CLEMENS: So there are a privileged few...who serve on these ships, living in luxury, wanting for nothing. But what about everyone else? What about the poor? You ignore them...
TROI: Poverty was eliminated a long time ago. And a lot of things disappeared with it: hopelessness... despair... cruelty... war...
He regards her solemnly. He's beginning to realize that his dark view is misplaced.
CLEMENS: I come from a time when men achieve wealth and power by standing on the backs of the poor... when prejudice and intolerance are commonplace... when power is an end unto itself...
(beat)
And you're telling me... that isn't how it is anymore?
TROI: That's right.
CLEMENS: (with a sigh) Maybe it is worth giving up cigars for, after all...
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 6, Episode 1, "Time's Arrow, Part 2"
I find it funny when the misguided masses speculate on how the future can only get better. Yet those who have been disconnected from the Matrix see that things don't get better; they get worse. Things that we assume are improving society are bringing it down, down, down into the depths of depravity, despair and debauchery (how about that alliteration--impressive, eh?). What seems so obvious is that freedom without responsibility and decency improves nothing.
Call me a moralist. I'll take that as a compliment. Call me narrow-minded and I'll disagree with you. Believing that actual alternatives are many and viable alternatives are few is realistic, not narrow-minded. I believe you have many choices available, most of which are bad. Don't blame me though when I refuse to follow you down that dark, broad path.
Go ahead. Make your bad choices. Be prepared to reap the consequences. Call me a prophet of doom. I'll say, "You're right." Doom is what waits for you at the end of that dark, broad path. Just don't go to your doom thinking your way was the only way.
I love misanthropy!I always read Robinson Jeffers when I need to replenish my sense of "inspired loathing" (see below).None of this is a detraction from your point-- we do indeed have few viable alternatives with which to build a brighter future, and we must actually expend the effort to build it, and maintain it, and guard it against threats, and human nature wars against all of that. History tells us that we must relearn the hard lessons again and again. It is so hard to maintain the morality of the citizenry, and the corruption of the citizenry is always the downfall of the republic (Ben Franklin said something to that effect). Liberty is confused with license. License leads to indecency and greed in the name of freedom. And speculation is worthless, without something real to back it up or flesh it out-- speculations and hysteria are what got us into this mess.So Many Blood-Lakes, by Robinson Jeffers, 1944We have now won two world-wars, neither of which concerned us, we were slipped in. We have leveled the powersOf Europe, that were the powers of the world, into rubble and dependence. We have won two wars and a third is coming.This one—will not be so easy. We were at ease while the powers of the world were split into factions: we've changed that.We have enjoyed fine dreams; we have dreamed of unifying the world; we are unifying it—against us.Two wars, and they breed a third. Now guard the beaches, watch the north, trust not the dawns. Probe every cloud.Build power. Fortress America may yet for a long time stand, between the east and the west, like Byzantium.—As for me: laugh at me. I agree with you. It is a foolish business to see the future and screech at it.One should watch and not speak. And patriotism has run the world through so many blood-lakes: and we always fall in.
ReplyDelete@runaheadofme - Er...yeah...that's what I meant, but in a less scholarly fashion.My love for the U.S. of A. is deep and abiding. Though I don't see a moral reversal in our future, I still want to shout, "Hey, America! We need to get our doo-doo together!" Though I would gladly go down with the ship, I'd rather see it stay afloat.
ReplyDelete@Bongo5 - Well, it's been floating a hell of a lot longer than Robinson Jeffers thought it would.
ReplyDelete@Bongo5 - and "scholarly schmolarly"!
ReplyDelete