healing – Next

Note: I’m creating a series of articles on practical reasons for increasing economic opportunity, parity and justice within this nation – i.e., pointing out the practical consequences of our current situation of oligarchy and hegemony. This is the first.

Civility and Opportunity

One of the most egregious problems created by a society in which only a tiny percentage of the population gets to enjoy economic security is a sharp decrease in civility.

Civility may be alternately defined as respect for others, and words and action that reflect such.

A society in which the opportunity to advance to a comfortable and secure middle-class status is afforded only a few is a society in which competition for such becomes increasingly vicious, cutthroat, dishonest, and savage. It’s a society in which every man is an island with no concern for anyone else’s well-being, willing to do anything – no matter how despicable – to secure a seat on the lifeboat.

It’s a society in which any sense of community and loyalty is rapidly lost, because caring about anyone except yourself places your own chances of economic survival in jeopardy.

It’s a society in which, eventually, everyone lies, cheats, and steals. It’s a jungle in which we daily rationalize, defend and even celebrate our own reversion to savagery. It’s a pit in which everyone knows kindness is for fools and suckers because it will only get you the smutty end of the stick.

It’s a world in which we cannot find it in us to criticize our leaders when they’re venal, corrupt, or grotesquely self-aggrandizing, because we’re forced to resort to the same in the name of survival; it’s a world in which no one can call anyone to account, because we’re all treading water in the same cesspool.

We raise our young in this world and then are shocked by their brutality and apathy. We do what we have to and then are horrified when someone else does the same to us. We cling savagely to the little we have, in desperate fear of losing it, and we know those around us are doing exactly the same.

There is a marked difference between a society in which the most gifted receive moderate reward and everyone else can make it by putting in forty hours a week, and a society in which the craven are entitled to gold-plated everything and everyone else is at risk of homelessness and starvation. And the difference is so often civility.

As the safety net disappears into the wind all becomes a cutthroat contest to avoid the abyss. Common courtesy becomes a luxury we cannot afford and decency an item priced out of our reach. We become again Neanderthals fighting over a scrap of meat.

A society in which making a contribution affords one the dignity of a moderate existence, on the other hand, is a different matter; in such a society if you are presented with a choice between cutting your neighbor’s throat and simply maintaining a modest but agreeable lifestyle, you can and will refuse to use the blade. Moreover, in such a society those who do resort to the blade can be called to account and punished.

Seeing to it that everyone receives a dignified existence in exchange for a modicum of work and effort is not some wayfarer’s pipe dream of utopia; it is the foundation of a society in which the rule of law is respected and in which we can and do treat each other with decency.

The chief danger of an oligarchy is that it makes this impossible. Its narrow and exclusive pipeline to wealth that abandons all but a few to desperation is the midwife of a new Stone Age, and cannot be countenanced by any who respect decency and civility.

Seeing to it that everyone has a decent chance at the middle class isn’t nice, or sweet, or a luxury we can’t afford. It’s the difference between living in a world ruled by decency and civility and one that resembles the savagery of our Cro-Magnon ancestors.

Which one do you want?

The streets are frothing now with what’s been coming for five decades: the eventual fracturing of this country into two halves. This one’s a commie and this one’s a fascist; this one’s a bigot and this one’s an animal; this one’s a godless traitor and this one’s a judgmental inbred. This has been coming for a long, long time.

It began in the ‘60’s as a simple difference of opinion between the traditional and the new, and exploded into a Civil War that has shredded the country for fifty years.

More than anything else, this is about how we have to come to fear and mistrust each other, to see each other as the basest of stereotypes. This is about how we have managed to make our fellow citizens into monsters.

The following list of misperceptions might sound extreme, but as you consider them, ask yourself this question: in the very bottom of my heart, have I or have I not at times feared these very things?

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants Protestant Christianity to be the only valid religion in this country and its official religion. The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants every religion but Protestant Christianity to be considered valid.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants to turn this country into a socialist paradise, where the government takes everybody’s property away and hands it out to anyone who asks for it. The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants to turn this country into Mussolini’s fascist paradise, where corporations run the country, not the citizens.

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction is entirely composed of illiterate, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals wandering through trailers in wife-beater t-shirts, swilling down Schlitz and gearing up to beat their dogs. The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction consists entirely of pretentious artsy-fartsy elitists drifting through million-dollar lofts in natural-fiber unisex chemises, sipping Chardonnay and gearing up to replace football with badminton on grounds that football is just not nice.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants to make it mandatory for kids to learn Swahili, Urdu or Mandarin Chinese in school; the Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants to make it a crime to speak any language but English.

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants every woman in American to be required to wear an apron at all times, not vote unless their husband or father says it’s okay, and be required to compete in Beauty Pageants; the Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants it to be the law that all women must work outside the home, wear suits, and that lipstick should be outlawed.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants every gun in America melted down and cast into a gigantic statue of a dove for the National Mall; the Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants every baby born in America issued a handgun at birth.

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants an America where white Anglo-Saxons Protestants have their rightful place as true Americans and everyone else exists in their proper place as a servant; the Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants an America where people of color finally get to rule over white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants to lock up everyone in America who kisses a woman without her permission; the Blue Faction believes the Red Faction thinks rape is just boys being boys.

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction thinks every last tree in the country ought to be cut down and the skies filled with coal smoke if business wants it that way; the Red Faction believes the Blue Faction believes the Western Four-Toed Salamander ought to be spared extinction even if it means thousands of people starve to death.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction thinks all people of color are angels and saints; the Blue Faction believes the Red Faction believes they are all demons and monsters.

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction is composed of backwards, ignorant, racist morons; the Red Faction believes the Blue Faction is composed of effete, over-educated, idealistic dreamers.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction hates America, with its ideals of liberty, individualism, and independence; the Blue Faction believes the Red Faction hates America, with its ideals of equality, justice, and unity.

The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants religious tyranny, a complete revocation of all rights for anyone who isn’t white and male, corporate fascism, and to blow off the planet any nation they don’t like; the Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants atheism, rights for minorities and women but no one else, rampant Marxism, and for the U.S. to roll over on its belly for all challengers in the interest of peace on earth.

The Red Faction believes the Blue Faction wants to destroy them, half of America. The Blue Faction believes the Red Faction wants to destroy them, half of America.

All of this is ridiculous. Instead of thinking for ourselves, we react from the blind fear we have of the stereotype we’ve made the other half into. Our politics have become entirely about our apocalyptic fear of the other side’s bad intentions; each side believes the other side will take over and ruin the world.

We have come to see each other not as people, but cartoon heroes and villains.

Each side believes the other side is stupid, cruel, and downright dangerous, and moreover, doesn’t care about them. And on that last matter I’m afraid both sides have a point. We have come to see each other as enemies, people we hate, fear, and have no compassion for.

What’s happening now in the streets should surprise no one. The Left really believes the Right intends to enslave women and minorities, make being gay illegal again, and basically destroy their lives. I saw the same thing happen with the Right after President Obama was elected (although they didn’t take to the streets): a fear that their personal property would be taken, their beliefs and values denied, and their lives destroyed. They were terrified, and thus enraged (anger and fear are Siamese Twins). And the Left was like this after the 2000 election too.

The only real question left is: can you love America enough to find it in your heart to love and respect all of its citizens, even those who have very different ideas than you?

Can you love this country enough to understand that a house divided against itself cannot stand, can you love this country enough to realize that freedom of ideas, speech and religion mean just that, can you love this country enough to understand that it really, truly belongs to all of us?

Stop seeing the Baptist lady in Iowa as a bigoted, close-minded, pursed-lipped scold; see her as she prepares – with great love – a casserole for her neighbor who’s fighting cancer. And don’t assume that neighbor is a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, either; you’d be amazed how far the kindness and charity of that community reaches, and how much love there is between neighbors there.

Stop seeing the avant-garde painter in SoHo as a pretentious, snobbish, cold-hearted trendoid; see her as she tutors kids in reading. And don’t assume those kids are only people of color; there are plenty of poor white kids in the cities too.

Stop assuming the guy driving the pick-up truck hates gays and stop assuming that the guy driving the hybrid doesn’t love our veterans and stop assuming everyone, everywhere is one stereotype or another. We’re so much more complex than that, so much more as a country!

And stop letting the media – right and left wing – tell you what your fellow Americans are like. In this age of infotainment, news organizations will by definition pick the most extreme and dramatic of anything to show you. It will by definition seek out and find the lurid and grotesque – even if it represents less than 1% of the whole – and say see? Use your eyes and ears in your own community to see what’s real, and don’t see just what you want or expect to see.

Go out and find someone from the other side of the aisle. Have coffee or a beer with them. And don’t talk politics or religion. Talk about life, and as you do, open your mind to this truth: this is a human being. This is a person, not a cartoon. This is my fellow American. Talk about the Cubs or your kids or movies or your dogs or what you’re doing for Thanksgiving. Leave politics out of it, and simply begin with seeing people as people.

That’s the beginning. If we begin to listen to each other as people – to understand the very real fears each of us has with compassion, to hear the plaintive cry of you’re not listening to me, you don’t care! and actually respond with caring, to understand we’re all concerned with where we’re going, for different reasons and in different ways, this country can be whole and be healed.

Love your country and your fellow Americans enough to do just that.