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    • Mar

    16

    The Myth of Progress

    Filed Under anecdotes, capitalism, from the heart, life changes, politics, spiritual practice, uuism | 4 Comments

    This began as a political thought that became religious, then social. I’m too sick to go to church today, so I’m doing my spiritual work online.

    About two months ago, while comparing viable options for Presidential candidates, I was struck by a feeling I’d never had before: maybe it was time to accept a candidate who could represent all Americans - including the ones who believed the opposite of what I believed.

    This is a no brainer, right? Taking into consideration other people’s needs and values, and allowing them a voice and access to the political process - isn’t this what we are taught by our teachers and parents? I don’t remember. I feel like it was, but why did it take 31 years for it to sink in?

    Since then, this has been percolating in the back of my mind. This weekend, I’ve been reading lots about Islam and current Islamic thinking among young people. I started to recall many things about the Muslim mindset. I guess the pot started boiling over, because last night at dinner with Michael, I had another epiphany.

    “Maybe America is never going to be the America I think it should be.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Well, when I was Muslim, everyone was so sure what America needed was Islam - that Islam was going to illuminate the society, transform people’s lives - slowly, but surely. That we were on that road of progression towards the Truth. And even then, I’d meet other people who felt the same way: Christians, conservatives - not to mention the various subsets of Muslims: the Salaafi, the Qur’an-Only folks, the Black Muslims. And now as a UU, I see it, too. Everyone thinks we are heading towards their vision of their world, but the visions are all different. It can’t be true.”

    Michael thought about this for a moment, then said, “Well, that’s the myth of progress, isn’t it? That’s a criticism I have of Marx, for example. His notion that capitalism would inevitably lead to communism, socialism. The world is a complex system; you can’t make predictions like that. Civilizations aren’t always moving forward. We know this from history. [UU historian James] Loewen talks about this in his tapes [Everything You've Been Taught is Wrong]. Sometimes things get ‘better’ and sometimes they get ‘worse’. It doesn’t matter how great an idea is - what matters is what it’s up against. It has to interact with other ideas.”

    “And this is why you were asking those questions about The Great Turning group, and the concept of an earth community versus an empire?”

    He smacked the steering wheel. “Yes! And it goes back to that conversation we had about pacifism, and you were saying it doesn’t always seem appropriate. And I agree. Gandhi used pacifism to overthrow the rule of the British. But I don’t think it would have worked against, say … Russia.”

    I nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think so, either. I think Gandhi would have been ganked. Plenty of movements have been completely crushed. I don’t even know if Gandhi’s approach would have worked had there not been mass media. The Civil Rights movement in the US would have looked very, very different were it not for television.”

    We sat in the car in our driveway for a few minutes more talking about this. Ultimately, I came away with a much more shifting sense of the world. Like people, strategies need to adapt and evolve. There is no pre-destined outcome that we are working our way towards. This thinking differs from that of people who believe in Armaggedon - but also some of my friends who believe we are “cycling” towards a particular kind of world community.

    I do believe social “progress” is possible. But as Loewen alludes to in his lecture series - particularly the segment titled the Nadir of Race Relations in which he describes how conditions for Blacks improved dramatically for 25 years after the Civil War, and then became horrendous again up until the Civil Rights Movement - we are not pushing forward in some inevitable way. It is through things like human effort, ingenuity, circumstance, and trial and error that positive change happens.

    This does help me. It helps me to expect less from the top. I’m less inclined to trust “movements” in the sense that I know a wave doesn’t always reach the shore. And I know I don’t stand at the center of righteousness - not unless the center can hold everyone, in which case it would no longer be “the center.” I feel less overwhelmed by the world, because I don’t think anyone has all the solutions. I’m not looking for the eternal panacea, or the way.

    Popularity: 39% [?]

    Mar

    4

    Dream Homes

    Filed Under capitalism, class, islam, questions | 3 Comments

    What is this strange phenomenon of endless upgrades and dream homes? I think of a former acquaintance who spent $50,000 remodeling her kitchen, although she never cooked anything more complicated than macaroni and cheese.

    Occasionally I’ll watch a show on HGTV (Home & Garden Television) called My House is Worth What?. The scenario is this: a person or couple wants to know the value of the upgrades they’ve made to their home so they can decide whether to put it on the market. Based on the shows I’ve seen, the occupants have typically lived in the house for one to six years, and have spent much of that time pouring tens of thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of dollars into the house. Why? So they can “flip it” and move on up to their “dream house.” Sometimes the houses they’re looking to unload are 3,000 sq. ft. mini mansions with gourmet kitchens, and marble soaking tubs, professional landscaping, and media rooms. And I’m thinking - what the hell does their “dream house” look like? And will they really live in it “forever?”

    Years ago when I was much younger, I used to subscribe to Architectural Digest; I loved reading about the designs and locations, and imagining the spaces beyond what the photographs could show. This practice increased my yearning for impossibly beautiful abodes, much the same way that reading fashion magazines increases the lust for an impossibly perfect body. But then I traveled to Spain, and made my way to Andalucia, where the Moorish influence is still very evident. There I saw palaces and former mosques in which the Muslim elite were clearly trying to create Allah’s Paradise on earth. Nowhere was this more obvious for me than at the Alcazar Gardens in Sevilla, where one could easily imagine dwelling forever in bliss.

    Standing there, in front of a white pillar that read, in Arabic and Spanish, No hay mas dios que dios (la ilaaha illa Allah) - there is no God but God - I sensed the irony. They had this here even whilst they slaughtered their own siblings for riches. After returning home, I canceled my subscription to Architectural Digest.

    Maybe it’s the result of my Muslim upbringing, through which I was taught to believe no one could ever “deserve” Paradise  - because one couldn’t do enough good in a lifetime to earn it - but I do think there is a certain level of wealth and privilege which exceeds the amount of effort a human being can actually put forth. I certainly don’t believe that a billionaire worked a billion times harder than a person with a dollar in their pocket.

    All of which leads me to ask myself: are there (no) limits?

    Popularity: 22% [?]

    Feb

    29

    From Obama to Alpha Centauri

    Filed Under anecdotes, capitalism, politics, religion, science | 1 Comment

    My youngest brother started it. He prompted a conversation between me and the husband about imperialism, liberal interventionism, and the concept of universal human rights. From this, somehow we got to talking about the privileged position of faith and the contradictions that creates, how it’s strange to accept the “miracles” of Jesus based on the word people who didn’t understand much about how the natural world worked, and then magicians …. On to the God of Gaps, and the popular idea that when we die our “energy” lives on as a personal spirit, how long would it take to travel to Alpha Centauri, intelligent life on other planets wouldn’t need to be “humanoid,” and finally, the Prime Directive. Which led us right back to non interventionist vs interventionist politics.

    This all began when my brother told me he’d send me his copy of Obama’s Audacity of Hope (he’s read both of Obama’s books), and wanted me to pay special attention to the chapter “Beyond Our Borders” (or something along those lines). “And then tell me if you think Obama is an imperialist.”

    Two hours later I was sitting here thinking about the fact that when I look into the Milky Way I’m looking years into the past. Even the sun is always ten minutes old to my eyes. And many “primitive” people saw themselves as “the people” in the same way that some religions advocate humans as special to God. We are thriving and striving in a narrow and delicate slip of our planet. I want the primacy of a ripe orange in my hand and an understanding of magnitude.

    Taken one by one, we are minor things repetitively criss-crossing the streets of the towns we live in, but as a whole we’ve constructed elaborate universes of knowledge, some real, some imagined.

    Popularity: 21% [?]

    Feb

    27

    Questions - Mandates & Profit

    Filed Under capitalism, politics, questions | 9 Comments

    Maybe someone can explain to me how this makes any sense: the government decides something is mandatory, e.g. car insurance, child car-seats, health care insurance - and the only entities that can provide those services are privately owned.   Why should that be? If the government is going to require that I buy something, shouldn’t they be running that (or at least a competitive) operation? Why should some suit or investor someplace be getting richer because of Uncle Sam’s mandates? If it’s a government problem, shouldn’t it have a governmental solution?

    This is ridiculous. Not only that, but if these corporations weren’t for-profit, the costs to the consumer would undoubtedly be less.
    How do they manage to slip these things by us? Why hasn’t there been a class action lawsuit about this?

    Popularity: 22% [?]

    Jan

    11

    More on Money as Debt (from the 18th C.)

    Filed Under books, capitalism, class, college studies, happiness, history, questions, quotes | 3 Comments

    Never say never, indeed. It’s nearly 4 in the morning, and I’m delighting over pamphlets from 1720 about an ill-managed public land bank experiment in Massachusetts. Having just watched Money as Debt sheds some light on the subject, as did the 1953 article The Land-Bank System in the American Colonies (courtesy of JSTOR).

    The best thing is that my professor (the class is Muckraking: Activists’ Role in History) provided us with a format that links passages from the Colman pamphlet to another that refutes it (by a fellow named Wigglesworth).

    Colman is in despair about the middle class landowners who have taken out paper currency loans against their estates through the public land banks; they are now in dire straits because there isn’t enough paper money in circulation to pay off the debts with interest. While I sympathize with Colman (but disagree with his faith in the private bank), one of Wigglesworth’s responses is what I want to note here (emphasis is mine):

    For it is easie to see, that if we had never trusted one another, the worst Husbands of us all could not have spent more than we earnt ; for when we must pay ready Mony for every thing we buy, we can’t buy more than we earn Mony to pay for; unless we borrow Mony at Interest to support our Extravagance; a thing which but few would have been so foolish as to have done. Indeed when Debts are already contracted, Do but set up a Bank to borrow of, and we have found from sad experience already, that men will be ready enough to mortgage their Estates for mony to pay their Debts. But (I say again) where Debts were not before contracted, few men would have been so foolish, as to borrow Mony at Interest to provide needless Fineries and Gew-Gaws for their Families. The Folly of so few could not have affected the Country.

    Oh wow; does any of this sound familiar?

    I am fascinated by these papers, and also by the fact that in our society today - 290 years later - we are encouraged as a people to buy more in order to spur the economy, to take out more loans, to spend, and spend, and spend. That is our “role” as consumer-citizens.  And yet, as individuals, we are shamed and chastised if unable to pay on our debts; then we are irresponsible, foolish, and greedy.

    And while that may be the case (though, not necessarily), what then, is the vice? Is the vice to borrow money (at interest) in the first place, for things we can get by without? Or is the vice to fall into a situation where one cannot pay on the money borrowed?

    Popularity: 35% [?]

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