Sir Thomas More To William Roper From A Man For All Seasons

 William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! 

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? 

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! 

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Veganism And Ethics

Note to someone:

You’ve gone quiet on me so I’ll get right to the argument I want to make.

It is that there are some moral ideals of conduct that people can be excused from, and can excuse themselves from, not adhering to. The law captures many, but not all, forms of conduct that we can’t be excused from breaching. So, for example, we should never assault anyone but we can live with, excuse, be ok with ourselves, lying on occasion (if no bad consequences for someone else.) 

So, on this basis, I say veganism is one such ideal of conduct that, generally speaking and admitting of any number of exceptions, people can be excused from not adhering to, given the great chain of being, given our carnivorous nature and urges and given that our entire world in one significant way is organized around consuming animal products. 

Another such form of ideal conduct is giving away what one has beyond reasonable need to the immiserate. It’s simply not in most of us even to approach anything like that let alone more or less achieving it. 

So, just as we, most of us, virtually cannot refrain from consuming animal products, I don’t count that as an ethical breach the way assaulting someone is. Vegans, therefore, deserve our admiration for living according to their principles whereas most people, almost everybody, don’t in respect of veganism,

Where living strictly but reasonably within one’s needs and giving all else away to the immiserate or otherwise dealing with it in a helpful way is relevant is that it’s an answer to vegans who will judge non vegans haughtily, look down on them. 

I’d say if vegans aren’t giving away excess to others, they have no ground on which to look down on non vegans.

So, to drive this to a narrower point, the “ethics” of consuming animal products, save to insist on humane treatment of animals where consumption is a given, save to take protective care of animals facing extinction and save for other like cases, consuming animal products is excusable conduct. It is what we can do without shame or guilt.

Another Another Brief Note On The Many Saints Of Newark, Specifically On Michael Gandolfini’s Portrayal Of Tony Soprano

On The Many Saints Of Newark, a problem with Michael Gandofini as Tony Soprano is there nothing in him or what he does that suggests the larger than life figure who dominates The Sopranos. 

Two data points:

1. Dickie M. heeds Sal M.‘s advice in his, Dickie’s, quest for expiation. Dickie, to try to do a good thing, rebuffs Tony. But then Dickie reverses course and agrees to reconnect with him. Syl convinces Dickie to reconnect on the basis that Tony is a great kid who shows terrific Mafia promise and is the future of their Mafia family; and

2. Tony’s high school counselor tells Olivia that Tony, despite his bad marks, tests as highly intelligent, is a leader and is notably sociable.

But if Tony displays any of those qualities in The Many Saints, then I missed them. 

There are two reasons for this, two reasons for why we’re only told, and not only not shown, but actually shown the opposite:

1. The movie doesn’t give Tony any chance, any situation in which, to embody these sterling qualities; and 

2. Michael Gandolfini is too bland in his portrayal. His acting doesn’t evince any of them.

 

A Few Scattered Notes On The Many Saints Of Newark

The Many Saints Of Newark improves with each viewing. I checked some reviews. The bad ones have a misconception. They say the film suffers for not being an extended series like The Sopranos, for not doing what that series does. 1 

That’s mistakenly criticizing a thing for what it’s not.

The film marries well its connection with the series to being of stand alone quality.

I’d argue it’s seamless and that it’s mistaken to complain the minor characters don’t have the fullness of the series characters. 2 

The criticism that the portrayal of the Newark rioting and the story of Harold McBrayer are a distraction misses the film’s stand alone quality and it’s integrated story lines. There’s no reason it can’t take up race relations in the context of 60s/70s Newark organized crime. 3 

For me, the big weakness in The Many Saints is Michael Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.

His screen impact is negligible, more bland than anything else. 

He’s unaffecting.

For example, his anger at Dickie’s rejection of him is more like a fit of pique than anything deeply felt. 4

A Friend’s Short Incisive Note On Compatibilism

I'd add that the compatibilist argument, as I see it, hinges on the notion that we have different frames, or modes, or systems for coping with our situation in the world. One, but only one, of these is the empirical or utilitarian, which is founded on the notion of cause, and in which the notion of "will" simply doesn't make sense. Another is the moral frame, founded on the notion of agency, or the ability to choose free of external force. These have different functions, and apply to different situations or circumstances, but both are essential aspects of how we manage our experience of the world. Conflating the two, as in asserting that "free will" is an illusion, is just a basic category error. 

On Misreading A Point Made By Jonathan Gottschall

 Jonathan Gotschall: “In the very act of generating empathy for protagonists and victims, storytellers simultaneously produce an extreme dulling of empathy that allows us to revel in the suffering of villains.”

I misread this point.

My mistake was to think that…1 

…we dull our empathy by sympathizing with villains, thereby losing our sympathy for their victims.

This seemed acute to me as I’m in the midst of re-watching The Sopranos for the first time since originally seeing them so many years ago. 2 

In depicting Tony’s complexity, partly homicidally horrid, partly touching and vulnerable, in getting inside his head and the heads of his fellow thugs, in putting Tony on the “couch,” in humanizing them all, even in showing certain entertaining aspects of the thugs’ lives…3 

our sympathies, along with other emotions, can’t help but be aroused. And this, I think, perforce tends to blunt or at least complicate our sympathy for various victims. 

The Sopranos’ theme in one way of putting it is that gangsters are people too. 4 

I thought this an acute insight, one which works, that such aroused sympathies blunt our compassion for the victims. 

But that’s not want he means. 

Art depicting rounded villains, whom we’re led to feel something for in complex response to them, subsumes Gottschall’s point. 5 

Consider the classic example of Shylock in The Merchant Of Venice and our bifurcated responses to him, to his daughter Jessica, to Antonio, even to Portia.

They seem to make Gottschall’s specific point, which I’d misunderstood, wanting much fuller and deeper exploration. 6/6 

A Note On Being 2/3ds Through Jimmy Breslin’s The Good Rat: A True Story

 I’m 2/3ds through Jimmy Breslin’s 2008 The Good Rat: A True Story. It’s essentially about Burton Kaplan, who dealt with various mobsters, with side stories flowing off the main narrative. 

A curious shift takes place. The opening bid is that the Mafia is essentially dead kept alive only by journalistic and film stories about it. Breslin scorns mobsters as basically lazy high school drop outs without the wherewithal to do anything requiring discipline and brains. They’re all, so to say, members of “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight,” Breslin’s name for Crazy Joey Gallo’s crew. 

But some mid way through the book, Breslin becomes Damon Runyon, glorying in these now colourful characters, how they confer genial liveliness in the saloons they hang out in and in the good company they provide over drinks or a meal. 

Complementing this shift, at one point Breslin rails against how New York has changed with imprisonment depleting the mobsters’ numbers, how 9-5 dull saloons and the city itself have become owing to how boring and square regular folks are. 

He at another point speaks warmly affectionately of Jimmy Burke, a stone killer who left dead bodies in his wake, the outrage over that nowhere to be seen due to a big favour Burke tried to do Breslin. 

In this, Damon Runyon trumps the opening bid.