Actually, no matter which part of the title we choose, it would be hard indeed for somebody these days to actually see a difference, discerning that difference and make it clear to others. The possibilities of recognition, of understanding this crisis of individual and societal souls are many. In fact, it can be clearly seen as presented to the public in the most recent big-time films. These two movies presently in the theater are bringing out the crowds. The parking lots are full, and the seats are taken. Will we use this to our advantage, or will we remain stubbornly immune to the truths it lays out before us.
I believe that all forms of media and modes of presentation have lessons for us. We can either see them, learn them, internalize them, make sure they are the proper internalizations, or we can disregard. Do we generally choose the less immediately rewarding or do we choose the blood and guts, the false glory. All through the lives of most people these choices are relatively small ones with no great effect on the rest of the world at large. (Though of course there is always that butterfly effect rule.) While the decisions taken might be consequential for the individual and for those close to the individual, these are not the decisions that break men's souls, causing them to crack and to revert to tactics which are equally reprehensible, born of the same evil of the causative tactics.
There's a new word out there, newly introduced. from the world of psychology into the world of American politics. Actually, it is much of the American persona today. It is cold and heartless. Disinhibition refers to the condition where people become increasingly unable, unwanting, to regulate themselves. They cannot control their impulses and give way to growing ugly urges. Unfortunately, that is the take on American Society today. We have no brakes. We broke them. Too many of us rejoice in the loss of those brakes for they feel a freedom to do as they wish, to indulge the most bloodthirsty desires within. The question within the title becomes moot for they merge, erasing any distance between them.
The first movie is Gladiator II. It has received many accolades and is a good movie, though I think it is overrated. The standard gladiator movie, the Rome Coliseum movie of a corrupt and dying Rome with extras. Exotic animals. Crowds of Gladiators. Doing what men love. Willingly or forced to do. But the bottom line is whether there is an actual differentiation between the two. I am not sure of that difference. Many men indulge in daydreams of gladiator roles and glory, ignoring the nightmares of the reality of those daydreams. Wielding swords and pikes and weapons. Hearing the roars of the crowds cheering them on, calling for more blood, raising thumbs up or down, the intoxicating power of life or death over others, especially to the realistically disenfranchised. Equally as guilty, equally as complicit, for they determine the final end. Do they fully understand what they are doing, feel at least a tiny ping of regret, or could they care less, or actually like it. Or are they ignorant? Perhaps woefully so. If that is the case where does mankind go?
Where can it go? Is there a defect, a design flaw so huge, so overwhelmingly in control of the human psyche that once the wall of inhibition is breached there is no return. No going back. If so, this puts us in a pretty rotten position. Should the Lord actually look down and take an interest in what is happening with His creations, would He, will He send forth the waters again to wipe clean the surface of the earth? Or having promised us there will be no further floods of that dimension will it be via fire or drought or combat or disease? There is no lack of possibilities. Or will we receive compassion yet again, undeservedly so, with the Lord actually sending down some modicums of sensibility and understanding through the heads of enough people. Enough to halt this train wreck of humanity and move the lever and put us on a different track. A better track. Always in the back of the mind is a niggling little question. Would we pay attention to that shift in track? Or would we scream and shout along with the bloodthirsty hordes at the Coliseum, demanding a return to what was.
Juxtapose the Society of the Gladiator and the Society of today and recent history. The elements clearly match up. We have a visibly demented, power hungry, power greedy authoritarian figure, and the movie has a set of demented, cruel twins who know no bounds, every whim indulged. There is the purveyor of gladiators whose ultimate goal to take revenge upon the state of Rome, to destroy it utterly until all that is left is crumbled ruins. We have those amongst us as well. It matches with the revenge hunger of the gladiator, the hero of the movie. Forced to renounce his heritage, he is hauled away to Rome as a gladiator who must prove his prowess in combat, tempted with a possibility remote opportunity of purchasing his own freedom even as he mourns the death of his wife and plots and plans only for his revenge. Ultimately, the same goal: take down Rome.
The question now is whether there is a difference between those two sets of desires for revenge. Does it actually make a difference if the end result is the same? Can there be such a turnaround in the hearts of people and will words spoken at high decibels actually influence them to do the right thing and turn aside from all they know and like? Most history tells me that the masses of people are more likely easier to turn to the evil, to the disinhibition side of life, rather than to the difficulty of maintaining proper standards.
Hence the question. Are people born with a propensity for evil and blood and guts or are they made into these people, gradually morphing into such with no actual point to say" Ha! Here is the point of no return." I wish I knew that point but I am just as troubled and unknowing as everybody else. Now the movie Wicked comes to the fore. The question is asked by Glinda, the good witch. “Are people born wicked? Or do they have wickedness thrust upon them.” How open are people to the adoption of that wickedness thrust upon them? Is there no defense or resistance?
The future Wicked Witch of the East enters the Academy with hidden unacknowledged unknown powers. Overridden by the deep desire to become part of something, to end her lonely status, she doesn't know how nor is she allowed to find that path in a positive manner. The atmosphere at her new school is off balance. There is something wrong within that Academy and society at large. Regarded respected traditions are shattered and the wise goats, the instructors of voice and wisdom are losing their voices and rights. Their speech is unclear and vanishing and their long-held rights to teach are being taken away. Well in tune with my long-term thinking that art and life are all too often impossible to actually separate. them. The situation within the movie is well paralleled with the world of today and the world of the 1930s. In both times Jews are being oppressed. They are being threatened. Their rights, their abilities, their contributions are being negated, denied. and refused. 85,000 students pour through streets shouting words of hate. There is no difference between those words of hate and the Horst Wessel song of the Nazis. Or when an official tells a person that destroying a synagogue is not an act of anti- Semitism. W here has truth gone. Regents of UC speak of the rampant antisemitism and the acts which followed on their campuses. Where is the response, the cures the preventions. Certainly not in any site in any meaningful form.
As is upon Elphaba so it is upon us. To make our own way and to make the proper choice. Will we be our basest components or will we struggle and choose the more difficult but ultimately more rewarding path. Elphaba says, "I think I'll try defying gravity." She screws her courage to the sticking point as per Shakespeare and flies above all. Where will she fly? At the end of an absolutely wonderful climax, we file from the theater knowing that Part Two awaits and we are impatient for it even as we know what happens. But we hope. Perhaps history can be changed Perhaps humanity can dig deep. Perhaps Elphaba will be strong, better than her oppressors, and not give in to righteous anger and tempting evil thoughts of revenge.
This world unfortunately has many natural born wicked witches, male and female. We have an overwhelming surplus of those who will gladly join in, become the camp followers, the enthusiasts, and there is no difference between them and those who slay - literally. They all immersed in the blood of those they kill. They are all responsible for the rubble of society.
This disinhibition is a bad thing. It turns civilization back on itself. We fulfill the. warnings, the realities presented right before us, which we managed to ignore. Judge Learned Hand wrote " Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it." Can you not hear the warning bell of our society today? The ever growing. possibility, probability, of a one party, one-man authoritarian rule rising to the fore, locking out any other life. Will we fulfill the words of another who understands that which is almost upon us? “When truth becomes a casualty, we can only fight it on the streets." That is what we are doing. We are fighting on the streets of our cities, of our towns, of nations of the world.
We have been warned by one who understands this quite well. He writes. that Trump won “because the majority of the voters wanted a would-be dictator as president. ... who promised them revenge on his and their enemies." The fault within us is equivalent to that of the roaring bloodthirsty Coliseum crowds. Is this blood lust innate within humanity? Have we sought it out and planted it deep within our souls? An ugly road, nothing we should desire, but evidently, we do and have done consistently over the millennia. We must find our way back. Fight our way back. To the better part of us.
My favorite political cartoonist, Pepper... and Salt, makes our situation quite clear in two sentences. In one we have an adult instructing a child. “Polite company does not discuss religion, politics, gender, climate, diet, credit scores...” Its corollary is found in another cartoon which states, "I get all my news from the voices in my head.” We are insane. That's the only logical answer. Too insane to understand that the blood and guts and the blood versus guts are actually the same. Revenge rather than tackling the innate causes that leads to demands for revenge. It only leads to worse. Will we, can we, ever shed this ugliness within? Are we capable and wanting to regrow the inhibitions and govern society for the better? At present we are broken, as broken as ancient Rome. Is this the future of humanity.
Who the hell are we today? Where the hell are you and I today? Take a look. Assess. Repeat. Add it all up with honest eyes and soul and understand what we have wrought. Then to actually attempt to repair the world - beginning with us and the little decisions growing into big decisions.
Only we can do this. Only if we put in the sweat equity necessary.
Beginning now.
Yesterday.
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