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WHY BOTHER? GETTING A LIFE IN A LOCKED-DOWN LAND |
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To Sally Denton, Roger Morris, and Russell Mokhiber. Because they bothered, this book was published. INTRODUCTION LET'S TURN OFF THE TELEVISION, STEP INTO THE SUNLIGHT, AND COUNT THE BODIES. As we were watching inside, the non-virtual continued at its own pace and on its own path, indifferent to our indifference, unamused by our ironic detachment, unsympathetic to our political impotence, unmoved by our carefully selected apparel, unfrightened by our nihilism, unimpressed by our braggadocio, unaware of our pain. Evolution and entropy remained outside the cocoon of complacent images, refusing to be hurried, or delayed, declining to cut to the chase, unwilling to reveal either ending or meaning. We shade our eyes and scan the decay. We know that this place, this country, this planet, is not the same as the last time we looked. There are more bodies. And fewer other things: choices, unlocked doors, democracy, satisfying jobs, reality, unplanned moments, space, clean water, a species of frog whose name we forget, community, and the trusting, trustworthy smile of a stranger. Someone has been careless, cruel, greedy, stupid. But it wasn't us, was it? We were inside, just watching. It all happened without us -- by the hand of forces we can't see, understand, or control. We can always go in again and zap ourselves back to a place where the riots and tornadoes and wars are never larger than 27 inches on the diagonal. We can do nothing out here. Why bother? Why bother? Only to be alive. Only to be real, to be made not just of what we acquire or do under instruction, but of what we think and do of our own free will. Only, Winston Churchill said, to fight while there is still a small chance so we don't have to fight when there is none. Only to climb the rock face of risk and doubt in order to engage in the most extreme sport of all -- that of being a free and conscious human. Free and conscious even in a society that seems determined to reduce our lives to a barren pair of mandatory functions: consumption and compliance. What safety we have, the privilege of the cocoon, comes from those who, at much greater danger and with far less chance or choice, climbed that wall, insisted on being human, fought despair, suppressed fear, and denied themselves the illusion of detachment. Some were only a generation or two away and carried our name, some were more distant. Our present safety is built upon their risks, on their integrity, rebellion, and passion, and upon the courage that propelled them. Part of the reckless hubris of our time is to believe that we have become so clever and complex as to render such qualities superfluous. We are assured that if we are competitive and hip enough, if we just obey the rules of the marketplace, all will be well. Why bother? Yet, as Lily Tomlin said, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat. And there is another irony. The rules of the marketplace recreate the brutality, unfairness, and helplessness that humans have sought to escape for most of their evolution. Only during the last iota of our history have at least some finally broken away from tyrannies of nature and culture to build societies hospitable to the free individual. No small part of this work has occurred in our own land. Rather than acting as stewards of this fragile achievement, we have lately become indifferent toward its lessons and profligate with its rewards. Too many, particularly in places of power, have become the spoiled brats of human progress. For the rest, there is seldom power commensurate with available conscience or opportunities enough for available will. Worse, in the land of the bottom line, virtue not only fails to be its own reward, it is often undermined and becomes an object of ridicule. To survive in such a time, to retain the will to be human, to build good communities, and to be decent and caring in such places, is extraordinarily difficult. The carelessly powerful are not about to tell us how. We must help each other. What follows is my contribution to this common endeavor. It explores, among other things, the last great American taboo, namely struggle and failure -- save that safely segregated as fiction or lyrics, or when we already know the happy ending. In our own lives, however, we don't know the ending. To guide us along the way, a ubiquitous media beams relentless images of manic triumph alternating with failure's just deserts -- arrest, death, defeat, and derision. There is little time for the lives of quiet desperation that Thoreau thought most of us led. The advocate, the committed, the seeker, the free thinker, and the rebel thus may live in a world that is seldom depicted, let alone honored. They may be ignored, disparaged, or even punished; they may lack constituency, funds, or moral support. They may, like the urban itinerant Joe Gould, feel most at home "down among the cranks and misfits and the one-lungers and might-have-beens and the would-bes and the never-wills and the God-knows-whats." Yet, in the end, they can still attain that most precious victory of remaining truly human. This book is written for the long courageous and for the newly restless. The first four chapters discuss our present condition in an effort to examine honestly our losses, frustrations, and dangers, not as abstract matters of state and society but as they affect each one of us. The second six chapters attempt to help the reader through a maze of faulty promises and failed prophets in order to consider some of the possibilities that remain -- informed by history, philosophy, religion, anthropology and the tales of those who remind us we do not make this journey alone. Life is a endless pick-up game between hope and despair, understanding and doubt, crisis and resolution. "Ever more," Emerson said of it, "is this marvelous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats." Sisyphus nears the mountaintop and the rock rolls down again. We lose courage and suddenly there is a light. What follows reflects this contest in which the grim and the glad are only oscillations and never the end. For such reasons, I'll speak of possibilities and not of solutions, for it is in the abundance of our choices rather than in the perfection of our path that our future lies. And I'll not dwell on hope and faith because, central as they may be to our lives, far too many politicians, preachers, and publishers have used such words to defer present responsibilities, opportunity, and consciousness. It has been wisely said that "hope don't pay the cable" and faith is too often just another drug, producing hallucinogenic visions of a flawless future. This is not to reject either but rather to return them to their rightful role, that of planting seeds of possibility instead of sowing false prospects. Are these possibilities enough? Well, they have served others in far more dismal times. We have come to expect more -- including the entitlement of certitude. Hence, we sometimes approach these concerns much as though we were apostles out on a Saturday shopping for a creed. If this is you, I'm afraid I can't help you. You've come to the wrong door. There's nobody here but another member of the search party. Let's step into the sunlight together and see what we find.
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