An Exquisite Bedlam – Where Do We Go From Here?

Edit: posting using WordPress on a phone is problematic when doing large chunks of quotes… This will be remedied as soon as I have the opportunity.

A while ago, I composed an open letter to both parties… It was my thoughts on what I would have said to either side back in what turned out to be the last year of “normal” for the foreseeable future – 2019. 

Today, not much has changed with me; I am still staunchly middle of the road… but it would seem that the pavement is tilting and crumbling due to neglect, destructive tendencies of those who rely upon the logistics and convenience provided by functional vehicular traffic, and the tectonic forces of inescapable change…

One aspect has changed, however – I have been officially sick of the direction all three sides have taken: Democrat, Republican, and the Electorate. A trifecta of guilty parties, all responsible for the most viciousness both petty and ensconced in the logic of immutable perspective and unwavering in their own idea of what is “right,” “acceptable,” and worthy of absolutist efforts towards their own ends.

“No Time Like the Past” aired on 7Mar1963, the 10th episode of season 4 – slowly becoming one of my favorite Twilight Zone seasons. The idea of time travel has always been a popular notion with me, but the concept of paradoxes – the undoing of the foundation of the effort in going back in time – as well as the reality of the futility in effort in trying to avoid the inevitable were very significant themes in this particular story. 

In it, Paul Driscoll has grown contemptuous of the state of the world and attempts to go back and prevent key events and people from becoming noteworthy steps to his present world. 

Paul Driscoll: “No sense of adventure? No wonder at the unknown?”

Harvey: “There’s some wonder, some inquisitiveness as to how a human being can place himself in such jeopardy… Not only with willingness, but with anticipation.”

Paul Driscoll: “’Jeopardy’? Harvey, old friend, the jeopardy I face comes in shadow; yours happens to be much more real. But of the two, there isn’t much choice. 

“Did you happen to drink milk this morning, Harvey? What was the strontium 90 content of the glass? And has it occurred to you that the things you have been eating over the last couple of years might be turning your bones into sawdust?

“Oh, Harvey, speak to me of jeopardy if you will, but don’t make it sound as if I have an exclusive franchise on the calculated risk. You and I both share this dubious distinction with several million of our peers who inhabit the 20th century.”

Harvey: “And you don’t care for the 20th century?”

Paul Driscoll: “I do not. I will now tell you, as succinctly as possible, how I classify the times: we live in a cesspool, a septic tank, a gigantic sewage complex in which runs the dregs, the filth, the misery-laden slop of the race of men – his hatreds, his prejudices, his passions, and his violence. And the keeper of the sewer? Man. He is a scientifically advanced monkey who walks upright, and with eyes wide open, into an abyss of his own making. His bombs, his fallout, his poisons, his radioactivity – everything he designs as an art for dying is his excuse for living.

“No, Harvey, we live in an exquisite bedlam… an insanity. Maybe all the more grotesque by the fact that we don’t realize it as insanity.”

Harvey: “Did it ever occur to you that some of these ‘scientifically advanced monkeys’ make bombs as a simple expedient for survival? That across this planet, there are other ‘scientifically advanced monkeys’ who would pulverize us into dust if they thought they could do so with impunity?”

Paul Driscoll: “I don’t need a lesson in current events; I’m pretty well up on the times.

“So the freedom-loving monkeys make bombs, while the aggressors make bombs. But ultimately, somebody pushes a button and just as ultimately, this earth disappears. And all of this, I suppose, is right and practical and expedient. A few germs will rise up out of the rubble and wave microscopic flags of victory and shed a few microscopic tears for the race of men.

“Harvey, are you content with this kind of status quo? Are you satisfied with this kind of 20th century?”

Ultimately, he fails on three different trips, but his final voyage to the past – to live in the past – find him faced with the ethical dilemma of trying to save children or letting the event unfold as it had. Even in this he proved oddly unsuccessful – in trying to prevent an accident, he caused it to happen exactly as it had been recorded. 

Harvey: “Well then you must know now, Paul, that the past is inviolate. Whatever has happened must remain as having happened – you can’t change anything.”

Paul Driscoll: “I believe you. I believe that it’s not possible to alter the past, and it follows that, because of that impossibility, there isn’t anything we can do about the present… or the future.”

[…]

Harvey: “You changed something?”

Paul: “I tried to. And in doing it, I caused it.”

In trying to make change, it seems like many today are causing the exact problems they are desperately trying to prevent:

By politicizing the reaction to a virus, we are setting the stage for a potentially worse pandemic due to the skepticism and doubt that has been the natural social response by many…

By emphasizing race, we are highlighting identity over “content of character”… 

By guaranteeing safety, we are encouraging the absolving the individual of their responsibility for their own safety…

By insisting on government mandates of “our side” against the “evil others,” we create the conditions for tyranny and dangerous power disparity… 

By making excuses and assigning blame, we ignore our own shortcomings and contributions for the mess some are surprised to find us mired in…

By giving up the power of independent thought, we have grown over dependent on what others insist we should think and feel…

We are trying to change things but are causing it.

Where do we go from here? 

I have written my ideas about the friction of society and the constant forces of change within it; now, I am pondering how we need to start considering how best to fight the unavoidable fire that friction will create without becoming the result we don’t want to be – draconian, authoritarian, and absolute only one path forward.   

However, as I have asked before: do we even want to fix things? Can we fix things on a larger scale, or have events progressed to the point where our immediate left and right – neighbors, community, county – are all that truly matters? Perhaps that was the way it always should have been… or at least, is the most effective when it comes to society. Why worry about the macro when the micro is turning into rubble? 

Maybe I’ll have answers tomorrow… maybe not. 

Perhaps you will have answers next week… maybe not.

However, never give up that vicious optimism that keeps bringing you back here… wondering where I’m going with all of this. 

Hint: I have no clue, but ideas need to be captured sometimes… and quite often, that’s a pretty good start.