by Craig Willms
No one has all the answers. Most people including yours truly barely know enough to get by day to day. If nothing goes wrong and no one does anything unexpected or uncharacteristic we might be able to get by without confusion or strife. When does that ever happen? You might get a week, even a month where things go smoothly - then something happens. That's life.
You'd think that after living many, many decades things would be much clearer by now. Things? Yeah, things, as in everything. The only thing that is crystal clear is that everything changes - all the time. We go through life acquiring things, knowledge, experiences, skills and understanding seemingly preparing ourselves for someday when will put it all together and arrive. We never arrive. We never get to that place where we have it all put together and are ready to really live. Honestly, by the time you've put everything in its place, and time is all yours, you're just too tired to do anything. Ask any old person, they'll tell you.
We can't just accept that, we all know it, at least not so early on in the free-time portion of our life. Play through the pain as they say. However, even if the mind is revved up and ready to go the body is out of gas. It's not exactly clear when the body betrayed us, but it is perfectly clear what was lost.
So, you've got the physical changes and the ever-changing modern world and the unexpected events piling up. Nothing's making sense anymore. You find yourself saying "you've got to be kidding me?" all the time or that other favorite "oh, for f_cks sake!". You thought you'd seen it all. Nope. Who said there's nothing new under the sun? Are you sure about that?
Standards, norms and expectations change like the wind. It's probably always been like that, but how would we know, we live in the now. History books rarely touch on the perceptions of the human experience. We can listen to our parents and grandparents for those insights, but how often do we actually do that? By the time we become an 'elder' our parents are gone, and our grandparents long gone. All we have is our own thoughts and memories to draw on. When we look back the decades smear together, what was once of earth shattering importance seems quaint and antiquated.
The world moves so fast now, it's so up close, so in your face. We watch the news and see the worst of humanity. We see what seems to be a concerted effort to tear everything down. They take any imperfect system, demand perfection and destroy it. Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense. What emerges might be an improvement, but it's not a zero sum gain. There are always trade-offs, something good, something vital is always lost. When this is applied to an entire country all at once everything and everyone suffers. For a modern example we need only to look at Venezuela. A few short decades ago Venezuela was the most prosperous country in South America, today it's possibly the poorest. The socialist revolution that took place was a disaster. Blame socialism, sure, I do, but it's a clear example of a regime destroying everything and expecting paradise to emerge. Pure folly.
The problem with the Utopians is that they have completely unrealistic expectations of society. They have a poor understanding of the natural self interest humans have always applied to themselves. It's called human nature. The other thing that seems to evade their sensibilities is that life is wholly unfair and downright brutal at times. Bad things happen to good people. Thank you Captain Obvious. They claim that they can change it if only the right system or policy is enacted. If only it were that easy... Since the beginning of time we have been at the mercy of those with power and money and their exploitations. This will never change. Why? See the the top of this paragraph.
In the west where I live the do-good destroyers target parts of society at an economic or at a social cohesion level. Of course paradise is the aim, but these are the unobtainable pipe dreams of those who wear rose-colored glasses. Yes, things could always be better, and it's important to strive for better, but not at the cost of destroying everything, the good and the bad.
Wait! Do-good destroyers?
What else are you going to call them? When they inevitably bring their grievances to the streets they leave behind a trail of destruction. They are curiously never present when outcomes of their heart-felt policies lay in ruins at our feet. As well, we all know by now that these "street actions" are funded by powerful forces that relish in the chaos. When we focus on the ideologues fighting in the streets we are not focusing on the ideologue money-men and their schemes.
For all their sins, this is the worst... For decades now the Utopians have targeted motherhood. Ostensibly to free women of the toil and drudgery of child rearing and offer them a chance to have a career and equality of opportunity. Laudable? Well, I'll say this - true motives are often masked. Their tact was not to say you can be a mother and raise children, or have a fulfilling career. In practice it was to destroy the joy of motherhood in every way possible. Liberation was the rhetoric, but killing babies and starting the depopulation program was the goal. Sixty years later the entirety of the western world is below replacement level. Most of the developed world is in the same boat. At this pace humanity will go extinct. The Utopians have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. This is not to say there were not a whole host of other factors that have contributed to this, but clearly convincing women the only way to fulfillment is to eschew motherhood was a major contributor. By the time enough people wake up to this it will be too late.
Making sense of this evil is difficult. Masked by the platitudes of high mindedness and decency, evil is often unseen. As with the liberation of women from their natural, instinctual need for motherhood evil targets what is good by calling it oppression and exploitation. Evil exists within all of us, no one is immune. It's why a utopian paradise is impossible. We should strive for it, by all means, ideals are good, but we can't destroy everything including ourselves because part of our culture, our beliefs or our systems is currently imperfect.
