No Country For Old Men

 
...The other thing is the old people, and I keep comin back to them. They look at me like its always a question...You see em and they dont even look confused. They just look crazy. That bothers me. Its like they woke up and they dont know how they got where they're at. Well, in a manner of speakin they dont...

I see Cormac McCarthy's No Country For Old Men as an allegory for the present; quite truly our world has become no country for old men, nor women, nor children either.
The story is set in the 1980's, and the early days of the drug wars are used to create the Inferno where every man's hand is raised against another, and the rules of society and religion has broken down. The lure of money leads men to the desert, and ultimately to their destruction. Once we have crossed into the desert, we find it is inhabited by killers and men of violence who hold life cheap.

The good man who has crossed into the desert becomes the prey of killers, and to survive must become a killer himself. He causes the death of his wife; he causes the physical and spiritual death of all whom he has intimately loved, for the transition to the desert destroys the man and his spirit which is tied to all mankind. Groups of killers clash at night. All deaths are certain, for even those killed by mistake are discovered to be corrupted by violent greed. And it will grow to take over countries, as we and Mr. McCarthy know: Colombia and Afghanistan are now both narco-states. We ask: do they feed narco-empires?  

How much of the mindlessness that led to our present economic malaise was fed by substance abuse? I know that back in the 80's, cocaine was the drug of choice on Wall Street. (Certainly, rules such as those allowing insane amounts of leverage let one wonder whether the minds behind the rules were clean.) And how much of the money was narco-money being laundered and hidden?

The sheriff of the story foresees violent greed growing like pestilence and taking over the narrative land where he has lived his life. When he meets other law men in the course of their work, they talk and shake their heads over the breakdown of law and order and civility. In the desert, in Gaza, men kill each other, and they kill civilians, too, on both sides. In the desert of the financial system, men kill each other, and they kill dreams and squander lives and resources.

These sins which lay at the very basis of the 21st century must be removed: the stateless Palestinian and the Inequity of Wealth and Well-being. These are the bases of our godless idolatry, these are the affronts which have been committed for 30 years or more - the space of at least one generation. Otherwise, tell the women to get the children off the streets, for it will continue to be no country for old men, nor anyone else.

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