The Age of the Disposable Tissue 7.30.04
By Special Guest Columnist Samantha Bellach


The past couple of days have been quite enlightening, from the close reading of Fahrenheit 451 to watching Bowling for Columbine last night. The book (Fahrenheit 451) was absolutely intoxicating; I could not get enough of it. It was quite strange to hear other people who were also reading it professing their deep hatred for the book, and how much it "sucked" or was "gay". Hmmm...I did not quite see it that way, but my opinion is just as valid as anybody else's. My favorite aspect of the book is how at first it draws you into what you think is the plot, but then explodes into global issues, into the qualms of everyday life in America. Is this grim future really what we are headed for?

"...crowds going somewhere, somewhere, somewhere, nowhere at all..."

"I sometimes think drivers don't know what grass is, or flowers, because they never see them slowly...If you showed a driver a green blur, Oh yes! he'd say, that's grass! A pink blur! That's a rose garden! White blurs are houses. Bown blurs are cows."

"....This is the age of the disposable tissue. Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush."

"Sometimes I'm ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age."

"The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour."

"What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word 'intellectual' became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright', did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours?"

"....custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior...That's you and that's me."

"There was a silly damn bird called a phoenix back before Christ, every few hundred years he built a pyre and burnt himself up. He must have been first cousin to Man. But every time he burnt himself up, he sprang out of the ashes, he got himself born all over again. And it looks like we're doing the same thing, over and over, but we've got something the damned phoenix never had. We know the damn silly thing we've done for a thousand years and as long as we know that and always have it around where we can see it, someday we'll stop making the goddamn funeral pyres and jumping in the middle of them."

I really absorbed a great deal from this book. It made me realize the pessimism with which I envision the future. I cannot foresee much aside from technological advances in medicine (eliminating human fallibility) coming out of this country. Everything else is going to eventually perpetuate a national laziness - all of these robotic inventions - where we will slowly begin to eek physical activities that are boring and redundant out of our daily schedule. These technological advances will be advertised under the more polite connotation of "convenience". I anticipate society, as a result of these advancements, being more cerebral and less physically dependent. Our ecosystem will be in tatters, and despite all of our technologies, humans will only seek to despoil what we have spoiled ourselves. We will develop technology to ameliorate our guilt regarding what we have done to the environment, how we've polluted it. If it becomes too difficult to undo the destruction we have caused, we will simply develop technology to mask what we have done. I do not think that we will go out of our way to make reparations to our ecosystem. Anything that we do will only be just enough to eliminate the guilt that our nation is plagued with, the guilt associated with the rape, torture and murder of Mother Nature. Contrary to what our current government prioritizes, education is one of the most important factors of our nation. Though America offers countless opportunities for its citizens to grow and become well-informed, we go about it in the wrong ways. America needs to stress that the letter grade is less important than the knowledge gained. The society of Fahrenheit 451's caliber is reminiscent of a "burn-out" generation. Our current society is pushing students to the brink of overachievement, of risking happiness for the sake of a grade. Striving for the competitive aspects of education will eventually lead society into a Dark Age of sorts, where people will, as a whole, be frustrated with feeling inadequate standing next to others. Although our current society can be considered very educated, we are only knowledgeable in one sense of the word. The appreciation of reading is slowly but surely diminishing, with the majority of our society being more inclined to watch television and movies because they are "faster-paced", "more happening". Does anyone want to think for the sake of thought anymore? It makes me immensely depressed to think of the deterioration of our nation's potential.

The feel-good lifestyle of Fahrenheit 451 is very feasible in the near future, should our society continue as it has. Any feelings of inadequacy are quickly repressed in the society of Fahrenheit 451, whereas in our current state we strive to (ideally of course) bring out the diversity, to encourage the creation of the minority in order to keep the government under scrutiny. The minority groups of our current America always have something to contribute, something to complain about, keeping the government on its toes. In the future America of Fahrenheit 451, society has tried to suppress the concept of there being a minority, to make everyone "equally happy". Anything scathing, such as controversial books and political columns, are branded by many as rubbish because they do not serve the utility of creating a "happy" society.

On a larger scale, I see international relations and war of the future as being out of control. The anti-American sentiments shared by third world, underdeveloped nations will eventually reach a boiling point if something is not done (though I do not feel necessarily qualified to identify what this something is). I anticipate nations to be trigger-happy in the future. International relations will be tired and volatile, as our current generation's desensitization regarding violence itself goes hand in hand with how nations will decide to handle problems. NATO as we know it right now is virtually ineffective, as our own nation does not even truly adhere to the procedures of this organization. The war in Iraq serves as an archetype to what will take place in the future. Blatant inconsideration and disregard for mediation will be demonstrated by many other countries, not just our own.

Last night I watched Bowling For Columbine with my mother. Throughout the whole movie, we kept making eye contact with each other and just chuckling in disbelief at how our nation has been spiraling downward. I felt barbaric and utterly inadequate sitting in front of the tube watching people being shot, or watching teenagers who should have been able to partake in the pleasantries of life confined to wheelchairs, rolling to K-Mart in a dastardly attempt to return the bullets which were now embedded in their bodies. Something serious needs to be done. After watching such an ingeniously perverted documentary on the utter degradation of the American lifestyle, I was ready to crawl in bed and cry for the generations to come. After it was over, my mother looks at me and says excitedly "Don't you want to get into politics? You could make a difference! You could change the world..." and I replied with "One person can't possibly fix a problem like this." I could not stomach being forced to make decisions where I would be harming the innocent, having to choose between the lesser evils. Throughout the whole documentary, Michael Moore and those that he interviews (Heston/Satan, leader of the NRA, Marilyn Manson, a father of a student killed at Columbine, random Canadians, the head CEO of K-Mart) are echoing.

"Why is America responsible for 11,000 gun-related deaths a year, dwarfing the gun-related deaths occurring in nations such as Canada and Australia each year. What makes America so different from these other nations? What do we have that they don't?"

Last night, I sat up until three in the morning reflecting on everything. The only answer I have for that is freedom - democracy. With more conviction than I could possibly fathom mustering, I can say that America's showcase of freedom of choice, of the freedom to bear arms, is what perpetuates such deviant acts as murder to be taking place with such great magnitude, where the violence in other nations pales in comparison to ours. By brandishing arms not as a means of true protection but "because we can", we are taking all that our nation has been given for granted. To cut to the chase, America is spoiled. We do not truly know what we have. The reason why Canada and Australia and Britain and Japan do not have so many gun-related murders taking place is because they cherish the freedoms and liberties that they are allowed. Many are taken aback by the view that socialism (or even democratic socialism) is more desirable than a democracy as we call it here in the States. These other nations do have freedom of expression; these nations are in no way dictatorships. However, the government gives the people room to breathe, room to feel less responsible for all that is going on. When a Canadian can get into an accident with a chainsaw and walk right into the emergency room, get cleaned up, and leave without expending money, without feeling guilty knowing that his children may not eat because of him having to pay for his insurance, shooting someone seems more absurd than any of us could imagine. When an American woman is forced to go ninety miles out of her way to "Put Wellfare to Work" and be away from her children, barely making enough money to survive, let alone provide a healthy environment for her kids to grow up in, a first-grader bringing a gun to school seems a great deal more plausible than it ever should. How can a mother so far away watch what her son does, especially when he is in the home of his uncle (his mother is resigned to accepting eviction notices from her landlord) and has access to weapons. She will not see his young face until the evening, after the deed has already been done. After a six year old girl is lying face down on the floor of her classroom in a pool of blood, her teacher too scared to even turn her over to see the innocent face tainted with fear and death. I blame democracy, our revolting, crass attitude regarding our "enumerated rights", what we're "owed". Damn you, America, I am so gone when I am eighteen. I cannot stomach living in such a mess, a clutter of people who are insensitive to the true injustice, the travesty of American life.

It feels so wonderful, to get all of my ideas and terrible predictions out of my skull. All of these philosophies-of-sorts have been bouncing around my skull for quite a long while now, and it feels so liberating to get a chance to read what were once mere abstractions of the mind. Having a place to both express and view the thoughts of myself and others truly is enlightening. To see that everyone here has an opinion makes my heart stand still. Apathy is the only neutrality. However, part of the intention of The Corner I'm certain is to aid others in developing their views and establishing them in this way. Here’s to the future.

Send Feedback to Samantha Bellach | Send a Letter to the Editor