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Printer-Friendly ModePower-hungry Commodus can’t save humanity from ugly end
March 1, 2010 —
The problem with positions of leadership in society is that they are accompanied by a great deal of prestige and — quite necessarily — power. Humanity, civilization, is in desperate need of guidance from within. If our goal is to survive and, in our continued existence, be anything but miserable, we need a source of moral courage and new concepts that can support us.
Human existence, in all its wonder and complexity, has been little more than a blind jaunt of serendipity. As were the dinosaurs, we are living by the grace of a window of time between asteroids.
This is all very philosophical — and gloomy — but maybe not for people of faith. If you are one of those that believe in a divine power that is keeping us safe from everything but ourselves (and simply got bored with the dinosaurs before coming into a fit of narcissism and populating the world with miniature versions of herself), asteroids probably don’t make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.
Maybe all the equivalents to asteroids are just as trivial in your mind: Yellowstone National Park exploding, a massive epidemic (zombies, maybe), alien invasion, subterrestrial lizard folk, the “Day After Tomorrow,” Sarah Palin getting elected president of the United States, the whole gambit of apocalypse theories, just stories that are told to mess with the minds of the infidel nonbelievers (like the Aztecs).
Daniel Kenneth Bergsma often says to me that our generation — that is, we young and upcoming professionals or soon-to-be unemployed folks — has the responsibility of saving the world. Don’t go and Google that name; it’s my dad, who has no particular authority on the subject, but I happen to agree with him.
It would be ridiculous for everybody to fret over the apocalypse theories about which little could be done. The sun is expanding and will eventually suck in the Earth. My advice for dealing with that, should you be alive at the time, is to spend your life savings on party food and fine drink and watch the show. That being said, there are asteroids, in a metaphorical sense, that we ought not sit back and observe as they obliterate humanity. Those are the ones we create.
Maybe you don’t believe in the talk-radio type of apocalypse or trust those feather-wearing, human-sacrificing people of the sun, but even if you are a religious person, you most likely believe in the free will of people (I’m certainly not a certified theologian, so if your faith is not fairly included in such a category, this column does not pertain to you; best wishes). While the existence of an omnipotent being is unclear to me, it is quite clear to me that, Yahweh or no Yahweh, there is no intervening force outside of human will causing people to treat each other better or make decisions that promote the survival of the species.
I have only anecdotal evidence to support this assumption (I dare not glorify it to the level of an assertion). I look around and people are killing each other, raping each other, stealing from each other, buying each other, giving each other the bird and destroying each other’s planet. Given the massive amount of suffering endured by people at the hands of their fellow Homo sapiens, I don’t feel dirty assuming that there isn’t anybody keeping us on the right track. That isn’t to say there isn’t anybody; I won’t force that belief on people, but is or isn’t, they aren’t much of a baby sitter.
Global warming, the pollution of every drop of water on the planet, nuclear warfare, super-germs, the concept of ethnicity and nationality, reality TV shows, governors from Alaska, and the capacity to hate in general are the asteroids we ought to worry about. It is theoretically possible to strike ones down, though each year I am alive I find it less likely. Oh, if only Bruce Willis could land a rag-tag group of oilers in Israel and bring peace to the Middle East.
We need leaders who have the continuation of human existence in mind. Presently, we are graced only with advocates for our selfish interests and short-sighted, myopic denial. Instead of finding what we need, we suck down the perpetuation of our own demise, and there are people willing to fill that job because it brings them a life of power and prestige. We need a metaphorical Nicorette-patch to rid ourselves of our addiction to these mongrels.
Marcus Aurelius asked Maximus to be emperor because Maximus did not want to be emperor, a necessary condition for being a good one. Instead, Rome got Commodus. Beware people who want to be politicians: each of them is a Commodus to some degree. Leadership is a burden to be carried, not a prize to be won.