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Puzzling
Evidence
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Shamms' piece is compelling and thought-provoking. But more than that, it presents something of a conundrum, not of the light and inconsequential variety usually found in puzzles, but a conundrum that goes much deeper, to questions of love and hate, war and peace, the virtual vs. the real world, and more. This Month's Puzzle, then, is a departure from our usual fare. But it one we think is worthwhile, and one which presents a puzzle very much worth solving. ... Fantasy and Forever Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I have been ignorant of the grayness and pain of the world. I have been cognizant of that for a long time. Raised by a single parent, being on welfare for most of my young life, and struggling to maintain some sort of creative existence in a culture whose values were always at odds with my own emerging sensibilities taught me at a young age that the texture of life in this world was far more hard edged than nurturing and comforting. Perhaps this is also why a measure of peace and comfort felt (and still feels, to be honest) so welcome after all of the years of cold reality, and in a larger sense, why many of us (Vermonters? Americans?) consciously go about weaving a web of fantasy of what life and our lives, and even what our god(s) is/are about. I’ll get to the god stuff with more later. In my present work, an involvement with computer graphics and animation, I am immersed in worlds of fantasy, worlds of my own creation and design. I can shape environments where there is no pollution or unpleasantness or disease or starvation, where the bombs that fall engender truly lovely pyrotechnics, and where there is no death or pain. I needed to tell you all of this at the start to place what follows in some referential context, because I think that anyone who sets down philosophical or political views should first prepare their audience by filling in some of the blanks concerning who they are, and .what circumstances and eventualities in their own life led to and nurtured their opinions and pronouncements. As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, the first hail and snow of the season has arrived. The television, which has been wide-eyed and blabbering loudly for over three weeks, sits across the room from the wood stove. The fire pays no heed to the events disclosed in the day-by-day “facts” from the experts, to the instant-replays of present and evolving terrors, to the images of symbolic structures turned to rubble or the pain of smashed lives. The fire has no cognizance of where Manhattan is, and no association with human conflicts. The fire does not know itself, and has no concern whether it destroys life or property, heats soup, or warms a house. The fire neither loves no hates anyone or anything, not even itself. If there could be an endless stream of wood to feed the fire’s appetite, the fire would last forever, but would never be able to distinguish “forever” from an instant. The fire has no personal association with time. If we push our experience of reality on the fire, to infuse it with our perceptual and moral judgements and sureties, we might even say that the fire is living out a fantasy, that it doesn’t have a conscience. Time and conscience are connected. As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, the news report on the television tells me that the bombs have started to fall in Afghanistan. I am elated. During the Vietnam conflict/war/revolution/terror/engagement/action/whatever, I was not elated when the bombs fell. In fact, it drove me to the streets, along with many of my friends and others who felt the same way. We gathered in large numbers outside of the Capitol building in 1968, singing “We Shall Overcome,” marching along the avenues to shout against an involvement in a war we judged evil, protesting soldiering and racism and corporate greed and what we saw as the threat of an emerging police state… our own. In 1971, the words of the song changed to “Bring the State Down”, and in our heartfelt (perhaps naïve) view, we damn well meant it. Yes, I can hear some of your admonitions now… “You see! If you had supported America then, evil (now called Islamic Fanaticism) could have been nipped in the bud!” Wrong. This is just another example of strange linear thinking. Vietnam was wrong. There are wrong battles and inescapable battles. Neither are right, but some are inescapable. You will notice that I said “Islamic Fanaticism” above, although we are being told that it is politically incorrect to connect the term “Islam” with “Fanaticism.” I stand by the connection, but my reasoning is wider and deeper, and undoubtedly more discomforting, than any apologetics or admonitions you may have been exposed to so far. I consider the three so-called religions of the book (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), as well as most other named religious entities on this earth (Buddhism, in my estimate, as being a notable exception), to be by-and-large fire-eyed fanatical at their core. All that is needed is a cause to focus their attention. The religions of the book (so called by their insistence that the same ancient manuscript, known as the Bible, validates their views and practices) are especially virulent in this regard. These religions have an entrenched common philosophy that is temporally linear (focused upon a paradise or heaven oriented target for a forever-existence for the faithful) and that is based upon a fantasy that the supernal entity is on their side, excusing a priori any massacres or genocidal actions. How far should we go back to place blame for this latest world-wide internecine conflict between one or more of the Bible-centered religions? Did it all start on September 11, 2001? Is it the fault of the embargo on Iraq, that has killed hundreds of thousands of children? Did it begin with Desert Storm and the positioning of Western forces in the sacred lands of Islam, as Bin Laden suggests? Is it the Arab-Israel (read as Islam-Jewish) conflict, or with Ariel Sharon’s arrogant appearance at a Moslem holy sight? Do we say that Jerry Fallwell or Pat Robertson incited all of this by their constant god-is-christians proselytizing? Should we look at the establishment of the state of Israel as a provocation for the displaced Moslem populations to seek vengeance? Should we look at the Christian complicity with the Nazis to eradicate the Jews, forcing the Jews to seek another place to live? Should we look at the invasions of the Moslems as they rode across Europe to bring justice to the infidels? Do we blame the barbarous Crusades and their rampages against Islam in their fanatical fantasy to retrieve their Holy Land? Do we blame the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians? Who started this conflict? Who is to blame? Linearity is to blame. This idea that “I must avenge my great-grandfather for the insult accrued when your great-uncle slapped him in public” is certainly one of the culprits. Religions, linear religions, offer a convenient set of methods for continuing on with a constant primitive clan war. Feminist philosophy asserts more than this, that is that the clan war and the religions of the book are based upon genital reasoning, testicular masculine pursuits. My sense is that there is more than a grain of understanding in this, since it is male bravado that gets all puffed up when countries enter wars. It is interesting, however, that Islam believes that women and men were created equal by god, and not one out of the others rib. Of course, that view does not seem to have been practiced by the Taliban and their horrid treatment of women. In a linear religion, all of the blame for conflict in the world gets traced back to a fantasized Eden, and either Eve’s hunger for apples or the refusal of the first humans to blindly obey the directives of an arrogant and authoritarian father god. As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, a cold wind has arisen from the North, and the leaves are falling by the hundreds. The average age of Navy personnel on one of the aircraft carriers in the thick of it is 21. That means that most of the young people serving on the carrier are between the ages of 18 and 24, and that a cold wind may be headed in their direction. Like the warriors spanning the hundreds of generations before them, they are headed into danger as a result of decisions made by others far removed from the coming battles. Like those remembered warriors, some will fall like leaves in autumn. As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont. Some of the people who witnessed the events of September 11, 2001, in New York City said they were reminded of Hollywood special effects in a movie. These film effects are created with computer graphics and animation techniques, the same topics that I am involved in and write about. As I watched the replays of the planes striking the towers, part of me realized that it would take me about a day to recreate that same scene, using the visual tools that I work with. Nobody would suffer however, because I engage in digital fantasy. Still, some part of me feels guilty. I want to dig bodies out of the rubble by hand, blow breath into nostrils to awaken those who have fallen. “It was all a fantasy,” I would shout. “Wake up! It was all a fantasy.” As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, Usama Bin Laden has just released a statement. He said that this was now a Jihad, a holy war. He said that attacks on America would make some of our land “remember” for tens of years (perhaps he meant hundreds of years), which sounds like a threat of chemical, biological, or nuclear destruction. This war, and it indeed is a war now, will last for at least twenty years. This is because so many young people have been trained to take up arms, admonished by real and substitute fathers. If a wider population of Moslems throughout the world feel that it is indeed a religious conflict, it will last for more than fifty years. All during this time, and at the end of it, the sense of security that many Americans fantasized for so long will be but a longed for past. At the end of it, we will be fortunate indeed not to have seen all of the weapons of mass destruction having been used somewhere, and many here. There is great danger in the air, and priests, rabbis, and imams are standing in pulpits to claim the righteousness of their congregations and followers. As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, a small flag waves in the cold wind outside of the front door. I originally saved the door from being trashed. It came from a hundred year old chapel that was rebuilt. I saved it, repaired it, and painted it bright red. The blood-red stripes of the flag are accented by the door. In the spring, there were blood-red poppies in the front yard. Color lasts forever, but blood soaks into the earth. As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, a small flag waves in the cold wind outside of the front door. But don’t claim some fantasized kinship with me because of why you think I am flying the flag. My reasons and feelings are complex, and not at all linear. I am well aware of actions taken by my own country in the past that have added fuel to the present fire, actions taken by my own country. Do not think that because I fly the flag, I have either forgotten or have forgiven those fascist actions. Neither do I support the movement towards an American police state. I will not be attending any church services in honor of a warrior god, remaining secure in my judgments that religions, especially as practiced by institutions of the book, are at best foolish and at worst evil. But neither will I put forth any learned intellectual or historical arguments that will blunt the bayonets. I will not recall any myths or try to attempt to dissuade the missiles from their appointed rounds. I live on this earth in an imperfect tribe called America, and I desire Bin Laden’s head, and those of his followers and compatriots and supporters, on a hopefully real-time televised bloody platter. My tribe has been attacked, and that supercedes and takes precedence over all debates. This plane of existence is truly a veil of tears and suffering, yet I recognize my assigned tribe, so onward into remorseless battle Arjuna! As I sit down to write this on a peaceful autumn Sunday morning in Vermont, a small flag waves in the cold wind outside of the front door. I have always accepted that sadness is a part of being alive, and even that it somehow coexists, paradoxically, with war and love. Shamms Mortier is a graphic artist and musician who lives in Bristol, Vermont, with his wife Diane. He is the owner of a graphic design studio -- Eyeful Tower -- and a former member of the jazz-fusion group Sines Fixion. . ******* ******* If you have a puzzle you'd like to submit to our Monthly Puzzle feature, let us know by e-mail at We'll look it over and, if we use it, you can receive a small honorarium for your trouble. {See our Freelancers Wanted page for more info. ******* ******* . |
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