“Blessed be and blessed are
The movers and the shakers
Blessed be and blessed are
The dreamers and the dream.” – Paula Wolowitz
Since it seems to be more relevant in recent years,
here’s the “fnord” story. It comes from
Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus!
Trilogy, a spoof of conspiracy theories, not to be read by anyone with
paranoid tendencies. The story goes that
we were taught as children to experience anxiety anytime we saw the word “fnord”,
and we were also taught to forget that we
had ever learned this. The media
would therefore insert the word into newspaper and magazine articles (and by
extension, subliminally into news broadcasts) to manipulate us emotionally
without our knowledge.
Particularly in the last four years, it seems we have
been living daily with heightened anxiety levels. The climate crisis and all it entails, super
viruses, provincial and national politics, the depredations of the mad
child-king south of our borders. And
immediately after the Inauguration, the Resistance arose and grew louder. “Fnord” is (metaphorically) incorporated into
the software of word processors and social media platforms, so between the news
and our reactions to it, the word is shouting at us more and more until it is becoming
visible.
As Edmund Burke wrote, “the only thing necessary for
the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing”. But... there are various kinds of “something”.
As I began, blessings to the movers and the shakers
who keep the Resistance alive. Yet for
this old burned-out hermit in his forgotten tower, “fnords” hurt. I mute or scroll past articles and posts
containing them, as my personal tolerance for "fnords" is so low. My own resistance to the triumph of evil is
to follow the words of Martin Luther King Jr., and to “keep hope alive”. To see the good in people, wherever
possible. All of us are fucked up. Life fucks us up. Some of us fuck each other up. Some of us manage better than those who lose
themselves and let their own personal evil triumph, and become beyond
redemption.
The Resistance rises us to anger and action, which is
good as far as it goes. But anger only
begets more anger, and leads to the triumph of anger. I am one with “the dreamers and the dream”; I
believe in love. I know love is ineffectual
and naive in a climate of anger. One of
the ostensible reasons the Democrats in the U.S. fail and fail again (unless
they’re entirely corrupt, which seems likely), is that they naively try to
mollify their opposition, who are indeed totally corrupt. It’s easier, and perhaps more gratifying, to
try to shout louder. But for some of us,
it only brings out the “fnords”, to our detriment.
This is why community is so important, at least to
me. I’ve been, at least marginally, part
of various communities most of my life.
When our own families fail due to estrangement, toxic parenting, prejudice,
addiction, divorce, or other reasons, communities provide us with
family-by-choice. We still need to
strive to be part of the larger society, but at the core, we all need family. Sure, we are fucked up, but if we’re fucked
up together, maybe we can heal each other.
