"Where are the novelists and poets of the daily grind of the war," asks Timothy Burke in yet another thought-provoking blogpiece, "the people who call us to some deeper meditations about the meaning of it all, who bring us together in a contemplative pause where the lion lays down with the lamb and the warblogger sighs heavily in sympathetic unison with the critic of the war?" Where, he continues, "is the general humility in the face of events vastly larger than ourselves, the reflective pause?"
Well, this is an age of immodesty. And it is also an age of lightning-fast reaction and response.
There are those among us who would speak truth to power. And there are those among us who would speak the language of power as that of the unvarnished truth. But what we all share is a perspective that is at best partial and incomplete. It is from this shared vantage point that we view the unfolding of events that are, as Burke reminds, "vastly larger than ourselves."
We are distant spectators. But we don't much like to acknowledge this distance. What we want is a sense of immediacy, a sense of being, in some small way, a part of it all. For some, let's face it, this desire for immediacy translates into an exaggerated sense of the significance of anti-war statements: if I say X, then I am part of a world-historical struggle, an unofficial opposition to the powers-that-be. For others, let's face it, this desire for immediacy translates into an exaggerated sense of the significance of pro-war statements: if I say Y, then I am hobnobbing with the power structure and cosying up to those insiders who will soon prove themselves the forces of victory. I think we do (or at least most of us do) realize that events are vastly larger than ourselves. But our desire to "only connect," combined with our ability to read and comment at the speed of light, argues against the humility that the distance and the vastness should recommend.
Posted by Invisible Adjunct at April 3, 2003 11:23 PM