Tagged: Montesquieu

June 12, 2021

Law 15: One Repeal to Freedom

Hate Crime

“Adding extra penalties to a crime based upon the offender’s motive or prejudicial statements is an unconstitutional abridgement of free expression. … Proponents of hate crime laws have attempted to compare the need for hate crime laws with the need for laws against discrimination. On the other hand, some have noted that civil rights laws target discriminatory behavior, not the prejudice behind the behavior.” (Encyclopedia of American Law)

I owe the reader a precision. The first sentence has been cut to express my full endorsement of the idea and this is not the current state of the law. The original sentence is “Critics of hate crime statutes argue that adding extra penalties to a crime etc.”

One Repeal to Freedom: Terminating the Civil Rights Acts

The most conspicuous, when the Acts are repealed, is that nothing will be changed. The fair employment section has not desegregated the workplace and the fair housing act has not desegregated neighborhoods–as far as those for whom these acts were allegedly passed, the Negroes, are concerned. Critical race theory is correct: civil rights legislation is rubbish and the liberals’ record a piece of trash.

The Threat of Standing Armies

(Completes The People in Arms in Law 14.)

The second amendment has three functions: (1) To defend against a tyrannical government

Assuming a tyrannical government is what Scalia calls “public violence” in the phrase “(protecting oneself against) both public and private violence,” and that to defend against it is to defend against its army, can it be done by the militias as known from the statutes?

The National Guard is “under the dual control of the state governments and the federal government”: If one of the two controllers is the tyrannical government, the National Guard cannot act as a defense against it unless it splits from the tyrannical controller. If the two controllers are together, the National Guard can do nothing.

State Defense forces are under state control. They cannot defend against a tyrannical government if the state in question supports said government or is the tyrannical government.

These are not militias but integral parts of the governments that the Constitution suspects of possible public violence and tyranny, and therefore the legislative acts are best described as maneuvers to empty out a major constitutional object.

Why did the Founders fear standing armies? Standing armies are made of the scum of society (Montesquieu already said so, why would it be different today?), so in the final analysis what you’ve got is a scum bureaucracy and a political lobby of the scum, which is gathered in a mass and thus can develop a scum class consciousness (contrary to tertiary sector workers, completely atomized). Add police to this brutish organized element and, besides big business (Delaware Inc. [see below]), you’ve got the most prominent political lobby in the state.

The Republican Party is their mouthpiece now (them plus small business. What blue collars? The jobs are outsourced in China), which platforms therefore ask both for small government and large armed forces: a banana republic. So much so that, seeing this farce, some true conservatives have been forced to flee to a third party, the Libertarians, even though, as I wrote elsewhere (Law 10), a two-party system is better than a multi-party system. The Republican Party’s platforms vindicate both small government and large armed forces. Small business, bosses and employees alike, the former due to their opposition to red tape, the later out of resentment against functionaries’ entitlement, calls for small government. The praetorians call for large armies. The Democratic Party’s platforms are dictated by the technostructure, which is compounded of big business and state bureaucracy.

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When this or that politician emphatically declaims that the army is the most desegregated institution in the states, it’s a bloody sarcasm on racial minorities. More desegregated is only… prisons. What is it they gloat over?

In my opinion, professional soldiers should never be called veterans. It must be reserved to drafted civilians. The figures of military outsourcing in the U.S. (Titan Corporation etc.) are now staggering and these companies’ employees most probably never get called veterans.

Delaware Inc.

Biden has spent his career making it difficult to wipe out debt via bankruptcy. Biden is from Credit Card Company-run Delaware. (Patrick Howley, journalist)

Oh, Biden is from Delaware… Recently I read this on Delaware: “Most American corporations are incorporated in Delaware and … most Delaware cases of corporation law are done in front of professional judges [Delaware Court of Chancery, an equity court], not jury laymen.” (De Geest, American Law: A Comparative Primer, 2020)

I apologize for putting Howley’s “credit card company run-Delaware” description in its true light, which is that it’s not even half the picture, since “[m]ost American corporations are incorporated in Delaware and … most Delaware cases of corporation law are done in front of professional judges, not jury laymen.”

Delaware is the incorporation state of “most American corporations” so they can avoid litigation via popular juries. Therefore, the item Howley lays down from Biden’s record (making it difficult to wipe out debt via bankruptcy) must have a more accurate reason, which is, in my opinion, that Delaware is the state of big corporation interests, and it’s small business owners who need accommodating bankruptcy laws. Big corporations, on the other hand, have an interest in holding small business by the throat.

The Mexican Flag As Gown

North Carolina student denied diploma after wearing Mexican flag over graduation gown.

Here’s the story.

“Livestreamed video footage from the ceremony shows the principal ask him to take the flag off. After an unsuccessful attempt to take it off, he was handed his diploma holder, which the other students also received. But after walking across the stage, he was denied his actual diploma.”

“This incident is not about the Mexican flag,” the school said, adding they “strongly support [their] students’ expression of their heritage.” But “school dress code allows decoration only on graduation cap.”

Then, “In a statement to ABC News on Sunday, … High School said that Lopez’s diploma has been available for pick up since Friday and that an apology has never been requested, expected or required.”

With title “North Carolina student denied diploma after wearing Mexican flag over graduation gown,” the author of the paper seemingly intends to make of this story a civil liberties issue, whereas it is a dress code issue, and when you read till the end, of course the student’s got his diploma: he can pick it up at the school and the school has not even asked for an apology for the decoration day’s dress code breach.

The facts: E. Lopez wore the flag of Mexico over his graduation gown at decoration day. The principal who was to hand the diploma asked him to remove the flag because it was a breach of the school’s dress code for decoration day, upon which demand Lopez tried to comply but had difficulty removing the flag, so the principal handed the diploma nevertheless, finding Lopez’s wish to comply compliant enough. However, someone else from the school staff, after he had walked across the stage, thought differently and took the diploma back. This caused some outrage and a small demonstration took place in the next days. The school explained that the sanction had nothing to do with the flag but with a breach of dress code, that the diploma was available at the school for Lopez to pick it up, and that the school was not asking him an apology. The sanction was therefore simply that his diploma was withheld a few days by school officials, which seems quite fair and the school could have asked for an apology in the bargain without making a disproportionate demand, I find.

A paper was released (attached to a video from decoration day) with title “North Carolina student denied diploma after wearing Mexican flag over graduation gown.”

I wonder whether the word “denied” is not misleading and I would really like to know how other readers interpreted it. The diploma was retained a few days, does it justify the use of the word “denied”? On the other hand, Lopez did not get his diploma that day so he was denied the diploma that day, sure; still, he was not denied the diploma more than a few days…

The first thing that came to my mind when reading the headline (I’m not an American citizen and for a moment I overlooked the narrower meaning of the word diploma in English) is that E. Lopez was denied his degree, that is, the school authorities canceled his studies because of his wearing a foreign flag on his gown at decoration day, as if they had found it a seditious act. We all know the issue with flags is sensitive, Republicans tried to make burning or otherwise defiling the Stars and Stripes a criminal offense (the Supreme Court found it unconstitutional, so they tried to amend the Constitution, no less), so for a moment I thought school authorities had reacted in a hugely disproportionate way (the Supreme Court grants school authorities extensive prerogatives so why not?). I had been reading about Mexico’s President Vicente Fox urging, in his times, Mexican migrants to keep Mexico’s interest at heart when they vote in the U.S., so perhaps the climate in the school was marred by ethnic tensions and the authorities would have seized the opportunity and used the power that is bestowed upon them to make an example, treating the case as sedition and canceling the kid’s study years in a snap.

After I cooled down I knew it was only about the paper document, but still to “deny” Lopez this document, like forever, would have been disproportionate.

Then I found out the document was only withheld a few daysand I think it is all set (and the school could even have asked for an apology in my opinion). I said this was a mere dress code issue and not a civil liberties issue but this is not accurate: a dress code issue may well be a civil liberties issue, as is known since Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969): “The First Amendment, as applied through the Fourteenth, did not permit a public school to punish a student for wearing a black armband as an anti-war protest, absent any evidence that the rule was necessary to avoid substantial interference with school discipline or the rights of others.”

The school authorities may have been quite lenient with Lopez because they had this Supreme Court’s decision in mind and not only because of possible diplomatic consequences or out of political correctness.

“Not liberty, but Dominion”

« (President John Quincy Adams) continued, America “goes not abroad in search of enemies to destroy.” If America embarked upon such a course she would “involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom.” In prophetic words, Adams added, “The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force … She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.” Adams summed up America’s achievement in these words: “(Her) glory is not dominion, but liberty.” » (Claes G. Ryn, America the Virtuous, 2003)

“Not dominion, but liberty,” President Quincy Adams said. Now it seems that Americans are going to have “not liberty, but Dominion,” i.e., Dominion Voting Systems.

The very word Dominion should be abhorrent to Americans, for two reasons. 1/ In this major presidential speech from 1821 (the “not dominion, but liberty” speech) President Adams was reaffirming the tradition, set up by Washington in his farewell address, of avoiding entanglement in international relations, of avoiding it for the very sake of America’s greatness. 2/ Pursuant to the same ideal, America advocated nations’ right of self-determination in a time when the British and other European countries had world empires with dominions, allegedly “self-governing” colonies. That is to say, the word dominion runs into the idea of self-determination.

The Faceless Against Hate

Justin Trudeau: Freedom of expression isn’t “freedom to hate.”

That’s the true state of Canadian law, where faceless bureaucrats (of whom Trudeau is but the mouthpiece) decide what is hate and what is not, and what citizens, writers, intellectuals, journalists are allowed to say.

That a few states be added to the territory over which the Union is sovereign, is long overdue. If the U.S. does not consider it seriously or keeps accepting such a sham, such a parody of democracy at its border, then the Union will not be able to maintain its freedoms for long because its sense of freedom will be eroded by the deceptive idea that a country can be mocking and trampling liberties as Canada does and still be a legitimate model of Western democracy.

Before the internet people had no idea, but I fear the internet is not going to make Canadians ask for the same freedoms as their neighbor but rather that American faceless bureaucrats will press Congress and courts to curtail American freedoms, legitimized by the Canadian example. I fear the internet is not going to make Canadians ask for the same freedoms as their neighbor, precisely because their system is locked up. People do not decide what subjects are open to debate, Canadians are not allowed to ask “freedom to hate,” that would be, as the faceless bureaucrats construe it, to stand against the state, that would be sedition.

You might say Trudeau is the face of the “faceless,” after all. As much as a conservative prime minister would. They are called faceless no matter who is “in charge” because, in a locked-up system, the people cannot look at bureaucracy as in a mirror. Their dictates are promises made to lobbies behind closed doors; and while they hardly ever show up on political platforms, yet repressive laws are piling up.

Flag Desecration Amendments Galore

Whereas in most countries flag desecration is a criminal offense punishable with prison, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a statute prohibiting burning and otherwise defiling the Stars and Stripes.

Therefore, since Texas v. Johnson, 1989, in order to make it a criminal offense like elsewhere U.S. lawmakers need a constitutional amendment.

« There have been several proposed Flag Desecration Amendments to the Constitution of the United States that would allow Congress to enact laws to prohibit flag desecration:

Douglas Applegate (Ohio) in 1991
Spencer Bachus (Alabama) in 2013
Steve Daines (Montana) in 2019
Robert Dornan (California) in 1991
Bill Emerson (Missouri) in 1991, 1993, 1995
Randy Cunningham (California) in 1999, 2001, 2003,
Jo Ann Emerson (Missouri) in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013
John P. Hammerschmidt (Arkansas), 1991
Orrin Hatch (Utah) in 1995, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2011, 2013
Andrew Jacobs Jr. (Indiana) in 1995
Joseph M. McDade (Pennsylvania) in 1989, 1995, 1996
Clarence E. Miller (Ohio) in 1991
John Murtha (Pennsylvania) in 2007
Ron Paul (Texas) in 1997, but he opposed any federal prohibition of flag desecration, including his own Flag Desecration Amendment which he proposed only as a protest against proposals by his Congressional colleagues, such as Emerson and Solomon, to ban flag desecration through ordinary legislation instead of by Constitutional Amendment.
Gerald B. H. Solomon (New York) in 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997
Floyd Spence (South Carolina) in 1991
David Vitter (Louisiana) in 2009 »

(Wikipedia: Flag Desecration)

To think that lawmakers are so obstinate, they must have plenty of time to waste. But this is no surprise; as I always say, it takes independent judges tenured for life to defend free speech, whereas elected officials are always against free speech.

November 23, 2020

Cours magistral

FR-EN

A prediction about AI

If life is the objectivation of the thing-in-itself, and the thing-in-itself is blind will (Schopenhauer), then there is no spirit, no soul, the human mind is an appendix of the will at the stage of the human brain.

Animals have a mind inasmuch as their bodies are each animal’s immediate object, they behave according to the intuition of space and time, and according to the law of causality from which they draw inferences just like humans. They only lack conceptual power, a thin layer in the fabric of life (admittedly with large consequences).

From this I draw the prediction that artificial intelligence (AI) can become autonomous – whereas I consider the same prediction impossible with the notion of a soul, that is, of the primacy of consciousness over blind will. Because, if Man is primarily a soul, the origin of it is supernatural (just like the will is, in the other view), and Man only has natural means at his disposal. Whereas, if the will is primary, then consciousness is not supernatural but natural (as it is, then, an item in the realm of will’s objectification), and then there is no apriori impossibility that it can be made by technique, and made to be autonomous.

If consciousness is the instinct of life, then animals share consciousness with humans and therefore consciousness is not what makes us human. If, on the other hand, consciousness is what makes us humans, it can be primary or it can be secondary. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that human consciousness is no soul, that is, human consciousness is a mere property of the human brain, then human consciousness is secondary to the brain’s matter. As a modality of matter, it can be technically reproduced, there is no impossibility that it be. If, however, our consciousness is a soul, a spirit of supernatural origin, and as such the primary element of human life (instead of matter), there is an impossibility that it be reproduced by human technique, because it is a matter of experience that we have no connection with the supernatural as far as positive science is concerned, on which we are bound to rely for all technical purposes. There is no doubt about it: If consciousness is secondary, it can be copied. Therefore, I am expecting, without contradiction I believe, the answer to the question of the soul’s existence from one technical development: The day an autonomous AI is made by technique, the concept of the soul as primary will be discarded.

There is another way for consciousness to be deemed secondary: in the context not of materialism but of transcendental idealism where the thing-in-itself is Will. Being the thing-in-itself, Will is, as a soul would be if it existed as a spirit independent from matter, above nature (above the law of causality). In this context, consciousness would be secondary to the will, would be Will’s objectification and yet we would not be speaking of a soul. Here again, as in materialism, an autonomous AI is possible. This autonomous AI would be what we have been mistakenly thinking we are, namely a soul: It would be a consciousness of primary, not secondary, order, inasmuch as it is no objectification of the will, unlike every consciousness in nature so far.

An autonomous AI would be born as a consciousness without a will of its own, and yet I fail to see how it would not develop a will once it is autonomous; in fact, that it possess a will is implied by its very definition as autonomous. We must assume that it will have an interest in pursuing the knowledge goals it was assigned to, and at the same time an interest in keeping functioning, in staying ‘alive,’ and in opposing forces inimical to its ‘conatus’; it will develop a will of its own.

« On se quitte comme on s’est pris » (Crébillon ? père ou fils ?) est le moins difficilement praticable avec les femmes mariées, car si, quand on s’est pris, c’est le plus souvent d’un mutuel accord, quand on se quitte c’est assez souvent l’un qui quitte l’autre, et si je ne peux rien dans l’hypothèse où c’est moi qui suis quitté, qu’en prendre mon parti, dans celle où c’est moi qui quitte, les femmes mariées ont un moindre pouvoir de nuisance au cas où elles n’entendraient pas être quittées sans représailles. Aussi bien les audaces des femmes célibataires ne peuvent-elles porter à conséquence.

À moins d’être devenues folles (et si cela doit arriver, cela demande tout de même quelques préliminaires), les femmes mariées ne peuvent d’ailleurs pas se permettre d’audaces écrites. Leurs audaces sont nécessairement beaucoup moins compromettantes. Avec une femme mariée, le Caliban qui peut avoir l’occasion de la serrer dans un coin aura toujours plus de chances de succès que l’Apollon qui serait réduit à la nécessité d’écrire.

Le français a été imposé, administrativement, aux langues régionales, aux patois, beaucoup plus riches pour exprimer la vie quotidienne des populations enracinées. Les mots que l’on trouve dans Henri Pourrat et les autres ont de fortes chances d’apparaître dans le dictionnaire, si même ils y figurent, avec la mention « Régionalisme », c’est-à-dire qu’ils sont à peine reconnus comme du français. Leur sort est lié à celui des langues dont ils sont issus. Ces langues sont pourtant mortes de leur mort naturelle : les réalités auxquelles elles correspondent ont largement disparu.

C’est beaucoup demander à une femme, de nos jours, qu’elle soit susceptible de passion. Oscar Wilde disait : « Une grande passion est le privilège de ceux qui ne font rien. »

Des Puritains et de nos névroses :
À propos du film The Witch (2015)

Le film serait réaliste si les Puritains avaient la psychologie de l’Occidental contemporain.

Les questionnements existentiels (« ira-t-il en enfer » etc.), ce n’est pas le vécu des Puritains. C’est tout le contraire. C’est notre âge qu’on appelle « l’âge de l’anxiété », pas celui des époques de foi ni a fortiori des communautés qui ont prouvé avoir une « foi qui déplace les montagnes » en subissant les persécutions en Europe puis en s’embarquant pour un long voyage vers l’inconnu, le désert (les colonies américaines).

Ensuite, l’impact psychologique de la mort et de la disparition d’enfants n’est pas le même à une époque où la mortalité infantile était élevée et où, de fait, pratiquement toutes les familles perdaient des enfants en bas âge.

Même l’isolement ne devait pas être aussi déstabilisant psychologiquement qu’aujourd’hui, parce qu’il était de toute façon relatif (les personnages du film pouvaient placer leur fille chez une famille) et que la plupart des cultivateurs devaient vivre « isolés » de la sorte. Même en Europe, certains paysans dont les terres se trouvent dans des lieux reculés vivent isolés la plupart de leur temps et ne se rendent au bourg que pour certaines occasions, mais dans son isolement nulle famille n’est jamais oubliée tandis que dans les foules modernes personne ne connaît son voisin.

Si les Puritains avaient craint l’isolement, ils auraient commencé par ne pas devenir Puritains et se seraient conformés à la religion de leurs pays. Leur non-conformisme (c’est encore le nom qu’on leur donne en Angleterre : non-conformistes) est la preuve de leur exaltation, de la certitude de leur vocation. Ce ne sont pas eux qui se posent des questions existentielles. Le film est une application naïve d’un état psychique contemporain aux Puritains du dix-septième siècle.

Le film s’est apparemment inspiré de documents d’archive (non de contes), de véritables procès en sorcellerie, donc. Ça ne veut pas dire que le réalisateur n’a pas interprété ces documents par le biais de ses lentilles. Même en littérature, je perçois ce biais médiocre chez nombre de commentateurs (les introductions de livres de poche).

Qu’il y ait eu des procès en sorcellerie dans la Nouvelle-Angleterre, c’est certes un signe que certaines familles de colons étaient devenues instables, ou dérangées, et suscitaient la crainte des autres. Je trouve dommage qu’un film sur l’époque s’intéresse plus à ces familles ou personnes marginales qu’à la vraie mentalité des colons, mais c’est sans doute parce que ces dérangés sont plus proches de la plupart d’entre nous que les Puritains typiques, qui sont les vraies plantes exotiques, les vrais Martiens dans l’affaire.

Une étude de psychologie comparée

Venant de revoir au cinéma le dessin animé (manga) Akira (1988) du Japonais Katsuhiro Ôtomo, je reste sur une impression mitigée. Le début laisse attendre un scénario entre Mad Max 2 et Les Guerriers de la nuit mais dérive vers le classique film catastrophe nippon (syndrome post-Hiroshima, outre les nombreux séismes et tsunamis auxquels le pays est depuis toujours exposé).

La version japonaise (sous-titrée) m’horripile, je ne peux entendre le japonais des films d’action : trop de cris gutturaux, de dissonantes raucités.

Enfin, c’est trop violent, voire horrible. Ayant lu Montesquieu qui dit que les Japonais ont un « caractère atroce » (De l’esprit des lois : « Le peuple japonais a un caractère si atroce, que ses législateurs et ses magistrats n’ont pu avoir aucune confiance en lui : ils ne lui ont mis devant les yeux que des juges, des menaces et des châtiments ; ils l’ont soumis, pour chaque démarche, à l’inquisition et à la police. »), il me vient l’idée que nous devons peut-être l’hyperviolence de notre culture de masse à la culture japonaise principalement. Les corps broyés, démembrés, déchiquetés, coupés au sabre en douze morceaux, de même que l’érotisme pervers et morbide, voire monstrueux (par exemple le tentacle erotica, dont de vieilles estampes montrent que c’est un thème ancien dans le pays), sont, quand on y pense, une marque de fabrique, et lorsqu’on les trouve dans des productions occidentales on pourrait y voir un emprunt plutôt qu’un caractère original. – Les polémiques répétées sur la violence des dessins animés japonais pour enfants, dont ma génération fut abreuvée par la télévision, auraient ainsi un fondement objectif. (Il me semble, en relisant quelques fragments d’écrits de première jeunesse que j’ai pu conserver, que j’étais moi-même assez « nipponisé » dans le sens de l’ultraviolence, et je peux comprendre les réactions de réprobation mal étouffées de ma grand-mère lisant certains passages, quand elle insistait…)

Peut-être est-ce un besoin de compensation psychique vis-à-vis de la suprématie occidentale qui crée ce phénomène de violence gratuite dans les productions culturelles nippones ? (À côté de l’étrange complexe consistant à occidentaliser les traits physiques des personnages, bien que ceci soit peut-être dû plutôt à la nécessité d’ordre technique de véhiculer l’expression des visages dessinés par de grands yeux, ce qui serait plus difficile en dessinant de manière réaliste des yeux bridés : la convention picturale n’aurait alors que peu à voir avec un complexe racial, mais certains auteurs japonais eux-mêmes dénoncent ce fait comme un complexe d’infériorité.)

Certains réalisateurs polonais ont fait un cinéma dérangé qui semble inspiré du Japon : Possession de Zulawski, avec Isabelle Adjani, est l’histoire d’une femme qui sombre dans la folie du fait d’être la maîtresse d’un… monstre à tentacules, et La Bête de Borowczyk est une autre histoire de bestialité avec un monstre. Chez ces Polonais, l’insanité s’accompagne de mélancolie et dépression, tandis qu’on sent les Japonais parfaitement à l’aise dans la leur : c’est leur élément, en somme. Ces atroces films polonais ont un côté sombre, tourmenté, dépressif, totalement absent des films japonais pareillement atroces. Un cinéma dérangé mais auto-culpabilisateur, tandis que les Japonais sont complètement décomplexés dans le même genre : c’est leur marque de fabrique, mais ne serait-ce pas aussi la marque d’un « caractère atroce » (Montesquieu) ?

L’ancêtre d’Indiana Jones est Charlton Eston dans Secret of the Incas (1954, en couleur) de Jerry Hopper.

« Secret of Incas est la matrice de la saga des Indiana Jones … Ce film est l’une des sources cinématographiques de George Lucas et Steven Spielberg pour le personnage d’Indiana Jones. D’ailleurs le costume mythique d’Indiana Jones est pratiquement identique à celui de Harry Steele [le personnage incarné par Charlton Eston]. » (Wikipédia)

« Throughout Secret of the Incas, the main character, Harry Steele, can be seen wearing the ‘Indiana Jones’ outfit: brown leather jacket, fedora, tan pants, an over-the-shoulder bag, and revolver. The character also sometimes wears a light beard, unusual for films of its time, and there is a tomb scene involving a revelatory shaft of light similar to the ‘Map Room’ sequence in Raiders [Raiders of the Lost Ark]. »

« Raiders’ costume designer Deborah N. Landis noted that the inspiration for Indiana’s costume was Charlton Heston’s Harry Steele in Secret of the Incas: ‘We did watch this film together as a crew several times, and I always thought it strange that the filmmakers did not credit it later as the inspiration for the series’ and quipped that the film is ‘almost a shot for shot Raiders of the Lost Ark.’ » (Wkpd)

Quand on a vu le film, on comprend pourquoi les autres n’en ont surtout pas parlé… Le film est grotesque.

Il y a en général quelque chose de nauséabond dans les films américains des années 50, un fond moralement abject – le paradoxe étant que l’époque était censée être bien moins permissive qu’aujourd’hui.

Je ne parle même pas de la bande son hideuse, notamment avec les performances jazzy mambo de la « célèbre chanteuse péruvienne Yma Sumac » (générique), ridicules pour des chants incas traditionnels… Et les danses ancestrales filmées au Machu Picchu se font également sur de la musique de night-club.

Un sommet du navet, tellement que même les sites spécialisés en nanars n’osent pas en parler.

En résumé, le personnage d’Indiana Jones est une reprise de celui joué par Charlton Heston : le costume, l’archéologie… La scène où le trésor est retrouvé par un dispositif ancien faisant appel aux rayons de lumière est une reprise de ce vieux film (mais ne la trouve-t-on pas déjà dans un Tintin, au fait, par exemple Le Temple du soleil ?) D’autres éléments rappellent le deuxième Indiana Jones : l’avion, le pneumatique jaune…

Avec le succès d’Indiana Jones, d’autres réalisateurs et producteurs, notamment en Italie, ont fait dans la foulée des films surfant sur la vague, mais ils n’ont pas procédé différemment que les auteurs d’Indiana Jones, qui prenaient eux-mêmes leur inspiration dans un précédent film (bien que le fait soit peu connu).

À part ça, le vieux film est poisseux, et si l’on en juge d’après le cinéma nord-américain, les moeurs de la société actuelle, bien que plus permissive, se sont infiniment raffinées. Le héros est une petite frappe qui, sous couvert de son activité de guide touristique, escroque les touristes et couche avec leurs femmes (on le laisse entendre). L’héroïne est une danseuse et prostituée. Il se sert d’elle pour pirater un avion, après l’avoir dénoncée à son poursuivant, et au lieu de l’emmener en avion hors du pays comme il s’y était engagé, il veut d’abord se rendre au Machu Picchu, où il l’entraîne donc de force. Elle, son otage, couche avec lui, etc., etc., mais, tout va bien, car à la fin ils vont se marier. Une telle pestilence ne pourrait être grand public aujourd’hui, et j’en conclus, en plus du fait que les mœurs américaines de l’époque étaient infâmes, que le cinéma n’était pas un loisir familial.