Alfred Nobel did not invent the dynamite to end the lives of people. In fact, he did it to save people. His blasting powder was significantly safer than its predecessors, gunpowder and stand-alone nitroglycerin. And with the power of dynamite, controlling the land was no longer the dangerous task it had been in the past.
But controlling the land was not enough for some. Men who desired power wanted to control other men. Men who desired money saw the potential for business and sought means of replicating the destructive magic.
Those men were not savage located on an island whose name people cannot pronounce. Those men were not superstitious jungle-dwelling natives who feasted on their fallen comrades and decorated themselves with bones from beasts that were just as wild as they were. Those men were never tried for crimes against humanity or denounced for their enormities.
Why? Because they were raised and educated in a civilized world, which makes them civilized men. Clean-shaven men dressed in well-ironed suits glancing at their expensive watches every other minute to make sure they would be on time for their next oh-so-important meeting, yes, the presentation saturated with charts and slanted interpretations delivered by the rapid-moving tongue that enunciates every syllable, jargon dripping from the lips. I want money, you want explosives. I have explosives, you have money. Swap you explosives for the money. We both get what we want. The world is a better place. Trade benefits both parties. Bodyparts separated from one another, blown to smithereens in the background. But we both got what we wanted and made the world a better place in the process. We are civil and educated.
If people are using dynamite to blow other people up, something must be wrong. But what? How does one go about pinpointing the exact fault in the entire process? Who was the one to blame, the supplier or the demander? The man selling dynamite needed to raise money to pay his bills and feed his family. The man using dynamite needed it to destroy his opposition before they killed him. And he had the money; people should be allowed to spend their money on whatever they want. So what about the inventor? No, Nobel couldn’t be at fault, he created it to save people, and the money he made from his invention went on to fund the Nobel Prize, awarding people for advancements in various fields.
People fell to the dynamite, but nobody was at fault.
Who cares if beauty is only skin-deep? Who cares if what’s on the inside is what matters most? First impressions are the most lasting, and in this society, we see the outside before we see the inside. The shallowness in human nature gave rise to the use of cosmetics. Should we blame Azazel for this tainted knowledge, or should we blame ourselves for accepting it? Do we blame the cosmetic companies who manufacture superficial improvements for a living? Or do we blame the people who use them because they have no other means of attracting mates? Blame the inventors of dynamite or the users?
God has given everyone of us a face, but there are people who do not think twice before painting a new one over it. And there’s nothing wrong with it. Nobody is at blame.
Lying down on a park bench (and consequently dominating the entire space) one autumn afternoon, a brilliant man dressed in a suit by the name of Sanyo1 came up with the revolutionary concept of a voice enhancer. Our voices come from the inside, and it is the things on the inside that matters the most, is it not?
First came the phone extension: a clip-on gadget for phones allowing beautification of the speaker’s voice. After that they developed mouthpieces for direct face-to-face conversations. Then came the doctors who offered vocal fold surgery.
Nobody objected to any of it; if people did, they would never be heard anyway, because the only way to protest against the noise is with a golden silence.
In truth, there was one. Just one. But that’s all it takes to turn nobody into almost nobody.
1 Sanyo, san yan, goat.