LENA HERZOG - The Age of Self-Mesmerism
Any War Any Enemy, 2024, Mezzotint by Lena Herzog
The Age of Self-Mesmerism
An essay by Lena Herzog
First published in SCHEERPOST
Re-published with the permission of the author.
The last days in the bunker were filled with tedium of a crammed space, loud recriminations, drunken parties … above all, the minds of the occupants of the Führer’s Berlin underground hiding were said to be filled with two obsessive fantasies: one of suicide and another of a magical glorious victory. A secret new Wunderwaffe was rumored to be at hand. Then, in the spring of 1945, this Deus Ex Machina failed to materialize for the Germans but by the end of the summer of the same year, two “wonder” weapons were dropped by the Americans on Japan. Ostensibly, it was done by Truman to win in the Pacific. In fact, it was to show the Russians who was “The Boss”. Thus, the dual game began right at the outset: a high-noon nuclear blackmail of ending all life on earth and a simultaneous deception about it.
Uncannily, that is exactly how our world may well end—via deception, especially self-deception, about monkeying at the edges of Mutually Assured Destruction. Since the tools are there, on a hair-trigger alert, the only thing that stops them is the “wisdom” of those in charge. God help us all.
What then stopped us from nuking each other up to now? — It was clarity of insight and fear of mutual annihilation (never mind basic humanity). Hence, losing those would have to result in omnicide. And yet …
Any War Any Enemy, 2024, Mezzotint by Lena Herzog
The world on the brink of omnicide has been industrialized, financialized and mythologized but knowing, let alone saying it, is a taboo.
Mentioning this fact is a taboo because it means to endanger the trillion-dollar racket and above all, it means to interrupt a fever dream and to rein in the delusions of victory. Whose victory? Who are these dreamer-profiteers — These Masters of War, which war have they ever mastered? Are they the same “masters” who for decades lost every war to vastly weaker foes than themselves, and yet officially declared, in their military doctrine, nuclear-armed states of Russia and China as enemies, and who are now in proxy wars with them? These “masters” ensured that all critics disappeared from the public square so that, like dervishes, they can circle in a trance round and round themselves and each other, fabulists of their own glory, unimpeded by reality in a state of self-mesmerism. They think that “narrative control” and “perception management” and prolonging this dream state, from which they also profit, will magically win the day. This may well bring upon us all the night.
Now, at the height of tensions between nuclear superstates, any mistake, mis-step, miscalculation, accidental or provoked, true or feigned will result in a planetary wide catastrophe. Now, the decisions must be made in seconds, not hours, not days. There may not be The Day After, at least not for us.
Any War Any Enemy, 2024, Mezzotint by Lena Herzog
We have left The Age of Reason and we now entered The Age of Self-Mesmerism.
For those who are still at the gate and have not entered the madhouse yet, let us recall a few sobering facts:
Today, three nuclear superpowers — United States of America, Russia and China — are on the verge of a world war.
Nine countries in total possess nuclear weapons. Over 12,000 warheads are scattered across the globe.
2,000 are on high alert, ready to launch within seconds.
Once deployed, they cannot be recalled.
Total destruction will follow.
Those who benefit from the world on the brink of omnicide have prevailed.
They permeate government, business, media, and culture.
They have overtaken the way we think and dream.
As if self-hypnotized, they fall in sync.
They need a war
— Any war. Any enemy.
The most shocking thing is that this subject is never brought up by “The Masters of War.” How could they interrupt their self-delusion? They cannot even bring themselves to say the basic truth that three nuclear states are now on the verge of a global war —how startling that it is a taboo.
And when the subject of the nuclear threat comes up, accusations of being a foreign agent are lobbed at the messenger — guaranteed and fully expected. This is demented. The accusers simply mind the interruption of their delusion even at the cost of a global nuclear annihilation. Their ecstatic self-adulation and profiteering means more. They are not “The Masters of War,” but they just might turn out to be the masters of omnicide.
It will not matter who will start it. The lies, the false flags, the schemes, the propaganda, the stagings, the perception management, none of these games will matter. It will be just a few flashes on the globe, and everything will be gone because of these idiots. What an insult upon omnicide.
The world is big enough for us all. We must find a new way to be in it if we are to make it, because the weapons we’ve made can erase all life in a flash.
It is down to one basic truth of our survival: all or none.
Any War Any Enemy, 2024, Mezzotint by Lena Herzog
You can currently see Herzog’s latest work Any War Any Enemy at SXSW
Any War Any Enemy is both a depiction of any war as well as the “last war.” The focus is on the human beings on the receiving end, which, in the next global war, will be all of us. Any War Any Enemy is an anti-war immersive poem a preemptive requiem for the world lost to self-destruction. This last moment is “stretched” into a series of mise-en-scènes that build to a shocking finale
More about Any War Any Enemy at www.lenaherzog.com
Any War Any Enemy Courtesy Lena Herzog
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