“Well, you know, as men we’re taught not to not to feel pain and grief, as children. I remember seeing one of my boys, he was maybe about nine. He was hit in a basketball [game], maybe hit by the ball, and I saw him turn around and bend down and get control of his pain and his grief before he stood up again.
That same boy would be so wonderful in being open to wounds and crying and so on when he was very small. But, you know, the culture had said to him, “You cannot give way to that, you must turn around and when you must turn around; you must have a face without pain or grief in it,” right?
So therefore, as a son of an alcoholic, I received that. I mean, when you’re in an alcoholic family, you’re hired to be cheerful.
That’s one of your jobs.
You’re appointed that way.
One is hired to be a trickster, another I was hired to be cheerful, so that when anyone asked me about the family.
I’d have to lie in a cheerful way and say, “Oh, it’s wonderful, yes, indeed, we have sheep, you know, and we have chickens, and everything’s wonderful.”
Well, then if you can deny something so fundamental as the deep grief in the whole family, you can deny anything.
So then how can you write poetry, then, if you’re involved in that much denial?
So the word denial was very helpful to me.
MOYERS:
Did you resent your father? Did you feel -
BLY:
No, I think that what happened was that as far as the grief goes, being appointed to be the cheerful one in the family, I would tend to follow a movement upward like this, hmm?
More and more achievement, more and more and so on, hmm?
That’s what you’d do. And finally you’d redeem the family’s name by doing this.
Peterson: I know, for me, and I suppose it’s because I have somewhat of a depressive temperament. . . I mean one thing that staggers me on a consistent basis is the fact that anything ever works.
Because it’s so •unlikely•, you know, to be in a situation where our electronic communications work, where our electric grid works. And it works all the time, it works one hundred percent of the time.
And the reason for that is there are mostly Men out there who are breaking themselves into pieces, repairing this thing which just falls apart all the time.
Paglia: Absolutely. I said this in the Munk Debate in Toronto several years ago.
All these elitists and professors sneering at men.
It’s MEN who are maintaining everything around us. This invisible army which feminists don’t notice. Nothing would work if it weren’t for the men.
Peterson: A professor is someone who’s standing on a hill surrounded by a wall, which is surrounded by another wall, which is surrounded by another wall - it’s walls all the way down - who stands up there and says ‘I’m brave and independent.’
It’s like, you’ve got this protected area that’s so unlikely - it’s so absolutely unlikely - and the fact that people aren’t on their knees in gratitude all the time for the fact that we have central heating and air conditioning and pure water and reliable food. . . It’s absolutely unbelievable.
Paglia: Yes, I mean people used to die. . .
The water supply was contaminated with cholera for heaven’s sake.
People don’t understand. To have clean water, fresh milk, fresh orange juice. All of these things. These are marvels.
Peterson: And all of the time.
Paglia: All of the time. Western culture is heading - because we are so dependent on this invisible infrastructure - we’re heading for an absolute catastrophe when jihadists figure out how to paralyze the power grid.
The entire culture will be chaotic.
You’ll have mobs in the street within three days when suddenly the food supply is interrupted and there’s no way to communicate.
That is the way Western culture is going to collapse.
And it won’t take MUCH.
Peterson: Single points of failure.
Paglia: Because we are so interconnected, and now we’re so dependent on communications and computers. . . I used to predict for years it’ll be an asteroid hitting the earth, and then we’ll have another ice age.
Peterson: Do you know how the solar flares work? This happens about once every century. So back about 1880 - I don’t remember the exact year - there was a significant enough solar flare. . . So that produces an electromagnetic pulse like a hydrogen bomb because the sun is a hydrogen bomb. An electromagnetic pulse will emerge from the sun and wave across the earth, and it produces huge spikes in electrical current along anything that’s electronic, and it will burn them out.
It lit telegraph operators on fire in the 1800s. One of those things took out the Quebec power grid in 1985 and knocked out the whole Northeast Corridor. So they figure those things are about one in a century event.
My brother-in-law, who’s a very smart guy. . . He designed the chip in the iPhone. We were talking about political issues the last time I went and saw him in San Francisco, and his notion was that ALL that the government should be doing right now is stress-testing our infrastructure the same way they stress-test the banks.
Because we’re so full of these single points of failure.
And I think you’re absolutely right.
Luckily we’ve been, what would you call, invaded by stupid terrorists instead of smart terrorists, because a smart terrorist could do an unbelievable amount of damage in a very short period of time.
And it’s just God’s good graces that that hasn’t happened yet.
Paglia: What will happen is that it’s The Men. . . The Men will reconstruct civilisation while the women cower in the houses and have the men go out and do all the dirty
- ( gunshot ) - ( man groans ) - ( gun clicks ) - John: I got no beef with you gentlemen.
I'm just lookin' out for my friend.
Hey, thanks for givin' us a hand back there.
Al, is it?
Althea, actually.
There's a candy for you.
Thank you.
John: Ho.
- You're quick.
- I am.
Well, easy there, cowboy.
- ( bag unzips ) - I didn't save you so I could kill you.
I just want to ask you a few questions.
- Questions? - Yeah.
What you've seen.
Who you've met.
Where you've been.
Where you're going.
JOHN DORRIE : Why?
It's for a story.
I'm a journalist.
You were alone at the cabin.
JOHN DORRIE : Yeah.
- Before Lauren showed up?
JOHN DORRIE : Laura.
Right.
Sorry.
JOHN DORRIE : Nope.
Nobody.
I talked to myself a lot.
But I had to quit.
Al: Why?
JOHN DORRIE : Because I started enjoying that conversation too much!
( chuckles )
What else can you tell me about Laura? In case we ever cross paths.
JOHN DORRIE : Mm she enjoyed a Black Jack.
Card player.
JOHN DORRIE : Taffy.
Licorice.
I never much cared for 'em before.
And now?
JOHN DORRIE : I don't mind 'em.
You think you'll find her?
JOHN DORRIE :
I know I will.
How exactly did you get split up?
JOHN DORRIE : ( inhales ) Um, I'm afraid that's not a very happy story.
Most aren't nowadays.
JOHN DORRIE : Ours will be.
This one will be.
Once we find our way back to each other.
Was that?
Great.
Thank you.
JOHN DORRIE : Sure.
How about you? How long you been on the road?
What does it matter? These questions-- There's no news stations left.
I saved you.
Noodles and effort.
You owe me.
No.
I don't need that.
I need your story.
Al: What brought you out here? You goin' somewhere? - Getting away from something-- - I didn't ask you to save me.
I'm gonna go.
Or are you saying I can't?
John: Hold up.
Hold up, friend.
Hey, you've been held at gunpoint with somebody, I think you earned the right to call him friend.
I don't want to answer any more questions.
I just want to be left be.
JOHN DORRIE : Well, I just want to give you something.
OK? Clean socks.
Worth their weight in gold.
'Course, gold ain't worth much nowadays.
I seen the pair you was wearing 'round the campfire.
I think it's time for an upgrade.
Thanks.
Apologies about the corn.
Especially since they're for your feet.
You sure you're gonna be all right out there on your own? This World we're always on our own.
Wait.
Wait.
Thanks for the assist.
That guy-- that was a unique kind of asshole.
But I did not want to kill anybody today.
( grunting ) - Anyone know what that 51 means? - Al: Markers like that had been popping up around here the last few weeks, but never anyone around to ask but the dead.
The dead? I call 'em the passed.
Call 'em walkers where I'm from.
Look at that.
A piece of personal history.
You still owe me.
Then pull over.
Al: Your name?
Morgan Jones.
Where do you come from?
Atlanta and, um then Virginia.
How'd you get here?
I ran.
Then I walked, drove walked again.
Were you part of a settlement in Virginia?
A couple.
Can you tell me about them? ( chuckles ) One of them was called Alexandria, and then there was a place called The Kingdom.
Actually had-- had a king.
A king?
( laughs ) Even had a pet tiger.
( laughs ) ( John chuckles )
All right, we're gonna have to sidebar that one.
These settlements, were they good places to live? They were safe places.
Good people inside.
I had been with some of them for a while.
It--
Al: What happened?
There was a fight.
With another group.
It was a big, big group.
We won.
But you didn't stay.
I already left before I left.
I don't understand.
Did they do something? Or did you?
I told you things, and that was the trade.
You told me you were with good people in Virginia, and then you left.
Why? Were you trying to get something? Get away from something? How about you tell me about you? Like, um, how'd you get this van? And why asking total strangers questions like this is so important to you.
Huh? - Look, I saved your ass.
- And we saved yours.
Well I want to thank you both for your help.
But I think it's time that I was going on my way.
- What about your leg? - No, I'm fine.
- Morgan.
- Man, I told you I'm fine.
Tell me one real thing, then we'll call it even.
Why'd you leave Virginia? ( sniffles ) I lose people and then I lose myself.
( staff thudding on ground )
JOHN DORRIE :
You were wrong what you said before about bein' on your own.
Writer Robert Hewitt Wolfe wanted Dr. Bashir to tell Kira at the end of the episode that he could not confirm whether she was a Cardassian replacement or the authentic Bajoran Kira in order to leave Kira permanently unsure of her original ‘identity’.
He felt this would emphasize that our identity is based on our experiences and who we have been,
regardless of one's actual origins;
"She has been Kira Nerys. She may be the real Kira Nerys, she may be a replacement, but she's Kira Nerys now, and it doesn't really matter.
Your identity is who you are,
it doesn't matter how you get there,
it doesn't matter whether it's True or a Lie,
if you've lived it long enough,
it's True."
However, this idea was dropped from the final version of the story.
BECAUSE IT ISN’T CORRECT
“The London School of Economics is, as it boasts of itself, one of the world’s leading universities of the social sciences: ‘With an international intake and a global reach, LSE has always put engagement with the wider world at the heart of its mission.’
Over at its LSE Review of Books page in May 2012 a review appeared of a new book by Thomas Sowell. Intellectuals and Society had come out two years earlier, but in the world of academia intellectual drive-by shootings often happen at a more leisurely pace than in the rest of society.
The reviewer, Aidan Byrne, was the ‘Senior Lecturer in English and Media/Cultural Studies’ at Wolverhampton University. In this capacity – his byline informed us – ‘he specialises in masculinity in interwar Welsh and political fiction, and teaches on a wide range of modules’.
A perfect authority for the LSE Review of Books to put in judgement over Sowell. For his part, Byrne was ‘unimpressed’ by the ‘highly partisan’ nature of the book.
And so, two years after Sowell’s book had been published, Byrne took aim and attempted to fire.
From his opening line he warned that ‘Intellectuals and Society consists of a series of outdated and sometimes dishonest shots at Sowell’s political enemies.’
Among other charges included in Byrne’s review was a claim that one line in Sowell’s book echoed the concerns of the Tea Party and constituted ‘a thinly-disguised attack on racial integration’.
An even odder allegation against Sowell came when Byrne warned readers that Sowell’s references to racial issues constituted little more than ‘disordered and disturbing “dog-whistles”’.
In a similar fashion, Sowell’s arguments about the legacies of the past were also ‘a coded intervention’. Warming to his theme, Byrne explained that ‘To him [Sowell], slavery’s cultural legacy means that it shouldn’t be considered a moral problem, nor should amelioration be attempted.’
To this charge Byrne then added the devastating rider which turned out to be an act of unbelievable self-harm.
To their credit, as it now stands the LSE site has an ‘amendment’ at the bottom of the piece online.
It is one of the great corrections.
It simply notes the deletion of a line from the original piece. ‘The original post contained the line “easy for a rich white man to say”’, admitted the LSE site. ‘This has been removed and we apologise for this error.’
As well they might. For of course whatever the state of his income, Thomas Sowell is not a white man. He is a black man. A very famous black man – who LSE’s reviewer only thought to be white because of the nature of his politics.
It is a suggestion that has crept into an otherwise liberal debate with barely a murmur of dissent.
And it has arrived from quite a range of directions.
Consider for instance the reaction to the strange, and vaguely pitiful, case of Rachel Dolezal. This was the woman who became almost world famous in 2015 when, as regional head of the NAACP, she was suddenly ‘outed’ as white. During a television interview, Dolezal was memorably asked if she herself was black. She pretended not to understand the question.
When confronted with the evidence of her birth parents the interview crashed into a buffer.
For Dolezal’s parents were not merely Caucasians, but Caucasians of German-Czech origin – which is very far away from the black American identity that Dolezal herself had adopted.
Eventually, while admitting that her parents were indeed her parents, she insisted that – nevertheless – she was black.
Her identification with the black community in America seemed to have come about through her closeness to her adopted black siblings.
Nevertheless, as her adoptive brother said, ‘She grew up a white, privileged person in Montana.’
She had managed to pass herself off as black by little more than the careful application of bronzer and a somewhat stereotypical frizzing up of her hair.
This – and the fact that most people were clearly too terrified to say, ‘But aren’t you white?’ – meant that Dolezal was able not only to ‘pass’ as black but head up the local chapter of an organization set up for black people.
The Dolezal case threw up an almost endless series of questions, and both it and the responses to it in some ways presented an opportunity to dissect a whole array of aspects of today’s culture.
Not least among these moments was the divide that arose among prominent black people, spokespeople and activists.
On The View on ABC-TV, Whoopi Goldberg defended Dolezal. ‘If she wants to be black, she can be black’, was Goldberg’s view.
It seemed that ‘blacking up’ was not a problem on this occasion. More interesting was the reaction of Michael Eric Dyson, who stood up for Dolezal in a remarkable way. On MSNBC he declared of Dolezal, ‘She’s taking on the ideas, the identities, the struggles. She’s identified with them. I bet a lot more black people would support Rachel Dolezal than would support, say, Clarence Thomas.’
All of which suggested that ‘black’ was not to do with skin colour, or race. But only politics. So much so that a Caucasian wearing bronzer but holding the ‘right’ opinions was more black than a black Supreme Court Justice if that black Supreme Court Justice happens to be a conservative.
