3/31/13
The news is full of ultra conservative Islamists this and
that and how these guys and any secular parts of the respective populations in
Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iraq and on, can’t agree on how to share
power. They all end up rioting in the street and blowing each other up. The
people who get power end up disenfranchising the others. I wonder from afar:
these guys all live in the same country, why can’t they be on the same team?
Why can’t they pull together and put ideological differences aside for some
constructive nation building where all would benefit? Give the religious guys
some space but don’t let them run roughshod over the secular; find a system
where everybody can have some breathing room. It only makes sense. Why can’t we
just get along?
Then I have an epiphany, this same sort of dynamic is
playing out right here in my own backyard in the USA. And the question arises: is there any real
difference between ultra conservative Islamists and ultra conservative
Christians or Jews? No there is not. This issue is not about content; it’s
about dogmatic behavior.
This is the exact same dynamic we’re seeing in Washington
DC, the no compromise, black and white view of the world. Here is the exact
same paralysis and inability to get along, failure to be on the same team,
failure to address common challenges. No need to worry about ultra conservative
foreigners, Talibans and Islamic fundamentalists, we have our very own brand
here at home. These people are all essentially the same in their behavior,
rigid, inflexible, literal, impossible to reason with. Everyone has everyone
else checkmated and the future looks bleak for any kind of e pluribus unum.
The critical difference in America is that the US came into
being explicitly to avoid theocracy, to give space for the religious to be
free, in all their particulars, at least ideally. Every religion thinks it is
literally true but in spite of this paradox, in the US there is breathing room
to practice. US religions need to be content with this great gift and allow
freedom for all; that’s our umbrella; that’s our game plan. We in the US are
not about imposing one religion’s strictures on everybody else. Any movement
towards theocracy just dooms us to an age-old spiral of repression of which
modernizing beliefs were supposed to cure.
The paradox: religions themselves don’t grant each other any
legitimacy anyway. There is no salvation through religion in general because the religious are all at each other's throats as well. The dogmatic proposition is a zero sum game. These questions
cannot be argued along the level of content because none of these guys give an
inch; it’s a waste of time to talk about content with the religious or those
for whom politics has become religion. Unfortunately this same template applies
to ideology of all kinds. The vast and rich texture of human thought and
culture gets reduced to an all or nothing proposition,
incredibly foolish but indelibly woven into our behavior.
In the US we have our freedom mythos, but freedom for who,
for what, why? Practically speaking, freedom seems to be only for those who get
power; the rest have to suck it up. The Civil War was our version of riots in
the Egyptian street and it’s plain to see that for many that war is far from
over. There is not much difference politically between the current US and the
current Egypt or Iraq.
Democracy is in tension with freedom because once a majority
rules, it precludes freedom for the minority. Any democracy contains the seeds
of its own undoing then; it will only last as long as those who get power
respect minority rights or a rule of law. And rule of law is anathema to the
theocratically or ideologically inclined. Laws are seen by these folks simply
as means to entrenching power. I just wonder why people can’t allow each other
to exist with different views? Why the propensity for a zero sum outcome? I can
let all churchgoers and abortion getters live; they don’t hurt me; why does any
of this have to be all or nothing?
All these tensions and contradictions are inherent in human
behavior in general, not just the US; Machiavelli, power and control these
issues come up in everything, not just religion. Study baboons and you’ll have
people pretty well figured out.
As an example of what the world is up against, we are having
to deal with people who think the sun revolves around the earth, that Adam and
Eve lived with the dinosaurs, that there is no need to steward the earth now as
all is about some after life. If these Gods are so powerful, why are they
letting people behave in such immoral ways? Why are they letting the world go
to hell in a hand basket? What kind of crazy game is it that people are
supposed to have so much faith in? Well, this is about people after all, not
gods, people are the ones creating the mess. People are the ones behind it all,
not gods. Gods are just a smokescreen, a Wizard of Oz fog machine to deflect
responsibility for humanity’s own actions.
With my perspective colored by the manufactured fiascos of
the fiscal cliff and the sequester, I arrive at only a more solid opinion that
the human race is incapable of co-existing and that we are doomed to go down in
the flames of internecine warfare of all types.
In Egypt, they have this great Arab Spring, a chance to turn
the tables on a nasty dictatorship and find a brighter future. What do they do?
They find another dictator ASAP. These guys should be on the same team,
everybody getting a seat at the table, ways found to give everyone a bone. What
instead? We see an incapability of being able to work together, the same all or
nothing scenario seen across the whole world. The results? Paralysis and violence.
This all the while species like the rhinoceros, tiger and
leatherback sea turtle face extinction because people cannot cooperate to
behave appropriately when dealing with natural resources. Sensible behavior and
stewardship is trumped by a free-for-all of every dog for himself.
I guess people can find space to be optimists but as far as
I can see, that is pretty much pissing in the ocean.
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