Existentialism

Thanks, Google

Throughout the course of recorded history societies have made a habit of building themselves around something shared. A shared need for survival. A shared sense of responsibility. A shared morality. There's more, obviously. Anything a large enough group of people share that allows them to find binding material within; that's the heart of a society. At some point the desire for civilization and society itself became a shared goal around which societies built themselves. It seems like that's kinda what Rome was. Call me ignorant but from where I'm standing it kinda looks like that's what's at the heart of nations like Iceland too.

So what is it our society is built around? What's our shared history, or ideology, or whatever, that sits at the heart of the United States? Is it that line from the pledge, you know, the one about "liberty and justice for all"? That sounds nice. Trouble is the shared history isn't liberty and justice for all, but rather the repeated story of people fleeing bigotry and arriving here only to put in place governments that are bigoted toward anyone who isn't them.

What about gain? We might be centered on the morality of gain. Those with more have more value. Is that a shared morality within our society? It can be hard to argue otherwise under the crushing press of not only the monetary system that dictates every aspect of our lives, but the way that those enriched by it are under virtually no scrutiny from the millions they crushed in the process. Is that the shared core of our society? Perhaps we've couched this in the seat of individualism; individual success indicates inherent rightness?

Oh wait, that's it, right? Freedom? Is that our society's heart? The freedom to choose and, by extension I suppose, be chosen for? Because if I'm free to choose, and you're free to choose, then inherently whichever of us is able to exert more power or authority behind our choices will be able to choose regardless of what the other wanted. So individual freedom to be dictated to by the bigoted power structures put in place around us? That's the glue of our society, right?

No no, wait, I forgot, it's God. Our society is supposed to be centered at God, isn't it? Is this the deity that makes all of our choices for us? Can't be, though, because of that freedom. Because of the "liberty... for all". Right? So the "mysterious ways" God then. Was it him that established the bigoted power structures based primarily on the pursuit of wealth? The ultimate expression of freedom, to admit that the wealthy and powerful must have the divine will of God behind them because of their wealth and power? But wait, does that mean those of us that aren't wealthy and powerful are... Godless?

So is that the heart of our society, at last? A shared sense of individual freedom, in which we are able to choose nothing but that which has been dictated to us through the medium of inherently bigoted wealth and power structures set in place by a divine hand? 

Hmm. Seems to track pretty well. Though I've got to say, I don't share in essentially any of that. So I guess I'm not a part of this society. Does that make me "un-American"?

Because see, here I was operating under the impression that the core of our society, that shared nugget that dictated our collective goals, was that line from the pledge. You know, the one about "liberty and justice for all". Here I was thinking that liberty was paramount for the individual, that everything established by the society around them should be done to support their personal freedom, except where that freedom might trample the liberty of someone else; hence the bit about justice. Here I was operating under the expectation that we all agreed these freedoms and the protection of justice that went along with them was supposed to apply to everyone in our society, not just a privileged few; as in "for all".

It seems pretty clear, though, that many people don't want that. That there's an alarming number of my neighbors who would prefer that liberty only apply to those that stand on pedestals constructed of money and a privileged heritage, even when the people they've thus lifted up use their liberty to restrict the freedom of the people that put them there. The voice of nearly half the masses crying out that they deserve to be carpet beneath somebody else, as if by attributing these societal gains to "power" they can somehow validate the existence of a God who they perceive as holding on to something similar.

Where does that leave us? Governments that betray our trust on one hand, corporations that would just as soon see us turned to dust on the other, and in the middle religious zealotry that would have you accept the beliefs another exerted on you just because they could.

To my eye it's a perversion of leadership, worship, and industry. The institutions of a sad and deluded mankind in their final state, unable to improve the lives of any but a lucky few in the face of worldwide strife, pandemy, and cataclysm. And yet, would millions of people really band together in support of a society that is actively hurting them?

Wait, maybe that's it. Maybe the heart of our society is blind denial. Denial of bigotry, of the flawed systems it produced, denial of the personal harm we suffer at the hands of those systems, and denial of the slow ebbing of will and freedom that flows from our own misguided attempt to assign Godhood to the lucky while the titular character allows us our liberty and sighs at the mounting hill of justice we're surely building for ourselves. Denial of the value of individual work, of the goodness of personal faith, and the strength of willing unity; in essence, of everything. But so long as the bandana covering our eyes is red, white, and blue we're expected to just wear it and let the world burn on the other side.

There it is. That feels just right. That's the moral core of our society. Willful ignorance. Squeezing our eyes shut and shoving fingers in our ears while we chant loudly over the sight and sound of the structures we support grinding the very concept of liberty and justice for ourselves and the others in our society into a fine powder. The tantrum of a small child as an exasperated parent watches, waiting for them to decide they don't want to cause themselves pain anymore.

That's America.