The existential dumpster fire that is the current reality in the US is most frightening not because it represents some sort of bizarre action movie whereby a crack team of heroes must make superhuman efforts to overcome a monstrous, invisible, and insidious enemy, all while having little or no chance at survival, much less success.
It is frightening because we know exactly how to overcome this crisis, but because of the very thing that allowed us to get to this place in our existence, our fervent, fundamental, and immutable tribalism.
Tribalism allowed us to pull together as small groups to survive a practically impossible beginning; animals that were weak, slow, vulnerable, and most of all, tasty.
Left as individuals, humanity would certainly have died out millennia ago.
But we were given one great gift: a brain far more advanced then most. This gave us relative superpowers respective to the animals around us. This great gift allowed us to not only survive, but to flourish.
Ultimately, it also gave us biases.
We learned to fear the unknown and the different. We clung to our beliefs and distrusted any deviation. We decided was TRUE and based our thinking and behavior around that, regardless of its actual veracity. Remembering and thinking of what specific behavior or thinking was correct took time and effort. Our ever-helpful brains eventually made this easier for us by making all that TRUTH part of the very makeup of our identity.
We developed unconscious and profoundly effective biases.
Biases push us towards that which is familiar and reassuring and away from anything else. They push us towards and away from people.
Here is the hardest part (for me anyway) to accept: “I am not, and have never been, in complete control of how I think and act.”
The price we must all pay to resolve this crisis is high indeed. It is nothing less than turning our backs on almost everything we believe at a fundamental level.
Many point to racism, ageism, elitism, and a million other “isms” as the culprit. Sadly true but it doesn’t go quite far enough.
The problem is not and has never been them, or them, or them, or them.
The problem has always been and will always be us, until we, as individuals and as a people decide to change.
We Must Change. All of us. Everyone. There are no exceptions and there is no room for equivocation.
We Must Change.
Or we will fail.
Perhaps the perfect expression of the downside to accepting the status quo is from the immortal “Casablaca”: “…If that plane leaves the ground and you’re not with him, you’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.”
Perfect, except that it is not “the rest of your life”. It is the rest of all our lives.
As a nation, as a people, we can endure and prosper during this time. But doing so will require great effort, understanding, empathy, and above all else, sacrifice, from everyone, all of us.
Because this is not about them. It’s never been about them.
This is about us.
We must, somehow, move beyond our fundamental tribalism and come to understand that we have a great and terrible choice: We can continue on our current path and pay a terrible price measured in human pain, financial loss, and even greater tribal divisions.
Or we can pay a potentially even higher price, at least in the short term; rip away the world views, concepts, and ideas that keep us, as a people, apart. Commit to do whatever it takes to make sure every person has the same rights, opportunities, and protection.
For real this time. Not just words on a page.
We’re lucky in that agreeing to one simple concept will get us very far down that path:
Every human being, regardless of race, color, wealth, education, residence, occupation, etc, is just as valuable, relevant, and important as every other person.
Irrespective of the flowery elegance of our national documents, this has never been true. We must make it true now.
