The Circular Ideological Spectrum

In theory, ideological positions fall along a spectrum.  In practice, it is more a loop. The more extreme, the more a mirror of the opposition. This is intuitive for anyone aware of history, or detached enough from the current Right/Left dichotomy in the West at least to grasp. The historical example is how much Nazism Stalinism, although mortally opposed, were in practice merely different shades of the same brutal, totalitarianism, attempting to build utopia out of a mountain of skulls, and failing at the cost of tens of millions of lives.

In terms of the current Right/Left dichotomy, there is little to practically separate an actual "Alt Right" White Supremacist from an actual violent Anarcho Communist. Both espouse violence in favor of debate, forgo personal responsibility in all areas of life except in the practice of extreme ideology, and squarely place the blame for perceived ills on others, not to mention both are fundamentally detached from reality. 

Any addiction, including to ideology is unhealthy. It substitutes fantasy for truth, and destroys the agency of its victim. In the case of ideology, it is the beam in the eye of one trying to remove a speck from the opposition, or in this case the black hood on the one trying to remove the white bed sheet from the other.  Fortunately, vocal minorities in both directions do not generally speak for the majority of people simply more concerned with their day to day lives than media sophistry and rhetorical noise. The ratings though do seem to benefit. 

On the other hand, the hidden deception, far more banal because it passes as virtuous, possesses those claiming a position of faith in opposition to one of the two extremes. In the West, this often means Christians who may perceive themselves as boldly opposing injustice when they decry the rise of Fascism, Communism, Islamism, whatever happens to be readily and obviously worth opposing. Evil must indeed be opposed by the person of faith. It must be named, defined, its victims protected, if need by at the greatest risk to the person of faith. We rightly remember those from the past who have done this as heroes. However, just as ideological extremes mirror each other the farther apart they become, so too does moral outrage become moral panic the more fashionable the object of that initial outrage. 

Both extremism, and moral panic are fundamentally disconnected from the complexity of the world. Both grossly oversimplify day to day existence. Both are evil manipulations of the human tendency for availability bias, and both are far more in keeping with mob behavior than heroic courage. Furthermore, both are fundamentally lacking in introspection. 

For the person of faith, the beam to be removed is the deception that the methods of the City of Man can bring the outcomes of the City of God. It is possible to work to good effect in the City of Man, but using its methods to further the latter will turn in into the former far more surely than the alternative.  Evil must be opposed, and preferably by rules it does not play and cannot beat. Leftist and Rightist extremism are both ridiculous at best and abhorrently sinister at worst. However, using one to combat the other, focusing on one while ignoring the other, or allying with the methods of one to confront the other, no matter how noble on the surface, is nothing short of moral prostitution, and idolatry. We do not look to win the game, but to destroy it. It is not that such idealism seeks too much, but rather too little. 

The methods of the City of God are faith, hope, and love. Forgiveness, reconciliation, compassion, mercy. It is ridiculous to expect these virtues from the City of Man, neither is it its place to exhibit them. The best it can do is equality before its laws. To think otherwise ignores history. The methods of the City of God though are firmly the responsibility, and unique capability of the individual and community of faith. Even in a totalitarian regime, the most important problems to fix are often right next door in the form of those needing shelter.  

In general, if it's easy to condemn, it isn't the deeper problem. Moral courage generally means taking a stand that actually assumes risk. Both ideological extremism and moral panic are hubris fueled mass self deceptions. The real extremism is to put childish utopianism behind us, and seek to change what we have the opportunity to. Perhaps with faith in these smaller works, greater ones will be opened. The homeless alcoholic, teen mother, depressed family member, etc need your help as much as the nebulous masses.  You will sooner see results with such skin in the game.          

Mental Slavery

There is an old adage that being unforgiving is like swallowing poison and expecting it to kill someone else. In truth this is not far off the mark. Not only does grudging anger have no direct effect on someone who offends you, the absence of satisfaction gnaws the psyche on its own. Even if you were to effect revenge, this is as likely to perpetuate a cycle of retaliation that will assure the poison swallowed not only kills you, but everyone around you.

To be unforgiving is to allow another to hold power over you. To harbor resentment, no matter how valid, is to be in mental slavery. As thought becomes intention, and in turn action. The physical reality may become a reflection of this mental state. One becomes constrained to a world defined by anger and resentment, by the actions of someone or something else. The locus of control is outside the self. Such a person is truly enslaved.

Never the less, far from being the sole behavior of uneducated underclasses, unforgiveness, accompanying resentment, and self pity are high fashion and moral orthodoxy in modern western culture. This is a huge mistake, and a bright example of both profound ingratitude, and incredible ignorance of history.

It is true oppression, murder, rape, exploitation, even genocide are a part of modern history. However, any honest individual may as easily look to their own family for examples of the people who carried out these atrocities. They are in no way unique to any culture, time, or place. They must be opposed, but the time for this is in their commission, not during the search for justice long after the fact. On the personal level, forgiveness does not mean allowing one's self to be victimized. Pacifism is incredibly anti-climactic. The only cases we recall were made possible by many supporting actors carrying on the fight and thus providing a stage for pacifism to be heroic. In general, fight back.

And fight back too when doubt, uncertainty, shame, and outright deception lure you into vindictive, unforgiving resentment. Outrage, abuse, and evil are circumstances, not identities. No human is so worthless as to be defined by their victimization. In general, fight back, forgive, and free yourself from mental slavery.

Alternative Thanksgiving

On the surface, it appears the current obsession in the Modern World is evaluating and coming to terms with the past, mostly the shameful parts. This is useful in so much as it is important to cast off the polite fictions we use to convince ourselves of inherent superiority, manifest destiny, or self referential virtue. However, as C. S. Lewis said, "It's not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons, but out of bad archangels."

Looking closer, it becomes more obvious the current obsession is judging the past in terms of the present, and especially taking a biased selection of past events to confirm present narrative.  It's true that much of public education glosses over, or ignores anything other than signal events. We learn that the Pilgrims came to New England, but we don't look at daily life for Native or Euro-Americans.  We learn that the Civil War was about States Rights, specifically the right to own slaves, but we don't hear much in the voice of former slaves, or  drafted Union soldiers, or immigrant New England housewives back home for that matter.  However, all this so called hidden information is actually there if we look.  The issue isn't that it is being suppressed, but that it is being ignored.  The problem isn't that it is dangerous to teach it, but that it is easier to not pay attention, not in favor of some dominant power structure, but simple distraction, at all levels, including those who hold fashionably negative views about the colonial past.  Thus just as manifest destiny and inherent superiority did two centuries ago, narrative masked as justice fills in now.

The reality is this oversimplification of understanding, in-group favoritism as defined by whatever the fashion of the day is, and corresponding rejection of those who are not "in" combined with ignorance of history to justify current bias is nothing new.  The Greeks and Romans, and the Egyptians and Sumerians before them had their iconoclasts, cultural awakenings, and progressive regimes seeking to usher in a utopia, as has every other long lived mass civilization to our present day.  Meanwhile, a glance at history simply confirms this. 

A glance at history also confirms the futility of these efforts.  Even though the arch of progress is positive, the down trends carry away far more lives the higher up it goes.  Just look at the signal events, which are mostly related to wars.  However, we must look past signal events here too to see the whole story. 

The further truth to refute the dangerous notion of inherent superiority is fairly simple for the majority of us to find if we simply look at our own families.  It is a fortunate and possibly non-existent person who, growing up, had no bad experiences, was never disappointed by parents or siblings, does not have an aunt or uncle who is broken in some way, does not have criminals in the extended family to name a few banal examples.  Going farther back, in every culture, in every period in recorded history to include the current one there were rapists, murders, slavers, drunks, prostitutes, war criminals, abusers, womanizers, oppressors, losers, outcasts, slaves, and even sacrificial victims.  Many of these people had children.  It is staggeringly likely that all of us carry the genes of such ancestors, if not in living memory, at some point in our family story.  Jesus certainly did, and they are named in His genealogy. 

We are all, at some point the product of those who have done evil, who have contributed to those down trends in the arch of progress, and certainly from their victims as well.  If we look even closer, we will find we too fall short of any sort of ideal imaginable.  We have all hurt, been hurt, manipulated, been played, and carry scars, regrets, pain and disappointment.  Suffering, though more spectacular for some than others, is a universal human experience, and so is committing evil.  

However, here we are.  Some better off, some homeless alcoholics.  Some freeing the oppressed, some recovering from trauma.  Some trying to mend their wrongs, and some still ignorant of theirs.  We substitute narrative for reality to make sense of it.  To bring purpose to the pain and suffering.  But it is a delusion when it doesn't attempt to take into account as much of reality as it can.  If we aren't careful, we descend into vengeful, petty, self centered, and self imposed suffering.  The alternative is freedom, as no one can compel us to to respond any other way than we will to a circumstance. 

Thus the narrative I substitute for chaotic evil is one of thanks.  It is a powerful narrative because I am the one in control of it.  Though I am the product of suffering, and evil, though I have fallen short of any ideal, both through my own choices and the actions of others, I am thankful, and I have the choice to be thankful.  I am thankful because all these variables have contributed to my life, and to my current moment.  These inputs have given emergent rise to non-linear potential.  Potential that every human life shares in its basic substance, even the homeless alcoholics.  Even you. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

   

Service

In an ideal world, there would be no need of a day to celebrate those who served, fought, and died in wars past and present. In an ideal world there would be no occasion for the mistake and resulting tragedy war always is. There would not be such extremes that allow for such brutality. As is evident, this is not an ideal world. However, beyond surface hero worship, which is more aimed at manipulating consumer sentiments than honoring veterans, the deeper meanings resonate strongly. 

We joined for various reasons. Some more noble than others. Most served honorably, and a few did not. None the less, we are are here now. In the greater scheme of things, we went to war for various reasons. Sometimes for survival, and sometimes for hubris, but always because there were failures, a few months, a few years, a few centuries up stream which lead to violent resolution at the expense of those present, and those who later must resolve yet more unsolved problems with blood, both their own, and of innocents bystander. War indeed may be just or unjust, and may even be unavoidable, but it is always a mistake if its causes are traced far enough back. 

Even the most necessary justice is tragic. Even the greatest good can be tragic when brought into a world twisted enough to snap even when graced by the kindest compassion. Even the birth of Jesus himself resulted in Herod killing the male children of Judea. The ideal world does not exist. Rather, it is uncertainty, fear, and suffering we are subjected to. However, it may also be faith, hope, and love we turn to for light in the darkness. To do so, you must be in a position to do so. You must be challenged. You must have skin in the game. 

There are many paths to personal risk and unselfish sacrifice. Military service is one of the most visible and most extreme, thus it is appropriate to honor those who did and continue to serve. However, the path to bringing order out of chaos lays open to anyone willing to do so, starting with the things closest to them. Rather than simply raging against systemic injustice, strike up a conversation with the homeless alcoholic on your street corner. Rather than simply decrying oppression, support and encourage those around you suffering it. Rather than just pointing out what is wrong, fix it to the best of your abilities, and thank a veteran or two for risking to do the same. 

The Divine Artist Is Always Creating

One is not defined by perfection. Nothing is in its ideal form. To reduce something to the ideal is to freeze it. However, when you arrest something in it's progress in this way, you kill it. The constant of reality is movement. 

In the beginning the world was formless and void. The creation story is about the Creator bringing form, and thus purpose to this void. To observe the follow on stories with any amount of honesty is to see this process of bringing order from chaos and meaning out of the void is continued in various and complex permutations. Thus no single instant can be reduced to anything other than the part it plays in the whole. 

This is not to say there is no right or wrong. There are in fact things that bring life and things that do not bring life, and to assume otherwise is to be as equally imperceptive as reading the scripture without recognizing the constancy of both change and the creative process of the Father. 

However, we come at this life giving impulse from a meta perspective, and in a transformational way especially when we forgive in the instant what transgressed us, as it too can be redeemed. This forgiveness must also be applied to the self. We can indeed by grace transcend that which once bound us. 

We choose to participate accepting that things are more than the sum of their parts. In faith I accept and choose to participate with the Creator because I believe the Divine Artist is still creating. 

Superstition

It is common in conservative circles to long for a return to the "golden days".  It is also common among progressives to put great faith in a future where the arch of history trends towards justice (that is if evil conservatives don't destroy everything before we get there).  Now, even in Socrates' time there were those who envisioned a return to the good old days, just as there were iconoclasts preaching faith in humanity and a coming age of peace on earth if only they were in charge.

The same strains keep coming up throughout history. However, perhaps the most insidious one, and especially so because it crosses ideologies, is the concept, conscious or otherwise, that we are somehow different, and superior now than before. Of course with the passage of time the civilization has accumulated great knowledge and achievements. We have an infinity of information at arm's reach through whatever you are reading this on. We live longer, go more places, have more experiences than at any other time in human history. However, the hubris of modernity has blinded us to the reality that as the island of our knowledge expands, so too does the coastline of the unknown.

We are drunk on information, and yet malnourished of understanding, and even surrounded with greater security and opportunity than ever before, we are fearful.  And so we prove we are not in fact much more advanced than nomadic ancestors by doing what humans have always done, which is to fall for superstition. 

We laugh at the idea of thinking we have to sacrifice woodland creatures to appease some maleficent deity, and we cringe at the thought of sacrificing a child to the same, and yet with superficial cosmetic changes, many still do both. 

Superstition is the dark side of pattern matching, the process of identifying cause and effect relationships. The problem arises when we deceive ourselves into such a relationship were there never was one, and yet so fearful of the unknown, do everything we can to manipulate a system that never existed in the first place. It used to look like the above example of the sacrificial woodland creature, or virgin, first born, etc. Now it looks like aborting a child because a test shows a possibility for genetic defects. The rationalization is that your are saving a unborn fetes from a life of suffering. When considering the fact, that, a) everyone suffers, and b) a "defect" has been the catalyst for some of the most transformational characters in history, and c) that the child doesn't have a context for viewing their life as suffering to begin with, it becomes obvious the original motive is nothing but a superstitious rationalization for the real motive, which that the parent doesn't want to suffer the unknown of caring for a disabled child.

This is a dramatic example, but this is found in banal forms everywhere. The self esteem craze I grew up with posited that high self esteem lead to high achievement. Many of us grew up being told we could do anything, be anything, deserved everything. Predictably, when we found out this wasn't true, many simple blamed everyone but themselves for being in a predicament as old as the species. You often have to earn your way to something you desire. In essence, the self esteem obsession was a superstitious belief that put the effect ahead of the cause, and trained a lot of people to be entitled asshats, a condition that is going to take some time and possibly a major drop in the standard of living, to give voice and action to the valorous ideals we, so many of us, hold deep in our hearts and minds. 

Take political correctness for example. We like to think we have moved beyond the Inquisition because we aren't heretics at the stake, and this is certainly an improvement. However, when something you said a decade plus before it was considered offensive can still destroy your reputation, we have an unbalanced morality.  Look close enough and we have all failed to a degree in the ways we most punish others. When group identity, which never takes into account actual complexity, like that the group itself is a construct, is more important than the choices and character of the individual, we are simply returning to the spiritual trailer park of codependency and group solidarity being more important than right or wrong.  

The only way out of this cave of shadows into the daylight of reality is honesty. Brutal self examination. Actually telling it like it is. Honesty is a blunt force weapon. And it is pain that will enlighten us. 

A Few Nights In Bangkok

Walking the streets of a metropolis. It could be anywhere in the world. This time it's in Southeast Asia. It was The City of Angeles to be specific. For me, the mystique of the exotic, other, different has long since worn off. It could be Los Angeles at this point. It could be anywhere because I am struck now by the visceral understanding of what I have intellectually known for some time. Strip away birth place, opportunity, privilege, life experience, a few few good choices and a few bad, and there is not that much different between anyone, from the street beggar dangling a bit of rice to draw a rat out of its hole to the frat boy chugging a nati light at whatever elite institution. They are both filling a void. There isn't that much different between the Hi So socialite speeding down the way in whatever European Sports Car, and the street prophet in San Francisco preaching of the end times. They both live for the spotlight. Even when survival is at stake, we seek meaning above all else.

Then there are the harder workers too. The prostitutes, many supporting their children. It seems most people anywhere will do anything for their children. Then there are the street children themselves, capable of sophistication and manipulation that would make a politician blush. Never assume youth means lack of intelligence. There are savants in every slum in the world, as surely as there are child prodigies getting into elite institutions.

There are the street walkers, the poorer country refugees, bar girls/boys, the tourists for sex and to discover themselves. The homeless, the well off. The men and women doing hard work to bring a better future. The men and women chasing away the pain, and those just floating through. 

I walk on by observing everything, and trying to admire nothing. And then I hear it, and in the way it always comes as a small enough voice, but one that I imagine echos across eternity. "I am here. I am love. This is my world, and you may say this is my Father's world". And just like that, the visceral understanding hits. 

Strip away cultural biases, historical context, language, upbringing, experience, everything else that differentiates, and there it is. Everyone from the street hooker, homeless drug addict, single mother, gang member, government official, religious leader, academic, CEO, etc, we are all made in the image of the Creator. Everyone you meet is made in the image of Creator, including you. 

Now consider that same Creator never left. That Creator was our Father and our Mother. That Creator made a point of entering the world as creation. That Creator had skin in the game. That creator died. 

And He is Risen

The Real War On Christmas, And Everything Else

It is at this time of the year that we hear talk from some corners that there is a "war on Christmas".  The enemy offensives range from failure to make the appropriate greeting to the decoration of chain store coffee cups. Needless to say, these charges are absurd on their face.  However, the one truth in this emotional mess, which is really just a triangulation away from the fact that those making the charges have long since forgotten what they believe, is that there is indeed a perversion of something at work. The nature of that perversion, as we will see, is much older than it seems, but also made new for the post-modern era.

Strictly speaking, the vary holiday itself is a perversion of the much older observance of the rebirth of the sun, something quite important when sunlight directly effects your food supply, as well as your biology. It is no wonder it was venerated as a god. Things that have power over us are always and have always been objects of worship. It has only been in the recent past that we have ignored this through our acceptance of materialistic explanations for reality, which, although useful for solving problems, fail to answer the questions belief in the supernatural actually did. One can explain the how of the mechanism of birth, life, and death, as well as the mechanics of the rest of the natural world materialistically. That does not answer the why. It has been the case for all of recorded history that we have felt there needed to be a why. Art, culture, war, lust, anger, love, our greatest atrocities and our greatest good come from how we answer the why. 

It is a fact that the ability of the human brain to perceive time has made us aware of our own coming death. In light of this knowledge, how else are we to function but by finding meaning?  The traditional answer to the question of meaning has always been  to find it outside of the self. That is why people have always believed in gods, but it is also why we believe in heroes, and why we inflate our own egos to cover our inability to live up to our deepest wishes. Materialism did not solve this problem. If anything, it gave us an excuse to be ignorant of ourselves, by forgetting why we believed in the gods in the first place, and forgetting that, no mater how much we deny it, we all want to know why. We answer it now subconsciously and in so doing allow for our attempts to be perverted. 

The problem now is the perversion, which this little "war" is but one small aspect. The issue with the gods is we did not kill them. They never died, and never left us no matter how much we ignored them, and they continue to demand sacrifice.  What is our mass consumption of things we do not need and that, the production of which both enslaves people producing it and damages our very planet, but a blood sacrifice? The banality of evil is an economy of scale and we are all part of it, which is what makes it banal. To use another example from current events, many ancient societies practiced infanticide. Now consider that the majority of those making the choice to abort do so, both out of lack of other economical choices, and out of anxiety for the future. What is this, but a sacrifice of the weak and of the future unto certain comfort now? This was always the basis for child sacrifice in the ancient world. Yet another example. What is rape culture, but an attempt to demonstrate dominance and validate meaning? You think this started with the modern world? Near universal child abuse is well documented in pre-modern societies, and it has nothing to do with patriarchy. The goddesses had their temple prostitutes also. Do you really think they were all willing victims? 

The point is, ignoring the darkness doesn't make it go away. In fact it allows it to proliferate beyond anything we thought possible before. Meanwhile, how could all the gods be bad? But we have ignored the good ones as assuredly as we have ignored the evil. It does not mean they do not get their way also, but doing good requires participation and devotion. Evil simply requires complacency. This is because the natural progression of all things is to chaos and destruction, and then rebirth. That is one of the reasons why the ancients took the changing of the season so seriously. It is an  example of rebirth. But what does participation and devotion look like? Simply put, the dark gods do now, as they ever have, demand sacrifice of the weak, and of the future unto certainty now. The good ones demand sacrifice of yourself unto yourself, and unto the world, both for your own freedom and the good of all the world. 

It is the the case the the natural order of things eventually trends toward justice. However, it is the work of wisdom and courage who the ancients named Athena, to shorten the distance between here and justice. It is the work of those who wish to see this final outcome to be comforted by that same wisdom and courage and to continue in the face of the darkness. 

There Is No "Never Again".

Everyone has fighting in their blood. This isn't some mystical statement. It is a historical and biological fact. If we didn't, our ancestors would have died out and we would not now be here. We all descended in a way from warriors. The vast majority of human history and prehistory is chaotic, violent, and dangerous. It is true that we are a social species capable of great cooperation, as well as great sacrifice. However, we are, and have always been predatory. It is important to remember this observations as it can inform much of our perception of current times, in which it is increasingly in vogue to hold any allusion to violence as both taboo and glamorized like Victorian notions of sex. 

The idea that we can make love not war misses several critical steps between where we are now and this dreamed of utopia, such as the wills of everyone else who shares the same planet. Thucydides said that all war is ultimately the result of fear, honor, and interest. He may have added that it is in fact the perception of these that underpins the majority of human conflict. Most violence comes down to misunderstanding, lack of judgment, and miscalculation, and, contrary to those who believe in an impending singularity to save us from ourselves, we are more connected than ever, and yet understand each other less than ever. It is for this reason, as well as the empirical evidence of continued and increasing conflict throughout the world which leads me to conclude that whether it be due to misunderstanding or not, we are not becoming more peaceful. 

However, at the same time that most violence is underpinned by misunderstanding, as Sun Tzu said, victory goes to he who has deeper understanding of himself, the environment, and the enemy. The ancients claimed that wisdom held the world together, and there is a reason Athena was the goddess of both war and wisdom. Misunderstanding aside, what we must realize, and what those dreaming on of a utopia do not, is that once a fight has started, it must soon be ended, and on terms favorable to the greater good. Surrender does not satisfy this requirement. 

And so it falls to those of us willing to be the current generation's incarnation of the warriors who made our existence today possible to step forward and endure the sacrifice, pain, suffering, and death to end the fight. It is unfortunate that just as we understand each other less than ever, we fail to understand those who fight even less so, and that we repress this facet of existence even more than Victorian sexuality. At the same time and contrary to popular belief, there is no never again. So long as people dream of an impossible utopia, conflict remains all the more possible. 

South Park And Complex Problems

To every complex problem, there is a complex solution. This is to say that anyone saying that we need a common sense answer to nearly anything we face doesn't actually know what they are talking about. And yet, with our fruit fly attention span, we are ever ready to throw our support behind someone offering to let us forget our responsibility for self discipline, avoid harsh realities, and fall into a delusion of a golden path to utopia.

Take poverty for example. Any number of solutions to poverty can be proposed, from taxing the 1% who ostensibly horded all the wealth, thus creating poverty, to increasing social services to those in poverty with no clear path to actually getting them out of said poverty, but only keeping them on life support. Compassionate provisions for the the lowest members of society ensures we do not lose our soul. Likewise, expecting those with the most to also give the most is only in keeping with our notions of civic virtue. However, the simplistic theorizing of the application of these notions is akin to the South Park underpants gnome get rich quick scheme.



Needless to say, some important detail is missing.

We don't live in a simple world. We cannot will or ignore this important fact away. There is no perfect system and the reason we elect, employ, and allow people to run our political, economic, and social systems is because all these things require constant management and supervision. At the same time, we still cannot shake the messianic delusion of a clear path to utopia.

Complicate this with the understanding that for nearly all complex problems, there is no perfect complex solution, but only gradient of worse and less worse. Tax the 1% into oblivion and see in the same instant all major economic activity move somewhere else, but tax reasonably, and you will find there are loopholes the law didn't even know about. Likewise, as long as welfare is more profitable than minimum wage, you can figure out what the most economic solution is. Raise minimum wage and you will see that there are a lot more minimum wage workers allowed to work a lot less. But create more higher than minimum wage jobs, and see just how far reaching from environmental policy, to education, to urban zoning, to law enforcement, such a feat must be to be supportable.

There are many details to complex solutions. However, the first and most important is action down to the lowest level. This is the 1st civic virtue and one we blatantly ignore when we expect someone else to fix our problems. Rather than waiting for some policy to be voted on and executed to deal with the homeless man on the side walk, go by lunch for him yourself, and you will profit far more than these guys.

Paradoxical Illusion

Viktor Frankl once said suffering ceases to be suffering when it has a meaning. Meanwhile, we worry about the slightest bit of discomfort in our children for fear it could damage their self esteem. We take offence at the slightest notice of something tangentially relating to identity, and we construct a notional agenda of oppression being propagated by the dominant culture against the masses to justify this offence.

At the same time, the slightest bit of suffering, just like CS gas, manages to fill the entire void of our existence even though we have established the meaning of our existence to be the avoidance of suffering. We rage against the dominant culture, the 1%, the patriarchy, the ignorant, the right wing, the left wing, etc, because of the assumed agenda of oppression that is supposedly being consciously propagated like the reptilian conspiracy, the Illuminati, whatever flavor of tin foil hat wearing nonsense you are most amused by.

I propose that rather than a shadowy agenda, as always we need look no farther than ourselves for both the cause of and the solution to our sufferings.

We are attempting to transcend ourselves and in so doing transcend our own mortality by creating a Utopian equitable society. We are stifling all meaningful discourse and respect for opposing view points along the way to this pipe dream. The paradox of pursuing a Utopia is that you must run a police state to get there. And yet this delusion is somehow favorable enough for much of our public sentiment to conform to it.

The search for meaning to transcend our own mortality is the central drive of all humanity. We are apes that are aware of the universe and this paradox of the infinite and the certain and ever approaching mortality of us all is simply too much to tolerate without delusions. This drive is even more central than basic biological needs. Those address immediate survival, whereas the search for meaning is a question of our ultimate immortality.

The Opposite Of Political Correctness

For those of you who watched the recent fox news broadcast of the first ever debate between the Republican hopefuls for President of the United States, you may have noticed that Donald Trump, as expected, acted like himself.

I have limited patience for his positions, and do not intend to defend them here. However, it is noteworthy the extent to which he has, in a short time, generated considerable support simply because he is himself. The absurdity of his proposed positions does not seem to shake the majority of his supporters who I strongly believe do not support him so much for his proposed policy as for his seeming lack of ability to behave like a decent human being in front of an audience.

This signals confidence, decisiveness, and even clarity of thought. All these attributes are markedly lacking from postmodern society. They are also high human virtues that we are deeply attracted to, and for some of us this is regardless of content, as Mr. Trump has demonstrated.

We easily assume that Donald Trump is the opposite of political correctness from the opinions he shares regardless of if anyone asked for them or not, and it is easy to say he is as successful as he has been to this point because of his disregard for political correctness.

However, I challenge this position to ask who defines PC. It is often assumed that PC is a virtue of the left wing. It certainly is, but it is also of any point along the political spectrum that forgoes critical thought in favor of prepackaged platforms and rehearsed outrage at whatever is assumed to be destroying society. Outrage at the state of immigration, debt, foreign policy as apposed to income inequality, gender inequality, opportunity inequality, or anything held dear by the left wing is nothing more than what is PC for the point on the political spectrum from whence the position arises.

And increasingly, anyone who holds to any particular form of political correctness is causing flashes through my conscious of this character

and his supporters.

The actual non-PC path is to apply critical thought to the aspects of your own world view so that you have content worth raging for to begin with. Everyone may have an opinion. However, only those who understand theirs are entitled to one.

To take a your non-PC path into reality, you must exercise the above mentioned virtues of confidence, decisiveness, and clarity of thought, or to simplify, you must exercise both wisdom and courage, the true opposites of political correctness, and which I argue the majority of our problems stem from a lack of.

Postmodern society does not require more mass followers. It requires more individual leaders willing and capable of wisdom and courage. This does not require your candidate to win, or your position to be validated. It rather requires you to actually do something. Individuals remain the greatest potential black swans in existence.

Straining Out Lions And Swallowing Genocides

The death of the large, aggressive cat known as Cecil the Lion and the accompanying outrage highlights the profound depths of postmodern ignorance towards the true conditions in much of the world.





It does not help mass hysteria that the cat's killer fits the stereotype for the postmodern evil hiding under the bed. Rich, affluent, white, male. However, the point of this commentary is not to defend him, as there is little to be defended on further examination of his record. It is all about attacking the disproportional reaction. Needless death and killing, regardless of the species, is unfortunate and to be avoided. At the same time, fixating on the death of a cat, in the midst of massive corruption, oppression, human suffering, and in fact, the death of several other protected creatures, is the highest form of collective ignorance yet demonstrated.

To begin, the cat was killed in Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes, for whom the cat in question is also the namesake. Many still remember, if vaguely, what Nelson Mandela sacrificed for. In summery, Rhodesia was the metaphorical alcoholic, degenerate younger brother to South Africa in every way. The people of European decent upholding institutionalized oppression and backwardness were exchanged for Robert Mugabe and his inner circle when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe after a brutal civil war in 1980. Not much has improved since, as Robert Mugabe is still in power, the economy of the country has been destroyed, and a human rights record that is unquestionably bad continues to be added to.

Furthermore, the region including and surrounding Zimbabwe, among other things, has HIV infection rates approaching 30% in some places; one of the highest rates of malaria infection and death in the world; considerable water born illness resulting in one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world; a lack of government services in much of the area or simply corrupt government, resulting in under employment, under education, and questionable to non-existent law enforcement and public security. This is only Southern Africa. Go farther north and you will find the largest and least reported genocide in the world in the DRC, which no amount of UN observation seems to be effective in stopping. Go even farther north and you will find the world's youngest country reeling from its own genocide and on the verge of yet more war in South Sudan. These are only a few cases. There are many more besides if anyone would care to look.

But what makes headlines and serves as fodder for more viral posts? The killing of a big cat. What garners over 140 thousand signatures thus requiring the US Government to take it under consideration? Extradition of the cat's killer to Zimbabwe to face charges by the same people who have eaten their share of exotic animals, not to mention the future of their country.

There is nothing wrong with demanding an end to useless killing of any sort. However, it is ignorant and banally evil to fixate on this while not even paying attention to the far greater evil.

Black lives matter far more than lions.

Banality Kills

A shark attack is extraordinary, as is being stuck by lightning, contracting Ebola, and even being killed in a mass shooting. Extraordinary cases draw mass attention like fresh blood draws flies. The main difference is the attention is not nearly as nourishing for the masses as the blood is for the flies. 

Meanwhile, some drunk driver just ran into a family on the sidewalk. It only makes the local news. A cancer patient lit up his last smoke on his death bed. No one noticed. A homeless person passed away from alcohol poisoning over night. The EMTs picking him up were the only ones to marginally care. Life expectancy is longer than it has ever been and still over half the national population is too fat to enjoy it, and they are dying. We are all dying. Many in extremely preventable ways. Many, many more in the ordinary ways than the extraordinary that captures mass attention and focuses national "dialogue".

It is the equivalent of straining out gnats and swallowing camels. We die in mass numbers from heart failure, but panic at the thought of an unloaded assault rifle. We continue to go to fast food chains as if it were no issue, and at the same time express concern over the need for "common sense" gun laws. We don't get vaccinated for the flue, which kills far more people than the public pays attention to, and demand the borders be shut down at the thought of Ebola slithering across public streets. 

We even say things to the effect of gay marriage will destroy the foundation of modern society, while not considering the absurdly high and climbing heterosexual divorce rate not at all correlated to equality laws. 

We critique the speck in our neighbor's eye, and forget the plank in our own. We consider the small, while the banal kills us. 

You Can Choose Your Identity

As the essence of the enlightenment was the subservience of faith to rational thought, so the essence of the postmodern world is the subservience of rational thought to identity. 

We are very near coming full circle into something about the same as believing thunder is caused by an angry god, and that belief going unchecked lest it be an oppression to inform someone something other than what their identity demands. 

We are even now approaching a structure similar to that which demanded the excommunication of scholars because they proposed the earth rotated around the sun because this was against the correct beliefs of the day. 

We are coming to a point that, in the interests of not offending anyone, the only reasonable solution is complete segregation of everyone from everyone, lest someone commit the offence of cultural appropriation. 

Now let me ask, is this really the world you want to live in?

Rather than the circular banter approaching the absurdity of monkeys in a cage panicking over a picture of a snake that is in fact the logical conclusion to the postmodern politically correct ethic, look up from the PC viral post you may be about to make, or at least just look up. Walk outside. Notice that there are homeless people on the sidewalk. Now ask, what is more important, words leading to irrational non-action for fear of being seen as oppressive, or actions requiring no words to alleviate oppression. You really don't have to go far to find the real thing. 

Most main streets and back allies in Urban America will lead you rite to it. Most rural farms worked by low/no wage workers will show the same thing. Most of the rest of the world experiences it as a daily norm. Most people don't have to think about it, much like some say privilege is. 

The struggle of our times does not have to be over sanitizing that which is not real, but rather over jumping into the reality that is not sanitary and doing something about it. 

Self serving ignorance of the chaos around us is neither satisfying nor practical in the long term, not for the single individual that even faintly aspires to do that which is the essence of humanity, and that is to care. 

The Pornoization Of Social Justice

Privilege. Consider yours. Some have more, and some have less. However, few who talk about it are without it.

The simple act of being able to talk about privilege indicates the absence of the pressing need to deal with your lack of it, which is of itself a privilege. Worrying about your next meal, medical expenses for your children, your legal status in the state you reside in, etc, tends to tax ones time and emotional resources to the point where the question of privilege is not as important as the urgency of survival. It is from thence that I do stipulate that those who are talking about privilege, in whatever context, are in a position to consider their position rather than worry about survival.

This is not to say there is not a spectrum of privilege along which its belligerents fall and certainly not to say that the majority who experience it who are equally unaware are excused from this discussion. It is simply to say that that spectrum is 50 shades of shit compared to the immediacy of suffering for those unaware and unable to discuss the concept, and because the suffering is immediate, the discussion is wasted if it detracts from addressing what is actually going on.

In fact, it is so wasted that it serves no purpose at all apart from the self gratification of those discussing it. This is strikingly similar to the pass time of so many that also serves no purpose apart from self gratification. Discussion of privilege is masturbation, and continuing to be drawn in to the tempting viral repost fodder of some examination of privilege that stands in for real discussion of social justice is nothing more than the pornoization of the same.

Identifying and deconstructing privilege, and discrediting other people's opinions based on privilege is about as helpful to granting civil rights to those denied them as watching porn is to actually getting laid. People in West Oakland, South Central LA, any number of other urban centers, and even the rural south do not need middle to upper class people, regardless of the lack of privilege from whence they came, engaged in debates about and guilt over privilege. They need higher paying jobs, not higher minimum wage. They need access to education, not more welfare. They need security in the form of equal access to government services, not just greater and increasingly less competent police presence.

Discussing inequality from the comfort of one's own intellectual bedroom, no matter how layered with faux sensitivity, is nothing compared to going out to the club, bar, gym......church, wherever one makes amorous pursuits, of current and immediate human suffering that does not have time to stop and consider how it got to be this way. 



Such discussions are a distraction. Furthermore, they ultimately resolve to nothing more than an anticlimactic encouragement to be aware of such privilege, or, much like masturbation, a sense of guilt in the same. 

Towards A More Perfect Union

I talk much about chaos, irrational fears, and our cultural habit of straining out the gnats of petty offenses only to swallow the camels of walking past the homeless alcoholic on the sidewalk as we virally repost some PC meme about social justice on our smart phones made with rare earths extracted at the point of an AK-47. 

However, amidst all the noise of our postmodern world, there is one signal that resonates even in the collective gnat straining and camel swallowing. No matter how absurd our opinions are, how damaging they may be to the long term understanding of the issues we encounter, and how uninformed they are, we are free to publicly hold them.

There is some well founded fear at the character assassination that often comes from holding a non-PC or just plain ignorant opinion in public. At the same time, we do not, in general, fear having our front door kicked down in the middle of the night soon to be followed by us being dragged from our house and shot in a back alley. This is a very real consideration for many people in the world right now. It has been for some time, and it is likely to continue to be so. 

The very real and very serious evils committed under our national flag and in the national interest, or at least with our consent, though they are not to be forgotten lest they be repeated, do not detract from that which has lifted us to the level of only global super power standing. The foundation of our success, and the reason we are looked to, even grudgingly by some, as the most radiant light in a very dark world is because we have taken the notion of personal freedom and opportunity to a level not seen thus far at such scale. We are where we are because some have taken the opportunity and been the change they wanted to see. 

 

Though we rage against the machine we live in, the oil that lubricates its gears is this same freedom. For this reason, though there is much to be desired yet, there is indeed reason to hope, and not only to hope but to act because that which is left to be desired is opportunity for the individual to change the darkness into light.

It is said that freedom is not free. The true price of it though that all shoulder regardless of the sacrifices they have or have not made is the responsibility to now take that freedom as licence to act for the greater good. 

There will always be a machine to rage against. Likewise, there will always be someone in need close by if you so much as pay attention. The deference between the two is that you can most certainly effect that one in need close by for the good whereas the machine will likely require a bit more rage for a bit more time.

 

Thus, in the year of our Lord, 2015, and in the independence of the United States of America, the 240th, take the opportunity that freedom grants and be the change your wish to see in the world. 

It is through such collective actions of the individual more so than any sweeping policy that we shall indeed move towards a more perfect union. 

It is very easy to judge someone for a horrible act that you could never imagine yourself committing. It is also very easy to fear extreme and unlikely events like shark attacks, and terrorist acts much more than it is to consider the more likely and common dangers that claim many more lives like driving a car. However, just as we fail to evaluate risk for what it is, we also fail to recognize that evil is far more commonplace than headline making horrors like school shootings and pedophile rings. 

You don't need to know about the resent revelation of the largest child port ring in history, or the ongoing starvation and slaughter of civilians in Syria by all sides of the conflict to know about evil. You don't even need to be aware of the large portion of the world that worries about getting food and clean water every day. 

You also don't need to have taken part in causing these things to be guilty of evil. 

Many often look at such horror and ask why. One could just as easily look out the window and ask the same if they knew what they were looking at. This is because, as always, that which goes unnoticed can and often does lurk under the surface like some Leviathan. Ignorance is not bliss and that which you do no know can indeed kill you. The evil comes from these things doing so to others. 

Consider the clothes you wear. Now consider that the majority of the cotton used in the garment industry comes from Central Asia and is produced by what is essentially slave labor. Now consider that the agricultural practices employed to produce it have irreversibly destroyed the environment of the region and will continue to do so. This sort of thing doesn't go on the labels.

Consider the technology we use (I’m using a MacBook Air to write this). Not only the manufacture of the final products, but the procurement of the materials is extremely exploitative to the people involved. It’s easy to decry the ongoing wars in Central Africa. Not so easy to admit they are fought for resources that go into the technology your lifestyle is dependent on. 

Consider that 1 in 5 American women reports sexual assault at some point. Now consider that that number is much lower than the actual number of sexual assaults. Men in the audience, ask yourselves some hard questions about your past and current relationships and consider the possibility that you may be a part of this. 

These are only a few examples. The are sensational, which draws the attention. However, the key  thing to remember is that all events have other events that lead to them. Nothing happens in isolation. To this end, complicity is as much of a contributing factor to evil as is the act itself because it sets the conditions for it to actually happen. 

We are all guilty of complicity to one extent or another and thus all guilty of evil to one extent or another. Thus the question that will ultimately arise is so what? Another less damaging, but ultimately ineffective response is to blow up the issue into some major metaphysical-existential crisis. Workers rights. Global poverty. The 1%. This is all nothing more than hope soon to be swept away for lack of a path to reach it. As lofty and noble as such thoughts are, they are nothing more than good intentions, and few things have caused as much harm as good intentions. 

Rather the answer, as always, is to actually do something right now. Rather than making the problem so large that it is either non-confrontable, or comfortably ignorable, look out the window. See what is going on right now. See reality for what it is. Have lunch with the homeless alcoholic. Ask the hard questions of those you are close to. Make decreasing the suffering of others a habit rather than voting for someone who states it as a campaign goal. 

If evil is banal, so too can be its opposite. 

It is very easy to judge someone for a horrible act that you could never imagine yourself committing. It is also very easy to fear extreme and unlikely events like shark attacks, and terrorist acts much more than it is to consider the more likely and common dangers that claim many more lives like driving a car. However, just as we fail to evaluate risk for what it is, we also fail to recognize that evil is far more commonplace than headline making horrors like school shootings and pedophile rings. 

You don't need to know about the resent revelation of the largest child port ring in history, or the ongoing starvation and slaughter of civilians in Syria by all sides of the conflict to know about evil. You don't even need to be aware of the large portion of the world that worries about getting food and clean water every day. 

You also don't need to have taken part in causing these things to be guilty of evil. 

Many often look at such horror and ask why. One could just as easily look out the window and ask the same if they knew what they were looking at. This is because, as always, that which goes unnoticed can and often does lurk under the surface like some Leviathan. Ignorance is not bliss and that which you do no know can indeed kill you. The evil comes from these things doing so to others. 

Consider the clothes you wear. Now consider that the majority of the cotton used in the garment industry comes from Central Asia and is produced by what is essentially slave labor. Now consider that the agricultural practices employed to produce it have irreversibly destroyed the environment of the region and will continue to do so. This sort of thing doesn't go on the labels.

Consider the technology we use (I’m using a MacBook Air to write this). Not only the manufacture of the final products, but the procurement of the materials is extremely exploitative to the people involved. It’s easy to decry the ongoing wars in Central Africa. Not so easy to admit they are fought for resources that go into the technology your lifestyle is dependent on. 

Consider that 1 in 5 American women reports sexual assault at some point. Now consider that that number is much lower than the actual number of sexual assaults. Men in the audience, ask yourselves some hard questions about your past and current relationships and consider the possibility that you may be a part of this. 

These are only a few examples. The are sensational, which draws the attention. However, the key  thing to remember is that all events have other events that lead to them. Nothing happens in isolation. To this end, complicity is as much of a contributing factor to evil as is the act itself because it sets the conditions for it to actually happen. 

We are all guilty of complicity to one extent or another and thus all guilty of evil to one extent or another. Thus the question that will ultimately arise is so what? Another less damaging, but ultimately ineffective response is to blow up the issue into some major metaphysical-existential crisis. Workers rights. Global poverty. The 1%. This is all nothing more than hope soon to be swept away for lack of a path to reach it. As lofty and noble as such thoughts are, they are nothing more than good intentions, and few things have caused as much harm as good intentions. 

Rather the answer, as always, is to actually do something right now. Rather than making the problem so large that it is either non-confrontable, or comfortably ignorable, look out the window. See what is going on right now. See reality for what it is. Have lunch with the homeless alcoholic. Ask the hard questions of those you are close to. Make decreasing the suffering of others a habit rather than voting for someone who states it as a campaign goal. 

If evil is banal, so too can be its opposite. 

Mediocrity Does Not Lead To Valhalla

It is a tail as old as time, the effort to establish some semblance of a Utopian society. In the same way, it is just as old a belief that there were such a thing as the good old days.
In a liberal democracy that no longer engenders actual awareness in its citizens, the natural trend toward policy becoming nothing more than the sum of all special interests leads predictably to frustration at the ends of the political spectrum. This frustration provides a convenient rallying point for those demanding "change", or declaring "not my government", and "this will cause our society to crumble". The demand for progress and the longing for the good old days both fail to seize the present moment. Instead, in the vacuum we have whatever chaotic wind suits the fancy of the listener based of of what social leaning they allow to inform their life choices.

Humans in a group, not ever wanting to be seen to be outside of the group, now have the easy option of the viral repost to demonstrate their activism for or against whatever cause is trending today. Just remember, it is always easier to be braver from behind a computer screen than in public. It's always easier to go the distance when there are no lasting consequences apart from infuriating the appropriate group, or being validated for being in tune with the progressive agenda.


Something else people in groups tend to lack ability in is recognizing scale. The small becomes very large. What is in fact negligible as a threat becomes life and death. I remember the Anthrax scares. People calling in mold in the fruit bowl as if someone had dumped infectious powder in their homes. In the same way, we make small grievances into life and death final stands for all that we deem right. The term micro aggression comes to mind. Pay attention to the date stamp on this post, future readers. Go back in the history books and don't fall pray to the trending belief that history is actually subjective to the beholder. What happened last week was not a micro aggression. It was an evil crime. And forgiveness on the part of those aggrieved is the strongest and surest way to correcting this evil.

And yet, out of the woodwork we have those saying that to expect forgiveness is demeaning, and that it is even not appropriate anymore, as if the rules of the universe have been rewritten for the postmodern age. And what of what happened yesterday? Legal equality for an institution that is, in its essence, an institution of the law, and yet there are those who say this is the end of our way of life and will destroy the very foundations of our great society. Little do they seem to grasp that there will be more heterosexual divorces this year than there are ever likely to be gay marriages.

It is true that that there are those in the society who hate. There always have been and there likely always will be. They are to be dealt with accordingly. However, hate in the apposing positions of the mass society is not what we are now facing, thus making the evil, as most great evils are, banal enough to creep everywhere it pleases unopposed. To call any of this hate is to downplay what hate actually is. Hate requires involvement. It requires commitment. These positions increasingly require neither apart from the ability to agree with whatever your self identified social position instructs you to believe. And believe people will continue to do because it is far simpler and far easier to stand for something that you are told to than it is to find the truth in the noise, appose the norms in the way the truth often requires, and suffer the consequences of valuing the truth more than acceptance. People who have to do nothing but believe will often do fairly extreme things.



The collective adherence to whatever position instructs it creates a troubling group mentality that can be quite savage in its lack of touch with reality.

However, as always, there is hope. But it is best to give up hope in favor of something far more effective. That is to search out the truth, even when it is against the norms. It often is. Seek what is right, and make every effort to shepherd some semblance of sanity and civility into the storm of chaos that increasingly surrounds us.


To do otherwise leads to mediocrity, and mediocrity does not lead to Valhalla.