This Means War!

Rufus T. Firefly scuttling center stage to make his pronouncement…. There’s always a hidden glee behind the crowd’s reaction. “Before, I had to hold it together. Now? I can let go. A free pass. No resort is too extreme. We’re at war.” The next stage is the rush to, “Get in the fight!” After all,

What does it mean?

Tying our existence to a belief in destruction as the ultimate good is such a contorted position to be in! How we got here, what it means, where it will all lead; these are also questions whose answers appear in glimmers and hints, passing doubts, premonitions and inklings of what is down there, at least as it all appears from “up here.”

The Limits of Imagination

I want, I want! I WANT!” “Well, you can’t have! YOU can’t HAVE! YOU CAN’T HAVE!

Berger’s “The Moment of Cubism” part II

They began to see complexity not as a negative, as the merely inconveniently complicated; but as a fact; an essential attribute of our condition; something that must be confronted squarely, not simply wished away. This can only happen through the direct experience of complexity. This cannot happen without a ground for experience.

On Berger’s “the Moment of Cubism”

This is the first part of a different sort of post. I’ve mentioned John Berger’s essay, The Moment of Cubism a number of times recently. While I recommend you read the original I felt it was time I describe why I find it such a vital document. Berger differentiates “The Moment of Cubism” from the

“Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality…”

Sentiment takes any criticism, real or only inferred, and turns it into an excuse for a reaction, anything to return the focus where we demand it belongs.

Pushing Past Futility

I’ve always had a poor tolerance for futility. Faced with a task I sense is futile, I’m like a cat with a sock on its back. I just collapse under the weight of absurdity. This has rarely made me popular. The war of attrition waged by this on friendships forged under the sunny skies of

And now they govern…

The “inevitability” felt in such times grows out of an allegiance to system itself, over an above self-interest, even the instinct for survival. This trait is held up as a laudable example. This is what creates “heroes” and allows us to fight for “higher” purposes. We all see through this when an adversary claims this authority, but mostly we fall for it when it comes from “our side.”

A Scary Story for Halloween and the Mid-term Elections

We’ve come full circle. The biannual cycle of Halloween scary stories ending not in All-Souls day, but the Ash Wednesday that follows Election Day, when we wake up to the blessed reconsecration of Business as Usual. Let’s not fret. Let’s be sure to maintain our side of the bargain, after all they’re doing it all for our own good, we should be Thankful.

Imagine that Power wasn’t a zero-sum game.

This should be easier than it seems, Power isn’t a zero-sum game, not real Power. Let’s set up the parameters of a conceptual equation. Power exists in an unstable relationship with Control and Faith. Those without Faith in anything beyond themselves – actual, not professed Faith – also, unsurprisingly, feel a strong need to maintain