Is anybody home?

"At length corruption, like a general flood

(So long by watchful ministers withstood)

Shall deluge all; and avarice, creeping on,

Spread like a low-born mist, and blot the sun"

-Alexander Pope

Curious is the fact that Capitalism has endured so long and proven so strong. Guess it isn't so shocking when one considers that cannibalism and child sacrifice went on for thousands of years. As a student of History I don't see much point in complaining too much about this system of economics. It just fits too well with the trajectory of our development and seems a natural consequence of centuries of Imperialist wars. Trying to criticize one of the most potent and pervasive movements to hit humans seems to me being in denial of what sort of species we have become.

It isn't that I don't have hope for a better breed of bipeds, I just think it won't come about without acknowledging our flaws. In my mind the biggest of these glitches is an amazing ability to willfully not learn from our mistakes in a timely fashion. I suppose Hegel's comment that "We learn from History that we do not learn from History" is an accurate assessment of mankind. Nato trying to conquer Afghanistan, people still acting surprised at the erratic cycles of Capitalism, tribal wars over power, destroying the environment... all these things are mistakes made many times. Probably the best excuse is that humans are habitual creatures and just because things don't work out well is no reason to change.

There is something rather fantastic about our careless abandon. It bespeaks of a profound apathy for anything beyond the present and not directly related to our individual lives. The level to which we have accepted this system is very telling. People speak more of the end of the world than the end of Capitalism, and surely they can imagine the former more than the latter. When you see a photo of the world at night one can't help but notice that the light has clearly been left on, but is anyone home?

"The slaves of custom and established mode,

With pack-horse constancy we keep the road

Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells,

True to the jingling of our leader's bells"

-William Cowper