For a year, I have been mute.
Before, I was often righteously noisy, sometimes articulate, and occasionally erudite, and every once in a while, I even managed to be incisive. Since at least February 2007, however, I have been retarded and obstructed, dammed at the source and unable to sift the noise from the chaff inside my mind—unable even to keep my metaphors straight. I have been utterly constipated in thought and execution, full of presumedly important things I needed or wanted to say, but unable to focus on any single thread of thought long enough to form a coherent line of reasoning. It has been nearly impossible to distinguish the meaningful from the trivial; to focus on what really matters, and to ignore the rest. I have been drawn in all directions by all things for almost a year, as my mind tried to find a focus for its interests and energies.
The experience has been both painful and cathartic.
To be sure, in the past year I’ve written many things that were meaningful in their small context, but those were mostly just surface scratches of thought, and almost all were responses to external taskings or goadings. Hardly anything I wrote to completion was born of my own drive or interests, and none of it was worth posting anywhere as far as I was concerned. Certainly, during the year of school I completed in March, I became quite good at tossing off scads of rapidly formed opinions laser-focused on trivial points of debate, all geared toward making me stand out in the crowd, and all very potent and important sounding. Little of that really mattered, though, except that I was forced to become more articulate and more purposefully critical and analytic. That part was fun, and in the doing, I learned a great deal about my world and about myself, especially while writing my thesis, but in some ways I was crippled by the experience as well. I came to realize that I did not know nearly as much as I thought I knew about many things, but worse, I came to believe that both my prior education and my understanding of my life’s experiences were fundamentally flawed. Education extends one’s horizons, but it also diffuses certainty, and it dilutes resolve in the face of doubt, producing resistance and internal conflict. I was unable to find my true voice—the one I trusted, which before was usually clear and unencumbered in my mind, but now had become uncertain and much less resonant. The result was almost a year of non-writing, initially because I couldn’t write and later because I wouldn’t.
It took me a while to identify and understand the point of conflict and confusion within, and to untangle the competing strands of need and interest. It took me longer to balance my expanded understanding of our world with my desire to write accurately about complex issues or current events in a simple, straightforward way. Frankly, I thought I had finally become one of those people who is “educated way beyond his intelligence,” but the problem wasn’t intellect, it was incomplete synthesis. The more I thought about it, the more I came to realize that knowledge without context confounds understanding, and that I just needed to give my mind time to figure out where to file everything it had accumulated during the previous year. Of course, synthesis doesn’t happen without impetus, so I decided late last summer that I would not write anything for publication or external consumption until at least the start of the new year, and longer if needed. I also reduced the amount of time I spent reading news sites, blogs, and magazines to a fraction of the time I used to spend, and I focused instead on things like books, art, photography, movies, and games, drastically reducing the daily inflow of new information. It was not as difficult as when I stopped smoking, but there were still occasions when I had to force myself to do something different, to immerse myself in something completely disconnected from the political world, like yard work or computer games.
Unfortunately, although I was mute and blinkered, I was not blind or deaf, and though I’ve posted nearly nothing on-line since late Spring, I have nonetheless become increasingly angry and dismayed by a great deal of what I have read or heard, and not just by the standard-issue rogues gallery and piñata-headed simpletons who dominate the news on any given day. Even so, because I had more or less put myself in time-out for six months, I generally refused to engage in public debates about politics, religion, the military, immigration, energy policy, environmental issues, the wars, economics, racism, etc.
Suffice to say, I’m done with that nonsense.
Which of course begs the question, What now? Well, first I wanted to let people know I am back to writing; second, as much for myself as anyone else, I wanted to explain why it has been over a year since I posted anything here; and third, I wanted to set the course ahead, to give some idea about what I hope to accomplish with this and my other websites. As to that last, I recently completed and placed on-line a second website on which I plan to post material that is less formal, less political, and less narrowly focused on international affairs, government, and history. Some of what I’ve posted here will move to that website and some things here will just go away because I don’t think they belong here. That was part of what I needed to resolve before I could begin writing again, and it took time to work it all out, but I’m satisfied with the results. The Grand Retort is going to be devoted primarily to essays, monographs, and articles covering a wide range of current events and topical issues, mostly from an ‘enlightened’ American point of view. Book reviews and open-ended editorials and commentaries will also have the same character and focus; thus, for example, the review of Lord Jim will be moved to my other website because it doesn’t really fit here.
As for the facade, aside from some structural and color additions, the site will not change much. The tenor and tone, however, may be very different, but I really won’t know for certain how much until I’ve done some more writing and I’ve had a chance to see what I think about things now. On the other hand, I already know many of subjects I will be writing about, and generally how I feel about them. The short list looks like this (in no particular order):
• Why I would vote for Hilary Clinton or Mitt Romney, but not for Obama, Paul, Roberts, McCain, or any of the other one-trick ponies.
• The “Global War on Terrorism,” like the War on Drugs, is a really stupid idea with a really stupid name. Wars are fought against people and nations, not ideas and ideologies. I even hate the sound of the acronym, which reminds me of frogs: GWOT (geWatt)
• The word “Hero” is very much overused these days, and means almost nothing to me anymore. Simply joining the military service and going to war does not make a person a hero. Neither does dying. Doing one’s duty is not so unusual in this country that it should be called heroic when people do it. Using the word hero to describe everyone who simply steps forward makes less meaningful the praise of those whose deeds truly deserve to be called heroic. I’ve known a few genuine heroes, I’ve known thousands of people who did their duty. Doing one’s duty is expected, but it is not an insult to be accused of such a thing, it is a high compliment. Truly heroic actions, on the other hand, transcend duty and need no compliment; they are a manifestation of the spirit of selflessness that I believe lives in each of us, just waiting for the right moment to prove our lives have meaning beyond mortal toil. In my mind, heroes don’t need the praise they get, and we don’t give it for them. We praise heroes because they make us feel better about ourselves; they have shown us that no matter how ordinary a person may be, there is potential for real and important greatness in all of us. I have always idolized certain classes of heroes, and so although I think very highly of the men and women who are doing their duty, I want the word hero back. I want it to mean something again, not just that a person was willing to put on a uniform and go to war.
• Young men and women with war-scarred or missing body parts is not something I ever missed being a natural part of life in America. I grew up with it all around me, and I’ve always hated how sad it made me. I still hate it, but now that sadness is tinged with anger that gets stronger every time I see another maimed American.
• Democrats, Republicans, Islamists, Atheists, and Other Nitwits: Why I don’t wear labels, join political parties, or declare for any religion, political philosophy, dogma, or other man-made idiocy. Damn people and their differences….
• Abortion is murder and people who perform abortions are baby killers, even if it is legal for them to do it. People who take money for killing babies are no less repugnant to me than Timothy McVeigh or Palestinian suicide bombers. Pro-choice is just code for being pro-baby killing, and I defy anyone to show me how killing an unborn child just because the mother doesn’t want it is morally or ethically different from killing a newborn for the same reason! And to think, the people who are most vociferously pro-choice today are the same sorts of people who so vociferously protested Calley’s ‘baby killing.’ Hypocrites and baby killers, the lot of them.
• Political correctness is killing discourse, debate, and intellectual honesty in America. I say screw all the niggardly ignoramuses who are too cheap to buy a dictionary or too dumb to understand one!
• The mediocratization of America: Hey! All you smart, motivated, and capable people! Sit down and shut the hell up! You’re making the rest of us look bad!
• The 2nd Amendment: I do not care what the government du-jour declares or mandates. It is my right to own and bear arms, regardless of why I might want them, and I will not give up that right or ever let it be taken from me, no matter what the Law declares. Simply, if the government ever tries to take my right to own guns away from me, I will become a criminal and the government will become the enemy. I am absolutely certain I will not be alone.
• Who really killed Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan? Who stood to benefit the most and least? The Great Game…
• Global Warming & Our Dying Oceans: I think we really are killing our planet, but no one wants to admit it, and short of drastic concerted international action, there’s not much anyone can do to stop it. Maybe that’s why so many governments are planning to send humans to Mars. Maybe they know something they haven’t told anyone….
• Ivory poachers, tiger hunters, whalers, and other humans who should be shot on sight and left to rot where they fall.
• Puerto Rico & Mexico: The next six U.S. states.
• Reparations for Slavery: The stupidest, most potentially racially divisive idea ever to come out of black Americans. I would resist this with every ounce of energy possible, as will everyone who is neither black nor a rich white idiot.
• African American is not a color or a race, White is not a not a place or a nationality. Lots of native Africans are neither black nor negroid, lots of black people are not ‘from’ Africa, and lots of white people are not descended from non-Hispanic Europeans (Japanese people are ‘white’, as are many Iranians—who are in fact Aryan, not Arabic). When the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus change their names, and we stop saying things like “historically black college” when referring to the likes of Grambling, Morehouse, or Howard, I might consider going along with the feel-good lie. Until then, I refuse to use the term African American when I mean a black American, just as I don’t say Irish American when I mean a white American.
• DoD & the National Security Personnel System (NSPS), a classic case of the ‘Emperors New Clothes.’
• What do the terms Liberal and Conservative mean, and do they even really matter anymore? Just as most modern country music used to be called rock ‘n’ roll, it seems to me that most people who claim they are liberal or conservative just don’t understand there is no longer a need to be one or the other. Staking a claim to a label is really just intellectual and emotional laziness; it gives people a feeling of belonging and action, while releasing them from having to think hard about unpleasant subjects for too long or having to go against the grain of other self-labeled people. Me? I prefer to form my own opinions and make my own labels.
• Jerusalem should be an international city, administered by the U.N., which could move there. Really, how much more screwed up could it get than it is now, and we’d at least be rid of the U.N. and all the scoff-law diplomats.
• Military weapons sales to foreign nations really are a ‘going concern.’ Arsenal of Democracy? Supplying Defenders of Freedom? Yeah, right. Show us the money!
• Immigration is good for the United States, regardless of how the people get here, and we should spend more time helping those who want to become citizens and less time fretting stupidly about whether they came her legally. Everything that most people think they know about immigration in America is wrong: we are not and never have been nearly as universally welcoming as we would like to imagine ourselves, and the foreign-born percentage of the population in the U.S. is still smaller today than it was in 1910, and the effects of their presence are not nearly so great. Worse, for decades, we not only allowed, but actively encouraged Mexican peasants to work in the U.S. as field laborers—until, in the ‘60s, it became unpopular again, and we made it illegal for them to be here. The notion that Mexicans who come to work in the U.S. are somehow committing an egregious crime just by coming here is ludicrous. I say we ought to let them come, and then we ought to take a look at the people in this country who don’t work nearly as hard, if at all, and maybe think about sending those folks to Canada, where I am sure they would be treated humanely and accorded full rights as refugees from the evil U.S.
• The International Criminal Court: Not No Way, Not No How!
• Supporting Soldiers and Protesting Wars: Frothing jingoism is not debate, and I will not be silenced by fear of being called un-American. Some wars are wrong, no matter that good people are willing to go fight them. I can indeed hope for military success by my countrymen while protesting the reason they are fighting. I do not have to blame them for what they are doing, nor think badly of them, nor expect them to do anything but their best, but I also do not have to stand by silently and watch just because other people are willing to do their duty. I refuse to surrender my right to protest actions of my government I do not agree with, regardless of whether some of my fellow citizens might suffer thereby. They could choose to protest as well. If they do not, or they do not agree with me, that is just not my problem.
• The military Draft is wrong and should be abolished forever, made permanently illegal as an amendment to the Constitution; concurrently, some so-called rights ought to be reserved; earned only by federal service or acceptable equivalent (e.g., peace corps, teacher corps, etc.). No person should be refused a chance to serve in some capacity, regardless of physical condition, unless that person is simply incapable of understanding the concept and the value or cost.
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And a whole lot more just like that, some of it even fairly acidic and controversial, if you can imagine it. Of course, I still have to write it all, and I’m still not entirely certain any of it will be worthy of more than passing interest, but I’ve found my voice again, and I intend to use it. To what avail, only time will tell.
For now, though, thanks for stopping by and for reading this far.
V/R
Sanger Magee
By The Way . . . .
As always, unless specifically noted elsewhere on this site, The Grand Retort is solely the product of my own mind, and is not in any way affiliated with nor supported by any other individual or organization. The views and opinions expressed on this site may be shared by other people, but I alone am responsible for everything that is posted or displayed here, so if you’ve got a complaint or if you just want to make a comment, you can contact me by using the ‘E-Mail Me’ link at the top of this page.
