Franz Kafka: The Trial - a review

Maybe you didn't care for my lukewarm take on Encanto? If so, see what you think about my lukewarm take on Kafka's The Trial! 

As I have said before (at point 4 here and again here), I am a fan of book reviews that give you an idea of what it is like to read the book. So, to practise what I preach, here goes. (More below the break.)

"Encanto" is a defence of colonialism

Encanto is the latest Disney animated family film. It's fine and it will entertain a young family adequately. Some people like it a lot. 

In short, it has: 

- Great animation. The technical standards for these sorts of thing nowadays are really very high. Many passages are great to watch. 

- An appropriate number of professionally delivered but (to my mind at least) instantly forgettable songs. The song and dance routines rely a bit too much on fantasy sequences for my liking, but tastes vary.

- A plot which doesn't really make sense. I won't go into details as that would spoil the story (read the summary on Wikipedia if you want) but the problem seems to be that the film's symbolism has overwhelmed the mechanics of the plot: one can see that things are happening in the physical world that echo what is happening in the family's personal relationships, which is all well and good, but quite how those things are happening in the physical world - what is causing what, what the rules of the magic power are - is not really explained. 

But what I found most striking is the underlying values of the film. This is a Disney film, which is to say that it is carefully and respectfully made with an intention to offend no one and to please as many people as possible. It is set in Colombia and duly cast with Hispanic/Latino/Latinx actors. The design of the clothes and locations is based on diligent local research. It's all meant to be a celebration of Latin American culture.

And yet it somehow ended up being a celebration of colonialism. Let me explain. 

The story starts with a family from outside the area coming to settle in a new part of south America, i.e. colonisers. (They are fleeing persecution, as the Pilgrim Fathers were.) The family has special powers denied to other people who live in the area, i.e. they have technology inaccessible to the natives. These magical powers includes phenomenal strength - the settler family has "power" in a quite literal sense. The special family has a big house and a better standard of living than their neighbours, and they essentially run the local society. All of this is presented as a Good Thing because they have the special powers that they brought with them and because they are generally well-intentioned. Wikipedia tells us that they "serve the villagers", which is broadly correct, but they do from a position of status and comfort which is more reminiscent of colonial officials than, say, Mother Teresa, and they spend most of their time concerned with their own affairs rather than those of the locals. The local community celebrates feasts that are particular to the powerful local family (their children's coming of age): they are invited to the big house to do so and are entertained as a form of noblesse oblige. Intermarriage between the locals and the dominant family is permitted, but the outsiders, whether male or female, must join and support the ruling family and they do not exercise any power within the family. When something bad happens to the dominant family - as it does, towards the end of the film - we are shown that it is only right and fitting for the locals to band together to make it good at no cost to the family. The moral of the story seems to be that the family should stick together in order to maintain the special magical powers which give their special status in society. Any idea that members of the family should leave their comfortable compound, or that they should mix on level terms with the locals, or that there might be dangers in having such great powers, does not arise.

I am not making any of this up. I am just describing the unquestioned premises of the whole film. And I am plainly describing the structure of a colonial society - as explained and justified by the colonial power itself.

All in all, it's pretty weird. The dominant family, and indeed the film as a whole, is matriarchal: the abuela runs the show, the main character is a teenage girl, the biggest and strongest characters are all female (including the physically biggest and strongest character) and the biggest male character is a bit of a weirdo who needs to be guided by women in order to realise his full potential. I can only assume that, in spending so much time freeing the film from any taint of old-fashioned Latin American patriarchalism, the makers took their eye off the ball and ended up making a rather old-fashioned justification of colonialism by mistake.

What happens now that people in the future will think is wrong? (II)

This post is about two things. Let's start with the shocker.

Kathleen Stock's reaction? "I still liked it better when you'd discover you'd been cooking a meal neither of you actually liked." Well, quite.

The article from which this passage is taken (read it here) is about the potentially growing reaction against the sex-positivity movement. There is obviously plenty that could be said on that topic, but I won't say it. I have a suspicion that articles in newspapers about young people's sex lives are rather like articles in English newspapers about the French upper-middle classes: they are dispatches from a foreign land, written for readers who have no easy way of checking the facts and who are expecting titillating details of a familiar kind, and so a certain degree of inaccuracy is to be expected as the price for delivering the required product. Just as no one would read an article that said that French men are uxorious to a fault while French women eschew cosmetics and buy all their underwear by mail-order from M&S, no one is interested in hearing that young men and women get along very nicely, thank you, and mostly talk about London property prices. (In this context, it is perhaps worth noting that the author of the article is over 50 and, so far as I can tell from Wikipedia, has been happily married for many years: when she writes about Billie Eilish, she is writing about someone who is a few years older than her son, not about her own milieu.)

Against that background of scepticism, I find myself asking: can this story possibly be true? It has strong urban legend vibes to it. But even if it not strictly true, the fact that it is presented as true in a reasonably reputable newspaper surely indicates something about the society we live in. Moreover, there are various other indications, from numerous sources, of related problems: scarcely a day goes by without seeing someone setting out a plausible complaint about dating apps, dating norms, consent, West Elm Caleb, fertility or just all of it (Mary Harrington on strong form - worth clicking through to the spreadsheet link). So, even leaving aside all of the details in the Guardian article, I think it is fair to say that something about relations between (among?) the sexes has gone awry.

 

The thought that came to me as I read the article was this: from time to time people wonder what we do now that will seem wrong to people in the future and here's an obvious answer.

My next thought was: haven't I written about that before? And indeed I have (hence the title of this post). Here is my first post on the subject, written in 2013. I think the post stands up pretty well in hindsight - have a read and see what you think.

Two points strike me on re-reading my original post now.

(1) I described the exercise of predicting the future's judgment on us as an "intellectual parlour game". I stand by that. But it was not a game I was expecting to be decided in my lifetime: when I came to make my own predictions at the end of the post, I based them on demographic trends and was thinking of what might happen in future generations. But the three predictions I made are looking pretty good less than a decade on.

My first prediction was that "Blasphemy will become regarded as a great moral evil. There will be essentially no constituency for protecting freedom of speech in order to allow blasphemous publications." I wrote that about 18 months before the attack on Charlie Hebdo and almost 9 years before a man was found guilty of posting a "grossly offensive" tweet about the death of Captain Sir Tom Moore (news story here). It's very odd to think that as recently as 2013 there was some doubt about whether there would be a constituency for protecting freedom of speech in the future. Life comes at you fast sometimes.

My second prediction was that there would be further restrictions on abortion. More of a long-term trend there, I suspect. But then again, would anyone in 2013 have predicted Texas' current laws on abortion? Surely the wave of the future, back in 2013, was going the other way? 

And if you don't think that something to do with sexual morality that happens in America can't travel across the Atlantic then go back to that Guardian article, go through each paragraph and see which bits are American and which bits are British - they are entangled as closely as Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and their snakes. Or just take the phrase "Laurie Penny ... who uses they/them pronouns": the earliest discussion I can find about this kind of use of pronouns on the Guardian's website is from 2015 - and that is in an article whose headline starts "Bruce Jenner ..." (! - better change your archive, Guardian, and pronto!) and proceeds in a manner that now seems rather quaint. Life comes at you very fast sometimes. (Also, see more on abortion below.)

My third prediction was that "decadence" would come to have a meaning outside the context of chocolate cake. Early days on that one, for all that Ross Douthat has been using the word as I predicted.

But in my years online since 2013 I thought I had noticed the word "degenerate" (the noun or adjective, not the verb) acquiring (or re-acquiring) the kind of meaning I had predicted. So I checked with reliable sources, namely Urban Dictionary and Know Your Meme, and this is what I got.

Urban Dictionary:

There you go. That entry comes from 2017: I don't think it would have worked in 2013.

A Know Your Meme search for "degenerate" turns up nothing for the word itself, but this is one of the results:

"It's Aborted TikTok is a viral TikTok video in which a girl goes to a doctor to supposedly find out the gender of her baby and reveals in a sign that "it's a… borted." The video went viral on Twitter in February 2020 and the TikToker revealed that the video was fake and she was going to the doctor because she was severely constipated. ... On February 8th, 2020, Twitter user @iheartmindy reposted TikToker @wren's video that has since been deleted (shown below). @iheartmindy captioned the video by saying, "There’s nothing I can say about this degenerate broad that won’t get me kicked off Twitter." The video gained over 14,000 likes and 3,800 retweets in six days."

Again, an interesting use of "degenerate". Note also the abortion context - what about 'my body, my choice'? Would anyone in 2013 have predicted that a social media network would give thousands of likes to someone criticising as "degenerate" a woman making light of abortion?

All in all, I feel that I was insufficiently bold in my predictions for the future. 

(2) The second point concerns alcohol. 

In my original post I discussed Kwame Anthony Appiah's moves in the intellectual parlour game concerning Prohibition and alcohol. I think it's fair to say that educated Western opinion has turned further against alcohol since 2013 (even ignoring Sue Gray's view that "excessive consumption of alcohol is not appropriate in a professional workplace at any time"). Post Liberal Pete makes the good point that the Right take the same view of alcohol as the Left does of cannabis: laughing off the very real evidence of the harms it causes as Puritan spoil-sportery that should be ignored in favour of a robust and manly libertarian instinct. (Indeed, if there is something small-c conservative in enjoying seeing a drunk person doing something silly, there is something small-l liberal in enjoying seeing a stoned person doing something silly: note that the sitcom Modern Family, widely accepted across the political spectrum, shows us both at different times.) 

I used the word 'manly' advisedly: there is something masculine in the ready acceptance that people will harm themselves and others by ingesting dangerous substances for fun. So I end with a final prediction, again informed by sociological rather than philosophical reasoning: as society becomes increasingly feminised, alcohol will become increasingly stigmatised. 

My feeling is that the full legalisation - in the sense of widespread acceptance - of hard drugs is not going to happen now. The downsides to the use of opiates, crystal meth and so on are just too evident. Marijuana has a certain wind behind it, albeit no more in the UK than it had back in Brian Paddick's day, and so the end state is likely to be an uneasy tolerance of, combined with distaste for, the use of alcohol and soft drugs. They will be ok for young men and the 'cooler' kind of young woman, but they won't be something for proper grown-ups to do. Instead, grown-ups will all be choking each other out of politeness. 

What are courts for?

The verdict in the Colston statue case has thrown the jury system into the public eye and made many people question whether it is a Good Thing. 

I'm not terribly worried about what the Colston case tells us. I think the justice system should be much more embarrassed about some other recent but much less well-reported civil judgments that I mention below. But I will suggest that looking at what has gone wrong in the civil justice system reminds us what courts are really for, and that reminds us why we might well want to stick with juries, despite their problems.

(More below the break.)

On not taking the hint

This is Julian Barnes writing about Penelope Fitzgerald. (It's from 2008: never say that I fail to keep up with current affairs.) He talks about being on a panel with her at York University, about 10 years previously. (This is truly hot gossip.) He asked her to inscribe a couple of her books, which she did, with much thought. He put the books away without looking at the inscriptions. He describes the journey back to London as follows:

Afterwards, we were driven to York station to travel back to London together. When invited, I had been given the option of a modest fee and standard-class travel, or no fee and a first-class ticket. I had chosen the latter. The train drew in. I assumed that the university could not possibly have given an octogenarian of such literary distinction anything other than a first-class ticket. But when I set off towards what I assumed to be our carriage, I saw that she was heading in a more modest direction. Naturally, I joined her. I can't remember what we talked about on the journey down; perhaps I mentioned the odd coincidence that we had both made our first hardcover fictional appearance in the same book (The Times Anthology of Ghost Stories, 1975); probably I asked the usual daft questions about what she was working on and when the next novel would appear (I later learned that she frequently lied to interviewers). At King's Cross I suggested that we share a cab, since we both lived in the same part of north London. Oh no, she replied, she would take the Underground - after all, she had been given this splendid free pass by Ken Livingstone. Assuming it must feel an even longer day to her than to me, I pressed for the taxi option, but she was quietly obstinate, and came up with a clinching argument: she had to pick up a pint of milk on the way from the Underground station, and if she went home by cab it would mean having to go out again later. I ploddingly speculated that we could very easily stop the taxi outside the shop and have it wait while she bought her milk. "I hadn't thought of that," she said. But no, I still hadn't convinced her: she had decided to take the Underground, and that was that. So I waited beside her on the concourse while she looked for her free pass in the tumult of her carrier bag. It must be there, surely, but no, after much dredging, it didn't seem to be findable. I was by this point feeling - and perhaps exhibiting - a certain impatience, so I marched us to the ticket machine, bought our tickets, and squired her down the escalator to the Northern Line. As we waited for the train, she turned to me with an expression of gentle concern. "Oh dear," she said, "I do seem to have involved you in some low forms of transport." I was still laughing by the time I got home and opened her books to read those long-pondered inscriptions. In The Beginning of Spring she had written "best wishes - Penelope Fitzgerald"; while in The Blue Flower - a dedication that had taken considerably more thought - she had put "best wishes - Penelope".

Is it just me, or is this the story of a polite woman trying to shake off a bore? 

I can just imagine how the conversation went. "Do you recall the Times Anthology of Ghost Stories? 1974, I think it was. No, I tell a lie: it was 1975. Or perhaps 1976. No, 1975. Anyway, there's a funny coincidence ..." and all the while Fitzgerald was looking out of the window thinking that it was surprising how far Peterborough was from York and wishing she had brought some crochet so she had something to do with her hands. 

Surely, she must have thought that, as she pretended not to be able to find her travelcard in her handbag, the penny will drop? I'm sure this busy young man has important things to attend to and he'll have to make his excuses and leave. But no!  

No wonder she dithered so long about dropping her surname from the second inscription. She rightly read him as a bit of limpet and worried that it would look like a blatant come-on. As he was travelling with her, she must have been scared stiff that when they finally reached her front door he was going to invite himself in for a cup of tea. 

Still, Barnes is perceptive on the writing side of things. He picks out this bit of hers, which did raise a smile:

The Annual General meeting of the Clapham Antiquarians passed off quite well except when I went down to the Church hall kitchen to help Mrs Smith (the treasurer's wife, in a green hat and cardigan) get the tea (for 47 famished members) she was having a crise de nerfs, she told me she'd been worrying the whole of the week about the tea for the meeting, and, do what I could, I couldn't get her to put on more than one kettle, so the tea had to be made in small relays and the Antiquarians, who'd already sat down and eaten all the cakes, were getting quite riotous. I brought some sausage rolls but as soon as Daddy started handing them round they disappeared, everyone said they fancied something savoury. Unfortunately I dropped off to sleep during the talk with lantern slides, so missed many interesting facts about Clapham . . .

(Every well-equipped church hall should have a tea urn, but I don't know how they arrange these things in Clapham.) 

Now I come to think of it, I wonder whether, as he tetchily marched her to the ticket machine in King's Cross, Barnes reminded Fitzgerald of one of these riotous antiquarians who needed to be calmed by copious quantities of sausage rolls. He'll invite himself in for a cup of tea, she thought, and then he'll eat my food in the wrong order, and I had been saving that cold pie for Daddy.  

Some lists you might want to look at

1. 52 things Tom Whitwell learned in 2021. This is a relatively well-known annual list, on fair but not brilliant form this time around.

2. 52 things Jason Kottke learned in 2021. Not bad at all.

3. 100 ways to slightly improve your life without really trying. (The not so good original from 2000 is here.)

4. Tyler Cowen's music picks for 2021.

5. 25 anti-memetic ideas.

6. Finally, my predictions for 2022. I did this in 2018, with mixed results. This time, just the predictions - no reasoning.

(1) Macron will be re-elected President of France.

(2) Boris Johnson will cease to be Prime Minister.

(3) Article 16 of the Brexit Protocol will not be triggered.

(4) No new British political party, whether centrist, Corbynist or other, will get any real traction

(5) The cool new thing in European politics will be pro-natalist policies. 

Promising Young Woman: analysis - and a solution?

I shall follow up my post on It's a Wonderful Life by writing about another, quite different film - Promising Young Woman (PYW). (As it happens, I watched PYW over the Christmas holidays but not IAWL: infer from that what you will.) 

PYW is a clever and funny film. Both I and the people with whom I saw it thought that it deserved a bit of mulling over and perhaps even a re-watch. I have now given it some thought, had a look at the screenplay and I think I have solved it, so to speak. 

My thesis is that PYW is rather similar to Parasite: PYW and Parasite are both films which seem to have been instinctively understood to be "savage" (or "searing") indictments of the evils they undoubtedly depict (in Parasite's case, social inequality, and sexual misconduct in the case of PYW) simply because they depict them, but both films are rather more nuanced than first appear. In Parasite, for example, the rich family has made its money honestly by carrying out socially useful work, they behave broadly decently and they are trusting, while the poor family has wasted their talents and the opportunities that society has given them in favour of a life of crime: whatever you think about the film as a whole (and it's more complex than that summary suggests), it's plainly not merely a corruscating attack on the rich oppressing the poor. 

My view is that PYW is similarly complex. I set out below my theory that it is about something a little different from its most obvious subject matter. 

A couple of warnings before I go on. First, this is not a film review. If you just want a decent review of the film then this one does the job: if you like the sound of it from that review then you will probably enjoy the film (as I did). Second, and related to my first point, in what follows below there are spoilers galore: please don't read on if you have not seen the film.