My Cynical Spiral of History

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3 Comments

I'm confused.

As far as I can tell, Gitmo is still in session. This means the U.S. is still holding in prison without charging them with a crime. Maybe torture is still happening. But I don't sense the same moral outrage that was present 18 months ago.

The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, but China is a police state?

Do you think capitalism is responsible for things like the slave labor conditions of diamond mining? The myth of capitalism is that everyone gets better because of their desire for money, but is it true? Some people oppressed for the sake of capitalism, aren't they?

Why is it illegal to do business with Cuba but necessary to do business with China? Moral outrage does not follow profits I guess.

I just watched a brief interview by Larry King with Gov. Jesse Ventura. Gov. Ventura said that the media used to be the fourth branch of government, but are no longer so. I liked that description. I think that's accurate.

Even though Dan Rather made some mistakes in his dogged pursuit of W., I think he was a pretty decent newsperson. He's a smart guy and I appreciate that. He shouldn't have been fired.

Is all hope lost? Is there only pain, hatred, and misery?


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3 comments:

Unknown said...

Is there only pain, hatred, and misery? No, Virginia, if pain, hatred, and misery were the only options, they would have been the totality of human existence. Our world may be no better than the past, but is no worse, and there has been a vital experience of grace throughout history to contradict that dark view.

I just don't understand why we expect our political system to do good things. Do we expect it because we are in charge? If so we have a really distorted view of our own goodness and (more) wisdom.

It is praiseworthy to try to do good through political avenues, but it is foolishness heresy to expect to succeed by our own power-wisdom. Either God is in charge of our world and he will do good in his own time (even in a federal representative democracy), or good will not happen. I think our depression about this is tied to our naive beliefs about the extent of our own power-wisdom.

6/11/2010 04:46:00 PM
Brian said...

Thanks, Ty. Your thoughts are always provoking and welcome. You're absolutely right--right about me, anyway--longing for change to occur through political systems. I can't say that I feel in charge of it, but I can say that humans are in charge of it and I am human (for the most part). Primarily, I just want governments to stop hurting people. Is there anyway that representative democracies can be about service to people rather than about attaining and maintaining power?

Oh, and my last comment of the post was a bit tongue-in-cheek: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XYFJUP84lE

6/11/2010 11:16:00 PM
Unknown said...

I figured that it was anxsty exaggeration for effect.

I don't know why I'm happy despite the disaster of our government, world, whatever; maybe I have found a way to use my cynacism to ground my faith. I wish I could teach that, then I (and Christianity) would probably not lose so many friends to faith-based inconsistency.

From my perspective, government is like a gear-driven robot the size of a city: no matter how badly it tries, it cannot stop people feom getting caught in the gears. It isn't like hurting people is an intentional function, it is just a process intrinsic to the vehicle, expecting kindness from a machine is . . . unwise. Andbutso, it might try to stop people from getting caught by putting up fences and guardrails, warning signs and caution tape, but there are too many holes to plug them all.

That doesn't mean give up, it does mean that "good" must be defined by progress (and over long periods of time) and by the progress of humanitarian ideals. Then we might actually be able to count our efforts as progress, though the results are mostly in our imaginations.

6/12/2010 08:36:00 PM

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