Red Lines In Art & In Life

President Obama's metaphorical "red line" drawn in an attempt to prevent or dissuade the use of chemical weapons, still could mean the use of military force by the USA and consequently even more killing. Seems to me to be counter-productive in the worst possible way.

We all have metaphorical red lines of one sort or another. This is being illustrated vividly by current TV series Breaking Bad.


I've mentioned Breaking Bad in a post once before, in February:
Thoughts on Crime and Morality. Since then, when we'd seen a backlog of old episodes via DVD, the series has returned to TV for its final season, a season taken in two "bites", first bite watched again via DVD, but we're now properly on board in real time on Sunday evenings for the last few episodes of all.

The story, layered and layered again as it is, never ceases to surprise us with twists and turns. Brilliant writing, even more brilliant acting, well deserving of Awards already received.

I never forget that, as Walter White, his family and his young, much abused protégé, Jesse Pinkman stumble towards what can only, logically, be a dark ending for all involved, that the insidious seed from which all this grew was lack of proper health care availability in the USA.

First we watched the "breaking bad" of a formerly mild mannered though talented chemistry teacher, his interaction with others who were either already broken themselves or on the cusp of it. The story was then about Walter White's breaking. As will always happen, once an apple turns rotten, the rot spreads.

We are now discovering exactly where, as with Obama and chemical weapons, the secondary characters each find their own "red lines". Walter White's wife, his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, all formerly presented as fine, moral, upright citizens, have at last reached their red lines and are, verbally at least, beginning to break bad.

What would it take for any of us to break bad? To consider killing, or even harming, another person? Threats to loved ones? Threats to our preferred way of life? Threats to our hubris or dignity? We wouldn't know for sure until presented with such scenarios in our own lives.

For our President, it's not a difficult choice. He can and does order drone attacks, which regularly kill innocents and children. I'd say he's broken bad already. He has the authority, now, in his own mind, to attack Syria, but is attempting to give himself cover by seeking the approval of Congress. How many of them have broken bad?

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche.