What to do

Living in a self-destructive society can be a real head-scratcher, particularly if one had drawn some of the trump cards and is doing pretty well.  I am white, male, from a middle class family whose parents never divorced, and parlayed a solid technical education and a personal enthusiasm for the aviation industry into a solid upper-middle class lifestyle. Even better, I fell in love with the right person and (more importantly) she fell in love with me. For 40 years we have navigated life's rapids and quiet waters helping, protecting, and encouraging each other. I am not one of the 1 percenters when it comes to income, but I certainly am when it comes to luck. It isn't all luck of course, I played a good hand to full advantage, worked 2 or 3 different jobs at the same time, put in 18, 24, and 36 hour shifts, often took enormous risks, and have the scars to show for it.

I would very much prefer not living in a self-destructive society. I like my life and would hope to make it to my story's end without having the streets erupt around me, society's infrastructure collapse from underneath me, and avoid losing the basic human rights that only a just and somewhat complex society can provide for the individual. Even more important to me now, I would like the same for my kids and grand kids. The failures of my generation are putting their futures at serious risk.

And I wonder what I can do about that.

I am usually told that I have to "be involved" in some way. When it comes to politics we have to vote. We have to insist on the right to practice "our religion" whenever and however we believe we are called. The most motivated among us campaign for some party or the other, work into leadership positions in religious or civic institutions, or just write huge fucking checks to those who we then expect to listen to us when they "win". Obviously there are some nits to pick with several of these solutions. But the biggest one isn't so obvious.

Before we get "involved" a lot of us need to get "uninvolved", and in a multitude of ways. Here is an example of what I mean. Lately a bunch of very principled and much-to-be-admired American Catholic Nuns have gotten cross-wise with the old men who run the RCC out of the Vatican. (To my way of thinking any compassionate, caring, loving human being should be cross-wise with the old men who run the RCC out of the Vatican - but I digress.) They are, as much as they can, "standing their ground". It is a principled stand, it is an admirable stand, but they shouldn't be standing at all. They should be walking away. As long as they stay in the Church, as long as they cling to the label "Catholic", they empower those old men. Staying a part of a corrupted system does not help, particularly when they have no real power to act within that system. The Nuns would have a much bigger impact on the world and the people they care about by renouncing Catholicism and walking out in mass.

If women in general want to break the power of the Church to dictate how they live and to whom they should be submissive, they could do so simply by abandoning the church that insists on treating them as second hand human beings. Pretty much the same thing could be said of women and Islam, gay people and the church, and gay people and the Republican Party. (Log Cabin Republicans are fooling themselves and being played as fools by a political party that despises them.)

I was at a talk the other night, given by a man who was heir apparent to one of the religious right family empires. He abandoned that ideology and is now an outspoken opponent of those he insists have hijacked Christianity and taken over the Republican Party.  His descriptions of those folks is just as harsh as mine, invoking the image of "bat-shit crazy" without using those words. Yet he insists that he is an Evangelical and clings to the label "Christian".

He also clings to a world view where an unimaginable cosmos lies in the hand of a completely imaginable god, one he talks with and claims to understand to some degree. He insists that the bible reveals the nature of this god yet dismisses the parts that are virulently anti-gay (yep, its in there), anti-woman (in there again), and pro-slavery (you know where to find it). He rightly declares that the T-Party / Christian Right / Republican party lives in a fantasy land that does not exist in the real world. Yet his own fantasy land, though much less toxic to human kind, is no more based in reality than is that of the T-Party.

Even with that I think he is a good think in the land, but he would be an even better thing if he would walk away from the labels "Evangelical" and "Christian". What would he have to lose? Those labels have been co-opted by the evil loose in the world. Holding onto them helps empower the evil. Or perhaps he thinks god will send him to hell for giving up the name "Christian"? How does that make any sense?

The first step to changing things is to walk away from the corrupted things, stop supporting them in any sense of the word. I think that is equally true of politics in the US today. Anyone who clings to the label "Republican" or "Democrat" or even "Independent" is playing into the hands of the demented ones who are bringing down our democracy. Inevitably, if one grabs onto the name one abandons some of the responsibility for thinking to let someone else do it for them. Thinking is what makes us human. Abandoning thinking makes one a little less human.

I think the rest of us have a right to make assumptions based on the labels you chose.  If your kids are a part of scouting I think it fair if I conclude you are probably homophobic, narrow minded and judgmental.  Maybe you are not, and I certainly have the responsibility to listen to you if you try to make the case that you are a loving, accepting, compassionate human being in spite of your associations.  You might even make your case at which time I will change my mind about you.  But my first assumption was still valid and you have no claim to be offended by it.  After all, you picked the label.

The same goes for Republicans, Democrats, T-party types, Catholics, Evangelical Christians, Muslims, etc.  You may not actually endorse the worst parts of those various ideologies.  But why should I assume that if you insist on clinging to the name?

If anything is going to change a lot of us need to walk away from the institutions that are making us a little less human. In our world today, at the top of that list, are religion and political parties.