Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Election: Way Worse


O.K. Time to talk about the election... sort of.  I wish I could say that the Romney/Ryan ticket is just not to my liking, since I am most definitely liberal-inclined.  However, my take on it is that it is worse than that, way worse.
Bringing me to that conclusion is an article by Jacques Derrida I read that really affected me, as his work is wont to do.

[The article is entitled, "No Apocalypse, Not Now," ( in Psyche:  The Inventions of the Other, V. I. -- a volume that contains several seminal essays of his that he wrote during his "mature" period, when he was beyond paying obeisance to the academic/philosophical establishment. ]

This article, was written in the mid-nineteen-eighties, in response to Reaganesque fantasies of Star Wars and winnable (prevailing through) nuclear wars. Derrida  makes the point (in his convoluted way) that "Nuclear War," is a fable.  It has never happened.  And so, all our policies and preparations are all done as matters of belief:  what we believe will happen;  what we believe people will do in dire situations;  what we believe our national powers can accomplish;  what we believe is important for our very humanity.

And so, for me it raises the question:  What is the state of "belief" today?  My answer, it is not good.

Here's the concern:  with the degeneration of belief in the world, or the de-coupling of belief from Reason, science, documented evidence, etc., what does that say about our vulnerability to nuclear war? It says we are more vulnerable than we ever have been.

The status of belief today is a shit pile of fundamentalism (including that of the Prime Minister of Israel, and the ayatollahs of Iran), fabulous promises of salvation (including those of Mormons), a raging denial of science as to the facts of everything from global climate change to basic female reproductive processes, to vicious, nasty, greedy and self-absorbed (Texas-style) egotism (culminating in an inability to ban assault weapons, for example, or the refusal to expand Medicaid).

My concern is that the Romney/Ryan ticket is completely held captive by those in the furthest backwaters and detritus of these vicious, nihilistic, cruel and atavistic beliefs, and they are even enthusiastic representatives of their own bizarre or failed belief systems: Mormonism and reactionary Catholicism ( and don't give me crap about freedom of religion, I am an atheist, decidedly lacking in the department of religion-based or institutionally dictated belief altogether, I am a philosopher, after all).

As far for the nuclear situation?  It merely dramatizes the stakes here across a range of issues that have expanded immensely since Derrida wrote that paper.  Economic debacles (based on the belief in the all-powerful marketplace), denial of climate change (based on utter ignorance fired by greedy corporate interests), famine or water shortages (used as political weapons by ideologues who subscribe to the beliefs we have indicated) could all accomplish disaster on a scale of nuclear cataclysm.

My concern is that people with beliefs that Eisenhower or George Kennan or JFK held are long gone. People with their beliefs -- that knowledge and a respect for human dignity were uppermost -- are being shifted to one of the two political parties; one of those parties, the Republican one, is nearly completely bereft of people with beliefs such as theirs, that ended wars, that kept us from nuclear ones; and, incredibly, the election is supposedly (I can't believe this), in a dead heat.

The Republican party is now filled with fundamentalists, birthers, climate change deniers, rape deniers, worshippers of the free market and utter disdain, if not down right hatred of people who need some help in our country or others (I can't help but feel that the austerity regimes imposed by the world's bankers and some nations, isn't part of the same resentment and hatred), and they claim the allegiance of half the country!!! Unbelievable.

What kind of a country is this?  If these are the beliefs that are represented by one major political force,  and we possess the power to unleash nuclear war and we contribute substantially and maybe decisively to the likelihood of other modes of disasters, how close are we to having these disasters actually become quite real and actually take place?

My answer:  When we consider how those beliefs, for instance, have stalled national legislation on climate change, and we see record temperatures being set all over the globe, it seems we are quite close.

Then, just to throw a little spice into the mix, in the most recent issue of Playboy, Richard Dawkins, the outspoken atheist, claims that the belief in an afterlife caused Sept 11.  How so?  He argues that people who believe that a better life awaits them in heaven -- 70 virgins or God's forgiveness, who cares -- are more likely to be more than obliging when asked to end their own lives for the "cause."  That seems plausible to me, and a stratagem applied by fanatical rulers to get people to die for them from time immemorial.

So, once again,  if Romney/Ryan is a viable electoral choice, how close are we to a cataclysm of the "fabulous" scale, the unimagined and so far unexperienced scale, of nuclear war?  Seriously, how close?

Derrida makes it striking clear:  Beliefs matter, and maybe matter more than facts, especially about things like nuclear war-level disasters.  My concern is that since we can combat and confront only when we have the beliefs that support measures that address and counter these dire trends, we are close to, or are actually in these disasters right now.  And so, it's way worse than I thought.

And no, I am not going to stop reading Derrida and go to the mall.  I am going to continue to advocate for the Breakout Creatives.  What does that mean?

 First, defeat Romney/Ryan and their Aikin-like, Tea Party fundamentalist deniers.  Then press the arguments on a more reasonable government to articulate a viable belief system through education and constant communication.  Then, press the beliefs that include new philosophy (including Derrida's "deconstruction"), science, fact, respect for humanity and the responsibility for enacting a viable future in every conversation -- don't take it anymore.  And then, hope for the best -- affirm the belief in a viable humanity and a livable earth still occupied by a rich variety of species.  After all, we did get "Curiosity" on Mars.  To do that people believed in something solid (science), workable (engineering and collaboration), worthwhile (aspiration) and inspring (a vision of the future) to do that.  So....???

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