Dying From Excess
My mind is still occupied with thoughts of the 58 people killed in Las Vegas, and many more who will not recover fully from wounds. An apparently “normal” American collected the means, and took the time to meticulously plan a mass murder. Upon these terms the shooter decided to write the final chapter of his life.
The term “excess” often comes to mind. America has been known as “the land of opportunity.” Children are routinely told that if you believe, anything is possible. This is not meant metaphorically, as an ideal of spiritual attainment. That the extremes of the imagination can be made literally true, is dispensed with a straight face according to the ad pitches which are offered on television. We consciously try to outdo ourselves, to build and create more spectacularly than has ever been done before. Las Vegas especially is the quintessential city of the spectacle. The architecture, the Casinos, the shows represent the spiritual center of our empire, our form of life, our civilization. Rome in its splendor, could not hold to candle to the Las Vegas of our time.
So my thoughts have turned to what “excess” does to us; what manner of character, of inner life, of expectations are catalyzed when convenience, ease, 24×7 entertainment becomes the norm. What is the wider social outcome of speaking at will to my Amazon Echo in order to have a wide range of products show up at the door in a few hours? What are the existential, the psychological consequences of purchasing a vehicle, a computer platform on wheels, which cost more than our parents paid for their first home?
I offer two exhibits of excess.
The first is the development and first use of the atomic bomb. In war-time it was understandable that we feared the weapon might be under development by the Nazis. However after Germany was defeated the work on the bomb proceeded was brought to completion. Then it was used on two Japanese cities. This was after Japan was so decimated by high altitude bombing that the Army Air Corps had run out of targets. The Japanese had nothing left to fight with. And we used the bomb.
Here is a quote from the time:
The news today about ‘Atomic bombs’ is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world! Such explosives in men’s hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope ‘this will ensure peace’. But one good thing may arise out of it, I suppose, if the write-ups are not overheated: Japan ought to cave in. Well we’re all in God’s hands. But He does not look kindly on Babel-builders.(J.R.R. Tolkien to Christopher Tolkien, 9 August 1945)
