Matryoshka Trump
[ by Charles Cameron — NYorker invokes the nested dolls archetype — not kind to Trump ]
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You already know that I sit up and take special notice when certain forms (symmetries, helices, ouroboroi, etc) show up — because forms are a particularly powerful way in which the mind orders its world, or because the world teaches the mind that it is ordered in formal ways, take your pick — well, one of those forms is the nested form called Matryoshka, which I’ve discussed before:
Nesting Buddhas and insubstantiality ISIS goes Matryoshka
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Imagine, then, my interest to read today’s New Yorker post, Valley of the Russian Dolls: A Hollow, Repetitive Form Proves Perfect for Trump.
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I invite you to read the article yourself to learn about Halina Danchenko. who sells Matryoshka dolls. Shoppers are asked not to open the dolls on display in her stone themselves — however “If you want to see what’s inside the leader of the free world, Danchenko will open him for you.”
The article is witty, if you share her perspective:
Trump, who is as matronly as a big bullying man can be, already has the de-facto physique of a nesting doll (and something very like the shellac)
The dolls are witty too, or should I say catty? Read about the two Trump sets that the article describes in detail..
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If you think Trump is father to a host of lies, as the NYT does, why then this article will amuse you, and conversely, if you see him as a straight-shooting man of truth, not so much.
The writer, Kathryn Schulz, is clearly in the first category:
Never has a President seemed so entirely hollow as Trump, so intellectually and morally vacant. Nor has any Administration, so early in its tenure, concealed such a lengthy series of deceptions, or grown so bizarrely, fatally fractal: its lawyers have lawyers, its scandals have sub-scandals, its lies have little lie-lets. It’s easy to imagine, given this prevailing opacity and the incompetence of those nominally in charge, that there is another Trump Russian doll out there, this one filled up with actual Russians.
And her conclusion:
That might or might not prove to be the truth about what’s going on inside Donald Trump politically. What’s going on psychologically is a different story. All of us are largely hidden from one another, our most important attributes by definition invisible: minds, hearts, psyches, consciences, souls. Even for ourselves, we can access these aspects only through sustained introspection, a habit anathema to Trump; other people, meanwhile, reveal their innermost selves to us chiefly through their actions. On that evidence, the most accurate Trump doll is the one made of Donalds all the way down: utterly full of himself, in all other ways utterly empty.
July 21st, 2017 at 3:27 pm
Very good, Charles. Thank you. Fascinated to read that morphic resonance is as much appreciated on the other side of The Pond.
July 21st, 2017 at 4:17 pm
Thanks, and hmm — are you explicitly referring to Rupert Sheldrake’s work? Would you say more, Michael?
July 22nd, 2017 at 3:55 pm
“… because forms are a particularly powerful way in which the mind orders its world, or because the world teaches the mind that it is ordered in formal ways” – I don’t think the core of Plato’s philosophy has ever been stated more simply, since reading this it’s been resonating – thanks!
July 24th, 2017 at 4:31 pm
I ran across another form today — a pretty obvious and well-known one in fact, but in a context that gves it a name:
That’s from Politico’s article, The Trump White House’s War Within — subtitled, His national security team wants a stepped-up fight in Afghanistan. There’s just one problem: A president who doesn’t want to be there.
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Okay, Groundhog Day, aka Cycles, aka The Eternal Recurrence.