24: Missouri

After the incident, I went out to his cabin in the Ozarks. The police hadn’t been there yet, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

It had probably been all over the morning papers, if those still existed. I’d seen it on the TV in the break room, to tell the truth.

The thing was, there was no reason for me to know he did it, but I did. So there I was, knocking on his door on a Monday morning, when I should’ve been at work.

There was no answer, of course.

I hadn’t seen him for some 15 years, when he quit his job in the city without explanation. He sent me letters every now and then.

It was complicated, he said, this thing he was working on, but when I saw it I would understand.

I knew what he meant, I guess, but it’s one of those things that don’t actually have a meaning really, because if you think about things long enough, you can think you understand just about anything.

The key to the cabin was pretty much where I expected.

The things inside were arranged exactly how I thought they’d be.

The desk was predictably free of clutter, aside from a single sheet of paper.

I picked up the page and began to read …

On Compromise

190 years ago, Congress struck a bargain over the balance of free and slave states through the admission of Missouri and Maine. Afterwards, when Hob Cowell said: “A fire has been kindled which all the waters of the ocean can not put out, and which only seas of blood can extinguish,” he was just stating the obvious.

No politician today would dare do the same, or have occasion to. We’ve passed from gold to silver to plastic, from a meritocracy to a mediocrity, a mediated democracy. Medicated by the placebo of the ballot box, we play a bit part in a performance with no content and of no consequence. We are living in a facile age.

The preceding paragraph is a lie, of course, perpetrated and perpetuated by those in power – politicians, corporations, the media, etc. In truth, the problems facing us are still apocalyptic, but we no longer take them seriously.

By seriously, we mean personally. To return to our opening anecdote, the Civil War was many things, but it was not a tragedy; it has been brother against brother since Biblical times. The conflict between the North and South could never have been peacefully reconciled.

It follows that bipartisanship is the problem, because (not despite) of the fact that it does not exist, and never has. The disease afflicting modern discourse is our culture of compromise.

Barack Obama is a prime example of this.

What is required to maintain democracy is conflict, passion, intensity, conviction. Rand Paul would have the right idea, if the Tea Party wasn’t just another fiction, but he serves to fan the flames, at least, to radicalize a docile populace.

The real hero, however, is Ted Kaczynski.

We are likewise inspired by the work of Charles Darwin. Our only qualm is with his title, which succumbs to the myths of origin and conclusion. There was no beginning to which we can return; there will be no end state for us – only the constant, violent process of natural selection, of evolution.

So let every battle be hard-fought. Let each peace be hard-won. Nothing easily gotten is worth having. Nothing freely given is worth anything.