Dear George,
Do you ever stop and think about the creative energy unleashed by destruction? It’s awesome! A tornado levels a man’s home, and out of the death and despair, a new and better home arises. A state-of-the-art Jacuzzi stands where the bathtub once stood; a digitalized home entertainment replaces the old TV; the kitchen glows with new appliances. And if a family member or two is no longer present to enjoy the novelty of it all, well, that’s simply the price we pay for progress.
Look at all Katrina is doing for the economic prosperity of New Orleans. It is urban renewal writ large: Out with the ghettoes and in with theme-park condos and malls.
Germany and Japan are world-class economic powerhouses because we fire bombed and nuked them into near oblivion during World War II.
It is axiomatic that there can be no growth without destruction.
We are a teardown society that revels in the “now” of the new as we gleefully erase the relics of the past. It is this destructiveness that has given rise to, and continues to nurture the Corporatist State. The bomber and the bulldozer are the great civilizers of modern times. A dynamic ethos of leveling and paving, burning and blowing up, all come together to reduced the undisciplined fecundity of nature to the straight lines and sharp angles of rational order.
Napalm purifies all that it touches. The charred rubble it leaves in its wake is the sanitized tabula rasa upon which the Corporatist State writes its motet of standardized consumption and conformity.
Destruction wears the mask of the Creator God, incinerating the old with the very same fiery sword that keeps Man away from Eden’s pastoral paradise. God didn’t curse Adam for eating the forbidden fruit; he blessed him by forcing him to become a master builder. It is fitting that Adam’s first tools were the hoe and the axe that would denude and tear up the earth.
We are Adam’s heirs, the only difference being that we have replaced the hoe and the axe with the bomb and the missile. The bored children of prosperity are on the march, rescuing our Earth Mother from the filth-encrusted tentacles of nature as we wrap her in a protective blanket of asphalt and concrete.
Nature gives us chaos; destruction gives us order.
Your admirer,
Belacqua Jones
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7 comments:
Germany and Japan are world-class economic powerhouses because we fire bombed and nuked them into near oblivion during World War II.
Just what do the the Germans know/understand that we don't. I've never been to Japan, so can't comment.
How to rebuild.
It's more than that: German justice,diligence,entreprise has impressed me for years now, and a salient thought.. if they had not shown maturity when denying Georgia membership of NATO would we not be at war now?
They seem to have learned their lesson well.
What a great letter. Loved the ending, Case... Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and pour concrete over the whole of my back yard. I mean think of the gas I'll save from not having to mow and without mowing I won't be releasing all those pollutants into the atmosphere!
Don't you know that concrete is a leading cause of e-coli?
(I made that up, but what the hell! Our current gaggle of threats are getting a little long in the tooth.)
e-coli? Oh my. I guess I better get to breaking up some concrete! Shit! And there my yard was looking rather spiffy and all. I have only had to tell the boarders to leave once for skating at midnight. Oh well. I suppose I will now have to find another way to save the planet...
Polyurethane?
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