The Quiet Conservative March 30, 2009
The Darkness that Devours
Saturday had Earth Hour. It was trumpeted by Yahoo and Google. It was hip and promoted by all the
right people. It was symbolic- and therefore meaningless- like the street theater so loved by Anarchists,
Socialists, Communists, and Environmentalists since the introduction of mass media. From the
morning talk shows to parties, shutting off the lights for an hour was a green thing, a spiritual thing, a
check mark on the scorecard of the new morality.
Rolling across time zones, those that care for their carbon footprints and saving the planet turned off
their lights at 8:30 PM, and sat in the righteousness of candle light until 9:30 PM. Throughout the
world monuments went dark, cities claimed to go dark, people put out the lights and welcomed the
darkness. In doing so, they worshipped death, decay, ignorance, disease, hatred, intolerance, bigotry,
starvation, war, brutishness, and the suicide of the human spirit.
I love the dark. I love it so much because I love looking at the stars. I love being able to tell the
change of seasons by the constellations in the sky. In the country where there is no light pollution there
are nights the stars are so bright they cast shadows on the ground. It feels like you are on the first
base side, down in front, for the rest of the universe. I love the dark of the night so much because it is
a choice. A flip of the switch and there is light. Step through the door and there is warmth or coolness.
Food is fresh and water is clean as it runs from the tap. The refrigerator and the cabinets are stocked.
Open a can, pop the microwave open, run the dishwasher, take a hot shower, all because you can. I
love the dark because I can appreciate the light.
It is sad that in societies so blessed with prosperity that promoting being poor and miserable is seen as a
virtue. In parts of the world where there is no choice but darkness, where there is no flip of the switch,
don't you think they would trade spots with you in a minute?
Feeling hungry? Don't have time? Order a delivery pizza or hit the drive through on the way home or
out again for a kid's soccer game. The grocery store is open twenty four hours a day. You don't have
to spend all day hunting for food or walking bare foot through muddy waters in a rice field. You have
to worry about your weight from eating too much. You don't have to worry whether the bloated belly
of your starving children spells their impending death; because the drought means there is no food.
Carbon footprint? Worried about whether your hybrid is saving the planet and recycling the newspaper
is doing enough? Yet you won't read the weather reports or track the climate studies that showed the
Earth stopped warming in 1998 and has begun to cool. In fact, you won't read anything at all. The
height of man's intellect now stops at being fed opinions by vacuous leftists on the major networks,
while libraries sit empty of people with the wealth of five thousand years of knowledge gathering dust.
Meanwhile, in small villages and countries throughout the world, people are born and live in filth and
poverty, illiterate and unknowing of their own potential greatness, because they never were shown the
light. Their world is Darkness. Short, brutal, meaningless, and divine in a way that those in the know
have forgotten.
The Darkness devours the soul and the mind. It has resurfaced throughout the history of man and
degraded his assent to the stars. Perhaps it is a defect in the gestalt. Perhaps it was nature's way of
limiting man from over stripping his environment before man became master of his own destiny. The
Darkness is the turning away from truth and facts and knowledge, and instead seizing on the desire to
oppress and degrade. It is the jettisoning of values, and love, and family, and the value of a single
human life- for the worshiping of rocks and trees and dirt and death, and evil.
During Earth hour I kept the lights on. During Earth hour I deliberately thought about the power that
ran through the house. I thought about the coal that was mined and fired to generate that power. I
thought about the atoms that were being split to make the steam that generated that power. I thought
about the freezer that kept meat safe until it was thawed for cooking. I thought about the refrigerator
that kept milk fresh until my son poured it on his cereal. I thought about the light bulbs that lit the
living room where my children watched television and the power that was running the furnace while
outside freezing rain painted thick coatings on bare tree limbs still sleeping. I thought about computers
and the Internet. I thought about the printing press and the MRI machine and roads and buildings. I
thought of civilization and the human spirit.
I thought about the times driving in Western Kansas when the darkness was all there was except for the
headlights. How black it was, and how alone it was, to be in the darkness. I thought about how off in
the distance there would appear an island of light of a distant farmhouse or town, well off the highway.
They were stars of human light in a darkness that devoured comfort, safety, and the assumption that
there was a gulf between light and Darkness; when instead the gulf was only an illusion. At any
moment we are all just a step from the Dark.
Think about it. Have an engine light come on, or a tire go flat, and coast to the side of the pavement
knowing you aren't going any farther on that lonely road. Step out of the vehicle into the night. Listen
as you shut off the vehicle and turn off the headlights. You hear no other car. Do you worship the
Darkness now? Is it still fashionable? Do you feel morally superior and thrilled you are no longer
contributing carbon emissions? Or do you feel vulnerable, mortal, frail? Will you see that far off island
of light and wish you were there? How much do you celebrate the Dark now?
In places throughout the world people live in the darkness. When the sun is down they have the fire or
the candle to light the dark. They use them. They do not love the Darkness, they endure it. If they
could have light and warmth and food at the flip of the switch, they would do so in an instant and
wonder why anyone would be insane enough to hold in contempt the very things that separate them
from the Dark.
I love the night. I love the darkness of it. I love the stars and the breeze through the leaves and the
sound of a hunting owl or the call of the coyote to his pack. It is the call of the rest of the universe to
exalt in its vastness. This isn't about huddling inside to shut out the night, it is about not having to
worry about the night in the first place. The Darkness that Devours is in the minds of the people who
sponsored Earth Hour. It is in the words and policies that seek to tear down human advancement,
human achievement, in favor of the false saving of an insentient planet without worth other than it
hosts us as a life form. This is a darkness I cannot celebrate. Man has seen this Darkness before. It
has risen up and torn whole civilizations down to dust. It is rising up again.
I would hold a light against this Darkness and instead turn people to the light of humanity's progress,
of civilization. I kept the lights on from 8:30 to 9:30. I was grateful.