The poet Robert Frost once wrote, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall … Here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I’d ask to know: what I was walling in or walling out?”
Whether the walls be physical or ideological, in today’s world, even much more than in Frost’s time, our society seems to specialize in building walls. And those walls are as flimsy and pathetic as the so-called border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
Walls are a last ditch desperation measure when societies no longer have the confidence to contend with all the world has to throw at them. However, the illusion of safety is shattered as soon as the wall is breached. The faith bestowed on the wall is always misplaced.
Any farmer knows a fence, a wall of wire and posts, means nothing when the bulls catch scent of each other. Everybody knows the wildfire or force of wind cannot be stopped by fences, nor can the wild deer be stopped, which simply jumps over it. All the coastal walls mean nothing in the face of the tidal wave.
So why build a wall? To mark territory, to create the borders for invasion, and to give a false sense of security.
It is much better to go out and face the world eye to eye rather than to cower behind the barrier of fear. It is only then we can see the field for what it is, and know the players. It is only then when we can understand what is expected of us, and if we are truly fitted to the times we are living in.
If I have faith on the ground where I stand, none can truly threaten me. To build a wall around myself because I feel threatened by another’s beliefs reveals only the truth of my own weakness.
The great fortresses have all fallen, or will inevitably fall. The great walls of history have all become curiosities for tourists, whether they be in China or Berlin. All that remains is the false faith in the idea of them and the graffiti scrolled across their faces.
“Something there is that doesn't love a wall,” concludes Frost. “That wants it down.”
This is the lesson we as human societies have yet to learn.
