Amor Fati and the Birth of a Child

A curious thing happened when my son was born. I found I was now okay with everything that had ever happened to me--both bad and good. Doubts about decisions made, resentment over wrongs received, pain over past suffering, it all disappeared. In fact, if given the chance to do life, with all its bumps, over again, I would have chosen for it all to happen exactly the same way, for all of it led to the birth of my son.

Other choices, other events would have led to a different life, maybe one with more money, maybe a professionally more successful one--or maybe not--but in any case, a life that, from my vantage point in this life, I don’t want. I didn’t have any thoughts along those lines before my son came along, but once he did, I found this change had occurred within me.

At the time, despite having already long been an atheist, I saw something of the Christian idea of redemption in my experience, for the sacrifice of Christ on the cross is said to effect a pardon for sins past and future. The retroactive nature of what had happened was stunning.

It recently occurred to me, however, how the nature of my experience is even more precisely described by Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of amor fati. This Latin phrase literally means the love of fate and is used by Nietzsche to describe the love of everything, not just the good, that happens. Furthermore, you don’t just tolerate the bad, you love it, you love it all:

“Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained and entwined together, all things are in love; if ever you wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: ‘You please me, happiness, instant, moment!’ then you wanted everything to return! You wanted everything anew, everything eternal, everything chained, entwined together, everything in love, O that is how you loved the world . . . ” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

As the above passage makes clear, Nietzsche’s concept of amor fati is closely linked to that of eternal recurrence: the belief that everything that happens will happen again and again in exactly the same way for eternity. An analysis of eternal recurrence isn’t necessary here, we only need note that you want the good moments to come again, and that means affirming the not-so-good moments tangled with them.

Have I ever said yes to one joy? Yes. When my son was born. And there have been many moments with him since that are, as they say, worth the world, moments that I would love to have come twice, or thrice, or countless times for infinity. And that means wanting everything that led to those moments and everything that stems from them.

Constantly holding on to this love of all amidst the daily grind is not easy, probably not even possible, but despite it all, the world has granted me a wonderful blessing that makes it possible in the precious moments to assert and truly believe that I live in the best of all possible worlds.

 

 

Two Narratives, Both Alike In Dignity--The Cover of Teen Titans #1

Something that keeps getting forgotten in the culture wars is how one and the same work, and even individual signs within a work, can be interpreted in exactly opposite ways.

Former DC Comics editor Janelle Asselin tore into the cover of Teen Titans #1 in a recent post on Comic Book Resources. She criticizes cover artist Kenneth Rocafort’s grasp of anatomy, perspective, design, and even signature placement. She also criticizes publisher DC Comics for not understanding the Teen Titan fanbase and potential markets. Along the way, a great deal of text is dedicated to what she considers the cover’s poor social sensibilities. Why does the teenage Wonder Girl have breasts the size of her head and the shape of implants? Why is she wearing a top that she’s going to fall out of the first time a supervillain sneezes? Why is Bunker, who is Mexican, so far in the background?

As is only to be expected, some people did not agree and spoke out. Those people included Teen Titans interior artist Brett Booth (tweets here), comic book fans who felt Asselin’s critique was overwrought, and men who express disagreement through rape threats. Also as only to be expected, a vigorous defense was mounted on Asselin’s behalf (an example).

Many of Asselin’s points are fine enough with me, but let’s look at the cover again. Why doesn’t she praise Rocafort for putting a female Teen Titan in the center, a position that indicates leadership and commands attention? Why doesn’t she compliment the fact that the Teen Titans have a person of color in their group at all? Bunker is indeed in the back, but he’s also hovering above everyone and noticeable at a glance. Why charge DC with being resistant to targeting diverse audiences, when only one of the five pictured Teen Titans is a white male (two if you count Beast Boy who is now green)?

Asselin does mention some of the aspects of the cover I have just highlighted, but she does not say anything positive about them. They merely come up in passing as part of a stream of insults. Why choose to put this particular spin on the cover? Because one narrative has been chosen at the exclusion of another.

 

A few more examples of opposing narratives:

 

If Jared Leto plays a trans woman and wins accolades (Dallas Buyers Club), does this show Hollywood’s willingness to embrace alternate lifestyles? Or because Leto himself isn’t transgender, does it show that trans people are still marginalized?

If Avril Lavigne uses Japanese backup dancers in a music video shot in Japan (“Hello Kitty”), is she using her dancers as props in an act of cultural appropriation? Or is she showing respect for her fans in Japan?

If DC Comics introduces a Muslim Green Lantern, is this mere tokenism? Or is this a move to include a minority in a medium traditionally geared toward white men?

What determines which narrative one chooses?

Narratives stitch together certain facts at the exclusion of others, projecting a version of the truth that is incomplete. Some narratives will be better grounded in fact than others, some more rigorous in their logic, and some offered in better faith. Some will be really bad: erroneous, ill-reasoned and deceptive. But here we have cases in which both narratives make reasonable claims based on a shared work of art.

Is it not possible to grapple with all the narratives? To negotiate them? To navigate them? If those prone to one-sided harangues have done so, they do not act like it. They do not write like it. Instead, they give every sign of a predisposition choosing, driving, their narrative. The same lack of critical thought is occurring throughout public discourse on nearly every issue. Everyone begins with a narrative. They’re just looking for a new excuse, a new stimulus, to begin laying it down.

What keeps amazing me is that the people who should know better, the educated bloggers and other critics who speak the language of postmodernism, are little better than their worst opponents at this level. They know better in theory, but their behavior, their tone, is that of the self-righteous who are certain they possess The Truth. One would think the only thing they learned from intersubjectivity is that their subjectivity is right.

Which is to say they haven’t really learned anything at all.

Asselin presents a compelling narrative--a selective take on a Teen Titans cover--but other narratives no less compelling or grounded in the same material are possible. The same plurality of responsible interpretations is available in many of the issues of our day. Surely most of us can recognize that and stitch together multiple threads into a broader tapestry?

The Impotent and the Potent, Part 4—In Which the Android Sings

(continued from "In Which Zarathustra Spake")

One big problem with adherents of reactionary worldviews like that of Return of Kings is that their definition of themselves comes with a definition of others. Men must be masculine according to certain rules and women must be feminine according to certain rules. Norms of their choosing are to be imposed.

There is no room in this for a boy who decides to wear a dress to school. I remember watching Robert Smith of The Cure describe on Later . . . with Jools Holland the ridicule he faced when he did just that. I found the anecdote fascinating and respected him all the more because of his bravery. A world without Robert Smith, without The Cure, without men who wear mascara, is a poorer one. The same could be said for many of the world’s great artists, scientists and thinkers--as well as nonfamous folk--who don’t conform to their time’s or culture’s idea of masculinity or femininity and who in many cases bestowed their particular beauty on the world precisely because of that refusal.

 

To return to Nietzsche, while he spoke of the Übermensch, Kaufmann says he also spoke of the Normalmensch, the sick creature that results from conformity. I’m no follower of Nietzsche--his thought isn’t a system to be followed anyway--but I do believe that individuals are happier in a pluralistic climate and that pluralistic societies are healthier as a whole. America isn’t at the forefront of creating more open and inclusive societies, but it is making progress, and that’s what puts The Fear in male chauvinists. Their egos can’t handle a world that doesn’t spin around their phallus.

Sometimes, people such as myself who make a point of visibly griping are criticized for devoting too much attention to numbskulls, thereby generating interest in their causes and even making the feeble and unknown into the strong and famous. I have a nagging feeling that such criticism may be just in this case. The worst of the manosphere is unworthy of attention.

And yet, if someone doesn’t speak against the numbskulls, they will overrun the marketplace. In thinking about this, I keep coming back to alternative soul artist Janelle Monáe. From what I know of her life, her talent, and her values, she seems to be particularly skilled at self-creation of the sort Nietzsche might approve, going so far as to reinvent and portray herself as an android. Her song “Cold War,” suggests there is a fight to be fought, at the very least through moral example:

 

 

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 )

The Impotent and the Potent, Part 3—In Which Zarathustra Spake

(continued from “In Which the Übermensh Has a Pair")

 I wrote the preceding passage about the Übermensh based on fairly extensive reading of Nietzsche and secondary sources in my free time years ago. To make sure the years hadn’t introduced a swerve to my understanding of the material, I went back and reviewed, adding in some unread material I’d been dying to get to, and I was surprised to find that the emphasis on self-improvement in Nietzsche as well as scholarship about his writing is much stronger even than I remembered.

Consider this from Walter Kaufmann’s classic introduction Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist:

“It was not the military or political successes [of Caesar] that Nietzsche looked to, but the embodiment of the passionate man who controls his passions: the man who, in the face of universal disintegration and licentiousness, knowing this decadence as part of his own soul, performs his unique deed of self-integration, self-creation, and self-mastery.”

Also from Kaufmann, and simply put:

“Tyranny over others is not part of Nietzsche’s vision.”

But the real meat is always in the primary sources. One of my favorite concepts from Nietzsche is giving style to oneself:

“One thing is needed. – ‘To give style’ to one’s character – a great and rare art! He exercises it who surveys all that his nature presents in strength and weakness and then moulds it to an artistic plan until everything appears as art and reason, and even the weaknesses delight the eye. . . . It will be the strong, imperious natures which experience their subtlest joy in exercising such control, in such constraint and perfecting under their own law . . . ” (from The Gay Science)

And more, this from “Of the Way of the Creator” in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

“Can you furnish yourself with your own good and evil and hang up your own will above yourself as a law? Can you be judge of yourself and avenger of your law? It is terrible to be alone with the judge and avenger of one’s own law. It is to be like a star thrown forth into empty space and into the icy breath of solitude.”

That’s true potency and it’s hard work and it has nothing to do with telling others who to be. Calls for a return to a past order that marginalizes those who don’t easily slot into that order are the whimperings of impotents. Real men, the man of the future, the manly man, the alpha dog, and so forth should be so grounded in themselves that other people behaving differently is not a threat, but a reason to celebrate.

 

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 )

 

 

The Impotent and the Potent, Part 2—In Which the Übermensh Has a Pair

(continued from “In Which the Manosphere Needs a Pair”)

 

Return of Kings does, of course, deny misogyny. Yet the eight key beliefs themselves define women in terms that many women simply do not want for themselves and that is a big problem. No one gets to decide for others what their sex or gender roles should be, with whom they should sleep, or where their value primarily comes from. Threatened by a world in which their worldview is losing, they make up a code for reality whereby they are the rightful winners. Instead of Return of Kings, they should name their website Return to Infancy, where instead of a scepter, every man wields a baby's rattle.

To be clear, I am not saying there is anything wrong with being a man or woman who exemplifies, respectively, masculinity or femininity as traditionally defined. Nor am I saying that all arguments by feminists, gay rights advocates, etc. are above criticism. But Return of Kings makes it clear that there is a specific and very limited order to which people should conform, and for this I have only condemnation.

Also to be clear, I’m still exploring the manosphere as I write this. It appears that not all aspects of it are as backwards as Return of Kings. Poking around the Internet, I ran across this post by Kid Strangelove via Manosphere.com that isn’t all bad. The post raises ways traditional and emerging social practices adversely and unfairly affect men. Apparently, other environs in the manosphere skip the social commentary and agon in favor of simply celebrating traditionally masculine fashion, sports, etc. If you simply must participate, be vigilant. Compared to the darkness of Return of Kings, Maxim looks positively enlightened.

My advice to men threatened by powerful women, gay men and others who unsettle them is to improve themselves. Self-improvement already appears to be a big part of the manosphere’s philosophy, but the focus is often on getting “game” and it comes with an awful lot of hate: slut-shaming, fat-shaming, homophobia, etc. These would-be kings have discovered, as have many before them, that one of the easiest ways to feel good about oneself is to insult others. 

Even though Friedrich Nietzsche was not addressing gender roles when he formulated his idea of the Übermensh, I feel like it is instructive here. Übermensh is often translated as superman or overman. It designates a particular type of superior individual, which has unfortunately made it an attractive concept to every jackass looking for an authority to tell him he is better than everyone else.

The problem for those who use the idea of the Übermensh in this way is that the overman is defined by the strength to overcome him or herself. The Übermensh is so superior due to this ability to grow as a person that he or she does not need to lord it over anyone. In fact, as soon as you begin to do so, you immediately lose the right. If you would be über, my dear Mensch, then you must master thyself and look no further.

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 )

The Impotent and the Potent, Part 1—In Which the Manosphere Needs a Pair

While reading about Elliot Rodger’s killing spree in Santa Barbara, California last month, I ran across a male empowerment website called Return of Kings, and it has occupied my thoughts since. The “About” page begins with a brief statement of the online community’s focus:

“Return of Kings is a blog for heterosexual, masculine men. It’s meant for a small but vocal collection of men in America today who believe men should be masculine and women should be feminine.”

The page goes on to explicitly state that “women and homosexuals” are forbidden from participating in the online forum. Then eight key beliefs are presented. They include the following:

“2. Women are sluts if they sleep around, but men are not. This fact is due to the biological differences between men and women.”

“6. A woman’s value is mainly determined by her fertility and beauty. A man’s value is mainly determined by his resources, intellect, and character.”

“7. Elimination of traditional gender roles and the promotion of unlimited mating choice in women unleashes their promiscuity and other negative behaviors that block family formation.”

The Return of Kings response to Rodger’s killing spree was a misogynist screed. The article by Roosh V, who runs the website, is oblivious to its own contradictions, shaming women who have “experienced more than a dozen different penises in her vagina, anus, and mouth” in one paragraph, and elsewhere encouraging lonely men like Elliot Rodger to solve their problems by going out to get some.

The worldview represented by Return of Kings is so wrong on so many levels that it’s fascinating. As is often the case with pernicious ideologies, it bases its narrative around a few ideas that most people would generally agree with (men and women are biologically different, animals have different sex roles, family is good, etc.) and branches out from there to far-reaching claims that exalt a chosen group while demeaning others. The appearance of it all simply following from a few common-sense premises will fool some people.

My only previous encounter with male empowerment was through Tom Cruise’s character in the film Magnolia. How humorous, I thought. How sad. In psychoanalytic terms, the more vicious members of the manosphere feel impotent in the face of modern values and react by claiming omnipotence. The symbolic order of their world is crumbling around them through increasingly open social schemes, so they desperately try to place themselves back at the center of the universe. Unfortunately for them, however, nothing could be more indicative of lacking a pair than running around, shaking your balls at everyone and shouting “Look at these!”

 

( 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 )

 

 

 

From Casino Royale to Skyfall: Perfect Imperfection

I remember hearing someone say years ago that many great beauties have a flaw that sets them apart. The example given at the time was Marilyn Monroe and her mole. I think something similar applies to art: a work’s imperfection can also be what perfects it. I was reminded of this recently while reviewing the three James Bond films starring Daniel Craig.

Casino Royale (2006) brought back the 007 franchise just when I had written it off. It features a high-stakes Texas Hold’em staredown between Bond and Le Chiffre, a man who badly needs money to pay some terrorists so they won’t kill him. Bond wins, and some violence ensues. Then, just when the movie should end, it continues, languidly and saccharinely exploring Bond’s love affair with the lovely Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), before launching into some action amid crumbling and sinking architecture in Venice.

 

 

The movie has an act too many, making it too long and a little disjointed. This is the movie’s only flaw worth mentioning, and it is exactly what makes Casino Royale flawless. Bond’s romance with Vesper gives his character depth it has lacked since . . . forever. The final events of the movie become the core of Bond’s character for the rest of the trilogy, as well as the video game Quantum of Solace. The longer running time with more serious themes than Bond aficionados are used to gives the movie its heft and heart.

 

 

The main flaw of the film Quantum of Solace (2008) is how light it feels compared to its predecessor. It’s significantly shorter, lacks a meaningful love interest, and at first glance goes little deeper than a standard Bond plot. Again, however, it is this flaw that makes the movie work. When I first saw Quantum of Solace, I liked its fast pace, brevity and relative simplicity--all recommendable for an action film. These aspects of the film work even better now that the trilogy is complete. Many successful series grow ungainly in their second installment, but Quantum of Solace is a sleek centerpiece to its weightier bookends.

Skyfall (2012) on its own is so perfect that at first it seems to lack the necessary imperfection. However, it has one foot in pre-Craig territory, and many fans have had more of that than they can stomach. Skyfall serves up, albeit with improved taste, many old tropes--a freakish villain, overblown action, sex but no love, witty banter with Q, etc.--until it begins to look and feel a lot like the film franchise’s first decade, not its sixth.

But that’s the point, isn’t it?  These homages to the earlier years reground the franchise in its roots while at the same time plotting a course for future films. The real frisson of Skyfall comes from the knowledge that the trilogy it concludes was--for all its grit, style and grandeur--no more than a prequel to the Bond films of decades past and future. We finish the film with the promise that Bond is just beginning, and this would not be possible without the new direction that Skyfall takes away from the two movies that preceded it.

No doubt Marilyn Monroe the real person would have been beautiful without her mole, but the point of the example I began with is clear: in aesthetics, a flaw may be what makes perfect. So it is with the Daniel Craig reboot of Bond: Each film has a blemish that makes it better than it would be without it.

Daniel Craig has been hailed as the best Bond since Sean Connery by many, as the best Bond ever by some, and the movies set box office records for the franchise and received critical acclaim. Despite having grown up watching the series, the last three movies are the only ones that engage me today--and all because of how imperfect they are.