THE ICONOCLAST'S DILEMMA

Confusion to our enemies...and occasionally, to our friends, too.

One of the common experiences shared by those of us with a public-school education in New York City, certainly in my time, the 1950s and 1960s, was the assigned reading of THE LADY OR THE TIGER, by Frank Stockton.

For those who didn’t have this on your grammar school syllabus, or have perhaps forgotten, the story tells of a King who, upon finding his daughter the princess has fallen in love with an inappropriate suitor, puts this fellow through a trial in which his daughter must choose, of her own free will, between one of two doors.  Behind one door is a Lady, to whom the suitor will be immediately wed.  Behind the other door is a tiger, who will devour the suitor for the entertainment of the crowd.

Either way, the princess loses her boyfriend.

We as readers never learn her choice, and we are, according to academics, left with a metaphor for an unsolvable problem.

But, of course, this was not the case for us kids.  Had I had an analytical bent back then in my boyhood, as opposed to a terrified and twee surliness that kept me away from people and people away from me, I might have noticed that an in-depth character analysis of a reader of Stockton’s story could be made on the basis of whether that reader presumed the princess opted for the lady or the tiger.

I honestly don’t recall which side I fell on.  I was prepubescent, so it might be presumed I was all about the horrific spectacle of that hungry tiger.  That said, I was already a romantic, so it’s just as likely I went for the lady, and all the heartache that implied.

As noted, I don’t recall, and it’s just as likely that my mind went through, as they say, some changes in this regard as I grew older, wiser, and more socially adept, mostly thanks to drugs and alcohol.  Ambivalence showed up as if from nowhere, and left me with previously unconsidered choices. 

You know, like the lady. Or the tiger.

Many years later, in the early autumn of 2006 to be exact because that’s the kind of guy I’m, my wife and I saw a matinee of the west coast production of John Patrick Shanley’s DOUBT. 

(Entre nous, forget the movie. Like so many transpositions from stage to screen, it’s reduced to ham-handed and lumbering obviousness by star-studded casting, and, at least for me, it just stinks.)

In sum, the play tells the story of a Mother Superior, who, despite a complete lack of evidence, sets out to destroy a young parish priest on a charge of inappropriate behavior in regard to a new student at the parochial school where he teaches.  Perhaps not so coincidentally, the kid is the first black child in the school’s student body.

The play’s title tells you all you need to know.  Like the Stockton story, as the curtain falls, we are left with an unanswered question.  Is the priest guilty, or not?

As we frequently did, back before the ongoing collapse of western civilization accompanied by the plague which has put an end to our regular theatergoing, we stopped for an early dinner in the valley before heading north to our little town up the coast.

We settled in, ordered, and I became aware of a table full of gray-haired ladies, likely a few years younger than I am now, avidly discussing the play we and apparently they had just seen.

I qualify with “apparently” because although we’d all been in the same theater, for the same performance of what was the same play, these old dames saw this production through very different eyes than mine.

Suffice it to say, from the point of view of this quartet, that guy was guilty, as guilty as sin.  End of story.

I would assume that, if this cohort gave it any analytical thought, they would have insisted the play’s title was entirely ironic both for us the audience as well as for the Mother Superior, because clearly for these ladies, the real title was CERTITUDE.

Now, just to set things straight, I’m no fan of the Catholic church, or for that matter, of organized religion in general. I am, to be sure, as atheistically secular as the next guy, presuming, of course, that the next guy is a secular atheist.

And, for those of you paying attention, this was just about when the world became increasingly aware of the church’s ongoing mire in scandal, as decades of sexual abuse by priests came to light in horrific detail, so this might very well have had a big impact on the thought processes of this foursome.

That said, another, perhaps more reasonable way of looking at things might have been—for example, mine—is that Shanley was doing his own take on the contemporary issue of moral certitude and its kissing cousin performative morality, in the realm of parable as pioneered in the modern American theater by Arthur Miller, taking on a contemporary issue of his own, the then ongoing red scare, THE CRUCIBLE.

But like those kids who just knew it was the lady, and the other kids who were convinced that no way, it had to be the tiger, these gray-haired ladies had the courage of their convictions and no doubt in their minds.

Again, they had an unshakeable certitude in the face of what is clearly intended—to me, at least—to be a narrative informed by ambivalence, ambiguity and even that old complicator, nuance.

My mentor, besides being a difficult, complex and contradictory fellow, was a profoundly ecumenical and catholic reader, in that other and secular sense, and often paraphrased Nietzsche, in his dismissal of this or that competitor in our shared field, with “Talent is conviction.”

Being all too hip to the specific talent to whom he most often applied this snideness, I got the picture…and recognized, finally, a discomfiting envy of that conviction which I’d never before been able to name and identify before.

In retrospect, the terrifying instability of my dystopic childhood certainly contributed to my own constant questioning of my own value and values, literally and figuratively.  I spent an awful lot of time among the contentious old men on the steps outside my grandparents’ Staten Island shul, while my parents tore each other apart back in Brooklyn.   

Those old Jews taught me to argue, and often to argue persuasively, but this experience also inculcated in me a capacity for shared understanding of other points of view…

…In several words, a grasp, an embrace, an understanding of ambivalence, of ambiguity, and yes, of nuance.

In my current state of mind and body, playing what is to be sure, at my age, the endgame, this all acts itself out in my case as a life of iconoclasm, and points to the iconoclast’s dilemma.

Although I don’t entirely subscribe to the God of Randy Newman, who hates all mankind, I get it.  I am not a fan, in any universal sense, of the human race in general. My relationships with people are all couched and maintained on a case-by-case basis, often, I am forced to admit, through the process and prism of guilty ‘til proven innocent.

That said, dislike of people is not my default in any new encounter.  Rather, I’d call it a qualified suspicion, untainted, to the best of my ability, with contempt prior to investigation.  I give the benefit of the doubt to any and all manner of the various slivers of social identity, again, to the best of my ability.

When I’m taking my morning walk, masked as ever in public, and the unmasked millennials heading directly toward me have no intention of maintaining social distance with an old man, and seem perfectly entitled to my making that move off the curb onto the asphalt instead, I don’t presume that all men and women of this particular generation are all entitled fucking cunts.  At least not for too long.

And, on that same morning walk, masked as ever in public, and some unmasked contemporary of mine gives me the stinkeye typically reserved for the sadly pussified victim of a liberal hoax, and skips the social distancing protocols to demonstrate for me his personal freedom, I don’t regard all the men and women of this particular generation as complete fucking assholes.  At least not for too long.

Just to be clear, and certainly in no way a surprise to those you reading this, I am a democratic socialist. I say this explicitly because many of those who won’t read this on principle alone, that principle being defined as “Because Howard Chaykin wrote it,” presume me to be, variously, a rightwing nutcase, a woke asshole, a transphobe, an islamophobe…

…I could go on, but you get the picture.  See above in regard to certitude, in lieu of doubt.  These two are often accompanied, not to say aided and abetted, by an utter lack of curiosity in regard to a perspective that doesn’t entirely echo one’s own.

But, to complicate and naturally confuse the dogmatic among you, that avowedly leftwing political perspective comes equipped with, and this might alarm some of you, a series of asterisks.

Yes, I’m a democratic socialist, but I have an aversion to the balkanizing nature of what used to be called multiculturalism and is now more specifically defined as identity politics.

This goes as much for the white supremacist bullshit dreamscape of an Aryan ethnostate as it does for the micro slivers of social and ethnic groups who don’t seem to understand that separate but equal has never worked out well for anyone on either side of that equation.

I believe that English should be the official language of the United States—see above in regard to balkanization—and that learning a second language should be a requirement for a high school diploma.  The first would solidify a common core.  The second would contribute to the diminishment of parochialism that is a defining and unfortunate character trait of too many Americans.

In lieu of multiculturalism, for me the true nature of this country is multicultural mutual appropriation.  I’m an atheist and a Jew, raised in a nonobservant household.  That said, I’m crazy about what the sprawl of all the varied threads American culture has to offer me, in philosophy, in food, in music, in drama—as in so much of the above, the beat goes on.

My American dream is one of avid cross-cultural pollination.  Remember that secular atheism I mentioned above?  Sure.  But I remain profoundly moved by religious art and relics, and can barely avoid going full on verklempt at Handel’s MESSIAH.  I woke up this morning craving a Medianoche.  I spent the day listening to 1940s recordings of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, a western swing band out of Texas and Oklahoma whose repertoire included Duke Ellington’s C JAM BLUES.

And look.  When the first American Civil War was raging, my great great grandparents were zhids in the Pale, likely hiding themselves and their children from Cossack rape and pillage. That said, my grandmother, also shtetl born, referred on more than one Thanksgiving to “…Our forefathers.”

And with all due respect, lest you think this is a perfect expression of incipient, nascent, or even freely granted White privilege, fuck that.

Whatever this child of the Pale, or her American born children, or her grandchildren, me among them, have achieved has been in spite of, never because of, White privilege.

And with these last few sentences, I assume I’ve lost some of the more dogmatic among you.  Their loss.

As for those of you still with me, a few more potential inflamers.

My experience tells me that the woke left believes it’s far larger both in numbers and in social impact than reality would indicate, and remains smugly convinced that everyone would sign off on to their social policies and politics if only those misbegotten fuckwits had the education, open mindedness and sensitivity to others’ feelings to understand and get with the program.

By the same token, the fascist right doesn’t give a fuck about convincing anyone of anything, and is convinced that the only way the criminally liberal left can win anything is by gaming the system and cheating, believing as it does that their cruel and Manichean, not to say toxically masculine but I did say it anyway understanding of the world is an unimpeachable truth.

I hear these separate streams of bullshit from acquaintances and, yes, even from friends, all of whom are only available to the echo chamber of their own belief systems, on too tiresome a basis.

And the final curiosity is one of perception. 

In my experience, the woke left almost universally regards the iconoclast as a cultural terrorist to be eliminated by that cancel culture thing that we all know, as per the woke left, doesn’t really exist.

In my experience, the fascist right has demonstrated more than once to my discomfort that it regards the iconoclast as a potential ally to be reeducated and brought around to his own common sense. 

And I say in “my experience,” because I’ve been on the receiving end of both of these presumptions, sadly, more than once in both cases.

Needless to say, they’re both way off base in their own peculiar, and for me, as a democratic socialist, frankly terrifying way.

The woke left insists that its entire identitarian agenda must be accepted as a secular religion.  To continue the evangelical metaphor, this acceptance must be accompanied by a mea culpa for any statement or act at any time in one’s life, that might be deemed inappropriate, on what is a predominantly white guilt based and constantly evolving checklist defining inappropriateness.

The fascist right has asserted its dominance over the issue of free speech, thanks to the woke dismissal of the idea as one of White privilege.  This profoundly intolerant mob was handed this as a weapon to flagrantly misuse by the woke with the same smug self-destructiveness as the 1960s New Left burned flags instead of, as suggested by that great democratic socialist Norman Thomas, washing them.

Josef Stalin would be proud of the application of these various techniques of authoritarianism derived from his insidious tool box by both sides of this trench.

And no, I’m not a centrist by any current definition of the term.  I am a child raised on welfare, with a strong belief in the welfare state.  I believe in a powerful central government, a bureaucracy with a responsibility to serve and protect its citizens.  I believe in universal health coverage.  I believe in paying taxes to receive the benefits of that welfare state, and I strongly believe in taxing the living fuck out of the rich, as opposed to mistakenly assuming I’ll be one among them sooner rather than later.

And yes, sure.  This country, this culture has a longstanding history of racism, of antisemitism, of sexism, of know nothingism, of ethnic, racial bigotries and societal biases derived from the almost tragicomically idiotic identification of white skin, preferably that worn by white men, as the default baseline of humanity at large. 

The struggle to achieve a higher moral ground is ongoing, and will likely be ongoing well into the future, presumably such a future exists.  I won’t see it, certainly.  For some, it’s the American Dream. For me, and many like me, it’s the American Experiment—and experiments often travel up all too many blind alleys until success is achieved—or not.

That said, all the mea culpas, all the guilt, all the censorship, all the denial of the past and its inequities in the name of the appearance of peace and reconciliation seem at best well intended clumsiness, and at worst patronizing pandering bullshit.

And don’t get me started on that alarming and growing aspect of culture which equates hurt feelings with physical suffering, which regards unpleasant opinions as a threat to “safety.”  Speaking as someone, noted above, who is occasionally argumentative by nature, I didn’t learn to argue a point through verbal combat with someone I could wipe the floor with. 

I learned to win by losing to someone who could and did kick my ass in an argument.  As Eldridge Cleaver famously said, “Too much agreement spoils a chat.”  As noted, an experiment, not a dream—and I still think the model this experiment demonstrates, aspirational as it might very well be, is the best hope for Western Civilization, for whatever that may be worth to some of you.

For me, I’m well into my seventy first year, and despite the best efforts of the clown show continuing on its quest to murder the republic by omission and commission, I’m in pretty damned good health.  And that’s one of the gifts of that experiment, that republic, and western civilization for that matter, for whatever that may be worth. 

An unexpected gift of a long life, one equipped with a functioning memory and continued curiosity, is the knowledge that despite how fucked up things are right now, and how unnecessary that fucked uppedness has been proven to be on a daily, sometimes hourly basis, I’m also hip to just how much shittier things could be.

Trust me on this.

So, this is where I find myself, hemmed in from both sides by the same sort of people who mistake feelings for facts, whose narcissistic incuriosity has them convinced they just know it was the lady, or the tiger…and with those who have no doubt that priest was up to no good.

Now, to be sure, as should be plainly obvious if you’ve stuck with me this far, there are lots of things in which I earnestly believe, informed opinions strongly held.  I don’t, however, regard those opinions as inviolable absolutes.  My mind can be changed by the introduction of newly learned facts.  I reserve the right to fuck up and move on. 

And there are facts about which I am sure, by way of personal experience in many cases, and by actual research in others.  Facts.  But again, to restate and overstate, none of this in any way grants me that certitude that refutes doubt, that conviction that eliminates uncertainty. 

And as much as I’d love to be so completely convinced of the righteousness of my beliefs, so satisfied that what I feel is as real as what I know, the one and only thing of which I am truly convinced is that this ambivalence, this ambiguity, this doubt leaves me available to new ideas, potentially strange, possibly threatening, occasionally transgressive, but also conceivably transformative.

And, as occasionally alone all this frequently leaves me on the battlefield of modern culture, I still have hope that there are those out there who share some of my beliefs…with the understanding that I don’t give a fuck whether you embrace them all, any more than it really matters in the long run to that forlorn princess whether it’s the lady or the tiger.