Which reminds me, I guess it was only a matter of time until this blog stumbled upon an article about, er, one of the Not-So-Good Doctor's tendencies (though it's not strictly parthenophilia or lolitaism). The article makes a couple of good points, most notably the ones in this paragraph:
“There is actually quite a bit that young women have to offer older men besides looks alone,” Masini says. “On the most obvious level, there’s that fun, young energy they have. There’s naiveté, which can be attractive when compared with the cynicism of some older women. There’s a playfulness — a lack of the seriousness that can sometimes accompany being an adult and having responsibility. And, for some men, there’s the fact that these young girls look up to them — as father figures and as mentors. That, in and of itself, is very attractive.”Problem is, though, the article falls into the same stupid assumptions about power-relationships that typify modern cynicism in it's cringeing, snarling ugliness. What the author (a woman; surprise, surprise...) describes as "naiveté" is better understood as (relative) "innocence," but the later doesn't have the same dismissive element to it (especially if you're William Blake). There a lot of other things she very brusquely misses. A lot of us tend to think we have enough cynicism as it is, and so the air of innocence can be disarming, refreshing, and a reminder that things don't necessarily have to be the way the are (however much, though, that generally turns out to be a mirage). And, let's face it, a lot of men become quietly nostalgic, not so much for days or things but for ways of thinking and feeling that life generally drives right out of them except for a tiny nugget of memory that they bury in a personal place slightly more secret than one of Dick Cheney's undisclosed, secure locations.
There's a lot more to this, in fact, both positive and negative, but the bold, stereotyping strokes of this article border on the galling. There's a lot more I could take issue with here, but I'm relatively sure most of my readers would start reading autobiographical venting everywhere, even if the basic impulses are also those of so much literature and history it would make one's head spin. So, no, I won't go too much further. What I will say is this: the article's smug assumptions about "power" are sickening simplifications that fail utterly to understand what's actually at work in such relational constructions and deconstructions. Brush up on your Shakespeare (or even your Graham Greene) to see what I mean, and to see it in more carefully nuanced depiction. If you're waiting for any elaborations or exasperations of the Papa Jer or Uncle Jer myths, you'll have to look elsewhere (the seven-volume set, complete with annotations and critical commentary, will be released by Norton later this year). But let me say reaffirm this: power is not, not, not the pivot of such matters, and to read it in such ways speaks of a different kind of cynicism that is perhaps more correctly identified as callous punditry. The article, alas, by the end is so caught in its own assumptions and delusions that it mucks everything up entirely. But then again, maybe it takes a Blakean double vision to understand such matters fully.
But, sigh o sigh, as Mr James would say, "and there we are." And people wonder why I've quit playing that infernal game, in fact all silly, predictable jeux de coeur. My cynicism is enough as it is; I hardly need more of it, let alone to have any of it reinforced. And that, I'm sure, is a point with which you'll all agree.
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