This essay,
Connecting Across Party Lines,
is the companion piece to
Runaway Train.
This conversation is a conversation we don't have often enough. In fact
we'd rather not have it at all. It's just too arduous. We avoid it as
much as we can. Whenever possible, we ignore it altogether, sweeping it
under the rug. It's a conversation that goes something like this:
The amount of money we spend on war and militrary conflict in any
given timeframe is staggering, easily surpassing many times over the
amount we spend on food, housing and medical care for those who need
it most. In these United States, it's a top priority, justifying
appropriations of
vast
sums of money for war and military conflict. More than justifying it,
it's believed there'll be a return on the investment - in spades. It's
a capricious notion that's literally beyond belief. It's justified as
necessary for our survival even though the defenses we
already have, deter any real threat against us.
You may not know the exact cost of bread and eggs at your local
supermarket unless you went there and looked at the price tags. You may
not know the exact cost of cars at your local dealership unless you
went there and looked at the sticker labels. But there's one thing that
we all know the cost of, and that's the cost of war and military
conflict. What there is to say about that, is this:
It's not just the bad guys who wage war, and the good guys who try to
end it. To be clear, war and military conflict aren't aberrations of
being human. On the contrary, they're an intrinsic aspect of human
nature. In the greater scheme of things, clearly there's a place for
war and military conflict, for
the Zen of it all,
and for
the persistence
of it in our species' DNA (DeoxyriboNucleic
Acid). Our DNA is programmed for survival, which defines us as a
warring, conflicting species. The DNA of a warring, conflicting species
is built in to our
machinery.
While we may not know what we'll pay for bread, eggs, and cars, what we
know (speaking practically in dollars and cents) about what we spend on
military conflict, is this: we spend an enormous amount of
money on it, TOO MUCH, waaay ... too ... much, ... even more
than is needed ... That's how much we spend on war and military
conflict.
It's not only that there's no equitable return on investment that
renders the enormous amount of money spent on war and military
conflict, as untenable. It's that the real return on the investment and
a massive payoff, will come when our spending is directed at all of
us ie at all of us on
the planet,
rather than on them - which is to say, on whomever we
perceive our enemies to be, accurately or not. And what that calls for
is not just a change in how
we think
about war and military conflict, but rather a transformation of the
entire
thinking
process itself.
Werner's work
isn't directed at solving war and military conflict per se. It's
directed at the way we perceive them /
think about
them ie at that which appears to make the financial benefits of waging
war viable.
You woulda thunk that by now we would have figured out how to live
together instead of fighting each other. I'm not a "peace and love"
kind of guy, even though I admire those who are. I'm not a "kum ba yah"
folkie either, even though I admire those who are. My inquiry doesn't
originate
there. My inquiry isn't into the morality of the issues plaguing war
and military conflict. To purport to bring an end to war and military
conflict by debating its moral issues, is ineffective, compared to
confronting the
vast
sums of money they require - which, by the same token, represents the
vast
sums of money which making life work for everyone on
the planet,
is deprived of. Collectively, we understand and aspire to money, more
than to both morality and
workability
(to borrow from a widely-held sentiment: "Money talks, morality walks"
- from the original "Money talks, BS walks.").
I have no blueprint for solving this frighteningly
persistent
problem. I do, however, notice a central tenet in
our thinking
which I assert is
demonstrably
"off" and which, if examined, would
make a profound and lasting
difference.
It's this (from some of
Werner's
most central
ideas):
we regard the world as a "you or me" world ie as an "us
vs them" world, when we could regard it as a "you and
me" world, or a "you and I" world, or an "all
of us" world. We're living in a "you and me" world, running
it (or trying to run it) by the rules of a "you or me" world. What
could possibly go wrong? ... go wrong? ... go wrong? ...
It takes a certain something, a je ne sais quoi to connect
across party lines, and to distinguish a "you and me" world for
everyone, regardless of political persuasion, and then to distinguish a
"you or me" world, and then to distinguish the rules for running a "you
or me" world, and then to notice that we're trying to run a "you
and me" world by the rules of a "you or me" world. That teases out
transformative*thinking.
It's been shown to transform the entire
thinking
process with regard to the viability of a "you and me" world.