Catholics call today Palm Sunday: the day commemorating Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem. That event had features that suggested that the Redeemer would be hailed, even lionized, by the people of the city. As anyone familiar with the story of the Passion is aware, that turned out not to be the case:
[Applause to Dio for the above graphic.]
That image put me in mind of an early Robert A. Heinlein story: “Gulf:”
“Kettle Belly, I confess to a monkey prejudice in favor of democracy, human dignity, and freedom. It goes beyond logic; it is the kind of a world I like. In my job I have jungled with the outcasts of society, snared their slumgullion. Stupid they may be, bad they are not I have no wish to see them become domestic animals.”
For the first time the big man showed concern. His persona as “King of the Kopters,” master merchandiser, slipped away; he sat in brooding majesty, a lonely and unhappy figure. “I know, Joe. They are of us; their little dignities, their nobilities, are not lessened by their sorry state. Yet it must be.”
“Why? New Man will come granted. But why hurry the process?”
“Ask yourself.” He swept a hand toward the oubliette. ‘Ten minutes ago you and I saved this planet, all our race. It’s the hour of the knife. Someone must be on guard if the race is to live; there is no one but us. To guard effectively we New Men must be organized, must never fumble any crisis like this and must increase our numbers. We are few now, Joe; as the crises increase, we must increase to meet them. Eventually and it’s a dead race with time we must take over and make certain that baby never plays with matches.”
He stopped and brooded. “I confess to that same affection for democracy, Joe. But it’s like yearning for the Santa Claus you believed in as a child. For a hundred and fifty years or so democracy, or something like it, could flourish safely. The issues were such as to be settled without disaster by the votes of common men, befogged and ignorant as they were. But now, if the race is simply to stay alive, political decisions depend on real knowledge of such things as nuclear physics, planetary ecology, genetic theory, even system mechanics. They aren’t up to it, Joe. With goodness and more will than they possess less than one in a thousand could stay awake over one page of nuclear physics; they can’t learn what they must know.”
Gilead brushed it aside. “It’s up to us to brief them. Their hearts are all right; tell them the score they’ll come down with the right answers.”
“No, Joe. We’ve tried it; it does not work. As you say, most of them are good, the way a dog can be noble and good. Yet there are bad ones Mrs. Keithley and company and more like her. Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men. The little man has no way to judge and the shoddy lies are packaged more attractively. There is no way to offer color to a colorblind man, nor is there any way for us to give the man of imperfect brain the canny skill to distinguish a lie from a truth.
“No, Joe. The gulf between us and them is narrow, but it is very deep. We cannot close it.”
“I wish,” said Gilead, “that you wouldn’t class me with your ‘New Man’, I feel more at home on the other side.”
“You will decide for yourself which side you are on, as each of us has done.”[From Assignment In Eternity]
The above is a tragic assessment of Mankind, to be sure… yet it is consistent with our habitual “choosing the thieves” over honest men who prefer to tell us the truth rather than pander to our sugarplum fantasies.
But Heinlein was famously libertarian, in nearly every respect. How could he have an attractive protagonist endorse an oligarchy of the Superior? It’s too inconsistent to accept.
It’s worth more than a few moments’ thought.
From my novel Chosen One:
The saber gleamed in the muted light. I’d spent a lot of time and effort sharpening and polishing it.
It was a plain weapon, not one you’d expect to see in the hand of a king. There was only the barest tracing on the faintly curved blade. The guard bell was a plain steel basket, without ornamentation. The hilt was a seven inch length of oak, darkened with age but firm to the touch. There was only a hint of a pommel, a slight swell of the hilt at its very end.
“What is this?”
“A sword. Your sword.”
A hint of alarm compressed his eyes. “What do you expect me to do with it?”
I shrugged. “Whatever you think appropriate. But a king should have a sword. By the way,” I said, “it was first worn by Louis the Ninth of France when he was the Dauphin, though he set it aside for a useless jeweled monstrosity when he ascended the throne.”
Time braked to a stop as confusion spun his thoughts.
“I don’t know how to use it,” he murmured.
“Easily fixed. I do.”
“But why, Malcolm?”
I stepped back, turned a little away from those pleading eyes.
“Like it or not, you’re a king. You don’t know what that means yet. You haven’t a sense for the scope of it. But you must learn. Your life, and the lives of many others, will turn on how well you learn it.” I paused and gathered my forces. “What is a king, Louis?”
He stood there with the sword dangling from his hand. “A ruler. A leader. A warlord.”
“More. All of that, but more. The sword is an ancient symbol for justice. Back when the function of nobility was better understood, a king never sat his throne without his sword to hand. If he was to treat with the envoy of another king, it would be at his side. If he was to dispense justice, it would be across his knees. Why do you suppose that was, Louis?”
He stood silent for a few seconds.
“Symbolic of the force at his command, I guess.”
I shook my head gently.
“Not just symbolic. A true king, whose throne belonged to him by more than the right of inheritance, led his own troops and slew malefactors by his own hand. The sword was a reminder of the privilege of wielding force, but it was there to be used as well.”
His hands clenched and unclenched in time to his thoughts. I knew what they had to be.
“The age of kings is far behind us, Malcolm.”
“It never ended. Men worthy of the role became too few to maintain the institution.”
“And I’m…worthy?”
If he wasn’t, then no worthy man had ever lived, but I couldn’t tell him that.
“There’s a gulf running through the world, Louis. On one side are the commoners, the little men who bear tools, tend their gardens, and keep the world running. On the other are the nobles, who see far and dare much, and sometimes risk all they have, that the realm be preserved and the commoner continue undisturbed in his portion. There’s no shortage of either, except for the highest of the nobles, the men of unbreakable will and moral vision, for whom justice is a commitment deeper than life itself.”
His face had begun to twitch. He’d heard all he could stand to hear, and perhaps more. I decided to cap the pressure.
“Kings have refused their crowns many times, Louis. You might do as much, though it would sadden me to see it. But you could break that sword over your knee, change your name, and run ten thousand miles to hide where no one could know you, and it wouldn’t lessen what you are and were born to be.” I gestured at the sword. “Keep it near you.”
The vision above isn’t too distant from that in the Heinlein novella. Despite my yearning for the abolition of the State in all its duplicitous and meretricious forms, it just might be the best we can do. For while there are wise and just men among us, in the main Mankind is neither wise nor just.
We are fallen.
A little off the usual track for an early-morning thought, eh? Well, I have to go with what’s on my mind. It’s there because of an encounter from yesterday: Someone at Facebook was touting his newly released anti-Catholic novel in a writers’ group. You can imagine how I reacted, especially after a commenter added his opinion that “Catholicism is a pestilence upon humanity.”
Today, begins Holy Week, as he who would be acclaimed King of Kings over the centuries to come begins his last week before his Passion. It’s a good occasion on which to reflect on our terrible propensity for choosing the thief. Our thieves, of course, carry briefcases in contrast to the burglary tools employed by Barabbas’s ilk. (“A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun.” – Don Henley) They lie to us, promise that allowing them to steal will make us rich, and we believe them.
I’d say our race still has a bit of maturing to do.
Have a nice day.
