The Tapestry

Since I guess I’m doing movies now, my favorite one is The Shining. I’ve spent a great deal of time reading analyses and in-depth explorations of all sorts of elements of it. Generally speaking, these works set out to understand what it’s all “about:” This shows it’s about that, and so on. The authors all pick different bits of evidence to construct their arguments because they demonstrate their point, and then they ignore the rest—it’s akin to a Rorschach test, if the Rorschach test really was about word association. I won’t spoil the thrill of discovery for anyone who wants to do the same, but the most resonant conclusion I’ve seen put forth is, it’s a movie about “The Past” and its effect on the individual mind in the present. The Apollo 11 and its ascent, Indian burial grounds, quitting drinking, the McGrady family massacre, the Donner party, what you saw on the television, pulling your kid’s arm out of its socket that one time—it’s all bearing down on every single one of us, all the time.

The tapestry is a similar concept. We all have our own copy of it, but we try to keep it somewhat standardized based on what we hear from others about theirs. From left to right, it depicts the sequence of events which constitute our understanding of history. Some might gather some nuance of the times these events represent, but there is an unshakeable sense of narrative to it.

Take the Defenestration of Prague, for example—it’s a politically significant event for certain, and we might figure there was more to life at that bit of time than a guy getting thrown out of a window, but it’s the definitive depiction. If we put some other event on the tapestry in its place, we would alter the narrative, and that doesn’t feel quite right.

There are many fields of study at least partly founded on the tapestry. One such field is meant to answer the question: Based on some accumulation of evidence from it and some set of design principles, what should be done now? This field has been wildly popular for a while now.

The orthodox school of thought is to pick a certain area of the tapestry represented by the best times, emulate those depictions, and use that set of principles to bring them about. The eminent thinkers are of consensus that we’re on the right track and to carry on as the most recent bits of the tapestry have it. Others pick some earlier bit and offer this as the best way to go; it’s what matches their principles, after all. A more recent development is to try to find some underlying qualities of preference across the length of it and attempt to evoke them as they did. Of course, there are the ever-present vocal naysayers who insist the only common quality they can see is error, so we should try something else out entirely.

Meanwhile, the field runs rampant with experimentation. Theorists and the interested public tend to agree that their ethical standards leave much to be desired. Innovations arrive to a lukewarm reception, and almost no one would say we’ve arrived at the correct answer yet.

This is a disaster. Who the hell asked you? Who asked any of you? You’ll wince at the slightest injury of a human test subject in any other science, but you have no qualms whatsoever treating all of humanity as an object of idle tinkering so long as you maintain the cheap illusion of “consent.”

The greatest mercy anyone could offer is to walk up to the tapestry, study it a bit, give his most convincing, “Ah, yes, that’s it!” and begin his work in solitude to the dismay of his colleagues. Here’s the thing: it’s not going to be the right answer. There’s no such thing. Perfect government implies perfection of the governed implies no need for governance. But at least the beneficiaries of his work would be treated as a people rather than nodes of measurement for optimization.

In case it’s time for me to move on soon, here’s my best attempt to pin down my motivations: I want to return the tapestry to its proper place as a foremost object of beauty. This wanton analysis has caused great harm to our collective psyche. We profane the tapestry by making use of it, like it’s a rug or something. It’s the story of ourselves, and if we foster a healthy relationship with it, I think that’ll get a lot of things moving in the right direction.

I avoid leaning on historical evidence toward this end, working from our natural inclinations as a starting point. Drawing inspiration from the past, of course, my focus is on commonality in spirit, in being, rather than superficial imitation in doing.

History repeats itself. Okay. Good, I guess? Means we’re still human.