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The origins of totalitarianism (1951)

A slog of a book, with prophetic flashes. Here’s one.

“I would annex the planets if I could.” Cecil Rhodes said this. Arendt comments (ch. 5):
The imperialist-minded businessman, whom the stars annoyed because he could not annex them, realized that power organized for its own sake would beget more power. When the accumulation of capital had reached its natural, national limits, the bourgeoisie understood that only with an “expansion is everything” ideology, and only with a corresponding power-accumulating process, would it be possible to set the old motor into motion again. At the same moment, however, when it seemed as though the true principle of perpetual motion had been discovered, the specifically optimistic mood of the progress ideology was shaken. Not that anybody began to doubt the irresistibility of the process itself, but many people began to see what had frightened Cecil Rhodes: that the human condition and the limitations of the globe were a serious obstacle to a process that was unable to stop and to stabilize, and could therefore only begin a series of destructive catastrophes once it had reached its limits. …

By “Victory or Death,” the Leviathan can indeed overcome all political limitations that go with the existence of other peoples and can envelop the whole earth in its tyranny. But when the last war has come and every man has been provided for, no ultimate peace is established on earth: the power-accumulating machine, without which continual expansion would not have been achieved, needs more material to devour in its never-ending process. If the last victorious Commonwealth cannot proceed to “annex the planets,” it can only proceed to destroy itself in order to begin anew the never-ending process of power generation.
There it is: why Elon Musk wants to colonize space and destroy the U.S. government.

I’d say “there in brief,” only it could be briefer.

I have a friend, a Trump/​Musk fanboy, who says he needs the “CliffsNotes” version whenever he’s directed to an explanation of why Trump/​Musk’s actions are illegal, repugnant, not in the country’s best interest, and so on. Usually I want to say: Just read the article (the legal document, etc.).

But I admit we need CliffsNotes for Arendt.

Here’s my own summary and application – not so brief, alas, but with plainer language.

It used to be that businessmen driven to make wealth from wealth didn’t involve themselves in national politics. (Arendt goes on about this at length.) If the government kept things stable enough for business, businessmen didn’t care who ruled the country. But countries are too small. Eventually, businessmen would use up their countries’ resources and saturate their countries’ markets. So they couldn’t indefintely keep growing their businesses at home. They’d have to go elsewhere.

Businessmen tried speculating abroad as private agents, but conditions proved too risky – too unstable. So they brought in their countries’ armies to guarantee stability. (And a leg up – although I don’t recall Arendt saying this; anyway, she doesn’t emphasize it.) Deploying armies required businessmen to involve themselves in governing their own countries as well as the new lands where they did business. So, eventually, businessmen came to dominate the business of governing (in no small part, by promoting the myth that businessmen are the best rulers). But, eventually, they’d run into trouble with other countries (ruled by their businessmen). Besides, the planet was too small. Country-scale problems of exhaustion and saturation were bound to recur on a global scale; as it’s shrewdly noted on James Bond’s familial coat-of-arms, “the world is not enough.” So, one “Bond villain,” Musk – possibly with Rhodes’s words in mind, Rhodes having been a big cheese in Musk’s home of southern Africa – tried colonizing other planets. But that was stupid. So, instead, he just took over the world’s most powerful government and destroyed as much of it and the rest of the globe as he could so that he could get more wealth for himself doing what governments used to do. This was less stupid, insofar as it profited him (tabulation is ongoing), but it sure was petulant, and the casualties were enormous.

I want to stress that I’m not endorsing ideas, just formulating them.

1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 85: To die for

A few years ago, I put on I, Tonya (2017) and then quickly turned it off. I couldn’t stomach its “mocumentary” format. A respectful reassessment of Tonya Harding was then in vogue. I’d been impressed by ESPN’s documentary about the figure skater.

I’m not sure if I, Tonya tries to portray Harding’s life any more accurately than, say, Amadeus portrays the life of Mozart. What I am sure of – now – is that stylistically and thematically, I, Tonya is a re-hash of To Die For (1995).

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To Die For isn’t about Tonya Harding, but elements of that movie nod to the Harding-Kerrigan scandal as it was interpreted in the 1990s – i.e., as a specimen of:

(a) ruthless feminine ambition (to take the lurid perspective);

(b) journalistic sensationalism (to take the sober, critical perspective).

(See, e.g., the second verse of Weird Al’s song “Headline News,” which expresses both perspectives.)

To Die For’s source is a 1992 novel by Joyce Maynard. The novel draws from the real-life murder of Gregg Smart by his wife, Pamela.

However, To Die For and the Harding-Kerrigan case do share certain themes. These include:

(a) personal ambition;

(b) the sleaze of media producers, subjects, and consumers;

and

(c) violence performed over long distance.

Imagery is shared, too: especially, ice and ice-skating.

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“First impressions in one word?” says rough-edged figure skater Janice Maretto (Illeana Douglas) when asked to describe her sister-in-law, Suzanne Stone (Nicole Kidman). “Four letters. Begins with ‘C’: Cold. C⁠-⁠O⁠-⁠L-⁠D.” Janice looks directly at the camera. One gathers that she’s being interviewed for a documentary about Suzanne and that Suzanne has acquired a certain notoriety.

Other characters, including Suzanne, are “interviewed” during the movie, but it isn’t always clear whether it’s for the same “project” or even whether it’s during this life or the afterlife. It isn’t clear whether Suzanne herself is alive or dead.

Her husband, Larry (Matt Dillon) – Janice’s brother – is definitely dead. The movie recounts Suzanne’s role in his demise. It blends “interviews,” other TV footage, and straightforward narrative. The blend disorients, but that’s on purpose.

The general outline is simple enough: ambitious young wife tires of husband, regards him as career obstacle, plots his murder, is found out.

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There’s more to it. The murder isn’t just Suzanne’s means to a career.

No, what’s distinctive about Suzanne – her tragic flaw, if someone so hollow can have one – is her craving for attention. She wants a career in broadcasting because it’s a way to be seen.

The wrinkle is that she’s unable to supress that craving in order to obtain greater exposure in the long run. She has to be noticed at every step. It’s a compulsion.

When she gets a job forecasting the weather for the local cable channel, she inundates her boss (Wayne Knight) with suggestions about how to run the station.
Boss: “Well, Suzanne, I sure pity the person who says ‘no’ to you.”

Suzanne: “No one ever does.”
She recruits three youths to feature in her self-publicizing documentary about the lives of high schoolers. She does more than interview and film them. She becomes their after-school companion. Soon she’s hanging out with them in shopping malls, giving them weight-loss and career advice, trying on clothes in front of them. Training them to depend on her, adore her, gawk at her, hang on her every word.

Her posse consists of three losers: Lydia (Alison Folland), Russell (Casey Affleck), and Jimmy (Joaquin Phoenix). They’re the best thing about the movie. Director Gus Van Sant is on his surest footing here, sympathizing with troubled youth. Phoenix’s performance, especially, is a slam-dunk. It’s as if a dismal cartoon teenager from Beavis and Butt-Head acquired flesh and blood, became a Real Boy. Suzanne soon has Jimmy wrapped around her finger. She plays him against the other two.


Then she coaxes them to murder her husband.

Why? Why not kill him herself? Why involve these sad, incompetent children? Not because Suzanne is a criminal mastermind, but because it’s compulsive for her to play to an audience. Why bother to become a murderer if no one is there to see it?

Lydia, in an interview, explains:
Suzanne used to say that you’re not really anybody in America unless you’re on TV … ’cause what’s the point of doing anything worthwhile if there’s nobody watching? So when people are watching, it makes you a better person. So if everybody was on TV all the time, everybody would be better people.
Then, touchingly, Lydia adds:
But, if everybody was on TV all the time, there wouldn’t be anybody left to watch, and that’s where I get confused.
It’s like someone near the bottom of a pyramid scheme dimly realizing it’s a pyramid scheme.

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But hey, Lydia is on TV, isn’t she? She has made it, hasn’t she? And doesn’t almost everyone in this story appear on TV?

There are a couple of very weird scenes – whether they take place in this world or in the next one, I’m not sure – in which Suzanne’s and Larry’s families answer questions together, for a talk show, in front of a studio audience. Despite the tragedy that has brought them there – that ought to pit them against each other – the families are convivial. They even seem mildly pleased to be interviewed. Could it be that although these ordinary citizens lack Suzanne’s obsessiveness, they share her basic philosophy: that what really matters is to be seen? That, unspeakably, the destruction of Larry and Suzanne is a blessing for them? That scraps of recognition are worth people dying for? If this is so, then the movie indicts not only the outrageous, cartoonish Suzanne, but ordinary people as well, in fact an entire society.

Re-post re: Dorothy Sayers

Forgive this lazy entry, but it’s late and this has been a rough day. Here’s an entry by somebody else: Alan Jacobs, who is writing a biography of Dorothy Sayers that I very much look forward to reading.

And here is some music.



War plans; an inauspicious debut

From The Atlantic. If you can access it, read it. It describes shocking security breaches, callous disregard for human life, reckless emoji use, etc. Also shocking (but not surprising) is the current administration’s hatred of … Europe. Someone should force the Vice President and his cronies to turn off their phones, sit still, and watch some alluring travel videos by Rick Steves. …

This has been the wildest news story of the week.

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I take it back. Wilder, if less consequential, was Ecuador’s decision to start 17-year-old Darwin Guagua against Chile tonight. The boy hadn’t even debuted at the senior level for Independiente del Valle, his club.

The soccer federation appears to be trying to show off young Ecuadorian players so that European clubs will buy them. Federation officials probably are cutting backroom deals with local clubs and then pressuring the national team’s coach to field certain players.

Guagua had been about to enter Friday’s game as a late substitute. But when the Venezuelans scored, our coach, Sebastián Beccacece, left him on the bench. So, tonight, Guagua got to start. (I doubt it was what Beccacece wanted.)

The Chileans ate Guagua alive. We effectively ceded our left flank to them for half of the game.

Apart from that, our performance was … good. Kind of awesome. Unbalanced though we were, we contained the Chileans until halftime and dominated them afterward. The result was a goalless draw. Enner put the ball into the net but was narrowly offside.

We remain in second place. No other team gained ground on us this week, except Argentina.

Incidentally, guagua, in the indigenous and European languages of the Andes, means baby.

The case against living in las Malvinas

… a.k.a. the Falklands.


Argentina came within a point of qualifying for the World Cup, defeating Uruguay, who fell in the standings. Ecuador rose to second place. We’d dropped to fifth because Brazil and Paraguay won their games; but then we beat Venezuela, 2–1, in what should have been a cakewalk but became rather fraught when Venezuela scored.

Enner scored twice for Ecuador but missed a penalty kick, as is his way. Other outstanding players were midfielder Pedro Vite and goalkeeper Hernán Galíndez. The latter dislocated his finger; Pervis pulled it back into place.

Five games remain for each team. We’ll play on Tuesday, in Santiago. The Chileans are last.

Karin took Samuel to the emergency room last night because we worried that he had appendicitis. He didn’t, thank goodness. Today we’re all much happier.