One thing that’s certain is that we live in a time of uncertainty. This is evident everywhere, and it works from the top down, from the federal government to our local elected officials and even ourselves, the individual units of our community. It stems from the cultural schizophrenia that we, as a nation, have been experiencing for some time now and which seems to be coming to a head. Of course, things are always in flux; no point of our history has been exempt from questions of morality and change; society has been evolving (and occasionally devolving) throughout the course of the two short centuries of our official existence as a country. But that process definitely picked up some momentum at the turn of the millennium. The fraudulent and divisive 2000 election kicked off an epoch of political ambiguity that continues to this day, and our trait of adaptability, which could otherwise be seen as an admirable thing, is in this case disturbing: we’ve gotten used to it. The people who came into power at that time have been able to capitalize on our collective uncertainty so brilliantly that I wouldn’t count on it ending any time soon. The cloak of secrecy wears them well.
We’re schizophrenic because at the same time that we’re poised to take a genuine step forward in our evolution – as the human race in general, not just the United States – the anti-progressives, recognizing their peril, have launched a massive cultural counterattack and seized the power they sensed was slipping away from them. It’s a fact of human nature that when someone feels they’re losing their hold on something, they tighten their grip. A threefold political union has formed amongst the guardians of morality, modern-day religious crusaders, and the pious acolytes of the holy dollar. Instead of the KKK, what we have today is the CCC. It consists of Conservatives, threatened by specters like gay marriage (because the real monster isn’t terror – it’s love); Christians and theocrats, galvanized by increasing levels of irreligiosity and resentful of the doctrinal separation of church and state, which they see as responsible for that lack of piousness; and Corporate interests, menaced by increasing public awareness of shady practices like sweatshops and by the imminent and all-too-real danger of global warming (resulting in part from the use and consumption of corporate products like fossil fuels). They’ve banded together to stop the wheels of progress, to close the window on the winds of change, to break the hourglass of their fortunes rather than allow the last grains of sand to slip through.
So many things are up in the air, major facets of our culture and the way we live. The days of the internet as we know it may be numbered. Just last week, Washington state’s Supreme Court split 5-4 against gay marriage, with a vehement dissenting opinion. Roe v. Wade may be overturned in our lifetime. Polar bears, among others, may be extinct in our lifetime, globally warmed out of existence. No one seems to know who will step forth from the ranks of the Democrats as a presidential candidate for 2008. There is no knowing when, how, or if the war in Iraq will end. For all we know, civil war may already have broken out there and our national media may be Rupert Murdoching us into ignorance. The supposedly liberal media is in bed with the Bush administration, falling far short of its intended presence as the Fourth Estate: keeping tabs on the three branches of government and making sure they don’t overstep their bounds. In fact their goal is to keep us a nation of intellectual invalids. I for one don’t believe anything the Bush administration says unless it’s corroborated by sources I know to be free from their corruption – and those are hard to come by these days. For that matter, I don’t believe Sept. 11 was exactly what it was made out to be in the official story. There are a lot of unanswered questions there. I’m not saying I know for sure what happened, but I’m keeping an open mind. What I do know is that it’s worked out suspiciously well for Bush and his cronies.
Speaking of our sick joke of a president, the footage of him in Fahrenheit 9/11 sitting in front of a kindergarten class after being told by an aide about the planes striking the towers has been widely disseminated and discussed. This would be the most potent image of the uncertainty of our times: our leader and commander-in-chief sitting, frozen with indecision in the face of calamity, his own expression much like that of a chastised kindergartener. Like I said, from the top down.
Things certainly have been going Bush’s way for the last six years, but I refuse to despair. The apparent victory of the regressive forces is not as total, or as permanent, as it appears. When living in a time of uncertainty and fear, being certain and unafraid are forms of resistance. We must snatch defiance from the jaws of despair, and project confidence even if we don’t really feel it yet. The reason for the backlash against evolutionary science and Darwinism by conservatives and neo-Christians in our time is that evolution is not a conservative process; it is constant change and mutability at the genetic level. But evolution is more powerful than the mightiest human government, and we humans, like it or not, are a part of the evolutionary design. Sooner or later the pendulum will have to swing back, even if it takes another American revolution to make that happen. It’s only as unlikely as we believe it to be.