India’s History and the War for the Soul

1001 Films To Watch Before Your Nexflix Subscription Dies, Part 48
Santosh Sivan (director), Ashoka

Prince Ashoka has become the most successful general in the Mauryan Empire, a claim he makes despite, not because of, his royal standing. A younger son of a lesser queen in the Emperor’s harem, nobody expects Ashoka to inherit, least of all his favored brother Susima. When Susima deliberately refuses to support his brother in battle, Ashoka manages a massive strategic victory, then returns to the capitol, intent on vengeance.

World cinema should, ideally, offer ambitious audiences an opportunity to immerse themselves in somebody else’s culture for a few hours. Unfortunately, Hollywood’s carcinogenic influence has undercut that recently; filmmakers must appeal to English-speaking audiences to make bank. This Hindi-language movie therefore makes an interesting contradiction. It embraces the full vaudeville cheese inherent in Bollywood masterpieces, while striving to tell an important story of historical and cultural significance.

Despite his military proficiency, Ashoka proves less capable of palace intrigue. His initial plans for vengeance against Susima and his other brothers fails, and he narrowly avoids an attempted assassination. At his mother’s insistence, Ashoka flees the palace, posing as a commoner and sleeping rough. This experience teaches Ashoka important lessons in humility, but it also gives him a long-overdue opportunity for love, when he meets Kaurwaki, exiled princess of Kalinga.

Shahrukh Khan, India’s biggest matinee idol, plays Ashoka in a manner Western audiences might find jarring. One moment, he has smoldering, Brad Pitt-like charisma and an understated performance, stone-faced and impassive, the character happening entirely in his eyes.The next moment, he turns into a caricature, chewing scenery with the aplomb of Gary Oldman. No matter his tone, he always carries a sure and placid confidence in his star power.

These tonal shifts reflect the Bollywood culture that birthed this movie. Bollywood has certain requirements. For instance, every movie requires five tightly choreographed song-and-dance routines. Four routines directly advance or comment on the plot; the fifth is pure lowbrow spectacle. Americanized audiences unfamiliar with Bollywood convention may feel back-footed when the prince begins singing and dancing for the first time. But that confusion is half the fun.

Ashoka is an important figure in Indian history. He pushed the Mauryan Empire to its greatest geographical expanse, and he sponsored massive artistic and public-works projects. Many of his surviving artworks are among India’s national treasures, and have weathered 2,300 years remarkably intact. But at his empire’s peak, he converted to Buddhism, foreswore violence, and rededicated his empire to helping India’s most defenseless peoples. History doesn’t exactly record why.

Kareena Kapoor as Princess Kaurwaki and Shahrukh Khan as Prince Ashoka

This movie speculates on the forces leading to Ashoka’s conversion. The resulting mix is both personal and national, both contemporary and historical. Ashoka’s life among the poor and destitute reflects the Buddha’s own mythological journey outside the palace walls. But his personal romance with a foreign princess reflects important modern concerns, that while Ashoka was a product of his times, he also rejected those times for deeply personal reasons.

Director Santosh Sivan directs this picture in ways that reflect Ashoka’s dualism. He designs his shots with Peter Jackson-like simplicity that makes the Iron Age setting come alive. The Mauryan palace has timber frames and beaten metal ornaments that bespeak both poverty and ambition. Important character moments happen while Ashoka hides out in windswept caverns and candlelit temples. Shadows cut deep across his face as he chews up his enemies.

And chew them up he does. Sivan recreates military conquest in images that would make Cecil B. DeMille envious. The movie cuts from conversations inside stone-walled taverns to massive cavalry charges as quickly and effortlessly as Ashoka’s military lifestyle requires. Ashoka’s relationship with his bodyguard Virat begins with slapstick that would make American directors flinch, and concludes in truly heartbreaking tragedy.

The contrast of tones, not only within the movie but within principal characters from scene to scene, creates a jarring disjunction that English-speaking audiences might find uncomfortable. Sivan includes broad physical comedy in a tragic film, and religious rumination in a war epic. Western audiences aren’t accustomed to such juxtaposition. This film dropped in 2001, about the time American TV and movies shifted to whispered dialog and solemn, unsmiling faces.

However, that very juxtaposition bolsters this movie’s themes. Sure, Ashoka lived around the same time as Alexander the Great, and we’d consider him ancient. But the concerns that forced him to reject empire and embrace transcendence, aren’t only located in the past. Ashoka laughs, gets drunk, and adores his mother; he also gives reign to murderous rages and destroys entire nations. Because ultimately, so do we.

Pie in the Sky on TV's “Firefly”

Promotional cast photo of Firefly

“Burn the land and boil the sea, you can’t take the sky from me.” Bluesman Sonny Rhodes’ theme-tune performance nailed the tone of TV’s Firefly. The nine crewmembers of the bucket freighter Serenity have, for individual reasons, abandoned life on terra firma and elected to live in the vacuum between planets. Over fourteen episodes and one feature film, those individual reasons dribble out slowly, equating to various forms of injustice.

American theologian Howard Thurman insists we understand Jesus best by understanding historical context. Jesus’ message of humble resistance makes most sense amid Roman occupation and Jewish subjection. Before Jesus, Jews had three responses. “What must be the attitude toward the rulers,” Thurman asks, “the controllers of political, social, and economic life?” Some, like the Sadducees, adopted Greco-Roman styles, while others, like the nonviolent Pharisees and violent Zealots, doubled down on Jewish identity.

Thurman’s third option is simply absenting oneself from society. This was the option favored by the Essenes at Qumran. Rather than submit to Rome’s bootheel, the Essenes fled Judea altogether, tended flocks among the caves, and refused to participate in society. This allowed the Essenes to maintain Levitical purity by simply not having their practices challenged. The empire can’t threaten us if we simply walk away from the empire.

This third option seems appealing when the empire’s yoke is intolerable, but also inescapable. Religions in particular, but also certain philosophies, urge True Believers to leave the empire. From ancient Essenes and Benedictines to modern hippies and Maharishi followers, morally pure people often yearn to rebuild society. The simple fact that these communities seldom outlive their founders doesn’t dissuade True Believers from trying again.

Nathan Fillion as Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Captain Mal, commanding the Serenity, takes this impulse to an uncommonly literal level. Saint Benedict promised believers they could, by following simple rules, reject the empire and live in the Heavenly City now. Captain Mal literally lives in the sky. Because his empire, yclept the Alliance, controls every planet in the ’Verse, he simply rejects the empire, leaves the planets, and—despite being outspokenly atheist—tries to go to Heaven.

I’m reminded of Swedish-American labor activist Joe Hill, who wrote folksongs to unify the labor movement. Among his most famous, his song “The Preacher and the Slave” coined the phrase “Pie in the Sky When You Die” to mock conservative Christians’ belief that passive compliance with unjust laws guaranteed a beneficent afterlife. Going to Heaven, in Hill’s view, seemingly meant selling out to unjust authorities here on Earth.

Both Captain Mal and his creator, Joss Whedon, would seemingly agree there. Whedon, like Mal, has nothing generous to say about Christianity. Yet throughout his works, characters continue believing in capital-T Truth, which is found through first leaving human society, then returning to it. Many Joss Whedon narratives, like Buffy or The Avengers, have a contemporary setting that, while altered, reflect our world. Firefly uniquely leaves Earth altogether.

This lets the protagonists do something seen frequently in other Whedon properties: go to Heaven now, before they’re dead. Captain Mal makes explicit something only lurking tacitly behind Buffy or Captain America. Whether fighting the Alliance, vampires, or Chitauri, Whedon’s protagonists must first leave this plane, often multiple times, then return armed to fight this world’s battles.

Joss Whedon

(As an aside, Captain Mal provides a perturbing metaphor. Whedon modeled Mal on ex-confederates who refused to surrender, like Frank and Jesse James, and headed West as outlaws. This seems like Lost Cause apologia, and former fans have turned against Firefly for this. But the episode “Shindig” specifies that the victorious Alliance, not the defeated Independents, practice slavery. Historically, this makes sense. As James McPherson writes, the Confederacy lost the war, but arguably won the peace.)

Unfortunately, fleeing the world never works. The world eventually barges in. Throughout history, peoples have used the cloak of religion to seek solace in isolated locations like Qumran, Monte Cassino, or Canyon de Chelly. The empire eventually overrun and destroyed all these locations. Each one is now a national park or historical center, demonstrating the ultimate fate of those who flee: their lives are frozen in time, as artifacts.

Like the Essenes at Qumran, or the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee, the Serenity crew attempts to disavow participation in the empire. But the empire keeps dragging them back in. That’s because, as Joe Hill realized, Heaven isn’t a place to camp during this life. Capital-T Truth will only be found by facing the empire on the ground. Because eventually, they will take the sky from you.

Your Brain Is Part Of Your Body, Sort Of

Amy Cuddy, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self To Your Biggest Challenges

Why do some people seemingly walk into a room and immediately own it? Charismatic entrepreneurs, tech maestros, and artists wield this magic, while us mortals witness them with awe. Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy admits multiple variables probably influence how we manifest what she calls “presence,” not all of which are portable. But Cuddy suggests we have one powerful variable under our control: how we stand.

Reading this book’s description, I expected something like a Dale Carnegie course. The dust-flap copy implied an introduction to “the power of presence,” the tweaks of attitude and comportment that we collectively identify as charisma. We who, for whatever reason, never quite learned society’s unwritten rules in adolescence, frequently look for streamlined guidance for how to handle fraught situations, like public speaking, job interviews, and first dates.

Instead, Cuddy advocates what she calls “power posing.” This means holding your body upright, back straight, chin out, feet spread. Take up space, Cuddy advocates, and your mind will become expansive enough for even the most threatening spaces. Though Cuddy spends time on preliminary concepts like the nature of Imposter Syndrome or the importance of honesty, her book’s heart is invested in the idea that if you pose big, your brain will follow.

I’m reminded of Jordan Peterson’s first Rule for Life: “Stand up straight with your shoulders back.” Like Peterson, Cuddy believes this releases beneficial neurochemicals, and justifies this belief by citing wild animals peacocking in their natural environment. At least Cuddy cites higher primates, not Peterson’s seriocomic lobsters. But both psychologists elide one important question: are humans in society essentially similar to wild animals?

Animal social structures are essentially flat. If one chimpanzee leaves the colony, it leaves every aspect of colony life. Human lives are more dynamic, and encompass work, school, family, volunteer groups, sports fandoms, hobby organizations, religious congregations, and neighborhood taverns. Having power in one environment doesn’t necessarily transfer elsewhere. Moreover, I may leave one workplace, yet still safely grab a beer with my former coworkers.

Dr. Amy Cuddy demonstrating
the “Wonder Woman pose”

Cuddy even admits her advice is deeply conditional. Power postures which she claims empower our preconscious mannerisms, come across as deeply phony if we actually do them in public. People seriously pulling what Cuddy calls the “Wonder Woman pose” mainly appear off-putting in group dynamics. That’s why Cuddy cites the behaviors great apes pull in colony environments, but recommends we mimic them in private spaces: because humans aren’t wild animals.

Further, Cuddy admits “power poses” are culturally conditioned. Western power poses, she acknowledges, don’t work in most Asian societies. Though Cuddy cites her own and others’ research to demonstrate posing’s efficacy, her subjects are mostly college students, a core sample critics call WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. I’d question whether these poses work in poor or rural environments, where the person who stands out most usually gets knocked down first.

Please don’t misunderstand. We all recognize the correlation between bad posture and bad attitude. Cuddy herself mentions the hunched posture of the overworked cube farmer, or the increasingly common neck problems faced by teenagers who spend hours bent over their phones. These postures put lateral stress on our spines, structural tension our bodies aren’t optimized to handle. Humans evolved in environments where standing straight meant better access to food.

However, that’s correlation; Cuddy imputes these postures with cause. It’s equally plausible to say “submissive” postures are survival mechanisms. The hunching seen in cube farmers cowed by the workplace, tragically resembles the “don’t hit me” posture demonstrated by survivors of childhood abuse. People make themselves small to avoid making themselves targets. Maybe that behavior is maladaptive in adulthood, but it perseveres because, at one time, it worked.

I don’t want to imply that Cuddy’s conclusions are wrong. I lack sufficient knowledge and standing to support such conclusions. However, reading her text, it’s impossible to avoid noting that Cuddy’s evidence, while staged in scientific terminology, relies heavily on self-reporting. I also balk at Cuddy’s dependence on testimony, as it’s easy to slant outcomes according to which users bother to write back. Disappointed end-users seldom write fan letters.

We’ve probably all stared into a mirror, holding ourselves erect and practicing our breathing and eye contact. Feels empowering, doesn’t it? But we quickly realize the benefits of peacocking are transitory in hostile environments. I don’t want to flippantly dismiss Cuddy’s precepts, which probably help the right people in the right conditions. But her presentation is too sweeping, and doesn’t leave room for people struggling to survive adverse or dangerous circumstances.

Jesus in the Living Empire

1001 Books to Read Before Your Kindle Battery Dies, Part 113
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited

Dedicated Christians believe Jesus Christ’s message holds true in all times and all locations. But Jesus himself existed in a specific place and time: Galilee and Judea, in the narrow window between Roman conquest, and Rome’s expulsion of Jews from their homeland. Jesus spoke to a powerless and occupied nation, delivering a message emphasizing how to live when society and empire wouldn’t permit painless living. Jesus’ original audience understood this.

Dr. Howard Thurman began life in segregated America, raised by a grandmother born into slavery. Concepts of empire and occupation weren’t metaphorical to him. Therefore, he read Jesus’ teachings as approaches to living in a nation that wrote inequity into its laws, and maintaining one’s dignity and creativity in adverse conditions. Though perhaps less well-known than peers like Dr. King or Fannie Lou Hamer, his insights are equally relevant today.

Thurman, who pastored America’s first intentionally multiracial congregation and later became America’s first Black dean of a majority-White seminary, In the wake of World War II, he published an article comparing Jesus’ historical context with the the-current conditions of Black Americans, a comparison that seems obvious now, but was probably scandalous. This short (barely 100 pages) book emerged from that article and the discussions surrounding it.

In this book, Thurman breaks down the common, intuitive ways occupied peoples in conquering empires handle their occupation. Though the responses often take nuanced form in response to specific situations, Thurman organizes them into three categories: Fear, Deception, and Hate. These categories correspond to mainline Hebrew responses to Roman violence, though they’re not uniquely Hebrew, nor are they necessary to Jewish identity. They’re just how ordinary Jews handled the situation.

Against these three categories, Thurman describes Jesus’ prescription: Love. This seems counterintuitive. The opposite of Fear is Courage, isn’t it? Not so, according to Thurman. Courage is respected in powerful people, but in conquered populations, it makes one a target. Instead, Thurman proposes Jesus’ response that cannot be broken. Those who have humility cannot be humiliated. Those who love their enemies don’t carry hatred’s frequently toxic weight.

Howard Thurman

Throughout, Thurman alternates between Jesus’ historical context, and Thurman’s own times. His examination of Jesus’ life and times isn’t an abstracted sociological experiment. Rather, Thurman published in 1949, as American wars in Germany, Japan, and later Korea enflamed national sentiment. As Thurman notes, racism frequently increases in America whenever official outlets gin up “patriotic” sentiment.

This insight isn’t original to Thurman. Historians like Greg Grandin have noted that, whenever American soldiers return from overseas wars, the homeland almost immediately sees increases in racially motivated violence. America’s commitment to World War II and its bastard offspring, the Korean War, segued directly into the racialized violence that motivated Dr. King, Malcolm X, and Kwame Ture. This book precedes the formalized “Civil Rights Movement,” but is unitary with its social conditions.

Thurman, a pastor first and therefore a veteran author of sermons, reinforces his exegesis with sermonic illustrations. He describes a sojourn in India, for instance, where he shared coffee and insights with a certain unnamed Hindu leader. Thurman elides any identifying details, but this leader may be Mahatma Gandhi, who Thurman met, and with whom he maintained a lengthy correspondence. Gandhi’s activism contributed directly to American Civil Rights, and Thurman was one important point of contact.

I don’t make the sermonic analogy flippantly. According to Thurman’s preface, much content within this short book began life as a series of lectures he delivered on multiple occasions, refining and clarifying his insights with each telling. His prose is thematically dense, but not impenetrable, and he writes without scholarly reliance on frequent source citations. His tone, rather, resembles a beloved teacher expounding important points you’ll need sooner than later.

This title’s current Beacon Press edition includes a foreword from historian and activist Vincent Harding. Dr. Thurman, like Jesus, addressed his teachings to a specific audience, which isn’t us. Professor Harding situates Thurman’s writing in his historical context, with the personalities and situations that Thurman’s original audience would’ve simply understood. Sadly, though our world continues changing, the underlying problems plaguing it don’t always change.

Yes, the world has changed since 1949, and American Christianity with it. But many problems remain fundamentally similar. The concerns of Black Christians which Thurman describes, are now understood to extend likewise to Hispanic, Native American, and LGBTQIA+ Americans who see themselves as part of the Christian fold. They too live, as Thurman puts it, with their backs against the wall. And they too have much to teach Christians.

Who Needs the Speaker of the House?

Kevin McCarthy

By the time you read this, you’ll already know something I don’t as I write: whether the United States has a sitting Speaker of the House. At this writing, Kevin McCarthy has narrowly failed six ballots, making his the first Speaker’s vote in a century to require multiple ballots. Because the Republicans hold a razor-thin majority, the usual procedural workarounds used to prevent intraparty entanglements won’t resolve the problem.

However, that razor-thin majority precipitates an important question: does the United States need a Speaker of the House? Does the role, as it currently exists, serve the House’s legislative role, as defined by the Constitution? Or does it impede debate, preventing testing of important ideas and the process of coalition-building? Would America be better served by dismantling the Speaker’s authority into an executive committee holding dispersed authority?

The fact that I’m asking these questions probably telegraphs my preferred answer.

The Speaker position’s existence is specified in the Constitution (Article One, Section 2), but no responsibility specified. Like much in America’s Constitution, the actual execution remains vague. Nothing actually requires the Speakership’s current authority to not only start, but also prevent, legislative debate. The Speaker’s control of legislative agenda derives from written rules and unwritten traditions—any of which could be changed.

Previous Speakers, like Sam Rayburn or Joseph Cannon, exercised significant power. But the Speakership’s current authority derives from Newt Gingrich, who explicitly saw the purpose of politics as war. His goal, in exercising authority, was not to serve the common good, but to destroy his opponents. He consolidated decision-making authority specifically to ensure only bills favorable to partisan causes even made the floor; any other debate got spiked.

Nancy Pelosi

We’ve seen more power accumulated to the Speakership. Officially, the Speaker provides order and governs organizational procedure, but in practice, that lacks definition. The “Hastert Rule,” not really a rule but a practice introduced by Dennis Hastert, gives the Speaker the power to prevent voting, or even debate, on bills which the Speaker’s party won’t support. Equally important, the Speaker dispenses committee appointments, ensuring which bills even advance.

This matters because, under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, currently in force, the Speaker is second in line for the Presidency. By concentrating powerful authority in the Speakership, the procedure essentially creates a second national executive—then gives that person specific motivation to undermine the existing Executive Branch. Under a divided government, that provides remarkable incentive for individual corruption, as Gingrich demonstrated.

Nothing about the Speakership requires this level of executive authority. Unlike the President, who must often act swiftly and unilaterally to preserve national interests in a volatile world climate, the Speaker seldom faces such urgency. The issues which the House handles are long-term and national in scope, deserving test through debate. Though “compromise” and “horse-trading” have become dirty words lately, they describe how we build legislation that works.

Whatever political party doesn’t hold the White House usually gains power in midterm elections. This means the Speaker develops massive power over national priorities. Which sounds great, if Speakers hold actual policy positions, but few do. Since Gingrich, the bipartisan procedure has been to use the Legislature to break everything, preventing solutions to growing problems. Global warming, economic inequality, and an unaccountable military go unaddressed, as Speakers jockey for partisan advantage.

Newt Gingrich

Living in the shadow of Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi, the Speakership has become a barrier to governance. Bills don’t receive nuanced debate in full chambers; indeed, the full House seldom meets unless a vote is scheduled. The House serves at the Speaker’s discretion, not the people’s. An entire second presidency has grown, tumor-like, on the Legislative Branch’s rump, one which isn’t popularly elected and doesn’t serve all Americans’ interests equally.

Arguably, the House needs the Speakership to organize routine business. But as the office has accumulated extra-Constitutional power, it has served to resurrect the exact conditions that doomed the Articles of Confederation: in-group loyalties, one Congress passing legislation to overrule the last Congress, and institutional whimsy. The entire office has become antithetical to clean governance and a sense of responsibility to the people.

While left-wing pundits whip themselves into a tizzy over supposed injustice of the unfair Senate or the Electoral College, the Speaker of the House has become the enemy of small-d democracy. The bitter, and frankly stupid, fight currently unfolding behind the Speakership vote demonstrates this. The ballot remains unresolved because partisans are fighting over who deserves that level of power. Sadly, the natural answer seems to be: nobody.

Edit for historical context: Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-California) eventually won the election. It took four days and fifteen ballots, the longest lag in electing a Speaker since before the U.S. Civil War.