Dogville

I'm tormented because our social contract is a fragile fiction, a thin veneer over a Hobbesian state of nature that is always ready to erupt. our proclaimed morality is, for most, a performance that lasts only as long as it is convenient. the terrifying truth is that vulnerability does not inherently summon protection, it often summons predation. im tormented because I understand that the distance between ourselves and the people of Dogville is not one of kind, but of circumstance. we are all, to some degree, waiting for our own "Grace" to arrive, a person or a situation powerless enough to bear the weight of our own hidden resentments, our unacknowledged cruelties, our desperate need to feel, for just a moment, like we are not at the bottom of the pile. goodness is not a state of being, but a continuous, difficult act, one that requires constant vigilance against the seductive, easy path of becoming a Dogville citizen.