Modern parallel to 18th-century France?
LETTERS
In his autobiography, “The Words,” Jean-Paul Sartre wrote: “Like all dreamers, I confused disenchantment with truth.” Strip the quote out the context of his prose and paste it into my stream of consciousness and it becomes a metaphor for the state of contemporary society.
I’ve spent my life immersed in the dreams of science-fiction writers. As far back as I can recall I’ve been carried aloft on the rockets’ exhausts as they lifted off to new worlds. I’ve seen the universe through alien eyes, sometimes bizarre and inimical, sometimes beautiful and inviting, but always lacking the mundane reality I slog through on a daily basis. I’ve dreamed of being there instead of here, only to awaken to another day being paid pennies so someone else can make millions. My imagination lives in the possibilities of the universe but my body can only look forward to another day of drudgery.
In “Walden,” Henry David Thoreau wrote: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” Sounds like good advice. You need a solid base on which to build your dreams.
In 1991 I went to work for a company re-establishing itself from bankruptcy. We worked hard, thousands of hours of overtime, nights and weekends sacrificed. In order to raise money for expansion, the company went public. Several years later it was subjected to a hostile takeover bid. About a year after that it was sold to an American manufacturer for $250 million. I left two years later, after an involuntary education on American-style capitalism. Six years after that the facility was unceremoniously shut down and the office, machinery and 600 jobs moved to the U.S. I was disenchanted with corporate America. Still am, and will probably take it to my grave, the PTSD of millions of blue-collar workers.
King Louis XV of France is attributed with saying: “Apres moi, les deluge.” In 1793 Louis’ successor and grandson lost his head to the guillotine. The events leading up to the French Revolution were complex and worth study: The Enlightenment was in full swing and opposed by the aristocracy; the perceived tyranny of the Ancien Regime fostered a burning resentment that could only be assuaged with a tide of blood. I can’t help wondering if there are modern parallels.
My final quote is an obscure one from pop culture: “Learn to swim.”
Lewis Lee
Raymond