Get out of my way.

The history of humanity is one of marginalization, subjugation, and elimination. This is facilitated by genetics, class, wealth, technology, and combinations of those and related things. It has been that way for recorded history and has analogs among animals and plants (alpha males, invasive species).

Editorial cartoon, 'Paper or Plastic,'
by Tom Cheney

We've certainly tried to overcome our biological intransigence, from prophets and liberators (Jesus, Martin Luther King) to formalized rules (Code of Hammurabi, the US Constitution), but our efforts are ever and always nulled by due process, conflicting interests, happenstance, natural disasters. (Consider, eg, the rise of the peasant class in Medieval Europe following the Black Death when the ruling class was forced to bargain with the dwindling number of laborers who maintained the land and livestock).

I do believe some systems have more merit than others, but what I think doesn't matter. The USA we know is foundering amid a noisy snarl of competing ideas and will someday succumb to one or a mixture, and future generations will uncover statues, circuit boards, plastics, and analyze us like we do the ancient world.

Neither Dawkins nor Pope Francis, Black Lives Matter nor the alt-right, Islamic Reformism nor ISIS can change this.

And the ideologues who replace us won't understand that, in time, our fate will be theirs. And between now and then, millions will suffer who are guilty of nothing more than being born and being in the way.

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From the drive into work to the the fate of nations, the whole of humanity distills down to "Get out of my way."

Revolutions are satisfying, but only set the stage the more revolutions. Interesting, isn't it, that "revolution" is related to "revolve" (as in doors and planets and handguns).

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Good ideas sometimes need to be enforced, and bad ideas discarded, because too few of us are able to distinguish among them (cf Thomas Jefferson).

Some modern examples are immunization (a good thing), climate change (a real thing), freedom of expression (a vital thing).

I'm tempted to extend the idea of the "wisdom of the crowds" to large scale human events and patterns seen over decades and centuries. (I.e., that enough people given enough information will make a good decision without needing to now how or why they are doing it. Cf Francis Galton's county fair experiment where attendees accurately guessed the weight of an ox►.)

There's a Darwinian elegance to this that I like, a "survival of the fittest idea" idea. (See Nicholas Wade's excellent The Faith Instinct - How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures►).

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This blog entry was sparked by:

1. A coincidental encounter with Robert P Jones's The End of White Christian America.
   
   As far as I know, Jones doesn't propose that the end of White Christian America is a good thing or that what's replacing it will be better. Being white, Christian, and American, I'm rather fond of the environment that fashioned me. I have trouble seeing anything wrong with that, or why I might have wanted to prevent it (if that were even possible - leopards and spots and all that).
   
2. And the driver who tailgated and honked at me for 100 yards on a 35mph side street until I pulled off to the shoulder and let him/her pass.
   
   I had children in the car and used it as an object lesson. I waved and smiled. He/she may have recognized me or felt guilty; he/she slowed down considerably after passing. This was in Ada, MI. If you don't know Ada, think Podunk. 

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Novel nearly done, approaching 100,000 words, which is where it will likely end. Summer and vacation draining my time and energy. And as anyone working on a large project knows, if you spend too much time away, you have to reassemble some mental bits, which is painful, and takes even more time than you spent putting them together the first time.

Started: 07/07/2017

Why I'm Worried (Getting on the Wrong Bus)

Each day I start with an hour or two of NPR, then a couple with FOX (I like John Gibson), finish the day with a network broadcast, usually NBC, and occasionally add some MSNBC (I like Chris Matthews; disagree with him a lot, but like him).

 

I've discovered that If you abandon your preconceptions and let yourself follow the discussions on any of these networks, they can be quite thought-provoking, even convincing.

 

For this to happen, some things must be true:

• The speakers need to have my trust.
• The guests need to be allowed to speak without the host correcting or adding shades of meaning.
• Everyone needs to be polite.
• Everyone needs to be honest with themselves.

 

This is so rare (and I'm so rarely able to stow my preconceptions), that recently while watching John Dean (White House Counsel for Nixon) on Hardball with Chris Matthews, I was surprised at myself for considering an opinion I would have discarded 10 minutes before.

 

Despite Matthews's frequent inability to keep his internal dialog internal*, I found myself eager for Dean's every next word, the same sort of attention I give to Bob Woodward, Charles Krauthammer or David Gergen.

 

I realized then how polarized we are. We're not only not on the same page, we're not even in the same book.

 

And it's not, as you might suspect, that I suddenly realized ideas were flying all about me without ever intersecting. It was instead that I was gladly entertaining a new idea that wasn't intersecting an old one.

 

Perhaps not unlike getting on the wrong bus and not realizing it's the wrong bus until you see your regular bus going in the other direction.

 

Perhaps there's actually a smidgen of hope here. If I can go joyriding among contrary ideas, why can't others?

 

I wish it were that simple. We are intractable and angry, littering our discourse with logical fallacies, insults, lies, exaggerations, and redirections.

 

It's amazing we settle anything at all.

 

We all know what happens when a relationship descends into loathing and contempt. It's only a matter of time before it dissolves, sometimes bitterly and painfully, inflicting even greater pain on those around us.

 

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My opinion on the latest scandals?

• The Russians meddled in our election, just as we've done in others.
• There was no collusion.
• Trump was surveilled, and records were unmasked and leaked for political purposes.
• Regardless of who did what, no one of any status will be punished.

 

Just my opinion. I may be wrong. But I don't think so. I did say Hillary was unelectable. I also said Trump was unqualified. Just not as disastrous as Hillary (who continues to live at arm's length from reality). And I still maintain that.

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I had planned to write a follow-up titled "Why I'm not worried," but I realized there was very little to say, aside from the fact that I haven't the energy to look for silver linings right now.

 

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*He suggested Susan Rice was being targeted because she's a woman and Black. Look for the 4/4/17 episode here; you'll need to log in with your TV provider to watch.

 

 

[2017.04.05]