So, how about that weather? Isn't the new jet stream pattern so refreshing? Do you want to build a snowman or maybe sit around and continue to deny that climate change is not only real but physically impacting all of our lives?
Let's stop doing that second thing. Let's stop pretending that throwing our hands up in front of our faces and saying, "No, I don't like coming to terms with reality because reality is icky and uncomfortable and I have to make some changes in my life and I DON'T WANNA!" is going to change the fact that reality is hard and immutable, like a bus barreling down the road, headed right for us. It doesn't matter if we say "No, I don't WANNA" to the bus. It's not going to magically not crush us against the wall of its physical reality. It's coming straight at us. We have to move, and we have to move now, or we're going to have to clean up a lot of viscera in our near future.
And it isn't just the climate. This dangerous denial of reality and all of its consequences appears to have infected a great number of citizens here in the U.S. There is a cult (yes) of willful ignorance, hell bent on injecting fear and disorder into society and, frankly, they've done an extraordinary job thus far.
I had a conversation with some folks today about reality, perception, belief, and action. The core of it was how horrifying the enactment of poorly understood philosophical assumptions, specifically the one about beliefs being just as valid as reality because possible multiverses 'n' stuff, is affecting the social construct. The actual fabric of our society is straining because so many people are callously and selfishly doing whatever the fuck they want.
That's really bad. Let me explain why.
Doing whatever one wants, regardless of whether it hurts another, is anti-social behaviour. The reason it's called anti-social behaviour is that it negatively impacts society. You know, that agreement we have with each other as social animals, where we do our best to live peacefully and respectfully so that we all may benefit from things like clean water, fresh air, lives relatively free of oppression and violence, safety and food for our children and selves... yes. Society.
The alternative to society is anarchy, which might sound like a pretty romantic notion if you've never committed yourself to realizing how much terror, agony, cruelty, and inhumane action will happen if we manage to achieve actual anarchy. Some might find that scenario acceptable. God help their blind souls. But anarchy is like a vacuum. Nature and power-hungry leaders abhor a vacuum. If and when we are in complete disorder, there will be an entity of aggression who will come and put us in order. Their order. Do you think we'll be able to fight back effectively, even as individuals with personal arsenals, against a force that wields organized, funded armies, quite possibly with nuclear capability? Our best, individual hopes would then become dying in a blaze of "glory." This might work for some, but it does not work for most. We cannot ask others to suffer and or die for our causes. Not the glorious ones and certainly not the petty ones.
Let's talk about these petty ones. Firstly, I'm going to call any cause that does not directly promote life and existence as petty. It's about needs versus wants. Needs are glorious. Wants are petty. I need food to live. I want that food to be delicious and wonderful. I can live on food that isn't delicious and wonderful, so that want is a petty cause. Let me use a widely known current example of a passionately carried but petty cause:
There are folks who are screaming about some war on Christmas. They've gotten the notion that everyone needs to believe what they believe and in the way they believe it or they're being oppressed. That's silly. Oppression is when you are disallowed to practice your beliefs under threat of penalty or death. If displaying Christmas decorations caused the authorities to look away as you were being systematically harassed or if they were there to perpetrate the harassment, then you're being oppressed. Being legally afforded less rights without having committed any legal offense is being oppressed. Being asked to allow others to have their own beliefs with as much acceptance as you have yours is not oppression. It's called civility. It's how to be fair, and being fair is how we've managed to have this country that allows us to believe what we believe. This country is founded on Christian values, not on Christianity. If we take a look around, an honest look around, we'll find that Christian values are just good social sense. They're also Jewish values and Muslim values and Taoist values and decent people who have no interest in religion's values. Be kind. Be fair. Be honest. Think first. Reject anger, hatred, violence, and uninformed judgement. Have compassion. Cultivate patience and empathy. Do unto others as you would have done to you.
This so-called "war" is no war. There is no enemy unless one has decided that this *should* be a secular country, in which case I need you to look again at the Constitution and consider if you intend to participate in a religious war by fostering the hatred and othering that it takes to light a fire like that. Refresh your history knowledge about the viscera remaining after religious wars. Go look at the photos of refugee children, lost and bloody and empty. Picture your own children there. We don't want this. No amount of discomfort when faced with our own privilege is worth that horror.
Where we should be fighting is in the war against poverty. That's a war. That's a glorious cause, because the continuation or cessation of lives absolutely hangs in the balance. Poverty is not about being offended or socially uncomfortable as our privilege is pointed out. It's about starvation, desperation, untreated medical issues, death by dehydration or exposure or neglect or violence borne of the chronic trauma that is poverty. We need to improve this situation. We, the people, the mass of us who are supposed to create a social net for all of us. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. Need more self-justification? Because you need that social net, too. Running water. Safe food. A reasonable assurance that if you, yourself, fell on hard times, that the rest of us would be there for you, if only in our taxes.
Frankly, when I look at the folks who are celebrating the so-called "freedoms" we are about to experience under our new President/Cabinet/Congress, I have to wonder if we're going to be okay in the end. There's so much dangerous rhetoric that we, as a species, have seen before and have sworn again and again that we will not let happen. But we've become complacent. Perhaps glutted by our ability to tune out via social media (which, by the way, is mostly fantasy that is deceptively real looking), our vulgar consumerism, our collective lack of willpower to do the right things even though they aren't "fun", and our unkind actions that we seem to be justifying by our own comfort or dark glee. I wonder if there will be enough of us who can read the news and generally judge if it's journalism or propaganda. I wonder if the level headed, the concerned, the long-game players, will also be our hard-standing opposition to the selfishness and blind greed that now seems imminent. So far, I hear a lot of murmuring without focus. I'm here. Where are you? Why won't you speak loudly in the face of bigotry, sexism, wanton environmental destruction? You won't be alone. I'm here. I'll stand with you.
And, if it is to be that you're choosing the self-serving path that is peppered with unkindness... well, know that I'm standing before you, telling you that you've got it wrong. I won't stop doing that. I won't stop pointing out the privilege, I won't stop pushing back against inequality, I won't stop defending you and everyone else who needs it. Not wants it. Needs it.
Let's do this.
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