Wallace Shawn

This small book by actor and playwright Wallace Shawn seems at first to be disconnected "thoughts" with headings like Murder, Night, and Anxieties. But some of the headings eventually start to repeat, and the section Upheaval (43 ff.) shows that the smaller pieces have been groundwork for the single long essay that comprehends the whole text. The essay is worked through to a point of closure in several subsequent pieces.

The scope of Shawn's meditation is global, although he inserts his show more personal situation and feelings. While it concerns what others might call "social justice," he uses the simpler and more shopworn "morality." He regards the imperialist domination and ecocide that have been the great products of civilization, and he ponders the possibilities and character of any course correction. He refers to economic elites as "the lucky," using homier diction and the sense of "fortunate" rather than "best," in what I read as a very fair assessment of human material conditions.

In 2017, the great wellsprings of organized violence seemed to be US empire on the one hand and Islamist resistance ("Bin Ladenism") on the other. The chill of the new cold war with its latest proxy conflicts had not complicated the picture. But I don't think the political analysis here has aged poorly. Much of it concerns phenomena repeated over long scales of time.

Shawn seems to understand that "If power asks why, then power is weakness" (CCXX II:31), and he is nevertheless resolved to ask why, despite little hope of an answer. This mental quest has reconciled him to a position "halfway to decadence" (64). He expresses gratitude to teachers who helped to orient him in this direction of renouncing the privileges that accrue from domination. He also remarks the attraction and hazards of vengeance, ultimately adopting a sort of fatalism--refusing to condemn others in order to resist adopting the role of punisher (cf. Liber XXX, pt. 6). show less

In Night Thoughts Wallace Shawn offers his ideas and opinions based on both his studies and his life experience. Those ideas and opinions are about the state of the world: physically, politically, and with regard to the idea of morality.

There is little to truly argue against as far as his observations are concerned. Only the most arrogant would claim that what came before has not affected what is currently, or that what came before wasn't built to a very large extent on the labors of those show more who were not justly compensated, if they were compensated at all. The real place where people can begin to disagree is with the very part that will determine the world's future: can an extremely large gap between the "lucky" and the "unlucky" be sustainable without destroying the world?

Shawn makes many points that will, and should, make the reader uncomfortable. He excludes no one from observation and then, even when pointing out the worst that the "lucky" have done, makes a case for not fully trying to make them some type of evil. He acknowledges their humanity at the same time that he acknowledges the humanity, often neglected, of the "unlucky."

Some will not reflect beyond the kneejerk reaction of defending their position in the world, usually by trying to diminish Shawn personally rather than refute his ideas. Some will say Shawn didn't take things into account in his assessment but they did not read the book very closely because Shawn does give credit where credit is due. He readily acknowledges what great minds and thinkers have done, but he also acknowledges that by treating some kinds of knowledge as lesser we diminish ourselves. But those with these kinds of responses are the ones not willing to reflect honestly so they claim, incorrectly, that Shawn simply didn't take into account or ignored the "greatness" of those who came before, when Shawn did no such thing. But weak minds make weak arguments, ignore them.

I would recommend this to anyone willing to try to grasp some uncomfortable truths as well as some uncomfortable ideas. The truths are pretty much irrefutable while the ideas certainly follow logically but are not the only ideas that could follow logically, and that is where the beauty of this book really is located. If you have honestly engaged and thought about what you were reading you will still be thinking about what you read long after closing the book. For those who truly believe they are exceptional because of where they happened to be born, or to whom, or any of the many other purely lucky advantages one can be born into, you may not like this book. It requires looking both inward and outward and doing so honestly. A belief in your exceptional status based on your luck pretty much means you will take offense to these truths.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss. show less

Just when I was beginning to think we had run out of provocative subjects, Wally Shawn has found a way to shake things up a bit. A world in which a man's best friend is his penis and animals can only eat members of their own species serves as the container for this political romp into magic realism. Certainly not for everyone, but I loved it!

Later.

It would be easy to see this in a bad light, dominated as it is by the experiences of André. André is rich, privileged enough to be able to afford a mid-life crisis where he doesn’t have to work and can travel the world rejecting everything he has so far achieved as an artist. Wallace, whom he is trying to convince that this is the right path, is a poor struggling playwright.

As André tells him it is bad to feel warm in one’s apartment in winter – how can one tell one is alive? show more -, Wallace says happiness for him is when his coffee in the morning, cold from the night before, doesn’t have a cockroach in it. And he means this, he isn’t being a smart-ass. When you are poor you find your pleasures where you can.

A nice juxtaposition. I was reminded of a friend of mine some months ago telling me that life is not about material complacency. She has a penthouse in the city and a house in the south of France, but that doesn’t mean she is wrong, of course. I immediately tossed my warmest coat.

We find a complex balance between the views of the two men and although people tend to side with Wallace, I think it is not as simple as that.

Rest here:

https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2015/08/18/my-dinner-with-andre-by-w... show less