When the Universe Replaces God

I caught a live tribute to Ted Kennedy on TV the other day. Family, friends, and colleagues were praising him as a champion for universal social justice.

I started thinking about how much I’ve been hearing the word “universal” lately.

“Universal” is the “it” word, as in universal health care or “The Universe will guide me,” or “Leave it to the Universe.”

There was a different word for it back in the day, more imposing but less confusing: God. But God is not a trendy word anymore. God is not popular, just like the Republicans. You are guilty by association with both. Even C.G. Jung was annoyed by it (the not calling God a ‘God’ part, not the Republicans).

There was also that video tribute by Ken Burns to Ted Kennedy’s legacy.

Ken Burns, surely, is a gifted storyteller in love with Americana. I have heard him speak many times, and Ken Burns is no Michael Moore. Michael Moore is an indoctrinated “half intellectual” (as Jean- Luc Goddard called him once) who follows Karl Marx verbatim. On the contrary, Ken Burns is a voluntary propagandist who, just like most of America’s talented artists, made an inevitably subconscious left turn in order to succeed in a better-marketed liberal Democratic cultural establishment. Burns does try to maintain his independent artistic spirit somewhat, at least to the degree allowed by PBS.

In short, Ken Burns is PBS’s Sergei Eisenstein.

So, it was even more disappointing to see how lame of a video tribute it was. All I learned was that Ted Kennedy loved water and universal health care, and that the people whom he helped loved him. The video’s real purpose, though, was an apparent attempt to make Obama look like an heir to Kennedy’s long desired health care reform.

As everything in the age of Obama, the video turned out to be about Obama.

Sadly, Obama is gradually becoming the zero of any socio-political equation-any number multiplied or divided by him becomes a zero. Or, rather like a zero on a roulette table, once the ball stops on him, all the money goes to the bank (a government owned one, of course). It is a uniquely universal quality.

The Kennedys were instrumental in Obama’s ascension to power. In fact, Ted Kennedy, as his friends were emotionally emphasizing during the tribute, helped a lot of people…except for one whom he left dying in the water that he loved so much, for which he was never held accountable because of the universal love for the Kennedys. Except for people who do not drink and drive, no one is exempt from drunk-driving accidents, and the shock that follows could impede anyone’s swift judgment.

Ted Kennedy, as many mentioned, also sincerely cared for “simple folks.”

Documentary Filmmaker Ken Burns

Yet, what would have been enough to sink any other good man’s public career was forgiven to Ted Kennedy-a testimony to the major dysfunction of our consumer-driven democracy that is still unable to break the chains of seduction to its universally hailed icons and idols.

So, there is, after all, a difference between the concepts of “Universal” and God. God brings justice; the Universe forgives. God is personal; the Universe is not. You can’t even curse the Universe. Who would be offended by cursing the Rings of Saturn, anyway?

A half-junkie acquaintance of mine in Hollywood was telling me that she applied for many jobs and by doing so made a statement to the Universe that she needed a job. Now, the Universe must help her…

Do you see the pattern here? The Universe is entitled to help. The Universe is the substitute for the judgmental and (rapidly disappearing) God. God and his Republican guards leave people alone and uninsured, but the Universe helps them. And Unions help them too. And the Soviet Union helped people too, after it got rid of the people who did not ‘care’ about other people. The Universal end justifies individual means, even if by the “means” one implies vilifying half of the population who do not agree with the Universal Agent of Change.

Once in thousand years, the Universe sends savior figures that materialize people’s desires and protect them against social injustice. Sometimes, however, these agents of change commit locally individual acts of injustice; yet, ultimately, they bring on the kind of “universal social justice” so eloquently championed by Ted Kennedy throughout his distinguished career.