Over the past 30 years, we have been witnessing the slow demise of the American Republic. I don’t mean that the United States will cease to exist, or that we will be conquered by some external power. What I mean is that the principles on which this nation was founded and the philosophy that fostered the continued betterment of life for its citizens ... those things that made this country great and a beacon to the world ... have been and are now being weakened at an accelerating pace, to the detriment of our democratic principles and the common good.
The fundamental underpinning of the great American experiment is found in the Declaration of Independence. It exists in two parts. The first is the well-known phrase that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” The second equally essential part of the experiment is the statement “That to secure these Rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
These were radical, indeed revolutionary, concepts and they sparked not just the American revolution, but revolutions first in Europe, and ultimately throughout the world. Even though America did not always live up to its founding credos, it was these credos and the strength and prosperity that flowed from them that made the United States the envy of the world.
When our nation was founded and for much of its history, it goes without saying that all men and women were not equal, under the law or otherwise. Slavery existed as a legal enterprise until 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Lincoln. But as then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson stated in 1963, “Emancipation was a Proclamation but not a fact.” It would take another 90 years till the Supreme Court finally declared that segregated education was unconstitutional and a further 10 years before Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which provided a statutory basis for blacks being treated equally under the law.
Women ... the wives of the founders and the mothers of their children ... were legally chattel at the time. Women had no rights at all, and whatever property they had prior to marriage (as the result of inheritance or otherwise) became the property of their husbands. Though the legal rights of women were expanded during the 19th century, it was not until 1920 that women were finally given the right to vote.
These are the two most prominently cited examples of historic inequality in this country. The other obvious, though less spoken of historically, inequality is one of wealth. There have always been masses of poor among the few rich, and that is indeed a fact of life in every society, regardless the nature of its government. But over the decades, and especially since the beginning of the 20th century, government has passed laws which have both protected the common man from the power of the mighty (e.g. the Taft-Hartley labor law) and sought to at least partially ameliorate the economic inequality and its impact through programs that support the financially vulnerable. The funds for such programs were made available by our system of progressive taxation, under which those who are more able contribute more to the betterment of the common good.
In each of these examples, while we are still a long way from a nation where “all men are created equal” or have equality of opportunity, government has over the years increasingly met its obligation as stated in the Declaration to “secure these rights” and to insure that every adult has the right to vote so that government does draw its powers justly “from the consent of the governed.”
But on all of these fronts, government and the nation as a whole has begun to disassemble these credos. President Reagan famously said, “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.” Over the next 30 years and continuing at an accelerated pace in the present, the Republican Party’s concept of government has been less government, less regulation (don’t interfere with business), smaller government, let people fend for themselves. Their attitude is that if people don’t succeed, it’s their own fault.
This is a major shift in attitude from that contained in the Declaration and in the way our modern progressive government, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, developed during most of the 20th century. And since the Republican Party has been the majority party in Congress for most of the past 30+ years, that has resulted in a major shift in government itself. The result, together with the huge influence of big business in policy-making through lobbying, fundraising, and PACs, is that corporations pretty much rule our government and set policy. It is no longer there to secure everyone’s rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This has affected policy in all areas of government ... from clean air to mining on federal lands to social security to elections.
At the same time, Reagan’s introduction of the “me” generation has resulted in a major shift in cultural attitudes. Everyone is now out for him- or herself. The idea behind the American social contract that we all share a responsibility for the common good, and that those with more ability have a responsibility to contribute more to insure the common good is fast becoming out of date. This is especially prevalent among the elite rich. Indeed, not only have they little concern for the welfare of their fellow Americans; they have little concern for the welfare of the country because as citizens with a global range of business activity, they see no place as their “home.” For the first time in our history, the rich are not committed to the United States.
The combined change in the attitude of government and the public has resulted in a retrenchment on the advances in equality that had been achieved over the previous century. Over the past 30-40 years, the income of the working class or middle class has remained stagnant in real dollar terms while the top 5% have just gotten richer and richer. The result is that income inequality is greater now than it has been since before the depression.
While people of color (primarily blacks and hispanics) have not become less equal during this period, they have made no progress in the march to equality. They still lack equal opportunity because inner city schools remain subpar (and there are enough success stories now that we know that this failure is not a function of the students’ background) and because subtle discrimination is still rampant despite its having been illegal for decades. There has been no push, except marginally, to do anything to change this situation.
Finally, there is the issue of ethics. While ethics has never been part of America’s credo or ethos, based as it is on capitalism, during the middle of the 20th century ethics in government and business came to be expected and certainly was the culturally correct position. But as the importance of money and business together with egocentrism has increased again, so too has the attitude that the end justifies the means. If doing something unethical provides an opportunity to make more money, then corporations and financial titans as well as workers in the cogs of those organizations will do so without barely a second thought or care for who might get hurt, whether the general public or even customers. It’s back to the future.
That was the primary cause for the recent financial debacle that we are still recovering from. Yes, many point to the repeal of Glass-Steagall (the depression era law that separated commercial and investment banking) as well as deregulation as having caused the crisis. And while that is true, it is only true because people in business cannot be counted on to act in an ethical, professional manner. They must be monitored to enforce an ethical code that respects the common good.
One could go on and on about the ways in which the government’s protection of the common good, thereby securing the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all, has dramatically decreased over the past 30 years. That there is less equality now than 30 or 40 years ago cannot be disputed (yes, women and gays/lesbians have more equality now than then, but that is mostly an upper class phenomenon).
If this trend continues over the coming decades, the promise of the American Republic will have failed. The concept of equality will be nothing but an illusion. And government will not be there to secure rights for all and protect the common good. Historically, our system struck a balance between private rights, the public good, and government. That balance is on the tipping edge, if not already past it.
Recently I viewed a DVD about the struggles of West Bank Palestinian villagers against the encroachment on their land and olive groves by both the nearby Israeli settlement ... a city, really ... as well as the “wall.” It's a depressing reminder of what Israel has become mired in as a result of its decades-long occupation of the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces came off, not surprisingly, as cold and heartless, and the Palestinian villagers as only wanting peace and their land.
I should say at the start of this post that I have always been of a different mind about Israel than my family and most Jews that I know. While I am a strong supporter of the State of Israel and its right to exist, I have always been critical of actions taken by the Israeli government almost from the beginning that made and continue to make 2nd class citizens of Israeli Arabs (those Arabs who chose to stay in Israel at the time of independence were granted citizenship but lived under martial law until 1966 and continue to be discriminated against in areas such as village infrastructure, education, and social funding). By its own actions, the State of Israel is not an example of how these two people can live in peace and harmony to their mutual benefit.
But things here are never so black and white. The Palestinians are not the equivalent of the American Indians or blacks during Apartheid nor are the Israelis the land-grabbing fascists that many have come to believe they are in more recent decades. There is ample blame to be placed on both sides for the ongoing conflict. To understand the dynamics and make any effort at being a helpful broker one must understand the history of the conflict.
Prior to WWI, the land that is now Israel and the West Bank, as well as most of the modern states in the Mideast, were part of the Caliphate of Turkey. There was no Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or Palestine. These countries were created by the Allied powers after winning WWI (Turkey was allied with Germany and so was on the losing side). They basically drew lines on a map and created these countries and then proceeded to install monarchies in most.
This was not the case with Palestine, however. Here a British Mandate was created, meaning that the British were responsible for governing this territory. It was not a colony in the normal sense of the word, but in effect it was.
Around this same time a movement was growing among European Jews called Zionism. It’s aim was to create a Jewish homeland in what had been biblical Israel and was now part of the Palestine mandate. If one asks why Jews wanted this, one only has to look at the centuries of persecution that Jews have suffered in almost every country they lived in at the hand of the Christian, and especially the Catholic, rulers and people of those countries. And I’m not talking about mere discrimination. There are ample examples, from the Spanish Inquisition to the progroms of Czarist Russia, where the persecution took on a very violent, bloody, government-instigated form as well as the normal day to day beatings that Jews were often subjected to at the hands of Christian thugs.
During the interwar period, Zionists began immigrating to the Palestine mandate and buying land. As their numbers increased, periodic violence erupted between the Jews and the Palestinians, the longest such incident lasting from 1936-1939.
Then of course came WWII and the Holocaust. And the dynamics of the Zionist’s search changed. In November 1947, the General Assembly of the United Nations recommended the partition of the Palestine mandate into two separate states ... one for the Jews and one for the Arabs. The Zionists accepted the proposed partition but all the surrounding Arab states rejected the partition plan, as did the Palestinians. Note: the Palestinians could have had their own state right then, but because their Arab sponsors would not agree to a Jewish state and the Palestinians rejected partition for a variety of reasons but basically an inability to compromise, they lost it.
When Zionist leaders proclaimed the independent state of Israel in 1948, all the surrounding Arab countries attacked the new state of Israel, a war which they quickly lost. At the same time, some 700,000 Palestinians left, fled or were driven from their homes and took refuge in surrounding Arab countries where they remain today, still refugees, not citizens of the host country. Jordan took control over the West Bank, Egypt over Gaza. Control of Jerusalem was split between Israel and Jordan. The Palestinians were a people left with nothing.
Later that year, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that those Palestinians who wished to return to their homes should be permitted to do so and those who do not should be compensated by Israel. That resolution has never been implemented.
The Palestinians became an official entity in 1964 for the first time when leaders gathered with the support of the Arab League and created the Palestine Liberation Organization. It’s charter clearly states that the creation of the State of Israel is null and void.
In 1967, aware that the Arab countries were again preparing to attack it, Israel conducted a pre-emptive war against Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. At the end Israel gained control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan, as well as the Golan Heights from Syria, and the entire Sinai Peninsula and Gaza from Egypt. That was the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.,
In response to the war, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied conquered lands and the acknowledgment of the sovereignty of all states in the region and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized borders. This resolution, with its land for peace strategy, would form the basis for all future negotiations.
In 1973, Egypt and Syria mounted a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. After 3 weeks, Israel had rebuffed those forces and regained control of the Sinai and the Golan Heights.
The first major movement towards peace in the area came with the Camp David accords between Israel’s Menachem Begin and Eqypt’s Anwar Sadat. Israel agreed to hand back the Sinai to Egypt in return for peace and normalization. As a result of making peace, Egypt was expelled from the Arab League and Sadat was assassinated.
At the same time, Begin began a policy of greatly expanding the number and size of Israeli “settlements” on the West Bank in order to frustrate any future attempts to hand the West Bank back to the Palestinians. Note: No country other than Israel considers the settlements legal, since they are built on occupied territory and violate the Fourth Geneva Convention.
In 1993, the PLO and Israel signed the Oslo agreements in which Israel recognized the PLO and gave them limited autonomy in the West Bank and Gaza in exchange for peace. The PLO in turn gave up its claim to the territory of Israel as defined by its borders before the 1967 war and agreed to end the Intifada. Both sides agreed that they would make gradual steps towards a final settlement and that they would do nothing to change the status of West Bank and Gaza pending the outcome of negotiations.
Note that while the PLO (as its leader Yasser Arafat had previously done) tacitly recognized Israel’s right to exist, it did not and has not changed the language in its charter calling the State of Israel “null and void.” A public vote was finally taken in 1998 which supposedly nullified the pertinent clauses, but a new amended charter has never been produced, raising the inevitable questions.
Fast forward to July 2000. At Camp David, President Clinton shuttled back and forth between Ehud Barak of Israel and Yasser Arafat. Barak agreed to most of what the Palestinians had wanted. The major holdback was the right of return. The other problem was that because of the number of Jewish “settlements” on the West Bank that Israel wanted to keep control of for a variety of reasons, the proposed Palestinian state would have been divided into disconnected regions and the Israel army would have been in their face constantly. The talked ended without agreement.
In the Israeli election that followed, the right wing of Israeli politics took the helm once again. In the intervening years, the parties have never come as close to peace again. The peace process is moribund. Israel has drifted into an increasingly insular and right wing perspective, continuing the process of building new and expanding old “settlements” and erecting the “wall” separating Palestinian towns from the Jewish settlements and Israel proper. Hamas, the more militant Palestinian group in control of Gaza, has been resurgent. The PLO has been weakened.
At this point, it is hard even for the most positive and peace-seeking individuals to imagine what the shape of a two-state solution would look like on the ground or how the two sides with a history of decades of hate and distrust could find the trust necessary to make compromises and feel secure in peace. The goal of Menachem Begin of increasing and expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank in order to make it impossible for a future Israeli government to arrive at a viable peace agreement with the Palestinians succeeded.
There are no winners here, only losers. There is no real security for Israel without peace, but peace in and of itself does not bring about security for Israel. And so long as the Palestinians do not view Israel as a legitimate state, they will never reach their dream of having their own country at last.
So you see why I say that neither party, Israel nor the Palestinians, come to this matter with “clean hands.” Both parties, as well as the larger Arab community, have their share of blame. Pointing one's finger at one or the other party thus is not realistic nor does it move the matter forward. Peace, and a two-state solution, will only come to be when both the Israeli and Palestinian leadership really want peace and are willing to make the hard compromises that will be necessary and sell them to their people.
We live in an era of unprecedented freedom ... of speech, of travel, of work, of intellectual and creative endeavor, of where we live, to name just a few. And we live in a nation that has experienced great upward mobility over the past century.
And yet, whether rich or poor, professional or working class, we are enslaved. To be more exact, the habit-energies of our minds are enslaved. We have become little more than programmed unthinking robots that do what our masters ... the lords of capitalism ... want us to do. And this affects virtually all areas of our lives. (You may well find this proposition ludicrous, but please read on.)
The lords of capitalism (by this I mean all those who hold the reins of power in our capitalist system) have achieved their desired control over our lives by preying on the weaknesses of man ... on our intense desire or craving to be loved, to be desired, to be admired, to be part of a group. Now, wanting to be loved or part of a group is not inherently either a weakness or something bad for us. But because of the insecurity that affects most of us in this culture, those wants have been manipulated by the lords of capitalism into cravings which rule our lives and cause us endless frustration and pain, leading us further from the feelings of peace and happiness that are our birthright.
Let me site this enslavement’s most prevailing form. In our contemporary culture, status is confirmed almost exclusively by one thing ... money. Because the more money one has the more, and more expensive, things one can acquire, and ones acquisitions ... what used to be called, derogatorily, conspicuous consumption ... is at the core of one's status.
Whether rich or poor, what you are able to acquire ... whether it’s fancy Nike sneakers for a ghetto dweller or a 20,000 sq. ft. mansion for the top 1% ... gives you status among your peers. It’s not talent, brains, or looks ... it’s how you’ve been able to parlay those attributes into money. And so we find that individuals are making life decisions, to the extent they have control, based primarily on the prospect of making more money rather than the factors that used to be of equal or greater importance.
The reader might say, “so what’s wrong with that?” What’s wrong is that it traps one in a cycle of endless frustration, even if one is successful, because one always is left wanting MORE. What’s wrong is that it distorts decisions that are important for the larger society ... like how many people choose to become teachers, or engineers, or primary care doctors rather than financial industry brokers or high paid medical specialists. What’s wrong is that ethics and professionalism are routinely sacrificed on the altar of money. Whether you look at almost any aspect of the recent financial debacle or in general at the actions of industry, including the health care industry, if making more money means disregarding ethics or cutting corners on professionalism the latter concerns are hardly given a second thought.
Mind you, I’m fully aware that the enslavement of man’s habit-energies is not something exclusive to the capitalist system. In almost any system that has a power hierarchy, those in power will take measures to ensure that the masses do what they want them to do. The most extreme examples were found in totalitarian societies, like Communist Russia or Nazi Germany.
But while the political propaganda in those cases was far more reprehensible and sinister, there is little practical difference between the marketing that we are subjected to on a constant basis and that political propaganda. It all falls under the category of the big lie. And the aim in both is the control of people.
“Oh, come on!” you may say. But think about it. The success of our capitalist consumer-based economy depends on making people believe they need something, regardless whether they really do. The more successful marketing has become, the more addicted people have become to consuming, and the more money has become the essential means to obtain the desired end ... to the point that people will do almost anything to obtain money.
There is no shortage of examples of this among rich or poor. It is this craving that resulted in affluent people in the financial industry not caring what the impact of their reckless actions were on others in the recent mortgage securities debacle. It is this craving that results in many of the poor turning to the world of crime (10% of black males in their 30s are in prison or jail on any given day. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one third of all black men can expect to be in prison at some point during their lifetime) or people with meager means agreeing to the removal of mountaintops for coal mining and hydro-fracking if they see money in it for themselves, regardless if the risk is high or virtually assured that it will ultimately despoil the environment and contaminate their very drinking water, the source of life.
“Ah,” you may say, “but people here have free will. It’s their choice whether to buy something or not. Whether to work in one industry or not. Whether to be ethical or not.”
But that’s just the point. People don’t really have free will. They have been programmed by our culture and its pervasive marketing and consumerist values to crave the acquisition of things and to acquire the money needed to satisfy that craving. And when one craves something, when one becomes addicted to something, one has no free will. That is how we have become enslaved. And this includes those at the top who are exploiting the rest of us. One has no real choice not to do what your addiction tells you to do ... barring of course becoming aware that one is an addict and going through a 12-step program to recover your peace and contentment.
A big lie central to the success of this marketing is the concept of progress. Certainly since the industrial revolution, and perhaps before, progress has been touted as being the end all and be all for civilization. And so we have come to accept and to crave everything that bespeaks of progress. Acquiring such items, such as the iPhone, becomes the latest and most ephemeral of status symbols.
Should progress, however, be so uncritically regarded? Without question, when it comes to material matters, we have progressed to an amazing degree, and the speed of that progress just increases with the advancement of technology.
But has that progress brought us increased happiness or security? No. Has it brought us the increased leisure time that was much touted at the dawn of the technology age? Hardly! People are working longer hours and are more stressed, often being on the job almost 24/7 because of smart phones and the computer. Has it brought us improved health? No. We live longer because of advances in medicine and improved hygiene, but we are not healthier. In fact we are less healthy. We are living longer despite our physical condition, not because of it. Has it made our homes and schools and the world at large less violent? No
Clearly there are many things that are better now then they were 50 or 100 years ago, but that is due primarily to a change in laws and attitudes. Such things ... the status of women, people of color, and gays and lesbians, for example ... are social matters. The things that are marketed as progress and which we purchase have not changed our interior, our spiritual, lives for the better. Yes, women as well as men toil less arduously than they used to, but are their lives better now? No.
The importance of marketing to make people want and purchase things they don’t really need extends from the highest luxury items down to the most plebian. Let me give you several examples of the latter.
Many years ago, because I was living someplace with no hot water, I started shaving using regular bar soap and cold water. To my surprise, I discovered that I got a wonderful shave, even though I have a rough beard and shaving had always been difficult for me. Some time later I happened to meet a dermatologist and told her about my experience, to which she replied that that made perfect sense as the cold water closes your skin pores, resulting in an easier shave. I have not used shaving cream or hot water in more than 40 years!
More recently, we discovered a far less expensive form of clothes washing detergent than purchasing the commercial brands. Just combine baking soda wash powder and borax powder with water and you have a very effective, inexpensive detergent that does just as good a job on washables (I can’t speak to delicate washables as I have none) as any commercial detergent.
These are but two small examples. But if everyone followed my example, the manufacturers of these products would be out of business. And this list could be expanded to much that we purchase. Most of it just isn’t “necessary.”
The last example is not small. We have a recognized and bemoaned epidemic of obesity in our nation, especially among our children and younger adults. Why? Because their diet habits have changed and their exercise habits have changed. And why is that? Because they have succumbed to the marketing wiles of McDonalds and makers of soft drinks and all the other unhealthy, fattening junk food that they eat. They could easily have a healthier diet (note I didn’t say “healthy”) like kids used to. And because their days are now spent in front of a variety of electronic gadgets ... TV, video games, and computers ... which they have been sold as being “cool.” The exercise that children used to get outdoors is mostly a thing of the past.
The reader will in all likelihood now understandably say that what I’m advocating would cause the downfall of our economy and bring about much human misery. Ah, but not if we turn from a consumer-driven economy to an infrastructure-driven economy as I suggested in an earlier post (“Strengthening America by Changing from a Consumer Economy to a Nation-Building Economy,” November 4, 2011). In such an economy there would be ample work but money would be redirected and spent not on unnecessary fluff but on things that were critical to the ongoing health and strength of our country and indirectly our standard of living.
If we want to be truly free to do what is best for us ... not for corporate America, if we want to be strong and healthy, we must first recognize that we have become enslaved to the powers of corporate America and we must then demand a change in the status quo. Just as Gandhi led the people of India to not cooperate with their British overlords, just as Martin Luther King led African-Americans to not cooperate in their own oppression by white America, so too Americans of all walks of life must gather and protest against the oppressive power that corporations have gained over all aspects of American life, including politics.
The future is ours to determine ... this is a democracy ... but only if we take our rights and our role seriously and demand change.
A for-profit business has to figure its costs of production in establishing a price and maintaining a sufficient profit margin to warrant being in business. This includes all inputs into the production process. However, for many if not most American businesses, this does not include the costs of rendering all byproduct outputs from the production process harmless to the environment.
There are certainly measures that are required by regulation, but they are minimal relatively speaking. When any efforts are made to require more stringent measures, the common outcry from industry is that the measures are too expensive. And so government typically relents and the pollution or other damage continues, with the environment being damaged, sometimes irrevocably, sometimes to be cleaned up at the taxpayer’s expense.
Before any product is allowed to be processed or manufactured, why isn’t it required that a business provide an environmental impact statement indicating the measures it will take to insure that any potential impact is mitigated to the point that the process is harmless to the environment. If a business cannot with a sufficient degree of certainty make such a statement, it should not be allowed to proceed. (The former phrase is in italics because industry routinely makes such bold statements without there being any rigorous research or data backing up the statements.)
The obvious case in point is hydraulic fracking, but the same principle applies to coal mining, electric generating plants, chemical plants, and many other industries where one wouldn’t necessarily think that toxic discharges would be a problem. No industry should be allowed to despoil the environment. And the public should not have to pay for mitigation measures that should be considered costs of production.
If such a system is not put in place and the government/taxpayer ends up paying, then isn’t that a form of socialism that big business and conservatives so abhor? Why is it only socialism to these people when the government helps those who are in need, but not when government either directly or indirectly subsidizes the cost of doing business?
This is but one more example where corporate interests usually trump all others because of the power they have through the money they donate to politicians and the money they spend lobbying for their point of view. Those who speak on the public’s behalf are drowned out by the shear magnitude of corporate power over the process.
In my previous post, I addressed the problems caused by widespread insecurity ... abuse and violence in personal relationships and in social interactions, as well as much unhappiness and stress even without those particular outcomes. But insecurity also plays a major role in the larger issues of social conflict and international war.
For hundreds if not thousands of years, there has been a divide in most societies between the haves and the have-nots. Whether we look at the English nobility, or the WASP establishment in the United States prior to 1960, Southern whites, or the caste system in India, the haves put in place a system which protected their interests and kept “others” or the masses from having the power to be a threat.
The reader might look at these leaders of society and say that they were immensely secure; that this is not an example of insecurity causing conflict. But I would argue that they were only secure because they had put in place these systems, which they did out of insecurity and fear. They were at some level afraid of “others” or the masses gaining power.
The English nobility put in place a system where there was little upward mobility, and then only to a certain point. The English class system ... which was the gate into good schools and good jobs ... was firmly in place until after WWII; many would say it still is. Politically, even after election reforms in the 1800s which gave a political voice to men who either owned or rented property worth a certain amount, the House of Lords, which was the province of the nobility, had the power to veto what they didn’t like until 1911.
In the United States, the WASP establishment until around 1960 had a pretty exclusive grip on all handles of power. Whether someone was Jewish or Catholic, let alone black, all “others” were excluded from the seats of real power, for example, WASP law firms, country clubs, and private clubs. Representative politics provided a path to elected status for many of the “others,” but real power was reserved for members of the WASP establishment until well after WWII.
In the South, whites from the highest to the lowest socio-economic groups put in place and violently supported a system in which blacks had no rights, or what rights they had were systematically denied them. The language may have been one of superiority and security, but here more than in the other instances I discuss, the fear of losing control was always close to the surface and apparent.
Today in the United States, while we live in a very egalitarian society in many respects and there are many laws protecting the equality of people, discrimination based on fear and insecurity is still a major issue. Much has been written, for example, about the vehemence of the Tea Party’s and Far Right’s attitude towards President Obama as being in large part based on their fear of blacks’, and other people of color, gaining more social and political power as the majority status of whites in this country begins to fade away, an opinion with which I agree.
And this is not just a Western phenomenon. For example, the caste system in India, which until relatively recently was very rigid and still causes many problems, especially for those formerly labeled “untouchables,” was an ancient system devised to keep everyone in their place and protect those with power from those below them.
As to the issue of international war, the issue of insecurity is more visible. Virtually all alliances and wars have been an effort to make countries feel secure against the threat of enemies, real or imagined. Even the strong have constantly been worried about attacks on their hegemony. And understandably so.
Obviously, in the larger social context and international relationships, the problem is not directly that children, spouses, and others are not loved unconditionally. However, the basic dynamic resulting from this which impacts interpersonal relationships ... a feeling of insecurity, of not feeling safe, of needing to project strength to counter such feelings ... directly impacts actions in the larger social and world arenas. If those in positions of power felt love towards and from all, then there would be no need for both the national and international systems that have ultimately caused much suffering in the world.
If everyone were raised with unconditional love, listened to deeply, and spoken to with loving kindness, then man would not grow up to be the way man is now and has been for millenia, at least in so-called “advanced” societies.
So far I have discussed the impact of man’s insecurity vis a vis others and its impact on his relationship with other individuals or groups. Another major aspect of man’s insecurity that has affected the course of human development has been his insecurity vis a vis nature, read broadly. It is this insecurity that resulted in the development of religion, from the earliest to the current leading religions.
Man formed religions to answer questions of why nature and other aspects of life are the way they are, and most importantly to provide a way for man to impact their course, whether through sacrifice in ancient times or through modern prayer. And since religion was formed in answer to man’s insecurity, it is not surprising that it was made to serve his other insecurities, whether it was providing a respectable foundation for the continued practice of slavery or lending its authority to a country’s going to war against enemies. Far from being the bringer of peace and understanding, religion has thus been the hand-maiden of war and untold human suffering.
And so, the book I’ve written which has just been published, Raising a Happy Child, is relevant regarding these larger issues as well. It is available through www.ThePracticalBuddhist.com. as well as through the major online retailers and your local bookstore by special order. While based on Buddhist principles, the lessons it contains are applicable regardless of ones religious affiliation. For more information about the book as well as the Table of Contents and sample text, go to the website.
In the aftermath of the massacre at Newtown, CT most of the discussion has centered around how to lessen the risk of such events happening through better gun control measures, including improved data bases to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed. While these are important measures that need to be taken, they avoid the real issue ... why is it that so many people are killed in the United States each year by guns.
In addition to the well-publicized random mass shootings, there is a far greater problem out there. In 2010, guns took the lives of 31,076 Americans. Roughly 20,000 of these were suicides; the rest were intentional homicides. Only 5% were accidental shootings. In addition, 73,505 Americans were treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds in 2010.
These numbers are huge. They evidence a significant problem in the psychological stability of Americans. I include in this group not just those who perpetrate mass shootings or commit suicide, but also those who commit intentional homicide. One does not kill another person if one is emotionally stable.
But the vastness of America’s psychological problem is far greater than evidenced by gun deaths. If we look at the extent of domestic violence, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that between 960,000 and 3 million people are physically abused by their spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend per year. Other sources report estimates ranging between 600,000 to 6 million women and 100,000 to 6 million men per year. Even taking the more conservative DOJ figures, the problem is serious.
There are no statistics for those who suffer verbal/mental rather than physical abuse. But as anyone who has observed friends and family, as well as strangers, the numbers if they were available would be frightening.
Whether someone verbally abuses a spouse or child, or physically abuses them, or commits suicide, murder, or a mass shooting is a matter of degree, both as to the severity and nature of their psychological disturbance. But in most cases, whether the disturbance is mild or severe, the root of the disturbance is insecurity.
What has caused this epidemic of insecurity? The cause lies in the simple fact that children, spouses, parents, and siblings are typically not loved unconditionally, or certainly do not feel so loved. To most people reading this, this will sound like rubbish for a variety of reasons. First, people think that it is quite right not to love people unconditionally; the very idea sounds like nonsense. Second, it sounds like the ultimate example of permissiveness, which rightfully would be viewed negatively.
The first reaction arises because most of us have no experience with, no role models for, unconditional love. We have not experienced it ourselves, either from our parents or spouses, nor have we seen that trait in others. A recent cartoon in the New Yorker showed a mother with her arm around her young son, saying, ““Heavens no, sweetie – my love for you has tons of conditions” Take away the hyperbole and that states the basic fact of much child-rearing, at least in America (I can’t speak to other countries), and not just currently but probably for a good century and more.
This is not a judgment of parents. Most parent are good people who would never do anything intentionally to harm their child. But parents are people who are a function of their own upbringing and learned experience. They have their own fears, frustrations, angers, and desires. And they see things through the lens of that experience and those emotions, which in turn impacts how they interact with their children.
And so, as children we have been exposed to conditional love at home and conditional respect among our peers. The result is an epidemic of insecurity. And not just among those who receive negative “reviews” from family and peers. Those who get positive feedback are also insecure because they realize that their approval is based on their status at that point in time; should that change ... whether it’s ones looks, ones grades, ones wealth, ones physical ability, ones talent ... they will lose their position at the top of the social pecking order. They know that their approval is very conditional and the fact that they have so much to lose makes them even more insecure, which they mask with huge egos and bravado. This is what accounts for so many people at the top being imperious and often belittling others ... whether it’s “mean girls” in school or financial titans.
As to the second reaction, it stems from a misunderstanding of the meaning of unconditional love. Unconditional love is a Buddhist concept that pretty much means what it seems to ... that one loves someone, whether child or spouse, for who that person is. And so regardless what that person does, they are still loved because it does not change who they are. An example of this are parents who accept a child who turns out to be gay because it doesn’t change who the child is in their eyes and thus doesn’t change their love, as opposed to those parents who ostracize such children because they have committed an abomination or at least unpardonable social behavior.
What it does not mean is that one does not provide direction or criticism to a child. An important factor in the development of a child is receiving direction on a large variety of matters from its parents. To love unconditionally means to provide that direction or criticism within the context of such love and when one gives it, to couch it in such a way, to use such words and tone of voice, so that it is clear to the child that the direction or criticism does not impact the unconditional love that they are given. If one loves a child unconditionally, one never yells at a child or calls them “bad” or other negative labels. That would be an example of not speaking with loving kindness, which is the opposite of unconditional love.
As an aside I should note that unconditional love also does not mean that if one finds oneself in an abusive relationship that one stays in it. One may have unconditional love and compassion for the abusive spouse/partner, but if your mental or physical well-being is threatened, one should put as much physical and legal distance as necessary between yourself and the abuser to protect yourself, and if you have children, your children.
Assuming that to some degree at least you agree with my assessment, you may well ask how this problem can be addressed? If generations of insecure people are raising insecure children in a vicious cycle, how can it be broken? The answer is by making prospective and existing parents aware of this problem and encouraging them to take steps to both raise a happy and secure child and at the same time make their own lives better as well. Bit by bit we must start with individual parents and have the effect spread outward.
To that end I have written a book which has just been published, Raising a Happy Child. While based on Buddhist principles, the lessons it contains are applicable regardless of ones religious affiliation. It is available through www.ThePracticalBuddhist.com. as well as through the major online retailers and your local bookstore by special order. For more information about the book as well as the Table of Contents and sample text, go to the website.
Next, “Insecurity as the Cause of Social Conflict and International War.”
Our democracy and the right of free speech is based on the value the founding fathers placed on differing opinions. It is by the airing of differing opinions that people are either persuaded or not, or a compromise is found which while not giving either side everything it wanted provides a way for each side to feel good about the outcome. But ultimately, of course, the majority rules, which means that there will in most political matters be a large percentage of people and their elected representatives who are not happy with the result. Such is life in a democracy.
For such a system to work, for our democracy and representative government to function, it is of critical importance that even though people and their representatives may disagree with others as to a whole raft of issues, that, as lawyers say, “people agree to disagree,” that they understand that “reasonable minds may differ.” Which is to say that each side respects that the other side came to its opinions honestly and with reason ... they just don’t agree.
When, however, people become so convinced of the rightness of their opinions that they become self-righteous and ideological in their approach to issues ... that is they feel that they are not just right and the other side wrong but that the other side is somehow evil or harmful ... then there can be no compromise, there can be no reasoned discussion, there can be no art of persuasion and the process of our democratic government breaks down. And that is the state in which we have found ourselves these past few years.
How have we come to this point? Why has a system that has operated for more than 200 years, with the exception of the Civil War, with widely divergent points of view and often hot tempers reached the current impasse? Really, what we are seeing now in the posture of the two opposing sides is most akin to that which our country experienced over the issue of slavery and to a certain extent the civil rights movement. And that’s disturbing.
On the issue of slavery and civil rights, those in the south felt that their whole way of life, their whole world would cease to be if African-Americans were given their freedom and the same rights as white people. And they were right. Their world did change. But life went on, and white southerners changed too; they adapted to the new reality. And they found once they got over themselves that much about their world did not change.
The same kind of reality check is needed in the current situation in order to progress from the current Congressional gridlock. Both sides ... which is to say the liberal left and the far right ... need to understand that life will go on, that the country will prosper, that they and their constituents will be ok, even if their view of government does not totally win the day. This is surely an instance where there is merit on both sides.
For example, as staunchly liberal as I am, I get livid when I get emails and petitions, or read articles, in which liberal groups refuse to give an inch on entitlement (Social Security and Medicare) spending. I’m sorry, but the nation’s debt and deficit are real problems and we just do not have sufficient revenue to continue past policies unaltered as our age demographics change.
There are ways to cut spending without harming those who are truly dependent on these benefits, and that’s what Democrats must make sure of. As for the starting age of Medicare, that used to be of critical importance because of the cost of medical insurance. Now with the new Health Care Law, insurance available through the insurance exchanges for those of limited means will probably not be much more than what one currently pays out of Social Security for Plan B. So it should not be the critical issue it once was. There’s also a painless opportunity to raise revenues for SS by ending the salary cap regarding the application of the SS tax.
But how do we get both the public and their representatives to get down from these barricades they’ve erected? How do we get them to go back to the day when each side respected the other side?
As a Buddhist, I find the answer in the teachings of the Buddha. The Buddha taught that all things are empty of intrinsic existence, that they are of dependent origination. What that means is that every thought we have, every opinion we hold, all our perspectives are a function of our learned experience, whether within our family, our peer group, or the larger culture.
As a proposed statement of fact, this statement is unassailable. And when one truly accepts that fact, there is no way that one can say any more with certitude that I am right and the others are wrong. Even if one is Born Again, your opinions are based on the teachings of your peer group, your minister, and they in turn were learned from someone else. They are as dependent as the opinions of a secular humanist atheist. And if anyone has the hubris to say that God has spoken to them and this is what God says, beware!
There should be only a few universal rules in coming to a compromise on issues. First, do unto others as you would have them do unto you; love and respect your neighbor as you do yourself. Second, do no harm to those who are vulnerable and need the protection of the state. Third, the social contract must be honored by all citizens, part of which entails that those who are better off have a social responsibility as citizens to help those who are not well off ... that’s what progressive taxation is all about. Fourth, there can be no sacred cows ... neither military spending nor entitlements.
Application of these rules would arrive at numerous ways to cut the deficit and slow the growth of the national debt through a combination of raised revenues and reduced spending without harming either individuals in need, the strength of the economy, or our national security.
