As I was preparing to write my Monday article entitled, “The Bound and The Banquet”, I keep thinking about the New Yorker article Let’s Get Drinks. Seven years on, this satire of two friends attempting to meet up for drinks, constantly forgetting and changing plans all while one upping the other in hyperbolic self deprecation has become an exemplary etude for the age we’re living in.
Continuing to read Theodore Rex, I found myself in the middle of a Russian and Japanese mediation hosted by Teddy himself. But while the account of the meeting itself was a bit humorous if not for the millions of lives at stake, the intricacies of foreign relations were daunting. France wanted Russia out of its war with Japan to help keep Germany in check. England wanted an economically stronger Japan as its trade with the English was bringing wealth to both nations. Germany had lingering feelings over the Venezuela debacle and the Philippines were still in the sights of Japan. It’s most puzzling that the Tsar of Russia, and the Kaiser of Germany were also cousins. It was this historical note that made me consider The Parable of the Wedding Banquet in a different light. Russia and Germany were wedded together to protect the nations but had grown apart with different and competing interests. It’s telling the two nations would be center stage for their own revolutions and two world wars all within 50 years of Roosevelts time.
Unions are daring, dangerous, even to form and especially to keep. Too often the context of the parable is that we are being invited to a party, a Devine union. While true, it isn’t the whole story. An enemy hates to see their enemy form alliances that make them stronger. Indifference to the union is worse than hate, it’s the opposite of love. If even the staff is dressed for the occasion, who are you to not honor the moment simply by attire?
Finally the Pomey quote had been banging around in my head for weeks now. Pompey was concerned with his Roman citizenship but the lamentation of the old Roman general facing down Julius Caesar is all of us facing the state that wants to bind us to worldly things. The tragedy for those two was that they were the executive branch where the judicial system failed one and the legislative system failed the other. All that was left was all out war.
This is of course so concerning of our modern time, where the court of public opinion judges far before court rooms ever see a case and legislation has failed to keep pace with the possibilities of the internet age. One would be reasonable, in light of history, to be concerned with the fact that there is only one, however horrible, functioning system left.
-SF