Where did you get that?
(And, in a completely different stylistic vein, have you read the Children of the Last Days series yet?)
Posted on 10/18/2002 4:18:48 PM PDT by Askel5
THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILY IN HISTORYChristopher Dawson | 1933The traditional view of the family was founded on a somewhat naive and one-sided conception of history. The knowledge of the past was confined to the history of classical civilization and to that of the Jews, in both of which the patriarchal family reigned supreme. But when the European horizon was widened by the geographical discoveries of modern times, men suddenly realized the existence of societies whose social organization was utterly different to anything that they bad imagined. The discovery of totemism and exogamy, of matrilinear institutions, of polyandry, and of customs of organized sexual licence gave rise to a whole host of new theories concerning the origins of marriage and the family. Under the influence of the prevalent evolutionary philosophy, scholars like Lewis Morgan elaborated the theory of the gradual evolution of the family from a condition of primitive sexual promiscuity through various forms of group-marriage and temporary pairing up to the higher forms of patriarchal and monogamous marriage as they exist in developed civilizations. This theory naturally commended itself to socialists. It received the official imprimatur of the leaders of German Socialism in the later nineteenth century, and has become as much a part of orthodox socialist thought as the Marxian interpretation of history. It was, however, never fully accepted by the scientific world, and is today generally abandoned, although it still finds a few supporters among anthropologists. In England it is still maintained by Mr. E. S. Hartland and by Dr. Briffault, whose vast work The Mothers (3 Vols., 1927) is entirely devoted to the subject. According to Briffault, primitive society was purely matriarchal in organization, and the primitive family group consisted only of a woman and her offspring. A prolonged sexual association, such as we find in all existing forms of marriage, except in Russia., is neither natural nor primitive, and has no place in matriarchal society. The original social unit was not the family, but the clan which was based on matrilinear kinship and was entirely communistic in its sexual and economic relations. The family, as we understand it, owes nothing to biological or sexual causes, but is an economic institution arising from the development of private property and the consequent domination of women by men. It is “but a euphemism for the individualistic male with his subordinate dependents.” But in spite of its logical coherence, and the undoubted existence of matrilinear institutions in primitive society, this theory has not been borne out by recent investigations. The whole tendency of modern anthropology has been to discredit the old views regarding primitive promiscuity and sexual communism, and to emphasize the importance and universality of marriage. Whether the social organization is matrilinear or patrilinear, whether morality is strict or loose, it is the universal rule of every known society that a woman before she bears a child must be married to an individual male partner. The importance of this rule has been clearly shown by Dr. Malinowski. “The universal postulate of legitimacy,” he writes, “has a great sociological significance which is not yet sufficiently acknowledged. It means that in all human societies moral tradition and law decree that the group consisting of a woman and her offspring is not a sociologically complete unit. The ruling of culture runs here again on entirely the same lines as natural endowment; it declares that the human family must consist of the male as well as the female.” [1] It is impossible to go back behind the family and find a state of society in which the sexual relations are in a pre-social stage, for the regulation of sexual relations is an essential prerequisite of any kind of culture. The family is not a product of culture; it is, as Malinowski shows, “the starting point of all human organization” and “the cradle of nascent culture.” Neither the sexual nor the parental instinct is distinctively human. They exist equally among the animals, and they only acquire cultural significance when their purely biological function is transcended by the attainment of a permanent social relation. Marriage is the social consecration of the biological functions, by which the instinctive activities of sex and parenthood are socialized and a new synthesis of cultural and natural elements is created in the shape of the family. This synthesis differs from anything that exists in the animal world in that it no longer leaves man free to follow his own sexual instincts; he is forced to conform them to a certain social pattern. The complete freedom from restraint which was formerly supposed to be characteristic of savage life is a romantic myth. In all primitive societies sexual relations are regulated by a complex and meticulous system of restrictions, any breach of which is regarded not merely as an offence against tribal law, but as morally sinful. These rules mostly have their origin in the fear of incest, which is the fundamental crime against the family, since it leads to the disorganization of family sentiment and the destruction of family authority. It is unnecessary to insist upon the importance of the consequences of this fear of incest in both individual and social psychology, since it is the fundamental thesis of Freud and his school. Unfortunately, in his historical treatment of the subject, in Totem and Tabu, he inverts the true relation, and derives the sociological structure from a pre-existent psychological complex instead of vice versa. In reality, as Dr. Malinowski has shown, the fundamental repression which lies at the root of social life is not the suppressed memory of an instinctive crime -- Freud’s prehistoric Oedipus tragedy -- but a deliberate constructive repression of anti-social impulses.
The beginning of culture implies the repression of instincts, and all the essentials of the Oedipus complex or any other complex are necessary by-products in the gradual formation of culture. [2] The institution of the family inevitably creates a vital tension which is creative as well as painful. For human culture is not instinctive. It has to be conquered by a continuous moral effort, which involves the repression of natural instinct and the subordination and sacrifice of the individual impulse to the social purpose. It is the fundamental error of the modern hedonist to believe that man can abandon moral effort and throw off every repression and spiritual discipline and yet preserve all the achievements of culture. It is the lesson of history that the higher the achievement of a culture the greater is the moral effort and the stricter is the social discipline that it demands. The old type of matrilinear society, though it is by no means devoid of moral discipline, involves considerably less repression and is consistent with a much laxer standard of sexual behaviour than is usual in patriarchal societies. But at the same time it is not capable of any high cultural achievement or of adapting itself to changed circumstances. It remains bound to its elaborate and cumbrous mechanism of tribal custom. The patriarchal family, on the other hand, makes much greater demands on human nature. It requires chastity and self-sacrifice on the part of the wife and obedience and discipline on the part of the children, while even the father himself has to assume a heavy burden of responsibility and submit his personal feelings to the interests of the family tradition. But for these very reasons the patriarchal family is a much more efficient organ of cultural life. It is no longer limited to its primary sexual and reproductive functions. It becomes the dynamic principle of society and the source of social continuity. Hence, too, it acquires a distinctively religious character, which was absent in matrilinear societies, and which is now expressed in the worship of the family hearth or the sacred fire and the ceremonies of the ancestral cult. The fundamental idea in marriage is no longer the satisfaction of the sexual appetite, but, as Plato says: “the need that every man feels of clinging to the eternal life of nature by leaving behind him children’s children who may minister to the gods in his stead. [3] This religious exaltation of the family profoundly affects men’s attitude to marriage and the sexual aspects of life in general. It is not limited, as is often supposed, to the idealization of the possessive male as father and head of the household; it equally transforms the conception of womanhood. It was the patriarchal family which created those spiritual ideals of motherhood and virginity which have had so deep an influence on the moral development of culture. No doubt the deification of womanhood, through the worship of the Mother Goddess had its origin in the ancient matrilinear societies. But the primitive Mother Goddess is a barbaric and formidable deity who embodies the ruthless fecundity of nature, and her rites are usually marked by licentiousness and cruelty. It was the patriarchal culture which transformed this sinister goddess into the gracious figures of Demeter and Persephone and Aphrodite, and which created those higher types of divine virginity which we see in Athene, the giver of good counsel, and Artemis, the guardian of youth. The patriarchal society was in fact the creator of those moral ideas which have entered so deeply into the texture of civilization that they have become a part of our thought. Not only the names of piety and chastity, honour and modesty, but the values for which they stand are derived from this source, so that even where the patriarchal family has passed away we are still dependent on the moral tradition that it created. [4] Consequently, we find that the existing world civilizations from Europe to China are all founded on the tradition of the patriarchal family. It is to this that they owed the social strength which enabled them to prevail over the old cultures of matrilinear type which, alike in Europe and in Western Asia, in China and in India, had preceded the coming of the great classical cultures. Moreover, the stability of the latter has proved to be closely dependent on the preservation of the patriarchal ideal. A civilization like that of China, in which the patriarchal family remained the cornerstone of society and the foundation of religion and ethics, has preserved its cultural traditions for more than 2,000 years without losing its vitality. In the classical cultures of the Mediterranean world, however, this was not the case. Here the patriarchal family failed to adapt itself to the urban conditions of the Hellenistic civilization, and consequently the whole culture lost its stability. Conditions of life both in the Greek city state and in the Roman Empire favoured the man without a family who could devote his whole energies to the duties and pleasures of public life. Late marriages and small families became the rule, and men satisfied their sexual instincts by homosexuality or by relations with slaves and prostitutes. This aversion to marriage and the deliberate restriction of the family by the practice of infanticide and abortion was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the second century B.C. [5] And the same factors were equally powerful in the society of the Empire, where the citizen class even in the provinces was extraordinarily sterile and was recruited not by natural increase, but by the constant introduction of alien elements, above all from the servile class. Thus the ancient world lost its roots alike in the family and in the land and became prematurely withered. The reconstitution of Western civilization was due to the coming of Christianity and the re-establishment of the family on a new basis. Though the Christian ideal of the family owes much to the patriarchal tradition which finds such a complete expression in the Old Testament, it was in several respects a new creation that differed essentially from anything that had previously existed. While the patriarchal family in its original form was an aristocratic institution which was the privilege of a ruling race or a patrician class, the Christian family was common to every class, even to the slaves. [6] Still more important was the fact that the Church insisted for the first time on the mutual and bilateral character of sexual obligations. The husband belonged to the wife as exclusively as the wife to the husband. This rendered marriage a more personal and individual relation than it bad been under the patriarchal system. The family was no longer a subsidiary member of a larger unity -- the kindred or “gens.” It was an autonomous self-contained unit which owed nothing to any power outside itself. It is precisely this character of exclusiveness and strict mutual obligation which is the chief ground of objection among the modern critics of Christian morality. But whatever may be thought of it, there can be no doubt that the resultant type of monogamous and indissoluble marriage has been the foundation of European society and has conditioned the whole development of our civilization. No doubt it involves a very severe effort of repression and discipline, but its, upholders would maintain that it has rendered possible an achievement which could never have been equalled under the laxer conditions of polygamous or matrilinear societies. There is no historical justification of Bertrand Russell’s belief that the Christian attitude to marriage has had a brutalizing effect on sexual relations and has degraded the position of woman below even the level of ancient civilization: on the contrary, women have always had a wider share in social life and a greater influence on civilization in Europe than was the case either in Hellenic or oriental society. And this is in part due to those very ideals of asceticism and chastity which Bertrand Russell regards as the source of all our troubles. For in a Catholic civilization the patriarchal ideal is counterbalanced by the ideal of virginity. The family for all its importance does not control the whole existence of its members. The spiritual side of life belongs to a spiritual society in which all authority is reserved to a celibate class. Thus in one of the most important aspects of life the sexual relation is transcended, and husband and wife stand on an equal footing. I believe that this is the chief reason why the feminine element has achieved fuller expression in Catholic culture and why, even at the present day [1933], the feminine revolt against the restrictions of family life is so much less marked in Catholic society than elsewhere. In Protestant Europe, on the other hand, the Reformation, by abandoning the ideal of virginity and by the destruction of monasticism and of the independent authority of the Church, accentuated the masculine element in the family. The Puritan spirit, nourished on the traditions of the Old Testament, created a new patriarchalism and made the family the religious as well as the social basis of society. Civilization lost its communal and public character and became private and domestic. And yet, by a curious freak of historical development, it was this Puritan and patriarchal society which gave birth to the new economic order which now threatens to destroy the family,. Industrialism grew up, not in the continental centres of urban culture, but in the most remote districts of rural England, in the homes of nonconformist weavers and ironworkers. The new industrial society was entirely destitute of the communal spirit and of the civic traditions which had marked the ancient and the mediaeval city. It existed simply for the production of wealth and left every other side of life to private initiative. Although the old rural culture, based on the household as an independent economic unit, was passing away for ever, the strict ethos of the Puritan family continued to rule men’s lives. This explains the anomalies of the Victorian period both in England and America. It was essentially an age of transition. Society had already entered on a phase of intense urban industrialism, while still remaining faithful to the patriarchal ideals of the old Puritan tradition. Both Puritan morality and industrial mass economy were excessive and one-sided developments, and when the two were brought together in one society they inevitably produced an impossible situation. The problem that faces us today is, therefore, not so much the result of an intellectual revolt against the traditional Christian morality, it is due to the inherent contradictions of an abnormal state of culture. The natural tendency, which is even more clearly visible in America than in England, is for the Puritan tradition to be abandoned and for society to give itself up passively to the machinery of modern cosmopolitan life. But this is no solution. It leads merely to the breaking down of the old structure of society and the loss of the traditional moral standards without creating anything which can take their place. As in the decline of the ancient world, the family is steadily losing its form and its social significance, and the state absorbs more and more of the life of its members. The home is no longer a centre of social activity; it has become merely a sleeping place for a number of independent wage-earners. The functions which were formerly fulfilled by the head of the family are now being taken over by the state, which educates the children and takes the responsibility for their maintenance and health. Consequently, the father no longer holds a vital position in the family: as Mr. Bertrand Russell says, he is often a comparative stranger to his children, who know him only as “that man who comes for week-ends.” Moreover, the reaction against the restrictions of family life which in the ancient world was confined to the males of the citizen class, is today common to every class and to both sexes. To the modern girl marriage and motherhood appear not as the conditions of a wider life, as they did to her grandmother, but as involving the sacrifice of her independence and the abandonment of her career. The only remaining safeguards of family life in modern urban civilization are its social prestige and the sanctions of moral and religious tradition. Marriage is still the only form of sexual union which is openly tolerated by society, and the ordinary man and woman are usually ready to sacrifice their personal convenience rather than risk social ostracism. But if we accept the principles of the new morality, this last safeguard will be destroyed and the forces of dissolution will be allowed to operate unchecked. It is true that Mr. Russell, at least, is willing to leave us the institution of marriage, on condition that it is strictly demoralized and no longer makes any demands on continence. But it is obvious that these conditions reduce marriage to a very subordinate position. It is no longer the exclusive or even the normal form of sexual relations: it is entirely limited to the rearing of children. For, as Mr. Russell is never tired of pointing out, the use of contraceptives has made sexual intercourse independent of parenthood, and the marriage of the future will be confined to those who seek parenthood for its own sake rather than as the natural, fulfillment of sexual love. But under these circumstances who will trouble to marry? Marriage will lose all attractions for the young and the pleasure-loving and the poor and the ambitious. The energy of youth will be devoted to contraceptive love and only when men and women have become prosperous and middle-aged will they think seriously of settling down to rear a strictly limited family. It is impossible to imagine a system more contrary to the first principles of social well-being. So far from helping modern society to surmount its present difficulties, it only precipitates the crisis. It must lead inevitably to a social decadence far more rapid and more universal than that which brought about the disintegration of ancient civilization. The advocates of birth-control can hardly fail to realize the consequences of a progressive decline of the population in a society in which it is already almost stationary, but for all that their propaganda is entirely directed towards a further diminution in the birth rate. Many of them, like Dr. Stopes, are no doubt so much concerned with the problem of individual happiness that they do not stop to consider how the race is to be carried on. Others, such as Mr. Russell, are obsessed by the idea that over-population is the main cause of war and that a diminishing birth rate is the best guarantee of international peace. There is, however, nothing in history to justify this belief. The largest and most prolific populations, such as the Chinese and the Hindus, have always been singularly unaggressive. The most warlike peoples are usually those who are relatively backward in culture and few in numbers, like the Huns and the Mongols, or the English in the fifteenth century, the Swedes in the seventeenth century, and the Prussians in the eighteenth century. If, however, questions of population should give rise to war in the future, there can be no doubt that it is nations with wide possessions and a dwindling population who will be most likely to provoke an attack. But it is much more likely that the process will be a peaceful one. The peoples who allow the natural bases of society to be destroyed by the artificial conditions of the new urban civilization will gradually disappear and their place will be taken by those populations which live under simpler conditions and preserve the traditional forms of the family. [1] B. Malinowski, Sex and Repression in Savage Society (1927), p. 213. Return to Text [2] Malinowski, op. cit., p..i82. [3] Laws, 773 F. [4] For this reason the Catholic Church has always associated its teaching on marriage with the patriarchal tradition, and even today she still concludes the marriage service with the ancient patriarchal benediction: ‘May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, be with you and may he fulfill his blessing upon you that you may see your children’s children even to the third and fourth generation.” [5] He writes that in his days the diminution of population in Greece was so great that the towns were becoming deserted and the fields untilled. The reason of this is neither war nor pestilence, but because men “owing to vanity avarice or cowardice, no longer wish to marry or to bring up children.” In Boeotia especially he notes a tendency for men to leave their property to clubs for public benefactions instead of leaving it to their heirs, “so that the Boeotians often have more free dinners than there are days in the month.”. Polyb., Books XXXVI, 17, and XX, 6. [6] The same change, however, has taken place in China, where, owing to the influence of Confucianism, the whole population has gradually acquired the family institutions which were originally peculiar to the members of the feudal nobility.
|
Particularly the part about the "premature withering" of civilizations remarkably similar to ours.
We can draft in all the immigrants we want ... doesn't change the fact that our legal system, in particular, has slanted the (hedonistic) playing field such that marriage and children are an impediment and something which neither men nor women are much interested in until middle age when they've lost their vitality and their family is destined to come ALWAYS second to the Career they put first.
We are in decline.
Additionally, given the extraordinary attention paid to "population control" by our government, it's strongarming and coercion of of the weak and it's infliction of inhuman practices on cultures not nearly so decadent or "Enlightened" as ours, it's possible these lines were also most prescient on Dawson's part:
If, however, questions of population should give rise to war in the future, there can be no doubt that it is nations with wide possessions and a dwindling population who will be most likely to provoke an attack.
But it is much more likely that the process will be a peaceful one. The peoples who allow the natural bases of society to be destroyed by the artificial conditions of the new urban civilization will gradually disappear and their place will be taken by those populations which live under simpler conditions and preserve the traditional forms of the family.
I endorse it heartily.
WICHITA MAN----
Archaeologists from around the world have gathered in this sleepy Midwestern town to study human bones unearthed by a backhoe operator working on one of the many Federally-mandated upgradings of decaying waste treatment plants throughout the area. The peculiar arrangement of the bones has excited speculation by some experts that this may be the first solid evidence of the long-rumored existence of a sect who died out under mysterious circumstances. The team has named the find “Witchita Man” in honor of the town in which the waste treatment plant is located.
....Nothing else to do. We had to tell them the others were upstaris. To survive. That's all that matters. Alive. Crouched in the closet listening. "Please sir". A laugh. A thud. Waiting for the next order. Alive...
No notes necessary. He knew the phrases by heart: The devastation of black-on-black crime. The indignity. Black women. The lyrics. He could hear a commercial blaring on the other side of the wall. It was a living. He glanced across at the woman who would accompany him on the show. They hadn't spoken since their brief introduction by an assistant producer. A twelve by ten room, or so. The walls of this room reminded him of the walls in an old city hospital where he once waited for his grandmother. He glanced at her brightly colored head wrap. She looked at the other wall. Silently moving her lips. Nervous maybe. "We'll do the segment," they had promised, "if you can get someone to authenticate your message. You know what we mean." I know. You're my authenticator, he thought. He imagined a scene in which he suddenly turns to the camera and yells: "Run for your lives! They hate our guts! Are you deaf!? Can't you hear the words?" A small laugh escaped. The woman looked across at him. She didn't ask. He didn't tell. Another assistant producer was beckoning them in. He paused for her to pass. He heard the muffled deep base thump-thump of a commercial. He hoped the extra few pounds wouldn't show around his face. "That would never do," his grandmother always said. No. That would never do.
...To start over. Montana maybe. Clean slate. We've all stopped looking at each other. It's better that way. She's whispering to the floor that he promised not to kill us and that's all that matters. Ten years from now. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. Where did that come from? Another yelp and a thud. Then a laugh. The ineveitable laugh. A groan. We're all still alive and that's what counts....
Someplace in Kuwait she said, jingling her keys impatiently. He let her go. The parking lot was a cold place for a conversation. He heard that she had secured the business loan. She looked busy. The way a businesswoman looked. At least he knew where the boy was now. Last he heard he had been stationed--somewhere on the Balkans. Or was it "in"? The day he enlisted they sat in uncomfortable silence in the car outside the Kentucky Fried Chicken. He hadn't ordered anything. Maybe he was worried about cash flow since the mill had closed permanently two months before. He told him about the interviews at WalMart and the casino. To reaasure him. They shook hands. He would probably never come back here. Who could blame him? Anyway, he was alive. That was all that mattered.
...Everybody in the world isn't as lucky as you are. Don't stereotype. Don't assume. Count to ten. I remember everything. I will learn to forget. Getting along. Getting to know you. Cooperation. A thud. A whimper. And the laugh. "Four!" More laughter. The golf club by the door, of course. Did it kill him? Did he slice open his head? Count to ten. Breath deeply. To forget. A groan and a sob. "Please sir." No. not dead. They were coming back now. Not dead...
Let it be a beer-gut bubba. That's all. A prime, juicy, grade-A, all-American redneck. No sign language. No frantic semaphoring. No secret decoder rings for the press conferences. And thirty-thousand dollars the girl said! Just to advise them on the technical aspects of the investigation when the case is wrapped up. The plans were already in the works she had informed him briskly, looking around the littered office. "It smells like a gym in here. I wonder if we can get that on the screen? For 'authenticity,'" she said, pronouncing it as four separate words. Maybe as much as thirty thousand she repeated. Staring at something invisible on the ceiling she assumed a monotone voice, like a chant, to describe the plot-in-progress. "Angry. Intelligent. Member of the New Black Panthers. Joins the force for reasons even he can't understand." Breaking out of her reverie she pointed with both index fingers and said excitedly: "He doesn't know his grandfather was the first black cop in some Southern town and solved the case of a string of child lynchings by the local KKK which, it turns out, is run the beloved mayor. But we won't reveal that until almost the end." Then, in the monotone again: 'Clashing with a Chief he believes is an Uncle Tom. In spite of all this, remorselessly tracks down the serial sniper." He would give them tips of the trade and earn thirty-thousand. The killer would be a flabby, pasty-faced guy. Anybody could play him. Or maybe a sharp-faced, angular guy whose blue eyes were locked in a permanent squint. A guy---a guy who looks like that, he thought with surprise as he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the coffee maker. Just let it be a classic redneck. In hunting camo. Thirty-thousand. Might smooth over some of the pot-holes that had formed in the road. Please.
.... The smell. Will it be with me as long as I live? When I'm old and living in a cabin in northern Canada somewhere, stirring the fire, will I catch of whiff of it on me and run out and roll in the snow? Once, in the early days, stretched out full length on that fake sheepskin rug, she had whispered:" I love your smell inside of me and on me." Was she lying? Was she saying it because she had read in a magazine that was something she might say?...
Relaxation. He relaxed around those people. No. Not "those people". He knew the looks when they thought he couldn't see. What they said when he was not there. It was a living. To be consulted on the great issues of the day. About people who were fighting for land and life. No apologies. No worries. They even had settlers. Not like our settlers. Who could not be spoken of without...worrying. Long gone people. To feel relaxed. If only for a segment of time between the thumping commericials. Their survival on the line. Clean and clear. His tie was too tight again. It made him look heavy on camera. Relax. Prophecy, seamlessly unfolding.
...What happened to that rug? If, somehow, he found it stashed in a box of old things and buried his face in it, wrapped himself in it, would this smell be banished? She must have been lying. My stomach is in my throat. Every hair on the back of hand smells of it. She's whispering that he promised he would let us live. His smell on me is in her mouth. It flys off her lips. She says he promised her. I smell her repeating it. We are all one now. We are the world.....
Qualifications? A traffic coordination technician, he supposed. All that he could be. At this moment in time, as the TV people liked to say. A Mercedes gliding by kicking up the desert dust. Looking but not looking. An owner of oil in this Line In The Sand, he supposed. He shifted to his left leg. He had directed traffic in Kosovo a while back. Swung his arms in large circles pointing north. Black-hawk helicopters hovered overhead slapping the air in time with the feet of the people tramping in that direction. Little boxes wrapped up in table clothes and shawls. Layers of clothes and wooden crosses hung around their necks. Bad Guys. Losers. Looking but not looking. Pointing and rotating his arms, breathing deep and shifting from one foot to another. The winners, the freedom-fighters, lined the route and shouted something he could not understand. The black-hawks droned on; making lazy circles above. He rotated his head on his neck. Clockwise. Counterclockwise. Another Mercedes. Kicking up desert dust. At this moment in time.
...We would be old. We wouldn't have seen each other for fifty years, maybe more. We meet on a snowy field. Somehow. Somewhere in northern Alaska. The sun is blinding and we are walking towards each other. Nobody else in sight. Two old, old people shuffling along on the snowpack. We almost pass. At the last moment we recognise each other. After all the years. We don't need any explanations. We know. Then I will ask her: "Were you lying when you said you loved my smell in you and on you? Because..." And she will laugh the way she laughed a long time ago and put her fingers over my lips and tell me that everything was OK. All five of us do not fit in the trunk. Economy cars. No one sees three naked men being packed into a trunk. No one sees two women, naked below the waist climb into the car with two warmly-dressed men in brand new shoes. We are invisible. We are alone in the universe. Nothing above us. Nothing below. We are all together. Tumbling through space. We are alive.....
Craning his neck around for a full-face shot. Three heads bobbing around the microphone. Old hands, careful not to block each other out. High voices. Earnest little boys. Women liked that. Don't want to sound like the Old Man in the Mountain. Bread and butter. A woman's choice. Shriller now. Stretching his neck out further. "Outrage". It was a word they liked. It is an outrage. Teachers forced to buy toilet paper out of pocket. Bread and butter. Craning harder. Voice higher. Bread and butter. He was not one of those kind. He understood. He would make them pay. Don't forget on election day. He wasn't like them. A breeze. The odor of hair spray and sweat. He'd make the evening news. Priceless exposure.
...Before I leave for Alaska. We'll be able to think more clearly with our clothes on. A bath with my clothes on. Everything with my clothes on from now on. From now on. Beauty is Truth, truth beauty. From now on we will be alive. She said he promised her. I remember now. Beauty is truth, truth beauty. There. He called him "sir" again. "Please sir, don't kill me." The shot. I finally remember where I heard it. Finally...
He loved this town. They weren't supposed to say it. Not in public. No. They were all outsiders reluctantly taking office in order to clean out Dodge City. But so comforting to be here with people who understood how the real world worked. People from all over the real world. He loved them all. They were so sensible. So realistic. They knew what was real. They understood. So clear about what they wanted. Sometimes he had to clamp his teeth together to keep from shouting across to the other Party that he was just like they were. His wife was just like their wives. We all have to say these ridiculous things to the people out there. You to yours. Me to mine. They don't know what it's all about and we have to ask them for their votes. They were infants, really. It was degrading. A condolence note. Marine son. Kuwait. Casualty of the Real World. But only one, thank God. An army of one. The mother. Different last name. No address for a father. Word would get around to him if he was alive. My dear Mrs...Ms...Madame...Mother of a Fallen Hero? Too bad there wasn't a father's address. Dear "Mister". Simple. Unchanging. Then over to the mosque for a bit of islam is peace and don't even think about it rednecks. "Dear grieving mother of a Fallen Hero...."
.....Standing next to that old, old man. I was so pissed off. My dad's grandfather. Walking me around his farm and reciting endlessly. I wanted to go in and watch something on TV. A class assignment. To get out of the cold. I could see our breath meeting in the air between us. Little icicles forming on his eyebrows. He went on and on. Dad made us go there. Mom sometimes called him the "ancient fart" when dad wasn't around. She said: "Today we are going to visit AF." We would laugh. I was so pissed off. He kept going on and on reciting something and finally, just as I was about to interrupt, he squeeezed my shoulder and shouted into the night, his breath billowing out from his mouth: "When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'...The Nikes are coming over here now. Throwing out gravel as they move. Red spots on the bright white laces. New shoes coming towards me...
Rising up from the dirt and gravel and litter like a mirage. Amazing speed. Phenomenal savings. They came quietly and left quietly evry day, counting their cash. A bath and two closets in every bed suite. Game room. Nautilus. Pool. Computer room, of course. Acoustically correct music room. Marble, tile, pink granite, teak, slate. They worked sixteen hours on the summer days. Not a complaint out of them. They laughed and clinked glasses. It was all real. Here's to what's real. The dream house. The men trudged down the long, winding driveway carefully inspecting their little white envelopes. Leaving them alone laughing and clinking. They would be back on Monday to work.
.... My breath will shoot up into the night air beween us and hang there. : "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." As long as he lives. He'll never be able to escape. Dying well, the best revenge. Coming this way again. Shoes are huge from this angle. The snow and gravel in my cheek. Fame is coming my way. My picture on every channel twenty-four hours a day. Concerned heads nodding, repeating our names over and over and over. We are a slogan. My picture on the front page of the New York Times. Not the dorky sophmore picture. My breath melting the snow.
Please, sir......
He he. Dawson is Catholic.
The photo was captioned "An Albanian woman in anti-Serb demonstrations shouting nationalist slogans Mitrovica, September 1999" on the old Mr. Thaci and Friends.
Namesake ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.