Ukraine, Roe V. Wade, the wave of post-Trump neo-conservative whatever the hell you want to call it.
None of it is new.
I’m not saying things haven’t gotten better in some regards, but we keep replaying the same garbage.
We keep deluding ourselves into thinking we live in some sort of post-enlightened world where categories kinds of tragedies will never happen again. By we, I mean those that live in comfort, without fear, and are safely in a place where all of Maslow’s lower tiers of need in his hierarchy are fulfilled. Those others who live in day-to-day struggles all over the world have not been fooled into thinking that anything has changed, that we are so “civilized” that certain kinds of atrocities would never happen again.
They live them every day.
We are also complicit in being selective about which struggles to focus on. One colleague of mine outright said, “it’s easier for me to feel sorry for the Ukrainian people than for the people in …”
I sighed and responded, “while I understand that it is easier to empathize with people that share a similar worldview as you, we need to try harder to make that empathy more universal.”
That is not nearly enough, but would be a start.
And the focus on Ukraine is pragmatic from a capitalist point of view. The larger the economic threat to those involved, the more focus there will be, thus turning a blind eye to Palestinian pain, or genocide in Africa. There’s no money to be made there. There’s no threat to your “things.”
Everyone in the world turns a blind eye to the conditions of workers in poorer countries (even those in the same countries). No one wants to spend more on electronics and clothes than they already do. So we put a universal blind spot there. I do, and I’m sure you do. Only in writing this, am I reminding myself of the hypocrisy. I’m simply pointing it out that we have blind spots, all of us.
Post-WWII dissonance
In the post-WWII era, we kept telling ourselves that nothing like WWII could ever happen again. And what is meant by that is nothing could ever happen like that again in the “civilized world”.
But really, the world never stopped being wild. People haven’t enlightened themselves past the point of stepping on each other to get what they want.
And it’s even true that it didn’t happen in our own backyard. The Christian American has painted a picture of the “evil Muslim terrorist” for the past fifty years, building to a head in the last twenty. I remember my own feelings of anger in line with this, sitting in my senior year of high school, watching the twin towers fall. I remember the feeling of righteousness as I joined the military. I played my part exactly as I was meant to. I’m not stating the right or wrong of it, I’m just saying that hindsight and age can allow you to see it clearly from outside of the self.
Interestingly enough, I got to spend a lot of time in Bosnia when I was in the military. Bosnia was(I was there in 2006 and again in 2008, a decade after the main struggle) a lovely place to be. The mountains were beautiful. Weekend trips to Croatia during the summer and skiing during the winter made it a paradise.
But the evidence of the war was still there from the 90s struggle. Infrastructural issues, crime issues in certain places, and rubble piles still all over. Not to mention vast areas of the beautiful countryside that were forbidden areas because of the dangers of landmines left behind from the war. Riding down the main street in Sarajevo one can still see many bullet holes in the buildings all these years later. Human trafficking runs rampant in all of Eastern Europe and I’m sad to say that a few of the friends I made are lost to that terrible system, sweet girls who disappeared in the night. I am not religious but find a place for a prayer in my quiet moments for them.
The thing about the 90s struggle was that it was relatively close to the American demonizing of Muslims. It happened just before. In Bosnia, one of the worst genocides occurred in a short space of time, in Europe, after WWII. In the case of this genocide, it was Christians wiping out Muslims, not the other way around. We have a cognitive dissonance here that I don’t know how to rectify.
Similarly, terrorist bombings were occurring in Ireland because of religious and political ideologies. Yet the terrorist has too often been painted brown, instead of the wide array of faces terrorism can take, including, but not limited to, grabbing a gun and walking into a public school.
Again, I point out our blind spots and how short our memories can be.
A narrative is a tool
Why do we change our narrative and forget so quickly? We as humans wish to be safe. We want to make the world a place that fits our story. Those in power know this. That’s why they stoke the things that appease you in some ways and make you afraid and uncomfortable in others.
This is why Fox news turns BLM into a “gang of rioters.”
It’s also why the cognitive dissonance occurred in much of white America, that once Slavery ended and then later once the civil rights movement occurred, that once everyone was made “legally equal”, the work was done. People receded back into their comfort shells believing what they want to believe until the next major movement.
“But I thought it was all fixed, what could they possibly want now?”
“I don’t understand why they don’t just pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
This is a narrative that is pushed again and again. One thing that actually makes my blood boil is the focus on driving us apart. The stereotypical overt racist white guy is a low to low-middle-class shmo who spews his ignorance and makes a scapegoat of brown or foreign people for all the things he himself hasn’t been able to accomplish. Where the hell are the bootstraps that this guy is supposed to pull himself up by? Where the fuck are his bootstraps? Oh, you have a worthy excuse for not doing it, it’s “those” people that are preventing you.
Now, I don’t enjoy overgeneralizing. People and society have nuance and shades of grey that I wish we would engage in more frequently.
However, the poor white shmos, who have been prodded with deep-seated hatred, have more in common with their hated poor left counterparts than any of their rich right-wing leadership.
What the hell does this guy have to benefit from the billionaire trying to not pay taxes? Absolutely nothing. But the billionaire needs that poor shmo to hate. He needs him to believe that he is being held down by those he hates. That poor dumb son of a bitch could use healthcare and free education just as much as the people he hates, and it wouldn’t even affect him. It would be all benefit if he would just let it happen.
So the billionaire and the politicians who need to stay in the upper crust push the right narrative.
It happens on both sides too. Don’t get it twisted that I believe this is solely the problem of the right. It isn’t. I’m just more irritated by that rhetoric.
Narrative Cycles
History is often defined by repeat cycles of conservative pushback. The pattern is simple—Those in power rise too high (often in conjunction with the middle-class disappearing), and the poor/have-nots push back to even the score, financially, socially, and so forth.
Those in power seek to conserve what they have. They desire no change or a recession back to an older way. The have-nots rise up and take a small piece for themselves, the conservative only conceding just enough to appease. Things are peaceful for a time and then the cycle will repeat.
And the conservative so often remembers a golden age that never existed where everything was perfect. They harken back to, “everything was better when I was coming up. We really knew the value of blah blah fuckity blah.”
Do you know how many times I saw my Dad share the same bullshit post on Facebook about how they’re trying to take God out of America and how when he was a kid, they stood and pledged allegiance to the flag, one nation under GOD.
I remember foolishly responding once telling him how God was actually only added to the pledge post-WWII in the era of McCarthyism because of the need for people to be “good Christian Americans” as a way of combating the communist red scare.
He actually was receptive to the information and laughed about it. But a year later he shared the same post. We have short, selective memories, that serve the purpose of the story we wish to tell.
But my dad definitely IS one of those shmos that I’m referring to. It’s being done TO him as much as he is complicit, and I want for him to wake up. It’s hard to get people to wake up in an era where anti-intelligence is happening at such an alarming rate. Where “woke” is being thrown as an insult of the right.
Those in power want you to be stupid and hate factual information. They don’t want you to think for yourself because then they’d actually be held accountable. This isn’t a new strategy.
But the cycle will repeat. The pendulum swings back and forth. Ultimately, we move in the right direction, but it takes so much time, and in the quiet between waves, people forget the last struggle. This is by design.
Right now, we are in a powerful moment of resistance and recession in the cycle.
It just feels like, from my perspective, that we went through a relatively quiet period where enlightenment was making a good push. Nerds were gaining more popularity, building the future. Cats and dogs were walking hand in hand (speaking of false golden ages).
But the other side was festering. The jocks were mad that people weren’t impressed with how hard they could hit people and were focused on that computer program that Johnny nerd made. They hated how people liked books and how they had to have feelings and, boy oh boy, Fox News said Obama was to blame.
Then came the ultimate comb-over jock—grabbing pussy and sitting on golden toilets and NEVER EVER listening to nerd scientists. Couldn’t we just go back to a simpler time when the white man could just keep fucking people over without consequence (psst they still can and do)?
Trump was a symptom of the problem, not the problem and he unleashed a can of worms. The timing of the pandemic exacerbated these issues as the whole world experienced cabin fever and siloed endlessly into echo chambers, creating acrimony at levels never seen (publicly) in the modern era. In order to keep this push going, they doubled down. We now live in the midst of that push. Roe v. Wade is under attack along with gay and transgender rights and a slew of other backward pushes.
The same people that scream “muh freedoms!” and espouse the need for freedom of speech, are the same people who are banning books and passing bills that are literally called “don’t say gay.”
It doesn’t help that we live in a post-journalistic society. A society where the integrity of news is in question because it’s competing with social media algorithms that require your outrage. Outrage is good for business. Fear is good too. Getting straight facts and clear answers doesn’t sell.
I don’t know how to fix it. I know it will get better. I want to say that if everyone were just kind to each other and helped one another and took care of each other’s basic needs (see Maslow’s hierarchy again), we’d be fine. And also probably those of us who are comfortable just shutting up and minding our own business for stuff that doesn’t concern us, to allow people to live a better, safer, more whole life where they are loved. Shut the up, Jethro, it doesn’t affect you, don’t worry, the gays aren’t coming for you!
It might be true, but it would require people to think more clearly, talk at length with one another and assuage the fear that has boiled over. I’ve been all over the world and while there are some bad eggs, I’ve never been to a place that I thought had fundamentally bad people. We’re all just in our SIMs path, waking up, working, trying to provide for ourselves and our families. Trying to find love where we can and trying not to get hurt in the process. I’ve always been welcomed in, even as an invader (from a certain point of view), and found the commonality.
But people adapt the story that makes sense for them and feed the narrative that goes along with their path. I just hope that the cycle continues in the right direction despite the slowdown and that when we get older, we don’t find ourselves grasping too hard to the “way it was” and living long enough to become the villains. Of course, the villains don’t see themselves that way. I just hope I can keep my heart open. I hope you can too.