The Painted Veil

I turn 83 today and I would like to share a passage that struck me as very meaningful in my old age. It is  from a novel that I recently read, written almost a hundred years ago by an atheist with a deep interest in religion. The Painted Veil is a 1925 novel by W. Somerset Maugham, one of the most popular novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. Once started a novel by Maugham is hard to put down, and The Painted Veil is no exception. Its protagonist is Kitty, a young English socialite who enters into a marriage of convenience with a man she doesn't love. Things get worse when her husband's work takes her from England to the British colony of Hong Kong where she has an affair with a married British official. Upon discovery, the husband forces her to accompany him to a crowded Chinese city where he intends to study and deal with a raging cholera epidemic. She suspects that he is taking her there in hopes that she will catch the dreaded disease.

I will not divulge much more of the story but just introduce what I consider to be a very significant exchange. In the stricken city Kitty is left largely alone while her husband does his medical research among the sick and dying. To pass the time she visits a Catholic convent containing a handful of French nuns who run an orphanage for children abandoned by their parents. Irreligious herself, she is impressed by the nuns and their work. Below are her's and Maugham's impressions.

Your first thought when looking at the Mother Superior was that as a girl she must have been beautiful, but in a moment you realized that this was a woman whose beauty, depending on character, had grown with advancing years. … But the most striking thing about her was the air she had of authority tempered by Christian charity: you felt in her the habit of command. To be obeyed was natural to her, but she accepted obedience with humility. You could not fail to see that she was deeply conscious of the authority of the church which upheld her. But Kitty had a surmise that notwithstanding her austere demeanor she had for human frailty a human tolerance; and it was impossible to look at her grave smile when she listened to Waddington, unabashed, talking nonsense, without being sure that she  had a lively sense of the ridiculous. (107)

Later, she relates her feelings to Waddington, a skeptical and agnostic British official who has been stationed in China for many years.

“I can’t tell you how deeply moved I’ve been by all I’ve seen at the convent. They’re wonderful, those nuns, they make me feel utterly worthless. They gave up everything, their home, their country, love, children, freedom; and all the little things which I sometimes think must be harder still to give up, flowers and green fields, going for a walk on an autumn day, books and music, comfort, everything they give up, everything. And they do it so that they may devote themselves to a life of sacrifice, poverty, obedience, killing work, and prayer. To all of them this world is really and truly a place of exile. Life is a cross which they willingly bear, but in their hearts all the time is the desire—oh, it’s so much stronger than desire, it’s a longing, an eager and passionate longing for the death which shall lead them to life everlasting. …

Supposing there is no life everlasting? Think what it means if death is really the end of all things. They’ve given up all for nothing. They’ve been cheated. They’re dupes.”

Waddington reflected for a little while.

“I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is an illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”

Kitty sighed. What he said seemed hard. She wanted more.

“Have you ever been to a symphony concert?” he continued…”

Every member of the orchestra plays his own little instrument, and what do you think he knows of the complicated harmonies which enroll themselves on the indifferent air? He is concerned only with his own small share. But he knows that the symphony is lovely, and though there’s none to hear it, it is lovely still, and he is content to play his part.”

“You spoke of Tao the other day,” said Kitty, after a pause. “Tell me what it is.”

Waddington gave her a little look, hesitated an instant, and then with a faint smile on his comic face answered.

“It is the Way and the Waygower. It is the eternal road along which walk all beings, but no being made it, for itself is being. It is everything and nothing. From it all things spring, all things conform to it, and to it at last all things return. It is a square without angles, a sound which ears cannot hear, and an image without form. It is a vast net and though its meshes are as wide as the sea it lets nothing through. It is the sanctuary where all things find refuge. It is nowhere, but without looking out of the window you may see it. Desire not to desire, it teaches, and leave all things to take their course. He that humbles himself shall be preserved entire. He that bends shall be made straight. Failure is the foundation of success and success is the lurking place of failure; but who can tell when the turning point will come? He who strives after tenderness can become even as a little child. Gentleness brings victory to him who attacks and safety to him who defends. Mighty is he who conquers himself.”

“Does it mean anything?”

“Sometimes, when I’ve had a dozen whiskies and look at the stars, I think perhaps it does.” (196-197)

Toward the end, as Kitty plans to return to England, the Mother Superior bids her adieu. 

 “Good-bye, God bless you, my dear child.” She held her for a moment in her arms. “Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.” 

The convent door closed for the last time behind her. (205-6)

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Film Noir Favorites 2022

                                                                

Hollywood’s Golden Age refers to films made from the coming of sound in the thirties to the advent of TV in the fifties. These were the films my parents watched in theaters, and which I originally watched as a teenager when they began to appear on TV in the fifties. My favorites are the black and white dark crime dramas that French film makers and critics called “film-noir” when they rediscovered American films after the liberation of France in 1945. The term film-noir refers not only to the dark themes of these movies but also to the nighttime settings and the startling contrasts between light and dark, black and white. 

Below find brief descriptions of some of these films that I have viewed in the past year. Not only are they gripping, extremely well-told stories with masterful directing and acting, but also, they bring me back to the days of my childhood. In the background I can see a world that is no more: the dark dingy streets, the small apartments, the old telephones that people always answer, and the incessant cigarette smoking. 

 

Shadow of a Doubt. Joseph Cotton and Teresa Wright star in this 1943 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Cotton plays a long-lost relative, Uncle Charley, who returns to a sleepy small town for a stay with his sister and her family who welcome him with open arms. He charms them and the whole town but his niece, played extremely well by Teresa Wright, begins to have doubts about her beloved uncle. Hitchcock decided to film on location in Santa Rosa , California, the epitome of a sleepy, ordinary American town. It was a wise decision as we get a look at an American way of life that hardly exists anymore, but also see what can happen when it is invaded by an evil presence. According to Hitchcock’s daughter, this was her father’s favorite film. 

The Suspect. Charles Laughton and Ella Raines star in this 1944 film by film noir master Robert Siodmak, one of the many German artists who fled Germany when the Nazis came to power. The film is set in a quiet London neighborhood in the early twentieth century. Laughton plays a  respectable office manager in a small business who also has been married for years to a shrewish wife.  When he falls in love with a sweet, young stenographer, his wife refuses to give him a divorce and threatens to disgrace him and the girl. When the wife is found dead by an apparent accident, the police become suspicious. Laughton is at his best in this film.

The Street with No Name. Richard Widmark  plays a gangster and Mark Stevens is an undercover FBI agent who infiltrates  the criminal gang in this 1948 documentary style film based on FBI files. Widmark rose to stardom by playing psychotic gangsters as no one else could. Older readers might remember his film debut in the 1947 film, Kiss of Death, where in a fit of rage, he pushes an old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of steps. The film is a tense, taut thriller with excellent noir cinematography. 

D.O.A. The title of this 1950 film means Dead on Arrival. Edmund O’Brien stars as an ordinary accountant who spends the last hours of his life hunting down the man who poisoned him. Originally not well received, it is now regarded as a noir classic.  Many of the scenes were shot on location in a San Francisco, enabling us to take a look back and see what the city looked like 70 years ago. In one amazing scene we get a view of a crowded Market Street as Edmund O’Brien runs through a maze of pedestrian who seem oblivious to the filming. D.O.A. is not among the best film noirs but you cannot count yourself as a fan unless you have seen it.

Panic in the Streets. In this 1950 film, Richard Widmark stars as a public health official desperately trying to prevent an unsuspecting plague carrier from infecting  the entire city of New Orleans. After rising to fame as one of filmdom’s greatest villains, Widmark  wanted to break out  and play a good guy. Still, he has a hard edge. His character is an underpaid, overworked and somewhat disgruntled government official. He can hardly pay his family’s bills and work keeps him from paying attention to his wife, played beautifully by Barbara bel Geddes, and young son. Things get even worse when the medical examiner finds evidence of plague in the body of a murder victim. Director Elia Kazan shot the film on location in neo-realist style as he plumbed the depths of the New  Orleans waterfront dives. The film also features Paul Douglas, Jack Palance, in his film debut, and Zero Mostel. This film is a precursor to On the Waterfront, Kazan’s masterpiece shot on the docks of New York City.

This Gun for Hire.  In this 1942 film Alan Ladd plays a hitman on the lam from both the police and his employer in a breakout role that made him a star. It also marked the beginning of his film association with sultry Veronica Lake. Based on a novella by famed British author Grahame Greene, the film and Ladd created a new kind of criminal.  The film humanizes the killer and explores the background that turned him into a hired gunman.

Key Largo. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall star in this 1948  film that marked the last of their four joint film appearances. The fine cast included Edward G. Robinson, Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In this film directed by John Huston, Robinson plays a notorious gangster who holds the residents of a Florida boarding house hostage while a hurricane rages outside. 

Chinatown.  Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway star in this 1974  technicolor tribute to the film noir crime dramas of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Set in Los Angeles in 1937, a private eye is hired by a wealthy socialite to see if her husband is having an affair. But a simple case of adultery soon turns into a dark world of conspiracy and murder. Directed by Roman Polanski, this film is often listed as one of the greatest films of all time.

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Declaration of Independence

  

                                        

I concentrated on eighteenth century British politics in my brief academic career more than 50 years ago. In the process I came to realize the importance of British politics for a true understanding of the American Revolution. The American colonists regarded themselves as Englishmen defending their traditional rights as Englishmen. Basically, they believed that government should be as close to the people as possible, and not in some faraway capitol. Below find a brief analysis of the Declaration of Independence.

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Every July 4 we celebrate Independence Day, the anniversary of the promulgation of our famed Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Most of us have heard the famous opening lines of the document, 

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

However, few have ever read the entire Declaration and even fewer have any understanding of the nature of the actual grievances that led the colonists to sever their ties with England and seek independence. Most readers don’t get past the following words.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

King George III of England was one of the nicest, most benevolent rulers that England ever had, but the Declaration portrayed him as a tyrannical despot. However, the real conflict between England and her American colonies was not between Monarchy and Democracy but between the rights of the British people represented as they were by their own Parliament, and the rights of the American colonists represented as they were by their own colonial assemblies. In this conflict no one was a greater supporter of the rights and authority of the British Parliament than the King.

For the most part the Declaration of Independence does not complain about violations of individual human rights but concentrates on what it claims has been a systematic attempt on the part of the government in England to violate the rights and privileges of colonial representative assemblies. 

The founding fathers believed these assemblies that represented the leading citizens and property owners in the various colonies were the sole bulwark against monarchical tyranny on the one hand, and democratic anarchy on the other. They claimed that the King and his colonial governors had repeatedly refused to put into operation laws passed by these assemblies.

•He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

•He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent should be obtained…

•He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature…

•He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

In some cases the English government has even gone so far as to dissolve some of these representative assemblies and leave particular colonies without any form of self-government. The legal system, military defense, and tax collection have been taken out of the hands of the colonial representatives. Here are some examples:

•He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

•He has made the judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

•He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

•He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

• He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

In the end the Declaration claimed that it came down to a contest between their own local representative assemblies and a faraway legislature that did not represent them. Because they had come to deny the authority of the British Parliament, they never used the word Parliament in the document. 

There are elements in the Declaration that might seem offensive to modern ears. Jefferson and others in America opposed the efforts of a reforming British government to permit religious toleration of the large Catholic population in newly conquered Canada. For them Catholicism went hand in hand with despotism. The Declaration also complained about attempts on the part of the British government to prevent colonization of Indian territory. Indeed, it claimed that England was encouraging the native tribes.

Nevertheless, the leaders assembled in Congress insisted on their rights as Englishmen to govern themselves. They wanted government to be as close to home as possible. They would make their own laws, vote their own taxes when necessary, and be responsible for their own legal and military systems. They did not want to be governed by a faraway government that had little concern for their interests or welfare.

It was true that the founders were men of property and status. Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, and Franklin were not common men. Democracy would come later. For the present they wanted to protect their right to self-government. The British government had declared itself “invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.” To resist, they were prepared to risk all that they held dear.

•“And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”  ###

Abortion Ruling

  

                                       

 

Roe v. Wade was not a law but a Supreme Court ruling that overturned state laws restricting or banning abortion. Now the Court has overturned its ruling of almost 50 years ago, and claimed that Roe vs. Wade and subsequent rulings were mistakenly decided. It appears that the Court’s decision was based on three foundations. First, following the opinion of most legal scholars, it found no right to abortion in the Federal Constitution, and therefore,  no legal basis for the overturning of long-standing laws prohibiting or restricting it. Second, the science of fetology was in its infancy 50 years ago, but now the scientific ground  has shifted. We just have to note Chief Justice Robert’s discussion of “viability.” Finally, Justice Alioto argued in his majority opinion that the earlier Court decisions had failed in their intended purpose to quell the Nation’s deep division on the subject of abortion. 

Now, it will be up to the individual states to pass laws permitting, banning or restricting abortion in their jurisdictions. Since the Court has decided that there is no right to abortion in the Constitution, the Federal government is now out of the business of abortion.  The governor and legislators of my home state of Connecticut jumped into action immediately with new laws facilitating abortion for even out of state residents. For example, the procedure will no longer require a doctor to be present. It is not hard to imagine that they will soon be practiced at CVS or Walgreens. The legislators are concerned about minority women, or are they?

No matter what you think about abortion or Roe v. Wade, it should be clear to any fair-minded person that a very large percentage of the abortions performed since the original ruling have involved black women. White women have accounted for about half of the approximately 50 Million abortions performed since 1973 but black women, who make up a much smaller share of the total population, have accounted for about 20 Million abortions or 40% of the total. It is clear that Roe v. Wade has played a significant role in limiting the increase of the black population in this country.

Some sociologists think that this phenomenon is a good thing, and that abortion has worked to keep down the crime rate and poverty rate in the country, especially among the “lower classes.” That was certainly the objective of Margaret Sanger, the famed birth-control pioneer on the 1920s. 

Back then, Sanger would not have been called a racist. She was a “eugenicist” a word derived from the so-called science of eugenics that claimed that some races and ethnic groups were inherently inferior to others. She argued that immigration from some poor countries like Italy where poverty, ignorance, superstition, immorality, and crime prevailed should be restricted. She also believed that blacks were inherently inferior, and that they should be discouraged from “breeding,” or reproducing themselves.

Eugenics provided a kind of scientific basis for laws in the South prohibiting “miscegenation”, or marriage between members of different races. They said it led to “mongrelization.” In the 1930s the Nazis in Germany became the greatest advocates of eugenics. It provided a scientific basis for policies to eliminate not only the Jews, but also any inferior racial or ethnic types. Their idea of a master race was a creation of eugenics. Of course, eugenics went out of favor after World War II and the Holocaust.

Many years ago, I went to a conference where a female, black doctor predicted that abortion would eventually lead to the disappearance of the black race in America. I don’t think her prediction will come true, but it is clear that abortion has kept down the population of blacks in this country.

I recall that at the confirmation hearings for Judge Kavanaugh, a conservative white male,  critical questioners sought to demonstrate that the judge would make decisions harmful to women, blacks, and other minorities. But why would a white racist be opposed to abortion when it is clear that it has been so successful in keeping down the black and Hispanic population in this country? Almost 60% of the abortions performed in my home state of Connecticut have been performed on Black and Hispanic women even though they make up only 19% of the female population. You would think that racists would be all in favor of abortion. Or would it be better to say that, despite their words and intentions, the supporters of abortion today are the real racists.

During the Vice-Presidential debate before the 2016 election, Republican candidate Mike Pence, another conservative white male, made an unabashedly Pro-Life statement, and argued that the State has an inherent interest in supporting the right to life of the most vulnerable of its citizens. He noted that as Governor he had worked hard to make Indiana a pro-adoption state. 

His opponent Tim Kaine did note that he was Catholic and proud of his Catholic heritage and education. But he argued that despite his personal opposition to abortion, he had done nothing to oppose it as Governor of Virginia, and would certainly support Hillary Clinton’s intention, if elected President, to provide federal funding for abortion.

The Democrat strategy is very cunning. They can appear to be the champions of women, especially the poor and underprivileged, but at the same time, they support measures that have kept the population of Blacks and Hispanics down. Despite contemporary left-wing rhetoric on behalf of the under-privileged, it is still outcomes or results that count. 

The young Progressives of today have been brought up viewing popular TV shows like Law and Order where the great majority of criminals are successful white males. Only rarely are the villains women, black, Hispanic or members of the LGBTQ minority. Nevertheless, the liberal creators and producers of these shows are now the ones being charged with sexual abuse. Despite professed good intentions, could the media support for abortion be regarded as racist and sexist? ###