Fascism

I reflect on all that I've learned about human history, and it feels like any periods of peace, equality, fairness, safety, and prosperity are fleeting moments representing a brief collective diversion from humankind's compulsion to destroy, to consume, to subjugate, and to deny reality. I don't think that we're, as a whole, more evolved than our ancient ancestors and more capable of creating good lives for ourselves and being good stewards of our community and our planet. In fact, the way that survival in the modern world depends far less on collective cooperation and in fact bestows the greatest wealth and power only upon the most sociopathically capitalist among us suggests to me that we've regressed as a species. Whereas a Cro-Magnon's life may depend on the support of their tribe and their continued inclusion in it, a modern human in a place like the United States quite likely owes her survival to being born into wealth or being able to generate value for a business, neither of which selects for concern for anything happening outside of her own needs. Hence a population of well-meaning people can nonetheless act collectively as a terrible force wreaking global devastation or be puppeteered to serve an agenda that runs counter to their own needs.

People want freedom, safety, access to healthcare and education, and access to the means for comfortable living. Most don't want to destroy, exploit, and enslave, but the few that do wield incredible power, for the masses' ability to see and understand present and future atrocities is easily clouded, and their will to take risks and make sacrifices for something that seems so abstract is easily sapped by expertly-woven propaganda and the weight of the yoke of wage slavery. And once the scent of cruelty is in the air and lines between in-groups and out-groups are being slashed into the sand, our instincts kick in to prioritize tribal bonding and toe the line in fear of that cruelty being directed at us. Out of fear of the wrath of one's own tribe, one becomes performatively wrathful against perceived enemies, spreading the infection of malice further as your group of humans, each blessed with such deep capacity for beneficence, descends into feral madness.

We can make this a safe, beautiful, just world. And we will, occasionally. But there will always be one person who wants to mutilate it into the shape that suits his particular pathologies and a thousand more people helping inflict his will upon the world in order to get their bills paid or egos stroked.

The good in this world cannot be trusted to last. But neither is the bad meant to last. This world is malleable by human hands, which gives us the gift of being able to build true paradise, but at the cost of it being ultimately temporary. Someone will always come along and easily tear down what it took generations to create.

Chin up.

Never stop fighting.

Never stop building.

Your tribe depends on you.

If you're someone who's anti-racist, anti-homophobic, anti-transphobic, and anti-fascist despite having friends or family who veer into the conspiracy theorist / fascist / bigot / apologist side of the spectrum, your struggle is seen, respected, and appreciated. It's hard to tell someone you love that they're part of a pernicious cultural cancer metastasizing in the heart of our country. It's hard to stand up for what's right when your support network is full of people who've bought into the idea that you're the enemy, and that bigotry and paranoid delusions are the answer. It's hard to keep up the pressure to push fascism and hatred out of your world, and that's why some people give up, acquiesce, and make peace with the bullies in their midst, hoping to keep their head down so that they, at least, can escape the harm wrought by them. To accept the consequences of making your beliefs clear and not giving an inch is a sacrifice, and an important one, and one not spoken of often enough. But it's a vastly consequential thing to do, because the alternative is to invite people's worst impulses and most destructive delusions into your space and make them feel comfortable there. Perhaps nothing will change for the better in someone's heart if they're excluded and segregated into more and more hateful spaces, but perhaps by giving someone a seat at your table on the condition that they leave their hate at the door, they might question why they ever needed it at all.

TL;DR: White people, call out your friends for their casual racism. Allies, call out your friends for their homo/transphobia. Everyone, you can love your family members while still making it clear that their aw shucks old-timey gee whiz back in my day bigotry is inexcusable.