A
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Jules Verne (1864)
I
don’t think I’ll be blowing any minds by saying that our world is hostile to
adventure and individuality. It’s a square universe, where the one rule is
square up or die. There’s no end to the pressures of conformity, the orders to
stay put, to never leave the city, and constantly buy things. Even if one day
the doors to adventure were thrown open neither myself nor any of my
slug-countrymen would have a clue what to do. Conformity is drilled into us.
All the maps are filled in, the species named and classified, and after several
successful trips to the moon our leaders have decided that was good enough for
them. The one institution that Americans believe can provide the adventure they
crave is the military, which of course means that to a broad swath of America
adventure involves shooting poor people, throwing hand grenades at poor people,
launching guided missiles at poor people, spraying poor people with napalm,
humiliating poor people, raping poor people, torturing poor people, desecrating
cultural treasures, getting bad religious tattoos, starting barfights, beating
people up for being different, and leaving a horde of crippled, mutilated
orphans and widows wherever they go and then laughing about it. Rather than
striking off towards the horizon adventure in our War Culture--where you are
not a Real Man unless you have killed--involves thrill-killing one’s way across
the third world.
