Paradigms

Ask the Falloonian Time: People ask me all the time to name the biggest difference between Falloonians and your species here on Earth, as if three heads and the ability to shift shapes at will weren’t enough. There are too many others to list, but here is one.

We enjoy a practice known as Chivumibreek. A rough translation in your language would be “Allow those things that have occurred in the past to remain those things that have occurred in the past.”

My research shows that you employed such a philosophy in the past, but large segments of your population seems to regard it as a sign of weakness these days. The man who fashioned Christianity, this Apostle Paul of yours, reportedly wreaked havoc on early believers before he obtained the spirit. King Henry the Fifth of England enjoyed quite a rounder’s life before he quit and saved his country. They say that Catherine the Great was a little loose in the uterus.

That’s all changed. It seems that within the most liberal-minded segment of your American society, a mistake, no matter how distant in the past, or juvenile in conception, stays branded one’s reputation like a tattoo on a sailor. I’ve heard they even have groups of “purity warriors” who guard against redemption in any form. There was a distantly related, and self-annihilating, practice among a group I read about called “The Shakers.” They became defunct, it appears, after abandoning the practice of sexual intercourse because of its original sin nature.

Not so for those on the right who practice a particular brand of, shall we say, "ad hoc morality." From all observations, they pick out what we might call a “salvation date,” or the date on which they assumed the persona of righteousness, and forbid anyone from questioning any actions that occurred before that date. For some reason, the press obliges.

Of course, some don’t even have to take that step. All they must do, it seems to an alien observer, is to denounce the things and people you hate, and the mantle of righteousness falls on them like fairy dust descending on an angel’s wings.

Since this group is unified, internationally connected, free from traditional societal paradigms, and heavily funded, they seem destined to rule your planet as long as possible.

That’s why the Falloonian Elders have ordered me to stay packed for a quick departure.