Basic Civility

Election Year Madness

“Light is meaningful only in relation to darkness and truth presupposes error. It is these mingled opposites which people our life, which make it pungent, intoxicating. We only exist in terms of this conflict, in the zone where black and white clash.”

                          Louis Aragon

         We in the US are now in the thick of the Presidential campaign of 2012. The citizens of this nation sit in relative darkness while the candidates and the pundits trade exaggerations, accusations, insults and outright lies. We have concerns about our own wellbeing, that of our children and grandchildren. We have deep doubts about some of the decisions made by our president, past and present, and by congress, always. We seek to catch some small glimpse of truth or compassion in those who would lead us, but with each touting a different message, and mostly casting aspersions upon one another, truth is hard to discern. We make up our own answers and solutions, most of which are designed to serve our own purposes rather than those of our country or the world. The next ten months will be ugly and hard to get through.

         Here is what I tell myself. Everything is far more complicated than we believe. Think about how difficult it is to get all the members of your own family to agree to any one thing. How hard it is to come to consensus at work about any given project. Then multiply that by millions. My ideas are just my ideas. My neighbor has as much right to his ideas as I do. It is not necessary for me to savage my neighbor just because his ideas differ, even when I think they are completely crazy. We can disagree and still be civil.

         No one has “the truth” because there is no such thing. We all live in the clash of opposites—between right and left, between dark and light, between goodness and devilment. We all crawl out of bed each morning and decide how we will dance today. We can choose to dance together in freedom and good will, or in hatefulness and disdain. Even in an election year, the choice is an individual one, and it is ours to make.

                                   In the spirit,

                                  Jane