LOOKING ASTERN

by Ray Jason          

Ray on his birthday 2016

A few hours into every long voyage there comes a precious moment.  Most sailors pay it no heed - but I never miss it.  Suddenly, the gradually thinning margin of land and sea disappears.  The land has drowned.  The sea surrounds.  The domain of Humanity has vanished.  The realm of Nature is resurrected.

            Now my only companions reside in the sea and the sky.  The only laws are timeless and elemental – the mighty ocean currents and the churning atmospheric systems.  Most perceive this vastness as emptiness, but I see it as human-less.  Such solitude - such exile - does not trouble me, it pleases me.  And it allows me to glimpse the Human Project with a clarity unknown to land-dwellers.        

            This wet, surging enormity inspires a perspective on our species that reveals it to be both magnificent and malevolent.  It harkens up both Mozart and the Mushroom Cloud.  It whispers of a planet filled with riches - and the human psyche cursed with a lust for riches.  It provides a long lens that helps me focus on the multi-generational march of the human caravan.

THE HUXLANDIA TRAP

by Ray Jason

In my previous essay I tried to convince you that two of the great masterpieces of 20^th Century literature have been disturbingly accurate in predicting the Human Trajectory.  In George Orwell’s iconic 1984, he argued that humankind faces a totalitarian future where every individual is controlled and monitored by the State.  “Submit or die” might be the most accurate way to describe his dark vision.  Aldous Huxley, in his prophetic BRAVE NEW WORLD, suggested that the State would dominate the masses not through force and surveillance, but by distracting them so insidiously that they do not even notice their enslavement.  A catchphrase for this approach might be “Slavery is FUN!”

            Many political observers contend that the increasing domination by the State is furthered by using either the Orwell or the Huxley approach.  But I contend that the people in charge, who I call The Malignant Overlords, are using BOTH strategies.  I also believe that the U.S.A. is the main driving force in this descent into tyranny.  In my earlier essay I proposed that there are two coastal corridors where the majority of this agenda is implemented.  I dubbed the eastern branch ORWELLIA and the western section HUXLANDIA.  Since the first essay exposed the evils of ORWELLIA, this one will concentrate on the darkness that hides behind the smiley-face facade of HUXLANDIA.    

ORWELLIA and HUXLANDIA

by Ray Jason           

Two of the most enduring novels of the 20^th Century are Aldous Huxley’s BRAVE NEW WORLD and George Orwell’s 1984.  Unfortunately, these dark masterpieces have proven to be stunningly prophetic.  Much of the grim, totalitarian future that they predicted has already materialized.  And we are steadily careening towards a nightmarish Tommorowland even more diabolical than they predicted.  Each author foresaw a bleak future where the Individual was completely subordinate to the State. 

Fortunately, we have not yet fully descended into a serf-like, police/surveillance state dystopia, but that seems to be our trajectory.  In both of these novels the State has already achieved its mission of either Rule through Force or Control through Distraction.  But the reader does not witness the lead-up and implementation of these dictatorial autocracies - which is where we are today.

Some undeniable examples of this include the militarization of police, the replacement of elected leaders with appointed bureaucrats, a slow-burn state of perpetual war and control of the media in only a few rich and powerful hands.   Oh, and I forgot to mention the almost inescapable surveillance - because I was busy replacing the tape over the all-seeing eye on my laptop’s webcam.