- You look like you're somebody. Are you?
- I guess so. Everybody's somebody. Who are you?
- I'm looking for a great writer to discover. Are you a great writer?
- In my way.
- What way?
- Read for yourself. I'll give you an address.
- No. I don't have time. Tell me what you write about.
- My last story was about an anarchist revolution in the United States. A philosopher...
- Too many words.
- Girl gangs take over.
- How long is it?
- 25 pages, about.
- Too long. Summarize.
- The story begins with a substitute teacher entering a detention facility in....
- No. Don't have time. What else did you write?
- I wrote about my wife...
- Where is she?
- Unknown.
- Tell me about her.
- You can read the story. Give me your phone. Here
- This is boring. What's special your wife? A gold digger. Your anarchy story is better.
- The anarchy story, the wife story, all my stories are the same.
- Why should anyone read them then?
- The style.
- Is it a great style?
- In its way.
- What way? This is the second time I've asked. I won't ask a third time.
- The wife story is an anarchist story, the anarchist story is a love story. Love and anarchy you could say is my life story.
- Love and anarchy. Good. A tag line. Tell me your life story.
- If I ask myself whether my life has been a success, leaving L.A., going off to look for friends and love and something worth doing...
- Where did you go?
- Europe.
- Go on.
- I found everything I was looking for...
- But it wasn't what you expected.
- No, it was much better than I expected. The problem was, nothing lasted.
- Why not?
- Will you let me say 2 or 3 sentences without interrupting?
- Depends.
- Anarchism in politics is the application of two rules: anything left unused is free for others' use, and no one can employ another. The same rules can be applied in love: possessions shared, neither using the other for practical gain. As you can decide who to work with, you can decide who to love.
- There's more to love than sharing possessions and not using each other.
- Yes. Love has to be there first. The anarchist community and romance are both ways to make love last.
- You said nothing lasts in your life.
- Nothing lasts forever. If you know the rules to live with love, in an sense love is portable. You can leave one story to pursue another, and if you like, if things work out that way, return and apply the rules again. The first week I met my wife she warned me if I didn't watch out she'd disappear for two years and teach me a lesson..
- How long has it been?
- 2 years.
- I'm going inside, join me if you want. You can read to me while I eat.
- Should I start from the beginning?
- Yes. Phone messages kept coming when I was reading.
- You have your tag line. The target audience is "young adult". Action, dialog only, no ideas. Impoverished vocabulary.
- "Impoverished"? Why should I read it if it's impoverished?
- I'm doing the reading. You're eating. The story opens in at a Budapest cafe...
- Is the narrator you?
- A character by my name.
- He talks with a customer sitting alone.
- Yes. Rex strikes up a conversation...
- You're wearing a pink tie.
- I like a bit of color.
- Looks good.
- It is a dangerous world out there. It is important how you look.
- It is dangerous for me. How is it dangerous for you? What is your profession?
- I work for FBI.
- Really?
- Would I lie?
- Aren't FBI agents spies and lying standard practice for spies?
- Not in the ordinary course of duty.
- But it is not in the course of duty that you are talking to me now.
- I am talking to you because I know you are in trouble.
- Why do you say that?
- Your name is on the monitor.
- What monitor? What are you talking about?
- This conversation is over.
I looked at him, calculated. About 50 years old. On his left wrist, an expensive Swiss watch. On the right wrist, a heavy gold chain. Hand tailored business suit. He looked back calmly as I examined him. I turned away and walked over to the girl at the counter.
- Does the FBI come in here?
- Yes, everyone comes to Starbucks. And the American Embassy is just around the corner.
- Oh.
- Have you done anything you shouldn’t?
- All the time.
I walked back over and stood in front of him. He was looking down as before. I tore out of the cafe, slowed myself to a walk once out on the street. An unexceptionable car pulled up a moment later. The very pretty driver, my wife Beatrix, leaned over and unlocked the passenger door. I asked her,
- You don’t want to kill me?
- I’ll tell you later. Get in.
I did, and Beatrix drove off.
- What did Gabor say?
- About what?
- What have you told him about me? That you married me only to get a visa?
- Yes.
- And does he believe you? What does he say?
- He asked about sex. He said, he gets sex and doesn’t have to pay?
- Life’s unfair. Tell him I apologize.
- You’re an idiot.
- And I suppose you tell him you’ll go back to him when you have your visa?
- Yes.
- And will you?
- Yes. Maybe.
- Why?
- I like the lifestyle. Every day go to the gym, go shopping, go to restaurants, every month travel to foreign countries....
- No love, no friendship, nothing learned, lying and self deception.
- That’s why I left him. I kept trying to love him, but I couldn’t.
- What was wrong with him, what made him so unlovable?
- He’s a pervert. He’s obsessed with prostitutes. He drinks all the time.
- You married the drunken perverted whoremaster.
- I was a young girl from a village in Hungary. He was a millionaire with houses all over the world.
- Now you are an older girl married to an American, realizing your dream to become American, and still you are going back to the pervert after you get your longed for visa.
- Yes. You’re not a serious man.
- Serious meaning having money.
- Yes.
- Why do you need money?
- To have a beautiful life.
- Life with me is not beautiful?
- You live in a dream world. It is beautiful but not real.
- Why isn’t it real? Why is only money real?
- This is a ridiculous conversation.
- Why is only money real? You have everything you need already.
- No. I am not like you. I have ambitions.
- I have ambitions. For doing things I don’t need anyone’s help with, don’t have to compromise for. Why do you have to be ambitious for money, sell yourself for money?
- Everyone sells himself. To make an impression, get sex, get a job.
- Ask your ex-husband, I don’t pay for sex. And don’t sell myself either.
- And look where you are.
- Where am I?
- Aren’t you worried about the future? You’re getting older. You have nothing.
- And you will be gone, and I will have no one and nothing.
- Right.
- I’ll find something. Some way to live. I’ll be alright. Probably.
We were driving now on the freeway that leads out of the city.
- You’ll die, with nobody to take care of you.
- You think you take care of me?
- Yes. If you don’t appreciate me you can get out here.
- Drop me at the next bus stop.
Beatrix stood on the accelerator, changed lanes, and stopped on the freeway shoulder.
- Get out.
I got out. The car pulled away in a spray of gravel.
Up the steep street, then through a passage in the castle wall. The restaurant doorway was on the right, on the left, stairs leading up to the castle courtyard were closed by a wrought iron gate. I entered a code on the wall pad and climbed the steps. The entrance to the Citadel, the circular castle within the fortress walls, was not far. Peter was at the reception desk just as I'd hoped.
- Welcome back. Good to see you.
- Happy to be back. You don’t know how much.
- Adventures?
- Marriage.
- Sorry to hear that. You deserve some happiness. But you look well.
- You too. I can stay?
- Room 11. It’s free.
He selected a key from the set hanging on the wall behind the desk and held it out to me.
- I’m surprised you’re still open.
- Me too. Do you remember when you came here first? 14 years. I remember you because of the watches. There was always a story.
- I’m finished with watches.
- I don’t believe it. You love the business.
- I got married, one love drove out another. I’ll go to the room. We’ll talk later.
The same photo exhibit, "Children In War" lined both sides of the hallway. Keep going and you'd circle back to the lobby. The rooms on the left looked out over the city, those on the right a small interior courtyard. Room 11 was on the right, just after the pictures of mass graves at German concentration camps. Room 11 was a ruin.
Once inside I traced with my finger the lighter area on the wall where a poster has been taken down. Six beds without headboards, sheets with no blankets. A couple of floor boards were missing by the radiator. Two worn arm chairs faced two simple square tables. There was not a single decoration in the room. I was about to sit down when there was knocking on the door.
- There’s a call for you.
- I’m coming.
Peter held out the telephone to me from behind the reception counter. It was Beatrix.
- I thought you’d go there. I can predict your every move.
- What am I going to do now?
- You are going to help me. Then you are coming home.
- I just got here. I’m staying.
- Listen, I need your advice. Gabor put 50,000 dollars in a bank account in his name and mine. I have a bank statement showing enough money to get the American visa. But he left instructions with the bank closing the account tomorrow.
- Where are you now?
- I just dropped Gabor off at the airport. I’m driving to the West End Shopping Center. The bank branch there is open until 8 tonight. Do you think they will give me the money?
- He’s given you access for a day? Did he tell you not to withdraw the money?
- He didn’t think of it. He thought I couldn’t.
- Did he tell you he was planning to defraud the American government by producing a false document showing you had access to money you didn't have access to?
- He said he could explain that he simply changed his mind later.
- So the money is yours as far as you know until he changes his mind?
- Yes.
- I think you should try to get your money, because it is yours for the day. The bank statement is worthless. We can't send a false financial statement to the American government.
- OK, I'll go now.
I hand the telephone back to Peter.
- Is everything alright?
- It’s my wife. She’s plotting. Sit down out here with me. We'll talk.
- Of course. Can I offer you a coffee from our new machine? It wasn’t here when you were last time.
Peter operates the vending machine, takes the two plastic cups of instant cappuccino over to the sofas and chairs in the lobby.
- Have you heard about Alex?
- I ran into him in Paris not long ago.
- He’s aging fast.
- He’s falling apart. 77 now.
- So you know he left the Citadel and moved in with a woman.
- A Russian prostitute he used to meet every night at the Marriot. He had an open account paid by his Microsoft billionaire.
- You know all that?
- Sure. I even know he met his billionaire when 18 years ago he answered a classified ad in Seattle for a French tutor. Alex ended up being language instructor and all-around errand boy for him. When I ran into Alex in Paris he said to me,
- The Romantic Writer from the Citadel!
- That’s me.
- In room 11 I found a print of an essay you wrote. It was a f#ck*n' masterpiece. Everything was in it. What happened with it?
- Nothing.
- Then what’s new? You disappeared from the hotel, we were worried. What happened to you?
- I got married to a Hungarian girl. In fact, I’ve got a Hungarian billionaire in my life too, at least in my wife’s life.
- You’re legally married?
- Yes.
- Where?
- A Budapest District marriage office. Want to see pictures? Maybe my billionaire knows your billionaire.
- Mine is a snob, hangs around Austrian aristocrats, von This or Thats.
- Mine writes on his Facebook profile that he loves celebrities. It’s the same bunch. He is supposed to have made his money in financial speculation. I wrote him a message, one husband to another.
- What did you say? How come your wife didn’t get any money from him if they were really married? Why didn’t you get any money from your wife if she did? You don’t look any richer.
- I’m not. It wasn’t easy for her taking his money. She said she did her best to convince herself she was in love with him, but couldn’t manage it. He wanted something in exchange for every dollar spent on her. Right after we got married he offered her a thousand dollars a day to go visit him at his “Chateau” in the South of France for five days. She went against my protest. The beginning of the end of the marriage.
- Five thousand dollars. Where’s the money?
- Hidden in some bank account somewhere, with her other money.
- Why didn’t you get a cut?
- I wasn’t in that business.
- You were cheated.
- I was married, even if my wife wasn’t.
Peter shakes his head at me.
- Again, I’m sorry.
- About what?
- Your marriage.
- Don’t be sorry. It’s the best thing I ever did.
- You love her.
- Want to hear about our marriage ceremony?
- Let me light a cigarette. Ok.
- I arrived half hour early at the district office, a converted palace on the Korut. The entry hall was open, but doors to all the offices shut. I took a seat. It was cool and silent. Mysterious. Where was everybody? About ten minutes to twelve, the appointed hour, the street door let in a rush of noise and I recognized Beatrix’s friend from childhood who would be one of the witnesses. According to Beatrix, she was against the marriage. She sat down beside me, said hello, immediately rose and went out. Silence again in the hall. After another five minutes, the second witness arrived. Said hello, stood there a moment, excused himself and passed out through the door. At noon, I too went outside. Maybe everyone was out there. But no one was. I went back inside, took a seat again. In a rush the photographer friend of Beatrix arrived with camera and her assistant. I asked if Beatrix was coming. Yes. They left too, and the silence of the hall returned. And then the door opened once more and Beatrix swept in wearing a beautiful wedding gown. She sat down next to me, said,
- You're here. Do you have rings? I forget to tell you to get them.
- I got one this morning at the second hand store when I bought my tie. I saw display of silver jewelry in a window across the street and bought this. It matches pretty well.
Beatrix could barely keep her attention on the conversation. The two witnesses, the photographer-friend and assistant had returned, and were expressing their admiration for her dress. They all went out with Beatrix to smoke. Silence again in the hall. Then the door opened, and the middle-aged civil servant who was to perform the ceremony appeared, and caught my eye in passing on the way to her office. A building caretaker unlocked the doors to the ceremonial chamber and stepped inside, closing the doors behind him. The quiet resumed. It was a lonely business, this getting married. And then everyone swept back in together. "Come on!" Beatrix said. I joined the crowd going into the room for the ceremony.
- Your family’s not coming?
- I asked them. What about your friends?
- I asked. The opera singer...
- Quiet. It’s starting.
The ceremony was over in a matter of minutes. Beatrix and I signed the register, assembled with the others for a group photograph, whereupon Beatrix’s parents hurried in just in time to get into the picture. Everyone passed out of the chamber, congratulatory remarks were made, and wife and husband stood together on the sidewalk alone. I looked at Beatrix in her wedding dress, she looked at me in my black tie. I asked her,
- What now?
- Let’s go return the dress. It’s rented only for the day.
We walked to the tram stop. The light was a soft glare this afternoon. A newly married couple on the tram is decorous and appreciated. I waited downstairs while she went up to the office to return the wedding dress and get into her street clothes. And then back on the tram with Beatrix. She said,
- There’s a dinner at the house. Everyone will be there.
- Am I invited?
- Very funny. What do you want to do until then?
- Let's go home.
I’m surprised at you, Peter says.
- Why?
- You’ve changed. For the better.
- I got married. It nearly killed me.
- Yes. It’s that.
- Fell so hard I saw the truth? Do you know what saved me?
- What?
- A find, a great project. The memory book. You remember the English Professor of Law I used to know? We used to meet almost everyday at the Odeon café when he was in Budapest. But this day the street has been blocked to traffic and thousands of agitated people were standing around. I stopped a photo-journalist as he walked past. What’s happening?
- See across the street? The Broadway ticket office. A member of a Neo-Nazi group went in to buy a ticket to a concert, was told the concert was sold out. He believed the Jewish owners of the agency wouldn’t sell to him because he wasn’t Jewish. He or someone else returned at night to smash the shop’s window, and began organizing on the internet a demonstration against Jews to be held outside the shop. A counter demonstration was organized, the police themselves are making a demonstration of force, blocking the street with barricades.
The doors to the cafe were unlocked from inside just as the Professor arrived. We made for our usual table.
- Your wife, my lover might join that crowd of haters. They say the same things. Are we self destructive?
- The women chose us, we accepted them.
- Why did they choose us if not because they could sense that we were self destructive? That we would accept them?
- They chose us because they love us. We accepted them because we love being loved.
- Loved for bad reasons.
- They think you and me benefit from being in a close community. That we help each other, but will do anything against everyone else. The best of both worlds. Community strength, private profit.
- These women are with us because they want to be like us? Hard to believe. They hate us too.
- Yes. Sometimes. When they feel alone and exposed, attacked by us with the strength of “our people”.
- We’re playing a dangerous game with them.
He was prophetic. While he was far away in Budapest a crowd of protesters was outside his house back in his English University town.
- What happened?
- His friend accused him of sexual and personal misconduct, of misusing his power as a teacher and destroying her life. She'd been taking his class in Human Rights Law. My turn soon came. I'd gone through the doors of the Central European University, was showing my identification to the guards when my telephone rang. “Private Caller”. Hungarian was spoken, then, “moment”, and a man speaking English came on.
- This is the Budapest Police. You are requested to appear tomorrow at the district station at 10.
So there I was. There we were. Me, a lawyer I'd met at the cafe, the police translator, all three of us sitting across the desk from the police officer, a woman apparently less than 20 years old. She says nothing as we enter. No expression on her face. A paper bag with her lunch sat on the desk. My lawyer spoke first. Hungarian to the policewoman, then English to me.
- I placed a stipulation in the record. A husband trying to go home where he lives with his wife is not a crime.
The policewoman responded in Hungarian, with the translator repeating for me in English.
- She says they are investigating.
The policewoman spoke again in Hungarian.
- She wants to know how much money you make, whether or not you have a driver’s license, if you are a teacher of English.
- I’m living on savings from my watch business. I don’t have a current driving licence. I am not teaching English.
The translator repeated this information in Hungarian. The policewoman replied.
- The investigation will be continued. They’ll let you know.
A surprise waits for me at the hotel.
- What hotel?
- You know, the one owned by an American friend.
- The hotel you don't pay at.
- That's the one. There was a young guy, an American taking a break in his travelling working at the hotel, siting at the reception desk.
- You’re really in trouble this time, Rex. Three policemen were here and left this for you.
He handed me a envelope. Inside was an official looking letter. I read, then took out my telephone and called the lawyer.
- I just got a letter from the Police. If I fax it to you can you translate it? Call me back and tell me what it says.
The young traveler slipped the letter into the FAX machine and I got out of there. The hotel was the last place I wanted to be.
- You weren't staying at the hotel?
- No. I was putting a distance between me and the only address anyone had for me, practically running, when my telephone rang. The lawyer.
- New charges have been made. This is crazy. Impersonating government officials. That's for starters. You have to appear at another interrogation.
That was it. I sent a message to the Professor: “Meet me at the Odeon. Important”.
It took 20 minutes to get there. The professor was at our usual place.
- I wanted to leave this with you. I’m flying to Los Angeles tomorrow morning.
- It’s a treasure. Where did you find it?
- On one of those days you can take all your unwanted junk out into the street to be picked up by the city. Beds, tables, chairs, televisions, lamps. Just down the block I saw a crate filled with plastic video cassette boxes, but sitting on top this old cloth bound notebook, being rained on.
- As it says here on this page it's a memory book. They used to be common. Young boys and girls had their family, teachers and friends write advice, encouragement, poems, and make pictures. This is a Star of David, of course. Obviously from a Jewish family. 1937, 1938, 1940, 1941. The dates speak for themselves. Time of persecution, the Nurenberg laws.
- Where is the book now?
- A bank vault in Beverly Hills.
- How did it get there? You did go back home?
- Yes. And Beatrix joined me a month later
A domestic scene, Los Angeles. Beatrix had gone back to school to be a Vet. I was reading, as always. Beatrix was working with her laptop at a table covered with papers. Classical music played softly. The doorbell rang.
- Who is it?
- Fed-ex. The memory book is here. Go back to your school work.
- Why? Where was it?
- The Professor had it in Budapest. But when he went home to England he left it with a publisher. They went bankrupt. And he went into hiding from his student-lover - you met her - when she accused him of sexual misconduct. The Publisher didn’t answer my e-mail. The Professor didn’t answer my email. Finally he reappeared, wrote that he’d sent a research assistant to the publisher to get the book. Now it’s here.
- So he’s doing to his student what you’re doing to me.
- What’s that?
- Taking advantage of a young girl’s innocence.
- I'd like to meet your Beatrix. So what about her? Are you still together?
- You know what they say: Not happy in love? Not happy with no one to love? Better to be unhappy and love.
- If you can’t find someone else to be less unhappy in love with.
- If you can trade one love for another you’re not in love.
- You’ll go back to her then.
- Yes. I always have. What would you do?
- The same. Paris, Los Angeles. Where else have you been?
-Cyprus. A long time before I met Beatrix. Had adventures there.
- Tell me about them.
- Did I ever tell you about my Serbian friend? The woman I met in Budapest? She was running from the NATO bombing in the 90's, eventually ended up in Cyprus. She’d found herself a “protector” in a rich lawyer. She said that since I was “no one from no where” I might as well go there.
- What did you do there?
- The same as usual. Melica and I went up and down the island hitchhiking. She went along with me as I looked for watches.
- You're lucky.
- At a watch shop in a resort town the watchmaker questioned us, and we took turns answering.
- Are you married?
- Do we look like it?
- I don’t know. Maybe. What do you want?
- That’s the way you talk to your customers? I am a dealer in old watches. Do you have any for sale?
- At my shop in Limassol. I open it only one day a week. There’s no business. I have to work here for someone else, and sell insurance during the week. I need money for my family. What does she do?
- I have a second-hand shop. Clothes mostly.
- You have a business relationship.
- What could be better?
The watchmaker looks tall Melica over head to toe. That's his answer.
At the Larnaca flea market I stopped before a table with old machine parts and some watches. The middle-aged man with grease stained hands and clothes nodded to me.
- I’m looking for old watches.
- What kind? I have hundreds.
- Where?
- At my house. Rolex?
- Do you have military watches?
- Rolex military? I used to have a couple. I sold them. I used to deal in military surplus.
- To someone from here?
- A long time ago. He had a shop in Limassol. It’s closed now.
- I think I know who you mean.
- Buy something from me then. For the information I gave you.
I made 6 months of visits to the watchmaker's shop where he still worked on Saturdays, conversation after conversation, negotiation after negotiation. That is when he showed up for our appointments, which wasn't often. But I got one of the two watches and took it back to Zurich.
- You still stayed with your Swiss friend?
- Yes.
- Friends everywhere.
- On my way to Beyer, the watch retailer on Zurich's Bahnhofstrasse, I met Elliot: American, tall, elegantly dressed, a dealer in watches like me, but a lot older. He showed me his watches.
- The Longines has dual mainsprings. Rare. Only 200 Swiss Francs. The Wyler is cheap, 50 Francs, undervalued. What do you have to show me?
- Nothing.
- Nothing? I don't believe it. You always have watches.
- I was going inside Beyer to leave a few pieces of a military Rolex.
- Military Rolex! Show me.
- I bought it in Cyprus from a watchmaker turned insurance salesman. It was probably put together from replaced parts kept by the watchmakers at the English military bases. Badly damaged case, its back gouged by a screwdriver. Oil stained face. A few pieces of movement. I’m going in Beyer to ask what they’ll charge to supply the rest.
- Does the Cypriot have any more?
- Yes, he has another, but it would be nearly impossible to buy: the case and face are in better condition, the movement has more parts.
- I know a collector in New York who will pay a high price.
Elliot asked to borrow the watch to show it to someone. How much did I want? The 500 Francs I paid. I didn't hear from him, and sent a message. He wrote back he'd left the watch for evaluation at Beyer. I told him get it back and return it to me. He did.
I called Cyprus when I got home to Ursula's place.
- Do you still have the military Rolex?
- Yes, but there’s a problem. I gave it to a friend who wanted to get a repair estimate. He left the watch at a shop to be repaired without asking me.
- Strange. My American watch dealer friend did the same today with the first watch.
- I can get the watch back, but what if it has been repaired?
- I'll pay the cost, $2500 dollars, and the gold watch I showed you.
- I’ll call you back.
It was months, and only chance that I was again in Switzerland. Ursula brought me the phone: Cyprus calling.
- Do you have the watch?
- Yes. The repair is more than a thousand dollars. Is that alright?
- Yes. Where is the watch?
- My friend still has it. He wants to get the money he spent on the repair.
- I'll pay him.
Sunday I was sitting with the watchmaker in his closed shop. I handed over the gold watch.
- There's still a problem. My friend doesn't want to give back the watch.
- Why not?
- He now says he spent two thousand dollars on the repair.
- If he shows me the receipt, I’ll pay it.
- What will you do, if I keep the gold watch, and don't get the Rolex for you? Go to the police?
- Don't be ridiculous.
The watchmaker clearly is not being ridiculous. He has a conversation in Greek with his cousin, who has joined us. I interrupt,
- What is he saying?
- He says you make too much profit.
- Give me a minute. I’ll write down in detail what the last watch cost me, how much money I paid for repair and how long I waited, how long it was before I sold it and what I sold it for. Just a minute. Here.
- Can I keep the paper?
More conversation in Greek between the watchmaker and his cousin.
- OK, let's go get the watch.
It was dark when we arrived at his friend's house. Dogs barked inside, kicked at the front door. Our knocking wasn't answered. The watchmaker said it was better we wait at his own house around the corner.
While his wife made coffee he kept trying to call his friend. Finally the call was answered. Loud argument ensued. He put down the phone.
- Let's go back.
We stood at the door, the watchmaker repeatedly shouting his friend's name. The watchmaker's friend must've got tired of hearing it. He emerged from the dark house and was introduced. I asked him to explain the problem to me.
- I only want the money I laid out for the repair.
- Show me the receipt, and I'll pay the cost.
- I don't have it.
- Ask the repair company to fax you a copy.
- No. I have the watch. If you want it, you have to pay my price.
- Did you buy the watch? Pay anything for it?
- No.
- Did you have permission to repair it?
- No.
- I don't see how it's your watch.
- I have possession of it. Legally it's mine.
- Let's go to the police.
- Won't do you any good. The Chief of Police is a friend of mine.
It's midnight. I asked the watchmaker to take me to my hotel.
Two hours later I was awakened by pebbles being thrown at the window. The watchmaker was outside standing beside a police car. I got dressed and went down.
- My friend has been arrested for theft. They want you to go to the station and give a statement.
I gave the statement, sitting at a desk across from a detective typing my replies into a computer. I ask him,
- Where is the watch?
- The watch has been taken as evidence. The case is being investigated.
Months pass. Each time I returned to Cyprus I paid a visit to the police station.
I'd sit patiently waiting, book in one hand, coffee cup in the other. A detective would walk into the waiting room and stand in front of me.
- The case is being investigated.
One day I said to the receptionist:
- I’d like to speak with the Chief of Detectives.
She spoke briefly on the phone, lead me down the hallway, into another office and the desk of the chief of detectives.
- Do you know why I'm here?
- Yes.
- I'd like to know why you haven't finished your investigation. It's been 6 months.
- That's normal for Cyprus.
- But what are you doing? What did you investigate this month?
- Nothing.
- Last month?
- Nothing.
- Month before? Why aren't you investigating? You won't answer?
- Do you want me to tell you why I'm not investigating?
- Yes.
The Chief Of Detectives picked up his telephone, spoke a few words. One by one detectives came filing into the room, lined themselves up along the wall.
- You want to know why I'm not investigating?
-Yes.
-Because I don't want to. Get out.
(in chorus)
- Get out!
I walked down the hall, saw a sign in Greek and English “Chief of Police”. The office door was open, the Chief Of Police seated inside behind a desk.
- I suppose you know why I’m here? About this investigation?
He stared at me without answering.
- About the watch?
- Yes. What do you want?
- The watch.
- I'm not interested. Go.
I went. On the way out the receptionist stopped me.
- What will you do now?
- Call the American Embassy.
- Good luck.
Back at the hotel the owner's father handed me a paper.
- My friend, the Embassy called for you. You can use the phone at the desk if you want.
I went over to the hotel phone and made the call, reached the Embassy officer.
- We made the inquiry into the watch. The police have now closed their investigation. No charge will be pressed against the second man. Since the police had the watch from him, it will be returned to him at the end of a one week period unless you take legal action to stop it. This was the decision of the prosecutor's office in the capitol, according to the police.
Next step, the prosecutor's office in the capitol.
- I’d like to speak to the prosecutor.
- He's not available.
- I'll wait.
A few minutes later the secretary escorted me into the office.
- You’ve come about the watch.
- Yes.
- A fascinating situation. I will reopen the investigation if you want. But in my opinion, it's a waste of time. If the watchmaker’s friend loses the criminal case, he can appeal. It might take years. Much better to file a civil law suit against him.
- That also will take years.
- Maybe not. Depends on what his lawyer advises when he gets notice of suit.
- Can you recommend a lawyer in Nicosia? The lawyer my hotel sent me to turned out to have ties to the both the watchmaker and his friend.
- I wonder if that would be ethical. Excuse me a moment.
The prosecutor left the office. I heard him speaking with someone in the next room. He returned.
- I can recommend my cousin. He's just begun to practice law in his mother's office. I’ve made an appointment for you. There is time. The watch isn't going anywhere.
He handed me a business card.
Next, the lawyer's office. It was only a few streets away.
- I am already familiar with the case. But tell me again.
I removed a folded sheet of paper from my wallet and placed it on the desk.
- Here’s the "Bill Of Sale" I convinced the watchmaker to make out for me last week. Almost a year after we made our deal. Tax stamped, witnessed by the owner of my hotel, dated and signed, very official looking. A lawyer in Limassol called it a forged document. Is it?
- No, there’s precedent for putting into written form an earlier oral agreement.
- Then what’s my next step?
- Apply for a court order to take the watch away from the police and into the keeping of the court. Then sue both watchmaker and the friend.
- How much will it cost?
- Four Hundred Pounds for court and legal fees.
I took out my wallet and put down on the lawyer’s desk small stack of colorful bills.
- Swiss Francs, but I think about right. Nine Hundred.
Once again in Zurich, Ursula's apartment, in the kitchen drinking coffee at the table and reading, Ursula appears in the doorway.
- Cyprus. Your lawyer.
I went to the telephone.
- The watchmaker's friend has made an offer of settlement. If you pay the repair cost which he now says is one thousand dollars, he will give up claim to the watch.
- I accept.
- Are you sure?
- Yes. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave money for the Watchmaker with you to give to him, the price of the watch less my costs.
Arrangements were made. I flew back to Cyprus. The morning after I arrived there was a knock on the door. It was the watchmaker.
- You’re going to the court to get the watch? Why didn’t you call me?
- I don’t know if anything will happen there. I’ve been to lawyers’ offices, police stations, prosecutors’ offices dozens of times. How did you know I am going to court?
- Your hotel told me. I’m coming with you.
I walked through the doors accompanied by the watchmaker. No one came to meet us. We sat down and waited.
- What are we waiting for?
- My lawyer’s assistant is supposed to meet me here.
- I have to go to work.
- If I do get the watch, you can pick up your money from my lawyer. I am leaving Cyprus this afternoon in any case.
The watchmaker took the lawyer’s card and left the courthouse. Time passed. The lawyer's assistant finally appeared.
- I’ve been looking for you. The court has the watch. I’ve been trying to get you permission to see it. I’ll be back.
She goes. Time passes. She returns.
- They say now they don’t have the watch. The other side’s lawyer isn’t here. I’ll be back.
She goes. Time passes. She returns.
- They say now they have the watch but refuse to show it to you.
- Why?
- I don’t know.
The lawyer for the watchmaker's friend appears in discussion with a couple of other gowned lawyers.
- Finally. This is the other side’s lawyer.
- Do you have the money?
I put the money in his hand. He carefully counted it.
- The best part of my life for the past year has been spent fighting over this watch.
- Why did you? It wasn't your client's.
- He had possession of it.
I waited outside as the friend's lawyer went into an office and shut the door behind him. When he emerged, he passed papers to the assistant, and went on his way. The rest went downstairs, and in another office, papers presented, a safe was opened by a court official and the watch held out to me.
- Is it right?
- New crystal, new hands and winding crown, maybe a new face. The case has been badly polished. Difficult to say if it is the same watch at all. I haven’t seen it for two years.
- What do you want to do?
- Pick up my bag from the hotel, and then go to the airport.
In the hotel lobby the owner was waiting as I got out of the elevator.
- Are you happy now? You’ve been coming here years. Now you have the watch.
- It’s only a watch. Why did you tell the watchmaker I was going to court this morning?
- I’m Cypriot.
At Beyer in Zurich I handed over the receipt I'd been given that morning when I dropped off the watch. The service agent returns with the watch and a written report.
- The watch needs service.
- I was told it just came from service.
- I’m sorry. It failed water-pressure and other tests.
I went to the payphone across the street and called my lawyer in Cyprus.
- Listen. I’m at a Rolex authorized dealer in Zurich. They’ve written a report that the watch hasn’t been serviced. When I deduct the thousand dollars I paid the watchmaker’s friend for servicing the watch, I don’t owe the watchmaker anything. I don’t want you to give him the money I left with you.
- It's not the watchmaker's fault.
-It is. The two were working together to cheat me before they had their falling out. Even if not, the watchmaker is responsible for what it cost me to get the watch.
- Send me the report by fax. And don't come back to Cyprus. Not for a while.
But Peter, I did go back, a couple years later.
- Why?
- It's difficult to explain, even to myself. Maybe where things happen most is where you feel most at home. The Cypriots really couldn't figure me out. Why had I left my own country, to go there and do nothing? Was I doing nothing, was I not a spy, for the United States, for Israel? Was I even really American? Why was I living like I was, spending time with a Serbian woman who, protected companion of a powerful local lawyer plainly didn't belong with me or to me or me belong to her in any way?
One day, then, I heard my name called, and went out onto the balcony. Milica was down on the street with her two terriers.
- Are you ready?
I went down with my bags, avoiding the attentions of the two dogs jumping with joy at the end of their leashes as best I could.
We walked together to the courtyard of the second-hand shop.
She started clearing away the broken banana tree branches blocking the door.
- See what that monster at the restaurant over there did?
- What's wrong with him?
- He wants to frighten me away.
- Just because he tried to push you around, and you told him to go to hell?
- Welcome to your new home.
She unlocked the door to the shop, and we worked our way inside through piled plastic bags filled with old clothes to the spiral stairway to the loft.
- You can sleep upstairs. I don’t think that maniac will try anything with you here.
The dogs were barking outside where they were tied to a tree.
- I’ll be back tomorrow night.
Every morning I'd climb down the spiral stairway, make my way to the front door, unlock it, drag out a table and a chair and make myself instant coffee. I'd sit outside in the garden with coffee in one hand and book in the other. There was no doubt this was better than having an apartment. Books, coffee, a garden, a constant stream of visitors. A tourist came up to me, asked,
- Do you work here?
- No. House-guest and friend of the owner. Go on in. Prices are on the board by the door. Leave the money somewhere on the book shelves.
He went inside and looked through the books. Then came back out. I asked if he'd like me to make him a cup of coffee.
- No thanks. But can you recommend me a book?
- Since I’ve been here my friend has greatly expanded her collection. Strange books on history and politics and poetry she finds at church sales. Look out for them.
- Do you know the Yiddish writer Grade? In one of his stories a religious man runs his wife’s store the way you do.
- I don’t run the store.
- Exactly!
Melica arrived on her moped bringing with her pizza, yogurt, wine, olives. She put everything down on the table outside, collected the money from the shelves inside, grabbed my head roughly and gave me a kiss on the top of my head, and sat down beside me under the night sky. I asked her,
- Why are you so good to me?
- You made me many beautiful gifts, when you were able to.
- I never would have given you anything if I knew it was going to be considered the price of your friendship.
- Too late now.
It wasn't long before the attacks of the restaurant owner had resumed. The palm branches that had been placed as an awning on the roof have been thrown down before the door. I made one more official complaint at the police station.
That evening a man and a woman entered the shop, then stepped carefully though all the stock back outside to speak with me, where I was sitting as usual reading, with a cup of coffee in my hand.
- Do you work here?
- No, I am staying upstairs. Go in. If you find something you want, leave the money for the owner on the shelf. Prices are listed on the board.
He pointed to the book I was holding in my hand, fingers marking the page I left off on.
- Can I buy that book?
- It happens to be my book, not the store's. But I will be finished in a few minutes, and then you can take it.)
- You are under arrest.
- Why?
- Tell you later.
At the police station he lead me to the holding area and unlocked the gate in the chain link fence.
- Your problem is you think you can change the world.
The next morning, world unchanged, two policemen escorted me out to a police car and we drive to the courthouse. The lawyer I'd picked from a list supplied by the embassy met me at the door.
- Bail will be set. We will ask for a continuance. Are you all right? Good. Let’s go in.
A man came over and introduced himself to me.
- I’ll be translating for you. Stand over there. The hearing is beginning.
The Prosecutor made a statement in Greek. The interpreter translated for me.
- The prosecutor’s representative asked for one thousand pounds bail. Your lawyer suggested one hundred. Two hundred pounds was set by the judge. And you must surrender your passport.
The two policemen drove me to a bank to get the money, and back to the courthouse and my lawyer. He walked me over to a small office where the bail money was paid, my passport handed over, and documents signed.
- To be safe, you must ask for your Embassy’s help. I’ve already spoken with the prosecutor’s representatives here. They’re embarrassed by this. Let’s hope for the best. See you tomorrow.
The next day it was the translator who mets me at the courthouse door and escorted me to the courtroom.
- I’ll be translating for you again. Stand here. The hearing is beginning.
The prosecutor made a statement in Greek.
- The prosecutor’s representative says he believes there is no reason to continue with the case. The judge says he will wait for a written statement from the head prosecutor’s office before acting further. The case is continued until tomorrow, same time.
And again at the new hearing the interpreter stood by me in the courtroom as the prosecutor spoke.
- The Prosecutor says they have changed their minds and will proceed with the prosecution. Case continued until tomorrow, same time.
My lawyer took my arm and lead me to a quiet corner outside.
- I think you must go in person to the Embassy in the capitol.
- The bus stop is just down the street. But what is going on?
- The representative for the police I spoke with told me they were over-ruled by “instructions from above.”
Nicosia was one hour away. I walked from the bus station to the Embassy, a large walled compound, and was admitted to the consular section. They told me to put it in writing.
I wrote out the required statement.
- Have you put down everything? There are no guarantees. But I’ll see what we can do. What is this really all about? Do you know?
- Hatred.
- When does the hearing continue?
- Tomorrow.
I was at the court cafeteria early the next morning. I liked it there. It was a good place to read. The court interpreter suddenly appeared at the table.
- The judge wants this case to move forward. What do you expect from the American Embassy?
-I have asked the Ambassador to contact the Attorney General of Cyprus.
- What does the Ambassador say?
- I don't know. I haven't spoken with him directly.
- Tell him the judge wants an answer.
- How?
- Call him.
- I’ll try.
I called the Embassy, asked for the Consular Department. The Embassy Officer came on the line. I reminded her who I was.
- I’m at the courthouse. They want to know what you are doing.
- The United States doesn't involve itself with the internal legal affairs of foreign countries.
- It is the judge here that is demanding a response.
- Really? Put your lawyer on the phone.
I passed the phone to my lawyer, who spoke briefly in Greek, then passed the phone back to me.
- What do you want us to do exactly?
- I want the Ambassador to call the Attorney General and ask him if he knows what is going on here. Tell him that a prosecutor from his office has said in court that the case should not be prosecuted, there was no grounds whatsoever for the action to continue, then returned the next day saying he would proceed anyway.
- OK, I'll do that
- What did she say?
- The Ambassador will call the Attorney General.
The interpreter jumped from the table knocking over his chair and ran out of the cafe. Five minutes later he rushed back in.
- Case closed! Call the Ambassador! Tell him not to call the Attorney General".
I made the call. The Embassy officer answered.
- Yes? What now?
- Case closed. The judge wants you to tell the Ambassador not to call the Attorney General.
- Too late. I am looking at him on the phone right now talking with the Attorney General. What happened?
- I don't know.
- Incredible!
My lawyer, who’d followed the translator when he rushed out, has now returned too.
- What do you think happened?
- The prosecutor claims his office found a misplaced document from the capitol that had closed the case days before.
- And what was this all about?
- Like I said: Hatred. Hatred of Americans, hatred of Israelis (anyone thought to be Jewish was considered Israeli), hatred of Serbian and other immigrants, police anger at being defied by me and my friend - everyone said her neighbor worked for the police as an informant.
- Cyprus.
- The place has a reputation.
- The memory book story interests me more. Do you expect to make money from the book? That is what you do, make money from things you find.
- Instead I wrote a children’s book, complete with drawings. It’s here in my bag. Sit back, I’ll read you a bed-time story.
- You’re the only guest, but some things have to be done in my job of doing nothing. Give me a minute.
I took out a lose stack of papers, drawings on top, and spread them out on the coffee table. Peter returned with two more coffees.
- Ready. The story is based on the memory book?
- Yes. Pretend you hear the voice of Kata, Magda’s friend, a young Budapest girl.
Here is a picture of our attic. All those books are ours. And that is Magda sewing my coat.
We have been here for about a month now. Magda has a husband but he had to go away to work.
She is my best friend. And I am her best friend. Though I am only thirteen, she tells me I act like her mother. I don't mind. Her real mother is gone, but I still have mine. And father too. I got the idea for this book from Magda. I mean I found her memory book hidden on the shelves. She doesn't know I found it. You can see how nice it is. People had time to make nice things then. Myself I have poor penmenship. But no one is going to complain. Like Magda's book, my book is a secret. Did you see the tear in the pocket? In the last picture, I mean. On my coat. Magda and I were at Keleti Station. We weren't allowed to be there, obviously. But I had the pass my father gave me. Here is what it looked like. And this is the station. They are going to resettlement. Magda and I stay here, safe in this house that belongs to Sweden. Somewhere among all those people getting on the train was Gabi, Magda's favorite teacher. The memory book was in my pocket, but I didn't have to take it out to know what Gabi wrote down. The date was 1941. Three years ago. Here it is:
"When childhood first awakes to consciousness, When its faith first is being torn by destiny, When you, heart and soul, cry out in pain, Beware, that's when life begins."
My father tells me that mother watches over him. And he watches over me. Always no matter what. And that I have to watch over Magda. Some people need more watching over, he says. I asked what I could possibly do for my friend Magda. She knows everything. Reads all night. She's married, she's a teacher, She's a tailor. She is kind. She is wise. And father said I was right. Still she needs to know someone is watching over her.
"In life you're cared for by these three: God, parents, and good friends. Worship the first, respect the second, and never forget the third."
I guess you are wondering about how we got here. Magda used to live with us. I mean our house, our big house, my father and mother and grandmother's house. We had plenty of company, because families from other parts of the city had to move out of their own houses, they were told to, and they came to live with us. Our house became school, dormitory, my father's law office, and political headquarters too, unfortunately, my father says. Politicians. My father always said that word in a funny way. On our last day, before we came here, the politician guy came over in his big car. He saw me sitting outside on the steps, said to Magda beside me, may I? and ruffled my hair. Pretty girl. Are you a politician? I asked. Are you going to shoot me? Do you deserve it? You're the daughter, I recognize you. Your father taught you to talk that way. And he went up the steps and into the house. Five minutes later all the children, all of them, came stumbling over each other out into the street. Magda went inside and came back with the news: we all had to go. We were going to the Swedes. Father had arranged it. We have to hurry. They are coming. The politician came to warn us. And then she turned to go back inside. For the books. I remembered what my father taught me. All these little kids needed someone to look after them. They looked to each other, and saw that every one of them was looking at the others for someone to look after them, they were scaring each other looking for help from each other. Mother, Father would say, is not here, but I know she looks after us. She demands we do good, she's watching to catch us out. So I thought, give the little kids something good to do. I said,-Magda, tell them we're taking the books. We're taking the books! Get them to repeat it. Line them up, up the stairs, along the street. We'll pass on the books kid to kid, from our library to the Swedes house. We can see it from here. I took Magda's elbow and got her going. She was shocked like the rest at having to move again so soon. And my father was right. The books arrived in our attic here, the kids came with them. This is what Magda's book says:
There are two beautiful things in life, On which destiny has no power: Diligence and morality, On earth and in heaven we're blessed by them.
In the picture of our house you can see the Swedish Flags and the sign above the door, "Svenska Bibliotek". Father said it was Mr. Wallenberg's idea to call the house a library. Now where the sign is really is a library!It was through Per, the man who worked with Mr. Wallenberg, that Magda and I first met. Magda translated German and Hungarian for Per. Per and Mr. Wallenberg are Swedes who are helping us.Father worked with the Politician, as he called him. And both of them often went to see the Swedes. Father always says he liked to keep me in his sight and out of everyone else's.He took me with him to meetings, Per took Magda, so often Magda and I found ourselves waiting together, this time in the kitchen of a big house out in the Buda Hills that Per was renting.We sat over the coffee the house maid prepared for us, listening to the murmur of voices coming from the dining room, the voices of the German Eichmann, Per, and Father. That reminds me. It's hard to describe Magda's voice. She doesn't like to talk much. She likes to sing, especially while she sews. I said to her in the kitchen,- The men in the other room: they are deciding who lives and who dies. Magda looked at me with her quiet eyes. I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that I was too young to know.But we both had been there at the train station. We saw the brave Mr. Wallenberg jump on the roof of the train, throw in his Shutz Passes, lead the people out of the train and station and into his cars with Swedish flags. The Germans shouted get down! stop! they shot their rifles into the air. He didn't go through that to save people from "resettlement". Even a 13 year old can figure that out.We can at least know what they're saying, I urge Magda. Come with me.We take off our shoes and tip toe to the closed double doors of the dining room.4.Crouched outside, in the hallway around the corner from the closed doors to the dining room, we can clearly hear three voices. Per, the Swedish Diplomat, Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi officer, Rudolph Katztner, the "Politician". Per is saying to Eichmann,- You should worry about what will happen at the end of the war. About your future.- You should be worried too. The Russians will get here first. They will be uncertain about who you work for. Sweden? America? Other countries?- We receive financial support from the American Refugee Relief Board. It is a humanitarian organization.- If you say so. You use American money to help the Jews stay, when it is my job to send them away.- But you know Germany has lost the war.- We can still complete the task we have set for ourselves.- You are talking about killing people.- Killing Jews.- For the glorious future of Germany, when Germany has no future. You say so yourself.- Watch yourself, my dear Per. We Germans still have our present, and presently we are here in Budapest.- I'll ask you again. Why send people to their deaths for an idea you don't believe in? You say the killing will make the world a better place for your people, who might soon be killed to make the world a better place for their conquerors.- And I'll say again, Watch yourself, Per. I believe in doing my job. I am well rewarded for it. I will do it as long as I can and will enjoy doing it up until the end.What do you say, Herr Kasztner?- I also believe in doing my job, and that is saving people. The future of nations, polite dinner table gossip I leave to the diplomats.- Bravo. $1000 each transported. Train to Switzerland. That is true international language. You'll have your train, I promise you. Do your work, I'll do mine.
Magda is surprised, me too, when Father appears standing before us, a quizzical expression on his face. I say,- There you are.- There you are. Clear out!- Where have you been?- Making a telephone call. What business is it of yours? Back to where you are supposed to be, you two!In the kitchen Magda stands before the stove, her face turned away.- Magda! Only God decides who lives and who dies.- I have to trust Father will do what is right.- What can he do alone?- He can be a good man. Kata, come here. We will sit in this kitchen and drink another cup of coffee. We don't get it often. You want to think a way out for us, then go ahead and do it. I'll see that Father listens to you. Right now we'll try to be good to each other.She puts her arms around me, rests her head on my shoulder. I'm big for my age, so it isn't too awkward.
In life you're cared for by these three: God, parents, and good friends.Worship the first, respect the second, and never forget the third.
That's from the first page of the memory book.
On the Sabbath Magda and I exercised our privilege, as Father would say, of leaving our house with the Swedish Flag driving in Per's car flying the Swedish flag.The Pest Synagogue was full. Here is a picture. We looked down on the crowd from the women's balcony high above. I said to Magda,- If I ran down there, climbed onto a chair and shouted, you all are going to die! what would happen? There are thousands. They'd tell their friends.- The Germans would take you away. No one would believe you, man or woman.They'd say to each other that if it were true, the Rabbis would have told them.Do you see that boy? Blond hair, blue eyes? That's Lantos.- Your friend?- You've seen him at home. He brings medicine to all the safe houses. He's coming tonight.- He looking up at us.- Don't look! Let's go to the car.In Magda's book I read:"To love many is a guilt,To love two is a sin,To love One is sweet,Solely be faithful and warm."7.Magda has gathered all the children together for school. I don't have to attend because I take lessons all day living with her up in our attic. And anyway everyone keeps talking about how advanced I am.The surprise I have for Magda is that Lontos is coming after class with Father. We are going to ambush Magda. We need her good sense.By the way, he is not really her father. He's my father. He is father to her, he says, as she is mother to the children. As I am mother to her!Father arrives just as the class ends. Lontos is with him. Father kisses Magda on the cheek, kisses me on the cheek. Lontos signals to me with a little wave of his hand. He says,- I hope Kata was telling me the truth. She said that you would listen. She and I have agreed on this: we cannot choose between selecting some to be saved, and warning the rest the resettlement trains are death trains. We have to do both.- How?- If people are warned, they can try to escape, they can hide, they can defend themselves, they can join the resistance.- Why would they believe you?- We will choose the people who are ready to believe. We'll do it quietly. That's what we are doing now. We won't destroy Kastner's deal with Eichmann.Take your house full of orphans on the Kastner train, if you can do it. But help us too. We'll find those who will believe. We'll do it quietly. They'll join us, save themselves and others. Will you help? Kata, ask your father.- Father?- Magda, what do you think?- Yes. The Memory Book says:
"In the storm of life your clear inner-self is the best shelter."
This is a picture of train station goodbyes.
The memory book:
"It's hard to find a good friend, And a true, whole-hearted partner. But it's even harder to be separated from the one you love, when it's such a precious thing you can't find anything like it on the whole Earth.
Time passes quickly. I'm growing up fast. This is the last I will write for a while. Magda refuses to go with us. She won't take a chance from someone else. And there is work for her here. Lontos is staying too. He laughs: Kastner forgot to save him a place on his train! He promises to look after Magda.
- And?
- I didn’t know about Kastner. Did he get his train?
- Yes. But he didn’t himself go on it. He ended up in Israel, became a party politician and journalist. In the 1950’s the story of what happened in Budapest came out. A Hungarian immigrant started publishing pamphlets about him. Kastner got the government to sue for libel. But the court ruled there was no libel because he in fact collaborated with the Nazis. He went into retreat, filed an appeal. Before it could be heard he was shot outside his apartment by a former Israeli spy. The next year the court reversed the judgment and exonerated him.
- What's your interest in this?
- I found the book. If you don’t mind, let’s change the subject.
- It’s dark. I’ll turn the lights on.
Do you know what I liked best about living with my wife? Sitting in the garden in the house in the country, reading Shakespeare. How can we be happy with people who do everything to make us unhappy?
- They don’t do it all the time.
- You’re speaking from experience.
- Yes. She loved you.
- How do you know that?
- I know from the stories. From knowing you. How was living with her in the countryside?
Good times and bad. On a good day Beatrix said to me,
- You're precious to me. I have to take care of you so you'll last. Sit down. I'll cut your nails.
- You don't have to. Why am I precious to you?
- I know you'll never leave me.
- You'll leave me before I have a chance.
- Don't you care?
- What can I do about it?
- You could leave me.
- You just said you know I won't.
- You could leave me first, when you know I am going to leave you. That's what I do.
- Remind me when the time comes.
- In spite of all, because of it all, life is beautiful with her. She says she herself isn’t beautiful, only knows how to make the most of her good points. She does stretching exercises every day, runs for 40 minutes, is dedicated to her singing. She tells me she loves me. Do I love her? How could I not. She cooks for me, sneaks downstairs in the morning to read the notes I am making. She wants to know everything about me.
- And what about you? Do you know everything about her?
I took out my laptop, typed in an internet address.
- I’ve a couple of web sites I put my stories on. This one is named after my wife.
I typed in another address.
- Google Analytics for the site. The month of March, before we returned to Hungary. On the 18th, 3 visits, averaging 12 minutes, from a small town in New Mexico, Alamogoro. Beatrix has a friend there, a German Soldier stationed at the American Air Force Base.
- How do you know?
- She told me about him long ago. Here are records for another site. On the 27th, 2 visits from Horse Neck, New Jersey. Same date she re-set her Facebook profile to show this town as her home.
- And who is there?
- That I don’t know.
- You write, and she watches you. She reads, and you watch her.
- We keep in touch.
- How, when did you meet your wife?
- The day I got out of Cyprus. I'll tell you how.
The airport bus took me to the metro station, the metro brought me to Budpest. A wet, grey day. I walked fast through the gloom and noise of the streets to the Odeon cafe, and once past the double doors, I was relieved to see the couches and arm chairs were just where they were the year before.
Around me were the same grim faces, miserable or just locked in concentration. I set down my bag, arranged my books on the table. Across the room, sitting where I usually did when I had a chance, was a young woman alone. She looked back at me. There was something taunting in her expression. Her hair style looked newly achieved, and expensive: these were warnings. I got up and said hello. Beatrix asked,
- Are you American?
- Yes.
- What do you do?
- Don't really do anything, in the past I’ve made money dealing with old watches between other dealers, in a small way, but at the moment I’m writing.
- Writing what?
- Stories from my life. Trials, police, courts, in Cyprus and New Jersey.
- You get yourself into trouble?
- Sometimes. So far I have always got away unharmed, left it all behind. Mostly I read all day.
- Are you from New Jersey?
- No, Los Angeles, but part of my family moved there.
- I have to go now.
- Can I call you later?
She wrote her phone number on a newspaper margin and said goodby.
We met again at a shopping center in Buda.
I ran through heavy rain from the tramstop to the entrance and looked around for her. She came out to get me.
We took off our winter clothes, sat down in a cafe booth beside each other. Neither of us spoke. Beatrix asked,
- What's wrong?
- I am lost here.
- In Budapest?
- No, here with you.
- Don't you like me? Should I go?
- No.
- Do you want to know my story?
I studied English Pedagogy at the University, I work at night at a school teaching English. I’ve signed a contract with Universal Music to sing with a band and record a CD. The company wants to make me a star, create an image for me. Do you care? Are you interested? You don’t like popular music?
- No, I do. I would like to hear you sing.
Beatrix got up and started to walk away. I caught up with her.
- Don't go.
- I'm lost.
That's how it started. Beatrix sent me a message, did I want to go with her to see a live performance of Fiddler on the Roof, In Hungarian? I did.
She picked me up and drove to the theater. With still an hour before show time we ordered tea at the Chinese restaurant on the corner. Beatrix asked,
- What do you think of me?
- I don't know you, I don't understand you.
- Why are you here then?
- I'd like to get to know you.
- Why?
- It is the old story of wanting to have a story. What else is there in life? Why are you here with me?
- You're interesting. A stray. A hermit hiding in the open, an adventurer against his will, a reluctant warrior.
Better and better!
After the play her car isn't around the corner where she expected. It takes half an hour of walking deserted streets to find it.
- I'd like to go out. Look at the river, the lights. It's been a while.
- The best view in the city.
- I feel so much at home here and it’s not my home at all. This hotel, the country itself can throw me out any time. It’s like being with my wife.
- Is that why you didn’t come back for so long?
- Yes. I don’t understand.
- It’s just life. We don’t understand even our friends, not much, but we’re re-assured when we’re with them. You’re wife will come back to you.
- And then leave again.
- And you can go traveling.
- And return, to her, to the Citadel.
- You’ll be welcome.
- Let’s go inside. I’ll tell you one more story.
- Just a moment.
Peter leaves, returns with two bottles of beer.
-The story?
- You like cafes. You’ll like this.
When you sit down at a cafe, square your arms like a king along the rests of one of two comfortable chairs at the small round table, and look over at a stranger, the temporary companion in life sitting in the other chair, you might have something like this happen.
I brought my coffee over to a table. Across from me was a man with movie star looks, in his mid-thirties, typing into a laptop. I ask him,
- What are you working on?
- I’m working now with SEO, Search Engine Optimization. Getting your company higher up on internet search results. But I’m interested in getting into the movie business. Are you a writer?
- I have writing on free sites I would like to make money with. Can you help?
- I can get sites noticed, but it’s up to you to have something to sell on them. Do you?
- Not at the moment.
- When you do we can talk again. Where are you going from here? I have to leave for an appointment, can I drop you somewhere?
- What direction are you going?
- It doesn’t matter. I’ll take you where you’re going, if it is not too far.
In the parking lot he points to a new Jaguar
- It’s this one.
- Nice car.
- A gift from a movie actress. I met her when I had a shop with partners selling luxury furniture. We went out once. She liked me. Asked me to meet her a few days later at a Jaguar dealership. She gave me a choice: do I like the dark one better or the light one? Take my pick. The ownership papers came in the mail a little while later.
The traffic is heavy tonight.
I used to sit at the shop with People magazine open before me, concentrating on one famous person or another. Sooner or later they would appear in the shop. I even tried this on birds, and they appeared in the sky as ordered. If you are grateful, you get what you ask for. At least it works for me.
- I was wondering what had happened with a girl from Romania I used to know. And then a couple of days ago she wrote me an email after no contact for seven years. Come to New York and see her! She was traveling with an Italian boyfriend who had to go home suddenly for a family emergency. The problem with this invitation was that the last time I saw her she was robbing me at gunpoint with her boyfriend of that time. A case of be careful of what you ask for.
- Yeah.
The car arrived in Westwood. Good-byes were exchanged. As I closed the door, he leaned over to speak through the window.
- I asked for you.
The sound of a car is heard driving up into the castle courtyard. Peter got up and opened the hotel door. Beatrix rushes in past him, sees me and says,
- Let’s go.
* * *
- That's the end?
- Of the first part. What did you think?
- I'll have to talk to people. I'll get back to you.
PART TWO: IN BUDAPEST
I. The Politics Of Home
Walking in Buda with my new friend the retired translator, talking about the peculiar nature of the Hungarian language and Hungarian thinking, we get to Szondi. A contemporary of Albert Szent-Gyorgi, the discoverer of vitamin C, Szondi was known for his idea that personality disorder was a family inheritance. You felt at home with people who looked like you, you couldn't help it. So he'd show you photos of crazy people, and when you said which you liked and which you didn't, he'd tell you how crazy you were.
I wonder how crazy I am, in the company of this man from another world who says he spent his whole life working. I am someone who almost can say the opposite. Many of these places we're passing on our long walk I haven't seen for years, are places where I said hello or good-by to my friends whose friendship went nowhere. Nothing went anywhere in my life. But does that mean I am crazy? I counter-attack: Show me the picture of Szondi, and I wouldn't like it! His theory is just more myth-making politics pretending to be science. I go on:
- I was thinking over an idea while I was waiting for you at the three benches. I called it my theory of democratic love. This was supposed to describe the last weeks I spent with my wife. I was accustomed to having no pattern in my life, letting it go where it would. And I found this wife who fit right in. There was no pattern, nothing got accomplished. She was like a politician, I decided, who sold one myth or another, to people who didn't pay attention to any facts of political life. They don't pay any attention because in this phase of modern democracy the practical aspect of government, protecting everyone from everyone else's violence, is confused with the requirements of society. Their politics is identical to their psychology: it has its origin in obscure and entirely private drives, desires, forces.
The people, if we look at them as private scientists, we don't have any data on, don't observe how they act with each other; the individual "forces" or drives that motivate them don't communicate with those of other people. Without this data, individuals cannot evaluate competing political theories. Politicians sell them one myth or another, typical stories of how life should be, that appeal to individual drives, independence, cooperation, work, etc. Once in office, politicians, likewise unable to communicate psychologically with the people who elected them, serve their own drives, usually for money and power.
With my wife it seemed like I never knew even the basic truths of what was happening, where I was going to live, what she really thought about me, about her future, our future. The result was that like an ignorant democratic I stumbled from one myth of our future to another, one dream to another. This had its romantic side. With all the different theories I had to live with, I wasn't a democrat, I was an entire democracy!
- In a way, I agree with you. Psychology hasn't been able to get beyond the 5000 year old three part division of our selves - the soul, the spirit, the body - from the Egyptians to present time, to either prove it wrong or improve on it.
- I think that is because it works well enough. I have used it myself.
- Can you say then what spirit is?
- Yes, that's easy. It is the sense of home, it is the drive, desire, motive to get back home when you have gone or been driven away. Home is an intermediary between mind and body. It is, you could say, the body of the mind, the place in the world the mind knows, and that place becoming like another body. Like the body has be maintained, so does the body of the mind. We like to get back home. Our present politics is politics of the body, when it should be politics of home.
- I've never heard anything like that.
- The idea has its home in the stories I wrote*, I've told you about them.
- Yes, I haven't had time to get to it yet.
- Anyway, the idea I was working on this morning was that absent the third part, the spirited part, the part of the soul that give us the idea of home, our democracies become plutocracies, government by the wealthy. Psychology is of forces, of work, doing things, yet politics is about the good life, which involves also feeling good. The third part includes this in the observation, makes it part of the facts which we use to judge the theories that politicians sell us to get their jobs. How we live together as a society is another kind of home.
The thing about living with my wife: I couldn't help the idea coming to mind that she was in fact doing what politicians do, selling me myths but pursuing her own desires, money and power. And it disgusted me finally, terrified me even. In other words, it destroyed my sense of home, and the third part told me: go. So that is what I did.
Whether I was a victim of my own theorizing I don't know. I guess that's what I have to think about next.
* My Wife Who Throws Me Out (An Essay On Home)
Eve (An Essay On Spirit)
II. Hamvas And Humbug
The Toldi Cinema has seen better days. Once a meeting place for the thoughtful and independent of Budapest, now remodeled in the style of a modern office building lobby, it is nearly empty at all hours. At night however many of the original staff can still be found there. Last year, the evening before I returned to L.A., I'd asked about the internet and was taken back into their office and placed before their computer, and was told in the process that I was known there. First came fifteen years ago, right? I thought a moment. Right, that was 1996.
I used to take the night train from Zurich, with at least one watch for business on my wrist and one light bag on my shoulder, and arrive just after noon in Budapest. I'd come to the Toldi, drink a cup of coffee and see one or more of the movies playing that day. I rarely talked with anyone, because when I tried I was gently made aware that this place I was a guest at was a place of friendships, but of longstanding, tried and tested friendship. You weren't sure you had a friend until ten or more years had elapsed. I could expect politeness and no more. It took some getting used to.
I remember one time in particular I approached a young girl reading a Hungarian paperback of Salinger's Seymour, An Introduction and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. Her English was poor, and my attempt to converse about this book, one of my favorites, was not received with any enthusiasm.
Last week, some four or five years later, I think I see there the same girl with the same book. I say Hello. Her English hasn't improved. Hasn't she read the book before, I ask her. She tells me she has read the book uncounted times. And I back off. This is the Toldi, after all, I know the rules.
As things work out, when you are a traveler and when you stick to the same way of life there are many coincidences. My new Hungarian friend the translator I mentioned in The Politics Of Home has a best friend who's written a novel set at the same Toldi Cinema in those days a decade ago, with characters based on many of the regulars. Though we'd probably never spoken together, I guess this friend would recognize me.
Karma, and similar Eastern ideas, the looking for hidden meanings and order, play a large part in the Toldi girl's book. It presents a philosophic argument. It talks to me, even if the cinema patrons don't. I go over it once more. Seymour and his family the Glasses are performers who practice the art of life. They suffer from the bad art practiced by most of the people around them. Seymour's brother, the supposed author of the story we are reading, quotes Kierkegaard and Kafka on the subject of deliberately allowing mistakes to stand as an implicit defense against the claim of art to be the truth about life. Buddy seems to be ecstatically happy over his discovery that his brother killed himself as an act of bad art in defense of the truth in life lived as art.
Though the family members are said to be always performing, they perform out of love for each other. Performance is saved from self destructiveness if and only if it is done for the sake of love. Seymour says he would have liked to please the public librarian who set books before him when he was a child. Following Buddhist principles, practicing the art of Buddhism, he tries and mostly fails to love his new wife, with whom he has nothing important in common. ("Marriage partners are to serve each other. Elevate, help, teach, strengthen each other, but above all, serve.") Yet his brothers and sisters, because they can love each other, do not kill themselves. They do not kill themselves because they can talk to each other seriously, take each other seriously, at least at times of crisis.
I had an interesting experience at another Budapest cafe earlier this week, The California Coffee Company. I asked the man in the chair next to mine what he was working on. Business. And I? What did I do? Standard answer: I write things no one reads. No one reads anything. His woman friend tells me I said that to the wrong person: her friend reads, reads all the time. Philosophy? Yes, that too. The man asks if I know the famous Hungarian philosopher Bela Hamvas. I don't but immediately look to see what is by him on the internet. I say that while I read Bela Hamvas the reading man can read some of what I write, it's also on the internet. Proving his friend correct, he immediately goes to the site address I write down for him, asks me what essay I suggest to read, and he starts reading it right there and then!
So he reads me while I read Hamvas. As far as I know, not one single person has read those thirty pages of mine from beginning to end.
Hamvas is very poetic. I read one essay after another. After a half hour, the man sitting across from me tells me he is done. Read it all? Yes. What did he think? Liked it, especially some parts, liked the style. But it didn't all seem to fit together. Did I agree?
- Yes, I agree. I left it that way, knowing it wasn't really one picture. I wanted the disorder to reflect the disorder of life as it is lived, as opposed to the order art puts life into. I thought I might be permitted to do this since the main idea of the essay was that there were two fundamental ways life was lived, natural and supernatural. The writing of the essay would include examples of both. I realized at the time this was probably a mistake on my part. But as I said, I just left it. I didn't try it again in later writing. Do you understand?
- I think so. What did you think of Hamvas?
- Not a philosopher. His use of terms like "existential corruption", his invention of psychological categories such as "Siren" and "Titan" is poetic, not philosophical. They are the practice of art, not philosophy.
- What is the practice of philosophy?
- When you say something that is testable. Art, myth, poetry help you remember and classify your experiences, but not in a way that can be confirmed by others' experiences. They are only performances. Show-maker and audience remain separate. Philosophy says something to another person that person can test against his experience and then respond that it is right or not right. When I wrote in the essay you read about the supernatural, I didn't simply create or refer to existing categories. I gave the categories an exact description using examples from Shakespeare, which description other people can look to their personal experience to confirm or refute. It is the difference between saying what a philosopher does, and actually doing it. A philosopher doesn't just create categories, he passes the product over to someone he loves, or intends to do this in the future if no one is at hand. The philosopher doesn't worry too much about the beauty of his words, the form of his thoughts, because all he cares about is passing words and thoughts on to his friends and lovers for their improvement, response, adaptation, understanding. His words are always a work in progress.
His life is with other people. The form of his life expressed in his words is not his true subject. His true subject is his life with others, for the love of whom he speaks. That life includes the response to his words that is not there and he is willing to wait for.
The Glass family members can and do speak to each other and test each other's ideas. With one exception, Seymour the suicide, the brother credited with being a saint, a kind of life artist, they safely pass through the danger of their seeing their lives as bad art and deliberately sabotaging them.
Buddy says at the end of the story he is giving Seymour away. He makes a gift of him to his readers. The Seymour of the story who lived a life of art accusing itself of infidelity is only a myth. And the readers, Buddy's friends and confidants, don't deserve more. They're also imaginary.
III. With The Skateboarders Post Forty
Were these the only happy people left in the city? They didn't pay much attention to me, and I didn't pay much attention to them. Six, or maybe eight kids living in this hundred year old apartment on the main tourist street in Budapest. Skateboarders, skating their days, their nights watching skateboard films on the internet, they smoke, they talk, they lounge until they collapse. Around twenty years of age, they have jobs, don't go to school. The apartment belongs to the mother of one of them. One of the youngest has invited me to make this my refuge while I wait to go to Israel. The next step. There have been a lot of steps, and I'm getting tired. The kids see it.
- I hope I'm dead before I'm forty.
- Why?
- Life is only misery when you're not young.
- You think my life is miserable then.
- You're poor.
- How do you know?
- You are traveling all the time, moving from place to place.
- One place of misery to another. How do you enjoy your youth?
- This apartment is a skakeboarding community. We're all poor.
- Like me.
- But we love to skate. As long as I have my drugs, sex, cigarettes, music, it's all good.
- So you're happy.
- You don't think so?
- I was thinking you were, and wondering why.
- We're young, and doing what we want.
- You might find as you get older there are other good things in life.
- Like what?
- Like knowing things.
- Like what?
- For example, why you like to listen to anarchist music while you skateboard.
- It gets us to push.
- Push?
- Yeah. Push, push. When I walk without my board that's all I am thinking. I want to push, to move.
- Well, push long enough in one direction, and something will happen, some story. You'll want to know why. It's good to understand, you might want to add it to your list of skating, smoking, sex, and music. Life you can understand is beautiful.
- I don't believe in beautiful lives.
- Then I guessed right about your music?
- Do you think your life is beautiful?
- You refer to my miserable moving from place to place after the hotel threw me out?
- I don't really know you.
- And I don't know you guys. I'm leaving early tomorrow. I know I appreciate your youth, though I am a post forty monster to you.
- No, you're cool. Just kicking.
IV. The Billionaire
We can accept and love without qualification. In the moment we love we are without caution or limit in our appreciation. We do not accept all actions, past or future, but their consideration is for another time. Love is a way of experiencing the moment.
How do we experience our moments of contact with a billionaire?
As the life's work of all billionaires is protecting their money, and protecting themselves from being seen as a source of money, they are comfortable only in the company of others whose main occupation is preventing themselves from being seen as a source of money; living with others of their species they are unable finally to be seen as anything else. Protecting the future of the money acquired in the past, they have no present. They become unconditionally unlovable.
"To be clever enough to get all that money you have to be dull enough to want it."
1. The August 11, 2011 Edition Of The New York Post:
'A beautiful Brazilian soap star has the lead role in her own daytime drama, which casts George Soros, the billionaire financier of lefty causes, as a heavy who not only broke her heart, but also reneged on a promise to give her an Upper East Side apartment worth $1.9 million.
The drama will be staged in Manhattan Supreme Court, where 28-year-old Adriana Ferreyr yesterday filed a blockbuster $50 million suit charging, among other things, that the frisky octogenarian slapped her around while they were in bed discussing his real-estate betrayal.
The sultry actress and the mogul, who's worth some $14.5 billion, had dated for five years before he heartlessly dumped her a year ago, the lawsuit says.
But they briefly reconciled, and while spending a romantic night together, he whispered in her ear that he'd given the apartment to another woman.
"While still in bed, Soros slapped Ferreyr across the face and proceeded to put his hands around her neck in an attempt to choke her," her lawsuit claims.
Soros, 80, then allegedly at tempted to strike her with a glass lamp, and though he narrowly missed, it smashed on the floor and she cut her foot, which required three stitches.
According to a police report, she called cops, but no charges were filed.
Soros "denies throwing the lamp and totally denies trying to choke her," a friend of the billionaire's told The Post.
"This is about a lot of money and an apartment."
Soros' lawyer, William Zabel, called the lawsuit "frivolous and entirely without merit."'
2. The Economy Of The United States, 2012:
$15 Trillion is the current U.S. Deficit.
There are more than 300 Million Americans.
That makes $50,000 borrowed in the name of each American.
Where did the $15 Trillion go?
A few percent to social services.
The greater part of the rest went to tax cuts for corporations and to paying corporate military contractors.
15 Trillion dollars borrowed from Americans and given to corporations. The money isn't gone. It is in corporate bank accounts. Each of 300 million Americans pays between one and two thousand dollars interest each year on the money borrowed and given to the corporations.
3. The June 23, 2011 edition Of The New York Review Of Books:
George Soros reflects on his 30 years of philanthropy in the course of which he has given away 8 Billion dollars:
"I have made it a principle to pursue my self-interest in my business, subject to legal and ethical limitations, and to be guided by the public interest as a public intellectual and philanthropist. If the two are in conflict, the public interest ought to prevail. I do not hesitate to advocate policies that are in conflict with my business interests. I firmly believe that our democracy would function better if more people adopted this principle."
4. The March 12, 2012 Edition Of The Daily Mail:
'THE HUNGARIAN WHO BROKE THE BANK OF ENGLAND
Hungarian-born Soros, while being a notable philanthropist championing liberal causes, is also known as the 'Man Who Broke The Bank Of England'.
He made an estimated £600 million during the 1992 'Black Wednesday' UK currency crises, correctly predicting that the British government would have to devalue the pound.
On 16 September, 1992, his fund sold short more than $10 billion worth of pounds, profiting from the UK government's reluctance to either raise its interest rates or float its currency - finally withdrawing from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and devaluing the pound.
In 1997, the UK Treasury estimated the cost of Black Wednesday at £3.4 billion.'
5. The October 13, 2011 Edition Of The New York Review Of Books:
George Soros puts himself on record saying that the world's bankers and politicians, methodically causing economic distress, are leading the world's democracies into civil war. He can't decide whether they are doing this because they are incompetent or they want what they are working for.
According to Soros, in boom and bust cycles, a boom of unrealistic optimism, where the crowd of optimists imitate and predict each others actions, is followed by bust, a realistic pessimism where the crowd of pessimists imitate and predict each others actions.
Acting on the false economic principle that free markets benefit all, most of the world has gone from boom to bust, but not the bankers and politicians, who because of their ability to control governments with their money are still in a boom. They are richer than ever, than in any time in world history.
6. Budapest, Hungary, Below The Citadel:
Walking down Vaci Street to Vorosmarti Square I met an old acquaintance in the city tour business. He complained about gangsters running the country:
- They try to destroy the lives of everyone except their friends. If you don't have a million Euros you're nothing. I've given up expecting things to get better. These past years have been the worst in my life by far.
- For me too. But things will get better. Greece is standing up to the liars and thieves of the European Union, at Camp David last week they already backed down, at least in words. In the U.S., the law was overturned that allowed the government to kill, torture, abduct, secretly imprison without trial or representation. Your buses go up to the Citadel, right? What's happening up there?
- The owners are all in jail.
- I'm not surprised. What did they get them on?
- Something about taxis at the airport. I only read a few lines in the newspaper.
- When was that?
- A few days ago.
- You know, I first stayed there in 1996. This year I was usually the hotel's only guest. The same people have worked at the hotel for decades. They told me they liked me to be there, mostly because they cooked the books to show I wasn't there and pocketed my rent. I was a profitable guest. One day they asked me to pay the balance, and the next day said it was all over, everything ends, time to go. Leave today. Do you know anything about the Citadel?
- No. Only from the news.
- According to the receptionist, the one who liked to talk with me, this family that runs it is always fighting the city. Their contract with the city giving them the right to rent the castle and grounds was never signed. It's been in court since, unresolved. He said the city had shut down their taxi company, and the city forbid them to use the terrace they built in the castle courtyard. They operate a radio station from the Citadel the city won't give them a license for. I'd be sitting in the lobby and the police would come in and demand the station be turned off. When they left it would resume broadcasting. Then the police came and broke down the door to the equipment room and carried away the transmitter. A new one was then set up outside the Budapest City limits, also without license, and the station was back on the air.
- Now they're in jail.
- The previous holder of the Citadel was murdered, according to the receptionist. The current bosses, their problem was, he said, they didn't have the million Euros to hand over. He was a failure but his bosses were bigger failures.
- I didn't know any of this.
- I like to talk. I used to meet like this all the time, acquaintances, friends, walking down the street. Something happened to all these people I used to meet, talk with. What you said about gangsters destroying the lives of everyone not with them. I'm used to the idea that gangsters help their friends, hurt their enemies, but ruin the lives of everyone not in their gang? That's new to me. It explains something I've been wondering about, why the EU, the American government deliberately destroy the world's economies. Conspiracy theorists say they want to cause riots and respond with repression, make everyone a slave. But maybe they are clearing the field. Destroying all normal life, all capacity for normal business, and then without competition their companies expand into the vacuum.
7. Budapest, Hungary, the Central European University
- Do you want to hear the truth?
- Do you know it?
- I'll tell you what I heard.
- Ok.
- The chief administrators of the European Union were always coming and going at the Central European University. George Soros the billionaire money speculator founded the University, and had recently added a Center For European Union Studies. Thus the traffic in bureaucrats. They were a dull and dispiriting bunch, but do you know what I liked about them?
- What?
- They actually said what they thought.
- What did they think?
- The usual: the European Union had lived too long on borrowed money, now had to save, suffer through austerity, and then begin again stronger and healthier.
- And of course you think that is wrong.
- Of course I do. I performed this experiment on the bureaucrats. First, I pointed out that even for them there is nothing right or wrong in paying what you owe. The bankers and financial institutions don't do it themselves. They go bankrupt, or get their governments to subsidize them. Second, I told them they were acting on the belief that economic policy based on "paying what you owe" is best for the countries which it is forced upon. Fifty years of economic history has showed conclusively, with 100% consistency, that this is false.
- What do they say?
- The people who borrow and don't repay have to be taught a lesson.
- But not the bankers who borrow and don't repay.
- The bankers do, usually, repay.
- After they get the government to give them the money to repay with.
- Yes. And the European Union bureaucrats don't want to give the people the money to repay with.
- You tell them they're not being fair. What happens?
- They say something like, "life is unfair."
- They're hypocrites.
- Of course. And that's what's interesting: they know the economic policies they are pursuing will destroy the lives of the majority of the people they supposedly work for. But they excuse themselves by shifting attention to a moral principle, "pay what you owe".
- Which no one practices!
8. Go Find Better Friends
- What's wrong?
- These students I've been staying with. They're making me sick.
- How?
- Do you know neo-liberalism?
- I think so. What exactly is it?
- It's something like Marxism. It says, this is god's world. It's getting better. Or it's getting worse, because we are ignorantly or perversely stopping the natural process of getting better. For Marxism, it was a transformation of one kind of economic relation to another, capitalism to communism. For neo-liberalism, it is the natural development of the free market.
- I take it you don't agree.
- I don't. People are attracted to these kinds of ideas because they've been damaged, and following these ideas they are kept unaware of it.
- What do you mean?
- People adapt to the expectations to other people, don't know what is really good or bad from their own experience. They don't make their own choices in anything important. They chose their diversions, their entertainments. The chose each other as entertainments and diversions.
- Diverting themselves from what exactly?
- The unpleasant truth that in everything important they do what other people want.
- You really believe that?
- Yes.
- What's it have to do with Marxism?
- Marxism and neo-liberalism settle the question of good and bad. Good is certain social and political arrangements: the free market, or the transition from capitalism to communism. And those political arrangements on their own, without need of human choice of direction, move towards improvement, get better. Humans don't need to use personal experience to make social arrangements better, all they have to do is make the automatic work in progress more efficient. This is a technical question perfectly suited to people who have experience only with this kind of professional, specialized impersonal decision making.
- I see.
- When the Soviet Union wanted to murder there wasn't any question of good or bad, only the question, would like action make the transition to communism more efficient.
- What's the alternative?
- Making the goal human happiness, not particular schemes of social relations.
- For example?
- Love, freedom, creativity.
- Ok.
- When these are the good things you want to have, and the government says it wants to murder, torture, operate secret prisons, perform secret abductions, bypass the legal process, you ask whether these actions, which may or may not be efficient as means, lead to achieving the actual ends aimed at, freedom, love, creativity. And the answer in the case of Marxism, neo liberalism is obviously they do not. But as I said, when the end you seek is assumed to be already achieved, and getting better on its own in existing social arrangements, good and bad is an issued settled in advance.
- You're saying that only when the end we aim at is general human behavior, not specific social relations, can the means we use to obtain that end be held to any standard of human behavior at all?
- That is exactly what I am saying.
- How does this relate to the students?
- Good and bad do not enter into their lives. It is all settled by the rules they follow in a thoughtless, happy go lucky way. They didn't care about me, they didn't care about themselves. Whatever happened, that was just the way the world was arranged.
- They were unkind. Heartless. Made you lose hope.
- Yes.
- You shouldn't stay with them. Even if you have no other place. It's wrong. You have to trust.
- Trust who? Trust what?
- You'll find something better. You'll find better people.
- Even in this neo-liberal world?
- Yes. You said it yourself. Neo-liberalism is not something new. It's just another religion. Go find better friends.
9. I Know It's Personal But Are You In Love?
- I know it's personal. But are you in love?
- In love, yes, with people who've parted ways with me.
- I'm sorry.
- What about you?
- A girl. Also a tragedy. Big tragedy. It took me two years to recover.
- She wouldn't come back.
- No.
- Why did you ask if I was in love?
- Your last two stories are about love.
- I shouldn't repeat myself like that.
- You asked me why I'm nice to people working this waiter job.
- It didn't fit with your saying you're going to be an accountant because you love money.
- It does. I've found 5 girls here since I began a month ago.
- I see. And you keep in role by being nice to everyone, even me, bring out tea for me when you see me standing making notes.
- Yes.
- Don't believe it. There's this theory I've been reading about, of 8 basic levels of life, from primitive desires and fears, to appeals to authority, rationality, compassion, then an understanding of how they all can fit together, some higher because they include the others and do more with them. I think you're a good guy despite the bad things you say about yourself. Some things we do connect deeper than others. But we know almost nothing about it. We can't even say better knowledge will not bring worse misuse of knowledge, connect fear and aggression to knowledge itself. That we can move to a higher level does not imply a continuing progress to history, or progress in our own lives.
- I don't really understand.
- Ok. Writing a story, talking even, is many things at once. It feels claustrophobic, it means being trapped with a couple ideas, ideas I can and do make logical mistakes relating to each other. Yet it feels open too because the ideas I'm hoping will lead me somewhere new. I am literally afraid of the whole thing. I am isolated from every human being on the planet while I do it, I am stuck in myself, not religiously lost in the whole, not completely rational following through a task at hand, not even having a good sleep. In other words, it seems to be a low level activity I am engaged in, but I can say without hesitation it is the highest thing I do. When it's over I level out as it were, feel fine and grateful to the experience, but by then I am not especially high up. I am not a higher order thing, the truth is I'm down on the level with an infant looking at his mother's face and smiling.
- I've got to go back to work. Stay and drink your tea.
10. True Stories
- Can I sit down?
- Yes.
- I'm surprised you're sitting here alone.
- Why?
- You're not doing anything. Not smoking, drinking, talking on the phone. A pretty girl usually wants company. Someone to admire her. You appear to be thinking.
- I've come from a meeting with my ex-boyfriend. Hadn't seen him in 3 months. It was good. We talked for hours.
- What happened?
- I loved him but he didn't love me.
- Why not? How could anyone not love you? I love you already. It's hard to believe. You told him you loved him. Of course. Was it not important to him? Were thousand of others telling him they loved him?
- No. It wasn't that.
- Did he believe you?
- Yes.
- You really loved him? Wanted to spend all your time together?
- He didn't want to.
- I see. When you don't do anything with love it's only attachment, a baby's clinging to its mother. Love brings on love only when it is real love and the one loved knows how to love. You're better off without him. So what happened finally?
- I broke it off. Wrote a book.
- What did you write, the story? ideas?
- Yes. Both.
That's good. That's great. There's nothing better than that. I've done the same. Can't give your love to your love so you give it to the world. You're not waiting for anyone? I'm not disturbing you?
- No.
-I'll sit on this side of the table, look at you, think of my disaster and the book I'm going to write about it. You sit on yours - well, you don't have to look at me, - and think about your own stories. Or I can tell you stories. Disaster stories.
- True stories?
- True stories. Want me to? I am very happy to meet you.
11. Budapest, Hungary, Public Lecture by George Soros, November 3, 2011, The Central European University:
Question-and-answer afterwards. I as member of the audience make a suggestion:
- If someone like you supports the Occupy movement it would mean something.
- It depends on what direction it develops.
- Say general strike, and a call for resignations.
- That becomes counter productive. The trouble is, reality is very complicated. And people look for simple answers. And especially in moments of stress and fear everybody is trying to advocate his own self interest. And yet the European project requires cooperation. Cooperation is something you can achieve in times when there is hope and a functioning leadership. And at the moment you don't have it.*
* "And perceptions reflexively reinforce reality - belief in stability leads to arrangements reinforcing that stability, and vice versa." (George Soros, Reflexivity and the Theory and Practice of Social Change, 2011.
12. Budapest, Hungary, American Embassy:
- Do you need help filling out the papers?
- Sure, it couldn't hurt. What kind of papers?
- Visa application. Are you here to get a visa?
- They are going to take away my passport, so I may need a visa.
- Why are they taking your passport? Are you an American Citizen?
- Yes. When you apply for an emergency loan they confiscate your passport.
- Anyway you don't need a visa to your own country.
- What can I do for you?
- I saw on the Embassy's site that you provide emergency repatriation loans. I would like to apply.
- Are you destitute?
- Probably. What's the definition?
- No money to buy a ticket home and no way to get the money.
- OK.
- What?
- I fulfill the requirements. What next?
- You have to prove that you've made an attempt to get the money.
- How?
- You have to provide the names of 3 people you have asked and who have refused. Can you do that?
- Sure. There are billions of people I can ask and be refused.
- You have to put it in writing.
- I can do it.
- Give me your passport. We'll do a background check. Take a seat.
- My colleague explained something of your situation. I'd like to ask you for more information.
- You're the Vice Consul?
- Yes. You said you have no money. Can you tell me how this situation arose?
- Whole life story or shorter?
- Start with the most recent events. When did you arrive in this country?
- About 4 months ago.
- What have you been doing?
- Reading and writing. Not employed.
- Were you employed in the United States before you came here?
- No. Doing the same. Reading and writing.
- Do you normally live in Europe or the United States?
- For the past about 20 years, mostly Europe.
- With trips back to the United States.
- Yes.
- How long were you in the United States last time?
- About 9 months.
- Where did you live?
- With friends.
- And before that?
- Here. I was tutoring business executives in English.
- For how long?
- 4 months. And then United States again.
- Are you married?
- Yes. Possibly.
- Possibly?
- My wife disappeared, then wrote me that she'd obtained a divorce.
- Do you know you wife's name?
- What if I answer No?
- You don't know your wife's name?
- I'll spell it for you. Do you want to find her for me?
- We're the government but we can't do everything.
- You know, forget about the repatriation loan, just find my wife.
- When was the last time you saw her?
- A year, maybe year and a half ago. Look, is it true you're going to take away my passport if you decide to give me a repatriation loan?
- Yes, it is.
- Couldn't I use, just temporarily, the passport of one of the directors of Goldman Sachs, or General Electric, or Bank Of America? The government took away their passports when they loaned them $900 Billion after they lost all their money in bad investments. They took away their passports, right? They didn't?
- We're not open tomorrow, and over the weekend, and on Monday, an American holiday. Are you going to be alright?
- Probably.
- Where will you be going when you arrive in Los Angeles?
- I don't know.
- You have to provide an address. We can't arrange your travel without knowing you have a place to go.
- Why not?
- We are here to help.
- Are you concerned about my address here if I don't leave?
- We'll try to help.
- Before we can issue a repatriation loan and buy your ticket you have to provide an arrival address.
- I did.
- It can't be a hotel.
- Why not?
- It has to be your residence.
- It will be my residence.
- It has to be your own, or belonging to someone we can contact.
- It's a residential hotel. The address is on my driver's license. They know me there.
- Show me your driver's license. What is the manager's name?
- Betty.
- No. We need to be able to talk with someone who will be responsible for you.
- Why?
- We need to know you will be safe.
- Why? I'm not safe if I stay in Europe.
- As I said, you need to provide us the name of someone who will take care of you when you return to the U.S.
- If I knew someone like that would I now be applying for an emergency loan?
- Then we can't help you.
- How long would this person have to be responsible for me? My whole life? One year? One month? A week?
- Several weeks.
- And there is no explanation for this demand?
- I don't have to explain.
- Why not?
- It's the rules.
- It can't be. What rule?
- This conversation is over.
13. . Budapest, Hungary, Unpublicized 2012 Appearance By George Soros, The Central European University:
In an informal on-stage interview, Soros, in a reflective mood, admits that the numerous institutions he's funded to study the failure of economic thinking have succeed in demonstrating how economies fail, but not in discovering what to do about it.
The source of the problem, he explained, is relying too much on theory, on knowledge, and not on how our not knowing what to do makes us act in ways that change the world, which world we don't see because we expect it to conform to our theories. We need to be able to discard our theories when they are proven wrong, and we need to understand that no general theory is enough, because our actions are constantly changing the world we need to respond to and understand.
I said to him when he stepped down from the stage:
- You have divided human activity in two parts, theory, and manipulation. Theory doesn't work, and manipulation of markets is based on crowd behavior, that is, fear. But since ancient Greece, the parts to human activity have been divided into not two, but three: you have left out practical action.
Practical action differs from manipulation, fearfully following and leading each other, in that its end is making learning easier. It's purpose is outside of itself, in the part of life where we learn, where we find beauty, what makes life good.
Why not establish institutions that study how economic relations are practical: what forms of cooperation lead to a life of learning and freedom from manipulation, and which don't. And study how to make the transition from the present institutions based entirely on greed and fear to the kind we need to have. Do you understand?
- I have studied maximization of happiness.
- No, that's not what I mean. Counting results of fear based behaviors: doing that is living still in the world of the theoretical and the manipulative. We need to study how to cooperate, study what forms of cooperation help us learn to make our lives better.
Let's go, says George Soros assistant, urging him as she has been doing for the last few minutes as we talked. OK, I say, I tried.
- You remember me, right?
- Yes.
(The week before when I walked through the door of the University the guard said to me, Soros just left. Go talk to him. / Why? / Ask him for a job. I caught up with him and did. He took my card, passed it to his assistant, and said he was in a hurry.)
14. The April 6, 2006 edition of The London Review Of Books:
"The same Soros who gives millions to fund education has ruined the lives of thousands thanks to his financial speculations and in doing so created the conditions for the rise of the intolerance he denounces."
15. Budapest, Hungary, Award Ceremony, Central European University:
The former President and Rector of the Central European University today was given an honorary doctorate degree by the present President and Rector. The degree recipient said in his acceptance address:
Our universities are teaching a false economic theory that making the rich richer will also make everyone else richer, that free markets, absence of regulation and neglect of social services support democracy.
Everyone applauded. I didn't say anything. But what might I, and the others in the audience, have asked both present and past Rectors and Presidents of George Soros's University?
Why did you, in your 10 years as President and Rector, allow the false economic theories to be taught here? Why do the false economic theories continue to be taught? Why didn't you stop it? Why aren't you trying to now?*
hy·poc·ri·sy (h -p k r -s ). n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies. 1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
After he had spoken his few words and the audience was dismissed I went up to the former President and Rector of the University and said:
- Criticizing free markets - you realize you are in the enemy camp here.
- I've been there my whole life.
* "While noble motives are typically evoked in the context of ceremonial speeches, the university’s various stakeholders generally do not typically commit themselves to clear aims for their institution."- from the former President and Rector's upcoming book, The University In The 21st Century.
16. Budapest, May, 2012, Downtown:
- What happened with the email?
- What email?
- The one you got when you were at the cafe, that night, Friday.
- From the Israelis. Yes, I remember now.
- You didn't know if it was real.
- Yes. It was real.
- Good!
- There's a story behind it. Where are you guys going? The whole staff of the cafe is right here on this corner, on the other side of the city. Great to see you all.
- We have a minute, or two.
- I'll be fast. The theory, the best I have, why Israel turned friendly comes from a guard at the Central European University. He said Israel likes me now because I'm fighting the American Embassy.
- That's still going on?
- Yes. It's getting worse.
- How?
- Last week I visited the office of the President of the University one more time, a former Ambassador himself, and friend of the current Ambassador to Hungary, and left a message for him to try once more to get the Embassy to answer my emails and stop forbidding me to enter the Embassy.
- They forbid you to enter the Embassy?
- Yes.
- That has to be against the law.
- You'd think so. Anyway, yesterday at the University there was a series of lectures celebrating the history of friendly diplomatic relations between the United States and Hungary. I listened to the first for a while before I got bored, and later was on my way to the reception at the lunch break when I was stopped by a woman with a clipboard, who addressed me with these words:
- Mr. Miller! You can't go in.
- I can't go in? It's gratifying you know my name. I don't know yours. What is your name, what is your job exactly?
- Mr. Miller, this is not a joke. You didn't RSVP, so you may not be admitted.
- I am on the guest list.
- No you are not.
- Yes I am. Go check it out. I was placed on it this morning in person before my very eyes. I am an eye witness to the truth of my statement.
- I don't have time for this. Come back in 15 minutes and we can discuss it.
- No, I'm not interested. Thanks anyway.
- So they forbid you to enter the University?
- Yes. I'd noticed the extra security guards, not the University guards who all know me and discuss politics with me, the one's guarding the visiting diplomats, were looking at me strangely, were staring at me, in fact, so that was explained now.
- Why did they do it?
- Why did this University, founded by George Soros, and his Open Society Institute, forbid me entrance?
- Yes. Open Society Institute!
- Later in the afternoon, seeing the long face of one of the friendly University guards, I asked her what was wrong.
- There's a problem.
- Well, tell me.
- They told us not to let you in the building.
- I'm in the building now.
- Before, while the congress was going on.
- Yes, I know about it.
Then another friendly University guard offered the explanation: the American Ambassador had been there, and the Embassy was behind my banishment from Open Society.
- Wow. You really think so? The American Embassy stopped you entering the University to stop you talking with the Ambassador?
- Why not? They already block me from the Embassy.
- What about Israel then? Are they going to let you go there?
- It looks like it. That same last guard, it was his theory that the Israelis are watching me like the Americans, and they, being tough guys, like that I am a tough guy too and defy the Americans.
- But what did you do? All you did was try to visit the Embassy, your own Embassy, and when they didn't let you, wrote about them. And you say yourself almost no one reads what you write.
- No but the American Embassy is my most dedicated reader.
- You know that?
- The site records their visits. They don't hide.
- They want you to know they are reading.
- And I want them to know I know.
- That's insane.
- It's a game.
- But you'll be able to go to Israel.
- We'll see.
- Then good luck. See you at the cafe.
17. Budapest, Hungary, Jewish Agency For Israel:
- You're the other American.
- I am.
- They say you and me tell similar stories. Vicious Jewish families, disappearing Hungarian wives. They asked me if I knew you.
- They asked me if I knew you.
- Do you?
- No.
- They're processing us as a package deal.
- Yeah. They say they get a better price on the tickets, I don't know how.
- Me either. One way tickets, Budapest to Tel Aviv aren't expensive anyway. Maybe the attraction is not saving money, but double the result for the same effort. It makes it easier to justify to themselves the exception they are making, the Israeli Agency dealing with Americans in Hungary. It's a strange coincidence. Or maybe it isn't. When did you first come here, to this office?
- A few days ago. When did you?
- Two years ago. They told me to go back to L.A. I did, and a year later the Los Angeles office told me it would be immoral to help me go to Israel.
- Really? Why?
- They said I wouldn't be a success.
- But they've changed their minds now.
- Yes. Where did you get the idea from? To come here, I mean.
- From the Consul at the American Embassy.
- Of course.
- Why of course?
- The diplomats over there take an interest in my life.
- You mean they knew you had applied to go to Israel, and they sent me over to go with you?
- That's the way it looks. They forbid me to enter the Embassy, they send you over to Israel.
- They won't let you in? What did you do?
- I told them they were wrong. What did you do?
- They couldn't help me.
- The American government is too busy taking bribes from corporations, doesn't have time to deal with Americans anymore. Sends them over to Israel to handle. Anyway, it's good luck for me.
- Why?
- Because my application was stalled until you showed up. Two for one.
* * *
The Odeon Cinema, Officer Of The Jewish Agency, Chance Meeting:
- Have seen you the other American today too?
- No, but I just talked to him on the phone.
- It's hard for me, having a double of like that.
- You noticed too? It's strange.
- We're not really alike. Only our circumstances.
- What circumstances?
- American Jewish families that hate truth, love money. Seeking truth is part of the religion, but lying is more profitable. The conflict leads to extremes of behavior.
- They hate you two because you tell the truth.
- Yes, believe it or not. Maybe we learned to love truth more because they hated it.
- Not every American Jewish family is like that.
- A lot are.
- The whole world is moving that way.
- Yes.
- You could have stayed in the U.S. and looked for better people.
- I thought I'd have better luck in Europe. I did have better luck. Then luck ran out.
- Why?
- As you said, the way the whole world is moving, it's the way of the place I was trying to escape.
18. Budapest, Hungary, Reception Desk, Central European University:
- We'll miss you. We're like in prison here.
- And I your regular visitor, on my way in and out of the building.
- We've enjoyed talking to you, you know that. Will you go on talking to people about revolution?
- With University guards who say they are prisoners? I don't know. Is that how you see me? As someone who talks to people about revolution? Put that way it sounds futile. I like finding words to describe the situation we're in.
- You're lucky you can leave. We wish the best for you.
- Do you have time to talk, one more time, in the way you like? I thought maybe I was boring you with these conversations. That you would talk to anyone, that even being bored by a bore on his way out was better than being bored alone.
- No. We like you here.
- Alright. Lecture begins, last in the series, visitors on their way out, parting words. Title: Correlation And Causation. Do you know the difference?
- No.
- People who eat red meat have more heart attacks than people who don't. New Harvard University study. This place is a Harvard colony, you know.
- We know. The Rector, the lecturers.
- Yes. Red meat and heart attacks. That is correlation. When you start doing experiments to separate out other factors that lead to heart attacks, you get close to causation.
- I don't understand.
- It could be that people who like red meat also like to go without sleep, or are nervous, or aggressive, and any of these might be what is really linked to heart attacks.
- What's the difference?
- If you want to prevent heart attacks, and you don't do the experiments, telling people not to eat red meat will have no effect at all, if really the connection, the cause is aggressive behavior.
- I see now.
- Next: social life, success in career, works with correlation, not causation.
- You've lost me again.
- You know George Soros' theory of Reflexivity?
- Yes.
- When I talked with him a few days ago, when he was up on stage of the auditorium down the hall - were you there?
- For a minute. Then I had to go back to work.
- So maybe you heard him say the usual economic theories have now been proven wrong, it was irrational to continue to apply false theories. And how his own theory described only irrational group behavior, how in the stock market traders in good times followed each other in overconfidence, then reality hit and they followed each other in flight from their overconfidence.
- Yes. I know these ideas.
- Ok. Business operates by finding correlations: do this, and profit follows. Why exactly this happens is not known. To find out you'd need to conduct experiments. To be successful in business is the same: you do certain things, go to certain schools, dress a certain way, repeat certain formulas: doing this gets you the job, then in the job, you do the same thing, whatever works, without knowing why. Correlation, never causation. In the stock market you see this reduced to the simplest terms. Correlation need not reflect any real relation. The reason for confidence in a stock, or the market as a whole, may be, usually is, entirely false, a correlation, not a causation. Eventually this comes out and a downturn follows.
- Ok
- Good. I don't like this economics any more than you do. Really it makes me sick. But here's the point. Have you ever wondered why economists are always talking about efficiency?
- No, can't say I have.
- Well they do. It isn't because they are technocrats, because they have knowledge of technique. They don't know anything, as Soros said right here a few days ago. All they know are correlations, which almost always are sooner or later proven false. So what do these technocrats, technically educated people do?
- What do you mean by technocrats?
- I mean people educated at places like this University, teaching correlations without causation.
- Ok
- Efficiency for people who don't know anything means reducing complexity. It means eliminating the distance between causation and correlation.
- Again, you lost me.
- If you don't know why there is a correlation, you nevertheless know that as long as you can keep things the same, you keep the real causes connected to the false ones. If you are making money in the stock market, in banking, you will try to simplify everything else so as to make banking and stock trading go more smoothly, efficiently, without change from outside.
- And you say that is what economists mean by efficiency?
- You've got it now. Austerity measures, smaller government, lower deficits, all this means more efficiency in the areas where people making money are relying on presently unstable correlations. Let's go back to the Harvard red meat study.
- OK
- Harvard, the government all is funded by business, by professional associations. Let's say someone is making money factory farming chickens and pigs. We don't know why eaters of red meat get more heart attacks. But what if we can stop people being aggressive, nervous, afraid of being discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, nationality, age, income? We control, eliminate all other possible causes. Correlation will suffice, all will work more efficiently.
- But that's crazy.
- No! It's literal reality. And no more crazy that the last 50 years' imposition of so-called neo-liberalism, the long proven-false economic theory that unregulated markets works to the benefit of the majority and to the stability of democracy. This university, funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundation, teaching tolerance of all nations, ages, sexuality, races, religions is putting into effect the same kind of efficiency.
- Explain that.
- I used to think the problem with current politics is that the demand for tolerance, to see all ideas as relative, dependent on personal circumstances, had made people incapable of talking to each other, of caring about each other. Democracy was failing because everyone tolerant of everyone has nothing in common with anyone.
- And you don't believe that anymore?
- I never had confidence in the idea because I saw that, at least in America, people still liked strangers, truly liked them.
- What is the problem then?
- It is knowledge. Knowledge! Correlation and causation.
- And you are going to explain that to me.
- Yes. Do you know what it means when we say we rely on intuition?
- Yes. But I'd like to hear what you have to say.
- It means that we have noticed correlations in our personal lives - when we do this, that happens - and we have tested that correlation, acted on the relation, done experiments to see if it was a chance relation, or a real one. Over time we get a general, what we call intuitive sense of which kinds of correlations are likely to be real relations. But only because we have been actively testing these relations in our own lives.
- That's interesting.
- If you are a stock trader, a banker, a government official or a university founder, president, or professor, you make your living by keeping your behavior in role, keeping your role tightly correlated with other roles.
- What does that mean?
- It means you play by the rules. You have to to keep your job, to be a success. Adapting your behavior by personal experiments, looking for knowledge, not mere probably false correlation, will make you a cause of inefficiency in the organization, will cause everyone else trouble.
- I know that from personal experience. You have no idea what it's like to work here.
- I have an intuition. I know you are mocking me when you ask about the revolution, my political aims. I just write stories, find words. I've found new words, that's all, but for what it's worth, here they are: no matter how corrupt, idiotic, inefficient our governments are revealed to be, people can't do anything, can't respond, because they too have become like politicians.
- How?
- They are living in this open society. Society that is all correlation, no causation. Everyone has his type, his role, all is acceptable, open, all in fact as meaningless as red meat being correlated with heart attacks because no one is agressive, anxious, discriminated against anymore. Look at the dead faces of the students here. They rigorously study the correlation between red meat and heart attacks. They follow rules, they're all ambition to make money and be a success, they create a personal efficiency by the elimination of all human qualities.
- You think so?
- Yes, I do. Personal investigation, personal development is punished by career failure, social exclusion. In fact, the Open Society leads to closed society.
- How?
- The ignorance it is based on is exposed, the false correlation revealed, by increasing social disruptions. The society supposed to be efficient above all else is revealed to be inefficient. Think about George Soros, the billionaire who founded this university. Efficiency policies result in monopoly, concentration of wealth. Efficiency creates billionaires. Billionaires monopolize property. Which means more and more people have no property. Democracy cannot function, no matter the perfections of institutions and efficiency, when people own no property and are in the conditions of slaves who can be forced by life or death necessity to do anything. This is a destructive influence enough, but monopoly of property inevitably leads to bribery. Or in the case of our open society times, to legal bribery, where bribery is seen as an expression of the personal opinion of the wealthy.
- How can bribery be legal?
- According to numerous Harvard and other University professors it makes democracy into an efficient "marketplace of ideas".
- Hard to believe.
- The open society leads to corruption, to legalized bribery; it leads to concentration of property and consequent slavery of the property-less, which leads to social disruption. Finally the open society, we see this happening now, leads to repression in the name of efficiency, and in some places, is leading to an attempt to return to the original role relations, the original ignorant correlation before outside influences, foreigners, and foreign trade disrupted things. When you don't know anything the best you can do is return to the conditions where things seemed to work better.
- You're talking about Fascism. Neo-nazis.
- It's the destiny of the open society. The invisible hand of economics. Which is no more than people who know they don't understand what they rely on trying to lessen the risk of their ignorance. The invisible hand of economics is the efficient protection of ignorance. Remember, I told you the story, I asked Soros when he spoke here another time to support the Occupy protest movement? He answered that he couldn't. It was a disruption which would lead to more disruptions. He sympathized with the people's suffering, but efficiency was the high principle he worshiped.
- You really think he believes that?
- Yes. His two principles are open society, and efficient management of marketplace ignorance. Together they are a sort of religion, the invisible hand of ignorance protecting itself by monopoly and social repression. He's collected every type here in these buildings - every variety of sexuality, nationality, age, race, each is in its cage, each incapable of communicating with the other types in their cages, each incapable of getting out of the cage by personal testing and experiment, incapable of looking for the truth. A zoo where there is no relation of red meat to heart attacks except the profit to be made by assuming there is one.
- And this is your good-by to the University.
- Red meat thrown to the cages!
Epilog
Late 2011, Budapest, Hungary, Gellert Hill, The Citadel:
- It's quiet tonight. Am I right that something is happening? Some big change?
- What do you mean?
- Is the city finally going to take the Citadel back from the family? What really happened with the last family that had the place? What did they do? Really do?
- Sold drugs, ran prostitutes.
- And the boss was murdered, you told me.
- In the disco.
- What does the present "family" do?
- It's in the energy business.
- And you say they "control" the territory of the Citadel without a contract with the government, the city, which owns the land and buildings?
- Yes. Just like the other family.
- How?
- Can't explain.
- Influence? Bribery?
- Can't explain.
- This "family" holds the territory, operates their "energy business" from here. But no one from the energy business world seems to be around.
- That's correct.
- I am the only guest of the hotel.
- Usually.
- There was a taxi business when I first came here, a long time ago.
- The city shut them down.
- Why?
- Can't explain.
- Influence failed?
- My boss always fails.
- But they are still here, in control of the Citadel.
- They built a terrace in the courtyard - you can see it over there, the wood floorboards are rotting away - but the city forbid them to use it.
- Why?
- They say diplomats from nearby embassies complained about noise.
- Failure of influence again. And the new radio station here? What's that for?
- It costs them a lot. They have no advertising and 16 employees.
- And can't get a permit from the city. I've been following the drama. The police come, demand you stop broadcasting, you go off the air, then go on again immediately after the police leave. Then again. Then again. Then the police come, break down the door of the equipment room and carry out the transmitter in their arms. Then you set up broadcasting outside the city limits, still without a permit. Anything I left out?
- No. Sometimes I think this place is an insane asylum.
- Because all you guys here smoke and cough and smoke and cough, because one of you complains operatically non-stop and the other swears non-stop, because you yourself say you can't stop talking with people you don't like? Because the computer programmer in the corner room smokes so much that when he comes out into the lobby he leaves a scent trail in the air, who's a kind of walking ashtray? What about me? How do I fit in?
- You're crazy too.
- To be staying here.
- Yes. No one understands you. I try to protect you, tell everyone you're from a rich family, are here until the estate is settled.
- Sounds good
- I thought so.
- Might even have a little truth to it. Did I ever tell you the story of the fake and real Rolex I bought at a pawn shop in Atlantic City when I was visiting my mother there?
- I don't remember.
- The story goes like this. Dozens of casinos send send their losers out into the street where dozens of pawn shops buy their jewelry so they can go back to the casinos and lose more money. One afternoon I thought to visit the shops and look at their watches. At the first I came to there was a Rolex copy in the window. The Russian immigrant working there placed it on the counter and opened its back to show me the movement. He'd been tricked into buying this watch, he explained. The movement looked real, he'd never seen a fake movement before. How much did he want for the watch? 200 dollars. Take 150? Yes.
- You bought the watch?
- Yes. When I came next time to Budapest I sold it to another watch dealer for 600 dollars.
- How?
- The movement was real.
- And you knew it.
- And the pawn shop didn't. Real movement in fake watch.
- Great story.
- It is what I like to think life is like at the Citadel. We've got the "family" parading around, visiting the radio station that isn't a business, the hotel where I am usually the only guest, you guys working here smoking yourselves to death out of nothing else to do, I'm here seeing this because I make it look like a hotel and in my isolated life other people don't hear about it from me and show up asking to stay. It's all fake, but it is a real castle, it is the best place in Budapest, you and me are really here despite the fakery going on around us.
- Very poetic. Everyone is miserable here.
- Last night I was writing about Cain and Abel.
- From the Bible?
- Yes. Should I tell you what I wrote?
- How long will it take?
- One minute. Two, maximum.
- Ok.
- I'll be fast, fast. Here goes. Pay attention.
- Ha.
- The first humans were educated by God: they broke his rules, went adventuring, had children, created lives for themselves. The first human educated by humans killed his brother.
- Cain killed Abel.
- Yes. God's education was in breaking rules. Human education is about keeping rules. Cain was a farmer. He stayed put. He followed rules of when and what and where to plant. When he looked at the land he was reminded of which of his rules to apply.
When God did not accept his sacrifice Cain responded to God as he responded when a rule no longer applied because of change of weather: he simplified, uprooted the unrewarding rule from his world. If there is a rule, "Sacrifice to God / You'll be rewarded by his love", and no love is delivered, if you kill your brother whose sacrifice has been accepted the field is cleared of all sacrifice, nothing is growing there. Cain weeded Abel from his field.
As a shepherd Abel adapted rules to the terrain his herd wandered over. The land did not remind him of any set rule. Rules remained contingent. The story of Cain and Abel is about a battle between two ways of of applying rules, destructive and creative.
- You've written this down?
- Sure, not that anyone reads anything.
- Doesn't matter.
- Yes, that's the point I want to make. Write the truth in the midst of all the fakery, you're Abel living in Cain's world. You are the only guest of the "family" hotel at the Citadel. Down in the city when I tell people about where I stay I use the Italian word for family, "mafia". I hope they don't mind.
- Nobody is interested in you.
- I'm real taken as fake, safe so long as no one sees the reality and tries to profit by it.
- What good are you to anyone?
- Well, what good was it to Cain killing his brother? It was a symbolic act. And as we see at the Citadel the whole place is functioning as a symbol of the family's power, doing nothing else in fact. I am here only so long as there is no symbolic benefit in throwing me out. I am waiting for that time to come. It will, won't it?
- Yes. You know this place.
- 17 years since the first time I stayed here.
- Time have changed.
- The world is at war, economic, social war. Cain is out to eradicate Abel, out to weed him from his field. But, you know, history has moved on. Abel is more able.
- Abel is more able. I like that.
- Abel knows better, he can put into words just how the world is a war between those educated by man and those educated by god. He knows all the words thrown about around him are fakery, are all lies, gangsters' symbols of power. Education by man begins with killing a man, but proclaims itself to be education by god. It all about following rules and goes by the name of fundamentalism.
But education by God is something small and on the human scale, is the rule breaking and wandering life and goes by the name "humanism". God made humans, but humans make each other something else, something much worse, something fake, something oversimplified, something "fundamental".
- It's been much more than one minute.
- My words wandered to a field where other rules apply.
V. Getting Fit
I was spending nights at the all night cafe. They liked me there. But they couldn't understand how someone like me had no money, no friends, no work, had nothing in fact. I did exercises, noted how strong and lean I was getting. I thought about Beatrix, my annulled Hungarian wife, remembered when she had finally decided she wanted to see me again after I had returned from Greece to Budapest.
I'd had to wait a couple of weeks. We met at the Deak Ference metro station near Macdonalds. Beatrix was surprised. Everything was as before, better than before. She said, "How can we be this way with each other after all the terrible things we say about each other?" I knew the answer. Because I knew the answer I could be with her. Because she didn't know the answer, and could not even listen to the answer, Beatrix was never long with me. I said:
- You think about things, and like the way I think. You want things, you want my company. But you put both thinking and wanting at the service of your ambition to be rich and famous.
- What's wrong with that?
- You should want to be with the man you have decided is best and work if at all to be able to do that.
- I should work to be able to be with you? I don't have to work for that. I can be with you, I can be with anyone.
- I know. You are so attractive. You've worked at making yourself attractive. I'll never get through to you.
- You're arrogant. You think you're better than me.
- I can't get through to you because you put reasoning and desire in the service of ambition. When I tell you it's wrong to do that you say my reasons are useless to you in getting what you want.
- I'm not a hermit like you.
- But you love this hermit.
- I love making him my slave.
So though we love each other it is only a matter of time before she is gone again. She was gone in a week.
An email arrives while I'm at the cafe. A way out I'd been pursuing has worked, possibly. The laws of Israel, not the people administering them, wish my presence there. Not because I'd be a success. The Israeli Agency has put into writing their belief that I was a certain failure. But because they've been pushed, by me and diplomats - people like me sometimes fall into strange company - they've relented. I've slipped through the cracks. The state was founded on the idea of home, of giving individuals a home. Not the idea a group be given a place to be ambitiously enlarged and made more productive. But that is what was happening there now, the views of me and my wife were at war there. I ought to feel right at home.
VI. Buddha In Budapest
I have just seated myself with my back against Buddha, in the Philosopher's Garden, high in the Buda hills above Budapest. Buddha is one of set of statues of people of the idea, life size in bronze, around what should have been a fountain but is only an empty basin. Some symbolism here I don't have time for. I've got a beer in my bag, I want to relax from the noise and pollution down in the city. A group of black booted, black military outfitted shaved head young men have come to inspect the philosophers. They are Neo-Nazis, parading through the city and attacking the weak. Stamped in my passport is my new visa to Israel.
I look into the eyes of one young man. He looks back. What is he thinking? The day before I'd had a conversation with a young Turkish medical student. She said:
- Something is wrong here. You aren't Jewish are you?
- Yes, I am.
- I lived in Israel a long time. Only Jews talk like you do.
- Is that a compliment?
- Yes. But you don't seem Jewish.
- When I was in Israel a couple years ago Israelis didn't believe I was Jewish.
- I understand.
- What do you understand? I'm Jewish, I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood in Los Angeles.
- You are too gentle, too nice. Maybe you lived in Europe too long.
- You think that is it?
- Yes.
Does the Neo-Nazi see gentleness or niceness? He is looking for trouble. I look, he looks. Then he turns away and walks on, bored I suppose by the kindness he's seen. Good. I take out my can of beer, sit my computer in my lap, look out at the view of the city. Soon I will be gone never to return.
II.
The government of Hungary has written into its new constitution what it thinks are conservative principles of family, religion, nation. The principles are conservative in the sense they seek to enforce obedience to rules and punish disobedience. The swaggering patrols around the city feel implicitly authorized by the new government.
This afternoon, scavenging paper and tape from a bulletin board outside a Tel Aviv market, closed for the Sabbath, a man asks me if those were my things, my book on the bench around the corner. I go over, yes, my computer, my Celine book. Was that his Terry Pretchert book? Yes, he's leaving it. I can have it? I was looking for a book by him yesterday. Israel really brings me luck. Good and bad.
- What do you mean?
- When I first came to Israel, I flew from Thailand. I was selected for special treatement by the Israeli security. That means a two hour search. The only others selected were two Israeli Arabs.
- Why did they choose you? You're American. You're Jewish.
- That's what the Israeli Arabs asked me.
When I left Israel, again I was selected for special treatment. They refused to allow my computer on the plane. They said because it wasn't charged, and my charger broken, they couldn't check it. Why did they have to check it? They do. A week later it arrived in Budapest. And a week after that it burned itself up. It was just a year old.
But then, good luck, maybe, returns with my return to Israel. On the plane was a man reading a book on start-ups. I speak to him as we are walking the passages of the Tel Aviv airport, tell him I have an idea he might be interested in. I sent him an email, and now it looks like he has succeed in setting up a team to work on the business.
- Is that what you do?
- No, I write stories. Teach English.
- What is the book you are reading?
- That is another story, another piece of good luck. Do you know Celine?
- No.
- French writer, 1930s. This is his second book. I bought it a couple of days ago at a used book store here. Celine's writing is full a mockery, hatred of human life, and at the same time regret that it has to be this way. The ugly little details accumulate at times into surrealist exaggeration. It's amazing. His realism, his hatred of human life of human beings making each other miserable. The American writer Henry Miller who was living in France at that time admired him. And that is what makes this copy special: see here on the flyleaf? Big Sur, USA, 1949. Big Sur, the "Big South", was at the time a fishing village in Central California. Henry Miller moved there in 1944, and later the Beat writers went there. This book was there too, and somehow found its way here to Tel Aviv. Finding it was my good luck. Did you know Celine became the most virtuosic anti-Jewish writer in all of history?
- No, I didn't.
- Celine hated human ways and manners, and history brought him, with the advent of the Nazis, a ready made theme. The Jews excluded others, enforced on each other obedience to their archaic rules: you never even got a chance with them. Just like every other kind of human being, only more so, and if not more so, at least more openly so, and if not more openly, then making a conspiracy about it in addition. Carrying this book in my hands, talking to people here, as I am talking with you, I keep seeing what is happening through his eyes. The people here are smart, they can talk, talk well, they know what they are doing, but they don't want anything to do with me. I feel the exclusion, I feel anger, anger on behalf of the human race. Like Celine, like anyone looking for the answer, for the way to live that is livable, I am always at a beginning, demanding the world allow me to get started on the real life I'm waiting for. I get angry when I can't begin. I understand Celine. Not to say I think he is right or I am right getting angry. I think he is wrong and I am wrong. I prefer to read the book you bring me, comedy, fantasy, kindness. Pratchett is kind. Do you know him?
- No.
- Well, I see you want to go. I know I shouldn't say it, but like everyone else I talk to here you seem to be counting the seconds till you can get away and don't have to talk to me.
- My friend is waiting. He teaches English, has more work than he can handle. Maybe he can send work to you.
- More good luck.
- And I wish you more to come. Bye.
Around the corner and half way down the next block a cat is crying to me from the half wall above the sidewalk. I pet her and she calms down. A few more cats appear from the bushes. We watch together as a car, after many back and forths, angles itself into the parking space in front of us. I say to the woman driver:
- This cat invited me to join her. I think she wanted food, but settled for my company. We've been watching you.
She opens the back door of her car, takes out a stack of disposable dishes, a bottle of water, and a bag of cat food. She arranges the buffet on the sidewalk and the cats feast.
- Don't tell me you always drive around with meals for cats?
- I do.
- You know, this book I am reading is a book of hatred. I can be a hater too. I was just talking to a man about this book and hatred. That didn't help, and here I am with the cats. I see all the children, the babies in their mother and father's arms. This city is really a city of children. I see all the cats, wild and taken care of. I get angry at my life, at being here, just another foreign country, having to be here, another place I don't belong, another place I can't even get a start in. Then I tell myself, the people are the end, it's always and everywhere all over with people, you can't begin at the end, you can't expect to begin at the end, stop expecting the impossible. Look at the cats. The babies. There is an opening. You've seen it yourself. You've passed through the opening. Why can't you remember? You must be getting old....
- I've got to go. My friends are waiting.
- I know! I know! I'll stay here with the cats.
PART THREE: TEL AVIV DIALOGS
I.. Day Of Atonement
Note: a nationality has many qualities, good and bad, as individuals do. When the characters in this story talk about their nationality it is some qualities of the individual responding to some qualities of the nationality. It is far from the whole picture. With that said....
"What is anti-Semitism? Hating Jews more than they deserve." (Chief Medical Officer, Public Health Service, State Of Israel)
7 a.m.
Day Of Atonement.
Motorized transport forbidden
Corner of Dizengof and Frishman Streets, Tel Aviv
- Do you know where I can buy cigarettes?
- Everywhere's closed. Have you tried the hotels on the beach?
- No. Where are they?
- You're not from Tel Aviv?
- No. From a small city. Not too far away.
- I'll walk with you if you like. I'm not going anywhere.
- I'd like that. Where are you from?
- Los Angeles.
- Nice. What are you doing in Israel?
- Israel is paying me to stay here for six months then leave.
- You're working for the government?
- Not exactly. How old are you, by the way?
- 16.
- What are you doing in Tel Aviv?
- I came here with friends.
- Where are your friends?
- At the room.
- What are they doing now?
- They're sleeping.
- What have you been doing in Tel Aviv?
- Drinking. Doing other things.
- Drugs.
- Yes.
- Why?
- It's good.
- Why is it good?
- It relaxes me.
- Why do you need to be relaxed? You're 16. You're supposed to love excitement.
- I have too much excitement at home.
- What's so exciting?
- You don't want to know.
- I do. I have all this day where everything is closed to listen. I have all my life to listen. I'm not doing anything important.
- I thought you said you're working for the government.
- In a way. What's so exciting at home?
- My mother is a cocaine addict and my father rapes me all the time.
- If you didn't have such a fresh face and were not obviously in perfect health and sane I wouldn't believe you. You speak about terrible things so casually.
- It's been going on a long time.
- But you have been to the police?
- They say they have more important things to worry about.
- They don't believe you?
- They do. They don't care.
8:30. Beach Promenade
- This place is really something. Unbelievable, right?
- It is. We've been looking for cigarettes for an half hour, finally found the machine over there by the restaurant. Do you have change for a hundred?
- I've been looking for cigarettes too. What do you need?
- Three shekels more.
- Here.
- Thanks. You're from Scotland?
- You can tell?
- Sure. What are you doing in Israel?
- Getting angry.
- Me too!
- What are you angry about?
-You tell me first.
- The people here.
- What's wrong with them?
- They're sick.
- You're about 70? Israel brought you here as a Jewish immigrant, said to you, "Here's a few hundred dollars, the market determines that with that money you will be able to sleep on the beach and buy cheap food and cigarettes. The history of the Jews compels us to invite you here, but the market is our true love. Thanks for coming, thanks for making a public display of our indifference to human life and of our obsessive greed. Enjoy Israel."
- You're funny.
- What are you going to do?
- Get cigarettes.
- See you later.
5:30 Hotel Entrance Steps. Near the beach.
- Hey! I know you.
- Who's your friend?
- A very interesting man. His family has been in Israel for hundreds of years. Sit down.
- O.K.
- What brings you to Israel?
- Like I told your friend at the beach this morning, Israel is paying me to come here and leave.
- And do what?
- That's all.
- I don't understand. Are you working?
- Are you? What is your profession.
- Software. But I do anything necessary to survive. You know the economic situation.
- Yes. I'm interested in the subject. Are you a protester?
- Protest is useless.
- Why?
- The protests have gone on for years, nothing changes. My family built this country, made sacrifices. Fought wars, lived in tents before the city was built. I feel like it's all been for nothing. I'm thinking about the future. How I am going to live when there is no way to make money anymore.
- And you don't want to try to stop the government from destroying your country?
- The government doesn't listen. It doesn't have to listen.
- Have you thought about why?
- Why what?
- Why the government doesn't have to listen.
- The politicians do what they want.
- But there is a reason they get away with it.
- If you know, tell me.
- Alright. A few days ago I was at a cafe with a young book editor....
- Gentlemen, I am going now to the temple. We'll meet again.
- Bye. You were saying? You met an editor. An Israeli?
- Yes. And we were talking about why Iran wanted to make a nuclear bomb and what were the chances if they did of their using it against Israel. He argued that if they wanted to kill Israelis they could even now explode a "dirty" bomb offshore. They want to bomb as a symbol of power, not to use, which they know would be disastrous.
- What did you say?
- That the question is not what the government of Iran could be expected to think is reasonable.
- What is the question?
- Whether a terrorist, who did want to explode a nuclear bomb, could get the agreement of the government. To answer that question you need to know what kind of government it was and whether that kind was likely to resist or not.
- What kind of government did you say Iran was?
- How much time do you have?
- I'm going somewhere. Why?
- I can answer, but have to fill in some background first.
- I'll stay.
- The Israeli government doesn't listen to protest, the Iranian government might listen to terrorists. That's what we want to explain. Who a government listens to. Before I came to Israel, before I got married in Hungary, I used to travel from one European capital to another and buy and sell old watches to other dealers doing to same. I met them at markets, watch shops, cafes. What I learned early on was that the law of supply and demand didn't apply. Prices were set by an automatic monopoly making process.
- I don't understand.
- Let's say you are a millionaire owner of a watch shop in Zurich. You have thousands of watches for sale. A middle aged woman walks in and carefully takes out from its cloth wrapping a gold wristwatch and sets it on the shop counter. It was her grandfather's, she explains, and she would like to sell it. How much is it worth? The shop down the street told her it was only worth was the gold in the case, which could be melted down. Now the shop owner knows this is not true. He also knows no matter how many shops the woman visits, she is likely to hear the same thing. What does he do?
- He cheats her, of course.
- Of course he does.
- It's her fault: she could have sold it on the internet.
- She could have. So operating at the same time and same place there is both a free market system and monopoly market. The monopoly market arises when there is a limited number of buyers and control of information.
- How?
- Let's go back to the watch shops in Zurich. Each shop keeper tells the unprofessional seller the same story because each shop keeper has gone into the business for the same reason: greed, love of profit. Each shares the same character. The price monopoly depends entirely on this fact of people of the same character being attracted to particular professions. In a large market, where anyone can buy and sell, monopoly doesn't arise. But in any market with restricted access monopoly pricing is the rule, not the exception. So-called free market supply and demand is the exception.
- Interesting.
- In fact there is nothing free about the free market. It begins with, is entirely dependent on strict prohibition against murder and theft, and ends, if spontaneous monopoly is not controlled, first with dispossession, then finally death of the majority of "free market" participants. You study the Kabballa?
- Yes. How did you know?
- This is Israel, you're the type.
- What type?
- The passionate type. The type that is passionate about understanding more than anything else. Am I right?
- You are right.
- I'm not a Kabbalist...
- What are you?
- Just a talker: The garden of Eden. Genesis. Eve eats the apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
- Yes.
- If I were a Kabballist I might think there was something in the latest news: the creator and co-founder of Apple computers has applied for Australian citizenship. Everyone there can have broadband internet connection, he says, but at his own house in California even he cannot because of monopoly control of business in the U.S.
- Is that true?
- Yes.
- Wow.
- Eve and Adam already have knowledge. They know how to live, what choices to make. What happens after eating the apple is that new choices arise that must be made without complete knowledge. There are better and worse choices, and we, living outside the garden, don't know how to choose. We are angry at the situation, and are ashamed of our anger, of our acting like animals. Have you read Plato?
- Yes.
- Good. In The Republic the Guardian class are described as being like dogs. They love those they know and hate those they don't. They have passion, and a strong sense of class. Like Adam and Eve after eating the apple, the dog-like guardians hate not knowing. The come together as a class spontaneously, a monopoly occupation based on similar character. The formation of social class is a response to, is avoidance of rage, of anger at not knowing what to do, how to choose between untested possibilities. Are you following?
- Yes. Are these your ideas?
- Mine, Plato's. Doesn't matter. Now, the question of the Israeli government not listening to protesters, the Iranian government possibly listening to terrorists. We ask, how much are the governments structured like free-markets, how much like a monopoly?
- I don't understand.
- How much are government decisions made reasonably, how much are they made by groups of people of like character associated into particular professions.
- Why does it make a difference?
- Because the human being, ashamed of his liability to rage, like a proud aristocrat places himself above passion by rooting himself is stable social arrangements, which themselves arise spontaneously by the coming together of people of like character. Reason, reasoning play no part in this fear of rage and spontaneous monopoly. The Israeli government doesn't listen to protesters because listening is not something monopolists do. The customer selling the watch is a subject, is subject to the operation of the monopoly. The complaint of the Israeli protesters is, according to the people in the government, only a complaint of those not like themselves. The protesters' complaints are no more listened to than a dog stops to hear the arguments of the stranger at the gate. With Iran, the question of access of terrorist to the government is whether the various monopolies established there would decide using a bomb would protect them from fear of the unknown and strengthen their class. I asked the editor if he knew how to answer that question.
- So you think, not just politics, but the economic situation is going to get worse?
- And get better when people know better.
- They won't know better. And as you say, the government isn't listening.
- Do you know the painting, The Garden Of Earthly Delights by Bosch?
- Sure.
- It pretty much sums up what we've we talking about. In Eden sexuality is open. There is no shame because there is no rage, no fear at not knowing what is good to do and what not. There is desire, which by definition is a lack, but satisfying that lack does not involve passion, passion in the meaning of one form of fear or another. If you watch babies smile, babies laugh, you will see they smile at what they know. But this is totally unlike the dog's knowledge of its pack. When a baby looks at adults acting as adults, acting as monopolists, he sees people who try to remake the world to suit the group they already know. Who do not want to know more than that, so look at the baby only with regard to the baby's significance to their own monopoly participation. But a baby looks at things in the garden as objects to be played with, learned individually. When the baby looks at the adult he sees a blank. He can't see the past and future group relations which determine every sound and move the adult makes with the baby, The adult does not try to know the baby. The garden the children live in is wild, unknown in itself, but safe, is a playground, not a threat to the known. Children don't know their own character, don't look out for friends of like character, they are not monopolists, so the unkown objects in the playground world are not a threat to that character and are not fled. When the objects are known, they are smiled at in gratitude for letting themselves be known. Babies laugh when known things are hidden, they have begun to learn how playing makes something unfamiliar become familiar, have begun to rely on, have confidence in this knowledge.The monstrous creatures in Bosch's Garden are animal parts made to comprise the whole animal, a perfect symbol for the way single character types establish whole societies in flight from rage and fear.
- Fantastic stuff. I've got to go.
6:30. p.m. Fasting period concluded. A woman sits outside at the pizzaria down the street.
- You look like someone I should meet.
- Sit down.
9 a.m. The next day, outside the King George Street Post Office.
- What's your number? I see about 20 people inside, but my number is a hundred more than the one up now.
- I was just laughing about it with the guard.
- I think they are counting the people who died waiting, as a kind of memorial.
- It's a crazy country.
- It's really crazy. Look at the guard: a 20 year old girl with a pistol at her hip managing, very successfully, to look fashionable. Do you ever go to the beach?
- Everyone does.
- Then you've heard the deafening announcement over the public address system? Where the city has paid someone to say no one works there? "Ladies and Gentlemen, No lifeguard on duty. Swimming forbidden." Which the swimmers ignore? But you don't want to know what I really think of the country. Do you? It's not good.
- You're not having a good time here?
- No. Are you?
- These last few years have been miserable.
- Good to hear! Tell me the story.
- You don't want to hear it.
- I do.
- What are you doing in Israel?
- My standard answer is the government has hired me to stay here 6 months then leave.
- To do what?
- Nothing.
- What do you mean?
- Tell me your story and I will tell you mine.
- Let's go have a coffee when we're finished.
9:30 Cafe. King George St.
- Your story.
- I have the world's worst husband. Next week after fighting 3 years I hope the divorce will be final.
- What did he do?
- He beat me. Many many times. I went to the hospital.
- You went to the police.
- Many Times.
- Why isn't he in jail then?
- I didn't want to deprive my children of their father. They want to see him.
- That's bad, but...
- There is more.
- I'm waiting. What is your husband's profession?
- Film producer.
- What did the film producer do to make him the world's worst husband?
- He installed a secret camera into our bathroom/spa, so he could record our children and their friends naked.
- Really?
- Really. I pulled the equipment out of the ceiling. I have the tape. He's a pedophile.
- I'll ask again: why isn't he in jail?
- Exposing their father will ruin the lives of my children.
- Why? It would be in the news for a day, then forgotten.
- No. You don't know Israel. It's a small place. Everyone knows everyone.
- I don't know anyone.
- Why are you here?
- As I said, the government is paying me to stay here for six months and then leave. They like the idea of American Jews being here, so they pay, but they like the idea of increasing the economic potential of the Jewish People more, so they want me to leave.
- They think you will cost the state money in benefits.
- Yes.
- What do you do?
- Talk. Write stories no one reads.
- You don't make money.
- No. The Israeli government told me I wouldn't make money here, and asked me to promise to leave.
- You can work here. You can clean. I can get you the job.
- Everyone tells me that.
- What do you say? You won't do it. You're too proud.
- In the last day alone I've met a 70 year old woman Israel brought here as an immigrant, with Israel then telling her she has go wandering around with no place to live because the marketplace determines that is how it should be, I've met a 16 year old girl who is raped repeatedly by her father and nothing happens, because of family connections and influence, I have heard from you that your husband is a pedophile and can't be prosecuted. In Israel there are only monopolies, economic and social.
- But Israelis are good people. I was at the post office to pick up 500 dollars my brother sent me, he knows I need it.
- Good to people in their gang, their pack, their cult, totally disinterested in those outside. The others can wander the streets like sleepwalkers or clean toilets, take it or leave it. I'll leave it.
Concluding words, from the Chief Medical Officer, Public Health Service, State of Israel:
"It's not smart for a government to insult a writer."
One Week Later
- We meet again.
- I put you in a story.
- With the Scottish woman?
- Yes. And the woman I met down the street at the pizzeria. That turned into its own story.
- Tell me.
- You have time? You're not going anywhere?
- No place I must go.
- Then let's walk.
- What have been doing lately, beside writing?
- Making everyone angry at me.
- Why? Let's sit down here.
- Did you see the way that couple looked at you?
- No.
- Wondering I suppose whether you're trying to be a holy man with your big black beard and wide brimmed hat.
- Why do you want to make people angry?
- I don't set out to do it. I respond to attack.
- There are times to speak, times to be silent. Do you know the old Hebrew saying, a clever man knows how to get out of trouble, the wise man knows to avoid trouble?
- You know, my friends, many are involved in the protests here. They are anarchists, I'm not. If anything I am anarchy.
- What do you mean?
- That I don't want to avoid trouble. I want to learn from it.
- I thought a lot about you in the past week. You call the people here money worshipers because you hate money. You're vindictive.
- I don't hate money. But I am vindictive. I don't want to hurt anyone, I want to destroy false views of the world.
- What good does that do you?
- "Better to be a wise Hebrew than a clever one"? I want to do it, I love doing it.
- But you are unfair. Israelis are good people. In the last ten years their lives have been devastated by economic policies taken from your country: privatization, monopoly, foreign labor. And they are waking up now. You can hear it everywhere, even in the talk of ordinary people. They are not money worshipers.
- They're victims of America. No, I don't buy it.
- Why?
- Because of the way they talk to each other, live with each other. Take the political situation. The religious live in a kind of internal diaspora. They have contempt for the politicians, who work for the free-market monopolists, who have contempt for everyone. Like they did living among the Europeans, the religious have made their deal, traded their support for protection and possibility to go on practicing their rituals. Individuals make the same kind of deal when they talk with each other. They don't answer each other, only throw aggressive speeches back and forth. Ritual faces ritual in a sort of truce. They don't like each other. Do you follow?
- Completely.
- The protesters know they've been robbed. But the relation they have to each other, disdain barely restrained from violence, will not allow them to make a better life with each other. Even if they win a few political battles new economic exploitation is certain to arise.
- Why?
- The alternative to worshiping money we have to consider is not what you think, living a simple life of family and work. The simple life is the life of ritual. Ritualists don't learn how to use public life to find out what might be better. They come into conflict with each other, then make deals. One side gets the better of the other, complains, protests, new deals are made....
- What's the solution then?
- To be willing to change. Ritualists, whether in making money or religious practice, don't want to change. Can I tell you the story of the woman I met at the pizzeria?
- If it applies.
- It does. You saw her?
- Yes. She looked like a classy woman.
- Designer sunglasses, jacket, jeans. Yes. Very fashionable. So sure of herself that when she took me to a school to get a haircut - I'd showed her a photograph of me taken two years ago at my marriage, she declared my present appearance to be a catastrophe - at the hair academy she was so critical of the instructor working on me he finally put down his comb and shears and stood listening to her instructions along with the whole room full of students and clients. Do you know what fashion is?
- What?
- It is uniformity and revolt at the same time, wearing a uniform and being in revolt at the same time.
- How?
- People see they are forced to conform, and say "not that" to the last style. Some aspect of the present time may be adopted in the new fashion, but not in any significant expression, not in the way art expresses the times. Art expresses the basics about life, good and bad, in language of the times adjusted to the circumstances of the times. Its truths are not new though its language may be, it is not in revolt.
- You're saying the protesters are playing at fashion. You're wrong. They're very very serious, very angry.
- They can not be anything other than playing at fashion, as long as they wear their uniform of ritual. But I want to talk about my new friend, Revital.
- A beautiful Hebrew name.
- Yes. What does it mean?
- Water of the morning.
- Beautiful. So beautiful Revital, in her fashionable clothes, was in roughly the same difficulties as I was when me met, and we went around the city with each other for about a week, staying together at temporary places I found over the internet. She liked to say she loved her life. She had these rituals, watching the same shows on her computer every day, concerts at which she would cheer, wave her arms as if she were actually there, it didn't matter to her, public or private, a cafe table or the beach. She wore her dark glasses even inside, even at her computer, because, she said, she didn't want people around to approach her. She liked to sing out a nonsense collection of Italian words. But she had this voice, a way of talking that was pure calm reason. I couldn't make her out. Seem crazy to you?
- No.
- After five days she dismissed me from her friendship.
- Why?
- I don't know. I asked her what was wrong.
- What did she say?
- Nothing.
- Nothing was wrong?
- First that, then she wouldn't answer. Last time I saw her she shouted at me to stay away and ran off.
- What do you think happened?
- I said something, I did something. What I want to say with this story is that she included me in her life of rituals, then excluded me. Like she said she had excluded her father the rabbi and Yeshiva teacher, excluded her whole family from her life.
- It's common here.
- Common most places. Wisdom is good as long as the conditions go on unchanged that are necessary for repeating your rituals. But when conditions fail you need to draw upon strength gained from practice dealing with a world you don't at first know what to do in. If the world never changed, you and your Hebrew saying would be right, it's better to be wise and avoid trouble than clever and escape the difficulties you brought on yourself. What the current politics shows is the the ritual wisdom here was bought at a cost of a way of life opposite that necessary to be clever and recover.
- I don't understand.
- All deals are off when you don't understand, the ritual rules don't apply. People are each others resource in their difficulty and like each other for it. They are literally good for each other, see it, feel it, know it, if they know nothing else. They don't live, as the people are doing here, fighting over money, ritualist against ritualist - that is what I mean when I use the phrase money worship - but with cooperation and appreciation in a search for friends and companions.
- So you make trouble to avoid trouble? Look at the situation you're in. You really think it's wise?
- You're the one with the beard. Would you like to read the how me and Revital met?
- It's on your site?
- Not at the moment. A couple days ago Google blocked the story you're in.
- Why?
- Against their policies. Expressed hatred of group.
- What exactly did you write?
- A piece of Jewish irony, said by a Jew about Jews. "What is anti-Semitism? Hating Jews more than they deserve."
- That is self criticism. How can they censor that?
- You're not allowed to say a group is deserving of even a little hatred.
- But it's obviously a joke! Israel is the only place in the world where almost everyone living there says the country is bad, says it violently even. It's good, what's special about the place. No matter how bad people get, they love to think, somewhere in this country there are good people, really good people. Do you believe me?
- I do. Here's our meeting, a Jewish joke if you like:
- What are you doing in Israel?
- The government paid me to come here and write bad things about the place.
- No. Really?
- Really. They didn't want me to come because they believed I wouldn't help the people who run the place grab more money, but their hands were tied by the rules of the game, the idea that Israel is a Jewish state anyone born into the religion can go to.
- You're Jewish then.
- Sure. And you're Israeli.
- The people here are garbage.
- You know the story, while Moses was getting the laws from god up on the mountain the people down below forgot about him and started worshiping a gold statue of a young cow. The gold, the youth of the animal, its meat and milk are all promises of future wealth. The Jewish people were worshiping money. Moses went back to god and asked him what to do. "Kill them all", said god. Save the good, Moses answered, save those who were not worshiping money. God allowed the exception.
- We're the exception.
- And the spirit of Moses is bargaining with god what to do about the people down here.
- I want to leave this place.
- Me too. Voltaire called religion the great infamy. Money's the world's new religion.
- Money is good.
- Good used to a purpose. When making money becomes a principle overriding all other human activity it's bad. It literally is religion, a faith that putting money first will make life better.
- And you think you can stop it? By writing, talking? Look at all these zombies.
- I like provoking them, the walking dead. So do you. They don't get angry. It's amazing. It's truth revealed.
- What truth?
- About the garbage, the walking dead, what money worship turns people into. People pounding each other into pieces, each piece part of what is still technically a human being, each piece of detritus a separate calculation about how to get money. Between calculations the trash fragments walk the dead human around waiting for the next cue to money making.
- You say that?
- Why not?
- What do they answer?
- "Sorry to hear you're not having a nice time."
- Garbage.
- There's more, but....
- You go too far.
- Have you ever thought about what is behind this famous Jewish self-criticism? There are two ways societies go wrong. They think only of their rules, nothing of the good life the rules are made to give us. Or they think only of the good life, construct an instance of it, and think nothing of the rules we need for getting there reliably. There are societies that combine both faults: individuals are left with no freedom at all. In what we call the West, our Christianity made societies produce pictures and instances of beautiful life. There is something melancholy and hopeless about this, the good is there, but no idea of how to hold onto it. The Jewish case is different. It is both without consistent beauty, because the rules are never allowed to pay off in a settled arrangement, and yet retains hope, because the world is left unconstructed, unfinished in imagination.
- Every society has its good and bad.
- Yes. But in the repressive societies individuals have no freedom to criticise, how the world looks and what you are to do in it is decided for eternity. In Christian societies you are not encouraged to find better rules of life, the door to improvement is seemingly closed, but you are soothed and calmed by the images of beauty. The Jewish society, though, is both without fixed beauty to rest on, and keeps open the task of making beautiful life, imposing on its members whether they like it or not the tools of rule making necessary to get there. There is a job to do and they know they are not doing it.
- The primitives are repressed, the Christians don't know any better, and the Jews can't help knowing better?
- Don't say I never said anything good about the Jews.
II. Close American Elections And The Fashion Business
- Fashion: remember our definition?
- Uniformity and revolt together.
- Too many people wearing the same uniform, and the new style doesn't seem very revolutionary anymore. Too revolutionary, not enough people adopt the new fashion and it doesn't become a uniform.
- Why should revolutionaries want to wear a uniform?
Because they are revolutionary only in the choice of role. They must have one role or another. They don't want to stand out alone.
- Ok.
- Fashion is a tool of monopoly economics.
- Why?
- Because of the power of advertising. Advertising is the deliberate creation of fashion. The more advertising, the more the sense of uniform community created around the product being sold, and the more the product can be sold as a revolutionary improvement. Do you follow?
- Yes.
- The techniques of selling fashion can be applied to selling political candidates to voters. Some basic uniform is produced, a simple story of how life should be lived. For Republicans, it is small government and individuality, for Democrats, a fair and caring society. These ideas are sold as revolutionary, constantly threatened by the encroachments of the opposite party. Have you ever wondered why the Presidential elections are often so close?
- I've assumed it was because both sides are using the same techniques of persuasion and are equally good at it.
- That's what I first thought.
- Not anymore?
- I think that like in advertising fashions, political persuasion comes up against a natural limit: a too successful campaign, throwing a uniform on too many people, stops delivering the thrill of being in revolt.
- So the less successful campaign recovers and gains a more equal position.
- Yes.
- I never thought of it that way before. But if you are right why do monopolies arise?
- The goal of business is not making or selling products, but profit. Competition is eliminated by mergers, buyouts, under-pricing, government subsidies, exclusive agreements with suppliers and distributors. Customers of monopolies don't get to vote.
III. Driving With The Doctor To Tel Aviv
- I have to admit I looked at your writing. I couldn't get into it.
- You don't have time for it.
- Yes, like most people most of my time goes into making a living.
- How you think about making a living makes some other thoughts harder to accept.
- How do people think about making a living?
- Americans for example are famously puritanical. They don't like talk about sex in public life. It embarrasses them. Have you ever considered why?
- I read about a congresswoman who was silenced after using the medical name of female body parts. As a physician I find that ridiculous. I suppose it's just one of those things every group of people do without knowing why.
- They don't know why, but there is a reason. Like the Puritan can't admit attraction of people to each other into his public life, the free market advocate can't allow liking for people to affect his economic behavior.
- Interesting.
- Puritanism is a barrier against change. When people like each other new relations - economic, personal, sexual, - are established which compete with established monopoly relations.
- What do you mean by that?
- Unregulated free markets result in concentration of wealth, monopolized wealth monopolizes influence on politicians. The rich impoverish everyone else, and repressive puritanism dispirits opposition by making it impossible for them to establish relation to each other, to communicate. A kind of stability results. It's the other invisible hand. The open society of the free market leads to the closed society of puritanism, so-called "austerity", and repression.
- But there are many immigrant groups that are not puritanical.
- Sure, but they are being assimilated. Control is being tightened in other ways as well. Shows of violence are acceptable so long as they serve as a warnings not to make a claim on a new relation. That is why they are hardly regulated, paradoxical though it seems that in a controlled society shows of sexuality are restricted but not violence.
- What about pornography? It's all over the Internet.
- Pornography is sexuality devoid of personal knowledge, and it's sold. It trains people to use money, the most impersonal of mechanisms, to do without making new personal relations. It's perfect for the free market.
- You're saying that puritanism leads to free-market economics?
- And free-market economics leads to puritanism.
IV. Repatriation. American Embassy
- What about Budapest?
- What about it?
- The American Embassy there said I had to provide an arrival address where someone lived who was on the tax roles as owner or had a rental contract for the property and would take indefinite financial responsibility for my future.
- That's Budapest.
- The American Embassy in Tel Aviv has different rules?
- We asked Washington for permission for you go anywhere and we got it.
- Why didn't Budapest ask permission?
- That is not our business. Our job is to loan a ticket home to Americans who are destitute. You are not destitute, so we cannot help you.
- That's the rule?
- Yes.
- Like the rule in Budapest? Prove there is no one in the world who will buy you a ticket and also provide the name, address, and phone number of someone who won't buy you a ticket but will take financial responsiblity for you?
- We're busy. There are other people here we have to see. You are not destitute. Why don't you sell the ring you are wearing? It's gold.
- The woman who sold it to me in Budapest told me it was silver. It cost 4 dollars. Do you want to buy it? You can use it to get married. I did.
- You can buy a ticket. You are not destitute. There is nothing more to discuss.
- You say I should live without money for three weeks until a payment I expect arrives, just enough to buy a ticket, then arrive in the United States, where I will be without money. I should be destitute before and after I buy the ticket, both here and in the U.S., because the American Embassy in Tel Aviv says it cannot make me a loan because I am not destitute. And this loan is publicly offered on the Embassy's web site and secured by confiscation of my passport until it is repaid.
- Yes. Have a nice day.
V. Economic Reality
- Look, I don't want to waste your time. I won't rent you the room. But are you hungry? I'll buy you dinner.
- I'm not hungry. I'll drink a coffee with you.
- Good. There's a cafe at the corner.
- You buy me a coffee but won't rent me a room. Why?
- You said you didn't want to put up the security deposit.
- But you live there too. You think I am going to break the windows, dig a hole in the floor? In the twenty days of the sublet?
- No. It's just the way things are here. When I was going to medical school in New York it was the same for me. The school had to sign on as guarantor for me to get an apartment.
- What you're saying is that everyone is afraid of losing money so you are afraid of losing money. You know it is not reasonable, but you're busy and can't take the time, put in the effort to clarify the situation for yourself. You don't have to, because there are others willing to rent the room on your terms.
- Yes. I work all the time. I have to, like a lot of people here.
- You know the social network "couchsurfing"? Just down the street, in the most pretigious building in the city, an internet found host, a complete stranger, turned over his entire million dollar apartment to me, handed over the keys and left town, for nothing. No payment, no security.
- On King David street?
- Yes. You're a doctor. You don't think your behavior falls under the heading of pathology?
- Why?
- You admit there is no reason to distrust me, yet you do it anyway.
- It's a sick society.
- And you're a willing participant.
- I do what I can.
VI. Shooting Bullets In The Air
- I was a paramedic with the Israeli Army stationed in Nablus. I saw a lot.
- For example?
- Palestinians like to fire off rifles at their weddings.
- I've read about it. They seem to believe the bullets go up and up without stop.
- But the bullets come down.
- And they like to aim their rifles directly up? Imagining themselves growing taller along the bullet's path?
- Imagining themselves closer to god.
- And the bullets come down on them.
- Yes.
- You saw that?
- I saw the wounds. I had to treat them.
- Do you know what this reminds me of?
- What?
- A journalist in L.A. sent me an email a few days ago. She was writing a book on women who use men for profit and leave only destruction behind. She'd heard about my wife and me. It was a big story, and she wanted to feature it. We exchanged more emails:
- Will you consent to be interviewed?
- Yes.
- Are you still married?
- I'm not a lawyer, but probably we are.
- Will you testify in court? Sign the affidavit copied below on the email?
- Why this legal interest? What happened to the "big story" you're working on? I should have asked before: what led you to me?
- I know a girl from Church who knows the doctor your wife married. The doctor is suing her for divorce, and she wants money.
- I see. So she really married the doctor?
- You two should work together, not be enemies.
- I tried to warn him she had a husband.
- This woman has to be stopped.
- Is this true? Your wife married again without being divorced?
- And after I told her future husband she already was married. I don't know what the doctor expects to gain by hiring a journalist to gather information, if that's what's going on. If she knew the marriage wasn't valid, so did he. If afterwards they lived together like a married couple, in California the same division of property rules apply as to divorce. It's like he went into the marriage for the pure joy of the celebration.
- Like shooting bullets in the air.
VII. The Detective
- What made you think she's a detective?
- Her language. She talks about the case, not the story. She calls my wife "that woman", as in "that women has to be stopped". She asks me to send her my marriage documents she can pass on to authorities so my wife, that woman, will be stopped.
- She's confrontational. You saw her videos.
- She's been working on "the case" three weeks, she says. Why doesn't she ask me anything except whether I am legally married?
- She told you. She wants to write a story that makes people laugh. She already knows enough about you to make people laugh, you the ridiculous second or third husband in a series. And she's a young woman. She's keeping distance to save you the trouble of making unwanted advances.
- You're probably right. She's recently married.
- To her you are a comic figure whose advances have to be blocked.
- Like my wife has to be stopped. Why do I feel offended?
- You think everyone should like you.
- They should.
- Are you going to continue answering the reporter's questions? Now that you know she is real?
- Where's my interest here?
- Publicity. You are a failure at getting everyone to like you. Maybe she'll succeed.
- With my story.
- In the story she's writing you're one husband out of many.
- So where's my interest?
- What did you expect when you first heard someone was writing about your wife?
- The reporter wrote me that she knew where my wife was. I thought she might put me back in touch with her.
- Ridiculous man.
VIII. The International Cultural Foundation At The Tel Aviv Shopping Center
"The religious man wants to get his head into heaven, the madman wants to get heaven into his head and it breaks."
- What do you have to lose?
- My sanity.
- Maybe he'll do what he says, maybe he won't.
- Did you hear what he said? About Revital?
- He'd hire her too if he had the budget.
- And "crazy people have good minds." He was thinking of himself.
- He's only a little crazy.
- I told you about the internet sending me to different people to stay with every night, every couple of days someone new. Last night I was with a computer programmer.
- Was he alright?
- Sure. They always are. They're trying to cure themselves of selfishness. The programmer was convinced the day was not long in coming when computers became conscious, and humans, hooked up with computers, became able to communicate with each other for the first time, efficiently as computers communicate with each other.
- It's not far off.
- You think so too? He talked about "singularity": when the complexity of computers suddenly brought on consciousness, when humans hooked up to computers could communicate their thoughts directly with each other.
- Yes, I've heard about it.
- And you believe it?
- You don't?
- How much time do you have? I know, you have all day, like me. How much philosophy can you take?
- I like philosophy.
- Ok. What do we know about this so-called singularity? It is a relation between something we do not understand - consciousness, communication of thought to thought - to what we do understand. Do you follow?
- Not really.
- To get an idea of the likeliness of the singularity happening we can look at things of the same form and see what their origins are.
- What things of the same form?
- Religious things.
- Religion has overstayed its welcome. We're in another age.
- The programmer said the same. But in the search for singularity religion is way ahead. Thousands of years ahead.
- How?
- Religion establishes a relation between rules of action, and sight of the world; between strict obedience to the rules, and sight of an unlimited world which is called beauty, good, true, or god. It is a relation between technology of action, and unlimited thought.
- Like the singularity is a relation between computer technology and consciousness. I never thought of it that way.
- You are used to thinking of religion as stories and ritual, beautiful ideas and rules. Considered separate from each other rules of action and pictures of the world are reasonably rejected as arbitrary.
- And you say they have to be considered together.
- Yes. As a technology in itself, the right rules, leading to the right sight.
- What is the right sight?
- God. Or consciousness. Or truth, beauty, goodness, love.
- Ok.
- Revital watching the same Madonna concert movie over and over...
- Last night she was here shouting and dancing with her computer. She's getting worse.
- I know. And the Professor, your and my employer in his new international cultural foundation, wandering around the shopping center when he forgets his house keys and doesn't seem to remember to do anything about it, - they're escaping into rituals.
- Yes.
- The rituals are a primitive technology.
- You lost me.
- We're in Israel, a religious state. Even at the airport in Budapest on the way here I was deep in religion. Two women from the Jewish Agency who had arranged my trip were there escorting me, and waiting to check in an Israeli with beard and wide brim hat made me a slight bow and said, "Shalom". Do you know him?, one of my escort asked. "A Jew can greet a Jew", he answered.
- Cool.
- I was in a secret society I'd forgotten I'd joined. When I got to Israel this happened over and over. Strangers I'd stop to ask directions, or passing by on the street, a beach bum Yoga practitioner using the computer next to mine at the Apple store, would say to me out of nowhere, "you are a good man".
- You also forgot you were a holy man?
- I guess so. But do you what they all had in common?
- What?
- Burning eyes. The fanatic's glare. Maybe I have it too.
- Sometimes.
-That explains why I'm here at the shopping center with you guys. A fanatic knows the way, the rules, the rituals that get him out of the world, into the world without limit.
- Like you say Revital and the Professor do.
- Yes. The "unlimited" world is in the control, is managed by the limited.
- I don't understand.
- When we talk about a singularity, computers becoming conscious, we imagine in some way escaping from reasoning, getting past it to something better. But if rules lead us out to our escape, we are still tied to our reasoning selves.
- What other way is there?
- When the rules are improvised, conditional. In conversation, no matter how much you enjoy it, how much we get out of it, we don't want to repeat it word for word, even though that might work to get us out of ourselves. The conversation has its time and place. If we learn something we'll use it in another, different conversation.
- You're saying the fanatic's "singularity" is not real because it is tied to rituals?
- It's one model of the relation of consciousness to technology.
- What are the others?
- The example we just used: conversation. Where the "consciousness" reached, the new knowledge, is not encompassed by rules of ritual application, actually invalidates them for future use.
- How invalidates?
- Let's go back to computers and singularity. Somebody programs the computer. If it achieves consciousness, consciousness still would have its origin in, be tied to its programming. In conversation, there are no fixed rules. It would be as if the computer were programming itself.
- But that is what the programmers expect to happen, isn't it?
- Yes, they do. The problem is, the computer can never get beyond the stage of the fanatic. It's always dragging its rules behind it. In conversation, the rules are invented as you go along.
- Couldn't a computer do that too?
- Yes and no. In every word we speak, sentence we put together, we are already making use of the "singularity": that is what it means to create something from nothing, a new word, new idea, new technique.
- You're saying that for a computer to create its own rules as it went along it would already have to have consciousness.
- Yes. That's right.
- So when computers get sophisticated enough, and people attach themselves to them, we'll have a singularity, an interconnected world of fanatics. Of crazy people and their international cultural foundations. I hope you're wrong.
IX. Cancellations
Travel Agency, Tel Aviv Shopping Center, Israel
- The airline cancelled my reservation?
- Yes.
- Then they have to offer compensation.
- No.
- Why not?
- You didn't pay for the ticket.
- If I paid for the ticket it wouldn't be a reservation, it would be a ticket. If they cancel a reservation they have to arrange another flight. They can't just cancel it.
- They can. If you don't pay for your ticket within 24 hours they automatically cancel all reservations. That's industry policy.
- I came back here a half hour after making the reservation.
- They still can cancel your reservation.
- What is a reservation if the airline can cancel at any time?
- I told you. You have to pay for the ticket for the reservation to be held.
- What does "held" mean if they can cancel it any time? They aren't holding anything.
- I don't have time for this.
- What is really going on here? Did you make a mistake? Was there never any flight?
- No. You didn't pay, so there is no reservation.
- Do you get some pleasure out of lying like this?
- You can leave now.
- I can leave any time. Now I want to know why you are lying. I know you are lying, you know I know, and you don't care. Why don't you care?
- We don't do things in the same way here.
- That's true. I have been in plenty of places people lie and cheat, but I can't remember being anyplace else where people openly lie, don't hide or make excuses.
- We don't have to make excuses to you. You don't like us, we don't like you.
- You don't like Americans? At least we don't proclaim ourselves to be liars and thieves.
- Get out.
- I'm almost out. Standing at the door. I'm trying come up with something better to say about your contempt for the truth.
- I told you to get out.
- Yes, I heard you. You want to cancel the conversation like you cancelled my reservation. If you don't get money the words don't count.
- I'm telling you, get out.
- I'm going. Absolute contempt for the truth. They should put it in the guide books.
- Now!
- I'm going. One step, see? I'm gone.
X. Another Crazy Artist
- You can sit down. I'm leaving.
- I'll sit down only if you stay.
- I've got to go.
- Why?
- My son is waiting. What are you doing in Israel?
- Same as I do everywhere. Think about being someplace else.
- Where do you want to be now?
- Home.
- What's keeping you if that's what you want?
- Practical things.
- What kind? Don't you want to sit down?
- Not if you're leaving. What do you do?
- I'm a waitress.
- You're too old.
- That's not what you should say to pick up a woman, is it?
- What did you do before?
- I was a dancer.
- Everything is backwards. Used to be working in restaurants was a job for the beginning of a career, not the end.
- What about you? How do you make money?
- I don't make money, not often. Until recently I've been practical enough to evade the practical in life. Now I've decided to be professional. But only for the money.
- Are you making money?
- No. But I have hopes.
- Good luck. I've got to go now.
- I'm going too.
- Where are you going?
- The airport.
- Talking with me convinced you to leave?
- I'm not leaving. Probably not. I've got a reservation though. I going to the door to this place and look out. And think.
- Another crazy artist.
XI. On The Train To The Airport
- I'll sit next to the religious guy. What are you smiling at?
- What you said.
- Religion makes you happy, though, right?
- Where are you from?
- From Tel Aviv, to the airport, on my way home, I hope. Los Angeles.
- Been in Israel long?
- Too long. Months. The country is trying to teach me not to value possessions. Two telephones stolen, computer broken by an over-inquisitive puppy at a park bench, glasses stolen, fountain pen broken by rogue utility box I walked into trying to hide my eyes from the sun.
- Only things.
- Yes,.and every time I buy something I get cheated.
- So don't buy anything.
- Sorry to break in, but a few months isn't enough to know Israel.
- Stay much longer and there'll be nothing left of me. I'm not Job. Look, he's smiling again.
- Have you been to Jerusalem?
- Once, about 30 years ago.
- Only seeing Tel Aviv in Israel is like going to New York, visiting the Statue of Liberty, and saying you know the city. Tel Aviv is like New York, is like L.A. You haven't seen anything.
- Are you American?
- I'm Israeli now.
- For how long?
- 15 years. You're going to the airport? If you stay on this train, you could get off just before Jerusalem. There is a Yeshiva you should go to. I'll write you directions. They'll help you.
- In exchange for what?
- They won't ask you for anything. They'll give you a room, food, teach you Hebrew.
- I don't believe it. I'll have to practice their rituals.
- That's fair, isn't it?
-No. It's a bad deal. I can sell my conformity for a higher price. If I'm to compromise myself I'd rather be a banker or politician and take the world down with me.
- You're a cynic.
- I just want to go home.
- Do you have a house in L.A.?
- I don't have anything.
- Yes, I heard. No telephone, computer, pen. Go to the Yeshiva. They'll take care of you.
- Can't do it. This stop is the airport? I'm getting off.
- Here, take the directions. In case you change your mind.
XII. The Airport
- Can you check my reservation?
- Of course. What name?
- Miller.
- First initial?
- R.
- Yes, it's here.
- What's the price?
- 4,140.
- The price the travel agent told me was different. Would you check it again?
- It's correct. 4,140 dollars.
- Dollars!
- It should be about one forth of that. 4,000 Israeli Shekels.
- Business Class is expensive.
- I didn't ask for business class.
- Take it up with your travel agent.
- Ok. Now, can you check if you see the reservation I made last week with another travel agency?
- Why?
- You cancelled it when you cancelled flights because of the hurricane on the East Coast. The travel agent said you wouldn't make me another reservation at the same price because you cancelled the flight in the twenty minutes between making the reservation and my bringing the money to pay for it.
- That's correct. If the ticket isn't paid for we aren't responsible for arranging another flight. It's force majeure.
- The storm is force majeure whether the reservation is paid for or not.
- Is there anything else I can help you with?
- You could honor the reservation.
- I am the ticketing agent. I can only sell you a ticket at current prices. Tomorrow you can call customer service.
- I already called them. They told me to have the travel agent call them, and maybe something could be arranged.
- Well then.
- The travel agent won't call them.
- There is nothing more I can do. Would you like to buy a ticket?
- No.
XIII. Startup
- He calls it "pay-it-forward".
- Who does?
- The head of the venture capital company that organizes these meet-ups.
- What's a meet-up?
- A meeting announced on a site called "Meet-Up".
- Just a new word then.
- Like "pay-it forward" is what anthropologists call "gift economy".
- You haven't told me what it is yet.
- You help other entrepreneurs at the meeting, and if everyone sticks around and stays in the club someone will end up helping you.
- And primitive people helped each other that way?
- Still do in some places.
- Are you going to make a pitch?
- I've never spoken in public in my life. But I think I will. After that journalist (*) I told you about wrote to me telling me about my wife's new husband trying to divorce her and asking me to document that she is still married to me, it's like it isn't my life anymore, so why be shy?
- You aren't afraid someone will steal your idea?
- The venture capitalist says don't worry.
- He'd be the first I'd worry about.
- Anyway when I leave here I'll write it all down, post it, and send the link to thousands connected to me on various social media.
- Why?
- I don't really know. Maybe I am hypnotized by the numbers, like the journalist says my wife hypnotizes her husbands. Maybe I am trying to keep a crowd around me so someone might give me something back.
- Or someone become interested when they see others are interested. Bayshare is a good idea.
----
- You did well.
- The other speakers were applauded. I got silence and blank faces.
- Doesn't matter. The idea is too new. The venture capital guy said he like the idea. He said it was hedging and speculation at the same time. Is that true?
- Yes.
- And he said he would set up a meeting to find funding.
- A "meet-up". We'll see what happens.
XIV. Get Deported
- I saw the professor with a woman I guess is his wife.
- Me too. He was with her for hours.
- Maybe she's making an effort to take care of him. Have you seen Revital?
- Yes. She's the same.
- And you?
- Selling my computer. Going to a job interview this afternoon. What about you?
- The reporter in L.A. says she won't write about my wife after all. She's too dangerous, and I made it too complicated by "blogging" the story in progress. For me the complication just makes it funnier, but that's not her style.
- So what are you going to do?
- The reporter suggests the best way to get myself home is to get myself deported.
- But you're legal in Israel.
- The sad truth.
- You could get a job too.
- You know how I told you I used to travel in Europe, making money by buying and selling things? Today I found two financial accounting textbooks, wrapped in plastic, new, left with other books on a bench on the street. Worth hundreds of dollars in this country of the dollar. I gave them away.
- Why?
- I can talk with you here at the shopping center, look at Israelis on the street, in the right mood I can joke and make small talk, but for the most part I can't stand dealing with them. Their rudeness is unbearable.
- It's how we are. We're a small country at war most of the time. You should understand.
- I think it goes deeper than that. The national character has miraculously reconstructed itself after thousands of years.
- What character?
- Slaves freed and given laws by god. I spoke with a religious Israeli who deals in expensive watches, and do you know what he told me?
- What?
- "The secret of being a Jew is to understand that there is no one else in the world but yourself."
- What did he mean?
- He meant that Jews make an agreement with God directly to follow the rules, not with each other. Everyday life with other people is unimportant compared with the deal with god.
- That's right.
- It's not a bad arrangement if the rules are good. Envy and resentment don't arise. And rituals are good for people. I'm not religious because I like to know for myself why rules are good before I make rituals out of them. But here's what I want to say: just before god gave the Jewish people their rules they were slaves. The combination of being former slaves, and the making deals directly and individually with god is responsible for what I can't take about Israelis.
- You said that already.
- If you are not god here it's hard to get anyone to listen. When people are trained not to respect the judgement of others, and are put into a condition of slavery where god's rules are not practiced - all rules are broken when you treat someone as a slave - you can expect pretty much the behavior we see all around us in this city. Neither care for each other nor real obedience to the rules, with the mere practice of rituals, whether orthodox or of the new, but biblically recorded old golden calf religion of money worship.
- It's what I said: the wars are responsible.
- Israelis tell me it's not the wars - less than ten percent of soldiers get near battle - but being in the army, being treated like slaves for a mandatory 2 or 3 years. Everything about Jewish life teaches them to be individually responsible for doing good, and then, at age 18, they become slaves where they are badly treated and cannot do good.
- When we get out of the army we've escaped slavery in Egypt again and we worship the golden calf. I like it.
XV. Claustrophobia
- How did you avoid going to the army?
- I convinced them I was crazy.
- By being normal.
- They could see I was on edge.
- Which is normal.
- Most people can take being treated like a part in a machine.
- And other people see everything that happens in their lives as part of their lives.
- I wanted to get out of there,
- Most people can accept moments in their lives taken away.
- I couldn't.
- Congratulations.
XVI Rockets In Tel Aviv
- Why aren't you afraid? Rockets haven't landed in Tel Aviv since 1981.
- Why should I be afraid? I was here when the missiles from Iraq came, hundreds of them. What I didn't like was the gas masks we had to wear.
- But you weren't afraid.
- No. This for us is life as usual. Look around you.
- I am.
- Are you afraid? You were here in the neighborhood when the rockets came?
- No, I'm not afraid. I was here. When the alarm went off and we went down to the basement, and every wall and window was transformed into a possible danger, it wasn't frightening. If anything it was mildly exciting. Do you know what I think?
- What?
- Just before the rockets came within range and the sirens began to sound I was reading an article about whether democracy has been put into danger by the economic crisis, or rather redistribution of wealth, we are going through. Democracy may have to temporarily give way to dictatorship, the author argued, as the people can't agree on what to do. But democracies can temporarily transform themselves into dictatorships because people will want to get back their freedoms when the crisis is over. Dictatorships though fear transformation, that once they give people democracy they won't get their power back from them. I didn't like the argument.
- Why not?
- Because in the case of Russia we can watch the supposedly feared transition from dictatorship to democracy safely returning to dictatorship. And in the Western democracies we can see the supposedly safe transition from democracy to dictatorship showing signs of being a road of no return, particularly in the United States with its emergency laws eliminating legal protections.
- Then what do you think?
- The difference is not which form of government does the change, but the character of the people who live through the change. People who have been raised under dictatorship can't identify, don't understand and so can't resist the danger democracy faces from economic and social monopolies that quickly arise with the withdrawal of dictatorship. Dictators in fact can safely offer their people democracy because it is likely they, or people like them, will be allowed back into power as the lesser evil. But people raised under democracy feel the loss of their freedom under temporary dictatorship, and don't need theoretical arguments about democracy being the least bad form of government to know what they want.
- Most of the world thinks Israel is a dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. What do you think?
- That the opposite is more accurate. Democracy, temporarily a dictatorship. To decide whether the democracy is a pretense, whether the dictatorship is temporary or permanent, we have to look at the character of the people, the decisive factor. Americans born to freedom have let their freedom go without much protest because they've allowed monopoly economics and social division to erode their ability to appreciate democracy. They are in real danger of losing their freedom, or, in the terms of the argument, danger of their temporary dictatorship becoming permanent.
- And Israeli character?
- As you said, look around. Israelis take the freedom they can, where and when they can.
- We're strong people.
- And strong people can resist even their own dictatorship.
PART FOUR: THE TECHNOLOGY OF GOOD
I.
From Democracy To Totalitarianism
We Americans don't like to stay at home. Canadians, Swedes, Norwegians, Australians, New Zealanders are unlike us. They haven't tried to reorganize themselves on the principle of money making. For them society is good enough because it allows them the home life they're satisfied with. The rest of us have set out to look for a better home. We leave home because as tolerant and skeptical democrats we know we are in truth living with strangers, and no matter what we tell ourselves we're not really comfortable. The Canadians, the Swedes, Norwegians, Australians, New Zealanders, don't care if they are living with strangers. They are in accord with Shakespeare, for whom the only justification for disrupting society is its failure to protect home life. But we are different. We are fascinated by the strangeness of our democratic life, and by money as a tool for resolving the strangeness. This fascination overpowers our love of home, suggests that since money is used by all the world with money we can be at home in all the world. We make the most money by perfecting ourselves in role. And to allow us make the most money the state must be perfected in its functions.
Democracy for those who love to stay at home is a tool for protecting their homes and does this job fairly well. Democracy for those who leave home for good is a tool for perfecting role play and leads to totalitarianism. This is how:
1. Democracy demands people accept their neighbors' different ways of life.
2. Because they don't get to know each other in what matters most to them people are strangers to each other.
3. As strangers, people play roles which establish probabilities that they are who they say they are.
4. People playing roles see nothing wrong with the idea that society should create the story and staging for their acting. Doing things in role for each others approval a priority is given to action, to doing, at the expense of thinking and desiring.
5. Stories about how role players ought to play together, whatever the particular story chosen, are about how society looks, what it says about itself, how it shows itself, not about what it actually does, just like roles are how people seem, not what they really do.
6. Putting the chosen story most efficiently into practice, protecting it, extending it, all of life is regulated, and totalitarianism is the result. What people want, how they think life should be best lived, are disregarded. It makes no difference if the disregard is in the name of free market or controlled market, everything is put into service of the market, which is another name for doing things in exchange for others doing things, which is to say, for role play.
II.
A Society Of Money
1. Money is somebody's promise to pay, rather than some thing that is payment in itself, and money is transferable from one person to another.
2. When you play a social role, in compensation for playing by the rules, wearing the right clothes, using the right phrases with the right manners, the right facial expressions, you are entitled to certain treatment. The role you play is transferable, capable of being performed by innumerable others, paid for by your behavior in exchange for a promised response.
3. The more roles you play, the more promise. In personal life it is difficult without contradiction to play many roles at once. But in politics the opposite is true. Our President speaks of uniting in his person many contradictory roles of race, social class, geographic origins. Our other politicians are not far behind finding within themselves an equally rewarding magnanimity of origins.
4. In politics a collection of roles is expressed by collecting on the promise of money from diverse sources. (Contributions to election campaigns, offers of future employment, favors to friends and family.) The formal similarities between social role and money allows the one to be represented, and in some respects replaced, by the other.
5. This is what we mean when we speak about a society of money.
III.
Specialized Society In Conflict
It does seem like our society acts like an organism with cooperative, technically functioning parts. But if so, why does it also show signs of its parts acting against each other?
According to the article, "Functional And Conflict Theories Of Educational Stratification":
"The evidence indicates that educational requirements for employment reflect employers' concerns for acquiring respectable and well-socialized employees; their concern for the provision of technical skills through education enters to a lesser degree.
"The higher the normative control concerns of the employer, and the more elite the organization's status, the higher his educational requirements.
"There has been only a mild trend toward the reduction in the proportion of unskilled jobs and an increase in the promotion of highly skilled (professional and technical) jobs as industrialism proceeds, accounting for 15% of the shift in educational levels in the twentieth century.
(Folger and Nam, 1964).
"Technological change also brings about some upgrading in skill requirements of some continuing job positions, although the available evidence (Berg, 1970:38-60) refers only to the decade 1950-1960. Nevertheless, as Wilensky (1964) points out, there is no "professionalization of everyone."
"The increasing supply of educated persons has made education a rising requirement of jobs.
"The large American corporations, which have led in educational requirements, have held positions of oligopolistic advantage since the late 19th century, and thus could afford a large internal 'welfare' cost" (of employing the less able of those in their own social class rather than those outside it who could do the job better)."
According to another article, "Leaps Of Faith", dealing with the question whether education is often a place of conflict rather than a preparation for cooperation and specialization:
Just as upper classes use education requirements to see that preferred jobs go to their own class, irrespective of functional capacity of employees, the lower classes deny themselves education, either as a deliberate act of resistance, or as unconscious victims of their cultural education, and so become ineligible for employment in the preferred occupations, not even as compliant subordinates.
Both articles agree that despite the obvious specialization and cooperation between specialists in our society, much of what goes on is conflict between groups which find their base of power in various specialties.
Both articles explain that the fact that a society is organized does not imply that organization must move in the direction of progress, defined either as greater productivity of goods or services, or passage to another form of social organization considered to be more perfect.
Specialization brings with it a change from our acting on what we know from our own experience, to learning how to manipulate the thoughts and actions of the people whose decisions our lives depend on. People in specialized roles naturally have an interest in protecting their own groups, because these are the people their lives depend on. They have no interest in a theorized future development in technical perfection of society as a whole in one form or another.
Functionalist theories and conflict theories both propose an order exists in society as a kind of natural law, and the two kinds of order are not incompatible with each other. In societies which are functionally specialized the social classes which take main possession of certain roles are in conflict with other social classes in other roles.
Herbert Spencer, considered to be one of the founders of modern functionalist theory, in fact proposed a third order: a future state would arise in which generosity, when it evolved from lower forms of behavior, would make government inessential. This kind of functioning can also, before it becomes dominant, coexist with the other two, in conflict with them.
Readers of Plato should at this point recognize a pattern: functionalism, conflict, and generosity as forms of social order are parallels to the three parts or faculties of the soul: the desiring, the spirited, and the rational.
Plato tried to imagine in "The Republic" what a society incorporating the three faculties of the soul would look like. He came up with totalitarianism in which each faculty was allowed its place, as workers, guardians, philosophers, each locked in fixed relation to the others.
This imagined society was presented as a functioning system, a fourth kind of order in itself, obviously in conflict with (because limiting) each of the interests of the three orders it incorporates, but suppressing conflict by its optimal functioning.
In Plato's imagined evolution, specialization leads to conflict leads to totalitarianism. Absent a mythological destiny of human beings, reason mysteriously evolving out of unreason, this was the best that could be hoped for.
Plato did not assume it was necessary to build a society on specialization. He described the overspecialized person as sick, and argued that making a society out of sick people was like in medicine treating symptoms without curing the disease.
As reason and stability are enlisted to aid individuals hold themselves together who are sick with desire, so for the class based on sick desire, the "oligarch" class, putting thinkers and fighters into stable, totalitarian relation to them is also in their interest. If they know it, they will work to establish this relation. Lacking knowledge, they may simply stumble upon actions which tend towards establishing this totalitarian relation, find they are rewarding, and go on doing them.
The social class of those sick with desire tells its stories of big government, of little government; the particular story doesn't matter. The stories are told to enlist the support of the other classes which, participating in the world of specialized roles, are burdened with the need of telling stories of themselves, reputation making. They chose between stories of the best society, looking for the one that most favorably solidifies and formalizes relations between classes, that is, allows them to most safely and successfully go on telling their own stories.
The story of relation between classes is not all that is going on between classes. Politicians elected telling stories of small government, once elected, enlarge the government, or vice versa. No revolution results, because voters, habitually paying more attention to stories than reality, don't consistently reflect and act upon what doesn't immediately interfere with their personal reputation making. Those who are most likely to pay attention to what really goes on, and do something about it, are those in the class of people the society is based on, those who have excessive desires that call for management, who want the excessive things the society is founded to produce, who unlike the other classes are more interested in things than ideas.
Plato left the question open whether different starting points could evolve different futures. If specialization leading to totalitarianism was a functional law, other functional laws could exist in conflict with it.
IV.
The Economic Model
1. There is order in specialized occupations, and there is order in the organization of society as a whole, protecting different classes of people from each other under principles of democracy and law.
2. There is conflict between social classes which dominate certain professions. The professions do not fight against each other, rather the classes of people of like temperament and manner occupying the professions use their organizations to gain and keep advantage.
3. There is conflict between the social organization founded on excessive desire and an entirely different social organization founded on generosity.
All going on at the same time. Organization in profession and democratic law, and conflict between classes, and conflict between the entire organized mess of classes fighting within law and specialties, and the beginnings of a new kind of organization based on generosity.
Without the opposing force of the principle of generosity the whole would by now have stabilized in totalitarianism or fallen apart in anarchy.
The same people who a drawn to making models of social life are the people who draw a line between themselves and others, and who fight for their side against the other side. If you say the world is economic in its main direction and momentum, and you do not allow that other models may change that dominance of past present and future, you are committed to fighting for your model.
We are so used to taking models seriously that we ignore the overwhelming evidence that what comes first is a temperament that wants to take sides. A Jean Paul Sartre first is an existentialist, a fighter for freedom, then he is a Maoist and Stalinist, a fighter for communism, because he felt he must act on his ideas, and he took the side, the only side he saw, that promised freedom, and he held to it despite evidence of the dictators' murderous careers.
The economic view of our times, the model most of us we live with, is made by a different kind of temperament, that of wanting things.
The economic view is also a model: and that means there is going to be some fighting going on for and against its application. Like Sartre began with emphasizing the spirited, forceful, defiant part of ourselves, and ended up fighting an economic battle, so those who begin with the economic, the desire to make and have and manage things, end up fighting to keep and expand these activities.
Sartre has kept much of his reputation. Anyone who reads his books knows he was well intentioned, that he was fighting out of a spirit of generosity. And it is not too long a stretch to argue that the economic order we have today would have collapsed long ago without a similar counter influence of generosity, reinforcing social stability. And that too, social stability, is a model which has its adherents who are willing to fight for it.
And these stories told of the economic destinies of individuals of various temperaments are models, though with a different application, not to take sides but to perform what the ancient skeptical philosophers called a purge: to loosen the hold of the dominant model of economics.
If we say that in modern capitalism workers own stock in, invest their pensions with the companies that work against their interest, that governments provide extensive social services, we are still explaining the complexity of our times entirely solely in economic terms. We've still got a model and we will end up taking sides over it.
We can't do much about the momentum of government generosity in social programs, workers pension funds invested in the speculations of bankers, the bankers' determination to flourish in doing what they know best. Alliances and animosities are obscure and entangled. People specializing in one side of human character throw themselves into a society of other people doing the same, and let come what may determine how the rest of their character is brought into alignment. A mix of wild chance and determined order does their thinking for them.
Instead of this, in our own lives, in our desire to have things, fight for them, and be generous about it all, could we not break free from where the momentum of our economy is taking us?
V.
A Story
Human nature, mired in this mess of public order and disorder, can, possibly, pull itself out.
In the story I know best, from my own experience, maybe I have seen what it is like to have all this conflict and order within myself thrown at the world and receive it all back in like measure.
But what about it? Wouldn't that be just another kind of model? More confusion of models defended against other models, models attacking other models. But then, no. If I simply tell a story, the right kind of story, the model is implicit, safely ensconced in particular circumstance. There it can hurt neither author nor audience, it needs to be defended by no one. To say a story happened means a particular mix of character met a particular mix of circumstances, and then....
My wife came home one day and said to me,
- Who are you? What are you? Why are you in my house? Why are you in my life?
Or as Marx said,
"The capitalists have left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash payment’.",
I wasn't a paying proposition. Not that day, at least. Other days went better. I tried to figure out what to do with this wife. As I've said, I didn't believe in models of human relations. I didn't believe human society, human couples, human individuals, were moving forward in progress and complexity, nor did I believe the opposite, in theories of struggle class against class, husband against wife, part of self against part of self. I didn't believe in liberal principles of generosity, politeness and toleration of each others faults and self restraint and apologies and reiterated statements of love.
Instead I thought that I could, I should, and so I did throw my own collection of conflict and works and good nature into the mix of the mess outside me, represented by this embodiment of trouble my wife.
According to her I was a hermit disdaining the world (conflict), I was kind but useless (generous) I specialized in produced pages and pages of unread words and seemed satisfied going on doing it and doing more of it (acquiring). I incorporated all three models. What about her?
When we met she had specialized with absolute dedication in her career as a singer-pop star. Later she returning to school with equal application. She was at war with the world, or that part of it that was male, relieving that half of the species of its money with full professional skill. And the generosity that holds everything together? She tried to get along with me, with her family, she loved to cook for me and to flatter me with her confidences about her ex-husband, her ex-boyfriends all around the world, all of whom she kept in touch with, never know when they'd come in handy, better not burn bridges.
Now what I see, this is the first I'm looking at it, is that I was quite alright with my conflict with the world kept at a distance and generosity and acquiring of unread pages and being kind and useless. There was no story of getting my parts to like each other better. Not perfect, not close, but what was wanted was not better relations between members of the team, but each of the guys getting more of what they were already getting. The same was true of the wife, I think. I don't remember her ever questioning how she was made up. The action was in what happened when her mess of character got tossed in the recipe with my mess of character.
What happened? Our teams got more! More contempt for the world, more pages, more resigned kindness, on my part. On hers, it would be, a continual teasing fight with a male which she confided she greatly enjoyed, a strongly progressing new career, and holding it all together, a happy homecoming to me when time permitted.
And what good was that? Something was made between us, apart from the economic monolith, though made up of the same pieces. I really don't know what it was. I'm going to think about it more. Finding the unexpected is something to begin with.
VI.
The Technology Of Good
On the crowded train a young woman soldier sat on the floor with me in the vestibule, other soldiers stood above us. She asked me what I thought of her country.
- I haven't been here very long, but already want to leave.
- Why?
- If I have to choose between bad places to live in I choose the bad place I come from.
- Where are you from?
- Los Angeles.
- How is it bad there?
- Same as here.
- How?
- Money. Worship of money.
- It's human nature.
- It's bad human nature.
- People will never stop being bad.
- Well, we don't know that, do we?
- We know. People will always cheat, steal, destroy.
- Yes, but they will also always want to love, understand, make things.
- Not enough. People will take what they want when they can.
- Yes. Though sometimes people want love more than money.
- A dream.
- You're sure? You're not very old. You haven't read much, seen much. You don't know.
- And you know me well enough to insult me.
- I've seen, read about better people, better places.
- Why don't you go there and live with them?
- Good times don't last, times change, people change.
- That's what I am saying. You can't rely on people to be good.
- But if we don't expect people to be better we can't make our lives better with each other.
- We can't.
- How do you know? It's a story, a myth, that people are more bad than good, that bad will always win out in the end.
- But history is one massacre after another.
- But is history proof?
- Why not?
- To be sure that we humans will always do bad because we are bad, we'd have to set up an experiment to see if we can exclude the exception.
- An experiment with good people? Where are you going to find them? Do you think you are good?
- Not bad. To do a thought experiment we don't need real people. Imagine getting people together who don't believe your myth, who want to try to be good.
- They won't succeed. Communism doesn't work.
- Communism is a myth about the destiny of property relations in history. I mean simply, can we, on the basis of what we know about human nature, exclude the possibility that if people used their inventiveness, their knowledge, if they experimented, they could not arrange things so that people got better rather than worse in each other's company?
- That's your thought experiment?
- Yes.
- Every civilization in human history has failed.
- Because the bad in us eventually dominates us and destroys us?
- Yes.
- How do you know?
- What?
- What would happen in conditions that gave the good in us a chance to establish itself more firmly in social relations.
- History shows it doesn't happen.
- But that is just it. You've a myth, a story that human nature is primarily bad and will always be that way, and our governments and manners express this. What would happen if our governments and manners expressed the opposite?
- It wouldn't work.
- Remember we're doing a thought experiment. It is conceivable, right, that we could learn how to communicate better with each other?
- What good would that do? Propaganda will bring out the bad and the good words won't be heard. People listen to the bad more than the good.
- They do now. Our experiment makes us ask, what if we developed means, techniques, a technology that reminds people of the good and keeps reminding them?
- That's fantasy.
- How do you know? To know, you need to test if there is anything that rules out the possibility. We need to know more about the new techniques.
- Even if they worked they'd be stolen and the advantage would be gone.
- Perhaps it isn't possible for them to be stolen.
- Why not?
- As acting bad makes it harder for us to be good, acting good makes it harder for us to be bad.
- A smoothly functioning army of soldiers who are good to each other is even more destructive.
- Sure. But would the soldiers good to each other want to be destructive?
- They'd have no choice.
- If they have no choice then they are good to each other not by choice, but habit: People really being made good resist being made bad.
- But good always loses.
- Imagine it once gets a good start. When things happen in nature we expect things to go on as they have. But when we are accomplices with nature, attempt to build something, our repeated failure doesn't convince us we won't succeed. If that were true we'd never build anything at all. We see signs that our building is succeeding in parts. History of failed civilizations doesn't show us attempting to conserve and build up on each other our partial technical successes. History doesn't build.
- Technology gives us greater power to destroy.
- What about technology of being good?
- There isn't any.
- Our thought experiment asks do we know there cannot be?
- Do you really think there can?
- Yes.
- A strange idea. As you said, history doesn't build, create anything new in human life.
- What about technology, our era of machines? Physical technology came out of nowhere. Moral technology can too. So our thought experiment concludes.
- But they're not the same.
- Why not?
- People have always used tools. But no one even has an idea what technology of being good is.
- Playing games and making art are technologies, organized ways of entertaining, of our being good for each other. Do you know what I did a few days after arriving in this country?
- No. What?
- I visited the offices of the world's biggest internet company to propose to them (actually to their receptionist) what I'm saying here.
- What did they answer?
- They didn't answer.
- Of course.
- In history there is a natural tendency for bad to organize. Destruction leads to more destruction. Unregulated trade leads to monopoly.
- That's what I have been saying.
- You have been saying human nature is responsible for the destruction and monopoly, not that it so happens that human nature left to itself in social relations leads to destruction.
- What difference does it make?
- We don't have to leave social relations to themselves.
- When we try to improve society it doesn't work. The bad wins. As you said, monopolies and gangs take over.
- Because we didn't apply technology to the good. Imagine if the hundreds of millions of people in the social network run by the internet company I visited here were guided to each other by what the network knows about them, and guided into creative activity. Would that be enough to counteract the destructive effect of gangsters and monopoly, of uninventive social life creating exclusive factions? Large numbers of people getting a taste of working creatively, being entrepreneurs with each other?
- I don't think so.
- But you don't know, do you?
PART FIVE: I DISCUSS MY BROTHER WITH FOUR BEVERLY HILLS RABBIS
1. I Discuss My Brother With Four Beverly Hills Rabbis
- What are you afraid of?
- I've been burned in the past. I'm being careful.
- What did you lose?
- I helped people and it worked out bad.
- I guess you try to help yourself? Does that always work out well? Why should it be different with others? You have to do what is best.
- I am.
- You aren't. You're judging me on the basis of money. Because you don't see any money you can't see anything. It's bad. You're a rabbi. You should be ashamed of yourself.
- I'm nothing.
- Nice of you to say. But you are occupying a place in society. If you weren't a rabbi here the person I'd be talking with now might have been someone reasonable. Not someone who hour after hour repeated that he doesn't know me and makes no effort to find out who I am. Who asks over and over if I am a criminal, a child molester. Four of you Rabbis here in this office, interrogating, trying to catch me out in inconsistencies. Not a spark of humanity. I was born, raised, educated within blocks of here.
- I have my point of view and your have yours.
- A rabbi says that? You know as well as I do there is only one truth. Judaism is the religion of rules. If there is no truth Judaism doesn't exist. It's pretty clear Judaism doesn't exist here. The only Judaism here is that I can speak openly to you and you don't run away. It's true you don't bother to reply but sit there, let yourself be condemned, and don't care. That's not Jewish. That's not anything.
- I'm sorry you think that way.
- So what did my brother say when you talked to him in the other office? I heard him answer that he had nothing bad to say about me.
- He said you did something to hurt him personally.
- Sure. He's fighting me over the family's money. I showed him I would fight back. I guess you feel for him, don't want him to lose money. You didn't even try to work things out between us? Reality to you is money. That's been your message to me hour after hour.
- I'm sorry.
2. Try To Stay Home
- Do you mind if I share your bench?
- No, sit down. Where are you from?
- I've been here many years. Originally I'm from Europe.
- From Italy?
- Yes. Where are you from?
- I'm from here. Though I just got back 10 days ago.
- From where?
- I've been in Europe most of the last 20 years. This time I was away about a year and a half.
- Where were you?
- Budapest, then Tel Aviv.
- What were you doing?
- Writing little stories and looking for a practical basis of life and not finding it.
- Doesn't sound good.
- It was terrible. From an economic point of view. But that's the wrong point of view.
- What's the right one?
- Artistic, emotional, intellectual, actually any point of view other than the economic.
- Everyone has to live.
- Well, in the economic world I live in everyone definitely doesn't have to live. I don't have to live. That's the message the world sends me. I have to live my life on another basis.
- How's that possible? You shouldn't talk that way. Everyone deserves to live. How are you living? Where have you living these past 10 days?
- It's a ridiculous, long story. Do you want to hear it?
- Yes, tell me. I don't often meet people like you.
- Well, first, I was in Tel Aviv and wanted to come home.
- Why?
- I was homesick. I was sick of Israel.
- Why?
- It's a terrible place.
- You had a terrible time there. Why?
- Because Israelis use money to isolate themselves from each other. No one needs to care about anyone or anything but acquiring and holding onto money. It's a catastrophe of human nature. Israelis are blind to each other except as sources of money and power. The human being has vanished.
- I find that very interesting. It explains my experience with Israelis here in Beverly Hills. So you wanted to come home.
- Yes. But I didn't have connections here in L.A. anymore. My family is at war with me. The only person I knew was a childhood friend and one year college roommate who I had lost contact with long ago. I looked him up and called his office in North Hollywood - he's a doctor - but he wouldn't come to the phone. Finally he talked with me. I told him I had to come home, and needed a place to go to. After a lot of protest he finally said, OK, call him when I arrived. When I arrived three days later and called him at his office he refused to come to the phone.
- So you had no place to stay? And he didn't care?
- That's the economic world. In that world, no one cares about anything except in their spare time. It's not just Israel. Israel is the extremity the rest of the world is moving towards.
- Then what did you do? Where did you sleep?
- I didn't sleep. I spent the night at a 24 hour restaurant in Westwood. The next day I was on the way to see if the Chinese woman I used to teach English to still lived in Beverly Hills when I saw outside a temple down one street a security guard, a sort of philosopher, I'd talked to a few times. I went over and said hello, told him my story, and he said go talk to the rabbi, here's here: he's the top guy, the most powerful rabbi in the city.
- Is that true?
- Probably. It is the richest temple in the city, with its congregation of Jews from Iran who took out all their money and escaped before the revolution. The rabbi was in the temple, sitting on one of the audience benches, and I went over. Explained my situation. He said, what do you want me to do about it? I said I was from this place, and was coming home, and wanted some help to do that. What could he do, he asked? Did I want money? No, I wanted to be treated as what I was. I wanted to believe there was some civilization here, where when someone returns home he is welcomed back in some form. The rabbi looked at me like I was a lunatic and said nothing. Then he said, look around, we're all old people here. Young rabbis will be coming in a little while. Wait. I went outside and waited. In a few minutes first one man, then another, then another came up to me where I stood before the door to the temple, asked me who I was. All three turned out to be rabbis. When the most powerful rabbi in the city came out the rabbis went over to him. The big rabbi simply pointed at me, and throwing out his fingers signaled they should go back to me and take care of the the problem I represented. So they came back, and asked me what I wanted them to do. I repeated what I'd already said. Come to their sport and cultural center they operated, the old YMCA, they told me, at 7:30 that evening.
- And you went.
- Yes. They were having a festival for little kids, hundreds of them were milling about in and out of the rooms. The rabbis were there, gave me tea, a sandwich, told me to wait. At around midnight, the kids had gone home, and I was invited into the office, where were the three rabbis from the temple, and the grey bearded head rabbi of this center. The head rabbi proceeded to interrogate me. Was I a child molester? A criminal? Why was I in Beverly Hills, not New York? What happened to my family? I answered all the questions, showed them a background report on me from the same agency employers and landlords use, a cafe acquaintance had paid for the report when she wanted me to work for her a couple years ago and sent me a copy of it. At the end, the meeting broke up without resolution. One of the rabbis asked me if I knew of a cheap hotel in the neighborhood, he'd pay out of his own pocket for night, it was almost 1 in the morning by this time.
- Did the rabbi pay?
- Yes.
- So they're not so bad.
- The next night once more I stopped by the center. Another one of the three rabbis was there. I told him if he really wanted to talk with a member of my family, I'd found the mobile phone number of my brother in New Jersey. Did he want to call? He did. I listened to their conversation on the speaker:
- This is rabbi Yossi in Beverly Hills. There's a man here, he says his name is Rex. Do you know any Rex?
- Yes.
- He says he's your brother. Do you have a brother by that name?
- I do
.- So this man here is your brother?
- I have a brother named Rex. But I don't know if he is there. How does he look?
- He has grey hair.
- Does he look Ok?
- Yes, he looks Ok. Can I ask you some questions?
- Yes
.- Is there anything we should know about him?
- Like what?
- He's told us he's just returned to L.A. and doesn't know any one here. Is that true?
- I haven't seen him in ten years. It could be true
.- Is there anything we should know about him?
- If you want to know if he is violent or steals, the answer is no.
.- You and he have the same mother and father?
- Yes, that's correct.
.- This situation is difficult to understand. You don't seem very interested. Why aren't you interested in him if you really are his brother?
- I got tired of him.
- You got tired of your brother?
- Yes.
- Why, if as you say he doesn't do anything wrong?
- He gets angry sometimes.
.- And does what?
- Says hurtful things.
- Says hurtful things?
- Yes.
.- What do you recommend we do?
- I couldn't say.
- There's nothing more you want to tell me?
- No.
- What did the rabbi decide?
- Not to do anything.
- Where did you go?
- The 24 hour restaurant.
- All night?
- No, I met there a piano teacher who used to give his lessons at a church near where I was living 2 years ago. He was having dinner with a couple a girls, students of his. He asked me what I was up to, I told him, he wished me good luck, and left. But he returned a little later, and said come to his house for the night.
- That was lucky.
- Yes. The next night, it was the 24 hour restaurant again.
- You can't live that way.
- No. But the day after, the piano teacher came to find me at my usual Starbucks, said he'd decided to pay for a couple nights at a hotel for me. I slept through those days and nights, and when they were up was walking by the Jewish center on the way to Westwood when the rabbis outside asked me in to join in the prayers. This kid was there now they'd suggested I meet before, but who I hadn't be able to reach by phone or email. I ended up staying with that kid that night. The next night he wasn't home, so it was the 24 hour restaurant.
- What about the Rabbis?
- What about them?
- They won't help you?
- There's nothing in it for them.
- What are you going to do?
- I can always go back to Israel.
- I thought you hated it there?
- I was homesick so I came home. I'm glad to be here. But it is an economic world here, and as I said, I don't live in that world. That world doesn't want me, and I don't want it. I can't ask what is impossible.
- But you said it was the same in Israel.
- It is. It's worse. But here the economic world is actively at war with its competition, the human worlds. You can't live here without money or a place to live. You'll be preyed on by the violent, both by violent officials and the violent for the hell of it. Israel is not at that point.
- You should try to stay here. It's your home.
- I'm trying.
3. The Elohim And Unaccountable Evil
- You have to make your peace with Saturn.
- How do you suggest I do that?
- You must become prosperous. Have you read Manley Palmer Hall? He was a 33 degree Freemason, an outright genius. He knew how to deal with the Elohim.
- The Elohim? The gods?
- The gods who have to be appeased.
- I'm prosperous in my own way.
- You have to do it their way.
- Make money.
- Yes.
- Sorry, can't oblige the gods. You know, my father was a Freemason, 32nd degree.
- Impressive.
- But he destroyed himself.
- He tried to outrun the Elohim and they caught up with him. Families can be totally dominated by a single planet.
- I never thought of it like that, but I like the idea. It would explain how my whole family turned evil. I'd kept a distance from my family for most of my life, then suddenly one by one they declared war on me. It came out of nowhere.
- Nothing comes out of nowhere.
- Of course not. I don't believe or disbelieve in what you've been telling me, astro-numerology, the planet Saturn, the Elohim. I take it as an allusive sets of symbols, aids to imagination. But maybe there's something to my father's membership in the Freemasons. He got rich very quickly around the time he joined. Later he suddenly shut down his business, moved from L.A. to San Diego, and there, on his second wife's instruction, forbade me to visit my three half brothers. I was declared a bad influence. Then he went off to Thailand with wife and sons and disappeared, cutting off all contact.
- He angered the Elohim.
- But where did all this come from? My two brothers soon also declared me a bad influence on their children, they took control of all family assets, and worse, much worse followed. Can astro-numerology explain this? Was it some revenge of the Freemasons for my father breaking one of their commandments?
- Possibly. As I said, families can be totally dominated by a single planet. You were the exception, and by your opposition strengthened the planet's influence.
- So when my father broke some occult deal with the Freemasons, my brothers, even my mother became by influence rule breakers too? Why would they? They weren't Freemasons.
- Because of the power of order on people who are without order. The Elohim were restraining the influence of Saturn.
- And without that restraint, the planetary influence broke out on them? Then I am caught up in this cosmic accounting, with the Elohim pursuing my entire family, who are pursuing me?
- Yes.
- Wild.
- Don't you wonder about our meeting tonight? I've been two weeks wandering from place to place. You have been....?
- Two weeks since I arrived from Tel Aviv.
- And we meet at Starbucks right before closing, both on our way to this all night restaurant.
- Are the Elohim after you too?
- No. I have several things to work out in my life, and this is what I needed.
- I don't need this. But I can take it.
- Good for you. That's all that matters. Make your peace.
- But how?
- Be prosperous. Do your work. Get out of your situation.
- Tell me how. I have no idea.
- What are you doing?
- Nothing! I write my stories and wait for good luck.
- Do you think that is enough?
- Do you have a better idea?
- Make money.
- How?
- It will come to you.
- I'll ask the Elohim. Next time I see them.
4. Fighters And Rabbis
- One thing I don't like is they're racist.
- "It's in the genes of Arabs to be killers."
- Yeah. That's what the rabbi said. But I like coming here. And I'm out of money. Though they really make you work for the food. They can pray and sing twenty four hours a day.
- You heard though what the rabbi said at the end of the sermon? It's a mistake to run from, you should run to.
- What does it mean?
- It means don't be afraid or angry, hate or despair, don't run from. Go get what you want, run to it.
- That's good. Do you like the rabbis?
- The rabbi went on about how their movement reformed Judaism, got rid of the empty practice of rituals, traded it for true spirituality, spirituality so powerful a spiritual person could recognize a spiritual person at first sight.
- And what do you think?
- They transmit a tradition they don't understand. They're not spiritual. They worship money and prosperity. You remember how when we came in, you said this was a nice house they have?
- Yes.
- The rabbi said they've got half this block in Beverly Hills, and God willing they'll have the whole block, the whole city soon. They think I'm evil because I don't have money.
- And they think they're good because they do.
- And they'll be better when they have more.
- Some spirituality. What are you doing later?
- Nothing. Go to the cafe and write down a story. I came here from the lawyers of the Beverly Hills doctor my wife married without divorcing me who now wants to divorce her without paying her anything.
- What did you tell them?
- Before he married my wife I went to the doctor's office. He wouldn't see me, so I left a note saying as far as I knew I was still married.
- He married her anyway?
- Yes. My message to the lawyers was this: my whole life was tied up in my marriage. In practical terms, the doctor caused me great harm. If he wanted to make good on that, we had a shared interest in dissolving his relation to my wife. But I wouldn't help someone who'd harmed me.
- What did they say?
- They'd pass on the message to the doctor.
- What do you think will happen?
- No idea. If you've had enough of the rabbi's food, we can go.
- Come with me to the TV studio and watch the fight.
- So it's something like the original Harvard Facebook. Except it is not still images of two girls you have to rate better or worse, but two live video feeds of people competing for your vote. You've been on yourself?
- Yeah. Between eight and ten they pay ten dollars a minute.
- You stay on extra minutes as long as you win?
- Yeah. I've made over eight hundred dollars so far. But it's making me paranoid.
- Why?
- Hackers found out where I live, that I'm Jewish. They found me on social media. Neo-Nazis are writing to me.
- They know your address?
- No. Beverly Hills.
- How did they find out you are Jewish?
- I wore a yarmulke.
- Why did you do that?
- It's show business.
- It's a night of moving from one ridiculous evil to another.
- Neo-Nazis going after me is no joke.
- They don't know anything important about you. This fight here tonight is fake, right?
- My fight wasn't fake.
- You went to the fight like you went to the rabbis thinking what they offered was real, but it's not.
- Being hit in the face was real.
- The rabbi's food was real too. I mean it isn't about what it seems to be about. The fight was about selling ads on broadcast TV, the sermons and prayers are about acquiring wealth, power. Look at these guys. The host is half the weight of the professional fighter he is up against, he's so thin his pants are falling off and he's wearing a low cut pink t-shirt and you take this seriously? You said it yourself, it's show business. Show business is about mass approval. Mass approval is about money. Money is about power. There's nothing good for the spirit here.
- I like it. I've made me a lot of money the last two weeks.
- From tonight turn your back on it.
- The rabbis are racist and money crazy, but I met you there.
- Not everything is fake.
5. BattleCam Kid
- I can't rely on my family. If I die, I've lived a full life, even though I'm only 22 years old. I've managed a medical marijuana dispensary, I've fought off gangsters. I've traveled to 20 countries, I've hung around millionaires until I got tired of them, I've been a regular on broadcast TV.
- That's all?
- How many kids my age can say the same?
- You haven't done anything. You're a Beverly Hills kid.
- And what are you? I don't even know where you are really from. Where are you from? See that hole in the wall? I did that with my head when I was dared to on Battlecam. I don't care if my mother loses her deposit on the apartment.
- You don't respect your mother.
- Why should I? She sent me to the psych. ward.
- You threatened to kill her.
- No I didn't.
- Yes you did.
- Ok, maybe when I was drunk. I was under stress. You stole from me.
- I did not.
- Yes you did. My iphone disappeared when you were here. My guitar disappeared another time when you were here. Things disappear when you are here.
- You left the door open. Anyone could come in. I'm hungry. Do you have any money to buy a cup of noodles? I could get two.
- My mom pays 1400 dollars a month for this place, but I'm broke.
- Do you have a couple of dollars?
- Yes. Here.
- I'm going then to the market.
- If you can't find the noodles, call me.
- Do you remember when you went for Chimichungas and couldn't find them?
- Yeah. You told me one aisle, then said another. I gave up.
- Ok, see you when you get back.
6. The Rabbi Works His Magic
- I'll make a deal with you. You let me keep my books here and you can wrap your strings around my arm.
- O.K.
- What do you get out of this?
- Good will come.
- Magically.
- Yes. You don't believe?
- That God likes my arm wrapped up in strings while I repeat words in a language I don't understand?
- Yes.
- The magic is supposed to be for you anyway, not me. It was like you sending me to stay with the Beverly Hills kid. God rewarded you for it, but not me.
- How was it?
- That kid! He and his medical marijuana sleepover friend. Every night they say they have no money, they're hungry, they haven't eaten all day, would I buy them food? This in their fourteen hundred dollars a month apartment.
- His mother pays.
- Yeah, and when finally I'd had enough and wouldn't pay he told me to go, and next thing I know he's coming back from the store with a bag full of groceries.
- What does he do with the money his mother gives him?
- What else? Buys drugs.
- I feel bad for him.
- Why do you care? He's the usual drug addict.
- His father died, his mother was sick. It's not his fault.
- Nothing is anyone's fault. Anyway the magic you want to work on him is supposed to do you good, not him. The strings go from you to me to him.
- I would like to help him.
- He's just someone in trouble you can work your magic on when he comes for a free meal. Are we through? The stings are very tight.
- All done.
7. Genius And The Gods
- Where are you coming from?
- I was talking with your double at the cafe.
- My double?
- He does numerology, studies the Kabbala, relates symbols, demons, angels, gods from every religion, considers himself a spiritual force. The last thing he said was pretty funny.
- What?
- That when people called him a genius he protests, "Don't insult me. I'm god. I create geniuses."
- Was he serious?
- I think he was. But he calls his Facebook page "The Church Of Comedy". He knows his claims aren't getting him anywhere so he exaggerates for comic effect. He says he's the best musician, as good or better than Mozart, the best filmmaker but is being kept out by the powers that be. He says he will be the world's first Trillioniare. Every one of the best movies of the past 20 years stole their ideas from his life. His family were the most important people in all professions. I could be his assistant if I wanted. One day soon we'd go to Hawaii where his 84 year old mother lived with his two young children, and once there we'd start filming the story of his life.
- The world is filled with all kinds.
- You don't think he's the same kind as you?
- I study computers too. Does he?
- He says his brain is better than any computer invented.
- Where is he now?
- I refused his job offer and told him to go home to his kids.
- What did he say?
- He got angry. Said I was a bum. He helped people wherever he went, films had been made about him. He'd go home, but had important things to do first.
- Who's to say? Maybe he does.
- No, he doesn't. Like money has to increase for the banker, for him ideas have to show profit by leading to other ideas. The banker and corporations don't know what to do with the money itself, and he doesn't have a clue what use to put ideas to. What about you? What use do you put your ideas to? I'd like to hear you talk about yourself, what happened with your family. Where are they?
- In my heart.
- Yesterday you said you'd go make some money, but here you are.
- You're here too. What about the woman you met?
- The one who filled her apartment with hundreds of objects she found on the street? She offered me a nap on her couch. Today I met another woman on the way to the market. She advised me to become an apartment manager. When had a long talk, I told her a lot of stories, and when we were saying goodbye she turned her head to look directly in my eyes and asked me if I had seen her 2nd bag, the one with a gun in it.
- Was she crazy?
- I don't think so. I don't know how to make money. I don't claim my ability to make connections puts me in touch with gods. But you said you knew how to make money.
- I went to the Chancellor's office today.
- For money? Did you see him?
- I talked to the secretary and got tired of waiting.
- What did you want?
- I said I deserved a meal ticket. I was a UCLA graduate and one day I would make the school famous.
- What did she say? Are you going to the diner? Let's walk. Socrates said he deserved a meal ticket too, when the court found him guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens and worshiping false gods and asked him to name the punishment he deserved. Do you want to hear something else?
- What?
- A couple years ago, when I first tried to return for good to L.A. and was with my wife, I went to the Chancellor's office with a request too and ended up talking with his secretary.
- What did you ask for?
- I'd applied to study philosophy and had been rejected. I asked why, and the department head said it was because they saw philosophical problems as confusions caused by misuse of language, but I wanted to work out the problems by telling stories of how people actually lived. He suggested I study literature instead. I wrote to all the University administrators, Chancellor included, saying something like:
- That I had no right to tell the department what to do. I said I did. That the University was acting for the interests of bankers and corporations, concerned only with the mindless application of technique. But it was a public institution and was obligated to respect also the other aspects of human life.
- That's it?
- You know, the Athenian court didn't give Socrates his meal ticket. They executed him.
8. The Care And Feeding Of Vampires And Zombies
- Excuse me. We were making a bet. Are you a writer or an actor?
- What did you say?
- Writer. Because of the pen.
- If I have something so inefficient to write with I must be doing something more important than being useful. You win.
- What do you write? Really important things?
- Stories from my life.
- How is your life important?
- Well, you got it right from the start: because it is useless.
- Your life is useless? Nothing happens?
- No, a lot happens. For example last week I visited a law office at that high rise building over there. I'd gotten an email a month before from a L.A. video journalist saying she was writing a book on dangerous woman and wanted to make my wife its centerpiece. She proceeded to ask me if I had documents about my marriage, wedding certificate, was I still married or divorced, would I testify in court, were the stories I'd written about my wife truth or fiction? I replied she sounded more like a private detective than a journalist, and asked how she heard of me. She knew a girl from her new age church who knew the Beverly Hills doctor who married my wife and now wanted to divorce her.
- Your wife married another man without divorcing you?
- See? Things happen in my life. I wrote the journalist a couple weeks ago that if she would like to meet I had arrived back in L.A. from Israel. The next day I received an email from the doctor, my first contact from him. And the following day his law firm wrote me, asking if I would visit them.
- What did they want?
- Help them prove my wife was not legally married to the doctor so he would not have to pay a divorce settlement.
- What did you say?
- I didn't see how I could help the doctor. I didn't like the idea of helping people who harmed me. If he was willing to do something about the disruption his arrival in my life had caused, we could talk.
- Did you mean money?
- Yes. Or something else. I like stories to continue.
- What did the lawyers say?
- They'd ask their client.
- And then?
- The doctor never answered.
- Why?
- Because I'm a useless sort of person when everyone is expected to be useful. I was writing with my inefficient pen about vampires and zombies. Want to hear?
- Everyone likes vampires and zombies.
- Of course they do. We live doing things without end, accumulating more and more things done, each for its own sake. Instead we might have been working towards finding friends, falling in love, making life beautiful and fair. Working towards being able to stop working. A vampire can't stop seducing his victims. It's his work. He doesn't want their love, their beautiful society. The union he seeks isn't mental. He physically incorporates his victims into his own body by drinking their blood, and by the death of his victims he excludes the possibility of resting even for a moment in a new society. He must go on, always go on, finding new victims, always doing without rest. That is what makes him a symbol of our times.
- But you do things too, like what you did with the lawyers.
- Useless things. Ridiculous things that don't lend themselves to infinite accumulation. Vampires and zombies both are creatures who do things without rest. Doing without rest, they might as well be dead. A life of restless activity is equivalent to death because it excludes the good of life. Zombies are flesh eating corpses animated against their will by a magician, whereas vampires are corpses animated by the blood of their deliberately sought victims.
- And what are you, vampire or zombie?
- Resisting being either. The doctor and lawyers are vampires who'd like to drink my blood.
- What about your wife?
- Vampire.
- Vampires want to make you into a vampire too.
- That was the 19th century, the new, self conscious consolidation of the murderous doers without end into a social class. Since the 20th century we have zombies. Zombies express the idea that society itself has become a machine for making masses of individuals into doers without end against their will.
- Why does society create zombies?
- Because society has come to be based on doing without end.
- Don't think me a child asking why over and over, but why is society based on doing without end?
- Once it begins, it increases. People only doing understand and cooperate better with people doing the same kind of thing. This translates into monopolies, which, disrupting society, force even more attention to doing. History draws this fatality out of human nature.
- From everyone's except yours?
- A writer wants to write beautiful stories, and when done rest in the beauty created. A mother like you wants to live in the midst of the love of her family, not accumulate children.
- If useless people, as you call us, exist the whole society is not vampires and zombies.
- No. But our flesh and blood is their food and drink.
- Will you write this down in a story?
- Sure. I don't think anyone can use it for anything.
- How do you make money?
- I don't make money.
- How do you live?
- It surprises me that I do. I'm turning into a new kind of monster, a combination zombie forced to go without sleep and vampire squeezing out stories from the lives of the useful.
9. Seducers
- Who gave you my phone number?
- Liz. You don't know her?
- No. What did she say?
- That like the rest of the people here in Beverly Hills she was too busy making money to be a human. Being human apparently is a rabbi's business so she gave me your number.
- She should give me the money to help people she sends to me.
- I'm not asking you for money.
- What are you asking?
- For you to be human, and be concerned about another human being.
- A lot of people are in difficulty.
- My difficulty is easily removed, and with mutual benefit.
- How?
- Making friends.
- The families I know all have children.
- And I am a potential child molester. I heard that already from the last rabbi. Not every stranger develops into a child molester.
- Bad things can happen.
- And no one should take any chances with strangers. No one who hasn't given his life over as hostage to the community will ever be trusted. Do you know what this reminds me of?
- No.
- Nabokov's "Lolita". Of course it does. With all this talk of wondering if I am a child molester, and the book on my mind anyway because I've got a first edition copy of it in my bag I'm going to try to sell. But it's you guys, you rabbis, I see in the role of seducer, not me. You rabbis claim to know what is good, but don't hold yourselves to practicing good with strangers. The narrator of Nabokov's novel, an English Professor, knows how to speak and see clearly, but uses his knowledge to seduce a young girl. Talking with you rabbis is like reading that book: I can't help liking your clarity and accomplishment, but your ability obviously is being used to bad purpose. It's like a train wreck you see coming and can't help watching. You don't care about me, though you are willing to practice your rituals on me, proclaim your intention to live, learn, love, improve, exactly as Nabokov's character pretends to care for the little girl he seduces and ruins.
- You said you teach English. Can you teach me?
- Yes.
- Come back tomorrow at 10.
- Tomorrow at 10 then. I'll get you to read "Lolita" out loud. Here it is, the first Israeli Edition, copy number 586, the 1958 Jerusalem printing. And here is the memory book from a teen-aged girl in Budapest, entries from 1937-1941. She was sent to the Dachau concentration camp in 1944.
- How do you know that?
- The Holocaust Archive Yad Vashem in Jerusalem sent me a copy of the entrance questionnaire she had to fill out at the camp. The signature is the same as on the first page of the book, here, see?
- What are you doing with the book? Have you looked for the girl? She might pay a lot to get it back.
- I couldn't find her. I found the book on the street in Budapest a few years ago. I looked into how it got there and what happened to its owner, and learned a lot of history. I learned something particularly nasty about the Jewish leadership in Hungary.
- What?
- The head of the Jewish Agency, together with the head rabbi in Budapest made a deal with the Nazi Adolf Eichmann sent to Hungary to organize the transportation to the death camps: if they could save a chosen thousand of their people, they'd pay Eichmann a thousand dollars per person, and would not disclose to the Jews boarding boxcars at a rate of more than 10,000 a day they would be executed upon arrival at in Poland, were not going for "relocation" as they were being told. Had you heard of this?
- No.
- It's not a nice story. It's just about the worst story I've every heard. I've thought a lot about it. I came to the conclusion that the Jewish leaders dismissed the poor Jews boarding the box cars to their deaths just like you rabbis here in L.A. dismiss me. I'm not really on your team. The head rabbi and head of the Jewish agency in Budapest told themselves they couldn't help the majority, they should save those they could. But deciding to save those they could, they relied on a judgement of probable outcome should informed people attempt resistance, and probable outcome of their own campaign of lying to the people. They were most likely wrong about the possibility of resistance, the probability the people they refused to help also could have lied their way to some partial escape if they'd know the true situation. The leaders saw themselves as professional liars and managers, and other people as the lied to and managed. I think you rabbis do the same with me. The words of your rituals say you care, but you don't. You say you can't help me because you don't let yourselves feel the normal urge to pull a stranger to his feet stumbling beside you on the stairs. Instead of feeling the normal urge to save, you feel the urge to act in role as liars and managers, managers of others who are not professional liars. Like the Budapest leaders you tell yourself helping me means risking harm to those closer to you. Your reasoning about probabilities is just as faulty, is a direct consequence of isolating yourself in your own group of professional liars. It's just my opinion, you understand. I'm a child molester to you, you're a hypocrite and liar to me. Fair is fair. See you tomorrow for your English lesson.
PART SIX: BEVERLY HILLS STORIES
1. On The Bus
- Sir! Sir! Sir!
- Yes?
- How old are you?
- 57. How old are you?
- It's 25 cents if you are 62. You have to pay 1.50.
- 57 is close enough.
- The rule is 62.
- The idea behind the rule is to get people to ride the bus who otherwise wouldn't. I am complying with the spirit of the rule.
- Either pay a dollar twenty-five more or get off the bus.
- I'll get off the bus, if you give me my quarter back.
- I can't give you your quarter, it's in the machine.
- You're not obeying the rules of exchange. If you won't provide service, my money should be refunded.
- If you call the bus company, you'll get your money back.
- When? One day? One week? One year?
- You'll get your money. You know it.
- I'm not so sure. You're holding me to strict observance of the age rule, and I'm holding you to strict observance of the rule of payment only for services rendered.
- I'm tired of arguing. Take a seat.
2. Cohorts
- What do you two do?
- On that subject I heard an interesting story...
- He's a philosopher.
- The story was told by an internet executive. He met a man at Davos, attending the meeting of the World Economic Forum. He could see right off this man was brilliant. Well, everyone there had to be special, rich, famous, powerful, successful, but he didn't know this guy. If he had had on his person one of the new wearable internet devices, in seconds a photo would have been taken, image search conducted to match the man to the photo, identification confirmed. The internet executive found out later that this man had made an important medical discovery. What conversations they would have had had he known it! Now though with the new wearable internet technology it need never happen again.
- I also studied philosophy. But then, somehow I became interested in statistics.
- My friend the philosopher you're talking with is like you. He's always on the internet checking how many people read his stories.
- Do you write stories?
- At the moment I'm trying to tell you one. Suppose the executive had his internet glasses on. They snapped the doctor's picture, delivered his name and biography to the lenses. He's happy, but what about the doctor who'd chosen not to identify himself? Now he has to go through the same old questions about his discovery and hear the same repetitive comments he's heard a thousand times from strangers.
- A conflict of interest.
- The internet executive said he wanted the man identified so he could do his job better, that he was in a competition to the death for information. The doctor, however, for whatever reason, was off duty, conversationally speaking.
- But they have to talk about something. And more information has to be better, right?
- If they are working together on making a conversation. But maybe that is the wrong model. Maybe working is not something we should be doing with conversation.
- What should we be doing?
- Sara?
- What?
- You've heard this already: "Peanut Butter Entropy". Can I repeat it?
- If you don't mind repeating yourself.
- I don't mind. We stir in the oil that's floated to the top of the peanut butter jar, forming swirls, ridges and valleys. One kind of order, the kind we don't want - the oil on top of the peanut mass - is replaced by another. Every added increment of movement of the spoon changes the portiion of peanut butter in contact with the spoon, and transmits the movement to, revises the status of all of the past changes. When you stop stirring, the progressive growth of change ends. When you stir the other way, the new order you have created, the swirls, ridges and valleys, is destroyed. You might think you'd simply undue all the change and return the peanut butter in the jar to the state it was in when you began. That doesn't happen, because going the other way with the spoon, you are no longer connecting with the relations built on relations that created the swirls, valleys and ridges. Instead your movement interferes with the order you'd created moving the spoon in the other direction. Understand?
- Yes, I do.
- Imagine two people meet each other at Davos. They each have their separate lives, a cumulative building of effect on effect, like we see in the peanut butter jar, when moving the spoon continuously in one direction, counter clockwise or clockwise. One person, though, wants to get the most out of the conversation, and thinks there ought to be a technology to doing that, a set of rules for doing it best, and a mechanical technology to help him do that. The technology with its fixed rules, like those governing the back and forth exchange in the marketplace, forces the spoon to be moved in the other direction. Not only is life interrupted, it's broken up.*
- It's not the technology itself as it imposes conventions you're worried about, it's the particular rules for conversation?
- Yes. Technology used to make conversation into work.
- Can't the technology be used to inspire an art of conversation, a game of conversation?
- It can, but it's isn't.
- Why not? What's the problem with technology that technology can't solve?
- The problem is not with the technology, the machines themselves, but our technique of conversation. With how we meet each other in public. We aren't doing it right.
- Our wrong rules cause the destructive back and forth? Then how do we let each other go in our own direction?
- First, we have to know that's what we want, and not accept the ritual of work as a cure-all for our individual frustrations.
- Ok.
- In Thomas Pynchon's book Against The Day a character who doesn't himself seem to have forgotten anything meets one person after another, all of them extremely angry at things he's supposed to have done. He wanders around the city and finds himself in an intersection where strange activities are taking place. He's advised that he must atone, and the people there can help him. Atone without guilt, he asks? Yes. The two, atonement and guilt, need not be related. Ridiculous, right?
- Yeah.
- I'll tell you a story I've repeated many times. I don't mind repeating it. When I quit film school I worked as a proof-reader for a woman's fashion magazine. In those days printing was still a mechanical process, and since I was in the midst of it I decided to write and oversee the printing of my own book. A little detective story was the result. Within a month the book was written, printed, and 500 copies sold by me personally at a table on the street in Westwood Village. I didn't myself have a copy of this book, and a few years ago I wondered if I could find one for sale on the internet. I was surprised to find many copies for sale, from 60 dollars to 200. It only took a minute to discover the reason for the high price: used book dealers had decided that my story was the unknown first novel published by the fairly well known writer of violent crimes stories who had taken as his pen name my real name.
- I'll point out two things. First, the strange relation is created by technology. And second, there is no competent rule determining the relation.
- Competent?
- Imagine a conversation. A typical American conversation. We talk about work, we talk about money. We talk about working for money. This is what we have in common, show to each other when we meet to talk with each other. We have that in common, but I don't live for money, and you presumably don't live for money either, yet that is what we talk about, jarring each other clockwise to counter clockwise to clockwise with each exchange of words. What if we all met instead like the Rex Millers? Tied to each other, living in the same place, with the same rules, but in fact, not really? Atoning for the sins of other people. What if being of the same nationality meant that, and only that?
- And?
- Using then using our technology to help on the conversation: what would that be like?
- I have no idea.
- It would be like how we do art, make something, tell a story. We let all the things we thought we knew float around in our imagination, related to each other, but not really. There was such a person as Rex Miller, the sum of all the things he did and experienced. Putting him together was done with rules, like a sentence is put together by rules of syntax, but that way of organizing doesn't work any more, not since I have to go out in public and speak to this stranger, the collection of experience that goes by the name Rex Miller is now not rules, not syntax, but content.
- What kind of content?
- The kind where you have to atone for crimes you didn't commit, where you have to live with people who affect you, who you are forced to be responsible for, but are not you.
- Ok. The different kind of rules of conversation: what are they exactly?
- You see, what we want is to keep the spoon moving in the same direction. First Rex Miller. Then the Rex Miller who is affected by the actions of the other Rex Millers. Nothing is forgotten, the second continues the movement of the first, nothing is destroyed by the plot development. The story goes on.
- A really bizarre story.
- The bizarre characters, repeated in their cohorts but different, are appreciated for themselves, as a painter loves colors and a writer loves words. The conversation continues.
- Where does it end?
- When in the conversation each can say the same thing.
- Without deviating from their own directions. Does that happen?
- Do you agree with me this far?
- If I say I agree with you you'll say this is a technique of conversation? A technology of conversation?
- Yes. I'll concede it to be a weird technology, if that makes you happy.
- It doesn't! And internet technology could be safely applied to it?
- Do you agree?
- Won't we be multiplying the weirdness in the process?
- And maybe the agreement at the end.
* Peanut Butter Entropy
3. See You At Starbucks
- It can't be true.
- Three different people hired to write a screenplay about terrorism and Indian mysticism at the same Starbucks? Come with me, we'll see who's there. One though may not talk to me.
- Why not?
- His therapist warned him not to.
- What did you do to him?
- Talked.
- It must be nice to be paid to have a conversation.
- I'll pay you a dime to get you started.
- Thank you. What should we talk about? The screenwriters at Starbucks? Are they all crazy people with psychologists?
- Yesterday one of them waited for closing time and asked for the left over sandwiches. He drove away in his brand new luxury car.
- You saw this?
- He offered me a ride. I asked him if he didn't think there was a better use of time for someone who could afford that car than waiting around to get stale sandwiches for free.
- What did he say?
- It's always good to save money.
- That's how he got rich. What about the third screenwriter?
- I haven't met him.
- Are you sure he exists?
- The other writers say they know him.
- Weird.
- Things happen at that Starbucks.
- Maybe I should go there. I don't have any pals.
- I thought I made a friend at another cafe I go to every morning.
- It didn't work out?
- Me and the world seem to have different ideas of friendship.
- What's your idea?
- What's yours?
- Someone I can rely on, I can tell my troubles to, won't lie to me.
- That's not friendship. Aristotle said there are three kinds of friendship: for pleasure, for usefulness, for living well. You're describing family, "bonding". A completely different aspect of life.
- Says you.
- Says Aristotle.
- I think the girl at the cafe - it was a girl? - didn't think you liked her. In my experience when you like someone liking is returned.
- Could be a misunderstanding.
- Yes. Here's your dime back.
- Why?
- I don't want to cheat you. You don't seem satisfied with the service.
- I'm used to getting conversation for free. For the extra dime something really special...
- Take the money.
- Alright. See you at Starbucks?
- Don't think so.
4. Funny Books
On the bus this afternoon, on my way to see the movie Francis Ha, I was reading this book that claims language, technology, in fact, all civilization is destructive. Better get rid of it all.
When I get off I ask directions from the first guy I see, tell him about civilization, reading the book and missing my stop. We're stuck with it, he responds. I say obviously he's smarter that the writer of the book, who three to five times on every page talks about our immiseration, corruption, destruction, defeat by civilization, laying down a massive amount of gloom and doom, when according to him what civilization is keeping us from is sweetness and light, pleasure and satisfaction. Civilization is time, time is repressed desire, he says, but isn't all this complaint an explosion of repressed desire? I'm supposed to share the jungle with this guy? I prefer the ordinary man on the street, victim of civilization, to this would-be savior from it.
What did he think he was doing writing this book, producing an example of the technology of thinking with language, that repudiates the technology of thinking with language?
Is he out of his mind? How does he not know he is out of his mind? Does he think he is giving us the last word on the subject, and after him, silence reigns?
There is no reason there cannot be a technology of language used to defend us from the technology of language. But language which is repetitious, expressive of misery and oppression, is that a likely candidate to get the world to shut up?
Technology takes something defined, puts it in relation to something else defined, and sees what happens. Then sets up the relation of parts again, sees if the result repeats. If it does, and that repetition is useful, the parts are attached, so as to make convenient a deliberate repetition. That is what a machine is, a convenience for creating repetition.
Civilization, according to the book on the bus, creates a division of labor. People become limited defined parts put in fixed relation to each other and repeatedly producing a defined result. The writer of the book is a specialist in writing books about the undesirability of the division of labor. He doesn't know that what he is doing as a specialist in writing those books is funny. This is because he doesn't know what comedy is.
Comedy is a technology. One defined human behavior is put in regular relation to another, a machine is got going for the sake of the expected result.
The parts of his book writer's comedy machine are: (1) his claim that division of labor and technology are ruining us (2) his being a civilized specialist using technology of language.
The machine set in motion, part in sync with part, produces the expected result: a writer writing against himself.
That is funny. What exactly is funny? Why was the man on the street funny, in the sense of seeing the machine and sharing his laughter with me, and I could live in the jungle with him and not the man behind the book on the bus?
Let me run my machine of civilized thinking a moment. Let's say the victim of civilization has some distance from civilization which the writer lacks.
What creates the distance? Laughter. And what is laughter? Laughter is language jamming. Ha. Ha. Ha. Response to the world. Response to the world. Response to the world. Laughter is a machine run amok.
Laughter wakes us up. Wakes us up to what? Wakes us up to technology being used against itself.
How does it do that? What does it mean to wake up?
We wake up from being a body, a part of a machine that responds constantly to the world, another part of the machine. When we remember, and desire, we are responding to images of the world not presently experienced. We are no longer responding directly to the world. We can do this before we learn language. Animals can do it also.
We civilized creatures, going by written records, have not been laughing for very long. Maybe the Greeks invented laughter 2500 years ago. It is a new technology. It is learned early and easily, and not specific to human beings, as everyone knows who's witnessed their pets laughing at them.
Comedy is a machine that, setting technology against technology, protects us from the dangers of technology, from technology making us stupid. We laugh at stupidity.
We laugh at the sight of us losing knowledge. In laughing we do something, we use technology against itself. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Comedy is a show of losing knowledge. But we respond to a sight of gaining knowledge, not like comedy by doing something, but by not doing anything. We rest, and call the sight we see while resting beautiful.
Rest in beauty returns us to our pre-civilized state where with reflection and desire we could free ourselves from being a machine, from being a body in fixed relation to the world around it. We rest and feel safe with what we have learned by the practice of civilized technologies, language among them.
Or something like this happens. Talking about these things is a developing technology. But still, facts are facts.
A fact is anything that happens. A fact is what we experience.
The fact is beauty exists, laughter exists. If the world is becoming more humorless and ugly, and technology is making the world humorless and ugly, the fact is we have the technology to do something about it.
That we aren't using the technology, another fact, what can I say?
Isn't it funny?
5. Married To The Business Of Buying
I kept hearing I'd got myself into an impossible marriage. No one admired me for it unless I showed them a picture of my wife. I kept hearing I was doing an impossible business and this almost everyone wondered at and approved. The wife was a wild, ambitious, story telling and story concealing Hungarian. The business was buying and selling old watches to other dealers doing the same. I tried to explain to all concerned that both impossible undertakings were both possible in the same way.
When you are married you don't have to look for someone to be with. When you buy and then sell things you don't have to look for something to buy: you are married to the business of buying. With my wife, my business was keeping up with her continual changes of mind about whether she wanted to be with me. Life with whatever new sort of person she had decided to be at that moment had to be renegotiated, re-bought, this work paid for by her with the pleasure I took in her company. But I had given up buying and selling watches, and she doubted I could be depended on in this business of marriage:
- You don't love me.
- I do.
- You don't.
- What you love about me is what makes you think I don't love you.
- What's that?
- Not to do anything.
- Where did you go?
- The 24 hour restaurant.
- All night?
- No, I met there a piano teacher who used to give his lessons at a church near where I was living 2 years ago. He was having dinner with a couple a girls, students of his. He asked me what I was up to, I told him, he wished me good luck, and left. But he returned a little later, and said come to his house for the night.
- That was lucky.
- Yes. The next night, it was the 24 hour restaurant again.
- You can't live that way.
- No. But the day after, the piano teacher came to find me at my usual Starbucks, said he'd decided to pay for a couple nights at a hotel for me. I slept through those days and nights, and when they were up was walking by the Jewish center on the way to Westwood when the rabbis outside asked me in to join in the prayers. This kid was there now they'd suggested I meet before, but who I hadn't be able to reach by phone or email. I ended up staying with that kid that night. The next night he wasn't home, so it was the 24 hour restaurant.
- What about the Rabbis?
- What about them?
- They won't help you?
- There's nothing in it for them.
- What are you going to do?
- I can always go back to Israel.
- I thought you hated it there?
- I was homesick so I came home. I'm glad to be here. But it is an economic world here, and as I said, I don't live in that world. That world doesn't want me, and I don't want it. I can't ask what is impossible.
- But you said it was the same in Israel.
- It is. It's worse. But here the economic world is actively at war with its competition, the human worlds. You can't live here without money or a place to live. You'll be preyed on by the violent, both by violent officials and the violent for the hell of it. Israel is not at that point.
- You should try to stay here. It's your home.
- I'm trying.
3. The Elohim And Unaccountable Evil
- You have to make your peace with Saturn.
- How do you suggest I do that?
- You must become prosperous. Have you read Manley Palmer Hall? He was a 33 degree Freemason, an outright genius. He knew how to deal with the Elohim.
- The Elohim? The gods?
- The gods who have to be appeased.
- I'm prosperous in my own way.
- You have to do it their way.
- Make money.
- Yes.
- Sorry, can't oblige the gods. You know, my father was a Freemason, 32nd degree.
- Impressive.
- But he destroyed himself.
- He tried to outrun the Elohim and they caught up with him. Families can be totally dominated by a single planet.
- I never thought of it like that, but I like the idea. It would explain how my whole family turned evil. I'd kept a distance from my family for most of my life, then suddenly one by one they declared war on me. It came out of nowhere.
- Nothing comes out of nowhere.
- Of course not. I don't believe or disbelieve in what you've been telling me, astro-numerology, the planet Saturn, the Elohim. I take it as an allusive sets of symbols, aids to imagination. But maybe there's something to my father's membership in the Freemasons. He got rich very quickly around the time he joined. Later he suddenly shut down his business, moved from L.A. to San Diego, and there, on his second wife's instruction, forbade me to visit my three half brothers. I was declared a bad influence. Then he went off to Thailand with wife and sons and disappeared, cutting off all contact.
- He angered the Elohim.
- But where did all this come from? My two brothers soon also declared me a bad influence on their children, they took control of all family assets, and worse, much worse followed. Can astro-numerology explain this? Was it some revenge of the Freemasons for my father breaking one of their commandments?
- Possibly. As I said, families can be totally dominated by a single planet. You were the exception, and by your opposition strengthened the planet's influence.
- So when my father broke some occult deal with the Freemasons, my brothers, even my mother became by influence rule breakers too? Why would they? They weren't Freemasons.
- Because of the power of order on people who are without order. The Elohim were restraining the influence of Saturn.
- And without that restraint, the planetary influence broke out on them? Then I am caught up in this cosmic accounting, with the Elohim pursuing my entire family, who are pursuing me?
- Yes.
- Wild.
- Don't you wonder about our meeting tonight? I've been two weeks wandering from place to place. You have been....?
- Two weeks since I arrived from Tel Aviv.
- And we meet at Starbucks right before closing, both on our way to this all night restaurant.
- Are the Elohim after you too?
- No. I have several things to work out in my life, and this is what I needed.
- I don't need this. But I can take it.
- Good for you. That's all that matters. Make your peace.
- But how?
- Be prosperous. Do your work. Get out of your situation.
- Tell me how. I have no idea.
- What are you doing?
- Nothing! I write my stories and wait for good luck.
- Do you think that is enough?
- Do you have a better idea?
- Make money.
- How?
- It will come to you.
- I'll ask the Elohim. Next time I see them.
4. Fighters And Rabbis
- One thing I don't like is they're racist.
- "It's in the genes of Arabs to be killers."
- Yeah. That's what the rabbi said. But I like coming here. And I'm out of money. Though they really make you work for the food. They can pray and sing twenty four hours a day.
- You heard though what the rabbi said at the end of the sermon? It's a mistake to run from, you should run to.
- What does it mean?
- It means don't be afraid or angry, hate or despair, don't run from. Go get what you want, run to it.
- That's good. Do you like the rabbis?
- The rabbi went on about how their movement reformed Judaism, got rid of the empty practice of rituals, traded it for true spirituality, spirituality so powerful a spiritual person could recognize a spiritual person at first sight.
- And what do you think?
- They transmit a tradition they don't understand. They're not spiritual. They worship money and prosperity. You remember how when we came in, you said this was a nice house they have?
- Yes.
- The rabbi said they've got half this block in Beverly Hills, and God willing they'll have the whole block, the whole city soon. They think I'm evil because I don't have money.
- And they think they're good because they do.
- And they'll be better when they have more.
- Some spirituality. What are you doing later?
- Nothing. Go to the cafe and write down a story. I came here from the lawyers of the Beverly Hills doctor my wife married without divorcing me who now wants to divorce her without paying her anything.
- What did you tell them?
- Before he married my wife I went to the doctor's office. He wouldn't see me, so I left a note saying as far as I knew I was still married.
- He married her anyway?
- Yes. My message to the lawyers was this: my whole life was tied up in my marriage. In practical terms, the doctor caused me great harm. If he wanted to make good on that, we had a shared interest in dissolving his relation to my wife. But I wouldn't help someone who'd harmed me.
- What did they say?
- They'd pass on the message to the doctor.
- What do you think will happen?
- No idea. If you've had enough of the rabbi's food, we can go.
- Come with me to the TV studio and watch the fight.
- So it's something like the original Harvard Facebook. Except it is not still images of two girls you have to rate better or worse, but two live video feeds of people competing for your vote. You've been on yourself?
- Yeah. Between eight and ten they pay ten dollars a minute.
- You stay on extra minutes as long as you win?
- Yeah. I've made over eight hundred dollars so far. But it's making me paranoid.
- Why?
- Hackers found out where I live, that I'm Jewish. They found me on social media. Neo-Nazis are writing to me.
- They know your address?
- No. Beverly Hills.
- How did they find out you are Jewish?
- I wore a yarmulke.
- Why did you do that?
- It's show business.
- It's a night of moving from one ridiculous evil to another.
- Neo-Nazis going after me is no joke.
- They don't know anything important about you. This fight here tonight is fake, right?
- My fight wasn't fake.
- You went to the fight like you went to the rabbis thinking what they offered was real, but it's not.
- Being hit in the face was real.
- The rabbi's food was real too. I mean it isn't about what it seems to be about. The fight was about selling ads on broadcast TV, the sermons and prayers are about acquiring wealth, power. Look at these guys. The host is half the weight of the professional fighter he is up against, he's so thin his pants are falling off and he's wearing a low cut pink t-shirt and you take this seriously? You said it yourself, it's show business. Show business is about mass approval. Mass approval is about money. Money is about power. There's nothing good for the spirit here.
- I like it. I've made me a lot of money the last two weeks.
- From tonight turn your back on it.
- The rabbis are racist and money crazy, but I met you there.
- Not everything is fake.
5. BattleCam Kid
- I can't rely on my family. If I die, I've lived a full life, even though I'm only 22 years old. I've managed a medical marijuana dispensary, I've fought off gangsters. I've traveled to 20 countries, I've hung around millionaires until I got tired of them, I've been a regular on broadcast TV.
- That's all?
- How many kids my age can say the same?
- You haven't done anything. You're a Beverly Hills kid.
- And what are you? I don't even know where you are really from. Where are you from? See that hole in the wall? I did that with my head when I was dared to on Battlecam. I don't care if my mother loses her deposit on the apartment.
- You don't respect your mother.
- Why should I? She sent me to the psych. ward.
- You threatened to kill her.
- No I didn't.
- Yes you did.
- Ok, maybe when I was drunk. I was under stress. You stole from me.
- I did not.
- Yes you did. My iphone disappeared when you were here. My guitar disappeared another time when you were here. Things disappear when you are here.
- You left the door open. Anyone could come in. I'm hungry. Do you have any money to buy a cup of noodles? I could get two.
- My mom pays 1400 dollars a month for this place, but I'm broke.
- Do you have a couple of dollars?
- Yes. Here.
- I'm going then to the market.
- If you can't find the noodles, call me.
- Do you remember when you went for Chimichungas and couldn't find them?
- Yeah. You told me one aisle, then said another. I gave up.
- Ok, see you when you get back.
6. The Rabbi Works His Magic
- I'll make a deal with you. You let me keep my books here and you can wrap your strings around my arm.
- O.K.
- What do you get out of this?
- Good will come.
- Magically.
- Yes. You don't believe?
- That God likes my arm wrapped up in strings while I repeat words in a language I don't understand?
- Yes.
- The magic is supposed to be for you anyway, not me. It was like you sending me to stay with the Beverly Hills kid. God rewarded you for it, but not me.
- How was it?
- That kid! He and his medical marijuana sleepover friend. Every night they say they have no money, they're hungry, they haven't eaten all day, would I buy them food? This in their fourteen hundred dollars a month apartment.
- His mother pays.
- Yeah, and when finally I'd had enough and wouldn't pay he told me to go, and next thing I know he's coming back from the store with a bag full of groceries.
- What does he do with the money his mother gives him?
- What else? Buys drugs.
- I feel bad for him.
- Why do you care? He's the usual drug addict.
- His father died, his mother was sick. It's not his fault.
- Nothing is anyone's fault. Anyway the magic you want to work on him is supposed to do you good, not him. The strings go from you to me to him.
- I would like to help him.
- He's just someone in trouble you can work your magic on when he comes for a free meal. Are we through? The stings are very tight.
- All done.
7. Genius And The Gods
- Where are you coming from?
- I was talking with your double at the cafe.
- My double?
- He does numerology, studies the Kabbala, relates symbols, demons, angels, gods from every religion, considers himself a spiritual force. The last thing he said was pretty funny.
- What?
- That when people called him a genius he protests, "Don't insult me. I'm god. I create geniuses."
- Was he serious?
- I think he was. But he calls his Facebook page "The Church Of Comedy". He knows his claims aren't getting him anywhere so he exaggerates for comic effect. He says he's the best musician, as good or better than Mozart, the best filmmaker but is being kept out by the powers that be. He says he will be the world's first Trillioniare. Every one of the best movies of the past 20 years stole their ideas from his life. His family were the most important people in all professions. I could be his assistant if I wanted. One day soon we'd go to Hawaii where his 84 year old mother lived with his two young children, and once there we'd start filming the story of his life.
- The world is filled with all kinds.
- You don't think he's the same kind as you?
- I study computers too. Does he?
- He says his brain is better than any computer invented.
- Where is he now?
- I refused his job offer and told him to go home to his kids.
- What did he say?
- He got angry. Said I was a bum. He helped people wherever he went, films had been made about him. He'd go home, but had important things to do first.
- Who's to say? Maybe he does.
- No, he doesn't. Like money has to increase for the banker, for him ideas have to show profit by leading to other ideas. The banker and corporations don't know what to do with the money itself, and he doesn't have a clue what use to put ideas to. What about you? What use do you put your ideas to? I'd like to hear you talk about yourself, what happened with your family. Where are they?
- In my heart.
- Yesterday you said you'd go make some money, but here you are.
- You're here too. What about the woman you met?
- The one who filled her apartment with hundreds of objects she found on the street? She offered me a nap on her couch. Today I met another woman on the way to the market. She advised me to become an apartment manager. When had a long talk, I told her a lot of stories, and when we were saying goodbye she turned her head to look directly in my eyes and asked me if I had seen her 2nd bag, the one with a gun in it.
- Was she crazy?
- I don't think so. I don't know how to make money. I don't claim my ability to make connections puts me in touch with gods. But you said you knew how to make money.
- I went to the Chancellor's office today.
- For money? Did you see him?
- I talked to the secretary and got tired of waiting.
- What did you want?
- I said I deserved a meal ticket. I was a UCLA graduate and one day I would make the school famous.
- What did she say? Are you going to the diner? Let's walk. Socrates said he deserved a meal ticket too, when the court found him guilty of corrupting the youth of Athens and worshiping false gods and asked him to name the punishment he deserved. Do you want to hear something else?
- What?
- A couple years ago, when I first tried to return for good to L.A. and was with my wife, I went to the Chancellor's office with a request too and ended up talking with his secretary.
- What did you ask for?
- I'd applied to study philosophy and had been rejected. I asked why, and the department head said it was because they saw philosophical problems as confusions caused by misuse of language, but I wanted to work out the problems by telling stories of how people actually lived. He suggested I study literature instead. I wrote to all the University administrators, Chancellor included, saying something like:
The University was acting like the corporation bosses who managed it who must legally disregard all human concerns in their pursuit of making profits. The philosophy department looked for efficiency of language like the corporations looked for efficiency of money making, both at the expense of understanding or respecting anything about human life.- What did they answer?
- That I had no right to tell the department what to do. I said I did. That the University was acting for the interests of bankers and corporations, concerned only with the mindless application of technique. But it was a public institution and was obligated to respect also the other aspects of human life.
- That's it?
- You know, the Athenian court didn't give Socrates his meal ticket. They executed him.
8. The Care And Feeding Of Vampires And Zombies
- Excuse me. We were making a bet. Are you a writer or an actor?
- What did you say?
- Writer. Because of the pen.
- If I have something so inefficient to write with I must be doing something more important than being useful. You win.
- What do you write? Really important things?
- Stories from my life.
- How is your life important?
- Well, you got it right from the start: because it is useless.
- Your life is useless? Nothing happens?
- No, a lot happens. For example last week I visited a law office at that high rise building over there. I'd gotten an email a month before from a L.A. video journalist saying she was writing a book on dangerous woman and wanted to make my wife its centerpiece. She proceeded to ask me if I had documents about my marriage, wedding certificate, was I still married or divorced, would I testify in court, were the stories I'd written about my wife truth or fiction? I replied she sounded more like a private detective than a journalist, and asked how she heard of me. She knew a girl from her new age church who knew the Beverly Hills doctor who married my wife and now wanted to divorce her.
- Your wife married another man without divorcing you?
- See? Things happen in my life. I wrote the journalist a couple weeks ago that if she would like to meet I had arrived back in L.A. from Israel. The next day I received an email from the doctor, my first contact from him. And the following day his law firm wrote me, asking if I would visit them.
- What did they want?
- Help them prove my wife was not legally married to the doctor so he would not have to pay a divorce settlement.
- What did you say?
- I didn't see how I could help the doctor. I didn't like the idea of helping people who harmed me. If he was willing to do something about the disruption his arrival in my life had caused, we could talk.
- Did you mean money?
- Yes. Or something else. I like stories to continue.
- What did the lawyers say?
- They'd ask their client.
- And then?
- The doctor never answered.
- Why?
- Because I'm a useless sort of person when everyone is expected to be useful. I was writing with my inefficient pen about vampires and zombies. Want to hear?
- Everyone likes vampires and zombies.
- Of course they do. We live doing things without end, accumulating more and more things done, each for its own sake. Instead we might have been working towards finding friends, falling in love, making life beautiful and fair. Working towards being able to stop working. A vampire can't stop seducing his victims. It's his work. He doesn't want their love, their beautiful society. The union he seeks isn't mental. He physically incorporates his victims into his own body by drinking their blood, and by the death of his victims he excludes the possibility of resting even for a moment in a new society. He must go on, always go on, finding new victims, always doing without rest. That is what makes him a symbol of our times.
- But you do things too, like what you did with the lawyers.
- Useless things. Ridiculous things that don't lend themselves to infinite accumulation. Vampires and zombies both are creatures who do things without rest. Doing without rest, they might as well be dead. A life of restless activity is equivalent to death because it excludes the good of life. Zombies are flesh eating corpses animated against their will by a magician, whereas vampires are corpses animated by the blood of their deliberately sought victims.
- And what are you, vampire or zombie?
- Resisting being either. The doctor and lawyers are vampires who'd like to drink my blood.
- What about your wife?
- Vampire.
- Vampires want to make you into a vampire too.
- That was the 19th century, the new, self conscious consolidation of the murderous doers without end into a social class. Since the 20th century we have zombies. Zombies express the idea that society itself has become a machine for making masses of individuals into doers without end against their will.
- Why does society create zombies?
- Because society has come to be based on doing without end.
- Don't think me a child asking why over and over, but why is society based on doing without end?
- Once it begins, it increases. People only doing understand and cooperate better with people doing the same kind of thing. This translates into monopolies, which, disrupting society, force even more attention to doing. History draws this fatality out of human nature.
- From everyone's except yours?
- A writer wants to write beautiful stories, and when done rest in the beauty created. A mother like you wants to live in the midst of the love of her family, not accumulate children.
- If useless people, as you call us, exist the whole society is not vampires and zombies.
- No. But our flesh and blood is their food and drink.
- Will you write this down in a story?
- Sure. I don't think anyone can use it for anything.
- How do you make money?
- I don't make money.
- How do you live?
- It surprises me that I do. I'm turning into a new kind of monster, a combination zombie forced to go without sleep and vampire squeezing out stories from the lives of the useful.
9. Seducers
- Who gave you my phone number?
- Liz. You don't know her?
- No. What did she say?
- That like the rest of the people here in Beverly Hills she was too busy making money to be a human. Being human apparently is a rabbi's business so she gave me your number.
- She should give me the money to help people she sends to me.
- I'm not asking you for money.
- What are you asking?
- For you to be human, and be concerned about another human being.
- A lot of people are in difficulty.
- My difficulty is easily removed, and with mutual benefit.
- How?
- Making friends.
- The families I know all have children.
- And I am a potential child molester. I heard that already from the last rabbi. Not every stranger develops into a child molester.
- Bad things can happen.
- And no one should take any chances with strangers. No one who hasn't given his life over as hostage to the community will ever be trusted. Do you know what this reminds me of?
- No.
- Nabokov's "Lolita". Of course it does. With all this talk of wondering if I am a child molester, and the book on my mind anyway because I've got a first edition copy of it in my bag I'm going to try to sell. But it's you guys, you rabbis, I see in the role of seducer, not me. You rabbis claim to know what is good, but don't hold yourselves to practicing good with strangers. The narrator of Nabokov's novel, an English Professor, knows how to speak and see clearly, but uses his knowledge to seduce a young girl. Talking with you rabbis is like reading that book: I can't help liking your clarity and accomplishment, but your ability obviously is being used to bad purpose. It's like a train wreck you see coming and can't help watching. You don't care about me, though you are willing to practice your rituals on me, proclaim your intention to live, learn, love, improve, exactly as Nabokov's character pretends to care for the little girl he seduces and ruins.
- You said you teach English. Can you teach me?
- Yes.
- Come back tomorrow at 10.
- Tomorrow at 10 then. I'll get you to read "Lolita" out loud. Here it is, the first Israeli Edition, copy number 586, the 1958 Jerusalem printing. And here is the memory book from a teen-aged girl in Budapest, entries from 1937-1941. She was sent to the Dachau concentration camp in 1944.
- How do you know that?
- The Holocaust Archive Yad Vashem in Jerusalem sent me a copy of the entrance questionnaire she had to fill out at the camp. The signature is the same as on the first page of the book, here, see?
- What are you doing with the book? Have you looked for the girl? She might pay a lot to get it back.
- I couldn't find her. I found the book on the street in Budapest a few years ago. I looked into how it got there and what happened to its owner, and learned a lot of history. I learned something particularly nasty about the Jewish leadership in Hungary.
- What?
- The head of the Jewish Agency, together with the head rabbi in Budapest made a deal with the Nazi Adolf Eichmann sent to Hungary to organize the transportation to the death camps: if they could save a chosen thousand of their people, they'd pay Eichmann a thousand dollars per person, and would not disclose to the Jews boarding boxcars at a rate of more than 10,000 a day they would be executed upon arrival at in Poland, were not going for "relocation" as they were being told. Had you heard of this?
- No.
- It's not a nice story. It's just about the worst story I've every heard. I've thought a lot about it. I came to the conclusion that the Jewish leaders dismissed the poor Jews boarding the box cars to their deaths just like you rabbis here in L.A. dismiss me. I'm not really on your team. The head rabbi and head of the Jewish agency in Budapest told themselves they couldn't help the majority, they should save those they could. But deciding to save those they could, they relied on a judgement of probable outcome should informed people attempt resistance, and probable outcome of their own campaign of lying to the people. They were most likely wrong about the possibility of resistance, the probability the people they refused to help also could have lied their way to some partial escape if they'd know the true situation. The leaders saw themselves as professional liars and managers, and other people as the lied to and managed. I think you rabbis do the same with me. The words of your rituals say you care, but you don't. You say you can't help me because you don't let yourselves feel the normal urge to pull a stranger to his feet stumbling beside you on the stairs. Instead of feeling the normal urge to save, you feel the urge to act in role as liars and managers, managers of others who are not professional liars. Like the Budapest leaders you tell yourself helping me means risking harm to those closer to you. Your reasoning about probabilities is just as faulty, is a direct consequence of isolating yourself in your own group of professional liars. It's just my opinion, you understand. I'm a child molester to you, you're a hypocrite and liar to me. Fair is fair. See you tomorrow for your English lesson.
PART SIX: BEVERLY HILLS STORIES
1. On The Bus
- Sir! Sir! Sir!
- Yes?
- How old are you?
- 57. How old are you?
- It's 25 cents if you are 62. You have to pay 1.50.
- 57 is close enough.
- The rule is 62.
- The idea behind the rule is to get people to ride the bus who otherwise wouldn't. I am complying with the spirit of the rule.
- Either pay a dollar twenty-five more or get off the bus.
- I'll get off the bus, if you give me my quarter back.
- I can't give you your quarter, it's in the machine.
- You're not obeying the rules of exchange. If you won't provide service, my money should be refunded.
- If you call the bus company, you'll get your money back.
- When? One day? One week? One year?
- You'll get your money. You know it.
- I'm not so sure. You're holding me to strict observance of the age rule, and I'm holding you to strict observance of the rule of payment only for services rendered.
- I'm tired of arguing. Take a seat.
2. Cohorts
- What do you two do?
- On that subject I heard an interesting story...
- He's a philosopher.
- The story was told by an internet executive. He met a man at Davos, attending the meeting of the World Economic Forum. He could see right off this man was brilliant. Well, everyone there had to be special, rich, famous, powerful, successful, but he didn't know this guy. If he had had on his person one of the new wearable internet devices, in seconds a photo would have been taken, image search conducted to match the man to the photo, identification confirmed. The internet executive found out later that this man had made an important medical discovery. What conversations they would have had had he known it! Now though with the new wearable internet technology it need never happen again.
- I also studied philosophy. But then, somehow I became interested in statistics.
- My friend the philosopher you're talking with is like you. He's always on the internet checking how many people read his stories.
- Do you write stories?
- At the moment I'm trying to tell you one. Suppose the executive had his internet glasses on. They snapped the doctor's picture, delivered his name and biography to the lenses. He's happy, but what about the doctor who'd chosen not to identify himself? Now he has to go through the same old questions about his discovery and hear the same repetitive comments he's heard a thousand times from strangers.
- A conflict of interest.
- The internet executive said he wanted the man identified so he could do his job better, that he was in a competition to the death for information. The doctor, however, for whatever reason, was off duty, conversationally speaking.
- But they have to talk about something. And more information has to be better, right?
- If they are working together on making a conversation. But maybe that is the wrong model. Maybe working is not something we should be doing with conversation.
- What should we be doing?
- Sara?
- What?
- You've heard this already: "Peanut Butter Entropy". Can I repeat it?
- If you don't mind repeating yourself.
- I don't mind. We stir in the oil that's floated to the top of the peanut butter jar, forming swirls, ridges and valleys. One kind of order, the kind we don't want - the oil on top of the peanut mass - is replaced by another. Every added increment of movement of the spoon changes the portiion of peanut butter in contact with the spoon, and transmits the movement to, revises the status of all of the past changes. When you stop stirring, the progressive growth of change ends. When you stir the other way, the new order you have created, the swirls, ridges and valleys, is destroyed. You might think you'd simply undue all the change and return the peanut butter in the jar to the state it was in when you began. That doesn't happen, because going the other way with the spoon, you are no longer connecting with the relations built on relations that created the swirls, valleys and ridges. Instead your movement interferes with the order you'd created moving the spoon in the other direction. Understand?
- Yes, I do.
- Imagine two people meet each other at Davos. They each have their separate lives, a cumulative building of effect on effect, like we see in the peanut butter jar, when moving the spoon continuously in one direction, counter clockwise or clockwise. One person, though, wants to get the most out of the conversation, and thinks there ought to be a technology to doing that, a set of rules for doing it best, and a mechanical technology to help him do that. The technology with its fixed rules, like those governing the back and forth exchange in the marketplace, forces the spoon to be moved in the other direction. Not only is life interrupted, it's broken up.*
- It's not the technology itself as it imposes conventions you're worried about, it's the particular rules for conversation?
- Yes. Technology used to make conversation into work.
- Can't the technology be used to inspire an art of conversation, a game of conversation?
- It can, but it's isn't.
- Why not? What's the problem with technology that technology can't solve?
- The problem is not with the technology, the machines themselves, but our technique of conversation. With how we meet each other in public. We aren't doing it right.
- Our wrong rules cause the destructive back and forth? Then how do we let each other go in our own direction?
- First, we have to know that's what we want, and not accept the ritual of work as a cure-all for our individual frustrations.
- Ok.
- In Thomas Pynchon's book Against The Day a character who doesn't himself seem to have forgotten anything meets one person after another, all of them extremely angry at things he's supposed to have done. He wanders around the city and finds himself in an intersection where strange activities are taking place. He's advised that he must atone, and the people there can help him. Atone without guilt, he asks? Yes. The two, atonement and guilt, need not be related. Ridiculous, right?
- Yeah.
- I'll tell you a story I've repeated many times. I don't mind repeating it. When I quit film school I worked as a proof-reader for a woman's fashion magazine. In those days printing was still a mechanical process, and since I was in the midst of it I decided to write and oversee the printing of my own book. A little detective story was the result. Within a month the book was written, printed, and 500 copies sold by me personally at a table on the street in Westwood Village. I didn't myself have a copy of this book, and a few years ago I wondered if I could find one for sale on the internet. I was surprised to find many copies for sale, from 60 dollars to 200. It only took a minute to discover the reason for the high price: used book dealers had decided that my story was the unknown first novel published by the fairly well known writer of violent crimes stories who had taken as his pen name my real name.
- Wow.
- I knew about this writer already because several years before I had typed my name into Google and discovered an article written by someone with my name about traveling in Europe buying and selling old watches between dealers. There were only maybe a couple dozen people doing this very specialized job, myself one of them, so this was a practical joke, played by a man I learned from his biography famous for playing practical jokes.
- So as you had inadvertently taken credit for his fame, he retaliated by taking on your life!
- Yes. The Rex Miller Cohort: that's me, this Rex Miller, and all the other Rex Millers, affecting each other on the internet. The fame of all the others increases my fame, and vice versa. We have nothing meaningful in common. Only a matter of names. What do you think: am I affected by the other Rex Millers like the character in Pynchon novel is affected, has to atone for the crimes of that other person people say he is?
- I admit there is some similarity.- I knew about this writer already because several years before I had typed my name into Google and discovered an article written by someone with my name about traveling in Europe buying and selling old watches between dealers. There were only maybe a couple dozen people doing this very specialized job, myself one of them, so this was a practical joke, played by a man I learned from his biography famous for playing practical jokes.
- So as you had inadvertently taken credit for his fame, he retaliated by taking on your life!
- Yes. The Rex Miller Cohort: that's me, this Rex Miller, and all the other Rex Millers, affecting each other on the internet. The fame of all the others increases my fame, and vice versa. We have nothing meaningful in common. Only a matter of names. What do you think: am I affected by the other Rex Millers like the character in Pynchon novel is affected, has to atone for the crimes of that other person people say he is?
- I'll point out two things. First, the strange relation is created by technology. And second, there is no competent rule determining the relation.
- Competent?
- Imagine a conversation. A typical American conversation. We talk about work, we talk about money. We talk about working for money. This is what we have in common, show to each other when we meet to talk with each other. We have that in common, but I don't live for money, and you presumably don't live for money either, yet that is what we talk about, jarring each other clockwise to counter clockwise to clockwise with each exchange of words. What if we all met instead like the Rex Millers? Tied to each other, living in the same place, with the same rules, but in fact, not really? Atoning for the sins of other people. What if being of the same nationality meant that, and only that?
- And?
- Using then using our technology to help on the conversation: what would that be like?
- I have no idea.
- It would be like how we do art, make something, tell a story. We let all the things we thought we knew float around in our imagination, related to each other, but not really. There was such a person as Rex Miller, the sum of all the things he did and experienced. Putting him together was done with rules, like a sentence is put together by rules of syntax, but that way of organizing doesn't work any more, not since I have to go out in public and speak to this stranger, the collection of experience that goes by the name Rex Miller is now not rules, not syntax, but content.
- What kind of content?
- The kind where you have to atone for crimes you didn't commit, where you have to live with people who affect you, who you are forced to be responsible for, but are not you.
- Ok. The different kind of rules of conversation: what are they exactly?
- You see, what we want is to keep the spoon moving in the same direction. First Rex Miller. Then the Rex Miller who is affected by the actions of the other Rex Millers. Nothing is forgotten, the second continues the movement of the first, nothing is destroyed by the plot development. The story goes on.
- A really bizarre story.
- The bizarre characters, repeated in their cohorts but different, are appreciated for themselves, as a painter loves colors and a writer loves words. The conversation continues.
- Where does it end?
- When in the conversation each can say the same thing.
- Without deviating from their own directions. Does that happen?
- Do you agree with me this far?
- If I say I agree with you you'll say this is a technique of conversation? A technology of conversation?
- Yes. I'll concede it to be a weird technology, if that makes you happy.
- It doesn't! And internet technology could be safely applied to it?
- Do you agree?
- Won't we be multiplying the weirdness in the process?
- And maybe the agreement at the end.
* Peanut Butter Entropy
3. See You At Starbucks
- It can't be true.
- Three different people hired to write a screenplay about terrorism and Indian mysticism at the same Starbucks? Come with me, we'll see who's there. One though may not talk to me.
- Why not?
- His therapist warned him not to.
- What did you do to him?
- Talked.
- It must be nice to be paid to have a conversation.
- I'll pay you a dime to get you started.
- Thank you. What should we talk about? The screenwriters at Starbucks? Are they all crazy people with psychologists?
- Yesterday one of them waited for closing time and asked for the left over sandwiches. He drove away in his brand new luxury car.
- You saw this?
- He offered me a ride. I asked him if he didn't think there was a better use of time for someone who could afford that car than waiting around to get stale sandwiches for free.
- What did he say?
- It's always good to save money.
- That's how he got rich. What about the third screenwriter?
- I haven't met him.
- Are you sure he exists?
- The other writers say they know him.
- Weird.
- Things happen at that Starbucks.
- Maybe I should go there. I don't have any pals.
- I thought I made a friend at another cafe I go to every morning.
- It didn't work out?
- Me and the world seem to have different ideas of friendship.
- What's your idea?
- What's yours?
- Someone I can rely on, I can tell my troubles to, won't lie to me.
- That's not friendship. Aristotle said there are three kinds of friendship: for pleasure, for usefulness, for living well. You're describing family, "bonding". A completely different aspect of life.
- Says you.
- Says Aristotle.
- I think the girl at the cafe - it was a girl? - didn't think you liked her. In my experience when you like someone liking is returned.
- Could be a misunderstanding.
- Yes. Here's your dime back.
- Why?
- I don't want to cheat you. You don't seem satisfied with the service.
- I'm used to getting conversation for free. For the extra dime something really special...
- Take the money.
- Alright. See you at Starbucks?
- Don't think so.
4. Funny Books
On the bus this afternoon, on my way to see the movie Francis Ha, I was reading this book that claims language, technology, in fact, all civilization is destructive. Better get rid of it all.
When I get off I ask directions from the first guy I see, tell him about civilization, reading the book and missing my stop. We're stuck with it, he responds. I say obviously he's smarter that the writer of the book, who three to five times on every page talks about our immiseration, corruption, destruction, defeat by civilization, laying down a massive amount of gloom and doom, when according to him what civilization is keeping us from is sweetness and light, pleasure and satisfaction. Civilization is time, time is repressed desire, he says, but isn't all this complaint an explosion of repressed desire? I'm supposed to share the jungle with this guy? I prefer the ordinary man on the street, victim of civilization, to this would-be savior from it.
What did he think he was doing writing this book, producing an example of the technology of thinking with language, that repudiates the technology of thinking with language?
Is he out of his mind? How does he not know he is out of his mind? Does he think he is giving us the last word on the subject, and after him, silence reigns?
There is no reason there cannot be a technology of language used to defend us from the technology of language. But language which is repetitious, expressive of misery and oppression, is that a likely candidate to get the world to shut up?
Technology takes something defined, puts it in relation to something else defined, and sees what happens. Then sets up the relation of parts again, sees if the result repeats. If it does, and that repetition is useful, the parts are attached, so as to make convenient a deliberate repetition. That is what a machine is, a convenience for creating repetition.
Civilization, according to the book on the bus, creates a division of labor. People become limited defined parts put in fixed relation to each other and repeatedly producing a defined result. The writer of the book is a specialist in writing books about the undesirability of the division of labor. He doesn't know that what he is doing as a specialist in writing those books is funny. This is because he doesn't know what comedy is.
Comedy is a technology. One defined human behavior is put in regular relation to another, a machine is got going for the sake of the expected result.
The parts of his book writer's comedy machine are: (1) his claim that division of labor and technology are ruining us (2) his being a civilized specialist using technology of language.
The machine set in motion, part in sync with part, produces the expected result: a writer writing against himself.
That is funny. What exactly is funny? Why was the man on the street funny, in the sense of seeing the machine and sharing his laughter with me, and I could live in the jungle with him and not the man behind the book on the bus?
Let me run my machine of civilized thinking a moment. Let's say the victim of civilization has some distance from civilization which the writer lacks.
What creates the distance? Laughter. And what is laughter? Laughter is language jamming. Ha. Ha. Ha. Response to the world. Response to the world. Response to the world. Laughter is a machine run amok.
Laughter wakes us up. Wakes us up to what? Wakes us up to technology being used against itself.
How does it do that? What does it mean to wake up?
We wake up from being a body, a part of a machine that responds constantly to the world, another part of the machine. When we remember, and desire, we are responding to images of the world not presently experienced. We are no longer responding directly to the world. We can do this before we learn language. Animals can do it also.
We civilized creatures, going by written records, have not been laughing for very long. Maybe the Greeks invented laughter 2500 years ago. It is a new technology. It is learned early and easily, and not specific to human beings, as everyone knows who's witnessed their pets laughing at them.
Comedy is a machine that, setting technology against technology, protects us from the dangers of technology, from technology making us stupid. We laugh at stupidity.
We laugh at the sight of us losing knowledge. In laughing we do something, we use technology against itself. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Comedy is a show of losing knowledge. But we respond to a sight of gaining knowledge, not like comedy by doing something, but by not doing anything. We rest, and call the sight we see while resting beautiful.
Rest in beauty returns us to our pre-civilized state where with reflection and desire we could free ourselves from being a machine, from being a body in fixed relation to the world around it. We rest and feel safe with what we have learned by the practice of civilized technologies, language among them.
Or something like this happens. Talking about these things is a developing technology. But still, facts are facts.
A fact is anything that happens. A fact is what we experience.
The fact is beauty exists, laughter exists. If the world is becoming more humorless and ugly, and technology is making the world humorless and ugly, the fact is we have the technology to do something about it.
That we aren't using the technology, another fact, what can I say?
Isn't it funny?
5. Married To The Business Of Buying
I kept hearing I'd got myself into an impossible marriage. No one admired me for it unless I showed them a picture of my wife. I kept hearing I was doing an impossible business and this almost everyone wondered at and approved. The wife was a wild, ambitious, story telling and story concealing Hungarian. The business was buying and selling old watches to other dealers doing the same. I tried to explain to all concerned that both impossible undertakings were both possible in the same way.
When you are married you don't have to look for someone to be with. When you buy and then sell things you don't have to look for something to buy: you are married to the business of buying. With my wife, my business was keeping up with her continual changes of mind about whether she wanted to be with me. Life with whatever new sort of person she had decided to be at that moment had to be renegotiated, re-bought, this work paid for by her with the pleasure I took in her company. But I had given up buying and selling watches, and she doubted I could be depended on in this business of marriage:
- You don't love me.
- I do.
- You don't.
- What you love about me is what makes you think I don't love you.
- What's that?
- The way I do business. The way I married you.
- How did you marry me?
- How did you marry me?
- When I sold watches, though I like watches and put every watch on my wrist, I wasn't attached to any of them. I liked the business, finding them, getting rid of them as soon as I could.
- You're saying you plan to get rid of me?
- That's just it: like one watch didn't interest me, the watch business did. Because you change your mind all the time you are not one wife, but a whole wife business.
- I love you because you think of me as a business? That's a new one. Who says I love you anyway?
- You do. You love me because you see you are an occupation for me, not a possession.
- If you work for me why don't you do what I want?
- I said you were my work, not that I worked for you.
- You're saying you plan to get rid of me?
- That's just it: like one watch didn't interest me, the watch business did. Because you change your mind all the time you are not one wife, but a whole wife business.
- I love you because you think of me as a business? That's a new one. Who says I love you anyway?
- You do. You love me because you see you are an occupation for me, not a possession.
- If you work for me why don't you do what I want?
- I said you were my work, not that I worked for you.
- What's the difference?
- I'm working on you, not for you.
- I'm working on you too.
- You see?
- See what?
- As long as were both being paid we can't get tired of each other. Eternal love.
- You'll see.
6. Beverly Hills Yard Sale
A very attractive woman, showing off her well maintained form in tight running gear, she must have been about fifty years old. Sitting outside at a patio table eating pieces of grilled, marinated chicken with her fingers. She says to me sit down, hungry? Have something to eat. I sit down. I say I'm surprised to see someone like her holding a yard sale.
- Why?
- You don't look like you need the money.
- Sometimes it's good to get rid of things.
- Where did the clothes come from?
- They belonged to my French boyfriend.
- What happened to him?
- He died.
- How old was he?
- 35.
- He was living with you? Why didn't you marry him?
- I had many husbands.
- What happened to them? Died also?
- No. I divorced them.
- Why did you do that?
- I don't believe in being unhappy.
- How did they make you unhappy?
- The first got old, lost interest in everything.
- You included? And the second? How many were there?
- Four. The second was in a lot of pain. Complained a lot about his back.
- The third?
- He was alright. But he played around with other women.
- The fourth?
- He was nervous, worked all the time, didn't come home.
- So you married once every seven years?
- Yes, that is about right.
- And the boyfriend. Were you unhappy with him too? That's why you didn't marry him?
- I wasn't with him long enough.
- How did he die? You didn't kill him?
- No.
- You wear your men out.
- You could say that.
- But you take good care of yourself. You run.
- My current boyfriend is less than 30. I have to keep in shape. I'm "sexting" him now.
- Meaning sex text messaging? Your boyfriend, the dead one, must have been about my size.
- Yes.
- I'm worried about wearing clothes from one of your men.
- Why?
- You know the line, losing one husband is bad luck, losing two looks like carelessness?
- No. Who said that?
- Oscar Wilde. OK. I'll risk it. I'll take the jacket and the shirt.
- They suit you.
- That's what I'm afraid of.
7. The Conrad Complex
Now I like every member of this family and I am going to write bad things about them. It is because I like them that I am disappointed in them. I wanted my wife's mother and father and brothers to help me hold onto her, and instead it turns out they approve of her leaving me behind in search of more lucrative business.
First, the dog, by the name of Conrad. He is important to the story, because his character is easily drawn and, according to my wife, pretty much the same as my own. This fearsome beast is not affectionate and hardly notices attentions, he loves to eat, he sits drowsing on the porch before the house door, rousing himself to bark at the gypsy horse carriages when they pass by on the street. He is tricky: he loves to go out into the village streets. When you come home, he will placidly wait just inside the yard for you to swing open the gate, then leap into a run and be out on the street before you know what is happening. Deceptive, love of roaming, unaffectionate and distant except when there was a prospect of food. My wife thought all this about me, seriously and not seriously. More the list expressed her dissatisfaction with my character. But like the dog Conrad, I was part of the family, I belonged to the house. When in her rages she would throw me out, the family house would immediately seem empty, and she would want to call me back, and would do it too, if her other plans allowed.
Her love for Conrad was very strong. When the family all sat down to the table for dinner, she would ruffle my hair and shake me up. Her father would comment, "The Conrad Complex".
My wife was sensitive to betrayal of her affection by her dog, and had a similar story to tell about her father. When she was a young girl she was her father's favorite. She used to spend all her time with him, and even slept in the same bed. But when she was 12, he changed towards her. Her mother was jealous. He expelled her from his room, and it seemed from his heart too. It hurt her very much.
Despite this, they were very close. My wife told her father almost everything that happened in her life, holding back not the smallest personal detail. According to her, her father had taught her to use what power in the world she had to best advantage, and he approved of her marriage to the very much older billionaire first husband. According to her childhood friend Barna, he also seriously expected his child to take care of him in his old age with the proceeds of her liaisons with men. Also according to Barna, her internet computer expert brother Robbi's first web site offered escort services, and she was the first girl he listed.
When I recounted this to my Budapest Professor friend, he explained that I saw too much in these things. Sex was bought and sold, it was usual and ever-present. My wife's family was just more open and direct about it. He liked to have female companionship when he came to Hungary from England to do research, and he expected he would have to pay for it, in one way or another. In fact, those very words I had heard from the mouth of my wife's ex-boyfriend.
He had arrived one early evening at my wife's apartment, where she was holding a small kitchen knife and waving it about, demanding I return the dress and Ipod she said she knew I had stolen. This was really crazy, and I had been through its like before. The ex-boyfriend, whom I recognized from a dinner party at the country house not too distant in time, chased me down and cornered me, threw a punch at my chest, and demanded I give him my wallet. I reminded him I knew who he was, and handed it over. I said I would get it back soon, the police were on their way. He said he knew how to handle the police. And that if I wanted to live with his ex-girlfriend I had to pay, "just like everyone else."
Later the truth came out. The missing articles had been taken by the ex-husband who had been visiting her. They were his gifts to her, payments if you will, he was taking back because she was undeserving. He had confessed. The professor too had been caught in a crisis of payment. A lover had had an abortion, and had gotten permission to take the fetus home from the hospital. It became, between the two of them, a symbol of his murderous selfish ungrateful unwillingness to marry his lover. She buried it in his front lawn. He dug it up, and reburied it in the nearby forest. Then dug it up again, when he worried it would be stumbled upon...
8. Mystical Experience And Spiritual Experience
- Is there any difference between mysticism and spiritualism?
- I would use mysticism and spiritualism to refer to different things, mysticism more about short lived "mystical experience" and spiritualism to a whole continuous ethical way of life.
- Give me some examples.
- A mystical experience can be as sudden and simple as working on your computer all evening and stepping outside, looking up at the moon, and you're out. You feel a relation to the moon, but neither the moon nor yourself is an object of your attention. Your own altered state has caught you.
- An epiphany.
- Yes. Now compare spiritual experience. I told you this story...
- We love your stories.
- I was living in Budapest and my wife, urged by her ex-boyfriend, had decided to rob me with him. He showed up at the apartment, gave me a few demonstration pushes and jabs, and demanded I hand over my wallet. I did, saying I'd see him at the police station in a few hours. That's what happened.
- You knew him.
- Yes.
- He wasn't afraid?
- This is Budapest, corruption is omnipresent. He told me he could handle the police.
- What happened then?
- My wife and her friend the robber left, I called the police, who arrived, asked questions, decided they'd drive me to the station. I was told to take a seat on a bench, and as I predicted, robber, with wife, soon were escorted through the door into the station lobby. They went into a room off to the side, the door closed, and I waited. Now for the spiritual experience.
- In the police station?.
- Yes. Unlike the experience of me and the moon, I wasn't particularly aware of my relation to the world. I was aware that I was certain nothing had changed in my relation to my wife. That what was happening here was entirely without significance.
- You didn't feel betrayed by her?
- No. I was used to being betrayed by her. It wasn't interesting.
- What was interesting then?
- Holding onto love.
- You were astonished you could do it, and that was the spiritual experience?
- Yes. The experience of no change, no matter how much appearances changed.
- You weren't ashamed of being duped?
- No. If anything I was somewhat grateful.
- Grateful for being robbed by your wife?
- Grateful I could find amusement sitting on that bench, watching the closed door behind which my wife and robber friend were negotiating with the Budapest Police.
- But didn't you want anything? Why did you call the police in the first place?
- I had to report my passport stolen to apply for a replacement. And I wanted to see what would happen.
- What happened?
- The police came out, handed me my passport, asked if I was satisfied.
- Were you?
- My wife marched out of the room and without turning her head left the station. I knew I'd see her again.
6. Beverly Hills Yard Sale
A very attractive woman, showing off her well maintained form in tight running gear, she must have been about fifty years old. Sitting outside at a patio table eating pieces of grilled, marinated chicken with her fingers. She says to me sit down, hungry? Have something to eat. I sit down. I say I'm surprised to see someone like her holding a yard sale.
- Why?
- You don't look like you need the money.
- Sometimes it's good to get rid of things.
- Where did the clothes come from?
- They belonged to my French boyfriend.
- What happened to him?
- He died.
- How old was he?
- 35.
- He was living with you? Why didn't you marry him?
- I had many husbands.
- What happened to them? Died also?
- No. I divorced them.
- Why did you do that?
- I don't believe in being unhappy.
- How did they make you unhappy?
- The first got old, lost interest in everything.
- You included? And the second? How many were there?
- Four. The second was in a lot of pain. Complained a lot about his back.
- The third?
- He was alright. But he played around with other women.
- The fourth?
- He was nervous, worked all the time, didn't come home.
- So you married once every seven years?
- Yes, that is about right.
- And the boyfriend. Were you unhappy with him too? That's why you didn't marry him?
- I wasn't with him long enough.
- How did he die? You didn't kill him?
- No.
- You wear your men out.
- You could say that.
- But you take good care of yourself. You run.
- My current boyfriend is less than 30. I have to keep in shape. I'm "sexting" him now.
- Meaning sex text messaging? Your boyfriend, the dead one, must have been about my size.
- Yes.
- I'm worried about wearing clothes from one of your men.
- Why?
- You know the line, losing one husband is bad luck, losing two looks like carelessness?
- No. Who said that?
- Oscar Wilde. OK. I'll risk it. I'll take the jacket and the shirt.
- They suit you.
- That's what I'm afraid of.
7. The Conrad Complex
Now I like every member of this family and I am going to write bad things about them. It is because I like them that I am disappointed in them. I wanted my wife's mother and father and brothers to help me hold onto her, and instead it turns out they approve of her leaving me behind in search of more lucrative business.
First, the dog, by the name of Conrad. He is important to the story, because his character is easily drawn and, according to my wife, pretty much the same as my own. This fearsome beast is not affectionate and hardly notices attentions, he loves to eat, he sits drowsing on the porch before the house door, rousing himself to bark at the gypsy horse carriages when they pass by on the street. He is tricky: he loves to go out into the village streets. When you come home, he will placidly wait just inside the yard for you to swing open the gate, then leap into a run and be out on the street before you know what is happening. Deceptive, love of roaming, unaffectionate and distant except when there was a prospect of food. My wife thought all this about me, seriously and not seriously. More the list expressed her dissatisfaction with my character. But like the dog Conrad, I was part of the family, I belonged to the house. When in her rages she would throw me out, the family house would immediately seem empty, and she would want to call me back, and would do it too, if her other plans allowed.
Her love for Conrad was very strong. When the family all sat down to the table for dinner, she would ruffle my hair and shake me up. Her father would comment, "The Conrad Complex".
My wife was sensitive to betrayal of her affection by her dog, and had a similar story to tell about her father. When she was a young girl she was her father's favorite. She used to spend all her time with him, and even slept in the same bed. But when she was 12, he changed towards her. Her mother was jealous. He expelled her from his room, and it seemed from his heart too. It hurt her very much.
Despite this, they were very close. My wife told her father almost everything that happened in her life, holding back not the smallest personal detail. According to her, her father had taught her to use what power in the world she had to best advantage, and he approved of her marriage to the very much older billionaire first husband. According to her childhood friend Barna, he also seriously expected his child to take care of him in his old age with the proceeds of her liaisons with men. Also according to Barna, her internet computer expert brother Robbi's first web site offered escort services, and she was the first girl he listed.
When I recounted this to my Budapest Professor friend, he explained that I saw too much in these things. Sex was bought and sold, it was usual and ever-present. My wife's family was just more open and direct about it. He liked to have female companionship when he came to Hungary from England to do research, and he expected he would have to pay for it, in one way or another. In fact, those very words I had heard from the mouth of my wife's ex-boyfriend.
He had arrived one early evening at my wife's apartment, where she was holding a small kitchen knife and waving it about, demanding I return the dress and Ipod she said she knew I had stolen. This was really crazy, and I had been through its like before. The ex-boyfriend, whom I recognized from a dinner party at the country house not too distant in time, chased me down and cornered me, threw a punch at my chest, and demanded I give him my wallet. I reminded him I knew who he was, and handed it over. I said I would get it back soon, the police were on their way. He said he knew how to handle the police. And that if I wanted to live with his ex-girlfriend I had to pay, "just like everyone else."
Later the truth came out. The missing articles had been taken by the ex-husband who had been visiting her. They were his gifts to her, payments if you will, he was taking back because she was undeserving. He had confessed. The professor too had been caught in a crisis of payment. A lover had had an abortion, and had gotten permission to take the fetus home from the hospital. It became, between the two of them, a symbol of his murderous selfish ungrateful unwillingness to marry his lover. She buried it in his front lawn. He dug it up, and reburied it in the nearby forest. Then dug it up again, when he worried it would be stumbled upon...
8. Mystical Experience And Spiritual Experience
- Is there any difference between mysticism and spiritualism?
- I would use mysticism and spiritualism to refer to different things, mysticism more about short lived "mystical experience" and spiritualism to a whole continuous ethical way of life.
- Give me some examples.
- A mystical experience can be as sudden and simple as working on your computer all evening and stepping outside, looking up at the moon, and you're out. You feel a relation to the moon, but neither the moon nor yourself is an object of your attention. Your own altered state has caught you.
- An epiphany.
- Yes. Now compare spiritual experience. I told you this story...
- We love your stories.
- I was living in Budapest and my wife, urged by her ex-boyfriend, had decided to rob me with him. He showed up at the apartment, gave me a few demonstration pushes and jabs, and demanded I hand over my wallet. I did, saying I'd see him at the police station in a few hours. That's what happened.
- You knew him.
- Yes.
- He wasn't afraid?
- This is Budapest, corruption is omnipresent. He told me he could handle the police.
- What happened then?
- My wife and her friend the robber left, I called the police, who arrived, asked questions, decided they'd drive me to the station. I was told to take a seat on a bench, and as I predicted, robber, with wife, soon were escorted through the door into the station lobby. They went into a room off to the side, the door closed, and I waited. Now for the spiritual experience.
- In the police station?.
- Yes. Unlike the experience of me and the moon, I wasn't particularly aware of my relation to the world. I was aware that I was certain nothing had changed in my relation to my wife. That what was happening here was entirely without significance.
- You didn't feel betrayed by her?
- No. I was used to being betrayed by her. It wasn't interesting.
- What was interesting then?
- Holding onto love.
- You were astonished you could do it, and that was the spiritual experience?
- Yes. The experience of no change, no matter how much appearances changed.
- You weren't ashamed of being duped?
- No. If anything I was somewhat grateful.
- Grateful for being robbed by your wife?
- Grateful I could find amusement sitting on that bench, watching the closed door behind which my wife and robber friend were negotiating with the Budapest Police.
- But didn't you want anything? Why did you call the police in the first place?
- I had to report my passport stolen to apply for a replacement. And I wanted to see what would happen.
- What happened?
- The police came out, handed me my passport, asked if I was satisfied.
- Were you?
- My wife marched out of the room and without turning her head left the station. I knew I'd see her again.
9. Kabbalah Center
- What is in it for me?
- The Kabbalah will enable you to get the maximum of joy and happiness in life.
- I have all the joy and happiness I need. Will it get me money?
- It will teach you to want only enough money for what you need.
- I don't need the teaching, will it get me the money?
- Why are you so concerned with money?
- I'll be out of money in a few weeks. Can the Kabbalah teach me how to live without money?
- If you need money, it will enable you to get it.
- I believe it has enabled you to get money, but it is different for you.
- Why?
- You are speculators in advice giving. Your center's little book says the secret is "sharing", and you make a living sharing the secret with unhappy people, a good number of whom will share their money with you out of gratitude.
- What is wrong with that?
- What happens when you share with happy people? They take what you offer and go on to the next sharer. Isn't that the destiny of Kabbalah sharers not in the business of Kabbalah selling?
- You can take the high road and not care. It is the inner self that matters.
- Well I'm concerned about that too. Am I not the instrument of your determination to share? You don't really love me, right? Your inner self love my inner self? I don't see love in your eyes. It seems to me you don't offer me either love or money.
- Again money. Stop thinking about money and love will come.
- And how am I to enjoy love if I am dead?
- Are you serious?
- Sure.
- Read the book, and let me know what happens.
- You mean if I am still alive.
- Jokers like you don't die so easy.
10. Jews In Beverly Hills
At the market yesterday afternoon I got into a conversation. The bearded, warmly dressed, self composed man obviously was not from around here, and was looking over the selection of left over breads he says because where he is living he has no way to store or cook food and ends up throwing out expensive breads if he buys them. He has come back from Europe, to receive hospital treatment. When he asks me from out of nowhere if I am Jewish, I ask him if he is staying at the house and temple a Jewish group operates in the neighborhood. He is. I ask him if he knows the family I met at the cafe, mother and two sons, one an actor, the other an aspiring genius. Yes, he is there, yes they are there too. Something must have drawn me to him: he has been greatly disturbed by this family, he just got finished writing to his friend in Finland about them, she can hardly believe such people exist. They're common here in L.A., I say. What do I think of them? I don't know, but they seem to be playing some game. When I heard some lower tones escape from the younger son I asked him, the genius with the high fluting voice why he talked so funny. He answered that old men and children like it. So then why not talk to them that way, I said, and, if you can, talk to the rest of us like we do? He said he wasn't sure if he liked the way I was talking to him. He might have to reconsider talking with me, in general he only liked the people who like his mother. And I don't, I ask? The last time I talked with his mother, we had this conversation:
- Do you know where in Los Angeles I can get a good hamburger?
- I don't eat out.
- But you are from here.
- If I ate out I wouldn't want a fast food hamburger.
- Do you know where the best hospital here is to get an operation?
- The most famous ones?
- Yes
- Sure, I can give you names.
- Yes, give me them. I need an operation. That's why I came here.
- You came to Los Angeles to get an operation without any idea of particular doctors, treatments, hospitals?
- Yes.
Hearing this the man at the market produces a groan of disgust. The rabbi where he lives is taken in by these people. The temple gets taken in by people like them, when they should help people like you, he says.
- They aren't interested in people like me.
- Why not?
- When I first returned to live in Los Angeles, just about two years ago now, after seventeen years living in Europe, thrown out by my wife in Hungary and back in the city with not a friend or relative, staying in the hostel in Santa Monica, I thought to go by a temple and ask them if they could introduce me to people, so I could see what I could do here. One rabbi from a temple on La Brea told me flat out that since I wasn't a member he had no time or resources to involve himself with me. Another rabbi, whom I had met briefly at an opening celebration the year before with my wife when she was interested in Judaism, said he remembered me but since I was not a member he had no time or resources.... At another temple on Beverly, I was invited into the kitchen, offered food, told by an affable man with burning dark eyes that it wasn't my fault, but I was going to hell. Who's fault was it? I ask. Your family's. They didn't educate you to be a Jew, he explains. At a Santa Monica branch of the organization that operates the house you and the family stay at I go in to ask the same questions, and am invited to the rabbi's house for a Sabbath dinner. Various people who fail to identify themselves ask my story, and wander off without a comment. We eat outside in the garden of the rabbi's house. I go inside to wash my hands, stop at the book shelves in the living room to look over the books. A few papers are sitting on one shelf and I take them up, a print from an internet site on the subject of public perceptions of Israel. A man approaches me and shouts, what are you doing?
- Reading.
- Who said you could?
- Who said I couldn't?
- Those papers are private. Do you always look at other people's books in their houses?
- Yes, in fact, I do always, when I am invited over.
- You weren't invited to invade the privacy of the rabbi.
- Why was I invited?
- What did they tell you? Who invited you?
- The rabbi.
- He doesn't want you to do what you are doing. Who are you?
- Who are you?
- Get out of this house!
Incredible, says the man in the market. Love your neighbor, says the commandment. These rabbis should be ashamed of themselves, they are supposed to be religious people. Where is their kindness, sympathy, where is their love? I say they are not people of religion, they are politicians, who normally have no shame and would have difficulty telling you what shame is. What a world we live in, he says.
11. Bad Girls And Broken Machines
Everything important will come. Just sit here and watch and wait.
- What is in it for me?
- The Kabbalah will enable you to get the maximum of joy and happiness in life.
- I have all the joy and happiness I need. Will it get me money?
- It will teach you to want only enough money for what you need.
- I don't need the teaching, will it get me the money?
- Why are you so concerned with money?
- I'll be out of money in a few weeks. Can the Kabbalah teach me how to live without money?
- If you need money, it will enable you to get it.
- I believe it has enabled you to get money, but it is different for you.
- Why?
- You are speculators in advice giving. Your center's little book says the secret is "sharing", and you make a living sharing the secret with unhappy people, a good number of whom will share their money with you out of gratitude.
- What is wrong with that?
- What happens when you share with happy people? They take what you offer and go on to the next sharer. Isn't that the destiny of Kabbalah sharers not in the business of Kabbalah selling?
- You can take the high road and not care. It is the inner self that matters.
- Well I'm concerned about that too. Am I not the instrument of your determination to share? You don't really love me, right? Your inner self love my inner self? I don't see love in your eyes. It seems to me you don't offer me either love or money.
- Again money. Stop thinking about money and love will come.
- And how am I to enjoy love if I am dead?
- Are you serious?
- Sure.
- Read the book, and let me know what happens.
- You mean if I am still alive.
- Jokers like you don't die so easy.
10. Jews In Beverly Hills
At the market yesterday afternoon I got into a conversation. The bearded, warmly dressed, self composed man obviously was not from around here, and was looking over the selection of left over breads he says because where he is living he has no way to store or cook food and ends up throwing out expensive breads if he buys them. He has come back from Europe, to receive hospital treatment. When he asks me from out of nowhere if I am Jewish, I ask him if he is staying at the house and temple a Jewish group operates in the neighborhood. He is. I ask him if he knows the family I met at the cafe, mother and two sons, one an actor, the other an aspiring genius. Yes, he is there, yes they are there too. Something must have drawn me to him: he has been greatly disturbed by this family, he just got finished writing to his friend in Finland about them, she can hardly believe such people exist. They're common here in L.A., I say. What do I think of them? I don't know, but they seem to be playing some game. When I heard some lower tones escape from the younger son I asked him, the genius with the high fluting voice why he talked so funny. He answered that old men and children like it. So then why not talk to them that way, I said, and, if you can, talk to the rest of us like we do? He said he wasn't sure if he liked the way I was talking to him. He might have to reconsider talking with me, in general he only liked the people who like his mother. And I don't, I ask? The last time I talked with his mother, we had this conversation:
- Do you know where in Los Angeles I can get a good hamburger?
- I don't eat out.
- But you are from here.
- If I ate out I wouldn't want a fast food hamburger.
- Do you know where the best hospital here is to get an operation?
- The most famous ones?
- Yes
- Sure, I can give you names.
- Yes, give me them. I need an operation. That's why I came here.
- You came to Los Angeles to get an operation without any idea of particular doctors, treatments, hospitals?
- Yes.
Hearing this the man at the market produces a groan of disgust. The rabbi where he lives is taken in by these people. The temple gets taken in by people like them, when they should help people like you, he says.
- They aren't interested in people like me.
- Why not?
- When I first returned to live in Los Angeles, just about two years ago now, after seventeen years living in Europe, thrown out by my wife in Hungary and back in the city with not a friend or relative, staying in the hostel in Santa Monica, I thought to go by a temple and ask them if they could introduce me to people, so I could see what I could do here. One rabbi from a temple on La Brea told me flat out that since I wasn't a member he had no time or resources to involve himself with me. Another rabbi, whom I had met briefly at an opening celebration the year before with my wife when she was interested in Judaism, said he remembered me but since I was not a member he had no time or resources.... At another temple on Beverly, I was invited into the kitchen, offered food, told by an affable man with burning dark eyes that it wasn't my fault, but I was going to hell. Who's fault was it? I ask. Your family's. They didn't educate you to be a Jew, he explains. At a Santa Monica branch of the organization that operates the house you and the family stay at I go in to ask the same questions, and am invited to the rabbi's house for a Sabbath dinner. Various people who fail to identify themselves ask my story, and wander off without a comment. We eat outside in the garden of the rabbi's house. I go inside to wash my hands, stop at the book shelves in the living room to look over the books. A few papers are sitting on one shelf and I take them up, a print from an internet site on the subject of public perceptions of Israel. A man approaches me and shouts, what are you doing?
- Reading.
- Who said you could?
- Who said I couldn't?
- Those papers are private. Do you always look at other people's books in their houses?
- Yes, in fact, I do always, when I am invited over.
- You weren't invited to invade the privacy of the rabbi.
- Why was I invited?
- What did they tell you? Who invited you?
- The rabbi.
- He doesn't want you to do what you are doing. Who are you?
- Who are you?
- Get out of this house!
Incredible, says the man in the market. Love your neighbor, says the commandment. These rabbis should be ashamed of themselves, they are supposed to be religious people. Where is their kindness, sympathy, where is their love? I say they are not people of religion, they are politicians, who normally have no shame and would have difficulty telling you what shame is. What a world we live in, he says.
11. Bad Girls And Broken Machines
Everything important will come. Just sit here and watch and wait.
The writer of the best seller "Bad Girls" is in the arm-chair beside mine, her publicist from England in the chair angled towards us. I can hear everything they say. It's not a problem for them.
They are talking about means of getting the book to stay on the best seller lists as long as possible. The anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's death is approaching. They will be participating in the celebration at an exhibit of lesser known photos at a gallery across the street.
The book according to the author is meant to teach ordinary women the secret tricks Bad Girls like Marilyn Monroe play to get men to do things for them. Such as give them gifts, marry them, fall in love with them. The web site dedicated to the book illustrates this with the trick used by the ordinary good girl who recently caught the prince of England by wearing a transparent dress showing her undergarments.
The author is a psychologist who goes on talk shows, and gives private therapy to those with love problems. Her audience and patients are broken machines, and she knows how to fix them.
The Good Girls aren't supposed to become bad, only compete better with the Bad Girls by using their tricks. Fair and open competition. Men are machines, women are machines, the more you know of their functioning the better you will do.
Competition evidently is for the natural resources necessary to keep the machines working. Love is one of these resources. It is produced by certain machines movements in contact with other machines in movement.
The Bad Girl is a damaged machine that works specially well in getting things that as a machine as a whole it can't use. The Good Girl adjusts her mechanism to the efficiency of the bad girl, but keeps in mind other requirements.
The psychologist author says that poor Marilyn Monroe was traumatized in her past by not having a father. Bad girls usually have father problems. The famous "Sex-Siren" used allure which is a good thing for something bad, uselessly attracting one man after another.
All this is familiar to cafe patrons like myself. You are bad because of something that happened to you in the past. Repair yourself by understanding what people did to you.
In the other corner of the cafe is someone not presently living telling a different story: no bad man can hurt a good man, no bad woman can hurt a good woman, no bad woman can hurt a good man, and no bad man can hurt a good woman. (That covers it.)
Something in the expression I see in the faces of strangers says they remember a time they were not machines. Tells me I am not bad now, only have forgotten myself. I interrupt the two women in their conversation.
- I know something about Bad Girls.
- Really?
- Yes, I was married to one. I think you are wrong.
- Why?
- Men are not tricked by them. Not exactly. What you don't understand is that the men you call "Sitting Duck" victims of Bad Girls are just like them willing to pay with the poor functioning of their mechanism as a whole for a thrilling technical efficiency in the matter of love. They are a couple of machine breakers. They love breaking machines. They love breaking the machine of love.
- You're a writer?
- As well as a broken machine can write.
The women get back to the business of book promotion.
12. The Guru Of Beverly Hills
- Have you seen Teddy?
- Last night at the market.
- His mother sent me to look for him. She's worried.
- That he'll give away all his money?
- He's not answering his phone.
- Probably avoiding calls of his friends asking to be paid back. I wrote him a message this morning.
- He borrows money from you?
- Yes. You too?
- Yes. He never pays back.
- And because you're camped out in a corner of his living room you can't insist.
- I'm trying to move out. How much does he owe you?
- Only a little. I've written stories arguing debts don't have to be repaid.
- Then why do you ask?
- Debts don't have to be paid between friends. I don't know if he's a friend.
- Why? He wants to help you.
- There's something vicious in the way he handles money.
- He's not vicious. Every day his mother gives him money, and every day he gives it away.
- What is his relation to the people he gives money to? The day I met him a couple months ago I asked him to sum up the wisdom he claimed to have achieved studying Jewish texts, and do you know what he said?
- What?
- He'd learned that the only people he should care about were his family.
- Then why does he continue to give away fifty or a hundred dollars everyday to strangers?
- Yes, Why? What is he up to? He goes from one desperate wanderer of the streets to another, gives a dollar, two dollars, five, and moves on. He is careful not to know them, not to establish obligation. There is no past and no future to the multitude of transactions he repeats all through the night. It is a perfect market economy, exchanges that are nothing but a succession of relations between enemies.
- But he's giving away money! What is he getting in exchange?
- A sense of power, of importance. He's getting people to listen to him lay down the rules of religion, only god is real, lust is an illusion, everything is lust. He gets distraction in his own battle against the illusion of lust, gets delay of his inevitable going to strip clubs with you and your other friends.
- But he really tries to help people.
- Paying a dollar or two each before he goes back to his million dollar Beverly Hills apartment to sleep through the day, rest for his next hard night's work giving away money and going to strip clubs.
- You'll never change him.
- See that open top bus, Hollywood Tours? They drive thousands of tourists around the city. Imagine an extension of the business where the buses take the new class of American super rich around to the haunts of the dispossessed and desperate, deboarding briefly at select corners so they can hand out dollar and five dollar bills, along with their few well chosen words of advice and encouragement, then reboarding the bus and on to the next corner. The future of our country.
- The people won't allow it.
- You won't allow it? Living in the corner of this guy's living room?
- It won't be long.
- Meanwhile, in Hollywood, where they used to sell movie star maps they've updated to selling maps marked with corner stops of the charity tours so the great American people can wait there to receive their hand-outs. You know, you can stop me making a fool of myself talking like this.
- You like Teddy.
- Sure.
- You know how to talk, to write. He knows money. He uses what he knows.
- He can't save the world through money when money is what's destroying it.
13. Spies On Spies
- What are you writing?
- About that woman you saw me with at Starbucks. Who you said looked at you like she hated you.
- Did she?
- Yes. She told me she hated men like you. Had a boyfriend once... I'm writing about you too.
- What about me?
- I'm writing again about the Internet.
- It's an obsession.
- The Internet is a model of craziness. I'd asked the girl on my left what she was reading. A book about a psychopath. What kind? Multiple personalities. Did she know, I asked, that some psychologists think that a real case of multiple personalities hasn't been proven to exist, that patients, knowing that psychologists look for multiple personalities, put on a show of having them?
- What did she say?
- Nothing. She was the sort who didn't want to encourage people of my sort talking to her.
- What sort are you, is she?
- She's a seller of beauty, I'm not a buyer, not qualified with money to be seriously in the market.
- You should treat women just like men.
- I don't?
- No. You are rude to men, but nice to women. I treat everyone the same.
- Rudely?
- Yes. If they don't like it, too bad.
- You're not qualified to talk to her either. The other woman you're disqualified with, the one you saw me with yesterday, I ended up talking to for four hours. She sat down next to me outside here, asked me if I was a doctor. She told me she was afraid of dying, had a fatal disease. No one would go to the hospital with her for the operation. If she didn't get it, she could die any time. Her mother wouldn't come. Her father died insane, without a will, there was this lawyer who says her father wrote a letter assigning her mother 40 percent ownership in the apartment she lives in, she didn't know what to do about it, didn't know what happened to all her father's money, tens of millions of dollars, a private detective wants two thousand dollars advance to look for the money, her mother won't pay, offers him half of anything he can find...
- Are you going to see her again?
- You like that type, I know. You want to give her advice, tell her what god says she should do. Deliver messages from god to you to the girl. If I pass her on to you I should get a commission. Unfortunately she hates you.
- Is she coming here?
- She'll probably sleep all day after talking all night.
- What about her disease?
- This is the interesting part. After about the second hour of talking with her...
- What did you say?
- Tried to get the details. It turned out that the mother who didn't care about her was calling her every night, it would be ungrateful of her she said not to appreciate it, that the doctors were telling her that she did not have the fatal disease, that only an operation could prove that she did not, that her mother had promised to leave in her will the 40 percent ownership in the apartment, which turned out to be worth 1.2 million dollars. Rich, not dying, loving mother, living alone in a million dollar apartment.
- I want to meet her.
- You wish. And what about your rude talk? And anyway, weren't you telling me yesterday the opposite? I told you how I picked a fight with the guard at the Hammer Museum.
- I don't remember.
- Closing time, I had to leave the courtyard where I like to go read sometimes when I'm in Westwood. I didn't like the way he talked to me.
- He talked to you like a man.
- I replied to him like a monster. One monster to another. I felt like fighting. Gave him a piece of my mind, which was on the corporate ownership of UCLA which controlled the museum and hired psychopaths like the him, the guard.
- You called him a psychopath?
- Sure, wasn't he? Aren't you, isn't the girl with the million dollar apartment?
- What about you?
- I told you before, I'm the only one in the world who's not crazy.
- Your problem is you want to fight the world. The Torah says you have to be devious, clever. You make peace by deceiving your enemies, placating them, calming them.
- Yeah. And you just told me I shouldn't be nice to girls. Which is it? Should I fight them or make peace with them?
- It all fits together on a higher level you can't see in your way of thinking.
- Only disclosed to the select. Ok. That brings me back to networks. I'd read this piece by a Toronto sociologist who claimed that it was a myth that the internet was isolating individuals. In fact, he wrote, people were still leaving their computers to meet in real life, but with not a mere handful of connections, now with thousands, they could choose the best person to go to for a particular purpose. The internet was deepening social connections, not weakening them. What do you think?
- I use the internet to meet girls.
- To be rude to them. You go through them quick. You're a psychopath. Actually, that's my idea: the internet is turning the whole world into psychopaths. Deliberately put on multiple personalities. Think about it. What's the difference between what we're doing here, real conversation, and sending messages back and forth on the internet?
- It's faster.
- Chat can be fast. No. The difference is that before you respond you can think: should I respond to someone else first? You can think, will anyone else see this message, if it is a public post? You can think what kind of image of yourself you would like to promote. We're like spies, gathering information from secret redoubt, who if we respond at all first put on a disguise before the in-person meeting to making a message drop.
- I don't understand.
- I mean what you just told me: people want to do the work of god, be devious, clever, make peace with the world by applying to it highly thought-through, the most placatory response.
- What's wrong with that?
- I like your first idea better, being equally rude to everyone. That's more like conversation. You keep talking to the same person looking for something you can agree on, don't stop until you come up with a single statement that applies to all you both have said since the conversation began. In systems theory, according to the guys I watch on the internet, conversation builds a model. The model is a statement, "if this then that", which when you run the experiment of putting in everything both of you have said, works without exception.
- Then what's the model here?
- Psychopaths. Multiple personalities. The rich girl who takes attitudes to the world to placate it, one after another, which don't make any sense when added up. You with your advice from god to be a politician with the world but be rude to every individual in it. Every individual who goes out to meet one of thousands of contacts and have a deeper, more devious, clever and psychopathic experience.
- You're negative. You'll never get anywhere.
- How can I when every time I meet someone I meet with this deep-connection deviousness, calculation of peace making, everyone doing maintenance on their personal network. I like to fight.
- Do you every ask yourself why?
- Of course! I like to have conversations, to reach agreement, to make a model of life.
- What good are models?
- That's like asking what good is knowledge, what good is art, what good is truth.
- What good are they? All we need do is love.
- Love all the multiple personality psychopaths in the world. That's why you wander around Beverly Hills all night giving the desperate a dollar or two.
- Yes.
- And go back home to your mother, to your own million dollar apartment, to the control center of your network of psychopaths.
- We're all psychopath.
- To end this conversation I propose a model, a definition of "psychopath".
- What is it?
- A psychopath is someone who doesn't know that not everyone has a multiple personality. A psychopath is someone who doesn't know everyone is not a psychopath.
14. The Presidents
- When does the bookstore close?
15. Possibilities
- I've got a question for you.
- Alright.
- First I'll tell you another story. Not the one I want to tell.
- Why tell it then?
- You'll see. Last night, when the cafe closed, that's one o'clock now, I was crossing the street right there, and a beautiful woman leans out the window of her shiny new car and asks,
12. The Guru Of Beverly Hills
- Have you seen Teddy?
- Last night at the market.
- His mother sent me to look for him. She's worried.
- That he'll give away all his money?
- He's not answering his phone.
- Probably avoiding calls of his friends asking to be paid back. I wrote him a message this morning.
- He borrows money from you?
- Yes. You too?
- Yes. He never pays back.
- And because you're camped out in a corner of his living room you can't insist.
- I'm trying to move out. How much does he owe you?
- Only a little. I've written stories arguing debts don't have to be repaid.
- Then why do you ask?
- Debts don't have to be paid between friends. I don't know if he's a friend.
- Why? He wants to help you.
- There's something vicious in the way he handles money.
- He's not vicious. Every day his mother gives him money, and every day he gives it away.
- What is his relation to the people he gives money to? The day I met him a couple months ago I asked him to sum up the wisdom he claimed to have achieved studying Jewish texts, and do you know what he said?
- What?
- He'd learned that the only people he should care about were his family.
- Then why does he continue to give away fifty or a hundred dollars everyday to strangers?
- Yes, Why? What is he up to? He goes from one desperate wanderer of the streets to another, gives a dollar, two dollars, five, and moves on. He is careful not to know them, not to establish obligation. There is no past and no future to the multitude of transactions he repeats all through the night. It is a perfect market economy, exchanges that are nothing but a succession of relations between enemies.
- But he's giving away money! What is he getting in exchange?
- A sense of power, of importance. He's getting people to listen to him lay down the rules of religion, only god is real, lust is an illusion, everything is lust. He gets distraction in his own battle against the illusion of lust, gets delay of his inevitable going to strip clubs with you and your other friends.
- But he really tries to help people.
- Paying a dollar or two each before he goes back to his million dollar Beverly Hills apartment to sleep through the day, rest for his next hard night's work giving away money and going to strip clubs.
- You'll never change him.
- See that open top bus, Hollywood Tours? They drive thousands of tourists around the city. Imagine an extension of the business where the buses take the new class of American super rich around to the haunts of the dispossessed and desperate, deboarding briefly at select corners so they can hand out dollar and five dollar bills, along with their few well chosen words of advice and encouragement, then reboarding the bus and on to the next corner. The future of our country.
- The people won't allow it.
- You won't allow it? Living in the corner of this guy's living room?
- It won't be long.
- Meanwhile, in Hollywood, where they used to sell movie star maps they've updated to selling maps marked with corner stops of the charity tours so the great American people can wait there to receive their hand-outs. You know, you can stop me making a fool of myself talking like this.
- You like Teddy.
- Sure.
- You know how to talk, to write. He knows money. He uses what he knows.
- He can't save the world through money when money is what's destroying it.
13. Spies On Spies
- What are you writing?
- About that woman you saw me with at Starbucks. Who you said looked at you like she hated you.
- Did she?
- Yes. She told me she hated men like you. Had a boyfriend once... I'm writing about you too.
- What about me?
- I'm writing again about the Internet.
- It's an obsession.
- The Internet is a model of craziness. I'd asked the girl on my left what she was reading. A book about a psychopath. What kind? Multiple personalities. Did she know, I asked, that some psychologists think that a real case of multiple personalities hasn't been proven to exist, that patients, knowing that psychologists look for multiple personalities, put on a show of having them?
- What did she say?
- Nothing. She was the sort who didn't want to encourage people of my sort talking to her.
- What sort are you, is she?
- She's a seller of beauty, I'm not a buyer, not qualified with money to be seriously in the market.
- You should treat women just like men.
- I don't?
- No. You are rude to men, but nice to women. I treat everyone the same.
- Rudely?
- Yes. If they don't like it, too bad.
- You're not qualified to talk to her either. The other woman you're disqualified with, the one you saw me with yesterday, I ended up talking to for four hours. She sat down next to me outside here, asked me if I was a doctor. She told me she was afraid of dying, had a fatal disease. No one would go to the hospital with her for the operation. If she didn't get it, she could die any time. Her mother wouldn't come. Her father died insane, without a will, there was this lawyer who says her father wrote a letter assigning her mother 40 percent ownership in the apartment she lives in, she didn't know what to do about it, didn't know what happened to all her father's money, tens of millions of dollars, a private detective wants two thousand dollars advance to look for the money, her mother won't pay, offers him half of anything he can find...
- Are you going to see her again?
- You like that type, I know. You want to give her advice, tell her what god says she should do. Deliver messages from god to you to the girl. If I pass her on to you I should get a commission. Unfortunately she hates you.
- Is she coming here?
- She'll probably sleep all day after talking all night.
- What about her disease?
- This is the interesting part. After about the second hour of talking with her...
- What did you say?
- Tried to get the details. It turned out that the mother who didn't care about her was calling her every night, it would be ungrateful of her she said not to appreciate it, that the doctors were telling her that she did not have the fatal disease, that only an operation could prove that she did not, that her mother had promised to leave in her will the 40 percent ownership in the apartment, which turned out to be worth 1.2 million dollars. Rich, not dying, loving mother, living alone in a million dollar apartment.
- I want to meet her.
- You wish. And what about your rude talk? And anyway, weren't you telling me yesterday the opposite? I told you how I picked a fight with the guard at the Hammer Museum.
- I don't remember.
- Closing time, I had to leave the courtyard where I like to go read sometimes when I'm in Westwood. I didn't like the way he talked to me.
- He talked to you like a man.
- I replied to him like a monster. One monster to another. I felt like fighting. Gave him a piece of my mind, which was on the corporate ownership of UCLA which controlled the museum and hired psychopaths like the him, the guard.
- You called him a psychopath?
- Sure, wasn't he? Aren't you, isn't the girl with the million dollar apartment?
- What about you?
- I told you before, I'm the only one in the world who's not crazy.
- Your problem is you want to fight the world. The Torah says you have to be devious, clever. You make peace by deceiving your enemies, placating them, calming them.
- Yeah. And you just told me I shouldn't be nice to girls. Which is it? Should I fight them or make peace with them?
- It all fits together on a higher level you can't see in your way of thinking.
- Only disclosed to the select. Ok. That brings me back to networks. I'd read this piece by a Toronto sociologist who claimed that it was a myth that the internet was isolating individuals. In fact, he wrote, people were still leaving their computers to meet in real life, but with not a mere handful of connections, now with thousands, they could choose the best person to go to for a particular purpose. The internet was deepening social connections, not weakening them. What do you think?
- I use the internet to meet girls.
- To be rude to them. You go through them quick. You're a psychopath. Actually, that's my idea: the internet is turning the whole world into psychopaths. Deliberately put on multiple personalities. Think about it. What's the difference between what we're doing here, real conversation, and sending messages back and forth on the internet?
- It's faster.
- Chat can be fast. No. The difference is that before you respond you can think: should I respond to someone else first? You can think, will anyone else see this message, if it is a public post? You can think what kind of image of yourself you would like to promote. We're like spies, gathering information from secret redoubt, who if we respond at all first put on a disguise before the in-person meeting to making a message drop.
- I don't understand.
- I mean what you just told me: people want to do the work of god, be devious, clever, make peace with the world by applying to it highly thought-through, the most placatory response.
- What's wrong with that?
- I like your first idea better, being equally rude to everyone. That's more like conversation. You keep talking to the same person looking for something you can agree on, don't stop until you come up with a single statement that applies to all you both have said since the conversation began. In systems theory, according to the guys I watch on the internet, conversation builds a model. The model is a statement, "if this then that", which when you run the experiment of putting in everything both of you have said, works without exception.
- Then what's the model here?
- Psychopaths. Multiple personalities. The rich girl who takes attitudes to the world to placate it, one after another, which don't make any sense when added up. You with your advice from god to be a politician with the world but be rude to every individual in it. Every individual who goes out to meet one of thousands of contacts and have a deeper, more devious, clever and psychopathic experience.
- You're negative. You'll never get anywhere.
- How can I when every time I meet someone I meet with this deep-connection deviousness, calculation of peace making, everyone doing maintenance on their personal network. I like to fight.
- Do you every ask yourself why?
- Of course! I like to have conversations, to reach agreement, to make a model of life.
- What good are models?
- That's like asking what good is knowledge, what good is art, what good is truth.
- What good are they? All we need do is love.
- Love all the multiple personality psychopaths in the world. That's why you wander around Beverly Hills all night giving the desperate a dollar or two.
- Yes.
- And go back home to your mother, to your own million dollar apartment, to the control center of your network of psychopaths.
- We're all psychopath.
- To end this conversation I propose a model, a definition of "psychopath".
- What is it?
- A psychopath is someone who doesn't know that not everyone has a multiple personality. A psychopath is someone who doesn't know everyone is not a psychopath.
14. The Presidents
- When does the bookstore close?
- Ten.
- Sit down here, next to me. Help me with my essay.
- You mean rewrite your essay.
- Whatever. Are you going to sit down?
- I'll sit over there.
- Why? You don't like me anymore?
- You oppress me.
- Then why are you with me?
- You're nice to look at. You're amusing.
- Go to hell.
- Send me your draft by email.
- Why should I send an email across the room?
- I'll work on it on my computer. Take it or leave it.
- You better do a good job.
- Or what? You'll fire me? What's the essay about?
- Comparing the speeches of Kennedy and Obama.
- What do you argue?
- You can read it. I'm sending it now.
- Now you sit down next to me?
- It's only temporary. I've fixed your homework.
- Send it to me.
- Did already.
- What did you think?
- Just a lot of talk. But similar, as you say.
- What did you think of my writing? And what's wrong with the speeches? They're good.
- Your writing is fine, in your usual poetically incoherent way. The Presidents' speeches are something like lies.
- Why lies? And watch out, if you keep insulting me.
- You watch out, if you don't want me to go back to my nice safe chair.
- Go ahead. What good are you?
- Good for editing your essays.
- Why are the Presidents' speeches lies?
- Because, unlike you, they don't show any spirit.
- Do I show spirit?
- Too much, and the wrong kind.
- What is the wrong kind?
- You keep telling me I don't love you, so you believe in love, right? It's real, it exists? It's something good?
- Yes?
- And you believe in self-discipline, work, study, ambition, right? Otherwise how could you always be insulting me for lacking it?
- You're a lazy bum.
- Let's say you are President. Not a lazy bum. You want to do the right thing about the economy, about the country's wars. You want to work toward a world where people love each other. You've made speeches about it. But what do you know from your own experience about overcoming pressure to do something else? How strong are you at defying the demands of other people?
- And that, according to you, is spirit? Defying the demands of other people?
- And defying your own urge to compromise.
- How is that not in the speeches?
- A leader needs authority, needs to speak from strength gathered from his own experience resisting demands to compromise. The Presidents' speeches are eloquent appeals to group members to be a better group members, to push each other to be better within the group.
- But that's fine.
- It's not. Because when the time comes the President is threatened, intimidated by enemies and political opponents, unless he has spirit he will not have the strength to resist demands to compromise.
- Find me a speech with spirit.
- Look up Vaclav Havel. Or get up and find his books on the shelves over there.
- Don't have time. Why do I have the wrong kind of spirit?
- Your spirit is mere defiance. It doesn't get you to do the right thing.
- Says you.
- Who you defy.
- Why not? You're not the President. You're just jealous. Those speeches are good.
- I'm going back to my chair. Read Havel.
- Send something to me.
- When I get back to safety.
- It's not that easy to get away from me.
15. Possibilities
- I've got a question for you.
- Alright.
- First I'll tell you another story. Not the one I want to tell.
- Why tell it then?
- You'll see. Last night, when the cafe closed, that's one o'clock now, I was crossing the street right there, and a beautiful woman leans out the window of her shiny new car and asks,
- What's wrong?I slip into the front seat and look over at this smiling strikingly good looking woman.
- You don't want to know.
- I do. Where are you going?
- Not far.
- Can I give you a ride?
- Really?
- Yes.
- Then yes.
- Look at you.
- Where do you want to go?
- The market, three blocks down Beverly. Aren't you afraid I'm a mass murderer?
- You?
- I guess not.
- What's wrong?
- Nothing interesting. I'm a happy guy with practical problems.
- Everything will work out. Here we are.
- That's the story, the first story.
- I like it.
- I don't like it. Nothing happened.
- Something will.
- Two days before, I was sitting where you're sitting now, and this guy comes over, he's about 27, 28, says,
- The guy.
- The guy. I look up and he's walking right up, putting his hand out to shake mine, says,
- I might be still married. She's disappeared.
- And then what happened?
- That's the story. The story so far. The end of the story is this question I want to ask you. I see three possibilities. First, the guy was a detective, showing himself to me to see what I'd do.
- Why would a detective do that?
- Maybe to scare me into doing whatever he'll ask me to do later.
- Like what?
- I don't know. A Beverly Hills doctor my wife married without divorcing me is being divorced by her now and he doesn't want to pay. I'm not being cooperative.
- You think this guy following you is working for the doctor?
- That's one possibility. I don't favor it. Another possibility is that it's simply a coincidence. My old address. The second meeting. Escort business.
- What do you think?
- I don't favor that explanation either. There's another possibility.
- That harmonies have been created in your life, are revealing themselves. Telling you something is going to happen.
- Formal repetitions, suggesting more to follow. My life is taking on a style. A style not created by me but by the world. But this I don't get, this business of the world making itself into art. That's my job.
- Maybe you should take a vacation. Sit back and see what happens.
- But that's my complaint! Nothing happens.
- You say nothing happens after telling me these stories?
- Like I said to the woman in the car, I'm happy with my self, my stories, couldn't be happier, it's the practical things...
- Everything will work out. You'll see.
- I'm used to being the artist. What am I supposed to do while I wait for the world to work its style for me?
- Something will happen.
16. Night Beverly Hills
- Hey, come on the number 18 bus with me. Two in the morning, just the right time. You'll get an education.
- In what?
- You'll board a kind of circling hotel, a dozen or so shapeless figures sleeping hunched over, sprawling out of their seats, in rags. When you get on the bus the driver averts his head so he doesn't have to look at you.
- Doesn't know what he'll see!
- That's right.
- Free market economics in action. Thank you, I can doing without seeing more of it. Do you think the madness will ever end, or we are approaching the end of the world? I mean, from here on out the world will be stuck in this groove until the end of time?
- I see signs.
- What signs?
- From Anthropology, a distant star of science. Science is our problem, of course.
- Of course. Why of course?
- Levi Strauss, Claude, not the blue jeans maker, invented what he called "structural anthropology". Rituals, myths and customs involved elemental oppositions, life and death, individual and society, man and woman, day and night, which could be arranged in many patterns. Individual people and things were in many categories at once. And there were obligations to be performed by those in one category for those in another. The result was balance of exchange between individuals and stability of the society as a whole. A kind of unconscious art went into the construction of the systems of class associations and exchanges between classes which showed great discrimination and observation of the things in the world and types of people, differing from our science in one important respect. Our science proposes new structures or arrangements, new models, in addition to present elements and relations. These proposed structures are hypotheses, then tested by experiment.
- So the primitives were stuck at one level.
- Yes. But they had a great advantage our us and our science.
- What?
- The practical purpose they used their science, their social art to achieve was social stability. The art expressed, taught, reminded of exchange and reciprocity. Our science, aiming at more knowledge of the world, expresses progress in place of balance.
- Science also has a practical purpose. You've told me many times there's no reason it couldn't be put to use to create reciprocity and stability and balance.
- The distant star science of anthropology seems to be moving in that direction. After collecting for hundreds of years information on these primitive societies, finding that things were never exchanged one for another, but instead as gifts made in the general structure of balance and reciprocity, finding the total lack of markets within communities, now anthropologists are asking simple obvious questions. For example, now that we know we moderns are pretty much on our own in having markets for free exchange, is it true that we are also alone in fighting wars?
- Primitives don't fight wars?
- Strangely counter to our prejudice, right? This hypothesis, new model, has now been tested against all the available evidence.
- And?
- Almost never was there a war tribe between tribe, army against army. Violence was local and individual, in retaliation for theft, for taking away a husband or wife.
- You're suggesting then that wars of armies against armies are wars of progress, on the model of modern science?
- Yes. It seems like warfare is an art that is formally identical, involves the same model of progress, of acquisition, as that of our science. Without our science, we'd be without wars.
- I don't think we're going to give up doing science.
- Science though can be turned to the practical use of understanding ourselves.
- We can't arrange knowledge in the stable patterns like myths and rituals and customs.
- We don't have to. We shouldn't anyway. We need a kind of scientific knowledge we can use to protect ourselves from the art of science, from the idealization of progress and acquisition that the practice of science otherwise teaches. We need to break science's monopoly, using against it its very own results.
- Go back to nature because science tells us we must?
- Primitive societies are fixed, to us with our scientific spirit arbitrarily and unacceptably fixed, stable because of balanced exchanges, but also almost always with some elements of hierarchy: upper, middle, lower, reflecting ritual: those who direct, those who follow, those who decide which ritual when.
- Then science is an example of directing which rituals when? Of upper class role?
- You can look at it that way.
- Do you look at science that way?
- As it is now, science in fact is not progress, not social progress. It has fit itself into the basic three class hierarchy, hierarchy being the only truly primitive element of the so-called primitives' arrangements. On the basis of this primitive hierarchy scientific society achieves stability. No matter how much equality we establish in law, what balances we try to establish in relations between people, tolerance, equality of races, religions, sexes, we turn those relations, under the hierarchical control of science, to progress and acquisition. We leave people free to make exchanges or not, and if not, we let them ride the buses in a circle all night.
- An ugly world we've made for ourselves. Go on. Tell me something positive, what we can do.
- Use science to find the rules to prevent wars. Begin with the two rules of the 19th century political theory of anarchism outlawing employment as part-time slavery and invalidating ownership without use. There certainly are other rules. We have to look for them and also, this is very important, we have to stop looking, know that the purpose of life is not progress and endless acquisition, but the good we progress towards and acquire things to get a hold of.
- What good? Did the primitives have it? Some at least?
- They must have. But, as the song says, love is the only thing there is too little of.
- A lot of this I don't understand. Primitive societies are complex. Something created that complexity. And they are knowledgeable, right? About medicinal herbs, etc? What happened to the science, experiment and observation, that they used to gain their knowledge, make their societies?
- It was lost. Like we lost the philosophy, arts, theater of the Greeks and only began gaining it back 2000 years later.
- Ok. And our free market: you say it is part of the hierarchy where science plays the role of upper class. Explain that some more.
- Free market economics says to the scientists: hands off our hierarchy!
- Who says?
- Ritual. We learn to do things without knowing why, and then when someone asks why we do it, we answer, that's how it's done. We do it because it makes us feel safe and powerful.
- So we got back our creative science, and at the moment it might have been turned to society, to creating what you called a technology of good, the ritual of the free market arises to block that development.
- Unsuccessfully.
- Yes. English, American, French revolutions came one after another. Science is at war with itself. And now?
- We have our leaders in politics, in the Universities, practicing the free market hierarchical science, allowing themselves to investigate everything but how people trade with each other, how people like or don't like each other. The results might hinder the regular function of the other two classes, those who work and those who manage workers. What workers and managers do must be left as it is now, unconsidered, learned without knowledge, learned ritually. Meanwhile, we have real science teaching us how free trade in primitive peoples is exceptional to their ordinary life of gift giving, done only between enemies, that only scientific hierarchical societies like ours, where managers and workers, buyers and sellers deal with each other in a constant state of enmity, fight wars.
- Do the leaders know what they are doing? Don't they care they are ruining people's lives?
- At the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the infamous manager of transportation for the Nazi's final solution execution of millions of people, the prosecutor forced him to admit he'd been taken to a concentration camp to watch through a peephole the mass gassing of hundreds of naked men women and children. He said he fainted. Then went on to do what was his job and he was proud to do. The prosecutors wanted to get him to admit that at one point at least he had done the bad his group participation demanded of him and rewarded him for while he knew absolutely that what he was doing was wrong. Suppressing individual knowledge of bad in exchange for rewards from participating in a group is one definition of evil. With time and distance, however, the individual resistance is overcome. Not forgotten. No. Every element finds its place in the repetition and hierarchy that is working out so well and creating so much power for its scientific directors.
- So they don't care about destroying people's lives. They don't think they are. The system is responsible, the hierarchy. It's just the way things are. They aren't evil.
- Do they look evil to you?
- No.
- Do you believe they themselves feel evil?
- No. But you imply with your Eichmann story that they do know what they are doing.
- They do. There's not the slightest doubt about that. In the U.S., in the European Union, our own economists tell our leaders the economic theories they put into effect are false, but they do it anyway. The free market is off limits. The hierarchy exerts its authority. Existing relations between people, as enemy to enemy, cannot be challenged. Ritual does its work. The stability of society technology creates helps them accept as inevitable, as "what's done", accept all that in the life of enemies living among enemies once long ago terrified them. The ride on the bus is long past. All is well in this best of all possible worlds.
- So what's next? Will science free itself from the hierarchy?
- How should I know? We can make war the basic relation between people or we can make peace. There are precise techniques worked out for doing both, though the techniques of war are what we are more familiar with.
- What are the techniques of peace?
- Last night I went with a friend of the Beverly Hills Guru to a celebration of the Feast of the Tabernacle, something like that, a Jewish holiday where you eat in a tent. Doctors, speculators, talking about their possessions. One guy talking about dying. What is one to do with this? We talk about basic human relations, meaning here that behind all the concern with possessions, of owning one's own dying and death even, is the fundamental relation of mutual hostility.You cannot share the doctors' and real estate speculators' possessions any more than you can share that other fellow's death. You cannot do anything with them but propose exchanges. You cannot talk about anything except in relation to building up castles of possessions as safety from the fundamental danger each confronts the others with. You cannot express any liking without that liking entering into a calculation of how it can fit in with a life of defense against the danger of other people. All that is lurking behind the small talk. It never goes away. The Beverly Hills doctors and speculators go under the tent roof and celebrate the good life. I'm there, invited by a speculator, introduced by the Guru, but am considered only long enough to see whether the fortifications are secure against danger I might present. This is what life is supposed to be in this place I was born and raised in, the best the technology of social war achieves.
- And the techniques worked out making peace the basic relation between people?
- Peace is a practical concern, is a tool, a product of politics. The basic relation between people is desire, liking. Rules manages that liking to create peace. Liking has to be managed.
- Why?
- We have to educate each other to like what is best. We are not born with the knowledge.
- That education is the technology of peace? The technology of good?
- Yes.
- Couldn't you educate the Beverly Hills doctors and real estate speculators?
- If they could have seen me, or anyone else even for a moment as a possible friend. The fact is they can't. They can't get past their fundamental expectation that relations between people are those between enemies.
- Teach them.
- As their enemy, teach them?
- Everyone is their enemy. Be a friend. Teach them friendship. Tell them stories. Show them another kind of life. They're your people, after all.
- My kind of story to them is a fairy tale, a tale of the world that cannot be recreated in the unchallenged hierarchy of warfare they build their lives on.
- Then what?
- Then foundations collapse.
17. The Guru Of Beverly Hills
- He's cookoo.
- That's your professional opinion?
- Yes.
- You're really psychologists, both you?
- Yes.
- On what basis do you make your diagnosis?
- Practical. Going by what you've told us about him. His failure in love, failure in work. His wife left him, he's never had a job.
- I said he gives away all his money and sent away his wife.
- He suffers from delusions of grandeur. Narcissism.
- He does. But he knows it. Told me himself.
- Then why does he go on doing the same things?
- Hatred of the world.
- Which is cookoo.
- Or simply another kind of vanity, egomania, delusion of grandeur, narcissism, whatever you want to call it. Seeing himself not seeing the world.
- Which is cookoo.
- Then everyone is crazy.
- Some more than others.
- What if with his giving away money, wife dismissal, night wanderings among the dispossessed he really is religious?
- He's still cookoo.
- If being religious he is holding onto beautiful ideas, fighting to hold onto beautiful ideas, being willing to go crazy to hold onto beautiful ideas, isn't he doing something good?
- You defend him because he's your buddy.
- He says he isn't a friend. Says he can't be counted on because he won't establish connections with people he doesn't believe are real.
- The people aren't real or the connections?
- Both.
- That's not crazy?
- A standard religious observation. True in its way.
- Maybe you need professional treatment. What do you do?
- Have I sent my wife away do I not work do I wander around at night?
- Well? You should write about your friend. You are writing about your friend.
18. Private In Public
- I'll say good by. I don't know if I'll ever be back in Silverlake.
- Where are you going?
- Beverly Hills.
- Well, I'm sure you're not someone who burns bridges, and can come back with your friend here.
- I do burn bridges.
- What are you going to do to the guy? Your friend.
- He's not my friend. Just another victim of our social stupidity. I'll put him in a story.
- What will you write?
- Something inspired by the anthropologist Levi Strauss. Know him?
- No. I'm a retired building inspector. If someone dug up a corpse maybe I'd have to look up an anthropologist to decide if the land had to declared a protected historic place. Is that his book you're reading?
- No. Last in a series of Swedish detective novels from the 60s and 70s. This one has a pornographic film producer murdered by the father of one of his actresses whose life he ruined, then the prime mister of Sweden assassinated by a victim of heartless economics. We think we have such a different way of life from the primitive peoples. But you know, things haven't changed much.
- How so?
- Instead of human sacrifice and cannibalism, people exchange things. They'd kill each other if that would get them better exchange, only don't kill each other because that will interfere with the efficient accumulation of property through exchange. At least that's how we explain to ourselves what we're doing. It's far from the truth.
- Why?
- The primitives Levi Strauss studied gave gifts to each other, following detailed rules about who to give to and when to give. Since they lived in a closed community, enough would indirectly find its way back to every giver to make gift giving possible. Despite the human sacrifice and cannibalism of our constant exchanges, we are no different from the primitives in our gift giving. Without it our economic system would collapse. Want to get back to work? Or should I go on?
- Sit down in the shade.
- Do you have coffee? I left the house in a hurry to get away.
- I can make a pot. Back in a few minutes.
- So. You're not coming back to Silverlake.
- This is our last conversation. But you'll finish building your walls someday soon. Where did we leave off? Alright. We do our human sacrifice in our exchanges, trying to get the better of each other. My idea is that we make each of us our private community and make it mobile with these exchanges of property. Each exchange creates a new neighborhood in which we calculate whether we can start making gifts, and get gifts in return enough to live, though not in direct exchange.
- I don't see that.
- An investment is a bet that what's been bought, or produced out of purchased labor and parts, will be able to be sold at a profit.
- The exchange aspect is human sacrifice and cannibalism, but the investment is like the gift giving in a community of gift givers.
- Exactly. Everyone really understands this. We trust in the future, or more accurately, we trust in our scientific calculation of which arrangement of property is likely to create a community in which gifts will be made back to us.
- I never looked at it like that. Interesting. Technology applied to primitive customs.
- Scientific cannibalism. The last line of this last novel in the series of Swedish detective novels is: Marx had it right. You asked what I'll write about my "friend". First I'll write about Silverlake. The mystery of why everyone is covered with tattoos. Skin is the boundary between private world and public world. Why write a symbol on that boundary? Why give an image of yourself to the public? What do you get out of it? Is it a tribal identification, or only an ornament?
And I'll write about the courtesies of the girls who work at the Lark cake shop which vanished as soon it was obvious I was going to buy only one small coffee a day. One of the girls seemed to offer friendship, but that vanished too when it was clear I couldn't support a life with her or even alone.
I thought a long time about her. I was sure the offer of friendship was real. What if the courtesies were also real? What if social media posts detailing what we have for breakfast are not mere superficiality, but real attempts to bring oneself out into the world when we felt isolated, with no one really paying attention to anyone except for practical purposes? What if a social media breakfast message was the most real thing in the morning, and the 'how are you today?' at the cake shop also real, and the friendship of the girl also real, and the tattoos also real openings of a conversation?
However I found within days of moving to Silverlake conversation couldn't be. No one wanted to talk. They looked up from their computers or phones asking what I could possibly be doing in their lives, what sort of spam was I arriving in their inbox. Same goes for the hospitality offered by my "friend" up the street here. Most of his living was in making his private house public, renting parts of it by the day through the internet. His invitation to stay with him was a gesture supposed to bring good Karma, bring reward, financial reward in particular, remaining within the primitive but shifting from cannibalism of exchange to gift economy.
If the courtesies, the tattoos, the offers of friendship and hospitality really are gifts, there must be a community of gift giving. If you go on giving without expecting return, or even forseeing return, someone has to be in the community to give you something or you'll be drained dry. The tattoos, courtesies, invitations, social media breakfast posts were constructing imaginary communities.
Last week I got invited to a Sukkot celebration by a real estate speculator I'd met in the company of the Guru of Beverly Hills. The Guru's another story. I met the speculator this time by chance walking by his house. The invitation to his sister's house he said was a "mitzvah" a good deed. He said there was a dying guy there I should talk to.
Same week I met at Starbucks a woman who told me and anyone who'd listen she had a deadly disease, her family wouldn't come to the hospital with her for an operation, no one cared about her, she couldn't trust the doctors, all they wanted was her money, which turned out to be considerable, she lived alone in a million dollar Beverly Hills condo, and it turned out the doctors were telling her she didn't have the fatal disease and she wouldn't believe them, her mother called her every day, had bought here a new computer a month before which she hadn't picked up at the Apple store because an employee she thought was discourteous to her. Free from interest in getting at the truth of life, complaining totally without concern with the people she made her complaints to, she waited for something to happen.
All the same pattern: private life opened to the public, then closed off without development. No conversation to be held with the tattooed. No further courtesy with the courteous, soon not even a hello at the cake shop, no friendship with the friendly. And what accounted for this? I think it really might be the judgement that no community with me could be constructed. No magical community. I didn't have the funds for it.
So I'll burn my bridge back to Silverlake writing this. Our last conversation at your front yard. You know what I wanted from all these people?
- What?
- Real conversation. Openings to somewhere, anywhere. No. Not anywhere. Not someplace that leads right back here. Ask a businessman why he does business, he'll say it's a creative act. Creates what? Jobs for people. The businessman's private act of creativity is a public job creation. But the job creation comes back from the community in some unknown manner, a fatality of an economic system that is protected to act in accord with its spontaneous order. In fact, when you look closer, put all the private creative acts of businessmen together and the public result is the loss of jobs, and even deliberate economic destruction if that is part of the creative act of making money. If other people's generosity doesn't meet with the same immediate reward as their own, that is alright, It is not part of the system of mitzvahs, good deeds, home invitations, courtesies that the gift giving of private self gets an immediate compensation. All in time will work itself out.
A billionaire recently made public his private opinion that it was unfair his secretary paid more tax than he did. He didn't offer to pay his secretary's tax. He didn't offer to pay his 100,000 employee's taxes, which he very easily could do, employees he pays so little to that a large number of them don't have enough to eat and receive free food from the federal government. The billionaire makes his gift, he's satisfied the world community gives him back in its magical way, his employees too, in time, will be rewarded.
Our modern economic system, so advanced, turns out gets its justification from the so-called primitive "gift economy". Private life being made public is behind it all. Not functionality, not efficiency, not stability. We're people helping people, just as before.
- We're people helping people kill and eat each other.
- We're people helping people kill and eat each other. Yes. We apply our scientific thinking, we operate the gift economy with an experimental attitude, and the result is a sort of stability. It works*, but has no connection to the technology of making better and worse lives for human beings. We use our technology only to perfect human sacrifice and cannibalism. I'll write something like that. Maybe expressed a little better. Depends on whether I think my gift is being done in a community, whether something will come out of it magically that can support me and my gift giving.
Last night before I can open the door to Starbucks the kid working behind the counter is signaling me to come in. He tells me the rich woman with her diseases has asked them to stop me coming there. The world was not returning her "courtesy" with me, had not paid her back for making public her private life, I was harassing her, the law should be callled on me. So the staff had to decide, which of us do they support, or neither.
- What did they say?
- They 'had my back', were on my side. They knew her, were going to ask her, not me, not to come back.
You see? Sometimes conversations do get started.
--------
* The two economies, market and gift, function as a set of cycling rituals, cycling within themselves and from one to the other: money making leads only to more money making, gift giving only to more gift giving. But money making can be done to enable gift giving, and gift giving to increase money making in a "karmic return". The destructiveness of the continuous public war of the exchange economy, creating habits that get in the way of sympathy, is recovered from, at least in imitative form, in the private gift giving of courtesies and invitations, defined as private because of negligible public exchange value.
19. Almost Fiction
- Where are you going?
21. The Lower Depths
- The rule is, when you make yourself into a machine you agree to be treated as a machine.
- Whose rule?
- My rule.
- People can stop making themselves into machines and be people again.
- Am I supposed to wait?
- Yes.
- And while waiting I die? Assuming you're right and it's even possible for them to stop making themselves into machines. You know the play by Gorky, The Lower Depths? About a flop house in turn of the 20th century Russia? The question is raised: are these creature, the tenants of the house, the inhabitants, are they still human?
- You think you can treat people like machines because they have made themselves into machines and as machines have lost the ability to remake themselves into humans?
- It's an idea. You're running a sort of Beverly Hills flop house here. You've got me in one corner, and you've got your childhood friend living in other corner, a limo driver who boasts of never having read a book in his life. Do you know what we discussed last night while you were off administering to your flock on the streets?
- What?
- English grammar. He claims to be religious, has a copy of the bible laying around with his things. He says intentions and words and thoughts don't matter, only actions. It's not that he is against hypocrisy. I don't think he knows the word. Rather he wants to be able to act by rule, without thought. He was making fun of people who say, "Joe & me", "me & him", as not knowing the rules. I informed him there was an ongoing dispute regarding this question. "People dispute about grammar? he asked. Yes, they do. There is the "generative grammar" school that says many different rules are used to construct sentences, which when completed cannot be seen to satisfy any set of rules. The resulting sentence, composed according to rules, breaks some of them.
- Did he understand?
- No. Do you? I went on. If you want to tell a story of going with your friend to the market, you can express the idea of going together with, in which case there are not two subjects, but a relationship between them. In English grammar, the expression of going "with" directs you use the form "me," or "him", instead of the subject form "I".
- And did he understand that?
- No, of course not. Do you? Put aside the question of grammar. The real question is whether you try to produce actions that satisfy a rule, or you use rules to choose your actions, not sure how they will turn out, ready for something new to result, like the sentence we complete not knowing in advance how we are going to do it.
- So the people in the lower depths...
- Like your friend the limo driver Christian grammarian who never read a book in his life...
- The people in the lower depths, having made themselves into machines, can act by rule, but have lost the ability to create new sentences by assembling them, choosing each word by rule but open to a result that will not satisfy all the rules?
- Congratulations.
- Thank you. I don't have to worry then you'll treat me like a machine?
- For the time being.
- Guess what I was thinking about today?
- What?
- Your saying your friend David, the sexual pervert lying real estate speculator, had the wisdom of Solomon.
- I didn't say that.
- You did. You said you were a fighter for the truth, he had the wisdom to look behind appearances to see the truth.
- I don't remember. What did you do today? Besides.
- It's been a filled up full moon day. At the Century City Shopping Center I was asked by a filmmaker if I could come to the last minute first test screening of her new film. I was available. I'm always available. At 6:45 I'd found the side entrance to the screening room of William Morris Endeavor, big time movie agency. Funny name, raises the question why its a struggle to be William Morris. Know what Cary Grant said to the fan who told him he didn't look like Cary Grant: "Who Does?" The filmmaker was standing by the door on Camden Dr, "You made it," she greets me. I ask her about the movie I'm about to see, she asks me what I do. Write teaching stories. Teaching what? That's the problem, not teaching anything that'll help anyone make money. But the last story I wrote maybe somebody would make into a movie, about an anarchist revolution in the USA, it teaches how to keep everyone from making money. Maybe that would sell. More people are arriving and the filmmaker turns away without a word to greet and meet. Fair then that that I walked out in the middle of her screening and made my way back from Beverly Hills to Century City. I walk along streets of houses and was thinking what a nice quiet safe neighborhood this was when I hear a man talking loudly into his phone behind me and running footsteps. I stop to let him catch up, ask what's going on. He says he saw a man get murdered, the killer run away. Where? On Beverly Glen, around the corner. He called the police, waited 15 minutes, got scared standing by the bleeding dead body the murderer would return, and went to his house on this block. The police finally came, told him to go back. I let him run on ahead. I followed at a distance, was in time to see the body being loaded into a fire department ambulance.
- Why did it take so long?
- Police arrive in Beverly Hills in 3 minutes. This was across the border in L.A., where apparently it takes 30 minutes to respond to a murder. If you can't make them money at the movies they turn their backs on you, if you can't die in Beverly Hills they'll let your corpse bleed on the street. If you're a perverted exhibitionist real estate speculator some people will slobber all over you with dog like loyalty and say you have the wisdom of Solomon. A prostitute, actually my wife, once told me she always could find one quality in her customer to like and ignore the rest of the package.
22. I Discuss The Jews With The Limo Driver In The Corner
- Can I ask you something?
- If it's not personal.
- No. About the Jews. You're Jewish, but you're calm. All the Jews here in Beverly Hills are nervous all the time. They're dishonest. And unbelievably cheap. Can you explain it?
- Sure. They don't believe in beauty. They live for doing. They never stop doing. They're nervous between the time they finish one thing and begin another. They don't exist outside of doing things, and existing enough only to know they don't exist confuses them.
- You've confused me.
- They exist, but only in relation to things. They exist in a property relation. The property relation is an attachment to things. It is not a necessary relation.
- Why not?
- When you stop doing things you can rest in the beauty of the world as a whole. You can never rest in relation to particular things.
- Why not?
- Because things destroy each other. They have to be protected. They wear out. They wear you out, because only a thing can have a relation to things. So you are reminded you are a thing that has to be protected and wears out. If you are the thing that goes by the name "Money Worshiping Beverly Hills Jew" you want to increase the number of things you are attached to.
- But what does attachment mean?
- It means feeling safe having things around you.
- Why?
- Property is something to hold onto in a changing world.
- But you said we can never rest in relation to things. Things wear out, have to be guarded.
- Yes. That's why people who live exclusively in property relations have to keep on gathering more things around themselves. Getting more things, and money which symbolizes the ability to collect things, they seem to be becoming safer. When they stop for a moment they're nervous about founding their security on things which are unreliable. They go back to work making money, the only time they really feel safe.
- Have you seen this?
- What is it?
- Demons called up by devil worshippers.
- You think Jews don't just worship money, they worship the devil too?
- The best trick the devil played is making people believe he doesn't exist.
- You believe in the devil?
- If you look on the internet you'll see.
- Why do I need to look on the internet? The most characteristic thing human beings do is destroy each other. They force each other to become things, become unable to love. What job is there for the devil to do? If there was any species that could never offer employment to the devil it's ours. What we need is a god to save us from ourselves. Have you seen one on the internet?
- Here's the problem. Social life rewards honesty and punishes dishonesty. This is called enforcement of being good. But social life also rewards dishonesty and punishes honesty.
- Why?
- Because pretending to be honest also gets you the social reward for being good. And being dishonest allows you to profit from deceiving people.
- We have reasons to be good and bad. Everyone knows that.
- We have social reasons to be good and bad. Because we are educated by society when we are too little to know what we are doing, be conscious of our learning the rules, we ascribe to a god our reasons for social behavior: a good god, or "God" when we are honest, a bad god, "the devil" when we are dishonest.
- Honesty is religious.
- Social honesty is religious. Personal honesty is something else. In personal life the truth is our material, our tool for problem solving and invention. A lie restrains our creativity.
- So truth in social life is rewarded and punished, but in private life only rewarded?
- Yes. Do you see what this means?
- Tell me.
- We live with others to learn from each other, but we pay a heavy price: we learn that honesty which is always good in private life is only sometimes good in social life. From the perspective of private life, social life as a whole, rewarding both honesty and dishonesty, confusing us about what it means to be honest, seems to be the devil's work we've collectively taken over.
- Which is why he can't get a job.
- Sometimes people can be too smart.
- People like me.
- The devil doesn't want to work for us, he wants us to work for him.
- Worship him.
- Yes.
- So you still think the Jews worship the devil.
- Some of them.
- For example, your strip-club friend, the real estate speculator?
- You know him?
- Yes. A couple weeks ago I was walking on my way to Starbucks when by chance I passed his house as he was riding up on his bicycle. I'd already met him with our host one midnight at the market. He insisted I come to his sister's house for the Jewish festival, the feast of the tabernacles. First he had to take a shower. He showed me in, put me out on the balcony to wait. I'm telling you this, because soon I hear shouting from inside, "Police"! "Stop where you are!".
- He's a volunteer Sheriff. He does that stuff all the time.
- Then he appeared completely naked out on the balcony, said "Nice to see you're Ok", and went back to the shower.
- So he's a homosexual. I wondered about him. He pays the girls to let him rub them, but doesn't want any more.
- He's protecting his public life from private life, making sure love of truth has no chance to develop.
- I don't understand.
- Do you know how the Jews became famously good at making money?
- No.
- They gave themselves complete flexibility negotiating the dangerous waters of honesty and dishonesty in public life. They kept their private lives separate. Your friend the speculator...
- He's not my friend.
- Of course, he's no one's friend. The Beverly Hills Jew, let's call him, in the service of making money has gone further, has eradicated private life. He wants to keep a distance from girls. He wants his contact to be deniable, to himself and others, wants its meaning to be negotiable.
- I showed him the video of UC Davis students sitting quietly down on a campus square being pepper sprayed by para-military units.
- They were ordered there by the University Chancellor. I'm familiar with it.
- Do you know what David said?
- What?
- "Better nip them in the bud."
- Childhood and youth, formerly sanctified preserves of private life, used to be exempt from adult American glory in the massacre of human nature. No more.
- And you don't think that's devil worship?*
- If there was a devil he might keep me company. I have more than 10,000 social media connections, but haven't got a single email in the past week. I am the world's worst networker.
- What are you doing wrong?
- Do you know why I criticize the Jews?
- No.
- They guard the border between being in-the-network and out. They keep record of the rules of the crossing, guide the passage across the boundary. And they are not doing their job.
- I don't know what you're talking about. What border?
- We were talking about it: between public and private. The Jews are the sanctuary for the rules keeping private life safe from public life. Our world has always been the devil's creation: social life equally motivated by honesty and dishonesty, honesty of private life under threat of vanishing. In private life you share. In public life you trade. Networking is all about trades. You send messages so you can receive messages.
- You don't send messages.
- I do. They aren't answered.
- Why not?
- I can't reward for completing the trade or punish for not. I'm always a stranger across the border, and networkers don't share with strangers. Any relation to a stranger out of the network other than complete disregard depends upon private life being preserved from infection of public life. It is natural to care about any human being, but in our devil's world most people don't.
- And Jews care about people outside their network? Weren't you saying the opposite?
- They are carriers of practices that keep you capable of it.
- And they aren't practicing.
- No.
- What are the practices?
- Ways of keeping in mind that the distinctions we make in life are unimportant.
- What's important?
- Love.
- Doesn't sound like Judaism to me.
- You can blame the Jews for that.
23. The Association Of Anti-Semites In The Century City Shopping Mall
- I see your bag. "Organization for Anti-Semitism". I'd like to join. I just got my first email accusing me of being a Jew-hater so I am confident I can submit impressive credentials with my application.
- "Association For Combatting Anti-Semitism".
- I see now.
- Are you Jewish?
- Sure. I've been writing stories about Beverly Hills. I'd like to outdo in provocation Philip Roth in "Portnoy's Complaint", even Celine in his World War II era pamphlets.
- So you write a blog.
- I deny it. I say I write stories.
- Soon everyone will write a blog. I write one.
- I can't help it if the world is filled with psychopathic exhibitionists. So you won't pay me to make fun the of the Jews. But can't you give me some referrals, know your enemy, right? I'm new to this business. You guys at the Anti-Semite association must know people willing to pay for first quality anti-Semitic stories.
- What do you write in your blog?
- You mean my stories.
- Your stories.
- I write conversation. I had this one at the shopping center about two minutes ago. I spotted coins lying unattended on the pavement, leaned down to scoop them up, and a guy standing nearby commented:
-That's one way to make money.
- Not a good way. Proceeds are meager. Know a better way?
- Yes. If you are an artist, I suppose you are, you'll spend you life trying to sell a picture for ten dollars to someone like me who turns around and sells it for a million.
- I know an even better way to make money.
- What's that?
- Sell the painting to the guy who sells it for a million then take the million from him. This has the advantage of making a profit out of connections established through social conformity that you think so much more valuable than actually creating anything together with the advantage of punishing someone for making profit in that destructive way.
- You're not only an Anti-Semite you're a social theorist.
- I'm a man of many qualities all of them valueless. Except maybe to Anti-Semites, and you won't help me with my application, I can see it in your face.
- Good luck with your blog.
- My stories!
- I like it.
- I don't like it. Nothing happened.
- Something will.
- Two days before, I was sitting where you're sitting now, and this guy comes over, he's about 27, 28, says,
- The battery on my phone is dead. Can you look up an address for me on your computer?- I gave him directions, he thanked me and went off. Now today, before coming here, I was at this little cake shop in Silverlake, that's ten miles from here, I go to just about every morning for coffee. And who walks in?
- Sure. What's the address?
- 417 Holt.
- 417 Holt?
- Yeah.
- That's strange.
- Why? Is it far?
- No. I used to live there. Are you going to visit someone?
- Yeah. A girl.
- The guy.
- The guy. I look up and he's walking right up, putting his hand out to shake mine, says,
- Remember me, 417 Holt?- You were?
- What are you doing here?
- Visiting a friend.
- Another friend.
- Yes.
- What do you do?
- What do you mean?
- What's your job, how do you make money, if you make money?
- I manage escorts. Do you know what an escort is?
- I was married to one.
- I might be still married. She's disappeared.
- And then what happened?
- That's the story. The story so far. The end of the story is this question I want to ask you. I see three possibilities. First, the guy was a detective, showing himself to me to see what I'd do.
- Why would a detective do that?
- Maybe to scare me into doing whatever he'll ask me to do later.
- Like what?
- I don't know. A Beverly Hills doctor my wife married without divorcing me is being divorced by her now and he doesn't want to pay. I'm not being cooperative.
- You think this guy following you is working for the doctor?
- That's one possibility. I don't favor it. Another possibility is that it's simply a coincidence. My old address. The second meeting. Escort business.
- What do you think?
- I don't favor that explanation either. There's another possibility.
- That harmonies have been created in your life, are revealing themselves. Telling you something is going to happen.
- Formal repetitions, suggesting more to follow. My life is taking on a style. A style not created by me but by the world. But this I don't get, this business of the world making itself into art. That's my job.
- Maybe you should take a vacation. Sit back and see what happens.
- But that's my complaint! Nothing happens.
- You say nothing happens after telling me these stories?
- Like I said to the woman in the car, I'm happy with my self, my stories, couldn't be happier, it's the practical things...
- Everything will work out. You'll see.
- I'm used to being the artist. What am I supposed to do while I wait for the world to work its style for me?
- Something will happen.
16. Night Beverly Hills
- Hey, come on the number 18 bus with me. Two in the morning, just the right time. You'll get an education.
- In what?
- You'll board a kind of circling hotel, a dozen or so shapeless figures sleeping hunched over, sprawling out of their seats, in rags. When you get on the bus the driver averts his head so he doesn't have to look at you.
- Doesn't know what he'll see!
- That's right.
- Free market economics in action. Thank you, I can doing without seeing more of it. Do you think the madness will ever end, or we are approaching the end of the world? I mean, from here on out the world will be stuck in this groove until the end of time?
- I see signs.
- What signs?
- From Anthropology, a distant star of science. Science is our problem, of course.
- Of course. Why of course?
- Levi Strauss, Claude, not the blue jeans maker, invented what he called "structural anthropology". Rituals, myths and customs involved elemental oppositions, life and death, individual and society, man and woman, day and night, which could be arranged in many patterns. Individual people and things were in many categories at once. And there were obligations to be performed by those in one category for those in another. The result was balance of exchange between individuals and stability of the society as a whole. A kind of unconscious art went into the construction of the systems of class associations and exchanges between classes which showed great discrimination and observation of the things in the world and types of people, differing from our science in one important respect. Our science proposes new structures or arrangements, new models, in addition to present elements and relations. These proposed structures are hypotheses, then tested by experiment.
- So the primitives were stuck at one level.
- Yes. But they had a great advantage our us and our science.
- What?
- The practical purpose they used their science, their social art to achieve was social stability. The art expressed, taught, reminded of exchange and reciprocity. Our science, aiming at more knowledge of the world, expresses progress in place of balance.
- Science also has a practical purpose. You've told me many times there's no reason it couldn't be put to use to create reciprocity and stability and balance.
- The distant star science of anthropology seems to be moving in that direction. After collecting for hundreds of years information on these primitive societies, finding that things were never exchanged one for another, but instead as gifts made in the general structure of balance and reciprocity, finding the total lack of markets within communities, now anthropologists are asking simple obvious questions. For example, now that we know we moderns are pretty much on our own in having markets for free exchange, is it true that we are also alone in fighting wars?
- Primitives don't fight wars?
- Strangely counter to our prejudice, right? This hypothesis, new model, has now been tested against all the available evidence.
- And?
- Almost never was there a war tribe between tribe, army against army. Violence was local and individual, in retaliation for theft, for taking away a husband or wife.
- You're suggesting then that wars of armies against armies are wars of progress, on the model of modern science?
- Yes. It seems like warfare is an art that is formally identical, involves the same model of progress, of acquisition, as that of our science. Without our science, we'd be without wars.
- I don't think we're going to give up doing science.
- Science though can be turned to the practical use of understanding ourselves.
- We can't arrange knowledge in the stable patterns like myths and rituals and customs.
- We don't have to. We shouldn't anyway. We need a kind of scientific knowledge we can use to protect ourselves from the art of science, from the idealization of progress and acquisition that the practice of science otherwise teaches. We need to break science's monopoly, using against it its very own results.
- Go back to nature because science tells us we must?
- Primitive societies are fixed, to us with our scientific spirit arbitrarily and unacceptably fixed, stable because of balanced exchanges, but also almost always with some elements of hierarchy: upper, middle, lower, reflecting ritual: those who direct, those who follow, those who decide which ritual when.
- Then science is an example of directing which rituals when? Of upper class role?
- You can look at it that way.
- Do you look at science that way?
- As it is now, science in fact is not progress, not social progress. It has fit itself into the basic three class hierarchy, hierarchy being the only truly primitive element of the so-called primitives' arrangements. On the basis of this primitive hierarchy scientific society achieves stability. No matter how much equality we establish in law, what balances we try to establish in relations between people, tolerance, equality of races, religions, sexes, we turn those relations, under the hierarchical control of science, to progress and acquisition. We leave people free to make exchanges or not, and if not, we let them ride the buses in a circle all night.
- An ugly world we've made for ourselves. Go on. Tell me something positive, what we can do.
- Use science to find the rules to prevent wars. Begin with the two rules of the 19th century political theory of anarchism outlawing employment as part-time slavery and invalidating ownership without use. There certainly are other rules. We have to look for them and also, this is very important, we have to stop looking, know that the purpose of life is not progress and endless acquisition, but the good we progress towards and acquire things to get a hold of.
- What good? Did the primitives have it? Some at least?
- They must have. But, as the song says, love is the only thing there is too little of.
- A lot of this I don't understand. Primitive societies are complex. Something created that complexity. And they are knowledgeable, right? About medicinal herbs, etc? What happened to the science, experiment and observation, that they used to gain their knowledge, make their societies?
- It was lost. Like we lost the philosophy, arts, theater of the Greeks and only began gaining it back 2000 years later.
- Ok. And our free market: you say it is part of the hierarchy where science plays the role of upper class. Explain that some more.
- Free market economics says to the scientists: hands off our hierarchy!
- Who says?
- Ritual. We learn to do things without knowing why, and then when someone asks why we do it, we answer, that's how it's done. We do it because it makes us feel safe and powerful.
- So we got back our creative science, and at the moment it might have been turned to society, to creating what you called a technology of good, the ritual of the free market arises to block that development.
- Unsuccessfully.
- Yes. English, American, French revolutions came one after another. Science is at war with itself. And now?
- We have our leaders in politics, in the Universities, practicing the free market hierarchical science, allowing themselves to investigate everything but how people trade with each other, how people like or don't like each other. The results might hinder the regular function of the other two classes, those who work and those who manage workers. What workers and managers do must be left as it is now, unconsidered, learned without knowledge, learned ritually. Meanwhile, we have real science teaching us how free trade in primitive peoples is exceptional to their ordinary life of gift giving, done only between enemies, that only scientific hierarchical societies like ours, where managers and workers, buyers and sellers deal with each other in a constant state of enmity, fight wars.
- Do the leaders know what they are doing? Don't they care they are ruining people's lives?
- At the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the infamous manager of transportation for the Nazi's final solution execution of millions of people, the prosecutor forced him to admit he'd been taken to a concentration camp to watch through a peephole the mass gassing of hundreds of naked men women and children. He said he fainted. Then went on to do what was his job and he was proud to do. The prosecutors wanted to get him to admit that at one point at least he had done the bad his group participation demanded of him and rewarded him for while he knew absolutely that what he was doing was wrong. Suppressing individual knowledge of bad in exchange for rewards from participating in a group is one definition of evil. With time and distance, however, the individual resistance is overcome. Not forgotten. No. Every element finds its place in the repetition and hierarchy that is working out so well and creating so much power for its scientific directors.
- So they don't care about destroying people's lives. They don't think they are. The system is responsible, the hierarchy. It's just the way things are. They aren't evil.
- Do they look evil to you?
- No.
- Do you believe they themselves feel evil?
- No. But you imply with your Eichmann story that they do know what they are doing.
- They do. There's not the slightest doubt about that. In the U.S., in the European Union, our own economists tell our leaders the economic theories they put into effect are false, but they do it anyway. The free market is off limits. The hierarchy exerts its authority. Existing relations between people, as enemy to enemy, cannot be challenged. Ritual does its work. The stability of society technology creates helps them accept as inevitable, as "what's done", accept all that in the life of enemies living among enemies once long ago terrified them. The ride on the bus is long past. All is well in this best of all possible worlds.
- So what's next? Will science free itself from the hierarchy?
- How should I know? We can make war the basic relation between people or we can make peace. There are precise techniques worked out for doing both, though the techniques of war are what we are more familiar with.
- What are the techniques of peace?
- Last night I went with a friend of the Beverly Hills Guru to a celebration of the Feast of the Tabernacle, something like that, a Jewish holiday where you eat in a tent. Doctors, speculators, talking about their possessions. One guy talking about dying. What is one to do with this? We talk about basic human relations, meaning here that behind all the concern with possessions, of owning one's own dying and death even, is the fundamental relation of mutual hostility.You cannot share the doctors' and real estate speculators' possessions any more than you can share that other fellow's death. You cannot do anything with them but propose exchanges. You cannot talk about anything except in relation to building up castles of possessions as safety from the fundamental danger each confronts the others with. You cannot express any liking without that liking entering into a calculation of how it can fit in with a life of defense against the danger of other people. All that is lurking behind the small talk. It never goes away. The Beverly Hills doctors and speculators go under the tent roof and celebrate the good life. I'm there, invited by a speculator, introduced by the Guru, but am considered only long enough to see whether the fortifications are secure against danger I might present. This is what life is supposed to be in this place I was born and raised in, the best the technology of social war achieves.
- And the techniques worked out making peace the basic relation between people?
- Peace is a practical concern, is a tool, a product of politics. The basic relation between people is desire, liking. Rules manages that liking to create peace. Liking has to be managed.
- Why?
- We have to educate each other to like what is best. We are not born with the knowledge.
- That education is the technology of peace? The technology of good?
- Yes.
- Couldn't you educate the Beverly Hills doctors and real estate speculators?
- If they could have seen me, or anyone else even for a moment as a possible friend. The fact is they can't. They can't get past their fundamental expectation that relations between people are those between enemies.
- Teach them.
- As their enemy, teach them?
- Everyone is their enemy. Be a friend. Teach them friendship. Tell them stories. Show them another kind of life. They're your people, after all.
- My kind of story to them is a fairy tale, a tale of the world that cannot be recreated in the unchallenged hierarchy of warfare they build their lives on.
- Then what?
- Then foundations collapse.
17. The Guru Of Beverly Hills
- He's cookoo.
- That's your professional opinion?
- Yes.
- You're really psychologists, both you?
- Yes.
- On what basis do you make your diagnosis?
- Practical. Going by what you've told us about him. His failure in love, failure in work. His wife left him, he's never had a job.
- I said he gives away all his money and sent away his wife.
- He suffers from delusions of grandeur. Narcissism.
- He does. But he knows it. Told me himself.
- Then why does he go on doing the same things?
- Hatred of the world.
- Which is cookoo.
- Or simply another kind of vanity, egomania, delusion of grandeur, narcissism, whatever you want to call it. Seeing himself not seeing the world.
- Which is cookoo.
- Then everyone is crazy.
- Some more than others.
- What if with his giving away money, wife dismissal, night wanderings among the dispossessed he really is religious?
- He's still cookoo.
- If being religious he is holding onto beautiful ideas, fighting to hold onto beautiful ideas, being willing to go crazy to hold onto beautiful ideas, isn't he doing something good?
- You defend him because he's your buddy.
- He says he isn't a friend. Says he can't be counted on because he won't establish connections with people he doesn't believe are real.
- The people aren't real or the connections?
- Both.
- That's not crazy?
- A standard religious observation. True in its way.
- Maybe you need professional treatment. What do you do?
- Have I sent my wife away do I not work do I wander around at night?
- Well? You should write about your friend. You are writing about your friend.
18. Private In Public
- I'll say good by. I don't know if I'll ever be back in Silverlake.
- Where are you going?
- Beverly Hills.
- Well, I'm sure you're not someone who burns bridges, and can come back with your friend here.
- I do burn bridges.
- What are you going to do to the guy? Your friend.
- He's not my friend. Just another victim of our social stupidity. I'll put him in a story.
- What will you write?
- Something inspired by the anthropologist Levi Strauss. Know him?
- No. I'm a retired building inspector. If someone dug up a corpse maybe I'd have to look up an anthropologist to decide if the land had to declared a protected historic place. Is that his book you're reading?
- No. Last in a series of Swedish detective novels from the 60s and 70s. This one has a pornographic film producer murdered by the father of one of his actresses whose life he ruined, then the prime mister of Sweden assassinated by a victim of heartless economics. We think we have such a different way of life from the primitive peoples. But you know, things haven't changed much.
- How so?
- Instead of human sacrifice and cannibalism, people exchange things. They'd kill each other if that would get them better exchange, only don't kill each other because that will interfere with the efficient accumulation of property through exchange. At least that's how we explain to ourselves what we're doing. It's far from the truth.
- Why?
- The primitives Levi Strauss studied gave gifts to each other, following detailed rules about who to give to and when to give. Since they lived in a closed community, enough would indirectly find its way back to every giver to make gift giving possible. Despite the human sacrifice and cannibalism of our constant exchanges, we are no different from the primitives in our gift giving. Without it our economic system would collapse. Want to get back to work? Or should I go on?
- Sit down in the shade.
- Do you have coffee? I left the house in a hurry to get away.
- I can make a pot. Back in a few minutes.
- So. You're not coming back to Silverlake.
- This is our last conversation. But you'll finish building your walls someday soon. Where did we leave off? Alright. We do our human sacrifice in our exchanges, trying to get the better of each other. My idea is that we make each of us our private community and make it mobile with these exchanges of property. Each exchange creates a new neighborhood in which we calculate whether we can start making gifts, and get gifts in return enough to live, though not in direct exchange.
- I don't see that.
- An investment is a bet that what's been bought, or produced out of purchased labor and parts, will be able to be sold at a profit.
- The exchange aspect is human sacrifice and cannibalism, but the investment is like the gift giving in a community of gift givers.
- Exactly. Everyone really understands this. We trust in the future, or more accurately, we trust in our scientific calculation of which arrangement of property is likely to create a community in which gifts will be made back to us.
- I never looked at it like that. Interesting. Technology applied to primitive customs.
- Scientific cannibalism. The last line of this last novel in the series of Swedish detective novels is: Marx had it right. You asked what I'll write about my "friend". First I'll write about Silverlake. The mystery of why everyone is covered with tattoos. Skin is the boundary between private world and public world. Why write a symbol on that boundary? Why give an image of yourself to the public? What do you get out of it? Is it a tribal identification, or only an ornament?
And I'll write about the courtesies of the girls who work at the Lark cake shop which vanished as soon it was obvious I was going to buy only one small coffee a day. One of the girls seemed to offer friendship, but that vanished too when it was clear I couldn't support a life with her or even alone.
I thought a long time about her. I was sure the offer of friendship was real. What if the courtesies were also real? What if social media posts detailing what we have for breakfast are not mere superficiality, but real attempts to bring oneself out into the world when we felt isolated, with no one really paying attention to anyone except for practical purposes? What if a social media breakfast message was the most real thing in the morning, and the 'how are you today?' at the cake shop also real, and the friendship of the girl also real, and the tattoos also real openings of a conversation?
However I found within days of moving to Silverlake conversation couldn't be. No one wanted to talk. They looked up from their computers or phones asking what I could possibly be doing in their lives, what sort of spam was I arriving in their inbox. Same goes for the hospitality offered by my "friend" up the street here. Most of his living was in making his private house public, renting parts of it by the day through the internet. His invitation to stay with him was a gesture supposed to bring good Karma, bring reward, financial reward in particular, remaining within the primitive but shifting from cannibalism of exchange to gift economy.
If the courtesies, the tattoos, the offers of friendship and hospitality really are gifts, there must be a community of gift giving. If you go on giving without expecting return, or even forseeing return, someone has to be in the community to give you something or you'll be drained dry. The tattoos, courtesies, invitations, social media breakfast posts were constructing imaginary communities.
Last week I got invited to a Sukkot celebration by a real estate speculator I'd met in the company of the Guru of Beverly Hills. The Guru's another story. I met the speculator this time by chance walking by his house. The invitation to his sister's house he said was a "mitzvah" a good deed. He said there was a dying guy there I should talk to.
Same week I met at Starbucks a woman who told me and anyone who'd listen she had a deadly disease, her family wouldn't come to the hospital with her for an operation, no one cared about her, she couldn't trust the doctors, all they wanted was her money, which turned out to be considerable, she lived alone in a million dollar Beverly Hills condo, and it turned out the doctors were telling her she didn't have the fatal disease and she wouldn't believe them, her mother called her every day, had bought here a new computer a month before which she hadn't picked up at the Apple store because an employee she thought was discourteous to her. Free from interest in getting at the truth of life, complaining totally without concern with the people she made her complaints to, she waited for something to happen.
All the same pattern: private life opened to the public, then closed off without development. No conversation to be held with the tattooed. No further courtesy with the courteous, soon not even a hello at the cake shop, no friendship with the friendly. And what accounted for this? I think it really might be the judgement that no community with me could be constructed. No magical community. I didn't have the funds for it.
So I'll burn my bridge back to Silverlake writing this. Our last conversation at your front yard. You know what I wanted from all these people?
- What?
- Real conversation. Openings to somewhere, anywhere. No. Not anywhere. Not someplace that leads right back here. Ask a businessman why he does business, he'll say it's a creative act. Creates what? Jobs for people. The businessman's private act of creativity is a public job creation. But the job creation comes back from the community in some unknown manner, a fatality of an economic system that is protected to act in accord with its spontaneous order. In fact, when you look closer, put all the private creative acts of businessmen together and the public result is the loss of jobs, and even deliberate economic destruction if that is part of the creative act of making money. If other people's generosity doesn't meet with the same immediate reward as their own, that is alright, It is not part of the system of mitzvahs, good deeds, home invitations, courtesies that the gift giving of private self gets an immediate compensation. All in time will work itself out.
A billionaire recently made public his private opinion that it was unfair his secretary paid more tax than he did. He didn't offer to pay his secretary's tax. He didn't offer to pay his 100,000 employee's taxes, which he very easily could do, employees he pays so little to that a large number of them don't have enough to eat and receive free food from the federal government. The billionaire makes his gift, he's satisfied the world community gives him back in its magical way, his employees too, in time, will be rewarded.
Our modern economic system, so advanced, turns out gets its justification from the so-called primitive "gift economy". Private life being made public is behind it all. Not functionality, not efficiency, not stability. We're people helping people, just as before.
- We're people helping people kill and eat each other.
- We're people helping people kill and eat each other. Yes. We apply our scientific thinking, we operate the gift economy with an experimental attitude, and the result is a sort of stability. It works*, but has no connection to the technology of making better and worse lives for human beings. We use our technology only to perfect human sacrifice and cannibalism. I'll write something like that. Maybe expressed a little better. Depends on whether I think my gift is being done in a community, whether something will come out of it magically that can support me and my gift giving.
Last night before I can open the door to Starbucks the kid working behind the counter is signaling me to come in. He tells me the rich woman with her diseases has asked them to stop me coming there. The world was not returning her "courtesy" with me, had not paid her back for making public her private life, I was harassing her, the law should be callled on me. So the staff had to decide, which of us do they support, or neither.
- What did they say?
- They 'had my back', were on my side. They knew her, were going to ask her, not me, not to come back.
You see? Sometimes conversations do get started.
--------
* The two economies, market and gift, function as a set of cycling rituals, cycling within themselves and from one to the other: money making leads only to more money making, gift giving only to more gift giving. But money making can be done to enable gift giving, and gift giving to increase money making in a "karmic return". The destructiveness of the continuous public war of the exchange economy, creating habits that get in the way of sympathy, is recovered from, at least in imitative form, in the private gift giving of courtesies and invitations, defined as private because of negligible public exchange value.
19. Almost Fiction
- Where are you going?
- To the library. Come along.
- What are you going to do there?
- Use the internet.
- What happened to your computer?
- Don't you remember? I broke it. Third computer I broke in 3 years.
- Do they let you use their computers?
- Well, that's a story. I went in, showed my expired Beverly Hills Library card. They asked for a gas bill, phone bill, house deed, birth certificate...
- Birth certificate?
- I'm exaggerating. Hanging over the reception desk was a huge sign: "Customer Service". You know how I subject everyone I meet to whatever I reading, so I said,
- I'm not your customer. Customers and merchants deal in an exchange economy. Pay this now, receive that now. Each tries to get the best deal out of the other, customers try to pay as little as possible and get as much as possible, merchants try to provide as little as possible and be paid the most possible. Customers and merchants are enemies. In the days before the world was taken over by business school graduates libraries had patrons. Patrons entrust gifts to an organization which later distributes gifts to the public, a relation between friends rather than enemies, a gift rather than exchange economy.
- If you want to renew your card you'll have to present proof of residence.
- You said that. Aren't you listening? The people of Beverly Hills have entrusted the library with the gift of their money and yet the library distrusts its "customers", assumes they are professional thieves and they want to steal five books and sell them for 25 cents each if they're lucky and work hard.
- How did you get the card you have?
- I asked for it.
- What proof of Beverly Hills residence did you show?
- I don't remember. My arrogance?
- What would you like to do at the library?
- Use the internet.
- To use the internet you don't need a card. See the service representative at the computers.
- Can I help you?- They gave it to you?
- The robots over there under the customer service sign sent me here.
- Why?
- To talk to another robot?
- Are you calling me a robot? I don't like being called a robot.
- I understand. If you really are a robot you can't help acting like one.
- Do you want me to call security and have you escorted out?
- The world is full of places to be throw out of and this is only the second time this week it's been offered.
.- Why shouldn't I have you thrown out?
- Why don't you just let me use the computers?
- You can. Read this screen. You can read?
- No. I came to the library to learn. Can you read?
- Yes.
- Read me what's it says on the screen.
- It says to use the computer you have to make a one dollar deposit. Do you have one dollar?
- No. Why else come here and have to deal with - not robots, don't worry, but something a lot like them at customer service?
- If you just want to use the computers go back to reception...
- You mean customer service.
- Whatever. And ask for a computer card.
- Yes. Here's what I'm going to type into the internet.
- Read it to me.
- You and me are talking. You speak first.
- What did you do today?
- Thought a little about you.
- What?
- The way you give away money. What you expected from it.
- I take care of the people in my life.
- I meant the people on the streets.
- I've stopped.
- I know. But I'm still thinking about it. Your real estate speculator friend says you did it to feel powerful, you suffered from a kind of megalomania.
- Let him think what he wants.
- Your motto is, "Think For Yourself, Act For Others". You don't concern yourself with whether the practical things you do for others changes their thinking. You don't want to change anyone's thinking.
- Maybe I did. But if I changed anyone, it was just one person.
- You acted for others, you gave help expecting nothing in return, directly or indirectly, neither in an exchange economy nor a gift economy.
- Gifts come from God. It wasn't in my hands.
21. The Lower Depths
- The rule is, when you make yourself into a machine you agree to be treated as a machine.
- Whose rule?
- My rule.
- People can stop making themselves into machines and be people again.
- Am I supposed to wait?
- Yes.
- And while waiting I die? Assuming you're right and it's even possible for them to stop making themselves into machines. You know the play by Gorky, The Lower Depths? About a flop house in turn of the 20th century Russia? The question is raised: are these creature, the tenants of the house, the inhabitants, are they still human?
- You think you can treat people like machines because they have made themselves into machines and as machines have lost the ability to remake themselves into humans?
- It's an idea. You're running a sort of Beverly Hills flop house here. You've got me in one corner, and you've got your childhood friend living in other corner, a limo driver who boasts of never having read a book in his life. Do you know what we discussed last night while you were off administering to your flock on the streets?
- What?
- English grammar. He claims to be religious, has a copy of the bible laying around with his things. He says intentions and words and thoughts don't matter, only actions. It's not that he is against hypocrisy. I don't think he knows the word. Rather he wants to be able to act by rule, without thought. He was making fun of people who say, "Joe & me", "me & him", as not knowing the rules. I informed him there was an ongoing dispute regarding this question. "People dispute about grammar? he asked. Yes, they do. There is the "generative grammar" school that says many different rules are used to construct sentences, which when completed cannot be seen to satisfy any set of rules. The resulting sentence, composed according to rules, breaks some of them.
- Did he understand?
- No. Do you? I went on. If you want to tell a story of going with your friend to the market, you can express the idea of going together with, in which case there are not two subjects, but a relationship between them. In English grammar, the expression of going "with" directs you use the form "me," or "him", instead of the subject form "I".
- And did he understand that?
- No, of course not. Do you? Put aside the question of grammar. The real question is whether you try to produce actions that satisfy a rule, or you use rules to choose your actions, not sure how they will turn out, ready for something new to result, like the sentence we complete not knowing in advance how we are going to do it.
- So the people in the lower depths...
- Like your friend the limo driver Christian grammarian who never read a book in his life...
- The people in the lower depths, having made themselves into machines, can act by rule, but have lost the ability to create new sentences by assembling them, choosing each word by rule but open to a result that will not satisfy all the rules?
- Congratulations.
- Thank you. I don't have to worry then you'll treat me like a machine?
- For the time being.
- Guess what I was thinking about today?
- What?
- Your saying your friend David, the sexual pervert lying real estate speculator, had the wisdom of Solomon.
- I didn't say that.
- You did. You said you were a fighter for the truth, he had the wisdom to look behind appearances to see the truth.
- I don't remember. What did you do today? Besides.
- It's been a filled up full moon day. At the Century City Shopping Center I was asked by a filmmaker if I could come to the last minute first test screening of her new film. I was available. I'm always available. At 6:45 I'd found the side entrance to the screening room of William Morris Endeavor, big time movie agency. Funny name, raises the question why its a struggle to be William Morris. Know what Cary Grant said to the fan who told him he didn't look like Cary Grant: "Who Does?" The filmmaker was standing by the door on Camden Dr, "You made it," she greets me. I ask her about the movie I'm about to see, she asks me what I do. Write teaching stories. Teaching what? That's the problem, not teaching anything that'll help anyone make money. But the last story I wrote maybe somebody would make into a movie, about an anarchist revolution in the USA, it teaches how to keep everyone from making money. Maybe that would sell. More people are arriving and the filmmaker turns away without a word to greet and meet. Fair then that that I walked out in the middle of her screening and made my way back from Beverly Hills to Century City. I walk along streets of houses and was thinking what a nice quiet safe neighborhood this was when I hear a man talking loudly into his phone behind me and running footsteps. I stop to let him catch up, ask what's going on. He says he saw a man get murdered, the killer run away. Where? On Beverly Glen, around the corner. He called the police, waited 15 minutes, got scared standing by the bleeding dead body the murderer would return, and went to his house on this block. The police finally came, told him to go back. I let him run on ahead. I followed at a distance, was in time to see the body being loaded into a fire department ambulance.
- Why did it take so long?
- Police arrive in Beverly Hills in 3 minutes. This was across the border in L.A., where apparently it takes 30 minutes to respond to a murder. If you can't make them money at the movies they turn their backs on you, if you can't die in Beverly Hills they'll let your corpse bleed on the street. If you're a perverted exhibitionist real estate speculator some people will slobber all over you with dog like loyalty and say you have the wisdom of Solomon. A prostitute, actually my wife, once told me she always could find one quality in her customer to like and ignore the rest of the package.
22. I Discuss The Jews With The Limo Driver In The Corner
- Can I ask you something?
- If it's not personal.
- No. About the Jews. You're Jewish, but you're calm. All the Jews here in Beverly Hills are nervous all the time. They're dishonest. And unbelievably cheap. Can you explain it?
- Sure. They don't believe in beauty. They live for doing. They never stop doing. They're nervous between the time they finish one thing and begin another. They don't exist outside of doing things, and existing enough only to know they don't exist confuses them.
- You've confused me.
- They exist, but only in relation to things. They exist in a property relation. The property relation is an attachment to things. It is not a necessary relation.
- Why not?
- When you stop doing things you can rest in the beauty of the world as a whole. You can never rest in relation to particular things.
- Why not?
- Because things destroy each other. They have to be protected. They wear out. They wear you out, because only a thing can have a relation to things. So you are reminded you are a thing that has to be protected and wears out. If you are the thing that goes by the name "Money Worshiping Beverly Hills Jew" you want to increase the number of things you are attached to.
- But what does attachment mean?
- It means feeling safe having things around you.
- Why?
- Property is something to hold onto in a changing world.
- But you said we can never rest in relation to things. Things wear out, have to be guarded.
- Yes. That's why people who live exclusively in property relations have to keep on gathering more things around themselves. Getting more things, and money which symbolizes the ability to collect things, they seem to be becoming safer. When they stop for a moment they're nervous about founding their security on things which are unreliable. They go back to work making money, the only time they really feel safe.
- Have you seen this?
- What is it?
- Demons called up by devil worshippers.
- You think Jews don't just worship money, they worship the devil too?
- The best trick the devil played is making people believe he doesn't exist.
- You believe in the devil?
- If you look on the internet you'll see.
- Why do I need to look on the internet? The most characteristic thing human beings do is destroy each other. They force each other to become things, become unable to love. What job is there for the devil to do? If there was any species that could never offer employment to the devil it's ours. What we need is a god to save us from ourselves. Have you seen one on the internet?
- Here's the problem. Social life rewards honesty and punishes dishonesty. This is called enforcement of being good. But social life also rewards dishonesty and punishes honesty.
- Why?
- Because pretending to be honest also gets you the social reward for being good. And being dishonest allows you to profit from deceiving people.
- We have reasons to be good and bad. Everyone knows that.
- We have social reasons to be good and bad. Because we are educated by society when we are too little to know what we are doing, be conscious of our learning the rules, we ascribe to a god our reasons for social behavior: a good god, or "God" when we are honest, a bad god, "the devil" when we are dishonest.
- Honesty is religious.
- Social honesty is religious. Personal honesty is something else. In personal life the truth is our material, our tool for problem solving and invention. A lie restrains our creativity.
- So truth in social life is rewarded and punished, but in private life only rewarded?
- Yes. Do you see what this means?
- Tell me.
- We live with others to learn from each other, but we pay a heavy price: we learn that honesty which is always good in private life is only sometimes good in social life. From the perspective of private life, social life as a whole, rewarding both honesty and dishonesty, confusing us about what it means to be honest, seems to be the devil's work we've collectively taken over.
- Which is why he can't get a job.
- Sometimes people can be too smart.
- People like me.
- The devil doesn't want to work for us, he wants us to work for him.
- Worship him.
- Yes.
- So you still think the Jews worship the devil.
- Some of them.
- For example, your strip-club friend, the real estate speculator?
- You know him?
- Yes. A couple weeks ago I was walking on my way to Starbucks when by chance I passed his house as he was riding up on his bicycle. I'd already met him with our host one midnight at the market. He insisted I come to his sister's house for the Jewish festival, the feast of the tabernacles. First he had to take a shower. He showed me in, put me out on the balcony to wait. I'm telling you this, because soon I hear shouting from inside, "Police"! "Stop where you are!".
- He's a volunteer Sheriff. He does that stuff all the time.
- Then he appeared completely naked out on the balcony, said "Nice to see you're Ok", and went back to the shower.
- So he's a homosexual. I wondered about him. He pays the girls to let him rub them, but doesn't want any more.
- He's protecting his public life from private life, making sure love of truth has no chance to develop.
- I don't understand.
- Do you know how the Jews became famously good at making money?
- No.
- They gave themselves complete flexibility negotiating the dangerous waters of honesty and dishonesty in public life. They kept their private lives separate. Your friend the speculator...
- He's not my friend.
- Of course, he's no one's friend. The Beverly Hills Jew, let's call him, in the service of making money has gone further, has eradicated private life. He wants to keep a distance from girls. He wants his contact to be deniable, to himself and others, wants its meaning to be negotiable.
- I showed him the video of UC Davis students sitting quietly down on a campus square being pepper sprayed by para-military units.
- They were ordered there by the University Chancellor. I'm familiar with it.
- Do you know what David said?
- What?
- "Better nip them in the bud."
- Childhood and youth, formerly sanctified preserves of private life, used to be exempt from adult American glory in the massacre of human nature. No more.
- And you don't think that's devil worship?*
- If there was a devil he might keep me company. I have more than 10,000 social media connections, but haven't got a single email in the past week. I am the world's worst networker.
- What are you doing wrong?
- Do you know why I criticize the Jews?
- No.
- They guard the border between being in-the-network and out. They keep record of the rules of the crossing, guide the passage across the boundary. And they are not doing their job.
- I don't know what you're talking about. What border?
- We were talking about it: between public and private. The Jews are the sanctuary for the rules keeping private life safe from public life. Our world has always been the devil's creation: social life equally motivated by honesty and dishonesty, honesty of private life under threat of vanishing. In private life you share. In public life you trade. Networking is all about trades. You send messages so you can receive messages.
- You don't send messages.
- I do. They aren't answered.
- Why not?
- I can't reward for completing the trade or punish for not. I'm always a stranger across the border, and networkers don't share with strangers. Any relation to a stranger out of the network other than complete disregard depends upon private life being preserved from infection of public life. It is natural to care about any human being, but in our devil's world most people don't.
- And Jews care about people outside their network? Weren't you saying the opposite?
- They are carriers of practices that keep you capable of it.
- And they aren't practicing.
- No.
- What are the practices?
- Ways of keeping in mind that the distinctions we make in life are unimportant.
- What's important?
- Love.
- Doesn't sound like Judaism to me.
- You can blame the Jews for that.
* We humans are the only species that organizes itself to hunt, spy on, manipulate and kill each other.
23. The Association Of Anti-Semites In The Century City Shopping Mall
- I see your bag. "Organization for Anti-Semitism". I'd like to join. I just got my first email accusing me of being a Jew-hater so I am confident I can submit impressive credentials with my application.
- "Association For Combatting Anti-Semitism".
- I see now.
- Are you Jewish?
- Sure. I've been writing stories about Beverly Hills. I'd like to outdo in provocation Philip Roth in "Portnoy's Complaint", even Celine in his World War II era pamphlets.
- So you write a blog.
- I deny it. I say I write stories.
- Soon everyone will write a blog. I write one.
- I can't help it if the world is filled with psychopathic exhibitionists. So you won't pay me to make fun the of the Jews. But can't you give me some referrals, know your enemy, right? I'm new to this business. You guys at the Anti-Semite association must know people willing to pay for first quality anti-Semitic stories.
- What do you write in your blog?
- You mean my stories.
- Your stories.
- I write conversation. I had this one at the shopping center about two minutes ago. I spotted coins lying unattended on the pavement, leaned down to scoop them up, and a guy standing nearby commented:
-That's one way to make money.
- Not a good way. Proceeds are meager. Know a better way?
- Yes. If you are an artist, I suppose you are, you'll spend you life trying to sell a picture for ten dollars to someone like me who turns around and sells it for a million.
- I know an even better way to make money.
- What's that?
- Sell the painting to the guy who sells it for a million then take the million from him. This has the advantage of making a profit out of connections established through social conformity that you think so much more valuable than actually creating anything together with the advantage of punishing someone for making profit in that destructive way.
- You're not only an Anti-Semite you're a social theorist.
- I'm a man of many qualities all of them valueless. Except maybe to Anti-Semites, and you won't help me with my application, I can see it in your face.
- Good luck with your blog.
- My stories!
