Wonderful piece! “ I can’t help thinking you are what is wrong with the world” — spot on! A story of the end of yet one more, what once was , a great civilization. I remember so well the day when I first said to myself : “this is the beginning of the end.” It was the year when everybody followed the murder trial of an American football star who had , without a shadow of a doubt killed his ex- wife and het lover, practically in public view. I can not come up with the name now, for the life of me .(The case of selective memory keeping one’s sanity) An African American, a hunk of a guy, a trophy blond ex wife and her unlucky Jewish lover. The only name that surfaces is one of his many lawyers — the late Mr Kardashian. It was the first time ever , to my knowledge , that the media wth the cameras were allowed into the courtroom. The whole world was following it like just another soap opera, episode by episode. He was guilty of a bloody double murder; the world could even watch the live footage of the police chasing him , just like in the movies. What I saw as I had watched the trial , wzs the process of complete degradation and corruption of the old , reliable, trusted and respected judicial system. The principles of which proudly originate directly from the ancient Rome , one of the craddles of our civilization in the best of its glory… I watched all those fundamental postulates that were always depicted in the form of the blind lady Justitia -watched them being stripped layer by layer , broken down brick by brick… All the rules upheld for centuries were suddenly being irretreivably discarded deigned obsolete and forgotten. The whole world knew he was guilty, yet, amazingly, the verdict was “innocent” . The lady Justitia was given eyes and the fundament , the main building block on which the greatest civilization was founded, namely: “Before Justice all Men are Equal” — it was just denied, disrespected , “outdated” disregarded, gone , lost! Suddenly it all went like dominoes! For the guy was a new age deity . An idol. A football star; a role model , presentable , handsome , popular, admired for his looks , phisique and above all, his skill with the… Ball! The Lady Justitia had her centuries old blindfold thrown off and what she saw made her partial. World , his fans , the public the court and the jury have all forgotten why she wore the blindfold in the first place!
In those days , if you turned the TV on , first thing you saw was The Trial . Looking back , it was the first reality show. Now we even have the name for this phenomenon .
What I was seeing was The Beginning of the End. Then I had another thought. Maybe it was just a “falling star effect” as I like to call it. That is when you are watching a falling star , but, given a little knowledge of physics , you know this star had fallen and is gone a thousands of years ago. And so, following this farce of a trial , I started to wonder : what looks to me a like the beginning of the end — maybe it already had ended long time ago , but we are only now able to see it ? And how many of us actually see it at all?
This is what your lovely story about the “selfie” guy in the Hermitage made me think about. The end of our civilization. The end of a process which I had observed when it looked like it was at the beginning. Then l had remembered the perspective of a falling star. Something great long gone, done and finished and thete is not a thing we can do about it.