The V Factor
The eve of the Fifth of November a cable station broadcast V for Vendetta. Makes perfect sense. I thought I'd settle in and peek at a bit of it again. The film is smartly written, even though much of it is preposterous, melodramatic, even ridiculous. It is entertaining.
It also reveals something I've come to call "The Great Folly." It's not as if this folly is anything revolutionary, but part of its greatness comes in people still not getting it after millennia and millennia and millennia. They're still fools, they do the most foolish things to rationalize it all, and their rationalizations are varied and great. As The Preacher once said, nothing is really new at all. That the Folly is so Great makes it that much more tragic.
V for Vendetta reveals that folly in all its glory. The protagonists are not just "V" and Evey, but are all those intractably convinced that they need no authority over them and their wretched behavior. One of the things the filmmakers want us all to believe upon is that homosexual activity is perfectly fine and that anyone who objects belongs to the ugly autocratic beasts who simply must be stopped. Even more, it is best to destroy all government institutions because they are so oppressive and then -- and then! We can all remove our masks and be ourselves and live together in a communal paradise where John Lennon's Imagine vision of "Coexist" will be finally realized.
What Great Folly.
Oh, the truth that we truly should love one another is true, it is. The truth that government cracks heads with the greatest ruthlessness is truly true. Those things are truer than true, got that.
But truer than all that is the truth that you cannot love another while living richly by The Great Folly. You can't. And truer more is the truth that government is supposed to do the things The Autocrat does, simply because you will do the things you do out of The Great Folly. He must, and any attempts to thwart his seven-fold power are not only futile but self-destructive.
The Great Folly revealed itself in all its glory recently with the controversy over those released remarks made by MIT professor and Affordable Care Act architect Jonathan Gruber. He basically exposed government managed health care policy for what it is, very truthfully. The Great Folly here does have a bit to do with something else called The Fatal Conceit, the idea that government can arrange the economic activity for everyone, something that is indeed extraordinarily foolish. Thing is, government has been doing that in whatever way it does for eons. When the federal government perpetuates Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest of that plap, it is no different than "Obamacare".
It is the World System engendering worship among the faithful.
No, the truest aspect of this feature of The Great Folly comes from what seems to be the one thing most people have found most objectionable. It was the remark by Gruber that the voter is stupid. Oh! The gall! The audacity! Oh! Oh!
Funny, my devotional this morning provided the answer to The Great Folly. There it was, right there in Proverbs. Right there from the wise man who said truth. That truth?
"I'm stupid. I lack understanding."
Yep, that's me too. I find I can be really stupid. I can be really stupid about government and what it is and what it does. I can be really stupid about even the simplest things related to how to interact with others. I can be most stupid when I think I can resist the lure of The Great Folly by myself.
"I'm strong! I'm smart! I'm good! No really, I am! And damn it I'm a smart voter who's just not going to let himself be pushed around by some goofy wonk who wants to run my life damn it!"
No, that's not smart, that's stupid.
That wise man in Proverbs sure did come up with some wise things, though, there in the book there, 30th chapter to be specific. Pretty good stuff from a stupid man. But that's part of the point.
When you confess what a fool you are, God sees you're honest with yourself enough to let you in on those wise things. Jesus said it like this, "Thank you Lord for hiding these things from the learned and revealing them to children."
So then.
There's the antidote to The Folly.
The Word.
Do you want Him or not?
If you do, by the way, and a lot of others do to, and you fellowship with them in the wonderful vibrancy of the Kingdom, there'd be no need for the machinations of the federal government to provide health care for the least among us. Or anything else for that matter.
It'd happen. It'd just happen.
And there'd be no need to try to cover for the stupidity in each of us.
The Word would govern us with grace, righteousness, charity, joy...
_
I had a previous take on V for Vendetta in a home page piece. It is here.
It also reveals something I've come to call "The Great Folly." It's not as if this folly is anything revolutionary, but part of its greatness comes in people still not getting it after millennia and millennia and millennia. They're still fools, they do the most foolish things to rationalize it all, and their rationalizations are varied and great. As The Preacher once said, nothing is really new at all. That the Folly is so Great makes it that much more tragic.
V for Vendetta reveals that folly in all its glory. The protagonists are not just "V" and Evey, but are all those intractably convinced that they need no authority over them and their wretched behavior. One of the things the filmmakers want us all to believe upon is that homosexual activity is perfectly fine and that anyone who objects belongs to the ugly autocratic beasts who simply must be stopped. Even more, it is best to destroy all government institutions because they are so oppressive and then -- and then! We can all remove our masks and be ourselves and live together in a communal paradise where John Lennon's Imagine vision of "Coexist" will be finally realized.
What Great Folly.
Oh, the truth that we truly should love one another is true, it is. The truth that government cracks heads with the greatest ruthlessness is truly true. Those things are truer than true, got that.
But truer than all that is the truth that you cannot love another while living richly by The Great Folly. You can't. And truer more is the truth that government is supposed to do the things The Autocrat does, simply because you will do the things you do out of The Great Folly. He must, and any attempts to thwart his seven-fold power are not only futile but self-destructive.
The Great Folly revealed itself in all its glory recently with the controversy over those released remarks made by MIT professor and Affordable Care Act architect Jonathan Gruber. He basically exposed government managed health care policy for what it is, very truthfully. The Great Folly here does have a bit to do with something else called The Fatal Conceit, the idea that government can arrange the economic activity for everyone, something that is indeed extraordinarily foolish. Thing is, government has been doing that in whatever way it does for eons. When the federal government perpetuates Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest of that plap, it is no different than "Obamacare".
It is the World System engendering worship among the faithful.
No, the truest aspect of this feature of The Great Folly comes from what seems to be the one thing most people have found most objectionable. It was the remark by Gruber that the voter is stupid. Oh! The gall! The audacity! Oh! Oh!
Funny, my devotional this morning provided the answer to The Great Folly. There it was, right there in Proverbs. Right there from the wise man who said truth. That truth?
"I'm stupid. I lack understanding."
Yep, that's me too. I find I can be really stupid. I can be really stupid about government and what it is and what it does. I can be really stupid about even the simplest things related to how to interact with others. I can be most stupid when I think I can resist the lure of The Great Folly by myself.
"I'm strong! I'm smart! I'm good! No really, I am! And damn it I'm a smart voter who's just not going to let himself be pushed around by some goofy wonk who wants to run my life damn it!"
No, that's not smart, that's stupid.
That wise man in Proverbs sure did come up with some wise things, though, there in the book there, 30th chapter to be specific. Pretty good stuff from a stupid man. But that's part of the point.
When you confess what a fool you are, God sees you're honest with yourself enough to let you in on those wise things. Jesus said it like this, "Thank you Lord for hiding these things from the learned and revealing them to children."
So then.
There's the antidote to The Folly.
The Word.
Do you want Him or not?
If you do, by the way, and a lot of others do to, and you fellowship with them in the wonderful vibrancy of the Kingdom, there'd be no need for the machinations of the federal government to provide health care for the least among us. Or anything else for that matter.
It'd happen. It'd just happen.
And there'd be no need to try to cover for the stupidity in each of us.
The Word would govern us with grace, righteousness, charity, joy...
_
I had a previous take on V for Vendetta in a home page piece. It is here.
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