In 1955 Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian emigre to the United States, published Lolita, a tale of a linguistically and aesthetically talented pedophile who runs off with his 12 year old step daughter, "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta" (first lines of Lolita).
Lolita was not published in the U.S. until 1958 due to its pornographic subject matter. Nabokov intensely hated cruelty to others and sexual deviants. So why did he write a book from the viewpoint of the pedophile, Humbert Humbert, who has conned several generations of readers and academics with the beautiful account of his love and "protection" of a 12 year old girl?
Nabokov hated evil. He had escaped the Bolsheviks in Russia, then later, escaped the Nazis with his wife of Jewish descent and their young son. They arrived in America and fell in love with it. Nabokov's wife, Vera, promptly purchased a gun to replace the one she had left behind in Europe, and learned to drive.
Nabokov, a seemingly absent-minded butterfly-chasing professor with an innocence about him that relied upon his wife's ferocity and protection liked to look at things from a very detailed and scientific perspective. He hated evil and studied it, dissected it, and understood its minutest detail. He climbed into the mind of evil when he wrote Lolita, shocking readers and enchanting millions with the beauty of his language.
Lolita was a triumph and proved how easily a population can be tricked into accepting evil, calling it beautiful, spending entire lifetimes studying its details without ever getting to its ultimate meaning. Anyone can tear apart an engine, or dissect a body and name the parts and figure out how they operate, but most cannot figure out the ultimate meaning -- why was this human body created, what is its purpose? How does one get into the mind of the creator via the act of dissection and cataloguing of the parts? It is impossible if one has no love or passion driving them. Creators and inventors generally have more love and passion which compels them to work harder and longer at something, creating a thing that changes the world for better.
Most inventions and creations were initially designed for the betterment of mankind or to add beauty or freedom. But many inventions are corrupted and used for evil purposes. The written word was made to better the world, but evil tries to corrupt it. The same goes for all art. We see technology abused, being used to make life harder rather than easier. Even Lolita, meant to show us evil from its own perspective, has been corrupted and adopted as a wonderful and dreamy tale by many gullible girls and joking young men, none of whom are aware that they have been artfully conned and that Nabokov proves his case of how evil survives and is accepted into the world.
Nabokov, the great enchanter and magician deceives many with his artistic slight of hand, keeping our focus upon the aesthetic, causing us to accept Humbert Humbert's defence because it is merely art and has no ultimate meaning or moral. If art is only aesthetic, then beauty has no meaning, thus what is the point of creating it?
Nabokov, a talented lepidopterist, studied butterflies and moths and was fascinated by their beauty. These creatures are patterned in ways that attract and enchant us, but also hide them from evil. Some butterflies blend in with their surroundings while others mimic dangerous animals to avoid being eaten. Nabokov learned that a butterfly's patterning is not merely aesthetic, but also enhances its survival. And this is what art's purpose is. Art is not merely aesthetic, but driven by truth and survival. If we cannot learn from art how to be wiser, better, kinder, and more graceful to others; to have pity, then art has no purpose, much as a shiny car has no meaning or purpose without an engine. A car is nice to look at, but without an engine it gets us nowhere.
The reason I expound upon Nabokov's Lolita and art is that more than ever America is deceived by the Humbert Humberts who claim they love us and want to protect us, while molesting us in various ways. We are made to pass through Naked Body Scanners, which undress us and expose us to dangerous mutagenic radiation. We are searched and groped by TSA officials as we travel the country, much as Lolita was groped by Humbert Humbert along the highways and byways of America. The stories now include "enhanced" searches that have left many feeling sexually violated after having had their penises, anuses, labia, and breasts felt by TSA screeners.
Now, does Humbert's love for Lolita feel nice and beautiful? Sure, he attacked the pornographic movie maker that ran off with Lolita, because that kind of art is immoral and degrading; but what of Humbert's protective and fatherly love for her? More than ever Nabokov's Lolita is important, for we all are her.
Was Lolita clean and innocent as the wind-driven snow? Was she faultless? No. But was that any excuse for Humbert Humbert to molest her? Was Lolita a kind and sweet child? No. She was obnoxious and sometimes crude. Was she more deserving of Humbert's sexual predation because of this? No. Americans are like this 12 year old girl and even though we are annoying and obnoxious and immoral it does not mean that we deserve to be treated by our states, by our fellows that work at TSA, as criminals in need of being stripped down or molested as we travel. Humbert Humbert protected Lolita as much as our airports are protecting us.
This is not beautiful, this is not America. This isn't even Nazi Germany. This is worse. This is worse for numerous reasons. Firstly, it's far worse and more abusive passing through United States airport security than in the rest of the world. America is supposed to be less abusive than the rest of the world. Second, the atrocities of the Nazis and American eugenicists and corporations in the first part of the 20th century are not so far removed from memory that we have forgotten them and what they looked like -- and what is going on in the United States right now resembles these past times.
The TSA's arrogance is only a small, yet extremely visible HINT as to what period of history we have regressed to. If a Naked Body Scanner, a long line in which one is divested of their possessions and shoes, hurried along, and subjected to physical searches which involve humble and silent endurance while one's anal and sexual reproduction areas are touched by uniformed employees of the government before being boarded upon crowded vehicles traveling somewhere doesn't wake us up and cause deja vu; then far worse than what happened in Nazi-controlled areas of Europe awaits us.
Rather than humbly lining up like the Jews, believing they'd eventually return home, we should stop cowering in embarrassment and start saying to hell with the "law," which breaks every law written into our soul. American travelers aren't terrorists and neither are visitors from other countries. The terrorists are the ones that apply for TSA jobs, and willingly carry out the orders of their superiors. If TSA employees were intelligent Americans they'd go on strike until they no longer were made to mistreat their fellow Americans. The terrorists are the ones groping for your wallet and now, your genitals. Soon, the women and children will be divided from the men, then the children from the women as enhanced airport security. It's already happening on an individual level. What next? Confiscation of Passport and Citizenship? Child sacrifice? When will their appetite be filled?
Wake up, America. Don't let the lives lost of the millions of Jews and others be for nothing. It's time to wake up out of our self-righteous and false morals. We are imperfect, we are obnoxious, we are all sinners, and we're not afraid of it. The Nazis were afraid of sin and imperfection and tried to hide it and eradicate it. We don't have to fall for that lie.
America wasn't founded as a utopia away from imperfection, but a place that would toughen up and accept it. That First Amendment isn't for the perfect or the safe people, but to protect the imperfect and those that speak unsafe things even if they are the truth and offend others. Our entire Constitution was designed to protect the so-called "impure," the "unsafe," the "sinful," the obnoxious, the rude, and the human. If the Constitution was only for the perfect and the moral, then our Founding Fathers would not have had any rights.
According, to Britain the American Revolutionaries were a bunch of terrorists, criminals, and tax evaders. And, according to our side of history they were brave, courageous, educated lovers of freedom. It all depends on who is writing history as to what the words "terrorist," "art," "pedophile," and "free" mean. We want to be on the right side of history. The trick is figuring out what the "right" side is. Usually, it's the side that is willing to break the law to show pity and hospitality to others when they are traveling in an inhospitable world.
America, this is not ancient Sodom where travelers were subjected to rape when visiting that town. Why are we forcing ourselves upon travelers? How does it protect us to treat citizens and visitors to this country this way? We are not Nazis, not Humbert Humbert, not Sodomites -- are we?
image: George Washington, Commander of the Terrorist Americans who threatened Britain's safety and health, also known as The Father Of Our Country, The United States Of America.
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