BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY AUG. 16, 2017) — It is democracy’s sad adjunct to give citizens the illusion of control. This comforting fiction arrives tidally, a strong impulse toward self-governance moved by the inherent gravitational pull of freedom. Drawn up on the flipchart, it sounds good. Reality shows otherwise. Once in, the tide quickly moves, taking our impulse to liberty from featherbeds of idealism into the dangerous whirlpools of day-to-day life. Pragmatism crushes theory.

Human nature, as it turns out, prevents people from sanely governing themselves. Alone, an individual at least has unanimity. Indecision may feel discomforting, but at least one has control over the responses to any situation. Still, “it’s getting hard to be someone,” as John Lennon writes in “Strawberry Fields.” Add another person, and you complicate the matter. Add that third person, and now you have politics. Homo sapiens simply cannot get along.

As a species, we are still in our infancy. On the generous side, the human mammal has 250,ooo years under its belt, on the low side 100,000 (THE PLANET finds the evidence favoring the low figure). Either way, we find ourselves still in the Heinz-ketchup process of evolution, that ingenious method by which life has moved relentlessly forward, upward, and onward into something mimicking design.

And so we find ourselves helpless in all our sophistication, all our technology — the adrenal glands too large, the pre-frontal lobe too small. Come back in a few million years, and perhaps we shall have grown more comfortably into ourselves and our future.

None of us, with our infinitesimal life spans, has a chance. Sadly (or gladly, as the case may be), it appears, neither does the species. It’s probably for the best. Who can mourn such a cruel, pitiful beast as man? The certain heat-death of our solar system, perhaps another 5 billion years away, can only be welcomed with praise and thanksgiving.

——– ooo ——–

The hallmark of any true civilization is the ability to survive its own technological advances. We’ve learned the secrets of the atom, but rather than harnessing this incredible power for peaceful purposes, we’ve created horrible weapons that can, in minutes, turn the earth into a giant cinder, a roasted marshmallow that cannot be eaten, a vaporized s’mores that cannot be swallowed — nothing left to see, no one left to mourn.  Hiroshima, mon amour.

Consequently, should we be surprised at the state we find ourselves in at this moment? The nuclear threat hasn’t been as pronounced since October 1962, and we don’t necessarily mean Kim Jung Un. Kim doesn’t want war and neither do the United States, China, Russia, Japan, or any other country. The Bomb, though, keeps getting smaller. It’s just a matter of time before truly rogue elements (a small band of terrorists, a couple-a-three fruitcakes with money and connections) find themselves with suitcase nukes.

We don’t know how to get along.

Meanwhile, our inner distrust, fear, and lack of security employ an 800-pound non-sequitur such as race to make the most horrible of distinctions. A statue of a great American is ordered down for bad political reasons, and mindless mobs cite race and racism, real or imagined, as an excuse to vomit over idealism’s white dinner jacket. The Rabid Right and the Loon Left have seized upon the flashpoints created by political correctness with religious — which is to say poisonous — fervor. It’s what they deserve, but it’s a tragedy for the rest of the country.

Perhaps in one great act of sympathy, The President should order every American nuclear warhead by land, air, and sea launched to wherever, upon whomever, for whatever.

We just don’t know how to get along. Unless you have a few millions years to wait, we never will.

So put on a happy face …

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“Who needs TV when I got T-Rex?” — Ian Hunter via David Bowie.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

The Usual Disclaimer.