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Chilton Williamson had a very thoughtful essay in this month’s issue of Chronicles which reflects upon the tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan and could encompass which takes place in our “post-modern” world. Here’s an important excerpt:
“What the postmodern world will not recognize is that it is vulnerable to the exact degree that it is marvelous, It is exquisitely fragile, not least because it is founded on the same exquisite ephemera which makes up its substance. Indeed, we are aware of this fragility. The postmodern world stands with bated breath in anticipation of catastrophic blows to its fantastic, nearly expansive and ultimately unfathomable structure: power outages, computer crashes, hacking by terrorist and enemy spies, viruses, systematic malfunction and so forth. It also lives in fear of late-industrial and postmodern weaponry, weapons of mass destruction, sparing employed since their inception but who can say for how much longer?
I am not a statistician or even a bridge player, but certainly it seems reasonable to expect that, sooner or later, all hell must break loose among the nations of the world and its highly mobile, non-national entities. If the cyber network system implodes or is taken down and of war, invasion or revolution should occur internationally, the postmodern world will vaporize like an exorcised genie, only the potsherds of the vessel from which it issued remaining behind. Mankind would find itself rudely returned to something like the original state of nature.
Although I doubt he had it in mind, Mr. Williams may well be channeling this movie as an example of what he means.
Kirt Higdon on 19 Mar 2011 at 1:55 pm #
I hope he didn’t have it in mind. The Postman ranks right up there with such other Kevin Costner flics as Dances with Wolves and Waterworld in competition for the worst movie ever made Oscar.
Thaddeus on 20 Mar 2011 at 11:29 am #
I am forever amazed at how often scenarios like “system collapse,” “implosion of America,” etc. come up on the genuine Right. Perhaps this is the latest development of an eschatological tendency that whites have had throughout their history, going all the way back to the belief in Ragnarök. But I simply see no credible, hard and fast, conclusive evidence that this is going to happen. Apparently, neo-national-socialists have been predicting it since the ’60s. Hasn’t happened yet.
The only thing that could really do it would be a natural disaster of biblical proportions, like a comet strike, or a Japan-style tsunami on a hundred-fold scale (i.e., impossible). Failing that, I see no reason to believe in any imminent or even not-so-imminent collapse of the New World Order under Israel-America.
Rather, I see a slow, steady decline of much of the U.S. to Third World conditions, but no internal revolution, nor any war that could tear things apart — because the conflict with China will simply morph into the latest Cold War, which, like the last one, will at best have little proxy conflicts, but never any full-fledged worldwide war.
Weaver on 20 Mar 2011 at 6:52 pm #
Thaddeus,
what you describe sounds like Ragnarök. All that’s worth preserving dies.
Williamson’s view on the other hand is in a sense more like a renewal, hope of thwarting Ragnarök for yet a little longer.
Sean Scallon on 20 Mar 2011 at 11:44 pm #
I know, I know The Postman got all sorts of razzies for being one of the worst films of 1997 and at the time I probably would have agreed. But if you watch the film now (post 9-11) it makes more sense that say, Al Qaeda terrorist would get their hands on powerful EMPs to disable all electrical communications across the country or release toxins or other poisons into the atmosphere or detonate a nuclear device and that farmers struggling to grow food would organize themselves into militias which would de facto rule areas which were cut off from the central government. From that standpoint, the film becomes more plausible and thus more watchable.
You can also tell I watch I lot of light night TV.
Thaddeus on 21 Mar 2011 at 2:50 pm #
You’re saying this sarcastically, right? I mean, you don’t actually find this even remotely “plausible,” do you? It’s like a neocon fantasy.
Here’s a real terror scenario: a foreign race hijacks all mass communications and all forms of entertainment and all media in its host society, achieving complete cultural hegemony, then brainwashes the host society into giving up all of its traditional values, every belief that has held it together, and then makes that society fight endless wars for the foreign race’s home nation.
Oh, wait. The latter “real terror scenario” isn’t a fantasy it all. It has actually happened.