(Continued) ...
Life as a living/learning experience
For example, in the prison camps of World War II, soldiers on both sides quickly solved the problem of a moneyless closed society. They turned to what economists call "commodity money." For these prisoners of war, cigarettes received from the Red Cross became the accepted medium of exchange and the standard and store of value for transactions among prisoners and between prisoners and guards. People always have found ways to cope.
"Mr. Ness, everybody knows where the booze is. The problem isn't finding it, the problem is who wants to cross Capone."
-Sean Connery in The Untouchables (Paramount Pictures, 1987)
In understanding the impact of our political economy, it remains crucial not to underestimate the intellectual capacity, the insight, and the understanding of the average man, woman, or child. Just because one does not possess a college degree or even a high-school diploma does not mean that s/he does not know what is coming down the pike. Furthermore, people have used and continue to use the coded messages of bards, poets, and other artists to remain discreet and to avoid retribution at the hand of powers greater than they are. Even nursery rhymes and children's songs originally carried deeper tones beneath the surface. If we recall our time in kindergarten, we may remember singing,
Ring around the rosy /
A pocketful of posies /
Ashes, ashes /
We all fall down!
This rhyme dates from the time of the London Plague in 1665. The symptoms of Bubonic Plague included a rosy-red ring-shaped rash. At the time, people believed that bad smells transmitted diseases. Therefore, the populace frequently carried pockets full of fresh herbs, or "posies." We believe that the "ashes, ashes" line refers to the mass cremation of the bodies of those who died from the outbreak. For a sharper and more dangerous political undertone, consider
Mary, Mary quite contrary /
How does your garden grow? /
With silver bells and cockle shells /
And pretty maids all in a row
Purportedly, this rhyme refers to Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (aka Bloody Mary; 1542-87). The garden refers to the growth of the number of cemeteries as she filled them with the bodies of her detractors. Silver bells and cockle shells were common names for instruments of torture, and "the Maid" was a device used for decapitation. For our final "children's rhyme," let us recall this popular one:
Jack Sprat could eat no fat /
His wife could eat no lean /
And so betwixt the two of them /
They licked the platter clean
In this English poem, historians identify Jack Sprat as King Charles I (1625-49) and his wife as Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-69). When the King declared war on Spain, Parliament refused to finance him-thus leaving him "lean." After the angered King dissolved Parliament, his wife imposed an illegal war tax on their subjects-to get some "fat"!
The practice of ossification in literature for economic/political ends has gone beyond the "common throng." Notoriously, intellectuals, artists, writers, and musicians have relied upon allegories and tales of enchantment as a subterfuge to convey messages to those who can detect them. For additional examples, read the tales of the Brothers Grimm, listen to the early songs of Bob Dylan, and immerse yourself in The Lord of the Rings or other works by J.R.R. Tolkien. In our household, favorite examples include the "Alice" books by Lewis Carroll, the pen name of English ordained deacon, mathematician, and photographer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (Macmillan, 1865) and "Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There" (Macmillan, 1871).
The first volume of Carroll's surrealistic stories for children take the title character, a seven-year-old English girl, on a remarkable journey after she falls down a well. She emerges in what American scholar William Rose Benet calls "a strange country where everything happens with a fantastic illogicality" in his book "The Reader's Encyclopedia" (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1965, 2nd ed.). Alice meets such strange and enigmatic figures as the Mad Hatter and the Cheshire Cat before realizing that she was in a dream. In the sequel, Alice climbs behind the mirror on the mantle in her home to find that everything is backwards. After becoming the white pawn in an elaborate game of chess and then being crowned a queen, Alice again realizes that she has been dreaming.
Hercules Malloy (possibly a pseudonym, gender uncertain) puts forth some captivating theories about the origin and meaning of the "Alice" books in his/her "Oedipus in Disneyland: Queen Victoria's Reincarnation as Superman" (Paranoid Press, 1972). Though buried in bawdy pulp fiction, Malloy's work is an analysis of cryptic passages that read like remnants of a dissertation. Through symbolism, mathematical puzzles, and thinly disguised characters, Malloy asserts that Carroll, who taught students from the Royal household, provided the world with an intimate look at the coming of age of the future Queen Victoria. According to Malloy, the "Alice" books present thinly veiled accounts of the close relationships within the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as well as of the married life of Victoria and Prince Albert.
Malloy develops an unusual treatise that contains extensive detail reflecting a studied knowledge of Victoria's personage and of the political/economic intrigues among the royal families of Europe during that age. Here we present a partial cast of characters: The Duchess-Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent; Tweedledum and Tweedledee-the brothers Ferdinand and Augustus of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary, who were among Victoria's favorite cousins; The CarpenterSir John Conroy, comptroller of the Duchess of Kent's household; The Walrus-King Leopold of Belgium, an uncle to Victoria; The White Knight-Victoria's husband, Prince Albert; and Humpty Dumpty-Louis Napoleon III, the Emperor of France.
As bizarre and far-fetched as this hypothesis seems initially, it has fascinated some of us for decades. The more that we learn of Victorian history, the more rational that Malloy's premise seems. Malloy believes that Carroll based his work upon biographical (and possibly autobiographical) information about Victoria that he obtained covertly through a couple of degrees of separation.
In 1855, Dodgson, a professor of mathematics at Oxford, befriended the children of Henry George Liddell, the Master of Christ Church College at the school. A generally confirmed assumption is that his daughter Alice Pleasance Liddell inspired the classics Alice in Wonderland and its sequel. Malloy offers us some lesser-known information: Henry George Liddell was the Master of the residential college with which Edward, the Prince of Wales and the son of Victoria, affiliated in 1861. In keeping with the appropriate manners of the time, the prince would have developed a relationship with Henry Liddell. On the "Golden Afternoon" of 4 July 1862 (which really was overcast and wet), Carroll told a fantasy story to Alice Liddell and her two sisters while riding in a boat up the River Thames. This story later became the first "Alice" book. Now recognized as iconic examples of pure fantasy for children, the "Alice" stories also may reflect Carroll's cleverly subversive view of European royalty and the society of his time.
Takeaway
A well-educated person not only needs to have technical skills. S/he needs to have a comprehensive, wider-based knowledge of the arts, the humanities, and the social sciences as part of his/her ongoing lifelong learning. In order to understand the current state of our American economy, one needs to look at more than a handful of numbers and a few graphs. The economy remains a living system that reflects the full human experience. With this, the truth remains nothing more than a reflection of the human condition. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson's character from our opening quote, can we handle the truth? Currently, many cannot.
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Dr. John F. Sase teaches Economics at Wayne State University and has practiced Forensic and Investigative Economics for twenty years. He earned a combined M.A. in Economics and an MBA at the University of Detroit, followed by a Ph.D. in Economics from Wayne State University. He is a graduate of the University of Detroit Jesuit High School (www.saseassociates.com).
Gerard J. Senick is a freelance writer, editor, and musician. He earned his degree in English at the University of Detroit and was a supervisory editor at Gale Research Company (now Cengage) for over twenty years. Currently, he edits books for publication (www.senick-editing.com).
Julie G. Sase is a copyeditor, parent coach, and empath. She earned her degree in English at Marygrove College and her graduate certificate in Parent Coaching from Seattle Pacific University. Ms. Sase coaches clients, writes articles, and edits copy (royaloakparentcoaching.com).
