I was delighted to hear Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declare loud and clear that the US is building a “New Liberal World Order“. This is an important diplomatic step that America should take in order to reinforce the post-WW2 peace and in order to counter authoritarian interests. However, as previously blogged here, our domestic American culture is increasingly polarized by conspiratorial elements who are traceable to the influence operations of Russia and other authoritarian cultures. As a result, post-Soviet US politics has become increasingly divided along extremist lines, and American bipartisanship and ‘liberalism’ (in a “John Locke” sense) has all but disappeared.
Until we address our political mess at home and forthrightly take on some tough questions about how to curtail such influence without damaging constitutional protections for free speech, I don’t see how this theoretically noble and necessary effort to re-entrench liberal power abroad can be credible or successful. Politically and mathematically, it seems to me that one of the best ways to ‘hack back’ against Russian political influence and force rational bipartisanship (without resorting to some kind of centrist authoritarianism in a three party system) would be to abandon the two party system in favor of a four party system which leads to the forced ‘gerrymandering of centrism’. (Maybe this is why the UK has gone this route.)
At the same time as polarizing conspiracism attributable to foreign authoritarian influence in America has increased, politics has become increasingly partisan, uncivil, and divisive. (image via Plos One)
(This represents a really rough draft which attempts to get at some of the ideals which underlie socialist radicalism through an examination of the parallels of historical literary figures: Prometheus, Spartacus, and various conceptions of the devil – especially those developed in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ and Goethe’s ‘Faust I’ and ‘Faust II’. It might come across as a bit of a sequel to my prior paper on Marxist ideas in Dracula and their effect on modern conspiracism.)
‘Prometheus is the foremost saint and martyr in the philosopher’s calendar.’ – Karl Marx, Berlin March 1841
‘Spartacus is revealed as the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history. Great general (no Garibaldi), noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat.’ – Karl Marx, Letter to Friedrich Engels 27 February 1861
Kirk Douglas as the slave-revolutionary Spartacus manacled to a rock in Stanley Kubrick’s and Dalton Trumbo’s 1960 film has been said to symbolically resemble Prometheus; the Titan who brought fire to man but was shackled and tormented by Zeus for his actions.
Introduction
It has been said that “Prometheus plus Spartacus equals the starting point of Marxism” (Draper, 1971). Such a view however ignores the importance of what might be considered ‘Hegelian Satanism’. Despite sometimes being equated with Jesus, the idea of Prometheus as a hero to revolutionaries was deeply informed by prior ideas about Satan as the ‘hero’ of John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ — and indeed also it has been said that “the merging of Prometheus and Satan was one of the crucial symbolic transformations” as it related to revolutionary thinking (Boss, 1991, p. 157).
Karl Marx (1818-1883) is also seen to have a deep attachment to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s (1749-1832) ‘Faust’ plays/poems. The Goethe story – though distinct in its portrayal of the devil Mephistopheles — was likely influenced by a Miltonian view of Satan, and Goethe praised Milton’s conception even before he wrote his Faust part I.
Marx’ fixation on both the ‘benevolent’ Lucifer-Prometheus (that is, the lightbringer and fire-giver) archetype and the darker/sinister Faustian Mephistopheles (‘deciever-enslaver’) archetype who exchanges short term worldly power for eternal damnation in hell — may be the origins of a ‘Hegelian dialectic’ in Satanism. However, Marx may have been an innovator in simultaneously praising ‘both sides’ of Satan, he was far from the first ‘literary radical’ to idolize these figures in a revolutionary sense.
Marx’ hero Spartacus is symbolically similar figure as the ‘human Prometheus or Lucifer’ who, unlike the fallen angel or Titan instead rises up from his chains against authority for the proletariat but is eventually destroyed by his master (rather than resultantly shackled for his transgression). In addition, a classical interpretation of Spartacus by Plutarch claimed that prophetic signs declared that Spartacus “would have a great and terrible power which would end in misfortune“. In this sense, the idealized historical character of Spartacus – who leads his uprising against the Roman authority despite its foretold catastrophe – may be seen as a ‘synthesis’ of Lucifer-Prometheus (thesis) and Faustian Mephistopheles (antithesis) ‘Satanic hero’ archetypes which were popular among radical writers of the Romantic era.
It was interesting to glean the identity of the woman Michael Avenatti allegedly attacked. It was Mareli Miniutti, a 24 year old apparent prostitute bit part actress and native of Estonia (legally married to a New Yorker named Michael Miniutti). She has been dating Avenatti since October 2017 and cohabiting in Century City California with him since January 2018. Their disagreement seems to have stemmed from Avenatti’s repeated inability to provide the financial security he had promised [Mareli] Miniutti as an apparent condition for their relationship. Documents filed by Miniutti substantiating the basis for the restraining order state that Avenatti “has made promises to “take care of” her financially and sometimes fails to follow through“, in addition to being “financially controlling” . Documents also seem to state that when Avenatti was unable to provide Miniutti with sugar daddy levels of security, he became “vehemently” opposed to her making money on her own.
Maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised that given Michael Avenatti’s tendency to stiff his landlords, business partners, and the IRS for small fortunes, he seems to have done the same to his lovely, young, unabashedly gold-digging, social climbing, Hollywood girlfriend?
The result of the financial argument appears to be that Avenatti was verbally aggressive (calling Miniutti an “ungrateful f****** b****“), hit her forcefully with pillows, and allegedly dragged her from bed which resulted in superficial scratches and bruising on Miniutti’s leg and side. The court documents around the restraining order allege this was not the first major fight between the two.
Despite the split; I wonder how much she’s been influencing Michael Avenatti in his recent media efforts, if at all? Could she possibly be an ‘agent of influence’ herself? It looks kinda like the cases of Richard Spencer and George Papadapoulos to me, in which similar questions have been asked.
I am not sure what to say about the Michael Avenatti domestic violence arrest. It is the kind of surreal schadenfreude normally reserved for happy dreams that you long for when you wake up; yet, it is all real (in the press anyway). However, I am fairly certain that regardless of whether it ends up being an increasingly common right wing political hoax — which would seem strategically intended to disprove Avenatti’s ‘believe all survivors‘ narrative — or if in fact he did commit felony domestic violence as the LAPD alleges — it is guaranteed to be ironic and damaging for Michael’s brand (and totally in line with the many ‘plagues’ which have befallen him of late for his apparent hubris). In the end, the Michael Avenatti case will prove either 1.) that all accusers cannot be believed and/or 2.) that Michael Avenatti is a dangerous advocate for women and a hypocrite.
Update: We can confirm that Michael Avenatti (DOB: 02-16-71) was booked this afternoon on a felony domestic violence charge (273.5 PC). His bail is set at $50,000.
UPDATE: Mea culpa edit time. I stand by this analysis as written about Jim Carrey’s art, however I edited this post on 9/20/2018 to remove a persuasive passage in the conclusion which included what might be construed as advocacy for the deceased Cathriona White; Jim Carrey’s lover who apparently killed herself by drug overdose in 2015 after alleging Carrey had introduced her to sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, and mental abuse. She died from a combination of medications which had been prescribed to a fake name used by Carrey, but which Carrey alleged had been stolen from him. The removed passage from the blog was taken from the context of the below text as allegedly exchanged between White and Carrey in 2013.
As a kid, I read the book “Bony Legs” but did not pay much attention to it being based on the Russian witch archetype ‘Baba Yaga’ (I didn’t know it was a banned book either!!!). Baba Yaga literally means ‘Grandma bony legs’.
Baba Yaga may have parallels with pre-18th century feminist paganisms and she is noted as a dualistic figure who vacillates between good and evil. She is clearly an important figure in Russian folklore too from the 18th century onward; although it is unclear how much of that perspective was informed by prior mythical beliefs. The above link which seems like a credible book review of a history of Baba Yaga points out her interoperability with other witches in such tales.
I continue my research into “MMA culture and propaganda”, now being built out in a working paper entitled “In Submission to Male Nationalist Identities: MMA’s War of the Worlds“. It is turning into a bigger project than I anticipated. In the process of my research, I have come across very interesting observations which fit the contours of my emergent theory on Russian propaganda — not the least of which is that the original name for UFC was actually going to be “War of the Worlds“! But today I want to talk about the Boxer Rebellion.
Before it was renamed the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the promoters branded it “War of the Worlds”. (This may complement the anti-fascist subtext of many of John Milius’ scripts.)
Editorial: One of the names I considered for this blog was ‘wordswords(com)’ – which could be read as both ‘word swords’ and ‘words words’ (it wasn’t available and I am ultimately glad). As the below 1989 speech by Vaclav Havel shows, words can be dangerous, and they can also be redeeming. We need to be careful about the words we believe, and the words we use. We need to be careful how they can be used or changed in ways they are not intended to. I have always felt I have been very careful about how I choose words – despite my sometimes dyslexic tendencies towards syntax and grammar. That said, I am somewhat like a bull in a Chinese propaganda shop so we’ll see how that turns out.
The following speech is one of the best ‘sermons’ I have ever read and is filled with many relevant quotes for our age (some of the best I’ll highlight to ease visual scanning). I generally like to use my exclusively own opinion to avoid bias, but to be honest I have come to so many of the same conclusions independently of Havel from a moralistic standpoint (if not a historical one — since I am not fully educated on all of the matters of history which he references) that I have few if any reservations about putting his opinion forth as representative of my own. (This appeared originally in the NY Review of Books.)
Československo / Praha – Pankrác / věznice: Václav Havel 1979
