Today the world was supposed to end, again. But the evangelical Christian group counting on the end of days (an end in which they would naturally be spared) will just have to pick another date on the calendar. The world will go on, in its messy brilliance, and all the complex and terrifying problems that we don’t want to think about will still be there and waiting for the solutions that we, and only we, must come up with. And I almost feel for these souls, for I sense they are indeed lost and bewildered by the world. Some of these people, like all reactionaries, pine for a past that never actually existed. And others have been fed on a steady diet of hate and fear fed to them by a complicit media powered by corporations all too happy to cash in on that hate and fear. Do they have a choice? Sure, but coming to terms with the fact that the media and powers-that-be most certainly don’t have your best interests at heart is a painful passage.
It is so much easier to blame the other, and convenient to fixate on a group. When I was a kid it was welfare queens and Russians. Now it’s undocumented immigrants and Muslims. Women, poor people, gay people and communities of color also have had their turns as the outsider, leaving a ridiculously small population of privileged white males as “normal.” And that’s a distraction, and not fair to them either. Our man made problems are so formidable that an all-hands-on-deck approach is needed to fix them.
One made-made disaster I cannot get out of my head is the entrenched presence of guns in this country. A fresh and horrifying shooting always brings this out in me and I find myself not feeling so much numb, as the president said, but more radicalized. The death sticks gotta go. I grew up in suburban Western New York where guns were around, but not part of the culture wars like they are now. I recall a friend with older brothers who hunted deer, but their shotguns were kept far away from every day family life. A kid from school’s dad may have shot himself after his business failed, shocking the community, but that kind of violence was rare. But if a neighborhood mother bought her troubled shut-in son guns (plural) as a form of therapy, condemnation from the local moms would be swift and harsh.
I think somewhere in the last couple of decades a meanness and paranoia crept into our collective consciousness, because why else would you even want to have weapons around? Fetishizing products made to deliver death is a terrible symbol for kids, who are just learning about conflict resolution. And the dangers requiring “protection” from are overstated. Even the cities have gotten inexplicably and dramatically safer, yet many of these 2nd amendment dead enders fantasize about protecting themselves and their property from intruders. And if that is your way of thinking, are you really comfortable with delivering a death penalty for someone who wants to steal your television? A women actually shot up a Home Depot this week trying to stop two shoplifters. Did she really think she could get past the guilt of killing a man for stealing? I’ll take my chances with calling 911.
But as heated up about guns as I am right now, I also feel like it is a symptom. And even the kind of gun reform I wholeheartedly support wouldn’t fix the root, which is a kind of epidemic of alienation. We are alienated from our neighbors, communities and especially ourselves. And only by healing that wound do we even stand a chance.
How does that happen? I have no idea, but I am inspired by the words of the great Grace Lee Boggs, who recently died after 100 years on this earth. A committed activist, she did the work, but she also saw the big picture. She said, “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” And I am taking that to heart.