Something Thoughtful

Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.

QUIETISM

Seriously now, I’ve had enough.

The election in the Kingdom of Affenschwanz has happened and it has been dissected. There was the hubris of the Kanzlerin in calling the election in the first place. She was so confident she would receive a cheery call from the Konigin to form a government and now she’s had her majority slashed and there will probably be a hung Bundestag. The Reaktion Party is upset for losing its majority and so is the Lumpen Party for not getting into power.  The Fringe-Nations parties have no more traction than they had before (even less in one case) and the little Bits-and-Pieces parties are still little.

So I hear it all being dissected. In terms of the polls and how wrong they could be. In terms of the defects of the party leaders. In terms of the ages and ethnicities and regions of the voters for this and that. In terms of The Market and the economic consequences. In terms of the reaction of Brussels and the EU. In terms of when the next leadership challenge to the Kanzlerin will be.

Oh stop it. Stop it. Please stop it. I have heard enough. Too much information. Too much. Too much opining by anyone who can front up to a mike and/or camera and pour forth his or her five New Ps’ worth. Too much speculation from people who know no more about it than you or I, or who claim special insights based on nothing more than the raw election data we have already seen for ourselves.

I am attracted to quietism, I say.

I will tune out from this hideous noise.

I will retire from this deluge of pseudo-information.

It is quietism for me. Let the world rot itself for a while while I let it all roll on and I sleep and enjoy music and wine and a good book that has nothing to do with politics and not even much to do with the present.

My mind and ears have been assailed by hideous ethical debate. Should we continue killing children before birth? Should we extend the killing to the old and sick – after they have given their consent, of course? I mean, grannie, you are tired of life, aren’t you? And you’re just taking up a hospital bed that could be occupied by somebody with her life before her, aren’t you? And you’re not enjoying your life much anyway, are you? Come now grannie. I know you want to sign this form, and it will be easy for us to find two certifying doctors who think it’s right and just for you to die and are witnesses that you signed this voluntarily. Now don’t be selfish, grannie. You’ve had your life. And think of the greater good. I mean you can’t really expect younger people to pay taxes to support a growing population of older people, can you? Go on, sign. Sign.

Oh stop it. Stop it. Please stop it. I have heard enough. I have heard the smooth propagandist for killing grannie being given a privilieged place on the Saturday morning radio talkshow. I have seen the smug proponents of killing grannie on television, claiming to represent growing world opinion, the wave of the future, let’s say the New Order, confidently jabbering about how compassionate and merciful they are.

I am attracted to quietism, I say.

I will tune out from this hideous noise.

I will retire from this deluge of pseudo-information.

It is quietism for me. Let the world rot itself for a while while I let it all roll on and I sleep and enjoy music and wine and a good book that has nothing to do with killing grannie and not even much to do with the present.

If it bleeds it leads, and on my news feed there are all these corpses mutilated by bombs and gas and drones over Afghanistan and Syria and on European bridges and there is all the rhetoric that follows the bloodshed. We stay strong. We will not be cowed. Not all Muslims are… We will not let them win. It was necessary. Supporters of terrorism.

I am attracted to quietism, I say.

I will tune out from this hideous noise.

I will retire from this deluge of pseudo-information.

It is quietism for me. Let the world rot itself for a while while I let it all roll on and I sleep and enjoy music and wine and a good book that has nothing to do with mass murder and not even much to do with the present.

And thus for the homeless. And thus for the poor in poorly-insulated houses. And thus for virtue-signalling. And thus for the contested future of poetry. And thus for jabber claiming to be sophisticated and topical discourse. And thus for the glib analyses to which my attention is directed on Facebook.

It is withdrawal and quietism for me. It is the comforting snooze of disengagement. It is the privilege of not hearing predictable opinions posing a Holy Writ, and the confident certainty of the half-informed. Away with it. Away I say.

Quietism. Let it happen. Let it flow. It will all work itself out in the end. Why does it need me? Why should I take any sort of responsibility for it? I will lie like a cat in the sun, basking passively in the radiance of goodness.

Until I wake, and find I am human and I am part of this and I have to know what is going on in the world. And even if the conduits of (too much) information are imperfect, at least I can have solidarity with my fellow human-beings by knowing that they are as imperfect and contradictory as I am.

Quietism. It can be only a momentary shelter in the storm, refreshing while it lasts.

But it is no answer.