The social forces buffeting us

reflections and pondering where to nurture

This post was begun weeks before the election. Have had to revise since.

Before the election, there were warning signs, podcasts, and articles about a Trump victory and the consequences, especially if his party controls the Senate, House, and Supreme Court. Some of that was fear-mongering to win clicks and donations; there were many doses of truth as well. Now that The Boss Elect is showing that he means to follow through on his threats and obsessions (his promises are another matter), our future is even scarier.

If so, this mess will have to play out until forces realign, which is full of uncertainties. How can we non-elites influence the jostlings for power so as to minimize the substantial harm that is likely?

Further historical perspectives with a deeper time-span show where we (Americans) might be in a cycle that has played out countless times in history. Again, as the elites and their servants jostle for power, how can we small fry respond so as to protect ourselves and other small fry and not end up as cannon fodder, prison enslaved labor, and denied medical coverage?

I believe these historical perspectives and musings can be guides to making choices that support solidarity among the non-elite citizenry, ward off apathy and despair, encourage meaningful engagement in local communities and civic movements, and preserve our sanity. To do so requires mindfulness of cultural and societal trends of long-standing influence. It seems to me that Americans have been subject to and mindlessly participate in a number of trends, some quite old, that helped get us to this juncture of social decay:

• An evangelical orientation to “religion” that strongly prioritizes faith over reason: Facts don’t matter if one has “faith.” We can make up what we want to believe in and call it “God’s word.”

• The prominence of salesmanship in our culture. Marketing as a way of life. Selling stuff and ourselves.

• Rich people using their money to further their own agendas. (This one will never go away but can moderated by strong, ethical social movements.)

• Ronald Reagan successfully demonizing government and Democrats going along with him.

• Public school systems undermined and degraded by the mania for privatization, that is, profit seeking.

• Universities turned into businesses.

• Corporate for-profit “News” becoming entertainment and downgrading journalistic integrity.

• “Reality TV” blurring the difference between stage managed pablum-drama and actual reality.

• Racism for at least 400 years. Progress in various ways mixed with endemic bias and ignorance.

• Genocide as soon as the European invaders had the power to do so.

• Insistence to pouring trillions of dollars into the world’s dominant military power, sold with bogus patriotism, allowing corrupt contractors and their investors to get rich skimming.

• And sexism, the oldest of them all.

• Sorry stuff! In our sorry state, fascist tendencies will rear their heads, as they did in the 30s before WWII, exploiting the depression largely created by the forces that immediately sought to exploit it.

Will other cultural currents be strong enough to preserve our shaky rule of law, judicial system, and electoral politics, imperfect as they may be? Which cultural values can be drawn upon?

Some that seem necessary to me are:

• Capacity for hard work (especially evidenced in our part of Wisconsin by Latinos).

• Neighborliness. Caring more about how the people around us are doing than what celebrities are up to.

• Christian value of caring for the poor and marginalized.

• Sense of justice.

• Honest caring for truth, supported by thoughtful journalism.

• Healthy (non-destructive) connection to land, other species, and eco-systems.

• The mindfulness and personal development movements embracing social realities.

• Religion that decreases self-centeredness and increases compassion for others, including those who are different from us.

Please, help expand this list.

It’s beyond me to predict, or worry about, which set of forces will prevail. But I can choose to contribute where I can to the second set of cultural forces.

This is a simple message: Recovering the basic elements of human decency. All of them depend on less involvement with devices and screens.

Or in classic Buddhist terms, the moral practice of restraining greed, hatred, and delusion, then the spiritual practice of lessening these roots of evil.

Stay tuned. Like it or not, we’re all in this together.