If I tossed 5 or 10 bucks at every worthy
cause that sent me a "fundraising alert" I could easily blow through
close to $100 a day. If this is to gain political leverage over the tiny
faction of the population who can afford to throw millions of dollars
at Congress on a regular basis, how long can we be expected to try to
beat them at their own game?
Members of congress willing to rock the gravy boat seem few in number, so I don't know how we can really get big money out of politics. Meanwhile, expecting nickel-and-dime grassroots fundraising to continue to finance political positions that go against the interests of the wealthy is like expecting your health insurance premiums not to keep surging upward. I don't know about you, but I can easily be outspent. Is that how we want to decide whose ideas get to be heard?
When stockholders vote in corporate elections, those with the most shares get to make the decisions. Any small holders have to live with that. In our government we are supposed to have equal voices, so that the points of view of all citizens are taken into account. Instead we have another shareholder meeting in which the big players tell the little people what to do.
Revolution IS called for, since we can't get enough elected officials into office to make the change using what's left of our political system. But a shooting war is a stupid gambit. Just refuse to cooperate. Ride a bike. Walk. Live on less. Detach as much as possible from the corporate-controlled economy. That may mean a pretty primitive lifestyle for quite a while -- maybe a couple of generations. But think how much more primitive and brutal life would be in a country torn by civil war.
Corporatocracy will not give up easily. Their forces may lash out. Put the moral burden on them by living inoffensively.
Showing posts with label coexistence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coexistence. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2021
Monday, October 29, 2018
Safety depends on consent
A piece on NPR this morning about Squirrel Hill and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting mentioned that it was a "safe" neighborhood.
The devotees of armed force like to remind the rest of us that no place is safe. And they are right. Unless you are in some super-fortified safe room -- in which you are a prisoner of fear -- you may encounter an evil person any time, anywhere. But the odds are better in some places than in others.
I lived in a safe neighborhood in West Annapolis in the 1980s. Just a few doors up the street, someone was murdered in their home. As I recall, that was a spousal murder. It was still a murder. A couple of years later, on a slightly sketchier residential street in Edgewater, the guy next door wigged out on PCP and fired off a few rounds at something imaginary before sprinting up the street stripping his clothes off. Years before that, in Coral Gables, Florida, I found a .32 slug from our crazy neighbor flattened against the wall of our house. She was a drinker, who kept the pistol at the head of her bed. Good thing the houses in that neighborhood had thick masonry walls. We never heard a shot. She could have done it any time, even before we moved in. Just another day.
Mass shootings and ideologically motivated murder have increased in this country since the mid 20th Century, adding to the ongoing death toll that merely stems from the ugly side of human nature. Our own citizens subscribe to enough homicidal ideologies to supply us with atrocities that require no invaders or sneaky terrorists from abroad. We rate the safety of a neighborhood on its record of crime and violence. But ideological violence leaps over the local customs between neighbors, the consensual agreement to live and let live.
Safety depends on consent. The residents of a place agree that they will work with and around each other without resorting to forceful confrontation. They will respect each other's boundaries. In the best cases, they will enjoy the experience and expanded point of view brought to them by a diverse population. But even lacking a diverse population of residents, people can cultivate a peaceful attitude if enough of them choose to do so.
All this is for nothing, the armed and dangerous crowd tells us. The only path to peace is through the threat of mutually assured destruction or by eradicating everyone who holds an opposing viewpoint. Anything less is cowardly.
For decades now, the promoters of an armed society have been telling us that anyone must be prepared for a gunfight. As the rhetoric creates an ever more paranoid and volatile population, their prophecy fulfills itself. I see armed men all the time, just going about their lives: shopping, gassing up the truck, serving on town boards, with at least one gun visible. With permitless concealed carry, they could have a couple more tucked in various crevices on their person. A couple of weeks ago it was a scrawny young dude with a 12-pack of beer under one arm, and a handgun bigger than his skinny thigh almost pulling his jeans down as he climbed into his truck.
The Second Amendment cancels out the First, if the threat of armed response is what makes people shut up and ignore each other's behavior. Flip the bird at someone who drives like a sociopath and you may find out just how much of a sociopath he is. It was always true. Anyone might have a gun, regardless of the laws. But the more we enable and encourage the idea that deadly force is normal, the more of it we will see. Deadly force may be a last resort, but feel free to hop right to it with only the briefest glance at other options on your way by. Homicidal ideology plus an arsenal of firearms leads you right to Squirrel Hill, or a grocery store in Kentucky. It breaches the agreement of safety wherever it arrives.
Every time I've considered carrying a gun I've decided that it would probably make a situation worse rather than better. Because we do not yet live in an actual war zone, by the time you know that deadly force is justified you have probably already lost that battle. Our stereotypical movie cowboys of the mythical old west weren't fighting off muggers. They were calling each other out in duels. Or the sodbusters were engaged in guerrilla warfare with the ranchers. Or the gang of outlaws would sweep down on the town, where the brave sheriff and his deputies would pick them off. In every case, the participants knew that they were in a defined conflict. It was right there in the fictional script.
The racists and antisemites in this country who want to eliminate people they deem undesirable are eager to define the conflict and declare war. They have no use for conventions of safety. Perhaps they would feel differently if they were immersed in a lengthy conflict that destroyed a lot of property and killed a lot of their friends, but you'll never convince them of that by imagination alone. They imagine glorious victory and rivers of blood from their enemies. The same optimism has ushered in every war since the first pre-human picked up a stick and showed his tribe-mates how great it was to bust heads.
That first war led to the proliferation of sticks. A secret weapon is only a secret until you use it. Then everybody wants one. And no one imagines themselves on the receiving end of it. That reality sets in later, when the glorious conflict turns into a quagmire. And people start to yearn for peace, rest, and safety.
The devotees of armed force like to remind the rest of us that no place is safe. And they are right. Unless you are in some super-fortified safe room -- in which you are a prisoner of fear -- you may encounter an evil person any time, anywhere. But the odds are better in some places than in others.
I lived in a safe neighborhood in West Annapolis in the 1980s. Just a few doors up the street, someone was murdered in their home. As I recall, that was a spousal murder. It was still a murder. A couple of years later, on a slightly sketchier residential street in Edgewater, the guy next door wigged out on PCP and fired off a few rounds at something imaginary before sprinting up the street stripping his clothes off. Years before that, in Coral Gables, Florida, I found a .32 slug from our crazy neighbor flattened against the wall of our house. She was a drinker, who kept the pistol at the head of her bed. Good thing the houses in that neighborhood had thick masonry walls. We never heard a shot. She could have done it any time, even before we moved in. Just another day.
Mass shootings and ideologically motivated murder have increased in this country since the mid 20th Century, adding to the ongoing death toll that merely stems from the ugly side of human nature. Our own citizens subscribe to enough homicidal ideologies to supply us with atrocities that require no invaders or sneaky terrorists from abroad. We rate the safety of a neighborhood on its record of crime and violence. But ideological violence leaps over the local customs between neighbors, the consensual agreement to live and let live.
Safety depends on consent. The residents of a place agree that they will work with and around each other without resorting to forceful confrontation. They will respect each other's boundaries. In the best cases, they will enjoy the experience and expanded point of view brought to them by a diverse population. But even lacking a diverse population of residents, people can cultivate a peaceful attitude if enough of them choose to do so.
All this is for nothing, the armed and dangerous crowd tells us. The only path to peace is through the threat of mutually assured destruction or by eradicating everyone who holds an opposing viewpoint. Anything less is cowardly.
For decades now, the promoters of an armed society have been telling us that anyone must be prepared for a gunfight. As the rhetoric creates an ever more paranoid and volatile population, their prophecy fulfills itself. I see armed men all the time, just going about their lives: shopping, gassing up the truck, serving on town boards, with at least one gun visible. With permitless concealed carry, they could have a couple more tucked in various crevices on their person. A couple of weeks ago it was a scrawny young dude with a 12-pack of beer under one arm, and a handgun bigger than his skinny thigh almost pulling his jeans down as he climbed into his truck.
The Second Amendment cancels out the First, if the threat of armed response is what makes people shut up and ignore each other's behavior. Flip the bird at someone who drives like a sociopath and you may find out just how much of a sociopath he is. It was always true. Anyone might have a gun, regardless of the laws. But the more we enable and encourage the idea that deadly force is normal, the more of it we will see. Deadly force may be a last resort, but feel free to hop right to it with only the briefest glance at other options on your way by. Homicidal ideology plus an arsenal of firearms leads you right to Squirrel Hill, or a grocery store in Kentucky. It breaches the agreement of safety wherever it arrives.
Every time I've considered carrying a gun I've decided that it would probably make a situation worse rather than better. Because we do not yet live in an actual war zone, by the time you know that deadly force is justified you have probably already lost that battle. Our stereotypical movie cowboys of the mythical old west weren't fighting off muggers. They were calling each other out in duels. Or the sodbusters were engaged in guerrilla warfare with the ranchers. Or the gang of outlaws would sweep down on the town, where the brave sheriff and his deputies would pick them off. In every case, the participants knew that they were in a defined conflict. It was right there in the fictional script.
The racists and antisemites in this country who want to eliminate people they deem undesirable are eager to define the conflict and declare war. They have no use for conventions of safety. Perhaps they would feel differently if they were immersed in a lengthy conflict that destroyed a lot of property and killed a lot of their friends, but you'll never convince them of that by imagination alone. They imagine glorious victory and rivers of blood from their enemies. The same optimism has ushered in every war since the first pre-human picked up a stick and showed his tribe-mates how great it was to bust heads.
That first war led to the proliferation of sticks. A secret weapon is only a secret until you use it. Then everybody wants one. And no one imagines themselves on the receiving end of it. That reality sets in later, when the glorious conflict turns into a quagmire. And people start to yearn for peace, rest, and safety.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Hogan's Heroes and the Confederacy
Baby Boomers will remember watching Hogan's Heroes on television. It was a comedy about Allied prisoners in a German camp. A comedy. At the same time you could watch the films Stalag 17 or The Great Escape for more dramatic presentations of the situation, but once a week, for six seasons, our clever heroes outwitted the bumbling Nazis and helped to win the war against fascism.
By the time that show was winding down, Richard Pryor was cranking up. I first heard a Richard Pryor album in the dorm room of a southern white guy who thought it was totally great. Richard seized ownership of the n-word and freely mocked uptight white people. We really were putting all that segregation shit behind us, weren't we?
The answer then was no, but it was well concealed from the white majority, and even from some rising blacks. Now it seems obvious, but back then the vestiges of racism could seem like exactly that: vestiges. We made fun of the South, we made fun of Nazis, starting to feel at ease about mildly confronting the injustices that underpin all of white people dynamics.
Whites don't have an exclusive title to injustice. We just used it very effectively to become a dominant force in the world as we evolved. Injustice is a tool in the arsenal of evil along the continuum that runs from the most sadistic darkness all the way to unachievably pure goodness and light.
Funny how evil is always so much more accessible.
A generation made influential by its sheer numbers got to see these attractive but deceptive portrayals at an impressionable age. I met few openly and aggressively racist people along my path. Only decades later did I figure out how sheltered my life was. Bad stuff might happen in isolated parts of this country and in other parts of the world, but overall we were on a path to potential world peace and good times. It was an easy mistake to make.
It becomes increasingly obvious now that humanity's dark side can't be laughed off. Humor seems to make sense as a countermeasure, but evil notoriously lacks a sense of humor. That's why control freaks hate to be laughed at. If everyone laughed, it could stop totalitarian shenanigans like a punch in the face with an inflated pig bladder. Maybe fascists make everyone stand up at their rallies so that no one can put whoopee cushions on every chair.
Humorless leaders can always find humorless followers to carry out their unfunny wishes. They are joined by people with sadistic senses of humor, who see slapstick entertainment in bloody dismemberment. Laughter may be the best medicine, but power is the strongest intoxicant. An underling in a dominant group enjoys the power of their collective cruelty.
Righteousness sounds good. By the dictionary definition, it describes being "morally right or justifiable." Morality is whatever we say it is, but thousands of years of collected writings have yielded a few common principles that seem to emphasize respect for each other.
Self righteousness is invariably wrong and a gateway to evil. If you sincerely believe that you are living exactly the way everyone should live, you are mistaken, and you shouldn't let it go to your head. It's an easy trap, especially for young adults. From the late teens through the twenties, humans are looking for meaning. We're told that we're adults at that point, fully responsible for our actions and deserving of our rights and privileges. We feel physically strong. This happens to coincide with a period of emotional uncertainty as we leave our homes and childhood behind. Things that feel right and good seem very right and good.
Research that indicates that our brains are hard wired will make your head spin. You can soothe your insomnia and melt the battery in your laptop watching lecture after lecture to help you understand your behavior and other people's. Of course you are drawing your own conclusions through your hardwired circuitry. Maybe you're hardwired to be open minded. Maybe you're hardwired to put up walls and fences topped with razor wire. This makes it an evolutionary question. There are winners and losers in evolution, but evolution does not recognize concepts of good and evil. There is no right or wrong. There is only existence and nonexistence.
By the time that show was winding down, Richard Pryor was cranking up. I first heard a Richard Pryor album in the dorm room of a southern white guy who thought it was totally great. Richard seized ownership of the n-word and freely mocked uptight white people. We really were putting all that segregation shit behind us, weren't we?
The answer then was no, but it was well concealed from the white majority, and even from some rising blacks. Now it seems obvious, but back then the vestiges of racism could seem like exactly that: vestiges. We made fun of the South, we made fun of Nazis, starting to feel at ease about mildly confronting the injustices that underpin all of white people dynamics.
Whites don't have an exclusive title to injustice. We just used it very effectively to become a dominant force in the world as we evolved. Injustice is a tool in the arsenal of evil along the continuum that runs from the most sadistic darkness all the way to unachievably pure goodness and light.
Funny how evil is always so much more accessible.
A generation made influential by its sheer numbers got to see these attractive but deceptive portrayals at an impressionable age. I met few openly and aggressively racist people along my path. Only decades later did I figure out how sheltered my life was. Bad stuff might happen in isolated parts of this country and in other parts of the world, but overall we were on a path to potential world peace and good times. It was an easy mistake to make.
It becomes increasingly obvious now that humanity's dark side can't be laughed off. Humor seems to make sense as a countermeasure, but evil notoriously lacks a sense of humor. That's why control freaks hate to be laughed at. If everyone laughed, it could stop totalitarian shenanigans like a punch in the face with an inflated pig bladder. Maybe fascists make everyone stand up at their rallies so that no one can put whoopee cushions on every chair.
Humorless leaders can always find humorless followers to carry out their unfunny wishes. They are joined by people with sadistic senses of humor, who see slapstick entertainment in bloody dismemberment. Laughter may be the best medicine, but power is the strongest intoxicant. An underling in a dominant group enjoys the power of their collective cruelty.
Righteousness sounds good. By the dictionary definition, it describes being "morally right or justifiable." Morality is whatever we say it is, but thousands of years of collected writings have yielded a few common principles that seem to emphasize respect for each other.
Self righteousness is invariably wrong and a gateway to evil. If you sincerely believe that you are living exactly the way everyone should live, you are mistaken, and you shouldn't let it go to your head. It's an easy trap, especially for young adults. From the late teens through the twenties, humans are looking for meaning. We're told that we're adults at that point, fully responsible for our actions and deserving of our rights and privileges. We feel physically strong. This happens to coincide with a period of emotional uncertainty as we leave our homes and childhood behind. Things that feel right and good seem very right and good.
Research that indicates that our brains are hard wired will make your head spin. You can soothe your insomnia and melt the battery in your laptop watching lecture after lecture to help you understand your behavior and other people's. Of course you are drawing your own conclusions through your hardwired circuitry. Maybe you're hardwired to be open minded. Maybe you're hardwired to put up walls and fences topped with razor wire. This makes it an evolutionary question. There are winners and losers in evolution, but evolution does not recognize concepts of good and evil. There is no right or wrong. There is only existence and nonexistence.
Monday, February 19, 2018
Make the world safe for safety
Eons ago, when everyone lived at more or less the same level, conflict based on control of resources and territory was a more or less animal thing, augmented gradually with various hand tools that might give one side a temporary advantage until their opponents figured out something equal or superior with which to retaliate. But, no matter who won, the big enemies were still famine and disease.
As technology advanced, unevenly, it made all aspects of life easier in places that possessed it, so that those cultures expanded more readily, dominating less technologically advanced cultures regardless of the ethics and morals of a given invasion. Technologically dominant powers probably inhibited the advancement of cultures they dominated. The evolutionary compulsion to advance tribal interest evolved into national interest, and imperialism. It was still the same basic urge that had inspired some hominid in a snit to pick up a rock or a jawbone and bust an adversary's head.
All the way up to World War I, disease still killed more warriors than actual battle did. Then improving medicine and killing hardware shifted the balance in war so that combatants could finally claim the higher score.
Setting aside mass slaughter for a moment, early hominids and primitive humans faced risk constantly. Risk takers served as test pilots for the species, advancing the frontiers of capability or providing grim lessons in what not to do. Our respect for risk takers probably predates language. But so does our eye-rolling amusement at generations of Darwin Award finalists, from long before Charlie D walked the Earth.
We can't control or predict earthquakes. We can observe hurricanes and predict their approximate course a few days in advance. We can home in on outbreaks of disease and try to contain their spread or develop vaccines. With eyes in the sky, we can give a few minutes' warning of tornados. We can advise people how to drive safely, and to avoid lifestyle habits linked to disease. But we can't predict exactly when someone will snap and start shooting, or when a nation will lose its grip on global citizenship and start a war inside or outside its own borders. You can say roughly, observing trends and monitoring communications, that a nation presents a risk. On an interpersonal level, you can sometimes tell -- or at least guess -- that someone is volatile.
This unpredictability in human behavior, combined with the long heritage of risk, gives our species a paradoxical yearning for safety and an unwillingness to commit to being safe. Most of us like to be able to move around without constant vigilance. For most of my life, this country seemed like a place like that. Of course I wasn't black, or an unaccompanied woman, and I never ventured into a bad neighborhood. Stuff happened, but it didn't seem as common as it does today.
Personal violence and institutional violence are the micro and the macro of humanity's danger to humanity. Our disdain for the natural world may manage to take us out before we dissolve into global combat. Or we might dodge the bullets both metaphorical and actual, and get our shit together. But the biggest threat to our safety is our belief that safety is impossible. We can't be sure that enough people -- maybe even all people -- could ever be willing to live and let live. We are not yet "all in this together."
With the technology at our command, there is no good excuse for human suffering. We have fear and anger in the world because we accept it.
All that is required for good to prevail is for bad people to do nothing. Focus on a common good that stems from energy and willingness to work, decoupled from grasping material ambition. Hold your temper. Disconnect your jealousy. Evolution beyond the weaponization of technology will require a level of conscious thought. It may prove impossible. Utopianists in a hurry will try to slap together a rule book full of begged questions that they understand intuitively, but vulnerable to interpretation.
To begin the process at all will require a general consensus that we will quit hurting each other. That one step has tripped us up for thousands of years. Rather than reach the point at which appreciative existence becomes our mission, we endure the constant clash between dark and light, the good people and the bad people doing things in opposition. If that's what we're stuck with, there's really no point in going on.
As technology advanced, unevenly, it made all aspects of life easier in places that possessed it, so that those cultures expanded more readily, dominating less technologically advanced cultures regardless of the ethics and morals of a given invasion. Technologically dominant powers probably inhibited the advancement of cultures they dominated. The evolutionary compulsion to advance tribal interest evolved into national interest, and imperialism. It was still the same basic urge that had inspired some hominid in a snit to pick up a rock or a jawbone and bust an adversary's head.
All the way up to World War I, disease still killed more warriors than actual battle did. Then improving medicine and killing hardware shifted the balance in war so that combatants could finally claim the higher score.
Setting aside mass slaughter for a moment, early hominids and primitive humans faced risk constantly. Risk takers served as test pilots for the species, advancing the frontiers of capability or providing grim lessons in what not to do. Our respect for risk takers probably predates language. But so does our eye-rolling amusement at generations of Darwin Award finalists, from long before Charlie D walked the Earth.
We can't control or predict earthquakes. We can observe hurricanes and predict their approximate course a few days in advance. We can home in on outbreaks of disease and try to contain their spread or develop vaccines. With eyes in the sky, we can give a few minutes' warning of tornados. We can advise people how to drive safely, and to avoid lifestyle habits linked to disease. But we can't predict exactly when someone will snap and start shooting, or when a nation will lose its grip on global citizenship and start a war inside or outside its own borders. You can say roughly, observing trends and monitoring communications, that a nation presents a risk. On an interpersonal level, you can sometimes tell -- or at least guess -- that someone is volatile.
This unpredictability in human behavior, combined with the long heritage of risk, gives our species a paradoxical yearning for safety and an unwillingness to commit to being safe. Most of us like to be able to move around without constant vigilance. For most of my life, this country seemed like a place like that. Of course I wasn't black, or an unaccompanied woman, and I never ventured into a bad neighborhood. Stuff happened, but it didn't seem as common as it does today.
Personal violence and institutional violence are the micro and the macro of humanity's danger to humanity. Our disdain for the natural world may manage to take us out before we dissolve into global combat. Or we might dodge the bullets both metaphorical and actual, and get our shit together. But the biggest threat to our safety is our belief that safety is impossible. We can't be sure that enough people -- maybe even all people -- could ever be willing to live and let live. We are not yet "all in this together."
With the technology at our command, there is no good excuse for human suffering. We have fear and anger in the world because we accept it.
All that is required for good to prevail is for bad people to do nothing. Focus on a common good that stems from energy and willingness to work, decoupled from grasping material ambition. Hold your temper. Disconnect your jealousy. Evolution beyond the weaponization of technology will require a level of conscious thought. It may prove impossible. Utopianists in a hurry will try to slap together a rule book full of begged questions that they understand intuitively, but vulnerable to interpretation.
To begin the process at all will require a general consensus that we will quit hurting each other. That one step has tripped us up for thousands of years. Rather than reach the point at which appreciative existence becomes our mission, we endure the constant clash between dark and light, the good people and the bad people doing things in opposition. If that's what we're stuck with, there's really no point in going on.
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