Louis & Armand

Sometimes the most descriptive way to describe a feeling is by analogy, because there just doesn't exist a good word. At least not one that I know. In the case of an American in Europe, I believe there is no better way to describe how I feel than as Louis encountering Armand in Interview with a Vampire. I know, it's kind of an old movie, but it's always been one that's spoken to me. The human lifespan is so fleeting and yet we treat it like forever.

Armand is old, beautiful and has sucked the life out of countless people to stay that way. He has a system for lining them up for the slaughter, much as the Walrus and the Carpenter shucking the clams. This is Europe. This is society put above individual lives - a beautiful edifice decaying from the inside. Europe doesn't make people anymore; every year there are fewer births than deaths. So they much draw them in, from the Middle East, from Africa, from Asia, from the Americas.

Louis is a naïve American, still flush with vitality while denying the fundamental truth that he too as an animal must kill to survive. Louis is tempted by the beauty of Armand. Even after he loses the things most valuable to him while Armand stands by doing nothing, Louis is still tempted by Armand. Try to remember I'm speaking in analogy here despite the strong homoerotic undertones of Anne Rice's work.

We often think of ants and bees as organisms, but this is a false notion. They are merely parts of the mound and the hive, which are the true organisms. The society, not the individual, is the entity of life's focus. In these societies the vast majority of constituents are female. The males are haploid, that is, they only have one copy of genes because that is all that is needed for reproduction and that is all they are used for. This also means that all the sisters by the same father share 75% of their genes, whereas any of their offspring would only share 50%. This is why a queen who mates with a single male is evolutionarily stable. Such a society needs only a single man, and he is often cast aside after his sperm has been collected in the queen. In norsk the word for woman, kvinne, is cognate with queen.

In Europe the society is put first and the leaders of the major European countries do not have children. Not Merkel. Not Macron. Not May. Not Gentiloni. Feminism has created a western world in which women are the sole arbiteurs of whether children are created or allowed to live thereafter, but evolution put lust in men to keep the species going. Now many women choose a career instead of motherhood rather than the more difficult path of both. Society is only too happy to take the fruits of their labors and provide them with ease and enjoyments. This is made even easier by saved wealth of prior generations being funneled down to fewer and fewer children. On the flipside are places where women are still subjugated, where there is no "right to choose" to kill the children they've created. Europe imports people from those places to replace the ones their society no longer makes.

The streets of Bergen are beautiful. The cathedrals have free organ concerts. The sea is bracingly cold and beautiful. The mountains are at once a challenge and a solace. I can walk out my door and be treated to a half dozen languages on any given day. The beer is expensive, but good. It all feels right. It all feels good, like a warm, safe duvet I can wrap myself in while I enjoy the cold evening breeze. Alone, but a part of society - a happy clam indeed.