The Historical Blinders

One of the most pervasive problems in discussions of contemporary political issues, I think, is a tendency to compare the status quo to various historical reference points as a mechanism to discourage political action in the present.  Hitler and the Nazis, for instance, stand as a clear symbol of absolute evil that demanded righteous American intervention - by comparison, contemporary situations seem much more ambiguous, and therefore, goes the assessment, we should be resistant to any claims that America has some kind of moral obligation or even ethical or political interest in intervention or humanitarian involvement in modern crises, like the Syrian Civil War for instance.

But this is a fallacy.  When such a comparison is made, one evaluates one situation in hindsight through an interpretive lens crafted over decades of historical analysis.  Current crises, by contrast, are observed with incomplete information and more intense conflicts over interpretation of the literal facts on the ground.  Beyond that, we can look back on historical wrongdoing and assert moral responsibility to prevent bad acts with feeling the cost of taking action; action in the present requires that WE pay the cost.  Viewed in that light, all of the sudden, we reconfigure our decision-making in a way that puts more empathetic emphasis on the moral actor and less on the victims of catastrophe, because we are the so-called moral actors and it's much easier to empathize with ourselves than others.

If you took a jaunt back in history to 1939, you would find that most Americans were staunchly opposed to raising immigration quotas for Jewish immigrants from Europe, motivated by xenophobia and fearful for employment because of a depressed domestic economy.  Many questioned why Americans should have to sacrifice their own economic wellbeing to benefit the victims of a foreign war that they had no stake in. Sound familiar?  While these arguments played out in the American political scene, millions of Jews were murdered in Europe.  Thousands tried to flee to the United States and were denied entry.  No attempt to raise refugee quotas succeeded until 1944.

There's an additional wrinkle to consider - we, the citizens of the first world, DO bare some responsibility for the victims of the Syrian Civil War.  Arguably, the conflict is the first conflict originated by climate change, which is largely fueled by western overconsumption.  The

warming of the atmosphere affects global precipitation patterns.  Changes in rainfall caused extended droughts in Syria, caused crop failures, food shortages, and skyrocketing prices for basic commodities.  People protested for assistance.  The Assad regime responded with violence.  The rest is history.

So... where does that leave us?  We are the American generation that has created global climate disruption which has already destabilized governments in different parts of the world and led to massive human suffering.  We are also the American generation that largely denies any responsibility for the world's problems and feels entitled to ignore the suffering of the global population that is necessary to sustain our absurdly wasteful lifestyle.

Is your conscience clean?  I'm feeling a little ashamed.

The Eternal Nugget: Do Assholes Have Souls?

I'm kicking myself for having lived in Atlanta for as long as I have and not having checked out the Decatur Book Festival until this year.  In fact, I wish I'd set aside twice as much time as I had to roam around and shop; I earmarked most of my time to listen to scheduled talks by authors.  The pinnacle of the experience was 45 minutes by the satire author Christopher Moore, whose discussion was closer to stand-up than NPR, but part of what he had to say really got me thinking, and that was when he was speculating about the difference between our corporeal bodies and whatever exists of us that is more eternal.

Any religious person with an imagination must have bumped up against this question before - when you go to heaven, which "you" is it?  Is heaven filled with old people?  What happens when you run into your multiple deceased spouses?

Even for the religiously uninitiated, I sense that there is some hesitation to embrace pure materialism - that is, to go all-in on the idea that all that constitutes us disappears when our material bodies die.  Those without a religious framework for conceptualizing such ideas have to search for some kind of universal ethics or inherent value of living things to justify the undercurrents bubbling through our ids that tell us something about our sentient consciousness is special.

Well, maybe this is one more example of a valuable observation about the Universe that leads us to live better lives that can be better understood and enacted by those who have embraced a religious mode of thinking.  Anchoring that transcendental nature of life in the backs of our minds as we walk through life would probably make us act nicer to each other, or be more forgiving to those assholes that pile slights upon us every day.

John Rawls, a 20th century ethicist, proposed a concept called "The Veil of Ignorance"; the gist is that the only way to devise a set of rules for society that would be truly fair would be to write them all out assuming that when you were done, we'd all be reincarnated into society with no prior knowledge of what our gender, ethnicity or social standing would be.  I haven't put my finger on it yet, but there something in all this talk of souls that hearkens back to the veil of ignorance; a reminder that, but for a thin gossimer layer that separates us from the mysteries on the other side of birth and death, we're all just feeble material manifestations of something more beautiful and eternal.

Traffic and the Origins of Evil

Much intellectual energy has been expended over the millennia of human civilization trying to pinpoint the origin of evil.  My experience living in Atlanta on and off for the last ten years has me pretty convinced that it all boils down to one thing - dehumanization.  We've evolved as a community organism, and we all experience strong social and biological constraints against behavior which is damaging to the group; these constraints disappear when we can ignore the consequences we inflict on others by averting our eyes, or dismiss the consequences by devaluing the people that experience them.

Many people will be highly resistant to this argument - we'd like to believe that we're considerate, rational, ethical people.  We'd like to believe we have a since of morals and ethics that guides our behaviors even we aren't being held accountable by the judgmental eyes of our friends and family and society.  If you're one of those people, consider, for a moment, your lifetime of experiences driving your car.

Living and driving in Atlanta, I've experienced a range of behaviors on an hourly basis that range from inconsiderate to abhorrent - I've been cut off, I've watched people cruise alongside a long line of cars and force their way in at the very front to save themselves time.  I've seen screaming, swearing, and a fascinating array of obscene gestures.  I've seen people toss garbage into public spaces; I've seen people crash into others and drive away.  I've done some of these things myself.  I live this every day, as does nearly every other American driver.

Imagine what life would be like if people acted that way outside of their cars?  What would you do if you were waiting in a long line at the bank and someone walked through the doors, marched up to the counter, shoved the next customer out of the way, and proceeded to begin their transaction?  What would you do if they tossed their empty fast food bag on the middle of the floor on the way out?  

Why do people do things every day in their cars that they would never ever do outside of them?  I think it's because they're protected from witnessing the consequences of their selfish choices by the double layer protection of a glass and steel barrier and the assurance whoever they hurt will be left behind, never to be seen again, as they drive away.

I'd like to believe that people are rational, ethical, thoughtful creatures, but if that were really true, driving somewhere during the Atlanta rush hour wouldn't be the nightmarish Hell I've come to expect and accept.