That Old Benghazi Spirit

You can’t help but be impressed by the industry with which Congressional Republicans try to whip up a scandal soufflé from a handful of revised talking points and some cherry-picked emailed phrases. It’s an uphill battle, as Sisyphus could attest, but just like him, the Republicans can surely eventually succeed. It’s a matter of having high hopes—those high apple pie in the sky hopes.

Take some inspiration from the men’s rights activists. They’ve been having a lovely month, all things considered. A man’s right to sex on demand has been asserted by none other than Toru Hashimoto, mayor of Osaka. Holding women captive as sex-slaves is sometimes necessary, he says, “[t]o maintain discipline in the military”. Men have their needs, after all. “For soldiers who risked their lives in circumstances where bullets are flying around like rain and wind, if you want them to get some rest, a comfort women system was necessary. That’s clear to anyone,” Hashimoto explained. I bet it would be clear to Ariel Castro.

There’s a man who lived the men’s rights dream. “I don’t know why I kept looking for another,” Ariel wrote, adding “I already had 2 in my possession.” Young women, that is, women he kept locked in his basement on account of his need for sex on demand. Two women weren’t enough for those needs, though, it turned out, and he had to kidnap a third girl, his daughter's fourteen-year-old friend whom he thought for some reason was a lot older. And what business did they have walking around freely anyway? Ahmad Shafi, leader of the Bangladeshi political party Hefajat-e-Islam gets it.

He’s gone to the mat to defend Abdul Quader Molla and his fellow war-criminals who in 1971 were involved in the mass rape of the women of Bangladesh. Calling for the execution of anybody wanting the war criminals punished, he demands the end of such “alien cultural practices” as “free mixing of the sexes”. We see where he stands on this issue. I can only assume that he would give his blessing to Ariel Castro’s solution for keeping women apart from the rest of society, given his passionate defense of those who separated young women from their families and subjected them to sexual abuse that—assuming they weren’t murdered and left in mass graves—scarred them for life.

And apparently it is all the fault of feminism. As one Groot comments “What feminists fail to see is that as men are driven more and more by their agenda to the bottom of the power and privilege scale, more and more crimes like this will be committed. Unchecked hypergamy ensures that men like these have no real chance for healthy relationships and often take through criminal efforts what alphas and the elites have access to; that being multiple women.” There, you see? If only women voluntarily chained themselves in men’s basements, there would be no need for men to do it for them. Or something.

Yeah, keep on working on that sow’s ear, boys—you’ll get a silk purse out of it some day. There’s nothing quite like that old Benghazi spirit.

The Mysterious Stranger: The Forgotten Version

I’ve written elsewhere (Dubious Documents: The Case of Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger) about the editorial chicanery involved in the original publication of Mark Twain’s The Chronicle of Young Satan under the title The Mysterious Stranger and the baleful effect it has had on the interpretation of these texts. What’s bugging me today, however, is another annoyance. I see the Wikipedia article on the story repeats a mistake that others (some of whom should know better) have made, in that it states there were three manuscript attempts at the story. According to the piece the three were (1) The Chronicle of Young Satan Schoolhouse Hill, and (3) No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger. (I also find it annoying that the author says the “first substantial version is commonly referred to as The Chronicle of Young Satan”, in that it is commonly referred to by that title because that is the title Mark Twain gave it.) But actually there were four “substantial” versions of the story. The missing version here is Mark Twain’s very first attempt at the tale, title unknown, but referred to as the Pre-Eseldorf version by John Tuckey and as the St. Petersburg Fragment by William M. Gibson. It is listed as Version A and described on pp. 4-5 of the original publication by the University of California Press in 1969.

Mark Twain, as was his wont, destroyed much of the manuscript, and we probably wouldn’t even know it had existed if he hadn’t reused some of the pages in The Chronicle of Young Satan. Nineteen pages survive, altered and refitted to serve the purposes of the new story. The original story was set (apparently) in St. Petersburg, the fictional town in which Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and the slave Jim lived. The first surviving page (12) starts in the middle of a speech by Satan telling the three boys who are the main characters to “Sit still and say nothing.” The narrator (whom we later learn is named George) continues:

We looked up and saw Mr. Black approaching through the black walnuts. We three were sitting together in the grass, and Satan sat in front of us in the path. Mr. Black came slowly along with his head down, thinking, and stopped within a couple of yards of us and took off his hat and got his silk handkerchief out of it, and stood there mopping his face and looking as if he were going to speak to us, but he didn’t. Presently he muttered, “I can’t think what brought me here; it seems as if I were in my study a minute ago—but I suppose I have been dreaming along for half an hour and have come all this stretch without noticing; I can’t account for it; but it is no matter, it is pleasant out, to-day.” Then he went mumbling along to himself and walked

We will soon learn that Mr. Black is a former Presbyterian minster now fallen on hard times since he became a Universalist, and that the three boys are George (the narrator), Pole, and Huck. (George is referred to as Tom Sawyer in the notes.) After a gap of several pages, the narrative resumes with a connected sequence that takes us to the end of chapter 1 and through the beginning of chapter 2. In it Satan speaks disparagingly of mankind and its possession of the moral sense, promises to return, and vanishes like a soap bubble. Mr. Black returns, observing that he has lost his wallet, and while it only contains four dollars, that is the only money he has. The boys offer to look for it, but Mr. Black finds it almost immediately, but it turns out to be stuffed with money, over a thousand dollars. The boys realize that Satan is responsible for this, but are forced to remain silent; they urge Mr. Black to take the money. Mr. Black says that some enemy might be responsible, but Huck tells him, “Mr. Black, you haven't a real enemy in the village—nor Margaret, either. And not even a half-enemy that’s rich enough to chance eleven hundred dollars at one dash to do you a mean turn. I’ll ask you if that’s so, or not?” The boys sign a paper attesting to the way that Mr. Black found the money.

Chapter 2 begins with an account of the improvement in Mr. Black’s fortunes:

It made immense talk next day, when Mr. Black paid off his mortgage in gold and bought nine hundred dollars worth of ten percent county scrip and deposited it in the bank; and lots of people called at the house to congratulate, and a heap of cool old friends warmed up and got friendly again; and Margaret was invited to a picnic, and the piano scholars that had deserted her began to book for lessons again.

And there was no mystery; the old gentleman told the whole circumstance just as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see; though the Presbyterians didn't take any stock in that, a body couldn't expect it. One or two said it looked more like the hand of Satan; and you know that seemed a surprisingly good guess for ignorant people like that. Some came privately and tried to get us boys to come out and “tell the truth;” and on honor promised they wouldn’t ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented something that would answer—however, we couldn't; we hadn’t the ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.

The boys are afraid that the gold will turn to dirt, like fairy gold, but it doesn’t, and they seek out Mr. Black to ask him about the moral sense that Satan had denigrated. This essentially brings us to the end of the surviving sequence.

There is a single isolated page further on, which reads:

through the garden, there was Tom Andrews sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be asking Margaret to take a walk along the river with him when Peggy was done making the piano sorry the peace hadn’t been signed before the Battle came off. He was a young lawyer, and talented; and he had had a good practice and a thriving one, but it was all gone, now. Drink—that was his trouble. He got a start at it and it beat him. He was seedy, now, and he was always so prim and gentlemanlike in those other days; and proud, too, for he was of good Kentucky stock; and back of that, Virginian — F. F. V., in fact. He had been courting Mar-

Where the story went after that, if anywhere, is impossible to say on the available evidence, but several things jump out. Mr. Black, whose unfortunate change in theology proved so costly to him, is clearly another caricature of Mark Twain’s brother Orion Clemens; when he metamorphoses into Father Peter (in Young Satan) the connection is less obvious, though Father Peter may still have had universalist tendencies:

But the Bishop suspended him for talking around in conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all his poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was never any absolute proof that Father Peter said it …

And there is no sign of the villainous Father Adolf, inspired by an Austrian politician Mark Twain loathed, Dr. Karl Lueger. When Mark Twain adapted Huck’s claim that Mr. Black had not a real enemy in the village, he had to add the key phrase “with the exception of Father Adolf” to fit the new situation.

So, then, I guess the question is, why has the notion that there were only three versions of the tale taken such root? The answer is more or less obvious: the first version was not printed as such in the definitive 1969 edition put out by the University of California press. It is there, after a fashion, in that it can be reconstructed by carefully going through the textual commentary on The Chronicle of Young Satan and noting the MS alterations (which is how I arrived at the description given above), but that is not entirely satisfactory. I suppose the fact that the MS has not survived independently may have influenced the editor, but if it had been up to me, I would have preferred that the few pages it would have cost to present it had been used for that purpose.

Quotation of the Day

DC is the heroes you want to be, Marvel is the heroes you would probably be. You want to be Superman, but chances are you will be the Hulk and struggling with his rage…

Avicenna (“A Voice for Me – Once a Good Girl Goes Bad”)

Warriors for Peace

One hundred forty years ago today, just south of the line that divides Oregon from California, tense negotiations were under way. The United States (represented by General Canby) was at war with part of the Modoc tribe (under the leadership of Captain Jack), and people on both sides thought that with a little effort further bloodshed could be averted. They were wrong, in hindsight, but the attempt seems worthy, noble even, something that could have paid off.

By many accounts Captain Jack believed in peace between the Modocs and the settlers. His people lived on the fringes of civilization, so to speak, hunting, gathering, and fishing on the one hand, while working as ranchhands and selling small items on the other. Some accused them of extortion and prostitution as well. The point is, they were part of the economic system, and for the most part they lived quietly on their traditional lands. It was to his advantage to keep the peace, and he usually succeeded in keeping things under control.

General Canby took the peace policy announced by President Grant seriously enough to pursue it past the point that many observers considered prudent. If there were any two men who could have reached some sort of agreement between the two sides, you would think that it would be Captain Jack and General Canby. Which, when you think about it, makes it all the more surprising that one of them should shoot the other under a flag of truce.

The thing is, the Modocs and the government were not on the same page when it came to two key issues: amnesty for all, and relocation of the Modocs. They were actually the same issue, and went back to the circumstances of the Lost River Fight, when a small detachment of soldiers and a handful of local citizens took on two villages on either side of Lost River. Modoc casualties on the side attacked by settlers inspired retaliation, and of course, as might be expected, the injured didn’t do anything halfway sane, like go after the settlers who had attacked them. No, they took their revenge on unsuspecting neighbors along the lake, murdering people who had no idea what was going on or for what cause they were dying.

At least two of the participants in the revenge attacks were men of influence—John Schonchin, spoken of as a chief among the Modocs, and Hooker Jim, who was married to the daughter of an influential shaman. Absolutely core to the Modoc position, then, was a general amnesty for all involved in the hostilities, including the settlers who had killed during the first attack, and the Modocs who had killed in revenge for it.

It would appear that the Federal authorities had no trouble with this as a concept; the trouble was that such a general amnesty was beyond the reach of their authority. Murder was (and is) an offense handled at the state level, and Oregon fully intended to prosecute some Modoc or other for the murders committed along Tule Lake in November 1872. Governor Grover made it quite clear to the Federal authorities that he had no intention of signing off on any deal that left those who murdered the settlers free and unpunished. (He was, however, apparently indifferent to the issue of justice for the Modoc dead.) Further, he was opposed to any peaceful solution to the Modoc Difficulty anyway.

Military officials had an alternative plan that would accomplish much the same thing, though without any legal amnesty. If the Modocs surrendered as prisoners of war they would be under military jurisdiction, and Oregon couldn’t touch them. They could then be transferred somewhere outside of Oregon’s reach, and so go free. The catch was that bit about going out of Oregon. The country the Modocs were fighting for lay in Oregon. The whole point of the exercise was not to give it up.

The Modoc leaders may have been willing to go further than their followers on the issue of moving. In a conference in early March, attended by both Elijah Steele (a local lawyer Modoc leaders looked to for advice) and John Fairchild (a local rancher who often employed young Modoc men as ranchhands), the two men brought back opposing reports. Steele, who had spoken mainly with the Modoc leaders, said that they were prepared to move to Arizona rather than surrender their men to settler justice. Fairchild, who had spoken mainly with the rank and file, said that the Modocs had no intention of leaving Oregon.

So, on the one side, amnesty was out of the question because of the intransigence of the Oregon authorities—faithfully reflecting the attitude of their constituents, as far as the available record shows. And on the other side relocation was out because of the intransigence of the Modoc leaders—apparently reflecting the will of their constituents. The impasse was perfect.

General Canby believed he had a way through that impasse. The Modoc leaders had to be aware that they would not do well in any all-out conflict with the troops; while they had driven them back from their stronghold in January, there were a great many more troops now, and they were much better armed and equipped. Canby decided to opt for a show of force. He moved the troops closer to the Stronghold, and kept them there. This policy of gradual compression, as he called it, was bound to bring the Modocs to their senses.

The thing is, if you put too much pressure on something, it may blow apart. The Modoc Difficulty blew apart fairly spectacularly on 11 April 1873. Negotiations seemed to be making some sort of progress; Captain Jack gave up all claim to the Modoc traditional lands in Oregon, but argued that the Modocs should retain the lava beds in California. Talks resumed that morning; present were General Canby, A. B. Meacham, the Reverend Thomas, and Commissioner Dyar, representing the Federal government, along with Frank and Toby Riddle as translators. On the other side were the Modoc chiefs, Captain Jack and John Schonchin, along with such prominent leaders as Boston Charley, Hooker Jim, Black Jim, and Bogus Charley. Negotiations lurched along slowly, with General Canby trying to emphasize his role as a peacemaker. Abruptly Captain Jack gave a signal, pulled out a gun, and fired at Canby. His first shot misfired, but the second was successful. Canby died on the spot, the only regular general to be killed in action during any of the Indian wars. At the same time Boston Charley killed the Reverend Thomas, John Schonchin shot Meacham repeatedly, and Black Jim and Hooker Jim took shots at Dyar. Dyar escaped and Meacham was left for dead, but ultimately recovered.

Postmortems would go on for at least a hundred and forty years, but neither General Canby, who died abruptly in what should have been his retirement, nor the Reverend Thomas, who had the briefest of walk-on parts in this war, would take part. The two of them died nobly, perhaps, warriors in the cause of peace. But I can’t help but feel that they didn’t have to die, that, you know, common sense might have warned them, as Frank Riddle did, not to trust any in them Indians.

There Might Be Something to This

A commenter at Butterflies and Wheels observes in a discussion of FGM:

We don’t want to be imperialists and go all culturally colonialist and stuff so that leaves us with the only other option – being condescending and paternalistic.

Maybe what we need to do as the world becomes more educated and modern and egalitarian is set aside places where footbinding, FGM, stonings, beheadings, lynchings, slavery (sexual and other), shame killings and other valuable cultural traditions can be preserved.

Like maybe special World Brutality Heritage Parks or something.

Quotation of the Day

It’s when things blow up that it becomes impossible not to notice that women get treated scarily, threateningly and very specifically worse. And THAT’s what SendGrid capitulated to. Their actions have been cowardly and intellectually dishonest. They could learn something from the employee they just cut loose.

Rachel Sklar according to Business Insider

Quotation of the Day

I came from nothing and will die with nothing but my dignity. So why not use my life for good?

attributed to Marco McMillan