A Certain Romanticism About the Past
This is a continuation of the series Using Fiction to Talk About Fascism. It's not a full-fledged entry. Just a sidebar but a crucial one. Fascism has an idyllic view of a past that doesn't exist. Those who purport to support democracy can be guilty of the same with respect to the more recent past.
If we're going to build a better world, we can't ignore how bad things were before they were torn apart by authoritarians.
Those Who Stand
Like I did with Moral Orel, I plan to do an essay looking closely at a few key episodes of Deep Space Nine as a deep dive into an element of Fascism or Christian Nationalism. This isn't that entry. It's not even looking directly at a topic relating to fascism or Christian Nationalism. Instead, it's looking within to us. Those who stand for democracy and against authoritarianism of all stripes.
This essay doesn't re-litigate the most recent U.S. election. Instead, it calls on us to take an introspective look at the reality we lived in before the election.
What Kind of People Give Those Orders?
From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 7 episode 22, “Tacking Into the Wind”:
Garak: The Dominion has succeeded in locating Damar's family.
Damar: (...) To kill her and my son ... the casual brutality of it ... the waste of life. What kind of state tolerates the murder of innocent women and children? What kind of people give those orders?
Kira: Yeah, Damar, what kind of people give those orders?
If I gave a full accounting of everything that U.S. Democrat policies and officials were guilty of enacting or perpetuating, you'd think I was trying to use a time machine to lose them a series of elections they had already lost.
I need you to hear me when I say that a concentration camp is evil no matter what euphemism you call it. Violent, state suppression of peaceful protest is evil no matter who the protest is against. Starving people is evil even if you do it by simply allowing companies to price gouge food.
In 2008 and 2009, the U.S. government bailed out banks who were responsible for the economic crisis. They didn't bail us out. Our housing crises have become plural. The elected officials Democrats admire so much are responsible for the fact that they didn't bail out Americans who were impacted by the malfeasance of the financial industry.
The so-called liberals did those things and many of us did so with them as we failed to hold them accountable for their actions as well as their inaction.
A Better Time
From Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 7 episode 22, “Tacking Into the Wind”:
Kira: Oh, that was stupid.
Garak: Not at all. Damar has a certain ... romanticism about the past. He could use a dose of cold water.
Kira: Well, I could have picked a better time.
Garak: If he's the man to lead a new Cardassia — if he's the man we all hope him to be — then the pain of this news made him more receptive to what you said, not less.
We cannot content ourselves with rebuilding what we had before. It wasn't merely vulnerable to the attacks and tools that the authoritarians used. It was an imperfect system and we'll build an imperfect system to replace it.
Even if we could recreate the same flawed systems we had before, we'll never manage to implement it. The compromises of the past will lead to new compromises that will be, in many ways, worse than what we had before it crumbled.
We need to take a long, hard look at the flaws of what we had before. The flaws within our own coalition. And we need to build something new. Something informed by what came before but not constrained by it. Radical new thoughts about how to make a world that truly works for each of us.
The new thing will have its own flaws. It'll be made by us. We're flawed. The new thing will also be flawed. But they'll be new and, if we're circumspect and open to feedback, the new system will address the flaws of the old system.
Conclusion
I'm not sure the people who need to hear this will hear it even if it does cross their screens. I worry that the only people who will hear it are the people who already know it. That the only thing it will be is catharsis to a group of people who already agree with me.
I don't know if that's a problem I can solve. I do have to try.
I hope you will too.
