"When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained." Twain / "I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of these contradictions out for myself." Montaigne / "I write because I have found no other means of getting rid of my thoughts." Nietzsche / "Writing is an integral part of the process of understanding." Arendt / "Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers." Asimov.
Our inability to measure long term consequences from short term gains will be the death of us. Covid, climate change, and conflict are holding a mirror to our collective behaviours.
Henry Madison wrote about the shift back to normal that's essentially pushing us off a cliff towards the default normal we had prior to this century:
"As Max Planck famously observed, social change mostly happens not because of thought and innovation; it happens because one generation dies with its ideas, and the next then gets to run with its own ideas. (The reason institutions are so crucial is that they allow ideas to transcend generations.) So during that great peace and prosperity post-WW2, whole generations forgot what created it: Massive public investment and action. The new elite generation that came to power in the 1970s forgot that and began a process of erasing all of those 19th and 20th century public health and welfare actions: What we now call the birth of 'neoliberalism' and libertarian politics. Just names really; you need to zoom out to see the true social movement it represents. It's societies' most common form throughout all of human history: feudalism topped by some form of monarchial figure. That monarch can be a president too. The US presidency is the most regal figure of power in the world today; populism has transformed that democracy back into the social form the US had desperately tried to escape. The main point is that Covid inaction is just one further part of this same movement that's been going on for over 50 years: The removal of the 'public', an invention of the late-19th and 20th centuries, to restore societies to the form they'd had for centuries previously."
I've recently written more about that we've barely ever managed to creep out of feudalistic systems before we're swept back under again. It seems to be too much of a draw for the powerful to sacrifice the many for their own overwhelming gains, so the people have to continuously work for equity. If we relax for a second, we go under.
Some finish that with "... leaves the whole world blind," but that somewhat belies the meaning of the phrase. The idea is that we should never take a drop more than equitable retribution.
It was written in the Code of Hammurabi almost 4,000 years ago: "If a man put out the eye of another man, his eye shall be put out" (196), and popularized in Exodus and Leviticus, about a thousands years later: In one part, after explaining how to act on the Sabbath, there's a little story where God tells Moses about a mixed race guy (half Egyptian and half Israelite) who, while arguing with a pure Israelite, cursed God in the middle of a heated argument. They asked God what to do about it, and He told them, "Any Israelite or any foreigner living in Israel who curses the Lord shall be stoned to death by the whole community" (24:16). Yikes! Elsewhere, God admits that he's jealous and vengeful, and he clearly doesn't deal with insults well. Then he goes on to announce this famous bit:
“If any of you injure another person, whatever you have done shall be done to you. If you break a bone, one of your bones shall be broken; if you put out an eye, one of your eyes shall be put out; if you knock out a tooth, one of your teeth shall be knocked out. Whatever injury you cause another person shall be done to you in return. Whoever kills an animal shall replace it, but whoever kills a human being shall be put to death (24:19-21)
So, after clarifying that you should definitely call out harm against you, and only do to others what they do to you in kind, but no more than what they do to you, the crowd takes the guy outside, who had just said some swears, and stone him to death. Now, at the time, "cursing" isn't just saying "F.U." It was seen as actually putting a curse on someone, as if our words are the precursor of an action to follow. So if you say "F.U." to someone, then they will end up F'd, and it will be because of the harm your words provoked.
I just read local author Paul Born’s Deepening Community. In places, it’s very close to what I’ve written about in terms of ensuring that we’re kind to one another at the very end. He doesn’t skirt around the issue that we’re in dire straights and that we can choose how to behave when push comes to shove. (But I think he should have called the book, The Born Community.)
I've written about community before, and I'm going to say much of the same thing here but in many, many more words! There are pictures and video clips to break it up. (I included headings for clarity and page numbers throughout - where I remembered.) I aim to critique Born's book while trying to get to the bottom of what can be done to foster a cohesive sense of belonging and caring spanning the globe. I'm using Born's book as as starting point, but I don't have all the solutions. I'm ever in the process of seeking.
I went to see Chris Hedges speak last night. His words brought forth a mix of devastation and elation, with some in the congregation compelled to applaud after every few sentences. He's a brilliant storyteller, and I could have listened to him all night. It went far too quickly.
I had a chance to speak with him in the time it took him to sign my well-annotated copy of Empire of Illusion and my brand spankin' Wages of Rebellion, and I regret not buying all of his offering in order to extend our conversation. My voice actually shook a little when I started talking, and I talk to people for a living!
I told him of the impact Sam Harris has had on my students who now say openly bigoted things in class, and he gave me some words of encouragement and signed my book "keep resisting." Well, he signed everyone's book like that, but still. I felt sincerely encouraged, and he looked me right in the eye when he spoke to me.
He was being interviewed by Susan G. Cole, whose books I gobbled up twenty years ago. I actually called her up once and asked her if she'd present to my students at a conference I organized in the mid-90s, and she agreed but for a handsome fee. Unfortunately I didn't have the wherewithal to ask the school board for money, and I was a dirt poor mom of two babies - all I really had were the balls big enough to call her up - so I had to decline her acceptance. But she was a great moderator.
Here are the bits that stayed with me after he finished. These are his words, only somewhat paraphrased and out of order (I'm a fan, not a journalist), but they lack the stories that give them colour, so you still have to buy the book!
On Intellectual and Emotional Knowledge and the Necessity of Faith
When confronting climate change, we know intellectually that change is necessary. But the emotional knowledge of our fragility is hard to acquire. The existential issue of our time is how to digest issues intellectually and emotionally in order to rise up and resist. Rebellion is an act of faith. It's what we become, not what we achieve. The religious (not necessary a belief in a god, but those with belief in our inevitable historical progress) are less susceptible to emotional highs and lows.
We need to fight fascists, not to win, but because they're fascists. And we need to believe in the good in order to want to take action. Most people don't want to change anything because their religion is a belief in the system (e.g. they believe we have a free press). It keeps people doing nothing. The American religion glorifies the hyper-masculine, patriotism, strength, and the right to use violence to impose virtues on the rest of the world. It's a sacralization of empire.
Faith isn't irrational, but non-rational. It can't be empirically measured much like beauty, truth, justice. Wisdom involves enveloping the non-rational forces into our life - what artists do. The utilitarian tech culture severs us from these forces: arts, education, journalism - anything that has the power to transform. But we can only achieve wisdom with the capacity to be in touch with the non-rational.
The christian right are heretics. Jesus was not about making money. Like Popper said (p 543), in the name of tolerance, we've accepted intolerance. The christian right has infused the state with religion. They've misused the gospel to sacralize elements of the state.
On Prisons: "The only act left is civil disobedience."
People are convicted before trial. They stack charges, then plea bargain away most so they never go to trial. It's criminalized poverty. They prey on the poor knowing they have no resources. They prey on families who are fleeced for hundred of dollars for phone calls. Due to austerity measures, in cities like Baltimore and Ferguson, 30-40% of city funds are raised by fining residence for things like not mowing their lawn. There's a 64% recidivism rate. Dostoevsky [possibly*] said we understand civilization by looking at the prisons. To corporations, these are the ideal workers. They live there; they're never late, and they cost little.
Inmates know the horrible things that can happen to them if they step out of line. They're a deeply religious community because they have so little else to hold on to. Like in Gaza - the only thing to give structure or normalcy to their days is the call to prayer. And, with respect to Charlie Hebdo, I'm angry at the idea that it's amusing to make fun of religion.
The privatization of the prison system means each prisoner makes the prison some money. Prisoners are charged for everything: they have to buy their own shoes, blankets, phone calls.... There are fees charged to send money home to your family. An emergency visit to a relative's deathbed will cost you $900.
Corporations write the legislation. Slavery is integral to the U.S. economy. We're seeing sweatshops being recruited by prisons. They can pay 22 cents/hour here instead of in some factory in Bangladesh. It's neo-slavery. The 13th Amendment allows us to use it as a form of punishment, and it's used by Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks, Victoria Secrets....
Appealing to the systems that are profiting off the exploitation of prisoners is useless. The only act left is civil disobedience inside and outside the prisons. Prisoners had a demonstration knowing the consequences they would face.
This nascent moment in the US is about organizing prison labour to get minimum wage. It would collapse the system built on neo-slavery. This is a perfect example of how we have to organize in that manner.
ETA - John Oliver on the inequity of bail:
On the Right and Left
Nader was destroyed by the Democrats when he ran as an independent. They were frightened by him. Sanders won't run as an independent because he doesn't want to be hit like Nader was. It would mean not being at the debates and not having enough money.
The Liberals are more dangerous than the right. Under Clinton and Obama, there were more executions and we filled more prisons. Clinton brought in the 1993 Omnibus crime bill and drug laws, which are key to understanding the rise of the surveillance state. This is "omnipotent policing" as Arendt calls it in Imperialism. These are mechanisms that prey on the undocumented and the poor.
[In an different interview, he clarified that Sanders made a mistake not running as an independent. The democrats are saturated with corporate money so they're under the control of corporate power. Obama proved that in an 8-year assault on civil liberties worse than under Bush. It's the role for the 3rd party candidate with the understanding that we have to recognize that the goal is to build movements; that you may run a candidate not to win, which is almost impossible, but to further empower the movement. Sanders is giving legitimacy to the Democratic Party. The democrats aren't reformable. We must be able to agitate on the outside.]
On Activists: "People are complex. There's no perfect hero."
These people are messianic. The rose up against corporations. They have the DNA of constant rebellion. No uprising is possible without them. They feel passion for social change. Community is key; we can't effectively resist without it, so we need to create acts of solidarity.
On Canada: "There are signs of life here, but you're not going in the right direction."
There's no hope in the U.S. We're finished. It's remarkable how often the U.S. blunders, and then Canada replicates it. But Canada's not nearly as far gone. The U.S. is very violent, founded on genocide and slavery, with corporate-owned politics. Canada doesn't have nearly the same level of violence, and its political system isn't completely closed.
To stop Harper, read Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemies. The question is NOT about how to get good people to rule. The question is how to make the power elite frightened of you. Power is always the problem. We need movements to keep power in check. Elections are fine, but the last liberal president was Nixon because he was the last one still frightened of movements.
In Canada you have Idle No More and the Quebec student protests, which are great. You have to begin movements that might have a political wing, but every action must be about nourishing the movement.
On Rebellion and Madness: "A protest of one is still a protest."
Nothing gets done if we're enraged or overwhelmed. We need to embrace sublime madness to make real change. There's nothing rational about rebellion. When rebellion starts, people are not striving towards a vision, but driven by it.
Movements are monitored and infiltrated. There is a psychological warfare waged against you. We can't compete on the state's level of violence or security. What we do have is transparency and non-violence. If we try to play their game (snitches...), we'll eat ourselves alive. We can create tiny committees to mess with the heads of state. Consider: What can we do as an act of resistance that they won't expect? It says to the state, 'You don't know everything.'
The most powerful weapon we have is speaking truth about discrediting the system of power that many can hear. I talk to people about the difference between police in blue shirts and the white shirted assholes. The blue shirts have to listen to the white shirts all day. But there are always people even at that level that can hear you.
We're standing up as forces of life. Saving the ecosystem so the future can have life is as stark a battle as you can get. Our capacity to speak truth is relentless, and non-violent, and there's a real possibility of bringing foot soldiers to our side. Once we do that, then the state has no security.
I sued Obama over section 1021 of the National Defence Authorization Act which allowed military to take over in cases of domestic law. We won federally, but Obama appealed and won. The law was enacted because the state doesn't trust the police not to defect.
The state is corrupt and decadent. In marches we find hope, light, creativity. We are blessed by new generations of rebels.
* Sources suggest it's in The House of the Dead, but I couldn't find it, and I wonder if this is similar to the situation with Voltaire's quotation on free speech that he never said.
If you haven't heard, a York University prof denied a student's request to work in all male groups for religious reasons. York's Centre for Human Rights suggested the student should be granted the request to avoid being with women in public. I commented with my views here:
I see education as a stepping stone for the working world. If he expects to work in Canada, he has to get used to working with women, so it's in the male student's best interest to find a way to cope with this expectation within a Canadian institution.
"Accommodations consistent with the board’s religious accommodations guidelines must be made for students from various faith communities – for example, same-sex partnering for small-group activities may be required" (43).
That's in the section called "Equity and Inclusive Education." So it appears we're to be inclusive by honouring a wide variety of moral precepts even if there's an inherent sexism within. But, of course, what if my religion sees a specific ethnicity or race as unclean and basically scum, and suggests I "smite them, and utterly destroy them" (Deuteronomy 7:2)? It seems far less likely to see accommodations made to avoid a specific race within a Canadian governmental publication. And that's a problem. It's not, of course, that we should all be allowed to avoid communicating with undesirables or anyone that might awaken temptation if it's suggested by our religion, but that nobody should be able use religion to be exclusionary. It seems to me a religious doctrine cannot be allowed to override human rights in a Canadian institution.
I've come across a few recent bits of writing from people who think we should do away with "Merry Christmas." Even though I'm an atheist, I love Christmas, and I really hope I don't offend people with the following because it is Christmas and all!
The rules around what's allowed during Christmas at my public school seem to change from year to year. This year, there were carols and a tree without any debate, but some years we can only celebrate Christmas and put up a tree in the foyer if we have something there also commemorating Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, and Ramadan, the latter two not always falling at the same time as Christmas. It's unfortunate a Festivus pole was never a requirement. That none of these have anything to do with Christmas beyond a semblance of timing (some years closer than others) isn't necessarily a problem, except we typically don't celebrate anything else from any other culture at any other time. It's a grab bag of festivities that we use to permit a Christian celebration in a pubic school.
But this is an argument that suggests either we celebrate everything or nothing demanding a show of equality through equal time given. My counterargument is that this celebration is a part of the dominant culture and, more importantly, that it's a tradition worth fostering.
I got caught up in a few arguments about climate change recently that just reinforced to me, that there’s still such a strong bashlash against the entire idea that we’re unlikely to move forward quickly enough to be effective.
My school board is fundraising for the Philippines, and I’m totally on board with it. But I commented publicly on the irony of sending each kid home with a piece of paper on the issue. That’s over 60,000 full pieces of paper or about 8 trees for something that will be crumpled at the bottom of a knapsack or tossed before it even makes it home. We’re cutting down trees to make paper to ask people to help those affected by conditions exacerbated by the cutting down of trees. And there are other ways to get the word out like our websites and automatic phone callers. If we really want to use paper, the notices could at least be sent on half pages or on re-use-it paper (‘goos’ paper in some places).
Pretty straightforward and reasonable, right??
Not so fast. A colleague ridiculed me for quibbling about paper when people are struggling to cope with a “NATURAL” disaster. I responded with a quote from the IPCC linking extreme weather to climate change and a suggestion that we're negligent if we don't take responsibility for our small daily actions having an accumulative and disastrous effect elsewhere. But I'm pretty sure it's all for nought. Sigh.
But, as is often the case, a much more interesting conversation happened with my students.
In my last post, and elsewhere over the years, I went all Agent Smith and suggested that humans are a virus that can't be contained. All other animals work within their environment to regulate their population. As long as people don't mess things up by moving animals around (like bringing rabbits to Australia where they have no predators), animal populations decrease when food is scarce so their populations never reach overwhelming numbers. Nature is amazing and everything can work so well if we let it. But when human numbers rise, we just keep invading other places until we use up all the resources everywhere. We're going to Mars now, for crying out loud! It's just a matter of time before we kill off our host and die out ourselves.
But recent conversations in my class have me thinking of things from a different angle.
Maybe the problem isn't our invasiveness, but that we are too compassionate to allow people to just die the way those other, more callous animals do. Because we have such big brains, and because we have mirror neurons that cause us to feel pain when we watch others suffer, we have found ways to help millions of people survive during famines. And we can help sickly infants survive that wouldn't have stood a chance 20 years ago. And we can keep elderly people going for a few more decades. It's awesome! Except now we're at seven billion people which might be too much for the earth to sustain.
The Chick-fil-A issue in California is a good reminder that we're not done. That hundreds of people filled the restaurants in support of CEO Dan Cathy's admission that he supports "the biblical definition of the family unit" while a few LGBTQ supporters had kiss-ins, is a wake-up call that we can't be complacent about human rights. They waver. Just when we think we've got everyone convinced to be accepting of harmless differences, we hit a backlash.
The religious argument about biblical definitions slays me because it completely misses the point of the Christian bit of the Bible - you know, where Jesus tells everyone to be nice to one another. Specifically, we're not to judge anyone at all because that's God's job (Matthew7:1-5). If you start judging your neighbour, then you're trying to act like God, and that's not cool at all. It lifts quite a burden to stop policing one another like children do. Don't worry about what other people are doing (unless they're causing you direct harm) because God will deal with them later. The world is just and fair, just not right here on Earth. All we have to do is love everyone.
"There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living." - Thoreau
Tony Shin sent me this info-graphic and asked if I'd add it to my blog. Of course I have a few things to say about the 1% first.
Paul Feldman did a study in the 80s with bagels being sold on each floor of an office building using an honesty jar and price list. He tracked who paid the right price for the bagels. The people in the lowest floor - the mail room - paid about 95%, but as they went up the floors, and up the corporate ladder, the sales were worse and worse. The richest people paid the least.
