If This is a Man

“A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.”

This from "If This is a Man" by Primo Levi. Although, like all the good stuff, it seems applicable today.

In any case, here stands "The Tyranny of the Beautiful Woman":



It just keeps getting darker and darker. Perhaps because I made the mistake of painting it while reading Levi's famous work, also sometimes called "Survival in Auschwitz." Which was not a laugh-fest, dear reader, let me tell you. But certainly a work that bears reading nonetheless.

Because, despite your puerile attempt to trivialize almost everything to suit your narrative devices, life is not always a laugh-fest.
Exactly.
Nor is it supposed to be.
Nicely said.

Levi's book is about, if nothing else, the devolution of a civilized man into a type of animal, all the better to survive the inhuman environment of a Nazi concentration camp.

“Logic and morality made it impossible to accept an illogical and immoral reality; they engendered a rejection of reality which as a rule led the cultivated man rapidly to despair. But the varieties of the man-animal are innumerable, and I saw and have described men of refined culture, especially if young, throw all this overboard, simplify and barbarize themselves, and survive. A simple man, accustomed not to ask questions of himself, was beyond the reach of the useless torment of asking himself why."

Now we're obviously talking about Republicans.

You can't help yourself, can you?
No. I suppose not.
I like the painting, though.
Thanks. Me too.

Hey, wasn't it me just a couple of posts down talking about scrunching the mud between your toes to ensure full thrust into the abyss? I'm deep.

The questions, now that the painting is almost done, are these: Should I slap a couple of coats of a gloss varnish on it? (I'm thinking yes) and should I scrawl across the bottom "The Tyranny of the Beautiful Woman", as is my wont?