Kafka escapes

I am driving somewhere close to Manchester when it comes over me.

‘I feel like shit, or a bad facsimile of,’ I inform my navigator, ‘I could vomit for America (a mocking breeze bothers dandelions along the ha-ha) but she’s sick near to death already and no amount of hours spent watching futile movies out of Hollywood is gonna fix that.’

There’s nothing I can do about it, I realise. So I drive back to my hotel, pick up Kafka and check out.

‘As if I could puke for America, Kafka,’ I tell him laughingly, as the plane is taking off.

Starve a fever?

A Native American is teaching his grandchildren about life. He says to them:

‘A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority.

The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

This same fight is going on inside you and every other person too.’
 
The children consider this for a moment and then one child asks his grandfather, ‘Which wolf will win?’

The old man simply replies: ‘The one I feed.’

‘Anyone with a rag on his head is fair game!’

You’ve heard of the Rotten Apple Fairy Tale? You know how it goes, it’s the standard establishment explanation for corruption or incompetence: He/she’s a rotten apple in an otherwise clean barrel.

According to this, rotten apples are either weak assholes in the guise of human beings, who have slipped through organisational screening processes and succumbed to the temptations inherent in positions of power, or deviant individuals who continue their deviance in an environment that gives them ample opportunity so to do.

Police departments, governments and the military tend to use the rotten apple theory or some variation of the rogue cop/amok soldier story to minimize public backlash after every exposed atrocity or act of corruption or incompetence.

Another approach is the occupational socialization explanation, the polar opposite of rotten apple theory — rotten barrel theory, if you will.

According to this view, the very structure of front line agencies of the State provides ample opportunity to learn the entrenched patterns of deviant power-based conduct that have been passed down through generations.

A functional explanation may be closer to the truth: corruption and institutionalised barbarism are inherent in society’s attempts to enforce unenforceable laws.

The footage below pertains to the current US ‘adventure’ in Iraq but it could, mutatis mutandis, be about Vietnam, Somalia or the ‘war’ against the Native American. 

Click here to watch.