Fresh Start for Democracy
A Fresh Start for Democracy is needed. An approach was not detailed. However, how it is approached is critical.
The prevailing spirit of our culture is domination. That is evidenced in both individuals and in institutions. Men dominate women, straights dominate gays, Republicans dominate Democrats, or vice versa, Christians dominate Muslims, whites dominate blacks, rich dominate poor, schools dominate students, corporations dominate communication media, and governments, our nation dominates other nations. Institutions have networked into a system with an encompassing spirit of domination. In order to change a cultural system, we must address its spirit as an integral aspect of its structure.
If not the domination system, what? Is a culture of peace and freedom possible? By identifying the beneficial shared human values, we can see clearly the contrast between a system ruled by them and the domination system.
But can the domination system be changed? There are tribes today who are non-hierarchical and in which violence is almost nonexistent. Historical research has found very little warfare in civilizations between 9000 and 4000 b.c.e.. Then after about 3000 b.c.e. warfare proliferated dramatically. The spirituality of the system had changed, and so it is capable of change. The aggression needed for domination is an inherited capacity, but a system based on it is learned.
In order to change the domination system, we need to understand it. The principal force underlying that system is the myth of redemptive violence. Redemptive violence is the attempt to bring back peacefulness to culture through violent means, such as extermination of enemies or the threat to do so. This approach dates back to before Babylon. It is currently embraced by both the left and the right. It permeates popular culture today. Redemptive violence is accepted in school and church curricula, and is the theme of many, perhaps most, TV shows and news stories. By the age of eighteen, the average person has seen around 15 thousand murders on TV. Explicitly brutal and sexually sadistic violence has infused comic books, video games and home videos. Redemptive violence supports a national security ideology based on aggression which contributes to the maintenance of international conflict.
We are products of the domination system. Like it or not, domination inhabits our subconscious. It colors our actions. Try as we might, we cannot expunge it totally. Still, when we act in a non-violent way, we strike the chords of a system of peace and freedom inherent in all persons. Embodiment of the values of non-domination in our spirit/action joins an existing groundswell of protest against domination. Liberation struggles, often underreported, have produced tremendous changes in the past two hundred years, including the abolition of slavery, women's right to vote, the civil rights and gay rights movements, abolition of the death penalty in most states and the ecology movement. Change is on the way.
To be an agent of change, we must search ourselves for tendencies to dominate. Walking out of institutions and structures that reinforce violence, injustice and exploitation will take courage and self-discipline. It will, as Manish Jain writes in the Winter issue of YES! magazine, take honestly questioning our own complicity, fear and insecurity, as well as searching for our own real sources of organic power. It will, most assuredly, take us out of our comfort zone. Those of us who have succeeded within the domination system and become accustomed to the rewards of obedience to it may find our personal transition difficult. However, if we wait to act until we rid ourselves of our tendency to dominate, or for permission from authorities to disobey or for others to free us, we only delay the system's redemption both for ourselves and future generations.
Through an active practice of non-violent non-cooperation with the domination system, we can withdraw the legitimacy it has in our spirit and open up new possibilities.
If we use the methods of the domination system to try to get rid of oppressors, we will have only reinforced that system. If we use violence to rid the system of violence, the domination system will simply continue under a new set of authorities. A culture of peace will not be free of conflict, but resolution of it will be non-violent. We must focus on changing the rules rather than the rulers. We must lust for restoration of oppressors, not for punishment. In order not to perpetuate the domination system, we must act freely to, as Mahatma Gandhi said, ".... be the change we want to see in the world."
The system of domination is deeply entrenched in our culture. It will not yield to change gracefully. The consequences of resistance can be severe. In order to be free from the cycle of violence, we must free ourself from the fear of death. Fleeing violence or fighting it will not expunge it. When negotiation is declined or fails, most often, it is creative, non-violent direct action by those who have found their inner strength that has furthered change.
We will not entirely succeed in creating a culture of peace and freedom. Redeeming culture assuredly is a never ending process. Nevertheless, through contributing to it, we may find that we no longer need to balance a separate enjoyment of life from our efforts toward it. By becoming the change we seek in the world, our spirit will be freer and more peaceful, and those efforts our greatest joy.
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