An End by Art

I stare as a soul into the wasteland before me that used to be the world.

There have been many predictions of this end of space and time,

And they have all been analyzed according to calculation and empiricism

All according to pragmatic science.

There was once a scare about the Large Hadron Collider,

About an invasion of beings foreign to earth,

About a regime of machines.

Humans thought that with their unchallengeable knowledge and certainty,

That with their reason and logic,

That with the absence of dynamics in their scientific studies,

It was sure that if the world were to end, it would be by science.

I laugh at their absurdity now.

The world did not end because of another big bang nor ozone depletion;

It ended because of odes, sculptures, paintings,

Debate, compromise, hegemony,

Propaganda, conviction, and emotion

That moved billions of people into conflict.

It was precisely the dynamics of studies called “arts” that allowed the end of the world.

It was precisely the unpredictable, not the unknowable,

The incalculable, not the unprovable,

That caused massive death.

And even if one will argue that it was the weapons that ultimately killed us all,

This remains true:

It was the songs that kept playing in people’s ears as they killed,

It was the talks that decided our murders,

It was the unexplainable thirst for blood that took our lives.

Not the nuclear fission, not extraterrestrials, not laser beams, not the environment;

Not science.

But art.

It was an end by art.

~ by dyeisi on September 21, 2008.