What’s the World Coming To?

Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”  She was a respected, if controversial, American cultural anthropologist who opened doors where none had even been seen before.  She was frequently a featured writer and speaker in the mass media throughout the 1960s and 1970s.  She changed things, and laid the foundation for others to change things some more.

I wonder what she’d have to say about the Occupy movement?  Are there enough “thoughtful citizens” in this “small group” to create change?

I think so.  What I’m not sure about is what types of change we’re going to see.  It’s necessary to have people point out naked Empires, but that alone is not sufficient to generate positive change.
Ex cops with sterling service records get arrested.  Priests get pepper sprayed while trying to de-escalate conflict.  College kids get beaten and assaulted by the very forces that are supposed to protect them, and the rest of us.  Mayors and other city officials blame preexisting issues on Occupants, when the truth is that the preexisting conditions are precisely what stirs the Occupants to action. 

Some of what’s going down right now is dangerous and scary. Is this danger the new thing this small group of citizens is creating, or is the danger and frightening condition of our society that this small group is shining light on?  There’s infighting, vandalism, destruction of public and private property, and a pendulous cloud of uncertainty looming overhead.

There seems to be this unspoken notion that a part of the system can act within the system and yet those actions result in no consequences to the system.  That’s a ludicrous notion.  We are all profoundly interconnected to each other, as humans, to the Earth and its ecosystems.  It’s a fine, complex web of intersections and connections.  No single interconnected component can act without influencing the whole. 

Wanna talk about scary?  I think what we’re really afraid of is the terrifying responsibility for ourselves that arrives immediately on the heels of the realization that none of us are separate, none of us are disconnected.  It only becomes possible to harm others when a belief is established that creates separation.  If you saw your neighbor, or a plant, or a river as an inextricable part of your very being, I bet you’d be less likely to punch your neighbor in the nose, kill some plants in order to build a storage unit to put all your excess stuff, or dump your trash in the river.  It just doesn’t make any sense to live that way, when one sees the connection. 

Every harm on causes is a harm to one’s self.  There is no Other that’s gonna take it on the chin for you, from which you walk away unscathed.  It’s ALL you.

One of the ways in which we refuse to accept responsibility for ourselves and the consequences of our actions is to deny that we are interconnected.  Another thing we do is to scoff and denigrate people who persistently try to remind us of our interconnectedness.  They’re hippies, liberals, commie pinko faggots with some bizarre woowoo agenda of sage, drums and silly dances.  They’re religious nuts, freaks, geeks and spooks.  It becomes much more difficult to blame others for your “problems” when there’s no Others.  Only you.

What’s the world coming to? A conclusion?  Its senses?  A screeching halt? A state of Enlightenment? A dinner party?  Whatever 'it' turns out to be, the world is coming to the place we’ve brought it, collectively and individually, once choice at a time.  It’s coming right to us.

There are all sorts of reasons to dismiss my voice in these weird times, and only one to listen: I am You.  We are It.  It’s all Us.  And there’s only one of Us here.

Postscript: No sooner do I finish this blog post than I see this video. This is what the world is coming to: