"When we reach the city."
Another fine comment which deserves a blog of its own: First I read Mr. T's blog. I have to admit your hope is small. Then I read Deltashark's comment. He said, "I feel depressed when I think about the future." How can you feel that way? Sure, we may not be the highest educators in the world but think about all the good we are doing. In Fahrenheit 451 Granger talks about his grandpa that was a sculptor, and how he missed the things his grandpa did when he died. He said that we must all change whatever we touch for the better. Well, I ask you how can you do that if you are not excited? How can you make life better if you are depressed? Sure, our education may be 25th in the world but the things we are doing for other countries and other people show that at least some people value more than what Mr. T's blog said. The future can be depressing. You can think about all the bad that is going on around us, or you can think on the good. The future could be bright too. Our future is really up to us, we can make it bright or we can make it depressing.
She'll hate hearing me say this, but apparently Tieger Lily took that Anthem study guide to heart because what she is getting at here is also one of the important themes of that novel: A person's future is up to that person, not the society in which s/he lives. Even in a dystopia (like those in Anthem and Fahrenheit 451), the individual can rise above the mindless conformity and do something meaningful. One reason I enjoy this blogging experience so much is because it fosters discussions like this. I said in my previous post that I sometimes despair because there are so many Beattys and Mildreds running around our world, but clearly anyone who would bother to write an intelligent response to one of these blogs is not such a person; these blogs allow me to interact with the Fabers, Clarisses, and Grangers...and they restore my hope.
Now I'll attempt to to answer Tieger Lily's questions...even though they may have been rhetorical. She asks DeltaShark how he can feel depressed about the future and then goes on to remind him of the words of Granger from the novel (one of my favorite passages, by the way!). I fully understand what Tieger Lily is saying, but I don't think there is actually any conflict here (as much as she'd like to conjure some up). It is just a difference in point of view. Tieger Lily's perspective is one of youthful certainty, and it is based on her personal confidence and conviction that she can (and will) make a difference in the world. (And I have no doubt that this is true.) DeltaShark (who will also contribute to the cause of humanity in a thousand ways) looks at the future from a more global perspective. The "depression" comes when we consider that not everyone shares our desire to promote the general welfare. Sure there are plenty of people who "take care of their own," but there seem to be fewer people all the time that are willing to take care of each other. This is especially scary to thinking people who have kids. (Notice: I said thinking people. Most people who never worry about any of this aren't thinking...and that would probably be most of the population, which is the other scary thing.) We want our kids to have a better world than the one we have, but we fear that it won't be. We fear that they may not have as many oppotunities or that the world won't be as kind to them as it has been to us.
Tieger Lily also asks, "How can you make life better if you are depressed?" Simple answer: You probably can't. But neither can you do much good if you completely ignore all the potential problems in the world. A recent example would be the fact that New Orleans was virtually wiped out by a hurricane even though the government knew for a long time that those levees were unsafe. People who knew better could have done more. Something could have been done to solve the problem before it became a problem (i.e., the worst natural distaster in American history), but the decision makers decided to use the money another way...a tax cut for for the richest 1% of the population, probably. I think DeltaShark used the term "depressed" in a more general sense. He wasn't talking about being personally depressed and lock-yourself-up-in-a-dark-room sort of miserable. (He really is a pretty happy guy!) I think he was talking about that general worry about the direction the world seems to be going. When you realize that much of the social decay described in Fahrenheit 451 is no longer fiction, it can be kinda creepy to consider where we might end up. In that novel, the society was on the brink of atomic war, but the government strategy was to ignore it, to keep the population happy with lots of "good" entertainment. Mildred's friends, whose husbands were off to fight in the war, even failed to appreciate the horror of such a situation until Montag read them a poem that reflected their own experience. Ignorance is bliss...until the war comes, until the hurricane hits, until the illusion shatters. And who will be left to put it all back together afterwards? It's the people like you, Tieger Lily, Delta Shark, Bertha, et. al. The thinkers, the doers, the movers and shakers.
Finally, I agree with Tieger Lily that we can't reflect only upon the problems of the world. Even amidst the horrors of war, disaster, disillusionment, and seemingly endless hatred among humankind, there are plenty of decent people doing good things. The problem is that we usually don't recognize them. There is a song by Rush called "Nobody's Hero" that perfectly illustrates the way our society tends to deify those who are the most popular while we ignore those who are doing the most good, those who are quietly suffering personal pain to make the world better for someone else, those who take pride in jobs that offer no reward, those who make a difference that the rest of us may never know about.
Maybe this is what it comes down to: There are good things happening, and we should recognize them. There are bad things happening, and we should fix them. Maybe that's what it means to be fully human, fully alive.
One way or another, it's nice to sit around this warm campfire and mull these things over with the other "book people."
She'll hate hearing me say this, but apparently Tieger Lily took that Anthem study guide to heart because what she is getting at here is also one of the important themes of that novel: A person's future is up to that person, not the society in which s/he lives. Even in a dystopia (like those in Anthem and Fahrenheit 451), the individual can rise above the mindless conformity and do something meaningful. One reason I enjoy this blogging experience so much is because it fosters discussions like this. I said in my previous post that I sometimes despair because there are so many Beattys and Mildreds running around our world, but clearly anyone who would bother to write an intelligent response to one of these blogs is not such a person; these blogs allow me to interact with the Fabers, Clarisses, and Grangers...and they restore my hope.
Now I'll attempt to to answer Tieger Lily's questions...even though they may have been rhetorical. She asks DeltaShark how he can feel depressed about the future and then goes on to remind him of the words of Granger from the novel (one of my favorite passages, by the way!). I fully understand what Tieger Lily is saying, but I don't think there is actually any conflict here (as much as she'd like to conjure some up). It is just a difference in point of view. Tieger Lily's perspective is one of youthful certainty, and it is based on her personal confidence and conviction that she can (and will) make a difference in the world. (And I have no doubt that this is true.) DeltaShark (who will also contribute to the cause of humanity in a thousand ways) looks at the future from a more global perspective. The "depression" comes when we consider that not everyone shares our desire to promote the general welfare. Sure there are plenty of people who "take care of their own," but there seem to be fewer people all the time that are willing to take care of each other. This is especially scary to thinking people who have kids. (Notice: I said thinking people. Most people who never worry about any of this aren't thinking...and that would probably be most of the population, which is the other scary thing.) We want our kids to have a better world than the one we have, but we fear that it won't be. We fear that they may not have as many oppotunities or that the world won't be as kind to them as it has been to us.
Tieger Lily also asks, "How can you make life better if you are depressed?" Simple answer: You probably can't. But neither can you do much good if you completely ignore all the potential problems in the world. A recent example would be the fact that New Orleans was virtually wiped out by a hurricane even though the government knew for a long time that those levees were unsafe. People who knew better could have done more. Something could have been done to solve the problem before it became a problem (i.e., the worst natural distaster in American history), but the decision makers decided to use the money another way...a tax cut for for the richest 1% of the population, probably. I think DeltaShark used the term "depressed" in a more general sense. He wasn't talking about being personally depressed and lock-yourself-up-in-a-dark-room sort of miserable. (He really is a pretty happy guy!) I think he was talking about that general worry about the direction the world seems to be going. When you realize that much of the social decay described in Fahrenheit 451 is no longer fiction, it can be kinda creepy to consider where we might end up. In that novel, the society was on the brink of atomic war, but the government strategy was to ignore it, to keep the population happy with lots of "good" entertainment. Mildred's friends, whose husbands were off to fight in the war, even failed to appreciate the horror of such a situation until Montag read them a poem that reflected their own experience. Ignorance is bliss...until the war comes, until the hurricane hits, until the illusion shatters. And who will be left to put it all back together afterwards? It's the people like you, Tieger Lily, Delta Shark, Bertha, et. al. The thinkers, the doers, the movers and shakers.
Finally, I agree with Tieger Lily that we can't reflect only upon the problems of the world. Even amidst the horrors of war, disaster, disillusionment, and seemingly endless hatred among humankind, there are plenty of decent people doing good things. The problem is that we usually don't recognize them. There is a song by Rush called "Nobody's Hero" that perfectly illustrates the way our society tends to deify those who are the most popular while we ignore those who are doing the most good, those who are quietly suffering personal pain to make the world better for someone else, those who take pride in jobs that offer no reward, those who make a difference that the rest of us may never know about.
Maybe this is what it comes down to: There are good things happening, and we should recognize them. There are bad things happening, and we should fix them. Maybe that's what it means to be fully human, fully alive.
One way or another, it's nice to sit around this warm campfire and mull these things over with the other "book people."
posted by MRT at 7:41 AM
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