SHAKY GROUND “

SHAKY GROUND

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness—“ Declaration of Independence


In reality, few humans believe the aforementioned “truths” are “self-evident”. That we live in a place and time blessed with majorities who are even slightly committed to implementing these truths and protecting these rights, is an unusually fortunate circumstance. Just as we can view a peaceful natural landscape and ignore the blizzards, fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and countless other natural disasters—not to mention scientific evidence of eventual planetary destruction—so we tend to see our current political system: democratic republic, with guaranteed rights and freedoms, as permanent. But bucolic natural scenes are threatened by unperceived natural forces. And our stable democracy is on very shaky ground. There is a difference: while we can, in some small ways, make preparations to lessen the damage done by nature’s extremes, humanity is powerless about what nature will do. Our social contract is entirely man-made.
History shows that concepts such as “created equal” and “unalienable rights” are recent additions to human consciousness. The Declaration of Independence was the first attempt to legalize these concepts, based on philosophical explorations by John Locke about a century before. Farther back, prophets and philosophers here and there broached the subjects, among others having to do with kindness, decency, and brotherhood. While the teachings of these highly advanced people have been influential over the long term, most human history is full of tales of cruel greed and lust for power.
Farmers and other producers of useful things have been robbed, beaten, and killed, their women raped, their children enslaved, by gangs with weapons. This gross economic system has been practiced in every corner of the earth where mankind has advanced beyond the Paleolithic state, to this very day. By whatever name: piracy, feudalism, capitalism, communism, and so forth, the basic methods are the same: organized armed robbery. Men formed larger societies than tribal unions to prevent their being robbed and subjugated. Larger societies learned quickly they could rob and subjugate their neighbours. And just as early, they certainly learnt to rob their own people, who also learnt to rob each other. Under the leadership of various dukes and kings, organizational piracy evolved into modern warfare, disguised as national interest. Still, the means and ends were the same as they had always been.
Despite the incessant carnage, humanity made material progress, and intellectual progress as well. In different times and places, some highly conscious men and women, aware of the terrors inherent in business as usual, would voice their misgivings, and their concepts of peaceful and productive alternatives. Sometimes their thoughts got written down, for others to think about later. But among the general human population, the way things had always been were the way they would always be. Just as the Roman throngs cheered wildly when Caesar paraded foreign royals in cages, so do women and children of present day pirates celebrate their men’s captives and booty. The idea that “this could happen to me” seems not to have penetrated too deeply into human consciousness. “Do unto others” apparently still means “do it to them first.”
Yet here in North America, we find ourselves living where “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” represent our national aspirations, if not our actual policies. Here these rights are still held to be the rationale for our nation’s existence. In Western Europe (where these rights were first recommended), and in a few countries elsewhere, the principles of our Declaration are practiced, or at least attempted. Humanity has made progress over ten or eleven generations. But as slavery, colonialism, and the decimation of indigenous populations prove, even in these fortunate places, the practice has been far from perfect. We dare take nothing for granted.
There are always wars gong on. Corporate control over our daily lives increases constantly. Many people lead hungry, sick, meaningless existences. Infrastructure crumbles as we watch. All these realities seriously detract from “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” There may be good explanations for all this. But it does prove that the “truths we hold self-evident” are not that true. It means that our nation is failing to uphold the very reason for its existence. Nazi thugs at Kristallnacht…Stalin’s goons sacking rural villages to find hidden sacks of grain…hoods hired to beat and shoot union strikers in the U.S.A.—to the victims, reasons mean little.
What we now deem atrocities were once daily facts of life. We live on a thin film of fertile dirt, ever moving, prone to wind, rain, heat, and freeze, regardless how beautiful it looks at a particular moment. So is our social system prone to all manner of attack, robbery, and brutality. If we do not want these things to happen, we are strongly advised to watch and work to prevent them. The progress we have made is not guaranteed. Our Creator may have endowed us with unalienable rights, but our fellows can, and do, take them away.