Before the Law

David Theroux, in his introduction to Fresh Air Fiend, attempts to define what it means to be a stranger. On the second page he brings up the concepts of alienation and the anti-hero. I have always been especially interested in these archetypal characters, although Theroux has a few problems with them. He brings up Raskolnikov and Mersault, two of my heroes in literature. Raskolnikov at the end of Crime and Punishment ends is alienation and is vindicated through prison and religion. So he resolves into the mainstream, no longer an outsider. Albert Camus in his novels The Stranger and also A Happy Death (the less known precursor), develops the idea of the other in depth. The stranger is someone who does not know how to lie, he does not know how to buy into the samsara of life, therefore he feels alienated. The word alienation was primariy used by Karl Marx in reference to the industrial revolution and capitalism. It had a few different meanings for him including, alienation from what man creates, alienation from the act of creating, and alienation from his fellow man. One of my favorite Camus quotes of all time is, "lying is not only saying what is false, IT IS FAILING TO RECOGNIZE TRUTH". So he is a stranger in that he is one of the only people to recognize authenticity, everyone else is living under bad faith/absurdity. Theroux has a large problem with these characters because of their archetypal nature. He says that they seem to cookie cutter for his liking, a little too predictable. He is far more interested when you see some from within the fold become an outsider. This idea is mirrored in ancient greek tragedy, which required a tragic fall from grace. The fall had to be a high one for the moral/point of the story to be convinving. Likewise Theroux seems to enjoy that high fall, or as in Hamlet, "There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow". I don't want to get too much into this, but the idea of what it means to be a stranger is an important one.

The other point that I enjoyed from Theroux that he only mentions briefly is deviancy. He writes, "What makes us human is our capacity for deviant behavior" (37). This is also phrased "I am a man because I err". Also in my Currents in American Lit. class today we were discussing Poe short stories and the idea that we are somehow all subconsciously attracted to lawbreaking. It seems, and this could be a huge leap, that there is something inherently, fundamentally wrong with any system of law in general, in that it is constant temptation to our human freedom (if in fact we are not determined or fated). Possibly this is evidence for the Hobbes or Lao Tzi perspective. That human beings need to be ruled with a heavy fist because we inherently dislike any sort of social obedience. The only reason we engage in this obedience at all is compramise. We HAVE to believe as fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters, etc that we are getting out of the system more than we are putting in. Regardless of whether this is true or not, we have to BELIEVE that it is true. This is very important, or else the system itself will lose legitimacy. It may be as simple as the local tender at your favorite bar pretending to give you good deals all the time (but he's really not), and you pretend to be grateful that he is hooking you up. You both know that the reality of the situation is that there is an equal tradeoff, yet you get something else out of believing the illusion, prestige. The sense comes that you are somehow special, that you have risen above the multitude, so you allow the system to perpetuate itself. I don't know, this is enough meandering for the night.

Ignorance or Innocence?

Ahh, I have yet to purchase Sand in my Bra, because no one has it anymore up here. So I'm not sure what to write about in this thing. I guess I can talk about (what I think is) the general idea of the book, although a lot of it will be conjecture. I think that the two aspects of the book that popularized it are sex and humor. The title alone has sexual implications for non female readers, and the advertisements gracing the covers rely heavily on humor as a medium. I don't have any inherent problem with this matter, it is simply marketing at it's best. It sort of begs the question though, "does the Travel genre need this sprucing up". Does it need this little extra to make it appealing to people who normally wouldn't read in this area. I think the simple answer to that question is yes. Travels is pretty much standard stuff with a romantic lense arching over. It's like when people get up in class to do presentations and they simply talk about some family trip they had. Yeah that's great, but there has to be an (and) there. It has to be, "My trip to Cuba, and...something exciting", "My journey to Africa, and...my discovery of romantic love", etc. There has to be a sequel in that title, something intense. It's just like the titles of philosophy books. The average joe does not want to read a complex philosophical treatise, so it's always "Philosophy and The Matrix", or "Philosophy and Sex".

Also another interesting point that just occurred (sp?) to me is that romantic lense itself, it merits further attention. There was a point brought up recently in my cosmology class that "Fusion should never be mistaken for Integration". Fusion is the back to Eden idyll. It is the idea that when we are born into this edenic state, and all of our lives we are trying to regain that innocence (paradise) lost. The other approach is a more compound one, and it is called integration. These two words sound similar, but they have drastically different implications. Integration suggests that are has been a rupture that must be healed. Integration is also called the dialectical process. It means you start with unity(fusion), there is a duality split (suffering), and then the trinity (integration) of healing, which is really a tri-unity. Now many of these stories we are covering are guilty of the fusion approach, which has no crucible for conscious, no trial for integrity to be born. For a human being, experiencing no stress, can be just as bad as experiencing negative stress. Nature is not an idyllic garden, and man was not innocent at birth (he was ignorant, and there is a difference). Nature is a dialectical process that incorporates suffering, but then experiences a return to unity. It's sort of complex, and I've sort of exhausted the concept I think, adios for now.
nos vemos
Sean