I am old, time is short and if I don’t speak my mind, what weighs heavy on my conscience might die with me. Every person has a story, the most important story they know. This is an important sound bite from mine.
The way you see the world depends on your frame of reference, where you stand. How you got there doesn’t matter, only that it’s where you are. Learning is essential; we are all learners but learning is only as good as the result. The process should be open ended, full of possibility but it can stagnate as a ritual of reflection and reinforcing what you want to believe. Believing and knowing are very different. Knowing requires proof and proof is in the numbers, in the evidence, it requires critical thinking. Otherwise it is just a belief and people will believe anything if motivated sufficiently.
Ideologies are systems of principle and belief that apply to economics, religion, politics or some combination there in. What makes an ideology good or bad depends on your frame of reference. Liberalism, Conservatism, Christianity, Atheism, Capitalism, Communism are all ideologies. I don’t like ideologies to begin with. They can all be corrupted, easily. As good as it makes you feel, the one you are drawn to can be an addictive drug. It can own you without your permission.
In order for a human community to function and prosper it needs a morally consistent ideology to follow. Those who stand to profit most will use every trick to grow their ideas (ideology) into a power base, a following. But numbers and critical thinking are boring compared to emotions and the Ideologue knows that. Emotion is their tool of choice. They don’t spend much time with reliable process, going straight at gut feelings. Passion is a powerful persuasion but it is also unreliable. No matter how righteous the seed may be, it will be morally flawed by the time it blooms. There is an old saying, “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” All of them, Conservative, Liberal, Theist, Anarchist, Monarchist; their vision of a perfect world is the silk purse you are supposed to end up with. But what hatches from that pious proposition is infected with human nature. You expect a silk purse and get the sow’s ear.
I don’t like labels and I balk at being branded a Liberal. But whenever my feet touch down, it’s on their side of the line. I resonate to liberal values that I didn’t choose, they chose me. But we are all born conservative. Once upon a time, all we cared about was our own appetite. When we first identified with our mother’s scent, the love we felt wasn’t for her but for the way she made us feel. ”I come first, I come second as well and then if I feel generous, maybe I’ll care about you.” That is how we come into the world. We are all driven by a conservative conscience. It resists change, requires more than it needs, attacks enemies, rewards conformity and is basically selfish. Liberal values have to be learned; to embrace change, take what you need, make peace with your enemies, welcome diversity and share what you have. If left alone to their own ends (that is worth repeating) if left alone to their own devices, they both break down and fail. There has to be some yin & yang but Liberty has changed from the Liberty of 1776. Now the marriage of privilege and license legitimizes greed and unjust authority. We call it Liberty. It works like this; “This is mine, I own it, I’ll fight to the death to defend it. That; that there is yours. You own it. But if I decide I want it, I will take it from you one way or another, whatever it takes.” This is the new Liberty. As practiced now, Liberty does not put any value on cooperation and compromise. We visualize the silk purse but glorify the sow’s ear.
I have a son who married poorly, a train wreck, still smoldering. They were poorly matched to begin with but what can you tell young people who are selfishly consumed with passion? She embezzled from her employer, ran off with her bosses’ husband, got a good lawyer and my son has been paying ever since. Still, he took her religion, like a bluegill swallows the hook. Unfortunately, he is not much of a reader, easily influenced by charismatic rhetoric, influenced by merchants of evangelical religion and its ugly sister, ultra right wing politics. He thinks he understands but that is a common error in judgment. He thinks he thinks. He is not alone; we all think we think. Without open ended possibility there can be no, new meaning. Without that, all we do is to think that we think and jump when the man says, "Jump!"
I wish we could have this conversation but I don’t think he would go there. The implication that he is being manipulated by powers that milk him for his vote and his tithing, he would take it as an insult. He would not disrespect me outright but he would reaffirm his own belief; “Don’t tell me your facts, I know what I believe.” I love him dearly, the way parents love their wayward children, then maybe I’m the wayward father. When together we avoid religion and politics. That chasm between us is wide and neither of us want to jeopardize the peace we share. Remember and reinforce what you want to believe or open ended possibility; that’s the wedge between us.
This piece sounds more diary than journal, maybe not to be shared. But I’m old and I really don’t care. It’s my journal and I think I think. What I hear from the religious right, it flies in the face of Jesus’s love message. They sound more like the Pharisees attacking Jesus. I’ve given up on dogmatic religion but I spent a lot of years in that tent. I’ve read the book and I know the drill. I think their sow’s ear would be a Jesus Jihad. I get it. I don’t need an ideology to get it. The unholy marriage between the church and partisan politics is no better than my son’s first covenant, two self obsessed lovers using each other for immediate gratification. That will do for now; Enough said.
No comments:
Post a Comment