Post Taglit-Birthright: 'We're not stereotypes' | rabble.ca
Part six of Rachel Marcuse's seven-part series on her trip to Israel. Great writing and an amazing story of exploration. Highly recommended reading.
Wednesday, September 1
Monday, August 30
“Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism.” Florynce R. Kennedy
I’m having a really hard time editing the novel today, and I absolutely have to be getting that shit done, so I thought I’d just rant a bit and get what’s on my mind off of it.
…no jokes about how little there is on my mind on the best of days. You’d be preaching to the converted right now anyway.
Why am I distracted and pissed? The news. I know - huge fucking surprise. This time though I’m not even at my mother’s, and I’m not paying attention to CNN or Fox. Yes, Virginia, there really is a dearth of objectivity in media even in alternative, independent land.
I suppose that the Beck/Palin revival in Washington had something to do with it. The Park51/Cordoba House/Ground Zero Mosque bullshit also added to my angst. So did all of the alternative responses to both. Seems to me like everything just keeps getting more and more polarized, and the people that, according to my bias, should be enlightened and know better just, apparently, aren’t and don’t. I have seen the enemy…, and all that. And so the voices get louder, screaming across the growing divide. There aren’t any solutions out there, in that place where we yell epithets at each other. It’s tempting to give in sometimes and contribute to the erudite insult combat, but the results are generally discouraging, and I always feel a little dirty afterwards.
Wars of words aren’t really any better than wars with weapons. The body count appears lower, but we just don’t count it right if we think so. If we counted in terms of wasted brain cells and lost time and the new barriers of ill-intent we erect the attrition rate would be horrific.
This is not, of course, to say that debate and disagreement, even passionate disagreement, are bad things. But when we lose grasp of reason and self-control there is no upside. We’re supposed to be aspiring to something better, aren’t we?
All this openly racist banter that’s going on makes me wonder what it is our elders and parents fought for back in the not-so-long-ago. We won some new laws, but apparently didn’t win that many hearts or minds. MLK (oh man, you are so missed) must be rolling over like a motherfucker.
I openly pondered on FB the other day that this might all be a sign that the military/industrial/political complex has just figured out that a domestic conflict might be more profitable – put the war closer to the combat, so to speak, and save all that expensive shipping costs.
I know; how dark and depressing a thought is that, only because it seems to fit with a profitability mindset. It’s almost believable.
I also found myself wondering whether all the craziness was just the final frantic gasps of organizedfanaticism, er, I mean religion as it kicked and spasmed its way into the grave.
See? I am an optimist sometimes!
Okay, I feel better. Back to making my make-believe world marketable.
…no jokes about how little there is on my mind on the best of days. You’d be preaching to the converted right now anyway.
Why am I distracted and pissed? The news. I know - huge fucking surprise. This time though I’m not even at my mother’s, and I’m not paying attention to CNN or Fox. Yes, Virginia, there really is a dearth of objectivity in media even in alternative, independent land.
I suppose that the Beck/Palin revival in Washington had something to do with it. The Park51/Cordoba House/Ground Zero Mosque bullshit also added to my angst. So did all of the alternative responses to both. Seems to me like everything just keeps getting more and more polarized, and the people that, according to my bias, should be enlightened and know better just, apparently, aren’t and don’t. I have seen the enemy…, and all that. And so the voices get louder, screaming across the growing divide. There aren’t any solutions out there, in that place where we yell epithets at each other. It’s tempting to give in sometimes and contribute to the erudite insult combat, but the results are generally discouraging, and I always feel a little dirty afterwards.
Wars of words aren’t really any better than wars with weapons. The body count appears lower, but we just don’t count it right if we think so. If we counted in terms of wasted brain cells and lost time and the new barriers of ill-intent we erect the attrition rate would be horrific.
This is not, of course, to say that debate and disagreement, even passionate disagreement, are bad things. But when we lose grasp of reason and self-control there is no upside. We’re supposed to be aspiring to something better, aren’t we?
All this openly racist banter that’s going on makes me wonder what it is our elders and parents fought for back in the not-so-long-ago. We won some new laws, but apparently didn’t win that many hearts or minds. MLK (oh man, you are so missed) must be rolling over like a motherfucker.
I openly pondered on FB the other day that this might all be a sign that the military/industrial/political complex has just figured out that a domestic conflict might be more profitable – put the war closer to the combat, so to speak, and save all that expensive shipping costs.
I know; how dark and depressing a thought is that, only because it seems to fit with a profitability mindset. It’s almost believable.
I also found myself wondering whether all the craziness was just the final frantic gasps of organized
See? I am an optimist sometimes!
Okay, I feel better. Back to making my make-believe world marketable.
Thursday, August 26
Bloggers Unite - Women's Equality Day
It was about ten years ago that I had a sudden and, in hindsight, long-overdue realization: The world I lived in as a white, middle-classed male was dramatically different than the world my female friends lived in.
A friend described to me what it was like to walk in a parking lot at night; how she had to be careful to park in the light and as close to a door as possible; how every van parked beside her car made the world seem a less secure place; how she walked with her keys protruding from her fists just in case.
It was such a simple description of how our worlds were different. I never thought about cars or vans or where I parked my car, never considered where the lights were or how far I was from a door. Once the blinders were lifted by grace of her gentle clarification I found myself in a different reality.
It was a profound moment of empathy, and one I am ashamed to say I had to be led to. I've never looked at a parking lot, among many other things, the same way again.
Bloggers Unite recognizes this day, August 26, as Women's Equality Day, in honour of the United States of America's adoption of its 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. It was in that year that the US provided their female citizens the right to vote, 57 years after Sweden started the ball rolling, 51 after England, 27 after New Zealand provided full voting rights to all women. The domino affect would require most of the twentieth century to work itself out. Switzerland, for the record, was a notable hold out, waiting until 1971 to grant women full voting rights under their law.
To me, the timeline and my friend's story both highlight how great a gulf there is between the laws we make and the ethics and morality we practice. In Canada, where I live, women have been considered full 'persons' and equal under the law since 1950 when full sufferage was granted.
Only sixty years ago... My mother was ten when her mother finally became a full person under the law.
I find that fact hard to process.
The international recognition of suffrage is a great accomplishment, without a doubt. But the equality our laws provide is not always mirrored in the real world. Suffrage, as huge a step as it was, is only one part of creating any real equality.
Women, on average, are still paid less than men, are still threatened and abused, are still mistreated or ignored by courts.
Women still have to be aware of vans parked beside their cars where men probably don't even notice them.
We've come a long way, but the road is only half traveled. We're nowhere near 'there' yet.
So, by all means, we should take a moment and recognize where we've come from and how much has been accomplished. But when we've caught our breath and shared a toast, perhaps remembered the brave women who have paid enormous prices to get us this far, when we've done these things it will be time to make sure our boots are tied tightly so we can start the walk again.
There's a long way to go yet.
August 26th is Bloggers Unite's Women's Equality Day.
A friend described to me what it was like to walk in a parking lot at night; how she had to be careful to park in the light and as close to a door as possible; how every van parked beside her car made the world seem a less secure place; how she walked with her keys protruding from her fists just in case.
It was such a simple description of how our worlds were different. I never thought about cars or vans or where I parked my car, never considered where the lights were or how far I was from a door. Once the blinders were lifted by grace of her gentle clarification I found myself in a different reality.
It was a profound moment of empathy, and one I am ashamed to say I had to be led to. I've never looked at a parking lot, among many other things, the same way again.
Bloggers Unite recognizes this day, August 26, as Women's Equality Day, in honour of the United States of America's adoption of its 19th Amendment to the US Constitution in 1920. It was in that year that the US provided their female citizens the right to vote, 57 years after Sweden started the ball rolling, 51 after England, 27 after New Zealand provided full voting rights to all women. The domino affect would require most of the twentieth century to work itself out. Switzerland, for the record, was a notable hold out, waiting until 1971 to grant women full voting rights under their law.
To me, the timeline and my friend's story both highlight how great a gulf there is between the laws we make and the ethics and morality we practice. In Canada, where I live, women have been considered full 'persons' and equal under the law since 1950 when full sufferage was granted.
Only sixty years ago... My mother was ten when her mother finally became a full person under the law.
I find that fact hard to process.
The international recognition of suffrage is a great accomplishment, without a doubt. But the equality our laws provide is not always mirrored in the real world. Suffrage, as huge a step as it was, is only one part of creating any real equality.
Women, on average, are still paid less than men, are still threatened and abused, are still mistreated or ignored by courts.
Women still have to be aware of vans parked beside their cars where men probably don't even notice them.
We've come a long way, but the road is only half traveled. We're nowhere near 'there' yet.
So, by all means, we should take a moment and recognize where we've come from and how much has been accomplished. But when we've caught our breath and shared a toast, perhaps remembered the brave women who have paid enormous prices to get us this far, when we've done these things it will be time to make sure our boots are tied tightly so we can start the walk again.
There's a long way to go yet.
August 26th is Bloggers Unite's Women's Equality Day.
Wednesday, August 18
There is no ‘them’. There is only ‘us’.
This is the bad news:
We are violent, bigoted, racist, exclusive, divisionary, biased, cynical and greedy. We just need to fucking own that.
That politician that is so slimy that he is defending himself after trying to sell a senatorial seat? He’s part of us. So is that Prime Minister that seems to think it’s okay to suspend democracy when things aren’t going his way. So is that Imam that manipulates people into suicide bombings. So is that minister who is so ashamed of his own homosexuality that he demonizes every other gay and queer. So is that CEO that is willing to sell out an entire ecology to make a quick buck. And the list could go on and on.
These people are all part of us. They aren’t part of some magical ‘them’, the existence of which will allow us to be different than them and therefore, by some twisted acrobatics of denial, the ‘good guys’. They. Are. Us.
We live in a world that’s in trouble. We live in a horribly divided and manipulated culture. We live in an age where profit is more important than the good of the species. We live in a society where many of us think that it’s justified and acceptable to divide us based on race, or religion, or culture, or how much money we have. We live on a planet where it’s somehow okay for two billion of us to live on less that two bucks a day. This place where these things are ignored so long as some of us can remain cloistered in our comfortable little enclaves is our world. We are the ones responsible.
But there’s good news too:
We are also peaceful, inclusive, tolerant, accepting, generous, courageous, altruistic, idealists, hopeful and empathic.
The good news is that that guy, the social leader that preached non-violence and led so many people in a protest against racism? He’s one of us too. So is the religious leader from Tibet that preaches love and inclusion and religious tolerance. So is that catholic nun that embraced poverty so she could reach out to the impoverished. So is that social leader that led thousands of Indians in non-violent protest for their right to self-determination. So is that politician that still is still idealistic and has integrity (I know of at least two, so don’t say it can’t happen).
These people are part of us too. We get to own the good part of us even as we have to, absolutely must, own the bad parts as part of us. It’s a package deal and we can’t forget it. Ever.
This is what I want to believe, what I choose to believe:
When we get past the binary of ‘us’ and ‘them’ there’s good to go with the bad, and bad to go with the good. Past the binary there’s a place where there’s only us. We don't get to pass the buck there. We get to try to pick up the pieces in that place. In that magical and daunting land we have to make peace, find a way to accept each other, embrace each other.
In spite of the differences. Because of the commonalities.
We are all us, and it’s all we’ve fucking got. Maybe it's time for us to quit wasting time. Maybe we could quit pointing fingers and just get to fucking work one of these days.
We are violent, bigoted, racist, exclusive, divisionary, biased, cynical and greedy. We just need to fucking own that.
That politician that is so slimy that he is defending himself after trying to sell a senatorial seat? He’s part of us. So is that Prime Minister that seems to think it’s okay to suspend democracy when things aren’t going his way. So is that Imam that manipulates people into suicide bombings. So is that minister who is so ashamed of his own homosexuality that he demonizes every other gay and queer. So is that CEO that is willing to sell out an entire ecology to make a quick buck. And the list could go on and on.
These people are all part of us. They aren’t part of some magical ‘them’, the existence of which will allow us to be different than them and therefore, by some twisted acrobatics of denial, the ‘good guys’. They. Are. Us.
We live in a world that’s in trouble. We live in a horribly divided and manipulated culture. We live in an age where profit is more important than the good of the species. We live in a society where many of us think that it’s justified and acceptable to divide us based on race, or religion, or culture, or how much money we have. We live on a planet where it’s somehow okay for two billion of us to live on less that two bucks a day. This place where these things are ignored so long as some of us can remain cloistered in our comfortable little enclaves is our world. We are the ones responsible.
But there’s good news too:
We are also peaceful, inclusive, tolerant, accepting, generous, courageous, altruistic, idealists, hopeful and empathic.
The good news is that that guy, the social leader that preached non-violence and led so many people in a protest against racism? He’s one of us too. So is the religious leader from Tibet that preaches love and inclusion and religious tolerance. So is that catholic nun that embraced poverty so she could reach out to the impoverished. So is that social leader that led thousands of Indians in non-violent protest for their right to self-determination. So is that politician that still is still idealistic and has integrity (I know of at least two, so don’t say it can’t happen).
These people are part of us too. We get to own the good part of us even as we have to, absolutely must, own the bad parts as part of us. It’s a package deal and we can’t forget it. Ever.
This is what I want to believe, what I choose to believe:
When we get past the binary of ‘us’ and ‘them’ there’s good to go with the bad, and bad to go with the good. Past the binary there’s a place where there’s only us. We don't get to pass the buck there. We get to try to pick up the pieces in that place. In that magical and daunting land we have to make peace, find a way to accept each other, embrace each other.
In spite of the differences. Because of the commonalities.
We are all us, and it’s all we’ve fucking got. Maybe it's time for us to quit wasting time. Maybe we could quit pointing fingers and just get to fucking work one of these days.
Wednesday, August 11
My Taglit-Birthright Israel Experience: Batmitzvah'd in Jerusalem | rabble.ca
My Taglit-Birthright Israel Experience: Batmitzvah'd in Jerusalem | rabble.ca
This is the fourth part in Ms. Marcuse's excellent series on her trip to Israel under the provisions of Israel's Taglit-Birthright program. She is a progressive, anti-partition Jew with a great voice and a unique persepctive to share.
This is the fourth part in Ms. Marcuse's excellent series on her trip to Israel under the provisions of Israel's Taglit-Birthright program. She is a progressive, anti-partition Jew with a great voice and a unique persepctive to share.
How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth | World | AlterNet
How the Military Destroys the Lives of Soldiers Who Try to Tell the Truth | World | AlterNet
Whether I agree with it on a moral level or not, I recognize that Manning, if he is actually guilty of leaking the video in question (technically, he's still only accused), broke the law. Personally I think he deserves a medal but I have low expectations for real justice in that sense. I also believe that, when regular people take matters into their own hands and don the whistle-blower or civil disobedient mantle, they have to know that there will be consequences. Hell, those consequences are part of the reason for civil disobedience; It's drawing that unjust fire that forces people to pay attention, isn't it?
That said, this kind of disproportionate prosecution is just one example of the ongoing popularity of the criminalization of dissent by supposedly 'democratic' governments. When people actually call the government, any government, to task and force some measure of honesty out of them the reaction is sadly predictable. The first instinct, it appears, is to try to silence the truth and then make it as dangerous and daunting as possible for anyone else to ever consider doing it again.
In all of these cases the sophomoric reaction reveals more about how afraid and insecure the authorities are in their power and justification. Their actions remind me of toddlers that react to a disappearing toy by grabbing the nearest flesh and biting as hard as they can. Which in turn reminds me of a poorly trained dog.
Manning, Wikileaks, the political arrestees from the Toronto G20, the Mavi Marmara, 1.5 million Palestinians; all of these are current examples of this kind of bully-thinking. When is enough going to be enough?
Whether I agree with it on a moral level or not, I recognize that Manning, if he is actually guilty of leaking the video in question (technically, he's still only accused), broke the law. Personally I think he deserves a medal but I have low expectations for real justice in that sense. I also believe that, when regular people take matters into their own hands and don the whistle-blower or civil disobedient mantle, they have to know that there will be consequences. Hell, those consequences are part of the reason for civil disobedience; It's drawing that unjust fire that forces people to pay attention, isn't it?
That said, this kind of disproportionate prosecution is just one example of the ongoing popularity of the criminalization of dissent by supposedly 'democratic' governments. When people actually call the government, any government, to task and force some measure of honesty out of them the reaction is sadly predictable. The first instinct, it appears, is to try to silence the truth and then make it as dangerous and daunting as possible for anyone else to ever consider doing it again.
In all of these cases the sophomoric reaction reveals more about how afraid and insecure the authorities are in their power and justification. Their actions remind me of toddlers that react to a disappearing toy by grabbing the nearest flesh and biting as hard as they can. Which in turn reminds me of a poorly trained dog.
Manning, Wikileaks, the political arrestees from the Toronto G20, the Mavi Marmara, 1.5 million Palestinians; all of these are current examples of this kind of bully-thinking. When is enough going to be enough?
Sunday, August 8
“Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.” Peacemaker, founder of the Iroquois Confederacy, (ca. 1000 AD)
(Like the For Gaza post on July 9, this post is in support of Bloggers Unite, a blogger cooperative in support of several blog-worthy subjects throughout the year. Today’s post is specifically in support of International Youth Day, August 12, 2010.)
I’m a 43-year old guy with no kids of my own. Raised as an adopted child in what ended up being a broken home, and with a somewhat less-than-mainstream perspective, I grew up a little sour on the idea of having kids. I saw an exploding global population that didn’t need any extra human units, was afraid of doing to children some of what I’d experienced, and just never felt that overwhelming urge to pass on my genes.
I have, however, tried to find my own ways to influence generations subsequent to my own over the years. I’ve coached hockey, worked with ‘at-risk’ children in foster care and their own broken homes, volunteered with youth and even now, while I’m admittedly self-focused on completing the novel that is at the foundation of my life-inversion, I volunteer at a local climbing gym working with birthday and school groups. I’m also fortunate to be friends with the son of a close friend, a 15-year old young man I met 4 years ago with whom I share a love of goaltending.
My close friend was courageous enough to send that young friend out for a few days visit last week. I was honored enough back in the day when she picked me to be a ‘positive influence’, more honored when he decided to gift me his friendship, and floored that the friendship is still of any interest to him. I consider it a responsibility, this opportunity to have even a small say into the life of an intelligent, caring, funny and talented 15-year old. That close friend has done a great job of parenting herself (leaving me wondering what there is for me to contribute), but I’ve appreciated the chance to be a friend, to help him with his goaltending (in whatever small way I can do that), to talk about his education and hopes and dreams, and even discuss something else we both seem to appreciate – writing fiction. We hung out, talked about all of the above and I spent an afternoon introducing him to another love of mine – climbing. There was no pressure, just being friends. I hope that he enjoyed it as much as I did.
Because my head works in a certain way, I was and am reminded in such moments that we live in a world that needs help and that he and his peers will the ones to whom falls most of the responsibility to try to fix things. There are things we can, should and must do now, today, but most of the real solutions are over my temporal horizon, somewhere wonderful beyond my allotted 80 to 100 or so years. Seeing a real solution to problems like inequality, racism, carbon emissions, ecological degradation, political corruption, corporate and social greed, war, etcetera, etcetera, won’t come in my lifetime.
Don’t get me wrong - we need to start actually taking the steps to start the change that needs to take place now, but it’s going to take our generation and the next, and probably the next after that for any fundamental change to truly happen.
So yeah, obviously, I think our youth are pretty important.
They are smarter than we are, more open to change, less aware of cultural and racial differences and more aware of the things that we have in common. They think our greed and bigotry are stupid and foolish. They have a healthy skepticism that will serve them well if they can also remain hopeful. They have a hatred of lies and love of truth that is inspiring.
The truth that they embrace imperils our generation’s commitment to greed and avarice. Their truth scares the shit out of us, and we’re far better at denial than change. They’re uneasy with the complacency and self-centeredness that typifies our generation. They’re interested in solutions and critical thought. For as long as our species has been passing wisdom from one generation to another, we’ve been encouraging the next generation to not make the same mistakes as we did, and to consider the generations that will come after them as they make choices. It’s a concept that, frankly, our species gives a lot of lip service to, but generally fails to honor. But I remain hopeful.
The other day a friend asked her Facebook universe how it is we might imagine raising our children so that they will think self-critically and be more empathic than our generation is proving to be and more than the one before us was. The conversation ended up in a place where the concept of generational solutions seemed more viable and rational than any unrealistic hope that we might affect profound change within our own generation. Not that anyone felt that abdicating responsibility to the next generation was appropriate, but that the job was too big for the few that see it, and that the change would have to be manifested in a new generation of empowered and educated humans. Our realization was that we have to do all that we can now, but that too many people are too invested in denial, in simply not seeing the truth, to ‘get there’ in one generation. So while we have to ‘do’ now, we need to pragmatically focus on the next generation and actually encourage a profound generation gap that creates a better species.
They have some advantages, the ‘next generation’: Our technological age of global connectedness has taught them, far better than we seem to have learned, that it’s a small planet. They know that the other side of the world is part of their world. Our social myopathy and ecological hubris seems ignorant and illogical to them. They have grown up with friends from around the world, from different religions and cultures and socio-economic circumstances, and they don’t recognize our small-mindedness as viable anymore.
My young friend is certainly this way. He’s still young, but his heart and mind are already miles ahead of where I was at his age. He understands the importance of an absence of borders; of equal opportunities for all; of the possibilities inherent in inclusion.
Honestly, I have a fear that we will fail them completely and leave them no further ahead in terms of vision than we are, and with a deeper hole to dig the species out of. I fight it, but it’s there. I have no fear of what they can do though. They’re the hope that keeps me young.
International Youth Day is August 12. Pass something positive forward.
(UPDATE: While writing this, I listened to an interview with economist and author Jeremy Rifkin on CBC 1. His latest book, The Empathic Civilization – the Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, recognizes the requirement for a generational shift. He suggests that the fundamental shift that has to occur will require a recognition that the age of enlightenment concepts of extreme individualism, competition and social Darwinism are leading us to economic and social bankruptcy; that only a society that embraces the need to cooperate and recognize our inter-connectedness – that embraces empathy – will be able to survive the challenges that currently face the global society. Just for reference…)
I’m a 43-year old guy with no kids of my own. Raised as an adopted child in what ended up being a broken home, and with a somewhat less-than-mainstream perspective, I grew up a little sour on the idea of having kids. I saw an exploding global population that didn’t need any extra human units, was afraid of doing to children some of what I’d experienced, and just never felt that overwhelming urge to pass on my genes.
I have, however, tried to find my own ways to influence generations subsequent to my own over the years. I’ve coached hockey, worked with ‘at-risk’ children in foster care and their own broken homes, volunteered with youth and even now, while I’m admittedly self-focused on completing the novel that is at the foundation of my life-inversion, I volunteer at a local climbing gym working with birthday and school groups. I’m also fortunate to be friends with the son of a close friend, a 15-year old young man I met 4 years ago with whom I share a love of goaltending.
My close friend was courageous enough to send that young friend out for a few days visit last week. I was honored enough back in the day when she picked me to be a ‘positive influence’, more honored when he decided to gift me his friendship, and floored that the friendship is still of any interest to him. I consider it a responsibility, this opportunity to have even a small say into the life of an intelligent, caring, funny and talented 15-year old. That close friend has done a great job of parenting herself (leaving me wondering what there is for me to contribute), but I’ve appreciated the chance to be a friend, to help him with his goaltending (in whatever small way I can do that), to talk about his education and hopes and dreams, and even discuss something else we both seem to appreciate – writing fiction. We hung out, talked about all of the above and I spent an afternoon introducing him to another love of mine – climbing. There was no pressure, just being friends. I hope that he enjoyed it as much as I did.
Because my head works in a certain way, I was and am reminded in such moments that we live in a world that needs help and that he and his peers will the ones to whom falls most of the responsibility to try to fix things. There are things we can, should and must do now, today, but most of the real solutions are over my temporal horizon, somewhere wonderful beyond my allotted 80 to 100 or so years. Seeing a real solution to problems like inequality, racism, carbon emissions, ecological degradation, political corruption, corporate and social greed, war, etcetera, etcetera, won’t come in my lifetime.
Don’t get me wrong - we need to start actually taking the steps to start the change that needs to take place now, but it’s going to take our generation and the next, and probably the next after that for any fundamental change to truly happen.
So yeah, obviously, I think our youth are pretty important.
They are smarter than we are, more open to change, less aware of cultural and racial differences and more aware of the things that we have in common. They think our greed and bigotry are stupid and foolish. They have a healthy skepticism that will serve them well if they can also remain hopeful. They have a hatred of lies and love of truth that is inspiring.
The truth that they embrace imperils our generation’s commitment to greed and avarice. Their truth scares the shit out of us, and we’re far better at denial than change. They’re uneasy with the complacency and self-centeredness that typifies our generation. They’re interested in solutions and critical thought. For as long as our species has been passing wisdom from one generation to another, we’ve been encouraging the next generation to not make the same mistakes as we did, and to consider the generations that will come after them as they make choices. It’s a concept that, frankly, our species gives a lot of lip service to, but generally fails to honor. But I remain hopeful.
The other day a friend asked her Facebook universe how it is we might imagine raising our children so that they will think self-critically and be more empathic than our generation is proving to be and more than the one before us was. The conversation ended up in a place where the concept of generational solutions seemed more viable and rational than any unrealistic hope that we might affect profound change within our own generation. Not that anyone felt that abdicating responsibility to the next generation was appropriate, but that the job was too big for the few that see it, and that the change would have to be manifested in a new generation of empowered and educated humans. Our realization was that we have to do all that we can now, but that too many people are too invested in denial, in simply not seeing the truth, to ‘get there’ in one generation. So while we have to ‘do’ now, we need to pragmatically focus on the next generation and actually encourage a profound generation gap that creates a better species.
They have some advantages, the ‘next generation’: Our technological age of global connectedness has taught them, far better than we seem to have learned, that it’s a small planet. They know that the other side of the world is part of their world. Our social myopathy and ecological hubris seems ignorant and illogical to them. They have grown up with friends from around the world, from different religions and cultures and socio-economic circumstances, and they don’t recognize our small-mindedness as viable anymore.
My young friend is certainly this way. He’s still young, but his heart and mind are already miles ahead of where I was at his age. He understands the importance of an absence of borders; of equal opportunities for all; of the possibilities inherent in inclusion.
Honestly, I have a fear that we will fail them completely and leave them no further ahead in terms of vision than we are, and with a deeper hole to dig the species out of. I fight it, but it’s there. I have no fear of what they can do though. They’re the hope that keeps me young.
International Youth Day is August 12. Pass something positive forward.
(UPDATE: While writing this, I listened to an interview with economist and author Jeremy Rifkin on CBC 1. His latest book, The Empathic Civilization – the Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis, recognizes the requirement for a generational shift. He suggests that the fundamental shift that has to occur will require a recognition that the age of enlightenment concepts of extreme individualism, competition and social Darwinism are leading us to economic and social bankruptcy; that only a society that embraces the need to cooperate and recognize our inter-connectedness – that embraces empathy – will be able to survive the challenges that currently face the global society. Just for reference…)
Saturday, July 31
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. Aristotle
I was talking with a friend today about how we ingest media these days, and specifically, how critically we take in the feeds that we receive from fourth and fifth estates. We both agreed that our suspicion of the 'party line' had increased exponentially over the last while with the effect for both of us that we ask very specific questions whenever we hear 'news', and pretty much regardless of the source. We now wonder what it is we're not supposed to be looking at when we see the disingenuous stories that seem to dominate the headlines, or at least the biases that dominate the way those headlines are reported.
We grow up (or perhaps grew up – my smart, young friends seem to be suspicious far more naturally these days) thinking that the news we receive through the mainstream sources are credible and unbiased by default. These are, after all, the professionals – the epitome of journalism and, ostensibly journalistic integrity. I grew up in the then-present mythos of Woodward and Bernstein, the Pentagon-Papers, war-journalists embedded in Viet-Nam, before the movies but just after the breaking news, when journalism was held up as the last great defense against corruption.
I don't feel that way now. Maybe (probably) I just grew up a bit. I've grown to believe that cynicism is a natural response to seeing the world the way it is. Psychologists routinely report that depression is statistically linked to a more accurate perception of the world around us, the world as it truly is. Being hopeful, resisting an unadulterated strain of that disillusioned perspective, requires either denial of the truth or a stubborn choice; a refusal to give up on what could be. Denial shouldn't be a viable option anymore, so that leaves making daily choices. Hard ones.
This isn't even about which side we take. I'm a firm believer in passionate disagreement and debate. I entertain dreams of that kind of respectful yet strong discussion occurring here one day, comments from honest and open people on both sides of an argument. I wouldn't for a second suggest that I'm detached or completely objective in the perspectives that I hold, but I hope that my opinions (because that's all they are) at least show that I've taken the time to investigate and think through both sides of an argument. My conclusions usually end up in relatively the same place: perhaps an inevitable destination because of my biases, or perhaps because of the logical result of the investigation – most likely (hopefully) at least a bit of both.
But we shouldn't be afraid to ask the questions. I've used the Descartes quote before: 'If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt all things.' This should be - has to be - the attitude that we take when looking at the world around us. So much of the world that we are presented with through the media, by our politicians and social leaders, is presented through a biased and manipulative lens, that we have to doubt what we see. Have to.
To not do so is to deny the simple truth that we all create our perceptions of the world through our own, auto-biographical narratives – that we are constantly being tempted to see the world only through the lens that we find most comfortable; the one that feels safest. We seek others that think like us, talk like us, are passionate about topics like us. It's so comforting to surround ourselves in group-think cocoons so that we never have to face the possibility that our perspective is wrong. Being committed (and continually renewing that commitment) to questioning what we see and how we choose to see it is part of our responsibility as citizens.
It's not easy, especially when we find ourselves in a comfortable place, that place where we feel at home and accepted and amongst friends. Ironically, that's when a questioning, self-cynical perspective is the most important. It's at the exact moment when we feel safe and included that we need to ask ourselves the hardest questions: What are my prejudices here and now? What is this place of apparent comfort encouraging me to not see? What biases are my deeply held beliefs fostering in me? How is my perspective encouraging me to dehumanize people who don't agree with me? Am I in danger of becoming that which I hate?
That kind of soul-searching and the constant state of imbalance it can create can be very disorienting, but it's honest. When we think that we're standing on concrete is when we should be most concerned. The world is made of sand, constantly shifting and never stable. Simply recognizing our inclination to try to delude ourselves into thinking it's solid when it isn't is an enormous challenge.
Our responsibility as citizens, if we care about ever evolving past war and greed and the creation of arbitrary differentiations between 'us' and 'the other', is to get comfortable with being off balance; with choosing to stay off balance in so much as we are constantly re-evaluating our beliefs and assumptions, constantly trying to see past ourselves.
It's a hard place to live, but nobody ever said that anything worth while was easy.
We grow up (or perhaps grew up – my smart, young friends seem to be suspicious far more naturally these days) thinking that the news we receive through the mainstream sources are credible and unbiased by default. These are, after all, the professionals – the epitome of journalism and, ostensibly journalistic integrity. I grew up in the then-present mythos of Woodward and Bernstein, the Pentagon-Papers, war-journalists embedded in Viet-Nam, before the movies but just after the breaking news, when journalism was held up as the last great defense against corruption.
I don't feel that way now. Maybe (probably) I just grew up a bit. I've grown to believe that cynicism is a natural response to seeing the world the way it is. Psychologists routinely report that depression is statistically linked to a more accurate perception of the world around us, the world as it truly is. Being hopeful, resisting an unadulterated strain of that disillusioned perspective, requires either denial of the truth or a stubborn choice; a refusal to give up on what could be. Denial shouldn't be a viable option anymore, so that leaves making daily choices. Hard ones.
This isn't even about which side we take. I'm a firm believer in passionate disagreement and debate. I entertain dreams of that kind of respectful yet strong discussion occurring here one day, comments from honest and open people on both sides of an argument. I wouldn't for a second suggest that I'm detached or completely objective in the perspectives that I hold, but I hope that my opinions (because that's all they are) at least show that I've taken the time to investigate and think through both sides of an argument. My conclusions usually end up in relatively the same place: perhaps an inevitable destination because of my biases, or perhaps because of the logical result of the investigation – most likely (hopefully) at least a bit of both.
But we shouldn't be afraid to ask the questions. I've used the Descartes quote before: 'If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt all things.' This should be - has to be - the attitude that we take when looking at the world around us. So much of the world that we are presented with through the media, by our politicians and social leaders, is presented through a biased and manipulative lens, that we have to doubt what we see. Have to.
To not do so is to deny the simple truth that we all create our perceptions of the world through our own, auto-biographical narratives – that we are constantly being tempted to see the world only through the lens that we find most comfortable; the one that feels safest. We seek others that think like us, talk like us, are passionate about topics like us. It's so comforting to surround ourselves in group-think cocoons so that we never have to face the possibility that our perspective is wrong. Being committed (and continually renewing that commitment) to questioning what we see and how we choose to see it is part of our responsibility as citizens.
It's not easy, especially when we find ourselves in a comfortable place, that place where we feel at home and accepted and amongst friends. Ironically, that's when a questioning, self-cynical perspective is the most important. It's at the exact moment when we feel safe and included that we need to ask ourselves the hardest questions: What are my prejudices here and now? What is this place of apparent comfort encouraging me to not see? What biases are my deeply held beliefs fostering in me? How is my perspective encouraging me to dehumanize people who don't agree with me? Am I in danger of becoming that which I hate?
That kind of soul-searching and the constant state of imbalance it can create can be very disorienting, but it's honest. When we think that we're standing on concrete is when we should be most concerned. The world is made of sand, constantly shifting and never stable. Simply recognizing our inclination to try to delude ourselves into thinking it's solid when it isn't is an enormous challenge.
Our responsibility as citizens, if we care about ever evolving past war and greed and the creation of arbitrary differentiations between 'us' and 'the other', is to get comfortable with being off balance; with choosing to stay off balance in so much as we are constantly re-evaluating our beliefs and assumptions, constantly trying to see past ourselves.
It's a hard place to live, but nobody ever said that anything worth while was easy.
Tuesday, July 20
‘Capable, generous men do not make victims, they nurture them.’ Julian Assange
Life is about making mistakes. Well, maybe not about making them, but they happen. I've made peace with that. Occasionally, I have really good days when I make good decisions in anticipation of the mistake it would be if I made another choice, hard decisions that are not efficient in terms of short term gain or ease, but rather work only when I measure in terms of how I want to look back on my life when I get to the end of it.
I was thinking about this concept on Saturday, both in personal and in societal terms, when I drove to Vancouver to participate in the CAPP solidarity march and protest demanding a full public inquiry in into the recent G8/G20 summit in Toronto. It was my own little thematic idea-track providing a context and mood to the day. I create these thematic playlists most days and, when the 'theme music' is good, when I can feel the kick drum, move with the syncopation, and lean into the melody and harmonies, I find myself edging into a sense of serendipity that I can only compare to good days in front of the keyboard clicking out the imaginary lives of the characters in my novel. It's a feeling of connectedness, something that approaches Epiphanical ecstasy at times, a dance of endorphins that makes everything feel just alright, if you know what I mean.
On these days, whether the insights feel optimistic or the clarity only provides confirmation for my pessimism, I feel like I'm in touch with something bigger. I don't attribute it to god or the universe. I know it's just a trick of biochemistry and psychological alignment, but I also don't care how or why. It's a powerful sensation and I'll take it any way I can get it.
I spent the morning walking through the Woodlands Memorial Garden. Woodlands Provincial Asylum for the Insane was an institution that operated between 1913 and 1996. At its peak it housed over 1250 people, many of whom died while incarcerated at the facility. Ideas regarding the developmentally challenged evolved a great deal through those years, but they were never really enlightened, even through the '80's and '90's when Woodlands was winding down and hundreds of patients were released without placement or support into the community. The impact on Vancouver's homeless population was enormous.
A plaque in the memorial states: “The memorial sculpture, Window Too High, represents the barred windows of the original Woodlands building that were set so high that the residents could not see out of them.” Over 300 people died while residing at Woodlands between 1920 and 1958, and were buried on the grounds. Later renovations actually desecrated these graves by using granite marker stones for patio and BBQ installations. In '99 the Memorial Garden was created and over 200 stones, only a portion of those removed, were reclaimed. Missing stones have been replaced with new plaques to commemorate and respect those that were once buried here. Only nine original graves survived the desecration. They are described as “silent sentinels” over this place that has been, in some small measure, reclaimed.
I was immediately struck, in light of that thematic sub-beat that was running through my head, by the dissonant irony that we seem to place so much emphasis on making things right in retrospect when we were (and are) so eager to participate in the desecration in the first place. I wondered how it was, in the '70's, that anyone thought it would be okay to use those stones to build patios? I wondered what failure of foresight could have justified such insensitivity.
Today, I wonder what can justify the failure of foresight we continue to practice, as individuals and as a culture, every day of our present. How do we not learn, when we are so often faced with the social and political necessity of reparation and reconciliation, to avoid the kind of callous disregard for each other that spawns the need for such campaigns of atonement?
I carried this feeling of intense species-shame into the afternoon and the protest. It seems like such a small thing to join with a couple hundred other people to walk three blocks chanting and shouting, sharing our communal outrage over the suspension of civil liberties that took place in Toronto during the weeks leading up to and through the G8/G20. A friend asked, very legitimately, “Does this really do anything?”
I found myself pondering again and again how it was that so many ISU officers thought it was okay to kick and beat people? How could McQuinty's cabinet enact the Public Protection Act with such cavalier disregard for the people they were elected to serve and then participate in the lies regarding its scope? How can Harper so consistently snub his arrogant nose at the Charter that his government is sworn to uphold? These are human beings, after all, whether that fact is always easy to remember or not in the midst of my frustration. They should be driven by the same basic understanding of respect and empathy as I am. We should all share a desire to see all people living with dignity. Is that such a radical concept?
How is it that, as a species, whether in the realm of politics, industry, finance, consumption, renewability, health care, or any of the other spheres in which we act with such short-sightedness, we seem to continue to make the same mistakes? How do we still justify decisions made in the interest of short-term profit or ease when the the obvious consequences loom at us over the horizon of tomorrow? Is our sense of duty to the future still so myopic that we think, “Oh well, fuck tomorrow. Our kids can put up a memorial one day. Let's make money and accumulate stuff while the sun shines”?
Yes, it is. That's exactly what's wrong. In our apathy or our sociopathic greed, we let these things happen. We have to own this, all of us. Getting past the self-inflicted denial is the first step.
In answer to my friend's question I had to admit that, in and of itself, the impact of the march on Saturday is marginal (especially when the mainstream media has admitted that they no longer desire to cover the G20 story and didn't even deign to send a single reporter to cover it).
But it does make a difference. After all, she came even though she hadn't heard about the march until I asked her to keep me company. We listened and learned together, shouted “shame” again and again as the three witnesses to the Toronto actions told their stories, listened to the social and NGO leaders and politicians, chanted our affirmations that, yes, this was what democracy looked like. We participated, as did the others, and the weight of our angst filled the street and Victory Park in its small way. Better that we were witness and remembered than that no-one did. Better to light a single candle, and all that, not giving into the apathy that seems to typify our culture. It is a big thing. And we were part of that.
We were part of saying that we will weigh our actions and their consequences in advance and with foresight. We will act in such a way as to not require memorial gardens one day to ease our shame. We will own it now, today, and make choices in hope of a better world and a kinder way of living. We will do this for ourselves and for our children and for theirs.
One day, maybe, our children's children will have better things to do than make up for our mistakes...
I was thinking about this concept on Saturday, both in personal and in societal terms, when I drove to Vancouver to participate in the CAPP solidarity march and protest demanding a full public inquiry in into the recent G8/G20 summit in Toronto. It was my own little thematic idea-track providing a context and mood to the day. I create these thematic playlists most days and, when the 'theme music' is good, when I can feel the kick drum, move with the syncopation, and lean into the melody and harmonies, I find myself edging into a sense of serendipity that I can only compare to good days in front of the keyboard clicking out the imaginary lives of the characters in my novel. It's a feeling of connectedness, something that approaches Epiphanical ecstasy at times, a dance of endorphins that makes everything feel just alright, if you know what I mean.
On these days, whether the insights feel optimistic or the clarity only provides confirmation for my pessimism, I feel like I'm in touch with something bigger. I don't attribute it to god or the universe. I know it's just a trick of biochemistry and psychological alignment, but I also don't care how or why. It's a powerful sensation and I'll take it any way I can get it.
I spent the morning walking through the Woodlands Memorial Garden. Woodlands Provincial Asylum for the Insane was an institution that operated between 1913 and 1996. At its peak it housed over 1250 people, many of whom died while incarcerated at the facility. Ideas regarding the developmentally challenged evolved a great deal through those years, but they were never really enlightened, even through the '80's and '90's when Woodlands was winding down and hundreds of patients were released without placement or support into the community. The impact on Vancouver's homeless population was enormous.
A plaque in the memorial states: “The memorial sculpture, Window Too High, represents the barred windows of the original Woodlands building that were set so high that the residents could not see out of them.” Over 300 people died while residing at Woodlands between 1920 and 1958, and were buried on the grounds. Later renovations actually desecrated these graves by using granite marker stones for patio and BBQ installations. In '99 the Memorial Garden was created and over 200 stones, only a portion of those removed, were reclaimed. Missing stones have been replaced with new plaques to commemorate and respect those that were once buried here. Only nine original graves survived the desecration. They are described as “silent sentinels” over this place that has been, in some small measure, reclaimed.
I was immediately struck, in light of that thematic sub-beat that was running through my head, by the dissonant irony that we seem to place so much emphasis on making things right in retrospect when we were (and are) so eager to participate in the desecration in the first place. I wondered how it was, in the '70's, that anyone thought it would be okay to use those stones to build patios? I wondered what failure of foresight could have justified such insensitivity.
Today, I wonder what can justify the failure of foresight we continue to practice, as individuals and as a culture, every day of our present. How do we not learn, when we are so often faced with the social and political necessity of reparation and reconciliation, to avoid the kind of callous disregard for each other that spawns the need for such campaigns of atonement?
I carried this feeling of intense species-shame into the afternoon and the protest. It seems like such a small thing to join with a couple hundred other people to walk three blocks chanting and shouting, sharing our communal outrage over the suspension of civil liberties that took place in Toronto during the weeks leading up to and through the G8/G20. A friend asked, very legitimately, “Does this really do anything?”
I found myself pondering again and again how it was that so many ISU officers thought it was okay to kick and beat people? How could McQuinty's cabinet enact the Public Protection Act with such cavalier disregard for the people they were elected to serve and then participate in the lies regarding its scope? How can Harper so consistently snub his arrogant nose at the Charter that his government is sworn to uphold? These are human beings, after all, whether that fact is always easy to remember or not in the midst of my frustration. They should be driven by the same basic understanding of respect and empathy as I am. We should all share a desire to see all people living with dignity. Is that such a radical concept?
How is it that, as a species, whether in the realm of politics, industry, finance, consumption, renewability, health care, or any of the other spheres in which we act with such short-sightedness, we seem to continue to make the same mistakes? How do we still justify decisions made in the interest of short-term profit or ease when the the obvious consequences loom at us over the horizon of tomorrow? Is our sense of duty to the future still so myopic that we think, “Oh well, fuck tomorrow. Our kids can put up a memorial one day. Let's make money and accumulate stuff while the sun shines”?
Yes, it is. That's exactly what's wrong. In our apathy or our sociopathic greed, we let these things happen. We have to own this, all of us. Getting past the self-inflicted denial is the first step.
In answer to my friend's question I had to admit that, in and of itself, the impact of the march on Saturday is marginal (especially when the mainstream media has admitted that they no longer desire to cover the G20 story and didn't even deign to send a single reporter to cover it).
But it does make a difference. After all, she came even though she hadn't heard about the march until I asked her to keep me company. We listened and learned together, shouted “shame” again and again as the three witnesses to the Toronto actions told their stories, listened to the social and NGO leaders and politicians, chanted our affirmations that, yes, this was what democracy looked like. We participated, as did the others, and the weight of our angst filled the street and Victory Park in its small way. Better that we were witness and remembered than that no-one did. Better to light a single candle, and all that, not giving into the apathy that seems to typify our culture. It is a big thing. And we were part of that.
We were part of saying that we will weigh our actions and their consequences in advance and with foresight. We will act in such a way as to not require memorial gardens one day to ease our shame. We will own it now, today, and make choices in hope of a better world and a kinder way of living. We will do this for ourselves and for our children and for theirs.
One day, maybe, our children's children will have better things to do than make up for our mistakes...
Monday, July 12
Unfuck the Gulf
Had to share this... It combines profanity with a good cause, two of my favourite things.
Oil Spill Charity "F-Bomb-A-Thon" from UnF--kTheGulf.com on Vimeo.
Oil Spill Charity "F-Bomb-A-Thon" from UnF--kTheGulf.com on Vimeo.
Friday, July 9
For Gaza
Let me state this plainly:
I am not anti-Israel. I believe that Israel has a right to exist as valid as any other nation state. I don't know if I would have made the same choices that were made in the late 1940's, but that's water under the bridge. Israel exists and has a right to continue to exist.
I am not pro-Palestine. I believe that the nation state is one of the poorer inventions of the human species. Show me a nation-state and I will show you an institution that will want something that someone else possesses, and will fight and kill for it if they get the opportunity.
I am not anti-Israeli. The Israeli people are a vibrant and dynamic culture with much to offer the world.
I am not pro-Hamas. Hamas, as much as the nation-state of Israel, has many crimes to answer for. I do not condone or approve of terrorism or violence no matter how much I might understand the frustration and anger that spawns it.
What I am is anti-Israeli government and policy in so much as that government and policy considers it justifiable to marginalize 1.5 million people and dictate their quality of life so that it is, at best, an existence of bare subsistence.
I am pro-Palestinian. Palestinians are a people. Like the Israelis, they have a vibrant and dynamic culture to share with the world. Like the Israelis, they deserve the opportunity to exist and flourish.
I am pro-Gaza. It is for the 1.5 million citizens of Gaza that my heart aches, that my teeth grind, that my fists clench.
They are impoverished for no reason other than an arrogant belief that one people are more worthy than another; denied the rights that we consider most basic because one culture has decreed they are less worthy; refused the basic goods required to build their homes and feed their children because a group of developed nations have decided that it is justifiable to punish an entire people for what they consider to be the sin of poor democratic choice.
The international community of nations tout themselves as wise statesmen acting in the best interest of humanity, but they are not. Rather, they are bullies, the largest and most immature children in the playground vying for control of a global sandbox. They do not speak for me. They do not speak for you. They speak for themselves and those economic concerns that promise them fame, power and fortune.
I am anti-bully. Bullies steal from others so that they can grow fatter and bigger. They beat up those that they can to feel powerful in a vain attempt to prove their arrogance justifiable. They say that they are protecting us, but really it's more like a protection racket, an organized crime. All this can be yours,, they say, if you will just shut up and follow the program.
We cannot shut up. In the name of all of those values that our rulers give lip service to but never honor, in the name of true morals like empathy and justice and equality, in the name of simple dignity, we cannot shut up.
Instead we must remember the weak, embrace those who have been cast out and called unclean, stand up for those who cannot, dissent from the lie of the status quo. If we will not stand now for those who are beaten down, who will stand for us when we are the slaves, the marginalized, the disenfranchised?
There must be a better way, and if our 'leaders' will not seek it, then we are the ones that must demand it with more conviction, more peace, more resolve. Our leaders must be made to remember. And for that to happen, we cannot forget.
Gaza, we remember you. And we will not forget. Or rest.
Thursday, July 8
"A cult is a religion with no political power." Tom Wolfe - "All religions are true. The important thing is to reach the roof. You can reach it by stone stairs or by wooden stairs or by bamboo steps or by a rope. You can also climb up by a bamboo pole." Ramakrishna
A couple months ago I read a book by the Christian author, Brian McClaren, called A New Kind of Christianity. If you were here around Easter then you already know how I feel about organized religion . If you weren't we'll cover it again below, or you can check out past posts. Let's just say that, uh, I'm, uh, less than supportive and slightly more than critical. But just a bit...
I stay sort of up to date on stuff because I have a vested interest. You see, both of my parents actually still believe hard. My Mom, who is slipping very steadily into an as-yet quaint stage of Alzheimer’s where she remembers everyone but doesn’t make many new memories, was raised in a very strict evangelical church and taught to feel guilty for everything very thoroughly. My Dad is a more serious Christian. Not a ‘check Christian because I went to Sunday school’ kind of Christian, but a real, post-denominational, quasi-fundamentalist, ‘new’ version Christian.
Still as mentally spry as ever and a retired teacher, my Dad spends part of his time teaching at his church and has been actively involved in leadership. So as much as I'm glad I escaped the black hole, I'm still invested through them.
Dad and I end up talking about Christianity a lot because, well, I was once one too, one of those zealous Christians that now, like a former drug addict that volunteers as an advocate for rehab and clean needle programs, likes to keep up on the latest lingo and thoughts. The friendly and mostly civil debate can be both vigorous and stimulating, and when a new perspective comes along that aspires to boil Christianity down to the stuff that the bible character Jesus was trying to promote (say, as opposed to the neo-old testament hellfire and brimstone funda-wingnut crap that passes for modern Christianity), I perk up. McLaren's book represents the possibility of that kind of re-imagining.
I don’t hold Christians' beliefs against them. People have a right to believe in whatever they believe in. As much as I’ve grown to despise organized religion in all its forms those who succumb to it are, in my opinion, victims not monsters, even the pastors and priests, all victims of a manipulative belief system on steroids. Organized religion is a form of meta-generational abuse that has been inflicted on all of us whether we count ourselves as believers or not. The permutations and implications of religion are scattered throughout our culture everywhere like impurities that weaken steel and concrete: Where they are, the foundations are cracking and the girders are sagging.
Those who do believe, whichever religion of the book they believe in, generally find this perspective insulting. I get that. What they usually don't stop to think about upon a close reading is that I respect honest spirituality when I see it. I'm a Ramakrishna guy, and I don't give a crap which staircase you want to use as long as the sincere intent is to get to the roof. The problem I see with most religions is that they get all caught up in decorating the living room and kitchen instead of helping people get to the fucking roof.
Jesus was, if you read the NT and Apocrypha right, a very progressive, radical guy for his time. He was a peace-nik, an activist, and in many ways a sort of antecedent syndico-anarchist. The Jesus I read about would not have liked the thought of having his social movement turned into the very kind if institution he was rebelling against. If there was a historical Jesus, he was the social leader and socio-theological rebel rather than the ‘guy most likely to posthumously lead a cult’ that the modern church makes him out to be.
But that’s an opinion, shared by others, also backed by some substantial proofs to support the logic behind the opinion, but still an opinion. I happily own it.
McClaren’s written his book well, in a very easy to read voice (which made getting through it much less of a chore for me). In places it was an actual pleasure. To be fair, I’m no trained theologian, so offering a detailed academic perspective on McClaren’s non-academic book is not something I’d try. That’s my disclaimer. But he is trying to view things from a different perspective and I’ll give credit where credit is due. His perspective sees Christianity clearly for at least most of the obvious evils that it has perpetrated and perpetuated over the last 1800 years or so. I say 1800 years because pre-Constantine, Christianity was not a catch-all phrase. Before Constantine leveraged that ‘new’ new belief system as a way to try to hold the Roman Empire together, Christianity was essentially a bunch of fairly organic and separate sects, considered by many a cult, by others just a social movement. After Constantine though... then it became an institution.
McLaren tries to re-imagine the Christian faith as a narrative that extends forward as a promise from Genesis instead of a history seen through the philosophical duality of the Greco-Roman tradition. He suggests that the narrative and themes change from this perspective, and he thinks that the change of perspective also changes the ‘nature’ of the god we’ve been exposed to, one that is loving and kind and redeeming in spite of the massive carnage evident in the Old Testament storyline and in the blood on the hands of all ‘people of the book’ in the AD part of the time line. I buy it to a degree, but only to a degree. I think that his line of thought still makes some egregious mistakes about whether religious institutions can be redeemed in any way, or whether there’s an actual, ‘new’ anything in Christianity (as opposed to a new veneer glued on over some very old mythologies that repeat and repeat down through the ages and cultures).
More than anything, I appreciate that he’s trying. He seems very earnest and sincere, just as I though Obama was in The Audacity of Hope (that is a back-handed compliment in case you had any doubt). But fill one hand with intention and the other with horse shit… Well, you know how that goes. I appreciate what he’s done on one level because, from my perspective, I think he makes thinking for one’s self more permissible within an institution that worships group-think to the same astounding degree as, say, the other two ‘religions of the book’. I believe that kind of permission will allow more people to make it to a place where organized religion is no longer necessary.
You see, I have no quarrel with faith (whether I think it’s accurate or not). It’s the religion, the institution, that’s the problem. If somebody wants to believe in Jesus as god, or Allah, or Jevovah, or Gaia, or animal spirits, or Santa Claus, or the Easter Bunny, or nothing, or Joe Pesci for crying out loud… I don’t care! Now, if you want to make that belief a rigid system and use it to control other people or impose your beliefs on them, to exclude others from your 'in' crowd - well, now we have a problem. I believe that, regardless of the faith, system, or whatever you want to call it, it’s the institution that is faulty. That institution makes a directed practice out of fostering that 'our way or the hell way' dichotomy. It pits people against other people intentionally when the truth is that we're all in this together.
Whether that institution is a church, a government, a judiciary, academia, science… whatever; When any idea, even a good one, is allowed to become an institution that is exclusive of other institutions or ideas or people, then that institution unfailingly becomes more interested in self-preservation than maintaining integrity to the values that were its genesis. I’ve said that very thing before and I’ll say it again because it’s true.
So I read McLaren’s book in the pursuit of understanding what’s happening or what might happen for folks like my Dad who still believe hard. I consider McClaren's position and argument a half measure (at best), but it’s a half-measure in the right direction. For that reason, and for his sincerity, I applaud him. If people read it and develop a faith that is less controlled and more free; if it leads people into a dialog that questions the status quo (and it seems to be doing that), then that’s a good thing.
If people read, ask, find a new perspective and, from there see their way to real freedom… well that would be even better.
Tuesday, July 6
‘The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.’ Charles Bukowski
I was reading the news and came across the following stories about an activist being tried for hanging a banner, a brave whistle blower from the US military being court-martialed, and another activist turning himself in to face charges relating to G20 activities that seem, on the surface of them, spurious at best. In each of these cases there seems to be an intent on the part of authorities to prosecute to a level that is punitive simply for the sake of retaliation, simply because these people have questioned the status quo and are thereby considered threats worthy of harassment.
The case of Mr. Manning and the accusations of leaking military video footage to Wikileaks seems particularly hypocritical to me. In any other industry other than the US
And in the case of both activists we have individuals who work tirelessly not only to support worthwhile causes, but who do so while also upholding some of the cornerstone rights upon which our ‘free’ societies are based; the right to protest, to show dissent and to question the actions of our governments and institutions; to hold accountable those in whom we have entrusted our civil liberties (because the mainstream media isn’t going to be doing it any time soon). Yet they are specifically targeted as dangerous individuals. Remember when we were up in arms about how China
I no longer believe that our politicians have anything even approximating our best interests in mind. When one does come along that actually stands for anything, stands for the people they represent and for concepts and morals that are universal, they too are singled out and driven into the mud. Libby Davies should be held up as an example of a politician that still actually stands for something. The rest just seem to bend over for anyone. Instead she’s criticized, threatened, demonized. Frankly, I’d take one of her over the whole lot of the rest of them.
And that ‘rest of them’ are the ones that have co-opted the police, those supposedly sworn to serve and protect us, and turned them into a pseudo-military force enlisted to preserve the plutocracy’s hegemony at the cost of our rights and liberties. This just will not do.
It prompted me, in a thread earlier today, to ask this: “I wonder at what point individual police officers, who might be 'nice people' and all that (and I know several), become responsible for the fact that they choose to remain working for those politicos and in support of obviously compromised institutions? Where does their moral responsibility begin and their job end? "I was following orders" hasn't been a valid excuse for 65 years or so now...”
That’s my question right now? At what point do people that are in positions to support our downhill slide ask, “Is what I’m doing wrong?” When we look back twenty or fifty years from now, will we be looking at those who served on task forces like the ISU and be asking them “How could you?” in the same way that someone must have asked that guardsman at Trent State that question. How does a cop go to Toronto
These are people after all, the politicians, the cops, the corrupt jurists and lawyers. Ostensibly they have the same DNA as us, the same propensity for humanism, for empathy, for decency. How do they ‘get there’, that place where threatening people with cameras is okay, and where threatening detainees with rape is appropriate? Hell, I know a few cops and, from what I’ve seen of them, they’re salt of the Earth, regular people that have to do an often incredibly difficult job going after real criminals, people that live with the nightmares of what they’ve had to bear witness to; of man’s inhumanity to man. The ones I know are great people doing a shitty job. And yet, they could very easily have been among those at the G20 smacking people with batons for no good reason, splitting their eyebrows open with shields just because, stomping seated protesters on the back with their boots in support of ‘leaders’ that don’t much care about us at all.
It tempts me to hate them for that. It takes an act of will to hate the system instead and realize that they are victims of it too, albeit willing ones. I’m just left wondering how much slack those individuals should get. When do they stop being unwilling employees or good soldiers and start being criminals themselves?
Friday, July 2
'I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.' Christopher Reeve
Like a lot of people here in Canada, I spent a fair bit of time keeping an eye on the G20 Summit in Toronto last weekend, and the road show that invariably follows it around. Occurring as it did over the days leading up to the anniversary of our national independence on July 1, the events that occurred in Toronto were cast in an especially ironic light. Anyone watching, listening or reading the news coming out of TO in the days leading up to and through the summit had to be struck by the grotesque largesse of the preparations and their associated costs. Anyone with a heart had to be dismayed by what they saw the police doing in the aftermath of the vandalism that took place on Saturday. Hopefully, we were looking close enough to notice more than just that vandalism and the 'reaction' to it, because there was certainly more to the story than the mainstream media was purporting, especially here in Canada. And while there were some good stories to come out of the weekend, a few reminders of what it is we hold dear and why we fight for our freedoms, it was a sad week for international diplomacy and a sadder one for Canadian civil liberties.
I'm not going to go into detail regarding what happened over the weekend. Suffice it to say that, as always, the mainstream media didn't cover the whole story. Frankly, I'm surprised that they covered as much as they did. No, to get to a closer semblance of the truth I spent time monitoring the alternative news sources online, looking for the stories that the infotainment industry doesn't cover, sharing little pieces with friends on the social networks, and I know that the truth is still something that you have to look for as much in between the lines as anywhere else. I'll also say this: While I don't support the Black Bloc tactic as a strategy (I think it misses the point, detracts from the primary messages, and provides too much of what the Security Forces are looking for as justification for their brutality), I don't blame them either. I believe that the Black Bloc provides the Police with their best opportunity to infiltrate and act as agent provocateurs. I think there's a better way, that when we adopt the piggish and brutal tactics of our enemies, then we become as bad as them. I think that's what Gandhi and King taught, and that works for me.
I was, in turns; profoundly moved by the courage of activists and discouraged by the actions of the police; frustrated by the Black Bloc tactics and nauseated by the actual violence perpetuated by the ISU; shocked by the callous brutality of too many of the security force and encouraged in small ways when I saw some of them obviously finding their duties distasteful; horrified by the suspension of civil liberties and enraged by the cavalier attitude with which the ISU went about flouting their disdain for those legal rights guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights; outraged at ISU lines charging a peaceful demonstration the moment they finished singing O Canada, and buoyed by video of two courageous demonstrators trying to stop the cruiser vandals or another making a looter drop the item he was about to steal. It was a weekend of ups and downs.
The vast majority of protesters were peaceful and loud yet the ISU rained down their violence primarily on these people. Over 900 arrested over the G8/G20 and over 700 released without charges – that says something. The conditions in the detention center were by many accounts horrible, and by some utterly horrifying, including threats of rape and cavity searches completed by ISU of the opposite sex and isolation of those 'identified' as members of the LBGT community. The 5-meter rule, a supposed amendment of the 1939 Public Works Protection Act that was secretly re-enacted by the Ontario cabinet, was touted by the police as a special temporary power granted them to tackle the extra security threat. That 5-meter law turned out to be a lie that the TPS Chief Blair chuckled about, but what it really means is that thousands of illegal search and seizures were completed over the weekend without probable cause.
The phrase 'Police State' was bandied about quite a bit, and if you read the stories, watch the videos, see the pictures, you might be inclined to agree. This was a disgusting display of arrogance and near-fascist hubris on the part of the Federal and Provincial governments and the ISU.
We should be ashamed. Lots of us are - of our country, our political 'leaders', our police forces. It was a very sad weekend for civil liberty in Canada.
It was also an amazingly empowering weekend to watch too. In spite of the brutality, the lies, the suspension of rights and the illegal detentions, there were still thousands of people willing to continue the fight. And the numbers grew as the weekend went on when regular folk saw what was happening and joined the protest. It carried over into the new week too with thousands more participating in solidarity marches in Hamilton, Quebec, Montreal, Winnipeg, Regina and Vancouver.
This is the way it works. Even when the politicians and police think they've tricked us into looking bad, they forget their own ability to make themselves look worse. Their abuse doesn't make people cower in fear; it makes more people stand up. Just like fighting un-winable wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, their hubris creates more enemies than it oppresses. And a tipping point will come in time.
I like to hope that the tipping point will occur peacefully when enough people open their eyes and see the world for what it actually is and decide, goddammit, that there must be a better way. Sometimes, though, I despair that the odds of a peaceful resolution to all of this will remain slim. And then I see someone stand when it would be easier to stay down, choose peace when violence would be expected, be courageous when it would be easy to run away, and I remember why people fight for these things: because they matter and because we know they do.
I'd like to think that we can aspire to something better than the world we live in because I see individuals doing it all the time. But I wonder if we'll hit that tipping point in time. Mostly we seem bent of self-destruction, like in the parable of the scorpion and the frog – it seems to be our nature. But I see the good too and think; maybe we can hold on long enough, yell loud enough, stand firm enough to get us through to that magic point where the sane outnumber the insane and we can actually start in a better direction.
Anyway, links are below if you missed it. It's not a comprehensive list, but it'll get'cha started if you're so inclined...
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2724231020100627
http://www.newkerala.com/news/fullnews-120259.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_bloc
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/node/173
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=784lay9401U&feature=related
http://www.straight.com/article-331174/vancouver/black-bloc-smashes-windows-causes-mayhem-toronto-g20-meeting
http://videosift.com/video/Toronto-G20-the-Shape-of-things-to-Come
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/G20/2010/06/26/14525911.html
http://www.torontosun.com/news/g20/2010/06/27/14534051.html
http://current.com/news/92515480_video-compilation-of-police-violence-at-toronto-g20.htm
http://www.blogto.com/city/2010/06/police_trap_g20_protesters_at_queen_and_spadina/
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/06/29/g20-chief-fence571.html
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/statica/2010/07/g8g20-communiqué-journalists-attacked-police-g20-protests
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/06/29/g20-oiprd-reporters-complaint.html
http://jezebel.com/5575356/g20-journalist-threatened-with-rape-violence-in-jail
http://www.straight.com/article-332050/vancouver/vancouver-protest-planned-show-solidarity-g20-detainees-black-bloc-activists
http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/photo/g20-solidarity-rally-and-protest-against-polic-repression-g20-protests-montreal/4006
http://mynews.ctv.ca/mediadetails/2886697?collection=742&offset=0&siteT
Friday, June 11
Good coaches teach respect for the opposition, love of competition, the value of trying your best, and how to win and lose graciously. Brooks Clark
I read this article on Truthout yesterday about how the nature of sport in the modern world, what we as a culture consider to be the intrinsic value of play and sport activities, has changed so dramatically over the last century. Mr. Lapham makes subtle and beautiful allusions describing how our appreciation of sport has transformed into an allegory of how we see life, war, business as things that require brutal competitiveness and that exist only to provide us a clear answer to the questions “Who is the winner?”, and conversely, “Who is the loser?”
I found the article encouraging because of the way it resonated with many thoughts I've had over the last six weeks as I've watched highlights of (there's no hockey on TV in the UK for less than an arm and a leg) the NHL playoffs (hockey is the last team and professional sport that I have any affinity for) and as I've spent countless hours in deep conversation with my Dad and others in the course of my travels (the subject of another post on another day).
I can't say what Lapham said any better, but it triggered a cascade of thoughts that I was compelled to try to amalgamate here before they slip away. So, as I sit in the Schiphol Airport here in Amsterdam waiting for my connecting flight back to Vancouver, I figured it was as good a time as any to get back on the horse and throw out a lite blog entry ;).
Lapham struck a chord because the way I've been feeling about sport and competition has changed substantially over the last three or four years, moving from rabid nationalistic support and home-team fervor through something like a conflicted continued support to, finally (I think), a general distaste for what our culture considers 'serious' athletic competition and sport-business. Mixed into that general evolution are things like a rapidly changing perspective on nationalism and a growing disgust with our infatuation with the cult of fame and our slavish devotion to living vicariously through our 'most famous' as a way to escape from the drudgery of our rat-race lives. How we worship athletes and our favorite local and national teams, and the way in which we often turn into (drunken) idiots in the process, all the while not only justifying said idiocy but glorifying it, has finally pushed me to the edge (and over it) of supporting professional and international sport altogether. It is, to me, a symptom of our decline rather than something to be lauded. Whatever it once might have been, or could have been, at this point in history it generally shows how little we've aspired and how much we've grown to prize winning at any cost.
And I think that's a sad little comment.
I should say, I still love hockey. I can even respect the other sports as games to be played, although my real love is saved for the game on the ice. As Mr. Lapham so eloquently says in his piece, the real beauty of athletic endeavor is in the dance, the kinetic orchestration of will, body and aptitude that can elevate even us middle-aged guys to a level that, although obviously more rarely and never to a height achieved by professionals, approaches a poetry of motion. What Lapham called “Einstein's equation made flesh.” It can also, in the right environment, also bring out the best in people in terms of 'sportsmanship' and respect, even as it so notably can bring out the worst in us.
As an example, let me offer the following short comparison:
The last time I had the opportunity to play hockey competitively was four years ago. That year I was able to play in two leagues simultaneously; a competitive commercial league and an 'old-timers' over-35 league. Both leagues were well run, well-organized and were more than not populated by people that loved the game and played for the joy of playing.
The commercial league was, naturally the more competitive of the two leagues, full of young hotshots, ex-major junior players and even a couple ex-NHL players. All were past their very best years of playing hockey, but it was a fast game with no official contact allowed, something like watching an all-star game if only in terms of the flow and lack of ability to defend assertively in the absence of body checking.
It was really fun hockey and played at, for me anyway, a very challenging pace. And while the violence was toned down in recognition of the reality that we all had to go to work the next day, the degree of competitive fervor was high and, for some, extreme. There were occasional fights, lots of 'incidental' contact, and no doubt that the point of playing was first and last to win. Sometimes, occasionally, that drive reached 'win at all costs' intensity. When my team won, I'd feel exhalted, especially if I'd played particularly well. If we lost, no amount of mature cajoling in the dressing room could get us out of our funk, and if I played poorly in a losing cause it affected sleep.
The old-timer's league was also pleasantly competitive but in a very different way. While there were still some ridiculously talented players playing O-T, including both of the ex-NHL'ers in commercial league, there was also a majority of players that fell into the mediocre-at-best category, and even a few true ankle-benders that, at the 'ripe old age' of somewhere over thirty-five, had decided to either start playing, or start again after twenty or thirty years sabbaticals.
Subsequently, the spirit on the ice was dramatically different. Everyone still wanted to win, but it was a motivation secondary to the joy of simply playing a game we all loved, of moving smoothly (or not) over the ice, sliding gracefully (or not) to make a save (as a goalie, I have to admit that this was my favorite part), passing crisply (or not) and hitting our target on the fly, making the right play at the right time to either prevent or score a goal. If someone took a potentially nasty spill, tripping backwards over the blue line for example, or maybe losing an edge and going into the boards, the game usually just stopped to make sure that the aging warrior was okay and hadn't done any damage. Incidental contact was rare and was also capable of prompting a stoppage if two players didn't manage to avoid each other while crossing the space of the neutral zone. These stoppages were often, in the absence of injury, accompanied by generous amounts of friendly ribbing and much laughter. And it really was laughter shared with the embarrassed party, not at his expense.
The result of the game wasn't incidental, and there was a pleasant amount of team and personal pride on the line, but when the final buzzer sounded everyone was smiling every time, win or lose. Nobody had so much to prove, to themselves or anyone else, that the outcome of the game mattered enough to provoke questionable play, or a lick once it was time to get off the ice and start cracking the beers. The game wasn't being played at its highest level, by any means, and I freely admit it... unless we're talking about the highest level of sportsmanship, class and jubilation. In that case, I'd argue we were playing at international levels.
I had the most enjoyable season of my adult life playing in both leagues that year, but walked away from it and into a new job that precluded playing consistently for the next two years. Last year was the life-inversion year so again, no play except for a few noon-hour pickup games last winter. And I've missed it horribly. But even if I could play organized hockey again, I'm not sure I'd want to anymore (unless I could find another O-T league like the one I described) because that season also left me with a few bad tastes in my mouth too.
That commercial league, as I said, was punctuated too many times by reminders of what competition can do to us, of what sport has turned into in these times of professional excess into something that disturbingly resembles, to one degree or another depending on the sport, something that is more Romanesque than post-enlightenment in nature. While I loved the level of skillful play, and was fortunate to play on a team full of more mature players with good perspectives, I saw how the need to win can corrupt people, including myself, more than a few too many times.
I see the same, only more so, in the actions of professional athletes. We all do, and we talk about it all the time. The guy who dives too much and makes an idiot out of himself, or the one that seems to hit people from behind far too often, or the one that is too sloppy with his or her stick, or elbow, or kicks. The ones who seem to have personal parameters regarding how far they will go to win that either just slightly, or grossly, seem to transcend the bounds of the rules and even simple common decency and respect.
I remember the first time I struggled through Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Frankly, I found most of it boring to read, but the premise behind it, the foundational philosophy I read about in the introduction constituted, for me, an epiphany of sorts. If you've read it you may know what I'm talking about. I loved Covey's assessment of self-help literature as it evolved through the twentieth century and his analysis that, at some point, the focus of human self-development had changed from something internal designed to create character and integrity, to something external that was designed to make a person more cosmetically appealing while concurrently teaching skills that could be used to manipulate others. That observation was, in its time, a revolution. Sadly, it wasn't one that caught on. Rather, it was subsumed into the ongoing and current shallow concept, and the idea of developing integrity and character just became a catch-phrase that people used to add a veneer of validity to their cosmetic and manipulative skill development.
It stuck for me, perhaps because it was something I was already interested in, a path I was already chasing. I often think about why it is that the concept of character and integrity development hasn't seemed to stick in much of society. I wonder why we still consider winning to be something to god-awfully important that we're wiling to sacrifice our values, corrupt out integrity, and tarnish our reputations. I wonder why bigger, better, faster , more is more appealing than honesty, integrity, loyalty and respect. I wonder why we prefer relativistic ethics over a more solid morality. I wonder why we prefer the easy so damned much. Having lived both lifestyles, I can honestly advocate that the character path is, while perhaps less immediately gratifying at times, dramatically more satisfying in the long run, no matter how brief a distance I can hope I've been able to travel down that path.
Lapham has it right of course, even he he's so subtle at alluding to it. How we treat each other, how we treat sport and play, business and politics, is a symptom of the age, of our de-evolution from the ideological and philosophical aspirations of the enlightenment (and I fully recognize that there's no such thing as a golden age of anything, so bear with me a bit here) into the pragmatic relativism of the industrial age. We exchanged high meta-philosophy for a lower commercial pragmatism, high aspirations for low ambition, and it's filtered into most if not all aspects of modern life.
What we possess these days is often more important now than how we got it or even if we actually own any of it at all. The title and wage we earn is the higher priority over integrity and honesty in getting there. The famous people we base our media cults on are worshiped for their wealth and excess rather than their character and actions. When we find someone to adore, whether in sport or entertainment or politics, our love for them as they ascend is only eclipsed by our vilification of them when they inevitably fall. Our glee to see that toppling is viscous. We live for it the same way we live for the expulsion of our most hated Survivor player, or the cat fights on America's Next Top Model, or Simon's insensitive vitriol during the auditions of whatever talent competition he happens to be judging. And we haven't even talked about delighting in the violence of sport, perhaps best exemplified by the gratuity of MMA at the moment (and I love martial arts too, but pro MMA has as much to do with true martial arts as the NHL has to do with pure hockey).
Can we really try to deny that we're near the bottom of a pretty slippery slope? Do we need the emperor to toss bread into the crowd for the spectacle to finally be complete? Or are air-catapulted T-shirts enough and raffles for free pizza enough?
A TED.com talk I watched and posted this week was made by Sir Ken Robinson who talked about the need for a revolution in the way we do education from our manufacturing-based, assembly line, mechanistic approach to something that was more organic, something that would strive to create the right environment for learning and let the students then grow more as they would, according to their strengths and desires and at their own appropriate pace, whether faster or slower (or more likely both depending on which area of study they were engaged in at a given moment). I couldn't help wishing that we, as a culture, a species, would perhaps learn to apply that concept more to the way we do just about everything. I found myself daydreaming of a world in which not everything was driven by money and profit, where people could pursue the best version of themselves just because, without having to ignore or suppress the pursuit of aspirations, goals and dreams so that they could compete with the guy next door's house or car, or the watch that the guy in the next cubicle had, or the dresses that our friends were wearing to church in the Sunday morning fashion show, or the percentage our company's stocks had risen in the last year compared to our nearest competitor, or the size of our ridiculous bonus was while we presided over the collapse f our industry or the largest spill of crude oil into the ocean that has ever occurred.
So now, seeing things from the perspective I see them from no, I'm able less and less to derive enjoyment from the seemingly more benign aspects of this culture in decay. Hockey isn't ruined for me, but I think that professional hockey is. Same with IIHF stuff – nationalism, even in the form of supporting the home team, is just ugly. I was already over every other pro sport, so I think I'm done. I'll still play if I can find the right group of guys with the right attitude about the game, in fact I look forward to it because I know that they're out there.
Yes, I'm being kind of judgmental. More so, I feel pretty morally safe in doing so. If you step back long enough and, just for a second or two, take the red pill and see things the way they really are, I think it's actually pretty fucking hard not to agree. If you can, congratulations. I'm not sure what for, but congratulations.
As for me, I'll play the way I'm trying to live – focused on the game and the joy of it rather than the drive to dominate and conquer. I'll try to play with as much grace as I can coax out of these aging bones and reach for those moments of transcending grace no matter how ephemeral and fleeting they might get. I'll play with respect and a commitment to experiencing the joy of sharing that respect. I'll enjoy the journey, strive to be the best version of me that I can be and let the destination take care of itself. And I'll hope that those of us who feel the same way, about sport and life, continue to grow in number until we can gently topple the old statue of greed and avarice, and leave the pedestal empty for a change.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)