- Zeitgeist defininition from the American Heritage Dictionary n.German. The spirit of the time; the taste and outlook characteristic of a period or generation
What a wonderful tool language is. Included in the word zeitgeist are many useful building blocks for those of us who would change the minds of our countrymen. Zeitgeist, if you will, is a snapshot of the present moment without awareness of the past or regard for the future. And the perfect description of the way our countrymen "see" their environment.
With that introduction please rent the movie Memento at your first opportunity. Readers of LRC are busy and productive people so I'll do a brief but inadequate review. I promise the movie is worth your time.
Memento is Leonard's story. Leonard has had a bump on the head a cannot remember anything for more than a few short minutes before it simply fades away. His memory of his life before the bump on the head is perfect so he is a complete and competent person but one whose brain "doesn't make new memories."
Consequently Leonard's present is all trivia which he photographs with his Polaroid or writes on Post-its or has tattooed to his body just to get from one half hour to the next. He is fully reliant on the photos, notes, and tattoos with no method to backcheck them, but he trusts them completely because they are his own. Leonard develops these notes and tattoos via his liaisons with people he has trusted but can't remember why. Leonard has loads of native intelligence and life experience but his system of memorizing is flawed, but he can't know it.
Leonard is a sympathetic character and we like him.He is driven to murder by revenge – he knows this only because his notes tell him so. But he is not innocent. In fact he is a serial killer, but he doesn't know that either. Nor is anyone in his consort innocent. They are fully corrupted manipulators who use Leonard to their own murderous ends, usually for financial gain. But alas Leonard cannot know this either. Though guilty, Leonard is a victim. Leonard's zeitgeist begins anew every ten minutes.
Now for the allegory part.
Isn't Leonard a nearly perfect allegory for the people we share the country with? Exclude the drop-outs and drug addict types at the bottom of society and the LRC types at the top and what's left is that great mass of competent yet memory deficient countrymen who through evasion or common sloth won't remember diddly.
Their memory is like a cassette tape. It holds only so much information then has to erase itself to merely record more. To wit: At 9 A.M. September 11 all their memories were wiped clean, and history began anew. All they were left with were the images on their tapes and the sweet surrender to that most base of instincts Revenge. The allegory? Afghaninistan the country pays the murderous price for the crime it did not commit, while the object of America's revenge is erased only in memory.
For our countrymen there is no twelve year jihad on the defenseless citizens of Iraq, no Israeli/Palestinian death match, no thousands of US soldier-Infidels on the Arabian peninsula irritating the bejeebers out of the already festering locals. Nope, for our countrymen their zeitgeist began anew on Sept 11. On that day their zeitgeist became that of hapless victim. There's no room for cause and effect relationships in this geist.
But what of our countrymen's consorts? Poor Leonard trusts a pair of shameless manipulators each using him for contradictory but similar purposes. As with the governed, Leonard happily consents to being used because he thinks he's getting Revenge. Poor Leonard relies on his memory tools to get him through the day, but the memories provided him by his "protectors" are false. Poor Leonard relies on perfect logic to arrive at false conclusions because his "protector"-provided premises are corrupt.
And so it is with the governed. Let's be clear on this point. I mean to say our government lies to the governed. But just as Leonard's protectors tell only enough truths to keep his trust and prevent him from deducing the truth, so does our government . But I don't need to lecture the LRC types. We already know this allegory turns on Republicans and Democrats.
In a wry plot twist one of Leonard's consort tries to make Leonard feel bad about what he's doing by making him feel good about it. He says "So what if you lie to yourself about (sic) killing. There's nothing wrong with that, we all do it!" Isn't it allegorical? The government croons and the governed conspire in silence to make themselves feel good about the killing by simply lying to themselves. Another of the wry twists: Leonard often burns Polaroid evidence of his complicity without explanation or memory of doing it.
Why is the allegory almost perfect? Because Leonard's condition was put upon him, he did not choose it. Our countrymen, on the other hand, choose it. Time after time after time they prefer the Innocence zeitgeist. They prefer feeling good about themselves over honest introspection. We know it as evasion, not victimization.
So what's the point to this troubling movie review? I'm sure most visitors and certainly all the contributors to LewRockwell.com love what America was and can be again. We despair for the virtues and values that once made America great. We despise rot and those who would put it on us.
But mainly we think of ways to change minds, to allegorically grab our dolt of a neighbor by the shoulders and shake him until his brain and memory start to work again.
Perhaps you can direct your neighbor to Memento with an explanation of the allegory and maybe, just maybe, each of us will bring one more person around to our way of thinking.
As Leonard says in the film " we all need mirrors to remind us who we are." Memento is that mirror, and maybe your neighbor will see himself in it.
January 4, 2001
