Home, for Now :: March 12th, 2002 ::
OK, so I got back from Washington on Saturday. Thirteen hours of rain, snow and wind all across the Ohio and well into Indiana.
Washington is a fascinating city. Though I make clear the troubles I have with the current State of Affairs, I love the city. They have an excellent public transit system, they have a whole mess of free museums that are full of some of the most obscure, fascinating artifacts and exhibitions I’ve ever seen. I might even like to live Washington, if I could make a living off of curating one of those exhibits. But then, I don’t think I’m quite qualified for the job at this point. Maybe I’ll check back in ten to twenty years and see if there’s some sort of opening.
In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to be satisfied with attending.
I also went to the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was very intelligent and respectful, and at times it was very hard to get through. Walking the museum took about two and a half hours, and for the entire time, none of the visitors talked at all. Considering that people seemed to be able to walk through the Vietnam Memorial without thinking about what Vietnam was, or why those people died, or whether or not it was the right thing to do, I think it was fairly significant that such a massive exhibit would be able to hold the attention of visitors for that long.
One of the central themes of the Holocaust Museum was the idea of Conscience. It is important that we all bear witness, both to the past and to the present, so we can make sure that something like the Holocaust never happens again. When saying this, the Holocaust Museum seems to be referring specifically to acts of Genocide around the world. Which is justified; there are many deplorable systematic, murders of entire cultures and races occurring all over the world, led by despotic regimes and carried out by people who are powerless, because of fear, because of a lack of education, because of their own poverty. However, the there was very little mention in the Museum of what we should do with our own government. It may be that the Museum was working from the supposition that the United States are a just, benevolent entity, and that the real dangers come from abroad. I will not contest that . However, after going to Washington, and witnessing how oppressive that city is now that we have become so fearful of an unseen, undefined enemy, I have to believe that, despite all our money, technology, and intelligence, we stand a chance of being as unjust as any other country. We cannot, therefore, exempt ourselves from that Conscience.
