I’m way behind reading the new yorker this fall and loved the article on Viereck and the conservative movement. I kind of knocked the wind out of myself in college when I switched to a similar anti-utopian view of the world. When I was a kid I looked up tremendously to figures like Malcolm X and RFK who I viewed as heroes. They seemed to me incorruptible, unsheltered, brave and so well-spoken. But what did they really accomplish. Somebody shot them first of all, which tends to cut things short, and they were largely marginalized to the extent of being almost totally ineffective. No one is a greater example of that than Jesus who is a marginalized figure in his own religion (with respect to what he actually had to say anyway). They’re all false-heros not because they weren’t great but because society couldn’t handle them or their ideas. Good well-meaning scientists are often false-heros as well. Einstein and his celebrity status are largely a result of the public excitement for futuristic atomic energy and the modernization of the world through technology. But when discoveries don’t tell the public what they want to hear, no one listens. Alcohol is, most likely, way more damaging to brain cells than ecstasy or cocaine. Good luck finding government funding for that study, much less publishing it. From what happened in New Orleans to global warming to the imminent skyrocketing of energy prices over the next 30-40 years, scientists and well-intentioned economists are largely working in a vacuum and relegated to Cassandra-like status in the public eye. They would do much better to find a collective way to work the system and change opinions rather than spitting shocking new ideas in everyone's face. I think this is only depressing if you grew up believing in something else. The world is not perfect but it isn’t a nasty place either. It is what it is. People who keep that in mind and don't fight against it make for much effective people…not to mention more effective heroes to believe in.
Sorry maybe this isn't well thought out. Just idle thoughts.
Posted on Monday, October 31, 2005, 4:03 PM