Right here you can read what is, in my opinion, quite possibly the wisest and most prudent* overall assessment of our coronaviral predicament and prospects I've run across so far. Far better than anything I could have managed, in any case. And I'm a pretty regular fellow-traveler of both Rod Dreher and his various sources/correspondents, on just about any topic they choose to wrestle with. In brief, I've read rather on a lot on this subject from both him and his readers, including those rare moments when they've seemed to be either over- or under-reacting to it (though, for the record, let me be the last to accuse Mr Dreher of under-reacting to anything, much less COVID-19). So this one article especially seems to me, more than anything else I've yet read, to get the whole issue about just right.
* Prudent - now there's a word that seems quaint enough in this boldly-confident (1995-?) Age.
But what I like in particular about this quite recent post is the way it seems to address both certain natural - including the merely human - and supernatural ramifications of the current crisis. The former are tackled in Mr Dreher's usual rather dead-on, direct fashion, the latter somewhat more obliquely. In fact, I find their treatment - both his and his readers' - of the epidemic's supernatural "side" a mite too oblique and indirect for my tastes. I was especially disappointed (and here I'm open to correction, since I may well have read it too quickly) at what I found to be their general avoidance of a certain very familiar p-word.
The way I figure it is this: God created all beings. And therefore He quite simply knows all these things, and everything about them - backwards and forwards, inside and out - as no one and nothing else can.* Think what a comfort it is, then, that the only Way we humans can be ushered into the Real Presence of any creature, including ourselves - and thereby safeguarded against our own mere ideas, abstractions and reductions, pigeonholes and stereotypes of these creatures - is:
1) through prayer;
2) through that apart from which any prayer is dead or delusional, the grace and love of God.
Think, too, what a blessing it is that the latter should include both His love of us, and our love of Him, and each other. So that even we presumptuous humans can literally, prayerfully love our way into, not a perfect or comprehensive knowledge - but surely the "one thing necessary" to such knowledge? - of any creature, any situation, any problem.
* Think of it! Nothing else: not even the prodigious talents of Man Almighty, as expounded by our - at least until quite recently? - all-sufficient Global Business, in concert with that Master-Civilization of them all which has its center in, and emanates from, Beijing (and of which Washington has been at best a partly-owned subsidiary).
And so naturally, even in non-routine, highly unexpected times like these, we mere humans rightly continue to do our best to seek out the appropriate precautions, and to respect and defer to the appropriate expertise. And (one can only hope) in ways that are free as possible from political bitterness and ideological preconception. But even here, what a comfort and a joy it is to know that the Ultimate Precaution is prayer, and that the One to whom our prayer is directed is also the Ultimate Expert.
(Edited.)
15 March 2020
01 March 2020
He's a New World Man (right?)
I am a notorious snail, if not sloth, at processing news. But especially the kind of news that's sure to attract a flurry of publicity and controversy. So naturally, here it is, almost a month since the latest US Presidential State of the Union address, and I have no clearer notion of what it signals or portends - whether of the recent past or the near future - than I did when I first heard it. I just wish I could be reasonably sure, one way or the other, that we as a country have been turning a real corner - and a good one (as distinct, of course, from one that takes us straight into the waiting arms of a potentially epic-scale[?] global health crisis).
I repeat: a good corner - one such as finds America at last starting down a fresh, what I'd like to call emphatically post-Clinton-Bush-Obama path of national (in)security. As opposed to continuing down the same, 25-years-familiar road of Permanent War as both Way of Profit and Way of Peace. Only now with the wretched difference of the same Exceptionalist message being delivered in a more crass, bombastic and "populistic" style of presentation.
In fact, about the only thing I'm fairly convinced of is the nature of the street we've been on so far, for the better part of at least the 21st century. For some time now it has seemed to me that the world as a whole has been shaping up into a most interesting and exciting place. The kind of place not altogether unlike certain rougher, more lawless times and spaces of the Old American West: a sort of world in which those with the most drive, cold rationality and initiative - along with, some might argue, the least sensitive consciences and faculties of remorse - are more or less free to dispose of the rest of us as they choose. In brief, it has seemed to be becoming a kind of globe consisting of more and more lawless places, regions, countries, etc, in which men and women with, yes, sufficient wealth and connections - but also more than enough grit and gumption - were now free as never before to become as big as they liked. With ultimately the only thing constraining them (within their particular compass of influence anyway) being some other men and women getting bigger and likely meaner still, and then taking their place. And of course there would always remain the time-honored option of the two or more of them combining, splitting the difference, etc.
There were also two notable ways, as I saw it, in which this expanding New World seemed to differ from that of the Old West:
(1) There were, or would soon be, fewer and fewer places of stable settlement, law-abidingness, peace and comparative democracy surrounding these, as it were, emerging Global Frontiers, such as might otherwise be able to contain, much less engulf, these various titans, Goliaths, emerging Leviathans, etc. (Indeed, at times it has seemed to me more like one big continuous Modern Global Frontier, which unlike the old ones, does far more encroaching than it is encroached upon, and whose one officially titled and recognized Federal Marshal - the US Blob - seems at least as much on the side of the outlaws as of the homesteaders.)
(2) These same titans, much like the Robber Barons of the late 19th century, were fully capable of being not just fronted by, but actually becoming corporations: collective Goliaths, as it were, seemingly now faceless, yet in a strange way still able to embody and perpetuate the spirit of the founding giant.
And naturally the bigger and more conglomerate the giants got, the less they would be satisfied with anything short of the entire globe as their Old West-style play- and stomping-grounds. And after that - why, what would there be left for anyone else to do? Except to watch as the Big Fish turned this great big globe - at least so far as its smaller fish were concerned - into the littlest, most cramped, most unbreatheable pond you ever saw. Much less tried to swim and feed in.
But again, that may be just one more phase of history turning its corner and rounding off to a close. I just wish I could be sure of it. More specifically, I wish I might be reasonably persuaded that the seeming wild cards, the mavericks of this past decade - Trumps, Putins, Orbans, Salvinis, etc - really were a different kettle of fish: that they really are - eventually? - going to provide some semblance of multipolar balance, stability and sanity to this otherwise increasingly volatile, friendly-only-to-the-biggest-and-wealthiest Global Wild West. As opposed to their being, you know, more of the same old Big Fish, just of a slightly different color.
I repeat: a good corner - one such as finds America at last starting down a fresh, what I'd like to call emphatically post-Clinton-Bush-Obama path of national (in)security. As opposed to continuing down the same, 25-years-familiar road of Permanent War as both Way of Profit and Way of Peace. Only now with the wretched difference of the same Exceptionalist message being delivered in a more crass, bombastic and "populistic" style of presentation.
In fact, about the only thing I'm fairly convinced of is the nature of the street we've been on so far, for the better part of at least the 21st century. For some time now it has seemed to me that the world as a whole has been shaping up into a most interesting and exciting place. The kind of place not altogether unlike certain rougher, more lawless times and spaces of the Old American West: a sort of world in which those with the most drive, cold rationality and initiative - along with, some might argue, the least sensitive consciences and faculties of remorse - are more or less free to dispose of the rest of us as they choose. In brief, it has seemed to be becoming a kind of globe consisting of more and more lawless places, regions, countries, etc, in which men and women with, yes, sufficient wealth and connections - but also more than enough grit and gumption - were now free as never before to become as big as they liked. With ultimately the only thing constraining them (within their particular compass of influence anyway) being some other men and women getting bigger and likely meaner still, and then taking their place. And of course there would always remain the time-honored option of the two or more of them combining, splitting the difference, etc.
There were also two notable ways, as I saw it, in which this expanding New World seemed to differ from that of the Old West:
(1) There were, or would soon be, fewer and fewer places of stable settlement, law-abidingness, peace and comparative democracy surrounding these, as it were, emerging Global Frontiers, such as might otherwise be able to contain, much less engulf, these various titans, Goliaths, emerging Leviathans, etc. (Indeed, at times it has seemed to me more like one big continuous Modern Global Frontier, which unlike the old ones, does far more encroaching than it is encroached upon, and whose one officially titled and recognized Federal Marshal - the US Blob - seems at least as much on the side of the outlaws as of the homesteaders.)
(2) These same titans, much like the Robber Barons of the late 19th century, were fully capable of being not just fronted by, but actually becoming corporations: collective Goliaths, as it were, seemingly now faceless, yet in a strange way still able to embody and perpetuate the spirit of the founding giant.
And naturally the bigger and more conglomerate the giants got, the less they would be satisfied with anything short of the entire globe as their Old West-style play- and stomping-grounds. And after that - why, what would there be left for anyone else to do? Except to watch as the Big Fish turned this great big globe - at least so far as its smaller fish were concerned - into the littlest, most cramped, most unbreatheable pond you ever saw. Much less tried to swim and feed in.
But again, that may be just one more phase of history turning its corner and rounding off to a close. I just wish I could be sure of it. More specifically, I wish I might be reasonably persuaded that the seeming wild cards, the mavericks of this past decade - Trumps, Putins, Orbans, Salvinis, etc - really were a different kettle of fish: that they really are - eventually? - going to provide some semblance of multipolar balance, stability and sanity to this otherwise increasingly volatile, friendly-only-to-the-biggest-and-wealthiest Global Wild West. As opposed to their being, you know, more of the same old Big Fish, just of a slightly different color.
27 February 2020
A Highly Stoic Unpreparedness
This essay was begun, and far the better part of it completed, on January 4 of this year - with most of the rest, l believe, being finished by no later than the 14th of that month. A lot has happened in the world since then, obviously: some of it giving rise to speculation as to whether, at last, Heaven's mandate is being withdrawn from a certain East Asian regime - not to mention those of its enablers, cronies, erstwhile "partners," etc. But whether or not this (even more than usually) bizarre little post has any real relevance, however indirect, to currently accelerating events coming out of mainland China, l thought it best to leave it substantially as l first put it to paper, with only more or less minimal and technical kinds of editing. Rather than try and shoehorn it into some kind of strained, hindsighted relevance visible only to the one who wrote it. And even he likely needs to have his eyes rechecked.
At times I think I must be someone who's easily disturbed and overwhelmed. Because I can't get over the sheer number of people I meet nowadays (even comfortable retirees!) - as well as read, and read about - who make it a sort of policy to be what I call jadedly stoic. Who give every convincing appearance of being - well, surprised by nothing; paused by nothing; impressed and awed by nothing; moved and touched - and even disturbed - by NOTHING. Other than perhaps themselves and each other. And even that very tentatively. After all, being truly awesome is a result one not only has to earn without ceasing, and often by the most irksome toil, but endlessly polish and brush up on. Like any resume. Again, even if you're retired. Awesome is almost never anything that happens to you: it is rather what YOU - by your indomitable will, drive and corporatized initiative - MAKE to happen. (Just ask Comcast, etc.) And still more so a century from now. Remember, we're only just getting started.
For me, it's as if these good people - including a neighbor couple I just visited - have taken the fullest possible measure of all those things our Great World most demands and respects. And that, in a very comprehensive nutshell, is just about all one needs to know about Life. In particular, they seem to make it a point to understand what does awe and impress the predominant world of today - be it that world as orchestrated from Washington, Brussels, Berlin or Beijing. What moves our hypermodern, globally-connected human world is power and confidence, swagger and self-assurance. Along with, of course, the ability to get quick, decisive, and even violent results by the use of these traits. Whatever else there is, that doesn't possess these qualities, or doesn't admire them, or isn't all that amenable to or manipulable by them, simply doesn't matter. Not really. All that matters is a (humanly-constructed) universe in which stoic unfazeability, coupled with a smooth, measured arrogance and a well-grounded, well-recognized sense of accomplishment, is what opens every door, and removes every obstacle.
Now I can appreciate what makes all sorts of decent people, of every age, taste and walk of life, feel maybe now more than ever pressured to get with the Program. One can scarce fault even more traditionally religious Americans of this century for being persuaded of a thought an earlier generation would have deemed mildly blasphemous: i.e., that there's NO CHALLENGE - not from god or man, demon or Donald Trump - that our godlike, politically-connected* Global Business isn't, in the final count, more than equal to. And not just able to conquer, but to reduce utterly to its own wise, rational and profitable ends.
* To say nothing of politically correct.
And yet I can't help thinking of certain doors that haven't been opened by these Modern Virtues. Or hurdles that haven't yet been cleared. Or even of certain other doors, that we may never want to see opened at all? And yet may still, in some strange fashion, find we have to pass through.
I'd like you to permit me what may be, to some tastes, a rather extravagant example. Consider for a moment today's various worlds of story and entertainment. Imagine if devils and horrors, nightmares, zombies and apocalypses - and all the other fun things that routinely populate our TV, movies, games and other media - imagine if these creatures were all of a sudden to become really, stubbornly, uncomfortably real. How prepared do you suppose our Great World's most commended people, its most applauded talents would be, in the event that their precious, ever-so-tightly interlocked global routines were ever to start getting seriously disrupted? And not by mere rumors of trade war, or rumblings of populist anger and discontent, but by nothing certifiably human?
But to return to earth, I can't help remembering what else continues to be missed by these great Door-Openers (end of Par. 2), that is nonetheless real, and that really impinges on all of us, regardless of our degree of power, talent, confidence or prestige. I'm especially reminded - and not least by the escalating tensions and volatilities of today's geopolitical scene - of what our highly credentialed smugness, arrogance and indifference have blinded us to. Not the ever-loved plasticity and predictability of the world, of course, but its pain and beauty; its mystery and strangeness (or even weirdness); its madness and fanaticism. Or even its sheer unpredictableness. In short, all those things that seemingly no surplus of technology or rationality, no amount of contempt or arrogance or indifference can quite get us a good handle on these days. And which we may have even less firmly in our grip than we did at the start of this grand century. And which therefore we feel we have no choice but to ignore - as, say, a place on a map, and where it really is, because our GPS will find it. Or else to mow down, and drive and pave over. Or even (try to) bludgeon, or burn, or drone to death. Mysteries like Syria and Persia, and Yemen. Or what used to be called - in a less madly Sinocentric age - Sinkiang. Or even (no doubt a duly chastened and cleansed) Russia. Because any other response would be grossly unstoic, unjaded, undignified. Any other response would be to give these other, rather more mysterious, less manipulable factors - and even places and peoples - a dignity they don't deserve. One can never be too confidently rational in subduing the irrational.
But of course - you know me - I still have my inevitable question. Again, one can never be too confidently rational in subduing the irrational. But what happens, I wonder, when all our vaunted Sino-Western rationality, confidence, technophilia over-reach themselves? You know how that can happen, right? - in the course of our mostly noble efforts to subdue and constrain the world's madmen and fanatics - its Putins, Assads, Khameneis, miscellaneous Uighurs, Tibetans, Houthis, etc. So what happens when our Sino-Western modernity itself ceases to be rational? When it seems to lose all sense of measure, restraint, proportion? And what happens when our, if I may so, proudly secular modernity takes on a momentum, madness and fanaticism - indeed, a religiosity all its own?
At times I think I must be someone who's easily disturbed and overwhelmed. Because I can't get over the sheer number of people I meet nowadays (even comfortable retirees!) - as well as read, and read about - who make it a sort of policy to be what I call jadedly stoic. Who give every convincing appearance of being - well, surprised by nothing; paused by nothing; impressed and awed by nothing; moved and touched - and even disturbed - by NOTHING. Other than perhaps themselves and each other. And even that very tentatively. After all, being truly awesome is a result one not only has to earn without ceasing, and often by the most irksome toil, but endlessly polish and brush up on. Like any resume. Again, even if you're retired. Awesome is almost never anything that happens to you: it is rather what YOU - by your indomitable will, drive and corporatized initiative - MAKE to happen. (Just ask Comcast, etc.) And still more so a century from now. Remember, we're only just getting started.
For me, it's as if these good people - including a neighbor couple I just visited - have taken the fullest possible measure of all those things our Great World most demands and respects. And that, in a very comprehensive nutshell, is just about all one needs to know about Life. In particular, they seem to make it a point to understand what does awe and impress the predominant world of today - be it that world as orchestrated from Washington, Brussels, Berlin or Beijing. What moves our hypermodern, globally-connected human world is power and confidence, swagger and self-assurance. Along with, of course, the ability to get quick, decisive, and even violent results by the use of these traits. Whatever else there is, that doesn't possess these qualities, or doesn't admire them, or isn't all that amenable to or manipulable by them, simply doesn't matter. Not really. All that matters is a (humanly-constructed) universe in which stoic unfazeability, coupled with a smooth, measured arrogance and a well-grounded, well-recognized sense of accomplishment, is what opens every door, and removes every obstacle.
Now I can appreciate what makes all sorts of decent people, of every age, taste and walk of life, feel maybe now more than ever pressured to get with the Program. One can scarce fault even more traditionally religious Americans of this century for being persuaded of a thought an earlier generation would have deemed mildly blasphemous: i.e., that there's NO CHALLENGE - not from god or man, demon or Donald Trump - that our godlike, politically-connected* Global Business isn't, in the final count, more than equal to. And not just able to conquer, but to reduce utterly to its own wise, rational and profitable ends.
* To say nothing of politically correct.
And yet I can't help thinking of certain doors that haven't been opened by these Modern Virtues. Or hurdles that haven't yet been cleared. Or even of certain other doors, that we may never want to see opened at all? And yet may still, in some strange fashion, find we have to pass through.
I'd like you to permit me what may be, to some tastes, a rather extravagant example. Consider for a moment today's various worlds of story and entertainment. Imagine if devils and horrors, nightmares, zombies and apocalypses - and all the other fun things that routinely populate our TV, movies, games and other media - imagine if these creatures were all of a sudden to become really, stubbornly, uncomfortably real. How prepared do you suppose our Great World's most commended people, its most applauded talents would be, in the event that their precious, ever-so-tightly interlocked global routines were ever to start getting seriously disrupted? And not by mere rumors of trade war, or rumblings of populist anger and discontent, but by nothing certifiably human?
But to return to earth, I can't help remembering what else continues to be missed by these great Door-Openers (end of Par. 2), that is nonetheless real, and that really impinges on all of us, regardless of our degree of power, talent, confidence or prestige. I'm especially reminded - and not least by the escalating tensions and volatilities of today's geopolitical scene - of what our highly credentialed smugness, arrogance and indifference have blinded us to. Not the ever-loved plasticity and predictability of the world, of course, but its pain and beauty; its mystery and strangeness (or even weirdness); its madness and fanaticism. Or even its sheer unpredictableness. In short, all those things that seemingly no surplus of technology or rationality, no amount of contempt or arrogance or indifference can quite get us a good handle on these days. And which we may have even less firmly in our grip than we did at the start of this grand century. And which therefore we feel we have no choice but to ignore - as, say, a place on a map, and where it really is, because our GPS will find it. Or else to mow down, and drive and pave over. Or even (try to) bludgeon, or burn, or drone to death. Mysteries like Syria and Persia, and Yemen. Or what used to be called - in a less madly Sinocentric age - Sinkiang. Or even (no doubt a duly chastened and cleansed) Russia. Because any other response would be grossly unstoic, unjaded, undignified. Any other response would be to give these other, rather more mysterious, less manipulable factors - and even places and peoples - a dignity they don't deserve. One can never be too confidently rational in subduing the irrational.
But of course - you know me - I still have my inevitable question. Again, one can never be too confidently rational in subduing the irrational. But what happens, I wonder, when all our vaunted Sino-Western rationality, confidence, technophilia over-reach themselves? You know how that can happen, right? - in the course of our mostly noble efforts to subdue and constrain the world's madmen and fanatics - its Putins, Assads, Khameneis, miscellaneous Uighurs, Tibetans, Houthis, etc. So what happens when our Sino-Western modernity itself ceases to be rational? When it seems to lose all sense of measure, restraint, proportion? And what happens when our, if I may so, proudly secular modernity takes on a momentum, madness and fanaticism - indeed, a religiosity all its own?
31 July 2019
When More than a Chessboard Is at Stake
Again I say (not to sound oracular or pontifical, much less Dominical) - but again I say, Pray - and fast when you can - for the peace and free passage, the safety and sanity of the Persian Gulf.
And of course there's a specific reason - quite apart from the obvious - why I want to keep urging that message, through quiet times and loud. It is that frankly I don't trust any of our present global so-called leaders to be - well, sufficiently human in matters like these. To be sufficiently mindful of the people on the ground, anywhere. As distinct from people in high-rises the world over. Or in boardrooms, or control installations, or who likely have bunkers in reserve somewhere, whether owned or borrowed. In fact, I'm having trouble recalling any period in, e.g., the past 200 years, when the lives of so many world-scale leaders were more removed from, less directly invested in, or more thoroughly insulated against, say, the rougher parts of the lives of the people they govern, manage or employ. And if that peculiar deficit (but especially in this war-simulation-as-total-entertainment Age?) isn't likely to make otherwise rational yet powerful leaders think "All or nothing" or "Now or never" - at least with other people's lives - I don't know what is.
Because NO world leader should be that secure in his own mind. No one should be so big and rich and powerful and global, so placeless and countryless himself, that he's prepared to risk, much less write off, the peace and stability of what is still - for most of us ordinary peons anyway - a globally critical part of the world. I don't care how smart and indispensable, how accomplished and multi-productive and superior our Superhero is. No one of his stature and influence should be able to look in good conscience at any part of the globe, much less the earth as a whole, as chiefly the backdrop for some glorified, epic-scale, highest-of-stakes videogame. Or even a chessboard (however grand).
One more thing. It's possible that we already have more leaders like that than we can handle - leaders who think that way, here in the West and Russia and China and India. In that case, I was wondering if anyone might care to explain to me: Just how is that not the most serious and far-reaching judgment on us? And every adult one of us?
(Edited.)
And of course there's a specific reason - quite apart from the obvious - why I want to keep urging that message, through quiet times and loud. It is that frankly I don't trust any of our present global so-called leaders to be - well, sufficiently human in matters like these. To be sufficiently mindful of the people on the ground, anywhere. As distinct from people in high-rises the world over. Or in boardrooms, or control installations, or who likely have bunkers in reserve somewhere, whether owned or borrowed. In fact, I'm having trouble recalling any period in, e.g., the past 200 years, when the lives of so many world-scale leaders were more removed from, less directly invested in, or more thoroughly insulated against, say, the rougher parts of the lives of the people they govern, manage or employ. And if that peculiar deficit (but especially in this war-simulation-as-total-entertainment Age?) isn't likely to make otherwise rational yet powerful leaders think "All or nothing" or "Now or never" - at least with other people's lives - I don't know what is.
Because NO world leader should be that secure in his own mind. No one should be so big and rich and powerful and global, so placeless and countryless himself, that he's prepared to risk, much less write off, the peace and stability of what is still - for most of us ordinary peons anyway - a globally critical part of the world. I don't care how smart and indispensable, how accomplished and multi-productive and superior our Superhero is. No one of his stature and influence should be able to look in good conscience at any part of the globe, much less the earth as a whole, as chiefly the backdrop for some glorified, epic-scale, highest-of-stakes videogame. Or even a chessboard (however grand).
One more thing. It's possible that we already have more leaders like that than we can handle - leaders who think that way, here in the West and Russia and China and India. In that case, I was wondering if anyone might care to explain to me: Just how is that not the most serious and far-reaching judgment on us? And every adult one of us?
(Edited.)
26 July 2019
A Weakness Stronger than Man
I
I notice we live in an age of many terrors.* Some might even argue, more than our fair share of hectic anxieties, fierce preoccupations, driven - and driving - obsessions. In other words, not just the sort of fear we tend to associate with some of our more cliche'd horror movies - the fear that panics or paralyses us, or keeps us from acting wisely. Or ensures that we always do the stupid(er) thing. But also the kinds of fear that goad us on, into further and more positive action. And perhaps even supply us with more solid incentives (that magical economist's word!) to do better, and be better. Leave it to our Great Global World to find both a productive and an edifying use for everything. And terror not least of all.
* And some of the strangest kinds too. One I find especially alarming - and that seems all the rage today in places like America, China and Arabia (and as I've been lately repeating ad nauseam in various quarters) - is the terror of not being terrifying enough. Almost as if any strength we have is wasted in being even slightly muted or held back, modulated or restrained; that all strength is only used adequately in being exercised to the nth degree. Which I suppose might be true enough when there's just one Giant in the room, with everyone else being pygmies, and he alone having that particular anxiety. But when you've got three or four Giants in the same "shrinking" room, and all of them like-minded . . .
So again please note, when I speak here of terrors, I mean not just those we Global Moderns may be happy to inflict on other people, other religions, other countries. In other words, I don't mean only those terrors that some of us may use to intimidate people whom we deem, say, not holy enough ("we" in this case being, for example, any portion of Sunni Islam engaged in or highly supportive of jihadism). Or not efficient enough ("we" here meaning any really big employer, whether private or public). Or not progressive enough ("we" = virtually the whole of our current Western corporate-political establishment). I mean also the terrors we suffer - or even inflict on - ourselves. Yes, even we fearless Americans. Like the sheer terror, the horror of our being, you know, NOT Number One.
Indeed, I'm by no means convinced that these various fears don't in fact all come down to one and the same terror. That is, I'm not at all sure that the same nightmares with which we moderns systematically torment those who fail to meet our particular standards aren't also the same basic horrors haunting us. Somewhere, I suspect, there's a geostrategic-mastermind jihadist lying awake most nights in abject fear that his man-eating god is every bit as rabidly, bloodily angry with him as he himself is with his favorite collection of infidels and MINOs (Muslims In Name Only). Which is to say, if your chosen god basically is according to as he does - and what he does best is to consume without remorse every creature who fails to meet his most exacting standards of worship and fidelity - well, what else is there left for you his disciple, but to go and do likewise?
Not sure what I mean? Well then, let's try approaching it from another angle, one hopefully closer to home. Let's suppose that my particular favorite god is Efficiency. And that my aim is to terrorize my otherwise worthless employees into ever-greater amounts of it. So what does that leave for me to do - other than become that much more terrifically (if not horrifically) efficient myself? Goose and gander, you know.
Not that I make any serious claim to grasp what's "really" underlying all this, whether here in the US or in China, in Europe or the Middle East. But from where I stand, the general assumption seems to run as follows:
If there is anywhere in the universe an Ultimate Strength - something one might want to call, say, Allah, or Evolution, or Productivity, or Progress - the only hope we have of making ourselves able to endure Its challenge, censure, wrath, judgment, etc, is to make ourselves consistently stronger . . . and stronger . . . perhaps even brutally so . . .
Sort of a "Be ye powerful, even as I Am Power."
The one common denominator I find in all this is a fear of weakness or unpreparedness of any kind, whether physical or technological, moral or spiritual. A dread that somewhere in the universe there's a challenge we humans aren't equal to; or an adversary to which we can't become morally (no less than militarily) superior; or an environment or other set of conditions which we're unable to stand up to, survive, overcome, dominate, and so reduce utterly to our own purposes and uses. Almost as if our whole career as a species, our entire sojourn in this universe were sure to be proved a lie and a fraud, except as we humans become the supreme, autocratic power in every corner of it. Again, even as our god is Power.
But now imagine my grossly amateur diagnosis to be more or less accurate. Suppose that our one supreme terror is in fact the fear of our own fragility. Then our most natural response, it seems to me, would be to want to terrorize - yes, you got that right - terrorize every ounce and hint of weakness out of everybody. Including both ourselves and each other. In short, our response would be pretty much exactly what I believe we've been doing with a particular vengeance these past thirty years or so. And all in a massive effort to be equal to, ready for, worthy of, etc, the challenge or the "coming" of Ultimate Strength - whether our readiness take the form of being morally pure, evolutionally perfect, technologically all-powerful, or politically "all-enlightened" or "correct."
And yet notice how often, time and time again, history proves itself to be nothing if not ironic. And even bubble-bursting. So wouldn't it be something if it should happen that all this time (c. 1995 - ?) we've been rehearsing for the wrong show? What if it turns out that we cutting-edge moderns - Superwahhabis, Superchinese, Superamericans, Superisraelis and all the rest - have all along been preparing for the wrong god, the wrong strength, the wrong crucible, the wrong judgment?
II
But now let's pause for a moment. And pardon me if, once again, I seem unduly hard on our nothing-if-not-wildly-ambitious Post-Cold War Era. Certainly we humans in any age have seldom been less than ambitious, restless, even champing at the bit. At the same time, it's no less true that we have always been far more fragile - at least when measured against what might be called the great sweep of universal time and space - than most of us would surely ever want to imagine, or concede. For my part, I can't think of any period of Western civilization - not even the Middle Ages! - when it was exactly the fashion to stress the marginality, weakness or insignificance of Man vis a vis the cosmos as a whole. And yet, all the same, doesn't it seem that certain Acts of Concession - to our essential cosmic frailty, I mean - have been much harder to manage in some ages than in others? But especially in times like these past three decades, when we superhumans have been blithely contemplating "coming into our own" - coming into a dignity at last commensurate with our true importance - and so finally beginning to exercise our full and rightful lordship over the whole creation. In any case, let me be last to suggest there won't come a time when Man has succeeded in colonizing - and so by implication conquering - just about about every corner of the galaxy, if not the universe.
And yet I wonder: As strong as we succeed in making ourselves, both individually and as a species, so as to endure and prosper in the most extreme outer-space conditions and environments, can any of us ever make ourselves strong enough within time - within history - to endure the fullness-of-presence of a God coming to us from out of eternity? Of course, here I mean not just any old god of our brilliant devising, but One who reveals Himself most intimately in our Scriptures, both Hebrew and Greek. Consider it carefully. Suppose He were to make Himself so palpably real as to silence the grumbling of all but the stupidest (or most suicidal?) of our atheists. And not just palpably, but brutally evident, to all of us, all the time. In much the same way that we humans are screamingly evident and crushingly real to so much of the sentient lower creation. Pity, in any urban area, the poor bird or rodent who happens to be an atheist or agnostic: who disbelieves in, or even dares to doubt, the existence of the Great God Man. Even at their most cautious, one false move, one chance miscalculation and these creatures are easily enough crushed under the weight of our glory. So what of it? Are we supposed to imagine any of us would fare any better - however "spiritually" - under the full weight of Glory Himself?
And so, when it comes to how ready even we Rapturously expectant Christians can be for the fullness of a conquering God, I'm moved to say,
First things first, and Last Things Last.
Better, I say, first to steep ourselves in that peculiar, lowly Divine presence with which we're already most familiar, and whose familiarity is often most apt to incite our contempt, if not outright disbelief. Better to be imbued with that, if you will, gentler glory of God that imbeds itself - even now - with and in and through time, before we go and try to brave that other kind: the all-conquering glory of God as it breaks in upon us at the end of time, and from outside of time. Better to submit to, better to imbibe and fully absorb first the weakness of God, as it continues to weave and entwine itself like tendrils into the stones and friezes, sculptures and cornices of our human history, than to presume that - even because we've worked so hard, and disciplined ourselves so thoroughly! - we're now ready to endure, much less welcome and embrace, that fiery strength of God which can only consume the entire structure, which can only be the end of all human history as we've known it. Better, in short - and for now - to be weak as only He is weak, that we may in due season be made strong as He alone (and not we ourselves) can strengthen us. Better for now, surely? - a patiently "weak" God, than a prematurely, impatiently strong Man.
Lastly, do you think maybe it's high time we put our fears "back where they belong," and where they can be put to most fruitful and productive use? I.e., not to make us terrified of our own fragility - such that we succeed only in becoming Holy Terrors, both to ourselves and to each other - even as we await the appearance of one more final god of terror to end 'em all. What I mean rather is to prepare, this time in earnest, for the real coming of the real Christ. To make ourselves reverent in the old-fashioned way, minus the military swagger and bombast: to be still, and knowing, and in awe. And most particularly to be in awe of what is in fact most worthy of our fear - namely, the holiness, judgment and mercy of a God who finds in our human weakness nothing to be ashamed or afraid of, precisely because He has already, and in His own human flesh, endured and redeemed it to the utmost?
I notice we live in an age of many terrors.* Some might even argue, more than our fair share of hectic anxieties, fierce preoccupations, driven - and driving - obsessions. In other words, not just the sort of fear we tend to associate with some of our more cliche'd horror movies - the fear that panics or paralyses us, or keeps us from acting wisely. Or ensures that we always do the stupid(er) thing. But also the kinds of fear that goad us on, into further and more positive action. And perhaps even supply us with more solid incentives (that magical economist's word!) to do better, and be better. Leave it to our Great Global World to find both a productive and an edifying use for everything. And terror not least of all.
* And some of the strangest kinds too. One I find especially alarming - and that seems all the rage today in places like America, China and Arabia (and as I've been lately repeating ad nauseam in various quarters) - is the terror of not being terrifying enough. Almost as if any strength we have is wasted in being even slightly muted or held back, modulated or restrained; that all strength is only used adequately in being exercised to the nth degree. Which I suppose might be true enough when there's just one Giant in the room, with everyone else being pygmies, and he alone having that particular anxiety. But when you've got three or four Giants in the same "shrinking" room, and all of them like-minded . . .
So again please note, when I speak here of terrors, I mean not just those we Global Moderns may be happy to inflict on other people, other religions, other countries. In other words, I don't mean only those terrors that some of us may use to intimidate people whom we deem, say, not holy enough ("we" in this case being, for example, any portion of Sunni Islam engaged in or highly supportive of jihadism). Or not efficient enough ("we" here meaning any really big employer, whether private or public). Or not progressive enough ("we" = virtually the whole of our current Western corporate-political establishment). I mean also the terrors we suffer - or even inflict on - ourselves. Yes, even we fearless Americans. Like the sheer terror, the horror of our being, you know, NOT Number One.
Indeed, I'm by no means convinced that these various fears don't in fact all come down to one and the same terror. That is, I'm not at all sure that the same nightmares with which we moderns systematically torment those who fail to meet our particular standards aren't also the same basic horrors haunting us. Somewhere, I suspect, there's a geostrategic-mastermind jihadist lying awake most nights in abject fear that his man-eating god is every bit as rabidly, bloodily angry with him as he himself is with his favorite collection of infidels and MINOs (Muslims In Name Only). Which is to say, if your chosen god basically is according to as he does - and what he does best is to consume without remorse every creature who fails to meet his most exacting standards of worship and fidelity - well, what else is there left for you his disciple, but to go and do likewise?
Not sure what I mean? Well then, let's try approaching it from another angle, one hopefully closer to home. Let's suppose that my particular favorite god is Efficiency. And that my aim is to terrorize my otherwise worthless employees into ever-greater amounts of it. So what does that leave for me to do - other than become that much more terrifically (if not horrifically) efficient myself? Goose and gander, you know.
Not that I make any serious claim to grasp what's "really" underlying all this, whether here in the US or in China, in Europe or the Middle East. But from where I stand, the general assumption seems to run as follows:
If there is anywhere in the universe an Ultimate Strength - something one might want to call, say, Allah, or Evolution, or Productivity, or Progress - the only hope we have of making ourselves able to endure Its challenge, censure, wrath, judgment, etc, is to make ourselves consistently stronger . . . and stronger . . . perhaps even brutally so . . .
Sort of a "Be ye powerful, even as I Am Power."
The one common denominator I find in all this is a fear of weakness or unpreparedness of any kind, whether physical or technological, moral or spiritual. A dread that somewhere in the universe there's a challenge we humans aren't equal to; or an adversary to which we can't become morally (no less than militarily) superior; or an environment or other set of conditions which we're unable to stand up to, survive, overcome, dominate, and so reduce utterly to our own purposes and uses. Almost as if our whole career as a species, our entire sojourn in this universe were sure to be proved a lie and a fraud, except as we humans become the supreme, autocratic power in every corner of it. Again, even as our god is Power.
But now imagine my grossly amateur diagnosis to be more or less accurate. Suppose that our one supreme terror is in fact the fear of our own fragility. Then our most natural response, it seems to me, would be to want to terrorize - yes, you got that right - terrorize every ounce and hint of weakness out of everybody. Including both ourselves and each other. In short, our response would be pretty much exactly what I believe we've been doing with a particular vengeance these past thirty years or so. And all in a massive effort to be equal to, ready for, worthy of, etc, the challenge or the "coming" of Ultimate Strength - whether our readiness take the form of being morally pure, evolutionally perfect, technologically all-powerful, or politically "all-enlightened" or "correct."
And yet notice how often, time and time again, history proves itself to be nothing if not ironic. And even bubble-bursting. So wouldn't it be something if it should happen that all this time (c. 1995 - ?) we've been rehearsing for the wrong show? What if it turns out that we cutting-edge moderns - Superwahhabis, Superchinese, Superamericans, Superisraelis and all the rest - have all along been preparing for the wrong god, the wrong strength, the wrong crucible, the wrong judgment?
II
But now let's pause for a moment. And pardon me if, once again, I seem unduly hard on our nothing-if-not-wildly-ambitious Post-Cold War Era. Certainly we humans in any age have seldom been less than ambitious, restless, even champing at the bit. At the same time, it's no less true that we have always been far more fragile - at least when measured against what might be called the great sweep of universal time and space - than most of us would surely ever want to imagine, or concede. For my part, I can't think of any period of Western civilization - not even the Middle Ages! - when it was exactly the fashion to stress the marginality, weakness or insignificance of Man vis a vis the cosmos as a whole. And yet, all the same, doesn't it seem that certain Acts of Concession - to our essential cosmic frailty, I mean - have been much harder to manage in some ages than in others? But especially in times like these past three decades, when we superhumans have been blithely contemplating "coming into our own" - coming into a dignity at last commensurate with our true importance - and so finally beginning to exercise our full and rightful lordship over the whole creation. In any case, let me be last to suggest there won't come a time when Man has succeeded in colonizing - and so by implication conquering - just about about every corner of the galaxy, if not the universe.
And yet I wonder: As strong as we succeed in making ourselves, both individually and as a species, so as to endure and prosper in the most extreme outer-space conditions and environments, can any of us ever make ourselves strong enough within time - within history - to endure the fullness-of-presence of a God coming to us from out of eternity? Of course, here I mean not just any old god of our brilliant devising, but One who reveals Himself most intimately in our Scriptures, both Hebrew and Greek. Consider it carefully. Suppose He were to make Himself so palpably real as to silence the grumbling of all but the stupidest (or most suicidal?) of our atheists. And not just palpably, but brutally evident, to all of us, all the time. In much the same way that we humans are screamingly evident and crushingly real to so much of the sentient lower creation. Pity, in any urban area, the poor bird or rodent who happens to be an atheist or agnostic: who disbelieves in, or even dares to doubt, the existence of the Great God Man. Even at their most cautious, one false move, one chance miscalculation and these creatures are easily enough crushed under the weight of our glory. So what of it? Are we supposed to imagine any of us would fare any better - however "spiritually" - under the full weight of Glory Himself?
And so, when it comes to how ready even we Rapturously expectant Christians can be for the fullness of a conquering God, I'm moved to say,
First things first, and Last Things Last.
Better, I say, first to steep ourselves in that peculiar, lowly Divine presence with which we're already most familiar, and whose familiarity is often most apt to incite our contempt, if not outright disbelief. Better to be imbued with that, if you will, gentler glory of God that imbeds itself - even now - with and in and through time, before we go and try to brave that other kind: the all-conquering glory of God as it breaks in upon us at the end of time, and from outside of time. Better to submit to, better to imbibe and fully absorb first the weakness of God, as it continues to weave and entwine itself like tendrils into the stones and friezes, sculptures and cornices of our human history, than to presume that - even because we've worked so hard, and disciplined ourselves so thoroughly! - we're now ready to endure, much less welcome and embrace, that fiery strength of God which can only consume the entire structure, which can only be the end of all human history as we've known it. Better, in short - and for now - to be weak as only He is weak, that we may in due season be made strong as He alone (and not we ourselves) can strengthen us. Better for now, surely? - a patiently "weak" God, than a prematurely, impatiently strong Man.
Lastly, do you think maybe it's high time we put our fears "back where they belong," and where they can be put to most fruitful and productive use? I.e., not to make us terrified of our own fragility - such that we succeed only in becoming Holy Terrors, both to ourselves and to each other - even as we await the appearance of one more final god of terror to end 'em all. What I mean rather is to prepare, this time in earnest, for the real coming of the real Christ. To make ourselves reverent in the old-fashioned way, minus the military swagger and bombast: to be still, and knowing, and in awe. And most particularly to be in awe of what is in fact most worthy of our fear - namely, the holiness, judgment and mercy of a God who finds in our human weakness nothing to be ashamed or afraid of, precisely because He has already, and in His own human flesh, endured and redeemed it to the utmost?
07 July 2019
A (Yet) Stranger Prayer for Peace
One thing I know for sure:
I haven't got the slightest makings of a martyr, much less a prophet or seer. So I know that I know I'm not the only one, even within my local circle of church friends and associates, who has felt a near-desperate need to pray and fast for the state of our poor Union over this 4th of July weekend.
So what's the problem with us prayer-warriors? Why aren't we all rapidly becoming something more on the order of a gathering and swelling army? What's making it so hard for us to correspond and co-ordinate, at whatever distance we happen to be, in this (last time I looked) still-globalizing world? Certainly nothing these days seems to keep larger and more complicated human entities - particularly the prouder they are of their bigness, and the more jealous and ravenous they are to extend their influence - from co-ordinating and even combining across today's globe. But more on that presently.
Anyhow, needless to say I haven't any answers to the questions of the preceding paragraph. But I can tell you in any case what I've been praying for - concerning America - over these past four days.
Briefly, it is for the preservation of something I venture to call her real diversity. As distinct from any mere ideological kind. To begin with, I pray my country will remember that she is far more than any one thing, or combination of things (influences, currents, lobbies, ideologies, etc), that would try to congeal, harden, broad-stroke, streamline or homogenize - or brutalize - either
(1) herself;
(2) her Idea of herself (whatever that's supposed to mean); or
(3) her presence and influence in the world.
Above all, she is more than whatever makes her nowadays feel SO big and sprawling, endangered and besieged, angry and lunging and ravenous that (if I may rehash an old Western movie cliche) this earth just ain't big enough for the both of us. Both of us - as in, say, America and China. Much less any three or four or five of us. I pray in particular that she remember she is more, even today, than Washington, or Wall Street. Or even Silicon Valley. Or any other influence, however brilliantly successful or profitable, that disposes her to feel like - or worst of all, makes her feel she has no rational choice but to act like - a behemoth or leviathan. And in what to me seems more and more to be a thriving age of such monsters.
So yes, even in this hypermilitarized, devoutly corporatized Early Twenty-First Century, I believe America remains so much more than any of her (self-)stereotypes. Even as that sprawling, ravenous thing we call the Chinese mainland is more than Beijing; that ungainly monstrosity we call the European Union is more than Berlin or Brussels; that cauldron of luxury, misery and inhuman fanaticism we call the Arabian Peninsula is so much more than Riyadh. Or even Saudi Arabia.
So that, for the record, my prejudice isn't against just American behemoths. Rather do I viscerally detest the whole politico-economic Concept of Behemoth, Goliath, Leviathan, etc, pretty much wherever I find it. Except that nowadays, for some reason, I find certain far more consistent and persuasive (and possibly dangerous?) articulations of that concept coming out of Washington, Beijing and Riyadh, than anything currently on offer from Moscow. Or (dare I say it?) even Tehran.
The result then is a prayer, not for America only, but no less for those other Three Horsemen of Self-Anointed Apocalypse listed above. Among all four of whom - USA, EU, PRC, KSA (why do they all answer so well to acronyms?) - and despite certain apparently growing collisions of mind and body, there remains I think a remarkable kinship, or at least parallelism, of spirit. But is there such a thing as a spirit of monotonization?
Mind you, I'm not saying that certain currently prevailing traditions in America, China, Europe and Arabia have NOTHING to offer the wider world. I just wish they'd stop behaving as though they themselves, and maybe each other, were about to become the only games in practically anybody's town the whole world over.
In sum (after all that I'll try to be brief), my prayer is that they'd all stop trying to forget the following 4 points, or rather facts:
1) There is more to being Western, or modern, or enlightened, or even human, than can be encompassed under any version of the word American; and there is vastly, richly more to being American than could ever be found within certain narrow but forceful ideological currents of today, that may answer to names like Neojeffersonian / Manifest Destiny / Expansionist / Exceptionalist / Interventionist.
2) There is thankfully, even now, more to being European than being German, however brilliantly; and there is far more richness to being German than can be comfortably administered under words like Berlin, or confined within umbrella concepts like Prusso-German, or Lutheran, or Liberal Protestant, or post-Christian.
3) There is more to being Asian or even East Asian than being merely Chinese; there is fascinatingly more to being Chinese than being just Mandarin; and there's a whole universe of difference between being Mandarin and being a mere - let me see now - mercantilist technophiliac Confucio-Maoist authoritarian-cum-totalitarian.
4) There is a whole lot more to being Arab or Arabic than being Muslim; and there is immeasurably, blessedly more to being Muslim than can be either lodged or imprisoned within concepts like Wahhabi, or Salafi, or even Sunni . . . or (gasp!) Riyadh . . . or Islamabad . . .
I haven't got the slightest makings of a martyr, much less a prophet or seer. So I know that I know I'm not the only one, even within my local circle of church friends and associates, who has felt a near-desperate need to pray and fast for the state of our poor Union over this 4th of July weekend.
So what's the problem with us prayer-warriors? Why aren't we all rapidly becoming something more on the order of a gathering and swelling army? What's making it so hard for us to correspond and co-ordinate, at whatever distance we happen to be, in this (last time I looked) still-globalizing world? Certainly nothing these days seems to keep larger and more complicated human entities - particularly the prouder they are of their bigness, and the more jealous and ravenous they are to extend their influence - from co-ordinating and even combining across today's globe. But more on that presently.
Anyhow, needless to say I haven't any answers to the questions of the preceding paragraph. But I can tell you in any case what I've been praying for - concerning America - over these past four days.
Briefly, it is for the preservation of something I venture to call her real diversity. As distinct from any mere ideological kind. To begin with, I pray my country will remember that she is far more than any one thing, or combination of things (influences, currents, lobbies, ideologies, etc), that would try to congeal, harden, broad-stroke, streamline or homogenize - or brutalize - either
(1) herself;
(2) her Idea of herself (whatever that's supposed to mean); or
(3) her presence and influence in the world.
Above all, she is more than whatever makes her nowadays feel SO big and sprawling, endangered and besieged, angry and lunging and ravenous that (if I may rehash an old Western movie cliche) this earth just ain't big enough for the both of us. Both of us - as in, say, America and China. Much less any three or four or five of us. I pray in particular that she remember she is more, even today, than Washington, or Wall Street. Or even Silicon Valley. Or any other influence, however brilliantly successful or profitable, that disposes her to feel like - or worst of all, makes her feel she has no rational choice but to act like - a behemoth or leviathan. And in what to me seems more and more to be a thriving age of such monsters.
So yes, even in this hypermilitarized, devoutly corporatized Early Twenty-First Century, I believe America remains so much more than any of her (self-)stereotypes. Even as that sprawling, ravenous thing we call the Chinese mainland is more than Beijing; that ungainly monstrosity we call the European Union is more than Berlin or Brussels; that cauldron of luxury, misery and inhuman fanaticism we call the Arabian Peninsula is so much more than Riyadh. Or even Saudi Arabia.
So that, for the record, my prejudice isn't against just American behemoths. Rather do I viscerally detest the whole politico-economic Concept of Behemoth, Goliath, Leviathan, etc, pretty much wherever I find it. Except that nowadays, for some reason, I find certain far more consistent and persuasive (and possibly dangerous?) articulations of that concept coming out of Washington, Beijing and Riyadh, than anything currently on offer from Moscow. Or (dare I say it?) even Tehran.
The result then is a prayer, not for America only, but no less for those other Three Horsemen of Self-Anointed Apocalypse listed above. Among all four of whom - USA, EU, PRC, KSA (why do they all answer so well to acronyms?) - and despite certain apparently growing collisions of mind and body, there remains I think a remarkable kinship, or at least parallelism, of spirit. But is there such a thing as a spirit of monotonization?
Mind you, I'm not saying that certain currently prevailing traditions in America, China, Europe and Arabia have NOTHING to offer the wider world. I just wish they'd stop behaving as though they themselves, and maybe each other, were about to become the only games in practically anybody's town the whole world over.
In sum (after all that I'll try to be brief), my prayer is that they'd all stop trying to forget the following 4 points, or rather facts:
1) There is more to being Western, or modern, or enlightened, or even human, than can be encompassed under any version of the word American; and there is vastly, richly more to being American than could ever be found within certain narrow but forceful ideological currents of today, that may answer to names like Neojeffersonian / Manifest Destiny / Expansionist / Exceptionalist / Interventionist.
2) There is thankfully, even now, more to being European than being German, however brilliantly; and there is far more richness to being German than can be comfortably administered under words like Berlin, or confined within umbrella concepts like Prusso-German, or Lutheran, or Liberal Protestant, or post-Christian.
3) There is more to being Asian or even East Asian than being merely Chinese; there is fascinatingly more to being Chinese than being just Mandarin; and there's a whole universe of difference between being Mandarin and being a mere - let me see now - mercantilist technophiliac Confucio-Maoist authoritarian-cum-totalitarian.
4) There is a whole lot more to being Arab or Arabic than being Muslim; and there is immeasurably, blessedly more to being Muslim than can be either lodged or imprisoned within concepts like Wahhabi, or Salafi, or even Sunni . . . or (gasp!) Riyadh . . . or Islamabad . . .
14 June 2019
The Direst of Straits (or, Bolton the Door to Peace)
You may call me the most voracious egotist you've ever met. But there are times (especially lately, I notice) when I do wish I was something on the order of a genius. More specifically, I wish I was one of those brilliantly imaginative observers of the world scene who can envision not just dozens of possible real scenarios and motivations among the globe's big players, but also the many different ways in which their various moves can interlock with, and feed off of, and even inflame each other. Rather like in a chess game?
At the same time, the fact that I'm obviously not - er, any of those things - may be one of the reasons why the following logic keeps on being inescapable to me, no matter how many different angles and perspectives I try to approach it from:
First off, let's suppose you're an individual of real geopolitical/geo-economic influence on a global scale. Let's say you're also of those American patriots (your word, not mine) who believes that America not only should but can become more or less the whole world - or else simply pick it up and put it in our pocket? - in much the same way that Guatemala belongs to us now. And all within a timeframe of not more than a generation or two. And yes, by all means "let's do this," you say - even if it should seriously risk bringing the rest of the world to the threshold of something like thermonuclear war. (And you know, really you may have a point there: I mean, given how thoroughly (hyper-)rational, roboticized, global-reach and "economistic" we Yanks have become, if we can't flawlessly fail-safe/backstop that particular countdown, who can?).
Secondly, suppose also that for one reason or another you feel morally obliged to hate, or loathe, or despise, or morbidly fear and distrust, not just the regime but - well, more or less the entire people of Iran. So much so, in fact, that your real aim - long-term or otherwise - is to unite all the variously skeptical, disaffected, dissident and even Western-leaning elements in that country solidly behind the mullahs' rule, with hardly a murmur of dissent left over (so that the famous metaphor of Caligula concerning the people of Rome in this case all but literally comes true, and the whole Iranian people fuses into one head on its massive body that you're now free, as never before, to cut off at one stroke. Amen.)
If those are your aims, then yes, however little short of a catastrophe their attempted execution is likely to prove for the peace and security of the world, I can find no logical reason why you shouldn't back to the hilt the current Iranian policies of Bolton and Pompeo.
On the other hand - and however little you may like or trust the regime of Iran - if the above three paragraphs do NOT describe your real positions, views and concerns, then I can see no reason why, frankly, you shouldn't be doing everything Divinely and humanly possible to send those two Maddest of Men, as the saying goes, packing and off to Cucamonga on the very next train. But maybe you can come up with one.
In any case, and regardless of where your animosities may lie, be sure to pray as never before for the peace of the Persian Gulf. And of course, as always (however it can be found these days), for that of Jerusalem.
At the same time, the fact that I'm obviously not - er, any of those things - may be one of the reasons why the following logic keeps on being inescapable to me, no matter how many different angles and perspectives I try to approach it from:
First off, let's suppose you're an individual of real geopolitical/geo-economic influence on a global scale. Let's say you're also of those American patriots (your word, not mine) who believes that America not only should but can become more or less the whole world - or else simply pick it up and put it in our pocket? - in much the same way that Guatemala belongs to us now. And all within a timeframe of not more than a generation or two. And yes, by all means "let's do this," you say - even if it should seriously risk bringing the rest of the world to the threshold of something like thermonuclear war. (And you know, really you may have a point there: I mean, given how thoroughly (hyper-)rational, roboticized, global-reach and "economistic" we Yanks have become, if we can't flawlessly fail-safe/backstop that particular countdown, who can?).
Secondly, suppose also that for one reason or another you feel morally obliged to hate, or loathe, or despise, or morbidly fear and distrust, not just the regime but - well, more or less the entire people of Iran. So much so, in fact, that your real aim - long-term or otherwise - is to unite all the variously skeptical, disaffected, dissident and even Western-leaning elements in that country solidly behind the mullahs' rule, with hardly a murmur of dissent left over (so that the famous metaphor of Caligula concerning the people of Rome in this case all but literally comes true, and the whole Iranian people fuses into one head on its massive body that you're now free, as never before, to cut off at one stroke. Amen.)
If those are your aims, then yes, however little short of a catastrophe their attempted execution is likely to prove for the peace and security of the world, I can find no logical reason why you shouldn't back to the hilt the current Iranian policies of Bolton and Pompeo.
On the other hand - and however little you may like or trust the regime of Iran - if the above three paragraphs do NOT describe your real positions, views and concerns, then I can see no reason why, frankly, you shouldn't be doing everything Divinely and humanly possible to send those two Maddest of Men, as the saying goes, packing and off to Cucamonga on the very next train. But maybe you can come up with one.
In any case, and regardless of where your animosities may lie, be sure to pray as never before for the peace of the Persian Gulf. And of course, as always (however it can be found these days), for that of Jerusalem.
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