Althouse and Moore; Jews and Polanski and bankers

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed an interesting and controversial discussion at Ann Althouse’s blog in response to a post involving the abominable Michael Moore’s latest movie, the anti-capitalism screed about which Ann writes:

in attacking the banking system, Moore presented quite a parade of Jewish names and faces. He never says the word “Jewish,” but I think the anti-Semitic theme is there. We receive long lectures about how capitalism is inconsistent with Christianity, followed a heavy-handed array of ”” it’s up to you to see that they are ”” Jewish villains.

Am I wrong to see Moore as an anti-Semite? I don’t know, but the movie worked as anti-Semitic propaganda. I had to struggle to fight off the idea the movie seemed to want to plant in my head.

In response, a commenter named “Florida” wrote the following [I’ve corrected spelling errors in the quote to make for ease of reading]:

“Am I wrong to see Moore as an anti-Semite?”

Is mere criticism of Jews anti-Semitic?

Let me ask the question this way: Is your criticism of Barack Obama racist?

Just a few days ago, a parade of Jews came out in force behind the proposition that the rapist of a 13-year-old girl should be let free. Led by Harvey Weinstein, hundreds of Jews signed a petition demanding that Polanski be set free.

Some of these Jews argued that the rape wasn’t really rape because it wasn’t “rape rape” whatever the fuck that meant. [sic: Whoopi Goldberg might have a Jewish last name, but she sure isn’t Jewish]

I noticed a lot of Goldbergs, Applebaums, Cohens and Weinsteins leading the parade of support for Roman Polanski. Lots of Jews … certainly not all of his supporters are Jews, but they are certainly prominent. Should they not be named?

Should we not take note that they are Jews?

Deserved criticism, or anti-Semitism?…

But I will say this, Ann: Criticizing Jews is not anti-Semitic any more than you criticizing black people is racist.

You can’t have it both ways, Ann.

It is apparent that criticizing a Jewish person or criticizing a black person is not anti-Semitic or racist on the face of it, unless of course the criticism is couched in racist terms. But criticizing Jews as a group or black people as a group is a bit more suspect, although certainly not automatically evidence of any bias. But it can be, depending on what form the criticism takes and whether it is based on valid points.

For example—although I’ve not read the entire petition in Polanski’s defense—let’s say for the sake of argument that “Florida” is indeed correct, and that a lot of Jewish names are featured on it. But remember that Jews are way overrepresented in many professions, and one of them happens to be acting and production in Hollywood. Since it is logical to imagine that Polanki’s most vehement defenders would be drawn mostly from those professions, the real question would be: are there more Jews on the petition than their percentage in the fields in question?

I haven’t a clue what the answer is, but that would be the only relevant statistic. And if the answer is “no,” then pointing out that there are a lot of Jews there without questioning whether they are overrepresented or even perhaps underrepresented could (and probably would) be racism, either intended or merely apparent.

The same is true of the original impetus for Althouse’s post about Moore and those nasty capitalists: is Moore singling out Jews for more than their fair share of criticism in light of their actual percentage of representation in his dread enemy capitalism, or not?

Jews happen to be prominent far beyond their actual numbers in the world (which are miniscule) in a number of ways. For example, there are more Jews in medicine than should be the case if you look at their percentage of the population—way more. This observation would only be seen as possibly anti-Semitic if it were part of a screed against medicine itself; otherwise it’s either neutral or even laudatory, depending on what you think of the medical profession. Likewise, if a person noticed that there were a great number of Jews on a list of doctors convicted of malpractice (surely a negative thing), it would mean nothing unless the percentage of Jews on that list was significantly greater than their representation in the profession as a whole.

What is true of Jews is true of any group that is overrepresented in any endeavor compared to their percentage in the general population. For example, let’s take the issue of using steroids in a sport such as baseball. There might be a great many blacks accused or convicted of doing this (I don’t know whether there are, but let’s just say for the sake of argument that there are). But in order to know whether blacks are more likely to use steroids, you’d have to know what the percentage of blacks in the field was, because there could appear to be a great many blacks on the list of those abusing the drugs and yet black people could actually be underrepresented in comparison to their rather large presence in the sport.

Likewise, most (actually, all) of the Catholic priests who abused children were Catholic. That may seem like an obvious and even absurd statement to make—of course they were. And the Catholic Church was derelict in its duty to protect the victimized children as it bent over backwards for many years to protect the priests at their expense. But if a person were to use this example to say something special about Catholicism vs. other religions, or Catholic priests vs. other clergy in terms of abuse, the correct statistic to note would be the percentage of Catholic priests abusing children vs. the total number of Catholic priests, to compare this to the same statistic for clergy of other denominations, and then to compare and contrast how those religions dealt with the problem during the same era.

Conor Cruise O’Brien: prescient on terrorism

The New Neo Posted on by

I came across the name of Conor Cruise O’Brien the other day, and as Google led to Google, I found a strangely prescient article of his from the Atlantic of 1986 on the subject of terrorism .

Take a look. Not everything in it has turned out to be correct, but much of it is spot on. It’s rare to go back that far in time and see such clear-sightedness on the subject.

O’Brien died less than a year ago. He was a fascinating amalgam, a man who defied easy Left vs. Right categorizations. I’ve not done a definitive study of his work, but from what little I’ve read of it (and from what I’ve read about him) he strikes me as having been an original thinker and iconoclast:

[O’Brien] retained a radical outlook, yet his career took a left to right wing path; he was strongly interested in the progress of South Africa, and in later years took a pro-Israel stance. He summarised his position as “I intend to administer a shock to the Irish psyche”.

O’Brien’s initial interest in, and understanding of, terrorism was in the context of the “troubles” and the IRA. But unlike some who were experts in that field, he didn’t imagine that all terrorists operated exactly in the same way. Here, for example, is O’Brien on the Palestine question, writing in 1986:

The clear implication [of a WaPo article O’Brien just quoted] is that negotiation between Israel and Jordan can dry up “a principal source of terrorism.” Now, nobody who has studied that political context at all, and is not blinded by wishful thinking, could possibly believe that. For the Arab terrorists””and most other Arabs”””the unresolved Palestinian question” and the existence of the State of Israel are one and the same thing. The terrorists could not possibly be appeased, or made to desist, by Jordan’s King Hussein’s getting back a slice of the West Bank, which is the very most that could come out of a negotiation between Jordan and Israel. The terrorists and their backers would denounce such a deal as treachery and seek to step up their attacks, directing these against Jordan as well as Israel.

What follows in O’Brien’s article is one of the best discussions of terrorists and their motives I’ve ever seen; I will present an excerpt in a moment. Note that what he observes about them is completely in line with Arafat’s much later behavior at Camp David in 2000.

But also keep in mind that O’Brien wrote this before the suicide bomber became commonplace; the terrorists O’Brien is describing here are the old-fashioned kind who lived to fight another day. In today’s world of the suicide bomber, his arguments about the power and prestige terrorists gain would refer mainly to the higher-ups, the ones who train and orchestrate the whole thing but never willingly die themselves—although it is also true that suicide bombers gain some power and prestige posthumously, and their families are often rewarded by their governments as well:

Terrorists have a grievance, which they share with members of a wider community: the division of Ireland, the division of Palestine, the inroads of secularism into Islam, or whatever. But they also have, from the moment they become terrorists, significant amounts of power, prestige, and access to wealth, and these constitute vested interests in the present, irrespective of the attainment or non-attainment of their declared long-term political objectives.

The sentimentalist thinks of the terrorist as driven to violence by grievance or oppression. It would be more realistic to think of the terrorist as hauling himself up, by means of the grievance or oppression and the violence it legitimizes, to relative power, prestige, and privilege in the community to which he belongs…

I don’t mean that the terrorist is necessarily, or even probably, insincere about the national (or religious or other collective) grievance or in his hatred toward those seen as responsible for the grievance. On the contrary, hatred is one of the things that keep him going, and the gratification of hatred is among the rewards of the terrorist. The terrorist is not just a goon, out for the loot. His political motivation is genuine. But there are other rewards in his way of life as well as the hazy reward of progress toward the political objective. The possession of a known capacity and willingness to kill confers authority and glamour in the here and now, even on rank-and-file members in the urban ghetto or in the village. On the leaders it confers national and even international authority and glamour, and independence from financial worries.

If we accept that the terrorist’s way of life procures him immediate rewards of that nature, and that he is probably not insensible to at least some of the rewards in question, it seems to follow that he will probably be reluctant to relinquish those rewards by voluntarily putting himself out of business.

The situation thus outlined has a bearing of a negative nature on the notion that there are “negotiated solutions” to the “problems” that “cause” terrorism.

First of all, a negotiated solution””being by definition an outcome that offers some satisfaction to both parties””will be inherently distasteful to terrorists and their admirers, accustomed as these are to regarding one of the parties (Britain, Israel, or another) as evil incarnate.

Second, to exploit that genuine distaste will be in the interests of the terrorists, in relation to the reward system discussed above. So pride and profit converge into a violent rejection of the “negotiated solution”””which therefore is not a solution to terrorism.

As I noted earlier, I don’t agree with everything O’Brien says in the article. For instance, he goes on to state that military action against terrorism only backfires, leading to more recruitment. I happen to think that is sometimes true and sometimes false; in the case of Iraq, for example, it was true for a while and then ultimately sparked an escalation in terrorism by Arabs (al Qaeda) against Arabs (much of the population of Iraq) that appears to have had a negative effect on recruitment.

Here’s one of O’Brien’s predictions that has certainly come to pass:

The numbers of the frustrated are constantly on the increase, and so is their awareness of the life-style of the better-off and the vulnerability of the better-off. Among the better-off themselves are bored young people looking for the kicks that violence can provide, and thus for causes that legitimize violence, of which there are no shortage. A wide variety of people feel starved for attention, and one surefire way of attracting instantaneous worldwide attention through television is to slaughter a considerable number of human beings, in a spectacular fashion, in the name of a cause.

Although the causes themselves hardly constitute the sole motivation of the terrorists””as terrorists claim they do””they are not irrelevant, either. The cause legitimizes the act of terror in the terrorist’s own eyes and in those of others belonging to his nation, faith, or culture. Certain cultures and subcultures, homes of frustrated causes, are destined breeding grounds for terrorism. The Islamic culture is the most notable example. That culture’s view of its own rightful position in the world is profoundly at variance with the actual order of the contemporary world. It Is God’s will that the House of Islam should triumph over the House of War (the non-Moslem world), and not just by spiritual means. “Islam Means Victory” is a slogan of the Iranian fundamentalists in the Gulf War. To strike a blow against the House of War is meritorious; consequently, there is widespread support for activities condemned in the West as terrorist. Israel is one main target for these activities, but the activities would not be likely to cease even if Israel came to an end. The Great Satan in the eyes of Ayatollah Khomeini””and of the millions for whom he speaks””is not Israel but the United States. The defeat of Israel would, in those eyes, be no more than a portent of the impending defeat of the Great Satan…

The wellsprings of terrorism are widespread and deep. The interaction between modern communications systems and archaic fanaticism (and other sources of resentment and ambition) is likely to continue to stimulate terrorist activity.

After describing the problem so well, what is O’Brien’s solution? He suggests that something must happen to cause those countries who oppose terrorism—and particular its Islamicist supremacist form—to coordinate their efforts against it. He knows this will be difficult, but he foresees it as a possibility in the following circumstances:

Can limited superpower consensus be attained for coordinated action against terrorism? I think it can, especially if international terrorist activity grows to the degree that it begins to pose a clear threat to international peace and stability””not just as these are perceived by one superpower but as perceived by both. There is a historical precedent, flawed””like all such precedents””but suggestive. This is the case of the Barbary pirates…

That’s a good description of what began to happen in the immediate post-9/11 period. Of course, we who have the hindsight of history know that such coordination, cooperation, and resolve was only a pale shadow of what it needed to be to get the job done, and that in any event it did not last. The future does not look any brighter in that respect. One hopes that it will not take another huge terrorist attack to change that picture.

The willingness to believe that two plus two makes five

The New Neo Posted on by

I read Orwell’s masterful dystopic political vision 1984 when I was about twelve years old, old enough to get what it was aiming at but young enough to be especially frightened by some of its most memorable images, which have stuck with me ever since.

Of course, there was Room 101 with the rats—who could forget that? But another image that made a deep impression, but that described a concept I didn’t quite understand at the time, was that of Winston Smith’s manipulative and brilliant interrogator O’Brien torturing Winston in order to force him to say—and what’s more to believe—that two plus two makes five if the Party willed it.

Here’s the relevant passage:

“Do you remember,” [O’Brien] went on, “writing in your diary, ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four’?”

“Yes,” said Winston.

O’Brien held up his left hand, its back toward Winston, with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.

“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?”

“Four.”

“And if the Party says that it is not four but five — then how many?”

“Four.”

The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’s body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O’Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased.

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Four.”

The needle went up to sixty.

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!”

The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, blurry, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Four! Stop it, stop it! How can you go on? Four! Four!”

“How many fingers, Winston?”

“Five! Five! Five!”

“No, Winston, that is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?”

“Four! Five! Four! Anything you like. Only stop it, stop the pain!”

Abruptly he was sitting up with O’Brien’s arm round his shoulders. He had perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. The bonds that had held his body down were loosened. He felt very cold, he was shaking uncontrollably, his teeth were chattering, the tears were rolling down his cheeks. For a moment he clung to O’Brien like a baby, curiously comforted by the heavy arm round his shoulders. He had the feeling that O’Brien was his protector, that the pain was something that came from outside, from some other source, and that it was O’Brien who would save him from it.

“You are a slow learner, Winston,” said O’Brien gently.

“How can I help it?” he blubbered. “How can I help seeing what is in front of my eyes? Two and two are four.”

“Sometimes, Winston, sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, you haven’t got one.

At this point in my life, I think I understand the passage all too well. It ties directly into observations such as the following one by Hilton Kramer (he is referring to Stalinism, but he could just as well be talking about the most rabid adherents of any sort of Leftism):

It is in the nature of Stalinism for its adherents to make a certain kind of lying—and not only to others, but first of all to themselves—a fundamental part of their lives. It is always a mistake to assume that Stalinists do not know the truth about the political reality they espouse. If they don’t know the truth (or all of it) one day, they know it the next, and it makes absolutely no difference to them politically For their loyalty is to something other than the truth. And no historical enormity is so great, no personal humiliation or betrayal so extreme, no crime so heinous that it cannot be assimilated into the ‘ideals’ that govern the true Stalinist mind which is impervious alike to documentary evidence and moral discrimination.

I saw this propensity first-hand myself as a child, in an uncle of mine who was a pro-Communist and whom I’ve described in this essay. My uncle had no problem integrating any new fact about Communism into his pro-Soviet world view.

At the time, my uncle’s behavior was a puzzlement to me. But now I know that he was a true believer, and the goal was the most important thing. If the ideals of Communism (or progressivism, or socialism, or whatever far-Left movement one is considering) are considered the greatest good—equality, “fairness,” help for the poor—then one never has to notice all the evils that are knowingly committed in its name, or all its dreadful although unintended (and yet inevitable) consequences, even for the poor people it is supposedly designed to help. In fact, one is obliged to deny them, no matter how strong the evidence.

To keep one’s eyes on the prize, whether that prize be the idealistic goals cited above or the simple drive for absolute power voiced by the fictional O’Brien when he tells Winston “The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power”—it is necessary for the follower to filter out reality and to believe whatever is seen as bringing the world closer to the goal.

The mental gymnastics involved are described very well in another literary work, this time one of nonfiction, the autobiography of Communist-turned-government-informant Whittaker Chambers, entitled Witness [emphasis mine]:

When I first knew him, Harry Freeman [who later become the assistant US chief of Tass, the Soviet news service] was just out of Cornell University, where he had brilliantly majored in history…the best mind that I was to meet among the American Communist intellectuals. It was an entirely new type of mind to me. No matter how favorable his opinion had been to an individual or his political role, if that person fell from grace in the Communist Party, Harry Freeman changed his opinion about him instantly. That was not strange, that was a commonplace of Communist behavior. What was strange was that Harry seemed to change without any effort or embarrasment. There seemed to vanish from his mind any recollection that he had ever held any opinion other than the approved one. If you taxed him with his former views, he would show surprise, and that surprise would be authentic. He would then demonstrate to you, in a series of mental acrobatics so flexible that the shifts were all but untraceable, that he had never thought anything else.

O’Brien would be proud—now that’s the sort of mental flexibility that the Party needs and desires.

Of course, rationalization and denial of facts that don’t fit a person’s previously held beliefs is not just a province of the Left. It’s a general human trait, and that is why a mind is a difficult thing to change. But the Left carefully nurtures, fosters, advocates, and even requires this sort of denial, whereas it is my observation that the Right (and this was something that was formative in my own change experience), while hardly immune, is much less demanding that its adherents dismiss and deny logic and inconvenient facts.

[ADDENDUM: You might find this video to be of related interest (hat tip: commenter “gcotharn”).]

Let’s have a Lynn Seymour interlude

The New Neo Posted on by

If you want to take a break and watch a glorious dancer you’ve probably never heard of, take a look at a 1979 clip of Lynn Seymour performing the bedroom scene from Macmillan’s “Romeo and Juliet” with David Wall’s Romeo, to Prokofiev’s brooding music.

The Canadian-born Seymour was an oddity as a dancer. Although famous as a principal with the Royal Ballet, she was known for her dramatic flair and an intensity and abandon that was at variance with the ordinarily restrained British style. She also appeared bigger than the usual ballerina, although it can be hard to tell with dancers, who tend to look much taller on stage than off (I discuss this phenomenon here).

Whatever her height, Seymour had a solidity that was also unusual for a ballet dancer, a weighted groundedness that made it difficult for her to look lighter than air. She also famously struggled with her actual weight, a situation made more difficult by the fact that she was injury-prone, and had three children by the time she was in her mid-30s.

But none of this mattered when she danced. Here you see her as the fourteen-year-old Juliet, although she’s forty at the time this film was made. Juliet is a role usually more suited to diminuitive dancers who can more easily look young; Seymour is clearly a woman.

Why do I say her size and age didn’t matter? Well, take a look. There probably has never been a more fluid and supple dancer, one so musical and deeply immersed in her roles. Not a single moment here comes off as a pose; Seymour’s movements are one seamless, sensual flow.

And Romeo? Oh, he’s there, too.

Even though I’m a dance fan, I think the ballet “Romeo and Juliet” suffers in comparison to Shakespeare’s work (I’ve written about the latter here). After all, Shakespeare was a genius of extreme rarity, and even very talented choreographers can’t quite match that. What’s more, words can tell a story of complexity that simply cannot be conveyed in movement—which can only deal with simple plots, although it can evoke deep and complex feelings. The dancers must convey their yearning without a single word, but I think they do a pretty good job.

Here’s a clip of another outstanding dancer, Alessandra Ferri, in the same role not too long after. She is very young here, probably in her late teens, and that and her petite size help her to convey the youthfulness that Seymour lacks (Ferri’s Romeo Wayne Eagling, on the other hand, seems a bit old for his part). Like Seymour, Ferri is remarkably lyrical and smooth, a great actress, and her technique is superb; better in fact than Seymour’s. But despite all of this I am always aware that Ferri is dancing and posing, albeit beautifully. For me, Seymour transcends all of that and enters a very different realm. You may have a different response.

Oops! Polanski’s appeal weakens still further

The New Neo Posted on by

It turns out that one of the pillars of the Polanski defense (and the Polanski defenders’ arguments) has crumbled.

In an HBO documentary made last year about the 1977 Polanski rape case, the shocking assertion was made by a former prosecutor David Wells that he improperly colluded with the judge on sentencing. But now Wells pulls an Emily Litella and says “never mind.”

Wells apparently used a certain amount of creativity when he spoke for the film cameras and made his previous claim of wrongdoing. His excuse? He was asssured the HBO piece would air only in France (what does that say of his opinion of the French?)

Here’s how Wells tells it:

David Wells, the prosecutor who last year told an HBO documentary that he colluded with Mr Polanski’s judge to increase his jail sentence, has now called that claim a complete fabrication. “I’m a guy who cuts to the chase,” he said yesterday. “I lied.” …

He’d been persuaded to embellish his story after the makers of the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired ”“ which was co-produced by the BBC and won an Emmy for director Marina Zenovich ”“ said it would only be shown in France. “I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I did,” admitted Mr Wells. “The director told me it would never air in the States. I thought it made a better story if I said I’d told the judge what to do,” he told legal journalist Marcia Clark.

I’m wondering what that “persuasion” by the documentary makers involved. Did they, for instance, know the truth, and suggest that he lie in order to strengthen the case for film darling Polanski? Or were they innocent dupes?

Blame it on Rio

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s official: Rio in 2016 for the Olympic Games.

When I first heard the news that President Obama was flying to Copenhagen to plead that Chicago be tapped as the venue for the 2016 Summer Games, I was flabbergasted. Despite having come to a low opinion of his sagacity, I hadn’t thought he’d spend time, money, and energy on something so relatively minor as well as uncertain.

It’s that last bit that made the jaunt especially disturbing but especially telling: the poor judgment reflected in the fact that he was doing this with no assurance (and no reason to even expect, as far as we know) that it would bear any fruit. Just a quick look at who the main competition was, the city of Rio de Janeiro—told me that Chicago had virtually no chance.

I mean, really, which would you choose? Chicago or Rio? C’mon, give me a break.

Nothing against Chicago (well, actually, something against Chicago—its weather is pretty awful both in winter and in summer), but it’s no contest with the glamorous, sultry, exceptionally beautiful Brazilian metropolis. Add to that the fact that the US has hosted the Olympics countless times, and no country in South America ever has done so, and you’ve got what amounts to a no-brainer.

Obama’s participation in this fool’s errand wouldn’t be important except that it is emblematic of three things: his poor judgment, his boundless egotism, and the disrespect he’s quickly gaining around the world with his far more vital errors on the international stage.

[NOTE: The title of this post came to me quickly when I heard the news that Rio had won and Chicago lost; it seemed appropriate since Obama so likes to blame his failures on others. But since I didn’t quite remember what “Blame It On Rio” referred to, I had to look it up. Much to my surprise I discovered that it was a 1984 movie with a theme that resonates with another topic that’s been hot this week: older men and teenagers having sex. Odd. Here’s a clip (embedding disabled, so I couldn’t post it here). It seems even more offensive now than it might have before the Polanski case came back into the news.]

[ADDEMDUM: Ben Smith agrees.]

Polanski as Byronic hero

The New Neo Posted on by

Studying the Polanski brouhaha, and most especially reading the columns and comments of his defenders and champions, puts me in mind of certain Romantic heroes and artists of old. I refer to the poet whose exploits—sexual and otherwise—were famous in their day for violating taboos in the name of what you might call poetic license: Lord Byron.

We all read about him somewhere along the line, and maybe even had to memorize (or at least study) a poem or two of his such as “She Walks In Beauty.” But if your English class was anything like mine, the juicier parts of his life were for the most part glossed over.

But take a look. Byron, the original Bad Boy of Art, shocked the society of his times (late 1700’s to early 1800’s) with his flouting of conventional behavior, especially of the sexual variety. And many of his shenanigans would still be considered shocking today, including living in what was then called sin followed by an open marriage with multiple concurrent affairs, incest, and young teenagers as the object of sexual attraction (Byron’s fancy was much taken at one point by a 12-year old Greek girl, for whose favors he reportedly offered five hundred pounds and was refused. Unlike Polanski, he seems to have taken “no” for an anwer.)

There are many differences between Byron and Polanski, not limited to the fact that Bryon was physically beautiful and died so young that his beauty could never be seen to fade, or that his art was greater than Polanski’s. For example, I haven’t come across any examples of rape in Byron’s repertoire, although one certainly can’t be sure. And passionate (if temporary) love seems to have been a more common motivator for Byron than what appears to have been the overwhelmingly sexual nature of so many of Polanski’s exploits (not all, however; Polanski seems to have genuinely loved his wife Sharon Tate, although—like his poetic predecessor—not enough to remain faithful to her during their marriage).

Byron set the tone for a certain segment of the public to admire or at least forgive a particular sort of acting-out on the part of a Great Artist, the art justifying the bad behavior in many people’s eyes. Here’s Wiki’s list of the characteristics of what came to be known as the Byronic Hero, based on both Byron’s own life and the charcters in much of his poetry:

* high level of intelligence and perception
* cunning and able to adapt
* criminal tendencies
* sophisticated and educated
* self-critical and introspective
* mysterious, magnetic and charismatic
* struggling with integrity
* power of seduction and sexual attraction
* social and sexual dominance
* emotional conflicts, bipolar tendencies, or moodiness
* a distaste for social institutions and norms
* being an exile, an outcast, or an outlaw
* “dark” attributes not normally associated with a hero
* disrespect of rank and privilege
* a troubled past
* cynicism
* arrogance
* self-destructive behavior

And here’s some more about the Byronic hero. The only characteristic that doesn’t really seem to fit Polanski is handsomeness; the rest (“‘wandering’, searching behavior; haunted by some secret sin or crime, sometimes hints of forbidden love; modern culture hero” who “appeals to society by standing apart from society, superior yet wounded or unrewarded”) certainly does.