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I have yet to understand why some people treat Alan Moore like a comic book version of the Delphic Oracle.  Is he a talented writer?  Undoubtedly.  Is he a modern prophet?  Hardly.

Yes, there are more security cameras now than in 1985, but to say that Moore’s Norsefire takeover is right around the corner is a massive stretch, particularly less than 24 hours from when the Democrats are poised for a major power gain, which will undoubtedly reverse course on many of Bush 43’s policies.  We are not on the brink of a fascist state, and certainly not on the brink of the Nazi-like regime portrayed in V for Vendetta.

“Moore’s picture of a centralized state in which the media is owned and operated by the government” didn’t exactly require an intuitive leap, since that’s been the state of affairs in Britain for decades.  That’s not exactly visionary.  As for totalitarian, technocratic states that burn books, imprison people, trample on human rights, etc., that vision was already spelled out by Orwell, Bradbury, and Huxley, et al., in ways that were far more compelling and original.

Perhaps I’m hopelessly naive, but I believe that a terrorist that loves the humanities shouldn’t represent our paradigm of social change.

I agree that Moore’s a great writer, and that V for Vendetta is a great graphic novel with something to say politically, but setting Moore up as a serious societal prophet is a major stretch, IMO.

Dear “NaturalStateReb”:

It really doesn’t matter whether the Democrats win in the current presidential election or not, for it will not change America’s basic imperialistic orientation, to which the Democrats submit just as much (or almost as much) as the Republicans. Any candidate wanting to seriously offer himself as a potential president must still support some hard or soft form of American imperialism. Clinton, for example, continued the policy through an economic, rather than a militarist channel, for it was under Clinton that NAFTA was passed and the WTO set up. The Democrats just offer a slightly “softer” form of this neo-fascism.

And the cameras are not going to go away. They are there to stay, along with the entire edifice of the techno-fascist megamachine that surrounds us. We may not yet be under a “Nazi-like” regime, but as the days pass, and the American tradition of respect for civil liberties wanes, we are becoming more and more like it. But fascism doesn’t have to have the goose-stepping cliches associated with it for it to be considered a form of fascism; there are other forms, in which technology, for instance, abets the centralized statist controls. And the Patriot Act, in which the government reserves the right to search and seize anyone at anytime without giving any sort of probable cause, hardly resembles the kinds of rights which we associate with our democratic constitution.

I sense that you are wanting to deny that America is changing, and maybe you want to see it as it was, not as it is right now. You are looking in the rearview mirror while the civilization moves forward. All civilizations change and transform over time. All you need to do is look at what happened to Republican Rome. The same thing is happening here.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any mistake about it. America is transforming into a fascist dictatorship, and yes, it was foreseen by Orwell, Huxley and Bradbury, but that does not make Moore any less prophetic, for he correctly saw that the current structure would take on the lineaments of an assault on the arts and the humanities with a corresponding rise in the power of technologically abetted state centralized control. V is a metaphor; he is not a mere super-hero or anti-hero, he is a metaphor for one pattern of action which the human individual caught up in the current techno-fascist megamachine can take, namely, that you can either fight against this or go back to your Huxleyan dystopia in which we entertain ourselves to death with our computers, cell phones and television sets.

I don’t, you see, take V as a terrorist as a literal image, since I am no literalist, unlike the average American. V is an image for strife and struggle against the enclosure and imprisonment of the human being by the megamachine, not necessarily a model for violence. It is violence as metaphoric of the soul’s struggles against totalitarianism.

—John Ebert

John,

First off, because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m in some sort of denial mode.  Don’t try to psychoanalize me; I’ve already got a wife.

Second, I and the rest of literalist, average, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing America yield to your siren logic.  Or rather your illogic and smarmy, condenscending attitude.  The whole notion that only you, Alan Moore, and those that believe similarly are the only ones enligthened enough to get that V for Vendetta is some sort of Rosetta Stone about America’s future is arrogant in the extreme.  Your self-impressed smugness oozes from the screen.

V for Vendetta isn’t even set in America; it’s set in Great Britain.  I know, I’m being small-minded and literal again.  But, Britain’s socialist/parliamentary/monarchical governmental system and heirarchical society is radically different from the basis for American society and government.  The analogy is as inapt as it is inept.

As far as this “assault on arts and humanities” that you keep prattling on about, I’m not really sure where you’re coming from.  It’s not like we’re around the corner from book burnings, or that you can’t listen to classical music, we’re tearing down art galleries, etc.  Is art controversial?  Sure.  It always has been.  Everyone has the right to produce their art, just as everyone has the right to take it or leave it.  Again, that’s just restating what’s already obvious. 

Yes, the cameras are here to stay.  But certain threats to the nation’s security are also here to stay.  We ignore them to our peril.  While we can’t cede over our civil liberties, we can’t assume that everyone in the world is as well-meaning as we are.  They aren’t.  To believe otherwise would be the height of dreamy naivete. 

Is America changing?  Sure.  It always is.  Again, restating the obvious doesn’t win points as a flash of insight.  I think it’s about tto change for the better, while futurists like yourself have nothing to offer but a self-absorbed, existential pity party. 

Your characterization of the Patriot Act is also wrong.  While I couldn’t disagree with it more, it doesn’t allow search and seizure of anyone at any time without probably cause.  Nor could it, pursuant to the Fourth Amendment.  I presume you refer to the “sneak and peek” provisions, which have subsequently and properly been struck down as unconstiutional.  Whatever remains of the search and seizure provisions after the courts work on them are slated to sunset at the end of 2009.  Your conjectures about legal matters are utterly uninformed.  Leave the shade-tree lawyering to the professionals.  Like me.

If you believe that an Obama administration truly would have the same sort of governing philosophy—that is, as imperialist, fascist scumbags, albeit with a heart apparently, since Democrats are “softer neo-facists”—as the Bush administration then nothing I could add or detract from this conversation could pursuade you otherwise. 

Face it—Orwell, Huxley, and Bradbury and many others all did it earlier and better.  Rehashes of older, more vibrant dystopias isn’t prophetic.  Bradbury even did the “individual sacrificing for love of art” ending before Moore.  I’d be willing to wager that if V for Vendetta wasn’t a graphic novel, you wouldn’t be terribly interested.  I think you’re letting your love of the medium, rather than the quality of the message, skew your perception.  But upon that, I suppose, we must ultimately disagree, since neither of us will be pursuaded otherwise.

I hope to soon be able to remedy my quaint, backwards view of America by consuming copious amounts of nihilistic, pop philosophy at John Ebert’s friendly neighborhood re-education center.  Perhaps then I may be able to rise above my stunted, bourgeois world-view and scale the mental heights which you and Alan Moore have attained.

NSR

Oh, we’re a little defensive here, aren’t we?

The problem is, I sense in your criticisms an anti-intellectualism that goes beyond the words you are saying, and which I find common, all too common, in American culture today. The general assumption of the dumb mob is that works of graphic art cannot be too complex and cannot contain information that needs to be decoded by people who actually do read books other than comicbooks. Your hostility is typically American anti-intellectualism, which is part of the problem here, not the solution.

The problem in our culture, especially American culture, is that there is too much of the dumb mob asserting its right to belch forth on anything which it thinks it can give a gut level, limbic system emotive response to and that people who read books are just elitist snobs articulating “words, words, words.” (That’s Shakespeare, in case you didn’t know).

Your failure to understand my point of view underscores this. I read everything: top and pop, comics and highbrow critical theory, you name it. If anyone is “democratic” here, it is me, since you obviously won’t condescend to reading difficult material. Remember, everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has an educated opinion, and I don’t sense that yours is terribly well informed about cultural studies, whatever your knowledge of the law. Just because you wish to remain ignorant of such matters doesn’t mean that others who happen to be good at them don’t have a valid point of view to make. You shouldn’t be the typical dumb American standing on the hilltop pointing to Europe and calling it a land of sissies.

I suppose you don’t think the Bush administration’s allowing the museums of Iraq to be raped while American soldiers moved in to protect the only thing which Americans think matters, namely, oil (i.e. money) was a problem, either. Don’t kid yourself: fascism takes all kinds of forms, baby, both subtle and overt. You’re looking for confirmation of cliched forms of it, goose-stepping and the like. We’re talking about subtleties here which can, and probably will, grow into very large perturbations.

—John David Ebert

Just an insignificant detail, but it’s Gaston Leroux, not L’Heureux…

John,

While it’s clear that I’m an uneducated imbeclie, I think you’re selling yourself short.  Like so many of the dumb Americans you’ve come to loathe, you have mistaken mere smugness for intelligence.  Smugness isn’t smartness; it certainly isn’t wisdom.

Sadly, you refute none of my points.  You merely resort to tiring, hysterical, personal attacks.  Finally, you retreat to the last bastion of intellectual weakness—proclaiming others as simply too stupid to understand your genius, despite the universally recognized truth that intelligent people can differ.

Your inane ramblings aren’t making anyone any smarter, and they’re making at least one of us look considerably dumber.  I’m embarassed for you, even if you lack the wit to be embarassed for yourself.

NSR

Well, your points weren’t worth refuting, to be honest. You’re politically naive and have no idea what’s going no around you.

Have fun.

Yours,
John Ebert

So, while you’re writing this, John, what are YOU doing about it? Are you fighting? Are you striving as one man to make America a non-fascist state? What are the steps you are taking, and therefore expect US to take? Because what I’m seeing here in this tirade is a lot of “Do as I believe you should do, but I’m not actually doing”.

Coming from someone who is a rather staunch liberal and obviously a great fan of the book, I think that if you’re suggesting that the unwashed stupid fat celeb-obsessed masses (which apparently is everyone BUT you judging by your responses to Reb’s comments) that we are get off our super-sized butts and do something to change this country, that perhaps you should first lead by example. Take back the power that we’ve lost to our current and incumbent government. In this country, a little more than 50 years ago, states were still supporting book-burning and blacks not having the right to vote. I happen to think that America has come a long way since then. Are we still extraordinarily Puritanical? Yes we are. Do we have more inequities that still need work? Absolutely.

But if you’re going to sit (or stand… whichever way you type) there and tell me that I need to start fighting for my personal freedoms and of those around me but not give me and the rest of the idiots a game plan… well, that’s a bit of a tease, isn’t it?

You say you want a revolution? Well, you know…

Aside from that, obviously you’re an intelligent (albeit a condescending) man. And hopefully, you can see more than one side of the equation.

Ave Atque Vale.

Hello, James and thanks for taking the time to respond to my blog. I do appreciate it.

Here’s the thing: Absolutely everything I do is an act—and not a reaction—AGAINST the megamachine that our society has become. Every decision I’ve ever made in my life has been FOR the humanities and AGAINST the grain (or Against the Day, as the title of Thomas Pynchon’s latest novel has it).

The act of posting this blog, for instance, was an action FOR art, literature, culture, and AGAINST the megamachine.

I have published two books, have a third on the way, and published many articles in magazines like Parabola, Utne Reader, The Antioch Review, etc.

You might be one of those who think that “acting” on behalf of ideas means going out into the streets and killing people or blowing up things; or less hysterically, taking part in demonstrations against things like the WTO, etc.

But you would be wrong; writing and publishing are creative acts; don’t tell me you’re one of those blockheads who believe that “ideas” mean nothing and that in order to really help stem the tide you need to get out in front of a tank. That’s ludicrous. In fact, most of the people who do these things do them precisely because they haven’t spent the time learning how to write and read or articulate ideas or else take up a difficult craft or something that takes time, energy and patience and builds civilization.

Civilizations are built out of ideas, and ideas come from minds who have spent many years engaging with other minds. This is how civilization evolves. So if you think that spending time taking up a particular stance and publicly voicing it is not a good enough example of “acting” or “doing something about it,” then I would say to you, condescendingly, that you don’t know what you’re talking about and go educate yourself about the history of civilization. That’s what books are for.

Yes, America has made progress. We just elected the first black President and no one is happier about this than me. However, our democracy is fading, I don’t think there is any question about that, and Obama, no matter how great he turns out to be, can at best only slow down or temporarily arrest this process, not reverse it. He is only one man, and he has the entire wave of American history going against him.

America has had an interventionist / imperialist policy since the Spanish American War and the subsequent history of the 20th century has shown a gradual expansion of American power in a militaristic / fascist direction. Exactly like ancient Rome, in fact. Kennedy got in the way of this machine, and he was disposed of. Carter tried to get in the way and he was ridiculed by the American people. Clinton just went along with the ride via economic rather than military means. And I am afraid that the nature of Power is such that Obama is going to have to make certain decisions that are going to disappoint some people who are currently giddy with excitement (myself included) about him right now.

Oswald Spengler in his Decline of the West made certain predictions about the future course our Western civilization would take and one of those predictions was that it would follow in broad outlines the course of the disintegration of Republican Rome as it transformed into an Empire ruled by Caesars who simply assassinated each other when they wanted to gain power. That wave of assassinations started with the public murder in the Senate of Tiberius Gracchus, a liberal land reformer who wanted to put restrictions on land ownership of the rich and redistribute some of it back especially to war veterans. He got in the way of the machine and they killed him. Ten years later, they killed his brother. After that came the Civil Wars beginning with Marius and Sulla, the latter of whom was the first to assume the office of dictator on a permanent basis.

Since Kennedy’s assassination, I think we have been on the same course and all kinds of phenomena corresponding to the decline of the Roman Republic have borne this suspicion out over the years: loss of certain civil liberties, for instance, as portended by the Patriot Act (and yes, contrary to Reb’s assertion that I have merely caricatured it, it does represent a violation of nearly every right on the Bill of Rights); the rise of private armies like Blackwater, hiring themselves out (compare Pompey’s private army of soldiers which he paid out of his own massive fortunes and which helped put him in power); the CIA as a branch of our government which has specialized in toppling Third World regimes since the overthrow of Mossadegh in 1953 (this is democratic? who are you kidding!); the making legal, now, of torture (since 9/11); the serious consideration of suspending the 2004 presidential election (which almost happened, but had never been seriously considered before); Bush jr.‘s centralization of power to himself, and on and on. The list is quite long; the symptoms are there; and democracy’s days are numbered.

But the illusion of it will continue for awhile. After Julius Caesar assumed power, the Senate went on calling itself the Senate and pretended to vote over issues which it no longer had the slightest bit of control over. We’re not at that point yet, but I am afraid that’s where all the signs are pointing.

And what do I think can be done about it?

Not a thing.

Except that, as the model of V For Vendetta implies, the individual can make certain decisions in his or her life about the ethics of how he is going to respond to all this: you can either decide, for instance, that you’re going to get a job that makes lots of money, buy yourself a gas-guzzling hummer that sucks up oil like a twelve year old kid drinking bottles of Coke, take up your residence in a huge home inside of a gated community with surveillance cameras while you look out at the rest of the world through your television; or, you can decide to follow that dream you had of being a singer, a poet, a painter, a comic book artist, etc. (you know, that dream you had of being something that everyone around you told you would never make you a dime?).

THAT’S the kind of thing I’m talking about. It all comes down to making decisions about how you are going to live your life: are you going to let the impersonal bureaucratic megamachine with its socially approved do’s and don’ts intimidating you into making decisions on its behalf so that its wheels are greased with social approval and the empire can move right along with everybody’s tacit consent; or are you going to be like V and make decisions on behalf of the arts and the humanities and follow those dreams in spite of how shitty everyone around you makes you feel and resist the megamachine and the inevitable book burnings that, one fine day, we will all wake up to in this country? (not yet, but one day, ten years from now? twenty? who knows, but it WILL happen, I guarantee it).

The problem is, the latter way of life, the road less travelled, is shunned by most people because of the enormous penalties that it confers on you via social ostracism, isolation, few friends, difficulty finding a mate, etc. Again, take a look at the situation of V, isolated and alone in his underground cavern. Few people want this fate inflicted on them and so they just go along with the ride and reap the social rewards (while the entire merry ship heads for the iceberg).

Later, you can come back and read my books and blogs and tell me “Hey, you were right!”

But then, maybe I’m not, but I’m not the only person who thinks this way. Here, for example, is a list of authors who think along these same lines (just so you don’t think I’m a lone crazy shouting in the wilderness of the suburbs):

Dark Ages America by Morris Berman
The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler
Coming Into Being by William Irwin Thompson
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
City of Panic by Paul Virilio
City of Quartz by Mike Davis
The Coming Anarchy by Robert Kaplan

und so weiter

—John Ebert

Well done, sir. I may have been annoyed with some of the comments that you had made, and feel that some of these ideas SEEM a little knee-jerk radical, but they are very incisive and obviously provocative. And I (honestly) was using my response as more of an example of what most people might be thinking. I know that, as a fan of V, it is ultimately up to each one of us to decide what action to take. But based on what I think is the more well-known public perception of the V tale, which is the horrifically flawed film, I think that most people wouldn’t get that idea.

Did you think there was flesh and blood within this cloak to kill? There’s only an idea. And ideas are bulletproof.

So thanks for being part of Pop Syndicate and bringing such interesting ideas to the table. If you’re ever in the mood to go a little more low-brow, check out some of my comic reviews!

It’s a pleasure, James, glad you liked it and I will check out your reviews. What site are they on?

—Ebert

They’re right here! Just take a look at the Elsewhere on Pop Syndicate, and you’ll see my name.

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