I have been absent from diary writing for quite some time. It has been a time of examination and reflection in pursuit of the answer to a question that I felt I needed to answer before writing again, but reading other's diaries and comment threads over the past couple of months has prompted me to write now, before I have answered that larger question that has preoccupied my thinking for the past year. Reading the Hillary vs. Bernie and especially the BLM vs. Bernie diaries and comments, I was struck by a strange feeling that I recognized, but could not identify. The identifying of that feeling and resulting rumination below the fold.
In one of my several adult lives, I was a motion picture film editor... back in the analogue days, when sound and image were kept on separate media and had to be kept "in sync" at all times. One of the unassailable precepts was that a mistake in editing that had sound trailing picture by a few frames (equating to a small fraction of a second) would seldom be noticed by an audience, but sound leading picture by a single frame (an even smaller fraction of a second) would be enough to cause the audience to feel uncomfortable. And sound leading by 2 frames would totally destroy the illusion that movies create; that we are watching an actuality. The strange feeling that effect is coming before the action that caused it is totally contrary to our experience of the world and sets off all kinds of subliminal alarms, and we become more aware of process than we are of the content.
The relationship between cause and effect is one of those "rules of the universe" that are unassailable. We do not hear the sound of the coffee cup before it strikes the table. We may anticipate it, but the actual sound cannot occur until the action takes place. The effect of an action may in turn be a causation of the next thing that happens, the next effect, but it cannot occur before the original act that caused it. This is what I have been feeling... that somehow laws of cause and effect are being mutated and transposed... or perhaps, simply ignored, or worse still, not known. This is what I was feeling; that things are "out of sync." That somehow the relationship between cause and effect has become scrambled, with sometimes an effect "trailing" its cause by such a distance as to make the relationship uncertain. In some cases, it seems effect is preceding its cause. It is manifested in the manner in which people converse and arguments are framed.
What causes people of good will and honest intention to turn on each other in ways that harm each other to equal degree? What causes people who suffer at the hands of a common oppressor to spend more energy at each other's throats than united in efforts against those who oppress them both? What splinters masses so that collective action is not possible?
There can be legitimate causes that tend to break us apart. There is a hierarchy to types of oppression and danger, and if the problem you face is immediate and lethal, you will place that higher on the list of priorities than someone might if they are not in direct danger. Sometimes there are historical and cultural differences that cause priorities to carry differing value among groups. There are other causes, often insidious, that serve to break us apart so that collective action is impossible. One such cause can be found in the answer to the question, "How does a numerically small segment of the population maintain control over a society?" The most effective way to do that is to make sure that the remainder of that society is devoting so much time to attacking each other that they have no ability to unite against those who actually control the society, and even should they manage to unite at some point in time, they will have exhausted their resources by first battling each other.
Does that mean that I somehow envision members of the controlling class sitting around and plotting against us, with war rooms and intelligence apparatus at their disposal? Or engaged n random acts of evil such as pulling Michael Brown's name out of a hat? Not hardly. It is something that is more subtle, more endemic in their society. For hundreds of years, they have kept their elevated position by pushing others down as much as by what they have actually accomplished for and by themselves. The denigration of others is essential to their culture. It is how you give yourself "permission" to exploit or strip the rights from others. Take the example of slavery. How can you possibly believe that slavery is a moral, ethical and honorable practice if those you are enslaving are your equals? It is too tough to square that circle, so you need an effective rationalization to give yourself the "permission" to become a slave owner. First you give some subset of humanity a group identity, and then you devalue the humanity of the group. Anything can be used as an identity to serve this purpose; defeated soldiers, members of a particular race, religion, or culture... any distinguishing feature can be used. And now the morality is simple and just; in the world of the slave holder, the oppressed are "less than" and therefore not deserving of anything that is the right and privilege of the master. And the same rationale, planted and tended among those of their social group or class, will result in the acceptance of the slave holder into that social group or class. It is how you develop a "peculiar custom."
The side effect of this that having seen how useful and powerful a tool identity politics can be, you use it to make sure that collective action against your interests is impossible. The easiest way is to make sure that people do not join together in the first place. You search out characteristics that make useful identifiers to separate out groups from the masses (a denigrating label earns bonus points). But most of all, you make sure they are understood to be "other." Other than able-bodied, other than a particular religion, denomination or sect, other than so that they can be judged to be less than by another group that might be a natural ally for those you oppress. Convince them of the "otherness" of each other. And then you need do no more. You have cleared the land, tilled the field and planted the seed. They will see to the rest provided they are watered occasionally and have the occasional application of manure.
For example: I have always been amused by the logic of the trope that poor people are stealing my paycheck. If they were the ones who stole my check, why are they still poor? Either I am getting shit for wages, or they aren't the ones who took my money. By failing to contribute to the cost of a just society in equal measure to the benefit they have received, the entrenched power elites are the ones who are stealing from me and everyone else. So don't tell me we need a wall on the U.S. border to protect my wages. Putting a few bankers in jail would probably be of greater benefit. But the point isn't about payday economics. The point is that if I were to fall for their logic, then I would not find common cause with the poor of any race or creed on any issue at all. There are many other examples, and each can serve to fire passions to higher degree with each one stated. But that is not what is giving me my disquiet, my feeling of cause and effect being rendered apart, for I have weaved my way through the minefield of identity politics for a long time. It is the fear that we have become so splintered by our "descriptors" (race, gender, sexual preference, marital status, weight, height, religion, lack of religion, preferred diet, progressive belief in designated hitters or a traditionalist who feels pitchers should bat for themselves...), and that those who hold power in our society have done such an effective job of making our differences matter more to us than our commonality as members of the human race. They are succeeding in making collective action impossible.
It is interesting that the time of the greatest advancement in civil rights in our country came when the civil rights movement, the peace movement, and the labor movement were coming together. To this day, I think it was the negotiations that were occurring between the civil rights movement and the labor unions that really scared the ones who create the large scale rules for our society and that is what set the stage for Martin Luther King's assassination. They did not plot, they did not plan, they did not finance these acts. The verbal attacks upon Martin Luther King and the movement he led by politicians who were either members or servants of the entrenched elites, amplified through the media that they control cleared the way. They created the stage upon which James Earl Ray could envision himself a hero for the act. Then came the "welfare queen in a Cadillac" and "the young black buck." Then came the attacks on unions. Then the attacks on the very notion of "honest work," which took the adjective "honorable" away from work that got dirt beneath your nails and replaced it with "sucker." Shorting the future of the American economy to accumulate wealth became "the smart play." Michael Milken was touted as a hero and inspiration until he was caught, and the resulting publicity giving us an inside look into how modern wealth is created. That was the real "betrayal" to his class.
The examples of identity politics and their impact on everything that happens go on and on. And in almost every case, a direct benefit for the power elites can be found, as each case also serves to splinter opposition and thereby help preserve the status quo in which they hold the power over legislation, rules, ordinances as well as the implementation and enforcement of policy.
But what we must recognize, is that an immediate danger can be caused by a local condition that the systemic structures in a society allow to exist. My house is burning, and the firemen refuse to act to put out the fire. There is definitely something wrong with the local governance that must be changed, and perhaps there needs to be some over-arching law to govern the behavior of local governments, and yes I will address my efforts in the future to make sure that those changes occur. But in the meantime, my spouse, children and yes, my pet cat, are inside the flaming house. My immediate actions may appear irrational to others, and perhaps later, even to myself. But in the moment, they are the best that I can do. And even though the actions that I take now will have an effect on my ability to effect the changes that are needed, I will not be thinking about that future. I will be in the present. As I should be. There will be a the time to address the systemic issues with fire protection in the community. Someone is equally concerned about the state of firefighting in the community but whose house is not on fire, will have a different schedule and a different sense of priorities than I. But the fact remains that until the social structure that allowed the problem to occur is changed, yet another will find themselves watching their house burn down while the firemen stand by.
The challenge when trying to create a society that better meets the needs and fosters the potential of each of its citizens, is to first understand the nature of progress. Social progress is like weeding a garden. It is not enough to pull the weeds and walk away. The weeds grow back. And social progress that is made will be lost if not defended because you have moved on to another aspect of an issue, or another issue altogether. The efforts that led to the Voting Rights Act were not vigorously defended, and the entrenched elites took back that advance while we were turned to the next issue. The ones who created Jim Crow didn't "up and leave" the country. They just got back to work while we were congratulating ourselves and moving on. It is important to remember that each advance expands the territory that must be defended. Which means that amassing greater numbers of allies is necessary to protect our gains while we try to advance.
This does not doom us to some bizarre equilibrium where an advance in one area means past accomplishment will go unguarded. What it does mean is that we have to stop fighting each other. We need to understand that the human species is rather special. There is none other like it that we have found on the Earth or by searching the skies. And the curious thing is that we are more like each other than we are different. There are about 32,000 genes in the genome of a grape. There are only about 23,000 genes in the human genome. Even a bloody grape has more variety among its members than does the human race. We are united by so many common experiences--birth, learning, aspiration, loving, witnessing birth or giving birth, parenting, grieving... and finally, the contemplation and ultimate reality of our own death. We are united by so much, yet we persist in searching out the differences among us. And then we use those differences as tools in ways that separate us even further; tools that were hammered, sharpened, honed and given to us by those who benefit most by our division.
We have a choice before us. We can act in ways that bring us together so that we can effect change and root out entrenched social inequities, so that we can bring the benefits of society to each of its members. Or we can allow identity politics to further fracture us. We can choose. We can choose to celebrate each life and unite together in action, or we can tear at each other with words and weapons... and in so doing, "do master's work for him."