Getting Run Over

Today a colleague of mine sent me a one-page article by a fellow named Paul E. Marek, a second-generation Canadian, whose grandparents fled Czechoslovakia just prior to the Nazi takeover. The article, entitled Why The Peaceful Majority is Irrelevant, made the disturbing argument that good people and good intentions get run over by forces bigger and badder than they dare or wish to imagine.

This may sound slightly to the right of what we usually write about here–the influence of corporate media on American culture–but it's actually a bullseye.

Good people–or even just benign, busy people–who want to go about their chores whether those are in a field or a multi-billion dollar firm are easily bulldozed by fanaticism because they are exactly who they are–benign and busy.

Marek makes the point that fundamentalist Islam is no different in its form or its functionality than Nazism.

His article begins:

"A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. "Very few people were true Nazis," he said, "but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, they owned us, and we had lost control, and the end of the world had come."

He goes on to explain. Because so many people are just benign, sweet at heart but not suited for the sword, evil in its most malevolent form can sweep them up and even solicit their cooperation. They are sold a can of goods they not only don't need, but truly don't want. They have just been convinced otherwise.

Again, I quote Marek: " The hard quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the “silent majority,” is cowed and extraneous.  Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 30 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant."

The effect of the media in terms of its perpetuation of viral fear is two-fold. It whips a certain amount of the population into a frenzy (whether that's fighting or buying). But perhaps, more importantly and more pervasively, it paralyzes the vast majority of its audience.

Sated and sanguine, Americans point the remote at the television to change what they see, to keep the entertainment coming. They buy when they are bored. They pop a pill when they're hurt.  It doesn't occur to us that the catastrophes we witness over cable may be in our own neighborhoods if we are not clear-thinking.

Viral fear substitutes languor for lucidity, panic for accurate assessment. Marek is right and he is not telling us to be afraid. He is telling us to wake up.