What do you think about the state of the world today? Is there a silver lining to all this turmoil? What does your personal faith tell you? Notice the answer.
I watch a lot of news. Both liberal as well as conservative. The powers of the world appear to be tightening their fists lately. It used to be that they didn’t have to work so hard to maintain control over their people. Many were of course brutal and corrupt, but pure viciousness appears to be on the rise. Why might that be? It looks a lot like panic.
Each culture is experiencing it in its own way according to its own societal paradigm. In the US we are arguing our revolution along the strata of transgender bathroom rights and healthcare. In Saudi Arabia women want the basic right to drive a car. They are very different issues, but each are along the exact same tectonic crack: I have a right to thrive. You do not have the right to stop me.
The effects are as far reaching as the Internet itself. Venezuela, the Philippines, Romania, Russia. These are just a few of the governments which have each taken shocking measures away from their already flimsy democracies toward emboldened dictatorships.
What’s happening? Why does it seem that “conservatism” has taken on a much darker quality to it? Why do terms like “alt-right” now exist? The political left is no better at its extremes either. There is a schism occurring. It is fracturing an ever-widening crack across the full spectrum of all human culture.
It’s because the world has already changed. The shift has occurred, and we are now sifting through the aftermath of it. Some have embraced the new ways, some are desperate to retain the old ones. Each is together with their like-minded on opposing sides of the fissure. The smaller group is slowly inching away from the main plate. I would be afraid, too.
Over the past decade especially this planet has received a crash course in the getting-to-know-you game. The Internet has opened our eyes to the common plight of humanity. The more we get to know our neighbor the wider the crack becomes. Along one side are those who are now seeing themselves in the eyes of their old enemy. But along the other are power structures who fared better when you were afraid of your neighbor. Their old rhetoric devolves even further into the trap of fear-mongering. Cornered dogs bark the loudest. And most viciously.
In days past, when a despotic ruler wished to exert its authority, the rule was: divide and conquer. Keep them apart and they won’t be able to realize there are more of them than there are of us. Now that the repercussions of worldwide communication are forcing changes to the old school way of making a profit, they are reflexively trimming the sails to that same old tack. Repression is the only solution they know. But the old method doesn’t work like it used to. Build walls between us and we will just continue our chat on Facebook.
For those who are giving conservatism a bad name right now, you are overplaying your hand. For those who are doing the same to liberalism, you are operating from your wounds, not your scars. Neither is a playmate with progress and you are both being left behind together.
The hope at the bottom of the box full of demons is evident in the sudden extreme behavior of the demons themselves. They have always known that one day they will have to return to the box. The natural world is not natural to them. The one difference between today and the day Pandora first opened it is that we all now know it too. They are giving themselves away in their panic. They are exposing themselves in a world where big brother is not who they thought it would be. It’s us.
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