Iconoclasm in the name of purging a civilization of its evils is not new, Angelo M. Codevilla argues, but it is a defining feature of what he calls “revolutionary totalitarianism”:

Always, millennial movements grow out of ordinary struggles. A few firebrands interpret the struggles radically, gather followers, and lead them along their own apocalyptic logic to bloody disaster. Social dislocations, as well as injustices, failures of leadership, and excessive expectations have been like tinder waiting for sparks. The crusades of the 11th and 12th centuries, the Church’s corruption in the 13th, the bubonic plague in the 14th, socioeconomic changes in the 15th, nationalism and the Reformation in the 16th—all spawned movements that shared characteristics with what, from the time of the French Revolution until our day, human beings have experienced as violent, revolutionary totalitarianism.

History records dozens of long-forgotten names of movements—Pastoureaux, Flagellants, Cathars, Free Spirits, Ranters—and of individuals such as Tanchelm, Gioacchino da Fiore, Thomas Müntzer, and Jan van Leyden. Their circumstances and modes of expression mean nothing to us. But their common characteristics are memorable because they are timeless and with us yet.

Almost invariably the leaders have been outcasts, or what Marxists call ‘lumpen-intellectuals.’ In the Middle Ages they were half-educated, dissident or apostate lower clergy. Their initial focus was some obvious evil. As often as not, they claimed heavenly messages or apparitions as their authority. Their audience was twofold: those who saw themselves as the evil’s primary victims and those who wished to shed their responsibility for it. To the former, the prophets promised redress and immediate relief, while to all, and especially to the latter, they promised a role in a holy enterprise. Some sort of confession of sin and cleansing ritual would follow. Some of these—the Flagellants’ self-abuse, for example—were bloody impressive. Most ritual cleansing, however, was symbolic.

Those who had undergone cleansing believed themselves so pure that they were no longer capable of sin. These elect believed they could, and even should, engage in the very practices that they had decried in others. Ridding the world of misbelief and misbelievers motivated the ritually purified elite. But the masses to whom they transmitted their mission dispensed with self-cleansing. They reduced the mission to killing their enemies. They would cleanse themselves as well as the world while entitling themselves to primacy and vengeance by wreaking destruction. Because the elect often lived luxuriously among their miserable followers, those whom they attacked often considered the latter to be the formers’ pawns—which, in a sense, they were. But all seem to have been seized by the same demons.

Our own generation’s ruling classes are seized by no demons. Instead, they are principally concerned with holding on to power, and short-sightedly regard the revolutionary movements as allies against their socio-political competitors. That is why today it makes sense to consider the violent masses, and to some extent even the purified elite, as in effect pawns of the ruling classes.

In other news: Jonathan Arac reviews Ralph Ellison’s letters: “This massive volume of letters, including a valuable, concise chronology at the back, illuminates how Ellison became the author of a great novel, and then what followed.”

Despite the care Gore Vidal took in preparing his legacy, it went horribly wrong: “The odyssey that Vidal’s remains took before their interment was no less dramatic. The writer spent many hours negotiating the details of his grave. From his villa in Ravello, Italy, he stipulated that his ashes be placed near an Augustus Saint-Gaudens sculpture commissioned by the historian Henry Adams, in memory of his wife, who committed suicide. This monument is the most visited site in the eighty-acre park, just across the street from the former Old Soldiers’ Home, where President Lincoln summered during the Civil War. Vidal, who made millions in real estate, understood its first three commandments: location, location, location . . . Like a pharaoh gilding his tomb, Vidal continued making legacy preparations: he commissioned his biography to be written in his lifetime by Fred Kaplan, who accompanied Vidal and Austen to the cemetery in 1994, to complete their final interment papers. Kaplan signed as their witness and later published a well-received book (Gore Vidal: A Biography), but, when the Times dismissed Vidal as a ‘minor’ writer in its review, Vidal fired off a letter to the editor, blaming Kaplan. He claimed, preposterously, that he thought he’d commissioned the biographer Justin Kaplan, not Fred Kaplan.”

Making sense of Japanese humor: “Naoki Matayoshi’s novel Spark created a media sensation on its publication in Japan in 2015. It sold over 3 million copies, was soon adapted for film, stage and a Netflix show, and won Matayoshi the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious award for new authors. Matayoshi is a well-known comedian and Spark, which now appears in a seamless translation by Alison Watts, is a semi-autobiographical report on the world of Japanese comedy. While there are undoubtedly some funny moments, its general atmosphere is serious, even gloomy.”

An Amazon adaptation of Iain Banks’s Culture series has been cancelled: “The estate of Iain Banks has blamed timing for the demise of a planned Amazon television adaptation of the late author’s beloved Culture series. The adaptation of the Scottish author’s sci-fi books was announced in 2018, when Amazon Prime Video acquired the global rights to a TV version of Consider Phlebas, the first Culture novel. The author’s estate was set to serve as executive producer, but in a statement to the Guardian on Wednesday, it said the ‘timing wasn’t quite right’ for it to go ahead.”

In other television news, PBS’s Ursula K. Le Guin documentary can be streamed for free until the end of the month. Watch it here.

Wagner in Hollywood: “The composer has infiltrated every phase of movie history, from silent pictures to superhero blockbusters.”

On visiting Venice without tourists: “Thinned-out tourism gives some breathing space for a healthier and more respectful relationship between visitor and place. Mass tourism, particularly when the lumbering cruise ships come in and tower over the delicate Venetian skyline, creates an extractive, box ticking attitude for the visitor and a mercenary mentality among the locals – pile those Chinese-made plastic souvenirs high, sell those defrosted pizzas for as much as you can get away with. This summer the traveller, if they can manage to visit at all, can afford to stay longer and develop a sense of belonging in the local area where they stay.”

Photo: Birds

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