The sporadic ramblings of Emily C. A. Snyder - devoted to God, theatre, writing, and much randominity.
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And one more
I took a quick sneak at Eve Tushnet's blog and ran across this: EveTushnet.com (look towards the middle/end of the article, re: the Onion et al).
Way back in Sophomore year (I believe) of college, in my Great Books Class, my professor made the startling (to me) comment that we hadn't been living in a true republic since the 1930's - that we were slowly slipping towards a totalitarian government. A few years more grown up now, looking at the recent judicial rulings (quite out of bounds), even in this post-Clinton age, I am finding to my horror that this statement made eight years ago is true.
But who rules us? Who governs us?
Certainly, not We The People. Whether through indifference, apathy, business, or fear, We The People have gagged ourselves. Whether through the same, we have handed over Positions of Power (TM) to the "best of the worst" - rather than holding out for the best of the best, or forcing through the best of the best. We have forgotten that the power DOES lie in our hands - that we are not bound, Communistically, to two nearly identical candidates, that we can, in fact, write in who should lead us.
But even worse, we have forgotten how our government works, how it was set up. We have abandoned the checks and balances, and instead follow like the people of Hamil, whichever Piper plays the loudest. And we are losing our children. (Good God! This needs to be a play!) Have the courts stepped out of bounds? They, even more intimately than ourselves, know that they have. And yet We The People simply bow our heads and shrug and say, "Well, what can we do?" Abuse of power is in obvious display, an oligarchy is setting itself up, and We The People bovinely submit.
WHY do we submit? Why do we say, "Ah well"? Very simply: because we have been submitting to a dictatorial rule our whole lives.
Let me 'splain. (No, there is too much: let me sum up.)
On the spiritual level, naturally, we are alas subject to the "sins that flesh is heir to." Every man must struggle with this: will he die to himself to rise with Christ, or will he become the miserable Dorien Grey, trapped by his own selfishness? Every time, every place, has dealt with means whereby on both a spiritual, physical, and mental level a man might rid himself of his own sinful tendencies and work towards the virtues, which is true freedom. He is given duties, responsibilities, he is made aware that he is not alone in the world, that each of his actions has a consequence. He is taught, in fact, how to think of someone else's good before his own, and thus learns how to think of good at all. He learns to sacrifice.
On a practical level, we have allowed with the rise of industrialization, with the greater socialistic state, and with the rise of "screen media" (TV, cinema, computers) to take the place of actual *thinking*. We discover that we don't have responsibilities: a machine will take care of it, the state will take care of it - we only need to turn on a screen to be entertained and life takes care of itself. We have systematically rid ourselves of imagination - even solipsistic imagination - and made ourselves into a culture wholly dependent. Independence Day is another opportunity to shirk responsibility, feel vaguely patriotic, and be entertained. We vacation from vacation. We are ourselves vacated.
However, in this particular election year, I find that the media and the state have never been - to my mind - so closely aligned. "Farenheit 9/11", "Hunting the President", "Bill Clinton: My Life", TIME articles on "What would Kerry be like as President" (before he's even been named the official delegate!) - this isn't a campaign, it's propaganda, pure and simple. It doesn't appeal to the intellect, it appeals to the torpid emotions that lie dormant, shrivelled within us. These crafted images and words make us feel "alive" because we feel some stirring of vestigal humanity - and so grateful are we for the momentary release from soma that we ally ourselves with our keepers without ever questioning their control over us at all. They tell us: "You are independent free-thinkers" and dutifully we reply in kind, "We are independent" - thereby closing the locks that bind us once again.
WAKE UP! WAKE UP! We're lost in the poppy fields. We are sleeping through life. We grasp death as the only relief our poisoned minds can comprehend. We fear true liberty - we fear being unshackled - we fear stepping from the cave - we fear being real - we fear life - we fear ourselves.
WAKE UP!!!
Mood: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!
Mood: Wicked
Gratitude is: The paycheck coming in time for rassin-frassin bills
Determination is: This whole thing is SO going to happen in Elspeth, when Kian runs Poityr out of the government. Hrumph!
Frightening is: 1984 and Brave New World happening.
I took a quick sneak at Eve Tushnet's blog and ran across this: EveTushnet.com (look towards the middle/end of the article, re: the Onion et al).
Way back in Sophomore year (I believe) of college, in my Great Books Class, my professor made the startling (to me) comment that we hadn't been living in a true republic since the 1930's - that we were slowly slipping towards a totalitarian government. A few years more grown up now, looking at the recent judicial rulings (quite out of bounds), even in this post-Clinton age, I am finding to my horror that this statement made eight years ago is true.
But who rules us? Who governs us?
Certainly, not We The People. Whether through indifference, apathy, business, or fear, We The People have gagged ourselves. Whether through the same, we have handed over Positions of Power (TM) to the "best of the worst" - rather than holding out for the best of the best, or forcing through the best of the best. We have forgotten that the power DOES lie in our hands - that we are not bound, Communistically, to two nearly identical candidates, that we can, in fact, write in who should lead us.
But even worse, we have forgotten how our government works, how it was set up. We have abandoned the checks and balances, and instead follow like the people of Hamil, whichever Piper plays the loudest. And we are losing our children. (Good God! This needs to be a play!) Have the courts stepped out of bounds? They, even more intimately than ourselves, know that they have. And yet We The People simply bow our heads and shrug and say, "Well, what can we do?" Abuse of power is in obvious display, an oligarchy is setting itself up, and We The People bovinely submit.
WHY do we submit? Why do we say, "Ah well"? Very simply: because we have been submitting to a dictatorial rule our whole lives.
Let me 'splain. (No, there is too much: let me sum up.)
On the spiritual level, naturally, we are alas subject to the "sins that flesh is heir to." Every man must struggle with this: will he die to himself to rise with Christ, or will he become the miserable Dorien Grey, trapped by his own selfishness? Every time, every place, has dealt with means whereby on both a spiritual, physical, and mental level a man might rid himself of his own sinful tendencies and work towards the virtues, which is true freedom. He is given duties, responsibilities, he is made aware that he is not alone in the world, that each of his actions has a consequence. He is taught, in fact, how to think of someone else's good before his own, and thus learns how to think of good at all. He learns to sacrifice.
On a practical level, we have allowed with the rise of industrialization, with the greater socialistic state, and with the rise of "screen media" (TV, cinema, computers) to take the place of actual *thinking*. We discover that we don't have responsibilities: a machine will take care of it, the state will take care of it - we only need to turn on a screen to be entertained and life takes care of itself. We have systematically rid ourselves of imagination - even solipsistic imagination - and made ourselves into a culture wholly dependent. Independence Day is another opportunity to shirk responsibility, feel vaguely patriotic, and be entertained. We vacation from vacation. We are ourselves vacated.
However, in this particular election year, I find that the media and the state have never been - to my mind - so closely aligned. "Farenheit 9/11", "Hunting the President", "Bill Clinton: My Life", TIME articles on "What would Kerry be like as President" (before he's even been named the official delegate!) - this isn't a campaign, it's propaganda, pure and simple. It doesn't appeal to the intellect, it appeals to the torpid emotions that lie dormant, shrivelled within us. These crafted images and words make us feel "alive" because we feel some stirring of vestigal humanity - and so grateful are we for the momentary release from soma that we ally ourselves with our keepers without ever questioning their control over us at all. They tell us: "You are independent free-thinkers" and dutifully we reply in kind, "We are independent" - thereby closing the locks that bind us once again.
WAKE UP! WAKE UP! We're lost in the poppy fields. We are sleeping through life. We grasp death as the only relief our poisoned minds can comprehend. We fear true liberty - we fear being unshackled - we fear stepping from the cave - we fear being real - we fear life - we fear ourselves.
WAKE UP!!!
Mood: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUGH!
Mood: Wicked
Gratitude is: The paycheck coming in time for rassin-frassin bills
Determination is: This whole thing is SO going to happen in Elspeth, when Kian runs Poityr out of the government. Hrumph!
Frightening is: 1984 and Brave New World happening.
posted by Emily C. A. Snyder | 2:28 PM
2 Comments:
Brilliant post. You have struck the proverbial nail on the head. I agree with everything you have said. We do fear liberty, we fear ourselves. We don't realize that we have the power to change things.
However that being said, I must say this. The supreme court's job is to interpret the constitution. They make rulings every day you may or may not agree with, however at the end of the day that is their job.
Hallo -
Yes, the Supreme Court is meant to interpret the constitution.
However, I was thinking particularly of the recent MA ruling, where they clearly overstepped their bounds by demanding something without the constitution. At the very least, one can say that the MA Supreme Court forced through a ruling in a sketchy way, setting an impossible time and in a manner that doesn't allow for the people to actually vote.
Naturally, the legislature absolutely muddled the affair as well, with the result that by legislative stalemate we have created what many voters do not desire. Rather than standing a ground - any ground - and allowing the voters that choice immediately, the rug was pulled, loopholes were created, and we're left in a legal mire.
Even more, it can be claimed that interpretations of the constitution are not themselves always constitutional (as previous slavery issues, etc. show). Now, granted, human fallibility is simply something we have to live with - however, how we raise a future generation of judges IS our responsibility. If we raise our children, if we preach to our peers, something contrary to natural law, that morality is relative, that emotion trumps intellect, that desire is more important than fact, then again we are to blame for our current crisis.
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