Skip to main content

The Platypus and Freedom

National Banned book week is coming up. All over the country, people will be gathering together to read books currently banned by the U.S. government in support of Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. The slogan in one college newspaper runs: "Exercise your Right to Freedom of Speech". And I realized that a shift in our understanding of freedom has occurred. For Locke and the American Founders, Freedom was about being left alone to pursue life, liberty and property. Today, our understanding has changed. Freedom is no longer a state of governmental non-interference, but an action, an assertion of will. Do you catch the shift? It has moved from a negative, a lack of governmental interference, to a positive, asserting one's "rights". It has turned from "let me be" to "I will". The Founder's view is simply the Founder's view. I am not asserting that since it is prior, it is on that basis "correct". What interests me is the shift and what it bodes for our nation. What does a society look like that reveres freedom and understands freedom as the action of pushing against any boundaries that inhibit the will? It is a society in perpetual revolution, perpetual revolt. It is a society defined by doing, not by being. It is progress for progress' sake.

"I held it truth with him who sings to one clear harp in diverse tones, that men may rise on stepping stones of their dead selves to higher things, but who can so forecast the years and find in loss a gain to match, or reach a hand out as if to catch the far off interest of tears?"

The world is much larger than politics.
Then why does the wind howl so loud?
It is the illusion of movement.

The wind blows wherever it pleases
you hear its sound but you cannot
discern where it has come from or
where it is going -so is it with everyone
born of the spirit.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane: The Platypus Reads Part CCLII

I needed a break from A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (too many authors and too many styles coming in too fast) so I decided to turn back to an author whose work I've enjoyed exploring: Robert E. Howard.  This time, however, I decided to skip over Howard's famous Conan yarns and instead take a look at one of his earlier creations, Solomon Kane.  The idea of a puritan occult detective was too intriguing to pass up.  I have the whole collection of Kane's tales and I do intend to blog them all.  Right now, my little literary detour has only encompassed the first two short stories so I'm going to record my thoughts on them right away and get back to the rest as I have time. Skulls in the Stars Solomon Kane makes his debut with this classic bit of English Gothic including a haunted moor, a vengeful ghost, and a solitary miser.   Howard's Kane fits the portrait of the archetypal puritan: grim, principled, metaphysical, with an iron sense of right and wrong.  I h...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (Cont.): The Platypus Reads Part CCLI

Wow, it's hard to read anthologies at anything other than a slow crawl.  The change from author to author and style to style is exhausting.  Slowing down is a good thing, though, if it makes time for reflection.  That seems like one good reason to create an anthology: to force readers to slow down and reflect. With that as a preamble, let's move on to today's selections. The Black Ferris by Ray Badbury I didn't expect to see this Sci-Fi heavy hitter in a Fantasy collection, but there you go.  I've tried to get into Bradbury once or twice and failed.  His Martian Chronicles , in particular, resisted all my best efforts.  This short story, however, worked like a charm.  The sense of atmosphere in particular is masterfully done (a sort of Tom Sawyer strays into Edgar Allan Poe).  My only complaint is that there isn't more of it, but apparently Bradbury already fixed that by expanding the story into Something Wicked This Way Comes. This raise...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Broken Wings: The Platypus Watches Trinity Blood

My questions were not all answered.  That's par for the course when dealing with anime.  Most anime is based on manga.  That means that an immense amount of plot and character development from a 24+ volume series must be condensed into 24 30 minute episodes.  In many cases, the anime is produced before the manga is even finished.  Thus, not having a satisfactory conclusion to an anime series is par for the course.  Most times, I accept this and shrug it off.  In the case of "Trinity Blood," however, I found its incomplete ending oddly fitting.  Let me explain. "Trinity Blood" is chiefly about brokenness.  The ending song with its chorus of "my broken wings" gives it away.  The setting, a post-apocalyptic Europe, gives it away as well.  In fact, every one of the characters in the world of "Trinity Blood" is broken in some way.  We see a young Pope, broken by the political machinations of his older siblings.  We see a y...
1 comment
Read more