*A
real-world counterpoint to the fictional "People
Like Me."
Many
years ago, I felt that the fabric of society was under attack, by
people who were ignorant of human nature and the need for moral
authority to govern their actions, and by a conspiracy of
"do-gooders" who actively conspired to impose their vision
of a perfect world on the rest of us.
Over
time, I came to question that feeling and the assumptions behind it,
in part because I got to know the people I feared, and in part
because experience showed that those most sure of their positions
were likely to miss important flaws in those positions.
I
studied, and became disgusted by, the dominant culture that
considered people like me to be automatically moral just because we
believed in God, were born in this country, and shared a common
appearance and ethnic heritage. By asking and seeking satisfactory
answers to the most basic of questions, especially those that no one
seemed interested in asking, it became clear that the moral
distinctions of "good" and "bad" were arbitrary,
and that the stories that justified them were artifices for teaching
and enforcing their adoption by using common knowledge and history to
create internalized group identity.
Apparently
history had overwhelmed the usefulness of the common knowledge,
resulting in the need for addenda in the form of laws. They took
advantage of a loophole built into the common knowledge, that the
members of the group might still deviate from the group morality, and
just needed some corrective mechanisms to help keep them within the
group. Group integrity was also maintained by insisting that people
who weren't part of the group would always be inclined to do more
damage, and therefore the laws were needed even more (along with more
rigorous enforcement) to keep them in check.
Recognizing
and then stepping outside of my group identity, the world looked a
lot different. Instead of seeing pain and suffering in other nations
as a consequence of being outside of the right group (people like
me), or as punishment by an omnipotent parent-figure/scapegoat, I saw
it as a natural consequence of competition with fellow biological
creatures subject to the physics of life and perceptions shaped by
personal history that considered "others" as objects rather
than people who are part of a universal "us."
Cooperation
with people who are fundamentally valued equally looks like a logical
way to approach alleviating much of that pain and suffering, and
indeed the United States was founded on an approximation to that
approach. So it seems particularly hypocritical for people claiming
moral high-ground based on their citizenship to advocate dismantling
the parts of the government dedicated to cooperation and enabling all
people to survive and thrive, regardless of affiliation with any
particular group or groups. Obviously, their own group affiliation is
most important, motivated by the stories they refused to question
that posit their special role as instruments of the creator of the
Universe.
I have struggled to keep
some optimism about the future of humanity, especially in light of
the destruction of life precipitated by our lack of respect for the
other species who maintain the habitability of the planet we share
(the ultimate "others"). For more than thirty years I held
out hope that education and enlightened self-interest could make the
world a better place, even though my definition of "better"
has evolved since then. That isn't enough, though, especially for
people who believe they can escape the consequences of their actions
with the aid of an omnipotent brother. For people to accept a new
understanding of natural order, it must be supported by common
values, common knowledge, and social identity, along with a
psychologically healthy way to live with a radical switch in the
"rightness" of past actions.
Obviously, I'm still in the
process of figuring out what to do next. Given the nature of the
disaster facing our world, I don't expect to ever have the kind of
life that looked good from the perspective of my early years and
still looks good to many of my former group-mates: acquiring enough
wealth to be very comfortable and hang out with people like me for
many years to come. If I'm lucky, I'll have some positive impact on
the lives of people like us, all of us, now and in the future.
