Sunday 15 October 2017

Bane

Lately I've been wondering if the system is worth saving. If it's any use trying to keep something afloat that is predestined to failure and collapse. All civilizations fall, without exception. Nothing lasts forever. This is a simple law of nature. Without constant struggle, a people, a civilization wallows in degeneracy and decadence, brought about by a period of ease.
My mind is brought to the latest Batman film that I watched recently. Bane, and the League of Shadows. An organization that exists throughout the Christopher Nolan films of the 'Legend' trilogy. An organization of ninja like operatives with an ideology of utter rejection of degeneracy, corruption, greed... all the things rampant in civilization today. Of course, their MO is that of the villain, total and utter destruction, which Batman fights, to save his beloved Gotham, time and time again. Only to have to defend Gotham again against some new arising threat in the future.

It's at this point, I ask myself, is it better to follow Batmans example.... or Banes? On the one hand, Batman fights for the status quo. The protection of the system of law and order, of due process and trials. On the other, there is Bane. He fights for the total annihilation of the system. It's total and utter destruction. For something new, for something clean, for something without the ever present insidious growth of corruption. For a new society to grow from the ashes of the old. To be reborn anew, with the dead weight to be cut from the whole, for true prosperity to take root and uplift the people.

Which role is best for our current European predicament? Should we fight like Batman for nations which have completely let go of the very defining things that brought them into being? Their original homogeneous people, for the people of the world, given the ability to become any nationality they desire. Pieces of paper, making them our countrymen for no more than having fled their own nations. Are those the countries we want to protect? There is no political solution, and I realise it is not necessarily the nation we are protecting these days, but the people. However, the people today, in the mainstream, is any person who is considered a legal citizen of the nation. Why protect a system like this? Why not let it collapse in on top of itself? I'm beginning to think more in line with Bane than with Batman. The system cannot be usurped in our favour. They OWN the system! Why would they allow us to vote ourselves into power to depose them? They wouldn't. I also realise there is many nuances that would be argued here in favour of political action, but I put no stock in these arguments. If it could have been done in the 70 years since the end of the war, believe me, it would have. Better men have come before us, and failed, using that method.

No, I think it is time for something else entirely. Time to pull out of the system as much as humanly possible and as much as each of our circumstances allow. There is no saving a drowning beast with it's teeth bared in your direction. All you'll achieve is a nasty bite and contract an infection to slowly kill you off as you struggle against an ever rising tide, only to sink deeper into the murky depths and to be forgotten by man, and history.

It's time for a new system. A new method.