I was thinking about this: what is new, really, in our modern world? Conflict? Mass distraction? Large masses of stupid people being led by their greed to their dooms by cynical or insane demagogues? What about the possibility of mass extinction, or enslavement?
My suggestion would be that the several calamities which befell the Jewish people were every bit as traumatic as would the subjugation of the United States be to us. And there have been many extinctions of entire peoples. One example: when the Jews retook Israel, they were told by God to put the inhabitants of a number of cities “to the ban”. This means they killed every many, woman, and child. Slaughter to the last person. A whole community, gone, dead, rotting above or below ground.
And yes, our modern means of making people mean are psychologically sophisticated, but do they really consist in anything but the making of other people objects, and the making of the individual’s social order the sum of all good? Did they not know how to do that 2,000 years ago? Of course they did. Even a superficial reading of history makes this clear.
Mass distractions: is there a qualitatively important difference between watching TV and going to a bullfight, which itself is a relic of the Roman Coliseum contests of various sorts? Or take a soccer match. In many cases over the years, the fans have become involved to the points of their literal deaths.
I worry. I worry about the future of our nation and world. Yet, the world I confront is not really fundamentally that different than the world’s that confronted Socrates, Jesus, and the Buddha.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are, and do it now”: this is a good motto, although likely not exactly what Teddy Roosevelt said. How can any of us ever be wise enough to see the entirety of the consequences of our actions? How can any of us be stupid enough to fail to realize that human life rises and falls regularly, and always has?
For whatever reason, this thought comforts me.