“…at last the masses arrive at Democracy! The divine right of kings has become the divine right of the masses. The crown has been taken from the head of the ass and glued on the head of the ape. We pass from an assocracy to an apeocracy”
All posts by Kevin I. Slaughter
The Borrowed Mirror
“What will other people think?” is the most cowardly phrase in use in society. Only weak men stand in fear of the censure of the neighborhood.
Whatever is great in life brings down censure upon the head of the doer.
A man who lives, moves, and has his being in other people’s opinions has not risen to the level of animal intelligence. The dog and horse are at least sincere and natural in all their acts.
Why not dress your life before your own mirror ?
Look for your reflection in your own mind. There is a secret judge of all your acts within you. Conscience is your private opinion of yourself.
Why borrow a thing when you possess it yourself ? What does it matter what others think of your actions? What do you think of them ?
Some men crouch, crawl, and skulk all their lives. They are cowed by a whisper; their purpose is shaken by a look. They run like sheep before somebody’s opinion, though they would return blow for blow if they were attacked on the highway.
They are larded, greased, and curled wax figures. Whenever they move you know that Public Opinion has pulled a wire somewhere. When they speak you know what they will say. They are not men enough to offend.
The ogre, Public Opinion, slays more originality and individuality than all the barbarous superstitious codes put together. It is the modern Moloch before which we all meekly bend.
That shameful hypocrisy which permeates society everywhere is born of the fear of other people’s opinions. Sincerity and plain speaking are at a premium everywhere. We lie from morning until night, and pretend to things we abhor.
Turn once upon that lazy braggart, Public Opinion, and see it scamper away.
It is our latest idol, the modern social Juggernaut.
“A catchword—Socialism, Progress, Democracy—has saved many a man from the gutter. A “sublime enthusiasm” differs in no respect from the exaltations of opium and alcohol, though the dreamer is infinitely more dangerous and asinine than the dipsomaniac and drug fiend. The drunkard enslaves himself only; the dogmatic enthusiasts always end by enslaving others. There is no maniac comparable to an active idealist.” – B.DeC
Nikola Tesla’s Letter to Benjamin DeCasseres
On November 11th, 1931 Nikola tesla wrote a letter in response to Benjamin DeCasseres.
“Your letter of the 7th inst. found me engaged in very pressing work otherwise I would not have been so tardy in assuring you that I shall look with pleasure to a meeting at mutual convenience. I have no knowledge of Miss Clive beyond that conveyed by her frequent letters which reflects unusual intelligence as well as erratic character. She is strangely infatuated and lives in an illusion which I have never had the heart to shatter as it seems to make her happy.”
The Pacifist’s Breviary
If a fire breaks out in your house speak to it gently.
The universe is a product of non-resisting forces.
Time enough to learn to swim when the boat is going down.
If caught in a border raid, pray.
In case of war notify the police.
He who chautauquas and runs away may live to chautalk another day.
All danger, national and individual, is psychological.
When in doubt do as the Chinaman does—surrender.
Human rights are conserved by preaching sweetness and light.
Hang your latch-key on the outer wall, and the cry “Touch me not!”
Force is negative; docility, positive.
In time of peace prepare for more peace.
When an enemy advances toward you seeking your fling at his head a volume of the Commoner.
—
From IMP: The Poetry of Benjamin DeCasseres.
A Fourth Dimensional Mind
A lot of DeCasseres own material is in pamphlet/booklet form. This is a small booklet that appears to be an article about DeC, with the following description as being sold from a Judaica website:
Decasseres, Benjamin) Rudens, S. P. BENJAMIN DECASSERES; A FOURTH DIMENSIONAL MIND… No Place, No Publisher (The Author?), 1928. 1st Edition (?). Paper Wrappers, Very Good Condition; 16mo; 12 pages; 22 cm. Pocket-sized reprint from the Reflex, December, 1927. Author was at the time Assistant Director of the Jewish People’s Institute in Chicago. DeCasseres was a Philadelphia-born Sephardic writer and essayist (1873-1945) (AMR-27-41) (ID #6885) $30.00.
Looking at the style of the booklet, it’s probable that DeCasseres reprinted the article himself, as it is similar in format to some of his other booklets.
“Reflex” was a Jewish journal and “is, according to editorial announcement, to be dedicated to “critical opinion and the secular interest of the Jewish people.” The article appeared in Volume 1 no. 6 (1927).
Reflex was edited by Samuel Max Melamed who “took deep and active interest in Zionism, and was Chairman of the Central Zionist Committee of Chicago. Samuel wrote extensively in Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and English on problems of Jewish nationalism, sociology, and philosophy.”
This is the same S.M. Melamed (can there be more than one?) who wrote a book titled “Spinoza and Buddha: Visions of a Dead God” that DeCasseres wrote the booklet “Spinoza Agains the Rabbis” in response to. In “Against the Rabbis” DeC says:
“As this essay is an investigation of the competence or incompetence of the logician, the scholar, the research man to pass judgement on or to expound genius, I have chosen (Melamed’s book) as the best sample of such an undertaking.”
The rest of that essay is less than kind to Melamed.
Excerpt from “Our Poets of Today” by Howard Willard Cook, 1919
Benjamin De Casseres
The New York World Magazine at one time printed an article by Henry Tyrell with the heading something like this : “Poems of a Shadow-Eater—De Casseres, Psalmist of Night and Nietzscheism, Lives Unknown in New York and Writes Like Poe, Whitman, Baudelaire and King David, While Railing at the Metropolis as ‘A City Whose Splendor Is in the Dazzling Glitter of All That Is Monstrous and Soulless.’ ” And this is an excellent approach to the work of Benjamin De Casseres. His much commented upon “De Profundis” runs :
Night! Night Eternal Night, whose black vapors have filled all the sluice-ways of
Time—Night, pageless and void;
Night upgurgling from chaos, upswirl of the noumenal seas, drape me and veil me from the illusory light of this world!
My being’s at nadir,
I pass into my solstice,
I have touched of ITS garment, the black thing IT weaves on ITS sentient looms,
While we crawl in ITS creases and guess.
Sit I in the night of ITS sleeve,
Withering into eternities,
Bowed in ITS night, in ITS might!
Benjamin de Casseres was born in Philadelphia, forty years ago, of Spanish-Hebrew parents, through whom he traces his lineal descent from the 17th century Jewish philosopher, Spinoza. Not Spinoza, however, but Nietzsche is his psychic godfather, and, needless to say, Benjamin de Casseres is a born radical. He is a master of many languages, and a deep student of art, specializing on the archaeological remains of the ancient Aztecs.
Review of “The Shadow-Eater”
At last Benjamin De Casseres has collected his queer lucubrations into a book, which is called “The Shadow-Eater” and is published by the Wilmarth Publishing Co., New York City. He is such a devil of a fellow, this De Casseres, and so proud of it! Milton’s Satan is a piker beside him. He can defy God in more ways than Satan ever thought of and with a wealth of objurgation that would have made Milton stare with his sightless eyes.
Sometimes he makes us laugh and sometimes he makes us shudder, but mostly he fills us with a vast pity for God who, amid all his troubles with this seething world, now has this merciless rebel threatening his throne. All the same, speaking seriously, there is something Titanic in the way in which De Casseres hurls his words at the universe.
From “Current Opinion” for July 19??. Volume 49
Ben DeC – Actor?
It seems that Benjamin DeCasseres was on the silver screen! It also seems that it’s one of the lost films of the silent era as well… the magazine “The Fourth Estate” of November 4th, 1922, reports on DeC getting the offer to play the role of a newspaper editor in the movie “Anna Ascends”.
From Wikipedia:
“Anna Ascends is a 1922 American silent romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming, and based on the play of the same title by Henry Chapman Ford. Alice Brady reprises her starring role from the 1920 Broadway play of the same name. The film is largely lost, with only a six-minute fragment still in existence.”
The website SilentEra has a small still from the film:
Could that be DeC all the way in the back by the candlesticks? It looks like his hair…
Either way, here is the article:
“Discrimination is that fine sense that places the dead fish in one pile and the maggots that feed on them in another.”