May 28, 2019

Reversing Progress

Beginning in the early Twentieth Century and continuing until recently, the community of nations has slowly awakened to the fact that we are all citizens of the planet Earth. Small fiefdoms under local monarchs began to coalesce into nations. The short-lived League of Nations made an attempt to bring peace to the world after the First World War. Then the world exploded into the Second World War, which established the need for a more effective body; the United Nations.

Governments and people came to the realization that some things just weren't possible to accomplish on their own. In order for the defense of Europe against the then Soviet Union, it was necessary for NATO to be formed. Later, seeing how intertwined Europeans were with trade, banking, jobs, and more, it was decided that it made much more sense to unify rather than stay divided and the European Union was born.

Cross the Atlantic, and in the eighteenth century a group of colonies figured out that in order to toss off British rule, it would be necessary to join together. It worked so well that the original thirteen colonies formed the United States of America.

All through human history as populations increased and trade became more desirable, the tendency has been to abandon tribalism in favor of more diverse and inclusive populations and governments. From family clans, to city-states, to kingdoms and ever onward, as civilization has progressed, so has the size and diversity of human settlement.

In modern times humanity is facing existential challenges from environmental degradation and over population to an ever increasing gap between great wealth and grinding poverty. If ever there were a time for people and nations to come even closer together to deal with these seemingly hopeless issues, this would seem to be it!

But yet what are we seeing? All across the world the opposite is rushing in with a vengeance. Citizens, seeing their lives degrading due to reduced income and under pressure from failing crops and increasingly repressive governments, are rejecting so-called "Globalism" and devolving into "Nationalism".

Even within the groups advocating for Nationalism, we are further splintering into closed Tribes. Whether based on religion, perceived social class or politics, people are banding together with others who share their views and are drawing lines to separate themselves from "Others" who are the enemy. Unfortunately, in doing so they render any possibility of making situations better unlikely, if not impossible.

I recently viewed a discussion on Fox News wherein three individuals were declaiming with great passion on the current sorry state of affairs in San Francisco. The striking thing to me was that we really didn't disagree on many points they made or even the reasons for them. But what left me trembling was the stridency with which they accused the "Left" of being solely to blame. They correctly identified the bloodsuckers of the plutocracy as being to puppeteers causing the grief. They even got it correct that politicians were the willing puppets. What they got incredibly wrong was the it was just the left and the Democrats who were to blame. That the Left was somehow involved in a treasonous assault on the United States. They had built a fort around their clan stronghold and anyone outside the walls were The Enemy. If you've the slightest doubt, just read some of the comments below the video. There's no room for discussion anywhere.

At this time of existential threat, this time when what was once the motto of the United States of America: "E Pluribus Unum", "From Many, One" should be bringing us together as never before, we instead have defaulted to the motto of the T.V. program Survivor: "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast" and to hell with everyone else.

Either we join together to cure the Earth, or we fade into extinction, one by one.

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