Fully Alive Illusions

Professor J,

As we approach the end of this discussion, I'm slightly amused that it has taken us very nearly a year to work our way through it. Of course with my need to connect information and opinion presented in  Empire of Illusion to current events, and your penchant for thorough analysis and putting things in historical context, the reader cannot be surprised.  We haven't been able to keep it short; hopefully we have been able to keep it interesting, do the work justice, and encourage our readers to think more deeply about the hard things.

This is not a book for the faint of heart as we said when we started. Likewise Hedges' other books, interviews, and  speeches reveal uncomfortable truths and force us to ask difficult questions not only of those in authority and seats of power, but of ourselves. Questions like: Is this the best we can do? Is this who we are? Do we really think so little of freedom as to sit idly by, lulled by distractions and entertained while we slip over the edge of a cliff without so much as a whimper of protest?

We'd like to think not but the pull of the illusion created for us is strong.


While home schooling my kids I had a frequent mantra which often followed discussions of those throughout history who brought about change, stood against evil, and took action when their consciences wouldn't let them do otherwise:

Never give up your right to think for yourself to anyone else. Not to a political leader, a religious leader, or anyone  who wants to exert control over you.  The moment you do, you are a slave.

Not a lesson taught in most schools or churches, and certainly not advocated in political speeches. People thinking for themselves--what a dangerous concept. It's bad enough when individuals or groups acquiesce free thinking, when an entire culture does it, it's tragic on a historic level. And we don't have to imagine how badly it can go; we've seen it. We've seen it over and over again. Of course one must know a bit of history to realize it...


"Individualism is touted as the core value of American culture, and yet most of us meekly submit, as we are supposed to, to the tyranny of the corporate state." (p. 182)

 In schools, aside from not teaching them history and critical or divergent thinking, we have allowed educators and the medical community to drug students, particularly males, into passivity thus wasting those prime years when young adults have historically questioned authority, demanded change, and in general caused all kinds of trouble for the establishment. I wonder what the full cost (as you like to say) of that is going to turn out to be. 

 Yesterday at coffee we pondered  the meaning of the phrase "fully alive" used by St. Irenaeus. We spent some time imagining what a person living that way might look like and how close any of us were to it. Would we say our lives are being lived with passion, concern for others, and contentment? Would we say we've found (as Sir Ken Robinson would say) our "element?" How were we doing at stepping away from blatant consumerism and living a life of peace and service? Had any of us found that one thing we were passionate about? How was our moral courage? While I'm writing this and thinking on the things Hedges points out in his work, I'm wondering what a society, or on a smaller scale, a community that is "fully alive" might look like. I'm comparing that ideal I envision with what Hedges describes in this book.


Comparing it for instance to lurid wrestling matches, tawdry talk shows, brutal porn, objectified women and girls, a celebrity culture that treats human beings as commodities, the "moral nihilism embraced by elite universities," a gospel of prosperity, a "defense industry" and "permanent war economy," and a press that can no longer risk telling the truth to an electorate who would probably change the channel anyway.


Fully alive? It's a wonder we are still getting the faint gasps of air that we are...