Eclipsing Liberty

 

I have a recollection of Conservatism in American politics and culture.  It may be outdated; it may be inaccurate, but it seems quite clear.  While it was characterized by a respect for tradition and authority, it also respected individual freedom.  Freedom from government interference in the thoughts and lives of individuals, specifically.

While its fetishization of the past and accepted customs made it-over suspicious of change and too willing to tolerate established injustices, it was possible to acknowledge its merits because, at least in theory, it abjured autocracy and totalitarianism.  That's no longer the case with respect to what passes for Conservatism today. 

Nor do those who pass for conservatives now have any concern for the freedom of individuals from the control of government. On the contrary, they apparently favor government control, provided they find the government favorable.  As long as that's the case they seem entirely willing to ignore the restrictions of the powers of government the Founding Fathers built into the foundations of our Great Republic.

This is an extremely selfish and short-sighted position for them to take.  They sanction the unrestricted imposition of control by a regime they disfavor which might replace the current regime.  Thomas More said something to the effect that he would give the devil protection of the law to protect himself from the depredations of government. It's difficult to believe that those who call themselves conservatives now lack this wisdom.

It's unclear whether this willingness to see the power of government used to restrict individual liberty is the result of self-indulgence on their part, or fear, or some other irrational motivation.  It may be, though, that H.L. Mencken was right and they value security far more than they value liberty.

That security likely is, for them, security from the freedom of others to do and think as they believe to be appropriate.  This would explain their toleration of if not support for government intrusion in education and regulation of lifestyles, heath, art and entertainment; even of history, Soviet-style.

It's a strange sort of Conservatism that seeks to radically increase the powers of a central government to regulate and curtail life and liberty in what has, traditionally, considered itself to be "the land of the free."

Which Dystopia?

Let's cavil no longer, and admit what is clearly the case.  We live in a dystopia, a bad, harsh place according to the ancient Greek on which the word is based; a society in which its inhabitants live wretched, dehumanized and fearful lives according to Merriam-Webster Online.  Thomas More used the word "utopia" in his novel of the same name, a word meaning "no place."  His utopia was a nearly perfect society, but of course did not exist, being nowhere.  There can therefore be no utopian society, but certainly can be a dystopian one, as we have proved or may be in the course of proving.

Various authors have imagined dystopias, some famously.  But if we live in one now, which of the fictional dystopias is it most like?  Such things may concern some few of us who are citizens of this one in particular.

Some fictional dystopias commonly result from some kind of cataclysmic or apocalyptic event, such as nuclear war or natural disaster.  I find it hard to isolate the cause of our own dystopia.  There's probably no one cause.  In any case, lacking such an event I think we can't compare our dystopia to those depicted in such novels as The Road by Cormac McCarthy or The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard.

As a citizen of God's Favorite County, the U.S.A., I can imagine with relative ease a dystopia created by the machinations of a particular religious sect as in the case of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The Abrahamic religions are inherently intolerant and exclusive, and the version of Christianity most popular here has always been particularly restrictive, though its adherents are notably flexible in their interpretation of the appropriate path whenever it suits them, which is to say for the most part whenever it limits their self-interest, selfishness and bigotry.

I doubt our dystopia can be called religious, however, as there is so much more contributing to the woeful condition of our society.  Economic inequality, for example.  I don't know that plutocracies have ever been considered dystopias, however.  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged has been called a dystopian novel, but the plutocracy it idealizes, which separates itself from the rest of the world, is characterized as a utopia, made up of insanely wealthy geniuses some of whom seem to be aficionados of rough sex, like Ms. Rand herself.   It's unclear whether she considered a fondness for rape roleplay to be common among her super-men and women, if not a necessary condition of their exalted nature, but it figured prominently in her fiction.

The prevalence of violence in our dystopia, particular among the young, is reminiscent of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.  Our suspicion of books and tendency to restrict what is taught brings Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 to mind.  I don't think Orwell's 1984 is similar to what we have achieved to date, as we aren't quite as regimented and regulated, or unified enough, to be compared to its version of dystopia.  Also, our society isn't as puritanical.  We love our pleasures, and are committed to them and manipulated by them.  In that sense, it may be that dystopia as depicted by Huxley in Brave New World is more similar to ours than not.

Which brings me to The Garden of Earthly Delights, the peculiar masterpiece of that peculiar artist, Hieronymus Bosch, pictured above.  Paradise is on the left, hell on the right, and in the center is our world, in which we cavort.  Bosch portrays us as engaged in a grotesque romp.  The people he painted are silly, stupid, carnal, frenzied and mad.  Hell is obviously their destination--indeed, they seem to be rushing towards it.

One thing which I think has been lacking in fictional dystopias is the fact that we're quite capable of making our world a harsh place in which we live harsh and fearful lives simply by being stupid and ignorant.  I don't think it an exaggeration to say that stupidity and ignorance are two of the primary causes of our current dystopia.  What we accept and believe today as true is remarkably preposterous in certain respects. That we accept things as true without hesitation or efforts at verification is extraordinary in itself.  It's hard to think of other times when we've been so credulous, so willing to believe what we're told, particularly when it comes to our politics.  

As elections and primaries grow close here, we're inundated with commercials so pitiful, so corny, so clearly biased that it's difficult to believe they can be taken seriously by anyone.  Do those who create these vile, pandering, unintentionally comic advertisements really believe we're so shallow, so stupid, so easily manipulated?  Are we, in fact?

We all know the saying "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."  It's been attributed to Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill.  That may well be true, but our dystopia may have come about not because we've done nothing to prevent the triumph of evil, but because we've been too stupid to recognize the evil taking place, or understand what is good, or do good.  

I don't think a novel with this theme will be forthcoming.

My American Dream

"You can dream the American Dream, but you sleep with the lights on and wake up with a scream."  Warren Zevon, Fistful of Rain 

It's likely that even cynical lawyers like myself have a certain regard for the rule of law.  I do, in any case.  Perhaps after so many years I've come to respect the vast and imposing system it is; I'm invested in it, in a sense.  Most especially, I respect those restrictions on the power of government, and others, meant to assure civil liberties.

I've always liked the film A Man for All Seasons.  In one scene Thomas More and Will Roper are having an argument regarding law and the devil.  Roper insists that he'd cut through the laws to get at the devil, and More replies:

"Oh?  And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?  This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--man's laws, not God's--and, if you cut them down--and you're just the man to do it--d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then.  Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of the law, for my own safety's sake."

I'm unconvinced of the devil's existence, but the deviltry of we humans is familiar enough to me, and I've thought much the same as does More in the film regarding the protection afforded by the law from the harms we delight in inflicting on one another.

But there are times, increasing in frequency, when the rule of law seems less and less a fact and more and more a dream here in our Great Union.  A rule of convenience rather than a rule honored and vigorously maintained.  A rule imposed in the service of money, and power, and repression; of the monied and powerful whose interest it is to repress those without money and power.  The protection of the law is granted selectively.  The devil in us is given the benefit of the law, assuredly, but we aren't unless the devil is in us.

We may have no aristocracy, but we have a plutocracy.  That plutocracy doesn't grow, but its assets and power do.  How many now believe in, or experience, what used to be called "The American Dream"?  It seems ridiculous to assert that there is equality of opportunity here.  There is instead none for most of us, or at best a lesser opportunity for some.

The regard in which the gluttons and hoarders that make up the plutocracy are held is astounding.  Our legal system and morality encourage acquisition and retention.  Efforts at providing a minimal degree of comfort, health and welfare to all are viewed with suspicion, decried as "socialism" while the plutocracy thrives.  The extent to which it has mesmerized the middle class, if one still exists, is remarkable.  The hoarding of the wealthy is guaranteed by the acceptance of the doctrine of rights by those who have far less that they are entitled to.  The concept of rights, inherently selfish, has overwhelmed the concept of virtue.

One can't help but wonder whether the have-nots have, or shortly will, have had enough.  The pandemic, so utterly ignored by the plutocrats, may ignite a resentment long suppressed as jobs and lives continue to be lost.  Then what?  Goaded on by malcontents, so influential in these times of limitless communication and little thought, to chaos.

In the Kingdom of Fear, my fondest hope is to be left alone by government, by everyone, politicians, pundits, police, people.  That's what has become my American Dream.