Life During Wartime (2025)

I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. What should I tell you? Clearly the song “Life During Wartime” was just an ironic intellectual satirical piece that invoked a romantic image of occupied France during World War II or the TV series “The Walking Dead”.

On the other hand, today the words sound more like prophecies.

We already know what we are fighting. The thing to do now is to choose your weapons. You can chose violence or nonviolence. Nowadays, nonviolence is thought of as quaint and boring. In fact, a wide variety of nonlethal but highly effective weapons are available to those who abjure violence.

For example, the human voice, the printing press, musical instruments, movements of the body. Just lying down and dying can be an effective weapon. That last option is for one-time use only.

None of this is really practical.

It seems that, at times, we are fighting ignorance and stupidity. Enlightenment is the only answer.