The Independence Day Massacre

Independence is the human separation individuation process on a geopolitical scale. It's the phylogenic manifestation of the human need for identity, with borders being like the ego which is limned by the epidermis. So in one sense it's not surprising that -- besides the Magna Carta of 1215, Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, the American Revolution of 1776, the French revolutions of l789 and 1848, the 1905 and 1917 revolutions in Russia, the non-violent revolution led by Gandhi which freed India from the British in 1947 -- revolution is constantly percolating on both microcosmic and macrocosmic levels.

Ibsen's A Doll's House is about an awakening by a woman in a household and it was truly revolutionary for the time, as was Kate Chopin's novelThe Awakening, published in 1899, but revolution is literally lurking around the corner. As if al-Qaeda wasn't radical enough, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) has challenged their predecessor, and in a predictably human state of affairs been repudiated by its forbears. Some people will remember the moment in the movie The Jazz Singer when an Orthodox Jewish cantor played by Lawrence Olivier repudiates his son Jess Robin, aka Yussel Rabinovich (Neil Diamond), who wants to make it in the secular world. Independence Day is a celebration of national unity, but it comprises a paradox in that independence is a viral instinct that contains the seeds of its own destruction. It's apt that back in 1996 Independence Day was the title of for a disaster film, starring Will Smith, Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum.

This was originally posted to The Screaming Pope, Francis Levy's blog of rants and reactions to contemporary politics, art and culture.