With no
speaking
being transformed
(not "with no speaking about being transformed"),
there's no being transformed. That's the way it turns out with
these matters.
A world
transformed, which is to say
a world
which we
speak
into being transformed,
would include everyone, with no one and nothing left out - not as
just another tired old politic, but rather as the way it
actually is.
The world we see on the
news
on the other hand, is fractured along party, class,
race,
sex, and privilege lines.
Why?
Contrary to what you may have already surmised, the answer to this
seemingly complex
"Why?" question,
is simple: because there's a preponderance of language in
the world
speaking it that way. That's it. That's all.
For the most part, we view
the world
in fractured fragments. And what we see, focuses on what we
want, on what we like, on what we prefer, on what we believe
... which then justifies the faux-certainty that if we want it,
like it, prefer it, and / or believe it, then it's OK to wage war
for it, and maim others we perceive as in our way. As a species,
this makes us little more than spiritual tantrum-throwing juvenile
delinquents, petty-thieving from anyone whose politics differ from
our own.
The trouble
is we've not yet fully grasped that if their end of
the canoe tips over, we all end up in the water.
The solution isn't to be found in inventing / taking on yet another
new brand of politics. We've tried so many of them - the right, the
center, the left - and look how well that's gone for us (yes, the
dripping sarcasm is explicit). Neither is it to be found in seeking
out and coming up with a new
identity
for ourselves.
Identifying
with the right, the center, or the left is (by definition)
positional, and any position by its very nature
makes all other positions wrong - that is to say the solution
brings the problem forward with it and exacerbates it. Try this on
for size: we're not Republican, we're not Democratic, we're
American. It's not just a new way of
identifying
who we are. It's what's known as a
contextual
shift.
This idea evolved from "we are not Republicans, we are not
Democrats, we are Americans" to "we are not Republican, we are not
Democratic, we are American" to "we're not Republican, we're not
Democratic, we're American" and at some point I considered going
with "human" instead of "American" (I did go with "American" in the
end - it is, after all, our political drama which has captured
attention
worldwide,
and I didn't want to avoid the responsibility).
Imagine
voting
for what would have
life work
for all Americans with no one and nothing left out, rather than
only
voting
for the right, the center, or the left! In
my quiet moments
I'm blown away by what life could look like if we worked with each
other rather than against each other ie if we each took
responsibility for the entire canoe, rather than just for our end
of it.
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