The impossible demand

The scope of human history is vast.

Well, at least in human terms. In geological terms, it is tiny, just 0.04% of the age of our Earth.

But we are humans, not rocks, so the 2 million year history of genus Homo is vast to us.

We originated in Africa, by the chance gift of evolution. (Or God’s will, or God-directed evolution, or just plain old evolution – makes no difference to this saga).

We were all black, because the intense tropical sun demanded it.

Then some of us broke off, looking for greener pastures. Some migrated east, some to the north. The differences in diet and available sunlight resulted in yellow and brown and white skin tones. Our differentiation had begun, thanks mostly to the accidental tilt of the earth’s axis.

But differentiation, mostly now political, has run amok, and we are attacking ourselves like ravenous cancer cells. It is an ugly scenario, as if we had forgotten our common humanity and obsess on which political party holds the true path to happiness. Attack follows counterattack, then pivots to a fresh assault. There is no sense of common goals, and we can’t even discuss different ideas.

“Censorship is the height of vanity,” said Martha Graham, a pioneering American dancer. Indeed, censorship is the suppression of ideas that you don’t like, even if you are wrong.

“I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance,” stated Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an English poet. Intolerance is the handmaiden of censorship, suppressing unpopular ideas.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary,” an observation by our fourth president, James Madison. Boy howdy, was he right. Because we are not angels, we need government to demand the equal and just treatment of the individual by the crowd.

Here is just one more.

“If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” This powerful expression of free speech was uttered by John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth century English philosopher.

All of this wisdom flies in the face of what is occurring in our nation, on our college campuses, and in social media and broadcast media. The hard battle lines of intolerance have been drawn, prisoners taken, and survivors virtually drawn and quartered. It is not a pretty sight.

Here is an allegory.

Imagine a beautiful ballerina who has been striving for many years to master her art. Since a young child she has performed in recitals and, though none were perfect, showed continuing improvement. Now as an adult she is performing in public venues, showing great art but still striving for flawlessness. Not perfect, but darn well approaching it.

Now consider the span of our own country. Settled originally by Asian immigrants 20,000 years ago, then more recently by Europeans in the early 1600s. The land witnessed wars between settlers, wars between tribes, wars between settlers and tribes, and finally a fair amount of peace. We had developed a constitution, a bill of rights, that envisioned a perfect country, a great white light on the hill. Something to strive for.

We are still striving. We are not perfect. But we have come a long, long, long way on that road.

Those who destroy statues and want to rename buildings are demanding instant perfection. Those who demonize early figures are requiring that our country not only be perfect now, but had also been perfect in every stage of its evolution. Nothing else will satisfy their demands, impossible since the past can’t be altered.

But that is like attacking our aspiring ballerina because her current performances are not perfect. And further, demonizing her because every recital stretching back to second grade was not perfect as well. Every single one.

There seems to be no recognition of and appreciation for progress, of improvement. Of movement toward that shining light over 250 years. 

And that is deeply discouraging.

Enough. It’s time for reasonable people to come together and reason. And the heck with the rest. They are fools.