One important point Grimsson raises is the value of the Männerbund to a society, like ours, facing seemingly endless crises:
[I]t is an immense loss to our way of life that this structure has all but vanished and it may be that such a system of social ties will be the key to surviving the many catastrophes which are around the corner.200
One such crisis is the decay of everyday legal order, despite an evermore massively intrusive government, a situation Sam Francis called “anarcho-tyranny.” Such a situation might be compared, in a limited way, to America, especially cities like Chicago, under Prohibition. As John Kenneth Muir says:
Importantly, not one of these men (especially Ness) declares any fealty to the government’s (wrongheaded) policy of Prohibition. On the contrary, what this foursome defends to the death is the very principle that makes America great: the rule of law. This is the meat of Ness’s inner crisis: can the rule of law be re-established by violating the law?201
As Carl Schmitt emphasized, the political is defined by the exception; he is sovereign who can in an emergency declare an exception to the rule of law—and get away with it. However much it may offend the delicate sensibilities of the Liberal, not everything is subject to debate and proper procedure. If it is the law itself that no longer works, how can it be restored legally? No wonder the Tea Party’s costumes freak them out.
Indeed, as Evola emphasizes, only the Männerbund can do so, because it is not only outside the State, as it is outside the family structure, but also prior to it, being the true origin of the State itself.
BEWARE OF IMITATIONS
Since the Männerbund is not a typical subject of “mainstream” discourse, most people are unaware of it, and thus susceptible to fraudulent substitutes. The Untouchables begins with the most flagrant one, the Capone mob.
Far from either creating or restoring the State, the mob is responsible for the collapse of Chicago into violence and anarchy. In real life, Chicago had been horrified by the brutality of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which is what led to Ness’ assignment, but Mamet wisely ignores this overdone episode and starts the film with a little girl, holding a suitcase which explodes, blowing her to bits along with a non-cooperating pub. As Frankie Five Angels sneers in The Godfather: Part II, “They do violence in their grandmother’s neighborhood.”
And speaking of The Godfather: Part II, the next shot gives us Robert De Niro, playing a very different character than that man of honor, Don Corleone (“I mean, we’re not murderers, in spite of what this undertaker thinks”). Instead, we have a well-fed hypocrite:
Capone: Yes! There is violence in Chicago. But not by me, and not by anybody who works for me, and I’ll tell you why—because it’s bad for business.
The only truth in that statement is that Capone is a businessman. In Chicago, the castes have regressed, and now the sudra rules. Capone’s mob (note the word!) is neither a State nor a Männerbund, but, in another loaded phrase, a “criminal enterprise,” which is to say an enterprise, a business, which no longer operates under society’s laws. In contemporary terms, one might cite Wall Street in general, especially the gigantic frauds and outright thefts (MF Global) that have gone entirely uninvestigated, to say nothing of punished. Who indeed is sovereign?
Contrary to the “free market” myth, from Adam Smith to Ayn Rand to Alan Greenspan, business transactions are not a “natural” activity, prior to, and superior to, the State. As seen most recently in the ex-Soviet Union, the collapse of the State does not produce a peaceful society of “capitalist acts between consenting adults” but a gangster’s paradise.202
Later in the film, we’ll get a chance to see Capone discoursing on “teamwork” only to wind-up by bashing in a gang member’s skull with a baseball bat. Like Captain Ahab, Capone uses the rhetoric of Traditional honor and leadership, but despite his “charisma” and “romantic aura” he is
. . . not just some fine old warrior-aristocrat who has somehow fallen into the wrong age. Ahab is just such a man as nineteenth-century America was producing, a man who could and did ruthlessly exploit the land and the people for his own grandiose, self-aggrandizing ends.203
We next meet his presumed nemesis, Elliot Ness, with his wife and children. Well, we know that the family unit isn’t going to be the source of a Männerbund. But when he goes to work, carrying the lunch he wife has made for him, we learn that the Chicago Police aren’t either. They’ve been corrupted, penetrated, as it were, by Capone. His first ridiculously earnest raid—“Let’s do some good!”—is an embarrassing “bust out,” netting him only a shipment of Japanese parasols, and a nickname in the press: “Poor Butterfly.” (Even the press is on Capone’s side—during the raid Ness mistakes a reporter for a gangster.)
Ness learns he is not cast as a Hero, this time, but a clown—perhaps Canio in Pagliacci, a bit of which we see Capone enjoying later in the movie—or even a forlorn geisha. He started the day as a little boy; he ends it completely emasculated.
As Jack Donovan says in The Way of Men, while Ness is a “good man,” but he’s not so “good at being a man.”204 Despite his empty boast, he doesn’t know how to “do some good.” To learn how to be good at being a man, Ness will obviously need a teacher; but as we have seen, the primary method of initiation in the West has been not the teacher as such, but the Männerbund,205 which also, conveniently, has been the primary means of establishing, and re-establishing, the State.
Ness won’t surrender to, and certainly won’t join, Capone; he won’t go along with the corrupt cops or politicians, or curry favor with the press. To beat them, he can’t join them; he needs to find another group, or create his own.
FROM SACK LUNCH TO BLOOD OATH
“The first and most important feature of groups is the fact that groups are not constituted according to the wish and choice of their members. Groups are constituted by the teacher, who selects types which, from the point of view of his aims, can be useful to one another.”
—Gurdjieff206
Enter the last honest cop, Jimmy Malone (Sean Connery) who will become the teacher who selects the men who will become known as The Untouchables. Malone is so honest that he’s never risen above beat cop. It’s not clear why Ness trusts Malone to be the last honest cop in Chicago. Connery’s bogus “Irish” accent alone might set bells off.207
As we shall see, however, Connery’s character will indeed manifest a shamanic ability to shape-shift. One more clue we have that Malone is on the up and up is that they meet on a bridge.
The sorcerer and warrior are always liminal, while they may enter into the community their values and allegiances set them apart. Sorcerers, shamans and witches in most traditions are often pictured as living at the edge of the village or in forests or caves.208
Malone will eventually agree to teach Ness “the Way,” in this case, “the Chicago Way,” which is a kind of karma-yoga in which appropriate, or svadharmic, action is all:
Malone: You wanna get Capone? Here’s how you get him. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue!
Malone starts with the first of many tricks and inversions of society’s norms, in this case, both inverting Ness’ oath of duty and tricking him into affirming a new one:
Malone: I’m making you a deal. Do you want this deal?
(Unlike Ness’ wife, who only made him a meal, the characteristic family activity.)
Ness: I have sworn to put this man away with any and all legal means at my disposal, and I will do so.
Malone: Well, the Lord hates a coward. Do you know what a blood oath is, Mr. Ness?
Ness: Yes.
Malone: Good. ’Cause you just took one.
At the trial, Ness admits he has “foresworn” himself by eventually being led to choose to hunt Capone with Capone’s own methods, not the State’s.
Now Malone begins to put together the warrior band. But who can they trust in the department?
Malone: I
f you’re afraid of getting a rotten apple, don’t go to the barrel. Get it off the tree.
The allusion to the Garden of Eden is clear, although we will see that it is Malone’s double, Frank Nitti, who embodies reptilian evil.
The . . . leader [of] any Männerbund must take great care when selecting comrades and develop a preinitiation training program which will weed out those unsuited or unwilling to commit. Such programs should not only be intellectual but include “homework” to prove dedication and “challenges” would-be comrades should overcome. . . . It should be made very clear to any potential comrades the nature of the commitment, that a Männerbund is an Androphilic organization and that no outside relationships are permitted.209
First, though, Ness makes his own demand: no married men, even though, as Malone quickly points out, Ness is himself married. Ness doesn’t seem to have quite figured out what will be required of him. When Nitti threatens them with the ironic “It’s nice to have a family,” Ness ships them off the countryside.210
Thor curses Starkadr telling him that if undertakes Odin’s requests he will have no children, no individual land or property and be despised by the common folk.211
Malone rejects with contempt a recruit who recites the police motto, then insults and strikes another, whose violent but controlled response passes the tests.
Malone: Why do you want to join the force?
George Stone: “To protect the property and citizenry of . . .”
Malone: Ah, don’t waste my time with that bullshit. Where you from, Stone?
George Stone: I’m from the south side.
Malone: Stone. George Stone. That’s your name? What’s your real name?
George Stone: That is my real name.
Malone: Nah. What was it before you changed it?
George Stone: Giuseppe Petri.
Malone: Ah, I knew it. That’s all you need, one thieving wop on the team.
George Stone: Hey, what’s that you say?
Malone: I said that you’re a lying member of a no good race. [He cuffs Stone across the face. As he draws back his arm again, Stone presses a gun under his chin]
George Stone: Much better than you, you stinking Irish pig.
Malone: Oh, I like him.
This is the first racial note in the movie. Obviously there are no Blacks on the force, but the “racial” antagonisms are there nonetheless. Between Ness, Malone (with Connery’s confusing Irish-Scot accent), and “Stone” (another blurry shape-shifter) we seem to have an early attempt at what Greg Johnson has suggested:
What is emerging is a generic white American, with a sense of his interests merely as a white. . . . America may be the place where we recreate the original unity of the white race before it was divided and pitted against itself.212
Ironically, these men are joining together to enforce Prohibition, which was largely the attempt of small town WASPs (like Ness, whose family is now hiding out in the countryside) to “control” the “thieving wops” and “stinking Irish pigs” of the big cities.
Finally, Ness has already been assigned Wallace, a meek little accountant from Treasury. Physically and professionally, he seems to be the Designated Jew, but nothing is ever made explicit, and so for our purposes we can treat him as White. Ness is still living in ignorance, and does not yet appreciate the value of Wallace, both as man, and as the key to the capture of Capone.
Wallace epitomizes the role of the geek or nerd, as Jack Donovan describes it:
Advanced levels of mastery and technics allow men to compete for improved status within the group by bringing more to the camp, hunt or fight than their bodies would otherwise allow. Mastery can be supplementary—a man who can build, hunt and fight, but who can also do something else well, be it telling jokes or setting traps or making blades, is worth more to the group and is likely to have a higher status within the group than a man who can merely build, hunt and fight well. Mastery can also be a compensatory virtue, in the sense that a weaker or less courageous man can earn the esteem of his peers by providing something else of great value. It could well have been a runt who tamed fire or invented the crossbow or played the first music, and such a man would have earned the respect and admiration of his peers. Homer was a blind man, but his words have been valued by men for thousands of years.213
Or put away Capone by decoding his secret account books.
Ness: We need another man.
Wallace: Mr. Ness? This is very interesting. I’ve found a financial disbursement pattern which shows some irregu . . .
Malone: You carry a badge?
Wallace: Yes.
Malone: Carry a gun.
There are, then, four Untouchables. The number four is:
[A] code for its related letter in the Elder Futhark which is Ansuz. Traditionally Ansuz is related to Odin but reversed is related to the trickster Loki so the correlation seems correct. The rune also means the Aesir in general and hence the use of this rune emphasizes that Loki has left the community of the gods and become a true spiritual outlaw. Ansuz is related . . . to Venus. In the community Venus or love holds the family together while in the Männerbund Venus is androphile and focused on individual immortality through sorcery.214
INITIATION I:
“OUTSIDERING”—“HEY. THIS IS THE POST OFFICE . . .”
“The first rites of Initiation are those which help the comrade consolidate his rejection of the functions of the society around him.”215
“As shamans and sorcerers they must move beyond the tribe and become separate from the rules and regulations of the community. Essentially they become spiritual and social outlaws.”
—Wulf Grimsson216
Malone: There’s nothing like vaudeville.
Police Chief: What the hell are you dressed for? Hallowe’en?
Malone: Shut up. I’m working.
Police Chief: Where? The circus?
Malone has shape-shifted into civilian garb, but still uses his beat cop knowledge to strip the mask off another public institution: behind the façade, literally, of the Post Office is one of Capone’s warehouses.
This is the turning point in Ness’ career, and the movie, with Morricone’s soaring theme music underlining it for us. So does the dialog and action, which pound away at the liminal theme: crossing the street, crossing Capone, crossing the doorway.
Malone: Everybody knows where the booze is. The problem isn’t finding it. The problem is who wants to cross Capone. Let’s go.
Ness: You’d better be damn sure, Malone.
Malone: If you walk through this door, you’re walking into a world of trouble. There’s no turning back. Do you understand?
Ness: Yes, I do.
Malone: Good. Give me that axe.
The axe, of course, is a traditional symbol of male power, as well as the root of the fasces symbol.
After making his violent and uninvited entrance, Malone is confronted by a portly thug, or postal worker—once more, ambiguity—who demands his “rights.”
Portly Thug: Hey! This isn’t right! Hey! This is no good! You got a warrant?
Malone: Sure! Here’s my warrant. [Delivers the stock of his shotgun to the thug’s crotch]
Malone: How do you think he feels now? Better . . . or worse?
Malone delivers butt to crotch, the warrior band’s deviant inversion of sodomy, making quite clear that they have gone beyond concern for rights, warrants, and the social good.
Here is the scene, seen, as it were, through Grimsson’s lens:
When I look at the tale I see an initiatory rite, a ritual whereby Loki is becoming a sorcerer. He is ceremonially rejecting his role among the Gods and the tribe [the cops] and becoming a spiritual outlaw. It begins as Loki is refused entry to the feast. This is unusual as Loki as a member of the Aesir would have been invited to such an event even if he sometimes behaves erratically [Malone as a cop would ordinarily be “in on” the crimes, but he is the one honest cop, whose goody-goody ways are joked about].
/> He then kills Fimafeng, the name Fimafeng means service [the Postal Service?] and he represents the normal activities of a community such as serving, working and feasting. By Loki killing Fimafeng he is making it clear he is going beyond his prior role within the Aesir and within the society.
He enters the hall but Bragi says he is unwelcome. Bragi is the god of poetry and the storyteller of the community [The Post Office?].
Loki’s insults are staged and meant to symbolise him separating from each of the Gods and their functions.217
INITIATION II:
THE WORLD TREE—“MANY THINGS ARE HALF THE BATTLE”
“As the initiate moved through the bund other rites were used including the initiation of the world tree which was a form of northern vision quest giving the initiate an experience of the power of the runes. I believe that the Männerbund was also secretly devoted to Loki as Odin’s blood brother and darker rites were used in his honour. These rites included those of shape changing and the techniques of the Berserker.”
—Wulf Grimsson218
Ness has sworn a blood oath, joined a Männerbund, and crossed the threshold. Now he and the others face further initiations to acquire further powers—shape-shifting, reading the runes, and the fighting skills of the Berserker.
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