Magic Then and Now

I’m a big fan (and member) or TheDispatch.com, and get their newsletters. Jonah Goldberg recently wrote:

I have a much less eggheady point to make about words and things than what my friend told me: They’re just different.

I am a big believer in the power of words. Words convey ideas, and ideas shape how we see the world. (Physical things contain ideas too, but I’ll get to that.)

But words don’t do the same things as things. Words don’t dig holes, flush toilets, start fires, move automobiles, etc. Things, admittedly with the effort of people, do that stuff. We have a word for when words replace the need for shovels, toilets, matches, or cars: Magic.

In fiction, when people say magic words or phrases—abracadabra, shazam, Anáil nathrach, alakazam, hocus pocus, Ala Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Walla Walla Washington, Sim Sala Bim!—cool stuff happens.

(In recent years, as we’ve become more internally directed, you’ll notice that magic phrases are used less and less in pop culture. Instead, you get the knowing, two-second closing of the eyes, so as to summon your chi or marshal your midichlorians or otherwise concentrate your telekinetic powers—perhaps at the cost of a small nosebleed—in order to move things around or start fires with your mind.)

But in real life—Alexa, Siri, and Google Home notwithstanding—when you just say stuff, nothing really happens. Try it, I’ll wait. Ask a pot of water to boil or a nail to drive itself into a board. “Stupid toilet! Why aren’t you flushing!?”

I cite this here because I have noticed something of the same thing.  All answers, all power is within the self, rather than from an external power.

Deep down we know, or should, that we lack such power in ourselves. Not to raise a space ship out of a swamp. We cannot keep ourselves from eating that second piece of pie, or lighting up the cigarette, or taking the drink, or ….. name your poison. Right now I can write or take a nap. The nap will win.