I am Anarchy. I speak not my truth, only yours. My name is Liar.
And with that introduction — with its in-your-face immediacy — we find our feet firmly implanted at Mile Marker 1 on the first leg of our enjoined journey along America in Collapse. We sought all of this out, however unconscious that act may have been.
In any event, now the resulting mess is ours.
If only we’d agreed somewhere along the line to begin To Speak The Truth, none of this need have happened — not this way, for crying out loud. As if our greater hidden journey — the silent spiritual one — wasn’t difficult enough!
Anarchy need never have been invited. But because it was, I can already let you in on the title of the essay that likely follows this one: America in Collapse, Mile Marker 2: The Split Widens.
Pundits. We turned all of our powers of discernment over to them.
Every damned one of those powers, to every damned one of them.
And they gleefully played us — big time.
Crap and a half.
* * * * *
Think hubris … upper-case-”p,” Pride … as in, Deadly Sin of Pride. We dared to think we knew it all. Well, we didn’t, but we refused to admit it. And so, we threw open the sash to our second story windows and invited in Anarchy, d.b.a. Liar (…it’s a rule: we have to send out the invite).
Liar was floating around in the air, like some Stephen King vampire, begging woefully, Please, sir (or madam). Please let me in. I’m a victim of the Obama administration. Won’t you p-lease tuh-tea-tuh-tea-tuh-take me in?
Poor baby. Well: We let the little sucker in … his hoofs plopped down onto our bedroom floors, and out came his substantial fangs. Then Its itsy-bitsy/put-upon voice abruptly went baritone:
My name is Liar — and you folks are bleeping idiots.
Swallow. . . Slobber.
Our feet, now notably elevated, wiggled deliriously.
* * * * *
If only our situation today were simply that (bleeping) theatrical.
Anarchy, of all things, still in its early stages admittedly, now resides in America. We wanted it: it’s here. It’s not going anywhere.
Hispanics have a word for it, which ought best be considered applicable, right here, right now:
Idiotas.
Us — idiots.
Synonyms.
(click)
Oh, wait. . . was that a disk skipping?:
–We’re all in this togeth (click) –We’re all in this togeth (click) –We’re all this togeth (click). . .
I mean no chronic disrespect here.
All this ‘tude is merely my way of slapping that enormous (if not obscene) trans-fats-saturated bag of popcorn out of your hand, Mr. and Mrs. Complacency.
If you really want another bag to replace it, I’ll buy you one (and I’ll be as nice about it as I can be — I will, I will).
Just keep in mind, having ready reserves of cash is not one of my strong suits these days.
I’m writing this essay from a homeless shelter in northwest Montana.
And how Contemporary Americana is that?
* * * * *
Anarchy takes hold when it strongly appears as if no one’s in charge, almost anywhere — and any half-cocked, non-deliberated act can then storm onto some center stage, without apology.
A Split is taking place here in America, settling in well beneath the radar of our news media.
The authors of this Separation have been hard at work on it ever since it was obvious that conservative voters were no longer represented by either political party during the closing months of last fall’s presidential election.
There is a terrible hubris here … both related to the shoving-into-a-corner of an entire political movement (that was tossed a Palin bone, but little else) — yet also related to the tunnel vision of this first-ever-of-its-kind movement (of its sort) in U.S. History itself, which is convinced its world view alone is the only one of any merit on the face of the earth at this moment in history.
There’s a new, and growing, hubris, as far as the eye can see; Liar is beside himself! (Its self.) He — It — has been whispering sweet ugly nothings into the ears of talk radio (and Fox News) pundits, who in turn have been all too willing to help kick this ratings bonanza onto its tracks.
On the other side of the fence are the resigned we’re-already-done-here “practical” people who, with no spiritual bent whatsoever, have already dismissed any meaningful future for America. They cite reason in support of their position, but in actuality there’s very little of that.
Ironically, here’s what both sides of this non-debate share in common: a conviction that these are End Times, regardless of nomenclature. The place where it all begins (Ends) is America.
Who cares about the rest of the world! We’re Americans — Americans, Americans, Americans!
Pick your cataclysmic mechanism: The Book of Revelation, v. The (Ancient) Mayan Calender.
No one else is yet taking any of this seriously, both sides posit. That makes most of the rest of our countrymen irrelevant. What good have our secular educations done for any of them? one asks. People with such educations don’t have a lick of sense, it has long since been decided.
The chief topic here, as in previous essays, isn’t merely about hubris. It’s about an absence of humility.
That’s the rub. When folks are convinced their locked-and-loaded point-of-view is the only one that matters, Liar shows up on all of our doorsteps, looking to take in fresh recruits.
Liar cares only about Liar. The movements themselves are mostly about long lines full of blind and intensely self-absorbed fools complaining about this and that.
Hey — whatever floats your boat, Liar yawns. I’m not taking prisoners here.
* * * * *
And where were all of Wall Street’s financial movers and shakers, while all of this transpired?: in a severely insulated world of their own making replete with its formulas, charts and idiocies.
Of note here is the idea that today’s failed economy should dare to chug along without them — as if greed, in and of itself, should somehow be rewarded for its determined perseverance.
Look — all any of us needed to do here, anywhere along this path, was To Speak The Truth. The useful desirability of attaining a long-ignored humility notwithstanding..: our embracement of ideologies first, and universal truths a distant second, is what’s brought us all to this place.
And, so, now that our very own Melodrama at long last has arrived … are we having fun yet?
* * * * *
These tart words are unlikely to have any counter-affect, whatsoever. Mile Marker 2 awaits us all on the downward-spiraling road ahead. The ideological Split in this nation already exists — isn’t that obvious, if we just open the door to the notion? Once we’re there, the split will simply widen, all by itself. All of the elements are already in play, and the Wheel of Life is spinning.
It’s a little too early to be able to tell what’s likely to transpire for all of us, yet, at Mile Marker 3 — which says a lot about the nature of the future, and its internal fluidities. Nothing is etched in stone here, even Mile Marker 2. The quality that gives Mile Marker 2 its substance are its very high probability factors. Probabilities, formed here in our present, create our futures.
America is collapsing in front of our eyes. Most of us should have some inkling of that by now.
Those of us who don’t are probably just scared silly. And really — who in denial wouldn’t be?
* * * * *
For the last several months (it’s toward the end of September 2009, at this writing), we’ve had incident after incident of anarchy-run-amok on our nationally televised stages, alone. We’ve all been witness to rarely before seen incidents of rudeness, lashing-out and comeuppance.
We’re all suffering through the early stages of Anarchy in America. It’s sure to get worse. How much of it turns ruefully violent remains to be seen. There’s possibly some flexibility there, but probably — …get it? — not much.
Let me tell you a little bit about what it is I do here, as the purveyor of all of this stark jargon:
I’m a philosopher, first and foremost. That’s my driving motivation, and it has been through the second half of my life. I have marginal classical training, to be sure, even though I hold a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Maine, whose instruction is fairly representative of that ilk.
What I do undertake, and it appears on face to be very nearly unique, is to be observant, and to try to ask the right questions — the pursuit of truth always starts there; how could it not?
I know humility, even when I fail to act on it. It’s critical to what it is I strive to pull off — which is to bring people on board for a New Discussion, a date for which hasn’t even been set. There’s just “no market” for it yet, as Wall Streeters are wont to suggest. Never mind, it can’t be “talk.”
I find that most people (far and away, the majority of most people) have already made up their minds about life’s greatest issues, even when (…which is far more often than not) they haven’t yet put a lot of thought or effort into it. Regardless — those personal opinions are intractable.
Simple discussions are a complete waste of time at this stage. It’s no longer about intellectual conviction — it’s solely about what the heart “thinks.” And most of us have no idea what that is.
Slews of us still don’t even have any plan to help tap into our most private, deepest feelings. We’re not just increasingly isolated from our neighbors, but too-far-removed from ourselves.
I’m convinced that only by embracing a new humility, on a conscious and personal level, may those perspectives be altered, at this stage of our journey. And altered they must be, or none of us are likely to survive much longer. Our enjoined “stinker of a story arc” has already fallen into hopeless disrepair — for we’re literally armed and ready to blow ourselves to smithereens.
* * * * *
I get weary and lapse into periodic despairs, as I know most of you must do in your own ways. I ache for a kinder and more cooperative time — when people, as people, were what mattered.
But thanks to our culture’s ongoing (and undiagnosed) hubris, such days appear to be behind us.
Hubris insists, always, that its center of focus is the only one that matters — that its philosophy is the only one with any substance to it, whatsoever. We have 300 million isolated-and-alone beliefs in this country that hold just that … yet have zero tolerance for any process requiring that we do philosophy.
…Have our (dripping-in-their-own-special-hubris) secular universities let us all down, or what?
Simply put — most folks just want to feel better. “Feel” is the operative word here.
Maybe, at this stage of our enjoined downward spiral, if we just do away with Those Damned Liberals, it’ll finally get better.
Or, maybe it won’t. There’s so much more going on here than a sustained battle of ideologies.
At this juncture, my bet remains solidly on just that fundamental observation.
In the meantime, thanks to hubris, Anarchy has arrived — solely to entertain us.
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