After an eight-year manhunt costing billions of dollars and who knows how many innocent lives, involving unprecedented advantages in terms of technology and manpower, US forces finally managed to catch an elderly man who was dying of kidney failure while hiding out in his harem.
“Yes we can!”
Are we seriously supposed to applaud Dr. Frankenstein for finally catching his monster?
So which was more meaningless: President Bush’s theatrical declaration of “Mission Accomplished” atop the flight deck of the USS Lincoln back in May 2003, or the justice recently served to bin Laden in the name of safeguarding the fire of Zeus?
By saying that the eradication of yesterday’s most wanted terrorist could perhaps open a brief window of opportunity for diplomacy, US officials have signaled once again that addressing the underlying causes of terrorism is altogether irrelevant to this war on terrorism which is being waged with such vigor and patriotism.
Perhaps they recognize the futility of engaging in a battle for hearts and minds, as if there were indeed some necessary correlation between these two things under the capitalist mode of production. Perhaps they are in fact as stupid as they seem.
Is there a point to this war being waged against an enemy whose greatest strength would seem to be that he lurks in abstraction? Must we hunt down beasts which we have raised in captivity in order to prove to the castrated nations of Europe that we are still, if nothing else, better than the Nazis?
With so many thirsty mouths wandering in the desert, it is in all likelihood only a matter of time before the well is run dry. And so it seems that we now stand confronted by the ugly possibility that an even greater monster is already lurking in our midst, in the form of that weariness and indifference which have stemmed from a decade’s worth of expectations, continually awakened through as yet unfulfilled promises.
Hegel once remarked with characteristic insight that, by the little which is capable of satisfying the needs of the human spirit, we can measure the extent of its loss. If we sincerely find it believable that there is heroism and virtue to be gained in the lazy triumph of Goliath over David, then it would seem that we are no longer even in a position to measure the true extent of what has become lost to this human spirit.
There is no bliss for us to celebrate in ignorance such as this. There are only the painful realities of living in a world grown so blind to its own desperation that it can no longer be expected to find answers to the questions on which its own existence grows increasingly dependent with every moment that passes.
Why did it take Goliath eight years to defeat David?
Why does Goliath insist that he himself is just so many Davids?
Can a god born from man still appreciate mortality?
Apparently, no se puede.
Posted on May 17, 2011
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