De outhärdliga nyrika

Jag tittade på kommissarie Morse, och det slog mig att jag - och många av mina generationskamrater - skulle kunna jämföras med den nyrika låtsas-adel som annekterar den engelska landsbygden, till stor förtret för både bybor, the landed gentry och den mer anrika aristokratin.

Då är det inte pengar och land vi pratar om, utan ett visst mått av bildning. Men precis som Hyacinth Bucket vill vi, efter vår klassresa, desperat distansera oss från våra rötter och ställa oss in hos det intellektuella etablissemanget, vinna dess acceptans. Särskilt paradoxalt blir detta när vi samtidigt bekänner oss till vänster-radikala idéer. Ett slags teoretisk slöjd.

Där står vi, på våra förfäders axlar, med fjädrar i hatten... lyfta i håret av en fåfäng progressiv, men missriktad, människokärlek förmår vi likväl inte överblicka horisonten, urskilja dess rundning.

(Jag minns tydligt vad min mentor sade en gång då jag ifrågasatte min verksamhet: Glöm Luther, du är frälse nu.)

Oh, you intolerable upstart. This is exactly why we, the keepers of the arcane, can never entrust its secrets to you and your like. There are forces at work here that you will never fathom. Secrets revealed and manifested through generations, ingrained and fortified in the walls of our burgs and castles, and in our palaces.

I will grant you a boon, satiate your desire. I will do the unthinkable and tell you why what is hidden must remain hidden. Why it cannot and must not be revealed. I will let you glean the double-edged sword of true power. I will do that which no other will, and so further enhance your conviction and destructive potential.

In the end it will avail you naught.

You challenge the keepers to tell you what it is they know that you do not, and they tell you that your insistence is pointless. You suspect that their reluctance springs from ignorance and indifference rather than strength of character and a sense of a higher purpose. From the fear of narrow minds rather than noble ones.

And in this you are right! So there you have it - the one edge of the sword you so desperately seek to wield.

But even the most narrow-minded of keepers intuitively know and accept that the knowledge and power needed to wield the sword can never be articulated fully, nor mastered by any one man. And they know that failure to accept this is the most dangerous hubris of all. They also know that the pinnacle of self-control is to keep the sword sheathed, lest the temptation of using but the one edge, ever so sharp and alluring, ultimately brings destruction to all.

This knowledge is bound to the very walls of our castles and palaces. And we, as their guardians, are part of it.

You and your like will never see beyond the obvious. Not before every wall has crumbled and you are left with nothing but chaos and when in the ruins of an old world, the best you can hope for is to build a new world in its image. We will not allow your naïveté to set us all back.