Well, This Is What We Want(ed)?

  Well, This Is What We Want(ed)?

By Claudia Berdella

It seems that with current geopolitical disputes that the world is verging on a hypothesized, proselytized third world war. Russia, Ukraine, the US, Israel, Iran, Pakistan and France along with others are all engaged in conflict(s) which intertwine with international alliances of said countries. Escalated dramatically and all began clicking together by the breakout of bombardments between Iran and Israel in recent days after the latter assassinated a person of importance to the former. Alliances on both sides line up to set the stage for an intercontinental bloodbath. 

Such is just a general overview of what may be the official catalyst for the spectacle people simultaneously seem to want and will into being via self-fulfilling prophecy while not wanting to. In spite of that it is romanticized, even memed into a genuine possible reality. That is the nature of magic; willing something to happen, and in such a grand scale too. And what have we in the post-WWII landscape fetishized since? A trilogy. Fetish not being a positive or negative term here; people would likely prefer not to live through something as catastrophic as that, but still meme it to be. The bombs on the screens are only pieces of beauty on TV and a good distance reach from their projected destinations, just ask the remaining survivors in Gaza. 

The appeal here however is there, an orgasm that seems to be dying for release. Of course both in foresight and hindsight that it would be catastrophic, there’s never not an ethereal element to the idea of it being the last moments (not time specific: moment can be a few days or minutes or seconds in this usage) before annihilation. Israel has no issue fulfilling that dream, and wouldn’t it be fascinating to see?

It could backtrack the species technologically and socially a century or so, and maybe that’s part of the basis of this fetish. After all the proverb after the finale of the Second World War was that WW4 would be fought with sticks and stones. But maybe the basis for this apocalyptic fetish is an escape from reaping what we see. Or it is reaping what we’ve sewn, likely both. Sure there would be more work, more strenuous work to go around but at least Instagrams not in the picture anymore. So in a way the escape is from reaping the benefits of our own desires. Nonetheless, if WWIII occurs, remember: we wanted this on some unconscious level and consciously willed it into being, not simply the powers that be.