Curmudgeon, Heal Thyself
By
Donald E Chatham
Presented at the
joint meeting of
The Chicago
Literary Club and The Fortnightly of Chicago
March 2, 2012
Theme:
“Moving On”
[A
cynic’s perspective on the ups and downs of “moving on.”]
© Copyright 2012 by Donald E Chatham
Curmudgeon
– Heal Thyself
The idea of “moving” has a wide range of applications. Some uses of the word
are specific and clear. When a policeman tells you to move along, there’s no
wondering what to do. You may not do it if you’re Occupying Wall Street, but
there’s no doubt about what that officer has in mind. Moving away pretty much
always means leaving wherever you are – whether it be a city, a state, or a tedious
distraction at an otherwise scintillating cocktail hour, reception or sports
event. And in that vein, moving the chains, while specific to the sport of
football, is also a rich metaphor and clear in its meaning in all contexts,
except to someone who might find televised football a rather useless source for
any respectable metaphor pertaining to human endeavor. A number of other uses
of the word are also not especially nuanced. Moving up pretty much means good
things are in store. No misunderstanding there.
Moving over is pretty clear, especially if you tend to hog the bed.
Moving back is understood for what it is, although not necessarily what a parent
wants to hear from an adult child.
The meaning of the phrase “moving
on” though -- maybe not so much.
We move on from broken relationships. We move on
from despair and disappointment. We move on from the loss of loved ones. So in
the main, we’ve let it become a good thing – it’s largely meant to encourage us
not to dwell on what we can’t change. This is supposed to be good.
So, what’s a curmudgeon to do with something as
sweet as the idea of moving on – after all, isn’t it – really, and usually -- little
more than a self-deceptive way of sugarcoating some miserable experience – the
very stuff that gives curmudgeons a purpose in life?
Consider too that moving on is not always such a
good thing. Great literature, for example, presents a dilemma. What would our
cultural heritage be like if Anna Karenina had moved on instead of catching the
next train so to speak? Or, what would have been next for Madame Bovary if she
had moved on – The Real Housewives of Rouen?
[Perhaps, but small consolation.]
Where would the blissfully high level of our modern
neuroses be if Holden Caulfield had been able to live with the phoniness of
adults? Or if Kurtz had moved on instead of establishing his
neurotic, paranoid stronghold in the heart of darkness? Or if Portnoy had gotten a different
“grip” on things if you will? For
that matter, if we are going to move on why wouldn’t we just as commonly
consign ourselves to the more dismal fate of Billy Pilgrim’s now iconic
response, “so it goes?”
Slaughterhouse
Five,
Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Death of a Salesman -- all these great
works put the myth of moving on to a test that warms the heart of our beloved
curmudgeons.
As does the more comic side of the curmudgeons’
argument -- consider the paucity of our cultural heritage without the delicious
folly of moving on represented by the likes of Don Quixote, Henderson the Rain
King, or, most of all, the virtually buffo operatic peregrinations of the beloved
Ignatius J. Reilly, in A Confederacy of
Dunces -- a veritable apotheosis of the delusions that obtain in the
absence of recognition.
Depression and delusion.
Perfect.
Then too, there are times when moving on just
doesn’t work; times when the world won’t let it work – won’t let it go, won’t
move on. This usually applies to statements that otherwise bright,
knowledgeable people wished they hadn’t made. Not you and I of course . . . , others.
For example:
“We
don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.”
which was the advice of Decca Records
executives on the potential of The Beatles.
“Stocks
have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau,”
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale, 1929.
But then of course, Yale: what would one expect?
And
who’s going to forget Jack Warner’s far-sighted, well-thought-out comment “Who
the hell want to hear actors talk”
To
be fair, however, except in the employment of a script, he may have been on to
something.
Sometimes what sounds good can be bad and what
sounds bad can be good. George Bernard Shaw once noted that affection had been
showered upon him all his life and every step forward he ever made had been
taken in spite of it. Einstein was well advised to give up plans for a career
as a concert violinist. At other times, moving on is the better part of
discretion (if not valor). As Mark Twain noted, “in our country we have three
unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the
prudence never to practice either.”
However, as Ambrose Bierce points out, there is one
place where moving on is equitably applicable and that is in the ranks of the
our political spectrum in that a conservative is a statesman who in enamored of
existing evils, whereas a liberal is a statesman who wishes to replace them
with others – thus representing a condition of the process that cuts both ways
– moving on or not moving on brings us to the same place. A
curmudgeon’s epiphany.
We see yet another variation on the theme in the
form of the curmudgeon as critic, whereas if the objects of their contempt do
move on it is as much for spite as for any more noble reason. Furthermore,
curmudgeons are usually unimpressed that someone might move on in the wake of
their observed calamities. They tend to pride themselves on the sufficiency of
simply dwelling on the unfortunate. That alone is usually enough. They are glad
simply to share their pain with those they believe deserve it. Even so, where
does one find the fortitude to move on in the face of such classic dismissals
as these:
George
Jean Nathan on George Bernard Shaw: he writes his plays for the ages – the ages
between five and twelve.
Peter
De Vries: If it must be Thomas, let it be Mann, and
if it must be Wolfe, let it be Nero, but never let it be Thomas Wolfe.
Gore
Vidal on Alexander Solzhenitsyn and by extension the American reading public:
He is a bad novelist and a fool. The combination usually makes for great
popularity in the U.S.
Truman
Capote on Jack Kerouac: That’s not writing, that’s typing.
Samuel
Johnson on a contemporary novelist: Your manuscript is both good and original;
but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not
good.
Oscar
Wilde on Alexander Pope: There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to
dislike it the other is to read Pope.
Dorothy
Parker on Katharine Hepburn: She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.
Hot or cold, revenge is good. And yet, it is
probably safe to assume these curmudgeons would derive a certain pleasure from
supposing the reasons for any subsequent success.
In the main, our curmudgeons would have no faith in
moving on, as it usually means something worse. As Sidney Harris put it, a
cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past,
a [cynic] is [also] one who is prematurely disappointed in the future. Even
something as simple as the moving on that a marriage represents comes to a halt
in the mind of a Groucho Marx who once defined a
bride, for instance, as a woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.
Our cynics also remind us that social class
represents another plateau of rationalization and disengagement -- resulting in
platitudes that can be applied in one’s defense or engaged in one’s retreat. So,
Oscar Wilde laments, or glories in, the notion that each class preaches the
importance of those virtues it need not exercise -- the rich harp on the value
of thrift, the idle grow eloquent over the dignity of labor. And G K Chesterton
reminds us that the classes that wash most are those that work least. Our
altruistic nemesis might say, we are what we are; let’s move on.
In response, the cynic is likely to note in light of
this that modern culture has moved on to the point that we can fast track the
perception of art appreciation so as to move on to something as important, if
not more important, such as, maybe, box seats at Wrigley. We now have
encyclopedias of popular culture that substitute for developing a real or true
cultural dimension. In effect, it is too often true that we might sit through
Shakespeare, for instance, in order to recognize the quotations. If we don’t
have time for the opera, not to worry, we can move on because we have the arias
on our iPods.
Even if the curmudgeon realizes we must move on,
there’s a tendency to dwell on what prompts it as opposed to what allows it. In
its most rewarding aspect, however, it offers an opportunity to make room for
what’s next. And yet, from the curmudgeon’s perspective, it also means getting
the hook.
So in vaudeville, it literally meant someone getting
a long hook around their neck and being pulled off the stage – a not so subtle
way of saying your time is up. The introduction of music during acceptance
speeches at the Oscars is more civilized but equivalent in its purpose – your
time is up. Move on.
We also see the gentle hook as a device for exiting
awkward situations. “Moving On” becomes a way of addressing a pregnant pause
after someone has said or done something that makes absolutely no sense. The
resonance and charm of the George Burns and Gracie Allen act of old basically
turned on the famous last line of their typical sketch: Gracie says something
oddly sensible in her own inimitable if not inscrutable way and a bemused George
is left with nothing to add except the loving admonition to “Say Good Night
Gracie,” Likewise after a ramble of non-sequiturs from his partner Dick Martin,
a seemingly befuddled Dan Rowan would transition out on a note of resignation
with the comment, “Say Good Night Dick,” whereby Martin says just that – “Good night
Dick” – and the show moved on.
Overall, though, it seems, good or bad, optimistic
or cynical, moving on remains the stuff of life. Images as well as words
abound. Pages coming off a calendar in a ‘30’s movie signify the passage of
time, moving on. We know what that white light means at the end of a celestial
vista. We understand the meaning of that train going into a tunnel before we
see our young lovers at breakfast the next day – life has moved on indeed. Best-selling
books deal with all kinds of passages and transitions. Styles continually
re-cycle. Kids grow up to be their parents. Life goes on; this too shall pass.
What’s a curmudgeon to do!
Well, one thing is they can abide by the admonition
provided here and attend to their own faults first; but what fun is that. While
the curmudgeons might keep us grounded, they won’t keep yours truly from moving
on -- and now, more precisely, from moving off.
Thank you.