A MODEST PROPOSAL II…

…This time, it’s personal.

In 1729, Jonathan Swift, best known to you from a middling feature length cartoon that killed the Fleischer studio, and/or a truly execrable Jack Black movie, published an essay, entitled A MODEST PROPOSAL.

This essay set out a solution to the poverty and starvation problem then extant in Ireland. He suggested that Irish parents should raise their children to one year of age, then sell them to the more well to do citizens of England as foodstuffs.

A win win for both sides of the transaction. England is fed, and Ireland comes away with cash, and loses all those additional mouths to feed, as well.

And remember, this was two centuries before Ireland remained neutral in the face of the Third Reich and its assault on Western Civilization, because hey, fuck the English, right?, so satire was still a viable notion.

Not to mention, but mention I will, the current and loathsome Irish embrace of that modern, “Globalize the Intifada” thing.

Nowadays, separate and distinct from the crisis, of, say, that now nearly certain collapse of Western Civilization in a soft Jihad, facilitated by a fifth column of its willfully ignorant children, we have a number of issues that must be addressed and dealt with, as, I daresay, as swiftly and as Swiftian as that Modest Proposal of 1729.

Here, I will offer a solution to one of these issues, which, in turn, will, it is hoped, rehabilitate the dreadful ongoing and metastasizing reputation of another.

Those of us in creative—and I use this term loosely, considering the state of creativity these days—are frequently confronted with the ages old question, “How do I separate the art from the artist?”

Entre nous, normal people—civilians—don’t give a fuck about any of this. Not even a little one. It’s fans, and the people who find themselves, willingly or otherwise, serving fans, that worry over this like a confounding hangnail.

Was Henry Fonda the antithesis of the avatar of decency he portrayed on screen? Apparently so. Was Pablo Picasso a sexually abusive monster? It seems pretty fucking likely. Was John Wayne a complete racist? Damned right. And, not to go all “condemn the patriarchy” alone, we have to remember Lucille Ball, Bette Davis, and Joan Crawford were, by all accounts, insufferable to a terrifying extreme. Of course, unlike Lucy, neither of those latter two ever made any attempt at even appearing to be likeable, so hey.

And, for the granular cognoscenti amongst you, don’t get me started on Ludwig Holhwein.

Wer’s weiß, der weiß es.

And, of course, in addition to those who kept their awfulness hidden behind a sunshine smile, there was a slew of brilliant artists in the service of all media that were genuinely and unapologetically dreadful human beings, in their personal and professional lives both.

This is, of course, all too true today.

Every day, one more gifted creative person; an actor, an author, an artist, a musician, someone whose work has brought you pleasure, joy, delight, whatever, reveals him or herself to be, in that modern and inclusive, nonbinary, gender fluid sense, a complete prick, and/or an utter cunt.

Now, lucky for us, or at least those of us who have conceded that presentism, that insipid judging of the past for not reflecting whatever values we deem as the only values of any value there are, is, again in that nonbinary, gender fluid sense, mind numbing, time wasting and life sucking bullshit, all those named above are dead and gone.

So forget about all that rewriting of history nonsense—we have today issues, now problems to solve!

Naturally, one of the factors making it possible to separate the art from the artist in the above mentioned category is, as noted, that they’re all dead. This doesn’t rehabilitate this pack of scoundrels, of course, but it does give us, or at least those of us in our right minds, the leeway to enjoy the work with no more than the occasional wince as we recall just how awful such people were, and then return to a healthy, who gives a fuck, state of mind.

In regard to rehabilitation, of course, we’re on track for a big reevaluation of such illuminaries as Adolf Hitler and Mao Zedong, so it’s not just about artists anymore, it would seem.

Stay tuned.

But, back to our current state of affairs, and to the ongoing spate of the live and loathsome crackpots, crackheads, shitstains and shitweasels polluting our day to day entertainment environment/experience with their uninformed, guilelessly self regarding, all too frequently hypocritical bullshit.

Of course, it must be said that when any of these nitwits expresses an opinion which you embrace as well, one’s first instinct is to go the free pass route. The fallacy here, to be sure, is that, like it or not, this justifies all the nonsense with which you disagree.

So just cut this out, right here, and right now.

Neutrality in one’s reactions to opinions and behaviors of this sort is, to my mind, the only safe course.

But, as we all know, it just doesn’t stop. And here, I offer a solution.

Among the other cultural hysterias the civilian population can’t begin to give a fuck about is the inevitability of Artificial Intelligence replacing everything we can’t eat, wear or drive. Concern over provenance has been irrelevant for years, and like a viable eco system, it shows no sign of returning.

But creatives are justifiably incensed by the soulless theft of every fucking idea ever recorded by a cadre of generally unfuckable billionaires, a swarm of reprobates morally indistinguishable from invasive extraterrestrial life forms that were previously only special effects or metaphors in science fiction, well made or dreadful, for fuck’s sake.

And here—about god damned time, right?—is my modest proposal, in regard to the art/artist conundrum.

We can all agree—and frankly, if you don’t agree, take a hike—that cancellation doesn’t work. It didn’t work on me, and I’m barely a flea, unremarkable chickenshit in the context of the Entertainment/Industrial Complex. I’m still here. Waiting for a number of apologies, sure, but still here.

Just kidding. They’ll piss on my grave first.

Those onetime luminaries, supposedly sidelined by cancellation, take a few months, a year, off from a public presence, and that public—which, as noted, either doesn’t give a shit in the first place, or has sociocultural amnesia in the second—wonders whether they’ve somehow missed your last Netflix special or whatever and sits back, relaxed to chill.

And then, of course, there is that special posse that takes “cancellation” as a badge of honor—that hoary, not to say whorish, “Owning the Libs” battalion of dumbasses. The unfortunate fact of life is that this bullshit actually works. This pack of the limited does just fine financially in an age of subscriptions to resentment.

So, my suggestion to those lizard hearted AI technoligarchs is to take a page from their pal Putin’s playbook. While they’re pirating the lives, talent and skillsets of everybody they care to own, perhaps invest some of that money in Novichuk, a few defenestrations, some Epstein level eliminations…to add more than a few of the current shitweasels to the list of the golden age deceased…keeping this spate of wet and dry work eliminations on the down low, as the kids say, of course.

Then, before any absences are noticed, replace the now shuffled off this mortal coil array with AI replicants, minus all the abject nonsense that made the living breathing originals so fucking awful.

Talk about two birds with one stone. We rid society of some of the worst examples of Piss Poor Protoplasm out there…and give Artificial Intelligence a moral ground to stand on. Near universal gratitude among those who know and care would be absolute, for at least a little while.

Fans will, of course, wonder what happened to their favorite has-been or other, charging a small fortune for a momentary photo op. But there’s always a new has-been.

As for everyone else, as noted above, the civilian audience would neither notice, nor give a fuck.

Trust me on this.

As ever, I remain,

Howard Victor Chaykin…a Prince.