Amused Cynic

That’s a quote from Bill Whittle’s new column at the new blog site BigHollywood. He is so right on target. So many aspects of our lives require belief; our system of self-government, our economy, our families. Without belief in them, they die. Like Tinkerbell. And then we have the darkness that Whittle describes. This site has some great writing, it’s going to become one of the bigs for sure.

Whittle’s piece reminded me of a discussion I had with a couple of high school students the weekend after New Years Day. We were having an informal dinner at their parents’ home, and these young prodigies from one of the local elite Quaker schools (yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but this is the Main Line) wanted to challenge my assertion that the ascendancy of Obama to the presidency was “ridiculous.” Their primary argument was that the rest of the world would like us better now that we had a president who didn’t act as if our country were better than any others.

Naturally, I rose to their bait. “Our country is better than all the others,” I said. This led to a long discussion of history, of the actual situation in countries around the world, etc. There was much talk about how my opinion was too “absolute,” out of “context,” (a buzz-word which I repeatedly pointed out that these boys were throwing around in the same manner Caroline Kennedy throws around “you know”….that made them stop and think for a minute), and much talk about “life-style.”

I explained to these boys that what they thought of as “lifestyle”….(”it would be cooler to hang out in London or the south of France than the U.S.”) was what most of us call “vacation,” and that so many of us here get to take such extravagant vacations because of the extraordinary individual opportunities that exist in our non-collectivist society—and not so much in the other “equal” countries. I also pointed out that it must be hard to defend their notion of “equality of nations” when genuine, true fascism, torture, slavery, the oppression of women, and genocide are so common in so many of these other supposedly equal nations, and yet absent in our own. We got into the current Gaza military action, and again “context”—along with an abysmal lack of the historical record—was tossed back at me. Callow youths, but unfortunately, typical. The very profile of a young Obama voter. We have a long row to hoe if we are ever to extricate our fecund land from the pernicious weed-vines that have been carefully transplanted for so long by our academic and media classes.

America is not just a cauldron, but a reactor. From all over the earth, men and women have risked their lived to immerse themselves in this great experiment in freedom and individuality, and the results, by any measure, have produced more goodness, more security, more prosperity and more raw happiness than society or combination of societies in history.

Stars, like our sun, are reactors too: the tremendous, monumental energies and pressures they generate would blow them to pieces in a millisecond, but for one thing… the immense gravity that holds these fiery atoms together and strikes the balance of force and pressure that creates all the light and life in the universe.

The American reactor of individuality and freedom of expression would also fly apart too, but for one thing: the deep love of country that has bound it together and liberated the best of the human spirit. Destroy that love of country and the idea of America – for that is what she is, in the end… simply an idea of freedom and the pursuit of happiness – eliminate that binding love and the reactor will explode. And when it does, there will be no more light – no more medicine, no more art and poetry, no more iPhones and MRI scanners and jet travel, no more Fifth and First Amendment rights, no more security and peace… in fact, no more hot running water.
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You think I exaggerate? When has this not happened in the heartbeat of civilization? We once stood among a family of nations dedicated to fighting oppression in the form of fascism and communism. Now, we and one or two others, but for all intents and purposes we – America alone – stands against the tide of 7th Century repression and submission. Civilizations rise and fall. Barbarism is eternal. If you think the threat is not an existential one you have some reading to catch up on.

How long will the next darkness last? A few centuries? All of the readily available tools to build a new civilization – the ores, the coal and oil – all these are gone. Monks in stone cloisters cannot build photovoltaic cells. If this civilization falls, as have all others – from a lack of belief in itself – then civilization and medicine and science may very well never return.

Those are the stakes.

And how – pardon the profanity – how ironic is it that those libertines, those most determined to be able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, and at no cost to themselves… how ironic, how pathetic, how tragic, how infuriating and indeed, how insane is it that they – they alone – now control the mythology and the message of the workshop of our identity?

That was from Bill Whittle’s article. Do read the whole thing.