Greta too, will grow old…

I was very sad when Buddies in Bad Times Theatre dumped me. I’m pleased to say that bad feeling is gone. I’ve realised something about all of this ‘generational’ business. This weekend in the press the left is telling us that the very idea of ‘generational divide’ is a product of our imagination; while the right insists that divide has never been greater and that young ‘uns  were never more cruel. I beg to disagree. The fact is that, quite simply, Greta too, will grow old.

What do I mean by that? The ‘woke generation’ is no more extreme than we were back in the 60s. And what they are doing is ultimately for good. Why? Because it won’t, ultimately work.

Take a look at our dreams back then — it was no less than world revolution. If the hippies had their way, blacks, gays, women and the poor would have taken arms against a sea of oppression. It would have been the end of the ‘family’ as institution: we would all be living communes, taking psychedelic drugs to realise our true potential, and enjoying promiscuous sex to spread the love. And, it goes without saying, capitalism would dead. You may have noticed that all that didn’t actually happen. Those were the ideals of a generation, but we had to settle for considerably less. Kicking me out of Buddies and vilifying me was very necessary; as are so many other ‘cancellings’ of the older generation — and as were the beheadings in the French Revolution. In order for the smallest change to happen, the dream must be big, and yes, I must say it — it must also be at least somewhat scary and violent. I have no doubt that those ‘woke kids ‘ — who are now insisting that there is no gender and that racism is okay when it’s directed against white people — will be singing a different tune someday. They will be raising a heterosexual family and pulling in a hefty salary from a big, white mega-corporation.  How many hippies stayed hippies? How many became virulent consumers? Capitalism is a sweet, sweet lover, and a liar too.

It’s good that Greta Thunberg is here. Something must be done about climate change, and if we didn’t have her melancholy, suicidal extremity, people would do nothing.

And we will never forget her, just as we will never forgot Allen Ginsberg. 

But did we all end up being gay, promiscuous, drug taking, meditating, mystic poets? No. We did not.

Is that a good thing? I’m not at all sure……

But we must remember, that Greta too, will grow old.

The Death of Tragedy

We live in the era of melodrama.

It is the era of good and bad, there are no longer any shades of grey.

Recently, I read Streetcar Named Desire with my students and asked them if Stanley was a bad man. ‘Why yes of course —yes  — he raped Blanche.’ I asked them to tell me, then, if Blanche was a good woman. They were confused —their faces contorted with discomfort. ‘But….you are asking us a question that can’t be answered,’ they said. 

Ahh.  

Well gee, I thought that was the whole point. Now the same students who are upset by Blanche’s dual nature — a mixture of good and evil — are obsessed with comic book heroes. I told my students I didn’t want any more talk of comic book heroes in their papers. One of them complained ‘But with comic book heroes, there is hope that good will triumph over evil.’

Okay, I get it. This is the world we live in now. Us and them. The world is divided into good and evil, period. How did we get here? 

Adorno once stated (and I am paraphrasing) ‘there can be no art after The Holocaust.’ I fear he may have been right. What Adorno meant to say was that it was impossible to write about The Holocaust without trivializing human suffering. But what I think happened is this: when we saw naked human evil up close, we lost all sympathy for the tragic hero. (The only author who has dared to see Hitler somewhat as a tragic figure is Karl One Knausgaard in his novel The End.) That is why, these days, if you dislike your opponent enough, you call them ‘Nazi!’

What is lost in all this? Of course we have abandoned political civility — the ability to have rational debates in the public square. But we have lost much more than that. Tragedy is about looking inward, about seeing the flaws in ourselves. When Greek audiences wept, wailed and screamed — bewitched by the masks, the music, dancing, and the shocking portrayal of mothers killing their children (Medea), women falling in love with their stepsons (Phaedre) and bloodied heads nailed to the door (The Bacchae) it was not just because Euripides was a ‘shocking’ playwright (something we rarely see today!), but because he was forcing them to look inward, and examine themselves.

When Prospero says of Caliban “this thing of darkness I / acknowledge mine’ he is doing something we are incapable of doing anymore. 

He is recognising the evil inside.

Rudy Giuliani Is No Hero

President Trump’s personal lawyer is not only up to no good in the Ukraine, he’s been up to no good for years. People keep asking “What happened to Giuliani?” As if he has had some dramatic fall from honesty and integrity. Giuliani is just the same crooked hypocrite he always was. His career — like Donald Trump’s — is mostly hype. As Associate Attorney General under Ronald Reagan Giuliani was famous for high profile cases — some involving organised crime. But though Giuliani may have put many criminals in jail, many of those he prosecuted also walked away — while Giuliani continued to bask in the glory of the celebrated indictments. As for being ‘America’s Mayor,’ the The New York Times says “Giuliani has exaggerated the role he played after the [911] terrorist attacks, casting himself as a hero for political gain.” Which is what Giuliani and Trump do best.

The 1980s is usually seen as a time when New York City was ‘cleared of crime’ by various mayors. In the 90s Giuliani took all the credit. But this was less an idealistic ‘clean up’ than an opportunistic money grab that toyed with the lives of sex trade workers and gay men (as brilliantly illustrated in the recent HBO TV show Forty Deuce) who were helpless to defend themselves in a misogynistic, puritanical post-AIDS environment. It is undeniably true that the crime rate in New York City has plummeted. But at what cost? Forty Deuce shows that New York’s mayors and police conspired with big real estate to close bars, bath houses and and massage parlours, driving gay men and sex trade workers into the streets. The result is evident to anyone who takes a trip to New York City today. Gone are the colourful neighbourhoods and sexual variety that characterised the once great city. (This sad story is also chronicled in Times Square Red, Times Square Blue by Samuel Delaney.) A small price to pay to stop crime, you say? But the crime problem did not originate in the massage parlours and the bath houses, and could have been eradicated without enriching those already flush with cash.

New York City is now a bland, bloated tourist destination, promoting mega-musicals and family vacations. We have Giuliani to blame for that. (Toronto, by the way is poised in the same direction — enriching the already rich and destroying neighbourhoods.) Meanwhile Trump and Giuliani stand up publicly against queer rights and abortion, while their own tawdry personal lives spill over with a succession of adulterous affairs and divorces.

It’s hypocrisy, alright. And as long as no one speaks up, our world will be dominated by a dull colourless hypocrisy — one that fills the pockets of the privileged, and oppresses those who are open and honest about their sexuality.