Comments for Last Sunday: Digging in and digging deep at http://www.pacificfreepress.com , comment 1 to 1 out of 1 comments http://www.pacificfreepress.com Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:24:54 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/336-last-sunday-digging-in-and-digging-deep.html#comment-225 You cite Camus: “Tomorrow the world may burst into fragments. In that threat hanging over our heads there is a lesson of truth. As we face such a future, hierarchies, titles, honors are reduced to what they are in reality: a passing puff of smoke. And the only certainty left to us is that of naked suffering, common to all, intermingling its roots with those of a stubborn hope.” That quote seems to me a hifalutin and misleading elaboration on the simple fact that everybody's gonna die someday. Religious leaders for millennia have preached it and taught that "all is vanity". The all-too-human struggle for wealth, power, possession, fame, is futile as everybody knows, but people all over the world immerse themselves in it nevertheless. As Leonard Cohen wrote: Everybody knows that the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody got this broken feeling Like their father or their dog just died Everybody talking to their pockets Everybody wants a box of chocolates And a long stem rose Everybody knows. Anyone who has ever sat through a meeting can attest to the fact that those who offer rational solutions to real-world problems are as often as not trumped by those who sell magic beans. I don't like the fact either, but it's a fact nonetheless that when the whip comes down the mob will shit-can logic and reason. They will go for that which promises to fill their empty pots quickest. It's nice that you've read Camus, but you ought not confuse yourself with the illusion that he was an original thinker or that he was right about too awfully much. As you quote him again, for example, "I have nothing but reasonable illusions as to the outcome of that battle. But I believe it must be fought." He was wrong on both counts. Rational thinkers know that there are no reasonable illusions. And it isn't that the battle "must be fought." It is that the battle HAS BEEN fought, over and over, throughout recorded history. It's BEING fought now, all around us, even as we quibble here. If you want to get into that fight, if you crave the mob's attention, then just on the odd chance that you get what you want, you'd better be tapped into a LARGE supply of gold and guns and butter. When the going gets rough, those are the only currencies that matter. The mob always wants the pot filled. They'll eat a box of chocolates, if you've got one. They'll put your long-stem rose in their collective hat, maybe even embroider it on the flag -- but they got no use for bullshit or for Albert Camus. - Jimmy Montague Tue, 28 Nov 2006 15:47:22 +0100