A Cold War Guide - The Twilight Zone
With everything going on in the news, I thought it was time to explain or jog your memory about a little time called the Cold War. The Twilight Zone is my favorite example of cold war sentiment. It's that eerie black and white show from the early sixties your dad or grandpa probably watched on Thanksgiving or 4th of July. If you watch it enough, you'll realize that a lot of storylines were "borrowed" from this show in later years for a ton of other movies and shows. As of late, there's also a lot of parallels to things happening in the news.
There's an episode called "The Obsolete Man." It's about an oppressive government called The State that is going to execute an old man for being of no use to the state. He is librarian and books are banned, and he is old, that's enough for this state. It's a great episode I really think is worth a watch, but it's Rod Serling's prophetic intro and exit narrations that gave me the chills as almost a warning to future generations. I guess it's us. Rod Serling's Narrations:
Opening Narration
““You walk into this room at your own risk, because it leads to the future, not a future that will be but one that might be. This is not a new world; it is simply an extension of what began in the old one.
It has patterned itself after every dictator who has ever planted the ripping imprint of a boot on the pages of history since the beginning of time. It has refinements, technological advances, and a more sophisticated approach to the destruction of human freedom.
But like every one of the super-states that preceded it, it has one iron rule: logic is an enemy and truth is a menace.
This is Mr. Romney Wordsworth, in his last forty-eight hours on Earth. He’s a citizen of the State but will soon have to be eliminated, because he’s built out of flesh and because he has a mind. Mr. Romney Wordsworth, who will draw his last breaths in The Twilight Zone. “”
Closing Narration
“The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshiped.
Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody.
When it is naked, it puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology which fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete. A case to be filed under “M” for “Mankind” - in The Twilight Zone.
”
A transmission coming in loud and clear, from The Twilight Zone.
-Mike
The Twilight Zone - Available streaming on most services and devices.
