Reply #12: Be American: be practical, take some distance from the theoretical. [View All]

[Lexingtonian]

Seriously, this is not all Your Problem. To some greater or lesser extent, it's Our Problem, and it's also to a very large degree an Other Peoples' Problem.

It's a problem of History. This was never an ideal society, never particularly fair or civilized, always colonial in its oppression and rape of the vulnerable, and only very rarely unified in any task- maybe fighting WW2 was the one and only time. Right now we are shedding the colonial order in little bits and pieces, social and economic and political, and the reactionaries are simply torrid and terrible. And yet so it must be. And let the reactionaries serve us in their dreadful and negative way- they survived longer than their European counterparts by taking an active role in pushing back the new Asian Hordes and Continental Threat, aka Soviet and German imperialisms during their 75 year lifespans. Now they're almost out of a historical mission, but they found one in the far weaker radical fringe Arabic/Islamic pseudoimperialism, which has about 15 years of troublemaking left if we can peg its beginning at 1945 or 1947 and it also has a political lifespan of ~75 years. (Yes, in comparison to the 75 year fight with the Soviet menace, Iraq represents the semi-equivalent to Vietnam in a putative 75 year conflict with the Arab world: 15 years of fighting whose point was simply to exhaust both sides' stupid fervors.) Let other people fight out the string.

Remember that public life is about the mediocrity of the masses, always. The unimaginative, burdened, somewhat abusive, unintentionally callous, average people- who have appetites and desires, but few if any reasoned opinions. Don't forget the lessons of the wealth of the late Nineties- some people did wonderful things with it, but most of them used it for things their vanity made important. Even the best times do not have happy, modest, people emerge from them- they find new scabs to pick and vices and vanities to pursue, new enemies to battle, new jealousies to indulge in, pipe dreams and scam artists to throw money at. Most people don't or are prevented from using good times to do things that are good or joyful; new resources means that the next thing that causes unhappiness is dealt with.

So take care of your private life now, first of all. Find small joys for yourself. Then decide what you are willing to do and really care about, what you are really willing to put time and effort and money and some of your reputation at stake in. There's always the homeless, the people who need financial advice of a basic kind, battered womens' shelters, surplus food distribution to the poor, voter registration, social service referral, fundraising for Democrats, hospital volunteers, gay marriage legalization efforts, the ex-felon vote disenfranchisement problem in the South/Midwest if you're into complicated and delicate stuff. Don't expect to be rewarded, but be willing to be surprised and honored at what good things people may offer you if you are genuinely giving of yourself. Emerson says that the reward of a job well done is a job well done. Worry yourself with that more than what the newspapers tell about banal people who work in funny antiquated office buildings in a somewhat wierd city far away on the Potomac River. They will never solve any individual person's problem, but you can. Little of what they do can redeem much of the world without people like yourself doing the hands-on work, negotiating the things to be said and things to be done.

All of which is really my paraphrase of the advice Gerald Manley Hopkins, the amazing poet and Jesuit priest, gave a man who asked him how he could regain his faith in mankind (and, in his case, the teachings of the Church). Hopkins said: Give alms.