“Racism is necessary” a young man said. This man (or boy – judging by the profound erroneousness of his words) is quite clearly a white male who will likely be in one of the upper echelons of income brackets when he finishes his career. He grew up in the ‘burbs’, probably had a golden retriever, a freshly cut lawn, and waved to his neighbors as he boarded the school bus. How could I possibly expect him to understand the complexities of psycho poverty? I barely understand the ramifications of it myself.
To the uncompassionate corporate square – racism is necessary. How else would it be possible to subject a small group of people to unjust tyranny so that he and the other members of the ruling class can stuff their greedy mouths with an even bigger chunk of this American pie? But hey, you earned it… right?
I don’t believe the ill-bred person who said this is necessarily a bad person. It takes a lot more than a one-liner for me to judge someone’s character. But I would like to know when he feels obligated to draw the line with racism. Did it go too far when two teenagers beat a sixteen year old Hispanic boy until he fell to the ground unconscious? How about when they carved a swastika into his chest, poured bleach all over his body and then sodomized him with an umbrella? If you’re any kind of human that probably appalled you.
How about in 1959, when, in the “dirty south”, men and women of color couldn’t even defecate in the same restroom as members of your superior race? Big deal, right? Go shit somewhere else.
But seriously, step away from that ultra conservative (non-intellectual) framework for just a second, it’s not that hard… really. Put your thinking cap on and make sure it’s snug because we don’t want it falling off now.
It appears the only way to see beyond the luxury of being a white middle class American is to put your feet in someone else’s shoes. 1959 wasn’t too long ago. Your parents were born sometime around then. Imagine then, that your mother and father were subjected to bigotry. They both cared for you but had to work several minimum wage jobs in a shady party of town just to make ends meet. One can’t be considered lazy if there are virtually no opportunities to get ahead. And let’s be honest, after so many years of spinning your wheels and getting nowhere, isn’t it tempting to give up? But please don’t kid yourself; it takes a hell of a lot more than one generation to turn around hundreds of years of racial inequality.
So there you are, a hopeless little shit. You’re living in the housing projects, snacking on your own buggers. You’re surrounded by other little shits whose parents were also royally fucked over by the status quo. You grow up. You become bitter. You’re uneducated. You were never given a chance; all you know is hate. You idolize all things material and you have never finished a book. You can barely afford a pot to piss in and some white jerk; with a $50,000 salary just out of college thinks you deserve it. He’s completely oblivious to every edge he’s been given in the economic game of life and he’d gladly curb stomp your ass just to get another little bite of that big ole’ American Pie; because well “racism is necessary” and its pretty tasty too.
I was never indoctrinated into a faith, so it comes as no surprise that I, even at a very young age, have always understood the absurdity of organized religion. Living my entire life as an atheist also led me down a path of nihilism. This isn’t the dreary jet black path that so many people make it out to be. Heck, it’s not even a path really. It is more or less an innate and fundamental understanding that the only absolute value that a concept, being, or object has is the value that the assignee grants to it. You don’t have to be very intelligent to come across this conclusion, you just have to be somewhat pragmatic, strong-willed, and have had the good fortune of never being initiated into some sort of religious thought control; because then it becomes much harder to “break” through the inconsistencies of your non-logical paradigm.
That being said one fateful evening my somewhat shallow and pseudo-nihilistic world view came to a climax. Without getting into the boring technicalities I had an awakening of sorts; albeit this awakening did not pull me away from my nihilistic tendencies -it did however illuminate an entirely new concept that I had previously never fathomed. You see, words are merely abstractions that inadequately attempt to explain experience. Yeah, you can read about a fiery romance, but unless you’ve ever actually experienced the wrath of love, then you can never fully understand the pleasant (or terrifying) delusions of such an emotion. The same can be said for ego-loss, or loss of self.
At first it was terrifying. Every last strand of my being was attempting to pull itself back together- to assimilate as one again. But it was no use. The self I had known was gone. All that was left were hollow details. It was like reading the biography of a long deceased friend. I was then thrust into an abyss of sorts – a dazzling “bottomless pit” where everything really is everything and the individual goes to perish. It is here that you became me, and I became you. It was so surreal that it became cinematic. It was so cinematic that it became surreal. It was beauty defined. And then, it was over. I was myself again – now the only thing that’s left nearly two years later is a reminder of the day I went to pieces without falling apart.
Before that realization I took an astronomy class in college that was taught in a fairly large planetarium. Each day upon leaving the class I’d gaze up into the sky with the understanding that I was an ant… no I was smaller; I was a grain of sand lost in the vastness of an infinite universe. I am now aware that “I” was wrong. I am not a grain of sand. I’m merely the reflection of an idea. I am nothing… and yet… I am everything. I bet this whole thing sounds absurd. Don’t worry, it is.
After reading various animal ethics expositions in a college ethics class last semester it became apparent, at least to me, that eating meat was morally condemnable. Still, for the love of meat (and pure laziness) I kept up with my past eating habits. Finally, my ego got the best of me and I began to feel guilty for continuing to practice something that I now felt was wrong. Three months ago I quit cold turkey. I’m still alive and well.
Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not one of those whiney and domineering vegetarians (by this, I mean that I won’t scorn you for eating meat). However, I do tend to get pissed when people criticize my lifestyle. These are people that have not once questioned the decency of their actions.
“It’s the food chain, man.”
They tell me.
I try to explain that as rationally thinking omnivores, we are at liberty to pick and choose what we feast upon, be it blueberries or cow hide. We’re no longer fighting for survival as man’s “intelligence” has made the so-called food chain obsolete. I then begin to talk about the capacity for animals to suffer and so forth. Still the argument always shifts to:
“But they aren’t human, who cares.”
To me, that statement is pure bigotry. Remember the civil rights movement? Before this racial paradigm shift, the average white layman had no problem treating a black man like shit. It was after all, a common practice. Philosopher and animal ethicist Peter Singer uses the term “Speciesism” to describe neglecting to consider other species as morally considerable.
I don’t believe the area of animal ethics is black and white. However, if you’re going to criticize my lifestyle at least present me with a thoughtful argument. The sad thing is most folks who argue with me only do so because not eating meat it so foreign to them that they’ve never actually thought about questioning the ethical integrity of it. It hurts to think and ignorance is bliss…right?
The grimy Ohio snow has recently been replaced with lush green grass and a comfortable spring breeze, and thus it has inspired me to go backpacking.
I should also say that the movie “Into the Wild” and my continued reading of eastern philosophy have offered me more cerebral insight as to why a life outdoors (or at least prolonged yet temporary visits) may actually be preferable to the Western rat maze that I presently live in. I have also yet to see a work of art that offers more beauty than a gently flowing river…trite but true (at least to me).
I found this exposition of why one should set off on a backpacking adventure on the World Wide Web. The rest of the article can be found here.
Why go backpacking? Thoreau suggested one enduring answer. Backpacking is an antidote to industrialized society, where the pace of change accelerates constantly and buzzing swarms of tasks multiply exponentially, yet must be fitted into days that never grow longer. Every day, newspapers recite an endless dirge of war, poverty, oppression and environmental disaster. Backpacking provides an escape, temporarily, from life’s complex and seemingly insoluble problems. In their stead, backpackers need only deal with a far more manageable set of concerns, each elemental in its simplicity: finding the easiest route, summoning the energy to walk that last mile, selecting a good campsite. Backpacking offers an abundance of life’s most repeatable pleasures, the ones that never grow stale: resting when you’re tired, eating when you’re hungry, drinking when you’re thirsty and smashing a mosquito just before it bites.
However, several questions remain. Will I be able to find joy in lugging a 40lb pack through the wilderness? Can I push through the chaffing of my testicles, those pesky mosquito bites, and my horribly achy feet?
Only time will tell, and with that, ladies and gentlemen. I give you Henry David Thoreau.
As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.
I’m about halfway through Alan Watt’s autobiography “In My Own Way”. I’m a little disappointed that this book reads nothing like his usual analogy-laden easy-read philosophy. Instead it’s very convoluted with the names of people, places, and even a little bit of intellectual pretension (even though Watts would disagree). I have however found a few philosophical gems hidden amongst it’s pages.
Regarding Universities – ” They are production lines turning out stereotyped personnel and consumers for the industrial machine-a machine which is more and more subservient, not to human needs, but to the abstract purposes of technological expansion for its own sake, of the money game, and of the competition for the hollow rewards of status. “
About to graduate in May with a degree in marketing this quote really hits home. It’s something I’ve been thinking about for the better part of two years now.
I just don’t get it. If I can’t take the Bible literally then how am I supposed to interpret it? Can a true believer please give me a coherent answer?
It seems to me that the majority of “contemporary Christians” (a term I coined for the majority of Christians living in America, it does not include fundamentalists who believe the bible word for word) suffer from a severe case of doublethink.
They’re smart enough to realize that the world is more than six thousand years old, that Noah did not have a big ass boat capable of carrying every species of animal, and that evolution is indeed a biological reality.
Well my friends, when does it end? If I’m just supposed to shrug my shoulders and blow off the entire book of Genesis then when can I start taking the Bible seriously?
Let me put it to you like this:
Say you’re on a road trip in the middle-of-nowhere and you come to a Circle K convenient store. You decide to stop and ask for directions to the nearest gas station as your tank is only 1/5 full. You ask the man behind the counter for directions and without hesitation he begins to tell you a faulty route. You begin to drive and sure enough, forty minutes later you find yourself at the same Circle K store. Red with anger (and nearly empty on gas) you go inside to confront the liar. As you walk in the door the man squeezes out a chuckle and says “Sorry pal, I was just pulling you’re leg! But this time I’ll tell you the real way.”
Questions:
1. Does this man have ANY credibility after he just lied to you?
2. Would you not be a fool to trust this man a second time around?
You see what I’m getting at? Most contemporary Christians have decided to trust the Circle K clerk (despite being a known liar), and they’re now headed sixty miles in the wrong direction! If the Bible is supposed to represent truth (but much of it has proven to be false) then how can anyone believe a single word of it?
In conclusion, this isn’t an attack of Christianity, it’s a call for action. Gone should be the days of swallowing age old dogma. It’s time that the individual starts thinking and questioning things for themselves. It’s time to face whatever boogeyman is keeping you locked away in that dark little closet of so-called “certainty”. Inconsistencies wouldn’t fly on a third grade math test, so why should they on your deepest of metaphysical theories?
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Now here’s a little gem I accidentally stumbled across on youtube after searching for backpacking/hiking videos. While this video isn’t entirely related to my post, I will say that it proves a valid point. The point being that AT LEAST fundamentalists are consistent with their theology, however mind numbing and ridiculous their logic may be.
“Racism is necessary” a young man said. This man (or boy – judging by the profound erroneousness of his words) is quite clearly a white male who will likely be in one of the upper echelons of income brackets when he finishes his career. He grew up in the ‘burbs’, probably had a golden retriever, a freshly cut lawn, and waved to his neighbors as he boarded the school bus. How could I possibly expect him to understand the complexities of psycho poverty? I barely understand the ramifications of it myself.
