Age of Unreason

JP Sartre 100 Years' Anniversary
I didn't realise this but it is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jean-Paul Sartre, he of the existenntialism fame.

In one of the most memorable sections in his novel 'Age of Reason', the main character 'Mathieu' is approached by a friend who has decided to cross the border from France to Spain and go fight fascism. The friend says words to the effect that the time is now to stop the onslaught of fascism. The main character, clearly representing the authorial voice says he won't join. His sense of reason leads him to not choose an ideology. So even though he can see the arguments for going to support a righteous cause in a neighbouring country fighting the Fascists of the world, his existentialist stance does not allow him to take onboard what he cannot conscienably support. Or maybe it was selfishness. It's hard to decipher from the book, but it is a key moment in the first third of the book.

At the end of the book that recounts 2 days of a very selfish philosopher, you get the feeling that maybe he was right not to go to Spain; and of course the main character declares he has reached the Age of Reason.
Anyway, in real life the Germans inevitably came marching in and the real life Sartre then went and fought in the French army, got captured, kind of talked his way out of Stalag 12D and then joined the French Resistance. So you could say that the lesson learnt by Sartre is that it really isn't your war until it hits your doorstep.

For some reason, I have been thinking about his book a lot today; in the sense that maybe, the war has hit my doorstep finally, and I have been prevaricating like Matheiu. That perhaps, it is time to join the resistance or whatever there is out there trying to fight this 'stupidwar'.
Yet what I'm thinking about all of this stuff to do with 'Anti-terror' laws, and 'Age of Reason' and fighting fascism, is also refracted through the awareness of what George Orwell (who actually went to fight the fascists) noted in Spain: that the Anarchists, the Socialists and the Communists were all gathered from around the world in High principle, but would quibble amongst themselves with arguments on the fine interpretations of what would be the right thing to do. Meanwhile the fascists knew exactly what they wanted to do, which was to lock up dissenting people in detention centres and wipe'em out. Ironically, the Federal Government of Australia is firmly behaving like a fascist nation (and has been for some time).

George Orwell went to Spain and learnt the tough lesson that the liberals of the world cannot stick together as well as the rightwing nutbars. Intelligence, education, good will, considered opinion, none of these things amount to a hill of beans in the face of fascism. Maybe we need the mindless jackboot to kick us over completely before we wake up and fight.
The funny thing is, not many people around me are boiling with the outrage. Maybe the war isn't here yet? It's so hard to tell, and that's what's been bothering me greatly in the last little while.

Yes there's a war going on; in fact several. One in Afghanistan, allegedly against the Taliban who allegedly backed Al Qaeda.
There's another going on in Iraq, though the powers that be are sort of in denial about the scope and range of this one.
There's also an alleged war against terror, by which we are being railroaded into giving up civil liberties.
And all the while folks in Sydney are worried about their mortgages on suburban houses and investment properties and interest rates and inflation. It's kind of sick, no?
So where is the war? On the television? On the internet? In the ideas that are being sidelined by official liars who have spun their names into 'Spin Doctors'?
Where exactly is the war? Is the war on our doorstep? Or is it still in a far away country? As citizens and thinkers, we must each weigh this up as Mathieu does in 'Age of Reason'. Maybe I'm going to just sit this one out and see where the shit all lands. After all, if I learnt nothing from the experiences of Sartre and Orwell, I'd be a moron of historic proportions.