Uncle Sam - 1916 / James Montgomery Flagg

Enlist / Fred Spear 1915. A passenger from the Lusitania,
submerged in water cradling an infant in her arms.

Notes on being all you can be.

As I delve deeper into the work of William James and Ernest Becker, it really becomes eerie how simple is much of what all believe or hope, and so very similar. And how stridently we can struggle to pretend that that's just not so. Why? In the vain but deep-wired struggle for what Becker describes as one half of what makes us tick: The desire to stand out and above others. In a recent discussion on the UN and it's faults and successes, an interesting but seemingly seldom recognized fundamental came to fore:

Orientation: The U.N. is a world kleptocracy that deserves scorn and mistrust.

Simplistic and defies the evidence - The UN is an organization that has many successes. And many failures. It IS the usual assortment of sharp elbows and wildly divergent self-interest, informed by values as broad as 6 wives or one? A single god or many? Bribery and genital mutilation as the everday practice of business and life or human rights, truth and justice as perfect ideals pursued by imperfect people.

On the one hand, it's surprising in itself that many adult people are surprised that such a wildly differing collection of cultural values would have difficulties coming to agreement. On the other hand, how the hell have they managed to medically, economically and peaceably improve the lives of so many given the baggage above?

I've heard that being an honest cynic (not merely the teenage pose) makes life more satisfying. When you start with a baser level of expectation of your fellow human, any small flashes of exceptionalism make life worth living. The opposite, perhaps a magical pollyanna-ish outlook, sets one down the road to repeated dissappointments resulting from the simple fact that others refuse to follow our plan for personal and politico-cultural bliss. Chronic disappointment, a shrink friend once told me and I think I remember correctly, leads to two usual outcomes: depressed withdrawal, or virulent resentment that escalates to violence.

That's where we are today. Resentment. Escalating. Everywhere. In every corner of life, in every sector of business and culture with flashes of optimism fewer and farther between. Why? Easy. Because so damn many people won't get with the program. OUR program. Now, there's all kinds of reasons for this expectation of some perfectibility of life. Our marketing feeds it. Our faith and political institutions keep shoveling the "perfect solutions" if only... if only more butts were in pews; if only a few more regulations were eased or tax rates lowered. If only those people who disagree with me and mine would shut up and get out of the way.

But the funny thing is, those prescriptions never do it, do they? Supposedly, lots of butts are in pews, but the sermonizing resembles Twain's War Prayer or admonishments to man the barricades against fellow Americans rather than turn the other cheek or care for the lesser among us. And regulation--what's the mantra? Unfair rules stifle the productivity and creativity of capital and business, I think it goes. Yeah. If only those regulations weren't there, then we'd show everybody!

And what happens when we do loose them ? Nothing. No moonshot. Just Tsunami, with horns on it. The gates are thrown open, as in California's energy deregulation--and do we get miraculous R&D in search of new and brighter horizons? No, we get energy brokers, on tape, recounting how they'd going to "fuck grandma Millie out of her pension" by arbitraging electricity up to $250 a megawatt/hr.

Indeed. The story of some of mankind: Set me free so I can follow my program, the Human 1.0 version, not the 2.0 stuff that Emma Lazarus pushes. And you'd damn sure better get with it, or you'll be Human 0.0

CSMonitor

Under ordinary circumstances, terrorism holds no appeal to the overwhelming majority of any society. People are not by nature extremists. In fact, with rare exceptions, people are indifferent to the angry ranting of a fanatic.

The reason is simple: The terrorist's view of the world is not widely shared. The wrongs that cut him to the quick do not offend his compatriots or stir them to action. His political ends are dismissed as illegitimate, his violent means assailed as crimes. Instead of being welcomed as a hero, he is vilified. The fate of many a violent extremist is to die in prison, disillusioned and alone, the world as unconcerned with his cause as it had ever been.

But occasionally, fortune smiles on the extremist, granting him the credibility he craves. Ironically, the extremist rarely has anything to do with this change. Instead, it happens when the society he attacks pursues policies that vindicate his venom. To his satisfaction, reality comes to resemble what he has long decried. His vision begins to acquire substance where once it was fantasy. Those around him – long unmoved by his platform – awaken to see the world as he has described it. Gradually, the lifeblood of any state – its moral legitimacy – ebbs from the society to the terrorist, whose message no longer seems so extreme.

So it has become with the war on terror. Noble declarations of American rhetoric can't conceal reality on the ground: seemingly endless detentions of innocent prisoners; "enhanced interrogation techniques" that many believe to be torture; black sites where prisoners "disappear"; renditions to countries that practice what the US cannot.

In the end, the US approach to combating terrorism has given Islamic radicalism the greatest gift of all: evidence to support the argument that America has abandoned the rule of law. And so the call to jihad has achieved a currency that was all but unthinkable before Sept. 11. By most accounts, Al Qaeda numbered only a few hundred people on that fateful day. Now its numbers and the numbers in sympathetic groups can barely be counted, so attractive has its message become.

At the same time, US policies provide endless occasion for recruiting jihadists via the Web, the medium least amenable to our influence. "You who shirk jihad...." one Saudi sheik implored on a radical Islamist website, "How can you enjoy life and comfort while your noble sisters are being raped and their is honor defiled in the Abu Ghraib prison.... ...[W]hat excuse can you give Allah while your brethren in the prisons of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo ... are stripped naked?"

You who shirk? While your noble sisters' honor needs avenging? Savages. Acting as if answering the call and defending honor was some big deal. Where on earth do they find such ideas?




Uncle Sam - 1916 / James Montgomery Flagg

Enlist / Fred Spear 1915. A passenger from the Lusitania,
submerged in water cradling an infant in her arms.