There are writers who seem, somehow, to get right to the pith
of things. The late Terry Pratchett was one of those. If you have never read
any of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels, you have a treat coming. Discworld
is a place where magic replaces science, giving Pratchett a wonderful scope to comment
on science, academia, government, life and the world in general with his wry
sense of British humor.
Looking at the general ineptitude of governments around the
world (not just in the US), I am reminded of a quote from Pratchett’s novel “The
Night Watch”:
“One of the hardest lessons in young Sam's life had been
finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding
out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip,
and that plans were what people made instead of thinking.”
And watching the riots going on now,
“People on the side of The People
always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People
tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or
obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not
very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness. And so the children
of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn’t that you had
the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong
kind of people.
As soon as you saw people as things
to be measured, they didn't measure up. What would run through the streets soon
enough wouldn't be a revolution or a riot. It'd be people who were frightened
and panicking. It was what happened when the machinery of city life faltered,
the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down. And when that
happened, humans were worse than sheep. Sheep just ran; they didn't try to bite
the sheep next to them”
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