A Dangerous Time

The problem of Berenger in Ionesco’s play ‘Rhinoceros’ is the problem of the human person stranded and alone in what threatens to become a society of monsters. He looks in the mirror and sees that he no longer resembles anyone. To be the last human in the rhinoceros herd in fact makes you into the monster.

- Thomas Merton, Rain and the Rhinoceros (ed.)

~~~~~

Ionesco’s play is not about conforming; it is about totalitarianism. Solitude becomes more and more impossible and suspect. The larger the herd grows the greater the absurdity and futility there is in even talking about this transformation in society that is happening. The universal human today is the one in a rush, people who have no time, prisoners of necessity, people who have no appreciation for a thing without having justified its usefulness, which is somehow always connected to a price tag. The acceptance of solitude and loneliness is itself a direct challenge to the social outworking of power and want and acquisition and submission and satisfaction. Collectivism by definition must absorb everyone it can and conversely must despise and eliminate everyone who cannot be absorbed.

~~~~~

To choose a value that is questioned and doubted is to place oneself in the position of being doubted. The mature person is able to assume this risk. They can embrace an unpopular idea and commit themself to it and to its consequences, and accept the fact that it means becoming a problem and even in some way a scandal to others. It is in this way that most people today have to establish and affirm their identity. But it takes courage to do this. Hence all values are questioned, or can be; to embrace any of them is to become an object of questioning and doubt. Those who shrink from personal responsibility shrink from this also. They seek to rest on an infallible authority or else take refuge in an area where questions are not asked.

- Thomas Merton, Contemplation In A World Of Action (CIWA)