Fading, Like the Stars

If my presence in the room had not seemed to surprise Daniel, the question I had just asked certainly did. He sort of froze for a moment. Then the shock wore off, and I think he just went on assuming that he had misheard me, because he then began to ask me what I had said. I don’t know why it seemed so strange that I would come to him to know more about these matters. He seemed like the logical choice to me. He was the only person I knew of, who was truly outspoken in his opinion about the world that surrounded us. And even if I probably wasn’t going to agree with his radicalism, at least I knew Dan was going to be honest about what he said. And honesty more than gentleness was what I needed, because I wanted to understand, and it was the only thing that would help me to.

“Do I need repeat the question?” I muttered, as the expression on his face changed into one of surprise and hesitation. “Dan?”

“Aimée,” he said softly, shaking his head lightly. “I – how was the trip outside?”

I sighed deeply. “Good, and not good, and Dan, I need to understand. Otherwise, it’s just… all for nothing.”

He shook his head again and sighed. “I don’t understand what you want to hear that you don’t know already.”

“Everything. I want to know everything. You see, I just don’t understand how things came to be how they are. I used to not care, but now it bothers me that I don’t understand. How could I explain it? I don’t know, it’s… oh, you’re going to find this so stupid,” I groaned, momentarily hiding my face into my hands. It was not easy when you had to justify yourself, to put words on the reasons that were behind your actions or questions.

“Might not be. Just try.”

“I can’t even put it into words properly,” I muttered, annoyed. “It’s like… It feels like I’ve – oh, it sounds weird to say – it feels like I’ve grown up. I used to not care about everyone else – I mean, everyone else but myself and those who really mattered to me. But now it’s different. I’m, oh, sort of, more aware of everything that surrounds me. Don’t think I’m so stupid to say that, right, but it’s like my eyes have been opened to the world. I know it sounds weird, but this is really how I feel. And I want to understand why we’re living like we are now. I want to understand why people are reacting the way that they are reacting. And how could I do that, if I don’t understand what brought us here. If I don’t understand where we come from, how could I possibly understand all that is at stake, and how could I possibly figure out where to go? Is this so terrible? You’ve talked about it more than once since we’re here. It’s not as if it was some big secret that I was asking you to reveal. What’s there so surprising that you wouldn’t want to answer?”

“I never said I don’t want to answer. I’m merely surprised that you should ask, since this was never the sort of things that seemed to particularly interest you.”

“Well, it interests me now.”

“I just don’t know anything that no one knows already.”

“I still want to know, Dan. Please. Daniel…”

“Right, I’m going to tell you. Where to start though? Why don’t you tell me what you already know? I’ll fill the gaps if there is anything more that I know.”

“I don’t know much, and even what I know, I don’t understand the reason behind it.”

Dan had a short chuckle. “Aimée, if you seek to understand the reason behind every single human action, you’ll lose your mind. It’s a quest that’s impossible to fulfill. It would take you years of studies. That’s not something that I could teach you.”

“But you, you do understand people. You understand me, and you understand Rufus, even when I don’t. You understand why people’s opinions diverge, and you see how it is possible to reconcile them…”

Daniel sighed. “That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?”

“What?” I grumbled, somewhat defensively, because the conversation was suddenly straying off topic.

“You’re starting to understand what it’s really like to disagree on certain things. You see what the difference in opinions between you and people… like, let’s say, you and Rufus, might lead to disagreements. And you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared,” I grumbled, “and I just asked you what you knew about our history. Now if you don’t want to answer…”

“It’s not what I said.”

“Then can we go back to the subject?”

“Absolutely. So you could start by telling me what you know already, and what still seems obscure.”

I sighed. “A lot seems obscure. I know that it started with the economy. I know that there was an economical crisis, and that things got really bad from there, and that we almost fell into poverty, until some economists came with a new theory that would eventually get us over the crisis, but they decided that sacrifices had to be made, and that’s what led us here. That’s really summarized, of course, but that’s it right? What I really can’t understand is when it went wrong, and why nobody’s trying to get this sorted. I mean, it’s obvious that this system isn’t working, it’s neither right nor fair, right? And we can’t be the only ones who see it, so why’s nobody trying to get it sorted?”

Daniel said nothing for a moment. I would say that he was thinking about what I had just said, but his face was so impassive that it was hard to tell if he was really thinking anything at all.

“Dan?” I called, when I began to wonder whether it was something that I had said – something utterly stupid then – that had caused him to freeze like that. “Daniel?”

“Oh,” he said with a long sigh. “Is that all that you people really know, then?”

It stung a little to hear that said, in that tone, almost like I was stupid and not understanding anything. “Well,” I retorted immediately, “like I said, I summarized it, didn’t want to go into the details. And I already told you I didn’t know much, why else would I have come to ask you for more explanations, otherwise.”

He immediately went defensive, too. “I did not say that to offend you,” he grumbled. “I don’t know, but sometimes, I just… There are moments when I just forget that just because people live on the margins, or openly show how much they have been wounded by those who govern us, that doesn’t mean that they are more informed than others, or that they have stronger anti-authorities opinions. He paused, and an embarrassed expression flashed across his face. “Oh, again,” he murmured, calmer and less defensive now, his voice suddenly a lot quieter, “you must excuse me if I sound rude, but we don’t have the same background, and the more I speak, the more apparent it will become. I think that by now you know how much all these matters get to me. I have to warn you that if you’re asking for my help in understanding how history was made, you must keep in mind that I’m just as biased and prejudiced as them up there. All information you’ll get from me will be tainted with a certain point of view, because I chose my side a long time ago, and...”

“It’s alright, everyone else who dares talk about this is biased and prejudiced anyway. Dan, seriously, I don’t’ understand why you’re suddenly so cautious about it. You’re usually quite open and loud when it comes to your opinions.”

“I am, and I am cautious now, because it’s not the same thing. I am always talking about the present when I express an opinion. It’s about the past that we’re going to talk now. It’s not the same thing.”

“I thought both were linked,” I argued. This conversation was touching every topic expect the one that I had come to talk about.

“They might be, but they’re not the same. Present might have a more direct impact on the way we are living, but the past has a more ideological impact.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, annoyed.

“Doesn’t matter. Present and past are different, and I must be cautious when I talk about the past. That, plus the fact that I have been warned by several persons – and you can easily imagine who I’m talking about now – not to influence you with my ideas.

I sighed, frankly exasperated by the turn the conversation was taking. “Right,” I said vigorously, “now you’ve given all the necessary words of warnings, so whatever happens will be my fault. Can we go on, now,” I urged him.

“Don’t get all angry with me,” he protested. “I’ll start with your beginning. The economy.”

“My beginning? What’s that supposed to mean?” Things were getting tense in the room. I could already tell that I wasn’t going to like what Daniel was to tell me, and that I would like the way that he told it either. But that was partly the reason I had chosen to come to him for answers. Because I was not going to like the ones that he was going to give me. Because these answers would make me uncomfortable, and eventually force me to make up my mind about these things, instead of sitting on the fence between rebellion and acceptance.

Dan smiled at me, but I thought for a moment that there was a hint of annoyance in that smile, though the rest of his expression remained patient. “It only means that once you start looking for causes, you can always look back as far as you want, if you have a little imagination. There’s nothing trickier than the search for causes. Anyway. Better press on. As you know – as we all do, no doubt – decades ago, there were huge problems with our economies. And these were problems on a massive scale.”

“Well, obviously, no? It affected the world. Isn’t it always so?”

“Not necessarily. But economies are complicated, and I wouldn’t do it justice if I tried explaining it in the details, there would be too many inaccuracies. Just know that, in the case that we are talking about, economies were linked, and… you know, you can see it a bit as a massive game of dominos. Once one of them started to crumbled, the rest soon followed.”

“Yeah, but… how did that happen? I mean, did it happen suddenly? I always supposed so, otherwise they would have seen it coming, and they would’ve tried something to stop it.”

“It’s more complicated than that. It didn’t happen in one night, of course. It started with just one side of the economy, and it snowballed, got bigger and bigger until it was unstoppable. Of course governments tried to find measures to reestablish a healthier economy. But given what we live now, I think we can safely say that they either did not try hard enough, or that they did not chose the right measures. And just for the record, if you were to ask me, I’d go for the second option. It started crumbling, and the banking system was so badly sorted out that it got worse.”

“What are banks doing in there?” I asked. Rather than helping me see things a little more clearly, Daniel was making it all sound a lot more complicated. And he had only just started to talk. “Aren’t banks lending money to the authorities and a few private enterprises?”

“Not in that time. It was more complex and unregulated. The complete opposite to what it is now.”

“But if it was different from now, and that now things are bad, then it was good thing, back then.” I was not getting anything at all. From something that seemed to me rather simple to understand, Daniel had made something that I could not picture, and understood even less. I had had a few questions about what had made us chose the path that we were on, but now, rather than having these few little questions, I did not understand anything anymore, and I could hardly tell who was right and who was wrong anymore.

“Nope. Like I said, it was much more complicated than that. And extremes are never good, whatever they are. But, I think that, to keep it simple, I think we can summarize it like this. Things slowly went down the hill, and nothing appropriate was done to stop it before it got too bad. And then when it was too late anyway, the measures taken were of the kind that only increased poverty for the vast majority of the population.”

“And the others?”

“What others?” Dan looked genuinely surprised at the question. He did not seem to understand what I was talking about.

“You said the vast majority of the population. What about the others?”

“Oh, the others didn’t have to worry then, just like they don’t have to worry now. You’ve seen it, I believe. There are people out there who live shamefully better than others. Well, that’s something that’s not new to our society.”

“Alright. So, the economy started to crumble…”

“Yes. They weren’t hit by poverty all at once. People didn’t wake up one day to find that they’d become poor over the night. It came slowly, creeping. Little by little. Privation this, and then privation of that. Until there was not much left and that it was impossible for most to get out of it. And then it seemed that they were really condemned to poverty and recession, and that there was truly no way to get things better. It seemed that it was some vicious circle in which bad could only bring worse. And everything was dreadful for the people, really. There were reckless and desperate actions, but they didn’t really try anything together. A few had, in the beginning. They had tried to protest against the march of the world, but try as they might, protest as they might, it didn’t bring any change, and even when it changed, it wasn’t for the better. Then suddenly there was this woman, and lord knows how she managed to convince the world that the solution was in a new form of governance, based both on ultra-liberalism applied to all sectors of the economy but especially to the production of goods, and on an increasing power and meddling of the state in every other aspect of life…”

“Yes, Perrin, the economist. We all know of her. She sort of saved us from falling even more into poverty, though, didn’t she?”

Daniel winced at the name. “Sort of, yes. Emphasis on the “sort of”. And she was more than just an economist, by the way. At that time she was the head of an international organization that was supposed to, to put it simple, serve both as a bank for the various governments, and as an organ to verify what they did with their money. No one really mentions that this is where she came from, because it’s those sorts of people who, in the end, came to replace the governments that people had chosen.”

“But did they make things better, or not?”

“They made the economy better, in the end. But economy isn’t everything. They made things better by making people work more, longer, and for less. It’s not that much of a good thing, but of course, nobody really had a choice. Anyway, to make people agree with this they had to create an enemy, because otherwise who would have been willing to give up what their ancestors had worked so hard to gain, in exchanged for a bigger workload? Luckily, there was that already designed enemy that was escapism. All these people who did not participate actively in the economy… that’s what they said brought it all down. All these things that weren’t creating material goods, those weren’t necessary to the survival of mankind. Take a writer for example. To them, it’s just someone who sits there all day, daydreaming. They couldn’t have that. They couldn’t have people who preferred to spend two hours watching a movie than working in a factory. So in the end, it all became illegal, because not only was it a waste of precious practical time, but it was also a way to promote ideas that weren’t theirs. Twice as dangerous. And that is basically how we got where we are now.”

“But then, why didn’t people protest, when the system was instituted?”

“Oh, they did. But they were put back into their places. And even they couldn’t deny that poverty was receding. So with time, people stopped listening to voices that said that they were missing something, because they had a roof overhead, and they had food on the table every day, and they had enough work to keep them so busy that they wouldn’t need leisure anyway.”

“So nobody cares now? People are just happy to live without anything to keep them going?”

“Who said nobody cared? I told you where I come from. They’ve thrown me out, and sworn to see me arrested at best and dead at worst, because they accused me of conspiring to create a rebellion.”

“But you told me that there weren’t any rebels…” I murmured, remembering one conversation that we had had, shortly before we had arrived in the capital, before everything changed so drastically.

“That’s not exactly what I said,” Daniel said calmly, and I wondered how he did it, how, with all the things that he was saying, he managed to remain as calm as he was now. “You asked me if there actually was an organized rebellion,” he continued, “and I answered you that there wasn’t. And that is perfectly true. There is no organized rebellion. People haven’t tried to rebel for a long time. But there are people out there who share…” he sighed, “who share my opinions on this world, who think that this has been going on too long, that this is the wrong kind of society, and who believe that if a change has to be brought, it has to be brought by force. But of course these aren’t organized in any kind of active rebellion. If you actively conspire against the authorities, there’s always someone to betray you, and they get you, no matter how long it takes, they get you in the end, and you die. It’s foolish, however, to think that these people who see the world as it really is don’t know about each other and don’t have ways to contact each other. But until someone comes with a strong leadership, and the will to risk despite the more than certain outcome, that’s all that there’ll ever be.”