Poison Pen

Today I watched the movie Quills with Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix and Kate Winslet. It's a 2000 movie based on the Marquis de Sade's stay in a mental institution in the late 1700's. (I don't want to give away the whole candy store, just in case you wish to see it too.) It's not as salacious as one might think. It did, however prompt me to make an observation or two.

The first is that people are people are people. As much as the right wing might want you to believe, we are not all of a sudden going to hell in a handbasket. That handbasket is always well-populated in every century. Sometimes I think we would like to believe that we are all gods and goddesses not prone to the human condition. That maybe demons live among us - things that are so unlike us that they cannot possibly be made of the same material and they are responsible for anything we might find distasteful. We are mired in denial and reject that which we find "morally objectionable". A shame, I say. Or maybe I am one of the demons?

The second observation I made was in the vein of blaming something else for your own actions. Take, for instance, the idea that a movie is responsible for murderous rampages. In Quills, the Marquis de Sade's sexually explicit and violent writings are accused of similar infringements. Such powerful pen and ink to drive normally angelic men and women to wanton sex and bloody violence. I don't believe it of him, and I certainly would not give life to the supposition that a bit of celluloid can have such a profound effect. I'm not saying that this material, in the hands of someone predisposed to such activity, isn't in part responsible for giving the offender ideas. But I reject the idea that any media can change an otherwise rational person into a monster.

It was the philosopher George Santayana who said "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Maybe....but isn't it human nature to repeat ourselves? To take the same stories and repackage them in modern designs and market them as new? It seems there are no new stories, only remakes of old ones. For instance, compare:

Dangerous Liaisons and Cruel Intentions

The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You

or

Emma and Clueless

Nice to know your children are watching the classics, isn't it? Even if they have no idea...

So. Time to just give up and recognize our humanity. Funny. I don't feel evil...