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.

The Tools Of Ignorance

It is said that you do not have to be the sharpest tool in the tool shed, just a tool, so long as you are a useful tool. 

If this is the case, ignorance is vindicated by all of her children on a daily basis owing to the degrees of distraction the modern world is constantly addicted to. One week we are assailed with images of a woman who used to be a man, and in nearly the same instant exposed to cries of indignation for valor stolen by the same. This, of course, completely ignored the view of the individual put front and center, and whose narrative was so completely coopted by other interests towards no clear end other than more outrage. The next week we are assailed with accusations of someone posing to be an ethnicity she is not. For personal gain none the less, and not that being the above was ever a choice aspired to for personal gain. So much has been lost by so many for being the wrong color. But it is the most recent events that prove the degree of shock and awe required for the shortest period of depth and focus. 

Future readers will be able to look back in history to identify what happened only a few days before this entry was made, and thus I will not go into depth here apart from to say in agreement with anyone else with the slightest bit of reason that we have a problem. 

However, the extent of my agreement will end there. Only a few short days after so much evil waste of life and we are once again throne to the winds of chaos and distraction. We are even now assailed with talk of gun control, and systemic racism. We are told we have a gaping and ignored wound. We are made to believe this is a huge problem, which is no batter now than when we first began. These are indeed signals in the noise, but the constant feedback loop creates only more noise. Gun control, systemic racism, and ingrained hatred are indeed grave problems, but they are so in the same way a high fever is a problem caused by an underlying illness. They are symptoms of a deeper malady, one that has its roots in the same distraction that causes us to flit from one outrage to the other while all the wile never actually paying attention and never actually doing anything. Never really caring beyond a viral repost, or declaration of solidarity that doesn't require walking out the front door. 

Our deeper malady, our underlying medical condition as a society is the glorification and passionate devotion to ignorance. In mass we have become very good tools of ignorance indeed. We love to point to public figures and ridicule them for their absurd religious views, or their dramatic falls from grace, while ignoring the fact that we are the ones who lifted them up in the first place, or at least allowed it to be so. We allow the debate to continue on that more control will lead to less violence, while never backing down from extreme positions that will never be supported. We talk of systemic racism while ignoring what goes on every day and night on the other side of our home towns. We do what feels right rather than what is right. We support emotions rather than reasonable policies. We act out of emotion rather than even creating reasonable policy. We look to the closest relative advantage, rather than considering the great disadvantage in such a short sighted view. We unite is mass outrage against spectacular acts of evil, while never stopping to examine the banal evils we engage in every day. Do you really think that cotton you are wearing is free trade? The children in Uzbekistan who more likely than not picked it would disagree if they knew what free trade was. How about those rare earth components in you iPhone? Where do you think they came from? How about those drugs you insist are your legal and civil right to consume? How many people died as a result of the money you paid for them? What about those girls on the Internet? No one is so open in every sense of the term for no reason. What about the gas in you car? The water in your cup? The food on your table? Do you really think your existence is a victimless crime? 

There are second and third order effects to everything. There are many more shades than black and white. And there are a million and one excuses as to how it got this way and to explain whose fault it really is. 

While there are indeed second and third order effects to everything and there are more shades than black and white, for anyone who truly cares, who will do rather than repost, the only one to blame is you. Grand policy and sweeping legislation may be beneficial, even needed. Nothing though is more required every moment of every day than the involvement of the singe individual for good. 

One does not have to be the sharpest tool, but you do have to walk out the front door to be a tool for good. The objective isn't emotional satisfaction. It is justice.  

Christmas

Good intentions are not the same things as good results. The actual result of something is more important than the form that thing took. Likewise, wisdom is vindicated by all of her children.

The modern world has a way of confusing ultimate and lasting good with what makes you feel good right now. Though there is nothing wrong with immediate pleasure and comfort, the experience is non-benign if divorced from deeper realities. It is this disaggregation of our surface experiences from deeper realities, and subsequent compartmentalization of different aspects of our lives that leads to many of our personal and relational problems.

At the same time, good results must be recognized for what they are. This is all a roundabout way of getting to the point, which is that despite all of the stress, chaos, confusion, and sometimes loneliness, solitude and depression that are a part of this time of year; despite the rampant materialism, political correctness, and loss of perspective as to the original meaning of the season, even if the original meaning was a week of festivities dedicated to the god Cronus, the ultimate result is what matters. 

The preponderance of us are drawn closer to those we love and care about, and are given cause to reflect on that which we consider meaningful. There is joy, there is happiness, even if there is sorrow. 

It is for this last point it is most fitting that some of us celebrate the coming of the Divine in human form on this day. In the midst of pain and suffering, joy and hope, not apart from the darkness, but in the midst of it. The light does indeed shine in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it. It is beyond a name and does not require recognition to be vindicated in all of our actions, for all of our actions that are good find their ultimate source and meaning in It. There is only one circle of love, friendship, happiness, hope, peace, and joy in the Universe. That circle finds its form in what I call the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. It is on this day I remember this circle of all that is good taking on human form in the depths of human suffering and brokenness. 

It is still here. He/She is still here. The Divine came irreversibly into the world over 2000 years ago and remains present in all those who allow It to live through them. It lives through you and I if we allow it it to. That circle of good many of us find ourselves drawn into is a step in the right direction.