Special Note: The Kind And Gentle Fascist will be Free on Amazon until Aug 26

As it says, The Kind and Gentle Fascist will be FREE on Amazon though August 26, 2013.

So, please hurry over and pick up a copy. It is here:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Kind-Gentle-Fascist-ebook/dp/B00EOZFK0M/

From The Kind And Gentle Fascist

The following is an excerpt from The Kind and Gentle Fascist by Stewart Arthur Ravelin. For more on the book, see the previous posting in this blog.

From Chapter Two



It all happened because our club…the "Thursday Discussion Circle," we call it, because that's when we meet. Anyway, our club tried to sponsor a conference of Left- and Right-wing Radicals in one of the years toward the middle of the 1990s. Grey was one of the many, many people we'd invited.

I had seen his byline in some of the little political journals I read. We'd exchanged email once or twice. He'd come across a couple of my articles on my web site – specifically "Eurasian Unity and Social Destiny" and "Towards a Nationalist Revolutionary North American Ideology: Beyond Liberal and Conservative" — and he wrote me a very nice note about them. I must confess, I was rather flattered.

So, about a year later, when we . . . that is, the Discussion Circle, we've run it from of my house ever since my wife moved out . . . when we decided to hold a conference on the works of Maurice Bardèche, I emailed him an invitation.

I didn't hear back from him. But that, alas, did not make him unique. Our conference was a bit of a disaster, I'm afraid. We mailed or emailed, or phoned, nearly a thousand different organizations on the Revolutionary Right and the Revolutionary Left all over the world. We, or rather I (it was on my Visa card. I was supposed to be reimbursed by the Club. But I never was) had rented a conference room at a downtown hotel. We put up fliers around the schools — Harvard, MIT, BU, BC.  We promoted things as best we could.

But, for all that, we got hardly any response. The Europeans were the worst.  No one from the National Alliance, the former Italian Social Movement, came.  No one from the French Front National, that is, Le Pen's people, came. There was some faint interest from some German fans of the Conservative Revolutionaries, but they could come only if we could pay for the plane tickets, and we couldn't. We did get a couple of gentlemen who said they were Dutch Third Positionists, but later I wasn't sure what group they were really with. If any. Except maybe the S&M Liberation Front. They came to the meetings wearing enough black leather to start their own motorcycle gang.

 We did better among the Anglos. We had two Brits who said they were followers of Mosley, and one who said he was a member of the Black Front. A few Scots separatists showed up, and we had one fellow who said he was an Ulster Nationalist . . . in other words, a Northern Ireland independent of both the U.K. and the South.

Then there were our fellow Americans. We had some National Bolsheviks from Arizona and California and an Integralist from New York City. There was a man who said he was a Falangist from Alabama, but I think he was really more of a Francoist or Social Catholic. He spent most of his time passing out anti-Abortion pamphlets in the back of the hall. And urging everyone to Pray the Rosary.

And we had some Communists. We'd invited members of the Russian Party, but none of them came. And we'd tried to get a speaker from the CPUSA, but they didn't answer. But we had six or seven Maoists and Trotskyites. Mostly they were academics from the schools.

All total, I think we got about one hundred people. That is, bodies in the room. Unfortunately, not all of them were real Radicals, either Right or Left. I'd say maybe half were. The rest? Ah. I'm afraid I have to quote my friend Theo, who said to me later, "A crock pot potato soup of warmed over Ku Kluxers and Latter Day Nazis poured over a base of Ronald Reaganoids, Ayn Randies, and Laissez Fairies."

Alas, he was woefully correct. We were up to our up lower lips in Libertarians. With the typical willful stupidity of their block-headed breed, they'd misread our flyers and posters. They seemed not to realize that we were the NON-Capitalist Right. They showed up in full fledged Ayn Rand drag . . . that is, the men trying to be John Galt with steely jaws, the women in capes and being very, very serious behind cigarette holders the length of knitting needles.

But it was amusing to watch their eyes goggle when they got to the conference room and found we'd decorated it with posters of Che and Trotsky. So I suppose they were worth something.

Oh, and we had a large number of Radical Traditionalists — John Birch types. Bloody fools, the lot. But you can deal with them, easily. Just make some off-hand remarks about international conspiracies and Illuminati, and they're perfect lambs.

The other problem we had was far worse. That is, the Racists. Quoting Theo again (he so damn quotable), "they killed Fascism the first time, they're doing their best to do it again." 

In fact, on the third day of the conference, I thought they were going to slaughter us right then and there. Among the people who'd showed up, uninvited, was a prize fool who called himself "Colonel Junker." He really had been in the military. He'd been a corporal or something in the National Guard while he was avoiding the draft in the '60s. Anyway, he showed up wearing a sort of fatigue uniform outfit. And he came with a flotilla of six teenage skinheads in tow. All white skinny punks in boots with white shoelaces . . . which, of course, meant they were racist skinheads, red laces mean revolutionary skinheads . . .  and black jackets decorated with Celtic and arrow crosses.

He made a speech on the third day. He got up, put in a monocle (No. Honestly. He had one), and launched off into an incoherent rant about Zionist oppression of the Palestinians. Which is fine enough, I suppose. You have to admit the Israelis have done their share of that. But then from there, he got to the "Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG)" of the United States, and the "Jew-Ridden Congress, "and finally to the ATF as a "Jewish Front Organization."

We were all sitting there feeling horribly embarrassed because that's exactly the kind of thing we don't need. It gives Fascism a bad name. But finally he came cranking to a finish, removed his monocle (I think it was simply unground glass, not a lens, just for display), and goose-stepped back to his seat. We were absolutely silent. Then, his skinheads started applauding wildly and yelling at the top of their lungs. I clapped a little, to be polite, but didn't really put my heart into it.

His pimple-faced juvenile delinquents, however, were ecstatic. One of them got up on his chair and started bellowing "White Power! White Power!" and giving the straight-arm salute. Another, a nasty looking little brute with a wispy beard, unfurled a flag on a staff and began waving it about. It was red, with a white disk in the center, and in the disk a black "werewolf" symbol . . . that is, a kind of half a swastika. Swedish and Dutch Neo-Nazis use it a lot.

I saw them eyeing us and noticing that we weren't really giving their Maximum Leader the attention they felt he deserved. I saw fists starting to clinch and in their eyes the delighted, feral, bloody-minded look you see when Hitler Youth think they're going to get the chance to beat the crap out of somebody.

Then, in the back of the room, there was an awful bang. Everybody spun around. A youngish man  in the very last row of seats had stood up suddenly and knocked his chair over in the process. It had made a dreadful noise. I realized later he'd done it quite deliberately.

"Sorry," he said.

He was tall, wrapped in a long, black overcoat. It was wet, I remember. It had been raining and sleeting that day. He removed the coat and put it across another chair. Under it, he was green and black. He had a black sport coat over a green knit sweater. Black tie. White shirt. The clothing looked old, somehow. A little worn. And he was very pale and very thin. He had a long, pale delicately featured face. It was almost feminine, I can remember. There was a womanliness about it.

He walked slowly, deliberately to the front of the room, where we had a little podium. I remember he passed under the werewolf flag. Then, the skinhead who'd been saluting jumped off his chair and stood in front of him. The thin man paused . . . stared at him . . . reached into a pocket, extracted an ice pick. He held it up, almost elegantly, the way the Randian women held their cigarette holders.

The kid slowly sank back into his seat.

The man went forward, still with his ice pick, to the podium. He came to the podium, then stood for a moment, looking down at it . . . at the podium, I mean . . . as though there were notes there, and he was refreshing his memory before launching into a prepared text. But, it was empty. He read nothing but the varnished wood. And he had the pick raised in one hand, like a conductor with a baton.

Then . . . down! Down came the pick. With enormous force . . . strength far beyond what I thought him capable . . . he slammed the ice pick into the podium. His whole body twisted to place his total weight into the blow. It sank deep and remained in the wood.

Then, slowly, silently, he raised his gaze until he look at each of us. It was like  …  I don't know … like being cold. Like being caught in the beams of, say, some powerful microwave source. You cannot see it. You cannot feel it. But you know, somehow, that you are being damaged. Burned.

"I am," he said, "Jerusalem."



*



The Kind and Gentle Fascist, by Stewart Arthur Revelin is now on Amazon here:



http://www.amazon.com/The-Kind-Gentle-Fascist-ebook/dp/B00EOZFK0M/

The Kind And Gentle Fascist

This month we have a new and very transgressive novel to offer—The Kind And Gentle Fascist by Stewart Arthur Ravelin.

The title alone will tip you off that we've got something that treads rather heavily on thin ice here. A kind Fascist? A gentle Fascist?

Yet, that's what this novel about—a modern American who has become a "fascist," although he'd probably prefer the term "Revolutionary Nationalist," or "man of the New Right." Mr. Burnell, as our hero is named, is a true gentleman, kind and wise, who hates racism and anti-Semitism, and would die for world peace and social justice.

Yet, his political ideology is derived from the Radical Right.

A contradiction? Maybe not as much as you might think. "Fascism" is a complicated word. For most us it means simply Hitler and Mussolini and death camps and war and bloody-minded horror.

Yet, as the great historian Zeev Sternhell has pointed out, this has not always been the case. (See his Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France.) At one time, prior to the 1930s, there were currents within radical right-wing thought that were neither racist nor anti-Semitic, that opposed imperialism and militarism, and that were far less authoritarian than (for example) what was happening in militant socialism at the same time—i.e., Communism, as made manifest by Lenin, Trotsky, and, later, Stalin.

Indeed, at one time, there was a "Fascism" or "Nationalistic Socialism" (not to be confused Hitler's National Socialism, Nazism, despite the similarity of the names) that was a genuine competitor with Communism for the hearts and minds of the European workingman and woman. 

Alas, that all changed with the rise first of Mussolini and then of Hitler. "Fascism" became (with Mussolini) a tool with which the wealthy and the powerful could corrupt, control, and repress the lower class. Then (with Hitler) it became as well an obscenity…the destroyer of whole peoples, the author of genocide and terror.

And, with Burnell, author Stewart Arthur Ravelin gives us a man who is desperately attempting bring that other Radical Right back, and to bring the Right as a whole to the inclusive socialism of men like Henri De Man and the organicism of men like G.K. Chesterton.

Does he succeed? We will provide no spoilers. But we will mention that here is an additional complication.

To wit, there is a viper at his breast.

*

For a bit more on this remarkable new book, check out the next posting in this blog. It will be an excerpt the book.

As for the book itself, you can see it here: The Kind and Gentle Fascist

http://www.amazon.com/The-Kind-Gentle-Fascist-ebook/dp/B00EOZFK0M/

I Frighten

Today, we need talk about a book, a writer, and a Latin word.

And, believe it or not, there's connection. And something very, very important for us all.

The writer first. Robert L. Folkner is one of Belfort and Bastion's favorite authors. He's already done one novel for us, Something For Everything. It is a sort of a retelling of the Faust tale but from the perspective of a modern American age of post-industrial decline.

But, now, Folkner's done a second work for us. This is a collection of short stories entitled Pure Theatre of Cruelty.

Now, for the word: terreō

It means, more or less, "I frighten."

Which is where we get into the important part.


*

Terreo is one of those interesting Latin words which shows up as multiple words in English. Most obviously, of course, is "terror." Related to that is "terrible." So there's two words and two distinct concepts right there. We have terreo in the sense of cause of causing fear—i.e., "The 9/11 hijackers were terrorists." But we also have the sense of something very, very bad, either in the meaning of evil ("The Cambodian Genocide was terrible,"), or in the meaning of something awful ("That dinner was terrible.")

But, curiously, terreo also shows up in English to mean something good, as in "Terrific."  Thus we have, "She's a terrific human being."

The problem arises because the underlying meaning of "terreo" got a little slippery when it was transferred to English via Norman French. When it got grafted onto what used to be Anglo-Saxon, it took on the meaning of something which evokes the grander emotions, whether for good or bad.

That's why translating "terror" or "terrific" can get tricky. Take Czar Ivan IV. We call him, in English "Ivan The Terrible" because he was known among the Russians as "Ivan Grozny."  So we have a vision of Ivan as a tyrant, "the Terrible," a kind of precursor of Stalin.

Except that Grozny doesn't really mean "terrible" in the sense that we know it today. In Russian it is more like "strong" or "formidable,"—more, in fact, like our "terrific." What happened was that when the title was translated into English in the 1500s, the translators were looking for a word that meant something "awe-inspiring," and (at the time) "terrible" did just that. " It was only after a few hundred years that the English-term had taken on today's more negative meaning.

Which isn't to say that Ivan the Terrible wasn't, indeed, "terrible" as we use the term today. He probably was. But, as one of the founders of the Russian state, and the man who helped put down the foundations for the Russian empire in Siberia and Central Asia, he might have a rather good claim on "Terrific" as well.

But, what's that got to do with Robert Folkner? For that, we need to turn to Theatre.


*

Folkner is a fabulist. Or, as he prefers to call himself, "a Fantasist." His fiction weaves in and out of the real world, taking the reader from the mundane to the fantastic, and back again …all in a matter of a few pages.

His current book with us, Pure Theatre of Cruelty, includes a number of tales…all of them fundamentally disturbing. There is "Classical Massacre," which gives us a pretty "terrible" picture of what a nuclear weapons strike would be like. Then, too, there's  " Fortune-Baby," where the supernatural, the cinema, and perfect justice all somehow become intertwined. And there's "Everyone Gets What He Deserves," which asks what would happen if our juvenile justice (or injustice) system were to gain a little too much power. And, well, there's much more beyond those.

The connection with terreo? Simply this: Folkner's tales are of the same stuff as terreo. They evoke terror, but also are terrific.

They evoke terror because they deal with horrible, horrible things—the death of children, torture, the heartbreak of exile. But they are terrific, not just because they are well written (they are) but because they are warnings. They are signposts that read "here there be dragons," and suggesting alternative routes.

Take "Classical Massacre." At first glace, the reader would be tempted to dismiss it. After all, the Cold War is over. The threat of nuclear annihilation is over, isn't it? This is passé, isn't it?

Or is it? As I write this, in 2013, at least five nations possess nuclear weapons—including North Korea and Pakistan, neither of which looks like a monument to national stability. Several other states have the capacity to produce them any time they like. And there are almost certainly non-state actors— Al-Qaeda, for one—trying to get them.

Oh, and here's something else to consider. What's one of the most rapidly accelerating arms races in the world right now? Try India and China, both nuclear powers with missile programs. Just last year (2012) India debuted the Agni-V, a ICBM that can carry multiple nuclear weapons. It's called "the China killer."

Consider that for a moment.

*

Or take "Everyone Gets." I won't provide any spoilers but suffice to say it involved a future in which the juvenile justice system meets time travel. A simple sci-fi/horror tale, you say?

Well, maybe yes, maybe no. Consider the social trend knownas  "the criminalization of children." It's been written about everyone from scholarly journals to the New York Times. Increasingly, we treat young people as criminal, guilty until proven innocent.

Thus schools are built like armed camps. Police are now regularly stationed in every school in the country…not to protect the young people from machine gun welding maniacs, but to keep the students in line.

How long before society's "terror" of the young becomes truly deadly?

*

So this is why Folkner is "terrible" and "terrific." He warns us. He points at the dark places in our society…and in our souls…and says "Here there be demons."

Here, he says, are things you must avoid. At all costs, you must avoid them. If you do not, then…well…the world is threatened.

And so Folkner joins that tiny band of writers, the men and women who stand before us with magic mirrors. They present us with our own secret faces…faces that may, indeed, be terrible.

Such people, such artists, are important …as important as those who follow Caesar and whisper, "you are mortal."

These men and women follow us all. And say, "Terrific or terrible…you can be either.

"The choice is entirely…entirely!… up to you."

Let us hope to God we make the right choice.






*

You may see Pure Theatre of Cruelty at Amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Pure-Theatre-of-Cruelty-ebook/dp/B00CTCDCSO

Stay tuned...

Stay tuned, folks. Two new books to come.

Biopunk -- the short stories of Anastasia Leach

1.

This week, Belfort and Bastion is proud to announce a new book, Prometheans, a collection of short stories by the talented Anastasia Leach. You can see it here.

This will be Anastasia's first book-length publication. For us, however, it will also be a major departure. This is our first book in the field of biopunk fiction.

What's that you ask? Good question. The answer we'll provide is one we've taken from the ever useful Wikipedia, "Biopunk (a portmanteau synthesizing "biotechnology" and "punk") is a technoprogressive movement advocating open access to genetic information… Biopunk hobbyists or biohackers experiment with DNA and other aspects of genetics."

You read that right. Biopunks, biohackers, and DIYbio fans "hack" the stuff of life itself. They work with the code of the cell, DNA, as computer hackers work with software. These people are real. They are serious. They have labs at Universities, kitchen sinks, and basements across the world.

Biopunk science fiction, meanwhile, considers the implications of all that.


 2.


We'll go a bit more into biopunk later. (Who knows? Perhaps, if we beg hard enough, we'll get Anastasia to write something on the subject herself.)

But, let's turn now to the book, Prometheans. It contains four thought-provoking stories and the best way to describe them is probably just to reproduce the book's cover language. Ergo:

*"Prometheans"— The good news: you may be immortal. The bad news: everyone wants a piece of you, the literal kind.



*"A Happy Place"— The Geiste are quantum minds in human bodies. In theory, they should be a thriving blend of both. In practice...



*"Colony"—There is something alive in the dark water. But, not to worry, it's only looking for a home.



*"The Mentor"— A kid with a knack for synthetic biology has a girl to impress and a bully to deal with. What can possibly go wrong?

Each of these looks at some aspect of the world that is almost certainly coming—whether it be contact with alien life forms, the consequences of the widespread knowledge of the techniques of genetic engineering, or the results of human-machine hybridization. Not to provide any spoilers, but it will give you some idea of the range of these tales that they include everything from radical human mutation to a new profession, i.e. psychotherapy for artificial minds.


3.

And Belfort and Bastion is particularly proud to have Prometheans in its catalog. First and foremost that's because we're delighted to have Anastasia writing for us. She is simply damn good. In fact, she may prove to be that illusive thing, a major talent. (Yes, we know that's what every publisher says about all its writers. But, in this case, there's a real chance it is true.)

Also, we're pleased because she has elected to write in the biopunk genre. Oh, she isn't restricted to it. She writes other material as well. If we're fortunate, we'll get a chance to publish some of her efforts in those other fields. Stay tuned for future developments.

 But, that a writer of such skill has turned to biopunk is important. Frankly, we…and here "we" means us all, the whole human race…need such people. We need articulate, intelligent, thoughtful individuals who can direct our attention to the rapid developing world of biotech, biopunk, biohacking, DIYbio, and all the rest.

Think about it. In just the last few decades…actually, in just the last few years… we have gained the power to do things with life that were once unthinkable. We can now modify DNA. We can create living things that have never existed before, ever, anywhere, and any time. We have learned to use the fundamental building blocks of life as tools for our purposes.

Mind you, these powers…godlike and fearsome…are not restricted to the few and the mighty. We're not just talking governments and giant corporations. Small companies can do it. Small research organizations can. Small labs, too. Indeed, today, almost anyone, in any laboratory, anywhere, can do all of the above and much more.

And, everywhere, there is springing up a generation of biohackers, individuals who have learned or taught themselves the arts manipulating life itself.

Consider the meaning of that. We hear endless discussion, warnings, and Jeremiads on the dangers posed by cyber criminals and terrorists. Now and then we get news of some individual who has attempted to develop a nuclear reactor or a dirty bomb in his backyard. We read, then, many strident editorials in important publications about how We View With Alarm These Developments.

But, you don't hear much about biohacking. It is almost unknown outside of a very small circle.

Yet, which would have the greatest effect? The hacker who penetrates the firewall and humiliates a few MBAs? Or the biohacker, from whose lab comes something…whether microbe or superman…which could reshape the very nature of humanity?


4.

So that's why need biopunk writers. And good ones. We need someone to ask right now what will important questions. What will it mean when any bright high school kid can reprogram living beings? When any halfway competent lab tech could create synthetic beings in a test tube? When any fanatic in a backroom can construct a virus more potent than AIDS, more virulent than plague?

We need people like Anastasia to help explore these issues. To confront us with them. To make us ask "What are we going to do?"

And, oh, by the way, the one thing we cannot do is avoid the world that Anastasia writes about. We can't somehow pass laws against it. We can't stop the dispersal of information. Already, the tools and the knowledge of biohacking are too widespread. The genie is not going into its bottle anytime soon.

In short, as a culture, we must remember a certain myth. We must recall the Titan who stole fire from heaven and gave it to a sad and shivering humanity. The Titan was punished by the gods, but what he'd done could not be undone. The balance of power between mortal and divine was forever shifted. The flaming sword was already in the hands of Man.

In other words, we …and particularly our Leaders…must recall that Prometheans already walk among us.

Let us hope that Anastasia and others like her will be heard. And listened to.

Ed.

Something For Everything by Robert L. Folkner

1.

This month, Belfort and Bastion is proud to announce a new book and a new writer. The former is Something For Everything and the latter is Robert L. Folkner.

So what's the novel about? Ah, that's complicated. In some ways, it's Faust. In others, though…

Well, let's just say that this is a subtle bit of social criticism. And very, very potent.



2.

When Folkner first approached us with the book, 'twas I who got the job of shepherding the manuscript through development. As I understood the pitch, it was a of reworking of the Faust story, but with the main characters being teenagers—sort of Goethe for the Young Adult Fiction market. And that's a good thing. Every publisher worth its salt is busy looking for the next R.L. Stine.

But then I got the manuscript. And, guess what…I had completely misjudged the work and its creator. Oh, Faust was there, no doubt. Something for Everything tells us the story of two young men, Bradley Hollenger and Ricky Stromberg, living in a rust belt city and dreaming of better things, even as they are all too clearly fated for lives of dreary struggle. Then, one of them meets a mysterious pair of twins…as we learn, supernatural beings.

The obligatory deal is struck. And the fortunate young man finds his life transformed. All that was denied him is now available.

Ah, but the price, we learn, is steep.

As I say, when I first saw the proposal, I thought that's all there was to the book—an interesting, serviceable (if not particularly original) plot and well-done characters. And, both are present. Both are nicely crafted. The writing's clear and clean. The two boys are well delineated and artistically drawn.

Except, when I began reading the thing in detail, I realized that while these things are indeed present, there's a great deal more going on between these pages. Mr. Folkner isn't just telling us a story. He is presenting us with …

America.



3.

First, background. Folkner is one of that vanishing breed, an American industrial worker. He lives in one of the grimy, factory towns he describes. He earns his daily bread by operating a complicated machine that shapes metal. He lives with the very real threat that someday his livelihood will vanish. Such is the fate of the American Man (and Woman) in our postindustrial age.

Yet he is also an educated man…largely self-educated, but thoroughly so. He has spent decades reading history and literature, art and science. He observes his world, and our world, with a trained eye.  (He reminds me a little of that other great autodidactic, Eric Hoffer, who worked the docks during the day, and produced brilliant philosophic treatises at night. Naturally, the Learned and the Wise have never forgiven Hoffer. I wonder if Folkner will be as little loved by the Academy.)

And I should have thus seen what he was up to just from my knowledge of his biography. But, I really didn't get it …didn't understand how completely I'd misjudged Something For Everything …until I heard a quote about the book. Among of its early readers was one of Mr. Folkner's co-workers. The friend loved the book because, he said, he "identified with the Bradley Hollenger character [since he] himself grew up in a crumbling, decaying part of Minneapolis."

And that's when it hit me. Where are these people living? I mean, Folkner's characters? These two boys and their families? Not Hollywood or Beverly Hills. Not southern Manhattan or the Gold Coast. Not the centers of American wealth and power where, logically, a writer would put a Faust story (or, at least, have his characters drift towards).

No. They are in a dirty, grim, rust-belt city…where layoffs and pink slips are the norm, bitterness a given, and despair a way of life.

They are, in short, confined in that greater prison of our collective soul—postindustrial America. They are our analogs and designates, or metaphors and surrogates, our body-doubles…the boys (and girls) we were once or are now, taught to believe that the world was ours for the taking if we only worked hard enough and followed the rules, only to find that the world has (somehow) been snatched away from us at the very last minute.



4.

Thus, you can find Bradley Hollenger and Ricky Stromberg on the streets of any American city or town…and, increasingly, on any campus. The middle class withers, jobs flow overseas or to machines, the young discover they are unemployable, and the aged become desperate.

And what takes the place of hope in such a world? When so little is genuinely offered to us? Consumer goods, of course. Or rather, the wish to have them. Day and day out, we are presented with a barrage of images…on TV or in movies (product placements) or on the web…of Things We Are Told We Really Want (but actually can't afford). Cars and watches, jewelry and clothes, electronic and other toys, these crowd in upon our consciousness and corrupt our very souls.

And in this postindustrial age of poverty and want, who are our heroes? Who are the people we are told to admire? They are no longer the creative or the forceful. Rather, they are champions of consumption. They teach us not self-discipline or wisdom, but rather what and how to buy, regardless of the cost. Somehow, by some mysterious and terrible process, the Kardashians have become our gods, the Beverly Hills Housewives are the captains of our souls…

And who are Mr. Folkner's deadly twins? The Two who come to tempt the boys? Is it not obvious? Is it not plain? They are those men and women who stand glittering and lovely on the brand new flat screen 3D display, offering us all that we desire (so long as they get to define what it is we want).

Ah, but there's the rub. If we should, somehow, obtain those goods and toys, we find they are unfulfilling. We find that they do not ease that horrible ache within us. Indeed, we find that possessions leave us desiring more than ever, like the junkie who cannot quite get enough of his injection, or the compulsive eater who can never get her fill. We feel the emptiness within us, so we buy to fill it, but those purchases leave us more hungry than before, and so we must buy more.

And so on, unto the grave.



5.

And so we come to the deeper meaning of Mr. Folkner's book. He comes to us not just as a novelist but also a fabulist and an educator. What he is telling his readers, and particularly the younger ones, is that postindustrial consumer society is a trap. It offers everything…all the marvels of the material world…but it delivers nothing.

Indeed, possession becomes a kind of, well, possession. We buy possessions for the sake of buying, and somehow we become possessed. We are possessed by the demons of consumption. Purchasing  becomes a religious duty. The career becomes all important. The paycheck (a large one) is more vital than the self. Family, friends, artistic and personal expression, quiet contemplation, all wither before the demands of the credit card.

This is Folkner's warning. Pay heed, he says, to what really matters. And what really matters may not be what you are told you desire.

It may be, in fact, the exact opposite of what you hear on TV, of what you read about celebrities, and what appears (sparkling and golden) when you click links on Web pages.

Thus Mr. Folkner's message to the young, and, yes, to us all.

Still, there's one other point I need to raise about him. If the above was all he achieved, then Folkner would have done the reading public a service. But he goes beyond that. He is no mere Cassandra. He does not simply point out the problems of the world.

He offers a solution. To wit, he offers Voltaire.



6.

Probably the most famous words that Voltaire ever put to paper come near the end of his Candide. You know, of course, the tale. After long years of disappointment, the young Candide realizes that only by tending to one's affairs may we achieve something like utopia: Il faut cultiver notre jardin.

What Folkner says is like that. Only, he tells us, by resolutely avoiding the temptations of excessive consumption, or grandiosity and megalomania, can we find something like happiness.

To live, we must turn our backs upon the Twins and the more obsessive aspects of consumer society. We must learn to see their offerings (their bait) as being the shining but empty dangers they really are. We must learn not to fall for their scam. Their deadly, addictive, hollow gifts.

We must, in other words, cultivate our own garden.

And there, of course, is where Folkner is at his most important. His message is vital. He tells us the postindustrial age is not pleasant. We have been badly cheated. We labored long decades… generations!...to make America great. We invested our talent, our sweat, and yes, our blood.

But, somehow, somewhere along the way, a tiny elite took away the value that we'd worked so long to create. Wealth was shifted wholesale from the middle class to the rich. Jobs were "out sourced" and "off shored." Our present was made grotesque and our children's futures were stolen. And then, to add insult to injury, those who have taken the most from us have announced that it was, after all, our own fault; that if only we weren't lazy and stupid, like "the 47%," then we wouldn't be in this mess.

Folkner, however, tells us…No. He says Pay No Attention To Them. He says work, yes, but work for your own well-being and that of your family, your friends, and your community. Work, but expect only small changes, little changes, and…given enough time, maybe generations…eventually that grim, post-industrial city will become once more shining and wonderful.

And the Great? The Powerful? The Twins? Those who stole our heritage and now consider us parasites and fools?

Well, one day, they may look up…look away from their toys, their Lear Jets and Penthouses…and realize (OhMyGod!) that they are utterly irrelevant. Utterly without purpose. Utterly unimportant.

And forever exiled from the Garden.


~The Editors


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