The Will to Empire

"Too Late for Empire," squealed the cover of The Nation as I browsed through magazines at the Lincoln Square Barnes & Noble. "True," I thought, "the United States' opportunity for empire, at least as far as the psyche of the citizens is concerned, passed a couple of generations ago, if we ever had such an opportunity." I reached for the magazine, since I remembered having seen a decent article in it once--but that was before Iraq, and before Neil Postman died. Sure enough, though the author laboriously sought to escape regurgitating drivel, he regurgitated drivel. Blaarrgghh. Organic produce of the American Left. I bought the "fiction issue" of Atlantic instead.

Fast-forward 24 hours: blood pressure rising, I'm sitting at a table in the church basement, having completely lost control of the Spanish-language Bible class that I'm supposed to be teaching. I try to interrupt the parallel conversations politely, to no avail. I stifle my anger, I walk to the bathroom, I peek in on my wife's babysitting, silently signing suicidal handguns to her as I drag myself back to the group that seems not to have noticed my absence. Sigh.

As my wife drives home, I remember the concessions that I made at work that day, which weren't necessary, but I made them anyway, without much fuss....

Reflecting on the day's events, I begin thinking that Nietzsche was right: my mentality is that of a slave, worse--of a bovine. I, member of a nation that cannot summon the will to empire, myself cannot summon the volitional force to impact those around me. Instead, I concede. I acquiesce. I walk away. I am weak, in the final analysis, and the world, insofar as it knows me, recognizes that I am weak. I am symptomatic of a generation so diseased in its voluntas that films like "American Beauty" actually resonate with people. Homer Simpson is intelligible in this society.

After letting Nietzsche shame me, I go on to Ayn Rand. This Atlas can't shrug, both because he's psychologically incapable of doing anything that inconsiderate, and also because none of the world's weight rides on his shoulders. An ontological superfluity. A metaphysical exercise in double-speak: I champion Constantinianism and patriarchy, but only from the safety of my keyboard. Away from it, I am a study in subjugation.

I drift off to sleep, extrapolating myself by millions, and imagining a future world in which China, India, and the Caliphate vie for world control, having relegated the reluctant West to ignominy and extinction. Maybe, I drowse, after we have squandered the corpus of power through weakness of spirit, our grandchildren will at least have the luxury of despising "niceness" as an archaic vice.