Historical Perspective by Constantine Gochis

 Prescient for such a very short observational story. Dad was warning me about the state of the world for a very long time. I heard him. I even believed him. I didn't think it would come in my lifetime, though he said it would. This was written in June 2005.

   

        Woody Allen has added his insights to the general clamor.  Among other things he advises against putting too much stress on incidents such as the 9-11 attack.  He says that this and all other instances of man killing man must be viewed in historical perspective.  It has always been thus and thus it will alway be.

Of course, many other men have made similar statements. Old Joe Stalin for one. He is credited with the epigram, "the death of a single person is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic."  What consequence is the murder of a few thousand people in the history of human interactions?

I cannot quarrel with Woody.  I like his work.  I agree with him that what we are witnessing is nothing more than a repetition of history. Men do not change nor do the patterns they create. The machinations of governments are the same as they were when Israel sided with Assyria almost three thousand years ago and was wiped out by Babylon for making the "wrong" choice.  To coin a phrase--"Seems like Deja-vu all over again."

The history of empire can be traced to success in commerce and the development of weapons that make those aspects of opposing nations obsolete--the Egyptian and Persian chariots, the Greek Phalanx, the Roman Gladius (short sword), gun powder and now the hydrogen bomb.

Now this together with the suicide bomber forecasts an interesting dilemma.  The MAD doctrine (Mutually Assured Destruction) no longer restrains combatants.  One cannot localize and identify a dangerous enemy.  He can be anywhere among us, armed not only with ultimate weapons but with the mental pathology to use them though he himself dies.

And the world needs only the striking of the match to create a holocaust.  But surely, not all humans will die. And peace will return after the war as it has in the past.  The philosophers, historians and mountebanks will reflect on the millions wiped out, and dismiss the numbers as another phase in the history of mankind.  And as it was in the beginning the soothsayers will look to the future and propound prophesy as it has been before:

"And behold a pale horse: and he that sat upon him, his name was Death. And hell followed him. And power was given to him over the four parts of the earth, to kill with sword, with famine and with death and with the beasts of the earth." (Book of Revelation, chapter 6)

If Dad were alive, he'd be beyond apoplectic (if that is even a thing). He was pretty well already there in 20025, nearly 20 years ago. Today, not only can we not localize and identify a dangerous enemy, we are inviting them in and no one is allowed to object. Iran nearly has the bomb and we attribute logic to a nation that is rageful of the West. That Bible from which he quoted was held in little esteem two decades ago, and now it is considered less than comic book, though it describes us perfectly, and our faithlessness. And when the new worst comes, we will be surprised. Oh, well, I guess.