Labels

In recent years, I’ve really gotten tired of the common use of simplistic labels that cause us to bypass our critical faculties to accept judgements about matters that our leaders and pundits would rather not look into too closely.

Let’s start with “good guys” and “bad guys.”  We are all familiar with these terms, especially us guys, because that was how we decided who to shoot with our fake guns as children.  If one of our friends was a “bad guy,” we shot him, and the only reason we needed was that he/she was a “bad guy.”  How convenient that label has become for us now as adults to understand why our military or local law enforcement officers have decided to blow somebody away.  They were “bad guys”:  ‘nuff said.  In the mind of an eight year old and, unfortunately, for adults now as well, no further explanation is needed.

That segues nicely into “terrorist.”   We all know that a “terrorist” is a “bad guy” that wants to commit violence against innocent people (us!)  to protest our lifestyle or our attempts to limit their predations on other parts of the world.  Our counter actions, although the results are similar, are okay because we are the “good guys” acting in the name of freedom and justice. Unlike in the games we played as kids, no adults playing this game think of themselves as the “bad guys”.  That is always the other guys.

Unless you live in a bubble, you have a good idea where “liberals” and “conservatives” stand on most issues.  Given that we understand the dictionary definitions of those words, how can we possibly find any consistency in the views of either group?  What makes being cautious about introducing genetically modified organisms a liberal position?  It seems clear to me that the liberal position here ought to be not to worry about something new, even though we haven’t had time to ascertain the consequences.  If you are worried about us being a little hasty with the proliferation of GMO’s, you should think of yourself as being conservative.   If you think that corporate agriculture could be endangering the planet because it doesn’t pay homage to the basic rules that nature lives by, then you should be considered more conservative still.  

The institution of modern science doesn’t help matters.  If you believe in the science of global warming and its causes, then you are, in the popularly understood sense, a liberal.  If you believe in the science of genetically modified organisms, then you are a conservative.  Scientific findings are based on assumptions.  We all know that science has been wrong in the past.  Perhaps the scientific canon that humans are different and exceptional in nature has given us the notion that we can fanagle the laws of nature to our own ends.  It isn’t the scientific method per se that has let us down, but the assumptions that we have made about the nature of things.

If we are ever to get to any common ground, we will have to think more deeply about our assumptions and begin to articulate among ourselves what context we are working in.  Are we working in the context of Nature or the context of Man?  It seems to me that an honest discussion would conclude that the context of nature is more and more the context we need to consider most reliable.  We now know that the earth is not flat and that it is not the center of the universe.  We know that human centered civilization is just a flash in the pan compared to the longevity of most modern species, not to mention the success of more than two billion years of life on this planet.  To consider that we humans have such a thorough understanding of how nature works that we can freely improvise on it  is an utterly liberal notion.  Is it really conservative to put our chips on corporate agriculture, which is only sixty years old?   Being conservative in the short term context is being radically liberal in the long term.  If we understand the context, maybe we will better see what we need to be doing.

What makes it difficult for us to move forward in a positive way is that we no longer accept that life is mysterious and our role in it unknowable.  We lose our moral compass when we decide what our future ought to be and then consider moral and ethical considerations optional in choosing the steps we take to get there.  In my mind, the end, which is the result of the interaction of a multitude of factors and is impossible to predict, never justifies the means to get there.  Compromising our moral and ethical sensibilities seldom leads to a good result.  Only right action leads to a good end.  This, to me, is what faith is all about.  We need to be “liberal” enough not to fear change, but “conservative” enough to be cautious and respectful of nature.

Until we forgo all the labels and bear in mind that we are all in the same family, we will continue to bear down on the “bad guys” instead of trusting in our common nature.

Comments?   terry@vashonloop.com