Against

fulfillment from long knives

There is a rumor that some members of our political system are against everything, therefore they must also be against America. When any sense of justice, weighing what is fair and sustainable, on one hand, and what is blind greed, exploitation, and nearly suicidal addiction to quick profits, on the other, is no longer debated, one can wonder if another kind of energy is at work in sickened psyches.

Reading about current government initiatives to support American industrial output, I was wondering this morning if those who are against “government” (except government by anti-government vigilantes), would also be against helping American manufacturing. If past records are any indication, the answer would have to be yes, of course. It isn’t any longer a question of supporting government or industry, it is about organizing objections to all organized activity. A free-for-all is supposedly the answer, an answer shouted by highly subsidized mass movements against subsidizing anything but itself.

Now, one could still dream that a reasonable dialogue with the shepherds or sheep of these descendants of brownshirt-slogans could uncover the merits, or lack thereof, of being a pro at con, but such dreams miss the whole point.

The Againsters are not really against government or industry or the rule of the people, by the people, for the people: they are simply against. The human race appears to be balancing a sense of identity derived from what it is against and what it is for. Among Americans, at present, about half of the population seems to feel the more certain who they are, the more they can shout about what they are against.  The other half appears to be divided between those who know themselves because of what they are for and those who are content to have no clue about their sense of self (the latter often ready material for the Againsters).

Another Government Agency to Be Locked up...

The fact is that those who are addicted to a sense of self based on Againstism will feel personally attacked if one tries to change their mind to a more positive attitude. Imagine, for example, what all those people on the radical Against side would do if suddenly there were as little government as they are demanding now. What would they yell next? What would they want to be known by?

Againstism, as in “Tea Party,” can identify itself by the very substance it would throw away, creating a storm at least in a tea cup, perhaps in order to promote coffee. Or is all of this a plot against both coffee drinkers and against tea drinkers (beer would seem a better drink, or sanctimoniousness by the gallon)?  It would suggest, none of the above: it is a completely spontaneous, carefully organized reawakening of the forces against all those who are for anything. There is no weighing of what is reasonable, what is good. There is only a weighing in on the deaf and dumb side of the Spirit-That-Always-Says-No, the side of the “devil”.