Deus Ex Machina
and presidential pardons
Dear readers,
My time away did not go as planned. Instead of traveling northward, I traveled inward, thanks to a wrenched back (did I wrench it? Did a chiropractor? I’ll never know) that had me supine for many days, recovering for many more.
Staring at the ceiling while I tractioned my lumbar region provided a stellar opportunity to dive deep into Sarno-type emotional remediation… and to imagine The Art of Freedom’s trajectory.
So be on the lookout for more variety: essays, poems, poessays, yes… PLUS more evidence of my love for in-person interactions. That’s all I’ll say for now.
Thank you for your patience during my hiatus. It’s great to be off my back.
xox M
There has been much rejoicing after Trump’s pardons. With just the stroke of the President’s pen, individuals who saw themselves wrongly accused are finally free, reuniting with loved ones, able to rejoin the world and continue as best they can their interrupted lives.
I imagine a similar rejoicing occurred in multiple Biden households after the patriarch sprinkled his pardons like fairy dust over his nuclear and extended family: his son Hunter; his brother James and his wife, Sara; his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis.
“Deus ex machina,” Latin for “god from the machine,” has triumphed again. Would any of those grateful pardonees name it as such? Probably not. But I do.
Originating in 5th-century BC Greek and Roman theater, the term “deus ex machina” described the crane-like device — a “mechane”— that would lower a god or goddess onto the stage to resolve the plot.
Aristotle criticized the use of deus ex machina in his Poetics, saying that the resolution of a plot should follow the logic of the play, not be handed down from on high — a dictum endorsed by countless narrative writers ever since.
As difficult as it is to achieve, every serious writer’s goal is to craft a story that unfolds so naturally from the characters’ actions that the ending feels inevitable. That inevitability is what leaves a reader, or watcher, satisfied — and that satisfaction goes missing when deus ex machina ends a story.
Using a proverbial crane to dangle a divine being into the action, who then snaps her fingers to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem, feels like a cheat.
Which it is, and isn’t, as I’ll explain in a bit.
Let’s first look at one of literature’s most egregious use of deus ex machina: the ending of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. [I have much to say about the resulting demoralization of every single public school kid in America by reading this novel at some point in their indoctrination education, but I’ll save that for another essay.]
In the last pages of Golding’s novel, one of the stranded boys, Ralph, flees for his life. Hunted by the sharpened-stick-wielding mob of his peers, he crashes blindly through the jungle toward the beach. It seems that all is lost…
…when a Royal Navy officer appears out of nowhere! Having seen the smoke lit by the boys to flush Ralph out of hiding, he rescues Ralph and brings the violence — and the entire narrative — to a sudden, unforeseen, lukewarm conclusion.
Reading it in my early teens, I was relieved that Ralph hadn’t suffered the same gruesome fate as Piggy had, pages earlier. I didn’t really care where that rescue came from or whether it was “incomplete.”
Now that I’ve experienced the challenge of writing endings that feel inevitable, my impressions have evolved. Now I see Golding’s deus ex machina finale differently: as a cop-out, a way to solve the boys’ very precarious social and moral predicament with no effort whatsoever on his part — or on theirs.
Yes, it may be that children are not capable of saving themselves; their little prefrontal cortexes are not developed enough (or so we are told) to make rational, moral decisions. If that’s true, then of course it would take an adult to stride in and save them.
But Lord of the Flies is meant as a broader social commentary, which thus begs the question: who will save the adults from their own demise? Golding has no answer.
Nor, it appears, do we. Like the boys on the deserted island, we have spent the past 80+ years in this country both building up and tearing down our fragile society, creating a captured system that now more resembles the Corleone family than a democracy.
accurately likened Trump’s recent attempted take-down of the bureaucratic monolith to a scene in The Godfather, “where Michael strikes back against all the rival gangs, not just the one who assassinated his father.”Childers sums it up nicely:
Now, loyalty to the bureaucracy means nothing—loyalty to the President is what matters.”
I believe that’s true. And to be clear: Biden’s pardons of his own famiglia reek of The Godfather as well.
Mafia dons, popes, emperors, kings: are they not all strongmen who demand fealty in return for favors? I’ve been watching Outlander lately, with its tartaned clans, and it’s the same mafiosos, just bearded and in kilts: some laird who owns the land protecting those who kiss the ring, and expecting them to take up their broadswords to lop off the heads of his enemies.
Will we ever evolve beyond such models?
I’m fairly certain the Founding Fathers were attempting to do so as they created three separate branches of government, held together by checks and balances and whatnot, to avoid the seemingly eternal pitfall of “divine right of kings,” but as usual, human beings have found a way to game the system. Our model of governing depends on a morality that transcends moneyed self-interest, a morality that now is in short supply.
And so justice is miscarried, as it always is, within gamed systems. Looking to an external power to right those wrongs is warranted at times, and feels good in the short run — Hurray! Ralph is saved! — but is it moving us any closer to real, systemic evolution?
Many years ago, I studied Film Narrative with the poobah of screenwriting, Robert McKee. In his Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting, he says this:
“Deus ex machina not only erases all meaning and emotion, it’s an insult to the audience. Each of us knows we must choose and act, for better or worse, to determine the meaning of our lives...Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.”
The device’s fundamental flaw is that it removes all responsibility for resolving the problem from the hero’s shoulders. Rather than seeking what works, understanding what doesn’t work, and eventually gaining the necessary insight to solve the problem, the hero washes his hands and hops the next plane to Bermuda. Peace out!
That’s not what we long for in our stories. We want to see the hero find a solution, no matter how outlandish. In fact, the more creative, the better. As long as his solution follows logically from what he’s learned in the story, it works. We are satisfied. Why? Because deep within each of us is a yearning for growth. Each of us wants to be the hero of our own lives. It’s why we’re here.
And that’s why the proliferation of presidential pardons, though momentarily satisfying depending on which team you’re rooting for, ultimately leaves us flat. It’s like knowing your team won because the referees made a bad call.
To take the sports analogy further: if we all knew that the referees were bought off, and most of the players were bought off, would we still buy tickets to watch? Maybe. Probably. But we’d know it was entertainment, and not invest ourselves too deeply in the outcomes. As McKee points out,
“Deus ex machina is an insult because it is a lie.”
We may never know what really happened behind the closed doors of the Biden family, or on January 6th, because pardons have neatly stepped in front of us, as they always do, saying nothing to see here, move along.
We throw up our hands, because who are we to challenge the Mafia? Or as
deems it, “the blob [that] … evolved into such an overt criminal racketeering operation that it increasingly and desperately needed to keep covering its mighty ass.”Pardons are the easy way out, the insult, the lie. Again, yes, they are warranted in certain cases — but they absolve us from fixing the systems that caused the miscarriage of justice in the first place.
The tragedy here is not just that broke, corrupt systems remain broken and corrupt when deus ex machina steps in to resolve the ending. The less-obvious tragedy is that the potential for human ingenuity, moral problem solving, and even soul-greatness is snuffed out.
Imagine for a moment that Charles Dickens wrote a different ending of A Tale of Two Cities, one in which a sudden sinkhole interrupts Madame Defarge’s orders to execute Charles Darnay. Sydney Carton, dressed to impersonate Charles Darnay and taking his place to be executed, bravely steps forward to meet his end, just as…
…a massive, hungry pit swallows up the guillotine, freeing Carton, who disappears into the countryside along with the rest of the condemned French prisoners and one of western literature’s most famously heart-wrenching lines:
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
Sydney Carton’s act of self-sacrifice, his epiphany, the pinnacle of his soul’s blossoming… would never have happened, and in turn, we, the readers, would not be raised up by his example of redemption, encouraged to reach higher within our own small lives for a greatness waiting within.
Nothing to see here, move along.
There is one final example of deus ex machina I want to share with you; this one is not from literature, and it’s one that — to my mind — proves that in some rare instances, deus ex machina is not a cheat.
Let me tell you a story.
Imagine a young man, a former eagle scout who attends college on a full academic scholarship and then gains a master’s in materials science and engineering from Penn State in 2009.
He’s a libertarian, fascinated by economic theory, and he has grand ideas. On his LinkedIn page, he says he wishes to “...use economic theory as a means to abolish the use of coercion and aggression amongst mankind...” and claims, “I am creating an economic simulation to give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.”
He creates a way for people to buy and sell things online anonymously, without the use of identities or credit cards. It uses Bitcoin. His online market is an uncontrollable, untrackable, untaxable version of Amazon. It cannot continue.
The government investigates. They find that people are using it to buy and sell all manner of items, including illegal drugs and fake IDs.
The man is arrested, tried, and convicted of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, distributing narcotics by means of the internet, conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to traffic fraudulent identity documents, and conspiracy to commit computer hacking.
(No matter that two corrupt federal agents later plead guilty to undermining the entire investigation and go to jail for it.)
The man is sentenced to double life in prison plus 40 years without the possibility of parole.
He knows he’s done nothing wrong. He knows that powerful financial interests put him behind bars as a warning to any others who might consider infringing on their surveilled, marketplace monopoly. He knows he may die there.
He’s thrown into “The Hole,” the prison within the prison, sometimes for months at a time. He’s trapped, confined, angry. His lawyers appeal; there is no justice.
Years pass as he rots in prison, watching Mark Zuckerberg surf and yacht while criminals across America exploit FaceBook Marketplace to commit armed robberies and homicide.
One day, he is granted permission to speak publicly, by phone. Here is part of what he says:
I once spent four months straight in The Hole. Not easy for me to talk about but I will. The Hole can make you or break you, and there was a time when it broke me. It started with my mind racing out of control. I felt like the walls were crushing in on me, like I just had to get out of that cell. This lasted days. Then I started beating the walls and kicking the heavy metal door. Something something deep inside me cried out for freedom.
I couldn’t accept where I was or what had happened to me, but eventually I realized I had to get a grip. The stress was destroying me.
It may sound strange but what saved me was gratitude. But what could I be grateful for in that little cell?
Well, I had to start small… um I had air, right? Maybe it was stale and foul, but I had air. I had water that didn’t make me sick. Food came through the slot in the door every day. I knew I wasn’t forgotten. My family… I knew someday it would be over and my family would still be there.
I forgave all the people involved in putting me in prison. I had to. The anger I felt wasn't hurting them but it was hurting me. So for the sake of my sanity, I had to let it go.
This man, this protagonist in the story of his life, has found forgiveness for others. He is growing; his soul is expanding to inhabit a new understanding.
He is becoming the hero in his own life. He says:
Are you starting to understand what it means to lose your freedom? It means living in constant fear. Why is it taking me all these years to finally talk to you? I’ve been afraid. Even now, I was strongly warned against talking to you:
“You’ll only anger the authorities even more.”
“You’ll ruin what little chance you have left in the courts.”
Well, it’s not my intention to anger anyone. And yes, I’m afraid of retaliation. I'm afraid that, because of what I'm saying to you today, I'll be thrown in the hole or worse.
But I’ve learned that listening to your fears can be just as dangerous as ignoring them.
And so he speaks out. He tells the world everything he’s been through, everything he’s been afraid to say.
Following the public utterance of his words, he is placed in solitary confinement.
The transition to hero is complete.
Forty-three months later, he receives a presidential pardon.
In case you haven’t guessed by now: I’ve just told you the abridged story of Ross Ulbricht, creator and operator of the Silk Road. The quotes above were taken from his speech (via telephone) from federal prison in 2021, thoughtfully transcribed by
in this recent post.In his speech, he keeps repeating the same sentence over and over: “I want you to understand what it means to lose your freedom.” His life is an illustration, a guidebook to the game of inner freedom — should we choose to follow it.
The Hollywood Reporter calls his pardon, “an improbable Hollywood ending,” but they’re mistaken. It’s deus ex machina used in a way it actually works: deployed only when the protagonist has fulfilled the quest, fought the dragon, learned the lesson. Ulbricht overcame his internal obstacles to freedom and now the pardon, the “rescue,” simply sealed his experience. It’s an outward manifestation of an inner transformation.
Ulbricht set out to “give people a first-hand experience of what it would be like to live in a world without the systemic use of force.” He did that, and so much more.
His story raises me up, raises us all up.
We may never evolve beyond strongmen, tyrants, and gang mentality. But Ulbricht has shown us by example that freedom is an inside job, an act of immense courage. How many times have I struggled to say what I know to be true, for fear of retribution? How many entire societies have fallen silent for the same reason?
We are all capable of freeing ourselves, but will we? Or will we wait for some “god from the machine” to do it for us?
In Ulbricht’s own words:
“We are powerful and our work is not over. It’s time to wake up. It’s time to take the next step…We have brought a taste of freedom and equality to far corners of the world. I know we can transform criminal justice too and now, today, I challenge you to set your sights on the hardest problems. I challenge you to shine Bitcoin’s light into the darkest places. I challenge you to set us free.”
May each of us find the courage to accept his challenge. So evolves humanity: one soul at a time.
Interesting analysis but I feel like there is an ocean-wide difference between FJB’s malevolent “pardons” of his criminal, greedy & treasonous family (not to mention the thousands? of some of the worst & most unworthy murderers, rapists & grifters) & Trump’s for a bunch of people wandering around outside or inside the capital on J6. People that weren’t even present that day but convicted of “incitement”, people who were waived in by capital police & wandered about like tourists, people who never even entered the building &/or were shot or beaten & died. There was no punishment for those abusers & virtually all of the J6-ers were falsely & unjustly convicted or forced to plead guilty of minor crimes twisted into lawfare felonies & falsely imprisoned in abusive conditions. A “bipartisan” committee that hid evidence, refused to release the tapes, that corrupted witnesses & outright lied to the country & prepared phony conclusions. J6 people have suffered enough under false pretenses (even those who destroyed property or assaulted police) & real justice is now served - esp compared to every criminal BLM & antifa criminal rioter who never served a day for their crimes & actually had the VP of the USA shilling for them to raise bail money….
Just my opinion, of course.
Thank you. Ten hearts.