A Few Notes On Wizards, Wizdom, and Whazzup!!

When considering the source of information and ideas in a postmodern setting there is considerable skepticism--if not outright aversion--to lineages, traditions, and intellectual lines of ancestry. These, from the time of the French philosopher Jean Francois Lyotard onward have been seen with an increasingly dubious gaze. Power-ploys and power-ploys. Subduing the masses. Propaganda. Cult-like mind control on the order of millions. Narratives are stories. No truth apart from context. The presence of that strange brew of politics and mythology dawns in the minds of post-modernized humans (or is it post-humanized moderns?). For the first time there is a public, mass awareness of the ramifications of those 'meta-narratives' that have come with the heading of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Communist, Materialist, Capitalist, what have you.

In a word, the post-modernized human sees ... real-eyes's... the self-interested nature of most, if not all, forms of discourse.

The selfish mythology is revealed. It is as if stories love their own perspective; their own little narrow view onto the world is taken as whole, as holistic, as total, complete, certain. Like, stories... narratives... myths... are self-reinforcing, seeking the propagation of their own truth above and beyond any sort of allegiance to any Unconditioned Truth.

Postmodernism has burst the bubble. One could say it is as if we were all living in the bubble of our cherished little illusions (some collective and cultural, some personal and psychological). That bubble has been burst, for all intents and purposes. Now, we are left with wondering if we can live in a world where there is no self-contained system of truth. Once the bubble bursts you can't step back in again. Once that seemingly self-supporting system of truth and falsehood is shattered there is no way to re-construct the illusion of a self-contained system that rests and resides as its own safe, precious, little world.

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who discovers that behind the scenes of a world of seeming magic, myth, and miracles, there is but a timid, frightened little man. I suspect that we are all coming to see much the same thing regarding our preferred little stories regarding worlds of magic, myth, and miracles: that behind the need to trump up reality, inflate specific portions of existence, create all the cast of heroes and saviours, is little more than... well... I guess I'll say it: fear!

Dorothy didn't need the Wizard of Oz to get back 'Home.' Dorothy had everything she needed. Dorothy didn't need a saviour. All she needed to do was click her heels together. No elaborate story about the mythology of this or that sector of the subterranean earth. No strange tales about mystical feats of rare and stupendous accomplishments. No Virgin Births. None of that is/was necessary. For all of those are just excuses--so many reasons to get people to believe in themselves once again, and have faith in the hidden powers that they always already house and hold.

We don't need the Wizard. After all, he is just a scared, frail, frightened old man anyways... feeding off of other peoples weakness and fear... and nothing more.