How many chances do we have left?

Though I tend toward pessimism (just ask anyone who's known me for the past, say, 20 years), I'm not necessarily a cynic. Oh, I have my moments, just like anyone else, but it's not my normal state-of-being. My kids would label me a "curmudgeon", perhaps a "grumpy old man", and that's fair enough ... after all, there really isn't a whole lot to be all that happy about these days. And things are not getting better for the vast majority of us. And that's the difference between me and the optimists: I know that for the vast majority of us, I have to repeat, things aren't generally getting better.

Sure, we can argue about whether or not we are complaining on a very high niveau, but that's beside the point. When you consider what is possible, with our technology, with our knowledge, with our ambition, well, we just come up short. I'm a full supporter of Buckminster Fuller who has reminded us again and again that there is more than enough for everyone, even in these days of overpopulation ... but only if we are willing to share. Too few have too much and are too unwilling to do just that. But, that's another issue for another day.

The real problem we're dealing with has nothing to do with politics or policy, nothing to do with culture (be in American, German, or Chinese), and it has nothing to do with anything else that seems to dominate our current discussions. No, it's much simpler than that (the big issues usually are). No, we're talking about attitude, no more, no less. The real problem we have is with our attitude.

We've got some pretty screwed up ideas in our heads and they drive us to do things we might not do otherwise. I've touched on some of them from time to time (like, the notion of "property", for example), and others are so obvious they are not worth talking about at all (like, resource depletion, oil dependency, income inequality, and more). And the more uncertain the world around us becomes, the more we try to hold fast to whatever it is we may believe, regardless of whether it's worth believing or not. That's what I mean by attitude: what you are willing to believe, even in the face of ultimate collapse. We're so afraid of what may be that we fail to see the real possibilities that lie before us.

It's good to belong to something. That's what really constitutes families. Someone once said that our family are those people we have to love, whether we like it or not. But that's changed. How many families are torn by strife? How many families simply shred themselves when mom or dad dies and everyone else is left to fight over what's left? How many folks do you know who simply hate their siblings, parents, relatives ... whatever, because of all the bad that has happened to them? There are too many. But, there are even more families that are either intact or have some semblance of togetherness. That's somewhere to start.

My question is, why stop there? Everyone who is "not-family" is an "other", and it is high time that we realize that not every "other" is a threat, a nemesis, or a potential enemy. Instead, what is "other" can be highly beneficial. The problem with American, industrial agriculture, for example, is its monoculture nature (some areas only corn, others only wheat, still others only cattle). These cultures are simply not sustainable. We need -- and this is a great lesson that nature teaches us -- a certain level of diversity, a certain variation of culture in order to survive. You'll notice, I did not say, live ... no, it's a matter of survival.

Our current attitude is "different is bad". This is simply short-sighted. Though the question still remains: how much diversity is necessary?

How much is left?

Whenever change happens, especially sudden or drastic change, there is a general feeling of loss. Whoever is benefitting from the change, of course, doesn't notice it. They are generally excited and want to maintain the new state as the status quo. At the current time, the changes with which we are faced are not benefitting the vast majority of the earth's inhabitants. The vast, vast majority of people this time around are losing out.

To see this, you have to step back from your own situation. Sure, you might have a steady job, but how many of your former co-workers are no longer with the company? Are you working more or fewer hours and is your paycheck still going as far as it used to? What about all those other "problems" we keep hearing about? Immigration, unemployment, same-sex marriage, restriction of legal rights because of terrorism, rampant and worldwide fundamentalism, climate change, energy dependency? The list never seems to stop.

We just recently avoided another stupid and senseless war, but none of played out as most of the West expected. It was, to be perfectly honest, bizarre. A ruthless and blood-thirsty dictator may or may not have been responsible for a heinous crime that the chastisers were already guilty of, yet the armed escalation was headed off by an unsavory autocrat with a poor record of human rights at home, while we all know full well that the alleged victims of the crime are a loose confederation of interests, every bit as brutal and savage as the dictator they are fighting. There was nothing about that situation that was right, in any sense of the word.

For anyone willing to look, it was clear that the entire confrontation was valueless, and worthless as well. Bombs can't solve problems. The possibility of finding a just war is slim to none. We're slowly realizing that violence does little more than beget violence, and lots of us are simply getting weary of the non-solutions to real issues and problems. We speak of democracy, but don't practice it ourselves (or what is all that voter-restriction legislation and gerrymandering about in the US?). We speak of liberty, and enact draconian and oppressive legislation (NDAA, etc.). We speak of peace and threaten with military force. We speak of tolerance and refuse to compromise with, or sometimes even talk to, our adversaries and opponents. If there ever was a mess, this was one, and it pushed us hopelessly toward the brink, again.

Now, more than ever, it is time for all of us to start thinking seriously about what is important to us, and what we are willing to allow "the others", whoever they may be. In framing our entire discussion in economic terms (gains, losses, costs, benefits, risks, transactions, trade, sanction ... the list goes on), we have eliminated a very important dimension of our lives: morality. Oscar Wilde once remarked that a cynic is a person who know the price of everything and the value of nothing, and that is where we have ended up. It is a sad state, to be sure. Cynics are never happy people. I simply cannot help but think that we can do better than this. The question is: can we?

What is good and fair and just and honorable and upright and worthwhile need to be brought back into focus, even knowing full well (or at least suspecting) that there may not be one single, universal answer to the question.

The more things change, the more they stay the same

OK, now that the excitement of the recent election has died down (and it certainly didn't take long did it), the government will go about its business. Coalition negotiations will be conducted, compromises will be reached, and in short order we'll have a "new" government that's going to look a whole lot like the "old" government. How did Peter Townsend put it: "Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss".

For the most part, and this is nothing specifically German, I can assure you, most folks are glad. I mean, deep down, the last thing they really want is change. Oh sure, it'd be nice if we all earned more, there were fewer taxes, if the potholes got fixed and my Internet connection actually delivered the claimed megabit rate. And some might even be ecstatic if there were enough childcare places and better healthcare provisions and there wouldn't be so many poor people that we all have to look at. A few, of course, would like to see immigrants treated better and a very small minority would like to see them gone. But none of that represents what we really mean when we use the word "change".

We can stand it, a little bit at a time, but humans just aren't hardwired to like radical and drastic change, be it good or bad. Most of our history has been one of hardly-noticeable change. There have been a few "upheavals", if you will, such as the Agricultural or Industrial Revolutions, and natural catastrophes, be they mini-ice ages or epidemics like the Plague, which have thrown us off balance for longer periods of time. But these are few and far between. It's just our luck, though, that we apparently are living through another. Call it the Technological Revolution, the Information Age, Globalization ... it really doesn't matter ... but what bothers most of us most of all are the significant shifts in our own lives. They induce stress, and they are not getting fewer.

When seen in this light, elections are often a plea by the populace to slow down this pace of change. We don't like it. We don't know how to deal with it. We would prefer not to have to deal with it. What happens in any such shift, though, is that values change. They have to. Shifting from a hunter-gatherer society to an agricultural one places a different emphasis on caretaking, on nurture and on organization. Our stories change as a result. The same is true when we move out of the sedentary mindset of agriculture and machines start dominating our lives. Yes, there are benefits, to be sure, but there are losers as well. What we see when we look back over the long trajectory of human history is that the swings up-and-down (or back-and-forth, if you prefer) are simply getting more forceful, more drastic, and consequently, more destructive. Still, we know, regardless of how we vote, or how we act, we really have little, if any, influence on what will happen to us.

Beneath the surface, I believe there is a thick layer of anxiety that we'd like to bury even deeper, but we can't. We can see that things are changing but not for the better for most of the world's inhabitants. We can see there are very few winners, but a whole lot of losers. We feel ever more threatened by things that we just don't want to know about. Our very values -- what we believe to be good and right and true -- are having trouble holding up to the pressures they are confronted with.

But, it has always been this way in times of change. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The people have spoken ... sort of

Isn't that what one says when there have been elections? "The people have spoken." Yesterday was Germany's turn to speak out, or speak up, or however it is that they are allowed to present themselves. I can't say that there's anything really surprising about the outcome, and I certainly can't see where there is going to be any monumental change on the horizon.

As it turns out Merkel and her CDU are, unsurprisingly, the strongest faction in the Bundestag with 41.5% of the vote. She is followed by the SPD (25.7%), the Linke (8.6%), and the Greens (8.4%). No one else, including the former coalition partner, the FDP (which failed to make the Bundestag for the first time), the Pirate Party and the remaining fringe parties.

Considering the fact that the two largest, so-called "people's parties" (Bürgerparteien) ran content-free campaigns (not a single issue was addressed on campaign posters or advertisements; the candidates were what was being "sold"), it is somewhat surprising that they garnered a total of 67%; that is, two-thirds, of the popular vote. Pre-election polls showed that "most" Germans were looking for a Grand Coalition, and they may have got their wish. Apparently, that many German voters are either satisfied with how things are or how their party is or they simply like the face of the person running. This is disconcerting for me, of course, because this is precisely how campaigns are run in the United States, and it's clear, at least to me, that they don't have a democracy anymore. This does not bode well for the future of Germany in particular, or Europe in general, for this malady will surely spread.

On the other hand, the one glimmer of hope still is that there is something of a leftist majority in the country. When we take the SPD, the Greens (a former spin-off from the SPD) and the Linke (the Leftists, who in part split off the SPD and which part lent credibility to the former East German faction) together, we see that there is a fairly strong majority to be had. Together they account for 42.7% of the vote. Unfortunately, the "established" parties (which surprises me about the Greens since they only achieved this status on their own around 15 years ago), don't want to have to deal with the Linke, whom they consider politically unacceptable. Truth be told, however, at 8.6% (even suffering some light losses) they are the third strongest party in the country (I don't count the CSU as a party since it's strictly Bavarian). Sooner or later, perhaps, the will of the people needs to be considered again. As it has been demonstrated, Germany's heart, at least, beats on the left.

It may appear to many, especially outsiders and Angie would like us all to think so, that Germany is doing well (which means that there are any number of people who think it's too well), but there are number of crucial issues that need to be addressed: income inequality, equal pay for equal work, the social safety net, an aging population, European unity, banking regulation, the euro, and more. It cannot simply plod on as before thinking that everything is just fine as it is. It isn't, and, if we take the numbers seriously, of those who voted, more than 58% did not vote for the party that will propose the next government. And, as far as all (potential) voters are concerned, a full 70% did not vote for it either. To claim a rousing victory under these circumstances is to turn a blind eye to reality and your back on those whom you have been elected to serve.

Yes, the people have spoken, sort of, and the pundits will spin the results beyond all belief, yet the real proof of the election pudding will be in the eating when policy is formed and laws are passed. I'm going to reserve judgment for later, but my initial impression is that not a whole lot is going to change. Merkel needs a coalition partner and she will most likely try to get the one she can dominate best, which would be the Greens. In that case, we'll hear more about renewable energy, but we won't see more of it. Merkel also knows that generally speaking the people wanted a Grand Coalition, but that would mean work, on her part and on the SPD's part, but given the emptiness of their campaigns, I doubt a whole lot can be expected. No, if you ask me -- and I know you didn't but you read this far so you get to read it anyhow -- our slow, painful, unjust and unnecessary decline will continue among resounding repeititions of how good things are.