Literary passage

[robotech_master]

I've been reading people's journals and posts to various places. It's kind of funny...although I'm somewhat more in favor of the Iraq invasion than not, both sides of the political war debate are now starting to annoy me.

I read, recently, a passage in a science-fiction/action novel that sort of resonated in the light of recent events. I suppose you could interpret it in either a pro-war or anti-war state of mind, but either way, I think it's an interesting passage.

The book it's from is the 26th book in the Survivalist series by Jerry Ahern—an interestingly atypical post-holocaust series that blended action-adventure and science-fiction in equal portions. In this series, which became alternate-history long before the author finished it, mankind was all but destroyed by an accidental nuclear war in the early 1980s, and struggled back to repopulating and repairing the earth over the next few hundred years. Ahern was never afraid to let his politics come through in his writing, as it did in this passage. (I've pared a few paragraphs out of the middle to hit the essential points.)

Michael Rourke supposed that he was fortunate, born without the sort of liberal excuse for a conscience which would have totally traumatized him. His conscience was not an excuse, but the real thing. From what he'd seen in videos, read in books, heard related by his father, and faintly recalled from his own memories of the time Before the Night of the War, it was fashionable in some quarters to believe that violence of any sort, even in defense of human life, was somehow intrinsically evil.

If, however, a man or woman stepped so far outside the human community as to rob another human being of his life or dignity, killing that man or woman was, however regrettable, not something of great moral import, considered in full context.

What was of moral import and cause for great sadness and soul-searching was the fact that a human being could sink to such a level that he or she had to be destroyed because he or she was no longer truly human, only preyed on the human community while pretending to be a part of it.

Michael Rourke's father had told him once when they were alone in the Retreat, Annie already asleep for the night, "Had the Night of the War never come, Michael, it's sad to say that the eventual outcome for humanity might have been little different. [...]

"In some ways, Michael," his father had said, "the last half of the twentieth century was an era of renewed involvement, but only by a comparatively small segment of the population. Some people, out of ignorance or greed, aligned themselves with causes which were deleterious to mankind's welfare. There were those who supported the abrogation of their own civil liberties and their possible subjugation into serfdom by fighting for the destruction of the Second Amendment. There were others whose translation of a genuine concern for the welfare of animals led them to destroy or interfere with medical research which could have saved human lives. Still others were so narrow-minded in their own religious beliefs and so convinced that their conception of morality was the only correct conception that they fought to have government codify religion and dictate every aspect of human existence, totally denying freedom of choice and individual moral responsibility.

"But, at least, however benighted, self-destructive—dumb, okay?—at least they were doing something, even if it was stupid. And there were many more people, who worked with remarkable diligence in true service to mankind, helping to solve problems rather than make more problems, fighting to alleviate suffering, working to spread freedom of choice. But those who chose to be involved—for good or for bad—were the minority as opposed to the vast majority of people who did nothing at all except kick back. And the minority who worked diligently to inform, to educate, to uplift their fellow man and to enhance human dignity were numerically overwhelmed; but, they kept trying in the face of incalculable odds.

"So in a way, Michael, it all might have ended anyway. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot, mankind just went out with a 'bang' rather than a 'whimper,' but in either case the result might just as well have been the same."