ictory, if it can be called that, was to who could cannibalize himself the longest. Unlike any war fought before, the victors suffer worse than the losers.
We are now the longest-lived humans in history, we have altered ourselves in terrible ways to win this battle, and we don't know what we have done or what we are now or if what we were was better or how to become more than munitions.
(So which came first, cynicism, invulnerability, or lack of aptitude for happiness? And which is more heartbreaking?)
Infectious fantasies of denial and control. Metaphysical plagues waste our minds more assertively than physical disease violates our bodies. Ism ism ism ism ism ism ism.
(I know a lot of people who are anti-intellectuals because they figure anything culturally significant tastes of cod liver oil.)
This is all to cover how pitifully limited is our understanding of the human heart, and how desperately the bulk of humanity wants it to remain at the level of telling the future by chicken entrails, because that allows us to go on dehumanizing and controlling our fellows with an egotistically ignorant conscience.
('cause we're a pack of chickenshits who figure if we become enlightened we'll all turn into bees or sail off the edge of the world or get possessed by demons or get eaten by the monster under the bed.)
Into our ears, until it became reflex: "Nothing is wrong. Everything is true. Do what you must do to win. Do not reveal yourself; do not negotiate or you will be destroyed."
From the victors, now, bewildered but triumphant: "Nothing is true. Everything is propaganda. Do what you can get away with. Do not reveal yourself; we have used you up and now you are nothing."
(So there's this joke about a doctor who caught a disfiguring disease. "But," he said, "on me it looks good.")