marie antoinette

just got back from the movie Marie Antoinette (first film w Loopy in months & months! yay us!)

anyway... many of you know that for a long time, for as long as I can remember, I have been convinced that the world as we know it is coming to an end within our lifetime. call me pessimistic or apocalyptic or crazy... I've always felt that way.

News about global warming just confirms this conviction... did you know that the Amazon rainforest (what's left of it) seems to be rapidly drying out and burning down, and may be a savanna within just a few years? Seriously. And when that happens it will kick off further events in a chain reaction of cataclysmic climate change.

I have long hoped or dreamed (with my "optimism of the will") that perhaps people could get together and plan how to wind down the machinery of capitalism and create something different... although the "pessimism of the intellect" tells me that it is far more likely—if you look at other catastrophes in history—that people will turn on each other, dividing along racial, ethnic, or some other lines, and begin killing each other. Who knows what will be left.

Anyway, watching the movie tonight, it struck me strongly that the hapless Marie Antoinette seems very much like us, collectively—Americans, Europeans, everyone.

We know that all is not well. We know that there are signs of profound trouble brewing, and yet, we aren't quite sure what to do about it, so we just keep doing what we've always done. We can't quite make ourselves believe that the threat is real, or that life will not always be exactly as it is now, with iPods and cars and Lands' End catalogs pouring in at Christmas.

Sleep tight, o fellow Versailles residents. The mob is not yet at the door.