Another frightening surprise is that I have aged into living in a nation that has lost its sense of balance. Our United States of America is at risk of falling, bringing about a political and social collapse more disastrous than any I might experience.
There are many signs of our nation’s loss of equilibrium: We have no agreed-upon sources of news and information. We refuse to trust anyone but ourselves and people we know. We are bombarded daily by in-our-face demands that we do this, buy that, watch the other thing, follow this or that person, believe whatever, go here or there…it never ends. Who do we believe? Which way should we turn?
Our social mores are on their heads; for example, I might unintentionally offend someone because I assume their gender by how they look, act, or sound. What used to seem easy is now difficult.
Factors beyond our immediate control are contributing to our national imbalance. COVID’s ripping of every fibre of our national fabric and wildly destructive weather are two very obvious disturbers of our stability.
Then there are forces that deliberately try to keep us off balance, often using things beyond our control (such as COVID and wild weather) as launchpads for their destabilizing messages. Primary among these forces are the promoters of unfounded conspiracy theories—most famously, QANON.
Advertisers use what people generally report makes us happy—friendship, love, acceptance, security, etc.—to try to convince us that buying their wares will get us those things. They refashion the sources of true human happiness into commodities, tempting us to forget that, once our basic survival needs are met, “the best things in life are free.”
Politicians and political parties want us to think only our own particular priorities and desires matter to them. They relentlessly focus on what they think and tell us we want without acknowledging the legitimacy of others’ needs.
Religions, particularly when marching lock-step with those politicians and parties, promise individual salvation apart from a saved—that is, a liberated—social order. We are encouraged to believe and live as if what we want can only be ours at the expense of others and our common good. We lose sight of our context and try to make our way through life like balance-compromised, blindfolded people struggling to walk a straight line.
Are there insights we could gain as a people from my experience dealing with my own off-balancedness?
My out-of-kilter balance keeps me constantly on my guard when I walk. My first priority is to protect myself from falling, so I tend to play it safe. Often the things I do are not the right things. It is easy to slouch while I walk and to keep my eyes on the ground, at my feet. But I know it is much better for me to stand up as straight as I can and focus on what’s ahead of me without losing sight of what’s around me. I have to work at walking upright if I want to get to where I want to go. My eyes must be open and my all my senses remain attuned to my immediate environment.
A society in fear of falling arms itself with guns and other weapons for “self-defense.” It goes for the jugular of those who differ from the majority or even from its loudest and most toxic members, eager to deny any right to another opinion. It grants power to individuals and institutions that promise the most safety the fastest, even when those promises have proven time and again to lead to misery and loss of liberty.
Many have even begun to doubt democracy itself, a doubt fed by anti-democratic regimes around the world. The Republican Party in particular seems intent on replacing democracy with one-man/one-party rule—rule by personal or party fiat that would not be subject to the will of the people. Were that to happen, we would no longer be a free, diverse, and democratic nation.
To restore equilibrium, our country must be honest with itself about itself, stand straight, and acknowledge the reality it is living in and entering. We can begin by listening carefully to one another, especially to those whose life experiences are different from our own. We can stop calling people who challenge us names, consigning them to categories (“liberal, conservative, socialist, racist,” etc.) that deny the richness of their whole personalities. We can realize that no one is perfect, no one is without fault, all of us have had some part in our destabilizing.
Most important, we must reclaim the promise of America, imperfectly as it is too-often kept, that all are created equal and all have a right to life and liberty and yes, even to the pursuit of happiness, while living together as one people. We may need to find new ways of doing government of, by, and for the people—for all the people—but we have done that before, and we can do it again.
