Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Human Sacrifices: are they Coming Back for Giorgia Meloni?

 

The victory of Giorgia Meloni's party in the recent Italian election has generated a wave of hate on social media, with many people showing on their social accounts pictures of the dead body of Benito Mussolini hanged upside-down in a square. A clear message to Ms. Meloni, and a reminder for all of us of how nasty people can be. It is a characteristic of all human societies that, in periods of heavy stress, the removal of a high-rank leader may take the shape of a human sacrifice. The most common victims are men, but in the direst situations, women may take the role of sacrificial victims. Ms. Meloni is at risk of becoming a sacrificial victim, the scapegoat that Italians will search for when, this winter, they'll find themselves freezing in the dark.


In the Iliad, we read about the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the daughter of King Agamemnon, performed to propitiate the travel of the Achaean fleet toward Troy. After having destroyed Troy, the Achaeans repeated the ritual, this time with a Trojan girl, Polixena, daughter of King Priam. Both were high-rank women for whom we could use the term "princesses."

In "The Golden Bough," (1890), James Frazer noted how a high-rank victim makes the sacrifice more valuable and more effective to appease the dark deities to which it is dedicated. So, the victim may be raised to the role of "king" just before being killed: groomed, exalted, showered with gifts, and made to access the best goods available. The typical victims are men, probably because young males can be considered expendable, whereas the reproductive value of a young woman cannot be replaced. oWhen things are truly dire, though, "queens" may be sacrificed, too, as especially valuable victims -- much more valuable than men. 

Human sacrifices are often not explicitly recognized as such by those who perform them. For instance, the ancient Romans strongly condemned human sacrifices but they performed them abundantly in the form of bloody and cruel executions. Think of the killing of the Jewish leader named Yeshua bin Yusuf by the Roman government in Palestine, ca. 30 AD. On the cross on which he was nailed, there were the words in Latin "Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum." It was supposed to be a mockery, but it is also true that Yeshua was of a noble Jewish family, so he was a king or, at least, a prince. 

Moving to our times, we, like the Romans, strongly condemn human sacrifices. But, like the Romans, we may indulge in bloody sacrifices much more often than we are willing to admit. The Christian roots of our view of the world originate from the slaughter of the Christian martyrs, starting from the 1st century AD. In more modern times, we can see World War One as a ritual slaughter of millions of young men, sacrificed to obscure and malevolent deities called "States." The most difficult moments of WWI also implied the sacrifice of Queens. One of them was Mata Hari, a famous actress and dancer, ritually sacrificed in 1917 in France. The same destiny befell the wife and the daughters of the Czar of Russia in 1918. 

World War Two had similar threads of ritual killing. The Japanese "kamikaze" fighters are a good example of how a society under heavy stress may punish its young men in a ritual of death. On the other side of Eurasia, the German government embarked on an elaborate mass murder program that involved the elimination of people considered inferior ("Untenmeschen"), Jews, Gypsies, and even German citizens. Not for nothing, the term "holocaust" is used for these mass exterminations. 

Another ritual killing of WWII was that of the Italian leader Benito Mussolini, in 1945, together with his lover, Claretta Petacci (in the image). Their bodies were hung upside down in a public square after a cruel ritual of beating and mangling them. They were the sacrificial victims designated to atone for the defeat that had nearly destroyed Italy and killed hundreds of thousands of Italians. Claretta Petacci was not responsible for the disaster, but she was killed, too. As it often happens in history, a young woman may be the ideal victim for the atonement that the sacrifice is about. 

And now, let's take a look at our times. If there ever was a society under stress, it is ours. We passed all the limits of survival: destroyed the old-growth forests, killed off large numbers of species, poisoned the atmosphere, depleted our mineral resources, eroded the fertile soil, polluted water and the atmosphere, set the planet on a path to irreversible warming, and a few more little things, including having deployed a sufficient number of nuclear warheads to wreck the ecosystem and, most likely, kill everybody. And we haven't renounced our beloved habit of making war against each other. 

Would you be surprised if we were to indulge in large-scale human sacrifices? We are not yet there, but the path seems to be traced. Have you noted how popular are "Zombie" movies? Take a look at them in light of what I have been saying here: don't you see them as a blueprint for the mass extermination of suburbanites? Truly, the fascination with this idea casts much light on what our society has in mind for the near future. We are not yet to the point of seeing the elites booking zombie-killing safaris in the suburbs of our cities. But other possible large-scale sacrifices are possible. I already mentioned how, during WWII, the German government hired the country's doctors to cull the undesirables. They complied, happily. That could be easily done in our times, too.

Human sacrifices, though, are not so much about numbers, but about the visible high status of the victim. Now, after the electoral victory of Giorgia Meloni in Italy, many people commented by publishing on their social accounts the images of Mussolini's dead body and of his lover Claretta Petacci. A clear message to Ms. Meloni.  

For sure, Italy is going toward a difficult period. With the supplies of natural gas cut, this winter Italians are going to find themselves freezing in the dark, and without a job. Whoever will be leading the country at that moment, risks being deemed responsible for the disaster. And it is also true that people can be extremely nasty when they are in a dire situation. 

Look at this image with Giorgia Meloni's face upside down. It is reported to have been taken in Torino during the electoral campaign of 2022 in Italy. "Fasci Appesi" means "hang the fascists." Giorgia Meloni seriously risks becoming a new sacrificial victim to appease the dark Gods that humans have themselves created. I mentioned how the victims were exalted and turned into kings before killing them and we might even imagine that Meloni was chosen as "queen" for exactly this purpose by the subconscious societal mindsphere. 

Several commentators, in Italy, have expressed the same idea, although not in terms of human sacrifices, but simply in terms of political expedience. In this interpretation, the hastily organized election of September had exactly the purpose of placing at the top a figure that will act as target for the ire of the population, when Italians will actually realize what it means to be without electric power. The term "scapegoat" has been correctly used. It doesn't mean that Ms. Meloni will be shot and hanged by the feet. Simply, that her rapid demise as a leader will lead the way to an authoritarian government that will impose draconian (a word charged with meanings) measures on the Italian population. On the other hand, Meloni may also do better than expected and succeed in spite of everything. Who knows? Good luck, Giorgia, because you'll need a lot of it.  

 
Curiously, and independently, Jon Rappoport published an article mentioning human sacrifices on the same day as I was publishing this post

   

Saturday, September 24, 2022

The Best Piece of Propaganda Ever Written

 


Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961) was Benito Mussolini's lover, confident, and mentor from when they met in Milano in 1911. Sarfatti was a Jewish intellectual, an artist, and a writer. But she was three years older than him and, with time, her influence on him started to fade. In 1933, Mussolini took another woman as mistress, Claretta Petacci, 28 years younger than him, and, in 1938, Sarfatti was forced into exile. 

Margherita Sarfatti is sometimes credited with having "created" Mussolini's public image. It may very well be: Sarfatti understood perfectly the mechanisms of political power and she was a master propagandist. As an example, here is a piece she wrote. I do not hesitate in classing it as one of the best pieces of propaganda ever written. Think how the story of the invasion of Ethiopia was a brutal attack against a poor country that had no way to match the forces that the more powerful Italian state could muster. Ethiopia had no capability of harming Italy, its inhabitants were innocent victims of a plot that saw the great powers maneuvering one against the other. But, here, Margherita Sarfatti manages to embellish and transform the story into a true saga. A larger-than-life Mussolini who acts with wisdom and intelligence against treacherous adversaries. Savor it in all its details: it is truly a masterpiece if you remember that propaganda is aimed at simple minds using simple concepts. 



A MAN AND AN EMPIRE

XIV

ACCOUNTS TO BE SETTLED

When the Abyssinians came upon us treacherously at Uol-Uol, the Duce curbed his anger and said: "in Geneva in Switzerland, there is the league of nations that we Italians also founded, so that justice and good agreement between the peoples may be created. Let's hear what they think to do in Geneva to give us satisfaction "

Instead, Geneva washed her hands in her lake: "I don't know anything, the rifles may have fired by themselves". "Oh yes?" said The Duce. "Is this your way of understanding justice? It is no longer the time to make fun of Italy, now we are in the 15th year of the Fascist era".

And he called all the generals of land and air, and the men of the sea, and said, "We must settle old and new accounts with that land of wild slaves. This is the coast of Africa, march down from the North and up from the South, and go and get me all of Ethiopia, with the capital Addis Abeba. I will take care to provide you with men, weapons, ships, orders, and food".

"All right," said the admirals and the land and air generals. "It will be done. Long Live The Duce! Long Live The King!" And all the young men of Italy ran under the tricolor flag with the insignia of the Fascio Littorio, to volunteer in Africa for Italy.

Margherita Sarfatti


UN UOMO E UN IMPERO

xiv

I CONTI DA REGOLARE

Quando gli abissini ci vennero addosso a tradimento a Uol-Uol, i Duce frenò la collera e disse: «A Ginevra nella Svizzera, vi è la Società delle Nazioni che abbiamo fondato anche noi italiani, perchè metta la giustizia e il buon accordo fra i popoli. Sentiamo cosa pensano di fare a Ginevra per darci soddisfazione »

Invece Ginevra si lavò le mani nel suo lago: «lo non so niente, i fucili avranno magari sparato da soli». «Ah si?» disse il Duce. «È questa la maniera vostra di intendere la giustizia? Non è più il tempo di prendere in giro l'ltalia, adesso siamo nell'anno XV dell'era fascista». 

E chiamò tutti i generali di terra e d'aria, e gli ammiragli del mare, e disse: «Bisogna regolare i conti vecchi e nuovi con quel paese di schiavi selvaggi. Questa è la costa dell'Africa, Marciate in giù dal nord e in su dal sud, e andate a prendermi tutta l'Etiopia, con la capitale Addis Abeba. A darvi gli uomini, le armi, le navi, gi ordini e i viveri penso io».

«Va bene», dissero gli ammiragli e i generali di terra e d'aria. «Sarà fatto. Viva il Duce! Viva il Re!» E tutta lo gioventù d'Italia correva sotto la bandiera tricolore con l'insegna del Fascio Littorio, a battersi volontaria in Africa per l'Italia.

Margherita Sarfatti

 

Friday, September 2, 2022

Face Masks, the War, and the Virgin Mary of Prato

 



This image can be found in the Church of St. Joseph in the city of Prato, near Florence, Italy. It was made in 1909 by an unknown author. Clearly inspired by Byzantine images, it doesn't attain the hieratic beauty of the ancient icons of the Virgin Mary, but it has a certain power that can't be missed. Amazingly, it has a cult of followers who write their thoughts on a notepad provided by the church. 


I was discussing with a friend a few days ago about face masks. We were commenting on the stunt of an Italian journalist who had himself photographed while swimming in the sea, fully masked. My friend said something like, "what's the point of even mentioning the subject? There is no evidence in the scientific literature that face masks have any effect in stopping virus transmission. That clinches it." I wasn't convinced. It is because, even in this scorching summer in Florence, some people still insist on wearing face masks in public. Mainly, they are children and old people. Just a few, but they do not disappear -- stubbornly sticking to their idea of safety. 

There came to my mind an anecdote about Niels Bohr, the famous scientist. Someone asked him, "how come that a serious scientist as you are keeps a horseshoe nailed above the entrance door of your home? Don't you think you should reject these old superstitions?" Bohr is said to have answered, "They say that it brings good luck even to those who don't believe in it."

I think that people who wear masks while walking in the open reason very much in similar terms: "you never know, it might help." It is the same philosophy of the people who say a prayer while being shelled in war. Unlikely to help but, you know, it might. 

So, about things you never know whether they could work, let me tell you a little story about myself. This Summer, I was walking in a former industrial area of the city of Prato, now mainly residential. Prato is not part of the standard tourist tours of Tuscany, but it is a city full of surprises, with its traditions, its monuments, its political history of workers' rebellions. 

I walked past a church. It didn't impress me with its "rationalist" style architecture, it looked like an industrial building.  But something made me retrace my steps and go inside. There, I found the image of the Virgin Mary that you see at the beginning of this post. Maybe not a masterpiece (and you won't find reproduced in the Web, anywhere), but touching in many senses. The Byzantines had found a way to depict the Virgin Mary in a way that no one who is not blind can miss. 



So, there was this remarkable image, but even more remarkable was the presence of a notebook where people were writing their supplications to the Virgin Mary. Sometimes written in uncertain calligraphy, normally very simple in their requests for health and happiness. Here is an example:



Not easy to decipher, but the first note asks for happiness for someone named (maybe) "Aurora." The third one is a single line saying, "please, holy Mary, make all of us be well." How could you criticize that?

Now, there is an obvious theological problem, here. Let's assume that the Madonna has the ear of the Almighty (her son, although just one third of it, or something like that). Then, why should she do or not do something depending on whether someone marks something on a notepad in a Church? If she is a good lady, as she is supposed to be, why does she need to be prodded in this way to bring health and happiness to people?

These are theological mysteries beyond my capability of answering. I can just tell you that, today, I took a decision. I went back to that church, opened up that notebook, and I wrote down my own supplication. It went like this, "please, holy Mary, could you stop the war in Ukraine? I understand that it is not easy, but maybe you could do something about that. And, by the way, if you have some spare time, you could keep the members of my family healthy. But stopping the war is more important. Thank you!"

Do I think it could work? Of course not. But you never know: the Holy Mary, mother of God, the Παναγία Θεοτόκος, may do things we can't even imagine. Could that depend on something that someone writes on a notepad? Who knows? The ways of the universe are mysterious, and the powers above us, the 𒀭𒀀𒉣𒈾, annunaki, are even more mysterious. So be it. 

And that's why we shouldn't criticize too much those who wear a face mask while swimming in the sea in August. Faith moves so many things. With just one problem. Whereas praying the Holy Mary has no negative effects on the person who prays, a face mask worn for too long may give you plenty of health problems. And I don't think you need any special theological savvy to understand that you shouldn't ask the Virgin Mary to save you from the damage you do to yourself. 

But so are human beings. Always full of contradictions. Look at this face mask -- up to not long ago on sale on Amazon. Do you notice the contradiction?


 

Thursday, August 4, 2022

One of Our Ancestors: Larthia Seianti



A realistic portrait of an Etruscan woman who lived maybe 2500 years ago. We can see her face, her eyes, her body: she looks like a robust woman, maybe a little overweight. She must have been in her forties when this image was sculpted, or maybe the sculptor chose to show her in that way. Because of that sarcophagus, we know her name: Larthia Seianti.

She is looking into a mirror while adjusting her hair. A natural gesture that makes her look like we might have met her, alive, just walking around. She lived and loved, she had her likes and dislikes, her habits, her preferences, her things that she carried around. Look at the details: the mirror, the embroidered belt, her armilla bracelets on her forearms, her elaborate earrings.

Larthia must have been a rich woman to afford that sarcophagus. It is hard to think that she could have imagined that her image would have been seen, reproduced, and discussed, more than two millennia after her last breath. Of her body, nothing is left but scattered all over. Yet, her legacy remains with us. She does look a lot like a friend of mine, living in Tuscany today. She and we are part of the same line of humans who lived and loved in Tuscany, the land of my ancestors.  



Saturday, July 2, 2022

Finding God in a Bad Novel.

 


I don't know how many novels have been written from the time when they started being popular, about two centuries ago. An estimate that I found on the Web says that some 129 million books in total have been published. Of these, probably half are novels. So, about 60 million novels. You could read all of them in less than 200,000 years if you could read one every day. Maybe God can do this, maybe he has already done this, I wonder how he feels about this mass of stories that his human children have been producing.

Lacking god-like capacities, my exploration of the novel world is rather haphazard, and the cover you see at the beginning of this post is a book that I found a few days ago on top of a pile of waste. Acting on the idea that whatever happens has a reason to happen, I took it home. I cleaned the cover, stained by a mysterious goo. And I read it. 

I don't know if this book was a message from God. If it was, it is difficult for me to decipher. Honestly, this book is rather bad. Let me say it better: it is truly, truly bad. 

The book was a translation of a novel originally titled "Lying in Bed," written by M.J. Rose. She seems to be an extremely active novelist, with dozens of books listed in her website. This one is difficult to find in the site but, using a few tricks,  eventually it appears. Apparently, Ms. Rose is a little ashamed herself of having written it.

What to say about this novel? Well, for one thing, it illustrates how difficult it is to write a novel, even for a professional. It is supposed to be a kind of erotic literature but, frankly, it is not much more erotic than a frozen mackerel. 

The protagonist, Marlowe Wyatt, is said to be about 30 at the time of the story, but she behaves more or less like a 16-year-old girl. We know a lot of what she does, what she eats, where she lives (in New York), where she has lunch and dinners, and where she has cappuccino and pastry. But, as a character, Marlowe is simply flat. She never shows a spark of life. She is supposed to have been shocked for all her life because she made love to her stepbrother when she was very young. I suppose it can be a shocking experience but in the novel we don't really feel it is relevant. It happened ten years before, come on, girl, get over it, stop reminiscing and move on! Another demonstration that no author can write a good novel unless he/she cares for the characters they create. 

The other characters of the novel are rather flat, too. We know plenty of details about them, but nothing that gives us a hint of what makes them move. The whole novel is supposed to pivot around a situation not unlike what we sometimes call the "commedia italiana" a romantic misunderstanding that the protagonists unravel only at the end. 

Here, the protagonist is supposed to make a living by writing erotic letters for her customers. A bit unlikely as a job, but in a novel it may be fine. Then, the main twist of the novel is that Marlowe writes letters for her friend Vivienne. Then, a new customer comes, Gideon, who clearly has also an erotic interest in Marlowe. The twist is that Marlowe doesn't know that she was writing love letters for Gideon to give to Vivienne, and to Vivienne to give to Gideon, while at the same time she (Marlow) is being courted by Gideon. 

It could have been an interesting plot, but the reader (nor Marlowe) is never given a hint of this triangle until the very end of the story. When Marlowe discover the trick, she is upset, but Gideon just says he had dumped Vivienne earlier on, and Marlowe says, "oh, then it is fine" -- end of the novel. 

And so, what did God want to tell me by letting me find that novel? Well, the ways of the Lord are many, but maybe He 8or She) will be clearer with the next novel.  



Tuesday, May 24, 2022

The Three Body Problem: Science Fiction is Alive and Well in China

 


Is science fiction dead? Probably not but, in the West, it doesn't seem to be feeling so well. At least, we are not seeing much in terms of innovation in the Western narrative sphere, apart from a streak of "ecological science fiction" in the stile of the movie "Avatar" (2009)

Yet, different cultures may be able to revisit and revive the old the Sci-Fi themes. This is the case of Liu Cixin and his novel "The Three-Body Problem" (2008), a remarkably original reworking of some classic sci-fi themes mixed in an original and challenging way.

So, I endeavored to read Liu's novel. To be honest, I was immediately put off by the first scene, where he describes in graphic detail the killing of a young woman. My first impression was that if a writer needs this kind of cheap trick to attract the attention of the readers, then he must be a bad writer. 

But no, the novel is not cheap stuff, nor the work of a bad writer. It is a rich and complex story that mixes different themes and that manages to keep the reader's attention with the gradual discovery that there is "something" out there, another civilization existing on a different star, and not necessarily a friendly one. Another thing that puts me off in novels is the use of flashbacks -- Liu uses them a lot, but in such a masterful way that they do not disturb the narrative flow. 

Liu's novel is, in many ways, classic in style and conception. It is a modern example of "hard" science fiction. You can find its sources of inspiration, first of all, in Asimov's classic "Nightfall." (1941), one of the novels that defined a whole genre. Asimov's tells us of a system with six stars, more than Liu's three, but we have the same problem for the best minds of the inhabitants of one of the planets of the system: discovering Newton's gravitational law. And also surviving the vagaries of a chaotic system where the dance of the stars has unpredictable effects on the life on the planets. 

Another source of inspiration for Liu's novel is Fred Hoyle's "The Black Cloud" (1957). We have some similar tropes in the plot: the isolated observatory that discovers an alien entity, the direct communications between humans and aliens, the military reaction to the aliens, and other details. And, of course, there is more than a hint of Arthur C. Clarke's ideas in the novel. 

Yet, Liu's novel is not just a repetition of old themes. It is original in many aspects. One is its "political" aspect, with the plot influenced by the events of the Chinese cultural revolution, and also its mirroring the concept of a "clash of civilization" with the Trisolarians playing the role of an aggressive enemy. The plot also makes extensive use of the "gamification" concept. In our time, we tend to learn much using simulations that, in some cases, may take the form of games. In "The Three Body Problem" much of what we know of the Trisolarians comes in the form of a full-immersion game played by the protagonists. 

So, as I was saying, a rich and stimulating story in terms of themes: Liu Cixin is an engineer, and he knows his trade. As a hard piece of science fiction, this novel is truly a masterpiece. 

How is it in literary terms? Well, it has defects, and not just a few. The plot has holes that could let the whole fleet of Admiral Zheng pass through. For instance, when the scientist Ye Wenjie receives the first message from the aliens, she understands it immediately. We may imagine that it is written in her language: Mandarin Chinese. How can it be that the inhabitants of a faraway star system speak Chinese?

Then, the characters of the story are mostly shallow -- not surprising: it is typical of hard science fiction. Ye Wenjie, the scientist, comes out as the most interesting character, someone driven by deep thoughts and a moral stance. The others, well, much less. A large part of the novel is seen through the eyes of Wang Miao, a nanotechnology specialist. He is as shallow as a character can be: he has no clear purpose in the novel except as a narrative focus. But, again, a hard science fiction novel is not supposed to tell us about the inner conflicts of its characters.

So, where is science fiction going? During the golden years of Western science fiction, there existed a parallel version in the Soviet Union: different in conception, but just as creative and interesting. Today, it doesn't seem that Russia or other former Soviet countries are active in science fiction. So, are scientific fantasies destined to be reborn in China? Maybe. For sure, the Chinese are exploring new ways in a field where the West doesn't seem to be able to innovate anymore. We can only say that literature is just like humankind. It keeps changing and evolving.