Monthly Archives: June 2021

Warner Brothers, 2014. 159 minutes

Movie Review

By Michael F. Duggan

“Was it possible that at every gathering, concert, peace rally, love-in, be-in, and freak-in here, up North, back East, wherever, some dark crews had been busy all along reclaiming the music, the resistance to power, the sexual desire from epic to everyday, all they could sweep up, for the ancient forces of greed and fear?  ‘Gee,’ he thought, ‘I don’t know.’”
-Sortilege (narrator)

“Sometimes it’s just about doing the right thing.”
-Lt. Detective Christian “Big Foot” Bjornson  

How is it possible that this film lost money at the box office?

In college I was assigned either The Crying of Lot 49 or Gravity’s Rainbow, but I don’t think I read either.  Friends who did read Thomas Pynchon either stood in awe of him as a Napoleonic figure of contemporary literature (even Gore Vidal seemed to walk a little softly around him in his reviews), or else saw his work as lacking coherence and believed that his V was inferior to, say, Burroughs’s The Naked Lunch.

I recently watched the movie version of his out-of-character 2009 novel, Inherent Vice, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and am still trying to sort it all out.  It is a mystery that takes place in Southern California in 1970 when the dream of the 1960s is devolving into gonzo, sleaze, and paranoia (think Hunter S. Thompson, the LAPD, outlaw bikers, Nixon’s FBI, Altamont, the Manson family, etc.).

The story revolves around doper Gordita (real life Manhattan) Beach psychiatrist and private detective, Larry “Doc” Sportello, played sympathetically and with wonderful deadpan by Joaquin Phoenix.  It combines a good, if tongue-in-cheek—frequently silly—feel for Southern California during the final days of the Age of Aquarius with a parody nod/tribute to older noir detective novels/films (complete with a hippie girl astrologer as narrator).  With this sleeper’s impressive star power it is baffling that it went mostly unnoticed.  A hair’s breadth under two-and-a-half hours, it feels a little long, and yet I can’t think of what I would have cut or tightened-up.  Like a Kubrick film, it creates a world in itself with its own feel.  It has a judiciously-selected soundtrack, the cinematography is superb, and although mysteries are not my usual fare, I liked it a lot.

Supposedly the lead was offered to Robert Downey Jr., and watching it, one can only imagine (to the point of distraction) what he could have done with the part.  That said, and although Downey may be a genius at playing brilliant-but-flawed characters, I like him least when he plays straight-up California.  It might have worked magnificently, but I am glad Phoenix got the part and it is hard to imagine Downey playing it better. 

Other impressive performances are delivered by Josh Brolin as hard-ass police detective, Christian F. “Big Foot” Bjornsen, Katherine Waterston as careless hippie chick and Sportello’s ex, Shasta Fay Hepworth, Owen Wilson as wayward surf music sax legend, former heroin addict, and reluctant government snitch, Coy Harlingen, Martin Short as a cartoonish dentist working as a transparent front for a drug cartel, and a constellation of memorable minor roles (including Jena Malone, Maya Rudolph, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro, and Boardwalk Empire veteran, Michael K. Williams).

The plot is too involved to go over (one of the film’s few shortcoming along with its considerable running time).  Suffice it to say that it involves the disappearance of a billionaire land developer Michael “Mickie” Wolfmann, a Southeast Asian drug cartel, and the mysterious reappearance of a lost love.  The three trailers are cut to make it seem like at least two different films.¹

Unless you intend to watch it two or three times and keep an elaborate flowchart of characters and organizations, don’t rack your brain trying to follow all of the twists and turns of the main plot, the strands of characters and leads weaving in an out of the story.  Just let it flow over you with a general awareness of the action.  In the end, the film works as a morality tale disguised as an overly intricate period farce.  What Catch 22 is to WWII, Inherent Vice is to California of 1970.  And like Heller’s novel, this story—ostensibly a mystery with a convoluted plot—is much simpler and more profound than it appears at face value.

Alfred Kazin observes that Catch 22 is a depiction of the corruption of war, an accretion of absurdity and farce around a small core of stark existential terror—of the horror of violent death in war.²  Don’t let the comedic wallows in the Southern Cal drug and sex cultures of a half-century ago—the caricatures of dopers, crew-cut LAPD thugs, FBI suits, outlaw bikers with swastika facial tattoos, and adorable hippie women-children—fool you.  The film, in my opinion, and in spite of its trappings (and without giving away too much of the ending), is about simple decency and what “nag(s) at you in the middle of the night,” the possibility of redemption in a dark Manichaean world, and a lost love redeemed.

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZfs22E7JmI&t=63s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fURVDOgwL60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTRMkQzFYHI
2. Recounted by Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory, 34-35.

By Michael F. Duggan

“Successful imperialism wins wealth.  Yet, historically, successful empires such as Persia, Rome, Byzantium, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, France, Britain, have not remained rich.  Indeed, it seems to be the fate of empires to become too poor to sustain the very cost of empires.  The longer an empire holds together, the poorer and more economically backward it tends to become.” -Jane Jacobs, Cities and the Wealth of Nations                

With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, my thoughts have turned again to the perils of empire. Last night I was reading Robert Fisk’s 2006 essay “What the Romans would have thought of Iraq,” and I was reminded of discussions I had with friends almost two decades ago about analogies of the present-day world to the classical.

One such discussion centered around a generalized comparison casting the United States as Rome and modern Europe as Greece. The U.S., like Rome, can be vulgar and heavy-handed; Europe, like Greece, is more refined. We are younger as a civilization and tend to be impulsive and non-reflective. They are older and more circumspect and philosophical. We are practical, like the Roman aqueduct builders. The Europeans are more theoretical and aesthetic. We are imperial; they are a problematic confederation. Like the Romans, we love our weapons and blood sports.

There are also comparisons to be made between notable Roman leaders and U.S. presidents. Washington was our Cincinnatus—the statesman of the Early Republic who voluntarily relinquished power to return to his farm. One could make plausible comparisons of the Roosevelts to Augustus and Julius Caesar—patricians who embraced the masses as well as massive state-funded capital projects (TR was also an imperialist). One could also argue that more recently there have been presidents who resemble Sulla and Nero. The emperor that I find most compelling and most relevant to our own time is Hadrian.

Hadrian was the second-century leader who realized that the Empire was overextended and sought to preserve Roman strength via consolidation. He was a military man who was liked by his men and as emperor traveled to the farthest reaches of the Empire to visit and talk with them. At that time, Rome was the world for those in the West, and he declared where it ended (e.g. Hadrian’s Wall). He suppressed insurgencies not of his choosing in the Middle East with impressive brutality. In spite of this, he has long resonated with me as a sensible leader trying to address the empire’s most pressing problem: its own massive scale. A number of years ago I posited a parallel grand strategy for the United States based on consolidation that I call “Neo-Hadrianism.” (https://www.georgetownjournalofinternationalaffairs.org/online-edition/on-containment-and-islamism-moderate-realism-for-a-fractious-age-by-michael-f-duggan). I also keep a silver Hadrian coin for good luck.

Like the later Roman Empire, the days of U.S. military and economic predominance are numbered and the question is whether its decline will be controlled and managed or if resistance to changing economic and geopolitical realities will lead to an uncontrolled collapse.  Will the American empire end with a sensible post-globalist grand strategy of consolidation, or will it end with a bang or a fizzle?  Rationalization and denial are the twin pillars of human psychology, and ignoring realities now coming into focus could lead to a catastrophic collapse or else a dismal protracted decline and an end to the American Century just short of an even hundred.

Rather than continue to embrace the problematic role of the world’s military and naval hegemon, the United States should adopt a policy architecture allowing it to operate more effectively as a robust regional world power with capable land, air, and sea forces to match.  This would allow the nation to protect its vital interests and to meet its treaty obligations while still acting as a world leader in international coalitions to preserve peace and order and to restore the status quo in instances where the territorial sovereignty of a nation has been violated by another.  Such a role would also be an effective means for fostering the international cooperation necessary to address the unfolding world environmental crises. 

Unchecked power brings with it the potential for corruption, hubris, and an unselfcritical sense of entitlement as witnessed by policies enjoining intervention in the internal affairs of other nations.  Americans decry allegations of foreign interference with their elections yet see no contradiction in their nation overthrowing or helping to overthrow inconvenient regimes in far flung parts of the world and open-ended occupations.  The role of the world’s policeman in furtherance of an activist neoliberal worldview by interventionist means has worked against the United States.  The euphemism of “regime change” for one-sided war and the Orwellian designation of “humanitarian intervention” for aerial bombing campaigns have sullied rather than strengthen the reputation of the United States as a force for good in the world, a reputation seen by other nations in recent decades as honored in the breach.

United States military hegemony as the security and enforcement elements of economic globalization constitutes a form of imperialism that is at odds with American first principles.  As a practical matter it is also an unsustainable drain on our economy. Economic globalization has resulted in massive disparities both at home and abroad.  Both a neoliberal world economy and American military preeminence as its protector are as undesirable as they are unsustainable.  As a latter day incarnation of the Great Game, it is a distraction from more important matters like the unfolding environmental crises. 

An entire generation of Americans has grown up to see no anomaly, no abnormally in their nation bombing, invading, and occupying other nations, killing thousands of people in the process.  Several generations of Americans have witnessed their nation use undeclared wars as a basis for foreign policy.  The unintended consequence of this is an inversion of Clausewitz’s “war is an extension of policy” to a state of affairs where policy becomes a justification for military budgets and an endless gravy train for the defense industries.  Budgets may thus become drivers of policy.  Undeclared military campaigns, assassination-like drone strikes, and a never-ending state of semi-war can be used, not only to justify new weapons systems, but to provide convenient venues to test them in real world conditions.  As the demise of the Soviet Union well illustrates, economies typified by little growth and which rely on a manufacturing sector based on the production and export of military goods—as opposed to the durable goods of a healthy consumer economy—are both artificial and symptomatic of decline.

There are notable differences between ancient Rome and the modern United States. There was a brutal honesty to Roman expansion, where our imperialism is generally justified by claims of bringing democracy, economic development, rights, and rule of law initiatives. When the legions showed up in a region they said “we are here; surrender or die.” In such instances, the victims were spared the added indignity of having their deaths justified in terms of high-sounding words. I am in no way advocating Roman brutality. Rather I am saying that the dead and maimed of war don’t care a damn about the lofty motives and justifications of occupiers.

It should be noted that Hadrian’s project of consolidation eventually failed, that empire has a momentum and allure—a will of its own—that is irresistible to those operating under it as it runs course (and bad policy must run its course like an illness). Empires eventually become unsustainable and burn themselves out. Nations that embrace a role that is proportional to their size and resources tend to do better in a mode of steady state than nations that rise to a grand imperial scale and then collapse into a second or third-rate status of post-imperial proportions.

Will Joe Biden turn out to be a latter-day Hadrian, and, if so, will he be more successful than the Roman emperor whose earnest effort and namesake can still be seen traversing the hills and vales of northern England? Pulling out of Afghanistan is a good start, as is the extension of the START Treaty. But an aggressive stance toward China and Russia suggests that not only is the foreign policy Blob back, but that it has the president’s ear.

All historical analogies eventually break down; history “rhymes” more than it repeats itself, as Twain reminds us. But there is enough historical resemblance of our problematic times to others to give us pause.

Please check out my new article on the philosophy of history at the peer-reviewed journal Symposion. Link and abstract are below.

https://www.pdcnet.org/symposion/content/symposion_2021_0008_0001_0045_0077

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsymposion.acadiasi.ro%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F05%2F2021.8.1.2.-Duggan.pdf%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR0dTzG9rqVWRkkLQxdBpVk6VWvR0jX-mfWztEYzhgTs6RhmXzDZO59VsxU&h=AT1IY4LGQRPUQq9BlkmUjCBR8xBx965551VqCIwds9fSIc5ldXXl4aeYS1pf9saW7_KTSwWYxzLc-rcC2N6PtKVKox4U7rp8n3-tgc72sBSV9CRrVn-kOUpKM2Y1GGbdwpw&tn=H-R&c[0]=AT1Yh_ziVosjlj0rqX-J_PTl3dH0R79s6gcwHPhYbPZ8dF6mg_-5gcpvWGoqj–sVqKdS3_jVKSJTS6WvhZN4D9soqQORvPOb6cBx-wy6UmgVkmpZeGkq21t6YKmSQYUHdbDtUdc154YGbpZ0Spv1ViahQ

Abstract: This article examines the basis for testing historical claims and proffers the observation that the historical method is akin to the scientific method in that it utilizes critical elimination rather than justification. Building on the critical rationalism of Karl Popper–and specifically the deductive component of the scientific method called falsification–I examine his tetradic schema and adapt it for the specific purpose of historical analysis by making explicit a discrete step of critical testing, even though the schema is adequate as Popper expresses it and the elimination of error occurs at all steps of analysis. I add this discrete step of critical elimination to Popper’s schema even though the elimination of error occurs at every step of analysis. The basis for critical elimination history is the demonstrable counterexample. The study of history will never approach the precision of science –history deals with open systems that cannot be replicated like experiments guided by fundamental laws.But just because we cannot know something with the rigor of science does not mean that we cannon know it better than we do. There may be no objective truthin an absolute sense, but there is a distinction to be made between well-tested and poorly tested theories and therefore between history done well and history done with less analytical rigor.What I hope to show is how our historical knowledge may progress through good faith critical discussion –history is discussion –and the elimination of error.Keywords: critical rationalism, Karl Popper, black swans.

By Michael F. Duggan

Magicicada septendecim—what the hell was evolution thinking?

The seventeen-year cicada is a large, largely defenseless insect that apparently tastes good to every insectivorous bird and animal and whose survival strategy is to reproduce in such spectacular profusion that the combined appetites of the local natural world can’t keep up with it. How does it pull this off? Born underground, it stays there in immature form living a solitary life that must seem pretty pointless even by large, solitary insect standards for an arbitrary-seeming 17 years (compare this longevity to the four-week lifespan of a housefly). It then emerges simultaneously in uncounted billions. A supreme example of a lopsided lifecycle, cicadas only live for a a few weeks as adults, scratching that seventeen-year itch in a frenzied, buzzing orgy. The cyclic hum-bug is a fascinating natural phenomenon of the Mid-Atlantic states and a few adjacent latitudes of the nation.

One can only wonder if there is a metaphor here for the human condition or if the rest of the natural world sees us the way we see cicadas: a creature that takes forever to mature, becomes sexually obsessed at the age of 17, and then joins a noisy, overpopulated swarm. On the other hand, we live longer, are global in distribution, and are arguably better-looking.