The last week has been a bit of a rough one. Aside from the mild cold that I’m suffering from, Arthur C. Clarke was put into the dirt. America passed the 4000 dead soldier mark; Iraqi Civilians are closing in on 100,000. And the Dalai Lama threatened to completely resign. I can only guess that this means he won’t be reincarnating.
I never really thought he would reincarnate. Frankly, it’s a bit of a magic trick. But it’s disconcerting when a fellow who has been raised to be a creature of infinite compassion is this close to saying: “You people are all too fucked up and I’m outta here” before throwing in his apron and walking off the job. Not that I can really blame him.
When I see Tibetans running around with their faces painted, breaking and throwing shit, I’m reminded of rampaging soccer hooligans. When I see uniformed Chinese shooting people, I’m reminded of rampaging but well-organized soccer hooligans with guns. Some people fight over their teams, other people fight over their nations. It’s all imaginary and meaningless bullshit. Just excuses for humans to form mobs and hurt each other.
We like to do that.
Western Atheists and Christians should pay attention. Both religious and non-religious people are perfectly capable of being total assholes. The problem has never really been our beliefs. It’s always been us. We’re violent primates in some crazy zoo. Occasionally we dress up in costumes and slaughter each other. This is what we do.
And I know that people probably want to help out either the Tibetans or the Chinese. They need to pick a side and what side they choose will depend on their politics, their ethnicity or what they saw on television.
But that’s all bullshit.
Politics are just the sum total of lies we tell ourselves about our relationships with other people. A person can feel all warm and fuzzy because they buy organic food from a cashier who’s making minimum wage. That’s politics. Doing the abstract right thing when you’re oblivious to what’s right in front of you. Donate to Greenpeace, keep driving your car.
Politics. Bullshit.
And race is even worse. It’s all stereotypes. Just convenient and often abused metaphors for our personalities. Act white, act black, either way you’re acting like an off the rack stock character. It’s just a flawed and clumsy way to think about ourselves and others. Just a costume. You may be forced to wear it but it’s just a costume.
People all want the same things: Food, shelter, a good book in the bath, sex in the morning and dancing in the evening. Skin color doesn’t change that. Nationality is irrelevant. It’s nothing to start shooting, looting or burning over. We’re better off lending each other novels and humping. Then some dancing. That’s fine. It’s enough.
At least, it’s better than traveling around the world in costumes and acting like ants to rearrange imaginary lines on maps. Just about anything is better than that.
When I’m in a moral quandary of some type or just feel worried I remember one thing: There is only me and death. Everything else is imagination. It sometimes takes me a while to remember it but, when I do, it relaxes me and makes things clear. But it’s probably not for everyone. I have no idea. Works for me though.
So, bearing that in mind, my advice about this whole Tibet thing is to ignore it. While you’re watching your television screen, thinking about the desperate suffering of people far away, you may be ignoring the moral duties that lay right in front of you. On a day to day basis, we’re confronted with tons of ethical problems. They’re right in front of us.
Everyone would love to be a hero of the revolution. But we don’t need anymore of those.
The world would be much better off if people just kept their heads down and performed the tasks that lay directly in front of them. That’s more than enough work. We’ll probably fail at that but at least we’d be failing at the right thing. When you watch the news and get full of moral indignation, you’re not failing or succeeding at anything. You’re just ignoring your job.
So forget about fucking Tibet, China and every other country. Forget about the people who fill your head with this violent crap. They’re not real. They’re selling adverts. That’s all. Just go outside. Look at what’s really there. Feed the birds, help an old lady across the street, be honest with a friend. Do stupid simple shit like that.
It’s a nice day. Try to make it a bit nicer and a bit better. You’ll be dead soon. No one wants to clean up your mess. Try not to leave one.
5 comments
shalome
March 26, 2008 at 11:20 am (UTC -5)
but you dont dance.
Ryan Oakley
March 26, 2008 at 11:22 am (UTC -5)
I dance when I’m cheerful. That is, when I’m at home, by myself. Not in public.
Rebecca
March 26, 2008 at 11:40 am (UTC -5)
Usually, I don’t like commenting on politics because I find it a waste of time but I want to say I enjoy reading your point of view on this.
I dislike the expectation of picking sides when there is absolutely none that you can to take without dehumanizing and antagonizing last least one side. A quick read of the mess that is the Globe and Mail forums can show you the annoying colonial language still being used. People confuse the whole of the Chinese government to be a representation of every individual opinion of the average Chinese national and Chinese Canadian and the opinions of the rioters and Dalai to be the representation of every individual Tibetan. It’s annoying to always be treated as a representative aggressor for a country Chinese people had been trying to leave for the last 100 years. It will be wrong for me to take the side of the Chinese because of my ethnicity or in protest of the doucheness of popular opinion.
The taking of sides from where we stand contributes nothing to the dialog that must happen between Tibet and China. In this situation, the only entity that the Chinese owe action to is the Tibetans. Canada doesn’t have the economic or political power or the necessary information or even the moral authority to make judgments. I remember seeing Stephen Lewis speak once to a group of privileged (as in old money Upper Canada College) student activists once and he warned us about being too sure of Canadian superiority, relating a story about how when he worked for the UN, he criticized a group of countries for their human rights record. After his speech, all the speakers after him, whether he criticized them or not, remarked on Canada’s past and continued human rights failures including the treatment of Natives, immigrants, the French, the Somalians, etc. The world is more aware of our faults than we are.
The best and the only right thing we can do is make sure the Chinese and Tibetans in Canada get along. We should throw a pretty party.
Minister Faust
March 26, 2008 at 4:05 pm (UTC -5)
In Oct. 2006, The Lancet put the civilian death toll (i.e., dead because of American aggression) at over 600,000: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/11/iraq.iraq
The US-led sanctions caused the deaths of somewhere around 1.5 million. Around 640,000 of them were children under 5. That’s in addition to the recent war dead.
Ryan Oakley
March 27, 2008 at 12:40 am (UTC -5)
I’m happy you mentioned those figures.
I was aware of them but I just wanted to go with the bullet in the face sort of dead people here and only since the start of this version of the war. Saddam apparently killed 200,000 Iraqi dissidents. And he was in power since the seventies.
So we’re killing people faster than he was — even by the most conservative estimate about who we’ve killed and the most liberal about who he killed. (I say we because I view the west as a block.)
After 100,000 it all turns mushy to me anyway. Might as well be fifty million if you live in the place. I also didn’t include the amount of dead mercenaries on the yank side. Or the causalities from “gulf war syndrome.” On both sides.
Fact is, there’s a lot of dead people. Over nothing at all. One would be too many for this.