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Return to Oasis
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A man, long-standing resident of the Villa, came pouncing from his room one time and confronted the poet who was half-asleep under a great oak tree.
“I’ve read some of your writings and you refer to the people as “masses” and “barbarians.” They are neither masses nor barbarians. They are only potential.”
The poet was startled and knew immediately he was being attacked but it took him some time to figure out who the attacker was.
“Oh well, when I was young anyone who didn’t appreciate my writing I called part of the masses or a barbarian. You are right. All the disparate peoples are but potentials abutting against pitfalls and pigs of one sort or another.”
He tried to go back asleep but the man was persistent. “My father couldn’t read any fine writing because he had to work two jobs to support his family, including myself who escaped early on. Would you treat him as part of the slagheap?”
“No because that’s where I come from and all good free democratic people come from. But then, why don’t the people improve themselves? Why do they constantly poison themselves as is evident in pop culture and their personal lives?”
“Who cares about these things? That’s just the price of freedom. It creates a lot of guinea pigs don’t you know?”
“Shouldn’t the imagination free the people of their guinea-pigness? Isn’t that one of its roles? To show a better way? To show a better self?”
“But then when you call them the masses or barbarians what chance do they have? Why should they even care?”
“It is fun, if not hair-raising to step from the masses or transform from barbaric youth into something that resembles a civilized life. And if a job, house, wife, car, and a few good vacations do it then I don’t criticize anything. But there are some who assume the whole and out of the whole make things so that type is always dealing with floors and ceilings. Free men and women know they are free and don’t worry about it too much. But imagination wants more. And if a free man or woman puts a limit on that imagination then they are certainly less than free, at least in my humble opinion.”
“The problem is if they are only masses and barbarians they have to be controlled from on high. But if they are citizens with full responsibility to run things then their reach must be higher than high. And they have to learn how to flesh out the distance from reach to the reality. Without that going democracy decays and congratulates itself for failing at every turn. It eventually becomes such a mess its ruled from on high anyway, maybe not even a native high.”
“You’ve framed it very well and I don’t blame you for interrupting a nice snooze. For the longest time I’ve called them citizens; equal in their potential and responsibility. Yet, I have felt their constraint.”
The man started back toward his room and threw his arm awkwardly toward the writer. “Ah, you’re just a poet, a dreamer. Dream on dreamer. You too, in the end, get slaughtered.” And he laughed and disappeared.
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