We have, after all, few choices

The choices we have are few: either hear the voices, and follow the narrow path to the truth, or ignore them, and continue toward self-destruction. Much has been written about the death-wish of Western thinking. Maybe we need to revisit some of these earlier observations? The voices are telling us that things are not well, that our future is problematic if we continue the way we are.

The way we are is the way of the devil: we are insulting the Creation and our Creator, by ignoring His voice, His teaching, by spreading rubbish everywhere, by killing women and children, by waging inept wars for the sake of making the rich even richer, by ignoring history and its lessons, by perverting the young. This is all the devil’s choice.

What awaits us is self-destruction. First of all destruction of our way of life, our real economy, as opposed to that of speculation and plunder. Then of, literally ourselves. Why do we do it? “Edgar Allan Poe, one of America’s greatest – and most self-destructive – writers, had some thoughts on the subject. He even had a name for the phenomenon: “perverseness.” Psychologists would later take the baton from Poe and attempt to decipher this enigma of the human psyche….”

Choice between death-wish and freedom

“In one of his lesser-known works, “The Imp of the Perverse,” Poe argues that knowing something is wrong can be “the one unconquerable force” that makes us do it.

It seems that the source of this psychological insight was Poe’s own life experience. Orphaned before he was three years old, he had few advantages. But despite his considerable literary talents, he consistently managed to make his lot even worse.

He frequently alienated editors and other writers, even accusing poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow of plagiarism in what has come to be known as the “Longfellow war.” During important moments, he seemed to implode: On a trip to Washington, D.C. to secure support for a proposed magazine and perhaps a government job, he apparently drank too much and made a fool of himself…

… After nearly two decades of scraping out a living as an editor and earning little income from his poetry and fiction, Poe finally achieved a breakthrough with “The Raven,” which became an international sensation after its publication in 1845.But when given the opportunity to give a reading in Boston and capitalize on this newfound fame, Poe didn’t read a new poem, as requested.

Instead, he reprised a poem from his youth: the long-winded, esoteric and dreadfully boring “Al Aaraaf,” renamed “The Messenger Star.”As one newspaper reported, “it was not appreciated by the audience,” evidenced by “their uneasiness and continual exits in numbers at a time.” Poe’s literary career stalled for the remaining four years of his short life.”

Poe may not have shown us the way, but he described our likely fate very well. Later Lovecraft would comment on his influence in his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature”.”While “perverseness” wrecked Poe’s life and career, it nonetheless inspired his literature.

It figures prominently in “The Black Cat,” in which the narrator executes his beloved cat, explaining, “I…hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart…hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so jeopardise my immortal soul as to place it – if such a thing were possible – even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”

Why would a character knowingly commit “a deadly sin”? Why would someone destroy something that he loved?Was Poe onto something? Did he possess a penetrating insight into the counterintuitive nature of human psychology?”

Perhaps his warning in The masque of the Red Death should be sufficient to convince us to return to sanity.

Where we come from

For where we come from is not the present state of capitulation to the forces of evil. All the opposite, the lessons of the twentieth century, and the choices made then, should be taken as warning that the ground conceded foolishly to those forces, can only be reconquered at immense cost to mankind. The choice is therefore to act early, or multiply the cost by our inaction. But is it already too late? Isn’t the outcome already plain to see: endless wars and misery?

Choices for the Truth

We have two choices. Late or not – was it too late in 1939? – we still have the freedom to chose, either to surrender to the inept propaganda, the mountain of falsehoods, the lies and mirrors, or to fight, in our daily life, our faith in the Saviour, in our writing.

“Be ready! Let the truth be like a belt around your waist, and let God’s justice protect you like armor.  Your desire to tell the good news about peace should be like shoes on your feet. Let your faith be like a shield, and you will be able to stop all the flaming arrows of the evil one.  Let God’s saving power be like a helmet, and for a sword use God’s message that comes from the Spirit.” (Ephesians, 6:10-20)

Picture: The Masque of the Red Death, 1894-1895, Author: Aubrey Beardsley (1872 – 1898) Series: Illustrations of short stories by Edgar Allan Poe