tinhuvielartanis | Warren of the Shining Wires (Reply)

I got to thinking about American culture earlier and it occurred to me that we are the human equivalent of the Warren of the Shining Wires in the book Watership Down. This warren was the one inhabited by the very healthy, sleek, well-groomed rabbits. They wanted for nothing, but there seemed to be an unspoken horror just beneath their veneer of paradise. And did it really matter that, every once in a while, one of their number would disappear. All that mattered is that they were well taken care of. So their poetry was a tad bleak and their outlook was a wee bit....Gothic....they were well taken care of. We in America are too pampered, too sheltered, and too used to getting our way. Eventually our Warren of the Shining Wires will turn into Efrafa, but we'll still be knee deep in denial that there's something terribly awry with our society. There's something wrong with our own being sent off to the snares (Iraq) and commanded to kill innocents for absolutely no good reason other than the promise that the good carrots will keep on coming. And we should know that only certain rabbits in our warren get the really good carrots while only the least deserving of death get the snare. We need to give up hoping for the good carrots and grow our own. Stop striving for an American dream that doesn't exist and resisting the world of which we are a part. It's time to wake up and escape the deathtrap that is our delusion.

I wish I still had my copy of Watership Down. The copy I had fell apart, I read it so much. But I really wish I had a copy of Silverweed's poem at least. I think it pretty much sums up the underlying attitude of the American psyche, the knowledge that a disaster is pending combined with the refusal to give up the excess in order to survive and strive for a more meaningful life. I'm as guilty as any Shining Wire rabbit. I live in excess as much as any other American....well, maybe not as much. I'm still on dial up and I don't have an SUV....and my house isn't humongous like most American homes. And I don't go out to eat every other day. But I'm still living in excess compared to others out in the world. It shames me and scares me for myself and my family. So I talk about it here, but do nothing about it otherwise. Guess that makes me Silverweed.