Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Thursday, April 9, 2020

Why Richard Dawkins is a Worthless Pile of Garbage — An Atheist's View of why Dawkins is Pure Poison

These notes are about Richard Dawkins, the much-celebrated British Evolutionist, in response to an article by Laurent Guyonet.

https://www.unz.com/article/enshrining-god-in-the-constitution-robespierres-great-idea/

...the principle of authoritative revelation is not the main factor involved in the development of Western atheism, I think. The content of the revelation is critical. I believe that modern atheism is, to a great extent, a reaction to the disgusting character presented as “God” in the Old Testament. Yahweh’s obscenity has ultimately ruined God’s reputation... Richard Dawkins can only make his atheism sound plausible by first professing, correctly:
“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”[1]
In his speech on “the relations of religious and moral ideas with republican principles,” read at the Convention six weeks before his death, Robespierre said:
“I know of nothing so close to atheism as the religion that [the priests] have made: by disfiguring the Supreme Being, they have destroyed him as much as it was in them; […] the priests created a god in their image; they made him jealous, temperamental, greedy, cruel, relentless.”
Is modern atheism a reaction to the 'disgusting' character of God in the Old Testament? But atheists have no interest in the New Testament God either. Also, has religion gained in strength by becoming more tolerant, forgiving, and flaky? The very nature of religion is to be judgmental, and that's why all 'tolerant' and flaky churches don't last long or they adopt New forms of intolerance, such as globo-homo dogma or 'muh Holocaust' or 'muh Israel'. Religion is intrinsically judgmental and damning because it is the rejection of the body and the material world as fallen, cruel, horrific, and vile. If one were content and satisfied with the body and the world, what need for God, spirit, and heaven? It is because the material world is so imperfect that people conceived of souls as separate from flesh. And this soul could enter Heaven if it were good and obedient to God. Or it could enter Nirvana if it rejected desire and attachment to the material world and the way of the flesh. A non-judgmental religion is ridiculous. Religion is essentially the judgmental condemnation of the body by what we imagine to be the 'soul'. It is rejection of the world in favor of Heaven and Nirvana. It is spiritual utopianism as utopia is impossible in the actual-material world.

Also, I find it unlikely that modern atheists were really put off by the ruthlessness of God in the Old Testament. Secular Social Darwinists were pretty heartless about the poor. Eugenics, another secular movement, believed the undesirables should be removed from the genetic pool. It had no use for the concept of the soul. Also, the great 'historical crimes' of the Christian West weren't based on the Bible but on pure greed, vanity, and adventurism. Even though the Church played a missionary role in imperialism, the real drivers were the profiteers and power-lusters. And consider ancient history. Alexander the Great was a ruthless conqueror-adventurer, and he wasn't inspired by the Jewish God. If anything, whatever one may find in the Torah, Jews were among the least militaristic peoples in ancient times. Not because they were nicer but because they sucked at fighting. Jews figured, Other Peoples may whup our ass physically, but we will whup their ass spiritually. Others will grab more land, but we will conceive of a God greater than all their gods combined. It's true that the Torah speaks of God ordering Jews to carry out mass-killings and the like. But in ancient times, pagans were just as ruthless, if not more so. Assyrians were terrifying. Spartans were bung-donging killing machines. (It goes to show acceptance of homosexuality does NOTHING to ensure a more humanitarian point of view. Some historians surmise Frederick the Great was a closet-homo, but he was among the most aggressive German rulers. Also, homos today are all over CIA, NSA, & Deep State, and they are among the most enthusiastic pushers of globo-imperialism. They love to play the world like a sex toy and cackle with glee at the horrors in Syria. Besides, though homos started out pleading for tolerance, once they gained dominant power in alliance with Jews, they've pushed globo-homo Queertianity as the new dogma that must be obeyed. Once a secular force in society, globo-homos are now festooning churches and even mosques with 'gay' colors.) National Socialists, Japanese imperialists, Soviet imperialists, and etc. proved time and time again that people can be just as crazy in service to secular ideology or pagan mythology. I don't think the Chinese in Nanking were fleeing in horror because Japanese were running around with Bibles and sermonizing.

As for Richard Dawkins, a fine biological scientist but moronic social scientist, he acts like the god of the Current Year. Whatever happens to be most PC in the present must be true and just for all times. His litany of complaints about God is truly hilarious. He's such a vain dolt that he is utterly unaware of how his brand of atheism is just as judgmental as old-time religion. He's so arrogant, contemptuous, sneering, sniveling, smug, and full of hot air. His personality is more despicable than that of any deity. Oh, he knows best, he knows everything, he is so very rational, he is all about facts and truth while those who disagree are all morons and monsters. What a prick.

I've always been an atheist but can't stand people like Dawkins who are really into self-worship and auto-cult-of-personality.

Let's consider some of his complaints.

1. God is jealous and proud of it. By 'jealous', it is meant that He is possessive. But then, why shouldn't He be? If He is the supreme Lord and the Creator of all, of course He would be jealously possessive of what He created. It means God is a great environmentalist. He created the cosmic and worldly environment, and He is jealous and possessive of the creation. He doesn't want it to be ruined, polluted, or befouled by sin and degeneracy. God created mankind and imbued humans with souls. Naturally, He sees mankind as His property because He created it. So, He wants mankind to be appreciative and not pollute their souls with sin.
If you had magical powers and created an oasis, a beautiful garden, out of the thin air, wouldn't you be 'jealous' and possessive of it? And if you created creatures to inhabit the garden, wouldn't you want them to take good care of it and heed your laws? What is the point of being the Great Creator and Owner of the universe if you're not possessive of what you've made?

2. God is a petty, unjust, and unforgiving control-freak. Now, some of this criticism is valid because, after all, what is God or any bunch of gods but a projection of human nature and human personality? So, naturally what we find objectionable in God is a mythic reflection of our failings and our problems. Every pagan god is far from perfect. Zeus is often petty and nasty. Also, many pagan gods were far more frightening than the Jewish God. After all, Yahweh said no more to human sacrifice and that sort of thing. In contrast, certain pagan gods demanded human sacrifice, especially in the New World among the Aztecs and Mayans. I dunno, but I'll take the Jewish God over such pagan gods. Does Dawkins really believe the God of the Torah is worse than pagan gods who demanded human sacrifices of virgins or kids or thousands of captives?

Now, one problem with the Jewish God is the assertion of perfection. With pagan gods, as nasty-vicious-vile-petty-demented-sadistic-cruel they may be, they never claimed to be perfect. So, with a figure like Zeus, we can see his good sides and his bad sides. As for dark gloomy gods who demand tons of human sacrifice, they may be amoral or even immoral, but at least we know they aren't about justice. They are about POWER. They got it and flaunt it, and they demand we obey. In contrast, the problem with the Jewish God is the cult of perfection that, however, is undermined by Biblical evidence. If indeed God is so perfect and all-knowing, why does He contradict Himself so often in the Torah? Why does He say one thing here, another thing there? Why is He about love and forgiveness at certain times but about death and destruction in another? In a way, the history of Judaism(and even Christianity) has been the dialectics between (1) God's Word and God's Character (2) God's Promise and God's Deliverance. Of course, there is contradiction even within God's words as He says one thing through one prophet and another thing through another. Jews and others have tied themselves in mental knots to rationalize these contradictions: (1) The Scriptures are not infallible but flawed interpretations of God's way and will by prophets who could see further than most men but nevertheless fell short (2) Though God's ways manifest themselves in various and seemingly contradictory ways on the surface, they are all consistent and part of the plan at the deeper core (3) God really isn't perfect but fooling Himself and us (4) God speaks to us in ways that we understand, but His ultimate plan is too mysterious for us to understand rationally or through human faculty... much like mankind cannot really understand the mystery in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY or MOTHMAN PROPHECIES. (Some people wonder how God could be perfect but His Creation is so imperfect. If He is perfect, why did He fail to create perfection? But maybe one could argue that it is perfect as whole, and paradoxically the 'imperfections' of the parts are integral to the perfection of the whole. It's like a painting. When we look closely at any part of the painting, it looks blurry and crude, even ugly and messy. Yet, when we move back and see the painting as a whole, we realize how each 'crude' brushstroke played a role in creating the great painting. Same goes for music. The final score is the coming together of all the 'imperfect' elements of music. So, for the cosmos to be perfect, it has to be made up of 'imperfect' parts. Not everything can be perfect because most things are part of something bigger. Perfection connotes wholeness, and no part on its own can be perfect alone. It is imperfect and works with other imperfect parts in the creation of the larger perfection.)

Now clearly, if we were to characterize God or gods as nothing more than projection of human nature/personality onto the universe, the deity/deities would merely be a bundle of magnifications of all that is noble and ignoble about us. Our good sides would be magnified but so would our bad sides. And on that level, there is a pettiness in all conceptions of God. On the one hand, they are so grand and awesome, the kings of mountains, skies, and stars. We want gods to be glorious and impressive. But to the extent that even such magnificent beings are slaves of all-too-human vices and vanities, there will be a massive contradiction between their august construction and all-too-human behavior. Zeus is a great god but is often animated by Beavis-and-Buttheadian 'boing'-mania. He is the god of gods but acts like Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein.
What is fascinating about the Old Testament is the dialectics among the various prophets, poets, and writers as to the true and ultimate nature of God. In a way, such dialectics were possible only because of the contradiction between the concept of God's perfection and evidence to the otherwise. Did God fail Jews and humanity? Or did Jews and humanity fail God? Did God betray the promise or did Jews/humanity violate the promise? Was the vision of God by every prophet merely a piece in the larger puzzle? Like the US Constitution, the Torah is a record of amendment. Just like there was talk of making the US a 'more perfect union', the Jewish project was about making their God a 'more perfect God'. While the notion of the Jewish God as perfect could be said to be delusional and arrogant, it also made Jews more sensitive to the failures of God(or of themselves, which were maybe the reason why God failed to deliver His promise). If Jews were okay with a flawed god(as the pagans were), they would have been less worked up about the contradiction between their spiritual conception and their political condition in the world. Jews came to believe their God is the only God who, furthermore, chose Jews as His favorite. If God is just and perfect, why is the world, His Creation, so flawed? If Jews are the Chosen, why do they suffer so much? Why can't Jews be masters of the world over goyim and eat like effendi? (Today, Jews are masters over goyim and eat like effendi, but this came about through Jewish adherence to secular satanism.) These questions made Jews a deep and profound people who raised among the most important spiritual questions. It also made them a difficult and neurotic people, rather like Dustin Hoffman in RAIN MAN trying to crack the mystery of "Who's On First?"

Anyway, the fact that most pagan religions turned into empty rituals, boring customs, or the butt of jokes(like what became of Greek Mythology via Ovid) whereas Jewish religion kept raising questions and even spawned Christianity and Islam goes to show that the Jewish conception of God was more powerful, provocative, inspiring, and meaningful. And despite all the dogmatism, it was adaptable in the sense that God went increasingly from an anthropomorphic super-being to a conceptual spirit, an abstract Deity.
In a way, Dawkins' real beef with Judaism-Christianity-Islam is that its God was conceived of as a meme that cannot be dis-proven and has appealed to humanity for eons. With modern science/education, it's impossible for any rational person to believe in Zeus, Thor, or Osiris. As gods with specified dimensions, they now seem like characters in a superhero comic book. But God has been conceived of as a Being that is, at once so accessible and so mysterious. He can listen to our prayers and cares for us; but He is so great and mysterious that we cannot imagine what He looks or sounds like. Dawkins came up with the concept of memes, and as a radical rationalist, he can't stand the fact that an irrational meme still has such power over the world. But then, even as he spouts off about evolution, he seems blind to how spirituality may have been an evolutionary advantage for mankind. Religion gave people hope and meaning, and surely those with hope and meaning are more likely to believe in the future. Even today, why is it that religious people tend to have more kids than secularists who believe there is no meaning to anything? Secular science is superior at identifying issues and solving problems. It sent men to the Moon. But it tells us nothing about the meaning of the universe and why we are here. In all likelihood, there is no meaning to the cosmos, but such fatalism hardly makes for hope and survival.

Dawkins says God is unforgiving, but is He? Adam and Eve disobeyed Him, but He let them live. Cain murdered his brother, but God protected him. When Ham saw his pa Noah naked, God didn't kill him but turned him into a Negro. Given white folks now worship Negroes, that wasn't such a bad deal. When God was about to smite Sodom and Gomorrah, He listened to Abraham and was willing to compromise. Even though so many people were acting like proto-globo-homo tooters, God promised to spare the city IF Abraham could find just a few decent folks. God even sent angel-inspectors to look for evidence, but they were greeted by a bunch of degenerates yelling, 'squeal like a pig'. That's when God had just about enough and decided to blow the city up. Throughout the Old Testament, God is forgiving of Moses, David, and many others... as long as they face up to their own failings. He punishes Jews but forgives them over and over. God is often ruthless but also forgiving.
At any rate, He could change His mind because He was the only God. There is actually less forgiveness among the gods in pagan myths. Whereas the Jewish God might hate you but then forgive you, pagan gods generally hate someone forever. So, if that someone is to survive, he needs the protection of other gods who favor him. If Hera hates you, it is likely permanent. If you survive, it's because some other gods grant you protection. Thus, pagan mythology is more political than moral. It's about balancing of powers. In contrast, the Jewish God is capable of changing His mind. He can go from judge to reformer. He can be executioner but change His mind and let you live. Some say what He did with Abraham and Isaac was pretty frightening, but a pagan god might have demanded the sacrifice of lots of young boys. God let Isaac live because, when push came to shove, He wanted to be worshiped as a good God than just a powerful God.
Also, the fact that Judaism spawned Christianity goes to show there was an element in the former that was about love and forgiveness. If such an element hadn't been inherent in Judaism, there could have been no Christianity.

By the way, is Dawkins aware of his own contradiction? He has often condemned 'antisemitism' but then argues that the Jewish Spiritual Worldview(that also led to Christianity and Islam) has been the biggest curse upon mankind. If the main cultural, moral, and spiritual contribution of Jews has been so rotten, vile, and disgusting, shouldn't Dawkins agree with 'anti-Semites' that Jewish People have been the worst in all of human history? Also, if mythology is the collective representation of the spirit of a people and if Jewish mythology is the vilest in the world, doesn't it follow that Jews must have the worst human character since it led to the creation of the worst credo and belief system? Now, Dawkins may argue that he is opposed to biological antisemitism and okay with Jews as secular people. If so, why not demand that Jews give up on Jewishness, an identity that simply cannot be divorced from the religious history of Jews? Even secular Jews have an identity rooted in the Covenant with God. Also, if Jews suffered through the ages, it was because they insisted on their difference and even superiority based on the Covenant. So, the very notion of Jewishness should be condemned if Dawkins wants to be morally consistent.

Furthermore, what if the vileness of Jewish religion isn't merely the reflection of Jewish Imagination gone wrong but of Jewish personality itself? Maybe the problem wasn't in the spiritual vision but in the roots of personality, in attitude and mindset. Could it be God is especially arrogant, all-knowing, ruthless, judgmental, and vain because Jewish personality tends to be that way? As an evolutionist, Dawkins might ponder the relation between secular Jewish personality and the ideologies/agendas that sprung from it. Couldn't one argue that modern secular Jews, even without belief in God, tended to have personalities of the monomaniacal and megalomaniacal variety(that one encounters in the Torah)? Personality and attitude go a long way. A person with bland personality is likely to be less fiery and fanatical even with religion; in contrast, a person with strong personality is likely to have a god-complex even if he is irreligious — Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong were non-religious but loved playing gods, even at the cost of destroying millions of lives. And look at Neocons. Most of these Jews are irreligious. Their sense of Jewishness is political and historical than spiritual. But they have strong personalities and are willing to smite 100,000s and even millions of goy lives to fulfill their dream of Jewish Supremacism. So, maybe Dawkins should look more into the problem of personality and attitude than faith.

As for God being a control-freak, I find this hilarious coming from an Anglo, member of a tribe known for its hoity-toity compulsiveness. Also, I see some projection here. Dawkins is a mental control-freak who laments that there are still religious people around the world who refuse to grovel before him as the all-knowing secular genius. And look at current Britain. It has the worst of what Sam Francis called anarcho-tyranny. The culture(which is mostly pop culture) encourages young Britons to emulate savage jungle behavior of blacks. And yet, there are also increased social pressures about how you can't buy knives, you can't tweet certain comments, you can't crack certain jokes, you can't use certain words, you must bend over to globo-homo, you must celebrate Diversity, you must agree that not one less than 6 million died in the Shoah, and etc. Current UK encourages increased levels of savagery that leads to social problems but then exerts more control-freakish state power over everyone in the name of dealing with the problems. Brits are now hoity-toity ho's. How about being sensible and NOT importing lots of blacks and discouraging whites from emulating the most savage race? But no, UK encourages whites to be like blacks and then exerts more state power to suppress the problems resulting from globalism.

3. A vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser. It is true that God watches over Jews as they leave Egypt and clash with pagan tribes to found their own homeland. The most frightening parts of the Old Testament is when God orders the Jews to wipe out entire enemy populations. But here's the thing. Why pretend this is a feature only or mainly of the Jewish God? Those who worshiped pagan gods conquered more and killed more. Romans invaded and killed tons of primitive Britons before they converted to Christianity. Huns, Mongols, Persians, Greeks, Assyrians, and etc. were great conquerors and mass-killers. Alexander the Great has been much romanticized, but he could be as ruthless as any tyrant. All mythologies have gods aiding one people to totally smash another people. The gods defend a people; the gods help a people to invade and take from another people. The Jewish God was no different in this. Still, there are also sides to Him in the Bible that call for mercy, peace, and reflection. The most blood-curdling parts of the Bible is when Hebrews, out of Egypt and in the wilderness, are looking to found their own homeland. It was going to be a bloody process. Now, some historians say that it's all fiction. Others contend Jews did fight and take lands from Canaanites and the like and committed mass blood-baths. But such were common among all peoples at the time, and they all worshiped gods who urged ruthless actions to whup the other side. Still, the blood-curdling God is only one aspect of the Bible, not the main thing.
Besides, modern history shows one doesn't need God and religion to conquer, ethnically cleanse, and wipe out entire populations. While white Christians conquered America & Australia and wiped out native populations, they were mainly motivated by political, material, and economic interests, not religious ones. Sure, they invoked God to justify whatever they did, but they could just as easily have invoked 'progress', 'history', or 'justice'. To most people then, it was justice and progress for advanced white folks to take land from useless savages. Ayn Rand, a fierce atheist, said Jews should rule Zion because Palestinians are useless Arab barbarians incapable of building modern societies. Hitler and Stalin didn't need to invoke God to conquer and destroy entire peoples. Zionism wasn't a religious movement as its pioneers were non-believing Jews, and many were secular socialists. Still, they managed to manipulate the great empires to aid Zionists in the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.


4. A misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully

Too many terms here are subjective and un-scientific. What is meant by 'misogynistic'? From a religious-spiritual point of view, secular pop culture could be said to be 'misogynistic' because it encourages women to dress and act like whores. If by 'misogynistic', Dawkins means women being subordinate to men, that is nearly all of human history and human culture(and nature as well as most females are weaker than males across the species). Pagan Athens required women to wear veils, and women there were less free than in authoritarian Sparta. Black savage culture has been more expressive in female sexuality, so does that mean stuff like 'twerking' is the path to female 'empowerment' and dignity? By the way, despite open sexual expression among savage black women, male-on-female violence has been a bigger problem among blacks. Greek mythology's view of womenfolk is actually more damning than in the Torah. Though Eve causes great harm, Adam also shares the blame. At any rate, God gave Eve to Adam as a gift and blessing. In contrast, Greek mythology says women were presented to mankind as a curse from the very beginning.

As for 'homophobic', what is more intolerant and judgmental than current globo-homo Queertianity? BAKE THE CAKE, BIGOT. Or, if you say you find sodomy to be gross(which it certainly is), forget about working in any elite capacity. Also, even if religious intolerance and judgmentalism toward homos were excessive in the past, it was still intolerance in the name of normality, decency, and health. In contrast, current globo-homo intolerance of so-called 'homophobes' is a denunciation and negation of normality, nature, and decency in the name of consecrating degeneracy and decadence. Some things are worth honoring, and some things are only worth tolerating. Family and natural norms are worth encouraging and defending. Homosexuality is, at best, worth tolerating. NOTHING good can come of homo fecal penetration, guys sucking penises, and tranny-penis-cutting-and-balls-lopping. So, while one could argue that the Old Testament is too excessive in its anti-homo-ness, intolerance of homosexuality still makes more sense than intolerance of normo-sexuality and its natural attitudes toward homosexuality. I mean, why shouldn't a sane, decent, and normal person find homosexuality to be deviant and gross? Also, Ancient Jews lived in tough times when people had to focus on core values and core essentials to survive. They had no time for decadence. Is there any evidence that celebration of homosexuality led to civilizational strength? While Ancient Greeks were smart to harness homo talent, it was never good for any civilization to be overly celebratory of homos as it invariably led to decadence and degeneracy as homos are naturally vain and froopy-doop. They act like those trivialist freaks in Fellini films. Keep them on the side, not at the center.

As the Jewish God was a moral force focused on essentials, it's understandable why He was hostile to homosexuality. His laws were about reminding Jews over and over what really matters, what are essential and what are trivial. Naturally, sticking dongs up bungs was not only non-essential but gross and a good way to spread disease. Imagine you have special powers and you create a garden. And then you mold creatures and tell them, "This orifice you use for eating, this orifice you use for shi**ing', and that orifice you use for sex", but a bunch of freaks decide to stick sexual organs into poop-chutes. Of course, you-as-creator would be upset. Suppose you create a toilet bowl that is meant for pissing and pooping but a bunch of people use it for washing their faces and drinking water. Suppose you build a museum for appreciation for art, but idiots fill up the place with junk and have orgies inside.Of course, you will be upset. Naturally, God wasn't into 'gay' crap because He didn't design the bung for the dong.

Dawkins says God is 'racist'. Well, all gods tended to favor one group over others. But then, what's the point of worshiping a god who doesn't favor your side? Also, non-'racist' gods are not necessarily better. In the Trojan War, it's obvious that the gods whom the Greeks worship are not necessarily with the Greeks. Indeed, half of them favor the Trojans, and this prolongs the war. Would you want to worship a god that sides with your enemy? Greeks did, and it caused them all sorts of problems. Because there was no covenant between Greek gods and Greeks, it wasn't long before Romans took them and made them serve Rome. (Later, Romans took the Jewish God as their own, but Christianity was the doing of Jewish heretics who, Prometheus-like, smuggled the Jewish fire to the pagans, something Jews could never forget or forgive. Jews see it as a bigger failure than Rosenbergs sending nuclear secrets to Stalin who became the enemy of Zion.) But generally, most gods rooted for one people over another. Oftentimes, gods needed to be appeased to stay on your side. Gods also needed to be appeased for good weather. Or appeased so that they won't torment your people too much. Popular Chinese religion imagined heavens filled with corrupt bureaucratic gods who had to be bribed so as not to torture one's ancestors too badly. No wonder Chinese are morally screwy.

So, it seems the 'racism' of the Jewish God wasn't such a bad thing or a bad thing at all. What's wrong with your god favoring your kind? The elites should favor their own people, and gods should favor those who worship them. It's how spiritual contract works: A people worship a certain set of gods, and the gods favor them. British elites used to be grand and excellent as race-ist elites. They favored and cared for their own people. But ever since British elites became 'anti-racist', they've neglected and abused their own folks while sucking up to rich Jews, pandering to angry Muslims, cucking to savage blacks, and welcoming the Great Replacement. Race-ism is infinitely preferable to evil 'anti-racism'.

Granted, there was a contradiction in the Jewish conception of God because Jews increasingly claimed He is the only God and the God of all and everything. If so, why should God favor Jews over others when He is lord of all? So, the problem of the Jewish God has been less about 'racism' than conceptual contradiction, even hypocrisy. If God is the only God and if He is just and moral Being to all living creatures, why should He favor Jews over others when, in fact, Jews can act unjustly while non-Jews could act justly? But this contradiction led to the rise of Christianity and Islam.

At any rate, if Dawkins finds the Jewish God to be most 'racist', he is effectively condemning Jews as historically the most 'racist' people since their cultural character led to the creation of the most 'racist' Deity. As such, one could argue Dawkins' view is rabidly and virulently 'antisemitic', but then, the hypocritical fool makes a lot of noise about how he loathes 'antisemitism'. Following Dawkins' logic, Jews can be good ONLY IF they are culturally and spiritually de-Jewified. Jews must undergo spiritual holocaust to be good folks. They must be castrated of their ethno-spiritual roots. He loves Jews only as un-Jews.

Now, why should an evolutionist be opposed to race-ism? Evolution is about genetic divergences and emergence of differences among groups. Indeed, not only is evolution race-ist but it has been the generator of different species and different races. And these racial divergences can lead to different species. After all, there was a time when the ape-ancestors of humans were of the same species as the ape-ancestors of chimpanzees. But over time, one race of those early apes became chimps while another branch became the apelike proto-humans. So, if Dawkins has a problem with racial differences, he should blame evolution.

Dawkins says God is infanticidal, and it's true that God ordered the killing of kibblers when Jews were battling other tribes to found their land of milk and honey. And in Egypt, prior to the Exodus, He killed the first borns among the Egyptians. But His actions against Egyptians were punishment for Egyptian tyranny over the Jews. And when Jews were battling Canaanites and the like, it was kill or be killed. In other words, infanticide(as extension of genocide) was common practice in the ancient world. Your people, upon defeat and capture, were lucky if spared and kept alive as slaves. Quite often, the conquering folks raped, pillaged, and wiped out entire enemies. So, it's hardly surprising that the Jews, like other tribes, committed bloody acts and justified them as the decrees of their God.
But before we judge the past too harshly, let's look at the modern world. During World War I, British blockades against Germany were a form of Total War. It wasn't just military vs military but targeted the entire population, driving many Germans to the brink of starvation. In the aftermath of the Gulf War, the secular 'liberal democratic' West enforced sanctions on Iraq that, by some estimates, killed 100,000s of Iraqi children. To create a new social order, Stalin and Mao were willing to sacrifice millions of lives in the name of History. To his dying day, the much celebrated secular intellectual Eric Hobsbawn remained a proud communist and said Stalin's actions were necessary.
Also, many people see abortion as infanticide, especially as it is now allowed even up to the moment of birth when the baby is virtually fully formed. Also, the Modern West and Modern East are cursed with 'conceptocide' or 'fertilocide'. Never mind killing babies. These societies are not even conceiving and creating life necessary to sustain their civilizations. They live for elitism, individualism, hedonism, and vanity. They are essentially death cults and won't survive the way they're going. Is this what Dawkins so proud of?
Dawkins accusing God of 'megalomania' is rather silly. Megalomania is about having a self-image that is bigger than the actual self. If a nobody considers himself a big man, he is a megalomaniac. If a king regards himself an emperor, he is a megalomaniac. If an emperor considers himself an immortal god, he is a megalomaniac. But God has been conceived of as the supreme creator and ruler of all of universe. Naturally, He would have a grand view of Himself. Should the Creator of All be timid as a mouse? Indeed, the striking feature of God is that, despite His grandeur and awesomeness, He expresses an incredible amount of sympathy for a weakling tribe(in the Old Testament) and losers around the world(in the New Testament). The reason why so many people have clung to God through the ages via Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is because He is, at once super-powerful & almighty AND concerned with the little guy. In contrast, Dawkins worships his own infallible intellect.

Dawkins says God is pestilential. Now, we see what Dawkins' real shtick is about. He is trying to blame God for all the problems of life created by evolution. Since the beginning of life, organisms big and small have been slaughtering, devouring, murdering, tormenting, torturing, trashing, smashing, slashing, gnawing, goring, gouging, pummeling, cracking, smacking, and etc. each other. The theory of evolution may be elegant as a model in a textbook, but its practice in reality has been most brutal and horrific. We may wonder at the beauty of nature, but what we consider to be 'beauty' is really a range of survival mechanisms that were developed over eons via natural selection that weeded out so many 'innocent' organisms in brutal ways. Just watch any nature program, and these non-believing animals are murdering and slaughtering each other to no end. Animals evolved to survive because the natural environment was so unforgiving. In other words, evolution has been utterly genocidal toward all those that failed to survive. Evolution led to rise of all kinds of germs that wiped out entire species. It has been pestilential. Also, the uncaring godless universe sent asteroids to smash into planets and wipe out entire species that had evolved over eons in a single day. That is the godless world of the laws of nature and evolution. Look at chimp behavior. They bite off each other's penises and balls. Look at how big cats kill wild pigs. Look at how polar bears butcher seals and their cubs. Look at how sharks maim turtles. Look at how volcanoes and forest fires burn millions of animals to death. And mankind, with or without God, has been pretty miserable. Look at US policy toward Iran and Palestinians. Has Jewish behavior gotten better without God? Secular Jews gave us communist mass-killings and Neocon wars. Were Japanese less cruel because they didn't believe in the Jewish God? Look at their behavior in World War II. Is secular globalism and open borders the way of peace and justice? They are filling the West with savage jungle-jivers from Africa who are bound to turn Europe into New Africa.
Also, when most people lose religion, do they become rational and sane, or do they adopt a quasi-religion because it's human nature to seek spirituality? Look at the 'climate change' faith. Global Warming may be real, and something needs to be done, but for many people it's the new faith. When Western folks lost God, many more of them took up neo-idolatry of celebrity-worship, drugs, and debauchery than commitment to reason and science, the domain of those with high IQ.
Steven Pinker says the world is getting better and better, but what will happen when tons of black Africans turn Europe into jungle-land? The effect will be worse than WWI and WWII combined. As long as Europe was still inhabited by Europeans, it recovered from both WWI and WWII in no time. But with blacks taking over Europe, it will turn into one big Detroit forever. This should be so obvious to any secular and rational person who cares about facts(that are race-ist), but Dawkins has a quasi-religious blindspot of his own: Political Correctness and 'anti-racism' as new catechism. Not unlike extreme religious bigots with their holier-than-thou sanctimony, the PC people are so theatrical and rapturous with their holy-shmoly 'anti-racism' when, in fact, the reality of race is so obvious and the black threat is so dire to the West.

Dawkins says God is sadomasochistic, but this goes for Dawkins and his ilk too. They're oh-so masochistic with 'white guilt' BS. Oh boo hoo, they must atone for their history of 'antisemitism' and 'racism'. But as GOOD WHITE PEOPLE SAVED BY PC, they sadistically love to bully other whites who refuse to kneel at the altar of White Guilt and debase themselves like a bunch of worthless cucks. In this, Dawkins is very much like the religious people he abuses. Just like certain insufferable Christians yammer about their sinfulness but feel morally superior precisely because they churn out such noises, Dawkins bleats about 'racism' but that very bleating fills him with the moral pride and arrogance to stick it to others.

Dawkins is a real pile of shit. As for Jews, they could be promoting Dawkins to dissuade goyim from worshiping God so that Jews can reclaim and own Him all for themselves. If someone owns gold and you want it, it makes sense for you to make him believe that his gold is worthless pile of crap. When he lets it go, you run off with it. So, Jewish support of Dawkins could really be a gambit.

God and gods never existed. They didn't give us life. Life emerged by process of evolution and survives by destroying other life. Evolution created life, and that is the curse. God or gods are the imaginary creations of life, and why did intelligent beings imagine gods? Because nature is so horrible. Because life is so full of agony. And this life was created by evolution, the beloved process of Dawkins. Evolution is a pack of hyenas eating a wildebeest alive. It's lions slowly tormenting and killing a hippo mother and its calf. Without life, there would be no terror. If Earth had no life, who'd care if volcanoes or earthquakes happened? So what if a giant asteroid crashed on Earth? The Moon was hit by tons of asteroids, but it was never tragic because there was no life to kill.

Dawkins got it backwards. He blames the Jewish God for cruelty and horrors, but all those resulted from life. Evolution created life, and life is about pain. Why pain? Because pain ensures better survival. An organism that feels pain is more likely to avoid danger. But the pain is often horrid and unendurable. Before mankind came up with the first spiritual idea, tons of life forms were destroyed by eating and devouring, volcanoes, earthquakes, asteroids, germs(that are also just more life), and etc. Life was so terrible and cruel that mankind came up with gods to explain why the world is so messed up. And by ascribing disasters to gods or God, they hoped to ease the horror by prayer and appeasement. It's true that the Old Testament God sends all sorts of disasters on life and mankind. But even before Jews conceived of their God, such disasters had been happening forever. There were floods, pestilence, violence, fires, and destruction. As people sought answers to such problems, they believed some higher force was behind them. And if gods controlled the universe, there were three possibilities.

1. God or gods are powerful but bad. God or gods are cruel and love to use their power for power's sake. They love to stomp on the weak, and that is the reason for the horrors. Therefore, the ONLY way to ease their sadism and cruelty was to make sacrifices and offerings.

2. God or gods are good but powerless. God or gods are good & loving but helpless to stop the disasters to protect or save mankind. They watch and weep but can't help us.

3. God or gods are powerful and good. God or gods are good & loving but use disasters to punish mankind when it does wrong.

Many pagans opted for #1. Aztecs believed in cruel gods that had to be appeased endlessly. Chinese popular religion believed in more civilized gods but they were utterly corrupt and had to be bribed regularly by burning money.

#2 is problematic even if it lets God or gods off the hook because it implies God or gods are rather weak and helpless to do anything. If they are good but lack the power to save mankind from the horrors, what good are they? Indeed, are they really gods when they are so lacking in power?

#3 is the one the Jews settled on. God is powerful and good, and so, He uses Power to protect the good and punish the evil. Jews believed that disasters weren't arbitrary muscle flexing of God but divine moral acts to punish the wicked. But this caused problems of its own as Jews couldn't help but notice that so many good folks suffered and perished while so many bad monsters got rich and powerful. And so, there was the Book of Job and the rise of Christianity that promised Heaven for the good and meek. For all its problems, #3 is still more assuring than #1 and #2.

As for science and evolution, it just says Things Happen, and if an asteroid hits Earth and kills all of us, that means we just ran out of luck, and that's that. I agree with this, but is it any more heartening than religion?

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Surest Way to Undermine Authority Is to Expose the Hypocrisy, but Only Those with the Power of Megaphone Get to Decide Which Hypocrisy to Target — Jews Destroyed White Authority by Exposing White Hypocrisy and Fear that Their Own Hypocrisy Will Be Exposed in Turn, and so They Censor Like Crazy

History shows that exposing hypocrisy is the surest way to pull the rug out from under the authority of those who command the dogma/narrative. When are children most likely to respect for parents, teachers, 'heroes', or authority figures? It's not when they realize the adults are imperfect(as everyone is) but when they realize certain adults are full of BS who say one thing but do another. This is why it's especially damaging when a reverend is caught in a sexual or financial scandal. Because spiritual leaders spout high-and-mighty about virtue and morality, their reputations shrivel when they are caught with pants down or hand in the cookie jar.

What was the main reason for the fall of White Authority & Power in the West? As the Christian-Humanist-Enlightenment West was confidently moralistic, righteous, and even holier-than-thou — "God is on our side", "White Man's Burden", "Human Rights", "beacon of liberty", etc — , it was especially vulnerable to exposure of hypocrisy. An amoral power like that of Vikings, Huns, or Mongols had no use for righteousness, but Western Power rose not only with guns and gold but with the Good Book and the Idea of Progress. Christianity was especially vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy because it is so purist in its moralism; after all, Jesus even said "Turn the other cheek" and "Love thy enemy."
As long as the West guarded its Narrative and Agenda from accusations of hypocrisy, they had the authority, self-respect, and even the respect of their subject peoples(who, despite their resentment against Western Imperialism, were eager to learn from the superior and more advanced white civilizations and gain approval from them). Sure, some critical whites noticed the hypocrisy from within, but their mostly constructive criticism and relatively mild rebuke led to reforms and progress that served as the basis for yet more moral pride: "We are not perfect, we made mistakes, but we work hard to make progress and improve things." This is why, for the first 100 yrs after the Civil War, America was not particularly burdened with guilt over slavery. The favored white narrative was, "Slavery was wrong, but WE white Americans fought a war to end it." As long as whites held the megaphone, they could direct people's attention to the ultimate redemption of Western Civilization and White Folks via progress and reform, thus emphasizing pride over shame/guilt. As a result, the element of White Hypocrisy was muted.

But then, Jews took over the megaphone, and one of their main methods of undermining White Authority was by exposing white hypocrisy and making it the central theme of Western History. So, at every turn, Jews condemned whites/Christians for having preached one thing while practicing another. If whites-in-power had argued that their world wasn't perfect but nevertheless enacted reforms and furthered progress, a point of pride, Jews emphasized the shame and guilt of white failures to practice what they preached. As such, Jewish Logic insisted whites no longer deserved moral authority, and if whites were to gain a measure of redemption, they had to surrender to the newly ascendant moral authority of Jews(and their allies, mainly blacks and homos) with the power of judge-and-jury to outline what whites must do in order to be rehabilitated: Total rejection of white identity & interests, even to the point where "It's Okay to be White" is denounced as 'white supremacist', blind faith in Diversity designed to turn white nations into white-minority nations, worship of Shoah as neo-religion, Afro-mania, Globo-Homomania, and total support for Zion & Wars for Israel.
As ALL orders(and individuals) are hypocritical to some extent — practice almost always never matches principles or theory — , the real issue is NOT "Who is or isn't hypocritical?"; rather, it is "Who owns the megaphone that directs our attention to a particular hypocrisy?" When white power wielded the megaphone, it decided who were or weren't hypocritical, but when the megaphone was yielded to Jews, the Jews got to select and pass judgement. And whites were vulnerable especially in the 20th century because of World War I and World War II(and the Shoah). Prior to such cataclysms, despite setbacks and failures, it seemed as though the West was making great advances on all fronts and at all times, industrial and moral. Enlightenment and People Power seemed to be creating a better and happier world. Yet, in WWI and especially WWII, all the themes of progress — populist passions, mass communications, science and technology, social engineering, etc — all converged into a total catastrophe. Once Christian moralism faded among whites, it was replaced by secular Pride of Progress, but even that failed for White Authority in the horrible events of the 20th century.
That said, if white power had tenaciously clung to the megaphone regardless, its pride might have survived intact. After all, the Chinese Communist Party has much to answer for, but as it has always controlled the megaphone, the main theme of Chinese politics is not the hypocritical discrepancy between what the CCP promised and what it delivered in terms of Maoism and then capitalism. Maoism was an utter disaster, and capitalism is hardly what a communist party should be practicing, and these are Easy Hypocrisies that could be exposed to undermine CCP authority, but not many talk about such in China because the megaphone of the CCP is about patriotism and unity and reversing "100 yrs of humiliation".

What do Jews fear most? They know from recent history what undermined white authority, not least because of their crucial role in it. It was by exposing White Hypocrisy, thus denuding whites of respect and awe that they once held in the world. Jewish Judgement made whites lose their 'innocence' like Adam and Eve who suddenly realize they are naked.
But, what was an effective weapon against whites can be an effective weapon against Jews. As long as Jews control the megaphone, they need not worry much since most people aren't independent thinkers and just go along with the prescribed narrative and the general hype. As control of media and academia is very expensive, it was easy for super-rich Jews to maintain a near-monopoly over the Narrative. But the internet changed the playing field, and there were suddenly many voices, from left and right, that began to expose Jewish Hypocrisy. And in this, the Shoah increasingly became an Achilles Heel for Jews. It was with the Shoah Narrative that Jews made themselves out to be a saintly victim race that wouldn't hurt a fly, no more than Norman Bates's mother could. Rather, we were told that the Shoah was the final culmination of goy madness that had irrationally targeted Jews in perpetuity for all the problems of the world when, if anything, no people were as innocent and decent as the Jews.
People become more vulnerable to accusations of hypocrisy if they elevate themselves as high-and-mighty moral arbiters for all humanity, and Jews did just that with the Shoah Narrative. And this made Jewish Hypocrisy a real problem because it isn't difficult to point to all the bad things Jews have done over the ages and are doing now. While a miniphone is no match for a megaphone, when there are so many miniphones on the internet exposing Jewish Hypocrisy on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and etc., all those voices add up to something like a counter-megaphone. It's like enough mosquitoes can drive a man crazy. And this is why Jewish Power is so hellbent on using their ethno-monopoly over internet platforms to shut down as many voices as possible because they know full well that the very thing that brought down white authority can bring down Jewish authority in turn.

Authority is key because wealth and privilege are not enough. Even now, white gentiles have the bulk of the wealth in the US, but they totally lack authority. Even grubby non-whites who just got off the boat feel emboldened to spit on whitey as indeed many Hindus do. Blacks are poorer than whites, but they have great moral authority due to the prevailing narrative pushed by the Jewish megaphone. Currently, Jewish Power is rife with hypocrisies of all kinds. Jews talk of equality but are the most unequal people. Jews talk of the evil of 'hate', but they run Hollywood that makes hateful movies about the Other, especially Muslims and Russians. Jews talk about the dangers of misogyny, but they control porn and made billions from rap music where women are 'bitchass hos'. Jews bitch about atavistic nationalism, but they demand that we all support Israel, the Jewish homeland. Jews call for War on Terror, but they've been working with terrorists against Assad of Syria. They say we must remember the Shoah, but radical Jews played a key role in mass killings in the 20th century. Jews berate Russia for all sorts of bad behavior, but the reason why a man like Vladimir Putin came to power is because of Jewish oligarchic malfeasance in the 90s. And so on and on.

All we need to do is pull on the string of Jewish Hypocrisy, and Jewish Authority could come apart at the seams and unravel. Jews could have all the wealth in the world, but without the element of authority, they would lose respect/reverence, and then they would be an easy target of criticism and rebuke. And that's why there is growing censorship or censchwarship on internet platforms.
But for how long can Jews hold out against accusations of wanton hypocrisy, which has paradoxically gotten worse precisely because of Jewish suppression of criticism of Jews. Without healthy criticism and debate, a power grows even more corrupt and vile, and then there is even greater hypocritical distance between what it preaches and what it practices. Shielded from criticism, Jewish Power has grown more obnoxious and foul, making its hypocrisy worse, thereby requiring more suppression, which only compounds Jewish vileness even more in a vicious cycle. But I'm sure Jews will remind us that they are for 'free speech, not hate speech', what with 'hate' being defined by themselves. AIPAC's call for more 'genocide' of Palestinians apparently isn't 'hate'.

Friday, May 3, 2019

Some Notes on the Reconsideration of THE AVIATOR(by John Logan & Martin Scorsese) by 'Trevor Lynch'




https://www.counter-currents.com/2019/05/martin-scorseses-the-aviator/

Trevor Lynch sure has strange taste in movies. He likes WILD AT HEART and DUNE, two films by David Lynch most people(including myself) can't stand. It must be a matter of taste and sensibility. Live and let live, to each his own, I guess. Still, despite the commitment and production values, I must say GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR fall way short of their overarching ambitions. They were Too Big To Succeed, the general consensus on the two films. While I don't hate those works(like I hate CAPE FEAR and THE DEPARTED), I never liked them either even though both have their moments. Stanley Kauffmann faulted THE AVIATOR for trying to be the Great American Movie. An element of strain, artifice, and self-consciousness enters into an artist trying to do too much. Self-importance can be fatal in art, something Guido both embraces and repulses in 8 1/2 by Federico Fellini. Artists are at their best in just being themselves, on a voyage of discovery(or recovery) as with Odysseus. Artists often fail at trying to be Atlas with the weight of the world upon his shoulders. Or taking flight like bold but foolish Icarus to attempt something more than difficult or improbable: The Impossible. There is something to be said for the Grand Folly(as noble failure), but A-for-effort is like a set of steak knives next to the Cadillac Eldorado in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS. (Who really cares about 1900 by Bernardo Bertolucci or ONE FROM THE HEART by Francis Ford Coppola. There a are defenders of LOLA MONTEZ by Marcel Ophuls and HEAVEN'S GATE by Michael Cimino, but it's hard to get excited about them.) It is no wonder Bob Dylan withdrew from the 60s pop scene when people expected him to be something more than an artist, poet, and song-and-dance man. They wanted him to be the 'spokesman of his generation'. Dylan was willing to speak for himself but not for the conscience of the world. Lennon did take on that role alongside Yoko Ono but mostly to make a fool of himself. He became his own Sexy Sadie.
THE GREAT AMERICAN MOVIE is like the folly of attempting THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. There have been many great novels written about the American Experience, but the scope of THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL is too big for any artist or any single work. (It's like no one really takes Herman Wouk's THE WINDS OF WAR as serious literature or THE GREAT WORLD WAR II NOVEL.) One can argue that Leo Tolstoy wrote the GREAT RUSSIAN NOVEL with WAR AND PEACE, but then, it's unlikely he was thinking in those terms. There are novels that may be construed as THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL. THE GREAT GATSBY comes to mind. But again, it's unlikely F. Scott Fitzgerald thought in those terms. And even though his novel is about money, power, privilege, and publicity -- Big American Themes -- what really resonates is the fragile and almost pitiable poetry of Gatsby who dreams of Daisy, a vapid creature tenderly romanticized by his yearning. In some ways, he seems less interested in winning her love than impressing her with his vaunted worth. Norman Mailer attempted the GREAT WORLD WAR II NOVEL with THE NAKED AND THE DEAD. I'm not sure if the novel is still a topic of discussion. Mailer mentioned John Dos Passos' U.S.A. TRILOGY as coming closest to THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL, but it's been some time since it's been the center of cultural discourse(perhaps because Dos Passos turned rightist later on?). Possibly, Tom Wolfe tried hardest to write the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL, but he is appreciated more as a social observer than a literary giant. At any rate, novels work best when intensely focused upon the matter-at-hand than contemplating what grander message or implication it may have for the world. That should be decided or 'deciphered' by critics and readers, not sweated out by the artist. While the artist needs a sense of vision and scope, it is how he deals with the nitty-gritty, with all its contradictions and complications, that really decide worth. THE CATCHER IN THE RYE works so well because it's a story about this eccentric lonely kid Holden Caulfield than a statement about youth. It was left up to readers to decide if the book speaks to them.

Among movies, it's conceivable that CITIZEN KANE is indeed The Great American Movie. But then, Orson Welles was one of a kind, the boy wonder, who had the Midas touch with just about anything: Theater, Radio, Movies. He has the rarest genius to achieve the near-impossible. Other works that may qualify as The Great American Movie are IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE(one of the true miracles in cinema) and THE GODFATHER. One is mostly about Wasps in a small town whereas the other is about immigrant-Italians in New York. THE GODFATHER I and II may serve as an allegory of ethnics(with Italians standing for Jews) eclipsing the Wasps represented by the likes of Senator Geary. And yet, under the direction of Frank Capra the Italian-American, there is an element of Immigrant-Guilt-Complex in Wasp-dominated IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. George Bailey feels guilt about leaving his small town behind for the Bigger-Wider-World, the America-America of Big Dreams than mere modest Americana. There's a scene in THE GODFATHER PART 2 where young Vito and Sal watch a stage musical-drama about a man who receives letter about his mother's death in the Old Country and breaks into a tearful tune. Though George Bailey is All-American, he is like someone who isn't able to immigrate to greener pastures. He is stuck in the place of his birth where his father is buried. He's like a slave who can't escape the plantation. And yet, like the trapped man in WOMAN IN THE DUNES, he finds special meaning and significance within that small world.


Perhaps, due to their populist character, movies have resonated more as collective American Imagination, not least because the average movie is aimed at a larger audience than the average novel. THE GRAPES OF WRATH was, for a time, considered The Great American Novel, but I'm not sure how the story of Okies as the noble salt of the earth would go over with today's decadent globo-homo-shlomo elites whose agenda for the white working class is for white men to die of opioids and white women to have mulatto babies, eventually to be replaced by brown masses from South of the Border. (In contrast, THE GREAT GATSBY continues to be relevant in an America that never lacks for oligarchs, scandals, and vast riches. Maybe economic collapse will make GRAPES relevant again.) William Faulkner was a great novelist, but his focus was maybe too provincial -- the decaying Old South -- to qualify as All-American. There were a number of great Jewish writers after World War II, but their subjects were often ethnic and perhaps overly neurotic(and perverse). Philip Roth and Saul Bellow were very Jewish writers. Some may argue that, putting snobbery aside, The Great American Novel can really be found in popular fiction, say GONE WITH THE WIND, which also spawned the biggest box office hit of all time(adjusting for inflation), which was furthermore a tremendous cultural propaganda for the Old South. But due to its subject matter, people generally don't want to consider it as the quintessential novel or movie(as with THE BIRTH OF A NATION, the father of all cinema, buried and hidden away like Cronus and Titans by the Olympians). If not Margaret Mitchell, then maybe the works of Edna Ferber or Ayn Rand who wrote big-themed novels with grand narratives might fit the bill. One was even called GIANT. Where does E.L. Doctorow belong in all this? Somewhere between serious and popular fiction? RAGTIME was his attempt at The Great American Novel, and the movie adaptation by Milos Forman wanted to be The Great American Movie, with mixed results(but far superior to THE AVIATOR). Though Anglos built Essential America, their tendency for moderation & propriety restrained the prophetic outlook that flowed more freely from Jewish authors like Ferber and Rand(and Emma Lazarus) for whom AMERICA was even a grander project than the America of the Anglo Imagination. City on a Hill wasn't enough. It had to be an empire on a mountain. Some may argue MOBY DICK and HUCKLEBERRY FINN qualify as The Great American Novel, but neither was conceived as such and, if anything, their greatness owes to naturalness and richness of details than fixation with grandiosity(also true of SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION by Ken Kesey).

It's understandable why artists wanted to write THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL or make the THE GREAT AMERICAN MOVIE. There was nothing like America in human history with so much land, resources, freedom, opportunity, and achievement. America was both an inheritor of all the culture & knowledge of European Civilization AND a blank slate from which one could start anew. It had both the pedigree of an ancient civilization and the birth certificate of a new nation. So, naturally an artist or storyteller wanted to capture and convey the essence of this wondrous multi-faceted dynamism called Americanism. And yet, precisely because Americanism is about rapid & relentless change, it's difficult to pin down what is quintessentially or comprehensively 'American' in the grand narrative/thematic sense. And this has been made more problematic by vast demographic changes, the very subject of THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, which is about Two Civil Wars. Off-Screen, there is the Civil War between the North and the South. But in NY itself, we see mini-civil-wars between 'Native' Americans(the Anglo-Protestants) and New Americans(Irish Catholics, though given the nature of Americanism as a state of flux, alliances also form between Anglos and Irish). But then, at least until 1965, most immigrants were white, and they could more-or-less meld together as Anglo-European-Americans. It's now a whole new ballgame with masses of non-whites becoming 'Americans' and being stoked by Jewish Supremacists to hate whites.
The more schoolmarmish types have pushed TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD as The Great American Novel. It lionizes white liberal conscience(and guilt) as the highest redemptive virtue of America, but is that novel relevant today when blackness is mainly expressed through rap music that has blacks indulging themselves like savages in ways more decrepit than what 'racists' once warned of Negroes in the past? Though DEATH OF A SALESMAN is a play, it too has been interpreted as a commentary about Americanism as dream and tragedy.

Perhaps, because of the tireless dynamism of America, it requires some distance to take in Americanism as a panorama. And perhaps, no one was more successful in this than Sergio Leone who, with ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST and ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA, imagined the American Saga as a grand myth than merely a narrative. Though the former is about the violent cowboy West of the 19th century and the latter is about violent gangster East of the 20th century, there is no sense of hurry. Despite all the changes afoot, they unfold like cosmic operas. Matter is temporal, Myth is timeless. Because Leone elevated Americanism into myth, it didn't matter if the material world was always changing. Myth, like a dream, circumvents time.
In a way, it's understandable why Americanism has been so defined by the outsider, the wanna-be immigrant. After all, while an American lives in the America of reality, the wanna-be immigrant dreams of America as a myth he wants to be a part of. The castle is more special to those on the outside looking in than those on the inside for whom everything has grown routine and mundane, even dull and boring. Just like adults relive the excitement of Christmas through eyes of children for whom everything is new and magical, Americans who've grown weary of America get to re-experience the 'myth' of America via stories of Immigrants who come with a sense of dream, hope, and wonderment... that is until immigrant children also grow weary and depend on more New Comers to keep alive the myth of America. For me, The Great American Movie might as well be THE BIG COUNTRY. Watch that at the impressionable age of 6 or 7, and there can be nothing more magnificent than America, the land of giants where myths come alive.




One problem with THE GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR is due to excess of ambition and ego. It was as if Martin Scorsese, flush with flattery(as the 'greatest living director in the world') and lavish funds, embarked to make The Great American Movie. He had already made great films(some of the best ever), but that wasn't enough. He had to make THE Great Movie as a statement(or even testament) laden with truths bigger than the subject matter at hand, one that might finally sweep the Oscars for him. In other words, if GOODFELLAS is specifically about Italian-American hoodlums in their particular milieu, THE GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR wouldn't simply be about 19th century hoodlums or a 20th century aeronautics wizard. They would convey something Big and Important about the American Experience, the Human Condition, the Individual Spirit, the Tide of History, and etc. While impressive works can be made this way, it is usually not the best approach. Manny Farber discussed the problem in his essay about White Elephant Art and Termite Art. White Elephant Art begins with a Big Idea and Big Ambition, and everything is made to serve that bigness. But in fixating on grandiosity, it often overlooks the quirky details that make a work special and unique. (I don't necessarily agree with Farber on what constitutes 'white elephant art' and 'termite art', let alone on which directors deserve praise or scorn. He used the terms too broadly, as in accusing Francois Truffaut of 'white elephant art' for SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER, a ridiculous charge.) The angel, along with the devil, is in the details. It's like the movie K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER(dir. Kathryn Bigelow) where the Soviet Military builds these super submarines but neglects the details that could have prevented the nuclear meltdown.

White Elephant approach and Termite approach can be seen in the contrast between RAN and SEVEN SAMURAI. One was conceived from heaven above, the other from the ground-up. Akira Kurosawa envisioned of RAN as a grand project, and it is a great work in certain respects. On the macro-scale, it is very impressive and awesome at times. But the mid-section of the movie is like a collapsed bridge. There wasn't enough dramatic cement to keep it together. RAN works wonderfully with big scenes but often falls short with smaller moments that are crucial to the structure of tragedy and catharsis. In contrast, SEVEN SAMURAI is packed with wonderfully detailed little scenes that, in summation, make for an unparalleled masterpiece. It feels like wet clay. And SEVEN SAMURAI doesn't have to spell out what it's about. We see and feel it in our bones in everything that happens. In contrast, RAN inevitably builds up to grand statement about the human condition that is bit too ripe with 'significance'. To serve up another comparison, 13TH WARRIOR is 'termitic', whereas THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy is 'elephantic'.
Scorsese was at his best in termite art mode, all the more so because he looks and thinks like a rodent. Scorsese's nature is to tirelessly burrow through everything, physically and psychologically. Consider his use of space in GOODFELLAS as when Henry(Ray Liotta) takes his girlfriend through the back entrance to a night club. Or how Scorsese follows Travis Bickle or Rupert Pupkin around New York, all the while worming into their psyche for clues. Or the nooks and crannies of the gambling business in CASINO. This obsessive quality about Scorsese isn't suited for grand sweeping narratives or glowing moments of inspiration. That is best left to directors like Steven Spielberg or Robert Zemeckis(or Ron Howard). In terms of sheer talent, Spielberg is Scorsese's equal but with the difference that Spielberg is a master conventional director of crowd-pleasing spectacles whereas Scorsese has the natural sensibility of an artist. The artistic sensibility isn't smooth or glowing. It's like what Hepburn(Cate Blachett) says to Howard Hughes. "Howard, we're not like everyone else. Too many sharp angles. Too many eccentricities. We have to be very careful not to let people in or they'll make us into freaks." An artist just can't help himself. He is too curious, too honest, too obsessed with truth(factual) or The Truth(spiritual), too anxious, and filled with self-doubt to just settle for a smooth/conventional narrative. While Spielberg also made serious movies for adults, his sensibility is that of an entertainer. Serious Steven is like Americanized David Lean or Richard Attenborough. While there are complexities in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and GANDHI, they are mainly meant to entertain and serve comforting myths(though LAWRENCE has moments of darkness that approach art). But a true artist cannot settle for something like GANDHI. Too many compromises and convenient lapses, too much padding and tenderizer. Oliver Stone has worked in both entertainer and artist modes, and NIXON shows how an artist really works. It is a tormented tale of power and corruption made with great empathy and insight. And GOODFELLAS and CASINO are works of art in their honesty, courage, and intelligence, served with tremendous mastery and ingenuity. Sidney Lumet made perhaps the best film about policemen, PRINCE OF THE CITY, a work that pulls no punches on the soul-wrenching agony of sacrificing friends/partners in doing the right thing in a world that may be undeserving of such virtue.

Because works of art break free of the comfort zone, they tend to be less popular. PRINCE OF THE CITY was a box office flop. GOODFELLAS made some money but mainly due to violence and laugh factor(as Joe Pesci is hilarious). CASINO and NIXON lost money. In contrast, SCHINLDLER'S LIST, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, and BRIDGE OF SPIES made considerably more money(though not as much as Spielberg's blockbusters). While Spielberg's serious movies show plenty of violence and horror, especially in SCHINDLER'S LIST and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, they are dramatically smooth sailing with comforting message about how Good triumphs over Evil. We see visions of hell but always through the windows from within the Spielberg Theme Park Ride. There are shocks and explosions, but not many surprises. In contrast, Scorsese's art films are about constant derailments and stops along the way to inspect matters up close. They are many 'sharp angles' or sharp turns. Scorsese is about angles, Spielberg is about angels. This was never a problem in works like MEAN STREETS, TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, THE KING OF COMEDY, THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, GOODFELLAS, CASINO, AGE OF INNOCENCE, and KUNDUN. But it was a problem with NEW YORK, NEW YORK because a grand musical-drama of that caliber needs narrative flow and dramatic unity, like George Cukor's THE STAR IS BORN. The puffy genre elements and tough artistic sensibility locked horns in NEW YORK, NEW YORK to no avail. They cancel each other out, and the result is a mess. Similar problem mars THE GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR. They are hybrids of art and entertainment, and the two modes trip over one another. Scorsese proved he could make entertainment movies with THE COLOR OF MONEY, CAPE FEAR, and THE DEPARTED, though his restless artistic or at least 'auteurist' tendencies overloaded those works with stylistic ingredients too rich for meager substance. No need to play chef making a hamburger or hotdog. But THE GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE AVIATOR(and later the confused HUGO) try to have it both ways. They are meant to be big-budget crowd-pleasing spectacles but also personal expressions of an artist, the 'greatest living director in the world'. THE GANGS OF NEW YORK begins like Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR. Technically, it's well-done, but it's a bundle of worn-out visual cliches, sound effects, and Hollywood Acting. Instead of realistic characters, everyone is larger-than-life, an archetype or walking symbol. People don't so much trade in dialogue as statements bursting with rhetorical flourish or 'meaning'. The first scene with build-up and the fight struck me as 'dumb'. Well-done but dumb, the sort of thing any film-school graduate or journey-man director could do. Why was Scorsese resorting to such tripe, the man whose reputation rested on the brilliance of TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, and GOODFELLAS, works that expanded cinematic language in new directions? In THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, Scorsese went through the motions as just another director of spectacle with a bagful of old tricks. Now, if THE GANGS OF NEW YORK just wanted to be Gone-with-the-Wind with hoodlums, it might have worked. But there was the artist Scorsese getting in the way ever so often and trying to squeeze meaning and depth out of the material. Thus, narrative flow is all but impossible, and the films spirals into a morass of confusion and chaos. It certainly has its moments, but it lacks unity and wholeness. And the U2 song at the end and the montage that shows the transformation of Old NY into New NY is total schlock, like the ending scene with stones on the gravestone in SCHINDLER'S LIST. While THE GANGS OF NEW YORK is not a terrible film, it is certainly a failure.

But then, as if he learned nothing from his earlier film, Scorsese made the same mistake with THE AVIATOR. In a way, THE AVIATOR looks and feels like an old-fashioned movie. In contrast, even though RAGING BULL has the look of 1950s b/w cinema, it is very much an uncompromising work of New Hollywood. In contrast, with THE AVIATOR, it seems Scorsese was aiming for something like an Old Hollywood movie made with 21st century technology(and bit of licentiousness). It's rather reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola's TUCKER, not so much an intense portrait of an American inventor but a nostalgia-saturated biopic of an American Legend. This is exactly what Philip Kaufman avoided with THE RIGHT STUFF, an inspiring but unsentimental look behind the myths at the reality of the Space Program. It found both mendacity and humanity, the real stuff of life. The heroes are humanized. It blasted through the sound barrier of nostalgia that marred so many period movies with haloed remembrances of the past. Its patriotism was hard-and-honestly-won(relative to most Hollywood fare) because it made us care about the people involved as humans, warts and all, than larger-than-life legends.
With THE AVIATOR, it's as if Scorsese was trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, it is awash with the glow of nostalgia, the stuff of Hollywood legends and myths of American Heroism. And it's as if Scorsese was channeling the Old Masters to make a neo-Hollywood-spectacle worthy of their name and tradition. There is a bit of King Vidor, Cecil B. DeMille, John Huston, and lots of Howard Hawks, the man who directed SCARFACE for Howard Hughes. Hawks also directed the terrific aerial adventure ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS. And of course, there looms the shadow of Orson Welles who soon found himself unwelcome in Hollywood because, being an artist, he just couldn't make a conventional Hollywood movie and insisted on doing things his own way. (In that sense, THE AVIATOR is like an esoteric biopic about Welles as well.) Now, while Scorsese's cinema from the beginning was inspired by the greats he so admired -- everyone from John Ford to William Wyler to Federico Fellini to Robert Bresson -- , he was artist enough to develop his own perspective and personal style. He didn't merely imitate the greats but digested and absorbed them. He became a giant himself. But with THE AVIATOR, it's as if Scorsese was always looking over his shoulders at the greats who inspired him. And having climbed upon THEIR shoulders, he tread gently with excessive humility. As a result, it doesn't really feel like his movie. It feels as though he was trying the channel the skills of his gods & heroes in the Pantheon to make a work as tribute to them. It's like he was seeking approval and benediction. In works like TAXI DRIVER and RAGING BULL, the diminutive Scorsese was like a little giant. With THE AVIATOR, he's like a big dwarf. It's the work of someone who comes across as overly reverential(to the point of servility) to the masters. He was walking in their footsteps than forging his own steps(rather odd since he'd done that already with his several masterpieces). The Orson Welles factor makes it even more problematic. There is a reason why Welles ended up trying to scrape together funds to make more movies in Europe. He was persona non grata in Hollywood that found him 'too much'. He wouldn't play by the rules like Howard Hawks, John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and etc. Hollywood had plenty of great film directors but not many personal artists. Welles was one of them and just couldn't fit in. So, when THE AVIATOR cops styles & motifs from both Classic Hollywood and maverick Welles, the result is more than a little strange, like an airplane ride riddled with turbulence. It'd be like making a movie inspired by classic Fordisms and maverick Peckinpahisms. While both have value, Ford worked within rules, whereas Peckinpah was a tireless rule-breaker in search for unfettered personal expression, for better or worse. Given the contradictions, THE AVIATOR feels at once too safe-and-comfy(and old-fashioned) AND bold-and-brazen. It's like a co-directorial effort by Ron Howard and Oliver Stone(who, though rarely great, has tried to be a film artist than mere entertainer). Also, no amount of fireworks can redeem or fix a film that is thin, hollow, or confused at the center. Francis Ford Coppola's COTTON CLUB has lots of visual wonders and pizzazz, but it's mostly filled with cookie-cutter characters, gross caricatures, and lame signaling about racial injustice. (Do we really want NAACP messaging in a movie about thugs, black and white?)
Enchantress Ava Gardner
Katharine Hepburn, fresh as an apple.
Cate Blanchett... Ewwwww
Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in THE AVIATOR?
There is also the problem of casting. Leonard DiCaprio can be a fine actor but comes across as too slight and 'weeny' to take on the role of a legend. His partners and employees barely register as screen presence. But the most disastrous are the two female leads by Cate Blachett and Kate Beckinsale. Beckinsale is a pretty woman but can't hold a candle to Ava Gardner, one of the most beguiling movie stars to grace the silver screen. Gardner wasn't merely pretty. There was mystery and exoticism in her beauty, a quality utterly lacking in Beckinsale. Well, at least Beckinsale is pleasant to look at. But Blanchett? Yes, she has talent, but she is one of the most repugnant-looking woman in cinema. She's so ugly, even a warthog will refuse to mate with her. She's so ugly, she could turn spring back into winter. Now, Katharine Hepburn was no great beauty, but in her youth she was vivacious and strikingly attractive. As Pauline Kael wrote of her cheeks in BRINGING UP BABY: " “no paleontologist ever got hold of a more beautiful set of bones.” http://emanuellevy.com/review/bringing-up-baby-1938-revisiting-katharine-hepburn-and-cary-grant-zany-screwball-comedy/
It's all the more painful to watch Blanchett because she got Hepburn's voice down pat. Imagine Don Knots speaking like Sean Connery. Blanchett's uncanny vocal impersonation makes us feel Hepburn's presence, but what we get is someone who looks like Harpo Marx. Bob Dylan was no great looker, but Blanchett was too ugly for him in the dreadful I'M NOT THERE. It's a crime to have her play the lovely young Hepburn.
Scorsese sometimes missed big with casting. What made him cast the toothy and deranged-looking Willem Defoe as Jesus in LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST? And even though Michelle Pfeiffer was a good-looking woman, she was all-wrong for THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, otherwise a perfect work. But because her character is so central to what unfolds in the story, it's a near-fatal error. But that was nothing compared to spending the first hour of THE AVIATOR looking at Harpo with Hepburn's voice. That was painful, a kind of torture, as icky to the audience as germs are to Howard Hughes.

For a person of deep movie knowledge, it's interesting that Scorsese's two movies about movie-making involve rather unimportant figures in cinema. Melies of HUGO is significant only for historical reasons. He was among the first to tinker with cinema as device but hardly contributed anything of artistic value. But HUGO inflates his reputation. And Howard Hughes' idea of movie-making was all production and engineering. HELL'S ANGELS(apt description for Catholic Scorsese's place in satanic Hollywood) is pretty decent as an action-war spectacle but hardly a seminal masterpiece. Hughes was far more significant as businessman and aeronautics guy than as a movie-maker. And the only reason THE OUTLAW is remembered is for breasts. It's telling that Hughes even approaches the matter of cleavage from an engineering perspective, a matter of measurements and data, as if(as with 'John Nash' in A BEAUTIFUL MIND), there is a mathematical formula behind everything: mammary and armory. I'm not sure if it really happened that way or was meant as homage to VERTIGO where we learn that the formula behind the Golden Gate Bridge is identical to that of a certain ladies bra. Because Hughes wasn't a significant figure in cinema, THE AVIATOR seems rather strained in making him out to be more important than he really was. Also, allusions to CITIZEN KANE are rather irritating. Such homage is unnecessary as we know Welles was a giant. Furthermore, Scorsese has proven himself to be another giant. Scorsese's reverence for his elders is admirable, but as a fellow giant, he should act like one than a little boy asking a baseball player for an autograph. Now, if Scorsese was signaling that his was an attempt to make another CITIZEN KANE, it was again unnecessary but also presumptuous because one genius cannot(and should not) copy the genius of another. Every artist has his own signature, and each should stick to his own. No sense trying to imitate another's autograph like the Talented Mr. Ripley. One of the problems of HUGO was its attempt to be a Spielbergian movie. Spielberg was wiser in making A.I., which originated as a Stanley Kubrick project, into something entirely his own in terms of style and feel. For THE AVIATOR, Scorsese should have emptied his mind of all the reverence and sentimentality for old masters and just do his own thing. Indeed, the ONLY lesson to take from Welles is to follow one's own muse than guess as to the muses of others. Scorsese did exactly that with films like MEAN STREETS and GOODFELLAS, but THE AVIATOR is all too self-consciously indebted to Classic Hollywoodisms. For that sort of thing, the Coens do it better, especially in the brilliant HAIL CAESAR! But then, Coens are writers and satirists(riddled with irony) as well as directors whereas Scorsese is essentially a visual auteur and sincere moralist. Coens are more adept at toying with Hollywoodisms. Scorsese is more of a straight-man director.

THE AVIATOR's nod to THE GODFATHER works better than to CITIZEN KANE. For one thing, there was something inimitable about Welles' idiosyncratic genius. You can admire it but can't quite replicate it. And it wasn't just about Deep Focus, light tricks, low-angles, montage, and use of reflections, which anyone can do. It was about the alchemy of all those effects, the secret recipe of which is known only to the Sorcerer, rather like the Charm of Making of Merlin the Magician. Those who attempt Wellesism by imitating the mere outer manifestations of his films end up with the kind of garbage produced by Terry Gilliam. The only way to approach the genius of Welles is to find the Source within oneself and run with it. Carol Reed came close with THE THIRD MAN. John Frankenheimer with the brilliant THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, his only movie touched by genius. And Johnny To and David Fincher are masters of image, though rarely with the fortune to work on worthy material. FIGHT CLUB is great film-making with tawdry material, for example. ALIEN3 is the most amazingly directed in the series but rather silly as an concept. Doing Welles is futile like doing Picasso. Unless touched by a kindred spirit, one mistakes the shell for the flesh.

However, the magisterial style of THE GODFATHER can serve as the basis of other films as it itself was developed from earlier styles of Otto Preminger(esp ADVISE AND CONSENT), Luchino Visconti(esp THE LEOPARD), and Akira Kurosawa(especially BAD SLEEP WELL). It is classic than idiosyncratic expression, like English landscape painting, the imitation of which is no crime as it's about shared standards and further perfection by technique(by any new takers). Anyone who tries to do Van Gogh or Picasso is asking for trouble: Either plagiarizing another's brilliance or suppressing one's own personality in slavish imitation. But there is no shame in building upon the classical style that stands for shared tastes and reverence of symmetry and beauty. THE GODFATHER is about gangsters and crime, but it is a beautiful work, painterly and unfolding like a procession.

So, while Scorese's razzle-dazzle Wellesian antics go off like bad fireworks, his Coppolaean handling of the duel of will and wits between Juan Trippe/Owen Brewster and Howard Hughes comes off pretty well(though a pale shadow of THE GODFATHER movies). Still, it's too bad that Scorsese felt a need to do his own Coppola-isms. With MEAN STREETS, GOODFELLAS, and CASINO, he made his own kind of movies about gangsters. Unlike Brian DePalma whose works were often like remakes of movies by other directors(especially Hitchcock), Scorsese was always careful to forge his own distinct style. (SCARFACE and UNTOUCHABLES are entertaining crime thrillers, but they are like Old Hollywood movies on cocaine or steroids. DePalma drew from the old well and spiked it with strong drugs. The notable exception was CARLITO'S WAY, his greatest movie, that truly managed to be a new kind of gangster romance.) But what Scorsese does with Hughes vs Trippe/Brewster is rather tame. It's pretty good Coppola-ism but why isn't it Scorsesism? After all, Scorsese is more than Ron Howard, a pretty good director who learned the tricks of the trade but never did anything bold or remarkable. Coppola and Scorsese at their best did change the face of cinema, and there was no reason for Scorsese to walk in Coppola's footsteps in THE AVIATOR. As entertaining as the scenes with Owen Brewster and Juan Trippe are, we can't help thinking that Scorsese is trying to do His Godfather Moment. Leone with ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA made HIS gangster movie instead of doing a variation of THE GODFATHER or whatever. Perhaps, the problem with Scorsese is he's much better at dealing with trees than the forest. His roving eyes notices so much within a tight social milieu, but his talents fall short of the grand vision essential to a mythic work like THE AVIATOR. Like Roman Polanski, he's best with rat's eye than bird's eye.

Also, contrary to a conceit of Auteur Theory -- "the worst films of a superior director are better than the best films of an inferior director"(like Dave Kehr usually favoring the worst of Clint Eastwood over the best of Woody Allen and Federico Fellini, two directors he mostly detests) -- , personal expertise, brilliance, and mastery are not everything. Steven Spielberg can run circles around Clint Eastwood, and the action scenes in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN blow away FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS and LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA, but Eastwood's films are more memorable because of the characters and ruminations on the ethics of war. And Scorsese is many times the director that Danny DeVito will ever be, but HOFFA is, overall, a better movie than THE AVIATOR because of its powerhouse performances and tragic sense of friendship that really sears. What happens to the two men in HOFFA is incredibly heart-wrenching, whereas I doubt if anyone much cared about Hughes of THE AVIATOR as they walked out of the theater. (I cared more for the Hughes of MELVIN AND HOWARD though just a minor character.)

If there was something laudable about Howard Hughes, he always did his own thing his way. Granted, his romantic individualism of the swashbuckling kind nearly ended his life several times, a 'mistake' generally avoided by Jews who preferred to remain safe while making 'dumb goyim' take all the risks with life and limb. Perhaps, Hughes the reckless risk-taker and the Hepburn Family(in the best scene in the movie) suggest as to why Wasps eventually lost out to Jews. One kind of Wasp was too addicted to risk and adventure -- Ernest Hemingway ended much worse than Philip Roth and Saul Bellow who took better care of themselves -- while the other kind of wasps was too insular and priggish to see beyond the bridge of their noses. Like Burt Lancaster's character in THE SWIMMER, the adventurous wasp failed to sit still and take stock of himself and the world around him. In contrast, the priggish wasp was so busy with being self-righteous about one thing or another that he or she never bothered to ask WHO decides what to be outraged about. What mattered most is being a prig, therefore anything would suffice as long as it was offered on the dish of prigdom. Notice how prigs took so quickly to Homomania once it was served to them on the prig-prog dish. Such 'priggressives'.

*I suppose Elon Musk is like the Howard Hughes of the 21st Century. Is he for real though?

Though Scorsese didn't write THE AVIATOR, he came of age in a time when the director, as 'auteur', was suppose to stamp the material with his personality and vision. And there is some of that in the movie. But there is also a lack of self-awareness amidst the self-consciousness. I wonder to what extent Scorsese realized that his approach to THE AVIATOR(or GANGS OF NY) was saddled with the same problems faced by Hughes in his ridiculous project of building Hercules, the biggest plane in the world. Just like Hercules that barely manages to walk on water (like Jesus?), THE AVIATOR barely manages to get off the ground with its excess cargo of ambition and conflicting objectives. It lifts off ground but fails to soar. (I wonder if it inspired Hayao Miyazaki's THE WIND HAS RISEN, which may have worked as live-action movie but utterly fails as biopic of a real historical figure.) Whether Hercules could fly or not wasn't the issue. It was a bad idea borne of megalomania from the start. Simply unrealistic from any sane perspective, it was the product of quasi-autistic personality that figured that the best plane had to be the biggest and most impossible, just like Hughes' idea of a great movie(or greatest movie) was one made with biggest budget, longest shooting schedule, and perfectionism bordering on pathology. And yet, in the dream of making the seemingly impossible possible, there is an element of 'spiritual' longing in Hughes' personality. It's as if he believes in miracles, indeed as if his holy mother as personal Madonna smiles down upon him from clouds above. And this is where Scorsese slips in his Catholic-Christian theologisms into the movie.
In a way, several of Scorsese's movies are tales of fallen or misled christs or false saints. Their 'trials' have outer resemblance to the Passion of Jesus Christ. And yet, they are agents of satanism whose martyrdom is really a sick parody, a perverse mimicry, of the King of Kings. Travis Bickle is a would-be christ-figure who is willing to lay down his life to 'save' a girl in corrupt New York. But he's incapable of grappling with his own sickness and projects his psychosis onto the world. Jake LaMotta must deny himself food and sex in his total devotion to boxing. Boxers undergo tremendous suffering in the ring, and in the end, LaMotta gets 'crucified' by the fists of Sugar Ray Robinson. And yet, boxing is a blood sport. It is about men taking money to batter other men for beastly entertainment for the masses. Rupert Pupkin is willing to risk going to jail. He is utterly devoted to the world of entertainment. He is willing to make any sacrifice to enter the gates of TV heaven. But he has no sense of worth other than celebrity. He's fanatical like a saint but for trash culture. Ace Rothstein speaks of washing away sins in Las Vegas. It's the place where underworld figures like himself can go legitimate and do things under legal sanction and become 'respectable'. And yet, casino world is filled with criminals and degenerates. It exploits the worst aspects of human nature: Addiction to mindless thrills.
Howard Hughes is presented as yet another false christ. The movie opens with an image reminiscent of Madonna and Child. Hughes' mother is bathed in golden light and warns her son of the world infested with germs and filth. He is like the perfect child, radiant and pure. (There is a nod to Buddhism as well perhaps, not least because Scorsese made KUNDUN, a stunning work about the young Dalai Lama. Buddhism too has the story of purity in an impure world. Siddhartha is born into what appears to be a perfect world, only to discover it is mired in disease, decay, and death, and he devotes his life to seek Nirvana, the escape from the pathology of illusion that is the world. But then, KUNDUN shows how even those seeking Nirvana cannot escape court politics and world events.)
It's been said Jesus was the only Perfect Man, born without sin. And yet, both Hughes and Jesus had to make their way in a world of filth and foulness. The way of Jesus was to love sinful mankind. To embrace the wretched and the diseased and offer them hope. He wasn't meant to guard His purity for Himself but to share it with impure mankind so that sinners may be offered a path toward redemption and salvation, ultimately to the gates of Heaven. In contrast, Hughes' way is to recoil from the filth and grime. He is shown to have so many phobias about food and hygiene. And yet, he is more than willing to indulge in the corruption of the world to get his way.

There is a moment when Jesus, during His 40 days of soul-searching, is visited by Satan who presents Him with several temptations. Jesus rejects them all: Turning stones into bread, Jumping off the Pinnacle to test God, and Surveying the world from atop the mountain. Hughes is like the christ-figure who accepts the temptations. In a way, his diet is about turning stones into bread because he must have everything his way. And through flying machines, he toys with death in the conviction that angels will always save him somehow. And he wants control and dominion over everything. He complains about Pan Am's monopoly, but he wants to be head honcho of whatever he lays his hands on. He has over-arching ambitions like Charles Foster Kane. No matter how much Hughes suffers -- and he does so greatly at times -- , he is a satanic christ because he chose the material world than the spiritual one. Indeed, the room in which he is secluded for long stretches(like with Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys following SMILE sessions) is lit in hellish red. And in the final scene, as Hughes recalls his childhood while gazing into the mirror, he hears his younger self saying, through the glass darkly, "When I grow up, I want to fly the fastest planes, make the biggest movies ever, and be the richest man in the world." And the movie closes with Hughes muttering, "The Way of the Future" over and over. Jesus was about Eternity, a timeless concept where ALL OF TIME is oneness with God. Eternity is bigger than the past, present, or future. In contrast, the notion of the 'future' is temporal, always dissatisfied with the present, always dismissive of the past. 'Future' implies that the world is not good enough. We need more money, more glory, more gadgets, more devices, more fun, and etc. No matter what you accomplish, it's not enough because someone will come up with something better, in which case you have to make something better before he does. But life is finite, and in the end, everything you do will be surpassed by new achievements in the future. That was the basis of Western Greatness -- individualism and competitive spirit -- , but it was also a betrayal of Jesus' teachings of spirituality and eternity. The airplane is shaped like a crucifix, and in one scene, we see Hughes become 'crucified' in it. It is his moment of Passion. And in his seclusion in his dark private room, with hair growing long and beard on his chin, he looks like a demented jesus. And the way he sits on the chair is like the image of the naked Jesus on the Cross in THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Scorsese alludes to his own film, and one wonders if Hughes' megalomania rubbed off on Scorsese at times: https://youtu.be/6P1_qp8nYO8?t=34
And the ultimate triumph with Hercules is like his moment of resurrection(or at least that of Lazarus). But the film reminds us that material success and achievements are but fleeting moments. They come and go until the new hot thing comes along. After all, Hughes admits at the end that Jet engines are the future. So, everything he and his kind have produced thus far will also pass into the dustbin of history. No matter how much we seek elevation and transcendence via worldly things, it can only be a parody of true salvation. You can fly high and fast, but you can't enter Heaven with an airplane, no matter than a camel through the eye of a needle... or so Catholicism tells us.

The movie also intimates that Hughes' interest in cinema may not have been merely economic or egotistical. Maybe it was a way of playing God or at least Christ. After all, there is something Biblical about how rays from the projector lights up the silver screen. It's like a "Let there be Light" moment. The world is imperfect and impure, but the film-maker can use the light to create the world as it 'should be'. He can play God. And in the 'purity' of the screen image, there are no smells and no germs. But alas, movies are make-believe, no matter how excellent or entertaining they may be. And the light that illuminates the screen is a fake light generated by electricity and illusion of 24 frames per second. It is not the real light of sun and soul, the glimpse of which is seen in the ending of SILENCE with the glowing makeshift crucifix in the hands of the dead priest.
Silence by Martin Scorsese