tabular_rasa | For Ideology: The Modern Hero's Quest?

Something about that story about the 16-year-old Florida kid who flew all the way to Iraq, by himself, telling no one, makes me really happy-- though part of it just makes me really depressed.

The part that makes me really happy is that there's still that sort of righteous idealism in the world. It's still that hero story. A young man-- and he's really the perfect age, really; that coming-of-age story age that's old enough to love but not quite yet to get married, that's knowledgeable and mostly fully-formed but not experienced-- goes off on a quest, all alone, with only his accumulated knowledge and his strong ideals, to test them in the world and battle the forces of evil (and, you'll note, he really does believe he's battling the forces of *evil*-- but I'll get to that in a second).

The sad part is that it's plumb crazy. No one in their "right mind" would do that anymore, today (it's like the people who hear God: In today's world, Moses and Noah would have just been crazy). The kid is too young, they say. The kid doesn't know what the hell he's doing.

. . . and, sure, he doesn't. Yet what young hero that goes out into the wild beyond ever does? He spends the first half of the story learning the foreign language, the ways of the people, adopted by an old sage or a kind old couple, taught what he needs to know-- the situation and the people's beliefs on it.

Nobody really gave the kid a chance to get established there. He had a couple of moments where he interacted, restaurants and tea-in-tents, etc . . . Sure, sticking his head out any further might have gotten him killed-- yet what young hero of those old stories doesn't risk that?

Heh, I'm a worse idealist than this kid. I certainly don't deny that I am imbued with the same rash sense of sacrifice and duty, pure belief underhindered by long-term establishment in this world.

Well-- I'm not really as idealistic, at least not in the same way. His essay is pure good-evil idealistic philosophy. He is pure Gryffindor, Jedi, knight-- what have you. There is good and there is evil, he says. There are actually people bent entirely on destruction, with no thought other than the pure annihiliation of people for destruction's sake.

There is a struggle in Iraq between good and evil, between those striving for freedom and liberty, and those striving for death and destruction.

It's so simple; it's so perfectly idealistic and old-ideology based. From the mouth of someone older, you'd know it was pure propaganda-- and though it's arguable he could be just regurgitating the propaganda fed to him, somehow, judging by his actions, I doubt it. No one would risk that much on something they had only been told. They'd have had to have internalized it.

The terrorists are not human, but pure evil.

The "forces of evil," if ever I heard it. It's like battling Darth Vader or Lord Voldemort-- the enemy has given up his humanity to take on his battle. I can concede that may be a rational belief, that one must sacrifice humanity in order to perform certain unforgivable actions-- but that's a depth to which the world seldom goes; it is scarcely found-- or at least reasoned-- save within novels.

(I really don't agree with what the kid thinks, how he perceives the situation-- but, then again, I myself would be no hero-type such as he; I am no Gryffindor, no knight. I've said before, as I believe, that no one is bent simply on destruction; everyone has a motive; it's not just mindless killing. The motive may be selfish, but it is a motive, and it is justifiable and meaningful to those carrying it out . . . but that's too long to get into for the sake of the point of all of this . . . )

. . . but, though I disagree with his philosophy and internal reasons and motivations for all of this, I can't have any problem with his actions. He wants to go spread good, not actively fight the *evil*-- so I can't complain about misled motives, really. It's on that level that everyone can agree on: Good can be spread, whether evil is actively eliminated or not. In fact, it seems the most effective way to do it.

So, even as in the end he was unsuccessful-- another aspect which depresses me, the vastness of that which cannot be touched, or changed, and due to overbearing "protectors" who have the same goals but cannot allow their protectorates to be placed in harm's way, for the good of them, even if it sacrifices the good of all (all which are not protectorates, and, therefore, somehow unworthy?)-- I still feel comforted by the fact that there's some irrevocable sense of duty and humanity-- even in its various forms of idealism-- present in man. We are not ruled by it any longer-- gone are the days when 16 was the prime of life-- but it is still there.

Heh, maybe I just controverted him. People are good-- if good is the humane ideology imbued within all of us.

Edit (1:02 pm): Wow, it's been a long time since I've done a good, long piece like that ^_^ It feels good.

At any rate, this is probably the last journal entry I'll write until I head off to Florida, so have fun while I'm gone-- if I can't write and keep tabs on things while I'm down there ^_^