In many of my blog posts I take disparate ideas and random facts and try to put them together in unusual ways. I see the world as glorious chaotic play. Any sense I make of it is mine for the hell of it. I draw the longest bows, quite unashamedly, linking the cake on my bedside table as a child to Mithraic bull sacrifices, for example. I have no real sense of scale, I'm afraid. I know there are the biggest ideas that humans are capable of, and I also know there are these tiny bursts of intuition, and for me both are valuable. Wisdom, which I primarily seek at this stage of my life, is everywhere. In order to be at all productive, I need to stop it flooding me as I stand in the stream of all that humans have thought, and felt, and dreamed, and feared.
Understanding the current sociopolitical situation is tough going and I feel a sense of urgency. Of course my social media feeds are full of it and some of it is pretty disturbing. I want to add some ideas that sound a bit random, but I believe are quite principled. Like this:
- 'We' in this case means most people I associate with, those of the liberal left. These are generally educated older, 'white' people who value democracy, and support human and civil rights, and consider themselves to have an inclusive, caring approach to others around them.
- We watch celebrities (political and spiritual celebrities as well as media ones) 'nailing' 'destroying' and 'ripping into' (watch the language!) Trump and his allies, and we make great cartoons, and we argue ad hominem. Social networks do what they do best. The sheer volume of it makes real thinking more difficult. We react and react and react. Hells, there is enough to react to.
- Just because someone dislikes Trump and didn't vote for him does not mean they voted for Hillary Clinton. It doesn't make them a Democrat. It doesn't make them anything. Disliking pork does not make me a vegetarian. Nor does it make me Muslim, or Jewish. *
- No it's not normal. It shouldn't be normalised because it's not normal. Not only is it not normal but it may well be illegal and unconstitutional. And what is worse, it is Not How We Do Things Around Here. Of course breaking norms and mores is far worse than breaking laws.
- Those of us who are alarmed about the breakdown of these systemic norms are speaking from both the right and the left, and it is worth looking at who is speaking. There are some strange bedfellows emerging blinking and disheveled from darkened rooms. My enemy's enemy may be my friend for now, but we must never be unprincipled.
- There are many people who do not give a monkey's fuck about 'normal'. If they had wanted normal they would have voted for Clinton. Or just about anyone else. These people are truly disenfranchised and whether for sensible reasons or not they are galactically angry. Saying to them 'We Can't Have This! This Isn't How It's Meant To Be!' is like trying to ban rock and roll. These people might not being joining the big marches, but they might just be the true rebels, and they have a lot less to lose than those on the liberal left. Plus they are armed for bear.
- There are many people who are genuinely afraid and with good reason. They are scared that they will be deported, or that their marriages will be annulled, or that they will be victims of violence even if they aren't already. These social and legal gains may look like identity politics to those who don't care for such things, (and who are armed for bear), but they are hard won and the resulting social truces have always been fragile things. Social issues are as important as economic ones when it comes to voting, surely.
- the Whole Trump Business was at least forty years in the making, possibly since the war between labour and capital was won, possibly since the rise of neoliberalism. I think I understand this, and if I have a fundamental critique it is of the system that made him (and us). Now, I do get that blaming systems can abrogate myself of the responsibility of owning my own privilege, and can end up with victim shaming and it doesn't take into account the lived experience of victims of oppression. And no I am not being sarcastic, so stop rolling your eyes. I think these are valid concerns. But I want to think about this in the most sophisticated way I can, because simple thinking here may well destroy us. It just means we can't just dismantle it. Trump could even be impeached, but it doesn't stop what made him.
- I want to play with the idea that Trump is nothing important in himself. Trump is a kind of badly made homunculus. Alchemists and more modern occultists have tried to make homunculi - small artificial humans created in flasks. Guess what, they never work. The stories say they never last long. I would like to say that Trump is made from something simple, such as stupidity, venality and hatred. But I suspect he is made from some more arcane material. He cannot now be put back in his flask.
I always come back to this, in my writing. I declare the Enlightenment dead! This is the age of wonders, the age of the non-rational! An age worthy of exclamation marks! No, it's not normal. Sorry guys.
Above I have talked about the importance of principles and of trying to think clearly. There are very few situations in life that are so urgent we can't take ten seconds and breathe. Whether in the end we go high or low, fight or pray, reach out or retrench, we need to be still and steady and principled.
Pause for effect...........
* I don't eat pork because it's too close to human. You can put a pig's valve in your heart. Then if you eat pork you are almost a cannibal.
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