Kinutil
All these remind me of lines from a song in Pink Floyd’s album, “Dark Side of the Moon”:
Us and Them
And after all we’re only ordinary men
Me, and you
God only knows it’s not what we would choose to do
Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died
And the General sat, as the lines on the map
moved from side to side
Black and Blue
And who knows which is which and who is who
Up and Down
And in the end it’s only round and round and round
Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words
the poster bearer cried
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There’s room for you inside . . .
And it is the essential nature of conflict and confrontation to divide us inevitably to “us” and “them.” And most of us remove from our minds the fact these are only categorizations we ourselves construct over ourselves. Few of us realize how ridiculous the categorizations are. Few of us bring ourselves to examine the operational criteria we apply to define the categories themselves.
And then we are left with the most ridiculous fundamental criteria of all: We are right. They are wrong. We are right. They are stupid. Us and them.
And the “I” joins quite easily into “the mob” because humans like to play along. Playing along with the mob removes the individual from the obligation of personal conscience.
The mob is capable of doing acts the individual, acting alone, would not even think of doing; such acts as would move the lone individual to wonder if he or she has not become a sociopath for doing such acts.
Unless, of course, the individual was already a sociopath to start with. In which case, the act of wondering would not be likely.
Otherwise, sociopathy is a phenomenon of the collective, the act of the mob, which is incapable of self-examining its own acts.
Acts of deceit, acts of making a travesty of fundamental laws, acts of sanctioning murder and laughing at violence and rape become possible. We are right. They are wrong. And so we free ourselves to do whatever it takes to win.
And we would keep doing these acts unless we remember that the act of voting, of electing our leaders, is a sacred act of the individual.
Which is why we would go into that polling booth alone and determine in our conscience whether we are voting with the mob or as an individual voting alone.
For if it were a sacred act, then it must be that it is the “I” who votes. Not us. Not them. And why would the “I” vote for a candidate who would do such acts that the “I” is incapable of doing? Why should the candidate the “I” votes for be exempt from the laws the “I” applies to and for itself?