RUSSIAN HOLIDAY

A lust for adventure.

by Ave Maria

Most Audrey Hepburn fans today are blissfully ignorant of the hidden edge in the title of Roman Holiday. When the ancient Romans wanted to take a holiday, it usually involved snacking on some peanuts at the Colosseum while watching slaves fight each other to the death or being eaten by lions. The phrase “Roman holiday,” current in the Victorian and Edwardian periods, referred to unusually cruel or scandalous entertainment; in the film, it refers to the scandal of Hepburn eloping with Gregory Peck.

We moderns have very little appreciation for the Roman sense of fun. Protestants and Marxists have preferred to take the side of the slaves. But at least on the abstract level, there is something to be gained from walking a mile in Roman sandals.

CRACKS IN THE GREAT WALL

by Ave Maria

The essence of Greek comedies, like most good comedies, consisted of a straight man and a buffoon. The straight man, or ironist, understates his own abilities, eliciting a knowing chuckle from the audience in on the joke. The buffoon, or alazon, overstates his own talents to the point of absurdity. The alazon’s self-deceptive boastfulness, and his inability to see what is going on in front of his face, assures victory to the ironist. He does not even understand the ironist's sly jokes.

In the realm of geopolitics, the West of 2014 is the world's alazon. We have such a wide cast of characters in the role of the ironist that the odds seem rather unfairly stacked against us. Not only are the non-Western countries taking us for fools, but also the non-Westernized populations within our own countries, and sometimes, it seems, the chorus of the cosmic play itself.

AN ANCIENT VISION OF THE KALI YUGA IN THE MAHABHARATA

by Ave Maria

The Indian tradition has handed down us the knowledge that we are living in the Kali Yuga, the most degenerate age where the world is on the verge of collapse. What will happen in the final stages of this Yuga? The Mahabharata, the ancient Indo-Aryan epic known as the largest book ever written, contains several well-known prophecies, for example, "shudras will expound the scriptures" and "people will without compunction destroy trees and gardens." These prophecies are widely available in essays and books about the Kali Yuga. Less well-known are the object-lessons given at the end of the Mahabharata's fifth book, just before the great war that transitioned the world from the previous Dvapara Yuga to the current Kali Yuga.

A teacher of mine, who has read the entire Mahabharata in Sanskrit, once remarked that parts of it seem to have been written with the modern reader in mind, notably the monologues of the low-caste character Karna. This may sound somewhat unlikely, given the age of the Mahabharata, but a close reading of the end of the fifth book shows a remarkable relevance to the modern condition that gives the ring of truth to my teacher's statement. Although it portrays conditions at the end of the Dvapara Yuga, I think it is meant to reflect on what conditions will be like at the end of the Kali Yuga.