Writing by Susan Smith Nash, with podcasts. Works include poetry, creative writing, memoirs and writing from various places, literary theory, humanities, and responses to film, texts, and places
If behind each gorgeously ornate Baroque cathedral in Mexico and throughout Latin America there is a blood-soaked history, is the same the case for Louis XIV, the self-appointed Sun King, and his stunning complex, Versailles?
In a word, “yes.” The sugar plantations and the slave trade between Africa and the Caribbean produced the vast wealth needed to supplement the draconian taxation system in place in rural France. The French were the third largest slave traders in the world, after the British and the Portuguese. The sugar and indigo plantations in the Caribbean included those in Haiti (Saint-Domingue), with 773,000 slaves, Martinique, with 217,200, and Guadeloupe, with 73,000 (Slavery and Remembrance, 2020). There was also a significant French slave trade to North America through New Orleans.
There was an ongoing high demand for slaves to work in the sugar plantations where crushed sugar cane was used for fuel, molasses, sugar, and the base for rum. Work in the fields, as well as in the sugar cane processing plants, was dangerous and harsh, with long hours and few moments to rest. The plantation owners profited from the sale of their sugar cane-based products, but often the largest profits came from the slave trade itself. The slave ships and their voyages were financed by investors who often received enormous profits, although there could be risk, such as disease, shipwreck, or slave uprising, which give some indication of the horrific conditions during the “Middle Passage” – where the deeply unfortunate Africans were chained down in the lower decks of aging, borderline-unseaworthy boats.
Le Code Noir in the Caribbean and in Louisiana
Called the most monstrous document of modern times (Sala-Molins, 2006), the Code Noir (Black Code) was passed in 1685 by Louis XIV in Versailles. Drafted by Controller General of Finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), Le Code Noir contained 60 articles that specifically addressed the way that slaves were to be treated. Immediately implemented, the document was used throughout the French colonial empire.
A later version of it, applying specifically to Louisiana, was passed in 1724 after a large number of slaves were transported to New Orleans as a part of the disastrous “Mississippi Scheme” investment bubble, described at length in Charles Mackay’s book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). Napoleon Bonaparte’s Code Civil (1803) incorporated it in response to the Haitian revolution that led to independence and the abolition of slavery in that country.
The Code reflects Governor Bienville’s fear that the quickly growing population of slaves who were brought in to provide labor might overwhelm the non-slaves. He wanted to control a rapidly growing slave population.
Le Code Noir (The Black Code)
Le Code Noir goes a long way in explaining the deeply implanted ideas, attitudes, and beliefs that still exist in the American South. After all, the Code was a Code of Law and as such, enforceable by pain of legal punishment. It governed the way that whites and blacks must interact with each other and set out very rigid and explicit limits.
Le Code Noir also helps us disavow ourselves of any illusions that slavery was anything but a cruel, dehumanizing practice. It is common to hear the argument that slavery was tantamount to a paternalistic social welfare system. If one has no contact with facts, it might be possible to believe that fairy tale. But all one has to do is to read a few of the 60 articles to gain an appreciation of how nefariously cruel it was. Not only did it incorporate physical brutality into its law, it created and hardened toxic, inhuman ideas about fellow human beings. Those ideas persist into today’s world.
A quick review of some of the sixty articles give us a sense of how all-encompassing they were and also how they reflected the values of the time and also set them in place for the future.
Overview of the Articles in Le Code Noir
Articles I-VI: This part of the Code Noir focuses on the Roman Catholic religion. The first article states that any Jews who may be living on the island must leave. It does not say why, so we must enter into a bit of conjecture. No other religions except Roman Catholicism are allowed, and all slaves must be baptized and instructed into the faith. This edict provides insight into why and when the religious beliefs they carried from Africa would have been blended into and potentially disguised or cloaked by a veneer of Catholicism. This seems very similar to what happened in Peru and other parts of Latin America, in a process of syncretism.
The Moor’s Baptism. Ludwig Emil Grimm (1841)
Articles VII – XIII: These articles rigidly control the relationships between slaves and non-slaves, and they set out complex rules and punishments for having relationships, attempting to marry, having children, and more. These articles are profoundly dehumanizing and invasive of something that would ordinarily be considered to be very private and personal.
Articles XIV – XXVII: Slaves are not allowed to carry anything that could be used as a weapon. These articles describe the kinds of punishment to be meted out in response to different behaviors. They are incredibly cruel. Slaves are not allowed to engage in commerce or to have money.
There are numerous articles that describe how and when a slave can be punishable by death. Slaves could be put to death for something as harmless as slapping one in the face. It was also perfectly legal to beat slaves with straps whenever the master thought it was warranted.
These are just a few of the sixty separate articles. Reading them makes the 21st century reader feel a sense of horrified astonishment, and it’s extremely hard to imagine how and why such behavior was justified.
Louisiana’s Code Noir (1724) was based on Louis XIV’s law, and it made it illegal for blacks and whites to marry. Centuries of institutionalized racism, and the reinforcement through the judicial system, probably make people unaware of their own deep biases.
The Person behind Le Code Noir
Jean-Baptiste Colbert is credited for designing and carrying out a program of economic reconstruction that made France the dominant power in Europe. That economic reconstruction included increased tribute and taxation in the countryside, expanded slave trade, expanded commerce with the colonies, and an expansion into the Caribbean. The provisions in Le Code Noir are law, but they are also crimes against humanity. It is important to note that although Jean-Baptiste Colbert drafted the Code, he was by no means an outlier. His views were widely held by individuals who owned the plantations, mills, and equipment. There is a sculpted bust of Jean-Baptiste Colbert in the Louvre Museum in Paris.
Portrait of Jean-Baptist Colbert
Le Code Noir and Literature
The laws surrounding the treatment, conditions, and interactions of slaves permeated all aspects of southern life. Many works of literature incorporated the code and depicted the impact on individuals who were living their lives.
One contemporary example written in Louisiana while the impact of the Code. Louisiana resident Kate Chopin’s “Desiree’s Baby,” a short story published in 1893, depicts the anguish of a woman of uncertain origin who has married one of the most prominent members of the parish. In the story, Armand Aubigny, the owner of L’Abri plantation, marries Desiree, who was foundling of unknown origin, who was raised by the compassionate Madame Valmont. In this story, the baby that Desiree has with her husband, is absolutely adored by both.
However, one day, doubt is cast into the race of the baby. Desiree is accused of being of mixed parentage. Grief stricken, she leaves with her baby, possibly to never return. Her husband watches her leave. Then he assembles all the old letters and other correspondence he can find. As he goes through the documents, he happens upon a letter from his mother to his father. In it, she expresses gratitude to her husband and to the fact that their son will never know the fact that he has African blood.
Sala-Molins, Louis. (2006). Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment, translated by John Conteh-Morgan, University of Minnesota Press.
This vast grey white slab was once an outlet mall before the May 3rd, 1999 tornado outbreak sucked it into its vortex of change and dismay.
It was your birthday and we were dining at On the Border, watching the monitors as electric lines and transformers flashed abeyance to the tornado’s raucous sojourn.
Now, the slab is there, a perfect congregating point for 10 or so flashy cars seeking new owners; an impromptu car lot replete with hopes and dreams and the ghost’s footsteps over the vestigial trace of walls now long gone more than 20 years.
My mind's eye reconstructs that once-proud outlet mall, an important employer for a small town halfway between Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
It purveyed its quirky treasures and extraordinary values for Turnpike travelers on an Oklahoma New Silk Road.
It was my lovely prairie caravanserai; I loved to sip on a cappuccino and watch the ebb and flow of human interaction shaped around the buying and selling and selecting of those consumables we now consider our life.
Footsteps clatter fairy tales crossing a wooden bridge or the slow ascent metal wheels, the rackety thrill
Flags fly high over the original immersive idea a theme park a triggered memory what a Boardwalk ought to be sands slipping away with the offshore currents
You know what friendship is tides, currents, water sliding by and suddenly you have a point bar or a barrier island
a towering rollercoaster on shore a soft smile in your mirror
Joseph Wright of Derby is one of my favorite artists, and his explorations of science / natural philosophy tell us a great deal about life in the 18th century, and underlying beliefs.
Please watch my guide for analyzing Joseph Wright's "Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump" (1768).
Harsh buzz whine whir scream blind illumination
You’re the perfect cicada 17 years of anticipation a short sweet hot moment of life for life’s sake
I’m only here to breed let’s get that straight
That’s why my hallmark sound is of whip-sawed metal and the concrete you stroll down as though summer would never die
If the night is sweet the air damp and warm the dog watering fountain splashy with the sound of a collar and fur shaking I may take a moment to stare into the stars Imagine stardust under my incessantly vibrating wings
I saw you as you took that final fall my pine needles will say nothing
As your wings turn to weeping the night deepens consciousness leaves not a mark
If you operate oil and gas wells, own a basketball team, work for an airline, provide catering for large conferences, or provide science or engineering for the energy industry, COVID-19 has hit you like an F5 tornado. Your business will be hit hard over the next 18 - 24 months. What do you do during that time?
Here is a 7-step strategy for diversifying yourself and your business to weather the storm, and emerge with new potential revenue streams that can work now, and continue in the future.
That strategy will include the following, and more:
Redeploying: Repurposing your human capital and existing resources to meet current and emerging needs
Investments 2020 - 2022: New investments in manufacturing and capacity building in response to COVID-19
Selective import substitution: global supply chain resilience with local results
Economies of scale revisited, this time with smart technology
Comparative advantage revisited: this time with smart technology and local markets
7-Step Plan: Identifying new revenue sources and diversification opportunities
Aligning your assets (human and physical capital) with emerging needs
Background and Contexts
In the span of a mere few months, the much of the world went from a state of exuberant self-actualization to the most primal level of survival (health, food, shelter) insecurity. Import-dependent island economies were perhaps the first to run out of food, water, medicine, and other necessities. Even even the largest economies faced and will continue to face tremendous supply chain ruptures that are of such a scale that they could usher in severe shortages of basic necessities of food, medicine, medical equipment, transportation and warehousing that could result in widespread hunger, disease, and structural unemployment.
Virtually every country in the world has been plunged into the same situation, resulting in a common outcry, “Never again will we be reliant on sole source supplies!” and the desire to establish multiple sources of food, medicine, and essential products, as well as re-engineer production so that shuttered businesses can pivot and provide needed services. Countries and communities are recognizing that they must have blended and balanced economies in order to weather pandemics, massive natural disasters, and conflicts.
From 2020 through 2022, the old supply chains will move from disarray to reconfiguration due to factory closures, raw materials shortages, insufficient quantities of the correct type and size of transportation and storage, labor shortages, protectionist walls of tariffs that seek to block exports of food, medicine, and strategic goods, critical shortages of spare parts, and asymmetrical collapses of demand.
So, while some industries will essentially cease operations, while others will be unable to achieve needed capacity to satisfy demand. Industries that will cease or at least greatly reduce operations will include oil and gas drilling and exploration, refining, air travel, hospitality, tourism, large-scale manufacturing.
Investment: 2020-2022
The vulnerabilities will be addressed by investing in local manufacturing to bolster local or regional food, medicine, transportation needs in order to avoid supply chain issues. Instead of a heavy reliance on Just-In-Time, there will be a new emphasis in the following:
Small manufacturing, food processing, and storage
Water processing and storage
Flexible manufacturing (3D printing, etc.)
Pharmaceuticals precursors
Intermediary warehouses (can be repurposed Big Box stores and mall spaces)
Medical equipment and supplies
Equipment for work / live / study at home (computers, video cameras, productivity apps, arts and crafts supplies, dumbells & kettle bells & yoga mats)
Equipment for home and small acreage farming: equipment, seeds, hoop houses, green houses, etc.
Temporarily Repurposing to Prevent Hunger, Help Nations Recover
Pandemic-devastated industries may survive by generating cash flow by pivoting into other operations. Industries that will cease or at least greatly reduce operations will include oil and gas drilling and exploration, refining, air travel, hospitality, tourism, large-scale manufacturing.
Oil and gas exploration, production, transportation: Reuse equipment and capabilities; switch to generating electricity for on-site manufacturing / server farms
Pipe and valves? Now home gym equipment and gardening tools?
Refining: Switch to the grades where there are still needs in long-haul transportation and generators
Manufactured homes / structures for supervision? Pivot to greenhouses and gardening storage buildings
Tourism: Transform for safety?
Air Travel: Convert to cargo?
Hospitality: Convert for flexible labor needs? Traveling workers?
Selective Import Substitution and Avoiding Sole Source Suppliers
In the past, import substitution was negatively viewed. Now selective import substitution offers a number of benefits:
•Safety net for the supply chain
•Strategic reserve for critical food, energy, medical, equipment supplies
As a form of protectionism, import substitution was perceived as inefficient and ultimately too expensive for the consumers, and it also encouraged bloated, inefficient, and outdated local manufacturing. However, during and after a destructive and disruptive pandemic when the sole sources are no longer available, having at least 3 potential suppliers is vital. Having multiple sources of supply helps weather ongoing flare-ups of the pandemic, regional lockdowns, shortages of container ships or port facilities, lack of storage. Seeing the economic devastation caused by the pandemic, it becomes clear that without exception, all nations of the world are vulnerable.
Using Technology to Improve Economies of Scale
When some of the massive poultry and pork processing plants in the U.S. were forced to shut down due to a COVID-19 stricken workforce, a large percentage of the country’s meat / protein supply was placed in jeopardy. Compounding the problem was the fact that pork farmers had no place to send their mature animals and faced the possibility of having to slaughter them. Not only was this absolutely horrifying from a humane perspective, the fact that doing so would trigger shortages for late 2020 and early 2021 is a real possibility. What is the solution? Using distributed applications to transport the pigs, plus process them in alternative locations the key.
Economics of scale apply to marketing / distribution as well. For example, if you've recently pivoted and how market storage sheds instead of wellsite trailers, you can partner with larger distributor to get the word out. If you are now selling kettlebells and dumbbells for home gyms, you can market through Amazon as well as directly. You'll also need to work with someone for a social media blitz -- keep in mind that in today's global pandemic, social media presence is a "must."
In this case, we're looking at pork processing. However, it is just one example that could be modified and used for other industries:
OPERATION PORKLIFT
An intervention to help the pork processing plants that are having to shut down due to lack of a healthy labor force and safe conditions.
•Identify the beleaguered pork processing facilities
•Needs assessment: what do they need? Are substitute slaughterhouses needed?
•Alternative processing (will let people know when they have space for the pork)
•On-demand transportation (Pork Lift)
•Warehousing (repurposed restaurants?)
•Alternative retail? (Insta Cart for Operation Pork Lift?)
Rethinking Comparative Advantage
We import from countries because they have comparative advantage and can produce goods so that the cost to import them, even with transportation and storage, costs less than to import the product.
For example, pineapples can be grown in Hawaii and shipped to stores in the continental U.S. for much less than it would cost to grow pineapples in a greenhouse. But, what happens if the ports are closed and there are no container ships to transport the pineapple? Then, comparative advantage falls apart.
For some foods and essential products that are in high demand, it is worthwhile to produce them at home, even though it is not always the lowest possible price. It is at that time, too, that countries that have gamed the system by manipulating their currencies or by subsidizing their exporting countries will begin to show their vulnerabilities.
Why have they played such an expensive game? Usually the short-run response is that they want to keep their labor force fully employed (and out of mischief), and the long-run end-game is to destroy the competition to result in being an oligopoly and being the sole-source vendor for which there is no substitute.
But, in a pandemic, the vulnerability makes countries very unwilling to rely on a sole source, particularly when it is a foreign country that could easily become extortionate. Perhaps this would not be the case for pineapples, but it certainly could be for important precursors to important / vital medicines such as antibiotics.
Countries that do not have balanced economies and rely on exports (primary products, manufactured goods), imports for intermediary goods (re-export), services (tourism, financial services, hospitality) are particularly negatively affected, and their unemployment numbers are staggeringly high. Without a blended and balanced economy, the unemployment can quickly become structural.
Operation Rescue: Repurpose Existing Capacity, Rescue Economies from Sole Source and Sole Client Dependency
Step 1: Needs Assessment: Identify “Pain Points”
What are the most urgent needs that have the highest level of negative consequences?
Food Supply
Cleaning supplies
Medical supplies / oxygen equipment, etc.
Labor supply // workers at the right skill level
Clothing / shoes (especially for growing children)
Car parts / truck parts / spare parts
Farm and industrial equipment, etc – spare parts
Construction equipment / building materials
Home work and study tools (computers, cameras, arts and crafts kits)
Home and small acreage gardening (tools, storage buildings, greenhouses, irrigation systems)
Industrial / commercial-scale disinfectants and sprays for grocery stores, essential services, and later for night-time disinfecting for all shared spaces
Step 2: Capacity Assessment (internal and external – starting with very proximal) a) inventory of what you have on hand b) inventory of what you can get c) inventory of what we would like to have d) storage capacity (for storing other things?) e) informal new warehouses? What can we use? Goodwill, empty Family Dollar, empty restaurants, mall stores, Tulsa Promenade, OKC Crossroads
Step 3: Where are the most urgent needs, and what are the steps to get there? Identify the need and propose local alternatives What’s keeping it from happening? What are people lacking? Substitutes
Step 4: Proposing solutions Short-term
Identify and place in warehouses / identify substitutes and warehouse them / distribution. This is the stage for proposing solutions in general terms, to start envisioning where and how the solutions can be implemented.
Challenge conventional wisdom!
Challenge the “eternal verities” of economics, finance, human relations. Here are main categories:
Labor Solutions
Transportation Solutions
Food supply solutions
Medical / pharmaceutical solutions
Home productivity solutions (work, study, gardening)
Home and small acreage gardening (home and urban gardens / coops)
Small scale food preservation (canning, drying, freezing solutions)
Storage solutions (freezers, refrigerators, small sheds for supplies)
Long-term
Selective import substitution
2 or 3 contingency sources (adequate substitutes) for each product
Blended economy with imports, exports, manufacturing, and service
Improving economics of scale so that small factories are profitable
Rethinking comparative advantage: Small, local, flexible – now economic
Small-scale manufacturing that is flexible and near markets
Using machine learning / analytics to work with economies of scale
Flexible factories with 3D printing, adaptable manufacturing
Rethinking comparative advantage: Small, local, flexible to meet local needs quickly
Simple, easy-to-modify, accommodates multiple raw materials and substitutes
Step 5: Selective import substitution and economies of scale
•Which imports wreak the most havoc when they are unavailable?
•Where can we use technology to make small scale operations more flexible and economic
•Where can we “export” our production ??
•Repurposing uneconomic / dormant capacity: if you have an oil industry processing / transportation, etc. – can you use these for other industries? The “survival industries”?
•Agility-Maker: Proactively develop contracts and agreements and MOUs for the “new” business arrangements; help be a facilitator and also negotiator … insurance, permits … what kind of package will this require?
Selective import Substitution in the Informal Economy: The Mexican Drug Cartel Shakes its Dependence on Imported Precursors
This is an intriguing example of how agile criminal networks can be. It is useful to study because if amoral (I would argue "immoral") organizations can innovate, so can positive, moral ones!
Pharmaceutical precursors (now manufactured in India and China and exports are blocked) – setting up new pharmaceutical labs.
According to Ben Westhoff, author of Fentanyl, Inc. (2019), most precursors for cartel-traded methamphetamine and fentanyl comes from a now-shuttered state-supported chemical plant in Wuhan, China.
Drug cartels essentially ordered online and the chemicals were shipped to Mexico where they were processed into the kinds of street drugs (methamphetamine, fentanyl, “bath salts”) that plague the U.S. and Canada. Now, the cartels are hiring local chemists and setting up local labs to replace Wuhan supplies. They believe it is well worth the investment since, according to Logan Pauley, analyst at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, the prices for the precursors have risen from 25% to 400% since late February 2020.
oQuestion: if the informal economy can be so agile, why can’t the legitimate formal economy follow suit, but do so for good, and not evil ???
•Recycling / reusing containers: While blow-molding low density polyethylene facilities are expanded, and 3D printing centers expand, in the short run it is a good
Step 6: Re-opening Recently Closed Larger-scale Manufacturing: Which ones are most necessary, and where are their components coming from? Which plants can be reactivated? Are there any “old school” shuttered plants that can be opened back up—even though they may be circa 2012 or later? 2019?
Let’s look at every plant shut down in 2019 and see which ones we can open back up quickly. Granted, some will be obsolete, and the products may not be competitive in the world market, but if there is a local need, it is possible that the initial investment could be recovered in 18 or 24 months.
This is particularly true if supply chains continue to broken and there is worldwide protection of strategic or key products required for the survival of the people of a country.
•Manufacturing: tires, parts, HVAC, water processing, refrigeration units, gardening supplies, home fitness, etc.
•Food processing: packaging, desiccators, drying, etc.
•Hospitals, motels, etc.: Multi-purpose for telemedicine centers, etc.
•Pharmaceuticals: precursors for key medicines; delivery systems
* Converting small buildings and manufacturing into storage sheds, greenhouses, home and small-acreage gardening supplies, home-based gyms
Step 7: Temp-Army for Tyson’s (and other “make or break with labor” industries)
With high unemployment, but still undetermined labor mobility (is housing available for temporary workers?), there is no need for crops to go unharvested, meat packing plants to be empty, or for key industries to shut down due to lack of healthy workers.
It must be pointed out as well that many unions and other groups use the pandemic as an opportunity to pressure management into capitulating and agreeing to increased pay, benefits, and work conditions.
•Work Alert! app or repository for listing urgent, short-term labor needs
•Optimize labor mobility, and build redundancy in our system
•Reward the temp agencies for filling the vacancies
•Bonuses for free agents
•Resolve labor disputes and unreasonableness on both sides
•Evaluate the workplace and modify it to make it safe
•Give the workers the equipment they need to be safe; and provide training (for example, installing a sneeze guard? Be sure to wipe it down with bleach at least 3 times a day!)
* Obtain industrial-scale disinfectants
General Suggestions for Co-Existing with COVID-19: Dealing with painful messages – maintain a solution-centered approach Communication skills – conflict resolution, accepting messages, listening, spacing out the information intake (step away & think about what you want to say)
David Burns – the “Feeling Good” book and the “Feeling Good Handbook” …
Evaluations and “look back” studies – learn from our challenges
General Needs / products Mask Dispensers for places of business
Electrostatic cleaning for quick, effective disinfecting Don’t have a mask? Buy one here for one little dollar bill! (or credit card or Apple Pay or Venmo or CashApp) Selective use of cobots for the most high-risk part
Food Supply Chain:
Crops: Planting & harvesting
Food processing: Transportation: Getting the pigs to the processing plant? Getting milk to the cheese factory?
•Milk-Moove
•PorkLift
•Food-Move (match the specialized transport with the need & look at what can be adapted from other industries) …
They cling to their dry crackly hopes and misplaced modesty:
Leaves that will not fall.
They endeavor to create an illusion of solidity and sempiternal life
Yet they simply transmit a message of never letting go.
Whether that is good or bad
I will never know.
Norman, Oklahoma
March 7, 2020
************************ CATTLE ON A HILL
They are eating the tough dry grass of winter.
It fills their mouths but perhaps not their minds
except to remind them what it does not have:
stick-to-the-ribs grains and blossoming flowers.
And on a beige carpet
Jackson Pollock working with weeds, not paint: dribbles of cocklebur, butterfly milkweed, hoary alyssum and a poke sallet banner bending in the wind -- Hail, Spring!
The greening of the fields
makes my heart beat fast with joy but I must remember – the first greens are always the most deadly.
March 6, 2020
Norman, OK
****************** BRADFORD PEARS
The first few days of March
come and go
in a whirlwind of the mind
when nothing seems to stick
to the bare trees of memory
until overnight white and curiously odorous
flower clouds fly up
punctuate the wordless
timidly deciduous trees
so that the idea of a message
with its contradictions of beauty
and a noxious scent
sends a message of reality
rather than idealizing gazes
March 7, 2020
Norman, OK
Bradford Pear Trees in Oklahoma
********************************
THE WAGES OF LIFE
Cedars burned by a prairie fire
two or three years now gone by now
half-naked skeletons
draped in scorched rags
their ash quaffed by the wind
somewhere between
desire and fear
march 7, 2020
norman, oklahoma
**************************** WE, THE SHEEP
A field of sheep
A field of sleep
Those odd, square-shaped ponds
Storing oil pumped from shallow wells
The oil field below rumbling into a gusher
Men covered in mud and sweat
In 1887, a small woman with delicate features sailed with 14 families to Paraguay to establish the “Nueva Germania,” something that began as a grand utopian experiment, but in the end had fewer than 100 settlers. The doll-like charismatic leader was Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, the sister of Friedrich Nietzsche. Friedrich had already written The Birth of Tragedy, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Untimely Meditations, Human, All Too Human, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morality. But, almost no one had read the work. Two years later, Friedrich was to collapse, foaming language no one cared to hear. He was deemed mentally diseased due to tertiary syphilus (never actually confirmed) and treated with mercury, which did, in fact negatively affect his mind and his body. Friedrich was essentially incarcerated in a mental hospital. He lived until the year 1900, the birth of the 20th century, which his ideas (mediated by Elisabeth, who edited, organized, and promoted) so deeply shaped. When Friedrich collapsed, Elisabeth was still in Paraguay in her doomed utopian experiment.
*******
Her face, tender and sweet like a model in a Northern Renaissance genre painting depicting life in the home, gazed imploringly to the knot of true believers gathered in the building sturdily constructed of red quebracho, its tannins permeating the humid air with a pleasant, woody cologne. They sat on benches made of the bottle-shaped samuú, and many held small cups carved from cow horns, from which they sipped through a metal bombilla a cool infusion of tereré, a mildly stimulating tea made from yerba mate.
Elisabeth was unrepentant. Nueva Germania was not thriving, but it had, at any rate, allowed the true believers to escape the foul miasma of Europe that was infecting most of the tiny German principalities with endless, internecine war.
“When the sickness has passed, we will go back,” said Elisabeth. She had not intended the sojourn to be a temporary quarantine. She and her husband, Bernhard Forster, intended it to be a model for the world of racial purity and the supremacy of German culture. But, potatoes rotted in the soil and their innocence about sand flies resulted in terrible infections.
“Last year, before dear Bernhard, passed away,” said Elisabeth, solemnly euphemizing the death by suicide by her partner and fellow ideologue, “He told me that we must go back to Germany with the truth, and I made a sacred promise to share our truths with the world.”
Elisabeth had in her possession the few published copies of Friedrich’s work. Word had reached her that he was ill, and her heart ached to go back and make all his, her brother’s, and her true believers’ pain and sacrifice meaningful in the world.
Above all, her own.
Heinrich Raus took a long cooling sip of tereré, and as he did so, the afternoon rain began, with thunderclaps.
“I don’t think we’ll go back. Once we switched from potatoes to mandioca, and we learned to take a siesta during the heat of the day, and also to raise the floors up from the ground, things were good,” he said.
What he did not say is that his soul resonated with the ghost of the soldiers killed in the Triple Alliance War, and he, too, had felt the presence of the luisón, the werewolf creature who feasted on the dead, and he saw all around him the impact of the Pombero, the trickster creature, who loved nothing more than to sneak in during the siesta and have his way with young women.
Sex and Death. Eros and Thanatos.
The ideas were boiling in the zeitgeist even before Freud, and Elisabeth’s dear brother’s passionate writings about the Dionysian in literature. In Paraguay, in Nueva Germania, they were living, breathing, sweating, and streaming with the rain of an afternoon.
“The outside world has suffered from diseases. The outside world IS a disease,” she said softly. Her true believers paid more attention when she spoke in tones between a whisper and a lullaby.
Her eyes slowly filled with tears. Was it her fault that dear Bernhard took his own life? She suspected it was so. Was it her fault that Friedrich had collapsed and was being considered mentally ill? She suspected it was so. She was altogether too weak, too undisciplined, and her ideas about a better world only ricocheted from side to side inside the skulls of those she loved.
“Come with me, or not. It is up to you. But you know how I kept you safe while the whole world around us roiled and twisted with a murderous disease. And so, I will keep you safe.”
********
Elisabeth sailed alone back to Germany. Her true believers stayed behind in Nueva Germania, clinging to the safety of Bernhard’s beliefs in the superiority of the German race and culture, even as they planted mandioca and yerba mate, and slowly changed their language to a blend of Guaraní. Each succeeding “pure” generation was increasingly deformed and mentally impaired.
**********
“Oh, Friedrich!” cried Elisabeth when she saw her brother unable to get out of bed for days on end. “I will help you with your books, and we will make sure that you live on.”
Friedrich closed his eyes and imagined a self-designed modern Leviathan, many steps removed from the self-limiting monarch described by Hobbes. Elisabeth closed her eyes and imagined a Superman constructed from the building blocks of hate and fear, each block a chunk of a terrified citizen’s heart.
“Keep them afraid,” she said to herself. She turned quietly to Friedrich and laid a soft, doll-like hand on his arm. Her other hand rested on a pile of his books and manuscripts. What failed in Paraguay could prevail here in Europe, she vowed.
“I will keep you safe,” she said.
Somewhere in Paraguay in the light of the full moon, the pure evil of the luisón, the werewolf devourer of souls, glowed cool blue eyes.
A philosophical definition of Romanticism is very useful when taking a look at the paintings, poetry, and novels of the Romantic movement. While Classicism was focused on the structure of the work, and emphasized tenets of balance, equilibrium and structure, Romanticism focuses on unity, transcendence, and the individuals perception and response.
F. W. J. von Schelling profoundly influenced artists, writers, and architects with his philosophical writings, which encouraged intense, subjective engagement with reality, and encouraged immersion in nature in order to achieve a transcendental experience. He argued that one can discover essential truths about reality, nature, and even one’s own identity by a close study of nature. In many ways, his work was a continuation of the kind of neoplatonism one might see in Renaissance writing such as Sir Philip Sidney’s “A Defense of Poesie.”
For Schelling, the “absolute” was a union of the subjective and objective, which, in the case of painting and literature, makes subjective perception more important than the objective reality, in that the objective elements form a frame, or a scaffolding, while the subjective response is where the true meaning-making process takes place. So, the agreed-upon common elements – the objective structure (in a painting, the elements, in a poem, the prosody) – provide the base and foundation. The meaning-making process is what occurs as the writer or artist adds aspects that trigger a response in the reader, and establish a kind of unity which elevates the reader to a comprehension of the larger, more universal concepts, and insights / knowledge. This moment is often characterized as “divine.”
Thomas Cole - romantic landscape with ruined tower
Emmanual Kant’s writings about the concept of a transcendental ego, which builds knowledge from sensory perceptions which then are processed in a mind that has prepared itself with universal concepts and categories, has much in common with Schelling. In fact, one could look to Kant for an explanation of the mechanism at work in Romanticism. What are those categories or universals that we must learn and have in place in order to construct truly moving and timeless art? What are the most effective perceptions for creating a sense of transcendental knowledge? How are they best communicated? All these questions were addressed, and more, as more artists, writers, and philosophers embraced the new power that Romanticism gave them.
Romanticism was popular and powerful because it posited that individual interpretation mattered and was meaningful. In fact, the more unique and individual your perception, the more valuable it might be in being able to tease out the ultimate meanings of life, the universe, the divine, and our relationship to it.
Core to the Kant and Schelling’s work was that the nature of reality, God, and existence itself could be understood through a close analysis of nature. Far from simply creating observations and filing them away in Aristotelian or Linnaean fashion, a Romantic (influenced by Kant, Schelling, and later Hegel) would let his or her mind make connections in juxtapositions, oppositions, and in extremes. He or she would also seek the guidance of one’s emotions or produced mood to further structure meaning.
Romantic Landscape by John Trumbull
While the freedom and individualism accorded the artist and the writer by means of Romantic philosophy and transcendental Romanticism were often euphoria-producing, the essential problem was in the evaluation of Romantic output. If you measure the value of a work by the way it makes you feel, the thoughts it triggers, and the insights that you personally experience vis-à-vis your own life experiences, then your evaluation is likely to be idiosyncratic and unique.
What is “good” in a world where standards are subjective? Either one values something by the intensity of the sensation it produces, which could easily start to degrade itself into something degenerate, or it’s essentially assessed by consensus. In many cases, the supporters of Romantic work were patrons who were able to indulge their individual taste.
Since the value of Romantic writing was often measured in the level of “sensation” it produced, an entire genre of novels emerged. Coming from the Gothic tradition, and known as “sensation” or “sensational” novels, the readers were drawn into dark webs of passion, secrets, hidden treasures, addictions, concealed evil intent, and the threat to innocents and the good. Wilkie Collins, Mrs. Henry Wood, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon were masters of the sensation novel.
Narrative poetry, prose, and paintings that tell us about history are constructed in order to teach, persuade, and instruct, and thus they have a very close relationship to poetry, especially the fables and epic poems.
That at least is what Sir Francis Bacon wrote in “The Advancement of Learning” published in 1605. I wonder if he was considering how Elizabethan narratives were actively legitimizing Elizabeth I’s right to rule. The Tudors were lionized. The Plantagenets, be they Yorks or Lancasters, were demonized. Shakespeare’s Richard III was considered by those who watched it to be absolutely faithful to reality. Now we know, thanks to uncovering Richard III’s skeleton when digging and constructing a car park, that his scoliosis was pretty minor, and he was in no way the twisted hunchback the play portrays him. His personality was said to mirror his physical appearance. Another exaggeration? A downright lie? It is possible.
I think it’s quite fascinating that Sir Francis Bacon clearly sets out a “social construction of history” (which is just a hair away from “social construction of reality”), and anticipates much of the rather earth-shattering philosophical shifts of the 1960s and 1970s.
I love Francis Bacon’s The New Atlantis (published in 1626 after his death), which includes the notion that scientists and knowledge-workers are “merchants of light.” “Light” is science or “natural philosophy” – he says it so well that there is no reason whatsoever to elaborate. I just love it.
I’ve been trying to replicate the way I used to write in the mid to late 1990s with little or no success. I have just changed. I’ve been digging through old journals and I feel depressed that I no longer have the ability to write anguished and philosophically vexed poetry or prose poems. I’ve been writing a lot, but it has been with a view to clarify rather than obfuscate. If I’m obfuscatory, it’s unintentional, whereas it was intentional before. I was obsessed with “limit experiences” and mystical dark nights of the soul. Now I am not. I fear aging and lack of mobility.
******************************************
PATRON SAINT DAY: SAN MIGUEL EL ALTO, JALISCO
You found another way to say it.
I did not.
Your words were pink, dusty cantera pulled from an impossible quarry
a fountain? a statue of St. Michael? A grape-strewn pillar?
my eye sees none of those possibilities
hoofbeats clattering at dawn
Four colonial baroque churches San Miguel El Alto
rosy pink cantera walls and stunning domes
industrious, proud, peninsulares married amongst themselves
now after centuries, the same dark eyes, distinctive noses
slim hips, long lives
preserving the Spanish heritage
Patron Saint days in September
bullfights and blood in the sand
music in the streets
Spanish pan dulce supplanting tortillas
Tonight, at the edge of the largest church
a thin young man ascends the “castillo”
the hand-built fireworks frame
gangling legs spider up the wire-frame ladder
half-smoked cigarette burning like a red eye
he touches the tip to the fuses
fiery kisses that could kill
The Castillo and the Cathedral divine light
golden lamps and showers of sparks
Virgin Mary, sacred hearts
flying crowns, rocketing to heaven
or the oblivion of night
Faith, faith, holding my hands in unconscious prayer
no one ever will be burned
A tuba, a trumpet, and a hoarse whisper of Bruno LaTour
“nothing is real any more”
nostalgia? sadness?
or the belief that this night only
and only this night
fiery chthonic heart
illuminating this stop on the Camino Real
colonial road from the mines of Zacatecas
to Mexico City
is real
as if anything ever were real
**
Sigh.
Today was a game day. I was exhausted and took a three hour nap. I did not bother to check the score. Now I will make a trek across town and visit my dad. I may eat part of a grapefruit before I set out.
Ira Murkajetty was raised with the idea that the best investment was always real estate, and especially land. Banks could fail, stocks could crash, but land would still be there, unless of course, it was on a coast or river, where it could be washed away.
So, when Ira was in his late 40s, he bought 80 acres of beautiful wooded land near a state highway and good, paved county roads in northeastern Florida. His first choice was Ponte Vedra. His second was St. Augustine. But, both were too expensive, so he decided to buy land in the small town of Alachua, Florida. The land was high and dry, for the most part, and with only one swampy, boggy area, with only a smattering of alligators. He built a small house and a big barn and officially became a farmer. His main crop was hay. For his other income, he bought and sold vintage Schwinn bicycles.
When Ira turned 75, he started to realize that his nest egg was not doing much for him. He was also sick of losing auctions on E-Bay for old Schwinns and it was getting increasingly difficult to find spare parts. One morning while he was drinking coffee and eating his morning English Muffin with Smucker’s strawberry jam, someone talked about how much money people could make by leasing their land out to be used for music festivals.
“Well,” he thought to himself. “I have just the place. It’s dry, the hay has just been cut, and so there’s room for parking and a stage. Plus it’s wired for electricity and I already have a detached bathroom with 4 toilets and 4 showers.”
He called up the Gainesville Chamber of Commerce, and then Jacksonville. Mary Kate, in Gainesville, was the most encouraging, albeit guarded.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked. “It just so happens that a group just contacted us for a festival this summer. They call it “The Gathering of the Juggalos,” and they usually get between 8,000 and 10,000 attendees.”
“That sounds nice!” said Ira. He had never heard of a Juggalo. His mind immediately converted it to “Buffalo.” In his mind, images of a cross between blue grass and a small symphonic orchestra playing pop tunes, like the Boston Pops Orchestra in Tanglewood, Massachusetts years ago. Well, if this went well, he might even talk to people about having Shakespeare in the Park and perhaps weekly bluegrass and square dance meetups.
“Ira, if you do this, please be sure to get a LOT of liability insurance,” she said.
“Oh, okay,” he said. He was thinking about doing that anyway, since it would make it easier to sell the land or do anything. So, he called up his insurance agent and got a $10 million umbrella policy for the next six months. It was not expensive, and he felt sure he would recover it.
In the morning, Mary Kate called him and told him that she had given his number to a group called ICP, and also a company representing musicians.
He talked to a very polite man who introduced himself only as Shaggy. “We will have music from all our groups and artists. We’ll have a few wrestling matches, and also different types of fashion and drama exhibitions.”
“That sounds nice. How much will I be paid?” asked Ira. We’ll pay you either $50 per person, or a flat $250,000, if you prepare the fields and put out bales of hay, parking, electrical outlets, porta-potties, open air showers, and camping spots where we need them.”
“I’m in! Yeeee hawww!” shouted Ira. He had not been this excited since he competed in a local rodeo when he was a teenager.
So, Ira did everything he thought would be prudent. He bought the umbrella policy. He got insurance on all of his equipment and business fixtures. He obtained casualty insurance for the relatively few things that could be destroyed.
He told his buddies at The Breakfast Shack that he was a bit surprised at how thick the contract was, but he signed it. “$250,000 will set me up! I’ll be able to retire! Finally!” he gloated.
But, all was not well in the little paradise of Alachua. First, Ira wondered if his high blood pressure medication was making him hallucinate one night when he looked out into the field and saw two women in rainbow bikini tops and painted clown faces, and three men in baggy clothes and clown faces.
“What? Clowns? Clown masks? Luchadores?” he questioned. He decided he needed a long night’s sleep.
But, his eyes had not deceived him. On the agreed-upon set-up date, equipment appeared, beautifully choreographed, almost as though controlled robotically. If it had just been the setup for the music, he would have been less nervous.
He walked up to the guy he thought he had signed a contract with, but was shocked when he turned around and had on clown makeup, too.
“Shaggy?” Ira asked.
“Yes, I’m Shaggy 2 Dope,” he said. “Thank you again for letting us lease your property for our annual Gathering of the Juggalos.”
“Oh. Okay,” said Ira. He still had the feeling he was in the kind of dream you have when you hit snooze and you shouldn’t.
Just then a pickup truck drove up and two men and two women got out. They were wearing something that he had only seen on the box of his granddaughter’s My Little Pony and Sweet Unicorn toys.
“Whoop, WHOOP! Juggalo family love!” they shouted. One of the women waved what seemed to be a plastic hatchet. “Juggalo code!” one woman sang out. Ira was to learn later that these were the good Juggalos. He never did encounter any of the 10-15 percent bad apples, who behaved with such depravity and criminal intent that they were classified as a national gang. If Ira had met them, it is unlikely he would have rented out his little corner of rural paradise.
Another shook up a 2-liter bottle of what appeared to be a neon-colored pop. He could make out the word, FAYGO.
Ira looked at the different pieces of equipment. It slowly dawned on him that ICP stood for Insane Clown Posse, and he had just agreed to allow his beautiful meadow to be used for a gathering of what looked like a cross between Halloween and the very last night at the carnival of a rural county fair. He also learned that the Insane Clown Posse was often considered the most hated band in the world.
“What is … uh… a Juggalo?” he asked Shaggy 2 Dope.
“Ira, I’m totally straightedge, but I will say that not everyone is so. I’m so impressed with Juggalos. Most are very creative, entrepreneurial and hard-working. We started out poor. I mean rough in Detroit. But, we pushed ourselves very hard from the very beginning – we dreamed of this. We started out wrestling, then the horrorcore rap. No one really understood us, but then over the years, we have a strong gathering of like-minded people. But it can be a little rough.”
Whoop-WHOOP.
Ira shuddered. This group was starting to scare him. “Uh. I think I might need to visit my relatives in Gainesville for a week or so. You’ll have this cleaned up, right?”
“Yes. Without a doubt. We work hard all year to make The Gathering of the Juggalos something they will remember. Our record label artists will be performing, and we’ll have all kinds of acts and shows,” said Shaggy.
Ira cringed.
“I don’t think I want to know,” he said. Ira had a bad feeling about it.
“Well, perhaps you don’t,” agreed Shaggy.
Two weeks later, Ira returned to his farm and was delighted to see that it was very clean, just a few deep tread marks and a place where it looked like a few dozen bales of hay and some cut grass had burned.
That night, he noticed a new movie on cable. The name of the movie was Family (2018, dir. Laura Steinel), and it starred Taylor Schilling and a young actress, Bryn Vale, as her young niece who, due to being bullied at school, wanted to run away and become a Juggalo. He watched the movie, and found it to be quite heartwarming (although the Juggalos still made him nervous).
A few months later, he got a call from Shaggy.
“Ira, we loved your farm and we were planning to contract with you again. But, your county banned us. They said that while they appreciated the fact that they could have access to federal funding since the Juggalos have been officially classified as a gang, the townspeople sort of rose up against it."
Ira had not actually spoken with the town officials. He had read an Opinion piece in the Alachua Weekly Gazette that criticized Ira for renting his place out for such a self-contained festival. "It did not benefit the community," said the writer. "Everyone brought in their own supplies, and there was little or no economic activity in the community, except for groceries, alcohol, and gasoline. No one stayed in the hotels, and no one shopped in our Florida Heaven Antiques Mall."
Ira focused his attention back on the conversation.
Shaggy 2 Dope continued, "Your place is a good place for a festival, though. Let me know if I can be of help in finding a situation that would be a good fit."
"Maybe something like a blue grass festival with clog dancing?" said Ira. Those types tended to be really obsessive and would buy Indian tacos and embroidered household items.
Ira mentally calculated how long thw $250,000 would last him, and he drew a long, contented sigh. He was sorry that the bad apple Juggalos had ruined it for the Alachua location. Oh well. One must count one's blessings. He would talk to a financial advisor tomorrow.
Everyone knows that the oil industry is a very different animal than before the 2014 oil price crash. It can be difficult to assess what the animal is, however, thanks to “binary twin” narratives of utopia and apocalypse that have come to shape the industry. With their ability to simultaneously generate euphoria and fear, the narratives destroy confidence. Thankfully, a recent summer seminar brought together the two narratives in a single event and provided illuminating insights for a clearer path forward.
Those who attended the AAPG-HGS “The State and Future of Technology, Finance and Economics, Exploration and Production” on August 20 at Summer NAPE had an opportunity to explore the implications of both narratives as representatives of technology, finance, and operations participated in three separate panel discussions and fireside chats. This innovative format was developed and organized by Mark Hamzat O. Erogbogbo, with assistance by AAPG. Hamzat’s vision as a corporate strategist made the structure of the event uniquely valuable.
The event took place the at the George R. Brown Convention Center.
New Technologies
Thankfully, the euphoria-producing narratives appeared first, in the all-morning session dedicated to new technologies. The extremely high cost of drilling, completing, and producing shale oil and gas has been dramatically reduced by using new technologies that improve efficiencies and allow companies to trim their workforce and drill fewer wells that have higher recovery factors. Further, the use of blockchain technology is allowing better monitoring of performance as well as more efficient back-office operations.
The euphoria is generated not only by the results produced by the new technologies, but also from the potential profitability of investments in start-ups. A number of companies such as Chevron, Shell, Saudi Aramco, and Equinor invest directly in start-up technologies. Companies such as Frost and Sullivan and Darcy Partners act as both scouts and mentors along the way. Many operators have new technology and innovation centers, and they dedicate at least some of their operations to being a living laboratory for beta-testing the innovations. The efforts often center around machine learning-focused simulations, modeling, information management (Sidd Gupta at Nesh) and imaging, along with blockchain technologies (Andrew Bruce at Data Gumbo). Making the land and legal work more efficient is also the focus of a breakthrough (Ashley Gilmore at Tracts.com). AI platform integrated to the human eliminating safety events, NPT, CAP/OPECX, and upcoming wearable sensors for improved safety (Travis Laman at DeltaPerform) and water treatment and sourcing improvements (Josh Adler at Source Water) have made strides in oil field services.
Guiding the start-ups are companies such as Frost and Sullivan (Ethan Smith), while Microsoft provides enterprise digitalization support. The potential for technology to be dramatically transformational and to turn now marginal (or money-losing) plays into sustainable, profitable, and environmentally friendly ones was the underlying theme. The fact that technology is accessible to all was emphasized by Invatare’s Trond Ellefsen; with the notion that companies of all sizes and scales of operations can find a way to be profitable.
Finance and Economics
The fear-inducing apocalyptic narrative kept the audience awake in the usually soporific after-lunch sessions. Economics and financial executives, Jeff Henningsen, Ed Hirs, Casey Minshaw, and Jim Harden, pointed out that North American exploration and production companies saw their net debt rise from $50 billion in 2005 to nearly $200 billion by 2015. Service companies also entered into massive debt positions, since large capital expenditures were required to be able to meet the needs of their clients.
As several pointed out, in 2018, uncertainty gripped the industry as it seemed that some of the largest companies would not be able to restructure their debt. The debt problem continues to make headlines in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, and more apocalyptic of financial reporters regularly question whether or not the debt trap will trigger another financial crisis. The result is that there is little appetite for funding new ventures, and private equity funds are retreating rapidly from the scene from the high of $70 billion in 2015. However, consolidations are the norm, and will continue to be so as they are viewed as a solution that has both short-term and long-term efficiency benefits. The price of oil is expected to continue to stay fairly low, and the public is expected to remain hostile toward carbon-derived energy. Although the outlook was gloomy, there were glimmers of optimism and enthusiasm with respect to mergers and acquisitions, and the technological transformations that would make operations profitable.
Exploration and Production
The third session featured operations, and the fireside chat structure of this session, facilitated by Godswill Nwankwo made it possible for individuals to speak openly and informally about their views of the trends of the last few years, and the directions that are most likely to be the true path forward. New technology’s potential combined with tight funds united for a general consensus that the oil field of the future will have fewer people, more automation, and better placement of laterals. AI Driller’s Felipe Armaza and Stage Completions’s Carlos Piñeda pointed out that people who will thrive in this environment will be the ones who manage data from diverse sources, make data-driven decisions quickly, and who are able to detect when the models may not be accurate. Shell Technology’s Hani Elshahawi pointed out the importance of being agile with respect to technology and innovation. What it means for all geoscientists and engineers is that not only do they need to be able to integrate data and work with multiple software platforms and applications, they also need to understand how the real-world physical fundamentals (the rocks, the reservoirs, the produced fluids), look and behave in the digital realm.
The binary opposition of the two prevailing narratives in today’s energy industry is likely to stay in place for the foreseeable future, and while it can be confusing for a person who is trying to launch a career or put together a deal, understanding the underlying reasons for them can equip one for success.
Brief biographical sketch:
Susan Nash is Director of Innovation, Emerging Science and Technology at the AAPG where she works to promote investment, knowledge transfer, and innovative application of technologies that protect human safety and the environment while they increase the efficiency, supply and distribution of energy. She has over 20 years of experience in geology as well as economic and technology development. Nash has published in the areas of machine learning, new technology, economic development, and the use of narrative strategies in persuasive documents. Her Bachelor of Science, Master of Arts, and Ph.D. degrees were earned at the University of Oklahoma.
Fed up with the social media accounts dedicated to insulting Meghan Markle, Kensington Palace and the U.K. tabloid, The Daily Mail, clawed back by putting the photos, names, and hometowns of the owners of social media sites that had posted hateful posts. The headline immediately attracted attention for calling out the critics: "Unmasked: The cruel trolls who spew bile against the Duchess of Sussex
on social media, branding her a 'hooker' and 'trash'... and call for
#Megxit," and the article contained images the owners of the social media accounts and some details about their posts, their identities. It is by no means the first time that The Daily Mail has used this approach. It has been done before in the case of British politician Jeremy Corbyn. However, it is not an approach that is regularly seen in the U.S., and many of the Meghan Markle critics are based in the U.S. Question: Do you think The Daily Mail's strategy will work to stop people from saying and posting harsh opinions and speculation about public figures? There have been some complaints from the people who were “unmasked” that they feel they are now in danger from people who are offended by them. But, since their information was public, do they have a defensible case? If someone has a social media account in which they insult celebrities, promote conspiracy theories, or encourage people to act out, is it a good approach to “expose” them?
On another
level, when a person or entity with wealth and power publicly hits
back after receiving criticism (no matter how harshly worded or
threatening) doesn't it set up an "underdog" dynamic? And, in doing so, does it somehow start to legitimize racist, misogynist, ad hominem attacks? Will "clapping back" backfire on The Daily Mail or Kensington Palace, as in the case in Amy's Baking Company? Here's a bit of background: After celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey savaged Amy’s Baking Company during an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in 2013, Amy's basically self-destructed on social media when they attacked back. Internet critics descended, and instead of coming up with a positive media campaign, Amy’s Baking Company became increasingly defensive. Amy’s Baking Company’s responses became increasingly unhinged, to the point that they were absolutely excoriatingly vicious. You have to read them to believe them. A HuffingtonPost.com article contains some of the jaw-dropping responses. Amy’s Baking Company ended up having to shutter their business, suffer financial losses, and face the fact that they were victims of their own poor strategies. What could they have done differently? In any case, there seems to be a profound loss of civility and civil discourse, first in the anonymous or almost anonymous commenters on the Internet, and then within groups or hashtag clusters where people who share the same opinions express themselves in harsh ways, perhaps for comic effect, or perhaps simply for rhetorical impact. In any case, the discourse often has real-world impacts, in damaging brand and brand images, along with other possible consequences. Responding to bullying is never easy, and an historical analysis of public relations responses to crises or controversial public figures could yield new insights. References Are Social Media Trolls Threatening Your Online Brand Reputation? https://www.onlinemoderation.com/socialmediatrolls/ Honorof, Michael (21 Nov 2016) How Amy’s Baking Company Ruined Itself on Social Media. FoxNews.com https://www.foxnews.com/tech/how-amys-baking-company-ruined-itself-on-social-media Tepper, Rachel (14 May 2013) Amy’s Baking Company Freaks Out Online After Epic Meltdown on Gordon Ramsay’s “Kitchen Nightmares” HuffingtonPost.com https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/14/amys-baking-company-kitchen-nightmares_n_3274345.html Wace, Charlotte (2 Feb 2019) Unmasked: The cruel trolls who spew bile against the Duchess of Sussex on social media, branding her a 'hooker' and 'trash'... and call for #Megxit DailyMail.com https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6661499/Cruel-trolls-spew-bile-against-Duchess-Sussex.html
