Sozobe wrote:
>What about the Giant Fear, though? That obviously is the center of the story -- what do you think causes it, if not 9/11? America's fear of failure? Fear of responsibility?
Dear Sozobe, thank you VERY much for the warm welcome!
) The New Yorker fiction discussion series sounds super - can't wait!
From my point of view it's the very real fear that what I talked about earlier is down the road for us, and I don't think there's a Pill (an avatar, a messiah?) to rescue us the way she rescued Wes in the story.
For myself, my Giant Fear is that we Americans are corrupted by our power. We do not seem to want people to have freedom (the liberation, the ability to define their own experience after eating their "pills"), except the freedom to do what's best for us Americans. Otherwise - there's the blood. Not fear of failure, nor of responsibility, but the thing about nationalism, it seems to me, is that it involves a lot of fear. That's a shallow statement, and I can't back it up, but that's my sense -- the governments and political parties that are most fearful, and thus aggressive, are the nationalist ones, aren't they? Think about nationalist governments and parties -- they're characterized by extreme fear of those who oppose them, and obsessed with protecting themselves, and with bringing all who might threaten them under their control. Like us, now. We're afraid of everything. We're trying to protect everything from the "evil ones who hate us for our freedom." It's ridiculous!
My giant fear is of the nationalist direction we're taking, and our desire to hegemonize the whole world.
Thank you again for the warm welcome! best, Paul in Baltimore
