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Tag Archives: Alexander Pushkin

Dom Juan, “grand seigneur méchant homme”

04 Monday Mar 2019

Posted by michelinewalker in Comedy, Molière

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alexander Pushkin, Dargomyzhsky, Defiance, deus ex machina, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, The Stone Guest

don20giovanni2

don20giovanni201

Don Giovanni by Angela Buscemi
www.teatrodimessina.it (Photo credit: Google Images)

In an earlier post on Molière‘s Dom Juan, which was first performed on 15 February 1665, I mentioned sources: Tirso de Molina‘s Trickster of Seville, the Stone Guest (1630) and the dramma giocoso. I also wrote that he was a descendant of Bergamo’s Brighella. Finally, I mentioned that Mozart had written an opera on our legendary figure: Don Giovanni (K. 527) and catalogued it as an opera buffa, a dramma giocoso. Mozart’s Don Giovanni is the most famous Don Juan. Mozart’s librettist was Lorenzo da Ponte.

In fact, I will now link Don Juan to Russian literature and music. In 1830, Russian poet Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) wrote The Stone Guest. Pushkin’s The Stone Guest was adapted as an opera by Alexander Dargomyzhsky (14 February 1813 – February 1869) as The Stone Guest, which was left incomplete. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov finished the opera which premièred in 1879. It was Alexander Dargomyzhsky‘s last opera. Rimsky-Korsakov adapted The Stone Guest a second time. The revised Stone Guest was first performed in 1907.[1] 

Dom Juan features a duel. Ironically, Pushkin was killed in a duel. He was fatally wounded and died of peritonitis two days later, on 29 January 1837.

Duel_of_Pushkin_and_d'Anthes_(19th_century)

Duel of Alexan­der Pushkin and Georges d’Anthès (Alexander Pushkin, Wiki2.org)

Un Grand Seigneur méchant homme

The full title of Mozart’s Don Giovanni is The Rake punished or Don Giovanni. The complete title of Molière’s Dom Juan is Dom Juan ou Le Festin de pierre. The rake is an aristocrat and Sganarelle describes his master as a “grand seigneur méchant homme” (I. i , p. 4), a “great lord become an evil man.” (I. 1, p. 3). (Sganarelle to Gusman). If one cannot be a misanthrope and love Célimène, a mondaine, can one be a Great Lord and an evil man? Molière’s Alceste (The Misanthrope) and his Dom Juan are incongruous characters.

Here is our dramatis personæ

DON JUAN, son of Don Louis
SGANARELLE, valet of Don Juan
DONNA ELVIRA, wife of Don Juan
GUSMAN, horseman to Elvira
DON CARLOS, brother of Elvira
DON ALONSE, brother of Elvira
DON LOUIS, father of Don Juan
BEGGAR
CHARLOTTE, peasant-girl
MATHURINE, peasant-girl
PIERROT, peasant
THE STATUE OF THE COMMANDER
LA VIOLETTE, a lackey (laquais) of Don Juan
RAGOTIN, a lackey of Don Juan
M. DIMANCHE, merchant
LA RAMÉE, swordsman (spadassin)

ENTOURAGE OF DON JUAN ENTOURAGE OF DON CARLOS AND DON ALONSE
A GHOST

The Plot

The plot of Dom Juan differs from the classic “blondin berne le barbon” (the young man fools the old man). There are no young lovers opposing a senex iratus. But Dom Juan is a miles gloriosus. (See Alazṓn,Wiki2.org.) He meets two peasant-girls, Mathurine and Charlotte. He fancies Mathurine, but as soon as he sees Charlotte, he has a change of heart. Dom Juan’s fickleness leads to a quiproquo (a misundertanding) that provides comic relief, but he has fooled the girls and he has abandoned a wife, Done Elvire. His behaviour is not mere fickleness, it is defiance. Done Elvire’s brothers, Dom Carlos and Dom Alonze are roaming the land looking for Dom Juan and intending vengeance. Moreover, Dom Juan has killed the Commandeur and returned from exile, infringing a code of laws.

It should be noted that Sganarelle describes Dom Juan as a pèlerin, a pilgrim, which suggests that the Grand Seigneur may be moving from place to place. The play has a picaresque flavour. The picaresque is usually associated with novels that feature rogues rather than aristocrats, and Grands Seigneurs at that.

Yet, the play consists of a series of scenes where Dom Juan encounters persons who warn him that his defiance will not go unpunished. These somewhat loosely connected scenes depict an inferior Dom Juan, courting peasant-girls, etc. who ends up feigning devotion to give himself impunity. This may seem a lame plot.

However, comedy has many formulas, one of which is the farcical trompeur trompé, the deceiver deceived. If the society of the play cannot get the better of a bombastic Dom Juan, God can and does. It may be used sparingly as a theatrical device, but Dom Juan’s dénouement is a deus ex machina, a heavenly salvation.

—ooo—

ACT ONE

After the initial exchange between Gusman and Sganarelle, Sganarelle confirms Dom Juan’s suspicion that Sganarelle was speaking with Gusman, horseman to Done Elvire. The third scene of act one, is a conversation with Done Elvire and Dom Juan. Done Elvire does not convince Dom Juan that he has obligations. Marriage is a sacrament and Done Elvire is in love. Would that Dom Juan were lying:

Que ne me jurez-vous que vous êtes toujours dans les mêmes sentiments pour moi, que vous m’aimez toujours avec une ardeur sans égale, et que rien n’est capable de vous détacher de moi que la mort!
Done Elvire à Dom Juan (I. iii, p. 12)
[Why not say to me that affairs of ultimate consequence have obliged you to leave without your telling me; that you must, against your wishes, stay here for some small indefinite time, and that I have only to return from whence I came, in the assurance that you will follow my steps as soon as possible; that you burn to rejoin me, and that separated from me, you suffer what a body suffers when severed from its soul? This is how you should defend yourself, and not stutter and stammer as you do now.]
Done Elvire to Dom Juan (I. 3, p. 10)

His response is that he took her from a convent and that marrying her was sinful. His marriage was a transgression. He offended God Himself .

Madame, et j’ai ouvert les yeux de l’âme sur ce que je faisais. J’ai fait réflexion que pour vous épouser, je vous ai dérobée à la clôture d’un couvent, que vous avez rompu des vœux, qui vous engageaient autre part, et que le Ciel est fort jaloux de ces sortes de choses.
Dom Juan à Done Elvire (1. iii, p. 13)
[Some scruples, Madame, came to me, and opened the eyes of my soul to what I had done. I reflected that, in order to marry you, I had violated the sacred enclosure of a convent, and that you, to marry me, had broken the vows engaging you elsewhere.]
Dom Juan to Done Elvire (I. 3, p. 11)

ACT TWO

The first scenes of Act II are his encounters with Charlotte and Mathurine and a would-be husband to Charlotte, Pierrot. Pierrot has just saved Dom Juan who nearly drowned. Scene 4 is a lovely quiproquo. Both peasant-girls claim that Dom Juan will marry her, so Dom Juan walks back and forth, whispering lies to each peasant-girl.

At the end of act two, La Ramée warns Dom Juan that twelve men are looking for him. This is how he parts with the peasant girls. But he asks Sganarelle to wear his clothes:

Douze hommes à cheval vous cherchent, qui doivent arriver ici dans un moment,
je ne sais pas par quel moyen ils peuvent vous avoir suivi, mais j’ai appris cette nouvelle d’un paysan qu’ils ont interrogé, et auquel ils vous ont dépeint.
La Ramée à Dom Juan (II. v, p. 31)
[Twelve men on horseback are looking for you and might arrive here at any moment. I don’t know how they have followed you; but I learned of it from a peasant they had questioned. Time presses, and the sooner you leave the better.]
La Ramée to Dom Juan (II. 5, p. 28)

Dom Juan à Charlotte, Mathurine et Sganarelle (II.v, p. 31-32) FR 

Une affaire pressante m’oblige de partir d’ici, mais je vous prie de vous ressouvenir de la parole que je vous ai donnée, et de croire que vous aurez de mes nouvelles avant qu’il soit demain au soir. Comme la partie n’est pas égale, il faut user de stratagème, et éluder adroitement le malheur qui me cherche, je veux que Sganarelle se revête de mes habits, et moi… 
Dom Juan à Charlotte, Mathurine et Sganarelle (II. iv, p. 32)
[An urgent affair obliges me to leave; but I beg you to remember the word that I have given you, and to believe that you will hear from me before tomorrow night. As the party is not equal, I must resort to a stratagem, and deftly elude the misfortune that seeks me. Sganarelle, you shall put on my clothes [a mask], and for myself … ]
Dom Juan to Charlotte, Mathurine and Sganarelle (II. 5, p. 28)

ACT THREE

In Act III, Dom Juan meets a beggar who does not want money from him, but he is given money “out of love for humanity,” because he sees one man attacked by three. He doesn’t know the man is one of Done Elvire’s brothers.

Va, va, je te le donne pour l’amour de l’humanité, mais que vois-je là? Un homme attaqué par trois autres? La partie est trop inégale, et je ne dois pas souffrir cette lâcheté. 
Dom Juan au Pauvre (III. ii, p. 39)
[Take it anyway, then. I give it to you out of love for humanity. But what do I see over there? One man attacked by three? The match is too lopsided, and I cannot allow such baseness.] 
Dom Juan to the Beggar (III. 2, p. 34)

This episode buys him time. They want revenge, but aristocratic rules prevail.

Je sais la différence, mon frère, qu’un gentilhomme doit mettre entre l’un et l’autre, et la reconnaissance de l’obligation n’efface point en moi le ressentiment de l’injure : mais souffrez que je lui rende ici ce qu’il m’a prêté, que je m’acquitte sur-le-champ de la vie que je lui dois par un délai de notre vengeance, et lui laisse la liberté de jouir durant quelques jours du fruit de son bienfait.
Dom Carlos à son frère (III. iv, p. 43)
[I know the distinction, my brother, that a gentleman always makes between the one and the other, and my recognition of the obligation does not annul in me all the resentment of the injury; but allow me to render to him here what he has loaned to me, that I acquit myself of the life that I owe him, by offering a delay in our vengeance, and leaving him the liberty to enjoy, for several hours, some fruit from his fine deed.]
Dom Carlos to his brothers (III. 4, p. 37) 

In scene four, Dom Juan asks Sganarelle to speak to the statue of the Commander. The statue lowers its head.

ACT FOUR

In Act IV, Scene three, Dom Juan speaks with Monsieur Dimanche. He owes him money. Dom Juan is a superb host, but he does not pay his debt.

In Scene four, Dom Juan’s father visits his son. Dom Juan is again very polite.

Apprenez enfin qu’un gentilhomme qui vit mal, est un monstre dans la nature, que la vertu est le premier titre de noblesse, que je regarde bien moins au nom qu’on signe, qu’aux actions qu’on fait, et que je ferais plus d’état du fils d’un crocheteur, qui serait honnête homme, que du fils d’un monarque qui vivrait comme vous. 
Dom Louis à Dom Juan (IV. iv, pp. 55-56)
“Learn that a gentleman who lives in evil habits is a monster of nature, that virtue is the first title of nobility, and that I consider far less the name that one signs than the actions one has done, and that I would prefer to be the son of a weaver who was an honorable man, than the son of a monarch who lives as you do.”
Dom Louis to Dom Juan (IV. 4, p. 49)

After Dom Louis has spoken, Dom Juan offers him a seat. Dom Juan has not heard Dom Louis. When Dom Louis leaves and is barely out of hearing distance, Dom Juan tells him to die as soon as possible. (IV iv, p. 56) (IV.iv, p. 50.) In Scene six, Dom Juan speaks with Don Elvire very politely once again. Once again, he sees, but he does not hear. When she has left, Dom Juan tells Sganarelle that he was moved:

Sais-tu bien que j’ai encore senti quelque peu d’émotion pour elle … 
Dom Juan à Sganarelle (IV. vii, p. 59)
[You know I think I felt a little glimmer of emotion for her, and even found something rather pleasurable in this new extravagance. Her careless clothes, languishing air and tears seemed to reawaken in me a few embers of a doused fire.]
Dom Juan to Sganarelle (IV. 7, p. 52)

In the last scene of Act IV (Scene eight), the Statue has arrived for dinner.

ACT FIVE

By Act V, Dom Juan is a faux-dévot. His father is extremely pleased, but Sganarelle knows the truth. Dom Carlos comes to avenge his sister. Dom Juan/Tartuffe repeats that the real transgression was to remove Done Elvire from a convent. (V.iii). In Scene five, a ghost arrives. Dom Juan will not repent:

“No, no, it will never be said, whatever happens, that I repented. Now, follow me.”
Dom Juan to the ghost (V.v, p. 61)
« Non, non, il ne sera pas dit, quoi qu’il arrive, que je sois capable de me repentir, allons, suis-moi. »
Dom Juan au spectre (V.v, p. 69)

In the last scene (V.vi: V.vi), the statue takes Dom Juan’s hand. Thunder strikes, Dom Juan feels the fire and falls into an abyss.

Sganarelle is precious. After so many years of service, he has lost his living. So he says: « Mes gages ! mes gages! » (V.vi)

« Ah! mes gages! mes gages! Voilà  par sa mort un chacun satifait : Ciel offensé, lois violées, filles séduites, familles déshonorées, parents outragés, femmes mises à mal, maries poussés à bout ; tout le monde est content : il n’y a que moi seul de malheureux! Mes gages! mes gages! mes gages! » (1683). (footnote 137)
Sganarelle (V.vi)

Thunder resounds and great lightning-bolts surround Don Juan; the earth opens and takes him; and he exits in the great flames burning where he has fallen.

“Ah! My pay! My pay! Look at that, everyone satisfied with his death! Offended Heaven, violated laws, seduced daughters, dishonored families, outraged relatives, mistreated women, husbands pushed to the limit, everyone is content: no one is miserable but me, who, after so many years of service, have no other gratification than to see with my own eyes the impiety of my master chastised by the most horrible punishment in the world. My pay! My pay! My pay!”
Sganarelle (V.6, p. 62)

Conclusion

Dom Juan is probably the most enigmatic of Molière’s comedies. We do not see the traditional young lovers, engaged in a struggle (the agon). Dom Juan is a miles gloriosus or alazṓn, but he is not a convincing blocking character. As for the eirôn, it may be collective figure. We see a defiant and handsome aristocrat who flaunts every rule and believes he can get away with every transgression. His defiance has a metaphysical dimension. He thinks that he and God can sort everything out between themselves. From the beginning of the play, he trivializes God.

« Va, va, c’est une affaire entre le Ciel et moi, et nous la démêlerons bien ensemble, sans que tu t’en mettes en peine. »
Dom Juan à Sganarelle (I.ii, p. 7)

“That’s enough. It’s an issue between Heaven and me, and we get along just fine without you bothering yourself about it.” (I.ii, p. 7)

However, the statue leads him to a fiery abyss.

Dom Juan is un homme méchant, not a Grand Seigneur. But, as noted above, heaven strikes.

RELATED ARTICLES 

  • Molière’ Dom Juan (25 February 2016)
  • Bergamo: Arlecchino & Brighella (23 July 2014)
  • The Figaro Trilogy (14 July 2014)
  • Picasso in Paris (9 July 2014)
  • Picasso’s Harlequin (3 July 2014)
  • Arlecchino, Arlequin, Harlequin (30 June 2014)
  • Pantalone: la Commedia dell’arte (20 June 2014)

Sources and Resources

  • Dom Juan is a toutmolière.net publication FR
  • Dom Juan is a digitalcommons calpoly.edu/ publication EN
  • The translator, French to English, is Brett B. Bodemer (2010)

____________________
[1] Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mozart and Salieri, Harlow Robinson, The New York Times, 16 August 1981. Alexander Pushkin wrote a Mozart and Salieri. The common denominators are Pushkin and Mozart, not Don Juan.

Love to everyone 💕

Portrait of Francisco D’Andrade as Don Juan by Max Slevogt, 1912 (Wiki2.org.)

© Micheline Walker
4 March 2019
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Pushkin, Bilibin, and Rimsky-Korsakov

24 Monday Dec 2018

Posted by michelinewalker in Russian Art, Russian Literature, Russian Music

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Alexander Pushkin, Ivan Bilibin, Mir iskusstva, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Operas, Programmatic Music, Sergei Diaghilev, The Five, The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, The Tale of Tsar Saltan

dadon_shemakha1

Tsar Dadon meets the Shemakha Queen by Ivan Bilibin (WikiArt.org)

The 19th century was the century of nationalism. The Brothers Grimm went from German-language land to German-language land to collect folklore, which they believe would help reveal distinct German roots. Germany had yet to unify and become the German Empire.

As for The Five, our Slavic composers, they attempted to express Eastern Russia. Music in Russia had been westernized since Peter the Great. The Five did not turn their back fully on classical harmony and counterpoint, but they started using whole-tone scales leading Western composers to create new scales.

The Programme

However, the “programme” remained to be established. In the 19th century, several composers favoured “programmatic” music. Music had to tell a story. Despite his early death, in a duel, poet Alexandre Pushkin (1799-1837), wrote poems that were Russian fairy tales, whatever their origin. A nation acculturates folktales.

Our examples are Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas entitled The Tale of the Tsar Saltan, which premiered in 1900, and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel first completed in 1907  and premiere in 1909, with a set designed by Ivan Bilibin. Ivan Bilibin who had gained notoriety in 1899, when he published illustrations of Russian fairy tales, including The Tale of the Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (Le Coq d’or). The Tale of the Golden Cockerel had Arabic roots, the Legend of the Arabian Astrologer. It had been retold by Washington Irving (The Tales of Alhambra), Friedrich Maximilian Klinger (Der goldene Hahn [1785]) and Russian fabulist Ivan Krylov (Kaib [1792]). Yet, it was Russian folklore. It had been acculturated.

“In turn, all of them borrowed from the ancient Copts legend first translated by the French Arabist Pierre Vattier in 1666 using the 1584 manuscript from the collection of Cardinal Mazarin.”

(See The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, Wiki2.org)

Ivan Bilibin had studied at the Anton Abže Art School in Munich and had been influenced by Art Nouveau and Japanese prints. But he also studied under Ilya Repin. However, he became interested in folklore. It was a magnet. He graduated from the Anton Abže Art School after publication of his illustrations of Russian fairy tales. He was associated with Mir iskusstva, an association and a magazine. Bilibin fled Russia, during the October Revolution in 1917. In 1925, he settled in Paris where he worked for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes and decorated private mansions and Orthodox churches. But he was homesick. After decorating the Soviet Embassy, in 1936, he returned to Soviet Russia. He died of starvation during the Siege of Leningrad, in the land whose fairy tales he had illustrated.

Ivan Bilibin‘s 1909 stage set design for Act 2: The Tsardom of Tsar Dadon, Town Square (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Comments

At first, we associate The Tale of the Tsar Saltan and The Tale of the Golden Cockerel with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s operas. But operas are programmatic music or program music. So, the full dimension of the above-mentioned operas is not revealed until we know that their programmes were fairy tales written by legendary poet Alexander Pushkin. The libretto, in Russian and French, of The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, is by Vladimir Belsky.

As for Ivan Bilibin‘s delightful illustrations of Pushkin’s fairly, they are yet another lovely and universally enjoyable expression of a ‘distinct’ Russia.

Sources and Resoources

  • The Tale of the Tsar Saltan (text)
  • The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (text)
  • Alexander Pushkin (information) 💛
  • https://rvb.ru/pushkin/ 💛
  • The Tale of the Golden Cockerel (external links)

The Gallery

(above)
-Tsar Dadon meets the Shemakha Queen
The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, 1906
(below)
–The Merchants visit Tsar Saltan (WikiArt.org.)
–Princess in the prison tower ‘The White Duck’ (WikiArt.org.)
–From the Tale of the Tsar Saltan (The Isle of Buyan; WikiArt.org.)
–The Tsaritsa and Her Son Afloat in the Barrel (WikiArt.org.)
–From the Tale of the Tsar Saltan (WikiArt.org.)

800px-bilibin3_saltan

db503e65f7a67a8252dfa5e71526f79e
397px-ivanbilibin

bilibin_-_the_tsaritsa_and_her_son_afloat_in_the_barrel


Love to everyone
💕


illustration-for-alexander-pushkin-s-fairytale-of-the-tsar-saltan-1905(1).jpg!PinterestSmall
© Micheline Walker
23 December 2018
revised 24 December 2018
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The National Rifle Association: Unrestrained Individualism

29 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in United States

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Alexander Pushkin, National Rifle Association, NRA, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Spengler, Thomas Hobbes, Webster, William Spengler

A fictional pistol duel between Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky
A fictional pistol duel between Eugene Onegin and Vladimir Lensky*

*Vladimir Lensky is a fictional character in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky‘s opera Eugene Onegin.  The story is based on a verse novel by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

—ooo—

They have done it again.  This time it was in Rochester, NY.  Two volunteer firemen were killed and two seriously injured.

I gathered the following information from CBCNews: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/12/24/firefighters-shot-rochester.html (24 December 2012 and 25 December 2012).

The dead are:

  • Lt. Michael Chiapperini, of Webster police and West Webster Fire Department.
  • Tomasz Kaczowka, a volunteer with the fire department.

The injured firefighters in intensive care were named as:

  • Joseph Hofsetter.
  • Theodore Scardino.

As for the shooter, he has been identified as William Spengler.  He had spent seventeen (17) years in prison for manslaughter.  On 18 July 1980, William Spengler beat his grandmother to death with a hammer and was convicted of murder in 1981.  Released in 1998, William Spengler did not have the right to own a firearm, as is the case with all convicted murderers.  However, Mr Spengler had a gun and, after killing and injuring his victims, he committed suicide, as did Mr Lanza.

Reason vs Self-Interest

This may sound simplistic, but William Spengler killed not only because he had a propensity to violence, if such was the case, but because he had access to a firearm.  As I wrote in my blog, dated 18 December, no one can shoot someone else without a firearm.  Had Mr Spengler not been in possession of a firearm he could not have ambushed firefighters, killed two of them, injured two more and committed suicide.  This must end and it can end.

However, the four million and a half members of the National Rifle Association stand in the way of reason because Washington lets petty self-interest — what else — dictate its policies.  In other words, the government itself — and the government is the people — gives the nation the questionable “right” to bear arms, thereby allowing massacres.

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos), c. 1797

Francisco de Goya, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razón produce monstruos), c. 1797

The “Armed Brigade:” Cowboys and Indians

I believe the logic of members of the NRA is thwarted.  In their opinion, schools should be protected by what I am calling an “armed brigade.”  The remedy the National Rifle Association, the NRA, has proposed would make the situation worse.  In fact, it is not a remedy, but a symptom pointing to a deeply ingrained atavism.  Members of the NRA still live in a by-gone age when settlers in the Wild West were killing their way to the Pacific Ocean, doing so legally.  Imagine what would happen if the school’s “armed brigade” started to shoot at a potential killer.  It could be a shootout in perfect “cowboys and Indians” fashion.

We are not actors and actresses in a movie; this is real life.  In real life, we do our best not to have shootouts.  I have heard grieving or frightened citizens say that they now want a firearm.  I can understand their feelings.  Many rape victims also want a weapon.  Yet letting individuals carry a weapon keeps alive the classic confrontation of Western movies.  Remember the scenes where two men faced each other and the fastest “gun,” shooting from the hip, killed “the bad guy.”  These were duels à l’Américaine, but duels nevertheless, minus a Codex Duello.

Pushkin killed in a duel, dead at 37

When writer Alexander Pushkin (6 June 1799 – 10 February 1837; aged 37) was fatally wounded duelling with Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d’Anthès, duels were illegal in Russia.  Georges d’Anthès was therefore incarcerated in the Peter and Paul Fortress, but he was soon pardoned and returned to France.  The point I want to make is that, in 1837, duels were illegal in Russia.  In fact, they had been illegal in many countries beginning in the 17th century because of the staggering number of victims.  Similarly, if an American citizen now has a firearm and fights against an individual bearing arms, it is also a duel and one person dies, if not both.  There are victims.

Consequently, the bearing arms for self-protection solution and the “armed brigade” solution are both recipes for disaster.  When President Obama addressed the people of Newtown, he stated that during his Presidency, four massacres had occurred, the saddest of which was the Newtown tragedy — children died — and another killing occurred on Christmas Eve.  In these instances, firearms were not used for self-protection.  All were attacks by armed individuals.  I hope Washington will rally behind the President who wishes to put into place bolder gun-control legislation.

Individualism and Collectivism

Putting firearms in the hands of individuals is extremely dangerous.  It is as though a nation let citizens take the law into their own hands.  We cannot take the law into our own hands.  If citizens did take the law into their own hands, it would be a serious breach of the social contract, or a breach of a covenant.  In fact, it would be unbridled individualism and near complete denial of collectivism, i. e. collective rights and duties.

A few weeks ago, I posted a blog on Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke.  It addressed the social contract.  People get together, surrender some “freedom” — such as bearing arms — and live in safety.  This does not preclude the appropriate measure of individualism, but it creates a balance between individualism and collectivism.  In other words, people can still put a little picket fence around their house and lock their doors — I don’t — but the other side of the picket fence is someone else’s property.  Note that in my example, both homeowners, individuals, are respecting a law, a covenant, so that order is maintained.

We have red lights, stop signs, speed limits, construction codes, fire safety codes, etc.  It’s called the rule of law.

—ooo—

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky  (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)
Eugene Onegin 
 
The Death of Tecumseh

The Death of Tecumseh

  
© Micheline Walker
19 December 2012
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Micheline Walker

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Micheline Walker

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