From the bits and pieces of Oprah's "Belief" series that I have seen, it looks to be a beautifully produced exploration of religion and spirituality as it plays out in the lives of ordinary people from a variety of cultures and traditions. The episode I viewed tonight had the story of a Moroccan boy who is memorizing all eighty-thousand words of the Koran. Another story featured an Australian physician who walked the Camino de Santiago, and discovered a resurgence of purpose and meaning that had left his life decades earlier.

The series does not downplay the capacity for religion to be implicated in disagreement and violence, but focuses on the role of religion and spirituality where they are part of positive developments for individuals and their communities. The show's epigram is, "See the world through someone else's soul."

In the story of the man who hikes the Camino, his pilgrimage seems to have restored his ability to care and to love. The tears he cried along the way had the markings of tears someone might cry when they are beginning to heal from deep trauma--in this case, the trauma of being in dis-relationship to one's own life. The window into this man's healing provoked me to think about how difficult it is to judge another person's deep life perspective, especially as that perspective manifests in particular expressions that might be described as spiritual or religious. One person's medicine may be meaningless or even repugnant to another. In some cases, at least, I'm sure it's because the one making the judgment has never suffered from the sickness for which that particular medicine appears to be the agent of healing.

If I squint hard and am willing to lie to myself, I can believe whatever I choose to, and can disengage from any argument to the contrary, even when the argument makes sense. When this approach begins to fail, I can reinforce it by posting my belief online, and be comforted by the "likes" I get. I can also seek out sources and sites that share the same belief, and that yell it at a volume level that assures me they must know what they are talking about. I can congregate online with others and we can simultaneously shout the belief, until no sound from outside can reach us. We can pat each other on the back as we shoot down the occasional peep of dissent that sneaks in past the din of our own echoing opinion.

The merger of self-deception and social media frees me from the pain that used to come in those moments when I realized that facts did not support my belief, and I had to find ways to modify it--which caused great disruption to me and to my friends who also had the same belief. I now have a way turn off the discomfort that used to nearly paralyze me. In the past, alcohol and drugs together were barely able to accomplish this.

I have to admit, there still is a part of me inside that occasionally refuses to go along with this way of being sure that my beliefs are not threatened. That part can be tricky. I have had to use my best defenses against it. One of the most powerful ways that I have found to fight against it is to come up with religious reasons for why my beliefs are right. This allows me the added advantage of being able to label those who challenge my beliefs as evil--maybe even of the devil. There are lots of other people who are eager to confirm for me that my beliefs are the ones that God himself endorses. I love listening to those people and having them around. They are good people, in an evil world.

Still, that part inside is persistent. One time, it even dared to question my religious beliefs--I mean, the beliefs that I had protected by wrapping them in religious ideas. This part tried to get at me in the most devious way I can imagine. It appeared to me, inside my conscience, as though it were Jesus himself! It asked me things like: "Are you sure I would have agreed with the things you are saying that I stand for?"; "Are you sure that I would always agree with you and your friends and never with the people who disagree with you?"; and, "Do you think it will ultimately matter if what is really true is different from the internal map that you are using to guide you in your decisions--both in this life and (by your own admission) the next one too?"

Like I said, that part is really sneaky. I am working at it, though. Hopefully, before long, I will figure out a way to make that part be quiet, so I don't have to hear it at all.

The art of reporting a fire,
conveying to people the nature of the fire,
convincing them of the dangers of the fire,
without needing to light yet one more fire in the process,
is rare indeed.
The world today is full of firestarters,
masquerading as opinionators
and bearers of news.

In the system of government established in the United States, disagreement over policies and direction occurs in the context of broader agreement about governmental and procedural structures. That is why a mere majority vote is required for some matters, whereas amendments to the constitution itself require a two-thirds majority vote of the states. This is to ensure that basic governmental structures, in which we express our disagreement and live out our democratic freedoms, are not destabilized. 

Radical congressional voices threaten this arrangement because, when things don’t go their way with regard to policy and direction (the things that can be civilly disagreed upon) they increasingly threaten to tamper with the structural certainties (the things that are part of the broader agreement, that should not be tampered with). This is like someone who is upset when they are losing at Monopoly, so they refuse to turn over the dice when it is the other person’s turn. This is like someone on a ship who is upset at a captain’s decision, so they attack the structural integrity of the ship itself, hacking away at the hull. 

If you are proud of those who are taking this approach, please consider that it is the structural integrity of the governmental system that is being jeopardized. Words like “conservative” and “liberal” will no longer have meaning when the container for civil disagreement has been demolished. We will not be arguing about who pays for medicine or who can get legally married at that point, but about who is responsible to keep electricity on, keep water running, define what is the law, and who is to keep the semblance of law and order. 

Those of you who consider yourselves patriotic, yet support this particularly disruptive version of congressional obstructionism, please consider what a stretch it is to claim that you are representing American values, which were won at the price of blood, and codified through a deliberative process by people who had lived through the nightmare of failed political systems, and who were uniquely prepared by history and education to introduce to the world a new solution for the problem of human governance. Lest we think we can match their vantage point, and reestablish a system equally stable and robust (should we so casually drop the one we have), please proceed with caution.

When history lies,
a part of each of us
goes underground
and does not come out
until it is safe to
start telling the truth
again.

Democracy has a breaking point. It is the point at which the voting population, uneducated in democratic principles, willingly and through democratic processes, gives power to those whose actions and attitudes are antithetical to democratic principles. 

It is a mistake to believe that elections and majority vote are sufficient to guarantee that democracy remains intact. Majority vote is a necessary aspect of democracy, but only as voting is informed by a perspective that knows and cares how to pass on democratic values. If, instead, people vote to give power to a tyrant, that is the end of democracy. "The end" might be said to occur earlier than that, though, in that the population doing such voting has already ceased to inwardly understand and cherish the democratic ideal. 

For this reason, historically, democracy has been conceived of as possible only in situations where there is an informed, educated public. Also, for this reason, in democratic republics such as the United States, it was understood that governmental action can't be tied, in an automatic, instantaneous way, to the popular vote. Instead, the power that originates in popular vote is distributed amongst three branches of government, each of which has its own processes of action and deliberation. 

Democracy has always involved what could be called healthy self-doubt: the guarding of space for the voice of the minority--not the crushing of those who dissent. Democracy maintains space in which divergent opinions can remain alive, even if public need dictates that only one policy direction be pursued at any given time. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech pertain primarily to those perspectives that are in the minority, and only secondarily to the majority culture. (The rights of the majority group are a given, ensured by their sheer power and number.) 

The current election cycle raises concern about the health of the democratic ideal amongst the voting public. As always, many candidates are bad. Now especially, though, some may truly be dangerous. Donald Trump, for example, is a candidate who belittles those who dare to disagree with him. He has not denounced the sentiments of the man who yelled "white power!" during a recent speech. He advocates for policies concerning  immigrants that ignore the things that made it possible for his own ancestors to take up residence in the U.S. He appeals to the idea of greatness and strength, while not specifying what the values are that strength is to be in service of. The most that can be inferred from his statements is that strength is its own justification. The fact that one has power to put someone else "in his place" is evidence enough, for Trump, that the strong one is right. He embodies the amorality of the "Übermensch" foretold by Nietzsche. Democratic values, to the extent that they protect the minority voice, are portrayed by Trump as pathetic weakness. Dissent is to be removed from the public square, like Jorge Ramos was ejected from a press conference, when he asked a question that Trump did not want to respond to.

The scary thing is that our own democratic system provides the means by which we might give our democratic system away. It is a brilliant system, but it assumes that those who use it are educated in its values and interested in preserving them. In this upcoming election, I hope we can steer past this scary precipice, where feeling and passion seem to outweigh thoughtful consideration. Beyond that, it is time to be concerned about the fact that democratic ideals are spurned and belittled by a portion of the voting public. If the idea of democracy is obliterated within the consciousness of the voting populace, whether by disinformation or by strategic withholding of information and education, there is no safeguard left to ensure that democracy will continue. Democracy is not just a procedure (voting); it is a culture. 

I just watched a program, narrated by George Clooney, on news coverage of JFK's assassination. It is well worth watching, if you can find it. It brought me to reflect on a tragic aspect of our existence as we currently experience it. Within this society we share--which is the cumulative product of our individual attitudes and behaviors, and, simultaneously, the setting in which we explore who we are and what we might be--we harbor the capacity for the hatred that makes assassination possible, and the structures of thought that provide the rationale and justification for such acts. In psychological language, such feeling-charged structures of thought can be called "complexes," and "pathological." In the old days, they no doubt would have been associated with ideas about demonic influence and possession. 

Whatever we name them, it is frightening that we live in a world where there seems to be less and less concern about how to notice when our brains are being hijacked by such ideas and impulses, and about what the results may be if we act upon them. Careful, nuanced thought is criticized as a sign of weakness. Heroes are made of people who advocate for action without discussion or reflection beforehand. Adding to our danger is the fact we seem to be losing our ability to think critically about information and stories that present themselves as factual news. Small groups and subcultures buy into versions of reality that would not stand the test of careful thought. Based on untested and errant pictures of what is real, they sometimes make decisions that affect things adversely for many more than just themselves.

All of these thoughts arose for me as I watched this program about how history was radically changed in 1963, by the ending of JFK's life. It is frightening that we remain subject to the same forces that, time and time again, have set back the clock on social progress, and our growth towards humane ways of being. Even this post, which, I dare to say (whatever else may be said about it) is thought out quite carefully, will evoke anger and judgment from someone, because ... well, that's just what we do, these days. We get mad. We get rageful. We get indignant. It's a sign to us of our strength. It's a confirmation to us of the rightness of our cause. It's a sign that tells us we are not responsible for what we might do next.