Donald Rumsfeld, Today's Plato

By Crispin Sartwell

It turns out that before September 11, we should have been warned. But now we're making up for lost time.

We're being warned. Continuously. For example, on May 21, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that terrorists would "inevitably" obtain weapons of mass destruction, and use them.

The response of the average Joe was described in the media as "jittery." But I, the average Crispin, am simply relieved. It's one thing not to know whether terror will strike, or how. This causes anxiety.

But now we know for a fact that we are lurching toward total destruction. We don't have to wonder whether we'll be vaporized by a suitcase nuke or infected with smallpox. It's unavoidable. In fact, after the smallpox gets bad enough, the nuke will be more than welcome. I'm letting my Paxil prescription lapse.

The measures that the administration has taken to prevent a repeat of September 11 have been admirable. They established the office of, and more importantly the phrase, "Homeland Security." They've detained various Muslims without proffering charges. They've started monitoring your email.

All these measures have plunged us back into the era of deficit spending. But now our government can relax, and we can relax. Rumsfeld has given up, thank God, and so have I. It is a good day to die.

You know what? Suitcase nuke, meteor shower, hurtling SUV, "natural" causes: We're all going to die anyway. You had better face up to the inevitability of your own extinction, and today just might be a good day to do it.

Plato believed that knowing how to die was wisdom. The philosopher, he had Socrates say, lives and thinks as a preparation for death, which faces us all. Then Soc chugged some hemlock.

Perhaps that's really what Rumsfeld is saying; perhaps he has become our great public philosopher, confronting us all with the question of how we will spend eternity. It's time to get right with God, if you believe in God: not the day after tomorrow, but right now.

You might want to apologize to the people you've been mean to. You might want to love your neighbor, or at least return his weed whacker. You might want to think about whether God's grace is arbitrary, or is the result of good works.

You might want to read Plato's Phaedo, or the Tao Te Ching, or the Bhagavad Gita, if you get the time. You might want to commend your soul to God, or decide that there is no God and brace yourself for absolute extinction. You might want to contemplate purgatory.

You might want to party like it's 1999. Remember 1999?

You might want to quit your job and give away your earthly goods. You might want to listen to some really good music.

You might want to be grateful, today, that you're alive.

Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art.