It's all an illusion. Government programs, class struggles, status-climbing, identity politics, community organizing-- all of it.
Those who design top-down programs and solutions think that they will make a dent in the problem. What's the problem? Well... clearly there is a problem, and clearly we have in mind that we will do something about it, and in the end, clearly that will indeed come to pass. Because how could it not?
Every participant uses the system in place for ends other than what the system was put in place for. Community leaders hand out favors to friends. Government bureaucrats check boxes on a checklist, their assignments fulfilled. Status-seekers see an opening and make a move for themselves. Children are conscripted for image management purposes. Teachers create lessons to raise awareness-- the most important thing that can be done for a learner. Writers claim to have discovered The Answer, while cultural guideposts pick winners nearly at random. Money is flung around because money is the only medium known to produce results-- the mere use of it must be part of the solution!
Is there an alternative? Well... an alternative to what? If you never define the problem you can insist that only your actions can possibly solve it. Who can propose a better way? How could they possibly show their way to be better?
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I guess I hinted at this same problem in the last post, but here it is again. Trying to wrap my head around macroscopic sociological problems-- or even macroscopic descriptions of society-- drives me crazy. Wolfe's style is very helpful in explaining why this might be so-- because the most likely case is that it doesn't make any sense. The best way to realize that is to see whaat we actually see in our everyday experience of the world and the large society we live in-- only disjointed facts and impressions, that whirl around while the rational part of our brains try to tell some kind of narrative that makes sense. It could very well be that we're not wired to make sense of that level of abstraction.
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On another note, I have noticed that my posts tend to be written in the voice of the author I just read-- or at least a facsimile of that voice. This is not a new phenomenon. Thinking back to high school and my first years of college, I often fell asleep trying to read whatever was in front of me (that I had put off until I was too tired to actually get through it-- some things never change). Fiction, non-fiction, magazines, whatever. And I always had dreams narrated in the style of whomever I had been reading. I can distinctly remember this happening with Tom Clancy more than anything else. Upon waking, I'd notice that whatever the narrator had been saying was utter, utter nonsense, and then the content of that narration would fade completely. But the tone remained (even if I was unable to reproduce it while I was awake).
Anyway, it's happening again, especially in the entries for Chesterton and Wolfe. I'm glad that it is. In Chesterton's case, his tone is so lofty I want to capture it as my own. In Wolfe's case, it would be impossible to take careful sequential notes of what he writes-- and I wouldn't want to anyway. As I mentioned above, the free-wheeling style is the only way to make sense of his subject matter in the first place.
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