As long as we require diplomacy and tact, science and facts and logic and experts and progress and empathy will continue to be thwarted by religion and feelings and belief and politicians and tradition and power. And survival will be trumped by blunder-headed noise. By respectfully standing by and continuing to give in to compromise, the door remains open for too late. I am (and we all should be) sad and angry and afraid. I am also (meaning we all are) unseen, unheard, inconsequential.
I ended last week's written thought with the words above, and I would like to continue. I would like to begin by exploring the sham that is political correctness and its relationship to power.
There is a deep rift in this country. Last week I characterized the basic argument as Science vs. Religion, or Facts vs. Feelings, or Logic vs. Belief, or Experts vs. Politicians, or Progress vs. Tradition, or Empathy vs. Power, or Survival vs. Extinction, and said it is essentially the same argument. As I have thought about this I have come to see that if those who purport to be on the side of science and facts and logic and experts and progress and empathy and survival are also in a position of power, instead of action we get diplomacy and tact and compromise and delay and verbal gymnastics. I believe this to be purposeful. To begin, there is a difference between political correctness and respect. Political correctness perpetuates power. Respect encourages empathy. Political correctness is a device. Power (fueled by judgment) is the goal. Respect is recognition. Empathy is understanding. It is very difficult for someone with power to separate their self from that dynamic in order to truly recognize and understand, so they fall back on a brittle framework of seemingly progressive, inoffensive mandates and directives that serve to disarm and distract and do not address the root problem which is the ever-widening wealth gap. And as long as we are driven by capitalism and as long as our decision-makers (those in power) continue to come from the top 20%, they will continue to make decisions (or not make decisions) that will maintain the status quo. I believe they understand that any action that would make things better for the bottom 80% would undermine their power and would make things worse for them; (even though their worse would continue to be much better than our better). And I believe I do understand how this has come about. It is our nature to seek meaning and purpose and I believe throughout our history there have been those who equate power with meaning and purpose. I believe our deification of capitalism has spread and entrenched this belief in power by creating layers and pockets and far too many small ponds from which almost anyone can exude ego. But if we consider and work to understand the Survival side of the argument, (Science and Facts and Logic and Experts and Progress and Empathy), it becomes obvious that power indeed corrupts, pulling our decision makers (consciously or otherwise) to a different path; a path that will take us to a place I have previously characterized as follows:
As a species we have seen 200,000 years. Our civilization (marked by the advent of agriculture) has seen 10,000 years. From fossil records we know that a typical mammalian species can expect to survive about 1,000,000 years, and across all species average survival ranges between 1,000,000 and 10,000,000 years. As a species, in many ways we are atypical. Yet (literally) looking across time, in many other ways we are typical. So why have we acted in accordance with our atypicality as applied to the individual? Why have we forgotten, lost sight of, our commonness both individually across our species and as a species across all species? Unless we remember, and act in accordance with our humble origin and our eventual unremarkable end, our atypicality will manifest as a short-lived mammalian species. Our legacy though will last ten million years as the amount of time it will take Earth to heal itself after the damage we have inflicted.
Sapiens. Humanity believes itself to be superior and indestructible, yet they continue to indiscriminately harm multiple habitats and destroy multiple species. We understand that the instinct for survival creates a façade of superiority but Humans have aggrandized this façade into a belief they treat as fact. Diversity is a valuable resource but due to their own willful acts of wanton negligence Humanity is fast becoming expendable as a species. Intervention is necessary for the long-term preservation of Earth. This is harsh; and it is hard. We have a great respect for all species and all habitats. Yet the fact that so many Humans walk apart and feel detached from other species, when they should walk alongside and feel connected to other species, lessens our respect. To sacrifice one species for the sake of multiple species and multiple habitats is a choice we must make. Sapiens. Unfortunately for them, they are not our equals.
In another place, I differentiated market value, civic value, moral value and survival value and, as the first three relate to our current reliance on capitalism, I said the following:
Political discussion in recent years has retreated from a substantial, meaningful debate on civic and moral virtue to an entrenched academic exercise calculating market values. Going as far back as Confucius and Plato and as recently as Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther King Jr, moral and civic virtue was a consideration; part of the equation. What has happened in the past 40 years? These three values (market, civic, moral) encapsulate systems of political thought and action over the last twenty-five or so centuries. It may be an oversimplification but I believe our recent decline is a result of our increasing capacity for learning that has enabled rapid technological progress and at the same time stymied our ability to think. We are so busy creating, we have left no time to consider potential outcomes or repercussions. We have grown smart faster than we have grown wise. So we have fallen back on this system of Market Value because it appeals to our current level of acuity and does not require the thoughtful, careful depth of consideration necessary for inclusion of Civic Value and/or Moral Value. And to further complicate matters, this capacity-wisdom gap has created a need for the fourth value; survival.
There are international climate talks in Glasgow this week. China and Russia did not show up. We (the United States) showed up. Our president promised to “lead by the power of our example.” Our example? Between 2016 and 2020 we did not show up. Our president at the time was promising to burn more (not less) gas, oil and coal. Today we have a single senator from West Virginia (in theory on the side of Survival) working very hard for team extinction. And there are stronger and stronger rumblings that our last president will be our next president. This is our example; diplomacy and tact and compromise and delay and verbal gymnastics.
There is a deep rift in this country.
There is an urgency that demands unified action today.
We do not appear to be capable.
Effort spent on diplomacy and tact is effort taken away from survival.
United States is a misnomer.
The top 20% will one day find they are unable to take their wealth and power with them, and if (as many proclaim) they do find they are able to travel from this life to a next life, I believe they will also find, regarding their wealth, they would have been better served by science and facts and logic and experts and progress and empathy.