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November 19, 2008 at 12:07:57
Promoted to Headline (H3) on 11/19/08: by Joe Bageant Page 1 of 3 page(s) |
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Consequently, we go into a new year with millions of Americans still clinging to The Audacity of Hope. And we do so because we are victims of learned helplessness, learned from the cradle as it is rocked by the foot of the Capitalist consumer state. Sure we can hope for movement away from domination of the weak by the arrogant, away from ecocide and genocide toward a better world. What the hell, hope in one of the few free activities in this society. We don't even have to put down the remote and get off our asses to do it. In fact, its delivered through television.
But the fact is that when we encounter in-the-flesh examples of any merciful movement – even through television -- we blanch and erect a wall of denial and excuses for our refusal to support that thing. Consider how the American public and the media (is there a difference?) responded to Rachel Cory, who willingly died under the Israeli bulldozer protecting the home of a non-partisan Palestinian village doctor. The U.S. media all but ignored her. What small public knew of Cory's sacrifice was at first nonplussed, then deemed it a bizarre and stupid act. But even most Americans who did know joined the Larry Kings of the world in backhandedly mocking her. Moral conviction scares the hell out of us. Hope is effortless.
Thus, hope is still the order of the day. Obama's election will keep millions of American liberals and much of the world deliriously happy for time to come. And to some degree at least, Obama's victory is a national rejection of the phony and expensive war on terror. Which is not a step forward, but rather a partial recovery from the immense and spectral folly of our needless warmaking – recovery of one small bit of the immense ground we have lost. Or simply the next thing to do, now that we have tortured, terrified and leveled an entire people for the hell of it. Take your pick. But at some point we will have to cease thinking like children politically, grow up and personally accept responsibility, if we are to rescue our republic from ourselves.
Meanwhile, Obama takes charge of a bankrupt nation collapsing under late stage capitalism. "Not good, say Chief Thunderthud! White man manage to fuck up even under good presidents." Right chief. Indeed, there are many destructive forces far larger and more longstanding than a president and his powers. We can start with Congress. But our planetary ecocide probably trumps Congress.
Now if you will allow me a temporary lapse into theological seizure here: When it comes to those larger forces at play, none is larger and more enduring than the spirit, regardless of whether you call its presence God, the laws of physics, eternity, the Buddhist "great void," or the governing principle of the universe. And it is mature and ever greater truth seeking that connects us with that force. Not hoping someone else, an Obama perhaps, is connected to it, and will exercise it toward the common good.
Most Americans, regardless of their political leanings or religion, would not recognize the common good if it bit 'em in the ass. We have no genuine concept of common good. We really don't. Toqueville observed that 170 years ago. He said that in America, no man owes another man anything. Nor is he owed by any other man. Where does that leave any movement toward the common weal requiring the cooperative efforts of more than one man?
We all know the answer -- The gubbyment. Which leaves the common good to greaseball politicos, banking and mortgage sharks, and a private cartel of behind the scenes hustlers called the Fed. Nevertheless, we have lived under the myth of rugged individualism so long we think we are in charge of our destiny – which in our utterly monetized American system, means our financial fate. No matter that we let unseen elites own and manage our hard earned dough over quail and cognac on the 45th floor. They're of the sort who know what's best. You can tell them by their arrogance and their good looking trophy wives. And by their big limos. Americans know the superior man when they see it.
Meanwhile, thanks to the doctrine of no man owing another, this doctrine of not being our brother's keeper in any important way, we are left with the social ethic of "every man for himself. Damned all social taxes and collective effort, I'll claw down my own share, and let the devil take the hindmost. Hell, maybe I'll even end up there on the 45th floor among the quail eaters with a blonde waiting in the sack. Land of boundless opportunity, right? "
Or on a more mundane level, as countless Americans have told me, "Why should I pay for someone else's health care? Let them buy their own, just like I did." Consequently, we've not had universal health care for the common good. We have never enjoyed the benefit of universal higher education, because collectively we cannot agree that it is in the common good for all citizens to be equally free from ignorance. We pay the price of that at every turn ... in the lack of nuance in the national character, in the childlike and clichéd thinking of our electorate, in our satisfaction with a deluge of technological toys instead of meaningful work and leisure, or intellectual and spiritual substance. Nor is there assured food and shelter for the poorest among us, despite that it is in the common good that all children be raised in a secure environment ... because over generations that produces an ever nobler community and nation. "Each generation better than the last," as the saying goes.
Now, that is moreover a pretty good description of the American Dream, at least as it regards fairness and justice. And halting as it has been, we have made progress in fairness and justice-civil rights and women's suffrage being two examples. And we could have achieved more, had we been fixed upon the most fundamental sense of what is just. We did that collectively as American citizens.
But conceiving of one's self as a citizen of our republic is the poorest way to do so, given that it acknowledges us more as property of the state than of the planet. Especially considering that we have a far larger responsibility to our common planetary home, than to any armed and squabbling, ambitious nation state. That we managed to overcome such obvious inequities as slavery and the oppression of women is no great accomplishment at all. Just two small acknowledgements of justness. Yet we wallow in those small expressions of human and national decency as if the advancement of humanity were all but accomplished (one more civil rights documentary rammed down my throat and I'm gonna drive over to PBS offices in D.C. and shoot out their latte machine).
At any rate, once we made these advances, we felt free to haul off and kill as much of humanity as we deem necessary to keep the oil flowing and our capitalist masters in a permanent state of dominance and caviar flatulence. We'd banned slavery and let women vote for the same scallywags as men. Lettin' the queers get hitched however, is one we're gonna have to think over for a while Hoss, because there's still political mileage in being agin' it!
Still, despite our sorry-assed condition as a citizenry, not to mention so much outward evidence to the contrary, as individuals every one of us can recognize what is just and right. In fact, when it comes to the private, inward self, it is harder to avoid fairness than it is to justify unfairness, though we manage to. Regardless of our deformation by capitalism's relentlessness, and its accompanying materialistic mediocrity, we know there is such a thing as balance, such a thing as justness, and equity for all people, however much we refuse to acknowledge it. This, thanks to the "eternal scales" inside us all. And the fulcrum of these scales, this always-present, wordless inner preference, if not action, toward just balance, is, I believe, the spirit.
Scientists may yet reduce all human behavior, thought and emotion to neurochemistry. That's their bag -- reducing the universe to impressive displays of tinker toydom so The Discovery Channel will have grist. But the most sublime expression of humankind is nevertheless more than the sum of its parts and must be called spiritual. I don't have any lofty language to explain that. I'm as "ignernt as the next feller," as my old man used to say.
Either we can feel, or can learn to feel the common soul ... that essence coursing in all sentient things (and I for one, include trees, rivers, amoeba and the atmosphere in the count) and feel joy and unity in that, or we cannot. Either compassion enters our awareness and experiential reality through suffering and contemplation of the suffering of others ... or it does not. Either way, it would seem incumbent upon each of us to try to bring about a world in which that occurs for the maximum number of our fellow men. Given that we all share a common grave, compassionate action may well be the only human action of any value. Compassion for all living things on a living planet. In that resides the equilibrium of the world.
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| 12 comments |
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Hello Mr Bageant...and welcome
I must say I enjoy your writing. This is good. Just wanted you to know. Sometimes the finest writing goes uncommented on. Not today. I hope you continue to post here. thanx peace by mikel paul (14 articles, 1 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 570 comments [13 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008 at 9:55:29 PM  (0+)
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"The Sucker Bait Called Hope --
Well said and well taken, thank you Joe. And keep em commin'. by Keith Hupp (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 23 comments) on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008 at 10:16:15 PM (0+)
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Right on
My sensibilities were not offensed, Joe. Please keep on waking people up. Dave by Davaru (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 45 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 3:00:52 AM (0+)
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Fuck "Joe the Plumber" - I like this Joe!
Spending most my life in sales I know well of the empty phrases spewed by self-serving politicians. Words such as "hope", "change" and "yes we can" are what we call "set-ups". When a salesman greets you and says, "Well, here we are", that's meant to state an obvious, to make the mark (customer) feel comfortable, after all you can't say "no we're not". The conversation starts out with an agreement, from there the salesman goes into his pitch, all the while peppering it with statements of this kind. At the end the salesman goes in for what is called "the close", but in our state of being now it's going in for "the kill". Right after Obama takes his oath to uphold the Constitution (gag), you can be assured you're going to be not asked for what you have left, and if you don't give it willing, it will be taken from you. And most of you will acquiesce because that's what you've been "set up" to do. You're trained monkeys. Pavlov's dog's in a giant worldly lab. It's why after being shown over and over again that neither major party was representing you that you rolled-over like the trained animals you are. That's what makes Obama so dangerous. He's a master salesman. So is Bush, in his own way. They're all schooled in this psychology. But Bush appearing the "common man" makes Obama appearing as the "superior man" after him in this climate of looking disaster is far more dangerous to a society that has been hand feed and lulled into a trance by science of Edward Bernays making. Will be wake from that trance in time? hell no. As Joe points out, even with our best efforts we're still doomed eventually to drown in our own sh*t. But to see so many fall for the salesman's pitch has only excellerated our demise. Obama doesn't have "audacity of hope", he simply has "audacity." See some of you on the streets and on the other side. As for the rest of you - go the Hell. by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 8:26:13 AM (0+)
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The Hopi
in their prophecies state this land will pretty much be burnt off the face of the earth by man made fire that they consider to be the invention of nuclear weapons. An Apocalypse can happen very quickly in that situation. For human beings not to pretty muchdestroy themselves by their own hands either through modern weapons or the destruction of the earth they would have had to lived like the Native Tribes used to live day in & day out year after year. I liked the comments about "The Salesman." The Book of Revelation refers to the Buyers & Sellers of things, but not in a good light. Rev. 18 states the merchants of the earth were great men who deceived all the Nations of the earth with their sorceries. Advertising & Marketing & the false psychology behind sales. A young friend of mine, 27, & of European Heritage stopped out one evening. In the course of conversation he said, One of th reasons "We" are in Iraq is because they they treat their women badly. I informed him I am not in Iraq and if he believed that lie then he would have been killing off us Indians had he arrived in this land at the time the big Indian killing was going on from 1776 through 1895. I didn't delve into how much his mom talked to me about how his dad mistreated her when they married. But hey, what's an apocalypse as long as you have friends to share it with? Life is good. by shadow dancer (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1115 comments [121 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 8:54:00 AM (0+)
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Reply: Shadow Dancer ...
I never liked salesmen either. I always rationalized what did by by never selling anything that wasn't beneficial, never lying to get a sale, and never pressing anyone that I thought couldn't afford what I was selling to buy it. But it gave me insight to psychology of man and enlightened me to how others use techniques of sales to take people where they normally wouldn't go. Hence, see through the bullshit. There use to be a question I'd ask people to gage where they might be coming from, I ask, "If you could have been alive at any other time in history, when would it be and what would you have liked to be." My refrain was, I would have liked to have been an Indian in North America, preferablly North or South Western region, before Europeans came over here to f*ck things-up. Yeah, had we lived at peace with this Earth we may have had a chance to stick around a lot longer than it seems we're going to. Peace Brother by Mr M (8 articles, 0 quicklinks, 66 diaries, 2845 comments [654 recommended, 27 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 12:55:04 PM (0+)
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Hope is in ones mind
When Hope is the subject we have to realize that it is a psychological state of being. The opposite of Hope is Despair and both of these states relate to the future and is about imagining. To say it another way, if I can imagine a future that is better than what exists in the here and now then I have HOPE. If I can only imagine a future that is not better then I have NO HOPE. Hope (imagine a better future) is a motivator to take action to bring about what one imagines. A lack of hope is considered a psychological crisis and anyone who is in such a state of mind needs help to get out of their despair. by Philip Pease (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 209 comments [11 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 10:21:08 AM (0+)
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Reply: Hope = Vision
Almost every innovation we undertake starts with a sketchy vision of what is possible, and gets focused and made practical by more rational thinking. "Hope" as you correctly observe is the opposite of "despair" -- a good example of another basic thinking process -- making distinctions. Entrepreneurs and other leaders accomplish change by exciting people to share hope that their vision can be achieved. You need a certiain irrational belief that you can work out the difficulties, no matter what, in order to move ahead. That's hope. You also need a shared picture, however incomplete, of the objective to coordinate your action with your team. That's vision. So, are you a skeptical spectator or a hopeful player? It's your choice. Don't disparage hope - it is fundamental to how humans get stuff done. by Richmond Shreve (30 articles, 70 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 156 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 10:46:33 AM (0+)
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Reply: The problem is that
Hope based on delusion is a form of serious mental illness that can do great harm when it translates into actions, like votes..... by Joel S. Hirschhorn (141 articles, 50 quicklinks, 65 diaries, 546 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Nov 20, 2008 at 3:51:15 PM (0+)
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Reply: hope vs despair
Eliminate hope and you eliminate despair. What left after that? The truth. Joe Bageant by Joe Bageant (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Friday, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:27:17 PM (0+)
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It's about stupidity, stupid
Actually, though I could analyze our present scenario along Marxist Class-War lines, I can equally well analyze things on the basis of Stupidity and the Coincidence Theory of Communication (ie: it's only a coincidence when two people think they're talking about the same thing). Encouraging know-nothings to "get out and vote" is mostly what generated an almost 50-50 division of votes between a pair of educated general-purpose politicians (Obama/Biden) and a specialist warmonger paired with a literally ignorant "soccer-mom" with delusions of Rightness (McCain/Palin). Are scorched Iraqi babies really so much worse than starved, diseased ones? by lenngray (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 77 comments) on Friday, Nov 21, 2008 at 4:50:39 PM (0+)
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Reply: cultivated stupidy
Yup! But after a certain point it's not even worth the time to think about it. What's done is done. Might as well go fishing. And I do. I wouldn't bother to think about it anymore, but they pay me to write about it. joe bageant by Joe Bageant (2 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Friday, Nov 21, 2008 at 6:32:40 PM (0+)
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