MemeMachineGo!

I’m currently reading Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, a thick tribute volume that’s exceeding all my expectations. One of my favorite parts has been the long 1997 interview with Moore by Dave Sim that concludes the book (I’ve been reading out of order.) While there’s a lot of fascinating stuff there, what I’m drawn to comment on now is this bit by Sim:

There is a persuasive argument to be made that we are on the cusp of a genuinely more Mature Age where the “no-two-snowflakes-alike” quality of individual awareness and expression is going to be seen as an unanticipated bonus of humanity having not done too bad a job of getting to 1997 more or less in one piece. If we haven’t achieved the complete eradication of War and Poverty and Disease and Famine, at least we have learned a few lessons — it would be hard to imagine anyone coming forward at this juncture and presenting themselves as the Next Nixon or an Improved Stalin or the 21st Century’s Answer to Joe McCarthy. If we can keep progressing on our present course to a place where divergent philosophies and opinions are seen to be just that — and not grounds for incarceration, oppression, or wholesale purging (or even full retail purging) — I think most of us will be pretty astonished at the general improvement that would result.

I wish, Dave. I wish. (Not meaning to just ding the man with my unfair advantage of hindsight — in 1997, I would’ve considered a resurgence of McCarthyistic fear and loathing to be excessively unlikely too.)