Hostages Need iPods
By Scott Giles
Metaphors are sometimes apt but often tiresome. And when the subject matter is dire then metaphors can appear almost glib, disenfranchising and disrespectful. I say disenfranchising in the respect that an interval is widened between the object and the description.
At times this interval can be useful (we shall drag out the old saw of “the forest for the trees”), but distance may also insulate and it is this segregating factor that does the greatest disservice to the most important subjects (and by extension everyone concerned with the subject).
With this in mind I shall dispense with the metaphor of the Sword of Damocles.
The ultimate expression of the negation of life is the atomic bomb. Vita occisor. Is interficio vita quod alveus in ipsum.[1]
At present there are about 20,000 nuclear weapons aimed at everyone. (Webster, Paul [July/August 2003]. "Just like old times," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 59:4: 30–35). Just think, when you wake up in the morning, when you wash dishes, go to work, eat lunch, watch TV…every waking and sleeping moment of your life you are a hostage. And somewhere in the back of your head you are constantly aware of it.
What omnology can describe the effects of this constant strain? What philosophy would explore the violent decadence of this state of affairs?
It must be questioned. Is it enough that it is questioned? Or are questions irrelevant?
An Ouroboros quandary…recursive, perhaps infinite. It is interesting to consider but apparently is ultimately unhelpful. And this is the consideration: “ultimately.” What is at the center goes beyond human hubris. Eventually, this is about the attempt of Death’s triumph over Life.
The atomic bomb is the expression of the conquest of Entropy. This is a forced entropy of brutal extinction…a vicissitude turning toward the Erebus of somber intent.
I believe that there has resulted from this a mutability of reality that surpasses escapism, prompting a dash deeper into an affected technological future where the artificial is the ultimate aesthetic expression. Surpassing Borg idealism, where the factitious enhances the natural, our quiet panic requires the repudiation of the authentic…even dissolution of the natural world for the absolute civilized.
Some would say that this is not caused by the specter of the bomb but that the bomb is the result of this aforementioned rush from the intrinsic to a fairyland of mechanized teats, both sustaining and entertaining.
Maybe this “chicken or the egg” query would yield something important. Perhaps. But it is certain that the present latitude is untenable. A deadly dread shadows the world and seeks an embrace whose progeny is nonexistence.
Nex volo concubitus per orbis terrarum. Is somnium obscurum quod suus atrum somnium contamino sterilis, cynicis, vehemens. In terminus, is volo sulum futurus a maculo somes spargo in infractus vicus.2
