Wake Of Liberty: 15 – On Rebels And Tyrants
In the dead of night, strange things are happening in a dilapidated lodge in Paris
Cooley is talking about crisis and upheaval.
“France is going through some very hard times, Mr. Smyth. She is the first Old World nation to feel the effects of abrupt civil transformation. Following in the footsteps of her sibling across the pond, the newly-formed United States of America, she is only the second nation in the entire world to do so via rebellion. Revolutionary forces are resonating through French society as we speak, realigning her form and nature, often painfully. Her reconstitution is grueling, her suffering inevitable. To remove the old and malignant tumors from her body, she must undergo invasive treatment, which she must withstand. If not, she will perish.
“In other words, and forgive my blunt metaphor, France must deal with the plight of the terminal cancer patient, who believes in miracles. The task is hard, but she is determined to make it, against all odds, no matter the cost.”
I don’t see how.
“Simple. France draws strength from pain, from the lashes those fervent idealists and their enthused sidekicks are giving her. She is spurred on by them, despite the fact they are predominantly self-serving and ambitiously motivated. The boot-kicks from regimental officers of the law beating her down with a vengeance add to her resolve. The abuse she is receiving is making her increasingly determined to prevail.”
Sounds like a certain amount of grudge is being instilled in our dogged cancer patient.
“I would not go as far as calling it a grudge. This is more like a resolve, a tenacity that cannot afford the luxury of sensitivities. A psyche at war.”
Cooley looks down, at the rubble on the floor.
“To deal with anguish like that, let alone survive it, one needs the resolve to withstand the pain of a thousand cuts. There is no time for weakness when faced with death.”
He pauses for a moment. Takes a breath. Eyes me.
“France, Mr. Smyth, is a body in its own right. It is an organization, an organism of immense proportions, and she is suffering. The prognosis is not good. But her constitution is strong, and she is absorbing the pain stoically, wave after wave, forging her mind in the line of fire and tempering her determination in the anguish she feels.”
Eloquently put. But I am not sold. I shake my head and Cooley smiles. He doesn’t agree with my skepticism. Arrogant bastard.
Cooley, France is a country, not a person. The assaults you are talking about are the actions of people getting drawn in a battle that is turning increasingly vicious. The resolve you are pointing out is the brutality with which people are being dealt with. In social and cultural terms, this is not survival, it’s a massacre.
Cooley waves my argument away with a flick of his hand.
“It is not a massacre, Mr. Smyth, it is severe shock. Resistance. Call it the natural outcome of a society at war with itself, fighting to win or die. The old regime is the tumor, the revolution the chemotherapy, and France the body that must survive the process. If the tumors prevail, she dies. If the chemotherapy is too strong, she dies. But if the tumors perish and the body is still alive, she has a fresh lease on life.”
Yes, but translated to real terms, actual people will die. France will survive on the blood of many victims.
“In times of strife, force is sometimes necessary, like you said.”
The Battle of Cholet in 1793 was one of many bloody battles fought during the French revolution
Stop twisting my words, Cooley. This is not restoration of order you are talking about. It’s a bloodbath.
“It’s the way it sometimes works. Not an ideal setup, but real. Natural.”
What’s natural about a slaughter? I’m having a hard time seeing its redeeming qualities.
“Call them effects, Mr. Smyth. You are having a hard time seeing its effects and results. And you are right, in theory, violence is inexcusable. In practice, it is inevitable. Confrontation is part of life, and no great change has been achieved without it. Sometimes it involves blood, other times not. Whatever the case, ferocity is the only way to win the day over something entrenched and malignant. Kill, incapacitate, annihilate, transform, reform, reinvent, win over, call it what you will, the only way to move forward is to remove what is holding you back.”
Cooley wiggles his arms, satisfied with what he just said. As much as I hate to admit, he is making strange sense, on an intuitive level I can’t quite grasp. Yet I am having a hard time agreeing with him. There is an ominous undertone to all this, a foot in the door I am not comfortable with.
Or am I too hinged on my prefabricated illusions of goodness?
Cooley, you do recognize that a society borne out of the annihilation of its enemies does not stand on firm ground. It can’t afford such a horrific precedent, not if it claims to be open and righteous.
“Are you saying that France and America turned out to be horrific places because they forged their destiny out of bloody rebellion?”
Trick question. I’m not falling for it. I’d rather see where this is going rather than get caught up in an argument.
I lean back and nod, as if I don’t understand the logic of the question, urging him to elaborate.
“Violence, Mr. Smyth, not necessarily the bloody kind but any kind, any type of conflict and confrontation, are part of the process and not a bad thing in themselves. Things don’t just happen, they don’t just spring to perfection, just like that. I mean, do you think society as you know it was always open? I assure you it was not. It grew into the gentler form you are familiar with, fighting for its right to exist in the first place.
“There was a time, you see, when life was really cheap, when total authority reigned supreme, to the point where those in power had the right to destroy any man or woman below them. It was a very violent and unjust time in history, and it dragged on for thousands of years.
“Putting an end to that sordid state of affairs involved some pretty radical measures. I am not talking about peaceful petitions or hunger strikes. Civility as you now it did not exist at the time, Mr. Smyth, not in the way you know it. Getting things done involved blood and guts, it involved sacrifice, not metaphorical, but literal. People had to die for change to take place. In fact, they still do. Not everything is moral, logical or squeaky-clean in your day and age, regardless of the progress you have achieved. Double standards cut through your world more than you like to think, and change – not the window-dressing kind but the real thing – comes only through death and bloody determination.”
You may be right about that, death does jolt us in ways nothing else can, but the gravity of the double standards in play and the ferocity of their impact have changed. People are partial with a twist now. There is a smoother, modern, more progressive spin to life now, definitely not as blatant or brutal as it once was, like here, for instance. I mean this is crazy. There’s a limit to what one can accept in the name of a cause, whatever that cause may be, call it democracy, liberty, or justice.
The Committees of Public Safety and General Security ruled France with an iron hand
“You are now a traitor by Jacobin standards. Opinions such as yours may be of scientific and academic value, yet they undermine the growth of the current Republic, of a democracy under threat, of a state dying to emerge from the ashes of its malignant predecessor to claim its destiny. The Committee of General Security and its dedicated officials are relentlessly looking to arrest people like you. They have the power to arrest and convict anyone they suspect, on grounds of suspicion alone.”
Cooley is getting absorbed in his words, becoming a little more accessible again. I nod, urging him to go on.
“France, 1793. Paris is under the grip of a few very powerful committees. One of these is the Committee of Public Safety, which many Jacobins are indeed using to their own ends and purposes. With a little elaborate commandeering on their part, they are exploiting their power and eliminating opponents in order to climb up the ladder. Liberty has become a means to an end, and so has equality and fraternity. Democracy has lost out to its unpredictable cousin, Populism, and tyrants rise. The enemies of the state fall, those daring to ‘stall democracy’ are removed, and the ones behind each plot stand higher still, trying to stay powerful enough to avoid getting their own private appointment with Madame Guillotine.
“Some say Robespierre is the master of this kill-or-be-killed approach, rising as he is to absolute power, over and above every other administrative body in France, through deliberate use of the Committee of Public Safety’s jurisdiction and authority. Yet, some argue he is doing so not for personal gain but out of a misguided, perverted love for France, which he can envision only through the lens of his totally inflexible and incorruptible application of Rousseau’s Social Contract.
“Whatever the case, this is a man who has clearly abused the right to violent uprising, going completely overboard.
“Yet some say his actions are not sordid but crucial to France’s survival; that his brutal and unwavering approach is instrumental in maintaining the central command required to keep France in one piece, long enough to survive the storm. And they have a point. Robespierre’s policies grant France invaluable victories on the battlefields and help reverse the course of the war. The Terror seems to be preventing the country from disintegrating, offering the republic the chance to survive.
Robespierre used the committees to rise to the position of tyrant
“Still, Robespierre is scorned beyond belief for his actions. He is considered a tyrant in the most derisive sense of the word, not just in his day and age, but throughout history. Isn’t it ironic?”
Not at all. Violence of that kind can never be allowed to pass. There is no merit to the approach when it involves such ferocity, even if it adds up to victory. Robespierre deserves no breaks from anyone.
“Damned are the scapegoats, aren’t they, Mr. Smyth, for they are judged on their vices and not on their outcomes. They are the garbage men of your growth, always there to see the cause through, always eager to do the dirty work, cleaning the place up from the tumors of your life. Yet, in the end, when all is said and done, they are expendable and unwelcome. Once they serve their purpose, you throw them out with the garbage they helped clear up, pretending someone else made everything happen.”
And rightly so, Cooley. One must keep a sense of decorum. Any sort of victory attained through such violent means cannot be exonerated. It has to be deemed an abomination and made an example of, so as not to give out the wrong ideas.
“Finally you are beginning to grasp how violence and destruction fit in civil society.”
I wouldn’t go as far as that. I just said that some actions, however useful, can never be exonerated because they are just too brutal.
“Brutality is in the eye of the beholder, Mr. Smyth. One man’s decisiveness is another man’s plague. How partial and arbitrary your points of view are, rationalizing your actions, thinking you have your pulse on right and wrong.”
There is nothing arbitrary about deploring a man who chopped everyone’s heads off. He was a brute and is rightly remembered as such.
“Really? And what about Churchill, wasn’t he a brute when he ordered the mass bombardment of a number of heavily populated German cities in order to win the war and defeat tyranny? What about Patton and Eisenhower, were they not responsible for the deaths of countless lives? What about Jesus, son of God and light incarnate, who told his mother and father he was not their son, leaving them behind and preaching total devotion to the Lord, taking husbands away from their wives, children away from their parents, breaking up families in the name of his understanding of what true love was? Was that not brutal? Or Gandhi, who rose up against the British on the platform of passive resistance, bidding others to do the same, inspiring them to line up and get beaten and arrested, battered and broken, in the name of a free India? Was that not a relentless, unwavering, ferocious piece of action, through which great victories were won, not for one man alone but for entire nations?”
Cooley gives me a knowing look and takes off for the other side of the room. Something must have caught his attention but I don’t care. All I think about is that I don’t want him to speak anymore, he is destroying my world. I can’t let him go on like this.
Cooley, shut up.
“Excuse me?”
Shut up, Cooley. You are out of control.
“I am sorry you feel that way. What exactly am I doing that’s bothering you?”
Everything. I just wish you would go away and leave me in peace.
“History can be frustrating, I know.”
It’s not history, it’s you, Cooley. You are twisting everything out of shape, making it sound bad and perverted.
The Massacre of the Innocents (the killing of first-born children) by Rubens is an archetype of mankind's atavistic and self-destructive tendencies
“I’m sorry my perspective is disturbing you so much.”
No, you’re not. You’re enjoying it. Every second of it. I find it sick and disgusting, like this soup you just tricked me into eating. Look at it, it’s horrible, and so is this entire place, totally awful. I didn’t ask to come here, why did you bring me here? Why are you telling me all these things? I was doing just fine, minding my own business in my little apartment, doing my research and writing my piece, but then you barged in and tore everything apart. What did I ever do to deserve having my world turned upside down? Just shut your mouth and leave me alone.
Cooley is smiling.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that. Mr. Smyth.”
I glare at him. His face is beaming. There’s an air of superiority about him that is infuriating. I can’t stand the sight of him.
I lunge at him, wielding a piece of wood I find on the floor. I want to strike him to a pulp.
Damn you, Cooley, I wish you would just die. I wish you would disintegrate and never come back. Just go away, leave me alone.
I chase him round the room, taking swipes at him. I trip on the rubble and fall.
“Frustrating, isn’t it?”
He is leaning over me, smirking.
Cooley, you are evil. Why are you tormenting me?
“I am merely showing you how it works.”
You are destroying my world, is what you’re doing, piece by piece. Nothing makes sense anymore.
“And that makes you mad enough to want me gone?”
Cooley winks. I have no time to reply, he grabs me by the throat and smashes me into the wall. He has turned orange again, his voice roaring like a furnace fire.
Jesus Christ preached love while denouncing corruption. It led to his persecution and crucifixion.
“Funny how when someone has a different take on life, it upsets people so much they want him gone. They want him dead, or gagged and bound so that his outrageous arguments can’t be heard. Or perhaps quietly removed so that his seditious outlook won’t spread, or stashed somewhere insulated, say the margins of society, where failures and madmen dwell. Is that what you want to do with me?”
I cannot speak, his hand is throttling me.
“You want me labeled evil so that you can feel good about yourself, is that it? Is that what you think I am, evil? Haven’t you grasped anything yet? Don’t you see how your very impulse to remove me in order to safeguard your world proves the point you so desperately want to deny? This is exactly what lands you in trouble in the first place – your unfettered passion. You are brutes, all of you, eager to destroy each other whenever you feel threatened. First you did it with tooth and nail, then with weapons, now with labels, the civilized way of cutting heads off. Call someone evil or crazy and throw him in jail or in an institution, your post-modern guillotines, and leave him there to rot.”
My face is about to explode and I am feeling faint. Cooley is blaring through my brain.
“And you know what the worst part of it is? That I have to go through this abominable way of life over and over again. I have to come here and be exposed to your disgusting state of mind, as if going through it once already wasn’t enough. I did my time and got out, why do I have to keep coming back to this? It’s a horrible price to pay for a little food and drink. I hate it. I hate feeling all the things I feel whenever I come here, and I hate hating it, and I feel bad about hating it. It’s a vicious circle that never ends, don’t you see?”
Cooley pushes me harder on the wall, then lets go of me. I drop to the floor, choking.
What the hell is the matter with you, Cooley? You almost killed me.
“No, Mr. Smyth, I am merely demonstrating how emotions can run amok and make people do some pretty unsavory things.”
I look up at him. The rage is gone, he seems as cool as a cucumber again, as if nothing has happened. Was he actually putting on a show? Somehow I have a hard time believing it. I almost died in his hands.
I get up slowly, pushing against the wall. Cooley is observing me with interest.
“Now you see why they call me a volatile spirit, Mr. Smyth. Not because I lose my cool, but because the things I demonstrate require a little unpredictability.”
I suppose you’re not even going to apologize for almost killing me.
“Apologize? Where do you think we are? Therapy? Cut the crap, Mr. Smyth, and get with the program, will you? Our time here is precious.”
I walk toward the window, trying to gather my breath. This is not going to be easy at all. I’m in deeper waters than I thought. I am trapped in time with a lunatic, with no idea what to do. Even worse, he seems to be trapped here with me, and hates every minute of it, and, to add insult to injury, he won’t even admit it. Or he is giving me one hell of a lesson, forcing me to pass through blazing hoops and loops, which I am finding very hard to handle. I have no idea how I’m going to get through this.
A cup of water materializes on the window ledge.
“Have a drink, Mr. Smyth. It will make you fell better.”
I gulp the water down. It’s cool and soothing, clearing my throat and rejuvenating me. Feeling better, I lean back and try to get my head around things. Cooley is observing me from the pillar, where he is resting. His eyes have turned bright grey.
“So much for the benevolent violence of the beneficent tyrants, Mr. Smyth.”
What do you mean, Cooley?
“I mean, here we are, stuck with each other, unable to get along. You want me to disappear and leave your precious little world inside your brain intact, while I want you to get what I’m saying because that is why we are here. How we achieve our goals – and believe me, both outcomes are attainable – depends on how we deal with the rest of our time here. Pay attention and we have a good chance of succeeding.”
Apology accepted, Cooley. Now please continue.
“Haven’t lost your spirit, I see. I like that, it’s a good sign.”
Like you said, there is no time for weakness when faced with death. Now go on, I’m paying attention.
“Excellent. A true rebel at heart. France and America would have been proud of you, and so would their people.”
FOR MORE: Wake Of Liberty
Images:
Volatile by Gavin Denman
[...] name, as have with every noble cause, and the stories are never black and white. Rebellion harbors rebels of all colors and hues, some of which are true visionaries, seizing the moment to forge the future, [...]