Darkness at Noon

I can’t, I mean I really cannot, believe how good some people are at writing sometimes. I know writing is a craft and I have mad respect for anyone who gets a non-Vlad-the-Impaler-loins-fucker book published, but every once in a while you come across authors who can just fucking write. And this is one of them. I have no way of telling you how much I abhor certain political beliefs. I am a Libertarian and Robert Anson Heinlein taught me at a young age that there is no such thing as a Libertarian who is not hard headed and devout in his/her philosophy.

The same appears to be true for Communism, I am learning. That is a political belief I abhor, also. But, I maintain, I can hear a political ideal without immediately having an opinion on it; I can hear someone out and then take time to reflect upon what they are saying. Even still, Communism is difficult for me to grasp. But Koestler’s book is all about presenting to the reader both sides of an extremely difficult political system. And not only does he tell you the sides that are in opposition of each other, he explains the context, to illustrate how a man of reason and logic may fall into a seemingly extreme and violent Party due to the nature of absolute truth and absolute rights and absolute wrongs.

For example, if someone is loyal to the party and works their whole life for improving the lives of everyone, which pure Communism is intended to do, sacrifice individuality for the greater good, but learns later that a (government provided) product is destructive to the greater good and an innovative new product would be better for everyone….that person, scientist, engineer, business owner, political figure, will be liquidated. That is the term used in this history. Liquidated. Probably because “murdered” sounds way too harsh and not quite as productive. Executed would work, but people didn’t have that joy of knowing how well “executable files” work so the word had a very murdery connotation to it. The reason for these happenings is that all majour products that serve the public, by definition of Communism, also serve the state due to the nationalizing of companies who provide majour services for the people (like auto industry, mining, and in the book’s example of this scenario, agriculture). So this person and 30 of his friends find that a product is better than the status quo, says so, and is shot along with all of his friends/coworkers because that technically counts as speaking out against the Government. Against the Party. Against that force that required desperation and extreme, indiscriminant summary justice in order to survive, to have a chance against the Imperialistic White Guard.

Again though, Koestler gives you context, not one-sided views on how great one system could be and how shitty the opposition can be. So there are bits that flash back, bits that involve reflection, and lay out some rather logical steps as to how a man can live with some of the Party’s ideals and even enforce them. Because it was so much better than what they had prior. Because it wasn’t about the ends will justify the means and it wasn’t about one person being in control and setting so firm of rules that one man is dictating the future course of an entire nation, single-iron-fist-handedly. I began to feel bad for Rubashov and everyone that bought into a system that improved upon what they had prior and then turned it into a totalitarian dictatorship, an oligarchy of extreme social equality, to the point of executing those that are different by saying they support inequality.

Is that common? Hunting people who step out of line and either executing them or imposing your will on them such that they have no choice but to conform. I know it happens, on occasion, in our human history. If I read this book in another time period, say, circa 1955, and felt bad for what Rubashov had to go through, I know doubt would have suffered a similar fate at the hands of the most extreme example in our nation’s history – a man with a similar illness with similar goals yet a different political background – Joseph McCarthy. His existence makes me sad for humanity. He makes me think that, due to the fact we as humans did not unite as one to murder his ass, like we would a Hitler or a Stalin, that we will take just about any amount of abuse as long as it is sold to us by a self-proclaimed God-fearing Patriot. Fuck, us. Fuck us. Fuck us all.

This also reminds me, totally book-review-unrelatedly, of a conversation I had with a fellow Libertarian. I am no longer one for labels, so Libertarian, in the sense that Robert Anson Heinlein tried to lead, means nothing more to me now than a lost dream. Like waking up and feeling you were just in possession of something you really desired only to realize the world around you still sucks. Yet a fellow “traveller” (which is much preferred to the oft hunted “fellow traveller”) asked me recently: “When do you think we, as a nation, will have enough? What do you think will be the last straw? What, in essence, will it take, to make the people revolt when it comes to the government overstepping its bounds and doing injustice to the people of this great nation?”

 Too late, I thought. Way, way too late. I paused, I thought further before speaking, would have already happened if we really valued our freedom. Finally, I spoke up: “McCarthy.”  “What?” he said. “McCarthy. McCarthyism, I mean. That whole thing.” He was curious, but as his father walked him to the pickup for their trip home after a hard day’s work, he explained the blemish of our nation’s history to him.

“And Kent State!” I shouted, louder than necessary, just to make sure they would hear me, to be sure there could be no doubt I felt our time has passed. What atrocities. And we just take it. Because getting fucked in the ass sort of kind of in a weird way is a bit cool, I guess. That must be it.

This book took a lot out of my human spirit, knowing how harsh some conditions are. But whatever I read of how horrible some situations are, I am more than plentifully reloaded by the fact that there will always be a survivor or friend of a victim who can write this fucking well. Spread the word. Spread the knowledge.