An Evil Empire, Bent On Self

AN EVIL EMPIRE, BENT ON SELF-DESTRUCTION (BUT WHY?) Though I are inclined to shy away from a direct examination of present politics, let’s dip our toes in another troubling month on this nation and try current day America as a worldbuilding exercise. This could possibly be thought of a sequel to my March 17, 2015 publish “An Evil Empire, Bent on World Domination (But Why?),” which was itself a “sequel” to “An Evil Genius, Bent on World Domination (But Why?)” from August 7, 2012. The former ended with this conclusion: And just as with villains, it’s not almost sufficient to just say that an empire is “evil.” If a villain is someone whose motivations we understand however whose strategies we discover abhorrent, that same standards ought to be applied to an evil empire. We stay in a country where the daycare middle in which my wife works just went through an “active shooter drill.” This would possibly seem like an over-abundance of warning, besides that we've truly managed to create for ourselves a nation in which individuals go into public places and begin shootingâ€"and doing that, now, with startling regularity. What follows every incident is the inevitable rise in speak about gun management, with the voice of a lame duck president added to the chorus, however the totally purchased-and-paid-for legislative department simply says some version of, “Nope, we prefer it this way.” Then we grumble and get on with our lives, content material in our own positions and freed from any accountability. One of the founding ideas of the United States of America was a separation of church and state, but what’s occurred over the course of our historical past, and what seems to be coming to a head right now, is the separation of individuals and state. We would possibly show up to vote, but most probably not. We’ll watch the live feed of this week’s lively shooter scenario and shake our heads. But then we go back to work. Most of us just don’t have time to try to figure out how to affect constru ctive changeâ€"we’re too busy simply making an attempt to pay the mortgage and/or the scholar loans and/or the automobile fee and/or the bank card bills, and so on. It’s not my fault. I don’t have any guns. I’m not going to shoot anybody. I was as distant from Orlando, Florida as you could be and nonetheless be in the continental United States, but when I lived there, I would have voted for the opposite manâ€"the man who would have taken that shooter’s assault rifle away years ago . . . if there was actually any such man on the ballot. Run for workplace myself? Not an opportunity in hell, thanks. People can be citizens of an evil empire and simply not acknowledge it. We’re too busy, too disconnected, unable to trust but unwilling to engage, so whatever occurs, it wasn’t my fault, and meanwhile we have our own to do lists to finish, our personal kids to feed. So where does that go away me? Where does that go away all of us? First of all, let’s ask the essential query: Do we truly stay in an evil empire, bent on world domination? Or is it an evil empire bent on self-destruction? Looking back at a very strange indie science fiction movie of the early Eighties in his Omni essay “Liquid Sky and You, We, I” Jean-Pierre Fenyo wrote: The 80s were the last decade of The Cold War, and the start of The AIDS Epidemic which has had a very unfavorable influence on Liberal Social values, including Tolerance of Tolerant Others, and has helped give rise to irrational reactionary extremism in politics and society. And with the dramatic transformation of our societies on account of excessive worry of otherness; Fascisms have gained traction. It could be stated that with the False Victory of The West in opposition to The Soviet Union inadvertently a dangerously unstable unipolar World arose; by which the USA beneath George H.W. Bush started to tamper with the delicate steadiness of energy in The Middle East, and the horrific assaults of September 11/2001 may h appen, the aftermath of which has given rise to Ultra-Nationalism, Xenophobia, Anti-Semitism, and Plutocratic Fascism, that are once more threatening all Humanity! Though I’m undecided Mr. Fenyo has received all this precisely right, I do assume you’d have to be notably dense to suppose that every thing is ok right here in “the greatest country on Earth.” But does that mean we’re all instruments of an evil empire? Don’t assume someone is performing out of evil intent when mere incompetence, ignorance, and stupidity are equally valid explanations. Our leaders are human, and thus stuffed with human flaws like greed and worry. The United States government is no more intellectually able to making a New World Order based mostly on race hatred and greed than it is of making a New World Order primarily based on empathy and compassion. They have at present’s money to make. Tomorrow is another day. Fyodor Dostoevsky And then we had been all suddenly dropped into the Internet Ag e, having no concept what to really do with that thing, and so now each weird fringe perception is given full throated voice. As straightforward as it's to “truth examine” some weblog submit (together with this one) or web meme that comes alongside, it’s easier to simply click “share,” wallow in it for a minute or two, and transfer on to the next presumably societal-damning proto-concept. In his novel Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky wrote: “But man is so hooked on methods and to summary conclusions that he is ready deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, however justify his logic at all value.” This means that logic will fail us when it comes to the gun lobby’s hyper-entrenched bullshit cowboy energy fantasy, which, like all delusions, ultimately becomes self-perpetuating: I’m arming myself towards “tyranny,” and I define “tyranny” as anyone who tries to take my weapons away. For what it’s worth I’d be very happy to leav e them on that particular hamster wheel, except that every every now and then, and at an accelerating fee, one of the weaker ones falls off the wheel, with disastrous outcomes. Conservatism is the politics of fear, hatred, and suspicion, and when you strategy folks with those feelings in mind, the doubtless response would be the same, so we find yourself with exactly the type of self-perpetuating eternal state of struggle that George Orwell warned us about in 1984. George Orwell When all fringe superstitions from bible literalists to anti-vaxxers are given full voice, no argument on the contrary can possibly penetrate. Even government’s principle raison d’être, control of knowledge, one way or the other manages to cling to life even when all their nonsense is revealed. Everyone just about shrugs it off. The NSA is spying on me? Shrug. What would Orwell consider a totalitarian oligarchy that’s revealed in its full face to all of its folks and the folks reply by pondering it fo r a minute or two then they simply ignore it. Honestly, I think science fiction authors looking to create a future dystopia really have their work reduce out for them. As lengthy as everybody’s nicely fed and have access to pop culture, you can literally do anything as a authorities and get away with it, as much as and together with often tanking the worldwide economic system, leaving assault rifles in the arms of the mentally ill, and forcing individuals to choose between medicine and shelter. J.M. McDermott, in “Villains Make No Sense,” a type of evaluation of Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, captured this completely: Isn’t it simpler just to have interaction in hostile takeovers of different firms, and intestine them for parts? Isn’t it easier to kick all of the wealth presently earned into an Index fund and let the secure world generate all the revenue an evil asshole needs to punch his manservants for a lifetime? What use all the extra wealth? His mo tivation made no sense. He sought power, however he had it. He sought wealth, however he had it. Shredder’s free-floating evil menace is senseless, either. What use do immortal samurai of doom have for destroying complete cities? One would think about a low-profile and cautious reinvestment of dividends would be more helpful to securing an enduring future than partaking in swordfights with rogue turtles. Villains make no sense. So what we’re left with is, to my thoughts, not so much an evil empire, but a hopelessly fragmented society of self-absorbed, self-serving individuals, giving transitory allegiance to rotating teams based mostly on their quick wants and the diploma to which they happen to believe the last thing they read on the internet or noticed on the so-referred to as “information.” The only one of many three men pictured here that all Americans would recognize, which just about illustrates the issue. We’re really seeing this in play in the present election beca use the Republican Party unravels before our very eyes, not due to anything the toothless Democrats did, however totally on their very own steam. George Packer described that is convincing terms in his essay “Head of the Class” (The New Yorker, May 16, 2016): Trump also grasped what Republican élites are still struggling to fathom: the ideology that has gripped their Party because the late nineteen-seventiesâ€"anti-government, pro-business, nominally piousâ€"has little appeal for hundreds of thousands of strange Republicans. The base of the Party, the middle-aged white working class, has suffered at least as much as any demographic group due to globalization, low-wage immigrant labor, and free trade. Trump sensed the craze that flared from this ache and made it the fuel of his marketing campaign. Conservative orthodoxy, already weakened by its personal extremismâ€"the most recent, least interesting normal-bearer was Ted Cruzâ€"has suffered a stunning defeat from within. And Tru mp has replaced it with one thing extra harmful: white id politics. I don’t know. I’m white, and establish with nothing I’ve heard, so far, from Donald Trump. But I guess I’m simply further smart? Well, that got ranty fast, didn’t it? A little unfocused, just like the country I stay in. Here’s the takeaway for would-be worldbuilders: Governments aren’t ever as monolithic as they may appear, and efforts to create monolithic governments have all ended in catastrophe. Hitler’s Third Reich lasted pretty much as long as it took him to essentially piss everybody off. Maybe the actual dystopia, the one which’s hanging by the thinnest of threads above our heads now, isn’t the monolithic fascist state, but something more like what Mike Judge portrayed within the movie Idiocracy. Not an evil empire, bent on world domination, however a nation of self-absorbed babies, bent on pretending everything is okay except that transgender individuals want to use a public toilet. There ’s a world no twentieth century science fiction writer, even George Orwell, ever foresaw. â€"Philip Athans About Philip Athans Awesome piece Phil. BTW, I`m glad I`m Canadian…