What More Do You Want?
Look at the two great events:
[the advent of] nuclear power and revolution.
It is utterly pointless to hope for the one or to fear the other
since both have already occurred.
Everything has been liberated, changed, undermined;
what more do you want?
It is useless to hope: things are there;
born or stillborn, they are there, done.
Imagination reigns;
enlightenment and intelligence reign.
We are already experiencing or soon will experience
the perfection of the societal.
Everything is there.
the heavens have come down to earth.
We sense the fatal taste of paradise.
It drives one to despair, but what should one do?
No future.
Nevertheless, do not panic.
-excerpt The Anorexic Ruins by Jean Baudrillard published 1989
Such haunting words seem important to me, – so I am compelled to offer them for your consideration.
The monster storm Ian, a Cat 4 hurricane soon will make landfall in Florida. Go ahead “deny” or “affirm” human-caused Climate Warming, –the storm, a giant rotating blender of wind and rain, a deluge evaporated from the warm ocean, is inexorable. If you are in Florida at this juncture, believe what you will. It no longer matters.
In Europe Russia’s Putin insists on mobilizing the male citizens in order prosecute the invasion of Ukraine. It is reported Russian men by the thousands are fleeing the country by every means to escape the voracious maw of war. As one would expect Putin threatens again, to reach for a nuclear weapon.
This is paradise, the apotheosis of material prosperity here in Batavia, Geneva and St. Charles. Events that I describe are observed from a distance, as if in a darkened theater,… But what should one do?
I think of the scene in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator story when Maximus, forced to participate in gladiatorial combat, speaks to the soulless spectators seated in the coliseum:
“Are You Not Entertained? Are You Not Entertained? Is This Not Why You Are Here?”
What about something to hold onto, a tune? This one tells the truth: Slip Slidin’ Away written by Paul Simon.
