Slander, William Blake, and Bugs Bunny

Today I began to write about what to do when you are the subject of lies. I erased what I wrote and decided I didn’t want to write about that. The subject is a quagmire and if you have ever been in the position of defending yourself before an unsympathetic audience, you know that there is little you can do to resolve the situation. I know people who might take a sort of “cosmic” view of this and believe that misrepresentations do not have the longevity of reality, that eventually the truth will reveal itself. This is the theory of “murder will out.” It assumes that a wrongdoing will be exposed and it’s a way for those who have been aggrieved to hold out hope much in the way that poor people have been assured that rich people can’t get into heaven.

I’m not so sure. There are murders unsolved, and more we don’t even know about; character assassination must operate along the same lines. I have no knowledge about the final reward of the rich.

The only sure thing about slander, I guess, is that it tests your friends in a crucible. You could act as if you were in a court of inquiry, present your evidence, make your defenses, but it won’t get you far. Some people will only respond with a shrug of the shoulders and inform you, with a sort of bland disregard, that there are two versions of the truth. You have already lost them. Others will stand and wait, and from what we know about them, they also serve. And others will support you. It will have very little to do with the details of the situation, it will have much to do with your character and the character of your friends.

And so it comes back to the judgment of friends. As for the opinions of others, I give you today a quote ascribed by Bertrand Russell to William Blake (and if you have any better knowledge of where it comes from, please let me know):

The only man that e’er I knew
Who did not make me almost spew
Was Fuseli: He was both Turk and Jew.
And so, dear Christian friends, how do you do?

We all need at least one Fuseli.

I’ll also add, on a lighter note, that today is Bugs Bunny’s birthday (sort of). Bugs is one of the great snobs of animation. Witty, ironic, charming, decadent, slightly effeminate, a concert pianist, disdainful of hunters, probably Jewish (well – he’s kosher, his nemesis was originally a pig, he’s from Brooklyn, and he retires to Beverly Hills – what more can I say?), he is practically the Marcel Proust of cartoons.

Bugs also lets us truly understand the sneering mischief of Blake’s interrogatory. Fearing that the world outside will make us queasy, that hunters skulk, that coyotes lurk, that cowboys are dangerous, that our friends are daffy, we give the public our guarded, mordant greeting . . . And so, dear Christian friends … eh, what’s up doc?