DECLINATION

Sometime around the 8th or 9th grade you took a writing class and learned about metaphors, a figure of speech using one thing to mean another, a clever comparison. I do that a lot. It’s how my mind works, on autopilot, it feeds me the words and I write them down. But my mind isn’t content just to feed me clever comparisons, it recognizes similarities between things, actions and reactions. I notice how one thing mirrors or parallels something else. If I could turn it off there are times I certainly would; times I don’t need the distraction, but there you are. By then the comparison has made the leap from a single word to a model of something more complicated.

Back about the same time you were learning about metaphors you took a science class as well where you learned about magnets and magnetism. You probably put a piece of paper on a bar magnet and sprinkled iron filings over it. Even though the filings were dropped randomly, fell in a random pattern, when they came to rest on the paper they arranged themselves along lines of force in the magnetic field. At both ends of the magnet there was an array of particles that looked like a frizzy, Afro hairdo - ( simile, a type of metaphor) and no matter how you turn the magnet or apply the filings, you get the same result: ‘Magnetism’. It creates a force that either attracts or repels iron. Iron has very cool properties and this magnetic thing is special. Iron molecules can be shocked into lining up parallel, side by side, all facing the same direction, causing the push-pull force. It can be done with electricity or rubbing two pieces of iron together or even a sharp impact. Those force lines arc out from each end of the magnet, swing around and meet each other is space, above the middle of the bar magnet. But you knew this. 

What is awesome is; the earth is a big bar magnet. Its core is iron, so hot its molecules line up just right and create a tremendous magnetic field that circles the earth. It’s not an accident we call the opposite ends of bar magnets the N and S poles. So what’s the point? The point is the way a compass works, or the way it doesn’t. It’s needle is a small magnet with a N & S pole. Balanced on a pin point it will turn under the push and the pull of earth’s magnetic field so the S end of the needle points to earth’s N pole. If you need to orient yourself to north, or any other direction a good compass can be be a life saver. But it’s not that simple. 

A good compass will always point in the direction of the magnetic push and pull. But the lines of force don’t always run is straight lines, from one pole to the other. Sometimes, some places in particular, those lines of force are deflected, bent at angles that screw up a compass reading. In general terms, the nearer the pole, the more screwed up the compass reading. So, good maps will not only show the magnetic lines of force but also include the number of degrees and direction of the error, at that location. It’s called ‘Declination’. So if you’re up around the Arctic Circle and your map indicates there is a 3.5 degree W declination, then you have to compensate on your compass to correct for the error. Otherwise you could miss your destination by miles. 

So, here comes the metaphor/model. For a very long time I have believed that human, social, civilized constructs such as government, religion, politics, economics, the arts; all parallel if you will, some natural, science based system as they unfold in the present. We are well into the crunch year of our 4-year election cycle and people are simply nuts. It’s like (another simile) the Crusades or the Civil War again. Follow the metaphor/model. In a game of winner-take-all, self righteous-self interest, powerful forces (Forces) with choreographed campaigns; they recruit contributing, voting supporters - Us against Them and we’re the good guys. They want your compass to optimize and exaggerate the upside of their reality. The forces are not magnetic but they can be (Polarizing). 

We, the objects of this marketing frenzy need a good (Metaphor) compass, one with good moral, logical calibration. It is understood that we won’t all agree on what is good and what is not but that’s not the problem. None of us have a really good map, one with (Declination) information. The (Forces) don’t want luke warm supporters, they would rather we be ‘on fire’. So the farther we move away from a reliable, moderate mentality to the more (Polarized), we lean on our compass but it gives us, more and more, a convoluted reading. The (Forces) want hegemony and are willing for us to pay for it. To hell with declination, trust our compass. 

That’s the metaphor/model that comes to mind. I wish I had a better story today but this is where I’m at. I resist moving too far away from the median. I don’t trust anybody who is that sure of anything. It smells of marketing and sales and I don’t get the feeling there is any customer service. Free college education; get serious. This is not Denmark. Regulate banking into oblivion; something to do with baby and bathwater. But deregulate banking? That goes along with a feudal system, trial by fire and royal decree. The current freedom of religion is a joke, sounding more like Sharia Law. My inclination is to lean left but I don’t run to the boundary and beg for more. It’s not about your compass, it’s your map.