Robert’s Big Questions
Brilliant Thoughts by Ashleigh Brilliant
by Robert Bernstein
Born London, 1933. Mother Canadian. Father a British civil servant. World War II childhood spent mostly in Toronto and Washington, D.C. Berkeley PhD. in American History, 1964. Living in Santa Barbara since 1973. No children. Best-known for his illustrated epigrams, called “Pot-Shots”, now a series of 10,000. Email ashleigh@west.net or visit www.ashleighbrilliant.com
All Hell
W
arning: I am (in all likelihood) about to change your life. Not in any big significant way, but in the same slight, but probably permanent, way that mine was changed when, not long ago, I made the discovery which I am going to share with you here. First, a little background: Somehow, I had managed to live to an advanced age without ever reading “Paradise Lost.” Of course, I knew that John Milton is supposed to be one of the greatest English poets, and that “Paradise Lost” is supposed to be his greatest work. I knew that he was blind when he wrote it, and that he had to dictate it to his three daughters. But exposure many years ago at school to some of his other work had been more than enough for me. Nevertheless, I recently decided to give it a try. It turns out to be a phenomenally long epic (275 pages in my edition), giving Milton’s version of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. There is no rhyme (it is in blank verse), far too little punctuation, and the entire format is so dense that, if you lose your place, you’re in real trouble. But one thing encouraged me to keep on wading through this mass of verbiage – the thought that, since it is such a famous work, there must be, buried in it, many expressions which, as with Shakespeare, are so often quoted that they have become part of our language. You have probably heard about the lady, who, after attending a performance of Hamlet for the first time, complained that it was “just a lot of old quotations strung together.” So, I naturally expected to be able to make some similar observation about “Paradise Lost.” But I have to report that, in this whole saga, I have found only one passage which the world in general might recognize. But that singular find has impressed me so much that I felt I had to tell you about it. The one (and possibly only) original piece of “Paradise Lost” which you and I would immediately acknowledge to be familiar in everyday speech is to be found on line 918 of Book IV. It consists of just four one-syllable words: “ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE” How do I know that this originated in “Paradise Lost,” and wasn’t said by somebody else maybe centuries earlier? Well, you needn’t take my word 14 – 21 May 2020
Degrees from Physics departments of MIT and UC Santa Barbara. Career in designing atomic-resolution microscopes. Childhood spent in Europe and the East of the US. Passion to understand the Big Questions of life and the universe. Duty to be a good citizen of the planet.
for it. After making this stupendous discovery, I of course rushed to consult my online reference works, and soon found the Milton origin confirmed by one and all. But what seems most remarkable to me is the fact that Milton used those words in a very special way, which has nothing to do with the way they are commonly used today. They are part of one of many lengthy dialogues in the book, this one between Satan and the Angel Gabriel, after Satan has escaped from the nether regions, to which he was supposed to have been confined, and has been caught attempting to sneak into the Garden of Eden. Gabriel wants to know why Satan escaped by himself, rather than at the head of all his infernal followers. He therefore asks: “But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee came not all Hell broke loose?” (“Wherefore,” here, means “why” – as you know from Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet’s “Wherefore art thou Romeo?” means “Why must you have that name [i.e. belong to that family]?”)
“Poor Milton would no doubt be aghast at the way we’ve removed his expression from all its context, and bandy it about today.”
So, you see that a funny thing happened to those four words on their way into colloquial speech. Milton was using them in a quite literal sense. His “broke loose” was a descriptive adjective, not the powerful verb we’ve long assumed it to be. If he’d been writing prose rather than poetry, he would probably have said “broken loose” – which of course would have completely spoiled our usage today. Poor Milton would no doubt be aghast at the way we’ve removed his expression from all its context, and bandy it about today. I will bet whatever you like that hardly anyone who today says, “that’s when all hell broke loose,” realizes that they are quoting Milton. But from now on, you will know – and it’s such an odd piece of information that you may never forget it. So, to that extent (and I hope for better rather than for worse) I will here and now take credit for having changed your life. •MJ
What is Normal?
A
s I write this article, people are asking for a return to “normal.” Is that what we really
want? Is it “normal” that tens of millions of Americans have no access to healthcare? That millions of Americans are homeless? That 11 million children in the U.S. literally do not know where their next meal is coming from? Is it “normal” that humans are disrupting the climate in a catastrophic manner and that we go about business as usual? At age 15, climate activist Greta Thunberg said in a TEDx talk, “I think in many ways we autistic are the normal ones and the rest of the people are pretty strange – especially when it comes to the sustainability crisis.” Her comment warmed me to the core as I have always felt the same way. In some way, it is not our fault. Our perceptual systems are mostly set up only to detect change. We are largely blind to what is unchanging in our environment. The corporate media accentuates this effect on a grand scale. Single tragedies are magnified while gross ongoing injustices receive no coverage. A few years ago there was a small conference in Santa Barbara where top news editors explained how they cover the news. I pointed out that news coverage is “event driven” rather than driven by what is important. I asked if that could change. A top New York Times editor chose to answer my question. He said that this question came up at one of their staff meetings. Someone offered this solution: Let’s have a feature once a month called “Still True.” They would allocate space to a problem that is large, but creates no specific events. For example, “Still True That Three Million Americans are Homeless.” I smiled approvingly. Once a month is not much, but still better than nothing. He smiled back at me. Then snapped back, “I killed it. It was a dumb idea.” He saw the shock on my face and said, “You can’t make people eat broccoli.” Wow. This was as good as it gets. A top New York Times editor thinks it is a dumb idea to cover what is important. The result? “GoFundMe” campaigns replace good public policy. The leading cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.? Medical bills. No other country in the world has this. As a child I lived in a civilized country where we could walk
• The Voice of the Village •
to the family doctor and there were never any bills at all. Do we really want things to return to “normal”? Senator Bernie Sanders first ran for president in 2016 on a 12-point platform of issues that all poll at more than 60% across the political spectrum. Including true universal healthcare. The pundits declared his views as “out of the mainstream.” Yet one debate moderator took the time to look at his policy positions. He said, “You call yourself a socialist. But your positions are more conservative than (Republican) President Eisenhower’s.” Bernie replied, “You got me there!” How do ideas get to be “normal”? When President Roosevelt proposed putting millions of unemployed Americans to work building needed infrastructure, his idea was vigorously opposed by the corporate powers. When it was seen as a brilliant success, it became so normal that Eisenhower indeed proposed massive public works projects of his own. Notably, the Interstate Highway System. Eisenhower also proposed a universal healthcare system similar to Obamacare. When Reagan first tried running on a platform of tearing down such government investment in his 1976 presidential campaign, he was considered a fringe candidate. Not at all normal. But he was able to win in 1980 by recruiting a huge untapped part of the population that had never voted before: devout fundamentalist Christians who believed we were living in the End of Times. Are those views normal? With fundamentalist support, Reagan was able to dismantle decades of accepted public policy. Ever since, it has been considered “normal” for swaths of people to be left to scramble for basic needs. Corporations sponsor candidates who turn around and use government to serve their needs rather than the public interest. This “normal” situation of legalized bribery is at the root of all our “normal” problems. What got us into the coronavirus crisis? A “normal” system that rewards short-term corporate profits over long-term public investment. How about if we go beyond universal healthcare and demand a public agency to create medicines? Based on medical efficacy and need rather than on the private profits of Big Pharma? Why don’t we envision and demand a NEW normal? •MJ MONTECITO JOURNAL
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