Advice From King Arthur

NMB, Florida October 14, 2001 A.H. Schectman

THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.

ADVICE FROM KING ARTHUR
In my continuing quest for wisdom I turned this morning once again to my
bike driven listening to lectures on King Arthur and his fabricated history
by different writers. These wrote about a pre-historic hero at a much later
period - during historic times. This was again Mallory who provided one
interesting development in the character of the Tribal Chieftain, Arthur,
who now becomes the ancestor of Christian England and its individualistic
development of a form of democracy. The story is cloaked in adventures that
still involve monsters who, obviously in their cannibalistic behavior, are
the Osama bin Ladens of today. But dialogue, involving pronouncements of a
viable king, despite human slips and failings, is usually free of the kind
of aphorisms we appreciate today.

Arthur is quoted as saying to his restless and careless roistering round
table of noble knights that they should consider that "enough is as good as
a feast." This is noble advice and advice that is still not understood in
our present-day beleaguered society. We are being urged to get more than
"enough" - to resume our piggish habits of pre-September 11, 2001. We know
we cannot go back but we are urged to go forth and slay dragons of sluggish
commerce and fill houses of entertainment and damn the anthrax and fear of
common place familiar things used as weapons of destruction. And, I suppose,
do all this while driving gas-guzzling behemoths from home to the nearby
store.

Now, this is pure invention by a writer who in the 1400's wrote for a very
small barely literate society that had just tried to liberate the birthland
of their acknowledged "Savior" from infidels who denied him. Old themes of
barbaric heroes like "Conan the Barely Clothed" who battled constantly to
fill a societal need for heroic tales were seen by the lecturer giving way
to a regularized morality that we could recognize today.

The hero that we need, with whom we can all identify, will be one dressed
in a uniform and probably will still use a sword-like tool to defeat the
dreaded foe. I feel pretty sure that this hero will not be G.W. Bush. We
are not admonished that "enough is as good as a feast." In wars of old we
were told to tighten our belts and do without. Today we must consume and
return to gluttony. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.