Collective Blindspots

Every country, every nation has them, collective blindspots.  Those aspects of a given culture that just like with your best friend who holds on to his ponytail although he is going bald, are unflattering but somehow unchangeable.

Gun ownership and the obsession with private property are the top of my list when I think of the US. 

Elitism and classism are the obvious ones in the case of the UK.

In Germany, it is the fascination with efficiency that has  allowed asphalt wielding maniacs to turn landscapes into transit routes.

  

France, uh where shall I begin?  Vive la France!!

But this phenomenon of collective amnesia can be applied to all kinds of groups from families to institutions and from religions to men and women.

Similar to individuals, groups of people like to believe that they have figured it all out when, really, we all are but scattered ants on a forest floor.

No wait.  Not even that.

Utopia Calling

Let us build a world where fearful men no longer make the rules and define the objectives, a world where the aggressive male has been reintegrated into a community of diverse and empathetic individuals in pursuit of their full potential.

Bananas

There is a new generation of “printers” on the market that can produce 3D copies of any given blueprint. The biggest demand is for semi-automatic weapons. Well done, guys. Really impressive. Come get your bananas!

Quench your tears....

...’cause you gonna run dry at some point, dear Americans. Newton, Connecticut is another sad event in the American history of violence, but it was predictable and predictably there will more of that as long as we let our boys grow up in environments that lead to reduced impulse inhibition (see the many studies on the effects of computer gaming for instance) and...did you guess it already...GUNS!! Really, it’s pretty simple - no need to talk about the multiple causes, aggravated circumstances, and aspects of what just happened AGAIN. Also, no need to talk about how target shooting is a fine sport! Wake up guys - and gals. This is embarrassing!!!

Caught in the Fog

Political convictions usually run deep. In fact, I remember a US study a few years ago that claimed to have found the “Republican gene” - something like the one distinguishing genetic code that at some point in the life of a particular person will switch on an array of convoluted thought - I like to call it “the fog” - which includes denying women access to abortion while handing out guns to young angry men. Whether this kind of thinking is indeed genetic or not, however, matters less than the fact that in a country where people habitually confuse Fox News with news reporting and where outrageous opinions are sold as facts, this sort of convoluted thinking is wrapped in pro-life propaganda with broad mass appeal. It makes US politics that much more trite and boring and I have to admit that I am glad to be mailing in my absentee vote again this time.

What's that thing in my eye....?

I do like Michael Moore for not mincing his words. There is a fearless passion in him that is inspiring. He cuts through many layers of taboo and points fingers in directions that are usually safeguarded from attacks.

But, alas, even our great hero of thundering words becomes meek and tongue-tied when he has to address half of humanity. In his reaction to the Aurora shooting, he turns against gun-ownership and the American psyche but he forgot, that ALL mass murders and most murders are committed by MEN. Yes, indeed, it is hard to be caught with a bunch of losers!

Trouble is Good!

Michael Moore is looking a bit more tired these days. Like a much handled comic, he looks slightly frayed, creased and worn on the cover.. His eyes betray the years of trouble that followed his Oscar speech, when the blind masses turned on him. But is is good to know that trouble can be worth it and that there are always just enough people out there to appreciate it when someone takes on the ungrateful role of speaking up. His new book "Here comes Trouble" goes on the bookshelves tomorrow and I hope it will be a much handled item. Keep up the good work, Michael. I don't know how you do it, but keep going!!

Gotta try a little harder

When the pundits marvel about the hapless war in Afghanistan, they tend to point to a history based on tribal structures and warfare in that region. Accordingly, what we witness today, the stubborn resistance to outside ideas, whether introduced with method or might, is at least in part a manifestation of that history.

I wonder if one might apply a similar analysis to the ongoing trouble in the US. The surprisingly hotheaded approach to basic principles of the common good originated in the minds of people who ventured out into the unknown to find greater freedom.
Whether gun control, freedom of religion, or health care, the issue is not as important as the fact that no one is supposed to mess with it.

At this point, the conservative fraction is reaching a point of hysteria for fear that some of these rights may have to be mitigated for the benefit of the community. So now they point crosshairs in every direction.

The question to ask is how one can turn a country’s historical baggage into potential? How can one introduce a sense of security in a nation that is still fighting the ghosts of the past?

Obviously not just by using rhetoric along the lines of “God bless America!”

Making Sense out of Nonsense

Thirty-two human beings are murdered, twenty more injured by yet another young male firing his pistols. And what’s on the news? A president defending the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms.

One has to be American to make sense out of that. One has to have grown up in this Great Nation to fully understand the meaning of its guiding norm: the rights of the individual which often prevail over those of the community.

It is a powerful principle that was given to us by the Founding Fathers as a bulwark against an all-powerful State, one that many of them and their families were escaping from when they came to the New World. It is the legacy brought forth with the coming of age of a young nation, a teenage nation. A nation that rebelled against oppressive tutelage and that finally managed to break away from an overpowering father: European Despotism.

But just like any young teenager, this nation has so far failed to shed its fear of the old patriarch. It is still haunted by the specter of the one who makes the decisions at the table, the one who decides who gets what and how much. That explains why Americans stubbornly defend the rights of the individual. It’s the teenager’s response to the family despot: “You can’t tell me what to do!!”

But as always when the underlying emotion is fear, there is irrationality. And often this manifests itself in extremism. In the case of the United States, one can easily name a few examples. But the one extreme principle that kills almost exclusively fellow Americans, the one that is the most absurd of all, is the right to bear arms.

One is inclined to wonder whether this Great Nation has not received enough mother love that it still needs guns to reassure itself.