Stumbling With No One To Guide Us
Another day, Thursday, one day closer to the imposition of a tariff on all goods imported from Mexico. Thus a supply chain between the United States and Mexico established over the last twenty five years will be disrupted. The President expects Mexico to slam the door upon thousands fleeing the impact of climate change on their livelihood, fleeing the chaos of gang riven violence, and social disorder. Mexico is loath to exercise such cruelty upon those with whom they have language and culture in common.
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the price of US crude oil futures have fallen 20% from the April high of $66.00 a barrel and is now in negative (money losing) territory. A clear line can be drawn between the uncertainty and the expectation of a decline in trade due to trade wars on several fronts. Less trade equals less demand for oil.
How friable, how crumbly, is a society whose structural support members are established by law, as a matter of “rights.” This is a secular arrangement, as a law-given-right holds only to the extent, and as long as a leader does not come along who has the temerity to interpret the law according to his obsession or his fear. Or to ignore the law entirely. A society of laws sounds so noble, so egalitarian, so democratic and yet proves to be as temporary as dew on a springtime morning.
We have no functioning myth, no story to believe in, which establishes the boundaries of propriety, the right and wrong of behavior that is coincident with the social compact. The old Christian story of Jesus, the working class carpenter who advocated for the humanity of the non-elite working class—and who was executed for his trouble—is a story thoroughly discredited. The churches, the institutional custodians of that story are known to be sequestering pedophiles, or in the case of the evangelicals, have thrown in their lot with Caesar, and are shills for the empire.
I think of the Greeks in their golden age, the age of Pericles. By dint of great sacrifice and cooperation together the Achaeans and Spartans defeated the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamas. And there is the account of Leonidas with his 300 Spartans that held off 100,000 Persians at Thermopylae for seven days.
These historical facts were framed by the myth of Athena, the protectoress of Athens. Athena Parthenos, (Athena the Virgin) the gold and ivory statue fashioned by Phidias stood atop the Acropolis rising 37 ft 9 inches above it’s pedestal. According to the story Athena goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and warfare was instrumental in giving to the Greeks their mastery of seafaring commerce, and the gift of the olive tree. The statue gleaming in the sunlight must have been a persuasive argument cementing the cohesion between the noble families and the working classes within society.
Life is life and is not fair. Life is dirt and humbug. Within that given, how can we understand our roles such as they are, by the accident of birth as working class or to affluence and privilege— to the benefit of the common good?
Where are the “saints” those who show us a way home?
There are many saints who at first were sinners. Even sin can be a way to saintliness, sin and vice. You will laugh at me, but I often think that even my friend Pablo might be a saint in hiding. Ah, Harry, we have to stumble, through so much dirt and humbug before we reach home. And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness.”
Excerpt, Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse p. 153