“Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality. ”
― Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes
In the 1970's, I was teaching English at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, Illinois. A movie came out called Apocalypse Now. At that time, I learned how many people 'pretended' familiarity with Joseph Conrad - " The great British African Explorer and adventurer and wrote Heart of Darkness. Did you know that Apocalypse Now is all about Heart of Darkness?"
No, I had not the foggiest! I had been reading Conrad's the THE ENWORD of The Narcissus, you know about how Jim and Huck took a raft trip and were raped by Hillbillies. That movie came out about the same time.
A handful of people were aware that Joseph Conrad was in fact Polish. A couple of fingers of folks, including teachers of English were aware of the fact that Conrad was a radical.
Since November 8th, Anti-Trump rallies funded and organized by the World Workers International, Revolutionary Communists within the Answer Coalition have allowed privileged whites to again loot and vandalize cities with approval of the globalist elites. The pale soul patched, man-bun suburbanites have put aside Pokemon and donned red bandanas and balaklavas in order avoid discomfort and identification as they temper tantrum across the continent.
The drips on cable news coo for their feelings and fears. And the decontructionist academics offer misreadings in support of their crime and misdemeanors.
Yep, a stone radical, who had brushed aside the Revolution. That idiotic Second Coming of the Masses! The Masses are tools. Always were and always will be.
Apocalypse Now is not an antiwar movie. It is an Anti-Masses movies, just as Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, The Secret Sharer, The Secret Agent and Under a Western Sky are warnings to the individual heart that it belongs to God and not man's longing for a material paradise, or their personal feelings.
Jim Wait, a doomed West Indian sailor of color , dying of Tuberculosis has the sympathy of the Masses - Black Lives Matter! The Captain of the Narcissus, Alistoun and an experienced salt named Singleton, are reviled by the masses for not having human hearts. They are only concerned with the work and safety of the ship. When a storm puts the Narcissus in peril, the crew, the Masses want to chop off the sails and right the ship. The Captain and Singleton refuse. Guess what?
The ship rights itself when the storm passes and the Narcissus still has sails to continue on its voyage. Jim Wait dies. The Masses wanted to slow down and give Justice to Jim Wait and they wanted the ship righted Now! It can't wait! Move on! The Answer!
The Masses will sink the ship.
Is that fatalism? Is that heartlessness. Nope that is reality. I have less than 21 miles worth of gas in the tank of my Malibu and protest I might the car won't make it to Peotone from Morgan Park.
Joseph Conrad lived in Polish occupied Russia and saw Imperialism at worst and learned that Revolution trumped that monstrosity hands down.
I hazard a wager that most of the Trump Protestors have never heard of the dead white man who wrote Under Western Skies and Heart of Darkness - you know Apocalypse Now.
Had the little dopes been stuck in one of my classes they might know that Revolution is always the ugliest example of human behavior.
Then they might know this, The ignorant serve cruel masters. Or as Conrad wrote in Under Western Skies:
In a real revolution–not a simple dynastic change or a mere reform of institutions–in a real revolution the best characters do not come to the front. A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards comes the turn of all the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs and the leaders. You will notice I have left out the mere rogues. The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane and devoted natures, the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement–but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims–the victims of disgust, disenchantment–often of remorse. Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured – that is the definition of revolutionary success. There have been in every revolution hearts broken by such successes. But enough of that. My meaning is that I don’t want you to be a victim. Conrad
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