Is this book apocalyptic leftist political literature? Maybe, but critics usually have little retort
to its presented facts. Just a general
“it will work out” or “it’s not that bad,” which is more positive thinking
self-delusion that Hedges in print screams trying to get us to see!
Cover your ears if you want, and/or peek out through your
fingers. The doc here is going to get a
bit raw.
Simply stated: The world is
waiting for us to get our heads out of our asses.
The average American appears unaware and unconcerned that much of
the world is waiting, with incredulous disbelief, frustration, and occasional
anger, for us to get our crap together.
Now, globalization takes a bad, and often deserved, rap from those on
the left. But globalization has brought
incredible benefit to the world. Has
made the world a safer place, because that world wants to be part of the
greater whole, wants to be connected, wants to be part of humanity’s progress.
And we, the drivers and
originators, are blowing it. How
bitterly ironic that at a time of so much promise, so many great tools with
great potential, so much desire by peoples to be a global village, and we are
blowing it so bad they may never see fruition.
Do other countries and other peoples have issues and challenges
they need to overcome? Yes, a massive pile of them. THEIR
energy is often poised to try to overcome challenges, however. But where is the supposed leader of the world? Where is the central piecemaker? (yes, reader, I meant to say it like that)
We’re checked out, that’s where.
Living in illusion and denial. Selfish, diverted, petty, denial, delusion and
illusion.
If Hedges is right, and I hope he isn’t, all those things mean we
secretly long for annihilation, and are only too glad to see it helped along by
“a moral decline into hedonism and giddy, communal madness.” (189) The reader can decide for him or herself
whether we are near that point. I would
argue it isn’t giddy.
Hedges, echoing Toynbee, lists once powerful civilizations—Egypt,
Persia, the Maya, Rome, Byzantium, Mughal and Ottoman empires, as well as
Chinese kingdoms and even dynasties.
The common thread of their fall? “They
all, at a certain point, were taken over by a bankrupt and corrupt elite. This elite, squandering resources and
pillaging the state, was no longer able to muster internal allegiance and
cohesiveness. These empires died
morally. The leaders, in the final
period of decay, increasingly had to rely on armed mercenaries, as we do in
Iraq and Afghanistan, because citizens would no longer serve in the
military. They descended into orgies of
self-indulgence, surrendered their civic and emotional lives to the glitter,
excitement, and spectacle of the arena, became politically apathetic, and
collapsed.” (189)
I am sure it is not hard for the
reader to make comparisons. The elites—all
of them—actively (many), passively (most), or with laughably feeble resistance
(by the few), are dragging you to your civilization’s doom. As
Hedges has said elsewhere, they are “supranational parasitic puppeteers consuming the host-state.” The past is indeed littered with the wreckage
of the arrogant who believed that somehow it would all work out. Get ready, History. More wreckage coming your way unless these
people who will be known as Americans (like another people were known as
Romans) decide to change their course.
We cling, Hedges says, to the illusions (even if some might have one
time been at least partial truths) that lull us with falsely reassuring
comfort. “And the lonely Cassandras who speak the truth
about our misguided imperial wars, the economic meltdown, or the imminent
danger of multiple pollutions and soaring overpopulation, are drowned out by
arenas full of chanting fans” of whatever flavor of spectacle and illusion we
prefer (college gladiator sports, concerts, prosperity gospels, “moral”
crusades, vacuous celebrities,
meaningless citizen “competitions,” etc.). (190)
Romans too spent their
energies on the games, when they needed to address the problems of their
society. Where are the Romans today
(anyone irritated yet at that question? Good!).
We are a bunch of arrogant, selfish, pricks, because we are knowingly
preventing our descendants—our children and our children’s children and
beyond—from having a worthwhile chance, all because we can’t be bothered. If I were them, I would dig up our graves,
strip of everything, and toss our embalmed mummified corpses into a giant lime
pit. Hell, that’s the BEST our memory
would deserve. And yet we have the colossal
gall to supposedly revere our own Framers, who thought of the future and the
common good, of posterity.
If we are going to ignore
our problems, condemn our future, and sentence our descendants, we owe it to
them to write them a letter and sign it saying that’s what we’re doing. Better yet, make a video so they can see the
faces and hear the voices of their despised ancestors who sentenced them to so
much misery.
Confronting reality does not apparently appeal to us Americans, a
people that once prided themselves on their pragmatism and courage (as did the
Romans). “The worse reality becomes,
the less a beleaguered population wants to hear about it, and the more it distracts
itself with squalid pseudo-events of celebrity breakdowns, gossip, and
trivia. These are the debauched revels
of a dying civilization. The most
ominous divide lies between those who chase after these manufactured illusions
and those who are able to puncture the illusion and confront reality. More than the divides of race, class, or
gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state, or blue
state, our culture has been carved up into radically distinct, unbridgeable,
and antagonistic entities that no longer speak the same language and cannot
communicate. This is the divide between
a literate, marginalized minority and those who have been consumed by an
illiterate mass culture.” (190)
We embrace what any observer outside our culture would say is
delusion. Our quality of living and our
sense of community declines, our jobs disappear, wealth disparity reaches
feudal proportions, our elections become purchased business transactions, we
sacrifice our principles in the waging of endless conflicts (that we say we didn’t
initiate), we pollute ourselves, both personally and societally and
environmentally. And yet we say we are the greatest and freest country on
earth, with a vibrant middle class, and that we stand for what’s right.
“The world that awaits us will be
painful and difficult. We will be dragged back to realism, to the understanding
that we cannot mold and shape reality to human desires, or we will slide into
despotism. We will learn to adjust our
lifestyles radically, to cope with diminished resources, environmental damage,
and a contracting economy, as well as our decline as a military power, or we
will die clinging to our illusions.
These are the stark choices before us.” (190-191) Economics and Mother Nature will give us our
harsh, just desserts. They will also end
the delusive and illusive states we have presently chosen, and we will wail and
gnash our teeth in our misery.
Even if we fail to turn back the tsunami, Hedges says, even if we
become economically and politically crushed, there will be hope, and he’s right
on that at least. Because “no tyranny in
history has crushed the human capacity for love [Prof’s Note: possibly because
it transcends this existence]. And this
love—unorganized, irrational, often propelling us to carry out acts of
compassion that jeopardize our existence—is deeply subversive to those in
power. Love, which appears in small,
blind acts of kindness, manifested itself even in the horror of the Nazi death
camps, in the killing fields of Cambodia, in the Soviet gulags, and in the
genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda.” (191)
Love cares nothing for revenge, greed, fame, power, or any
illusion.
Even “great” and mortally powerful dictators are only here for a
small bit of eternity. Their power is
mortal, their reach limited, their legacies fleeting. As mere mortals, what else could they
be? A people may fade when too many of
them cast out love, but love itself endures.
The earthly powerful seek to silence those who lead authentic lives, who
see reality, who embrace love and truth.
Yet always these voices “rise in magnificent defiance. All ages, all cultures, and all religions
produce those who challenge the oppressor and fight for the oppressed.” (192)
Hedges points out that we may worship at the foot of the altar of
militarism, blind obedience, selfishness, and power, but those things will be
forgotten by the better human natures that will follow in our wake. Art and philosophy and the humanities will be
valued once more. We will sacrifice for
each other again rather than seek only to exploit. We will revere nature and not excessively
elevate our place in it.
I write these words to call you to avert the dissolute path we are
on. Love will return, will triumph
again. With or without us
Americans. I want it to be with.
BUY THIS BOOK. Read it.
Read it again. Re-read it.
Dog-ear it. Make notes on it. Think about it. Dispute it, if you can. That a book like
this is published, advertised, and read by some is hope in itself.
Just don’t ignore it. For
that will mean the title is completely true.
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