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Scientifictionist, v. 1, issue 5, June-July 1946
Page 1
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OF MANY THINGS and some a little more than others by Phil Schumann THEORETICALLY, the basic aim of any printed matter (unless fiction) is to present the truth. A columnist, in writing his own thoughts, keeps these principles in mind: presenting both the facts and his opinion of those facts. The main thing is to bring the truth to the reader. Sometimes this truth is pleasant. Sometimes it has a pain that eats into you until you try to ignore it. But it is truth nevertheless and to ignore truth does not remove it. Instead, it can very well continue to grow until it is so much larger than you, that you will be borne under by it -- destroyed -- reduced to a handful of pasty powder snuffed away on the passing wind. If the roof of a man's house is on fire and he is in the basement, does he say to himself, "Well, it's inconvenient, but I'll ignore it, and so I'll feel better"! No, he doesn't, because he knows that it is his house and that every puff of flame is destroying something that belongs to him -- and that it won't be so easily replaced. Second, he knows that if he should ignore that blaze above his head, sooner or later the burning ruins will fall on him. His life being a valuable thing to him, he doesn't ignore the truth and does all he can to put out that fire as quickly as possible -- before it grows too big for him or anyone else to extinguish. But what does that mean to us! It means a lot of things. Suppose that man, in his house, took a bucket of water to the roof and threw it over the fire. Suppose there were a few smoldering embers left glowing, and he ignored them because they were "too small" to do any damage. Ah! But then what if those embers grow until they blaze up again and the fire reaches further down into the house! That takes a little more time because he has forgotten about the embers, and he waits until he smells smoke. Unfortunately, there really was a fire, a good one, and it has just taken a lot of people to put it out... so many people that some were swallowed up in the flames, and some were left with permanent scars. But there are a few embers still glowing, and they live -- sure they live, and they can still grow too big for us and can still burn us in our cozy basement. Are we going to let it do 'that! Are we going to ignore the truth, merely because that truth is uncomfortable and we'd rather forget it! Of course we'd rather forget it... who wouldn't! But ignoring the truth does not mean that the truth ceases to exist. We can create a new truth so very strong that the other one will vanish. Yes, we can enjoy ourselves for the moment: we can attempt to forget what we thought we destroyed, and we can forget a fire we have only dampened. And then tomorrow we can wake up from our deep sleep, to find ourselves ready to be swallowed down the throat of a monster darker than all the others have ever been. Do you want this! Or do you want to face yourself and help destroy some very ugly things forever! The earth is in a bad way you know... what is going to be done about it! What are we going to do about it! Oh, but we can't, we say, no we can't, not a bit because the thing is too big for us... us, the tiniest fragment of a mob bass that we can do nothing against because the weight of all of them is too great for the weight of us so how could we dare, yes, how could we dare to buck a billion souls! Besides, that's not our job at all no of course not what about the government! That's the government's job, what are they doing about it!... why don't they do something! They're so much bigger than us... poor little us poor little insignificant us forever pushed around and pushed around. Why don't you tell the government to do something! They're the ones, yes, they're the ones you want of course they are... don't you see! So leave us along we've got some things to do tonight and we have to get busy Yes, nice tonight... and nice tomorrow for the funeral but of course then we won't need to look nice because our actions cost us lives and our words cost all the lives of all men everywhere for tomorrow and forever. We won't need to look (continued on page 3) page 1
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OF MANY THINGS and some a little more than others by Phil Schumann THEORETICALLY, the basic aim of any printed matter (unless fiction) is to present the truth. A columnist, in writing his own thoughts, keeps these principles in mind: presenting both the facts and his opinion of those facts. The main thing is to bring the truth to the reader. Sometimes this truth is pleasant. Sometimes it has a pain that eats into you until you try to ignore it. But it is truth nevertheless and to ignore truth does not remove it. Instead, it can very well continue to grow until it is so much larger than you, that you will be borne under by it -- destroyed -- reduced to a handful of pasty powder snuffed away on the passing wind. If the roof of a man's house is on fire and he is in the basement, does he say to himself, "Well, it's inconvenient, but I'll ignore it, and so I'll feel better"! No, he doesn't, because he knows that it is his house and that every puff of flame is destroying something that belongs to him -- and that it won't be so easily replaced. Second, he knows that if he should ignore that blaze above his head, sooner or later the burning ruins will fall on him. His life being a valuable thing to him, he doesn't ignore the truth and does all he can to put out that fire as quickly as possible -- before it grows too big for him or anyone else to extinguish. But what does that mean to us! It means a lot of things. Suppose that man, in his house, took a bucket of water to the roof and threw it over the fire. Suppose there were a few smoldering embers left glowing, and he ignored them because they were "too small" to do any damage. Ah! But then what if those embers grow until they blaze up again and the fire reaches further down into the house! That takes a little more time because he has forgotten about the embers, and he waits until he smells smoke. Unfortunately, there really was a fire, a good one, and it has just taken a lot of people to put it out... so many people that some were swallowed up in the flames, and some were left with permanent scars. But there are a few embers still glowing, and they live -- sure they live, and they can still grow too big for us and can still burn us in our cozy basement. Are we going to let it do 'that! Are we going to ignore the truth, merely because that truth is uncomfortable and we'd rather forget it! Of course we'd rather forget it... who wouldn't! But ignoring the truth does not mean that the truth ceases to exist. We can create a new truth so very strong that the other one will vanish. Yes, we can enjoy ourselves for the moment: we can attempt to forget what we thought we destroyed, and we can forget a fire we have only dampened. And then tomorrow we can wake up from our deep sleep, to find ourselves ready to be swallowed down the throat of a monster darker than all the others have ever been. Do you want this! Or do you want to face yourself and help destroy some very ugly things forever! The earth is in a bad way you know... what is going to be done about it! What are we going to do about it! Oh, but we can't, we say, no we can't, not a bit because the thing is too big for us... us, the tiniest fragment of a mob bass that we can do nothing against because the weight of all of them is too great for the weight of us so how could we dare, yes, how could we dare to buck a billion souls! Besides, that's not our job at all no of course not what about the government! That's the government's job, what are they doing about it!... why don't they do something! They're so much bigger than us... poor little us poor little insignificant us forever pushed around and pushed around. Why don't you tell the government to do something! They're the ones, yes, they're the ones you want of course they are... don't you see! So leave us along we've got some things to do tonight and we have to get busy Yes, nice tonight... and nice tomorrow for the funeral but of course then we won't need to look nice because our actions cost us lives and our words cost all the lives of all men everywhere for tomorrow and forever. We won't need to look (continued on page 3) page 1
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