I have a friend, a good imaginative young man with whom I discuss realpolitik and the twisting turns of the river of history. With him on almost every matter of import I disagree but we get along as anyone should be able to do with those who disagree with them. My arguments with him, from everything to seeking an end to the sword of Damocles hanging above our species' collective heads known as Mutually Assured Destruction, to the Syrian Crisis are almost always matters on which we diverge. He is something of a political 'realist' or more accurately a political pragmatist. I would argue getting rid of MAD, either through a total renunciation of nuclear weapons, or the development of 'nightshade' technology or other means as to render ICBMs and the instantaneousness of nuclear oblivion obsolete. He would argue instead that this would lead to more conventional wars between developed nations with no suicide button to keep us placid and domesticated. I would retort that this is preferable to the potential obliteration of our species hanging on the horizon waiting for some damn fool or tyrant (as they will inevitably occur) gets a hold of ICBM technology and damn us all. He would argue the opposite, the guaranteed peace of MAD is infinitely preferable to the potential horrors of war and the consequences of politics. I would argue that it is not, given the horrors of war would give meaning and weight to politics and help shore up the drive for voter education with regards to who they put on the ballot and would almost certainly not result in total destruction of our race, which I view as a greater evil. He is for the status quo and will believe it always to remain such for it to change would be impossible and unimaginable. I am the radical. He the realist and myself the dreamer. At its heart it is an old argument. Would you rather be a slave whose life hangs on the whim of an unpredictable master or a free man stalked by danger and the potential of random death?
For really, its as relevant now as it ever was, if not moreso, for are we not slaves?
Our entire lives hang upon the value of meaningless pieces of paper and numbers whose monetary value fluctuates on the slightest hiccup in one part of the world. We are a city built upon a spiderweb drowning ourselves in arrogance and delusion believing that one day there will not be a storm which will sunder our firmanent of lies and crush our citadels of deceit.
To distract us from the horrors of our reality, we are given easy access to cheap non-foods that are more artificial chemicals then hearty foodstuffs cut from living and sustaining flesh, enough to fill us and make us lazy, yet never enough to satiate that truly human desire that demands satisfaction. To distract our troubled intellects from the philosophical terrors of nihilism, for almost none of us have truly been fortified in our thinking, we are distracted by constant news of the frivolities of celebrities and the farce they have made out of athleticism and good sports. To ease our troubled souls of the mortifying spiritual damage our sins have caused, we are assured we have done nothing wrong and continue about our way. We believe we are free for we are allowed to do all the wrong things, and damned if we dare to do what is right.
The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” - G.K. Chesterton
Here Chesterton is denouncing puritanism and moralistic tyranny. I believe we have entered the opposite form of Tyranny, where nothing is true, and all is permitted, bar that which is true. For we are told not to dream, for we will never achieve them. We are educated at younger and younger ages about sex, but not only sex but degenerate sex. People think nothing of children sexting at younger ages and being exposed to graphic pornography as young as 11 or 12. This is our only comfort in this world, or so the people believe, to rail against it is to be as mad as to tell the tide to turn back.
We are told not to dream. To not to dare.
Every age but our own is filled with ignorance superstition and dirt. Only pagan Rome and Greece with their hedonism appeals to our depraved age, and for that we look upon those eras with kindness. Heroes do not exist, there is no such thing as a good king, the wisdom of elders and ancients is nonsense, to pursue anything for any other reason other then material wealth and comfort is a crusade in lies.
We live in an age ruled by the chains of the ephemeral, immaterial and false, yet we are denounced as delusions those who dare to dream of something real. Dead things flow with the current, living things shape it, for only a slave suffers his own ignorance and lack of ambition, a free man dreams.
