Perspective & Prophets

Prophets often give insights on the way things are in “society” due to their position of life, and experiences from a place, or time spent, on the margins. The view from the margins provides a different perspective upon what is going on in “center stage.” Good art does this. But I also suspect that most of us have had experiences of a changed perspective.

I, myself, have experienced this after a long vacation. Upon returning, after truly relaxing, I wondered why I was so anxious about a certain project, or internal politics. In essence, what had seemed of the utmost importance before my leaving, didn’t seem all that important in the grand scheme of things upon returning. Perhaps you have similar experiences.

My question arises, how does society as a whole (not to mention certain sub-groupings) listen to these perspectives and make the changes that are called for?

As I was re-reading Bernard Moitessier’s The Long Way,* I was reminded that prophets come in all shapes and sizes. But before quoting what Moitessier has to say, maybe it is worthwhile for those of you not familiar with him, to give some perspective.

Moitessier left Plymouth, England August 22, 1968 to sail around the world non-stop by the three great capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn). In his memoirs, Tamata and the Alliance, he writes that his was an attempt to regain the Alliance he felt with the gods, an alliance he had had ever sense growing up in Indochina. Nonetheless, he felt he had lost this alliance by his own actions while living in France. Along the voyage, he is transformed. After rounding Cape Horn he feels he must decide weather to continue on into the Pacific (re-passing the Cape of Good Hope and Leeuwin) or return to England, and finish the Golden Globe race in which he was participating. By the way, unknown to him at the time, the press was predicting that he would win on both the fastest time, and the first to return.

Moitessier writes:

I have set course for the Pacific again…last night was too hard to take, I really felt sick at the thought of getting back to Europe, back to the snakepit. … does it make sense to head for a place knowing you will have to leave your peace behind? …
I am really fed up with false gods, always lying in wait, spider-like, eating our your liver, sucking our marrow. I charge the modern world-that’s the Monster. It is destroying our earth, and trampling the soul of men.
‘Yet it is thanks to the modern world that you have a good boat with winches, Tergal sails, and a solid metal hull that doesn’t give you any worries.’
‘That’s true, but it is because of the modern world, because of its so-called “civilization” and its so-called “progress” that I take off with my beautiful boat.’
‘Well, you’re free to split, no one is stopping you; everyone is free here, so long as it doesn’t interfere with others.’
‘Free for the moment…but before long no one will be free if things go on. They have already become inhuman. So there are those who go to sea or hit the road to seek the lost truth. And those who can’t, or won’t anymore, who have lost even hope. “Western civilization” is almost completely technocratic now, it isn’t a civilization any more.’
‘If we listened to people like you, more or less vagabonds and barefoot tramps, we would not have got beyond the bicycle.’
‘That’s just it; we would ride bikes in the cities, there wouldn’t be those thousands of cars with hard, closed people all alone in them, we would see youngsters arm in arm, hear laughter and singing, see nice things in people’s faces; joy and love would be reborn everywhere, birds would return to the few trees left in our streets and we would replant the trees the Monster killed. Then we would feel real shadows and real colours and real sounds; our cities would get their souls back, and people too.’

And I know all that is no dream, everything beautiful and good that men have done they built with their dreams…but back there, the Monster has taken over for men, it dreams in our place. It would have us believe that man is the centre of the universe, that all rights are his on the pretense that he invented the steam engine and lots of other machines, and that he will someday reach the stars if he just hurries a little before the next bomb.
Nothing to worry about there, our hurrying suits the Monster just fine…he helps us hurry…time is short…hardly any time left…
‘Run! Run!… don’t stop to think, whatever you do; I the Monster am doing the thinking…run toward the destiny I have planned for you…run without stopping to the end of the road where I have put the Bomb or the complete degradation of humanity…we’re almost there, run with your eyes closed, it’s easier, shout all together Justice-Patriotism-Progress-Intelligence-Dignity-Civilization…What, you aren’t running…you’re sailing around on your boat, just to think!…and you dare complain into your tape recorder…saying what you have in your heart…just wait, you poor fool, I’m going to shoot you down in flames…guys who get angry and speak out are very dangerous to me, I have to shut them up…if too many of them started getting angry, I wouldn’t be able to drive the human cattle as I please, their eyes and ears blocked by Pride, Stupidity and Cowardice…and I’m in a hurry to get them, bleating and satisfied, where I want them to go…

The violent things rumbling within me vanished in the night. I look to the sea, and it answers that I escaped a great danger. I do not want to believe in miracles too much…yet there are miracles in life.*

And so Moitessier continues on his way toward the Capes of Good Hope, and Leeuwin before re-entering the Pacific and anchoring off the quay at Tahiti. As he re-rounds Good Hope (for the second time), he shoots a message inside a tin film can with his sling-shot: “I am continuing non-stop towards the Pacific Islands because I am happy at sea, and perhaps also to save my soul.” He later regrets the “perhaps,” for to save his soul is the true reason he continues onward.

And we, our western civilization, continue to run at the command of the Monster.

* Bernard Moitessier. The Long Way. (William Rodarmor, trans. (1971, 1986 Editions Arthaud, translation copyright, 1973) Sheridan House, 1995 edition, 163-165.