Sir William Gull, fictionalized by Alan Moore in From Hell. The novelized Victorian sociopath discusses our modern world:
It would seem we are to suffer an apocalypse of cockatoos… Morose, barbaric children playing joylessly with their unfathomable toys. Where comes this dullness in your eyes? How has your century numbed you so? … Your days were born in blood and fires, whereof in you I see not the meanest spark! Your past is pain and iron! Know yourselves! With all your shimmering numbers and lights, think not to be inured to history. Its black root succors you. It is inside you. Are you asleep to it, that cannot feel its breath upon your necks nor see what soaks its cuffs?
To paraphrase Kundera: history is not the opposite of forgetting; history is a form of forgetting, a process of deliberative and accidental omission. It is hard to remind ourselves of how this world was made, and how persistent the cruelty and barbarism of its creators are. Our capacity for rationalization begins with memory: the editorial selection of what we recall is followed by the replacement of low fact with high theory.
And what a truth: we attain mastery of the planet, of the sky, of space, and are so quickly accustomed to this mastery that we’ve lost the capacity for awe. It is difficult to recover, although certain arts help a great deal.
Thanks for the recommendation, Frank.
