Hock Spit Slurp

Nietzsche talked about civilizations dying when their instincts began to war against themselves, where intent and clarity were warped into perversity. Nietzsche may or may not have been a fascist. He certainly wasn’t the anti-Semite Wagner was. He definitely had issues with women. Probably he would be eating his oatmeal in the morning, pondering the Will to Power when his sister would gently ask him “Friedrich, why don’t you come with me to church? You can meet a nice girl that way and stay away from the bad women.” Nietzsche didn’t stay away from the “bad women” and like anybody who was anybody in the Nineteenth Century he ended up getting syphilis. His mind cracking when the spirochete integrated its pathogens into his nervous system, he declared that “God is dead!” and was carted off to the asylum. Not true to his principles, where in his ideal Teutonic version of Plato’s Republic the sick and infirm should nobly commit suicide rather than be a burden on the health of society, he passed quietly of disease processes cared for by nurses. Nietzsche had his issues. But he asked fearless questions that aren’t easily answered.

 

I sometimes feel that American society is diseased. Was it ever healthy? This is a society of bandits, where gangsters are celebrated, and who doesn’t love a good crime thriller? But it is good to discern the difference between a great movie and a worth while reality. This is a society of revolutionaries, a country that came up with some pretty good ideas borrowed from the English Civil War, Greek city states and the tribal confederacies that got steam rolled over not too long thereafter. And we have a population for whom Tony Soprano is an ideal executive.

 

It probably looks good from a mountain cabin right now, or a spacious suburban mansion with poplars and pine trees. I don’t live there though. I live not too far from the streets. And disease is the companion of street living.

 

One twilight walking up the American River with a friend, the wholesome snowy Sierras on the horizon above the All American railroad landscape of downtown Sacramento, I counted endless homeless tents, probably going all the way up to Folsom where at least they house. Ghost garbage caught in former floods draping the leafless cottonwoods in off season Halloween attire, held the banks of the river above the cold corpse collecting waters. I’ve seen similar in Monterey, in alleys behind trendy night clubs in San Francisco, in their thousands in Los Angeles, in Fresno, in Arcata. And this is just California. I see this as a problem. It’s getting so bad it’s hard for the know nothings to ignore.

 

In Japan I did not see homeless. In Iceland I did not see homeless. Have they no poverty there? Or are their priorities different?

 

Walking back towards the Amtrak Station near where the American River meets the Sacramento, a tall African American man was walking through the camping communities with links of reinforced chain wrapped around his fist and forearm. He was looking for someone. There was a smell of cigarettes, feces and cooking fires. My friend and I said nothing. Once we were a few yards away, our only company besides crows the occasional jogger or mountain bicyclist braving the jungle from middle class areas my friend said: “Let’s get out of here.” She didn’t need to make an argument.

 

Poverty is a kind of disease. Hardly romantic though some people who slum it a bit might like to cast it so. Blind arrogance of the sort that existed in the Court of Nero is also a sickness. And a lot of First World problems, in the race to the bottom for better drama, and creepier appetite, is the reason for a lot of our problems. Real problems. Real problems getting worse.

 

Florida will probably be underwater soon. I’m not going to take any cheap shots here, but that means more refugees. I’ve seen Syrians processed in Greece, day laborers waiting on Army/Chavez. I work with the homeless by their hundreds. I’ve seen Flesh Eating Disease, fentanyl overdose and gross incontinence. The old abandoned to their fate. The problem is getting worse. Those that have the money, power and ability to do something about it increasingly check out. But it will become impossible to check out before too long as old diseases: the Black Death, leprosy, malaria, tuberculosis re-emerge in a population long too spoilt to remember how awful the glorious “good old days” really were. The Jack Kerouac/road trip movie.: neon jazz, femme fatales, fast cars and rock and roll, where there is nothing but the reasonably comfortable freedom of the open (and paved) road, bumming it in a land of plenty, will be a myth more remote than the Odyssey. Mad Max will be too authentic to be entertaining. Libertarian tech lords may try to hide like the Prince in Poe’s Masque of Red Death, but the Red Death will find them.

 

There is only one solution. We are going to have to work together, as onerous as that idea may be. Like Bukowski I sometimes like people better when they’re not around, but I’ve discovered something about adulthood, after a protracted adolescence — it’s good to get good at politics. It’s good to work for reasonable enlightenment, and the species is getting close to there being no other alternative. It’s good to be creative. And constructive. And it’s going to be necessary to be both.

 

Because heaven and hell are not pre-existing. We make them.