Magellan's Log: Metapathy in Action

vanderbiltmansion.JPG (29927 bytes)
The Vanderbilt weekend house on the Hudson,
symptom of an earlier age of metapathy.

Metapathy in Action

New times, new words. How about a new word to describe the almost complete indifference with which we greet an American administration's weekly—daily—moves toward a Big Brother Is Watching kind of governance?

What is this, after all, but a "kinder, gentler" totalitarianism. We’re not at the place where use of the F-word is wholly appropriate, but slowly, surely we’re slouching in that direction. If indifference is not pretty soon replaced by concern and resistance, we’re going to wake up one morning and discover that American fascism has arrived, complete with stern but well-meaning faces (think Rumsfeld), dulcet tones (think Cheney), and utterly simplistic, we-brook-no-dissent leadership (think Bush).

We’re not there yet but the soft-sell of the Big Lies continues daily, virtually unhindered except for a few faint voices on the fringes of the left (and, surprisingly, now and then of the right).

The herd-like compliance of the mass media is, as always, disturbing and dangerous, but by this time not surprising.

What’s really astonishing is the don’t-bother-me attitude right across the land. So intense is the denial of what is happening that "apathy" hardly seems adequate to describe it. How about if we up that attitude (and word) a few notches and call what’s happening "metapathy," not just indifference but pathological indifference?

Unlimited detention of "suspects"? No problem.
Secret trials? No problem.
Fingerprinting of selected ethnic groups? No problem.
A cabinet post for "homeland security" (read: "KGB")? No problem.

Truly, the list of post 9-11 outrages is long—and each has been met by perfect, unblemished metapathy.

Oh, to be sure, there’s been a mildly dissident editorial here and there, but mostly the media have functioned smoothly in their practiced father-knows-best mode, dressing up the edicts with pretty graphics and pleasant faces and passing them on to an eagerly accepting, unquestioning electorate.

The metapathy was already visible before 9-11.

An entire nation swallowed the very big bolus of a stolen election and by its silence acquiesced in Bush’s right to govern in spite of outright theft of the office. Metapathy in action.
The usual fringe voices yelped when America tossed out the Kyoto Accords but mostly we slept on, peacefully. Metapathy in action.
When national energy and environmental policy was set through secret meetings with only industry representatives, who cared? Metapathy in action.
Financial and corporate corruption and greed produced bankruptcy on an unprecedented scale. Where was organized resistance, where the calls for reform? Metapathy in action.
As both sides in Israel sank deeper and deeper into monstrous savagery, who intervened, who even called for intervention? Metapathy in action.

What’s going on here?

Yes, 9-11 was traumatic and some of our metapathy may be a result of a post-9-11 numbness. Probably we need time for the wound to begin to heal.

But how do you explain the pre-9-11 metapathy? Does it come from too much affluence? I have my S.U.V. and that’s good enough for me?

Or is it a shaky affluence (so many lay-offs!) combined with fear. I have my S.U.V. and by God I don’t want anybody to do anything to rock the boat for fear of losing it?

Or is it just plain, old-fashioned greed? I don’t have my S.U.V. yet but I can tell this system is set up so I can figure out a way to get one. Or: I have my S.U.V. and pretty soon I want to have two. Or three.

Brecht, in that entertaining explanation of how capitalism really works called "The Three-penny Opera," said (optimistically): Erst kommt das Fressen, dann kommt die Moral. "First comes food, then comes morality."

Well, maybe.

The present benumbed, sated indifference seems to indicate, maybe not. Maybe the true course of Capitalism Triumphant comes in 2 stages:

1. First comes food, then comes morality.

2. Next comes too much food, then comes metapathy.

One can only wonder what tragedies may come that will finally bring us to our senses.

END

*The coinage is neither mine, nor is it new. In the mid-1960s Barry Klein came up with the word to describe the attitude of his fellow students as the Vietnam War expanded and before protest became widespread.

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