Let Them Eat Cake

cake

"qu'ils mangent de la brioche." falsely attributed to Marie Antoinette. Likely said by Marie-Thérèse wife of Louis XIV.

A recent article in the City Journal of New York City discusses the risky investments that have cost most New York arts organizations a loss of 25 - 40% of their endowments forcing cutbacks, layoffs and a reduction in services. The article appropriately points out that for many arts organizations in the nineties and into the early part of this century, investments were proportioned 85% toward equity and illiquid instruments, i.e. wall street. The very term investment suggests an action that will secure a future prosperity not leverage a current one. The fact that arts institutions have fallen prey to casino capitalism is both unsurprising and saddening. These institutions have boards run almost exclusively by the ruling class elite who either run the Wall street banks and investment firms or the corporations and foundations born out of that same mentality. They are not in any position to consult these institutions on conservative investments than Larry Summers is capable of advising the federal government on bailing us out of our current financial crisis.

The quote above likely made by Marie-Thérèse, who lived in a time when abject wealth, much like current America, was a prideful display of 1% of the population at the expense of the other 99%. The attribution to Marie Antoinette is important because it demonstrates the slow burn necessary in order to overturn such inequity. In the case of France that was nearly one hundred years. I doubt we have a hundred years let alone ten years in the United States today.  It is not so much that we are squandering our children’s and grandchildren’s fortunes, but that climate change and the end of oil will intercede long before those generations come of age and revolt against the powers that be. The wealth and power of 18th century Europe was more easily dissapated than the corporate-centered wealth of today. Although Europe at the very least had a cultural center and deep history to fall back on even when it attempted to self destruct in two world wars. America being the center of global power today stands relatively culturally empty-handed and pales in its mere 233 year history. A nation that watches over four hours of television a day, largely comprised of reality TV and Fox News is not going to weep when the great cultural institutions of America shutter. There is more than enough professional wrestling, American Idol and Katie Couric to fill the void as “Rome burns.”

Now is the time that the educated, well-informed (a daily diminishing number) literate and artistically and culturally inclined need to take action. As my college political science professor used to say, ‘revolutions are never initiated by the poor, but the middle-class’. Marat and his legions beheaded Louis XVI because the middle-class felt disenfranchised not because the poor were starving. The poor are always neglected. Karl Marx said; “Political economy regards the proletarian like a horse, he must receive enough to enable him to work. It does not consider him, during the time when he is not working, as a human being. It leaves this to criminal law, doctors, religion, statistical tables, politics, and the beadle.” This metaphor can be extended because the American ‘horse’ is crippled and it no longer plows like it once did. In fact, American corporations in their sociopathic structure simply outsource to other country’s ‘horses’ when ours proves insufficient. Americans, of which only 20% have passports sit in their recliners watching NASCAR ignorant of the sociopolitical dynamics of nations they will never visit and don’t care about. The Walmarts and Targets maintain a fresh supply of cheap Chinese goods placating the working class. What an irony that our original inheritance of this nation from the Indians who lived here was “purchased” in much the same way, with trinkets, beads and poisoned blankets.

The Vegetarian Question

le Halle market, Paris, ca. 1879 On this Thanksgiving Day celebration I thought it important to contemplate food. Like many American ideals Thanksgiving itself has become mythologized and taught to grade school children as a feast of interracial harmony between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The Pilgrims completely unprepared for the conditions they were to encounter in  Plymouth in 1621. On the brink of starvation and drunk on “at least a half gallon of beer a day, which they preferred even to water” they were rescued by the uninvited Wampanoags who had produced 20 acres of corn. In 1704 the governor of Massachusetts formalized Thanksgiving as a celebration of the European primacy over the native inhabitants.

Thanksgiving is an ugly holiday for me. A reminder of all that is broken with our society in America and our continual unwillingness to confront our real past in order to form a more perfect union. We visit our families under false pretense and indulge in a caloric orgy the average Malaysian could live on for a month. We eat foods, mostly absent during the original Thanksgiving and sit watching television in anticipation of the follow days blind consumerism that supports another myth, Christmas. At the center of our self deception is food. It is food that brings us together, that sustains us and is at the core of our environmental attitude.

I have several friends who are practicing vegetarians or my favorite term, fishetarians or pescetarians. I have been a lifelong omnivore and although I have altered my diet as I’ve grown older, I still eat meat without regret or shame. A few days ago I heard mention of a Thanksgiving with Tofurky®, the manufactured soy-based turkey replacement made by Turtle Island Foods in Oregon. It got me thinking about the issues surrounding vegetarianism and our relationship to food. Most of the vegetarians I know are adamant about their practices and often take a position on moral high ground. Rather than concede this position or admit defeat against it I thought it would be prudent to examine the underpinnings of this lifestyle choice.

Moral The morality of killing animals is a common theme brought to bear when choosing vegetarianism. This is an offshoot of the ancient religion of Jainism, a central tenant of which is every living being has a soul, every soul is potentially divine with innate infinite knowledge, infinite perception, infinite power, and infinite bliss and therefore, regard every living being as yourself and harm no one. This is the principle of Ahimsa, “non violence in all parts of a person -- mental, verbal and physical." From this central premise arises the pledge of the vegetarian from the Vegetarian Society; “We define a vegetarian as someone living on a diet of grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits, with or without the use of dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry, game, fish, shellfish or crustacea, or slaughter by-products.”

Analyzing this from a logical position the first question that arises is, what defines a “living being?” The Jainist’s include plants in that description, although they eat grains and plants that potentially destroy the plant itself. This has always puzzled me. If your central concern is to not harm other living beings why don’t plants count? Why are animals sacred, especially animals that would devour us if given the chance? Therefore, I would ask, do vegetarians who believe in this premise of not harming animals extend that to all living beings? Do they refrain from using paper harvested from trees? Alice Walker says; “"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." This statement oversimplifies the philosophical underpinnings of vegetarianism by equating animals (not plants) with humans and suggesting that we live autonomous existences. I admire Ms. Walker a great deal but find this statement fallacious and ignorant of the realities of the natural world and yet representative of many vegetarians. The work of a multitude of naturalists and zoologists has proven many animals engage in killing and often without reason. Regardless of the violent nature of the natural world, humans are animals ourselves and were once integrated into the natural environment as top level predators. Our predatory nature likely influences our attitudes toward other top level predators, such as bears, sharks, big cats, etc. Clearly we no longer live amongst the animal kingdom, and have separated ourselves from it in a highly industrialized manner. Therefore, this begs another question; do we live as we were intended to live based on our neolithic past or do we strive for what can be done in our current circumstances?

Industrialization vs. Cooperation One of the primary reasons I am a non-religious person, an atheist is due in large part to the morality of religion. Morality is a construct based upon absolute rules that adhere to dogma’s that restrict choice. If I as an individual am to believe in the freedom of the soul (for lack of a better word) than I must remain capable of personal choices that may under certain conditions cut against the grain of moral certitude. I make this point because I doubt few vegetarians would be willing to die in the moral certainty of their beliefs. Would a vegetarian choose starvation if the only food source available were meat?

I find a more appropriate tool is ethics. Although the practice of ethics deals with moral relationships it is a philosophical approach outside of it. More specifically I am speaking to applied ethics. This by no means allows for absolute resolution to my preceding questions, but it does provide a framework from which to examine them outside of dogmatic ideology. If the root of vegetarianism's concern for animals is a matter of suffering or violence toward other beings, then is there a non-violent approach to killing animals for food? Is violence perpetrated against (the living beings) plants by altering their genetics (I’m speaking strictly in the naturalist sense here, not the industrialized sense of genetically modified foods) or forcing their accelerated reproduction or even their off-season reproduction (i.e., greenhouse growing)? Several scientific studies have published findings that plants have a rudimentary nervous system which allows them to feel pain. If this proves correct, then there is little moral difference between eating lettuce and eating chicken or fish. This would appear to leave us all bound to fruitarianism, or strictly eating only seeds, nuts and harvested fruits. Of course most nutritionists caution that this leads to extreme weight loss and a breakdown of the pancreas. In order to find a rational variety of fruits and nuts one would be left to incorporate many exotics, such as avocados, mangos, bananas, dates, etc., many of which travel great distances in order to arrive at our local supermarkets.

This brings us to the other concern related to vegetarianism, the industrialization of our food. The vast majority of the vegetables grown in the U.S. are derived from three central California valleys, the Sacramento and the San Joaquin and the Imperial. That means unless you live within a 100 mile radius of one of those locations, you are burning precious fossil fuel in order to receive your veggies. That fuel comes from tankers that come from Middle Eastern countries that engage in human torture. Drilling the oil involves environmental degradation of pristine desert wilderness areas. The refineries that process the crude into gasoline or diesel for trucks are known polluters of sensitive ecosystems, such as the Gulf of Mexico, again harming or even destroying whole species of animals, not to mention the humans that live nearby. The refrigeration units on the trucks leak refrigerants into the ozone increasing global warming. Even when these refrigerants have been banned, other countries, such as Mexico continue to use them. The irrigation necessary to water these huge semi-arid valleys that maintain 2 growing seasons is tremendous and also requires methods that degrade the environment and burn fossil fuel. Finally, the overwhelming majority of farm workers that harvest organic crops are immigrants who live on substandard wages, bent over in hot fields 8 - 10 hours a day and are provided miserable living conditions.

Let’s look at Tofurky for an example. Turtle Island Foods is a privately held company in Oregon (unlike many of the large organic vegetable producers today) who powers their plant with wind power energy purchases and carefully analyzes their soybeans for genetic modification. However, rather than a whole food, your Tofurky is a highly processed amalgam of spices, bean curd and other ingredients. This most unnatural concept of developing a food from a combination of other foods seems to fly in the face of living in touch with the environment. Because Tofurky comes from Oregon, unless you live in Portland, you are shipping your food a long way in order to enjoy a faux turkey experience. Additionally, the rice, grains and soybeans that go into the manufacture of Tofurky do not come from Portland, but instead often travel thousands of miles. Finally, I raise the question of why a proclaimed vegetarian would want to consume something that is deliberately named for that which is immoral and reprehensible, i.e. the animal they refuse to kill? Why would you want to eat anything called a burger or hot dog? Aren’t those names symbolic of the very torture and killing you suggest takes place against the animal kingdom?

Dehumanizing our food Let me say for the record, I take no umbrage with vegetarians. There is an unquestionable glut of eating and and overindulgence with our food requirements, particularly in America. We have moved further away from our food origins than perhaps any other culture on Earth. Supermarkets have replaced farmer’s markets, butchers and bakeries. Even in the U.K. a recent survey showed “22% of 1,073 adults questioned did not know bacon and sausages originate from farms.” I am certain that figure would be much higher in the U.S. This distancing ourselves from our own food is coupled with an accelerated anthropomorphizing of animals in the media. Movies from Babe to Ratatouille give animals human qualities, behaviors and voices. Children are given Teddy Bears and fuzzy stuffed animals to play with rather than being introduced to zoos and farms. Habitats have been swallowed by unchecked rampant development unhinging once thriving species. It would seem we would prefer our animals either behind bars or in cartoons. On a Parisian episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations he visited the great central Parisian market his restaurant in NYC is named for Le Halle, immortalized in the great Zola book The Fat and the Thin. Throughout the market animals appeared uncleaned, full feathered, fully scaled, and retaining their extremities including their heads. Interested in wild boar or pheasant, there it is in all its original splendor, dead and ready to be cleaned by the purchaser for dining. This kind of intimacy with one’s food is non-existent in America unless you are priviledged enough to live on one of the few remaining family farms, or live in a region where hunting is for food not sport. Even deer hunting, the most prevalent of the blood sports in America is mainly devoid of connection. High powered weapons take down deer from a distance, often baited to their doom. The deer is dragged to a waiting truck and handed off to a butcher who cleans and prepares the meat for the hunter and his bragging rights.

As Michael Pollan so eloquently, and thoughtfully recorded in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma we are at a crossroads in terms of our dietary practices. The ethics of the way we eat is riddled with complication and ethical dilemmas. Americans have arrived at a highly neurotic state when it comes to food with lipophobia at one end and obesity the other. The media landscape is littered with diet books and exercise regimens to counteract our imbalanced attitudes toward our food. Fast food remains the staple of our eating and supermarkets cleverly arranged to maximize profit based on unhealthy consumption rain supreme. In the midst of this neurosis lies the added dimension of our environmental impact and subsequent acceleration of global warming.

Although not a vegetarian myself, I have given up beef. Although I have a clear concern for industrialized farming and the ridiculous practice of feeding ungulates corn they cannot digest without pumping them full of antibiotics and hormones, my reasons are centered more in the environment. Cattle are unsustainable as a species en masse. As our federal government culls heards of the last remaining biologically pure Bison, a true indigenous species, we allow cattle to roam unfettered destroying natural grasses and disrupting the environment in some our most unspoiled wilderness. Cattle require tremendous natural resources to maintain, depleting water, grains and fossil fuels in order to bring a steak or hamburger to your table or car.

It’s more than the idea another creature may have suffered at my indirect hand. Ethically I feel bound to find a balance between all the factors that contribute to my food. Utilizing more of an animal is paramount, not just selecting the good bits and throwing away the rest or making it into dog food. Choosing foods that are as locally grown as possible, organic and require the least amount of industrial support. Eating macrobiotically. Being in touch more with my food, understanding it’s origin. Not eating fast food or at restaurants that do not promote the same values I believe in. Avoiding processed foods or industrialized animal farming. Appreciating that I have the potential to be another animals food source and therefore respecting the sacrifice made when they become mine.

I don’t presume to have the answers but are dedicated to being more thoughtful about my food for the sake of the greater good, not just the sake of the chicken, pig or head of lettuce. We all must eat to live, animals and humans alike. The challenge is to find a way to support an overextended global population while maintaining balance within the environment. Perhaps our concerns should range more toward culling our own species and worry less about the pigs, cows and chickens. I for one, believe it is our nature to be omnivorous but that doesn't mean we have to indulge in rapacious meat eating like we're persisently attending some Roman bacchanalian feast or blindly indulge in food without any awareness of its origins.

Ambiguity & the Death of Mathematics

Quantum mechanics as it is currently defined in its broadest state owes its genesis to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. His 1925 paper on matrix mechanics discussed the laws of probability forever shifting human consciousness out of the knowable and into the probable. Suggesting that any given objects position may be known or it’s velocity but never their intercourse was revolutionary and eventually led to the development of the atomic bomb. What I find significant here is less his principle than its timing and parameters.

1925 followed Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity by twenty years. In a year when Thomas Scopes was convicted in Tennessee of teaching evolution, or some variation thereof, Werner Heisenberg suggested initiated a theory which today is understood as the precursor to multiple dimensions. In 1925 Heisenberg for the first time determined that our very existence was uncertain, undefinable and impossible to prove definitively. We are all bound by ambiguity.

It is common today to hear environmentalists to speak of Gaia, the planet as a living whole. As likely as this concept presumes to be, it is clearly impossible to realize in any realistic way. If we are incapable of measuring subatomic particles in reliable ways, (meaning we are unable to describe them in absolutes, vis a vie — (G)od) then we can never comfortable measure the enormous discrete functions of entire living body the size of our earth. Suffice it so say, we must act on a kind of faith, a reliance on the mathematics of probability. And there lies the conundrum in my mind.

If probability is akin to faith (as I describe above) than how is mathematics different from faith? Despite the machinery of our inventions and our search for Higgs boson, we are ultimately still pushing assumptions based on observables which we understand to change based on the mechanics of our observations. It requires 17 miles of underground tunnel to replicate the conditions to potentially observe the unobservable. I am not pretending to be a physicists nor am I in the slightest degree mocking the potentials of science or an individuals faith. I am however, pointing out that we, as Homo Sapien Sapien, live by our own paradigmatic constraints and those constraints are fluid.

The Hebrew Bible refers to the Tetragrammaton, the unspoken name of god or the YHWH. God as they understand him is undefinable, unspeakable. Taoism refers to the one, and then the ten thousand things. Brahmagupta created zero as a manifestation available to describe the indescribable. It was literally written as, Brahmasphutasiddhanta (The Opening of the Universe.) The Buddhists developed the idea of reincarnation as a descriptor for infinity and the quantum mechanics of probability. Faith is ambiguity. Religion and science both strive to define the undefinable or at the very least couch it within the knowable so that we might not awaken overwhelmed.

Technology and the accumulation of knowledge is growing exponentially and is currently at a rate nearly beyond our control, and certainly beyond the comprehension of the majority of human beings. We are alive in a world of profound opposites where the illiterate, poor hunt vast trash dumps for daily sustenance while nanotechnology and genetic manipulation are becoming commonplace. It is a time of great novelty which is precisely why we need to re-examin ambiguity in a human context. Pure science exists to provide us with context to uncertainty not to assay the absolution of a singular certainty. Our blind coherence to faith in its’ opposing forms, has the potential to manifest itself in the form of armageddon if we are unwilling to accept ambiguity as the only true constant. The future of our comfort, our persistence as the dominant species is dependent on our acceptance of our complete and total ignorance of the universe we occupy.

To hold and fill to overflowing
is not as good as to stop in time.
Sharpen a sword-edge to its very sharpest,
And the edge will not last long . . .
Withdraw as soon as your work is done.
Such is Heaven's Way.
—Lao Tsu, from the Tao te Ching

Image courtesy of Todd Sargood, Untitled, work in progress, 2008, mixed media on board. www.toddsargood.com

Dancing with Francis Bacon

You see, painting has now become, or all art has now become completely a game, by which man distracts himself. What is fascinating actually is, that it's going to become much more difficult for the artist, because he must really deepen the game to become any good at all.

—Francis Bacon

Muscles bulging in explosive sexuality moving rapidly in a visceral demand for attention. A scene splattered with egotistical delight, a poetic engine of exposure mimicking intercourse in grand voyeuristic display. All this excitement is staged in the arena of egalitarianism — pure democracy.

My above description could be assigned to many of Francis Bacon’s paintings and episodes of Dancing with the Stars. How, you might say, could the masterworks of Bacon be reasonably compared to a trashy, philistine example of lowbrow entertainment? It is no secret to those who know me that I love watching Dancing with the Stars much to their shock and dissolution. I have sung the praises of this pop culture invention of the Brits since I watched my first episode a couple of years ago. Perhaps for the entirety of that time I myself, have been at a loss to why I am so compelled by the show; that is until this past week.

When I first saw Francis Bacon’s paintings it was at the Hirshhorn Museum in late ’89. The work was transformative. It has had the singular biggest impact on me as a painter. Bacon’s sense of color, line and expression was like nothing I’d ever seen in painting before and nothing since. Lurid shapes, screaming mouths against backdrops of blood and semen. Raw emotion crashing against canvas in paint. All of those sensibilities are the most egalitarian in societies. Every human being understands physicality, sexuality and raw color. Bacon’s paintings are nothing short of brazen spectacle. His choice of gilded frames with glass only exaggerates this. The blood reds, splashes of off-whites and optic oranges create a cinematic energy that thrusts the banal perfidy of humanity at us as if holding a mirror to our secret desires. The physicality of his painting technique mimics dancing. It is controlled chaos.

Dancing is a ritualistic composition of our societal longings. It’s a framework to express desire in a way that otherwise remains hidden. In Dancing with the Stars, dance is the catalyst for repressed sexuality, pop entertainment, democracy and the grand myth of the second chance on life. Professional ballroom dancers are paired with B-List actors, singers and athletes, who themselves act as paragons for the viewer. To my mind there is no other more perfect expression of American television. There is the extravaganza of game show with the decoration of an awards ceremony. The host and hostess (Samantha Harris & Tom Bergeron) are perfectly stereotypical. Bergeron, the middle-aged, salt and pepper haired man is the exemplar of American WASP personae, effete, intelligent and slightly sarcastic couched in a middle class ideal. Harris the the beauty queen cum tv host, all breasts, teeth and hair shining like a dressage horse at competition. Bergeron is the father figure to Harris’ Virgin Mary. Then there are the professional dancers. Exotic and quixotic displays of their gender. Male chests are bared and female hind quarters are barely restrained. They are temptation, flirtation and power. Finally, there are the contestants. The dime store rap star, the long running daytime soap opera actress and the once olympic athlete now circus performer. All this conspires to form the ideal 21st Century pageant. It is the arena in ancient Rome, the bullrings of Spain and the court of Louis XIV all rolled into one. It is bordering on the reenactment of The Rapture as replicated by a high school drama class.

With Bacon’s work, we are repulsed by the conspicuous displays of lust, violence and physical bravado. Bacon touches upon all the same themes as Dancing with the Stars’, sex, war and religion. There are the disintegrating popes, the dark portraits of introversion and the bed wrestling sex of homoerotica. The motion is Muybridge’s naked strobed men. Red lips scream in ecstasy and pain. Bacon paints the hidden corners of our darkest desires, poignantly, unrepentantly and directly. In Bacon’s case the ritual is performed without us, but its descendant forms are bared rawly for all to bear witness. Francis Bacon knew we were all hungry, cold, lonely animals who are still very much connected to our baser selves. Despite the elaborate environment we have constructed we are still afraid. So behold the pageant called Dancing with the Stars the closest approximation Americans can afford themselves to animal rapture. Americans lack the meditative qualities necessary to access painting, but they compensate by way of television exhibition. Like our behavior we prefer the persistent and ceaseless momentum of motion-based mediums — cinema, television and computers. Paintings’ deconstruction of reality in two-dimensional abstraction is outside the reach of our short attention span citizenry. It is necessary to construct elaborate facades of celebrity for our abattoir. Our Puritan roots, expelled from England, have a death’s grip on our collective consciousness preventing us from directly confronting our deepest yearnings. Abstract Expressionism and Jazz emerged as the dominant high art forms of America precisely as a reaction to our shared avoidance. Bacon’s work is far more terrifying to us than the New York School painters because it reaches beyond deconstruction and goes directly to the persistence of fear above all else. Bacon knew the only path to true freedom, absolute ecstasy was to confront your fears head on and ritualistically dismantle them.

Dancing in Dancing with the Stars acts as a metaphor for American democracy. The ritual is replaced by display, and the art is replaced by the self destructing core of celebrity. Experts are pawns for our amusement rather than servants for a greater society. The veil of equality is pulled aside to reveal an insatiable appetite for celebrity and popularity as if democracy were always equivalent to voting for the next prom queen. Flesh is not meat, as with Bacon, it is salaciousness. Dancing with the Stars mimics the blood of the bull arena or the sex of the bacchanalian Roman bath, the dance of the seven veils, the vibrations of early Quakers, passively and without need of real commitment. It is our conversation with our darkest desire. Where Bacon saw hope in confronting our fears through his fierce screaming mouths and wrestling man-flesh, we choose the liturgy of game show dancing. Alexis de Toqueville said; “The whole life of an American is passed like a game of chance, a revolutionary crisis, or a battle.” Dancing with the Stars is the exact expression of American eschatology.

On soft gray mornings widows cry The wise men share a joke; I run to grasp divining signs To satisfy the hoax. The yellow jester does not play But gentle pulls the strings And smiles as the puppets dance In the court of the crimson king.

—King Crimson, from The Court of the Crimson King

on the left: Figure in Movement, 1976, oil on canvas, 198 x 147.5 cm - Francis Bacon. on the right: a scene from the U.S. version of Dancing with the Stars.

Richard Prince Loves Sarah Palin


I awake from a dream of perpetual winking. I’m in a gallery filled with large scale portraits by the artist Richard Prince. They are all of the political operative Sarah Palin who, as we know via Tina Fey is the current vice presidential running mate of late war prisoner John McCain. What’s stunning to me about the portraits in my dream is somehow, Prince has devised a way to make the portraits wink. It’s an optical illusion, one of those vase makes two heads sort of visual tricks — nothing electronic or mechanical. As you shift your vantage point between portraits the Palins wink at you. However, if you stand still they are simply portraits of Palin sans winking. I find this shift in reality so disturbing it shakes me loose of my dream and I awaken at 4:47 AM disturbed and uneasy.

Richard Prince has made a career of appropriating American mass culture and regurgitating it back at us in order to disrupt our sense of identity. We have become a paranoid delusional nation and Prince aims to point it out to those who take the time to observe just a little bit more closely. To those of us who read books, study history, explore ideas and consider the unknown, namely intellectuals, Prince’s work is empty and obvious. Prince is the caretaker of American culture, painting his corpses with too much rouge or putting lipstick on a man to reanimate him. The observant attendee at funerals understands the visage in the coffin is deceased and appears almost clownish in an attempt to depose their expiration. Those close to the deceased witness the body as asleep and possibly still alive, retaining the potential to sit up at any given moment. This visual lie feeds our denial of death and speaks to a larger denial of life. It is the same visual lie shared by Prince and Palin.

Sarah Palin is the epitome of a nations’ self delusion. She is fundamentally dangerous to our republic because she hijacks American folk beliefs in order to persist her own sociopathic behavior. The winks from behind $400 glasses are condescending nods to her own lust for power. She lies so effectively and unblinkingly (pun intended) that even her running mate is shocked. Her ascension to power in the American political arena is no more surprising than extraordinary attention focus on Brangelina. Our collective consciousness is bound by a mixture of perpetual violence (war), the lack of any central culture and xenophobia. Those who worship Palin lack the intellectual curiosity to see beyond her glib exterior. Men find her the sexy neighbors wife or librarian and a fantasy she emboldens with her thigh-high boots and winks. Women find her power nurturing and imagine it a replacement for the powerlessness they feel everyday in their misogynistic cocoons. Palins' appeal is as carefully packaged as any movie stars and supported with the same budgets. The plastic exterior and strength of persona overrides any close examination of her central personality. The medium is the message.

When marketing and advertising techniques (originally designed by the Nazis and perfected on Madison Avenue) are combined with sociopathic behavior, such as seen in Sarah Palin, a dangerous potential arises. In a nation that prides itself on avoiding intellectual pursuits a woman like Palin is all too enticing with her folksy act of ignorance. She understands just enough to advance her personal ambitions and destroy her detractors. Details are not important, image is everything. People are drawn to her aggressive posturing, confidence and sexuality, unable to see the motivations behind it because they have been brainwashed by the media for decades. Having had several personal conversations with Dick Cheney in 2007 regarding her desire to expand oil and gas exploration and production in Alaska, Palin is all too familiar with the role of the vice presidency, despite her gaffs to the contrary. But in America the myth is the reality and her detractors see her gaffs as witness to her ignorance and her adoring fans identify with her portrayal that life is complicated and details are less important than intent. Niether would be accurate. Sarah Palin is a dangerous, solipsistic, ambitious, fascist whose behavior and speech barely conceal her contempt for the law and her disdain for anyone who will not advance her own ambitions.

The sad irony is that the neoconservatism gripping our country today, of which Palin represents a faction of, is born out of deep concern for American democracy and the scholarly efforts of intellectuals. Philosophy on paper is always more romantic than philosophy in action. The ethical and pragmatic challenges that come with living in this world now, not in some imagined world is extraordinarily difficult. Now imagine you serve a pivotal role in shaping policy in this worlds most powerful nation and must weigh the challenges of the encroaching end of oil, the destabilization of the Middle East, the worst financial crisis in our history and an ever growing global environmental crisis. Now imagine you have entrusted Sarah Palin to that job and it’s likely you’ll not sleep well for some time to come.

If we are to survive, not just as a nation, but as the human race it is essential we re-imagine our individual responsibility and connection to this planet. Somehow we in America must find a way to redirect our violent tendencies and selfish attitudes and begin to express ourselves in ways that serve the greater good, not our own feelings of inadequacy, alienation and poverty of intellect.

Image on the left is from Richard Prince's Girlfriends series. Image on the right is of Sarah Palin in Alaska in 2007 - photo credit unknown.