With each major act of violence and destruction visited upon people, this plea is renewed with greater intensity. The widespread killing of innocents in Paris provides the latest opportunity for men and women to profess their detachments from the conflicts in our world. The assumption underlying such a prayer is always the same: problems arise from outside ourselves, and can only be resolved by other persons. The cheerleaders for institutional authority show up in the mainstream media to remind people that new political leaders, with bold new programs are needed; that governments must become more aggressive in dealing with threats from “others” (as though SWAT teams; the operators of surveillance tools and drone bombers; the hundreds of thousands of heavily-armed troops stationed throughout the world; and militarized police forces, have been spending their time in May-pole dancing). Only spokesmen for the established order (e.g., ex-generals and admirals, retired CIA operatives, and former presidential advisors) will appear on network television newscasts to remind Boobus Americanus of the statist catechisms.
Perhaps in time to prevent mankind from sliding into the black hole of its extinction, enough intelligent minds will realize that the destructive, anti-life practices that encircle the globe are fueled not by “them,” but by “us,” (i.e., by the thinking that you and I embrace). Political systems depend upon the mobilization of our violent energies, and continuing to accept the logic that we need to become “more aggressive” as a response to previous acts of aggression will only accelerate the insanity. We need to recall Einstein’s words that “problems. . . cannot be solved by thinking the way we thought when we created them.”
Only the transformation of yours and my thinking can end our well-organized madness. To the question “what can those in authority do to end all of this?,” the answer is clear: nothing; absolutely nothing.
2:30 pm on November 15, 2015
