Culture War, Smulture War

The divide, the great divide, has been forever.

In some countries, the divide is over and the populace has settled into one camp. It’s less hectic that way. Perhaps less vital. Perhaps kinder. Perhaps not. But mostly, it’s a world of Lords and Serfs. Lords and Serfs.

No matter what, there will be people who side with the bosses and people who side with the workers. Oddly, in our country there are so many more workers than bosses—but everyone wants to be a boss.

I’m kind of bossy. A lot of people are unmotivated. Being bossy, I often feel I need to motivate people. I can understand why people prefer to give the Lords a lot of power. Because often (or at least the impression of often), the Lords are a busy lot, making sure stuff gets done. Why not give them as much power as possible since they are the ones out there, making the big things happen?

But I loathe authority, so I cannot give these people too much power. Because usually, power hungry people are blind. They cannot see anything greater than the need to maintain their power position. Taking this stance, they concretize their positions and beat away anything that is a threat. If the world becomes greatly polluted because of their position or people die because of malnutrition or poor health care because of their position, no matter because the position is everything to them. And they blind others with the light of this position. Others follow because of adolescent thinking-following, accompanied by the need to be with the Lord class, in addition to a general patriarchal genetic coding. It is natural in many ways.

To turn one’s back on this patriarchal set-up, to join the Serfs is an act of trust. It’s the Christ thing. It’s the Buddha thing. It’s the human thing. But it is naïve and it assumes that everyone would be better off as Serfs. All together. Working together. But if there is no master with a whip making the Serfs work, would they? Really? I mean, I imagine I would (but please, not until the afternoon). Some other people would. But most would not. Then, we would starve to death. But if we could all become Serfs, happy ones, who are happy to chop some wood, to haul some water, and then go enjoy the day then, why wouldn’t we? Power would certainly become more evenly distributed. Lovely. To organize it all, hm...it would take a lot of education and again, trust. Though let us all remember, the French, after much reeducation (including the Enlightenment, the Revolution, Napoleon and Josephine Baker) only work thirty-five hours/week, forty-seven weeks/year, and they have the highest productivity rate on earth. Of course, they also have incredible soil, abundant water sources and a temperate climate.

This culture war is the natural state of human affairs. It is the perceived but also very real conflict over how things need to get done. Whether we need bosses and incentives (real and imagined) to keep us motivated or whether we trust ourselves to motivate ourselves without sticks, carrots or anything else, this is where we are in the conversation. Many men are frightened.

We had the experiment of the great push rightward. The pendulum swings toward personal freedom now. This time, let it swing very slowly. Not a reactionary swing. An adjusting swing just to the left of center. And let it stay there until I’m dead.