Flamme, Citron, Fear of Death

Flame and Citron (2008) (or Flammen og Citronen, if you prefer) is a film about 2 Danish Resistance fighters in Nazi-occupied Europe.

In the main, they are sent on assassination missions, eliminating prominent Danish Nazi collaborators -- mostly military figures. When a female Nazi is involved, Flamme must clean up after Citronen's failure of emotional resolve. Hard times.

Viewing the film, few of us would even wince at the death of a Nazi colonel or SS officer. Most of us would sit still, applying a grim sense of justice to the scene, happy that an enemy to humanity had been neutralized.

We do not fault Flammen and Citronen. We do not fault Flammen for his anger, his frightful impetuousness, his coldness of execution, for he sacrifices his more human capacities for the sake of others, for the sake of those who suffer. Even for an uncertain future, he sacrifices sweetness and light for blood and death and danger.

We do not fault Citronen. His wife and child are poor and hungry, but we only reproach him a little. Indeed, his wife takes up with another man because Citronen is never home, always away in hiding or on the warpath. But he is noble enough to say, "Take care of my wife and child."

Why do they fight? Why kill? We all know. We have heard the stories, seen the dream-like horrors. We do not forget. We have hated the Nazis in our turn. We do not forget. We have seen the tortured, corpse-like human bodies shuffling in the cold. We have seen the corpses. We do not forget.

Those who survive hold on to the flame, the torch of indignation, of sorrow, of love, of despair, of newfound hope, of wisdom hard-won. We have heard them. We have listened attentively. We do not forget.


We forget.


There is a deeper horror that even as I write surfaces once more, insidious, in our minds.

And how do we meet this horror? With swift relentless unfailing justice toward a real and present monstrosity? Or with diplomacy and statecraft. Do we treat with hell?

We treat with hell.


We forget.


We have swallowed the lie that words can win the day. I believe they can. But someone must be listening.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was willing to be arrested, abused, killed for the cause of a better life for African Americans -- not for their lives en masse, but for equal rights as citizens. Not for clothing, not for food, not for water, not for shelter, not for life and breath -- for equal rights as citizens.

Our glorious generation has achieved a complacent sidewalk counselorship. Yes, we are those on the sidelines who watch and say a few words, impotently waving our signs, hiding behind a false piety that says "Prayer is all you need!" without proaction. We treat with hell.

We say that "We are the pro-life generation!" with cries and shouts and smiles and free concerts in Washington, D.C.. But we care only -- really -- for our own lives. We are pro-life in that regard. Our rationalizations are petty and false. We say that we act in this way in the name of "compassion" and "charity," that we are the "peaceful" demonstrators amongst the carnage.

When compassion means sloth, when charity equates to a failure of love in a failure to act for the prevention of murder (and thus the salvation of the would-be murderer), there is no peace. When the mills grind day after day as we plod -- we asses, we dumb chattel -- along the sideline begging our betters -- yes! for they are cold, and we are lukewarm -- to please obey natural and divine law, there can be no peace. There is no peace. There is no peace. There is no peace.

And to pretend to Culture in such a world?!

If the wars are not fought -- if we do not at least stand firm in peaceful civil disobedience: blocking entries, closing down buildings with whatever measures necessary -- then there will be nothing left when the self-loathing of the West has wreaked its havoc upon the last child in the womb (or out).

We fear death. We do not see it, and so we avoid its screeching call for justice. We avoid. We wimper.


There is no peace. There is no peace. Awaken.





Addendum: I do not advocate the murder of abortionists.

The Lack of Knowledge in an Information Saturated World

How far we have come since Plato worried that the art of writing would compromise knowledge and men would grow forgetful of what they recorded outside of their own mind. Plato’s Socrates warns, in Phaedrus, through the legend of the Egyptian god/king Theuth,

If men learn this [writing], it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written. . . . And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance; for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing; and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows.

The ancient Greeks attributed a sacred status to memory; it is an ability unique to man that burns alongside the flame of reason. Even more than a companion to reason, memory provides the essential building blocks of reason, the ability to not only differentiate me from you, cat from dog, idea from idea, but also to relate each of those things in seemingly unrelated ways.

Fast-forward a couple thousand years since Plato worried and find that his concern only scratches the surface of our situation. Today, we have millions of books that sit neatly on shelves containing facts and fragments of information readily accessible whenever one needs. One rarely ever decides that he needs a book, however, since he has the all mighty Google* readily available in just about any location, allowing him access to the vast networks of recorded information that is the Internet. The laboring of the mind is a demand of times past. The saddening fact that follows is that no life comes forth from man without labor.

In our effort to make education a basic human right, we have debased knowledge by confusing it with facts and information. We commonly approach knowledge as just one of many things to be consumed, purchased, traded, sold. We are men who “seem to know much, while for the most part [knowing nothing].” We blindly believe that we have “conquered” knowledge; that we control it; that it sits still at our command and must respond to our beck and call. We are filled “with the conceit of wisdom.” As such, we exist in a prison far worse than any physical malady or abuse.

Knowledge does not exist in a book, in a file, on a computer, or, worse yet, in a database. One does not capture it, copy it, print it, save it for later. Knowledge arises through the interplay of the human and the divine. It is a gift in which we partake. One Thomas has said that truth is the mind conformed to reality. Knowledge, then, is not “out there” somewhere, waiting to be discovered and put to work; rather, it is an active participation in reality. Memory provides the foundation for that participation in reality, allowing us the pleasure of laboring to see the whole.

*What can my mind do that Google can’t? You type the word “rose” into Google and you’ll probably get some search results telling you all about roses, much more, in fact, than I could ever tell you. The moment I typed the word “rose” above, I saw one, I could almost smell it, I remembered times I have given roses and the joy in doing so. I saw them in a hospital, on a bedside table where someone I loved was sick and I felt the pain and sorrow of loss. I remembered my grandmother, her rose garden and the time I spent weeding and pruning. I thought of Poison and their ballad “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” which led me to think of the crown of thorns placed on Jesus’ head. As you can see, the human mind is far more expansive than any reference system.