|
|
Larry Flynt: Sex, Lies & Politics: The Naked Truth (Kensington Books,
2004) It is an undoubted – albeit somewhat bemusing – shock to find Larry
Flynt espousing such moderate liberal views, given the apparent content of
his publications, Hustler in particular. Politically he treads the
Democratic Party line, even going so far as to say nice things about the
Clintons and the DLC. As far as sex is concerned, he utters not a word about
the coprophilia and assorted dirty (in
Bataille’s sense of “dirty”) sexual activities that make
Hustler what it is (Personally, I’m not big on that sort of stuff, so I
try to ignore it; the babes are what count; in fact Flynt says pretty much
the same thing about himself when (p. 194; cf. also p. 223 on gays) he
admits he’s into ‘vanilla sex’).
But, upon reflection, shock may
be too strong a reaction. Consider that Flynt is in business (Cf. p. 136).
In fact he created his business from scratch. He is not an academic and so
suffers no delusions that the quasi-socialistic womb of the university
faculty has much chance of universal application. Wealth must be created
before it can be lavished on the unproductive, however deserving they may
be. In fact, as an entrepreneur, Flynt never even had the advantage of the
semi-socialistic culture of a corporation or a bureaucracy. The entrepreneur
is a Wölfing, the original acorn gatherer, one of whose primary desiderata
is social stability. So his adherence to a mainstream political viewpoint
over a more radical but potentially destabilizing politics is perfectly
natural. Indeed, as a success, he even feels it is an obligation to share
some of his wealth, in a governmentally organized way, with the less
fortunate.
Indeed Flynt’s political
moderation - marked by the need to refer to his service record bona fides
and occasional references to the good ol’ USA as the greatest whatever - is
not sullied by any kowtowing to political mythologies or, as he calls it,
“ceremonial crap.” “I not only don’t pledge allegiance to the flag, I also
don’t sing the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’…(p.223)” Now these acts of omission
take courage, since they could easily inspire Xtian rioting. I suggest we
all also omit “So help me God” from any swearing we do.
I’m sure Flynt is well aware
that the Democrats would stab him and any other well-meaning pornographer in
the back in a heartbeat, not just for momentary political advantage, but as
part of their own political PR. Hillary Clinton has subscribed to the
feminazi agenda of calling pornography a public health problem as a way
around the Bill of Rights and Chuck Schumer is one of the leaders of the
protect our children from pornography bandwagon (“Protect our children” is a
code phrase for censorship just as “No child left behind” is a code phrase
for “Don’t give public money to them nigger schools.”) And Flynt has been
successful, with at least tacit cooperation from some forces associated with
the Democratic Party, with his Million Dollar Ad and the sexual outing of
several Republicans. But sadly any gratitude on Clinton’s part for Flynt’s
help would be about as likely as Bush learning to read. Flynt, if he hasn’t
already done so, would be well advised not so much to look for alternatives
as for additional baskets wherein to put his eggs. The best bet would be
individual politicians who are true libertarians – the only ones left in the
Republican party probably all live in Arizona (Several states, all red
including Arizona, voted down abortion restriction referenda in the 2006
election. The moral seems to be that abortion restriction, if subject to a
popular vote, doesn’t have a chance. So Xtians resort to the coup d’etat
strategy: Elect legislators who are acceptable on other grounds - lower
taxes etc. – and have them pursue abortion restriction within the confines
of the legislature. The electoral triumph of abortion was completely ignored
by a media enslaved to Xtian dictates). Small parties like the Libertarians
have constructed platforms far more in keeping with the spirit of the
Constitution. Even the Greens appear to be less likely than Democrats to
enact censorship. But the argument for trying to influence the Democratic
Part has always been electability and there may be something to that, given
the outcome of the 2006 elections (Flynt wrote his book in an unsuccessful
attempt to influence the 2004 election). But caution is in order. Some of
the most heavily censored parts of the country are the supposedly blue
northeast and Midwest. Flynt’s observation that certain politicians have “no
principles other than staying in office (pp. 238-239; Cf. also p. 229)”
applies to Democrats as well as Republicans. In fact there is a
psychological universal hidden in that phrase. A certain personality type
was developed along with democratic electoral politics, a type whose primary
motivations seem to be a love of controlling others and a desire for
gratification in the adulation of large groups of people. This type is
the politician, Democrat or Republican. The persistent success of this type
in monopolizing elective office is one of the great weaknesses of democracy.
It means that those elected to office in democracies almost by definition do
not have the best interests of their constituencies at heart – only their
own gratification.
Another reason for Flynt’s
moderate liberalism might lie in his own shock at the brazenness and near
success of our own homegrown Mussolini. It is hard to believe, as the facts
come out, that we have been witness to a carefully contrived coup d’etat
that was foiled only by the incompetence of the conspirators. I’m not sure
that people yet recognize that one of the major successes of this coup
d’etat was the infiltration of the military with Xtian brownshirts
partially accomplished through forced religious instruction at the military
academies and through a purge of existing Pentagon commanders who resisted
the creation of a Xtian Empire by means of forced retirement (Rumsfeld’s
code phrase was “streamlining the military’), and their replacement with
compliant operatives who would obey the President without question (There is
a difference between questioning and refusing to obey a Presidential order;
the purge replaced those commanders who at any time questioned Bush. Pace is
an ideal Xtian operative since his adherence to popery has been a lifelong
preparation for unquestioning obedience.) The purge of the Department of
Justice was fortunately caught in flagrante delicto, but any number
of Xtian moles are obviously still buried in its ranks. Even if we see Bush,
Cheney et al. swinging from a lamppost one day, there would remain the large
job of denazifying the federal bureaucracy and military and rooting out the
moles Bush has placed in those organizations.
-------------------------
I remember dozing in my high
school classroom one afternoon when the priest – in the middle of his weekly
homily of why the pope should rule America – opined that all these new
fangled gewgaws like psychotherapy (Psychotropic medications such as Prozac
hadn’t been discovered yet) were really just a fancy name for what you can
get for free (Well, it’s not exactly free. Try avoiding the collection plate
some Sunday) in the confessional from a professional certified by the Big
Fella hisself (The oft-repeated banter that Moose Shimanski down at the KOC
is such a model for Xtian gentlemanhood that
Godot
is just an infinitely perfect Moose will more likely than not backfire with
“folks” like me; if Godot is the most perfect football coach, I wonder if he
enjoys ass-fucking wide receivers like our worldly football coaches?) Of
course, the priest had it backwards. Confession and related ceremonies
performed by preachers and shamans belong to the prehistory of psychotherapy
just as alchemy belongs to the prehistory of physics (Cf.
Freud V, pp.297 ff.). The advantage of
scientific psychotherapy over priest-preacher-shaman therapies (PPS) lies
not in any specific psychotherapeutic technique, but simply in the fact that
it is a science. And like all other scientific behavior, it is subject to
strictures of verification, revisability (for improvement in the case of
therapies) and objectivity, none of which strictures apply to PPS. That is,
the psychotherapist has no other goal than the mental health of his patient.
He is committed to revising his techniques in the face of convincing
evidence hat those techniques are ineffective. And he is committed to
investigate improvements in his techniques as well as any entirely new
techniques that may come along (This is one reason why we have a concept of
scientific progress; the idea of progress is built into the idea of theory
revisability that is essential to science. Even when criticized to the
effect that a given scientific formation – theories, accepted observations,
applied technologies – has not realized progress in some respect (e.g. the
“We’ve built all these wonderful steel factories, but they’ve polluted the
atmosphere” objection), the scientist is committed to investigate why that
is the case and how the formation can be revised to achieve progress, if
desirable, in that respect as well). PPS is at best indifferent to and
usually actively hostile to revision and improvement. Conversely, it is the
making public of shared results studied for the single goal of curing the
patient that makes the psychotherapist a scientist in the broad sense (even
though he does not rely on mathematical models as does the physicist and
even though we still lack an adequate procedure for verification in the
human sciences). But there are other advantages of psychotherapy over PPS.
Obviously the success rate of scientific therapies is much higher than PPS,
particularly in the case of properly prescribed medications. Even
psychoanalysis enjoyed a much higher success rate than any form of PPS and
provided the impetus for social changes that led to the decline in the
incidence of those illnesses – hysteria and neurosis - that it was
specifically devised to combat. In this respect, the comparative decline of
psychoanalytic treatments is a byproduct of its very success - a brilliant
example of scientific progress. Another disadvantage of PPS is that many
PPS-ers belong to groups that are committed to goals other than the cure of
the patient. At the very least they usually expect repayment (another way
confession isn’t free) in your belief in some doctrine or mythology they
advocate. More often than not, this involves participation in rituals,
ceremonies or some other whoop-de-doo. Certain PPS-ers have more tangible
ulterior motives, as in the use of confession to extend papist control over
sovereign nations, a practice made into an art by the Jesuits.
It is noteworthy that when Flynt
had a psychotic episode that had all the earmarks of your traditional
mystical religious ecstasy, he went to a psychiatrist and not a preacher. He
was prescribed an anti-bipolar psychotropic drug and cured (p. 218). But
Flynt’s point is broader than comparative advantage of psychotherapy over
PPS, for Flynt recognizes (echoing in this respect one of Freud’s major
themes) that religion itself is a mental disorder. Strictly speaking, Flynt
focuses on the visions-in-your-breakfast-cereal brand of religious
fanaticism, which we can with some confidence identify as a form of bipolar
disorder. It would be lovely if all these visionaries could be put under
competent medical care and receive medications to relieve their disorders.
You cannot, of course, force anyone to undergo a therapy he refuses, even if
he is mentally ill. But it is simply unacceptable to allow the religiously
insane to organize into groups and lay claim to an influence on public
policy. When that occurs, then religion becomes more than an individual
disorder. It morphs into a public health problem – or, in the case of recent
electoral politics, something like the 14th century Black Death.
The old saw about the inmates running the nut house must have occurred to
sane people like Flynt more than once. For that reason we should take
another look as to whether we can forcibly subject the religious to medical
care. The voluntary acquiescence restriction is limited to cases where the
mentally ill individual poses a danger to himself or to others. So, given
the statistical frequency of the coupling of religion and violence, is it
not reasonable to contemplate the forced medical treatment of at least some
religious people – at the very least the priests, preachers and shamans?
Flynt makes passing reference to
self-reliance as an antidote to the psychological dependency exploited by
the preachers (pp.218-219 &225). This thought, however sketchy, deserves
attention for two reasons. In the first place it is an alternative to the
approach advocated by Sam Harris who appeals to Jainism and Buddhism as
non-religious moral systems. Both suggestions deserve consideration since a
fully articulated alternative approach to how one should live one’s life,
though not necessary (not necessary because you don’t need a fully furnished
house for immediate occupancy once you’ve escaped the nut house of religion;
you might rent for a time while you’re choosing the furniture), would be a
good idea. Flynt’s inclination in particular merits attention because, like
it or not, self-reliance has a distinguished intellectual history beginning
with Emerson
and Thoreau. Nietzsche borrowed the idea from Emerson in developing his
theory of the Übermensch. There are other alternatives as well. The
Western scientific tradition has certain buried assumptions about how one
should lead one’s life. There are also suggestions throughout Western
intellectual history from Epicurus through Pietro Aretino to Bertrand
Russell. I would venture to suggest that, as with many other projects, in
the search for a Philosophy of Life, it is the search itself that’s half the
fun.
The theme of self-reliance
suggests an Eloge de Larry Flynt. It seems to be part of Flynt’s
character that he is motivated not just by a desire to make money or to
enjoy the pleasures of life, including sexual pleasure. He did not have to
write this book, nor did he have to launch the Million Dollar Ad Campaign.
Given his chosen profession, neither project had a chance of producing any
personal material benefit. Likewise, Hustler does not have to take
the tone it does, which is unique among pornographic publications (Hugh
Hefner also has a uniquely personal world view – much less combative and
more strictly Epicurean). And, given the degree of persecution he has
suffered, his internal motivation must be very strong indeed. If Flynt’s
intentions were less than honorable, one would say he was driven by internal
demons. But since this book was written for it’s own sake (assuming he
entertains no fantasies of public office or some other ancillary benefit) we
are treated to the pleasant spectacle of someone motivated by his internal
angels.
---------------------------
Flynt relies on a model of
government that might be called the Honest Broker model (pp. 136-137). This
is not in itself a fault, or, if it is, it is not Flynt’s alone. Every
political philosopher that I know of has either advocated or assumed the
Honest Broker model in the course of proposing theories about how to best
organize a government. The Honest Broker model is not a separate theory of
government in contrast with other theories. Rather it is it is a set of
assumptions about government that is shared by most actual theories. For
that reason the Honest Broker model underlies distinct political systems -
monarchy, oligarchy, direct and representative democracy – as well as
economic theories of social organization, such as socialism and free market
liberalism. I sometimes like to call the Honest Broker model the Squire
Allworthy model (or, if you like, the Ward Cleever model) since Squire
Allworthy is an interesting symbol. Even though he operated in a sort of
paternalistic way toward the inhabitants of his district, he himself had no
direct offspring. The metaphorical ambiguity of Tom Jones, and its
implicit mockery of royal blood descent, is heightened by the twists and
turns of the foundling story. But I’m not convinced that it isn’t just
muddling things to mix the issue of the family and tribal phylogenesis of
government with the distinct issue of whether the Honest Broker model of
government is indeed viable. So Honest Broker it is. Simply stated, the
assumption of the Honest Broker model is that government is uniquely
qualified to arbitrate disputes between all those entities under its control
- individuals, families, clans, corporations, baronies, dukedoms, states,
provinces, colonies, non-profit organizations etc. – and to prevent or
punish wrongdoing on the part of any of these entities because government
alone has no self interest, but rather, properly run, represents the
interests of the entire nation. The obvious objections to this model are no
secret. For example, monarchical and other forms of non-democratic
government may indeed be self-interested. Or else some self-interested party
might appropriate a government to its own interests (Flynt recognizes this,
p. 138). The particular terms in which the drama plays out today involve the
government as a referee between the rich and powerful on the one hand and
the rest of the citizenry on the other. Government is the institution needed
to prevent the abuse of the people by the powerful. But if the rich and
powerful take control of a government, they can turn government to help them
in their abuse. Likewise, almost inevitably a class of people springs up who
identify themselves with the government and so identify their interests with
those of the government. Of course, this can mean either that they
subordinate personal interests to those of the nation (good) or that they
subordinate national to personal interests (bad). Thomas More called these
people courtiers. In the minds of many these obvious objections can be
answered and the individual government’s faults repaired. Flynt talks about
reinventing government and More proposed a system where courtiers (read
bureaucrats or civil servants) were eliminated.
But there may be a more
essential problem with the Honest Broker model as a way of looking at
government or as a basis for a political theory. There may be something
wrong with the assumption that government is the referee of the game and not
one of the players. Indeed there may be something wrong with the assumption
that there can be something like a single institution that can function as a
referee for all the other entities that compose a nation. For the Honest
Broker model incorporates an imaginary three part structure in society
composed of two litigants and the government in one manifestation or else
the people, the wrongdoer (or danger) and the government in another
manifestation. I wonder whether there is not something essentially wrong
with the assumptions this three-part structure involves, that is whether the
model that the government is the unique representative of the people as a
whole and thus uniquely situated to punish wrongdoers is not fatally flawed
in such a way that mere adjustments (new elections, bureaucratic
reshuffling, constitutional amendments etc.) are insufficient as long as the
political system relies upon the government as an independent and impartial
referee. At the very least in an electoral democracy the government tends
not to represent the interests of the entire nation; it represents the
interests of the majority. And even where some legal safeguards are written
down to protect the rights of the minority, there is, on the one hand, a
difference between rights and interests that works to the disadvantage of
rights, and, on the other hand, the record of actually enforcing the paper
rights granted to the minority, or, properly - Thoreauishly – speaking, to
the individual, is not encouraging. If there is meaning to the phrase,
“Fascism is the dictatorship of the majority,” then that meaning can be
related to the faults in the Honest Broker theory of government.
Geneva
March 2007
|
Atheism
v
Pornography v
Rock & Roll
