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. 

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. 

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.

Making a Difference

I find it important to repeat myself at times. Repetition builds familiarity. Familiarity breads mastery. And it is mastery over specific things we seek to accomplish here. In specific, we seek mastery over the winds and high seas of chaos that threaten ever to detour us all, from mass society, to the single individual, from the light of reason and justice.

The world we currently live in is not getting more peaceful. The looming threat of a localized disease epidemic turning into a generalized pandemic, the rise of an extremist movement that hearkens back to several millennia of human history we would happily forget, and the continuation of inter state politics by other means we now see in our old adversarial area of influence. We have options as to how to deal with this. Succumbing to low grade panic with minimal commitment may be the most readily available method to respond.

On the Other hand, and this is where I repeat myself, forgo debates about policy and the need to blame elected officials for the current conditions we face. Take responsibility as the single individual for the world you live in.

The winds of chaos beat upon us all, but it is ever easy to ignore them via a low grade mass panic when they are far off.

This only masks the banal evils close by. It is not by the might of some overarching government policy that that homeless man on the street corner is going to get someone to treat him like a human being, and it is not by government power (because that has hence to for failed) that that street walker who is probably under the age of 18 is going to get anyone to treat her like anything more than a sex toy at worst and criminal at best.

Rather, as I have said before, do not be a slave to fashion. Do not go along with the popular anxiety of the hour. These only annul us to awareness of what is going on around us all the time.

Lift up modern society and there you will see the underbelly. The real world is not clean, from a distance, or from close by. But what is is is an opportunity for the single individual to change reality for someone more a victim of the world we live in than that individual.

It is for things like this that, if we would allow ourselves to delve into, more meaning and power would be found than 10,000,000 hours spent fearing whatever is the fashion of the day to fear.

Defend the weak. Insist on justice for the downcast, and do not allow fear of the distant to distract you from the work at hand. These are the precepts by which the single individual becomes the agent of change in his/her world. Isn't that what we all wanted to do anyway, make a difference?

How Abusive Relationships, Growing Up, Easter, And Red Dragons Are All Connected.

We in the modern world tend to have a hard time establishing boundaries. This manifests itself in several gradients of deviant behavior, ranging from not being able to take the keys away from your friend who is about to get a DUI, to staying in an abusive relationship way past the time when the significant other stopped caring whether it was your fault, or not, and just started taking advantage to no end.

Learning to make the distinction of where you end and another person begins is the foundation of all life giving human relationships. It's what happens when we can go our own ways from our parents. It's what happens when we don't give in to peer pressure and instead pursue what we want in life. It's what happens when we experience the best in committed relationships, both romantic and otherwise when we love people for who they are rather than what they do for us, and it's what happens when we are able to watch our descendants grow into their own independent selves.

The reason this is such a hard thing to determine and that it is such a source of friction in our lives is because it brings into question issues of core identity and insecurity that the modern social order does not at all help. Because we have been raised with a wholly western idea of moral relativism, we do not know what is up or down, what is right or left, or what is good or bad. We do not question that which we deeply want to, and only challenge those who do not conform to this ideal. Tolerance is only good to the degree that it makes people safe. Beyond this, it has resulted in a deep fear of questioning and conflicting over anything more substantial than those who are seen to be intolerant. Thus, in the absence of challenge, which, in this case, is the same thing as boundaries, we are left defenseless against the more malignants elements of, not only society, but our own personalities. 

One of these malignant elements is the need to belong. Like all perversions, it is nothing more than something that was, it its proper state, good. Finding your place in the world, and finding your place with other humans is good. However, doing so at the expense of your own humanity, and making sacrifices of your own identity to conform is not, and as has been mentioned before is the source of a vast spectrum of deviant behaviors. 

However, as with many things, there are second and third order effects to this deviant behavior. Deep within ourselves, we try to compensate for the violation of our spiritual immune systems because of our lack of boundaries by setting them up in other places. In essence, we triangulate our brokenness away because we cannot confront the root cause. 

The most profound and yet least obvious place we place boundaries is with any notion of something greater than ourselves, anything.......Divine. Believe or don't believe. The existence of God is something that cannot be proven, no matter how much the right wing types try, and cannot be disprove, no matter how ignorant the the Richard Dawkens followers' arguments get. It is not something that is debated intellect to intellect. It is something that bypasses the red dragons guarding our minds and snatches the perches right out from under their claws as it goes strait to the heart. Of course their is a God, and of course we all know this at some level of our psyches. And yet it is with the Divine that we establish the strongest boundaries, whether we believe or do not believe. We assume there is no God, or that we have killed God, or that we have to be good enough to be accepted by God, or that some are destined to Paradise and others to eternal damnation, whatever that is. 

If indeed there is a God, would the Divine not be anything other than the height of perfection beyond all that we heretofore see and the ultimate embodiment of all our deepest suspicions of what true love and beauty and good in fact are? Would God not in fact be the height of our greatest human ideals of good and compassion and acceptance and love and the ultimate expression of what we only grasp at when we admire great acts of selflessness? Would God not also be the ultimate expression of even the most natural love of a mother for her child or a father slaving to support his family? Could the truth in fact be better than we have ever imagined, even though our deepest psyches have supposed it for so long and driven us in search of it for as long as we have been who we are? At the same time, does not the suspicion of this at the same time cause apprehension, almost as if you don't want to look because you don't want to be disappointed? 

Today, many throughout the world remembered the destruction of the boundary between the Divine and the rest of reality, not that any such barrier ever existed, but the point had to be made clear. This is the essence of the Resurrection. The deepest longing of us all are there for a reason. They are there to be satisfied. Come into the great house where street dwellers, prostitutes, politicians, even pop stars, end even you and me become equals. This is the essence of salvation. 

Come home. The door is always open. 

The War On Poverty 50 Years Later

Today marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Baines Johnson declaring war on poverty. Over those 50 years the percentage of people living in poverty in the US has declined from 19 to 15 percent. At the same time the actual population of people living in poverty has risen from 36 million to 47 million today because of the population increase over the last 50 years.

Now, it is a simple thing to declare this something of a success with the perennial qualification of "but there is still much work to be done". At the same time, those on the other side of the political spectrum can just as easily claim it to be a Pyrrhic victory  because, for all the financial, political and emotional resources that have been expended in this "war", a 4 percent decrease is indicative of a waste of time.

It has already been shown from all that has gone before that neither side will win an argument as to the validity or even the existence of victory in the eyes of the other. However, this has as much to do with how the problem of poverty has been framed and it's supposed solutions derived as it does with partisan opinions. 

Poverty is and has always been a serious problem and a stain on the honor and conduct of any nation that has willfully allowed practices that dispose people to it. Although it is also true that poverty in much of the rest of the world is relatively and actually far worse, it is none the less the case that to the degree to which it exists here, it is unacceptable.  These are high ideals and high ideals are required if a society wishes to aspire to something greater than it is now. However, as always, what goes unseen is more important than what lies on the surface. 

Poverty, and the so called war on it has become nothing more than a convenient rallying point for differing political positions to gain legitimacy by seeming to do something without doing anything at all. This is not an indictment of any politician or political position in specific, but simply a description of what has been the case as long as people have appealed to mass society in order to gain favor. A four percent decrease over 50 years is not indicative of a dysfunctional government hampered by partisanship, but rather that the programs in place have maintained the status quo at best and kept people in poverty at worst. 

It is far easier to appear to be doing something when the measures of success are unclear or non-existent than it is to actually do something meaningful that lasts. As has been said before though, even those with the best intentions in the current system are and will be restricted by the nature of the system itself. In a world of finite resources in which a zero sum game is the regime, zero will always be the sum. No amount of policy and legislation will solve something as deep as human suffering. Thus it is better to stop waiting for such to come about and campaigning for it as if it were a life and death struggle. It is better to actually act on supposed personal ideals and do something. 

Doing something does not require quitting your day job. It does not so much even require going out of one's way. What it does require is putting words to action. The poor are closer than you think. Many of us avoid their neighborhoods on our way home every day. Many of us ignore them when we pass them on the street corner. Many of us claim we are too busy to pay attention, or too broke to contribute to legitimate organizations dedicated to providing for those in need. 

Until we start fighting the war on poverty one individual at a time, why should we expect something as systematic and machine like as the government to do a human's job? Some may complain about freedoms being limited. The freedom to have compassion is not, and it benefits all who take advantage of it.  

LBJ did because he experienced it first hand

Too Big Not To Fail

It has been said a few times before how what goes unseen often matters far more than what is on the surface, and how what you don't know can actually kill you. This becomes increasingly the case the larger a system becomes. The larger as system is, the more difficult it becomes to track what is going on in it. Regardless of our many abilities, the human mind is only able to process so many things at once. It's why we have a parasympathetic nervous system. There is too much going on to be conscious of it all at all times. This does not seem to stop us from deluding ourselves into thinking we are though, and in that fantasy, much risk goes unseen.

The real trouble comes when that risk is hidden in the form of things that seem externally to be good. For example social programs to alleviate poverty that leave poor people more dependent and more poor than they were to begin with. On the other side of the political spectrum, strong pro-life positions that leave the movement looking like a group of bigoted, and completely out of touch hate mongers. the road to collapse and irrelevance is paved with good intentions poorly thought out and atrociously executed. 

At the same time, we continue to make the same mistakes. The reason is, with so much going on beyond the scope of human ability to accurately track, we substitute good feelings about a course of action for measured and accurate judgements. In the current modern world in which it is possible to aggregate so much noise and distraction, emotion speaks the loudest. It always does. However, in times passed, Babylon was a quitter place. One in which thoughts could be collected and judgements more thoroughly measured. None the less, hoping for a return to some passed golden age is as futile as predicting the next one. 

The long range trend of a complex system, which our political/social system is, is to grow more inwardly focused and thus more chaotic in the same way a feedback loop builds to ear piercing shrillness before you move the mike away. Counter intuitively, the larger the system is, the more assured you are of this entropy building. The reason is because large systems become stable and do not need to compete in the same way smaller ones do thus quickening the trend to inward focus and ultimately chaos.

The system becomes too big not to fail. Then again, chaos leads to destruction and recreation. To use the modern term, it breeds innovation.  It is incumbent upon the individual to recognize this and take advantage in such a way that leads to the betterment of that outside him or her self. We cannot keep track of everything, but we can recognize that which is close to us and we can influence it. This is a far more balanced approach than being swayed by the wind of whatever is trending right now, and influencing that close to you is simpler than it may seem. 

Banal Evils

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 porn 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. 

Stop Blaming DC

There is no worse act in public leadership than to hold out false hopes soon to be swept away.

Given the current political issues, it is obvious to apply this saying to our current elected leadership. However, in keeping with the objectives of this space to take seriously that which is overlooked and that which lurks under the surface, think instead about what constitutes power and thus what constitutes leadership, weather for benefit or ill. 

If you want to know what holds real power over you, consider that which you are too fearful to challenge. 

Given the amount of challenge currently faced by elected leadership, they are not who the first line is directed at. They are not permanent and suffer as much from chance and fortune through the system they inhered and thus the limitations they also inhered as anyone else. Rather, the first line is directed at what lead to the system in the first place. 

The real false hope that has been held out is that if we follow our feelings wherever they lead, we will be happy. 

The result has been the opposite. Many will recognize the "greed" that drives the financial system as an example of this. This sentiment is far more pervasive though. In accepting that following feelings leads to happiness, for any good person preventing other people from doing the same would make one feel uncomfortable and thus unhappy. Pain caused by a lack of comfort leads to avoiding what caused the pain. This combined with the very new and very western idea of cultural relativism has lead to it being an uncomfortable, and thus it is assumed, unhappy thing to challenge anything put forward to the purpose of this new common virtue of, not only everyone being equal, but everyone being entitled to the best of everything. 

This is the essence of political correctness, a thing that tends to be seriously challenged only by people equally out of touch with reality, like members of the Westboro Baptist Church, and Tea Partiers. 

This has become elevated to the level of doctrine and dogma and has delivered neither happiness, nor equality, nor gotten anyone closer to whatever they may feel entitled to. Rather it has allowed the collective sweeping of that which is too hard to seriously talk about under the rug at best, and at worst it has resulted in avoidance and thus ignorance of human suffering. 

For example, a white man shoots a minority teenager and mass society demands blood. Even if this is a rightful response, it absolves no one for the blind eye turned to people who look like the victim killing other people who look like the victim on a regular basis. It absolves collective society even less for ignoring the conditions that lead to it being common for this to happen in the first place.  

The correct response to that which has given false hope is to face reality and move on. 

Revolution Doesn't Solve Anything

A common trend in political discussion, as well as anything else pertaining to a large mass of individuals is to forget the role of the individual almost entirely. It is thus consistently common when advocating for some form of change away from the dismal norm to either talk about that change in terms of ultimately hollow platitudes and meta concepts, or to start going off about "revolution". This is by no means a new phenomenon. It's where we got the dual rise of Communism and Fascism from. On the other hand, the ultimately boring and depressing talk about getting to some morally superior plain, which sounds surprisingly similar to the talk of women still not being equal to men in the work place, or on the other side of the isle, how we have gotten away from family values and thus are about to crumble as a society, has been recorded since when the ancients still reverenced Athena.

Great ideas, with no hope of being realized 

Actions realized that burned out like wildfire and burned millions in the process

As with everything else, these trends arise for the same reason the course of water is always towards the least resistance. It's easy to push for an untenable extreme, which forces extreme sacrifice and thus irreversible commitments, or to advocate unclearly defined concepts that are just big enough for no one to actually have to look at their reflection and see something about them to be changed. The mark of great skill and wisdom though is build something that lasts. 

This does not happen at a meta level of ideas, or through some great awakening. The first is not specific and not actionable. The second, like wildfire, dies out eventually, as has been the case with all great social movements, from political uprisings to church revivals. This is because both courses appeal to the crowd, whether it be increasingly pervasive media projections of "normal", or race riots and occupy encampments. 

What is ignored is the individual. It is ultimately easier to avoid hard choices by not making them because  your supposed "values" would be violated by a required compromise, or because the choice has already been made for you in the heat of a mob in the process of being dispersed by police in riot gear. This makes the choices of each of us no less important. 

The choice is actually not so complicated. In making it, it is critical to always realize that no one is obligated to care about anything and should not be expected to. If you wonder if the world gives a f**&, it doesn't. However it for you to decide if you will. Thus dispense with self pity, as it only brings more suffering. Stop feeling sorry for yourself for being misunderstood because it only leads to pain, and stop considering that things are as they are because people are stupid. The mirror could just as easily be turned on you by someone else. Rather, consider those around you, both near and far and take their welfare into account. Don't make advocacy about some grand cause that is just big enough for you to hid behind it in the face of pain and suffering that is right in front of you every day. Don't decide to ignore because it is to stressful to care or because the problem is too big to ever solve. It is progressively solved every time someone does show compassion and does risk caring for those who cannot care for themselves. Consider the homeless alcoholic begging for spare change and realize that, though such people will always be here, the opportunity is yours to relieve suffering now. Such opportunities should never be wasted. 

It is not through a revolution, or reaching a higher plain of conciseness that we find peace and justice. It is also not through devotion to high ideals and strict observance of narrow beliefs, a crime for which atheists can be just as guilty as the most hardened Westboro Baptist goer. 

It is through the compassion we show to those around us right now.

And especially towards those for whom no one has the time or care to show compassion. 

Someone who decided to care and will never be forgotten for it

Social Distraction, Or Why The Political Situation Is What It Is.

The United States has been good at finding distractions for a long time now. The appeal of spectator sports is a harmless example of this. On the other hand, the national obsession with the trivialities of what would be called in the slang of my generation "first world problems" is less harmless. One of the biggest distractions of all though combines spectator sports with first world problems to create the current political scene, the impact of which ranges from inducing insanity and breaks from logic and reality, to outright abuses of power and derelictions of duties to protect those who cannot protect themselves. It is because of the harm that is caused and the greater harm that is possible that the political scene, and what to do with it will be primary topics of discussion.

In the public discussion of politics, personal ideology has often times taken the place of reason. This is harder to reverse than it may at first seem. The reason any system exists as it does is because it is reaching, or has reached an internal equilibrium, which is to say things are the way they are because it works. Political campaign positions have become more extreme because it provides a better contrast against the opposition and thus captures more prospective voters. Attack adds get run during campaign seasons because they are actually effective, and political actors tend towards more strict ideologies rather than allowing compromise because it causes them to stand out in the increasing noise of modern media.

However, as much as it is my objective to describe things as they are, there would be little point in writing if I did not also ask what could and should be. The purpose of all political action should be to advance the common good, as defined by promoting order rather than chaos and especially defending those who cannot adequately defend themselves. These may be stated intentions of members from all points along the political spectrum. That said, intentions, however good mean nothing in the face of increasing and consistent negative outcomes. For example, the ongoing debate and attempts to restrict firearms comes from a high intention of protecting those who cannot protect themselves, an aim most in keeping with my stated objectives. The actual implantation of such legislation though, does not produce outcomes in keeping with the intentions because the policy does not take reality into account. Criminals, by definition, do not observe the law and should not be expected to observe laws that would restrict their access to weapons for the commission of further crimes. On the other end of the spectrum, there is the idea that abortion should be restricted at all costs because it is very easily seen as the killing of those who are ultimately unable to defend themselves, a view that is actually quite common and accepted in many other developed countries. In practice though, the anti abortion movements often times focuses on the final act rather than recognizing the lack of opportunity, poverty, and other assorted negative situations that lead up to it, and taking action on those with the second and third order effects being abortions becoming increasingly less common. The outcome for them then is that they fight a losing battle and make themselves increasingly a target for being accused of the ultimate modern crime of insensitivity.

Both of these untenable positions result from substituting good intentions for the actual methods, compromises and sacrifices that lead to good outcomes. The same is true of nearly all other major political and cultural issues we now face. It is thus that the  most harmful of all distractions we face are good intentions with no way for realization, and they are so because they lead to ignoring the reality of the situation, taking untenable and oppositional positions thus causing tremendous noise and chaos, and all the while masquerading as good. As a wise man once said, "you don't make arch demons out of lizards, you make them out of arch angels."

The risks associated with actually turning good intentions into positive outcomes may and should induce a certain level of fear. However, acquiescing to fear in the face of sound and thought out methods, however common, will only result in the same and worse than what we now face. Things find internal equilibrium, but it is not always as it should be.

Introductions.

The purpose of this space is to discuss that which is overlooked, and that which is lurking under the surface. This is as much because that which you don't know can indeed kill you, as it is because the stone that the builders refused will become the head corner stone. It is also for that which is too inconvenient to discuss in politically correct modern society. In fact, it will be made clear in successive conversations that the issues most talked about and most contended are far less important than what they are being used to cover for. 

This is because just as dysfunctional families triangulate away their greatest problems, so too do troubled societies substitute that which does not mater for that which does to ease the discomfort. That being said, do not assume there will be any Tea partying going on, and don’t expect to be welcomed if you preach conspiracy theories. 

The leaning here is not Right or Left. Neither is it Libertarian or Anarchist. Rather, what we will discus here is fear and courage, shame and wisdom, chaos and order, and how these influence and underpin all that we do or fail to do in the public world. Despite our claims to rational thinking and behavior, faith is as much a part of the modern secular world as ever it was in more religious times past. Logic is used post facto to rationalize what were always emotional decisions because all that we do is influenced thus. 

This does not mean though that there is not free will. There would be little point in debating what is best if we did not expect we could positively act on it. All action requires will to one extent or the other. The questions then will circulate around to what degree emotion will master us or if we will master them to be the horse we ride upon to a greater good.