You Get to Choose, So Own It
to be human is to be responsible, to be responsible is to be free
So conservatives have moved on from free expression to obey and be nice or we will beat or kill you. And progressives have suddenly remembered what a woman is. And a convicted felon and sexual abuser who incited insurrection is gonna school us on what is disrespect and why it’s bad.
Can we not? Inmates are running the asylum now, aren’t they? It’s all so bloody daft. And I want no part in it. I’m fcuking done with this circus of the dementors.
Both sides of the political spectrum have a distorted relationship with power, both sides want to impose collective punishment — they all want to cancel and purge.
In the wake of the Renee Good shooting in Minneapolis, I’ve observed some political recalibration. People shifting from one side to the other side of the spectrum, or people being shifted to the centre. I don’t really understand the tribal mindset that needs to classify people as either left or right. I don’t see progressivism or conservatism as the panacea, because isms aren’t the answer. They’re fallen principalities of power, they’re what Stringfellow referred to as the demonic.
What purpose do isms serve us, as individuals? What comfort or permission do we derive from the political tribe? How does the political tribe influence us? Does it direct our thinking? Does it infect our moral ethic? Does it give us permission to offload self responsibility? Do tribes become our idols? I think that, at some point, they do indeed. Do we really prefer the mediocrity of enslavement associated with tribal ethics and thinking over the freedom of independent critical thought and morality? Are we that weak and fearful, really?
Being human is, as I myself repeatedly describe it, deeply and ultimately being responsible. But this also reveals that it is more than just being free: In responsibility, the what for of human freedom is also given – what the human being is free to do – what he or she decides for or against. — Victor Frankl, Ten theses about the person
We are each free agents, adults who make our own choices as to how we respond to things in our life and the direction we choose. Victor Frankl, Holocaust survivor and psychoanalyst, wrote about the fact that his most important power during the nazi persecution was his choice of response to the hardship, suffering, and loss which concentration camp life and nazi rule imposed. Frankl said that those who found purpose in their suffering lived longer and had a higher chance of surviving the Holocaust.
The free and empowered realise their freedom and power lies in their ownership of their self responsibility to choose how they react — ultimately, one is alone in the fallen world, with their capacity to think critically and independently, free from the manacles of a tribe. For what do you live? What do you choose to do with your freedom? Do you take responsibility for it? Or do you squander it by giving it away or shunning it? Blame and shame are the go-to for those who shun their freedom and choose psychological and spiritual slavery.
There is only G-d, He is in you and all around you, He is in that which you loathe, fear, reject, shun. There is no one else but you and G-d. No ism will save you, no human will liberate you. That’s why Bob Marley sang about.
You’re it, with the Divine — it’s you and G-d.
People don’t make us do anything, we are free to choose and live the consequences of our choices and actions. Both progressive and conservative sides cancel and purge, that’s the nature of the human condition, because Creation is fallen. It’s not an ideological trait of a particular ism. Ism tribes are illusory, they’re imagined, they’re principalities of power, they’re death incarnate.
That said, St. Paul did write and preach about the body of Christ as encompassing all Christians. So, we belong to something bigger than us, what we do affects other parts of the body of Christ. Yet we ourselves bear responsibility for our choices and actions. That’s the mercy and the wrath of G-d. Made in His image means we have the power of creation and we effect change beyond what we imagine with our words. We must think of what kind of witness we each will become for Christ, through our participation in the body of Christ.
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds”