That we mean well does not suggest that our government in Washington, D.C., means well -- although many members of that government often do, in some ways at least, have much better intentions than the results convey. It also does not mean that humans aren't engaged in horrible activities, first among them being war: "Many people today have a condescending attitude toward those who practiced human sacrifice thousands of years ago, but what if we are not so different from them? What if people in the modern world continue to die in massive ceremonies of human sacrifice? What if you supported the ritual of human sacrifice at some point in your life, without even realizing it?" Chappell is referring to war, that institution to which U.S. parents continue to send their offspring.
War, in fact, has become a U.S. religion, Chappell writes. War has heretics and behaviors that are seen as sacrilegious. Many people display more reverence for Veterans' Day than for Christmas. One might add that war has holy objects, such as flags, that must never be desecrated, although human beings can be desecrated in large numbers for the good of the flag.
How does empathy get us out of this fix? Chappell turns, late in the book, to the topic of beauty, arguing not just against the often criticized standards of the beauty products industry, but for truly seeing all humans as beautiful, regardless of their age, health, race, or culture. We should have a reverence for life, he writes, using language that has, I'm afraid, been damagingly taken over by the abortion debate.
Chappell has a vision of people someday seeing, not just that little black boys and black girls in Alabama are able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers, but seeing every person on the whole earth as part of their own family: "When a baby is born anywhere on earth, even to people whose skin color differs from yours, about 99.9 percent of your DNA is passed on." You want biological descendants? There's no need to have eight kids. There's a need to protect your human family.
The term "racism," Chappell writes, dates only to the 1930s, and "sexism" to the 1960s. Here's one more we might add: "American exceptionalism." I've read somewhere that it dates to 1929. Perhaps it will be a thing of the past by 2029. Perhaps if it isn't we all will be." title=-- class="">
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