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Secular people
find it hard to use words to paint pictures. In fact, we get a feeling we
are doing something sneaky and wrong when we try. We have been acclimated
to accuracy, details, places, agendas, reasons, causes and effects, the
finer points of reason and factuality. We have never been taught to back
up, broaden our horizons, and take a look at the big picture that holds
all we love in life, and the mists and clouds and streams of smoke and
motion that make it alive and cogent and complete. We describe the
wind-shaken leaves not for their beauty, not for their effects upon our
sensibilities, but we do it to present a case about their planar
relationships and the effects upon capillary action and the response of
peristalsis rendered by such actions in the process of transpiration.
We get
frustrated with those who said "Yes!" when the teacher asked, "Do I have
to paint you a picture?", when they fail to grasp all the hidden nuances
and meanings in our erudite vocabularies, and never jump up and down in
their excitement that we have finally shown them why we cannot share their
joy in the incredible stories that make up the basis for their belief
systems. "If the details aren't accurate," we worry, "how can we, or
anyone else, trust what is being said?" We worry that, in spite of all
their differences being greater than any differences we find on our own
side, they seem to work together and accomplish what they set as
worthwhile goals, but will have nothing to do with us, except to steal the
technology our concepts originate to use against us. We can't even agree
upon those, not even in private. We have not the slightest idea of what to
do about it, even though we feel more threatened by them now than at any
other time in our lives.
What to do
about it: At any other
time, in any other
 situation, we
seem to know enough to study the natural conditions surrounding a problem
and dig in them until we find a solution. We find examples within the
conditions that erupt from the problem, and we try to copy them until we
learn the rules required for knowing what makes it work. We try to find
rules to reverse the conditions that give rise to the problem rules, and
figure out how to make them work. We experiment, we verify, and then we
present tentative solutions so that others can verify them. With enough
verification, we write a rule book that gives a scientific presentation of
the problem and the solutions we have authorized for it. And then, we
develop a technology to make it labor-saving and automatic. What is so
different in this case?
It seems we've
uncovered a problem nobody really wants to look at, no matter how much
satisfaction we might derive from a truly workable answer. Truth be told,
we would like to look at it, and really get down close to study it, but
the opposition has somehow imposed their guilt-ridden rules around us long
enough so we have accepted them as our own, and so we display a tendency
to pooh-pooh the opportunity, and claim the way things are "is good
enough". Let me tell you something: What's good enough today would have
driven secular progressives wild of fifty years ago. I should know; I was
there. I was there during the reign of terror imposed by McCarthyism. I
can compare today with before that. We still live under remnants of that
evil time in many ways. I was around when Reagan's Soldiers killed college
students on our own campuses. I was there when Clinton pulled us out of
the horrible national funk introduced by Bush the First, and got run over
by roughshod republicans for a reward. Things are not good enough; times
are desperate; time is short and close to gone. I have become old. The
future is yours, but only if you act to claim it back and to keep it from
getting stolen again.
Author George
Lakoff gave some pretty good descriptions of the kinds of persons we are
talking about, so that we should have been able to grasp what we are up
against, but we feel reluctant to acknowledge the value of his counsel. We
question his advice, never thinking maybe we should put it to the test
ourselves. Don't we regard ourselves as 'scientific'? Are we lazy and lax,
or what? Maybe we thought he meant somebody else? Are we so dumb as to
disavow our own plight? If so, we will earn whatever happens to us. Those
we are up against will not regret whatever actions they take against us,
that they see as moral cleansing, and that we see as too dreadful to
conceive of. You want to see them in the light of their beliefs?
Two men have
quit arguing long enough to take a stroll through the city. Each wants to
show the other the way things ought to be done. Their names are Nurturant
Progressive and Strict Father. We will call them NP and SF for short, and
use their initials for identification. You might as well learn them.
You'll be reading about them a lot in the future. You ought also learn to
recognize them in the news, and begin to understand the meme-based value
systems that drive them.
NP and SF round
a corner in a dingy section of town. Scantily clad girls line the
sidewalks and look at both of them with expectation. In the middle of the
sidewalk, a man is lying face down in a pool of blood. He moans as they
approach him. SF looks down at the man, scowls, steps over him and hastens
the pace of his walking. NP stares after him, his own scowl that of
disgust, and bends down to tend to the man. SF stops, then turns around to
bark an order: "Leave him be. He got what he most likely deserved. We
ought not to linger in this terrible, immoral place."
"Go on without
me, then," NP replies, his voice filled with sorrow that someone he would
like to respect could be so shallow and cruel. "This man is injured, and I
have no way of telling why. He'll die here, because it looks like nobody
around here will care for him." He retrieves a telephone from his pocket
and begins to press its buttons.
"He ought to be
made to fend for himself," SF argues as he reaches out to grab his
friend's arm. "Nobody deserves to receive help once they're out on their
own. The world is a terrible and evil place full of hardships, and he
should have come here prepared for the kind of place it is. It's a waste
of our resources to help him."
"I disagree with
you," NP rejoins. "I believe in helping others, so that I will deserve
help when comes my turn to have problems. I think of it as an investment
into my future made not only for myself, but for the security of my family
if enough people would do likewise and make the world a better place."
"You're a fool,"
SF taunts him while sirens draw near in answer to NP's call.
"Maybe so," NP
grins. "Maybe so."
Please don't
make the mistake of assuming that story exaggerates the difference it
makes apparent between the two values systems. At their extremes, the
story is a common one that occurs on American streets every day. It may
be, in fact, a representation of a kind of friendliness between the two
characters that will not be found in the real-life versions. Just read a
lot of Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh (and the Limbaugh protégé), Pat
Robertson, Jerry Foulwall, and a bunch of the other Rightwing Dominionist
extremists, and you will gain a sense of that (try to find the equivalent
coming from the other side. Good luck at that!)
What is
important about the story is not to place SF in a bad light— he can do
that by himself. Its importance is to highlight something you, if you are
a secular person, may have been resisting all along: An important values
system comes attached to progressive secularity, a very humane values
system that contributes a high understanding of morality unlike any the
fear-driven Strict Father system can conceive. Unlike the
master/slave-predator/parasite/prey system upon which SF built his
conceptions about life, nurturance inspires a system built around
honorable kindness, fair trade, and all that arises from that.
SF is neither
Democrat or Republican, although (s)he's most apt to be the latter. NP is
also neither Democrat or Republican, although (s)he's most apt to be the
former. Either can be members of any of the off-brand parties, and any of
the religions (who may also have secular progressives as regular
dues-paying members). Either, as Lakoff pointed out, may emanate in any
individual under different circumstances. Much depends on how we were
raised, what we discovered as we waded through life, and what we dared to
adopt.
I am willing to
assume that, once Secular Progressive Values become understood well enough
to be able to express them, they will place an increasing role in many of
our daily adventures. They are the values that require more than beatings,
threats, and punishment to be learned. They are the values the majority of
us act as though we never realized they exist, that we did things and
believed things "just because they are right". Those are our values. We
need to learn how to talk about them with each other. We need to want to
talk about them, to refine them, to present them in public debates, and to
honor them; for they are the most important thing about us that is going
completely unrecognized. |
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