Founders

What's the point of questions that seek neither answers nor solutions? Rhetorical questions like what if... you were founders who created founders?

Founders

You have all the answers.

That is, before a single question blooms within a single mind, you possess every answer to everything.

*

Armed opposition? Crush the enemy with increasingly terrible arms. Terrorists? Exterminate zealots who dare breathe and salt their systems of belief that sow blind hatred. Threats unseen and horrors unimaginable? Annihilate unborn specters yet to come.

Immigrants? Stop them. Homeless encampments? Incinerate them. Addicts and their addictions? Judge them and condemn them.

As if simplistic generalizations of them and cavalier edicts of consequences are not only just and moral and necessary but also great!

*

Which is to say, you are blessed with every answer to them.

As for:

Your armed and combative, your extremist, your alarming and violent number. Your converted, your dependent, your vulnerable member. Yours

deserve an incalculable margin for error. An

inexhaustible grace, accommodating care, and unconditional material support. Yours

are flawed and ignoble but only human.

*

Because you have found an alternate reality of alternate exceptionalism, manifested from hell-broth, that answers everything:

glory.

*

Glory is the halo and the shine and the paradise. At least, it could be. Or would be. Or dammit: should be. If not for spoilers who ruin everything.

*

Suffice it to say... in the real world, 'glory' isn't granular. It doesn't wind the masses like a colossal clock. Or the rains. Or the galvanizing glitter of gold. You know,

it doesn't make the world go round. And nothing wrecks intangible immateriality like

real world reality.

*

Of nations that rise up and decry your swords and crowns as false as idle pledges of probitas. Of humans who behold flimflams glitter like crocodile tears and declare: we plural people are not footstools of lords or masters! Of mortals who bear witness to self-determination denied for dominion, the cornerstone of paradise that is

neither a democracy nor our republic.

*

What is glory... if it sacralizes what's indefensible... here, on Earth? If it shields an indwelt belief that you are more than they who are damned; an unapologetic faith in favoritism irrespective of fairness or decency; an imperious mission to subject every human life to unanswerable. absolute. inhuman. power. and its dictates?

Not after life and death, but now? As if this could be... no, would be... dammit, should be

heaven.

*

Needless to say, before a single question arrives upon an expectant pause, you know every answer leads to one solution.

*

Founders.

No, not them. Not figures cast aside by modernity, mere shadows. You. Main characters of a moment, for a moment, by a moment. A moment that is

a plot.

An invention. A creation. A fiction. Of what isn't true, for what isn't righteous, by what isn't just. Because being founders who create founders means unanswerable. absolute. power. isn't inhuman after all.

Epilogue

How you hiss and froth like hell-broth runneth!

*

Any nation, any human, any people can be 'founders' and creators of 'founders'. Whether what's 'found' is an experiment. Or a narrative. Or a belief.  Whether who's 'found' is real. Or fake.

*

That is, when an emperor parades new clothes, he 'founds' a narrative. Of his indisputable superiority. For his unassailable favor. By his stature before mere mortals.

His loyalists testify so, too. Not because this is witnessed, but because testifying to what isn't true is flawed and ignoble but only human. Such that an emperor exercises unanswerable. absolute. power. not without fealty.

*

Which is to say, to speak as if such allegiance is virtuous and courageous, never mind what is really happening, is to act as if the fairness and reasonableness of main characters and their plots could be... no, would be... dammit, should be measured by the anointing of 'founders' and creators of 'founders'. Not by the inhuman and immortal power of a deity. Please. By followers. and. fans.

And the consensus and consent of a self-governed and plural citizenry of the third millennium be damned. Because 'faith'.

M

Sanctimony Masks

Tell me if you aren't hearing a lot of people say a lot stuff. noise 'passing' as a dialogue that isn't a conversation of equals. babel that exalts faux

martyrs.

Sanctimony Masks

Part I

Believe me! Know everything I say is the truth else God strike me as I speak. Trust me! All that stands between you and the annihilation of everything precious and pious is me.

*

Phew, what heady stuff. When every spoken word is soaked in dramatic melodrama:

what is asked of an audience? to

feel all the feels? to feel nothing at all?

*

There is a disavowal of responsibility to this kind of speech. to words that plainly and unambiguously:

agitate and provoke. shock and exhaust. that

flippantly disregard exaggeration stretched beyond common sense. that

dig deep to mine frothed foam and indifference.

*

Everybody's got an opinion but I know my truth. I speak for myself and I speak for all. of. you. Because if I can be viciously and baselessly assailed, so. can. you. 

*

Oh my stars, right? What are you supposed to think when you hear this?

that:

you are under attack? their. opinions. threaten. you?

*

There is a pattern to this kind of speech. to words that paint a vivid picture of outrageous hostility. that pitch an audience hurtling

beyond civility to grievous offense. to war. like

fistfuls of matches on fire.

*

I will never accept defeat because the Almighty has chosen. I and only I am divinely anointed. All who challenge me are demonic enemies of my God.

* 

Wow if that isn't stunningly disturbing. belied habitually

by dismissals of what is and what passes for religious fervor as:

harmless beliefs. entitled opinions. deeply personal. innocuous

and immune.

*

There is a calculus to this kind of speech. to testimonies of inspired cutthroat religiosity. that shield and sacralize:

justification. apologism. the defense of the indefensible.

*

Part II

When we decide, superiority and partiality and dominion, every inexplicable dictate of an inhuman and immortal power, is

above the law,

above the consensus of a plural people,

above the consent of the self-governed,

tell me if you aren't troubled. 

*

Is this faith. or. is this something else. something mortal?

*

When what is and what passes for fidelity to the laws of an immaterial kingdom dispossesses us of the liberty to live freely without lord or master, without 'belonging' to a deity that imposes its will upon every human life, 

tell me if you aren't uneasy

witness of self-determinism nullified with imperious gracelessness.

*

Is this just. or. is this something else. something wrong?

*

When sanctimony backstops a doctrine that shields and sacralizes a lot of people saying a lot of stuff,

tell me if you aren't sick of masks that 'pass' for sanctitude

hissing hell-broth.

More or Part III

In some ways, sanctimony masks are about the narrative. about spinning the truth into an act, an entertaining performance whose purpose is to say what isn't happening is what's really happening.

Such speech trusts in an audience's suspension of disbelief. and

complicity.

To turn a blind eye to indefensible measures. to aggressively deny what's really happening is what's really happening. to muscularly assail common ground. to declare

the surrender of the truth: a victory for God.

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As if noise 'passing' as a dialogue that isn't a conversation of equals -

as if babel that exalts faux martyrs -

as if sanctimony masks -

are about exercising the freedom to observe a dogma of superiority and partiality and dominion. or. about something else. something human.

M

*

Note

that hell-broth is a reference to Macbeth (Shakespeare)

M

Come Get Me

Do I win you over with a delusion? a lie? or...

do I get you with the truth?

Come Get Me

Do you ever wonder what wins you over? I mean... do you remember the last time you were won over by, say, logic...?

We're both single. gainfully employed and in agreeable health. why not take a leap of faith on the basis of, oh, cognitive evaluation? Why not save on essential expenses we would share. to live a little better than we could otherwise materially afford?

All the evidence advises this choice as the one... that's smart. Right?

* 

I mean... do you remember the last time you were won over by, say, reason...?

A house is an investment. in our wealth, future, and security. so. let's move on and move in after appraising data points and statistical trends! Buying a home can be emotionally fraught but data is, well, unimpeachable ground. 

A house can be fixed up, over, and sideways but data... cannot be fixed. Sure.

*

I mean... do you remember the last time you were won over by, say, common sense...?

The future is coming for us and relying on handouts as octogenarians isn't a plan for a comfortable long goodbye. The writing on the wall says: save aggressively and live frugally until our time's up, as of yesterday.

It is our responsibility to afford... our old age. No?

* 

Needless to say, that is not exactly the way we are... is it? I mean... we talk about logic and reason and common sense but we don't live by words that strip us of our messiness.

Without apology. we tell ourselves stories. about our cogency. our absence of bias or malice. and our rigorous contemplation of all the facts.

As if every decision. from the sounds that alert us to wake to the tools that purge us of waste. is as considered as rendering verdicts of utmost stakes.

Even as what defines our decisions. momentous and mundane. are flaws. emotions. and human.

*

Which brings me back to: do you ever wonder what wins you over? Because every one of us. living with ourselves and each other. have been won over. by

something.

When has it ever been a decision. to reject beliefs untethered by reality? because common sense won. or to ignore how we feel? because cold rationality won. or to accept frailty and fallibility? because it would be illogical not to.

After all... that is not the story we tell ourselves. about: why we choose each other. why we strive for places to call ours. why we live to never say goodbye.   

*

In the end: it's not the truth that owns us

because it's not the truth we live with.

Epilogue

We belong to what gets us. You see,

a delusion. a lie. gets us. the way the truth can't. fictions. myths. win us over. the way the truth won't. because what we live with is our choices. 

not logic. or reason. or common sense. because our decisions. momentous and mundane. are flawed. emotional. and human.

*

Still, the truth keeps being true. Though it 'wins over' no one. Though it 'gets' no one. Because 'getting' and 'winning' are neither the means nor the ends. Instead:

'being true' is the means and the ends and. all. that's. real. 

Which is to say in other words: 

if 'owning' you is, say, the why of delusions, lies,

do you ever wonder what the why of the truth is?

M