radical thought of kindness

Correct me if I’m wrong, but from life observations it appears the causation for many of the world’s social issues often involves factors such as mistrust, jealousy, fear of losing privilege and of course hate and anger.

These factors form the ugly mess that is bigotry and the subsequent conflict that follows. At the other end of the spectrum, love, respect, empathy and compassion form the foundation of social equality. We know this, it’s a conversation that’s taken place for thousands of years, yet as humans we still get it so wrong, in so many respects. At times it seems social equality is further away than ever, but it’s not, we’re just at the ugly tail end. While we’re still dealing with racial inequality, religious persecution and gender discrimination, the wealth divide between classes makes the Grand Canyon look like a small hole in a kids sand pit. We’re presented with the illusion that things are ok, but it doesn’t take much to expose what lies under the surface. If the COVID experience taught us anything it’s the true nature of humanity, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Conflict is something we observe through our lifetime, it never goes away, it’s consistently reported in news and online, it’s a relentless human burden that we both participate in and observe.

I was about 14 when Iraq invaded Kuwait, it was a pivotal moment. I remember the news unfold on television and although we lived on a small farm on the other side of the world, there was a real sense of the destructive nature of war and conflict. The coverage was akin to televised sports with drama and sensationalism but also with the sordid details, unescapable on our screens. Unlike a sports game, players didn’t go to the bench when they got injured, they got killed. It was a bookend to childhood innocence.

As a kid of the 80’s I hadn’t really paid much attention to the conflict like the Falklands War or the terrorist activity from Ireland and the middle east, it always felt so distant, unrelatable to simple farm life. The Gulf War however, felt very real. I recall a moment in the family room when Dad said “we might get dragged into this one”. I wasn’t far from coming of age and the thought of being shipped off to distant country to fight actually seemed like a possibility, especially if it dragged on for years like the Vietnam war. I had no personal beef with Iraq or for anyone for that matter, and I’m very pragmatic in my disdain for extreme national patriotism. A strange concept whose foundations rely purely on loving one country more than another simply because you were born in that specific geographical location, not by choice, but by mathematical probability. It’s an archaic way of thinking that I believe will be looked upon with nostalgia in the future, but will serve less purpose as the world unifies.

The Gulf War was just another human war, predictably started by another male in charge, asserting their power. Wars are always fought over something of perceived value, territory, resources or a feud, race and religious hate, the cause varies, but matters very little, the death toll however does. Pain and suffering matters, it lingers for decades, becoming ingrained in a culture. It feeds a cyclic nature of human mistrust and hatred for the people that inflicted the pain, i.e. both opposing parties. A perpetual paradigm of human suffering.

You don’t need to be a historian to know that no one wins from war, there are always painful costs on both sides, even for the victor, yet conflict still occurs. On a personal level for us all, conflict is a part of being human. For so many years conflict was a part of how I reacted to many situations. I’ve had my share of dirty scrapes, I’ve been violent, but with age I’ve cared less for conflict. In fact, I care less for a lot of things that used to hold value. I like that about aging, giving less of a fuck, at the same time caring about other things that actually matter.

Since that war there’s been one major conflict after another, some interrelated, some separate, all ending in human suffering, and not just for the people fighting, but reliably incurring devastating impact on innocent civilians not wanting to participate. The words ‘casualties of war’ have never sat well with me. I know I’m writing this from a position of privilege. I’m not a refugee that’s fled their country of origin wearing just the clothes on their back, desperate to escape the constant threat of death, I’m just a person trying to make sense of the mechanics of the human world.

I can’t help but consider the root causes of conflict, and I acknowledge there are complex systems that drive war and in no way would I attempt to describe the rationale for conflict in absolute terms, there’s as much grey area there as a London skyline in midwinter. There’s often violent history between peoples, generational pain and persecution, all factors that lead to mistrust, hatred, anger and ultimately violence. As far as I can see, observing the stories of people who have either fought or been innocent victims of war, the general consensus is that war is not so crash hot and should be avoided at all costs.

For now let us step aside from the concept of war and our history of predictably repeating the same mistake over and over again with the reliability of sunrise, instead let’s focus on ‘general conflict’ the kind we as individuals experience through life. Conflict stems from our inability to accept different ways of thinking other than their own.

In terms of social conflict, the world is watching the social and political unrest unfold in the United States with equal amounts of concern and bated breath. It’s not a singular social issue that’s causing the conflict, it’s more like a smorgasbord of issues, akin to the excessive amount of gelato on offer at an ice cream shop. Trump supporters still blame Obama for not giving them jobs, still blame him for the perceived threat of him taking their guns away (never happened) or believe the narrative that he ruined the economy and health care and that Trump is doing his best to repair it. Throw something in about Trump validating underlying racist and bigoted sentiment for far right groups that poked old wounds; ‘stand back and stand by’ couldn’t be any clearer. Add to the shit soup the very real frustration of hundreds of years of oppression and persecution of the Afro-American community and you have a hot bed for social conflict. America, the world powerhouse is in a world of pain, reminiscent of the fall of the Roman Empire.

The opposing parties are fueled with hatred, anger and desperate frustration and we’ve seen a constant news feed of conflict between opposing factions, police, armed militia and the National Guard. You’d be justified in saying America is experiencing the most social upheaval since the 1960’s and it’s showing very little sign of calming down. Whatever the result of the upcoming election will be, some level of violent conflict is sure to follow.

I recently saw a photo posted on Instagram of two men shaking hands, one holding a Trump flag and one holding a Bidon flag and the caption said “This is how 90% of Americans actually are”. It was just a meme and I understand it’s purpose is to promote the concept that most of us possess the ability to calmly accept other people’s point of view without the urge to club them over the head in disagreement, however the pessimist in me thinks the figure is inaccurate. Made up statistics aside, I acknowledge that there are a lot of fair minded decent people in the world, I also believe the majority lack the possession of certain skills needed to avoid conflict, notably critical thought, compassion and empathy. Expressing these skills is now deemed radical, potentially unpatriotic in the American context. I call them skills because I believe them to be learned things, we can lose them when we leave behind the innocence of childhood, and they’re not always welcome traits in many adult situations. Our logical brains know that if we actively embraced these human traits the world would be a very different place, but it means letting go of the past and that’s a challenge many can’t overcome.

Let’s look at the Black Lives Matter movement, one of which I admit years ago I took a while to get my head around. A very dear friend of mine did her best to explain to me the difference between ‘all lives matter’ and ‘black lives matter, I apologise for the slow uptake but I got there in the end. I get it, I very much get it now. I hadn’t really understood the concept of equality from my position of privilege as a white male, we literally need to be untaught concepts, of which I have faith that anyone can learn at any age. We need to allow for people to change, because we all grow and learn in different ways at different times and that’s where kindness comes in. Kindness is a foundation pillar of equality. You can’t want true equality without a level of sincere kindness for your fellow human. Sadly kindness isn’t celebrated culturally in our society whose structure is based around being competitive in order to increase one’s material and economic wealth. Competitiveness is celebrated more than kindness.

The thing that gets to me about Black Lives Matter is not the validity and purpose of it, but the many people that oppose it, which at its heart means there’s a lot of people that oppose the very concept of equality. After all we’ve been through in terms of human history it’s difficult to fathom that someone can not be all in for equality. Even with my earlier thinking that ‘All Lives Matter’ I still believed in the concept of equality for all, I was just misguided in the terminology, which in itself is important.

Anti BLM people call BLM activists radicals because they promote a concept that, at its roots is simply about equality and believe BLM activists should be dealt with in a specific manner, one that involves them being restrained, confined, silenced or at worst violently dealt with by government sanctioned brute force, so the cycle continues.

But here’s the rub. The reality is that all of us, no matter where we’re born, the colour of our skin, our gender, religious views of sexual orientation, we all eventually face death. This unites us, it puts us on a level playing field. Most people avoid the thought of death because it’s scary, I’m scared, but I consider it often. I ask myself if I’ve lived a decent life, have I done enough good, have I loved enough, have I just done enough. The reminder of mortality can be a great driving force and provides great perspective in terms of how we see others and the world.

I sure don’t want to be on my deathbed weighted down by feelings of hate or anger for my fellow man, in fact I’d very much like to be comfortable in my integrity of knowing I’d had enough conversations that helped diminish bigitied thought over my life time, that in some way I guided others towards open thinking, that which leads to social equality. It’s often on people’s death bed that they ask for forgiveness for the pain they’ve caused over the years, but I wonder if that desperate thinking at the end is something that can be embraced while we’re living. Imagine if we all went through our lives wanting nothing but fairness for all and to be active in promoting it, as simply as having the hard discussions when a family member says something racist or engaging calmly with a bigotted troll online.

Sure social media has its flaws encouraging some fairly gross human behaviour but it’s also shown itself to be a wonderfully positive tool in spreading a message of hope. In terms of equality and critical thought, some high profile accounts have taken the risk to promote the ideology of equality and for that the inevitable negative reaction has followed suit. They’re hounded as ‘snowflake liberals’ in America and ‘bleeding heart lefties’ in Australia. I find it amazing that there is criticism unleashed towards someone promoting equality, fairness and kindness, in itself exposes so much about the underlying core of humanity.