Andrew Klavan: Imagination Land

The Invisible Man

I just finished reading “The Invisible Man” by H.G. Wells. It is said to be one of the forerunners of today’s very popular science fiction genre. Though told in a straight-forward manner, focusing primarily on keeping the plot moving, there is more here than meets the eye: the mechanics of 'invisibility', for instance. Take a piece of glass and insert it into water, and it becomes invisible. Take a red piece of glass and insert it into that same water and it will still show red. To make it invisible, the water would have to be red as well. This could easily translate into a metaphor for cultural shifts as well. As long as a foreign or alien concept is introduced stealthily (or invisibly) into the culture, it will not be rejected outright. This is the way Marxism has been introduced in America, cloaked in the thoroughly traditional American corpse: the Democrat Party.

As the host begins to die, Marxism becomes visible in stages just as Wells’ lead character, Griffin, becomes once again visible after he has been killed. First socialism reveals itself; then communism; proceeding through all the subsequent stages all the way up to and including authoritarianism. Tyranny is always the final stage. In it, there is only one authority to determine the path forward.

In Wells’ novel, the people band together to capture and kill Griffin before his invisibility can prevail and metastasize into crippling terrorism. They still cannot see him, but they understand what he has done and aims yet to do. Instead of shrinking from the unseen, they attack it.

This is in contrast to Ralph Ellison’s work of the same title. The situation here is reversed. Blindness is deliberately nurtured by the seeing. They willfully ignore a whole class of people and pretend it doesn’t exist. This also is relevant today. The likes of Limbaugh and conservatives in general are routinely ignored by the media, on college campuses, in Hollywood, etc. For all intents and purposes, their views, their solutions, their very army of eager supporters do not exist despite their steadily intensifying impact (which, of course, does not exist as well).

In these two titles you have the dual aspects of invisibility. On one hand you have invisibility as a deliberate disguise for nefarious purposes; while, on the other, you have, the deliberate ’ignoring the elephant in the room’ syndrome. Both are at best dishonest. While the first can be excused as betrayal, the second amounts to willful act of cowardice. Both represent an exercise in delusion.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Moratorium

Man is by nature a deceptive animal. We wear masks which, if we were to let slip, would show us to be the same as everyone else. We are literally obsessed with masks to the point of confusing the mask with what lies beneath. This is good news for politicians who survive by division. They use what is obvious (and, at the same time, not so obvious) to divide us into indefensible camps in order to build a political base for themselves. POTUS is no different.

We are most sensitive about that which we cannot change. The indelible mark of gender and race are primary in our struggle to maintain the appearance of dignity. Culture and religion come in a close second; political orientation comes in third, and so on… By such superficial factors we allow ourselves to be herded into separate rooms, to be used and abused in the privacy of someone’s yawning void. When, in fact, biologically speaking, the differences between us are so minute, they hardly bear mention.

We are all equally human, though this is hardly apparent from the masks we are given and compelled to dance in accordance with. We are taught to hate, act fierce and threatening; or to seduce with words and delicate pirouette; smile; march; kill (always, we are told, for a higher purpose).

Our various protocols are constructed to hide the fact that we are predatory by nature. Our masks mask that aggression is ugly and hides inadequacy - which once again makes us victims to someone’s political ambitions - someone whose own inadequacy compels him to commit ever greater crimes to which we willingly accept the role of accomplice.

There can no longer be any doubt that Obama is not as was advertised: the benign ruler of a complex nation. He would fit much more comfortably into an autocracy (of which, sadly, there are many). But even this eludes him. ‘He is slender and flaccid at the same time; and gives the uncomfortable impression of being invertebrate. In private, he makes use of dialectical materialism to put an end to any discussion.

‘The reasons one can have for hating a man - or loving him - are infinite. Obama reduces the history of the universe to a sordid economic conflict. He affirms that the revolution is predestined to succeed. He dictates opinions with scorn and a certain anger.’*

If Barack Hussein Obama were an American president in the true tradition of American presidents, he would impose a moratorium on mosque building - not oil drilling.
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*Again I am compelled to borrow from Jorge Luis Borges; this time, from “The Shape of the Sword”.