USABLE TRUTHS

6 2 Y U S A B L E T R U T H S I R V I N G F E L D M A N Assuming the high moral ground theirs by natural right, our lords and leaders, to complete their empire, busy themselves conquering the low moral ground. ‘‘Our fiduciary responsibility is to our stockholders,’’ their Jolly Roger unfurls its legend on the dancing wind. And they plunge ahead gaily, forced, on pain of prosecution, to exert their conscienceless greed. We keep telling the children we love them because, children ourselves once, we knew how dangerous giants are, and lived at the mercy of their whim. So long as there is one man left, this will be a man’s world. The women won’t have it any other way. In cities, it is startling to realize: everything is someone’s, everyone has something. One is always ready to throw the drowning man a towel. 6 3 R Praise that children know is undeserved leaves them feeling they will never deserve it. Defeated, they are cynical: value itself loses its worth – as do we who praised them. Great men ignore the canons of good taste; among the kinds of courage they possess is the courage to be banal. Too much irony gave him so strong a sweet tooth for bad tastes these became indistinguishably the taste of himself. Contrive a life through which you move unchallenged – and because no voice demanded, ‘‘Who goes there?’’ you are unable to say who goes there. Jealous, he rushed to kill before his jealousy, returning to love, should in its turn betray him. As with every other spiritual achievement, credulity must be earned – through the labors of obedience. His struggle with his material makes the maker. Solipsists, like bad lovers, summon us to be the substance in their self-caresses. ‘‘Talking points’’ are created not so much to persuade others as to spare the like-minded the embarrassment of having nothing to say. Emesis is not catharsis. Pantheism was possible when, down to its smallest detail, nature was benign. Now the planet is befouled, pollutant colludes with pestilent, and we Pan-diabolists tithe our crud to the Devil. Hitler set the bar for anti-Semitism so high every lesser antiSemite crawls gratefully under it. And today’s racists take shelter in the shadow of yesterday’s lynch mobs. Powerful, he needn’t be strong; powerless, she can’t be weak. 6 4 F E L D M A N Y Over how many years of defeat and for how many deaths had he controlled his tears so that, finally, he would weep in victory? The common ceremony of our era: outrage is anointed by levity. After her eloquent self-defense, the accused threw herself on the admiration of the court. She knows her immaculate strength – of dedication, of devotion – her unique power to make precious, to make worth beyond worthiness . She knows she is ignored where not despised. And she lives with this bitterest knowledge. Sometimes praise is just the lash playing nice. Burdensome authority always demanding we help it uphold its good opinion of itself – opinion it requires to mask its endemic precariousness. Punishment can not be refused, though mercy may be. Souls sold to the Devil are damaged goods. Not to worry. The Devil isn’t cheated: he pays up with second-hand life. This whole business is depressing. The finish line rushes at you faster than you run toward it. Ordered to do what he intended to do, then not he but an interloper did what he was doing. Cynics learn one thing so well it prevents their learning anything else. Testing the extent of his fool’s license to say anything, the shock jock spouts the taboo word while claiming the free speech a large society grants – within which the ancient rule of small groups persists: blasphemy ain’t funny. Ostracism exacted, enacted. If we remember the dead, they will not forget us. U S A B L E T R U T H S 6 5 R Messiah is belated, tarrying in every doorway, praying to each reluctant heart to consent to forgo its bitter...