Democracy

Democracy is never simply “People (demo-) Power (-cracy)”. The expectation of a consensus among people has never panned out in a Euro-Western context. Caste and Individualism have each played their part in debilitating democracy. Reliance on a simple majority has grown from Enlightenment/Industrial models of one short-cut or another to on-going, considered conversation. People’s desire for Power has subverted every attempt to a People’s Power within a commons. Everyday differences continually foil ideological unity.

Among the short-term attempts to streamline a process that takes time and empathy are—majorities, economics, violence, and charisma.

A concept of a majority standing-for-a-whole delays progress toward a sense of “general welfare”. There comes an automatic reaction by those outvoted—their recourse becomes sabotage and revolution.

Substituting the invisible-hand of a market for a divine right of a kingly group to exploit its poor is, on its face, antithetical to caring-for-all. Those who come to have an economic advantage—resist giving it up. Finally, it will require some form of a potlatch or year-of-jublilee voluntary give-away of privilege to reset relationships that have become unbalanced. Economies don’t see it that way and always claim a priority of what is to be sustained. In the face of inequities an economy will trump the rights of survival and thrival of humans and earth.

Violence is an automatic disqualification for “People Power” as it overwhelms thought and virtue for immediate ascendancy over any perceived to be “not me”. It is particularly grievous when violence is used against poor who are more likely to carry solutions to the endemic problem of inequity that subverts People Power.

As social creatures, we influence one another. Some know how to leverage others against themselves. Charisma can be substituted with advertising, propaganda, memes, and leadership style. The presence of borderline personalities is a continual threat to consensual governance. One person, standing-for-all, is an extreme version of majority rules.

What is missing in all of this is an appreciation of the tools needed to project and judge consequences into the 7th iteration of living with one another under the limitations listed above. We keep thinking in terms of answers—once for all time—rather than enjoying a journey of provisional responses. It may be democracy is a model unfit for human consumption when applied beyond the number of people who can hold a vision together (historically 300 or less).

This is not to say that democracy is inherently useless. Any system from dictator to democracy can do well by its citizens. However, there are many forces arraigned against both that lead them to eventually fail. At question is how the next failure will be dealt with. Are we prepared for further division from one another or engagement with one another?

Footnotes

I’m a fan of footnotes and parenthetical “brain burps.” In off-the-beaten-track and arriving with unexpected foreshadowing or new connections between prior experiences, information from aslant sneaks beneath consciousness—like earthworms invisibly preparing dirt for a next season’s possibility.

In the first chapter of a new book—Liberating the Politics of Jesus: Renewing Peace Theology through the Wisdom of Women—Nancy E. Before has this footnote:

Rather than being called to “Make America (sic) Great Again,” as followers of Jesus we are called to unmake the racist logic, customs, and laws that undergird the idolatrous illusion of (white) “manifest destiny” and its justification of expansionism, military intervention, plutocracy, and the abuse of nonwhite people by the United States.

A highfaluting and out-of-joint esoterism of theology in a transitional time of “spiritual, but not religious” finds it must dive deep into the mess of life. The simplistic ordering of self-imposed chaos to avoid intersectional offspring’s disruptive nature reduces both the genetic and intellectual pool.

Theology can both bolster an economy’s power and be an avenue of sabotage of the same. Most often, theology plays its supportive function and fades into irrelevance. Once in a while, theology reveals the persistence of idolatry that requires more than an adjustment in process—a needed make-over.

An important function of Peace Theology is its unmasking of the structural and cultural hiding of institutional disdain of human and nonhuman differences.

An appeal to one form of unity or another shape of uniformity is an intentional suicide by suffocation. Relying on output means trying to survive an increasing level of exhaled CO2. First, the brain goes, and then the body slips into stillness, awaiting a wormy revival.

Transparency

I’m coming off an annual state denominational meeting using Zoom Webinar technology. It was a disappointing experience because of a lack of transparency.

There was only one potential point of decision before the body—the Process whereby a congregation who didn’t agree with the current stance on human sexuality or didn’t think it was draconian enough [“homosexuality is incompatible with Christian (doctrine)” – original formulation] could buy back the building they meet in.

As you might imagine, the denomination doesn’t want to lose any revenue stream and has decided to include pension liability and two years of expected denominational support from any congregation desiring to leave. Though some congregations already have, are now, and will be leaving in other states, I don’t know of any who will do so from Wisconsin. This will leave dissatisfied parishioners continuing to mutter on the inside of the denomination.

From contacts I have around the denomination, I know that there questions in the queue that never surfaced. Because the questions were never seen to be present, no one less engaged would have known challenges were being made to the process and the way the technology gatekeepers (all old white males) operated. The exclusion of all but one segment of the document in question meant the state denomination was entering into a legal agreement but not allowing the body to vote on it as a whole.

I did make the only motion to lessen the stringency with which disaffiliation with the denomination would operate. It passed by a comfortable margin. Before the point in question was voted on as a substituted motion, a discomfort by one entered, a pause for consultation among the leaders took place and came back with a longer break for them to converse further. At the end of the break, they announced my motion was out of order for taking local situations of congregations into account rather than a one-size fits all. More questions were raised but never seen, never acknowledged as even being present.

Once past this one small challenge, the meeting progressed swiftly to its conclusion, and we closed business for another year.

I raise this one snapshot of a flawed process to indicate that a cultural zeitgeist occurs at every level. Voting in a small denominational meeting is not all that different from the lack of reliable information that takes place at a national presidential level. Institutions always try to get away with what they want to by a lack of transparency and false justifications. In this regard, Church and State are never far apart. The upshot is the importance of — Keep your integrity: Engage and Vote Anyway! — in every setting you find yourself.

Chicken Road

chickens
crossed roads
before
there were roads

no rhyme
is needed
no reason
discernible

a chicken
is a koan
zen sensei
extraordinaire

Dirk Gently holistic detective
follows chickens
while not looking for a cat
welcome to an escapade

a road crossed less
makes all differences
equally divergent
worthy of following

Schrödinger’s pullet
perhaps laid an egg
reach in to find out
if there ever was a road

Isolate

No one makes it past birth without a community or village to care for them. Care meaning more than providing survival basics—Care, including physical caress. None of us are truly individuals.

Selfishness is a big lie. When independence becomes the watchword of a nation, you can bet it is on a downward path that eventually pits each against all.

Survivalists are isolationists, even if there is an economy-of-scale to stockpile resources as a group. The mentality is the-last-one-standing wins. Essentially survivalists will have to face the threat of cannibalism—eat or be eaten.

To isolate is different from quarantine in that it is a way of life, not a provisional response to a specific situation. Isolate comes to us from the Latin for “island”—isola. This is not an attractive vacation isle, but a self-imposed, marooned-by-a-pirate, deserted island.

By dint of luck and hard work, the fantasy of a Swill Family Robinson can work, but it does so because it is a family (even if it were a family of happenstance and convenience).

With an election nearing, we are facing a glut of isolationist wavers of a Don’t-Tread-on-Me flag. It is fascinating if disturbingly so, to see how tied to one another these lovers-of-independence are.

Ordinarily, cult and independence would be considered an oxymoron should they come anywhere close to one another. Now that pride is then in having a tribal leader deemed more infallible than the Pope, the cutely named figure-of-speech has morphed into a trance dance by those hypnotized by their leader.

Usually, this impetus to self-destructive independence is cared for by waiting for the leader to die. Since this is an election, electoral defeat doesn’t function in the same way. Defeat becomes martyrdom that attracts even more. Once “independence” trumps “general welfare”, it is next to impossible to right the ship. The only option is to creatively become reliant upon one another—something we don’t have any experience in sustaining, for we so easily forget how liable we are to falsely envision independence as a primary virtue.

Not Me

I am well acquainted with the concept of “Me” and “Mine”. These early survival orientations center me in the universe. Feed me! appears all along my timeline.

As time proceeded, it became apparent that some other provided what I needed. Knowing how to synch with this “You” and “Your” is a benefit. It smooths out the need to regularize the transfer from out-there to in-here.

Even later, it appeared that moving toward an “Our” and “Ours” had an extra benefit of finding a way to meet needs in a variety of time and space locations. A wider storehouse also brought the possibility of access to tribal assets and the storing of them for some amount of time and accumulating more than was immediately needed.

“Me”, “You”, and “Our” are well-marked in our language. Their abundant references reveal what is important to us. Of note is the lack of consideration for that which is “Not Me”. “You” and “Our” can pick up some of this, but still are derivatives filled with projections of and allegiance to “Me”.

One of the sins of the Enlightenment and Industrial/Digital Revolutions is the loss of that which is beyond definition as “human”. To have lost touch with all that is other-than-human means we anthropomorphize and dominate without recognizing the presence and value of any not directly associated with “Me”, “You”, and “Our”.

So we design mechanistic economies, rape earthly resources, and constrain dreams.

For a moment, consider what will designate, for you, what is “Not You”. Here is a door to a broader and softer satisfaction.

Just for You

just for you
a classic
children’s book
illustrates
the best
intentions
gone wildly wrong

would there were
an equally illustrative
artistic attempt
bringing adults
back to their roots
connecting feedback
to engagements

such belated recognition
needs continually
to be moved
forward from excuse
to awareness
changing outcomes
before disaster

= = = = = =

Here is a link to a video presentation of Just for You (not as good as reading it with someone).

It is available at: http://www.rhcbooks.com/books/109630/just-for-you-(little-critter)/

Amplification

My thoughts are the measure of normality. They are so pertinent and common-sensical that they do not require me to shout. They are quietly true.

What my thoughts lack in assertion, they make up for in persistence and extension. Everywhere I am, there are my thoughts firmly centered and confirmed. Everywhere I am not, my thoughts precede my eventual appearance there.

Basically, there are no chinks in my perspective.

Then comes the difficulty of relationships with other humans and those-beyond-human. If I am not going to spend all my time bullying others and defending my turf, a small thought is going toward learning through more than the limits of my singular experience.

If I am going to admit any limit, there will have to be a way of amplifying the voice of others. Otherwise, all I’ll find are echoes and variations of where I am. Eventually, this will be a great stuckness—like having a grand theory with no way to verify it beyond the simple assertion that that which is known to be right is right: I know I’m right: so there!

I am not likely to voluntarily give up my right to be right.

In such a case, the main option is to amplify the voice of others to be one decibel louder than I am. If I claim parity, it has turned out that my thoughts claim the right to break a tie.

Though there are elements of Active Listening that are important to activate, they are only available if I can recognize a need for them—a need to amplify other voices is such a rationale.

I trust readers here will take this post to heart and amplify my voice in their lives. Otherwise, how will we ever get such beautiful thoughts into the world for its betterment?

Shh, don’t tell anyone how crafty my thoughtful consideration of others is.