Despair
Eduardus Jacobus: Despair (after 1698)
"I'm frantically seeking an exit."
I am learning that indecency was never the opposite of Decency. That ignoble association belongs to Despair. Decency represents the difference between hope and Despair, rendering Decency a rough equivalency to hope. Decency provides a context within which hope might thrive. When Decency disappears, Despair rushes in to fill the void, rendering it even emptier than it had ever seemed before. The miscalculation the MAGA crowd made might have been neglecting to factor in what happens after all accustomed hopefulness disappears. It’s not a win if the reward amounts to a vacuous void. It’s not a win if you leave your opponent with nothing left to lose. Then’s when the opponent becomes most dangerous.
Lawlessness induces desperation.
Cheerleading
Jack Gould: Untitled [band and cheerleaders] (1958)
"…I have no particular influence with The Gods…"
I feel as though I have been Cheerleading for Decency’s team since I began this writing series thirty-one mornings ago. The playoffs finished this week, and the World Series begins two nights hence. I have stood steadfastly on the sidelines, rooting for the home teams to win. I have called no plays or engaged in any games I’ve witnessed. I’ve perhaps just made a fool of myself, gesticulating on the sidelines in front of the stands. I’ve not pitched, hit, or scored a single run, nor could I. I have not broken my leg on a questionable 4th-period Hail Mary play. I’m part of the second string contingent on the varsity bus, there for atmosphere rather than substance. I haven’t once forgotten the unwritten rules of engagement here. I’m present to draw attention away from myself and toward the play on the field.
Like any cheerleader, I’m not here to embody anybody’s idea of masterful play.
Origins
Félix Vallotton: La manifestation (1893)
"I might have been fooling myself then."
I might just as well argue about the Origins of chickens and eggs as consider Decency’s Origins. Some say it’s an innate human characteristic, while others say it emerged from religious influence. Some swear it’s at root philosophy while others insist it’s physiology. Nailing down a definition seems dangerous, even though it seems like such a mild sense on the surface. I can get passionate about it, especially about its absence. I seek it and mourn it, and at times, I suppose, I even fear it. I do wonder, though, how one comes to possess it, or does it choose who it possesses? Is it possible to school someone who seems deficient? Do penitentiaries offer Decency courses for those convicted of indecencies? What does the presence or absence of Decency even mean?
Surely the Origins of Decency must be evolutionary.
A DecentNight
Jan Saenredam: Night, or Woman Sleeping by the Fire (1595)
"I will have experienced more than A DecentNight's sleep, I guess, but A DecentNight nonetheless."
After I’d confided that I slept four or five hours each night, my internist asked if I might be interested in enrolling in one of the sleep studies conducted by our local Sleep Center. I wondered why I should agree to that, and he responded that it might allow me to experience A DecentNight’s sleep. I asked what made my solid four or five hours indecent, and he replied that people generally require more than a solid four or five hours to maintain a decent life. He spoke briefly on the insidious effects of sleep apnea. I responded that I exhibited none of the symptoms associated with sleep dysfunction, and even if I did, I would never consent to wearing a vacuum cleaner on my face in bed. I consider my sleep needs evidence of a biodiversity and not some syndrome requiring therapy. My internist has not mentioned the subject since.
The Muse, though, reports that I snorkel and snore, evidence that I might be exhibiting the presence of some dysfunctional sleep disturbance.
Lose
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes: Por Temor no Pierdas Honor
[Do not lose honour through fear] (1816–19)
"…with ample domain to rule with Decency if I chose."
The Decent possess a superpower the indecent can’t imagine: enough. Indecency might most often emerge due to the presence of some mysterious and overwhelming sense of insufficiency. Everyday temptations can become compulsions under this sense of absence’s malign influence. It might be an illusion either way, the delusions of plenty and scarcity being opposite sides of some self-same coin. Yet the sensation each conviction compels couldn’t be more different. Scarcity, even when (and, perhaps especially when) delusional, easily becomes definitional. Those without enough seem capable of justifying any action with an explanation that it was either necessary or essential rather than merely consequential. Those with plenty, or that innate sense that they possess it, might likewise characterize their actions as necessary or essential, though their effect seems the polar opposite of those ruled by the insidious scarcity mindset.
I’m not suggesting that starving people, for instance, aren’t also capable of Decency, just that those who feel as though they’re suffocating from a sense of want might more easily justify the minor odd indecency, or even justify that lifestyle.
Win
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin:
The Attributes of the Arts and the Rewards Which Are Accorded Them (1766)
Gallery Notes: This picture may appear to reproduce the casual clutter of an 18th-century tabletop. Not so. Chardin carefully selected objects to convey specific meanings. A palette with brushes, placed atop a paint box, symbolizes the art of painting. Building plans, spread beneath drafting and surveying tools, represent architecture. An ornate bronze pitcher alludes to goldsmithing, and the red portfolio symbolizes drawing. The plaster model of J. B. Pigalle's Mercury, an actual work by a friend of Chardin's, stands for sculpture.
The cross on a ribbon is the Order of Saint Michael, the highest honor an artist could then receive. Pigalle was the first sculptor to win it. So this painting sends multiple messages: it presents emblems of the arts and of artists' glory and honors a specific artist, Pigalle.
A still life (or painting of objects), which is composed from scratch by its creator, can be used to convey complex meanings.
"Decency doesn't rise to the bait that indecency always hides its hook within."
Decency has never been continuously rewarding. It attracts its critics and delivers disappointments. Anyone could complain about “times like these,” for every age has harbored indecent actors who have risen to influential positions, and Decency never seems to hold an overwhelming hand. It goes about its work humbly, primarily for its own sake, if only because it’s its own reward and other approaches seem unthinkable. If popular support doesn’t define Decency’s success, what does? I argue that a different metric determines a Win when considering Decency. In any standard competition, the simple accumulation of acclaim determines a Win. Decency, though, doesn’t quite qualify as a competitive sport. It remains a choice and sometimes seems most effective when administered too sparingly ever to accumulate enough points to win any standard competition.
Those who play Decency competitively diminish it and themselves.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 10/16/2025
Max Klinger: The Chronicler (recto) April 5, 1888 
Max Klinger: The Chronicler (verso) April 6, 1888
Gallery Notes: Drawings by the Symbolist artist Max Klinger are very rare. This intimate drawing was completed over April 5-6, 1888, while the artist was staying in Rome on the Via Claudia near the Colisseum. This sensitive figure drawing helped to prepare Klinger’s most important painting of those years, The Crucifixion, 1888/1891. In an almost autobiographical reflection, it depicts the scribe who unemotionally documents the world’s greatest tragedy that rages around him.
This writing week, I focused on themes of Truth, Justice, and The American Way as mediums for describing Decency. I insisted that Truth need not be an absolute to prove helpful in this tenaciously relativistic world. I visited the near-distant future to see our present as precedent in PosseCognito, which was by far my most popular posting in a very long time. I praised dissent in DissEnting, celebrating smart-assedness as perhaps the proudest American tradition. I introduced Questioning into the conversation for it has always been a source of Decency in every discussion. I then introduced a part of me that I don't often own up to possessing: LittleOldMe. I ended this writing week insisting that we're not so much seeking a more perfect union as an ever-more Decent one. Thank you for following along!
MoreDecent
Carel Isaak de Moor: Nar [Fool] (1705 - 1751)
A fool or madman,
looking sideways and holding his elbow with one hand.
"We, The People, seek an ever-MoreDecent Union here."
I, and everyone else in my generation, was raised under a remarkably primitive and repressive regime. We learned to maintain a modicum of Decency despite the pockets of absolute obscenity surrounding us. We discovered potentially useful coping methods that helped us maintain some semblance of sanity when everything around us seemed crazy. It was easy to spot crazy in those days because our fathers and their fathers before them came from even more repressive times, times when whole generations barely survived state-sponsored deprivation. My grandfather was raised in a world where his leaving school after third grade was considered in no way exceptional. He had work to do and a way to find through the world. My father, too, left school to survive. His family needed him to labor more than they needed him to graduate high school.
When I was five, several blocks along West Main Street, the primary thoroughfare through town, was set aside for prostitution.
LittleOldMe
Pieter de Jode (II): Landscape with the Three Graces (1628 - 1670)
The three Graces of Greek mythology were Aglaea, Euphrosyne, and Thalia. Aglaea symbolized splendor and radiance, Euphrosyne represented mirth and joy, and Thalia embodied good cheer and bloom.
"Even LittleOldMe might well be worth it."
It’s one thing for me to treat others Decently and quite another for me to treat myself that way. Even the sparest rules of comportment demand that I treat others Decently, but no such strictures exist defining how I should treat myself—quite the opposite. I expect to sacrifice myself for some imagined betterment of others, as if I weren’t quite worth the effort to respect. And we hold in esteem those who do sacrifice themselves, even when nothing particularly useful or helpful comes of it. And we’re proud of these efforts ourselves. My ego swells when I tell others how I very narrowly avoided serious injury when engaging in some otherwise completely pedestrian activity, or even how I injured myself. It occurs to me that almost nobody really runs marathons to torture themselves. Yet, it seems as though every veteran of them shares harrowing stories of their personal punishments when running their races.
My mother would discount her own presence by referring to herself as “Little Old Me.”
Questioning
Ignaz M. Gaugengigl: A Difficult Question (19th century)
" …We abandon our cross-examinations when we grow weary of discovering…"
Authoritarians despise questions. They try to vilify questioners. They try and usually fail to insult questioners’ intelligence, as if asking were somehow threatening. They understand that there can never be any such thing as not answering a question, for even silence screams its response. Questioning can constitute a potentially healthy back-and-forth, a functional resonance. It’s almost impossible to maintain arrogance in its presence, for it tends to level every playing field. I suppose it’s little wonder why our authoritarians find it so upsetting. It renders it almost impossible to remain seated on any high horse through any barrage of Questioning.
Democracy seems at root a questionable practice, for it leaves many answers unresolved.
DissEnting
Théodore Géricault: The Mutiny on the Raft of the Medusa
[Historical Background](1818)
"What better way to preserve our actual Constitutional order?"
Portland greets the illegal and insulting invasion of poorly-trained Federal “immigration enforcement” agents with irreverence because that response best represents the American perspective. What better response to an absurdist intrusion than an even more absurdist one? Self-respect demanded some sincere sarcasm. Hell, Decency demanded it. As indecent as I’m sure these acts of silliness seemed to the intruders, any serious response might have been too easily interpreted as a serious one, one to be taken way too seriously, probably with fierce opposition, potentially leading to injuries or deaths. Better to offer them a target difficult to take so seriously, one that might even be ungenerously interpreted as silly. It’s difficult to muster much belligerence from even the most immature Federals when confronting them with people wearing inflatable dinosaur costumes and riding bicycles naked in the rain.
It was not quite civil disobedience but rather dissent, with particular emphasis on the “Diss” part of the description.
PosseCognito
Armando Posse: Procession (1955)
Artist Biography: Armando Posse was a self-taught Cuban artist born in Havana on December 4, 1917, who specialized in engraving, screen printing, and drawing. He co-founded the Taller Experimental de Gráfica in Havana in 1962 and joined the Asociación de Grabadores de Cuba in 1964, where he won an engraving prize. He was known for his graphic production work.
"We, the people, regained the upper hand."
By the mid-2020s, Federal overreach had become intolerable to states and citizens. Routine violations of Constitutional Rights by executive branch-directed agents threatened Decency and civility in targeted municipalities. Among the many particulars:
°The Writ of Habeas Corpus was routinely suspended,
°Masked and armed Federal pseudo police routinely descended upon vulnerable communities
°randomly deploying tear gas in peaceful crowds
°detaining and even arresting and disappearing citizens on mere suspicions or less
°Refusing to identify themselves or their association
°Terrorizing the populace.
To respond, municipalities, counties, and states began passing what became known as PosseCognito Laws.
Truth
William Sharp: Diogenes in Searth of an Honest Man
(18th-19th century)
"Those who in live in opposition to truth end up with what they deserve."
Truth need not be absolute to prove useful. It might be essential that we not get altogether too tangled up in absolutes if we expect to live in this relative universe. Still, the difference between truthiness and falseness seems clear enough under most circumstances. The old Superman aphorism “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” imprinted itself on many in my generation. We came to believe it was downright un-American to deal in untruths and injustice, equating those with our foes’ tactics. In practice, living lies provides faulty foundations, whatever the means employed or the ends pursued. Lies work like phony geometry, for they unreliably characterize level, parallel, and angle. They demand much more maintenance than even the most complicated truths, and ultimately require some form of authoritarian enforcement in order to stand. They cannot ever stand on their own.
Eventually, the castles constructed out of lies must crumble.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 10/09/2025
Max Klinger: Simplicius' Writing Lesson (1881)
This writing week watched summer leave, replaced by genuinely chilly mornings and lovely sunny afternoons. Our never-ending porch refurbishment project made definite progress. The carpenters delivered the first of the final components, and our painter, Kurt, and I dutifully prepped them for installation. Most afternoons found me listening to baseball playoff games while engaging in one of the more primal human activities: painting prime coats and sanding the results smooth. I began the week writing about this process in Renewal, which inevitably includes considerable destruction. I noticed myself simultaneously inhabiting two states: Particle and Wave. I ranted a bit about my permanent outsider status in Insider. I began an extended exposition of the War On Decency we seem to be experiencing. I introduced an increasingly familiar stranger in Invisible Enemies Within. I ended this writing week wondering why the presumed most powerful person in the world seems to revel as the continual victim in Hoaxes. Thank you for following along.
Hoaxes
Honoré-Victorin Daumier: The Election Hoax
[La carotte de l'élection] (1844)
A caricature depicting a politician addressing a peasant family. The politician offers a carrot to the family, symbolizing the false promises made to voters.
"How did Decency get so lucky? It was probably the result of Hoaxes."
Decency might occasionally be subjected to some Hoaxes, though most were probably intended as April Fool jokes. I wonder what it means when someone seems continuously bedeviled by Hoaxes, where hardly any situation doesn’t come with a hint or a suggestion of nefarious Hoaxing. In my own short lifetime, I recall encountering fewer than a spare handful of Hoaxes, and none of those seemed in any way malicious. Our incumbent seems immersed lip-deep in a swirling cesspool of them, with some new one appearing almost every news cycle. I wonder what sort of curse might be behind such an infestation, for I swear I’ve never even heard mention of anyone, not even the most tragic Shakespearean character, more beset with such toils and troubles. To listen to the press secretary, her boss must be the most unjustly accused since Moses, and Pharaohs were notoriously intolerant.
It’s one thing to fall victim to Hoaxes, but quite another to publicly proclaim oneself a victim of them.
ImaginaryEnemiesWithin
Adriaen Collaert: The Enemy Sowing Tares Among the Wheat,
from Landscapes with Old and New Testament and Hunting Scenes
(1584)
"..they register every sown confusion as a victory."
When assaulting Decency, it’s probably best to first employ the time-tested EnemyWithin. This one carries the benefit of indicting the victim for harboring the criminal. It easily spreads the sort of madness not easily shaken, for, properly deployed, it gets Decency questioning, Decency’s Achilles’ Heel. Decent people easily accept suggestions that they might have inadvertently offended somebody, for they rarely suffer under the effects of the sin of self-importance. They consider themselves unremarkable, hardly worth fussing over, and open to persuasion if not the slightest suggestion. If they’ve violated some ordinance or custom, they’ll want to rebalance justice’s scales as quickly as possible. This agreeable countenance can sometimes render Decency into its own worst enemy. But I digress.
The EnemyWithin, of course, does not actually exist.
TheWarOnDecency
Robert Ericksen: War-torn (1945)
"Sadly, they largely prove incapable of feeling ashamed."
TheWarOnDecency began with a lessening of standards. Entertainment adopted a coarseness, as if its audience had been struck stupid. Plot and story slowly went to Hell in favor of Soap Operas and, ultimately, something labeled “Reality.” This reality, though, was reality’s archenemy, its theatrical opposite. Intended to titillate, it abandoned formal constructs of entertainment. Audience members were invited to engage in what was labeled as guilty pleasures: coarse language without any clear purpose, cruel lifeboat drill exercises, and endless derision. Some Other or another served as the endless butt of meaningless jokes. Some smartass was elevated to the role of hero, though his character and values remained unshakably shady. Awfulness seemed to be the sole purpose, as if its mere presence signified great success. Spectacle replaced subtlety. Cruelty amplified the underlying purpose. Those who regularly watched truly felt as though they were getting away with something and eventually forgot that they were ever supposed to feel guilty about anything.
What began as drama proved so popular that it migrated into sports, news, and even cartoons.
Insider
Sir Edward Burne-Jones: Perseus and Andromeda,
study for The Doom Fulfilled (1875)
"…probably plead for help from some Insider."
I was always clear that I was not an Insider. I can’t claim to have been deliberately excluded from anything, though it sometimes sure seems as if I must have been. I struggle to get inside. I don’t seem to understand how things work, how they’re classified, or how to gain access. I tried four times yesterday to crack the great mystery of how to order something on Amazon Prime®, only to be thwarted each time. It seemed as if Amazon had forgotten my Pastword, though it arrogantly insisted that I’d forgotten mine. I fool their security, though, by never remembering mine. I have software that remembers PastWords for me, so I can never forget them. Anyway, Amazon proved to be unusable again, as usual. You’d think that if they wanted customers, they would design access to allow even us outsiders inside. They do not.
My toilet seat broke yesterday.
Particle&Wave
Fukushima Ichirō: Wave in Chiba (Shōwa period,1926-1989)
"Perhaps our Decency utterly depends upon such useful fictions."
Decency, like matter, simultaneously exists in two states: Particle and Wave. As a particle, it appears as recognizable acts, physical incarnations of what might otherwise be nothing more than some psychological state. As a wave, it exists as more of a felt or abstractly felt sense, a ‘vibe’, if you will. Some Decency seems incredibly easy to see, obvious, while other Decency seems utterly invisible, yet still decidedly present. It’s incredibly easy for us humans to get so focused upon one of these two incarnations of Decency that we fail to see or sense the other. This phenomenon might explain the recent reports of Decency seemingly disappearing. If I overlook all but the most obvious and tangible Decency, I should excuse myself for failing to notice all the tacit Decency remaining.
Or, perhaps both forms are now threatened.
Renewal
Gustave Moreau: The Infant Moses
[Moïse Exposé sur le Nil] (c. 1876-c. 1878)
Gallery Text:
Paris hosted the 1878 Exposition universelle, or world’s fair, to celebrate France’s recovery after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. For the event, Gustave Moreau submitted a cycle of biblically themed paintings to reflect on the nation’s renewal. The series, which included this work as well as Jacob and the Angel (1874–78; also in Harvard’s collection) and David (1878), marked three stages of human life. Here Moreau celebrates the anticipation and promise associated with childhood: Moses, recognized by the rays emanating from his forehead, floats in his basket on the Nile, surrounded by the ruins of ancient Egypt. In a written commentary Moreau suggested the prophet’s enlightenment, noting the contrast between “this people of mummies, sphinxes, and gods with staring eyes and unmoving gaze” and “this fine human fruit full of sap and life.”
——
"That's just how Renewal works. Always has. Probably always will."
I think of Renewal as a positive, uplifting experience, forgetting in the moment that considerable destruction often accompanies it. I always find the demolition parts of the operation particularly upsetting because I inevitably overlook the underlying price of the improvement. Our current front porch Renewal began with a series of disappointments, each of which seemed to preface eventual disaster. Our first concrete contractor proved unreliable. He poured a sample sidewalk to demonstrate his abilities, and that sidewalk failed.
Furthermore, he disappeared with some of our advance, saying he needed to buy materials.
Weekly Writing Summary For The Week Ending 10/02/2025
Ferdinand-Victor-Eugène Delacroix: Camel (c. 1827-1828)
Different Than Taxable Income
This second week into this still-new Decency Series, I sensed myself settling into a fresh context. Few experiences better reward my choice to write than this sensation of settling into another perspective. It might seem as though I'm transcribing here what I already understand, but my persistent readers already understand that I rarely know what I'm going to write before it appears before me. I set an intention, then wait for the universe, The Gods, or chance to show me how they intend to manifest it. I am inescapably involved, but only as a medium. Maybe tolerating this experience exemplifies what it means to author. My movements in this world inevitably tend to become part of my stories, not through clever scheming, but through something infinitely more confounding. I am employed in precisely this way, not by a benevolent employer who pays me cash for my trouble, but by synchronicity, who reliably forgets to pay me with anything other than insights and experience. Curiously, I feel a more dedicated and reliable employee now then I was back when a paycheck reliably appeared at the end of every other work week. I feel infinitely more productive now than I ever did then, though I earn something quite different than taxable income.
Themocracy
Corita Kent (Sister Mary Corita): it can be said of them (1969)
Inscriptions and Marks
Signed: l.c.: Corita
(not assigned): Printed text reads: it can be said of him, as of few men in like position, that he did not fear the weather and did not trim his sails, but instead, challenged the wind itself to improve its direction and to cause it to blow more softly and more kindly over the world and its people. the New Yorker
inscription: l.l., in graphite: 68-69-81
—
"We deserve to live in a land of the Decent and the home of the Thems!"
One under-appreciated aspect of the current War on Decency involves continually Themming Decency. Our incumbent characterizes Democracy, until very recently seen as a common element governing American life, as Themocracy, something ‘those other deplorable people practice.’ Anything not actively undermining Decency must be characterized as evil, even, especially, Decency itself. The Repuglicans refer to The Democratic Party as Themocrats, and insist that none of ‘us’ should be caught dead collaborating with ‘those people.’ I have even begun self-identifying as a Them, since that label clearly distances me from the apparent source of the problem. If ‘us’ stands for what he espouses, I gladly see myself as a Them. Us, once so inclusive, has become exclusive in a way that some wealthy golf retreats might seek to distance their members from all others. In this way, they’ve already successfully seceded from our union. So much the worse for ‘em, and good riddance!
Yet our union remains strong if wrongly characterized by those dedicated to undermining Decency.
Crickets
Unknown Artist-East Asia, Japan:
Decorative Sculpture in the Form of a Grasshopper or Cricket
(Late Edo period, 1615-1868, 19th century)
"The crickets said more than words in response."
Decency makes no discernible sound. Descretion regulates its responses. It will not easily rise to provocation. It holds its cards closest to its vest. If you want to know what Decency thinks, ask, then wait for an interminable-seeming time, for Decency will never be in the business of disclosure, and it demands deliberation time. It will not move with the wind and does not require much ego gratification. It understands that very little is ever about it and takes very little terribly personally. It already has plenty and does not desire to accumulate much more. It avoids appearing unseemly at pretty much any cost. It does not do surly.
A large room filled with generals and admirals, brought together to rile them up, remains silent through speeches that were intended to burn barns.
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