Ollie Stone and the Road to Hell

The internet reminds me, this morning, that Oliver Stone will be releasing a 10 part Showtime special that purports to put "Hitler in context." Stone reports that he's "been able to walk in Stalin's shoes and Hitler's shoes to understand their point of view." This effort comes about, evidently, in service of Stone's contention that " Hitler is an easy scapegoat." By Stone's way of "thinking," individual human beings are locked into a social and economic matrix that predicts their actions more accurately than something Stone doesn't seem to account for or even mention-- free will.



Well, kids, let's just leave Ollie up on his stool, wearing the dunce cap for now, convinced he came up with Hegelian Historicism all on his own. He thought he was plowing new ground, but he's really just giving voice to a symptom of our collective sloth: we prefer to study intent and context over outcome. "He didn't mean to do that." "I don't think she intended to do harm." "I think their heart was in the right place." "You don't know what sort of childhood he had, and if you did, you wouldn't be so hard on him." I encountered a strange one a few years ago: "you have to admit that's the way she feels about it. You have to let her have her own feelings." (The offender in question could have been a shoplifter, but the larger offense was not acknowledging how she felt about her shoplifting.)



On the daily level of small, endurable sins,
we tend, thankfully, to engage in this mercy as a way of getting through life. We assume good intentions across the board. Even someone who believes in original sin, and the depraved nature of the human heart, tends to assume that, on some level, we're all trying to yield to a better, "born again" self. Even when someone does something wrong, we reach very hard to acknowledge how they saw their own actions. We want to know "what, in the world, they were thinking" because we have an investment in believing they had a reason for it.



Dale Carnegie, helping us win friends and influence people, observed that even hardened bank robbers
saw their actions in lofty terms. They were merely seeking economic justice, socking it to fat cat bankers, providing food for their kids, etc. One woman told me she thought her divorce was the best thing she had ever done for her kids. (There was no domestic violence or intimidation involved; it was just a matter of not modeling a stale romantic relationship for her children.)



Somewhere in our memory a pastor is preaching, with real conviction, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."



The reason for that is clear: the endless consideration of intent alone produces social and economic malaise on an epidemic scale. We don't drive cars that are merely intended to work. We drive cars that actually work. We don't fly planes that had good intentions. We fly planes that take off and land.



Imagine a basketball game, driven by intent, as opposed to accomplishment:



"What a great 3-pointer he intended! Amazing!"

"That was an awesome defense they were hoping for!"

"We're number one -- in our minds!"



Imagine commerce working on that level:



"We honestly wanted to serve the Alaskan Salmon, but we got too busy. That will be $39.95."

"What do you mean? You didn't serve it."

"But I honestly meant to. That will be $39.95."




Before we're tempted to believe the absurd will always remain absurd, we should remember that we're maintaining colossal prison systems because our obsession with intent is much more acute than our ancestors'. When a New York man murdered an Indian, prior to the Revolutionary War, he was tried and executed within a matter of weeks. No one lamented his "intentions." We maintain leviathan social service expense, because we have chosen to make divorce "no fault." We kill millions of children in the womb, because, honestly, their parents didn't "intend" to become pregnant.



Heck, Oliver Stone can't even call Hitler or Stalin evil.



Be careful, Ollie. Take a look at the roadsign--and the pavement. It's getting hotter and hotter.

Bearded Dragons and the like

For a family with four boys, we arrived at the reptile stage fairly late in the game. I believe I may have grunted approval on the idea of a "bearded dragon" when Mary ran it by me between phone calls and that one act of absent-minded assent led to first one glass aquarium, with a two-light set, (one for day, one for night), along with two hollowed pine logs to shelter the dragons, since there had to be one lizard for Lockton and another for Samuel. Naturally, the red light broke after one day, and it soon became apparent that the two reptiles weren't acting like friendly side-kicks in a Pixar animation. They were acting like reptiles, with one of them looking like he wanted to eat the other. We added an aquarium divider, but that meant too little room for them, so off we went to buy another aquarium and another set of lights and more mealy worms.

"We need more crickets too," Mary said.
"Crickets?"
"They eat crickets. We need to get new crickets every month."

The idea of adding a cricket-run to our routine every two weeks suddenly brought things into that really sharp focus you experience when you get a new pair of glasses.

"We're not doing that," I said. "We need an online cricket source."
"I've tried."
"Try harder. We're not running down to San Bernardino to buy crickets. I'm not going to do that. You're not going to do that. Nobody is going to do that."

So we did eventually find a place that will ship crickets, but you need to be careful about size, since if the cricket is larger than the space between the dragon's eyes, it will just be an uneasy standoff between dragon and cricket -- and the dragon could could actually die if he manages to eat the jumbo Jiminy, by dint of something called 'back leg paralysis.'

The world, I conclude, is a richly complex and detailed place, but in the matter of pets, I strongly urge families to at least consider staying within the same taxonomic class and consider the merits of a friendly, hand-licking mammal whose food doesn't need to be measured, covered in calcium powder, or even kept alive for that matter. A Cocker Spaniel needs no special red light to go sleep, and it could wander just about anywhere in the house, or show up completely by surprise, without setting off a human fire alarm--a sopranic wail of discovery in the far corners of the house.

You can't say that about a bearded dragon .

When Man Measures up to Myth

Mallory gave me a biography on Jimmy Stewart ("James Stewart: A Biography" by Marc Eliot) for my birthday, over the holidays, and between my Adobe Production Suite obsession and various celebrations, I've been checking in on Jimmy every few days. Eliot doesn't appear to understand the faith life of Presbyterians, (and he assumes no one else will either), but the sheer weight of Stewart's life is impressive: two of his grandfathers served the Union in the Civil War, one of them commissioned a brigadier general by Ulysses Grant; Jimmy's dad ran a thriving hardware store business but left it to volunteer for World War I, at the age of 40; Jimmy's introduction to theater was through music, and his first roles were made possible due to a theatrical convention of the time--they needed an accord ian player; Jimmy attended, and graduated from, Princeton, at a time when there were no coeds on campus; he was attracted to theater, not because he saw acting as a career, but because it might have given him a chance to get close to Margaret Sullivan; at first, he was considered too tall and gangly and slow-talking to be a leading man, but there was something about him that stole the show every time; he could be on stage for a single line and he would be remembered, and singled out by critics, as a bright spot in otherwise failed productions. I have not yet reached World War II in the book, but it's common knowledge that he flew dangerous bombing missions over Berlin, and was decorated for his service, at a time when he could very easily have charted a less troubling course and enjoyed the creature comforts of a matinee idol. His humility about his soldiering was well represented in the George Bailey role he played in "It's a Wonderful Life." He had led a life of surpassing accomplishment, and yet he always played someone who was still trying to figure it all out.



They don't make many like him!

Farm News & Planning

Over the last few years, we've made a concerted effort to make sure the public knows we're open, (billboards, radio, hotel racks, internet, magazines, you name it), and we've pursued that course because there has been a perception you needed to be part of a group to enjoy the farm. While we're still committed to public hours, it's a daunting task, financially and emotionally, to open up the old homestead on, say, a Monday in late December. If you ask me, the farm is worthy of a daily habit, but even our most loyal die-hard customers can't manage that, so.. we're going to try a Wednesday through Saturday public hours schedule during the winter. Keep us in mind for great food, historic retail, and live music on Saturdays. We should be really expensive, but we're a pretty cheap date in these trying times, so put us on your calendar, and by all means, tell us how we can better serve you. (Groups love us--our spring tours are up again this year--but we're still searching for that perfect combination of history-magic and dining value that will make you families at least monthly regulars.)



Time to put on the three cornered thinking cap again...

Really Random Riley...

Photos: William Pote       

Mary followed through this week on an idea we've been threatening to try for a long time--offer a take home family-sized homemade chicken pot pie for all the parents who are here with their field trip kids. Actually, we tried it once before, but--knock on forehead, make woody ding-ding sound--we didn't put a sign out featuring a picture of the pie. Mallory drafted one up and the family pies started whipping out the bakery window like frisbees.

We saw someone tooling around in the cool of the afternoon, (Sunday I think) with a big camera rig, and it was our old village blacksmith William Pote IV, taking a chronicle of the fall. That's his picture of the new restrooms above, which I modestly believe are the best looking privies this side of the Connecticut River, and maybe even this side of the Thames. Click here to see the farm through the eyes of our blacksmith.



Speaking of photographs, I have a singular knack for not having the camera in my hand just when some perfectly emblematic moment announces itself. Is anyone else in the same boat? You lock up the XD high-resolution movie camera, safe in its case, and a shaft of light pokes down through the tavern windows, that makes even the afternoon dust look like a cinnamon fog. You run out of camera battery just as an alpha family walks by, made into angels by the evening light, and you think -- "if I just had THAT picture of THAT family" I wouldn't be able to KEEP Southern Californians away from this place. (This might be something you can only understand if you're a living history-apple-farmer entrepreneur). I found this frustration to be true with writing as well; you need to scribble it all down when the tragicomedy takes place. You can live life, or you can chronicle it. Very few people get to do both.



I know we weren't speaking of the French, but this farm journal isn't obliged to have any common theme, so I will just tell you that the movie "Man on Wire" is worth watching -- with a qualification. It tells the story of a French high wire-walker who was obsessed with the idea of
running a cable between the World Trade Center towers and walking that span, some 1600 feet above the streets of New York. That 1974 dare-devilry, however, was far more complicated than the act itself--since it had to be planned years in advance, with fake IDs and manufactured identities and the ton-weight transportation of high wire equipment to the top of the building, past security guards. The wire was put in place by virtue of an arrow shot from building to building, and it required teams of participants all willing to be arrested for their prank. The entire trapeze rig was put in place in the early hours of the morning, and the wire-walker himself worried that he was too tired to accomplish his task, after helping to build the rig. Sixteen hundred feet above the ground...



There was also a romantic back story. The Frenchman in question, Phillipe Petit, had a devoted girlfriend who helped him string wire, practice high-wind conditions, and sustain his courage, but after the daredevil cheated death, and earned the attention of the Big Apple's media, a New York woman literally offered herself to him, right on the street, by way of "welcome." He took her up on the offer, before he could even enjoy the celebratory embrace of his helpers, and the jilted lover, interviewed some three decades after the event, seems the very picture of disgusting French romantic existentialism. Paraphrasing: "..he had become a new creature now, a creature of celebrity, and this was a new phase of his life, and his old life was over.."



I've had it with the "ugly American" rap. What self-respecting, milk-fed American woman would put up with this? What daughter of Calvin would put on the Camus face and get all coffee-house in the face of infidelity?

Americans may be loud, but the French are rank cliché.

Molly Farr "Sees" the Troubling Future...

I was confirming with Bill Blanchard of Little Big Band fame regarding this Saturday night's Big Band Dance, and he reminded me that I haven't written anything on the farm journal for some time and that he was worried about us.

The truth is that I would love to write a farm journal entry every day, but we've been doing a lot--mostly crunching numbers and trying to plan for an active winter and summer season.



We also set out to improve our video production skills by partnering with no less than comedian Victoria Jackson, (Saturday Night Live) and veteran character actor Basil Hoffman (Milagro Bean Field War), who are also ardent Tea Party activists.



An encounter between past and present is right up our alley, of course, but most of the time we present documentary fragments of the past--Patrick Henry's speech, the controversy surrounding the Stamp Act, George Washington's rules of civility; in this case, we engaged in conjecture: what would the founders' generation think about a cadre of bankers demanding $700 billion in relief? What would they think about representative bodies voting on legislation so complex our delegates have no time to even read the bills, much less study them? What would they think about modern farming and pitting a two inch minnow against humanity's food supply, as in the case of the Delta Smelt?



It's anybody's guess, of course, but it would be difficult to imagine an age of faith, reason, and economy being happy about the modern turn of events in America. I'm an equal opportunity offender, by the way; I believe Democrats and Republicans have been guilty of gross excess over the last century. The industrial economy made them all too greedy for their own approved pork, and now we have a civil service patronage system with voters who are voting to protect their jobs, as much as defend the republic.



The dinosaur media treat the Tea Party movement using a template that substitutes contempt for thought, and they ignore the troubling economic realities that underpin the movement: how can we possibly pay for all of this? What happens when the Chinese won't buy our treasuries? What happens when we kill agricultural production to make ourselves feel good and green? What happens to productivity when the federal government taxes the hard working not just to pay for those who can't, but those who won't work? What happens when ACORN offices use taxpayer money to help pimps run for congress?

What would Molly think about that?

The Death of Certainty II -- Who Owns Me?

Just in case anyone was wondering, I've now taken in three of Michael Sander's Harvard lectures on "Justice," and unless I missed something waiting for the HD video feed to buffer, the Almighty hasn't been referenced once in the search for undergraduate truth. (There's a reason why
they call them "wise fools.") I kept thinking Michael would lead them to at least refer to Jefferson's formulation, ("endowed by their Creator.."), but no such luck. Perhaps--that's where the course is going?

If we don't "own ourselves," who does? The Libertarian argument against progressive taxation is that it represents a theft of our labor, and thus a declaration of ownership by the taxing authority. The Libertarian conludes that unfair taxation is really slavery in disguise and that it violates our ownership of ourselves, but contemporary progressives know slavery is wrong, so they are forced to conclude we don't own ourselves. We are owned by "society." That should set off a few alarm bells, but the students never really could get beyond the concept of majority rule. Professor Sandel, in fact, brow-beat them if they intimated any problem with democracy. I guess he was trying to get them to challenge the limits of mob rule, but no one really seemed to have the answer: we do not own ourselves. How could we "own" ourselves when we we did nothing to create "ourselves?" How could a watch claim ownership of itself? Doesn't the clock-maker own the watch? Doesn't the weaver own the blanket? If the modern mind can't accept God as our owner, it needs to accept "society" as our owner, and the governing democratic arm of society, in these United States, is Congress.

Have you seen Congress lately?

No thanks.

More Funerals for Certainty

If you have an hour or so to spare, you might want to watch what the current crop of Harvard undergraduates are debating. In this WGBH/Harvard University production, professor Michel Sandel encourages the students to imagine themselves on a trolley car without brakes, heading for five rail workers, destined to die if the trolley car doesn't stop. Professor Sandel adds this twist: as trolley car drivers, they can choose to divert their car down a spur line and only kill one rail worker by changing course.

What do they do? Kill the five workers or kill the one worker?



The discussion all takes place in Sanders Theater, where the deep burgundy-brown weight of the walls and the ancient, vaulted light combine to make the participants look unequal to the question. (With a few exceptions, Harvard students don't seem to use the King's English, or marshal the great ideas with any precision these days.)

Professor Sandel is leading them all down the road to consideration of the famous case known as The Queen vs. Dudley and Stephens, the generic version of which has been standard fodder for values clarification courses in public high school. It involves the decision of a ship's captain--adrift in a life-boat after the loss of his ship--to kill an ailing orphan cabin boy, so as to feed the remainder of the crew.

Of course, these scenarios tend to involve endless nuance--did the cabin boy give his consent, would it have been more fair to "draw straws," would the trolley car scenario have been more fair if a fat guy had been pushed over a bridge to stop its progress? (This was literally Professor Sandel's invention, tempting us to wonder, was he inviting the students to conclude "fat people" are expendable?)



In only one instance did I see a student stand and say "murder is murder." Professor Sandel seemed to wax a little indignant at this point, if only for the sake of the drama, and he reminded the student that England was very sympathetic to the plight of the captain. The other lifeboat members, after all, had family waiting for them; the orphan had none. Wouldn't the sum total of happiness be increased by favoring the lives of those who had families?

The student didn't flinch. "That's the argument for street crime," he said. "You kill someone on the sidewalk to feed your family."



Unfortunately, this is about as close as any student got to the ten commandments, or any real sense of the axiomatic. One student did say, flat out, "you don't eat human beings," but most students gave what I would have to call technocratic formulations of maximized value, or sneaky narratives about how to avoid the question altogether.



In an 18th century version of the same exchange, a Harvard classroom full of future ministers and lawyers would make--without question--some reference to the Almighty. Someone would surely step forward with the bold pronouncement, "we have no authority to make such a decision" or "better all die than to remain alive without honor."



Perhaps that sense of the unquestioned--that moral stonewall between God's territory and our own--was behind the "murder is murder" comment, but few contemporary college students would dare even intimate they were leaning on eternal truth, much less mention God and man at Harvard, or Yale, or Stanford, or even Cal State San Bernardino. (We did have a young friend who mentioned Jesus at a local community college class, only to be threatened with an eye gouging by devout Muslims in the parking lot afterwards, but that's a different story.)

Some folks think that's all well and good. It's better to argue morality in purely secular terms, but there are some assumptions no one seems to be considering. At the beginning of the course, most of the students just assumed that preserving five lives was a good thing, even at the price of another. But the preservation of human life itself, is, arguably, a gift of our Judeo-Christian ancestors. Some cultures value life so little they throw virgins in Volcanoes and widows on funeral pyres.

What happens when the biblical assumptions are washed away by another generation of academics who think God's axioms are too quaint to acknowledge? What happens when technically educated but morally illiterate biologists run the world?



I guess that's already happening. We're letting Sacramento farmers starve in order to preserve a two inch minnow.



Welcome to the Brave New World. Good work, Harvard.