What are we doing: those of us in leadership positions? In a recent diary entitled "Justice and Population Biology" the author makes several valid and poignant remarks about the "animal soul" we all share as human beings on this planet in general and in this country in particular.
The animal soul is that part of us that is concerned with immediate gratification; the drive to eat that donut even though our reason tells us it's bad for us. In addicts it's completely in control - like the guy smoking through the tube in his throat. There have been many, many occasions when I have heard the voice of reason, quite clearly, and still done otherwise.
I emphatically agree with the author's basic perspective. The premise is well researched, and concisely developed. Yet, I would hasten to add, our situation as leaders, wives, husbands and otherwise productive members of society: such as those of us currently debating and caucusing the pending Health Care legislation in whichever House the "musical chair" of the fickle finger of fated responsibility is pointing as the crow flys as time marches on, is itself at risk.
And when its said and done, History will either blame or seek to conceptualize the last man and woman left standing without a leg to stand on.
A little bit about me.
Beyond the observable facts of ethnicity: (African American), education: (reasonably well managed, at least on paper),and occupation: (average Michigander under-employed), no doubt, I'm just like many of you here. If there is a difference, one could say the recent diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome, a minor, yet persistent form of Autism, could be somewhat unusual. Yet, there is another wrinkle in my American flag that remains a wrinkle even when fully unfurled.
As a young boy I was placed in a unique situation where, because of the intense physical trauma of being sexually abused on the one hand and something... inherently about me on the other,i responded in a purely basic, savage and primordial fashion that i am just now, finding some sort of requiem: a place for the guilt and the repressed memory regarding the event of which i describe and barely recall.
The reason i (I)(not I) include this here is in direct response to the Jenkins' quote the diary writer used to further develop their thesis:
Our populations is in a growth phase little different from that of deer when wolves are removed from their habitat. Resources are still allocated among members of our population on the same sort of competitive basis as prevails among songbirds. Our social hierarchies are homologous with peck orders among chickens. Therefore, some individuals benefit disproportionately from the products of growth, and if intelligent decision making comes in at all, it is primarily by way of maintaining positions of relative privilege and success.
The cold hard fact of the matter that apparently many of our fellow Americans in the House and Senate and elsewhere have not yet stopped to consider, is that the context of socially ordered pecking hierarchies is wholly dependent on the most basic and primary of contingencies: the fundamental instinct of survival as that "first Psychological" need is apprehended as an overriding concern.
The intensity of response in the context of a "threat" of course depends on the depth and level of cognitive apprehension. For the vast majority of Americans currently without adequate Health Care Insurance or sufficient protection from predatory financing, the often naked, sociopathologically applied stochasitc models will, if left unchecked, illicit from the general underclass, an ugly and primitive response.
Yo, ladies and gent'mens: that is our nature as human beings. In the short term, of course there is disproportionate benefit, and even perhaps, in the not so short term. But in the long run, if y'all keep on throwing gasoline on a fire by procrastinatin' and worryin' 'bout November and yo memoirs, you ain't gonna toast no marshmallows singin' songs of Kumbya. You gonna' burn down yo' house, yo' neighbor's house as well as that of your children and yo chillun's chillun' fo' an nawful long time to come. An' yo' memoirs ain't gonna be wurth the paper they printed on to no body with any money left to buy 'em.
And underclass people: people on the wrong end of power, may feel guilty as I did and still do even after all these years about hitting back even if the end result wasn't what I expected. They may elect a boat load of Scott Browns or even Bozo The Clown if they thought it'd make a darn bit of difference. In retrospect, when I was being abused as a boy I don't remember doing much thinking at all: all I did was react and think about it later.
Yeah,I felt bad: I've spent a whole lifetime feeling bad about that day. But I'd be a lying son of a b'.'tch if i said that deep, deep down where the sun don't shine all that much, part of me ain't glad I did what I vaguely remember i did and if I had it to do all over again, i would not change a thing. No sir. The fact is, when anybody feels like their back is against the wall and there is no one to turn to other than the Arch Angel Michael, you do what ever it is you got to do and cry about it when the coast is clear and you get a chance to breathe.
By the way, where does the Congressional Budget Office put that kind of figure on the GNP or GDP Richter scale?
What are we doin', huh? And what are we tryin' to prove? Democrat, Republican, Independent:
If we are going to create a world with justice for all we are going to have to find a way to make a major course correction on this ship. We are going to have to find a way to stop worshiping growth and find a way to sustainably retreat from our excesses. We are going to need to learn to conquer our animal souls - even in the face of corporate propaganda that seeks to hyper-stimulate them.
And if on the out chance that someone on the Charlemagne-side of the Potomac reads any of these posts from crusty mid-western grumblers such as myself:
"C'mon man, What the F ('_' ck!? Is you gonna do what you promised or ain't you?
Stop frontin! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the animal nature is or should be anyone's first and only choice. What I am arguing is that more choices need to be given to more people. That's it.