Imprisoning ourselves
It never ceases to amaze me how we imprison ourselves.
One of the most insidious forms of colonization is the deference to external authority for self-esteem, confidence and knowledge. We are not aware of our own inner resources when we have been colonized. Our volition is stolen from us and we wander around aimlessly until someone comes to save us.
sent a reconnaissance unit out onto the icy wasteland.
It began to snow
immediately,
snowed for two days and the unit
did not return.
The lieutenant suffered:
he had dispatched
his own people to death.
But the third day the unit came back.
Where had they been? How had they made their way?
Yes, they said, we considered ourselves
lost and waited for the end. And then one of us
found a map in his pocket. That calmed us down.
We pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm and then with the map
we discovered our bearings.
And here we are.
The lieutenant borrowed this remarkable map
and had a good look at it. It was not a map of the Alps
but of the Pyrenees”
— Miroslav Holub, Brief Thoughts on Maps. TLS, Feb 4, ’77
That’s an amazingly tragic allegory. Soldiers, especially in this most classical of depictions, rely entirely on the command structure for their volition. When the command structure is broken, as it was in the blizzard, the soldiers are lost. When they find a map, a shred of authority that relieves their doubt and loss of confidence, they come home. When it is shown that the map is entirely irrelevent to their situation, the stake is plunged into the heart of their salvation: they are alive, but forever imprisoned in their dependence on external authorities. They are so far gone that they don’t even recognize that their survival was a result of their own resources.
The lieutenant should be proud.
