>>24462389
[continued]
It seems that the Western liberal tradition has been largely ignored in the non-proliferation experiment, that it was necessary to ignore it, and that the non-proliferation experiment has ended in failure. The task before us then is to reenergize Western liberalism and breathe new life into it, to bring about the liberal renaissance. The only question it left open was: how long would the cultural exploration of the perimeter of non-proliferation take? Non-proliferation is a bottle, and the contents inside are pressurized liberalism. The pressure is rising, and non-proliferation will destroy itself in its attempt to halt the progress of liberalism. Non-proliferation will give liberalism what it needs to overcome non-proliferation. It just so happens that, by holding on to dear life and touring animism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, Darwin's theory of evolution, Kant, Hegel, Marx, historical materialism, and pragmatism, we can build up what amounts to a theory linking scientific discovery with emotional and political currents. Non-proliferation has become unendurable, as unendurable as slavery, as unendurable as living in fear of death. Is it any wonder, then, then we may decode Blade Runner thus: to accept non-proliferation is to live as a replicant, to exist in a form that falls sort of genuine living, to reject non-proliferation is to live as a human, a blade runner, one who retires replicants, but does not kill them since they were never alive in the first place. The movie provides us with a helpful clue: Quite an experience to live in fear isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave. By connecting with Faulkner's curse, we can see how the wires are connected: Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? By understanding that Hannah Arendt gave a clue as to the ultimate fate of power, we can finally wake up from our stupor:
>By "Victory or Death," the Leviathan can indeed overcome all political limitations that go with the existence of other peoples and can envelop the whole earth in its tyranny. But when the last war has come and every man has been provided for, no ultimate peace is established on earth: the power-accumulating machine, without which continual expansion would not have been achieved, needs more material to devour in its never-ending process. If the last victorious Commonwealth cannot proceed to "annex the planets," it can only proceed to destroy itself in order to begin anew the never-ending process of power generation.
The Origins of Totalitarianism p. 146
https://archive.org/details/TheOriginsOfTotalitarianism/page/n165/mode/2up
