(Red) Mythology (Viewpoint Essay‪)‬

There is no introduction; only a state of being, a truth. There is perhaps a sequence of events that leads to this particular manifestation of this truth, to this particular representation of the truth--revealing itself now, here--about poverty, about Africa, but perhaps we shall find that traces of this trail of events may speak quite clearly in this event, in any event: "All things being equal, they are not." We could begin, again, by commenting on the rhetorical power of this statement, its syllepsistic reinvention of a hackneyed phrase into the form of a paradoxical syllogism we may well feel familiar with, yet one which arrests our attention in the very moment of making the familiar unfamiliar. It shows what we feel we know in a way we feel we do not know--or perhaps the other way around: perhaps we are confronted with what we should know, or knew but had forgotten, or know, but lack the words to express in the form of aphorism, a summary of truth. This clever reworking of a common expression makes the reality of the unequal distribution of wealth around the globe, as well as a host of other attendant inequalities, apparent to us, drawing it forth from its obfuscation by politicians and corporations and ideologues and everyday life so it may be here, with us--immanent, graspable, able to be printed on a t-shirt, and requiring no further assessment. For, "all things being equal," the aphorism, having represented truth by re-presenting it, making its truthfulness manifest to us again, lays that truth down as a first principle that must inform and shape all subsequent utterances that relate to it (and perhaps all preceding utterances--those that introduce it--as well). Once we are in the presence of truth there is no escaping it: any inequality we witness or experience will represent this truth, raise it once again to our awareness and conserve its truthfulness. And, all things being equal, we will witness or experience inequality, for the aphorism is true. And perhaps, if the force of this representation is enough, whatever inequality we witness or experience will serve to re-present the inequality experienced by "our brothers and sisters dying of AIDS in Africa." All things being equal.