The Kingdom of This World

The great Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier somehow managed to avoid either going into exile or being imprisoned and tortured for his views on revolution.  In 1949 he published a novel entitled El reino de este mundo (the kingdom of this world), whose theme is that revolution ultimately results only in the replacement of one form of tyranny by another.  His subsequent works have reiterated that theme, which has run through Spanish American history since the wars for independence of the early part of the nineteenth century, when it became clear that all that had happened was that Spanish-born tyrants were replaced by native-born Spaniards.  Carpentier survived in part because by the time Fidel Castro came into power Carpentier was the grand old man of Cuban prose fiction.  He actually became a bureaucrat in the new dictatorship of the left that replaced the dictatorship of the right.

I have noted before that there is something of a Hegelian dialectic in operation in such revolutions.  We had monarchy, in which upper-class people ruled over all the classes beneath them.  Then we had the American and French revolutions, in which monarchies were overthrown and the people, in a certain form, came to rule (at least until Napoleon declared himself emperor).  But many revolutions worldwide have moved between monarchy, rule by the people, and finally rule by dictators sprung from the people.  For a disgusting example, think of that stock footage of Benito Mussolini crossing his arms and defiantly thrusting out his jaw at the end of a speech.  The apotheosis of uncouth.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

That has led us from the traditionally oppressive monarchies through sometimes chaotic attempts at democracy to the hideous monstrosities that Latin American countries, for example, have often experienced.  Our own United States has maintained some semblance of a republican form of government, although a well-placed friend of mine claims it is actually an oligarchy.  We have had a long series of presidents who, with some notable exceptions, have come from common roots.

But what happens to our leadership when those common roots deteriorate?  Look at the quality of music, theater and the graphic arts during the great monarchies, and then at today’s popular music as played in nearly every business establishment we enter, a series of blood-curdling shrieks accompanied by loud, repetitive pounding.  The curators of many art museums claim there are no standards, so they hang the repulsive works of their friends.  Theater used to deal with classical dilemmas faced by those who determined the course of history.  Now many of our movies are loaded with constant extreme violence and filmed in the dark.

My question is, how are great leaders going to emerge from the exacerbated uncouth of today’s popular culture?  They’re not coming from our few remaining elite institutions, which themselves have often caved in to the wretched values of postmodernity.  Isn’t it time for some of us to rebel and begin acting like creatures made in the image of God?

Albert Einstein said, “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt.  He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.”

Ouch.