Everyone likes loops but
they're rare. Most of the time
when we set out for some distant point
we must retrace our steps
to see our home again.
But coming back along the same path is not
so dull as it sounds.
The sun, for one, will have shifted, dragging
its shadows along the dry winter grasses, turning the blue river violet.
The geese that were floating on their fat breasts
will have taken flight, the water that was still
will wrinkle with their stamping feet, the water
that was rushing will sit still as a sewn ribbon.
The clouds that were massing will be scattered in thin tufts,
too wispy to spin.
The muscles that felt strong will feel tired, the brutal climbs
will soften to a slow release, an endless whir, a long sighing descent.
The lazy timelessness of 2:00 in the afternoon
will stiffen by 4:30 to a race against the sinking sun.
Not everything is changed, though. The mountains, for one,
are still there, purple, silent, their broad shoulders hugging
the plains. And the men
are still playing chess
along the bank in their sweatshirts,
one more game, one more game, just one last game,
before the light goes.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
In Honor of the Asteroid
We sang a piece last semester by Georgy Sviridov -- it is pretty, tuneful, a little schmaltzy. Its plaintive suspensions are all followed by obliging glissandos that slide guiltily into the chord that everyone knows they want to hear, the way a spoon may seem to slip gratefully into a dish of chocolate pudding. It was nice. Introducing the piece, our conductor mentioned that there is an asteroid named for the composer, 4075 Sviridov, an interesting albeit not entirely crucial fact to know when listening to the piece.
After the concert, I encountered an astrophysicist in the audience. I think he studies the sun -- something like that. We were chatting, and I mentioned the asteroid since I thought he would be interested, and then realized that he thought composer had been named in honor of the asteroid and not the reverse. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
After the concert, I encountered an astrophysicist in the audience. I think he studies the sun -- something like that. We were chatting, and I mentioned the asteroid since I thought he would be interested, and then realized that he thought composer had been named in honor of the asteroid and not the reverse. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.
Bar Exam Questions I Have Not Loved
One of the hardest things about the multiple choice questions on the bar exam is that many of them seem to have been purposefully written to remind test takers of the devastating limitations of our legal system.
For example: "An industrial city in the Midwest had approximately 300,000 inhabitants, and about half of them were members of a recognized racial minority. The latest census figures indicated that 33,501 minority residents of the city could be classified as 'poor' under federal poverty guidelines. In contrast, only 7,328 of the approximately 150,000 nonminority residents of the city could be classified as 'poor.' To combat a budget deficit, the city's 10-member city council, including no minority members and no poor members, decided to raise bus fares during rush hour periods from 80 cents to 1 dollar. Because poor people and members of minority groups placed greater reliance on the city's bus lines than did the bulk of the nonpoor and nonminority population (many of whom drove to work), the effect of the transit fare increase was hardest on the poor and minority communities. Several activist groups representing the poor, various minority organizations, and some community action coalitions vowed to fight the fare increase in federal court.
Which of the following statements most accurately describes the constitutional status of the fare increase?"
The correct answer is: "The fare increase is constitutional, because there is no evidence that the city council acted irrationally or was motivated by an intent to discriminate on the basis of race."
This was question number 197 of 200 on a six-hour simulated practice exam. I read it with a sinking feeling of recognition and dejection. This is the world we live in. People of color are disproportionately poor and underrepresented in the political system. Since they are underrepresented, they are often the first to bear the costs of economic downturn. And it is not always obvious what we, as lawyers, can do about it. Just bubble in letter "C" and move on to the next question...
For example: "An industrial city in the Midwest had approximately 300,000 inhabitants, and about half of them were members of a recognized racial minority. The latest census figures indicated that 33,501 minority residents of the city could be classified as 'poor' under federal poverty guidelines. In contrast, only 7,328 of the approximately 150,000 nonminority residents of the city could be classified as 'poor.' To combat a budget deficit, the city's 10-member city council, including no minority members and no poor members, decided to raise bus fares during rush hour periods from 80 cents to 1 dollar. Because poor people and members of minority groups placed greater reliance on the city's bus lines than did the bulk of the nonpoor and nonminority population (many of whom drove to work), the effect of the transit fare increase was hardest on the poor and minority communities. Several activist groups representing the poor, various minority organizations, and some community action coalitions vowed to fight the fare increase in federal court.
Which of the following statements most accurately describes the constitutional status of the fare increase?"
The correct answer is: "The fare increase is constitutional, because there is no evidence that the city council acted irrationally or was motivated by an intent to discriminate on the basis of race."
This was question number 197 of 200 on a six-hour simulated practice exam. I read it with a sinking feeling of recognition and dejection. This is the world we live in. People of color are disproportionately poor and underrepresented in the political system. Since they are underrepresented, they are often the first to bear the costs of economic downturn. And it is not always obvious what we, as lawyers, can do about it. Just bubble in letter "C" and move on to the next question...
William Finnegan has a chilling piece in the July 2nd New Yorker about the drug-related violence eroding civil society in Mexico. This is the kind of climate that defies straightforward attempts at explanation, driving even journalists into the arms of a sort of magical realism: "In Mexico, it is often impossible to know who is behind something -- a massacre, a candidacy, an assassination, the capture of a crime boss, a 'discovery' of high-level corruption. Either the truth is too fluid and complex to define or it remains opaque to anyone not directly involved in manipulating events."
We are no strangers here, in the US, to the endless cycle of scandal and cover up, to political theater, sounds bites, and spin, and to the way that concentrated capital can hobble democratic institutions. But rarely do we find that the truth of a particular political event is "too fluid and complex to define." Either he is sleeping with her or he isn't. Either he took the money or he didn't. Either she leaked the story or she didn't. At bottom, something happened and that something can be found out and narrated, front to back.
What is happening in Mexico is different. What is happening in Mexico is not really for me to explain, since I barely understand it myself. People are disappearing, headless bodies are being dumped in public squares, some or most or maybe all government officials are on the cartel payrolls.
But this is our story, too, isn't it? What's happening in Mexico is not just happening in or to Mexico, and it is not just happening. It is not a storm rolling in but an effect being produced like night falling in a small town on a Hollywood soundstage.
Is there any way to understand this except as the direct consequence of the US drug policy that has radically increased the value of controlled substances without so much as denting demand? If drugs were legal then the cartels would be multi-national corporations and Mexico would have a new business class and the violence would finally subside. Meanwhile, all those bodies are piling up on the altar of our next fix.
Happy Independence Day.
We are no strangers here, in the US, to the endless cycle of scandal and cover up, to political theater, sounds bites, and spin, and to the way that concentrated capital can hobble democratic institutions. But rarely do we find that the truth of a particular political event is "too fluid and complex to define." Either he is sleeping with her or he isn't. Either he took the money or he didn't. Either she leaked the story or she didn't. At bottom, something happened and that something can be found out and narrated, front to back.
What is happening in Mexico is different. What is happening in Mexico is not really for me to explain, since I barely understand it myself. People are disappearing, headless bodies are being dumped in public squares, some or most or maybe all government officials are on the cartel payrolls.
But this is our story, too, isn't it? What's happening in Mexico is not just happening in or to Mexico, and it is not just happening. It is not a storm rolling in but an effect being produced like night falling in a small town on a Hollywood soundstage.
Is there any way to understand this except as the direct consequence of the US drug policy that has radically increased the value of controlled substances without so much as denting demand? If drugs were legal then the cartels would be multi-national corporations and Mexico would have a new business class and the violence would finally subside. Meanwhile, all those bodies are piling up on the altar of our next fix.
Happy Independence Day.
Monday, May 21, 2012
We turned off the Panorama Trail in Andrew Molera State Park into a stand of stunted redwoods. They were thin trees, nothing like the redwoods you usually see, and their sparse leafy heads waved at the sky, creaking like a porch-row of rocking chairs. We looked up to see their leaves dissolving into sunlight, and listened to them lean this way and that in time to a silent song.
I had the same feeling sitting in rehearsal on Sunday evening while the basses and tenors sang an old Irish song -- the feeling that music itself was growing up out of the earth, slender stalks of sound deeply rooted and fragile and reaching for the light.
I had the same feeling sitting in rehearsal on Sunday evening while the basses and tenors sang an old Irish song -- the feeling that music itself was growing up out of the earth, slender stalks of sound deeply rooted and fragile and reaching for the light.
Secrets
A secret is an object whose contents are under pressure, like carbonated liquid in a sealed container. The greater the pressure applied from one direction -- by, for example, strictly limiting the number of people who can be told or by heightening the sanctions for disclosure -- the more violent the inevitable eruption in another direction is liable to be.
A really juicy secret -- the kind that could land someone in federal prison or destroy a marriage or sink a business -- will practically be forced by the pressure of the situation into the minds of many people unknown to the secret's subject.
That's just basic physics.
A really juicy secret -- the kind that could land someone in federal prison or destroy a marriage or sink a business -- will practically be forced by the pressure of the situation into the minds of many people unknown to the secret's subject.
That's just basic physics.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
A Beginning?
I wrote this on a bench at Embarcadero, facing the Bay. I don't know what it is yet.
"For almost a full year after she died, Hilman left Jean's voice on the answering machine. At first, it didn't matter because the only people who called knew Hilman and understood what he was going through, and later because the only people who called -- selling auto insurance policies or subscriptions to the community theater's fall season -- didn't.
Hilman wasn't angry when his friends stopped calling. He didn't much want to talk to them, either. In fact, the first thing he felt when his birthday passed and the phone was silent was relief. Then he realized this was the first thing he had felt at all in over eight months and he felt a little sad, which made him feel more relieved, and then, exhausted from all that feeling, he retired to his room for the rest of the day where he read travel magazines and ate a small box of slightly stale saltines.
Hilman was not one given to self reflection with any kind of frequency. He had never kept a journal or seen a therapist. There had been a grief counselor, at the hospital that night, a thin woman in a purple shirt with crimped hair who arms jutted out from her body like a distended paper clip. He had talked to her a little bit. He wasn't sure if that counted."
If you have any ideas about where I should take this or if you would like to take i somewhere, let me know!
"For almost a full year after she died, Hilman left Jean's voice on the answering machine. At first, it didn't matter because the only people who called knew Hilman and understood what he was going through, and later because the only people who called -- selling auto insurance policies or subscriptions to the community theater's fall season -- didn't.
Hilman wasn't angry when his friends stopped calling. He didn't much want to talk to them, either. In fact, the first thing he felt when his birthday passed and the phone was silent was relief. Then he realized this was the first thing he had felt at all in over eight months and he felt a little sad, which made him feel more relieved, and then, exhausted from all that feeling, he retired to his room for the rest of the day where he read travel magazines and ate a small box of slightly stale saltines.
Hilman was not one given to self reflection with any kind of frequency. He had never kept a journal or seen a therapist. There had been a grief counselor, at the hospital that night, a thin woman in a purple shirt with crimped hair who arms jutted out from her body like a distended paper clip. He had talked to her a little bit. He wasn't sure if that counted."
If you have any ideas about where I should take this or if you would like to take i somewhere, let me know!
The Radical Power of the Hunger Games
I am drastically under-qualified to write this post as I have read neither all of The Hunger Games books nor all of the Harry Potter books. So consider this an invitation to a conversation and feel free to tell me why I'm wrong.
The basic point I want to make is that we should be excited about The Hunger Games because of its potential to create a productive political and class-based consciousness among its adolescent (and adult) readership. The moral landscape of Harry Potter is one where great and powerful men (Harry and Voldemort, both white) must face off in a battle to the death. Although one is supposedly ultimately evil and the other ultimately good, there is more that unites them (structurally) than divides them. They are equals, equivalents, mirror images, like Bush and bin Laden. Even the Golden Compass falls into this trap to a certain extent, by giving the face of evil, well, a face. Endowing that kind of agency on phenomena is dangerous because it inevitably distracts us from the real problem at hand, which is an unjust system.
As far as I can tell, The Hunger Games is unique among young adult fiction in presenting injustice as systemic, not individual. The Capitol (named to remind us of "capital"?) exploits the labor of those who live in the districts not because (or not only because) the President of the Capitol is personally evil but because the entire economy is built on exploitation of labor and extraction of resources. The brutal conditions in the districts are necessary to support a lavish lifestyle in the Capitol.
But individual citizens of the Capitol are not uniformly evil -- in fact, they are not uniformly anything. And the moral choices are anything but clear. Should Katniss kill the other participants so she can return to care for her family? Should she sacrifice herself to save the other participant from her district? Should she commit suicide in protest against the unfairness of it all? Each choice has its own particular and painful costs.
Why? Because that's how the system is set up: to divide the districts, to prohibit them from helping (or even communicating with) one another, to prevent them from recognizing their shared humanity, to obfuscate, to mystify, to terrify. It is the immorality of the system that makes Katniss' position untenable but knowing that does not set her free. She must make painful choices because that's what adulthood demands of us.
If I were a middle school teacher, I would be excited to bring this book into a classroom. To read it alongside accounts of colonial incursions into Africa and Asia, of sharecropping, of coal-mining, of the industrial revolution, of the World Bank and the IMF. To have a real discussion about power and poverty and the principles that could guide Katniss through the forest.
The basic point I want to make is that we should be excited about The Hunger Games because of its potential to create a productive political and class-based consciousness among its adolescent (and adult) readership. The moral landscape of Harry Potter is one where great and powerful men (Harry and Voldemort, both white) must face off in a battle to the death. Although one is supposedly ultimately evil and the other ultimately good, there is more that unites them (structurally) than divides them. They are equals, equivalents, mirror images, like Bush and bin Laden. Even the Golden Compass falls into this trap to a certain extent, by giving the face of evil, well, a face. Endowing that kind of agency on phenomena is dangerous because it inevitably distracts us from the real problem at hand, which is an unjust system.
As far as I can tell, The Hunger Games is unique among young adult fiction in presenting injustice as systemic, not individual. The Capitol (named to remind us of "capital"?) exploits the labor of those who live in the districts not because (or not only because) the President of the Capitol is personally evil but because the entire economy is built on exploitation of labor and extraction of resources. The brutal conditions in the districts are necessary to support a lavish lifestyle in the Capitol.
But individual citizens of the Capitol are not uniformly evil -- in fact, they are not uniformly anything. And the moral choices are anything but clear. Should Katniss kill the other participants so she can return to care for her family? Should she sacrifice herself to save the other participant from her district? Should she commit suicide in protest against the unfairness of it all? Each choice has its own particular and painful costs.
Why? Because that's how the system is set up: to divide the districts, to prohibit them from helping (or even communicating with) one another, to prevent them from recognizing their shared humanity, to obfuscate, to mystify, to terrify. It is the immorality of the system that makes Katniss' position untenable but knowing that does not set her free. She must make painful choices because that's what adulthood demands of us.
If I were a middle school teacher, I would be excited to bring this book into a classroom. To read it alongside accounts of colonial incursions into Africa and Asia, of sharecropping, of coal-mining, of the industrial revolution, of the World Bank and the IMF. To have a real discussion about power and poverty and the principles that could guide Katniss through the forest.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Three Reasons Why You Should See "The Artist"
In case you were wondering, you should definitely go see "The Artist," the new silent French film by Michel Hazanivicius. I know, I know -- I had you at "French."
But really.
Here's why:
1. Jokes in silent movies are funnier, the way jokes in foreign language are funnier -- because the little bit of extra effort it takes to decode them pulls you closer into the circle, makes you one of the in-crowd. That's just a fact.
2. It is a powerful, affecting silent movie about the limits of the silent movie as an art form. If there's one thing I learned in undergrad (and that is a not insignificant "if"), it is that you will always sound smart if you claim that a piece of artwork is really a commentary on art itself. But this time it's true. And what it says is that all forms are limited -- that "genre" is just another word for "limit" -- but that all forms are also infinite, or at least infinitely expressive. This is a point close to my heart because it provides the foundation for a theory of translation. Yes, all languages use a limited set of sounds and follow certain grammatical rules and developed to describe certain places and peoples. But you can translate any sentence into any language: if it can be said, it can be translated.
The first time I saw the movie, all I could talk about when I left the theater was the main character, George Valentin. I was distraught. He was so familiar -- someone who slid, and slid and would not stop himself from sliding, letting pieces of himself go until you could hardly recognize him. It was painful. It was moving. It wasn't just pantomime.
But then, the very last moment of the film -- don't worry, I won't give it away -- reminds you that there are some things you can only say with sound. It's sort of stunning.
3. It tells you how movies work and then it shows you by creating a movie that works. On you. What I mean is, in the first scene, you see George Valentin acting in a silent movie within the movie -- you see him captured by the Germans, you see a comically exaggerated torture scene, you see him left in his cell, and you see his little dog lick his face until he wakes up and lead him to safety. You see the audience within the movie caught up in the drama, you see their relief at the end. And you laugh at them. You can't help it. It's so contrived! And they're so captivated.
And then, late in the story, you see the main character of the movie you are watching nearly die only to be rescued by his little dog. And you are on the edge of your seat. I swear. All you can think is that he might die and how intolerable that would be because now you are attached to him and so are some of the other characters. You might even tear up when the policeman finally arrives to take him to the hospital. It's quite affecting.
But wait. Wasn't this the exact same device you were laughing at before? Well, yes and no.
There are different lessons to take away from this. The one I choose to hold onto is that a story is not like a magic trick -- it doesn't matter that you know how it's done, it still works. And maybe that's what's so magical -- that being caught up in a story means being subject to it, feeling what it leads you to feel without knowing why. It means losing perspective, forgetting the frame of the book or the screen.
Honestly, I don't know how it works. But I'm glad it does.
But really.
Here's why:
1. Jokes in silent movies are funnier, the way jokes in foreign language are funnier -- because the little bit of extra effort it takes to decode them pulls you closer into the circle, makes you one of the in-crowd. That's just a fact.
2. It is a powerful, affecting silent movie about the limits of the silent movie as an art form. If there's one thing I learned in undergrad (and that is a not insignificant "if"), it is that you will always sound smart if you claim that a piece of artwork is really a commentary on art itself. But this time it's true. And what it says is that all forms are limited -- that "genre" is just another word for "limit" -- but that all forms are also infinite, or at least infinitely expressive. This is a point close to my heart because it provides the foundation for a theory of translation. Yes, all languages use a limited set of sounds and follow certain grammatical rules and developed to describe certain places and peoples. But you can translate any sentence into any language: if it can be said, it can be translated.
The first time I saw the movie, all I could talk about when I left the theater was the main character, George Valentin. I was distraught. He was so familiar -- someone who slid, and slid and would not stop himself from sliding, letting pieces of himself go until you could hardly recognize him. It was painful. It was moving. It wasn't just pantomime.
But then, the very last moment of the film -- don't worry, I won't give it away -- reminds you that there are some things you can only say with sound. It's sort of stunning.
3. It tells you how movies work and then it shows you by creating a movie that works. On you. What I mean is, in the first scene, you see George Valentin acting in a silent movie within the movie -- you see him captured by the Germans, you see a comically exaggerated torture scene, you see him left in his cell, and you see his little dog lick his face until he wakes up and lead him to safety. You see the audience within the movie caught up in the drama, you see their relief at the end. And you laugh at them. You can't help it. It's so contrived! And they're so captivated.
And then, late in the story, you see the main character of the movie you are watching nearly die only to be rescued by his little dog. And you are on the edge of your seat. I swear. All you can think is that he might die and how intolerable that would be because now you are attached to him and so are some of the other characters. You might even tear up when the policeman finally arrives to take him to the hospital. It's quite affecting.
But wait. Wasn't this the exact same device you were laughing at before? Well, yes and no.
There are different lessons to take away from this. The one I choose to hold onto is that a story is not like a magic trick -- it doesn't matter that you know how it's done, it still works. And maybe that's what's so magical -- that being caught up in a story means being subject to it, feeling what it leads you to feel without knowing why. It means losing perspective, forgetting the frame of the book or the screen.
Honestly, I don't know how it works. But I'm glad it does.
Why I Love My Chorus
Members of IOC often rally late in a season by quoting the group wisdom that things always "come together" in performance. This is not the most vivid phrase -- for me it evokes something casual, unanticipated, like a fifteen-minute meal of pasta and sauce, so basic that it seems to constitute itself without the intervention of any outside agent. This phrase does not really describe what happens in concert.
What happens in concert is that, for several hours each semester, all 30 or so of us active, over-scheduled, slightly frantic individuals set aside our usual concerns and simultaneously turn our minds to the music in our hands. These are not minds easily turned away from their usual concerns, of which we all have many. When it happens, it is quite a thing to watch. Phrases clipped clean as if with scissors; consonants arriving in lockstep at the back of the hall; chords stacked neatly beneath a tower of overtones. It makes my eyes water, like those movie scenes where the whole crowd cheers the underdog or jeers the oppressor -- something about many people moving all at once, together, that just gets me.
Because in those brief moments we get perhaps the best glimpse of what it is like to be in someone else's mind. If I am thinking about the awkward page-turn at page 30 and it goes off without a hitch, I know that everyone else was thinking about it, too, and not only do I know what they were thinking but I think I have an inkling of what it was like to be thinking it, right at that moment. All the time we spend in our own heads, our own bodies. It's nice to get out once in a while.
What happens in concert is that, for several hours each semester, all 30 or so of us active, over-scheduled, slightly frantic individuals set aside our usual concerns and simultaneously turn our minds to the music in our hands. These are not minds easily turned away from their usual concerns, of which we all have many. When it happens, it is quite a thing to watch. Phrases clipped clean as if with scissors; consonants arriving in lockstep at the back of the hall; chords stacked neatly beneath a tower of overtones. It makes my eyes water, like those movie scenes where the whole crowd cheers the underdog or jeers the oppressor -- something about many people moving all at once, together, that just gets me.
Because in those brief moments we get perhaps the best glimpse of what it is like to be in someone else's mind. If I am thinking about the awkward page-turn at page 30 and it goes off without a hitch, I know that everyone else was thinking about it, too, and not only do I know what they were thinking but I think I have an inkling of what it was like to be thinking it, right at that moment. All the time we spend in our own heads, our own bodies. It's nice to get out once in a while.
Still Looking for New Year's Resolutions?
How about becoming more like this description of Thomas Cromwell in Hilary Mantel's "Wolf Hall"?
"His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop's palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and spends it. He will take a bet on anything." (p. 25)
Cromwell's greatest talent is his practicality, which comes from a deep understanding of how people more and are moved through the world. In her portrayal, his concern is for lived experience over and above more abstract ideals -- even when, as in this passage, his thoughts follow a more imaginative line:
"Under his clothes, it is well known, [Thomas] More wears a jerkin of horsehair. He beats himself with a small scourge, of the type used by some religious orders. What lodges in his mind, Thomas Cromwell's, is that somebody makes these instruments of daily torture. Someone combs the horsehair into coarse tufts, knots them and chops the blunt ends, knowing that their purpose is to snap off under the skin and irritate it into weeping sores. Is it monks who make them, knotting and snipping in a fury of righteousness, chuckling at the thought of the pain they will cause to persons unknown? Are simple villagers paid -- how, by the dozens? -- for making flails with waxed knots? Does it keep farmworkers busy during the slow winter months? When the money for their honest labor is put into their hands, do the makers think of the hands that will pick up the product?
We don't have to invite pain in, he thinks. It's waiting for us: sooner or later. . . .
He thinks, also, that people ought to be found better jobs." (p. 72)
If only novelists wrote our inner monologues, maybe we would all be lucky enough to have these kinds of insights on a regular basis.
The scourge is a device of self-inflicted pain -- of religious devotion turned inward. But on the material plane, certainly in the marketplace (which is never far from Cromwell's mind -- how are the villagers paid, he wonders, "by the dozens?") nothing we do can be detached entirely from the communities we inhabit. We cannot inflict violence on ourselves without making others the instruments of that violence. And we cannot -- we should not -- forget that as consumers we do not just passively absorb the various objects that seem already to exist in the world around us. Instead, our desires drive the production of their own objects.
"His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop's palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and spends it. He will take a bet on anything." (p. 25)
Cromwell's greatest talent is his practicality, which comes from a deep understanding of how people more and are moved through the world. In her portrayal, his concern is for lived experience over and above more abstract ideals -- even when, as in this passage, his thoughts follow a more imaginative line:
"Under his clothes, it is well known, [Thomas] More wears a jerkin of horsehair. He beats himself with a small scourge, of the type used by some religious orders. What lodges in his mind, Thomas Cromwell's, is that somebody makes these instruments of daily torture. Someone combs the horsehair into coarse tufts, knots them and chops the blunt ends, knowing that their purpose is to snap off under the skin and irritate it into weeping sores. Is it monks who make them, knotting and snipping in a fury of righteousness, chuckling at the thought of the pain they will cause to persons unknown? Are simple villagers paid -- how, by the dozens? -- for making flails with waxed knots? Does it keep farmworkers busy during the slow winter months? When the money for their honest labor is put into their hands, do the makers think of the hands that will pick up the product?
We don't have to invite pain in, he thinks. It's waiting for us: sooner or later. . . .
He thinks, also, that people ought to be found better jobs." (p. 72)
If only novelists wrote our inner monologues, maybe we would all be lucky enough to have these kinds of insights on a regular basis.
The scourge is a device of self-inflicted pain -- of religious devotion turned inward. But on the material plane, certainly in the marketplace (which is never far from Cromwell's mind -- how are the villagers paid, he wonders, "by the dozens?") nothing we do can be detached entirely from the communities we inhabit. We cannot inflict violence on ourselves without making others the instruments of that violence. And we cannot -- we should not -- forget that as consumers we do not just passively absorb the various objects that seem already to exist in the world around us. Instead, our desires drive the production of their own objects.
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