Following the principles we claim to hold/being the people we claim to be

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By Robert Jensen (about the author) Page 2 of 2 page(s)

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This hyper-religious, pathologically nationalistic, brutally capitalist, inhumanly high-energy/high-technology society in which we live is a dead-end. There is no rescuing it. All that is left to do is say a few words over the grave, toss in a handful of dirt, and walk away as we often do at funerals of people about whom we had mixed feelings -- remembering that there were some good things about the deceased, but secretly being glad they're gone.

America is dead. Thank God. Thank the gods. Thank the goddesses.

But there is much work to do to make sure that we bury the beast as quickly as possible, before it does more damage, before the damage is beyond repair. And there is even more work to do to imagine what the world will be when the beast is buried.

Many will say this is not a call for imagination, but an expression of insanity. Many will say that whatever the flaws of the systems in which we live, we have no choice but to find our place in them and try to mitigate the worst effects.

I recognize that it's possible I'm wrong about all this. I could be stone-cold crazy. I try to retain humility about the limits of my ability to understand a complex world. We all go forward with imperfect information and limited capacities. In the end, we all decide what to believe -- and how to act on that belief -- not solely on evidence and logic but on something in our gut. Here's what I can say with clarity:

When I look around at the world we have created, at the systems on which that world is based, I get a bad feeling in my gut. When I let the enormity of it flow over me -- when I let myself really see the state of the world -- I get scared. And I have a feeling that time is running out. If I sound harsh and impatient, it is because that feeling in my gut grows deeper each day, and each day I know we have lost more of the time we desperately need to imagine a new kind of society -- a society that taps into that collective wisdom rather than ignores it, a society in which we uphold the principles we claim to hold and have a fighting chance to be the people we say we want to be.

I do not know the origins of this creation -- intelligent or not, designed or not -- of which we are a part. But I know that we have both the capacity to destroy that creation, and the capacity to find our place within it. I know we have the capacity for arrogance that will lead us to that destruction, but I also know we all have within us a love that goes deep enough to create a new world within that larger creation.

It may turn out that we are a failed experiment. It may turn out that the human with the big brain is an evolutionary dead-end. It may be that we will struggle and fight, and in the end fail. It may be. There are no guarantees in this fragile world, for each of us personally or all of us collectively.

But there is always the struggle, and the joy of the struggle to honor what we know deep within us, individually and collectively. It is a struggle we can all join, a struggle we must join if we are to be the people we say we are.

Does that seem difficult? Yes, of course, it is. Of course it will be. It will be difficult for as long as we must struggle, which is the rest of our lives. How could it be otherwise?

Jesus was clear about this. In Matthew 7:12-14, he told his followers, Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

If one prefers a secular version, consider this line from Bread and Circuses, a hauntingly beautiful song by Billy Bragg and Natalie Merchant about the hypocrisy of so much of modern religion: The gates of hell stand open wide, but the path of glory you walk single file.

I like Bragg and Merchant's vision of the path of glory. To walk that path is in many ways a solitary choice, one we must make when we are alone with our conscience. But when we walk the path, we do not walk alone; we walk single file. That means that when we step onto that path, there will be someone ahead of us, someone who can reach back when we stumble with a hand to pull us forward. And it means that there will be walking behind us someone who will need us to extend to them a hand.

Yes, there are solitary choices, hard choices, to be made. But no matter how easy the gates of hell appear to us, no matter how narrow and hard it seems it is to enter the gate that leads to life, we have the capacity to turn from destruction and toward life. We can hold onto that image of a hand extended, one to one, brother to sister, in a chain of life, anchoring us in the values we claim to hold: reciprocity, love, and humility.

It is that hand that holds the fate of the world. It is my hand. It is yours.

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Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin and board member of the Third Coast Activist Resource Center. His latest book, All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, was published in 2009 (more...)

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