Optimism, Pessimism, Realism - Good, Bad, Indifferent, OK, But What's A Nice Jewish Girl To Do?

A pessimist and an optimist meet on a streetcorner.  The pessimist says, 'Things couldn't possibly get any worse.'

'Oh, yes they could', said the optimist. 

Sadie Bernstein didn't consider herself either an optimist or a pessimist, and certainly not like her father, Abe whose 'Oy, vey' commiserations over brisket and potato latkes were like kaddish prayers - without them the meal would not be a meal, so the family listened patiently as he told of misery, loss, ignorance, and, last but not least, the piece de resistance of the meal, 'What's in it for the Jews?'

'We can barely keep our heads above water', said Abe, 'with all the Jew-haters on every corner. The black people have the N-word; but for us the K-word never stuck. "Jew" is bad enough. We don't need anything else'

'Come on, Abe'. said his wife. 'We've got Zuckerberg, Ellison, Page, Dell, and Brin.  What do you call that?'

'With all their money, what did they do for the Jews', said Abe. 'They're just goyim with yarmulkes'.

And so it went every evening at six when the meal was put on the table, the children put away their books, Abe washed up and sat at the head of the table, and the discussion started. 

Perhaps because of her father's pessimism Sadie tried to look on the brighter side of life.  This Jewish thing was getting her down. Her classmates were having fun.  Life was to be lived without second thoughts, regards for consequences, or troubling morality. In the mirror of he shtetl, the Warsaw ghetto, and the Holocaust, how could anyone be happy? That's why these goyim, the ones who put us in the ovens, don't think about anything except the next sailing for the Mediterranean.  

So, hard as she tried, it was impossible for Sadie to see the silver lining in anything, let alone the miracle of a beautiful sunset.  The weatherman predicted two inches of rain for tomorrow, so no sunset, leaks in the roof, delays on the roads, and wet socks. 

She envied Muffy Parker, blonde, blue-eyed prom queen who had every boy at Jefferson Carver High salivating, buzzing around her like bees around a lily, and she wasn't really all that great looking.  Her popularity came from what she did after hours, throwing that blonde bush around like Christmas candy, something a good Jewish girl would never do unless the boy were from a a good family and even then she would think twice. 

Sadie whipped through Algebra I and II, Geometry, Trigonometry, and Calculus, was headed for MIT on a Lewison scholarship, and instead of being optimistic about her life promises, she was only the Jewish grind, of course she's going to MIT and will grind her way into some laboratory somewhere. 'That's what they do'.  How could anyone shake that off especially because it was true. 

'You are what you are', said Aaron Altschul  a boy who had grown up in Crown Heights but who had none of this optimist-pessimist nonsense she heard at her dinner table. 'You're a Jew, so am I.  Deal with it' and so entered the third corner of the triangle - realism.  Everyone is dealt a hand from the same deck of cards.  Some get face cards, others low numbers.  The luck of the draw which is what life is, take it or leave it.  You want face cards but you got deuces and threes? Forget about it.' 

'Now we Jews got a lot of face cards. Why, you might ask? Did God stack the deck? What else could he do? He gave us more brains than anyone else, but finished the job too quickly.  We might be smart but not so great in the looks department.  Would you wish this (here he pointed to his face, typically Jewish, doughy, broad and narrow in the wrong places, lips too oversized to be sensual, and a nose...) on anyone? Deal with it'

Even today, girls Sadie knew were disappearing with a Jewish nose after finals and returning before Fall semester looking like Hollywood queens.  Nips and tucks were supposedly non-ethnic, but who was kidding whom?  The whole plastic surgery racket was to make everyone look like Nantucket WASPs.  Where was the play-the-hand-you're-dealt realism in that?

So if she believed her father, Talmudic scholar, successful businessman, good Jew but irremediable pessimist, she would have to look at life as worse than Hobbes's 'solitary, poor, brutish, nasty, and short'. If she hung out with her Nantucket friends, the future would always be a romance novel, full of endless opportunities, love, prosperity, and happiness; and if she listened to Aaron Altschul she would be obliged to trod forward without reflection, taking life as it comes, neither happy nor unhappy. 

She was angry at herself for continuing to debate the issue - again, she was becoming a stereotypical Jew, parsing everything like the Apocrypha, like some bearded rabbi trying to find meaning in the most arcane Jewish texts. Why couldn't she let go and have a fling? 

Besides, her biological clock was ticking, and if she always had her head in the Pentateuch, she would not even notice it if Mr. Right came along. Her father would say, 'You'll be lucky to find a husband who's not a philandering drunkard'.  Her former Christian classmates, all married with children and summering on old homesteads on the Vineyard would say, 'He's out there, Sweetie. Definitely'; and Aaron Altschul would only manage a 'Take what comes along with codicils' kind of realist legalese. 

Her maiden grand-aunts had escaped the Nazis in Poland by passing as Christian, and once the pogroms were over, the camps destroyed, the prisoners liberated, and the war ended, they never bothered to discard their personae and return to Jewishness.  No, being part of the majority was 'salubrious', as one had written in her journal. 

'I would never go that far', thought Sadie, never revoke my Jewishness, my heritage, and my religion; but maybe their might be an easy elision, a smooth flight path to Nantucket and the Vineyard. Ah, optimism, she thought before the old warnings of her father niggled their way in to her brain.  'They will never accept you, never you should forget it'; and Block Island, Aaron would say, is just as good as Gay Head or Harthaven. 

Mr. Right never came along, but then again in Aaron's universe - the one she finally adopted - there is no such thing in the first place.  She met a nice man, a prosperous man, one who didn't drink and who was from a good family. He had a Jew in the woodshed a few generations back, so he wasn't concerned about that.  He was a temperate, good natured soul which combined both optimism and realism, and except for visits to the Brooklyn nursing home to visit her father, the old bugaboo, pessimism for Sadie was on permanent leave. 

The Masses, The Mob, The Majority - Hamilton Warned, Politicians Delighted, And A Sucker Is Born Every Minute

Everyone - or just about every one in University Park, a leafy, well-to-do neighborhood of Washington, DC - had a Volvo station wagon, for that car was deemed to be the safest and therefore the most sensible to buy.  The fact that it drove like a tank - what to expect from so much armored steel? - made no difference. It would protect the family in a head on crash.  Anyone who did not see the wisdom of this was simply not thinking.  Those who still drove flimsy, unreliable, unsafe American cars did so at their peril. 

University Park was politically progressive in the same measure as its lockstep endorsement of the Volvo station wagon. Everyone was a liberal Democrat, espoused the canon of progressivism, and was vigilant to assure that no one veered off the edge. 

Nowhere were there American flags, symbols of support for a racist, bigoted nation of capitalist excess.  No, if any flags were to be unfurled it would be the peace flag, the icon of the Sixties and still a banner of progressive values. 

  

In time the Volvos were replaced by Priuses which were everywhere.  This environmentally friendly car was the new symbol of neighborhood solidarity.  Anyone who still drove a gas-powered engine was suspect.  How could anyone keep driving those smudge pot, oil burning, polluting vehicles, accelerating climate change and global Armageddon?

Once again the wagons were circled - it was us versus them, those who perceived, understood, and acted; and those who, mired in ignorance and Republican naysaying cant did nothing but watch the planet go up in an incendiary fireball of their causing. 

Then the hybrid Priuses were not enough of a statement, and the residents of University Park turned to Teslas.  Now this was an environmentalist's dream.  Not one molecule of polluting exhaust, not one decibel of overpowered internal combustion engines, and nothing but pride, satisfaction, and the conviction of having done right. 

University Park never veered from its political solidarity.  During COVID residents became vigilantes, cruising the streets to call out those who did not keep the prescribed six feet of social distance or who were not wearing masks. J'accuse! was the cry, the meme and became the ethos and the zeitgeist  

The entire community not only abided by Fauci rules but shut itself down and created a hermetically- sealed enclave.  Outsiders, possible Typhoid Marys, were shunned, parking spaces militantly defended to guard against infected interlopers.  Mail was kept outside the door for three days, counters were scrubbed with industrial lye, air purifiers ran constantly, no one went out.  

The Trump era gave an injection of hate into the bastion mentality of University Park.  It was not enough to march for freedom, to fly Black Lives Matter and Hate Has No Home Here banners.  The villainy, the pure evil of Trump required more, and the community became almost apoplectic in the ferocity and inchoate, St. Vitus' dance of Trump madness. 

Conversations on the street started and ended with Trump hate and were vetting opportunities - chances of discovering who might be a closet Trump supporter. Those who demurred, or who replied to suggestions of Trump calumny with remarks about the weather or their grandchildren, were automatically suspect and from that moment on given wide berth. 

Alexander Hamilton warned against just this.  The masses, Jefferson's hallowed majority, could not be  trusted.  They to a man were narrow-minded, fickle, inconstant, unschooled, and gullible.  They had to be protected against themselves, and an upper chamber of Congress had to be created to filter the venal sentiments of the rabble from the patrician, noble, and informed leaders of governance. 

Hamilton was not the first to warn against the mob. Shakespeare in Julius Caesar, Coriolanus, and Henry VI, Part 2 among other plays saw the mob as easily swayed, of no foundational substance, a clot of humanity never to be trusted - to be counted on for hysteria, violence, ignorance, and anti-social behavior. 

Today the cause celebre of the day is 'Democratic Socialism', or to call it by its rightful name, Socialism.  This new political movement, spearheaded by Zorhan Mamdani, mayor of New York, and Janeese Lewis George, Mayor-Elect of Washington, DC, is no different than Marxist-Leninism.  

The New Age of Communism, Marx, Engels, and Lenin these politicians averred will be one of social equality with 'From Each According to His Ability, to Each According to His Needs', the bedrock and the governing principle of the new order. 

Communism was the answer to rapacious individualism, elitism, crony capitalism, acquisitiveness, and insularity. People would abandon selfishness and greed, and cede individual responsibility to the state which would protect them and care for them.  It would be new world of harmony, justice, fairness, and equality. 

Of course after the fall of the Berlin wall, the West saw what was going on behind the Iron Curtain and how completely the Communist regimes of the East had failed, creating gulags of oppression, penury, starvation, fear, and elimination. The promises of the Communist politburo were nothing but covers for their own elitist interests.  Not one West German ran to the East after the wall came tumbling down.

Yet somehow the myth and promise of socialism have not only retained currency but have gained in popularity.  Stalin was the problem, not Communism, socialist partisans of the American Left insist.  The system was sound in principle and must be given another opportunity to prosper. 

In American progressives' hands, socialism amounts to a free lunch.  Mayor Mamdani has promised free healthcare, free transportation, free food, and free housing for the many paid for by the few. The idea of dismantling the bastions of Wall Street, toppling the captains of finance and industry, and returning the city's wealth to the people where it belongs is tempting. 

The redistribution of wealth enabling the untold, unearned wealth of the privileged transferred to those who most deserve it is an ennobling idea in principle.  Who could be against a level playing field?

Yet no one, least of all Mamdani and his claque of inner circle advisers, has thought of the consequences of such so-called redistributive policies.  Why shouldn't New York fall apart just like the Soviet Union, bankrupt, socially impotent, and as hopeless as a post-apocalyptic landscape?

If there was ever a mob mentality in the US, it is now.  Not just in the socialist enclaves of New York and Washington, but in the proto-socialist cities of Portland, Seattle, Chicago, Baltimore, and Los Angeles.  The mayors and city councils of these cities have created de facto socialist states where the wealthy are punished, the ghetto lionized, and illegal immigrants benefit from open-treasure, ideologically-driven largesse. 

The shills in Congress, state legislatures, and city councils know exactly what they are doing.  'A sucker is born every minute' said circus impresario, P.T. Barnum and he enticed millions into his big tops and side shows with promises of the fantastic.  Once through the portal, the sucker will believe anything and is therefore fair prey. 

'Mobs do not think, they are thought for', said social psychologist Buford Ames of Northwestern University.

Political solidarity is an anodyne.  Marchers on the National Mall for abortion rights, peace, the black man, gays, transgenders, and the climate care less about the issues than the emotional solidarity of belonging.  Political solidarity is the easiest way to belong, to be relevant, to be needed, to be welcomed

Progressivism and socialism are the best possible homes for such socially desirous people.  Not only do these movements provide instant membership and love, but they do the right thing.  Such righteousness gives a moral dimension to a very venal desire.  Belonging to a good cause adds currency, agency and spiritual value.  

The people of University Park will soon realize the misfortune of their vote for Socialist Lewis George.  She has made raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for her social programs the centerpiece of her policies. Not only will the city gain additional revenues, but the wealthy - the white, elitist, patriarchal monarchists of the city will pay for their racism and anti-democratic sentiments. 

What could be more pleasing to the black residents of DC's worst slums?.  They have been favored with liberal largesse and walkin' around money for years, but now the sluice gates will be opened wide and whitey will suffer for it.  Two in one. 

The residents of University Park as committed in principle to the socialist progressive agenda as they might be, are even more wedded to their investments, and will soon head for Florida for better weather and lower taxes.  The ultimate epiphany, far more telling than the 'Give a liberal enough time and he will become conservative', is 'I have been a sucker'.  Money honey, and once the outflow from University Park becomes a hemorrhage with absolute no impact or result, one must face up and man up. 

Hamilton was the most intelligent and prescient of the Founding Fathers.  Some say he is turning over in his grave to see the mob rule of today, but if he were alive he would smile and simply say, 'I told you so'.  

Little Miss Muffet - 'Eek, A Mouse!', Women, Biological Destiny, And Their Surprising Reversion To Form

Amanda Potter never thought of herself as one of those Fifties, often caricatured ladies up on a chair shrieking at the sight of a mouse nibbling breadcrumbs; but she had to admit that the thought of it or any other creature crawling up into her was unthinkable.  Of course any such thing happening was impossible, but then again... 

 

Duke Medical School psychologist and Associate Dean, Harlan Fiske wrote this about what he called 'The Eek Phenomenon':

Even the strongest, must self-assured, demanding, and strong women have gotten up on chairs in the kitchen when a mouse comes out of his hole and intrudes on the status quo.  How could that be? How could such a woman of inviolable strength, courage, and forwardness be so frightened? The old wives' tale about virginity, the innate, prehistoric determination to keep chastity intact, and fear of penetration as reasons for this primal fear has been roundly laughed at, but from a psycho-social perspective, and a bio-evolutionary perspective, perhaps not so far-fetched. 

When this article appeared in the Duke Medical Quarterly, the objection on and off campus was deafening.  Somehow the article got copied, reproduced, and sent viral on social media, and there was no end of demands for the university to recant, apologize, and withdraw the whole magazine from circulation. 

'An outrage...a demeaning, sexist, ignorant view of women...horrendous...a throwback to the worst misogynistic ages...' are just a few of the rants heard. 

The arguments heard pro and con from the editorial board were equally telling.  It was a matter of free speech, academic integrity, and tenure, said some, while others reacted with indignance - 'How could this have seen the light of day?', but in the end, the editors published only an encouragement to its readers to keep an open mind. 

And then one day, a mouse did appear from under the stove, scurried across the kitchen floor, under Amanda's legs, and into the pantry.  Before she knew what she was doing, she screamed bloody murder, grabbed a chair, and stood on it.  

After a few minutes she gathered her wits, climbed off the chair, and berated herself for such a caricature.  She, Senior Vice President and partner at Burnham, Locke & Brandeis, a feared courtroom Genghis Khan, an eviscerating, merciless destroyer, afraid of a mouse!?

She hoped no one in the house had heard her scream - her husband in his study, Maria the scullery maid in he basement, or the next door neighbors through the Springtime open windows. 

For most, a minor episode; but for Amanda a telling, defining moment. What Jungian world soul, what prehistoric fear, what suddenly triggered Paleolithic incontinent fears had caused this unseemly outburst?  Was there really something to women's emotional febrility?  Could it be that despite everything, her courtroom sword, lance, and guillotine, her feral desire to kill in the courtroom, that she was 'the inevitable woman' as George Bernard Shaw had once famously remarked?

The old nursery rhyme which she had repeated time and time again as a child, came before her:

Little miss Muffet, she sat on her tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
Along came a spider, who sat down beside her
And frightened miss Muffet away

  

The majority of genuine arachnophobes are women, concluded researchers at the University of South Wales, with some studies suggesting as many as 90 per cent of arachnophobes are female. These researchers surmised that female sex hormones could be behind that imbalance.

One woman in the Australian study confided to researchers, 'I make myself sound a bit like a crazy person but I always have a bit of a countdown of how long it's been since I've had any encounter with a spider.' 

Duke Professor Fiske thought that the same bio-emotional factors might be at play with other crawling, potentially invasive creatures. 

Women are not afraid of ants, but desperately concerned about cockroaches.  Ants congregate and go about their business, but cockroaches can be aggressive and insistent.  There is a logic to such seemingly unusual fears. 

One day while visiting her mother, a squirrel came in through an open door and ran through the house.  Her mother, her maiden aunts, and her elderly cousin all shrieked and climbed up on the divan, the sofa, and the loveseat. Did it run in the family? Was it a woman thing only? And why after so many millennia did it persist?

This episode of the mouse was not innocent and meaningless, for it threw Amanda into a tangle of unanswerable questions.  For all her Sturm und Drang, her famous courtroom beheadings, and her take-no-prisoners rise to the top of her law firm, was she more a woman than anything else? Did hormones and the X chromosomes determine more who and what she was than any environmental factors. 

If she could get excited seeing an attractive, confident, sexually attentive male - clearly a limbic response and nothing to do with conditioning - then why weren't hormones also responsible for other similar responses?

The media were filled with the absurd question, 'What is a woman', only asked because progressives had asserted that sexuality was indeterminate, that men could be women and vice versa, and that biology was not destiny; but every time she saw a clip of some foolish give and take on the subject, she, thanks to the mouse incident, asked herself the same question.

If I am so determined by my hormones, or even by some combination of DNA and Jungian world soul, then my agency is little more than a princess outfit, a fanciful coverup for reality.  

To dispel these anarchic thoughts, she was particularly vicious in the courtroom, and literally besieged the prosecution witnesses until they broke down in tears.  She was particularly hard on women as if a frontal, brutal assault on her sisters would prove her ascribed worth. 

She didn't cry a lot, and there was a lot to be said for that in her reconsideration of her femaleness.  Most of her friends cried and cried a lot, unable to help themselves when times got tough.  Didn't that, too, confirm the epiphanic nature of 'the mouse episode'? 

 

Of course all this was of only academic interest.  Her climbing onto a kitchen chair or her mother and maiden aunts scrambling up divans and loveseats meant nothing in women's social ascent, finally reaching top dog status.  What is a woman?  A being of intelligence, determination, will, and desire. A being of...

Here Amanda stopped her train of thought. Needless, pointless, and proving nothing.  A lawyerly argument meant only to justify.  The real answer could not be admitted in today; but as long as she had done the math and come out close to solving Fermat's last theorem, all was right in the world.