Au Revoir Les Enfants
Nazis are not the worst, y’all — for realz!
Watching Au Revoir Les Enfants. That’s some heartbreaking shit to watch. Little kids gettin’ snatched up by the Nazis. When I was the age of the kids in the movie, I’d of thought “What, villians the Germans!” Now, I’m smarter than that. The Germans—the Nazis—were messed up, but that’s not what makes a Holocaust. What makes a tragedy like what happened to the Jews, was a whole lot of average people—most people—doing jack shit.
We live in a world where awful shit happens because most would rather not do something. It’s not even tragic. It just is. That’s kind of why I find it easy to forgive the Hitlers (and the Trumps?) of the world. As bad as they might be, it’s the sheer mediocrity of the rest of folks that makes them—the monsters among us—even possible. It gets to be so easy blaming the wrong-doers, meanwhile we let the do-nothings off the historical hook. We even demonize do-gooders for failing to be average.
Get burned up as you want. Most people you know would not have raised a finger to stop a single atrocity history has served up. Most people have even tried to stay the hands of people (stop people) who want to get involved in ending social ills. That’s one that keeps me scratching my head. Serenity is being able to live with any peace of mind in a world where most people don’t share your morality. How do we continue living with a sense of wholeness, as one among many, when we know full well the whole body is a basic bitch?
Fortunately nature has a way of righting the balance and whatever is out of whack eventually implodes in itself. That don’t mean we should make it any easier for the bullies. I just don’t need to feel like it’s all on me—or any number of us—to restore order. That’s the consolation in all of this. A lot of people will suffer the tremors of human nature, but for the most part the same basic bitches that won’t raise a finger to stop a wrong, won’t raise a finger to do one either.
It’s best we live in a world of the ordinary. A few out of balance on either side makes it all work, I guess. What do you think?
