"Into the wild" -the true story of the adventures of Chris McCandless

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
I just found out about this story recently, in typical fashion, about 20 years after it happened. Well, to my credit, less time has passed since the book and then the movie were created. I may comment more on this later, but I wanted to post this because I feel it is a remarkable story.

Hunter S. Thompson

"It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat shit and die... all we know for sure is that Hell will be a viciously overcrowded version of Phoenix--a clean well-lighted place full of sunshine and bromides and fast cars where almost everybody seems vaguely happy, except for the ones who know in their hearts what is missing...And being driven slowly and quietly into the kind of terminal craziness that comes with finally understanding that the one thing you want is not there. Missing. Back-ordered. No tengo. Vaya con Dios. Grow up! Small is better. Take what you can get..."

Thompson, Hunter S. Author's Note. Generation of Swine,Gonzo Papers
Volume 2, Tales of Shame and Degredation in the '80's.
By Thompson. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. 11. Print.

The Horatio Alger Myth

The Horatio Alger Myth (also mentions references in Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger_myth
"In Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Horatio Alger is mentioned as what could be interpreted as a guide for the protagonist: "How would Horatio Alger handle this situation?" (70). The novel itself is focused around a week-long attempt to discover the American Dream through drugs, degeneracy, and honest curiosity. Thompson references Alger in other scenes, but is most profoundly referenced in the very last sentence of the novel: "I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger ... a Man on the Move, and just sick enough to be totally confident."

Hopefully Thompson visualizes himself as a reincarnation of Horatio Alger due to the fact that in the novel he is in a drug induced manic frenzy. I prefer Miller's comment, below, from his book Moloch. The quoted phrase is in reference to a request by one of his bosses at Western Union requesting he write a Horatio Alger novel about the lowly Western Union Messengers Miller hired and fired at his job there.

Every day now the Horatio Alger myth grows more ironic. Or at least the way the myth is taken - in terms of the American Dream.



Reference from Henry Miller:
http://cosmotc.blogspot.com/search?q=horatio+alger
I will give you Horatio Alger, as he looks the day after the Apocalypse, when all the stink has cleared away”


Horatio Alger Wikipedia Entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Alger,_Jr.

Updates

I have done some more updating on my Recommended Reading List

It is still very much a work in progress, as I have to add many more books that I have already read, and intend to include on the list, particularly quite a few by Rollo May.

Jack London's concluding notes from Abyss

"If Civilization has increased the producing power of the average man, why has it not bettered the lot of the average man? There can be one answer only -- MISMANAGEMENT. Civilization has made possible all manner of creature comforts and heart's delights. In these the average Englishman does not participate. If he shall be forever unable to participate, then Civilization falls. There is no reason for the continued existence of an artifice so avowed a failure. But it is impossible that men should have reared this tremendous artifice in vain. It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defeat is to give the death-blow to striving and progress. One other alternative, and one other only, presents itself. Civilization must be compelled to better the lot of the average man." (London, 314).

Once again we are up against this lie of progress.

Also in this vein, here is a link to George Orwell's essay on Henry Miller, entitled Inside the Whale,
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/insidewhale_1.html

More from London's East End...

MORE FROM Jack London's The People of the Abyss

"The unfit and the unneeded! The miserable and despised and forgotten, dying in the social shambles. The progeny of prostitution -- of the prostitution of men and women and children, of flesh and blood, and sparkle and spirit; in brief, the prostitution of labor. If this is the best that civilization can do for the human, then give us howling and naked savagery. Far better to be a people of the wilderness and desert, of the cave and the squatting-place, than to be a people of the machine and the Abyss." (London, 288).

Is London's "howling and naked savagery" a sly comment on
Thomas Hobbes who comments in his book Leviathan (to paraphrase) that life without government is "nasty, brutish and short?"

I also came across a couple of poems by the English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold, and one specifically about the East End.

After skimming through a fairly comprehensive Wikipedia article on The East End of London, I believe my next purchase will be a book by the founder of the Salvation Army, William Booth, entitled In Darkest England and the Way Out.

More from The People of The Abyss...

"The application of the Golden Rule determines that East London is an unfit place in which to live. Where you would not have your own babe live, and develop, and gather to itself knowledge of life and the things of life, is not a fit place for the babes of other men to live, and develop, and gather to themselves knowledge of life and the things of life. It is a simple thing, this Golden Rule, and all that is required. Political economy and the survival of the fittest can go hang if they say otherwise. What is not good enough for you is not good enough for other men, and there's no more to be said." (London, 212-213).

Here is a link to the full text of the book, including pictures, online:
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/PeopleOfTheAbyss/

London's East End of the 1900s

I'm currently reading The People of the Abyss by Jack London. I came across this book after having previously stumbled upon George Orwell's book Down and Out in Paris and London, and then having found out from a friend that Orwell was inspired to write the book by having read this book by Jack London growing up.

Surprising how persistent and identical the problems of poverty have been, perhaps unchanged since the start of industrial capitalism. The book has the tone of a documentary, but a sad and heartbreaking one at that. London effectively relates the tales of the "vast and malodorous sea" which he encounters upon submersing himself in the East End of London. I'd like to quote the following from the book, regarding the "efficiency," or lack thereof of workers, and the effect this inefficiency has on people falling into "The Abyss":

"It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labor. If three men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, no matter how capable they may be, will none the less be inefficients. If Germany, Japan, and the United States should capture the entire world market for iron, coal and textiles, at once the English workers would be thrown idle by hundreds of thousands. Some would emigrate, but the rest would rush their labor into the remaining industries. A general shaking up of the workers from top to bottom would result; and when equilibrium had been restored, the number of the inefficients at the bottom of the Abyss would have been increased by hundreds of thousands. On the other hand, conditions remaining constant and all the workers doubling their efficiency, there would still be as many inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as capable as he had been and more capable than many of the efficients had previously been.

When there are more men to work than there is work for men to do, just as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and as inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. It shall be the aim of future chapters to show, by their work and manner of living, not only how the inefficients are weeded out and destroyed, but to show how inefficients are being constantly and wantonly created by the forces of industrial society as it exists to-day." (London 200-201).

It's still the same sham being pulled on us today. No one realizes it because they don't bother to look beneath the surface, to turn off the television set and the biased flow of brainwash they feed us through the media. Question government statistics.


London, Jack. The People of the Abyss. New York: Lawrence Hill Books, 1993.

Recommended Reading

The following is a book list that I'm working on. Forgive me for slapping it right here in the midst of my blog. When I get time I will make it look better.


Recommended Book List (work in progress)

Fiction
Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell
Interesting book by Orwell detailing hand-to-mouth existence in Paris, where he works in the kitchens of Paris hotels and in London, where he lives the life of a "tramp" (apparently an outdated English word for homeless). Things get so bad he has to pawn clothes to purchase bread! Trust me when I say this book makes 8 hour work days not seem so bad after all.

Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre
This book gets by basically for being in Paris and being "existential."

The People of the Abyss by Jack London
Details London's trip to the East End of London in the early 1900s. Much more like a documentary than the above book by Orwell, London brings up many important points regarding the hardships and dilemmas imposed on the peoples he is among - a "vast and malodorous sea." Highly recommended.

The Iron Heel by Jack London
Yeah, I probably don't want to give links to Amazon when I recommend anti-plutocracy overtures like "The Iron Heel."
[I will post comments after I finish the book - I had never known London wrote a book like this - As Orwell followed London, even into the slums of the East End, this is undoubtedly a strong influence on Orwell to write 1984...very exciting!]

Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World
I found out about this book from my studies of analyzing stocks. Specifically, after having read the "Bible of value investing," Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham. I have also not read this yet, but have purchased it and cannot wait!! I have not verified it, but a comment on the review on Amazon.com mentions that this book was also an influence on Orwell to write 1984. I have a lot of synchronicity going on right now with my reading...

Ask the Dust by John Fante
Written in the 1930s, still a pretty decent modern book. Trials of a starving writer in LA.

Non-Fiction

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
True story of Christopher McCandless, who goes on a series of adventures, ultimately perishes tragically in the "Fairbanks 142" bus in Alaska.

Everett Ruess-A Vagabond for Beauty by Vicky Burgess, W.L. Rusho and John Nichols
Another true story, though Everett begins his adventures at a much younger age than Christopher McCandless. Travels through California, Big Sur, Carmel, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Navajo lands. Disappeared and never found in 1934 in Utah. Amazing story.

Thirty-Seven Days of Peril by Truman Everts
Amazing book (more of a short story) about a man stranded and on death's doorstep in Yosemite in the 1800s. Incredible.
*Available for free at: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30924

Existential Philosophy
Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger
Pre-dating Heidegger's Being & Time, originally given as a lecture course. Heidegger discusses "Being" (Da-Sein), including frequent references to pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy, such as Parmenides.

Zollikon Seminars: Protocols - Conversations - Letters by Martin Heidegger (author) Franz Mayr (Translator)
Documenting a series of meetings and lectures between Heidegger and Medard Boss and medical students.


Existential Psychology *some of these titles are out of print

Psychoanalysis and Daseinsanalysis by Medard BossMedard Boss, a follower of the German Philosopher Martin Heidegger, compares his psychology of Daseinsanalysis to Freudian Psychoanalysis and finds there are some worthwhile contents in Freudian therapy as opposed to Freudian theory. This is not the best text to read for an introduction to Medard Boss.

Existential Foundations of Medicine and Psychology by Medard Boss
Boss explains the Daseinsanalytical view of the true basis of medicine in contrast to the physicalistic, reductionist, and deterministic medical model. This book offers a decent overview of Boss' psychological adaption of Heidegger's Philosophy, however, Boss' books on dreams offer a clearer entry point into daseinsanalytical insight, especially if you are interested in dreams.

Analysis of Dreams by Medard Boss
The older of Boss' two books in English regarding Dreams. This one is more about the Daseinsanalytic insights applied to dreams - in other words theory - than his later book, which contains more examples of patient's dreams.

I Dreamt Last Night by Medard Boss and Stephen Conway
The later book by Boss, which provides more examples of patients dreams and their daseinsanalytical explanations.

Existential Psychology by Rollo May
The Discovery of Being: Writings in Existential Psychology by Rollo May

Psychoanalysis and Existential Philosophy Edited by Hendrik M. Ruitenbeek
(A compilation of many great existential writings, including Medard Boss)

Readings in Existential Psychology and Psychiatry (Studies in Existential Psychology and Psychiatry) Edited by Keith Hoeller
This book is a treasure - the essay on the will be Farber and on anxiety by Boss have the potential to be life-changing. This is a must read if you can find it.

Theistic Existentialism / Theology

The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
A master work by a master thinker.

Sickness unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition of Edification & Awakening by Anti-Climacus (Penguin Classics)-Kierkegaard
This book regards despair and the self...
~anthropological in nature, instructive (subtitled 'Psychological Exposition')

Fear and Trembling (Penguin Classics)-Kierkegaard
This book regards faith
~anthropological in nature, instructive

The Concept of Anxiety : Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 8 -Kierkegaard
~A Psychological Exposition
This book regard hereditary sin and anxiety (aka The Concept of Dread)