The Urge to End History by Louis Evan Palmer
The urge to end history gets posited in various ways, in isolation, in volleys, as ultimate desolation, as eden remade, but its main attribute is that the desired state we will find ourselves, if we're alive, is one in which no appreciable change will any longer occur. Stripped of rhetoric, it's a conclusion to the human journey on this planet, a solid self-sustaining stasis. This resolution, which some fervently want, is the emergence of a national or global community where major sources of confrontation have been addressed or, more likely, negated.
They are Utopians and whether that Utopia is good or bland, it will be certain and orderly. And this is not a bad thing except for the fact that Utopians with power seem to differ from Utopians without power. Utopians with power seem to be revolutionists at heart and they are the ones who will make history even when they are seeking to end it... in their favour.
Most people are happy with steady, incremental progress and peace. The history they want is unspectacular. But the pushy people who inhabit the corridors of power and whisper in the ears of those who command the armies & the weapons are not satisfied with patience and peace, they seek advantage and they seek dominion.
These are the people who muse about a clash of civilizations or armageddon or startling new weapons that can assure full-spectrum victory. These are the people who constantly wage every kind of war, large and small, against everyone. The methods they use to attain the peace they envisage deforms society to the extent that what is protected in the end is a twisted perverse version of the peaceful community that we began with.
We have to be careful what we give to our leaders since they can fashion it into something quite different. It is safer and more accurate for us to agree that history will never end and that we must live together peacefully. It is much more dangerous to slide into the "dream" that we can somehow end history to our liking.
The Urge to End History, The Way It Can Be, Louis Evan Palmer, http://twicb.blogspot.com
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Copyright 2007 Louis Evan Palmer lives in Ontario Canada. His short stories have been published in numerous pub
1 comment:
Thanks Evan.
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