Back to Basics

The last few weeks have been difficult. And to make matters worse, I haven't been reading nearly enough. Reading is one of the few comforts, particularly at this moment of uncertainty and pandemic-related chaos. I'm hoping to delve into Sei Shonagon's famous collection of anecdotes and musings soon, while also having time to enjoy a French sci-fi comic book series. Augustine's Confessions was not quite working for me, possibly due to it being more of a spiritual conversion narrative rather than an autobiography. I still have to consider tackling classics like Moby Dick and the complete translation of Tale of Genji, as well as a plethora of other novels. Indeed, Delany's Empire Star has been on the list as I need to continue reading science fiction. So, in our solitude, let us try to find solace in the company of literature. Less screen time, fewer obsessive "research" pursuits, and more reading.

A Wasted Week...?

Le Philanthrope and the 171 liberated captives

A lack of focus will really take its toll on your life. The last week has mostly been wasted on various little projects while attempting to deal with health problems. Instead of reading at least 2 or 3 books, I was obsessively pursuing genealogical "research" and some "historical" topics of interest. So, instead of the usual rant one would expect from this blog, this post is a short update on what has transpired over the course of the last 7 days. 

The first project, the genealogical one, is long-term and requires more documents and interviews with older relatives before anything can be confirmed. Nonetheless, it was a learning experience to comb through digitized Haitian marriage and birth records, endeavoring to decipher one name or letter in the ornate cursive of the past. Without consulting some of the older cousins of my grandparents, I cannot narrow down exactly who my great-great-grandparents were from the legible marriage and birth records. Nonetheless, I have learned exactly what part of the province we hail from and more details about Bainet's colonial and post-independence history. Talking with older relatives revealed even more surprises, such as my god-mother being present at my great-grandmother's funeral. We really take our elders for granted, even though they are a treasure trove of information, details, and stories of the past. 

As for the other project, it is a long-term one that will require travel and research funding through a variety of archives. I doubt I will ever finish it. In short, I am interested in the forms of Haitian anti-slavery after 1804. Sure, some scholars have written about the impact of the Haitian Revolution and its possible influence on slave revolts and black uprisings. But what about the role of the Haitian state in direct anti-slavery activity? Haitian abolitionism? Haitian interception of slave ships in the Caribbean? And what happened to "liberated" Africans and fugitive slaves who found a refuge in Haiti? Going through the usual secondary sources and some of the digitized Haitian newspapers revealed some new surprises, like the existence of an abolitionist society in Port-au-Prince during the 1830s. But so much digging through newspapers and the archives would be required to even begin to do justice to this topic.

So, a week has been "wasted" on obsessively pursuing these aforementioned topics and themes. Why do I do it? No one knows. Perhaps the pandemic and ill health have pushed me into the brink of madness. Regardless of my possible insanity, this short update will perhaps elucidate my silence over the last week. After all, my legions of readers must have wondered what happened to the short book posts  and usual chatter in these parts. Rest assured, the next post will cover some other random topic or book to keep you entertained. 

Minima Moralia

I haven't blogged in a while, and much of the recent posts have been random in nature or related to jazz. In other news, I finally finished Adorno's Minima Moralia, part of my attempt to read more Frankfurt School writers, as well as to learn more about the man whose essays on the irrational in culture fascinated me a few months ago. Here, Adorno also addresses some of his concerns over fascism, authenticity, the culture industry, aesthetics, and philosophy. Unfortunately, he does not quite address his previous criticism of jazz, which he unfairly (in my opinion) lumped into the culture industry's negative impact on society. However, he did not make the absurd notion he did in his essay on the music that its influences from military marches prepares it for fascist use. Perhaps had Adorno taken a deeper look at the racial issues of jazz rather than writing off the prominence of black musicians in it as a fad or primitivist move, he could have seen some of its antifascist proclivities which opposed the herrenvolk democracy of the Jim Crow Fordist US. Of course, there are moments in Minima Moralia in which Adorno powerfully dissects racism and anti-Semitism, as well as the question of emancipation of oppressed groups without a change in the capitalist order which he believes prevents social emancipation.

Anyway, it goes without saying that jazz music and the ways in which the masses comprehend or respond to Hollywood, popular music, or art is a bit more nuanced than Adorno made it out to be. And I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I feel about his theses against occultism in relation to my areas of interest in the Caribbean, although I suspect a few anthropologists who have written about the region have addressed some of his ideas directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, Adorno's always thought-provoking and forces the reader to confront their preconceived notions about art, social relations, and knowledge. Adorno is priceless when it comes to understanding totalitarian society and aesthetics, and for those reasons, particularly in the current political climate, should be taken seriously. Next on the list is Fromm's Escape from Freedom, which from what I can tell so far, has some similar ideas about the social psychology of fascism and the role of the entertainment industry and "late industrialism" in fomenting the conditions of totalitarianism. Benjamin, Wilhelm Reich and Georges Bataille will also be on my reading list, for additional perspective.

The following are my favorite quotes that I remembered to jot down from the Verso 

"An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences." 

"The melting-pot was introduced by unbridled industrial capitalism. The thought of being cast into it conjures up martyrdom, not democracy." 

"The discovery of genuineness as a last bulwark of individualistic ethics is a reflection of industrial mass-production."

"Instead of expecting miracles of the pre-capitalist peoples, older nations should be on their guard against their unimaginative, indolent taste for everything proven, and for the successes of the West."

"Munich before the First World War was a hotbed of that spirituality whose protest against the rationalism of the schools led, by way of the cults of fancy-dress festivities, more swiftly to Fascism than possibly even the spiritless system of old Rickert."

"He who offers for sale something unique that no-one wants to buy, represents, even against his will, freedom from exchange."

"...everything that had ever been called folk art has always reflected domination."

"Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar."

"German words of foreign derivation are the Jews of language."

"The poor chew words to fill their bellies."

"...only fools tell their masters the truth."

"One must have tradition in oneself, to hate it properly."

"The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass."

"The same rationalistic and empiricist apparatus that threw the spirits out is being used to reimpose them on those who no longer trust their own reason."

"The direct statement without divagations, hesitations or reflections, that gives the other the facts full in the face, already has the form and timbre of the command issued under Fascism by the dumb to the silent. Matter-of-factness between people, doing away with all ideological ornamentation between them, has already itself become an ideology for treating people as things." 

"In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so. The justified guilt-feelings of those exempt from physical work ought not become an excuse for the 'idiocy of rural life.' Intellectuals, who alone write about intellectuals and give them their bad name in that of honesty, reinforce the lie. A great part of the prevalent anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, right up to Huxley, is set in motion when writers complain about the mechanisms of competition without understanding them, and so fall victim to them. In the activity most their own they have shut out the consciousness of tat twam asi. Which is why they then scuttle into Indian temples."

"Every visit to the cinema leaves me, against all my vigilance, stupider and worse." 

A Junkie Walking Through the Twilight

I am not sure why I care so much, but today I was struck by an obviously strung out man trying to return most certainly stolen over the counter medications to the store at work tonight. He was a wreck in every conceivable way: could not stand still, could barely write without incessant twitching, couldn't speak straight, offered to sell his cellphone to me, a shift supervisor, and customers at the store for 25 dollars (he claimed it was to purchase gas for his car, but we all know that's BS, unless that gas is to drive his car to his dealer). 

We get a lot of depressing customers and crazies who come through that store, especially at night. Indeed, today we had one man who might have been homeless shoplift right in front of me (I was ringing customers out and noticed him stuffing his backpack with liquid soaps) and flee just as I shouted at him and the shift supervisor was on his way to the front end of the store. And per usual, some adolescents came to the store in group (a telltale sign of shoplifting) and I witnessed them stealing some medicines, lubrication, and pregnancy tests. My shift supervisor caught them after I called him and he watched out for them, but the fiends tear the boxes open and just steal the lube, pills, contraptions, etc. that they're looking for. If not, they tear off the security tag or take a chance and run through the door. 

But I am used to shoplifters and thieves. I'm used to the mentally ill and somewhat 'off' customers and regulars, such as the one man who shows up, skips people in line, and doesn't have enough money to pay for things (and sometimes no money at all). I am not used to seeing people in such debilitating states of drug addiction. That man, emaciated, unable to articulate himself clearly, and despite it all, lying through his teeth and attempting to have a conversation with me where both sides knew everything he said was bullshit. It was one of those truly rare moments where communication between two people was, despite the obvious lies if one follows it literally, 'free' in a sense. My heart goes out for that man and all other Bubbles out there, struggling to keep their head above water in these modern, urban wastelands. 

As The Wire teaches us so clearly, if you walk in the garden, you better watch your back. Though I probably won't ever see him again, I hope for the best and actually wish I could have given him cash back on his stolen items he did not have a receipt for (instead of store credit). Drug addiction ain't no joke, obviously, and those 'crackheads, junkies, and methheads need the most help in these dire times where addiction of all sorts destroys entire nations (looking at you, Wall Street, for your corporate greed and addiction and love of money that nearly destroyed the US and global economy).

I suppose my last thing I could possibly say is to reiterate the rarity and importance of fake, pseudo-sincere conversations in forcing us to acknowledge our fellow humanity with those perhaps even more downtrodden. Indeed, one can break through to the other side despite the largely meaningless exchange of words that passes as conversation today, something I did not expect to have with a drug addict this week. Sir, whoever you are, keep your head up. 

Faith, Humanity (Hope you're doing well)

A friend shared this powerful poem with several folks today and I found it moving. "What you owe is the heaviest weight." Perhaps a bit depressing in some ways, but perfectly capturing the lack of faith in humanity paralleled by the need for human interaction. I also enjoy her style. She was part of a spoken word poetry scholarship program yet I never saw her do poetry! 

With friends like that...

Who needs enemies? Truer words have never been spoken.

It Could Be Worse

Looking at the world as it is right now, it may seem hard to imagine how much worse it could get. An apartheid state in Israel, famine ravaging the Horn of Africa, U.S. wars and drone/air strikes in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen, the recent attacks in Norway, economic collapse and the debt ceiling may appear to be as bad as it can get. Of course the only constant in life is that it could always get much worse. Things have gotten progressively worse and worse over time, which is proof of my theory: you know you're alive when living can always get worse.