A Saddle on a Cat

The hokey pokey, ancient labor negotiations, flimsy history and the reception desk at a multinational bank.

When I was young, the world seemed very old. In that oldness resided wisdom and power. I grew up in Massachusetts, where America keeps its deep history. That history is about four or so human lifetimes stretched end to end.

Like many cities, Worcester makes its claim as an heir to a far deeper history. There’s an intersection where you can stand and see all three major types of Greek capitals. First and most imposing are the Doric pillars looming atop the stairs of the now-empty Worcester Memorial Auditorium. Ionic pilasters mark the high brick walls of the former Worcester Voke, vocational high school. Finally, Corinthian pillars line the exterior of the nearby courthouse.

Roman armor

Classical architecture has always given me a charge. Even as a teenager, I’d linger over the classical flourishes in American cities. The first time I went to Europe - Paris - it was like being plugged into a wall outlet.

I was wild-eyed at its statues, fountains and carved facades. But there was something off-key, as well. In the center of the city, one popular sculptural motif on the cornices of buildings was the empty breastplate and helmet of a Roman infantryman from 2,000 years before. In Rome, it was the Egyptian obelisks all over town. At the time, it all knocked me out.

But over time, it chafed. It seemed like the city fathers were trying a little too hard.

The reflecting puddle

As I get older, time seems less towering. And history starts to seem a little thin. What remains are impressions and daydreams, mostly. The august monuments start to feel desperate - new rulers stealing legitimacy from a popular conception of the past, and making up power from a series of decorative conventions. That Greco-Roman temple on Centre Street in Manhattan is where they took people’s freedom from them.

A common disenchantment

Tradition ain’t what it used to be. The emphasis has shifted. The notion of “these are the traditions and customs that have helped us to survive” has turned to “these are the traditions and customs that have survived.”

Like many conversations, the one about tradition has slipped from being about care to being about competition. This leaks in from our lives. In the arena of making a living, we all hear more about competition than about care.

At the same time, the 21st century has given competition a bad name. Our culture is dominated by people with more money than anyone could ever make from working hard or helping others. Success may be the ultimate measure, but trickery is suspected at the heart of success.

In an all-encompassing, never-honest marketplace, the surviving traditions are suspect simply for having survived. In an all-encompassing, never-honest marketplace, being a sucker is the ultimate sin.

So out with the arts, out with the humanities. Just get the money.

Hokey pokey

Out with the humanities is just people renegotiating - they want the penicillin without the Gertrude Stein, the electricity without the Immanuel Kant. Maybe it’s meaningful and timeless, or maybe you just had to be there. I guess we’ll see.

Civilization is a deal. Sometimes it’s a good deal. But it pays to negotiate.

The recently deceased James C. Scott wrote about how historically, civilization as a whole has always up for debate, with people voting with their feet - fleeing to the woods when civilization is a bad deal, and coming back when it was practical. The walls of great cities and kingdoms were often to keep people in as much as it is to keep marauders out, Scott used to say.

From that perspective, civilization is less a progression than a millennia-spanning Hokey Pokey, where humanity puts their left foot in and takes their left foot out, they put their left foot in and then they shake it all about.

Flimsy

Today, with every square mile of the earth under the dominion of one nation or another (a fairly recent development), people still find ways of checking out. The hokey-pokey nature of civilization is maybe why people need to make it look old and continuous to make it stand up.

Joseph’s internship

The hokey pokey is in the bible. Joseph grew up in a big herding family, moving around, mostly listening to their dad, but playing awfully rough. One day, the brothers beat up Joseph and sold him into slavery. But Joseph was smart, and once he got to Egypt, he rose through the ranks. He got the Pharaoh into grain speculation and made a mint.

Meanwhile the family was outside, herding, trading, doing the occasional sacrifice. They slept under the stars, a life mostly free of compromise. When the drought came, they remembered Egypt, where their grandfather went during the last drought. The old man ran a complicated scheme with his wife and left the kingdom pretty well off.

The brothers went down to make a deal. Once they got there, they found their brother running the whole operation. After an elaborate ruse and some heartfelt apologies, they moved the whole family down to Egypt, where they had a very good deal, thanks to their brother.

Then a few generations pass, and the deal suddenly isn’t so good. The new Pharaoh doesn’t like them. Most of the next book is about the negotiations related to getting out of the bad deal Egypt had become.

A generation later, when they’ve stopped wandering the desert, they get an idea to have a king run the whole thing. G-d comes out and says “Don’t do it. It’s a bad deal.” They do the bad deal anyway.

Don’t select an option

To live in a civilization at all, it’s important not to believe anyone who tells you there’s just one deal. There are many deals. There’s a lot of negotiating involved. Usually you won’t be negotiating directly with Pharaoh. So take whatever your counterparty says with a grain of salt.

The gates

There’s a physical threshold where the rules change - the wall around an old city, the entrance to a college, the giant doors of a cathedral, the arched gateways to Paramount Pictures or the lobby of Goldman Sachs. It’s a place where new customs and priorities take effect.

You always accelerate at the gates. You want in. You want out. You don’t want to be detained. You don’t want to be turned back. You may not be sure about your decision to come or to go. But you are certain of the courage you needed to summon to approach the gate, from either direction.