This play is really quite terrifying; I cannot think of any other way to describe it. This is the first time I’ve heard of the Salem Witch Trials, and when exposed to this book it brought to mind The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne which was also set in Puritan 17th century Massachusetts. In it, Hester Prynne is accused of adultery and is made to wear an ‘A’ as a manifestation of her sin– it becomes weight and symbol. But it is the people around them, the public, the crowd led by a few especially wicked individuals that are the drivers of that hysteria, and in both The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter it is they that are really the villains and antagonists. I suppose that that these terrible punishments are sought in the name of morality exacerbates the horror; evil is evil, but when it masks or deludes itself into believing that violence should be done in the name of good is more frightening. It would be interesting to examine the psychological elements of this, in which people feel their ethics and beliefs are so precarious as to need to unload their fears this way. It reminds me of Achebe and what he said in one of his responses to Conrad: how colonists needed affirmation of their civilization’s superiority, and needed to define the object of their hatred/fear in direct opposition to themselves. It just goes to show that really, everything is internal; there are rarely external threats, only those that are conjured up by strange mutations of fear. Also curious: that the most seemingly self-assured people are really the most twisted (such as Danforth); their authority is derived from the uncertainties of others, especially the uncertainties of the best and most morally upright people.

I found the “Negritude” component of the presentation yesterday to be the most fascinating; elements of the phenomenon described seem to have evolved since Black Skin, White Masks  into what today is black pride. That Fanon believes such attitudes counterproductive to producing conducive racial discourse was surprising, but upon hearing the “existence precedes essence” reasoning, it does make sense. Still, would black pride be locking black people into images and stereotypes that are ultimately derogatory? Or is it so fundamentally different from the Negritude described that that is no longer the case? Or is Fanon, in any case, wrong?

Thinking of questions reminds me of some aspects of humour and parody with racial undertones. The skits performed by the comediennes Key and Peele come to mind. I watched one in which they claimed to “adjust the amount of blackness” depending on the ethnicities of their company; claims that appeal to perceptions the collective hold about black and white people. These are perceptions that are rooted in stereotypes and mass culture–that we know what they are talking about–does this mean we are unable to truly eradicate belief and adherence to these stereotypes? “Black humour” and cultural practices such as black people using the N-word among themselves–these seem to be cathartic processes, an erasure of past pains by making them ridiculous, or a subjugation of the power of that word by invoking its historical black-white relation–“humour as tragedy plus time” come to life. Would such humour be part of the solution? I do not know, and whether it contributes to the easing of racial tensions seems to be presumptuous criteria for judging its value.

As some have already mentioned, I feel vaguely uncomfortable and/or patronizing expressing my thoughts.

Years ago when I was much younger and finally had access to the internet I googled “Calvin and Hobbes.” This was a desperate measure then, as I’d not acquired the habit of googling all my life’s problems and looking for the answers/seeking solace in anonymous strangers; and this desperation was due to a drought in the addition of new Calvin and Hobbes strips. Imagine the surprise when I learned that the strip had ended the year I was born! The search, however, was not fruitless. I learned that the name of Hobbes, the pseudo-imaginary tiger in the strip, (and one I’d thought strange) had been based on a 16th century English philosopher. This brief reading of Leviathan (or at least the first dozen or so chapters) has been my only acquaintance with the philosopher since then, and I cannot read the text without wondering why Bill Watterson, the strip’s author and artist as well as notorious recluse, chose to name a six-year old’s best friend after so momentous a figure. (The boy Calvin is named after the theologian John Calvin, whom I know even less about.) In the strip, Hobbes is the more rational counterpart to Calvin’s impulsive and wild nature. As a tiger, he is pessimistic in regards to humans and their nature; he is especially pessimistic when it comes to their capacity for cruelty and insanity.  As far as I know, the similarities end there, as Hobbes is often co-orchestrator with Calvin in his schemes against his parents, school, babysitter and classmates, all or one of which I presume would represent the authoritarian state that ought not be revolted against under any circumstances, no matter how terrible. I suppose it would be cliche to interpret the tiger, then, as Watterson’s personal remake of the philosopher’s ideas as he sees them–keeping the pessimism (which, really, is ultimately optimism-one does not complain unless one cares) while removing the more draconian elements of Hobbes’s state which were most likely a result of the historical context Hobbes was born and bred in. Nonetheless, I will be rereading my collection of the strips with an eye out for the similarities between the two. The tiger has always been my favourite character, and perhaps he will be able to sustain me through the murky, dense language of Thomas Hobbes!

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