So I have a confession to make about something a part of me is quite ashamed: I’m quite enjoying Brexit.
I know, it’s terrible, right? I think so. I mean the entire thing’s a debacle, everyone sees that, but it is like a 200 year comeuppance happening all at once, just for us few billion alive right now. I mean, I hate it for the fact that my passport became nearly useless overnight. As a rootless child of internationalism, the only use my home passport brought me was free reign to Europe, and now a heap of old xenophobes snatched that away.
(Blah, blah, blah all the economic harm, social unification of being part of the European family, and all that other c.r.a.p. that was lost in the vote. This is about me.)
If the idiots want to spite themselves, let them. Yet who could have guessed it would lead to such delights as these: the permanence of frogface Nigel Farage upon the media landscape to bloviate and bark away; Theresa May granted her long-held ambition for power and ascendancy to the throne of the Conservative and Unionist Party, only for it to turn completely to ash in her lap; a bonafide backbench chill commie elected to lead Labour who so terrifies just enough of the British people–and who is fittingly incredibly inept at political gamesmanship–that even when a rabid dog could lead the party to power, he will manage somehow to keep it out; Boris Johnson playing the role of rabid dog, making a cartoon character written by a truly evil cartoonist now a few votes away from no. 10, and only at the small cost of the party, the Union, the economy, international standing, and the respect of all future generations.
From far outside, and all taken together, international observers must be excused a moment while we pick up our jaws from the floor and guffaw at the state of it all. Who could have imagined that so fast something once so great could be brought so shamefully low? Institutions that once seemed intractable and unstoppable suddenly started sabotaging their own machines, and in the ensuing crises, many new hopes grow anew.
The Liberal Democrats are forgiven their shame for initially allowing these same Conservatives their stamp of approval in holding power, and are rewarded for instead having sensible stances on the day’s single issue. The Flower of Scotland blossoms anew, and the call of independence reverberates through the deep bones of the nation, awoken by calamitous southern storms. The flames of nationalism threatening the very existence of the European Union are tempered, as those who would fan them now look to Britain’s isolation and get a sense of how it would feel in the cold. The impending market chaos offers uncountable bounty for smart investors who know how best to use it. The cultural arrogance of Britain receives the cultural boot that it’s long needed.
These are things I’ve dreamt about for my entire publicly conscious life. The potential death of Britain’s Tory Party? The complete humiliation of Britain internationally, purely because of the English? Scottish Independence with continued EU membership on liberal and green terms? Yes, yes, and yes please. These have all been so long overdue that it is hard for any progressively leaning reader of history to not squeal in delight at their happening, all in a plebiscite as well, so that the elite too can get egg on their face by the will of the people en masse. A complete dream for an unpartied and neutral follower of only the absurd.
These times of change are such exciting games, so entertaining to watch, until one remembers the constant stream of headlines over which we begin to gloss, to the point that they are no longer written, so that the actions just become the new norm: increased violence to minorities and the socially disenfranchised among us.
Social abuse of one class by another creates the conditions that justify and warrant further abuse.
Police brutality on a community inevitably creates a counter-force by which to defend itself. Already by the nature of it’s very existence antagonistic to the accepted authority’s definition of the rule of law, these counter-forces naturally lend themselves towards crime, further justifying the police into action. Yet the brutality and crime begins too often with initial discriminatory or heavy handed tactics by the police.
Heckling and jeering members of one particular social group when in public, or allowing an environment that accepts sly insinuations that certain people are not welcome, naturally turns that community away from social interaction and instead inwards to foster safe spaces for themselves. Yet social segregation, whether elective or directly forced, inevitably leads to ignorance, often followed by fear, often followed by violence. Social cohesion comes from mutual integration and an equal blending of social and cultural ethics and values.
When we reject out of hand those who have come to join our nation, whichever nation that may be, because we fear an inability to culturally blend, we only admit our own fear about the strength of our own culture. Let me try and break it down a bit:
- Fear stems from the self’s insecurity regarding its ability to survive
- One of the ways by which we survive well beyond the limits of individual life is through our contributions to society and culture
- Outside cultures and societies integrating into one’s own society threatens the local society’s culture and makeup, thereby threatening the existence of the self.
You with me?
We have one deep imperative driving all others, deep in the very marrow of our bones and powering every electrical impulse in our brains: survive. Do whatever it takes, stop at nothing, just survive and continue and fight. This extends throughout our fibers of existence down to a molecular level. Our ignorance leads us to deem other people as a threat to this need to survival, as they are an unknown to us, and therefore a huge potential threat. All unknowns bring the risk of death and calamity. We will therefore weather whatever storm necessary and do whatever it takes to survive.
In these days of globalization that leaves only two options: education or ignorance, integration or segregation and ghettos. If we do not become familiar with our unfamiliar new neighbors washing daily upon our shores, both figuratively and literally, and come to understand the world as they see it while teaching them the same in return, then we must understand fully the price which we are then choosing to pay, forcing them back into the waters out of which they were swept.
History abounds with examples of healthy integration, and in fact is a chronicle of nothing integration and the constant movement of peoples, and the challenges these bring to societies. Unless we realize that behind the makeup of language and culture, the same imperatives drive all people, we will continue to self-abuse and reject natural rhythms, dooming ourselves to these half lives of unnecessary sufferings.
These are all fancy words trying to make sense and help understand, but it’s simple: throw the fear. It’s just one of the many internal motivators and it harms us as often as protects. It’s needless fear driving these movements too, and all sides stoke it. Fear global warming, fear immigrants, fear guns, fear muslims, fear doctors, fear media, fear technology, fear the rich, fear the poor, fear the fear that seems to be the driving force behind nearly everything. It’s all just fear. As granny says, just throw it over your shoulder. Get on with it. Look past the fear and see what’s really there beyond it, for the fear is an illusion, but it leads to real harms.
Fear largely drove the forces behind both Trump and Brexit. It’s funny to watch all the crimes of history finally come to account in public reckoning, but it’s only spreading the fear, and the fear is spreading the violence, and there’s where I tug at my straps and try to jump off of this ride. But I can’t. We’re all strapped in for this one. Yet if we know the roller coaster is going and we cannot escape it, we might as well throw the fear and enjoy the ride. The chaos inside Pandora’s digital box has already been loosed, and it currently breaks towards the likes of Brexit, and Pepe, and Trump. Fear drives the masses to these demagogic choices after misinformation drives them towards fear.
Herein lies the limits of the absurd. In the time of turning off and merely taking in the show, others needlessly suffer as a cost. In laughing at the spectacle of someone in a dinner party getting enraged in a petty argument and flipping the table, one clearly has not considered the cleanup, or the partner who gets to go home that night with the rager? The cost of life is real, and we are all cast in the play, unable to take on the roll of merely audience. When it feels as if we just watch, it merely means we watch from the wings, our cue uncalled. We never watch impartial from the cold eye of the stands, despite how much we may wish to play critic and only see. We are all invested in the outcome of the show, and more importantly the good execution of this single performance. We are afraid we might fuck it up irreperably, denoument into the mists of the past.
Just get over it. Stop being afraid and then creating circumstances that further foster fear. Too long have we been burdened by it’s calcifying effects, too long have we been denied the true expression of the self. Accept others and in turn feel accepted, it’s a simple belief and practice that would eliminate so many of our struggles and contentions. Why is it so hard to implement? Well we all know what would fix the fear, now don’t we?
Am I writing this for myself or for the world?
Either way, Beyonce 2020.