemies are politically-protected Cubanoids. What they hate is intelligence and independence in persons and nations. ("Babalu and Free Speech Too!" and "Miami's Cubanoids Protest AGAINST Peace!")

Sunday, April 25, 2010 at 10:04 A.M. a letter was deleted from a title in the foregoing paragraph. I have now restored that deleted letter. This level of vandalism of copyright-protected works is only possible with the cooperation of American government officials or police.

I am unable to access my MSN group because, I am told, MSN groups has "closed." Evidently, Yahoo and the Internet are about to "close." Several essays were damaged today. I will struggle to make the necessary repairs. Tell your friends that they can see cybercrime and psychological torture, every day, live and in technicolor right here. My computer's cable signal is blocked several times per day forcing me to reboot my computer and preventing my security scans.

Hostility towards my writings, as best I can determine, results from disagreement with my views and much more, I believe, because of envy of my ability to express them. Rather than argument, I seem to encounter sabotage. Luckily, I do not travel on airplanes that may be downed by a hidden bomb. I am afraid that further errors are likely to be inserted in this text at any time. ("American Hypocrisy and Luis Posada Carriles.")

Senator Bob, are you really intimidated by these gangsters? Call the F.B.I. Or are they (Right-wing Cubanoids) in the F.B.I.? ("Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?" and "Is Senator Bob 'For' Human Rights?")

"Supporters hailed the measures as a small but significant first step in changing the relationship between Washington and Havana."

The embargo and other policies dating from the early sixties -- like many of their proponents -- have failed to achieve desired objectives and may now be seen as antihumanitarian in their effects. The goal of such policies in the past was to isolate Cuba, denying wealth to the society and stifling communicative opportunities. The objective was to strangle Cuban Society. I am familiar with the use of such tactics and the ways in which they injure persons -- permanently and severely -- usually without many (or any) positive results for anyone, including their proponents. ("Time to End the Embargo Against Cuba.")

Starving children in a small island nation will not further America's foreign policy goals. Perhaps it is accurate to say that I have been subjected to an embargo. ("What is it like to be tortured?" and "What is it like to be plagiarized?")

Let me make things easy for you: I do not carry firearms. My writings are destroyed or suppressed because they are better (I think) than much of what appears in American media, even as my opinions are deemed "too controversial" to be allowed in this society. I am disbarred because I am "unethical" after being subjected to psychological tortures and other (worse) crimes, secretly. You decide who is unethical. I think New Jersey's Supreme Court and legal establishment are unethical. ("How censorship works in America" and "'Inception': A Movie Review.")

October 26, 2009 at 6:21 P.M. "Error" inserted in the foregoing paragraph and corrected. I wonder whether Senator Bob can shed any light on this mystery? Publish America? Lulu? What do you say, "Big Pappa" Menendez? ("Is Senator Menendez a Suspect in Mafia-Political Murder in New Jersey?" and "Does Senator Menendez Have Mafia Friends?")

April 25, 2010 at 11:10 A.M. Spacing was affected in the foregoing paragraph in a manner that did not exist in previous versions of this essay. I have now made the necessary correction of this inserted "error." (Please see "Memories of Underdevelopment.")

Silence is the only response from "El Bobo" Menendez. Everybody in Hudson County refers to "BobbyM" as "El Bobo" Menendez. Time to insert a few more "errors"? Cubans and other alleged "inferior" persons (like me) will not be counted when they visit my blogs. The true number of hits at these sites must be over 50,000.

Fidel Castro declined the offer of a cigar from the C.I.A. because, he explained, that smoking affects his ability to run the bases when playing stickball with his bodyguards. Meanwhile back at the ranch:

"One in every 31 adults, or 7.3 MILLION Americans is in prison, or parole or probation, at a cost to the states [this EXCLUDES federal prison costs] of $47 BILLION in 2008, according to a new study."

Many sources place the states' incarceration costs at $50 BILLION. When you factor in federal prison costs, we will approach $70 BILLION in corrections-related expenses soon. Somebody is making a lot of money. It is not the inmates. I suggest that every person in America be incarcerated in order to ensure the safety of Dick Cheney.

"As states face huge budget shortfalls, [state] prisons, which hold 1.5 MILLION adults, are driving the spending increases."

Many politicians and judges receive kickbacks based on how many "customers" they can provide for private companies or "partially private" corrections facilities. A substantial portion of these funds spent on inmates are stolen and turned into lucrative earnings for prison officials or their "cohorts," shall we say. ("Mafia Involvement in New Jersey's State Police" and "Mafia Involvement in New Jersey Courts and Politics.")

Slavery in the twenty-first century begins with incarceration. ("An Unpleasant Encounter With New Jersey's State Police.")

"One in 11 African-Americans, or 9.2 percent," the new slaves, "are under correctional control, compared with one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent) and one in 45 whites (2.2 percent). Only [emphasis added] one out of 89 women is behind bars or 'monitored,' compared with one out of 18 men." (emphasis added!)

The suggestion that is made, quite seriously, is that more women should be incarcerated. I believe that this is further evidence that women are smarter than men. At least, when women commit crimes they are less likely to be caught and sent to prison. The main reason why many women are incarcerated is because huge corporations are making lots of money from their imprisonment. A prison sentence for a woman in America also carries the near certainty of rape and daily sexual violations. This reality is known to the judges and officials sentencing women to such prison terms. Perhaps many of these persons make use of opportunities to exploit such women themselves. ("Deborah T. Poritz and Conduct Unbecoming to the Judiciary in New Jersey" and soon, "Debbie Poritz Likes the Ladies!") David Kaiser & Lovisa Stannow, "The Rape of American Prisoners," in The New York Review of Books, March 11, 2010, at p. 16. (Systematic, pervasive, widespread rape of female inmates is a fact of life in American prisons.)

Was the relationship between Diana Lisa Riccioli and Deborah T. Poritz a sexual one as Ms. Poritz was deciding matters affecting Ms. Riccioli or her victims? Did Ms. Poritz have sexual contact with Marilyn Straus (or others) while such women were rendered unconscious by Ms. Riccioli? No answer has been received to these questions. ("Trenton's Nasty Lesbian Love-Fest!" and "Jennifer Velez is a 'Dyke Magnet!'")

"Former Vice President Dick Cheney will have to give his account -- under oath, in a legal deposition -- of what happened at a Colorado ski resort in June 2006" -- Did Cheney shoot somebody again? -- "when a man stepped up to protest the Iraq war and was arrested, a federal district judge ruled Monday."

Among the criminal charges for which persons may be sent to prison is obstruction of justice and perjury, altering the transcript of a tape recorded conversation, or lying about and hiding discoverable material -- like the OAE in New Jersey does, allegedly. Right, John McGill? ("New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court" and "Law and Ethics in the Soprano State" then "New Jersey's 'Ethical Legal System.")

This would be a good time to insert an "error" in this essay, boys. An effort to scan my computer is being obstructed as I write this sentence. 13 viruses were detected (so far) today. It is not yet 3:00 P.M. Keep the attacks coming.

"The government on Monday revealed for the first time the extent of the destruction of videotapes in 2005 by the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that agency officers DESTROYED 92 videotapes of harsh interrogations of two Qaeda suspects in C.I.A. detention."

Were the videotapes backdated? Did they lie about it afterwards? The Red Cross has collected further evidence of American "doctors" -- like Terry Tuchin, perhaps -- whose last known domicile was in Ridgewood, New Jersey, participating (willingly) in torture. ("America's Unethical Medical Torturers" and "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?")

No comments concerning allegations that C.I.A. torturers have operated illegally, within the nation's borders on unspecified American citizens "suspected" of doing "something." How many of the operatives destroying videotapes are lawyers? I would be very surprised if Mumia Abu-Jamal was not subjected to interrogation under hypnosis and then told to forget the experience through post-hypnotic suggestion. ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

Diana, did you ever graduate from medical school? Did you, Diana Lisa Riccioli, graduate from any university in any profession? Are you a licensed therapist, Diana? Did you represent yourself as a "therapist" for money, Diana? Still like the girls? Even the ones that are conscious, Diana? Were you supplying sexual partners or other "assistance" to politically- or legally-powerful persons in New Jersey, Diana? "Lesbian love-fest?" Have you inserted "errors" in my writings knowing that they are copyright- and Constitutionally-protected by making use of government resources, Diana? Do you have knowledge concerning the identity of persons violating my copyright protection, Diana? "Dodi"? Danielle? Are you really with the C.I.A., Terry Tuchin? Are you a medical doctor, Terry? Does Diana "know" the Tacetta brothers? Maria Noto, Esq., do you know Diana Lisa Riccioli? How often have you, Ms. Noto, visited my sites? ("Martin Tacetta Didn't Do Nothing!")

"The criminal investigation, begun in 2008, is being led by John H. Durham, a career prosecutor from Connecticut with long experience trying organized-crime cases."

"The order to destroy the tapes was given by JOSE A. RODRIGUEZ, JR., who at the time was the head of the spy agency's clandestine service. ["a.k.a. Deuce Martinez?"] Prosecutors have spent months trying to piece together whether anyone besides Mr. Rodriguez authorized the destruction and to decide whether anyone should be indicted in the matter."

Follow the money. What the hell. That's nothing. No bid deal. Adjust. I wonder whether Mr. Rodriguez also uses the name "Deuce Martinez," or any other aliases, as per the discussion by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker? Is there a torture connection for Mr. Rodriguez?

"The secret legal opinions [Constitutionally, there should be no secret legal opinions!] issued by ... Bush administration lawyers after the Sept. 11 attacks included assertions that the president could use the nation's military within the United States to combat terrorism suspects and to conduct raids without obtaining search warrants."

Judicial opinions must not be secret because they are to be examined in terms of logic and reasoning to determine their soundness. Much the same applies to public lawyers' opinions -- as opposed to memos for a client -- in their official capacities in public office, opinions which become public documents in a democracy. YOU, the American tax payer are paying those lawyers' salaries. They work for you, as citizens and residents in this country. Government lawyers must be guided by the Constitution just like everybody else.

OAE? Who is your client, Anne Milgram, Esq.? Conflict of interest, Anne? Are you taking care of your "girls," Anne? You can't cover this up, Pamela (a.k.a. "Paula") Dow.

"... The opinions reflect a broad interpretation of [U.S.] presidential authority, asserting as well that the president could unilaterally abrogate foreign treaties, ignore any guidance from Congress in dealing with detainees suspected of terrorism, and conduct a program of domestic eavesdropping without warrants."

I wonder how many celebrities are subjected to such secret "monitoring"? Information obtained in such ways can then be sold to the gutter press by ex-operatives of intelligence agencies making a buck on the side. "Deuce Martinez"? Celebrities may never know they've been "monitored," electronically or otherwise. Easy money, right boys? Enjoy Miami Beach.

Most other countries call that dictatorship. We call it "The Imperial Presidency."