Divided : Conquered

(Notes on My Traitor Ancestors)

Being an ally to people of color is not about being ashamed of your Whiteness. But let's get real: I am ashamed of my ancestors.

My genetics are a melting pot of English, Irish, Scottish, German, Norwegian and probably some others I'm forgetting. French I think. But I'm more than half Irish, which makes my Irishness legal tender and the firmest foothold on my own ancestry I'm bound to get.

Now, you may know the relationship between the potato famine and the influx of Irish immigrants to the New World. What you may not know is that the British had a great deal to do with the terrible impact of the famine (don't feel bad; this is a fairly recent revelation in the land of peer-reviewed publications.) 

The nasty treatment of the Irish followed them to the New World, but they took a stand against it. They did. They fought hard to be recognized as fellow human beings who deserve to thrive in exchange for their efforts. It was a very noble enterprise, or it would have been if they hadn't claimed their liberation by redirecting the hatred to another oppressed group. In tandem with fighting for their own rights for dignity and an honest living, they fought against those same rights for the Blacks pouring into the cities looking for work. 

It worked. Like the Italians, like the Polish, the Irish melted quietly into the category of "white." Hooray.

Which means I got to come of age as an average ignorant white girl, with no real knowledge of Irish culture or history, no understanding of the politics that went into the current makeup of either the U.S. or Ireland, and no sense of community beyond the bullshit commodity patriotism of self-serving politicians and mayonnaise commercials.

I'm not the only culturally whitewashed suburban kid who felt jealous of people of color for the sense of community and heritage we perceived them to possess. My education and socialization kept me ignorant enough of the actual experience of being non-white that when people looked at my dark olive skin in the summer and guessed at my heritage I was tempted to claim someone else's. Yes, I am Pacific Islander. Yes, I am one-eighth black. Yes, I am Native American.

I've since gained a better understanding of the socio-political, heavily institutionalized race complex in this country, mostly through dumb luck and partly through pursuit. I no longer feel uncomfortable about what incarceration statistics, poverty statistics, and media portrayal of people of color seem to indicate about the superiority of my cultural and/or genetic heritage, because I know exactly how the Rube-Goldberg tube of the Benevolent White Conqueror works. Under scrutiny our dominant narrative reveals itself to be a nightmare version of the fairy tale in which the Wolves emerge not only alive and well but revered for their cleverness, cunning, and strength against weak and unworthy adversaries such as grandmothers, piglets, and little girls.

If you trust the mainstream news (owned in conglomerate by the most powerful men in the world) to give you an accurate picture of the benevolence and efficacy of current power structures, and/or if you trust the textbook companies, likewise owned and/or influenced by the wealthy and powerful, to represent the struggles and priorities and victories and tragedies of history without putting a positive spin on the people who won, and why, and whether certain developments were positive for the majority of humans, that is, if you trust that power is righteous ("might equals right"), you likely see people of color as more prone to violence, laziness, unsubstantiated anger, entitlement, and less capable of achievement, functional families, and functional communities. I am not out to convince anyone that these beliefs are wrong. There is a staggering amount evidence that the poverty, underachievement and violence among people of color relative to whites was intentionally crafted and sustained through a variety of national and international policies. If you don't like being racist, you can easily remedy that.

This is for those who already see racial inequality as a problem that we can, and should, collectively solve, from Rachel Dolezals and yoga girls and "downwardly mobile activists" to community organizers, critical race theory researchers and guerrilla reporters. Though we're on the same journey, the path feels more like a battlefield than common ground. There's good reason to be frustrated with the brand of white savior capitalist charities that keep perpetuating the problems because they don't care how the relevant populations feel about their solutions. But there are also a lot of allies-in-training being absolutely castigated as they seek to help and learn at the same time.

The most relevant and revolutionary conversations about unjust and destructive power structures and what to do them are happening quite naturally in the margins, the communities benefitting the least from the current arrangement (who are least able and/or willing to ingratiate themselves to the checkbook-holders). It's also largely thanks to xenophobic political rhetoric that transparent discussions about power take place primarily in the disciplines linked to specific identities. And because these disciplines are some of the only safe spaces for people of color to discuss their experiences, white visitors tend to be greeted with apprehension.

I got used to sitting down and shutting up and giving someone else's experience priority for once, but my initial reaction was a common one: "I'm not privileged. I'm oppressed too." And because there are far more important issues that the hurt feelings of white people, and because the priorities of these disciplines are specific, allies and POCs tend to quickly dismiss the question by responding, "Privilege and oppression are not mutually exclusive. Most people experience both to different degrees." 

I've always felt that this should not be a conversation-stopper, but a transition to a discussion about the stake we all have in ending oppressive structures. I've tried to reverse-engineer the reasons why: to imagine the world where we are all part of the same human family, and no one feels the need to defend the territory of victimhood, and no one feels the need to preserve the integrity of their identity through exclusion. But I think a better way to talk about it is to go back to how this whole thing started--to the settling of the New World, where the old structures were being challenged by poor whites, Native Americans, and African Americans alike. 

Where, having abandoned everything they knew, finding themselves in extremely difficult circumstances and often enslaved themselves, the settlers were much more amenable to working together with those who were culturally different but shared their situation and goals. Where, desperate and obliterated by disease and then harassed by invasion, and/or transported against their will to a completely foreign environment dominated by a hostile and strange culture, Native Americans and African Americans were willing to take what allies they could.

The majority of that new society, as with most human societies, just wanted to claim their personal dignity, raise families by the fruits of their labor, and enjoy life and one another's company. And they were starting to actually do something about it, banding together, attacking the houses of the ostentatiously rich, disobeying the local authorities, etc., much to the chagrin of those in the game of continuously concentrating and expanding their own power and wealth. 

Hence, the ingenious scheme which promised not only to keep everything in the same hands, but accelerate and codify the exploitation of the populace. They decreed that whites could no longer be slaves. Ever. Most of them were released from their indentured servitude. Whites, they claimed, were naturally superior to other races. All other races were relegated to second-class citizenship or completely dehumanized, as in the case of blacks, and subjected to even worse treatment than before. They dissolved the revolutionary masses in one fell swoop by creating different tiers of exploitables.

And that's why I am ashamed of my ancestors, British, German, Norwegian, whatever. They had within reach, modeled before them by several Native American nations, a version of society that honored each and every individual, that offered every citizen dignity and the means to care for themselves and their families, the opportunity to live together in communities based upon "nothing for myself that others cannot have," and they chickened out and scrapped it all for the promise that they would always have just a little more than the other suckers (not to mention they wouldn't have to risk their lives proving their mettle against their supposed betters). 

My ancestors turned us all toadies, the front line of the ultimate bullies. In exchange for effectively ensuring that the most hopeful and beautiful elements of the American Dream would stay in dreamland, they got the Oppression-Plus deal. Exploitation with benefits. And if you want to know just how much it benefitted the vast majority of us, all you have to do is look at the South. The Confederate Flag might as well be literally shit on a stick. Not only did the majority of southern whites end up dirt poor at the end of their devil's deal, they also ended up actively hated and despised for an institution that ultimately benefitted the same people as always, people with the power to successfully hide themselves from the public eye.

Most textbooks teach children a version of U.S. history which obliquely justifies and even glorifies the brutal conquest, manipulation, and exploitation of native peoples. Several generations later and minus the facts, most white Americans simply don't understand why we all can't "just get along." Belligerent naïveté and willful ignorance, infuriating as they can be, are products of the same top-down narrative that people of color seek to dismantle.

Another favorite phrase of white people that does not earn many brownie points: "I'm colorblind." It's a phrase that can easily be interpreted as "I, as a white person, grant you the privilege of temporary whiteness." But aren't we also longing for an end to the distinctions that keep us from banding together to make the world better? Can't we honor that longing?

The American Dream has been dormant for centuries. After that brief, shining moment when it really meant something, when it really had a chance of succeeding, it was lost to us. It's time to salvage that hopeful story from the ashes. It's time for the offspring of the wolves, the grandmas, the little pigs and girls alike to see if we've learned enough from the past, to see if we're now braver, wiser, and more trusting than our ancestors. To see if we can't get it right this time.

Letting Go of Utopia (in the Name of Utopia)

"‘AND IF I’M ELECTED, I WOULD IMPLEMENT A PROGRAM TO IMMEDIATELY ELIMINATE AT LEAST 85 PERCENT OF YOU! THIS PLANET CANNOT SUSTAIN THE SHEER NUMBERS – LET ME FINISH! – THIS WILL NOT BE ARBITRARY. UNDER YOUR SEATS IS A MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONNAIRE. IF YOU DID NOT BRING A PENCIL, YOU’RE ALREADY OUT!"

-Bill Burr, comedian

I was raised a fundamentalist, gun toting, regulation-fearing Republican. In middle school I wrote an essay about why abortion should be illegal. In high school I fully agreed with the sentiment that letting gays marry could mean a slippery slope to everyone raping their dogs and children. For the first two decades of my life, I didn’t drink alcohol or caffeine, have sex, wear tank tops or swear. I thought Bill Clinton was a bad president, not because of any of his policies, but because no good person would cheat on his wife, and no bad person could possibly run a country.

I grew up with Christians. There are a lot of Christians I know and love personally in this world. They are dedicated to a higher ideal and committed to selfless service and humility. They take care of each other with both organization and passion in the name of a cause higher than themselves. They truly want others to be happy, and naturally, they center that effort around that which makes them most happy, that which is most vital and beautiful to them--a vision of a world ruled by Christ himself, with the infinite compassion, love, unity, and peace that implies. It's easy to see evangelism in the light of arrogance, pride, and unwillingness to tolerate other viewpoints, but truth is relative to your position, and from within the faith, I've experienced that it comes from an honest desire to elevate the condition of others.

As an adult, my tribe is largely made up of people whose spirituality is not anchored to a ritualized set of beliefs. They are committed in various ways to selfless service and humility in the name of a better world; a cause higher than themselves. They hold themselves to an ideal of friendship and humanity that in many ways surpasses the network of do-gooders of my youth. They champion the cause of the underdog. They truly want others to be happy, and naturally, they center that effort around that which makes them most happy, that which is most vital and beautiful to them--a vision of a world free of hatred, a world where another’s suffering is always met with compassion, where another’s joy is always celebrated, regardless of personal differences. It's easy to see guilt as the heart of liberalism, but that's only one truth. In my experience it comes from an honest desire to elevate the condition of others.

Here's the thing: both groups are full of good-hearted, loving people who want everyone in the world to be better off, no matter what beliefs they hold. It's a bit more difficult to find people in either group who believe that their ideological opposites want a better world for them. In short, we're all terrified that the people who don't share our worldview want to make it impossible for us to live the way we want to. We've been taught to see our ideological opponents as actual enemies who pose an immediate threat to everything we hold dear.

Our entire political system is designed to fan the flames of this fear. Our two-party system, for all its checks and balances, does very little to curb a violent see-saw of policies, all-or-nothing bids for one worldview to prevail over another, when they're not of necessity oppositional in the first place. Our politicians get us focused exclusively on those areas we struggle the most to reconcile, until we completely lose sight of our common desires and indeed the very point of a collective government--for example, making cities cleaner, easier to get around in, and safer; subsidizing public projects and institutions that benefit everyone like research schools and libraries; taking measures to ensure that each human in this country can stand with dignity against a person or entity who holds the upper hand in terms of power and wealth. 

When our party is on top, do we bother to acknowledge those who can’t get on board with our vision? No, there's no time for that--we may only have four years to try and enact our vision! If they're afraid of what we want to do, let them be afraid. Their ideal world is, after all, far more terrifying than anything we could come up with. We could sit down and negotiate our differences; instead, we pick one another's arguments to pieces. We could assuage one another’s fears; instead, we gleefully threaten to make them a reality. 

How is it that with the vast majority on this planet claiming to seek out heaven, our world looks so much more like hell--razed by a vicious battle of demons who can no longer see one another’s humanity, egged on by our bloated egos which float above the scene like a flock of ineffectual angels?

Here are some universal (or near-universal) desires: The desire to remain unmolested and unfettered. The desire to be allowed to shape our own lives, follow our own paths. The desire sustain ourselves and those we care about through labor we can feel proud of, without having to beg or depend on the charity of another. The desire to be healthy, to have time to invest in human relationships. To be loved.

In the overlap of the Venn diagram of our utopias is ample space for world far better than this one, a world in which we could all live joyously and at peace with our neighbors. It's theoretically quite a simple matter to meet on common ground and build this world together. Instead, we attack each other relentlessly over the handful of beliefs we can’t understand or agree with. Day after day, we battle back and forth as though we're bravely making progress towards an endgame of utopia. How exactly are these tactics going to get us there? After all, a battle victory depends on the elimination or forceful suppression of, rather than the willing cooperation of the opponent. For all our fiery rhetoric, how many of us would actually rejoice to see our theoretical enemies (read: real life friends and family) stripped of their rights and freedoms? How could a world where any substantial percentage of the population is unable to live in the manner of their own choosing be considered utopian? 

With the tide of popular opinion finally beginning to turn against the well-codified, puritanical public morality we've all long been subject to, like it or not, there is new space for a more democratic and open forum. The imperative to engage in intense ideological battles on a personal level is lessening. It's time to reflect on our tactics and our goals.

I really enjoy the way Bill Burr, a Colbert-like comedian whose affiliations are not immediately apparent, subtly dismantles the rhetoric of enmity. Pointing out that the previous generation, the "racist grandpas" and such, grew up in a very different world, where very different behaviors were taken for granted, he points out that we don't give these people any credit for the progress they have made, for the distance they've come from where they started. He gently mocks the urge to demonize one another, creating a space for people to be who they are, and grow at their own rate, a space we rarely give each other or ourselves in our world of "you should have been already." He embodies both ignorance and the desire to attack ignorance, the holders of certain viewpoints and the need to lay waste to those viewpoints, ultimately validating and exonerating us all, whatever stage of learning, growth, awareness, understanding, ignorance, enlightenment, selfishness, or generosity we happen to be at. “You exist, there are reasons why are the way you are, you are human, you are trying,” he says.

This, to me, seems the only clear path to any sort of heaven on Earth. Moving away from the mean-spirited, fear-driven polarization of people with different views on life, morality, and community. Moving towards discussions designed to connect and build rather than divide and destroy. Finding reasons to forgive and make space for others instead of maligning and banishing them. Discovering which visions we share as one and making them come true.

We Can Do Better

Here we are, a nation on the decline, half of us convinced the other half are evil madmen. We scramble around after our individual dreams like lobsters in a pot, grappling and clawing and coercing and betraying.

            The American Dream. Always just around the corner. Projected at us mirage-like straight from the Swiss bank accounts of psychopaths into our movies, tv shows, our friends riding the wave of the latest bubble, from billboards and fashion magazines, coming from all around us in fingertip 3-D.

            So we keep obeying the rules of this game that benefits so few of us. Watching the antics of megalomaniacs parade across the silver screens, reading about mass murderers in history books, lauded as paradigms of humanity. The game says the victor is always worth listening to. The game lets might equals right.

            So we look hungrily to the wealthy. We listen to them, hoping to understand why we suffer. They point to the teenager next door and his late night 7-11 run becomes an excuse to play out our dearest vigilante fantasies, as though we can physically strike out against the evil in our lives, as though the thing turning love into numbers can be killed.

            We hide our debt, our shame, our failure from one another because we are unforgiving with our own judgments, because we don’t want to burden one another, because failure is contagious, because we might be millionaires still if we don’t catch it.

            But the numbers have spoken. To be born poor in this country is to die poor. There many reasons for this and none involve the innate superiority of certain human beings over others. Many involve unwillingness to compromise values, obey arbitrary orders, or hurt other people in the name of success.

            No matter how different we may seem from one another, everyone wants the same thing: to be treated in a respectful manner, appreciated for their contributions to the community, and left the hell alone when they’re not hurting anybody.

            This isn’t much to ask.
            Isn’t it worth considering exactly what it would take for everyone on Earth to get what they want? The most problematic instance, of course, is people who want to be allowed to hurt others indiscriminately and without consequence.

            They are often brought up as though they negate the whole idea of Utopia, which is pretty ironic, as this describes without doubt many of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. Even if Utopia sounds too idealistic, surely we can do better than to put its gravest enemies in charge.

            In order for a new world to arrive, the status quo must be upset. This is such a frightening prospect that many people would rather suffer indefinitely under the old order than trust our collective ability to invent something better.

            Changing the world is as simple as shifting our global priorities. It’s not a matter of sacrificing our lives or giving up all we have. We just have to stop letting a tiny group of people hoard our common resources.

            What would we do with the resources of the world if we all got to decide together? I think we would look around us at those most in need and put our best people and resources towards helping end their suffering. Helping them to thrive. We’re always trying to do that on our own, in our communities. We don’t spend all of our community time and resources preparing to fight others. Why do we do that on a national and international level?

            What emergency are we storing up our resources for if not our brothers and sisters? What better use of resources than solving desperate crises? Do we regard suffering so casually as to see it as a hobbyist endeavor?

            I don’t think we do. We have more empathy and good sense than that.

            It’s time to shrug the old story that the wealthy ruling class knows better than the masses. Surely we masses, with our good hearts and solid priorites, could come up with a better world than this. 

Reality Check

I witnessed a familiar scene the other day, walking through one of those nice little park strips you find between buildings in downtown San Jose: a man in dress pants, a crisp white shirt and a tie standing over a man lying in the grass, gesturing for him to move along. You don't really need me to describe the other man, but I will anyway--he was an older African American man, dressed in worn and dirty clothes, using a backpack as a pillow. He wasn't drunk, he wasn't on drugs, and he certainly wasn't doing anything offensive--he was just taking a nap on the lawn.

As I walked by, I suddenly turned around, incensed. "What are you doing?" I asked the man in the tie. "Seriously, have you taken the time to think about what you're doing right this second, and what it means?"

The man smiled unpleasantly. "Yes, I have thought about it," he said. "This is private property."

"So?" I asked. "Do you realize the implications of what you're doing? You are removing someone who is not harming you in any way...why? So you don't have to look at him. So you don't have to be reminded that there are people in our society who are suffering needlessly? So you don't have to be reminded that the lifestyle you enjoy is not accessible to everyone?"

"It's private property," he said again, his smile growing more smug.

I'll admit I was pretty volatile by now, tapping a finger to my forehead angrily and saying, "Yeah, but have you really THOUGHT about it? I mean, think about it. What does private property even mean? Who gave anyone the right to sell it in the first place? We were all born onto this planet in the same way. Who said it gets to be yours? GOD?"

I'm sure this sounded like a pointless observation to this dude, who was not engaging with anything I was saying, let alone critically questioning the very idea of private property--and I was making it easy enough for him to write me off as some random crazy lady (stupid temper). It certainly wasn't the reality check I wanted it to be.

So now I want to take the opportunity, from a calmer place, to stop and think about the way we treat our homeless. We don't even see them as people anymore, which I would argue is partly to keep ourselves sane as we walk by our fellow man suffering right in front of us and do nothing about it day after day after day. It's hard to know what to do. It's too systemic of a problem for us to just invite home every person we see on the streets. There are too many ins and outs, and anyway, many of us are struggling just to feed our own families.

So instead of helping them we kick them off lawns as though they're human pieces of garbage to be removed, rather than our brothers and sisters resting in our common spaces because...*ahem* private property man...they don't have living rooms. So not only are we telling them "I don't care about your dire situation," we are going on to deny them even the most basic relief because we don't like looking at them.

It's amazing how we normalize quite terrible behaviors. How many businesses have signs that say "restrooms for customer use only"? People without homes are also people without bathrooms. But we are afraid they won't respect our spaces, so we won't let them use ours. As someone who has worked in several restaurants, I can tell you that the ability to pay does not predict good restroom behavior. But hey, let's go on denying a whole caste of society respite, just on the off chance. It's not our problem.

The funny thing is, the people who actually decide to step up and help tend to seem threatening to those around them. We have this weird tendency to morality police others--to get angry at people for being *too* nice because they make us look bad by comparison. Here are several examples:

Store Clerk Yells at Man for Giving a Homeless Man Donuts and Change
Florida Town Punishes a Couple for Feeding the Homeless
Temecula Advises Residents Not to Help Homeless

I think we're the worst to one another when we feel helpless and guilty, and homeless people are a natural target for these negative emotions. We're guilty that they're there in the first place, but we feel helpless to solve the problem personally...so instead we make the problem even worse by treating them like refuse and denying them basic human kindnesses.

We need to shed the "not my problem" model and think about triage. Which is worse--the possibility of having a restroom defiled, or denying someone a basic amenity that they have no access to otherwise? Having to be visually reminded that poverty exists, or making our most vulnerable population feel as unwelcome as possible in every arena? Facing up to the fact that we could plausibly do more, and don't, or utterly dehumanizing our brothers and sisters in need?

Demand Justice Reform

Our country's laws are no longer serving the people of the United States. Though they should be protecting us, they are instead imprisoning great numbers of our poor and absolving and releasing those who harm and oppress us. It is up to us to demand their swift reform.

First, we must demand the decriminalization of all non-violent acts. Violent acts include any use of deception, influence, or physical force which causes harm to the person or property of another, or forces them to engage in behavior which they did not consent to. The sorts of laws that prevent these things are designed to protect the American people and our beautiful continent from being abused and exploited. We have seen, not once, but many times, the worst perpetrators not only walk free, but continue to hold positions of power. This is clearly not a priority of our justice system.

By contrast, the majority of American citizens imprisoned today have caused little or no demonstrable harm to others or their property. The banning of victimless behaviors poses a real danger to the freedom and autonomy of US citizens, and we hold that it is the business of families and communities to negotiate and regulate these kinds of acts. Federal courts should be concerned with maintaining our freedoms, not reducing them.

Second, we must demand a complete overhaul of the way crime is treated in the courts. There is plenty of data to show that most crime stems from some combination of nature (social and psychological disorders) and/or environment (abuse, poverty, desperation), and the courts should be addressing this, rather than behaving as though anti-social behaviors can be curbed by throwing enough people into jail or executing enough of our citizens.

We must demand the dismantling of our current "eye for an eye" model of justice, to be replaced with a model that prioritizes the elimination of anti-social behaviors by preemptively meeting the needs of citizens (focusing on the preventative side of crime) and providing them with proper care (healing rather than beating people for their dysfunctional actions). 

We should call for the reformed court system to prioritize three goals: Determining what is true, not objectively (as we can never be entirely objective), but to each individual involved; doing all that is possible to repair all wrongs, not through punitive measures, but through healing ones; and collaborating to prevent future wrongs while maintaining, to the greatest degree possible, the freedom and dignity of all involved.

Pain comes from pain. It is not healed through more pain. When we eliminate someone's future for a mistake in their past, we refuse to acknowledge our own mistakes, our own ability to learn and better ourselves. It is vital to maintaining our own humanity, and ultimately serves our own interests, to see that we interrupt the cycle of harm-for-harm.

The Grammar of Good and Evil

Why do humans screw each other over?  We know the answer has something to do with evil, which we tend to treat like a physical object we can eliminate through violence, a fat finned beast we might someday kill off for once and for all, and we’ve been boating around since the dawn o' time muttering about how we're going to do just that. Much like Ahab and his whale, we get so focused on our personal need to eradicate evil, we quickly lose sight of all else and fall in thrall of a suicidal mission. Why? Because Good vs. Evil is simple. There are only two elements, and it's clear which one should win. We can proceed confidently and fearlessly, a hard thing to do in these complex and multifaceted times. I understand that yearning. I miss it too, sometimes.

C’mon, Ishmael. Just tell him. “I don’t think you’re crazy, but-"

Fortunately, we have some things to aid us in talking down the crazed Captain Ahab in our heads. The torch of science has finally begun to illuminate some unmistakable patterns in the tapestry of history. The path to freedom has been hiding in plain sight, and it all comes down to grammar.

Who’s the nazi now?

Little known fact: good and evil are adverbs. They’re not adjectives. We’ve been trying to use them as adjectives all this time, and it’s been hella confusing for our super monkey brains. In case you haven’t visited (awesome grammar/humor site) The Oatmeal in a while: 

adjectives apply to things, and adverbs apply to actions.

People can do good or evil, but they can’t be good or evil, because good and evil are not actual traits. When you say someone is a "good person" what you mean is (deep breath) "the amalgamation of all of the actions I personally know them to have taken, combined with my personal take on those actions, what inspired them, and the impact they had on others according to my special vantage point, leads me to assume that all, or most, of this person's actions will also align with my moral universe, priorities, and sense of my own welfare."

Good. Evil. Simple terms, right? Very uncomplicated. Very black and white. Still, this seems like a dangerous thing to oversimplify.  Especially considering that people aren't static-they change continuously. We're all making moment-to-moment course adjustments our entire lives, trying to exist better, whatever that means. By the time you've said that x is a "good person" you have no idea whether that's even true in the terms of the complicated set of equations you're putting it through.

Here’s a riddle: A Republican kills an abortionist and then immediately saves a gay atheist child from drowning.  Is he a good person or a bad person?

Are you there, God? It’s us, humanity.

Have you locked in your answer?

The correct response is neither. The man is neither good, nor bad. One of his actions was good, and one of them was bad. People are possibilities, not magnets. We don’t maintain constant positive or negative states.

Ninety percent of our stories are desperate attempts to communicate this message to ourselves, but we’re so busy making wagers about Judgment Day to put it together. It’s 2014 and we’re still punishing each other for existing incorrectly while letting criminals who actually hurt people, (often lots and lots of people), entirely off the hook.

Unconvinced? Here are some reasons you should think about changing your mind.

1. It’s the Cause of Nearly All Human Conflict

As we go through the world, unconsciously assessing everything around us so we know how to deal with it,  “good” and “evil” are useful labels to help us decide whether to give people the stinkeye or a high five--right?

We’ve always had a hard time telling our ideological enemies apart from our mortal enemies—we tend to extend less love in general to the people, groups, and ideas which seem the furthest and most opposite to our own way of life, whether or not they’ve ever actually done anything bad to us. And they are less generous with us. We're cautious of each other's intentions. We fear annihilation. Human societies do not have the best treats vs. tricks record in regards to engaging with new, strange people they meet.

Those gay unicorns are going to turn us all into Lisa Frank fans!

So we look at people who are different than us as potential enemies. And they notice all of the crusties we’re shooting them and start thinking of us as enemies. We treat them poorly, because that’s how you treat enemies. They react by treating us poorly. Soon our enemies are doing really very evil things to us, and never mind that we’re doing really evil things to them as well, because we have our proof. Boom. They’re evil. We were right all along. They do evil things because they’re evil people. Not like us. The only reason we do evil things is to prevent evil.

 The sequel to "Mein Kampf": "Deine Schuld"

Yes, there are a handful of folks out there who get their boners drinking human blood and torturing baby seals. As science continues to reveal to us, this largely comes down to genes and mental illness—not some secret evil inside which we can never understand, only kill. And in any case, the rest of us most definitely outnumber the psychopathic megalomaniacs—it only looks like they’re a significant threat because they’re running things, while the rest of us chase our own tails playing the good/evil game. You know, because unlike them, we care about each other’s opinions. 

Which brings us to…

2. It’s a Waste of Time

It is directly due to wasting so much time on the giant, ongoing collective effort to establish whether we, and one another, are definitively good or evil that so many of our most basic problems persist.

Why? Because, like the child king of the Iron Throne, even when society’s edicts are insane and sadistic, the judgments hold. Just look at race. The fact that it’s a whimsically imaginary category has not kept it from having crazy serious consequences in the real world.

You are free to go, Mr. Zimmerman.

So, instead of curing cancer with marijuana, we’re running around hiding it from one another. Instead of deposing the self-annihilating humans who wrote Citizens United (best unironic use of DoubleSpeak in history?) we congratulate them on being so much better than us at getting and holding onto money. Instead of eliminating human trafficking, we unfriend each other for talking too much about human suffering, because who do you think you are? Mother Theresa?

“What, you think you’re better than me? You’re not a good person. You have too much sex to be a good person.“

Just think of all the time we spend worrying about whether we’re good according to other people, and whether other people are quite evil enough for us to treat them poorly and still consider ourselves good. All of the pointless wondering about whether certain of our innate desires and fears make us innately evil, or whether our innately good desires and fears balance them out.

Just think if all of that mental energy were directed towards actual good deeds, instead of the constant struggle for dominance in an imaginary hierarchy.

Besides…

3. We Mostly Get It Wrong Anyway

It takes little more than a commercial with a bunch of cute kids and puppies to lead the unsuspecting masses to buy products made in sweatshops for the sexy, all-American corporations who outsourced our jobs because that down-to-earth politician let them.

It’s almost as though we think that puppies and kids, like happiness, can’t be bought.

“Please don’t buy us!”

We put the “good” stamp on priests, because they think about God all the time and never have sex, ever. That extra trust is part of what gave them the room and opportunity to abuse a bunch of little boys. Who better to take care of innocent, trusting children than the sexually repressed men who claim to know what God wants? But it’s not just priests—one of the things you hear over and over again from the communities and families of people and children who have been raped and murdered, is “I never would have guessed. They seemed like such a nice person.” Just because you've labeled someone "good" in your mind, doesn't mean they are magically incapable of doing anything bad.

But evil? Hoo boy, the evil stamp. Historically, we’ve used it for one reason, and one reason only—as an excuse to stop treating humans like humans. Step one: find a reason to call somebody Evil. Step two: dissociate ourselves from their well-being and humanity. Step three: satisfy the depths of our sadistic curiosity.

“You torture for the good times! We should all admit that.”

There is no excuse for dehumanizing other people. Regardless of what is done to us, we are still accountable for our own behavior, including all repercussions.

Stop using "good" and "evil" as adjectives. It's iffy even to use them as adverbs. After all, "what is good to the spider is evil to the fly" or whatever.

This message is nothing new. It’s in the Old Testament (by their fruits shall ye know them, i.e. don't focus on proclaimed identity, focus on actions), it IS the New Testament (leave the judging to me—you guys just work on loving each other, mmkay?), and the point of Moby Dick, a book severely ahead of its time. The pursuit of a physical embodiment of evil is both pointless and self-destructive. It doesn’t exist. Moby Dick is just a whale. Let’s all do our best to love each other, take accountability for our own actions, and leave the labeling to our gods.

Guide to Propaganda

(The Evil Villain’s) Guide to Propaganda

Not long ago, I watched a movie about polar bears with my dad.

The movie made me sad.

The polar bears are dying, the movie told me. 

In the movie, a mother polar bear

swam

and swam.

Her baby died.

All of the icebergs are melting, the movie told me. 

Here is why it is happening. 

Here are the consequences. 

Please support our cause so the polar bears don’t die anymore.

I thought the movie was good. 

I thought it was convincing. 

I said, “Of course, my dear father, you care about this world we share. 

Of course you care about polar bears. 

Surely you too support this cause:

Surely the sound arguments were also convincing to you.”

He did not see things the same way, quite.

“What PROPAGANDA,” my dad said.

This was confusing to me. 

I thought about his statement.

I think what he meant was, 

“This movie is trying to use my emotions to convince me of its message, but I disagree with its message, so I feel manipulated.”

This is not propaganda.

Yes, propaganda uses emotional responses to influence people.

But so does sound argument! 

Just ask Aristotle. 

You know, the FATHER OF MODERN ARGUMENT.

That dude.

According to him (and most everybody since) there are three elements to good argument:

The speaker’s 

ETHOS,

or whatever makes us listen to them

their expertise

charisma

way with words

authority

reliability

The argument’s 

LOGOS, 

the evidence, 

logic,

 and reason

 that build the speaker’s argument,

and finally, the listener’s 

PATHOS, 

the emotional response

that makes the listener care 

that inspires action

When you combine all three, you get a pretty killer argument.

How do you know an argument was effective? 

1. People listen

2. They come to believe as you do

3. And act on this belief.

So, what is propaganda?

It’s a shortcut.

LOGOS

Let’s say I’m an evil villain 

and I’m trying to control the masses for my evil ends. 

                                                        (not much of a stretch, if you know me.)

I'm trying to decide how best to go about it.

Logos would not be my method of choice.

First of all, it takes a 

looooooooooooooong

time

to persuade someone with LOGOS.

You offer facts that support you, which they might challenge

They’ll probably offer facts that disagree with you

  Which you have to rebut 

your argument has to build upon itself so that it makes sense 

each conclusion must be well supported with evidence 

each point you make should follow logically from the last, no fallacies.

a good LOGOS-BASED argument 

takes a lot of work to build

even when you’re telling the truth and you’re right.

Second, the whole point of a LOGOS-BASED argument is that if it is wrong…

it will fail.

Logos is DESIGNED to REVEAL the TRUTH.

Our entire justice system rests on the infallibility of logos 

(we can PROVE someone innocent or guilty)

All scientific theorems are subject to logos at all times 

(we proceed with the ideas that have PROVEN to work)

We owe 

the majority of our modern understanding of the world around us

our technological advances, our progressive societal morals (like the idea that all men are created equal), and more 

to prizing and prioritizing evidence and reason. 

Logos has served us well.

When it comes to LOGOS, pretty much Right = Right. 

Logos is not the friend of evil. 

It is not the friend of villains and liars and other people in a hurry.

ETHOS

ETHOS is a bit different.

Ethos is supposed to give people credit for knowing a lot, 

for being good at what they do, 

for being worth listening to. 

But we all know people are fallible, buyable, selfish. 

We know they can be blackmailed and bargained with. 

We know they cheat, scheme and lie. 

There are a lot of ways that I, 

as an evil villain, 

can bend ethos to my ends.

FOR EXAMPLE:

I can convince or force someone with a lot of ethos to speak for a cause they don’t actually believe in. 

Monsanto pays scientists to “prove” specific things about their products. The tobacco industry used to buy doctors until we made them stop.

I can create a disreputable source and 

camouflage it as the kind of source that

supports its arguments with logos.

Fox News pulls this off pretty successfully. 

I could even build up a cult of personality where anything I say, my followers will accept as true, regardless of how obvious the lies. 

The current winner at this particular game is the Great Leader of North Korea, who runs a whole country full of people starving, slaving, and suffering who nonetheless worship him rabidly and single-mindedly.

With ETHOS, Right could = Right, but all too often, Might = Right. I would definitely use ethos if I were an evil villain...

PATHOS

…but mostly, I would use PATHOS. 

PATHOS is the easiest to manipulate of all.

Listen to the following phrases:

“I’m so mad I can’t think straight!”

“It was a crime of passion.”

“He’s riling them up into an angry mob”

“Come on, there’s nothing to cry about.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere with me.”

“Love is blinding you.”

It’s no secret that our emotions and our logical abilities do not necessarily go hand in hand. In fact, it’s well understood that when our emotions are 

running high, 

our ability to reason is 

running 

low.

We’re more likely to act out of an impulsive, illogical place than a logical place. 

How often do we fail to do something that we logically know will benefit us? 

Like: exercise,  eat right,   save money,   bite our tongues

How many times do we do something that we know will hurt us because we’re in some kind of emotional state? 

Like: cheat on a lover,  punch a wall,   

eat an entire tub of ice cream after a breakup,   say something cruel

We can barely control ourselves when it comes to emotions! 

So you can only imagine that a supervillain 

with a good understanding of emotions

and no concern for your welfare or autonomy

could easily learn to control you this way!

With PATHOS, I can say almost anything I want, it doesn’t even have to be true. Because once I’ve got you REACTING you stop THINKING.

I can get you angry using a SCAPEGOAT. I can point to things you don’t like and then tell you who to blame for it. (It’s the immigrants’ fault. It’s because of the gays. It’s all of those people on welfare. No, not you: the black ones.) 

It doesn’t matter whether there is any evidence at all supporting my claim. 

People like to have a clear and easy target for their anger. 

The easiest target to choose is someone they already have negative feelings towards, because they’re less likely to question it.

Just ask Hitler.

I can get you scared using emotionally loaded catchphrases and vague, unsubstantiated threats: (Communist. Socialist. Godless. Anti-american. Unpatriotic. The liberal agenda. It’ll bring about the destruction of our country. It’s a threat to the family.)

It doesn’t matter whether there is any evidence to support my threats.

It doesn’t matter whether the accusations make any sense at all.

She’s a witch because she floats! She’ll curse you! Burn her!

You’re a traitor if you don’t tell us what your neighbors are doing!

Weapons of mass destruction!

If I tell you your FAMILY is THREATENED and your BELIEFS are UNDER ATTACK and GOD and COUNTRY and LIBERTY ERMAGERD DO SOMETHING!!!, 

9 times out of 10

I can get you to stop using your head 

as anything but a blunt weapon.

Truth or lies, sense or nonsense, good or evil, if I can get you angry or scared enough, you’ll do what I want.

With pathos, SPITE = RIGHT. FIGHT/FLIGHT = RIGHT.  

PATHOS VS. PROPAGANDA

Propaganda, by definition, uses pathos more than ethos, and uses logos barely or not at all.  Pathos is the quickest way to get people to do what you want. Ethos can be quick too, sometimes, but logos is slowwwww.

But even if you think you’ve identified propaganda, it’s just a tool. It is not inherently evil.

When something tugs on your heart-strings

It may be propaganda

It’s certainly pathos

But it’s not necessarily wrong

It depends on what they’re doing with the pathos.

1. Are they trying to rile you up past the point of reason?

2. Are the emotions they’re arousing directly connected to the issue at hand?

3. Are your emotions being used to underline the facts presented, or to get you to gloss over/ignore the facts?

4. What actions is the speaker trying to inspire by making you feel this way?

5. Will those actions benefit you? Others? Your country? 

6. Who else will those actions benefit?

7. How thoroughly have they checked their facts?

8. Is someone paying them to say this?

The polar bear movie checks out. 

It's primarily logos, 

backed by significant ethos, and when 

pathos is used (feeling bad about the polar bears) 

it is directly connected to the issue at hand 

and apparently necessary 

to inspire any kind of concern for the situation.