Monday, November 18, 2013

The Music Lives on Forever


   Throughout the centuries there have been many fine pianists and highly successful musicians, but encountering a genius either at a concert or through his music performed by himself or others is a very rare occurrence in most people's lives.  Listening to the compositions of such people can be a transformative experience and can touch your soul in a way that few others things can.

    One man who had such an extraordinary ability was Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).  Born in Russia and showing extraordinary talent at a very early age, Tchaikovsky went on to write three ballets, eleven operas, six symphonies, and numerous other works before dying in 1893.  For many people in the West he is known composing the music for “The Nutcracker”, a ballet which is very popular in the US during the Christmas season.  His music was also used in countless films and, thereby, became popular with many generations of people who might not otherwise have had the experience of or interest in hearing classical music.  For example, Disney used several pieces by Tchaikovsky in their 1940 film “Fantasia”. This film helped to introduce young children and parents to some of the finest pieces of classical music ever written by using them as accompaniment to the actions of various Disney characters.

    Tchaikovsky was not only a Romantic music composer, but he was a Russian Romantic music composer.  The influence of Russia on his music can be heard in many of his pieces.  For example, this is very obvious in his “Fourth Symphony”.   The influence of a person’s homeland on his music is certainly not limited to Tchaikovsky. The same thing could easily be said of Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninov (1873-1943). Rachmaninov died in Beverly Hills, California in 1943, but he was never simply a Russian born American composer.  In the case of both of these men their culture helped to make them into the composers they became.

     There have been several films done about the life of this musical genius.  In the 1950s, the Walt Disney Company produced a half hour film about “Peter Tchaikovsky”1 which was the first time a television show could be heard in stereo.  In 1969, Mosfilms, a Soviet film studio, produced the film “Tchaikovsky” which was nominated for an Academy Award for “Best Foreign Language Film” in 1971.  This film goes into a great deal more detail about Tchaikovsky’s life, especially the influence of Nadezhda von Meck (1831-1894) on his career.   Mrs. von Mack was his “silent” benefactress who was willing to help support Tchaikovsky financially on the condition that they never actually met face-to-face.

     Both of these films presented the Tchaikovsky’s life in a noncontroversial way.  There was some mention of his personal life, but much of the film focused on his work as a composer and his need silence the music which he heard in his head on a rather regular basis since childhood.  Neither of these films would be considered offensive by those who chose to show them to their children.  However, this statement cannot be made about the next film about Tchaikovsky’s life.

     “The Music Lovers” was a 1970 British film directed by Ken Russell.  The film includes at least two major factual errors. In one sequence, Tchaikovsky and his patroness, Mrs. von Mack, see each other on the road; the two never spoke, although their paths crossed once by happenstance in a park in Italy. Later, his wife, Nina, goes mad and is placed in an insane asylum, prompting the composer to call his Sixth Symphony the Pathetique, when in reality she was not institutionalized until after his death.2   

    If these two factual errors were the only major negative factors this film that would be fine; however, it did not stop there. Richard Chamberlain (b. 1934), a fine actor who later became popular in the US for his role in the television series “Thornbirds”, was cast in the title role.  His portrayal of Tchaikovsky could easily have given someone the impression that the composer was a mental patient instead of a genius musician. 

     A great deal of time was spent focusing on the alleged nymphomania of Tchaikovsky’s wife, Nina, and on the question of whether or not Tchaikovsky himself was a homosexual.  Was Russell attempting to make the point that there was a direct link to Tchaikovsky’s alleged homosexuality and his musical genius?   Should musicologists spend time researching if there was a direct link between Rachmaninov’s heterosexuality and his musical genius?  Most people would say, “That is absurd”, but it is not absurd to focus so much time and energy on the idea that Tchaikovsky was a homosexual. 

     “The Music Lovers” was an extremely strong agenda disguised as a film.  Pyotr Tchaikovsky heard music which other could dream of hearing and was able to put that music on paper so that these pieces will be heard by numerous generations long after we are gone.  At this moment, “Evgeny Onegin” is appearing at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, some one hundred and thirty four years after it was first performed in Moscow.  I sincerely doubt that most current pop songs will be remembered 134 years from now. 

     Musical preferences are highly individualized.  Some people may love opera or classical music while others might prefer jazz or country music.  While musical tastes differ, it is important that people who show musical talent be encouraged.  Parents play a major role in either inspiring or destroying their children individuality.  This is often done under the guise that either the parents know what is best for their child or the parents “meant well”, but the reality is that in many cases these parents are living their lives vicariously through their children with often very unhappy results. 

    Parents often insist that their children conform and not go against the prevailing societal code. Many parents staunchly believe in blind and mindless conformity. They believe that there is safety in following the prevailing and/or majority opinion. They contend that following the majority consensus offers a sense of belonging and security. They stress to their children that it is safer and more feasible to conform to the prevailing groupthink philosophy. They strongly discourage their children's strong individualism and nonconformity because it is believed that if their children refuse to conform to the prevailing groupthink, they would be considered oddballs or worse, being ostracized and alone. A worse scenario according to the parents, these children would be ostracized and denigrated by their neighbors and associates. So if their child/children dare to have a unique, creative, and innovative thought and idea, it is squashed and oftentimes considered outlandish and weird because nobody else thought of it! These parents are killing the dreams of a potential Tchaikovsky.3

     On October 28, 1893, Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Sixth Symphony the Pathétique in Saint Petersburg. Nine days later, he died there at age 53. While Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier, some have theorized that his death was a suicide.] Opinion has been summarized as follows: "The polemics over [Tchaikovsky's] death have reached an impasse ... Rumor attached to the famous die hard ... As for illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not know how Tchaikovsky died. We may never find out ....."4

    While there is a great deal of speculation surrounding the Tchaikovsky’s death, there is no such speculation surrounding his musical genius.  His contributions to classic music are still admired by audiences throughout the world.  It is entirely possible that he may have lived a difficult and even tragic life, but the mark he left will last forever. 

                                                           End Notes

1)    Disneyland - 5.16 - The Peter Tchaikovsky Story - Version 1” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTpaaEBbN84  (accessed 10/9/13)

2)     “The Music Lovers” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Lovers  (accessed 10/9/13)

3)     “Destroying Individuality: Making Everyone Mediocre” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2013/03/destroying-individuality-making.html (accessed 10/9/13)

4)     Wiley, Roland John, "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Illyich" In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 2001), Vol. 25: 169. 

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The Influencing of a Culture

   There are some people who have a profound impact on their friends and relatives, there are others who may have such an impact on their neighborhood, and still others who have such impact upon their entire nation, but it is a much rarer person who has such an extremely profound impact upon his culture that he is forever alive in the hearts and minds of numerous generations of people.  Such a man is Sherlock Holmes1.
   We know nothing about his upbringing, we do not know where he was born, nor anything about his education; however, we do know that he has a brother named, Mycroft.  He is a rather complex personality whose powers of observation and gift from deductive reasoning are profound. What we do know about this man’s life was made known to us by the writings of his friend and colleague, John H. Watson, M.D.. 
    Undoubtedly, someone will say to himself or herself, “Why is this person writing about Sherlock Holmes as though he was a real person?  He was the product of the imagination of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) and brought to life in the pages of Strand Magazine.”  This is important historical information regarding the creation of Holmes, but it does not explain the profound impact that Holmes has had on Western culture.
    No other character has been portrayed on television or radio more often than Sherlock Holmes.  While the original stories were set in Victorian England of the 1890s, a series of films based upon Holmes and starring Robert Downey, Jr. (b. 1965) were produced within the past few years.  There are numerous Sherlock Holmes Societies and he is popular in various countries.
     In 1937, the Germans produced their own version of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” and from 1979 to 1986, LenFilms, a Soviet film studio, produced a series of Sherlock Holmes films starring Vasily Livanov (b. 1935) as Holmes. This character was so popular in the Soviet Union that there is a statue dedicated to both he and Dr. Watson in Moscow.  In fact, there are many people who believe that the Holmes character who most closely resembled the figure in Strand Magazine was Vasily Livanov.  He matched the character both in appearance and character, according to many people.  Holmes is even extremely popular in China.  There is even a current American television series entitled, “Elementary” which is based upon the character of Holmes played by Jonny Lee Miller (b.1972) with Dr. Watson played by Lucy Liu (b.1968).
    It is quite interesting that there are even discussions, as mentioned above, regarding who did the best job portraying this character.  It is entirely possible for two people to get into a rather heated debate about whether the Sherlock Holmes portrayed by Basil Rathbone (1892-1967) was better than the portrayal done by Jeremy Brett (1933-1995).  Few, if any other characters, would inspire such loyalty in people that they would even be willing to debate such a topic as which person portrayed him or her in the best fashion.
    Also, “Sherlock Holmes of 221B Baker Street, London” continues to receive mail every year from people who turn to him for advice about a variety of topics.  If Holmes were not “real”, what would inspire people to write to him asking for advice after all these years?  If he was a real person he would certainly have passed away numerous decades ago and if he was simply the creation of someone’s imagination there is no “person” to actually write to.  However, you cannot convince those whose lives he has touched that Holmes is not “real”.
    In an earlier article I wrote about an American cultural icon, namely Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)2.  He was the “Father of the Detective Story” and, in a certain way, we owe Holmes creation to Poe since it was Poe who inspired Conan Doyle to write about these stories in the first place. Poe’s stories are still read today, but the “person” of Sherlock Holmes has transcended both time and space.  He was certainly one of the great icons of the 20th century and he continues to live on into the 21st century largely because he embodies a sense of fair play and justice which is not present in the lived world of most people. 
     For many people justice and fairness are not a part of their daily lived experience, but when they encounter the “person” of Sherlock Holmes they know that he will make everything right and restore that sense of fairness which they have lost.  This is not simply a nice idea, but actually serves to provide hope to many people.  Without a sense of hope it is difficult for many people to want to go on and Holmes helps them to see that there truly is hope after all.
                    
                                                                   End Notes
1.    “Sherlock Holmes” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes



Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Lev Tolstoy Goes to Hollywood

   Few people have had the impact on Russian literature that Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) has had.  His novels and short stories have been translated into numerous languages and people from various cultures are familiar with these stories.  Three of his stories including Anna Karenina, one of the greatest novels ever written, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Two Hussars were even made into American films.  These three films were all produced by British producer Bernard Rose (b. 1960). His adaptation of Anna Karenina was certainly not the only one produced for an English speaking audience, but it was certainly one of the best adaptations. 
    In this article I will look at these three films, namely “Anna Karenina” (1997), “The Kreutzer Sonata” (2008), and “Two Jacks” (2011).  I will examine these three films in order to see how faithful they are to the novels themselves and how well they correspond with one another. 
    The 1997 film “Anna Karenina” which stars Sophie Marceau (b. 1966) in the title role, is a very interesting adaption of Tolstoy’s novel.  It was obvious that Rose had borrowed several ideas from the 1948 film with Vivien Leigh, but he also added some new elements which were not present in the earlier films.  For example, the story, in this film, is told by Lev Tolstoy through the character of Constantine Levin.  However, some of the elements of the earlier films about this novel, such as the difficulties between Stepan and Dolly at the beginning of the film, are not present. 
    Sir Georg Solti’s (1912-1997) choice of music also had a profound impact on the film.  Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) Sixth Symphony, which he wrote prior to his own death, the choice of Tatiana’s aria from the opera “Evgeny Onegin”, and the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) helped to tell the story, even without words. For some reason, Sir George did not list this film among the films he is credited with serving as music director for.1  
    Eleven years later, Bernard Rose decided to produce a modern film version of The Kreutzer Sonata. This novella is believed, by some, to be Tolstoy’s argument in favor of sexual abstinence and against marriage.2 It also deals with the question of whether or not true love is possible.3  
     This film was a very interesting 21st century “American” approach to a 19th century Russian novella.  Set in Los Angeles, California, this film remains quite faithful to the story line of the novel; however, it can be seen as extremely pornographic, especially if one of the original themes of Tolstoy’s novella was the virtue of sexual abstinence.4  
     I have no objection to nudity in a film if it is used for artistic reasons, such as to enhance the storyline; however in this film the constant nudity almost became the storyline. 
     It is unfortunate that modern American films must contain graphic nudity, excessive killings, and/or massive explosions; otherwise they will not do well at the box office.  Some people will argue this is not true and point to the 2012 film version of “Anna Karenina” as an example. However, that film won an Academy Award for “Best Costume Design”, not for “Best Picture”.  Hollywood markets films in the same way cigarettes are marketed according to the late great Russian film director Andrei Tarkovsky (1932-1986) 5 What Tarkovsky said in the 1980s is even more true today.
     The third film is “Two Jacks” a 2011 film based upon an 1856 short story entitled Two Hussars by Tolstoy.  There was also a 1984 Soviet film entitled “Two Hussars” which was also based upon this short story.7  In the original story the reader is meant to understand that the son is not only a different generation than his father, but that this later generation has actually become worse.  This insight was made quite clear in Bernard Rose’s 2011 film; however, it was not as clear in the 1984 Soviet film. 
      In the 1984 film the father and son were both played by the same actor (with an implied time lapse in the film) and it was difficult to understand why the son was less likeable than the father.  However, this was more obvious in the 2011 film. 
      Danny Huston (b. 1962) plays “Jack, Sr.” and his nephew Jack Huston (b. 1982) plays “Jack, Jr.” and it is somewhat easy to see why Jack, Sr. was a much more likeable character than Jack, Jr.  The movie begins with the audience being introduced to Jack, Sr. at the airport and the film ends with Jack, Jr. at the same airport (in the same terminal) twenty years later. 
    This was the third time that Rose included Danny Huston in one of his films. In addition to playing Jack, Sr. in this film, Huston also played Stepan, Anna Karenina’s brother, in the 1997 film and he played the main character in “The Kreutzer Sonata”.  It would appear that Bernard Rose is quite impressed with Danny Huston’s acting ability. 
     Each of these films remained quite faithful to the novel or short story they were based upon.  These three stories explore very important issues which are still as relevant today as they were when they were written in the 19th century. With the current divorce rate at over 50%, many young people ask themselves if true love is really possible. 
    In Ezekiel 18 it is written, “The father eats green grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”  What the prophet Ezekiel is saying that the actions of the parents have a direct impact on their children.  Another phrase we often heard used is “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”.  Based upon “Two Jacks”, both the quote by the Prophet Ezekiel and the apple are still quite true.  Lev Tolstoy was a deeply religious man and he may very well have had the Bible quote from Ezekiel 18 in mind when he wrote Two Hussars.
      Bernard Rose showed us that the same personalities which could be found in Anna Karenina, The Kreutzer Sonata, and Two Hussars are still very much alive today.   This is a hallmark of classic literature and it is wonderful that this producer was able to introduce these stories by Lev Tolstoy to an audience who may have been familiar with only Anna Karenina and War and Peace.    
                                                          End Notes

1)    Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2013/03/anna-karenina-cinematic-journey-on.html 

2)    The Kreutzer Sonata” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kreutzer_Sonata  

4)    “The Kreutzer Sonata (2008 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kreutzer_Sonata_(2008_film)  
5)    Andrei Tarkovsky: A Poet in the Cinema (1983) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTvIybrtMqU (47:55)
6)    “Two Hussars” http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Two_Hussars




Saturday, April 20, 2013

Film Adaptations of Classic Russian Novels

  There has been a long history of adapting classic Russian novels to film in the English speaking world.  These classic novels by authors like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pasternak, and others allow an English speaking audience to enter into a world with which they are completely unfamiliar and see that the issues which these people face are dealt with all over the world. 

   In this article I will look at the 1935 American film adaptation of “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the 1956 film “War and Peace”, “Brothers Karamazov” (1958), the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago”, and the 2002 BBC adaptation of “Crime and Punishment”.  I will examine several films and television series about classic Russian novels in order to see how faithful they are to the novels themselves and how well they correspond with one another. 

  Joseph von Sternberg (1894-1969) directed “Crime and Punishment”1, a 1935 film based upon the novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This film starred Peter Lorre in the title role as Rodin Raskolnikov (his first name was changed to Roderick for an American audience).  This film bore little, if any resemblance, to the novel.  In fact, the director was so disappointed with this film that he does not list it among the films he is credited with directing.         

    What was America’s fascination with classic Russian literature that in a span of two years, from 1956 to 1958, both War and Peace by Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) and “Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) were made into films?  The American people would have known very little about Russia in 1956.  Both countries were in the middle of the Cold War and there was a great deal of propaganda on both sides regarding how horrible the other country was.

    The 1956 film “War and Peace”2 starred Henry Fonda as Pierre Bezuhov and Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova (the two main characters).  This film does not cover every aspect of Tolstoy’s original novel, but focuses on the relationship of three of the main characters.  Very early in the film there is a scene where Pierre is getting drunk with a group of friends.  This scene contains every almost every possible Russian stereotype, except for a dancing bear.  At one point in the scene one of the characters is standing backward on the window ledge and facing inside the room.  He begins to bend over backward while drinking a bottle of vodka.  Apparently, the winner was the person who could finish drinking the vodka without falling out of the window.  Other than feeding into a Russian stereotype, what was the point of this “game”?  This scene is not in the novel; however, the director, King Vidor (1894-1982) felt it necessary to put it in the movie.

    The costumes are wonderful.  In typical Hollywood style of the time, the film makes everything appear almost larger than life by virtue of the camera angles.  This film has a wonderful cast of actors, but financially it was unsuccessful.  It earned only $250,000 for the studio. A large part of the reason might have been that this was an epic film about a Russian novel.  Americans did not normally watch epic films, particularly those about Russian novels.

     It is not that Americans were opposed to epic films.  In the same year that “War and Peace” was completed, Cecil B. DeMille completed “The Ten Commandments” for a different studio.  “The Ten Commandments” is also an epic film, but the story of Moses would have been much better known by an American audience. 
     Two years after the completion of “War and Peace”, Richard Brooks (1912-1992) directed “Brothers Karamazov”3.  This movie is based upon a novel of the same name by Fyodor Dostoevsky.  The novel tells the story of three brothers (Dmitry, Alexei, and Ivan) and their relationship with each other and their father, Fyodor.  It is also a “murder mystery” since Fyodor is killed and the reader must determine who committed the murder.

     Fyodor Karamazov (played by Lee J. Cobb) is not a very likeable figure.  In the one of the first scenes in the film, the audience is introduced to Fyodor Karamazov after he has tied a woman to his bed and is interrupted because his son, Alexei (film debut for William Shatner) has arrived at his home.  Fyodor is a rather boorish man who seems to respect Alexei only. 
      In the novel, Dmitry Karamazov sees himself as being a rather foolish person and his actions reflect his belief about himself.  In the movie, Dmitry (played by Yul Brenner) comes across as a rather self-confident, if not arrogant, person.  He constantly borrows money from his father and this has become a source of tension between the two of them since Dmitry never paid back what he borrowed. 

     Another character is Smerdyakov, half-brother to the Karamazov brothers and son of Fyodor.  Smerdyakov is treated very poorly by Fyodor Karamazov in the film.  Dmitry is accused of murdering Fyodor; however, Smerdyakov confesses to Ivan Karamazov (played by Richard Basehart) that he killed Fyodor. Dmitry is put on trial for murder, but, instead of Smerdyakov confessing in court that he killed Fyodor, he kills himself. 
     In both the novel and film, Dmitry is convicted of murdering his father.  However, in the novel he accepts his fate and considers himself to be a martyr for love.  After being convicted of murder, Dmitry is sent to prison in Siberia and the woman he loved went to be with him in Siberia.

     The film shows Dmitry deciding to escape rather than board a train bound for Siberia.  He became a fugitive and the rest of the film deals with the topic: “Will Dmitry escape from Russia?”  What was the reason why Richard Brooks decided to add this into the film when it was not in the novel?  We do not know.  It is possible he did so because of the lack of justice in Dmitry’s conviction.  He was wrongfully convicted and should be able to escape rather than going to prison.  The movie ends without the audience knowing if he ever escaped from Russia. 
    It is also interesting that Yul Brenner is the only person in this film who had any connection to Russia.  He was born in Russia, but lived most of his life in either the US or Western Europe. 

    Another Western adaptation of a classic Russian novel was the 1965 film “Doctor Zhivago”4 starring Omar Sharif as Yuri Zhivago.  This film was based upon the novel of the same name by well-known poet, Boris Pasternak (1890-1960)5.  This novel was first published in Milan in 1957. Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 for Doctor Zhivago, but was forbidden to attend the award ceremony by the Soviet government of Nikita Khrushchev. 

    This film continues to be extremely popular.  Like “War and Peace” this was an epic film, but it was much more acceptable to an American audience.  Perhaps it was simply the period of history when this film was made or the strong love story plot of the film, but it earned over $100,000,000 for its studio.  In the US, the success of a film is based largely upon the amount of money that the film earned rather than the depth of the subject matter. 

     Pasternak depicts Lara as an almost unscrupulous woman who uses her sexuality to obtain what she wants from life, but in the film David Lean (1908-1991), the director, presents Lara (portrayed by Julie Christie) as more of a victim.  In the 2006 Russian TV series “Doctor Zhivago”, Lara is not a very likeable character.   
     Since this film was released in 1965 and the US was still involved in the Cold War with the USSR, David Lean did not spend as much time focusing on the events of the Russian revolution as Pasternak did.   The love story between Yuri and Lara is what made this film successful along with the beauty of the Russian scenery which an American audience would never have seen in person.

      A very good English speaking adaptation of a classic Russian novel was the 2002 TV mini-series “Crime and Punishment” produced by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC). This series was extremely faithful to the novel.  The BBC felt no obligation to change the story line in order to adapt this novel to television.  This is much easier to do with a mini-series since it continues over several episodes instead of a film which only lasts for a few hours, at most. 
    Since I wrote about the various adaptations of Anna Karenina by Lev Tolstoy (1828-1910) in another article6, I have decided to forego writing about it here.  One important fact to remember is that no other novel has had more film adaptations made about it than Anna Karenina. 

    Attempting to turn a novel into a film while, at the same time, remaining faithful to the original novel is not an easy process; however, this is very important. Poetic license does allow for some changes, but how many changes can be made before a movie is no longer connected with a particular novel?  I once heard it said, “Never judge a book by its movie”7 and there is a great deal of truth in that statement.
                                                          End Notes

1)    “Crime and Punishment: (1935 American Film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment_(1935_American_film) 

2)    War and Peace (1956 film)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_and_Peace_(1956_film)


3)    “The Brothers Karamazov (1958 film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brothers_Karamazov_(1958_film)

4)    “Doctor Zhivago (film)” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Zhivago_(film)

5)    “Boris Pasternak” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Pasternak

6)    “Anna Karenina: A Cinematic Journey on the Silver Screen from 1927 to 2012” http://heideggerm1.blogspot.com/2013/03/anna-karenina-cinematic-journey-on.html  


 

 

  

Friday, April 5, 2013

No Substitute for Talent


   An aptitude is a component of a competency to do a certain kind of work at a certain level, which can also be considered "talent". Aptitudes may be physical or mental. Aptitude is not knowledge, understanding, learned or acquired abilities (skills) or attitude. The innate nature of aptitude is in contrast to achievement, which represents knowledge or ability that is gained.1

      Talent may be an innate natural aptitude in regard to a certain type of work; however, it is something which must be supported and sustained on a regular basis.  There are many people who can play various keys on a piano and many of the these people are even quite capable to playing various musical compositions, but not everyone can sit down and begin to compose music like Ludwig van Beethoven or Sergei Rachmaninoff.   These men had an innate ability which only improved with use.

    However, there are some people who believe that if they wear the proper clothing or know the right people then somehow their “talent” will be discovered, regardless of whether or not such talent actually exists.  This is quite evident on television shows such as “America’s Got Talent” or “Ukraine’s Got Talent”.  Some of the people who appear on these shows have innate talent which is acknowledged by professionals in a given field; however, there are other people who are living in a fantasy world where they believe that they possess a talent in singing, dancing, or some other area.  Many of these people are astonished when they are told that they do not possess such a talent and often become angry at the judges for saying that they do not have such a talent.  The truth can be a very painful thing to accept; however, there is no virtue in lying to someone and encouraging them to ‘work harder’ when this person does not possess the basis of any real talent.

   Ivan Andreyevich Krylov (1769-1844) was an extremely talented fabulist and he would have been able to see if others possessed talent also.  In “The Quartet” 2, Krylov addresses whether or not playing “musical chairs” actually increases talent.  In fact, it is quite possible that the concept of “playing musical chairs” originated in this fable.

   Simply sitting down at a desk with a pen and paper does not help to inspire the next Edgar Allan Poe in the same way that simply sitting down at a piano would not inspire the next Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  However, it would appear that Monkey, Donkey, Goat, and Bear have convinced themselves that they have some hidden talent that no one else can see.

     We often see this in government work also.  Many people are promoted or reassigned 
to new jobs not because of their talent, but because their supervisor wants to remove this person from his or her department and having this person transferred is easier than having this person removed from their job.  While it might not be easy, sometimes it is both necessary and charitable to say, as the nightingale said,

     
      “"For making music, you must have the knack

        And ears more musical than yours,"

        The nightingale comes back,

      "And you, my friends, no matter your positions,

        Will never be musicians!"

 
                                                     End Notes



2)    “Квартет/Quartet” http://max.mmlc.northwestern.edu/~mdenner/Demo/texts/quartet.htm   

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Destroying Individuality: Making Everyone Mediocre

    Like Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900) understood the importance of new modes of communication and technologies in the development of modernity. “The press, the machine, the railway, and the telegraph are premises whose thousand year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.” Moreover, like Kierkegaard, he saw the press and mass culture as engendering a leveling process that was destroying individuality and community while producing a homogenized, herd conformity.  Nietzsche believed that modern society had become so chaotic, fragmented, and devoid of “creative force” that it had lost the resources to create a vital culture and that ultimately, modern society greatly advanced the decline of the human species that had already begun early in Western history. 
    In Nietzsche’s view two trends were evident that were producing contradictory processes of massification and fragmentation---whose extreme consequences would be the central theme of postmodern theory.  On the one hand, modern society was fragmenting into warring groups, factions, and individuals without any overriding purpose or shared goals. On the other hand, modern society is leveling individuals into a herd, bereft of individuality, spontaneity, passion, or creativity.  Both trends were harmful to the development of the sort of free, creative, strong individuality championed by Nietzsche and he sharply criticized each.1

      The insights offered by Nietzsche were shared by many others as well.  Hannah Arendt (1904-1975), a German-American political theorist, also expressed concerns regarding the destruction of individuality because of the impact it would have on the future of the nation.
   In her novel, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Arendt wrote that after the murder of a moral person and the annihilation of a judicial person, the destruction of individuality is almost always successful…For to destroy individuality is to destroy spontaneity, man’s power to begin something new out of his own resources, something which cannot be explained on the basis of reactions and environment.  Nothing then remains but ghastly marionettes with human faces, which all behave like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiments, which all react with perfect reliability even when going to their own death, and which do nothing but react.  This is the real triumph of the system. 2

   To make human beings superfluous is to eradicate the very conditions that make humanity possible---to destroy human plurality, spontaneity, and individuality. Arendt sums this up in the paragraph which immediate precedes her brief discussion about absolute or radical evil.3
   What totalitarian ideologies therefore aim at is not the transformation of society, but the transformation of human nature itself.  The concentration camps are the laboratories where changes in human nature are tested and their shamefulness, therefore, is not just the business of their inmates and those who run them according to strictly “scientific” standards; it is the concern of all men. Suffering, of which there has always been too much on earth, is not the issue, nor is the number of victims. Human nature is at stake, and even though it seems that these experiments succeed not in changing man, but only in destroying him, by creating a society in which the nihilistic banality of homo homini lupus (man unto man a wolf) is consistently realized, one should bear in mind the necessary limitations to an experiment which requires global control in order to show conclusive results.4  

   Parents play a major role in either inspiring or destroying their children individuality.  This is often done under the guise that either the parents know what is best for their child or the parents “meant well”, but the reality is that in many cases the children of these parents are living the lives that their parents wanted them to live with often very unhappy results. 
    Parents often insist that their children conform and not go against the prevailing societal code. Many parents staunchly believe in blind and mindless conformity. They believe that there is safety in following the prevailing and/or majority opinion. They contend that following the majority consensus offers a sense of belonging and security. They stress to their children that it is safer and more feasible to conform to the prevailing groupthink philosophy. They strongly discourage their children's strong individualism and nonconformity because it is believed that if their children refuse to conform to the prevailing groupthink, they would be considered oddballs or worse, being ostracized and alone. A worse scenario according to the parents, these children would be ostracized and denigrated by their neighbors and associates. So if their child/children dare to have a unique, creative, and innovative thought and idea, it is squashed and oftentimes considered outlandish and weird because nobody else thought of it! These parents are killing the dreams of a potential Picasso, Einstein, Mozart, Pushkin, or Tchaikovsky. 5

     Schools do the same thing.  Standardized tests, which are very popular in the US, actually serve to “pigeonhole” potential in students and are design to reward averageness.  After taking these tests, the school system often makes determinations about the mental abilities or potential of particular students and those students who are outside of the norm are negatively labeled for the rest of their time in the education system.
     Another problem is that the school system is designed to meet the needs of those who fall within the center of the “bell curve”.6   It is highly unlikely that if they had such standardized tests in earlier centuries that people like Mozart, Beethoven, van Gogh, Mussorgsky, Einstein, Pushkin, or Tchaikovsky would have had test scores in the middle range of the bell curve.  Many of these people had difficulty in school and would have perhaps been considered people who would never amount to anything because they could not do well on a standardized test. These people were geniuses and such tests are not designed to encourage genius.

   Researchers of creative geniuses claim, as a rule, these geniuses were poor students. Perhaps some of them did well in school, but they often found that many of them were bad students.
1. Voltaire's father told Voltaire and his brother: "I raised two fools. One fool in verse and another one in prose.”  

2. Isaac Newton was the worst student in the class until he beat up a fellow student. After that, Newton decided to beat him in knowledge. In a few months he became the best in the class.

3.
Otto von Bismarck, the chancellor of the German Empire, was very bad with his studies and his work was even worse.  He could only find a job through patronage.  He would either be fired from every job, leave on his own, or be unable to carry out his assignment.

4.
Napoleon was bad in all subjects, except mathematics.

5.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s writing was very bad and he was unable to master either division or multiplication.

6. Albert Einstein - the creator of the theory of relativity and Nobel Prize laureate was a very average student.
His parents had no illusions about him and hoped that he will at least be able to get a simple job.

7. Pushkin was very poorly managed at the Lyceum, and wept while studying arithmetic.
After certification, the presentation of diplomas, he was second from the last.

8.
Sergei Korolev, under whose leadership were created geophysical ballistic missiles, the first satellites, and the spacecrafts "Vostok" and "Voskhod", was considered to be a very poor student.

9. Chekhov held back in school twice.  He later went on to become both a medical doctor and highly successful author.

10.  Alexander Dumas, author of The Three Muskateers, was a very poor student in mathematics. 

     In fact, this may be one reason why geniuses very often end up living rather tragic lives.  After examining the biographies of many geniuses I noticed that many of them died at a rather young age from either alcoholism or suicide.  In some cases, excessive use of alcohol could also be seen as a form of suicide.

    Why did the lives of these geniuses often end so tragically? Very often these people were not understood by the society in which they lived and were considered odd as a result.  Some of these people were able to hear music where no one else heard it or have insights into things which others either did not have or could not express.  This makes someone odd?  In a culture which promotes conformity as a virtue, the answer is “yes”. 
    Another challenge facing our society is bullying.  Many children are routinely either physically or emotionally abused by other children simply because they are different.  In some cases, these children are physically and emotionally abused.  It is often true that the person who acting as the bully has many personal problems, but that does not offer encouragement or support to someone who is being beaten everyday by someone simply for being different.

    Bullying would not be as much of an issue if our society was not so intent on producing uniformity and destroying individuality.  It is easy for someone to become a bully and even receive the help of other students simply by declaring a particular student to be “strange”.  Bullying is not an innate behavior.  We are not born with a desire to hate people simply for being different.  This is a learned behavior.  This is something which parents either tell their children or their children absorb based upon their parents’ actions.
     In the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, the issue of racial prejudice is addressed in the song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught”.  This song deals with the fact that prejudice is a learned behavior. The fact is that this is true. There would be no prejudice and no bullying if people simply accepted others as being different instead of attempting to force everyone to be the same.  If everyone was “the same” we would have none of the inventions that we take for granted every day because no one would have ever thought of them.  

     I do not see being average as something to strive for.  In fact, it is something to settle for because a person lacks either the talent or intelligence to be better than average.   Hopefully future generations will be able to produce someone of the caliber of Tchaikovsky, Mozart, or Einstein, but this will never happen if we choose to settle for “average” as the social standard and continue to destroy individuality.  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, was right when he wrote “Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius."

                                                                  End Notes

1)  Best, Steven The Postmodern Turn (NY: Guilford Press, 1997), p. 57

2)   Arendt, Hannah The Origins of Totalitarianism (NY: Schocken Books,  1951) p. 455

3)   May, Larry and Jerome Kohn (eds.) Hannah Arendt: 20 Years Later (MA: MIT Press, 1997), p. 135

4)  Arendt, pp. 458-459

5)  “10 Ways Parents Destroy Their Children’s Self-Esteem” http://gmwilliams.hubpages.com/hub/Ten-Ways-Parens-Destroy-Their-Childrens-Self-Esteem

6)  “The Bell Curve” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve