The Hour of The Wolf

If you believe Steven Pinker, interpersonal violence has decreased. Well I believe Steven Pinker and I believe that we (all) live in a much more civil world than days past.

If you believe Steven Pinker, terrorism is a tactic, a tactic that never achieves its goals.

But isn’t it unnerving to watch these developments on the news at their current frequency? You see people at an airport and think that they were minding their business, getting ready to board or drinking coffee, and…then like they are inside a snow globe, the world is turned upside down and the ceiling starts falling amidst smoke and fumes and sirens that render them, and you, so very mindful of the fragility of it all.

But isn’t this somehow worse than mere mortality? It’s worse because it isn’t some mindful realization of mortality; it is the “hour of the wolf” where the real terror isn’t something constant and concrete like death…it is the instability, upheaval, at-any-second turbulence shaking you and your life with no grounding or toe hold.

Terrorism may not achieve its ultimate goals but what will become of us when the mundane becomes the equivalent of a mental carnival ride?