"Also-Ran"

The philosopher Hegel - following in the wake of Hobbes/Rousseau I should add - is famous for giving us the "master-slave" dialectic - a  theoretical "description" of how people in subordinate social roles gradually gain "recognition" and/or clout over the course of many toilsome centuries. To make a long story short, the slave's inherent work-ethic and burgeoning self-awareness gradually (as in very very slowly) win out over the master's complacency, lethargy and arrogance. The master learns (albeit reluctantly and usually at the end of his rule) that he's no greater than the slave, having depended on him/her (for services, for applause) all along; the slave, having already affirmed the master's full merit as a  human being, acting under compulsion, no doubt, yet still buying into the master's ideology,  learns to value his or her own worth, becomes the master's equal in the face of a mortality that each must fall victim to - so much so that the master (or ruling elite) can no longer maintain credibility with the masses he wants to subjugate. This is not the be-all-and-end-all of what Hegel has to say on the matter - and does not solve the problem entirely - precisely because when society as a whole finally comes around to recognizing the basic worth of every individual and the absolute wisdom (there's no going back...) of "equality under law," questions inevitably arise as to how to explain or justify the persistence of any remaining social inequities - the most important of which (for Hegel at least) would be disparities in social status. (In other words, the rhetoric gets perfected, old prejudices cannot show their face in public, but people continue to operate within the old pattern of things, leading to a ghostly hierarchy of sorts.) But this rift between rhetoric (equality) and reality (hierarchy) while signaling more subtle forms of exclusion, also ushers in new complaints and  demands.  The challenge for  modern "legislators' - both office-holders and opinion-makers - becomes that of promoting a system wherein everyone shall be sufficiently recognized (whatever that means) for their specific merits and contributions - to the common good, even if formal differences in wealth, education, power remain and (if we're being really honest here) can never be fully eradicated ... which brings me to the problem of the "also-ran" or modern-day "cubicle dweller" for lack of a better term. Theoretically, this person knows and feels that he or she is the equal of anyone else,* the standard-bearer and "judge" for what counts as "worth-while." Without this "average reasonable person's" tastes and opinions, presumably, the whole system would not be what it is. But the judge does not always receive affirmation for being one "participant" among many others, who nevertheless makes up the conglomerate of public opinion; the judge no doubt feels slighted that other, more "successful types"  (in whatever field) are busy reaping perks and prizes! The judge is out there, shopping, browsing, selecting, approving, buying, opining, posting, blogging, going online for some semblance of affirmation... And yet... even with a "celebrity-conscious" culture that prides itself on handing out numerous awards to an endless stream of talents and behaviors, it is on one level not surprising yet (rhetorically) somewhat shocking that millions still feel left out of the equation. These multitudes (myself, ourselves) have no recourse but to live vicariously through casting our votes ("I like this, I like that," "I shop here, I prefer brand X....") through judging (en masse), choosing among, deciding upon beverages, commodities, travel locales, fly-by-night media stars and otherwise bearing the burden of anonymity in the shadow of THAT constant stream of publicity out there, whispering incessantly ("Look who's more successful than you...").  Strange that the more outlets there are for acclaim or recognition on a local level, the more upsetting it becomes not to garner any sort of official status from said accomplishment in whatever field! (You may have done it, but that was in Pittsburgh. You may have won the title, but that was LAST season.)  Thus, for readers of Hegel, it's hard not to scratch our heads and wonder at what has happened apres le deluge with everyone technically pronounced free and equal so many years ago.  The rhetoric by itself - that  hyper-abundance of cultural self-awareness that is here to stay- was supposed to usher in some sort of golden age... right (?) ....a feeling of equity, a classless society with minimal hangups, yet having emerged from the epochs of slavery, into this era of middle class ascendancy, do people in general feel that much more affirmed for their labors? I wonder...

*= I admit I'm getting a lot of this from The Revolt of the Masses by Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Samuel Johnson - Prose Stylist

"The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous; yet fame, power, and riches are only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity, dependance, and poverty of greater numbers. This universal and incessant competition produces injury and malice by two motives, interest and envy; the prospect of adding to our possessions what we can take from others, and the hope of alleviating the sense of our disparity by lessening others, though we gain nothing to ourselves." - from Samuel Johnson's, The Rambler,  #183

from "Church Going" by Philip Larkin

...A shape less recognizable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for whom was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognised, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

Mercutio's Curse

Wondering about those final lines of Mercutio...

Help me into some house, Benvolio,

Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!

They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,

And soundly too: your houses!

What is it about each household exactly that Mercutio's character takes issue with - aside from the fact that their feud got him killed? (Yes, I know I should mention that.) If, for example, the Capulets are demonstrably the more violent, honor-conscious clan (consider Gregory and Sampson at the beginning of the play, the fights that Tybalt starts or brings down upon himself, Papa Capulet's mercurial wrath and rash threats of "disowning" his daughter ("Out, baggage!"), Juliet's willful defiance of  her parents' wishes and fierce denunciation of Paris, the fact that Juliet stabs herself at the end) then the Montagues, their foil, could be described, by contrast, as the dreamy pleasure-seekers,  flighty, fickle, restless, impulsive, intense but not bellicose, hedonists extraordinaire - except for the fateful moment when Romeo is forced, one could say, out of guilt, out of loyalty, to avenge Mercutio's death. (Interesting that he should feel this imperative on a par with his own love for Juliet...) But with Romeo and Juliet paired off so problematically - even from the outset!- (despite our sympathies for their them), is it not Mercutio's role in the play, even if he be ignorant of R&J as a couple, to show Romeo some third-option of comportment, that he himself embodies beyond what is offered by the Capulets and the Montagues,  (mindless honor-seeking/languorous pleasure-seeking) and if so, would not such a path prove somewhat incompatible with these two options?  Mercutio - passionate as he is - seems at odds with where these passions lead. His remedy is humor, ridicule and games,  yet these are not necessarily intended to help him stay out of danger. On the contrary, he relishes his role as gadfly and antagonist. He ends up dueling with Tybalt! And perhaps he IS in love with someone... But, no doubt, he views these involvements as partial and problematic while holding out for something "other" - more thoughtful, more philosophical. This may seem like quite a stretch, but I see Mercutio as the forerunner to Lear's fool - standing apart from the enthusiasms that surround him, but  not entirely free of their influence. His mind remains invulnerable, but alas, not his body.

Emily Bronte - Prose Artist

Emily Bronte

One family - three great prose artists - and one brother. How does that happen?

The Bronte Myth by Lucasta Miller

Georg Lukacs' Theory of the Novel

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"The contingent world and the problematic individual are realities which mutually determine one another. If the individual is unproblematic, then his aims are given to him with immediate obviousness, and the realization of the world constructed by these given aims may involve hindrances and difficulties, but never any serious threat to his interior life. Such a threat arises only when the outside world is no longer adapted to the individual's ideas and the ideas become subjective facts - ideals - in his soul. The positing of ideas as unrealizable and, in the empirical sense, as unreal, i.e. their transformation into ideals, destroys the immediate, problem-free organic nature of the individual. Individuality then becomes an aim unto itself because it finds within itself everything that is essential to it and that makes its life autonomous - even if what it finds can never be a firm possession of as the basis of its life, but is [only] the object of a search." - Georg Lukacs - Theory of the Novel