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.

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.

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. 

Actually Getting The Chance To Save The World

The real issue with modern politics is not bad government directed policy. It is a lack of initiative on the part of the individual. No amount of legislation will ever change that. 

However, this does not stop those in charge of legislation from trying to change it. Neither does it stop people from having their opinions dictated to them by public figures claiming their policy leads to salvation.


Most policies, whether they be new gun control laws, health care system overhaul, or trying to get the potholes down the street fixed are flawed to begin with because the amount of coordination, compromise and add-ons required to pass them dilutes the original intent sufficiently for much of the endeavored to miss the objective. At the same time, while seeing the effects of the new legislation on the potholes down the street is easy enough to monitor, measures of effectiveness are not as forthcoming with more large-scale legislation geared at more complex systems. However, it is critical to take into account that these limitations have more to do with the nature of the game itself than how it is currently played. Policy is a tool and a necessary one for shaping courses of action and focusing efforts. It is not the same thing as realizing those efforts. No amount of telling someone what to do and how to do it will ever have as much effect as the person making the choice for him or her self.


How much more would the effect of individuals taking responsibility for their actions be if those actions were taken to cure the troubles of whatever communities we find ourselves in? No amount of reposting socially conscious statements on social media compares to actually going out to the street corner and having lunch with the homeless alcoholic. Being faux sensitive in order to keep up with the current fashion is not the same as actually being sensitive to the troubles around you and then action to correct them. This need not be limited to the surrounding community in purely geographical terms either. Indeed the whole world is our community, but not acting on a problems because it has been conceptualized as too big to act on is as much of a crutch to our moral pride as reposting something about social justice and calling it doing your part.


Ending something like Sex Trafficking is as much about making life as much better as possible for the one former victim you know as it is about legislation and enforcement to ensuring the crime never happens to anyone ever again. Ending Global Poverty is as much about the one kid in the slum you have the opportunity to give new shoes to today as it is about UN education initiatives and ensuring economic policy helps rather than takes advantage of the majority of the world below the poverty line, and ending homelessness is as much about having lunch with the homeless alcoholic down the street as it is about changing cultural norms and dealing with income inequality.


When the problem becomes so large that only a new law can save us, there is no hope at all. The problem is in front of us all the time if we look. Each individual determines their own level of involvement. However the surest way to be certain the problem will always be with us is to do nothing at all. At the same time, there are those who demonstrated that no level of involvement was too deep and no sacrifice was too much. How much more could be done if this attitude became more prevalent?

  

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