Princess of Swords

The Princess of Swords is known to most commentators as a young woman (or a page) with a precociously penetrating mind. She can also represent communiques of news and information. She is quick, vigilant, assertive, inquisitive, challenging, astute, iconoclastic, adroit, feisty, insightful ahead of her years, and ready for the unforeseen. You might have met her in a coffee house near some college campus, or out rousing the rabble, planning a demonstration, or a more ambitious revolution, an en garde to the forces maintaining the status quo. Youthfulness and rebellion go together, of course, not yet lulled into sleep and obedience by consensus, peer pressure, or eco- nomic insecurity. As Jefferson noted, one generation has no right to bind [or bankrupt] the next. She is simply editing the past for a new generation. She stands behind the cutting edge, and, word to the wise, she’s a little young for diplomacy. She will speak truth to power. As for causes, whaddaya got? I once saw a very young lady of about eight preparing for a day of hard play, and I overheard her saying to her father, “I don’t want to wear my princess dress today, Daddy. I want to wear something I can get blood on.” I’m certain that this was the Princess of Swords. Perhaps it’s the fixed idea that rouses her ire the most, the general rule that won’t admit the exception, the letter of the law that won’t admit the spirit, the law that won’t look at true justice or the reasons for its own enactment, the old that won’t look at the new, the stagnant that won’t let in the fresh, the liberal idea that’s become an institu- tion. She will play rough with entrenched beliefs. ‘Fixed’ is an odd word. When you fix something it’s supposed to get better, but it’s just not so with ideas. The Yijing’s counterpart is Gua 18, Detoxifying, or Work on What has been Spoiled. It is built on the images of wind, stopped and stagnating, at the base of the mountains, as with a smoke-filled temperature inversion, and that of a poison or bad medicine that was made by trapping venomous and poisonous creatures together in a bowl and letting them fight it out. Many cultural things fit these images of stagnation, pathology, atrophy, festering, and necrosis: bad or unjust law, senseless behavioral norms, entrenched political corruption, organized crime, dogma, ethical decadence, fixations, and obses- sions. Circulation, jolts, exposure, whistle blowing, exposés, outspokenness and openness are the cures for these toxic conditions, or stirring things up. Sometimes even a little rage or outrage is in order. Simple resentment will get nothing done. Neither will resignation or just letting it be. The Princess will not deny herself the courage to change the things she can. As a Princess, her foundational task is to get her ideas set up on the right foundation, and then the ideas in her closest surroundings, the cultural context she needs to mature within. This will help her develop an honest identity. This is her domain and her right, and she need not be shy about it. She has rights to all premises and postulates, her data’s base, to know how things work and why, and why things resist correction. The best time to question is youth, so there is not as much to unlearn later on. She has a right to right wrongs, even the ones entrenched in tradition and legacy. It would not be surprising if she did some damage when thumping the family idols to see whether they rang hollow or true. She might destabilize things just to see what happens. Negation is going to be needed, and criticism too. These are things that the swords are good for: getting to the point, cutting through rubbish and lies, interrogating with pointed questions, and getting confessions from liars. The meaning of cynicism has rotted much over the years. In the old days it meant taking a stand against arrogance, insisting on excellence, and practicing parrhesia, outspokenness and candor. This might be a little bit tactless and blunt, but it isn’t what the word cynic became. We find the limits of things, where they fail tests of their truth. We want to find fault and weakness. These are not found by making no noise, and they are not found by conformists or polite, smarmy flatterers. This is a force of correction. Negation will takes us part of the way. When the worst of the lies and delusions are out of the picture, authentic investigation can begin and we start to get constructive, and offer unasked-for second opinions. The Princess will speak her mind, hard questions first, and then her opinions. She is no friend to the information being examined, although perhaps she hopes truth will forgive her some day. She needs to recognize problems invisible to others, due to their familiarity. The platitude might get cut down or cut off in mid-air. But all of the slicing and dicing has construction for its aim, ideas demonstrated and proven, and set on solid ground, a place to take a stand.