Now What?

On Being Accountable to One's Self

I’ve elevated this from note to post in the hope that it reaches further into our community and conversation.

Now What?

America is at war. Candor is no substitute here for greater clarity, but the latter seems unattainable given unfolding events. Despite the administrations claims and protestations, there will be no simple or swift conclusion forthcoming. A complex, complicated world just got worse.

No one need lament military losses to the Iranian terror regime. America has been “at war” with this regime directly since 1979 (and with their proxies). In fact, their Death To [America, Israel, modernity] ideology is a bulwark of their power. It is hard to imagine the mullahs retaining power without these ideological presumptions. Our attack guarantees retaliation because it is essential to the authoritarian regime’s power. Dismiss the notion that this will all soon be over; the Iranians will not sue for peace and retreat. More terror is on the horizon.

We have not yet raised the important questions as Americans.

How was this escalation into war decided? By whom? And why now?

How do we even raise these questions when our democracy acts like a corrupt, lawless rogue state? Why have we ceded this power to such unaccountable leadership? And what we can expect as consequences because our own leadership is itself so unaccountable?

Do any of us believe anything the administration says? How can we? Where is there any conversation of truth?

What further recourse could there be but to more violence when we have dissolved good faith conversation with our traditional allies? We can declare that the Iranian people are not committed to nihilism, that they too wish to see their children flourish. But we have pivoted from any notion of leadership with purpose into a lawless world where only force matters.

Is this who we are? Masked ICE agents will again today take people from their work places, their homes, off the streets by force, by fiat, and without due process. Some are in nameless gulags without due process or even proof of life.

We're in a world in which even the pretension of moral constraint has passed from our discourse. America is being reduced to yet another brutalizing rogue state in which might makes right; we have abdicated even the rhetoric of moral aspiration. We can say this is nothing new, that our country has in truth been built on such exploitations and violence. But once wasn’t there a pretense of better? What is our aspiration?

This war is not how we solve problems; this is how we choose to live in the forever wars, with each other at home and across the globe. This is how terror and dystopia becomes the norm.

If we are at war with Iran, what is the goal? When will it end? What does that even mean? We won't get to decide these questions alone---the Iranians will have a say in that and there is no timeline. Decades ahead we will still be suffering the consequences of these unilateral actions, as we have elsewhere in the middle east.

In the near term, what if the Iranians decide to escalate? Then what does Dear Leader do? Who is going to advise him? Will any of them, including this Congress, even attempt to stop him?

America won't lose a single battle. But that has never been what is at stake. What world awaits us, all of us, with this forever-war? Iran is not Afghanistan, their reach may extend everywhere there are Americans. Did we authorize this war by voting for this government?

A friend just wrote to me,

“All of it looks very grim to me. Our internal state of affairs is dysfunctional and enraging on many fronts and internationally we are persona non grata and in increasing disfavor by the day. The Democrats seem to take no action. So, what do we do? Really, WHAT DO WE DO?”

My reply:

We're going to have to become more adept in pursuing truth, at every turn, in every way we can to bring sense, sobriety, and seriousness to this dangerous world. Thinking is no enemy to feeling or heart; reason is imperfect and unfinished but it too is an invitation to touch a deeper shared humanity.

We must also be willing to accept important truths before us---we are not in control of what this government does, our future is not wholly ours to decide.

What we can decide is what we do with ourselves.

We must encourage leadership, vote, speak out, protest when we can---but until our society is competent enough to elect serious, moral people, all we can really do is persist in meeting the challenges where we can make a difference.

We must not stop doing what we are doing for each other.

If this is at least half right, then we must do exactly what is being asked. We must ask ourselves what we want to do with ourselves, and continue to ask how we care for our inner lives, in character and principle.

Do yourself a favor: bypass the urge to bypass.

Remember that your vulnerability is an invitation, a gift, even a superpower despite the fact that being vulnerable can feel so terribly threatening. If you harden or skip the news for too long, you abdicate your ability to learn. Sorting out the facts isn’t any easier when we choose to ignore the difficult process of learning.

Amid the greater chaos and lawless violence, we're going to need conversations made in good faith and do all we can live from our core.

That "core" isn't imaginary, and it's not about a metaphysics of immortal self or a heaven of rewards; it’s not a "spiritual" realization (self or no) and justfergettaboutdat religious nonsense about there being a plan or a reason for everything. It’s up to us. We might want to console ourselves with nonsense that soothes anxiety but that will do little to address the issues or lead us towards that center inside us. A core of self requires the willingness to hold the uncomfortable truths before us and to grow into that core so we may winnow the chaff, learn, revise, commit, repeat.

To live from our core is a dedicated human task: it is to cultivate self in conversations of value, and in the process to stand determined, present for each other. It is to create facts that are at once durable and revisable: it is to commit to honesty even as we reach for deeper understandings, symbols and stories that can provide pathways to meaning.

Meaning won’t just happen, it is made from our abilities to interpret and value ideas, feelings, and relationships. We'll need more help from storytelling, art, music, dance, from the resources that point to what we share as human beings---to feel and understand and reach more deeply inside. Without this foundation, our social selves will become brittle, inept, under equipped to address the facts.

We must not forget that when we create goodness in the simplest ways we touch a shared humanity---and that above all, we must not forsake.