Showing posts with label World War I. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World War I. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 June 2025
Thursday, 24 April 2025
Anzac Day Meditation
Died aged 18 near this spot.
April 25th, 1915.
Did his best.
Australian tombstone at Gallipoli.
(Photo courtesy of Chris Sansbury and Unsplash.com.)
Thursday, 18 November 2021
Good Video: Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity
This video is both brief and necessary.
We live in apocalyptic times. We're not the first; there have been many other apocalyptic moments in human history (the armistice decades of the World War, the run-up to the American Civil War, the Revolutionary period in France, probably a hundred more), but none of those were as apocalyptic as these, because those dysfunctions were purely behavioural. Today we're floundering in that same full-spectrum meltdown of morality and reason, at the precise moment we're also contending with the literal full-spectrum meltdown of our habitat. AKA, the thing we must have to live, without which we will die.
All of us.
I've commented before on a Zenner's responsibility in such times.
It's crucial to understand that the Stupidity Pandemic isn't just "their" problem. Our side – however we each define it – is just as fully implicated in the impending doom. I'm particularly discouraged by the social justice movement, one I've adhered to all my life, but which has recently collapsed into the same lynch-mob gutter as its presumed enemies. All the symptoms Bonhoeffer catalogued – inability to overcome conviction with logic, meeting substantive challenge with violence, thinking in slogans and catchphrases, reacting to vocabulary rather than statements or actions, and, I would add, simple crass bigotry shopped as virtue – are fully in evidence.
It's become impossible to advocate against racism or sexism anymore. Not truly. If you try, you'll first be smeared by your right wing opponents as a leftist lunatic, given the frankly crazy rhetoric of the most vocal elements of your side. Then, if you're old, white, and/or male, you'll be attacked by your theoretical allies for speaking at all.
And as Bonhoeffer pointed out, this weaponised hypocrisy can't be overcome with reason. Debate is worthless, to say nothing of common cause. The mob wants blood, any blood, and its formula for determining whose is forfeit is racist and sexist. (Note that ostensibly approved race or gender won't shield you, either. Anybody's killable. The Reivers just find another alibi on their infinite list – wealth, prominence, profession, perceived privilege, regional origin, academic record, alleged or immaterial past conduct, and on and on.)
I'm at a loss to understand how these bad-actors can possibly confront the Right with a straight face, now that they've joyfully incarnated all the very worst of it. The karma debt such behaviour incurs defies imagination.
As for me, I'm not going to shut up about it.
In this environment, if Zen is worth a damn, it's to keep us clear and independent of the generalised depravity. Let us all endeavour to look deeply, hold ourselves to a demanding standard of non-hypocrisy, and act in measure of acquired insight.
Because if our practice can't get us that, it can't get us anything.
We live in apocalyptic times. We're not the first; there have been many other apocalyptic moments in human history (the armistice decades of the World War, the run-up to the American Civil War, the Revolutionary period in France, probably a hundred more), but none of those were as apocalyptic as these, because those dysfunctions were purely behavioural. Today we're floundering in that same full-spectrum meltdown of morality and reason, at the precise moment we're also contending with the literal full-spectrum meltdown of our habitat. AKA, the thing we must have to live, without which we will die.
All of us.
I've commented before on a Zenner's responsibility in such times.
It's crucial to understand that the Stupidity Pandemic isn't just "their" problem. Our side – however we each define it – is just as fully implicated in the impending doom. I'm particularly discouraged by the social justice movement, one I've adhered to all my life, but which has recently collapsed into the same lynch-mob gutter as its presumed enemies. All the symptoms Bonhoeffer catalogued – inability to overcome conviction with logic, meeting substantive challenge with violence, thinking in slogans and catchphrases, reacting to vocabulary rather than statements or actions, and, I would add, simple crass bigotry shopped as virtue – are fully in evidence.
It's become impossible to advocate against racism or sexism anymore. Not truly. If you try, you'll first be smeared by your right wing opponents as a leftist lunatic, given the frankly crazy rhetoric of the most vocal elements of your side. Then, if you're old, white, and/or male, you'll be attacked by your theoretical allies for speaking at all.
And as Bonhoeffer pointed out, this weaponised hypocrisy can't be overcome with reason. Debate is worthless, to say nothing of common cause. The mob wants blood, any blood, and its formula for determining whose is forfeit is racist and sexist. (Note that ostensibly approved race or gender won't shield you, either. Anybody's killable. The Reivers just find another alibi on their infinite list – wealth, prominence, profession, perceived privilege, regional origin, academic record, alleged or immaterial past conduct, and on and on.)
I'm at a loss to understand how these bad-actors can possibly confront the Right with a straight face, now that they've joyfully incarnated all the very worst of it. The karma debt such behaviour incurs defies imagination.
As for me, I'm not going to shut up about it.
In this environment, if Zen is worth a damn, it's to keep us clear and independent of the generalised depravity. Let us all endeavour to look deeply, hold ourselves to a demanding standard of non-hypocrisy, and act in measure of acquired insight.
Because if our practice can't get us that, it can't get us anything.
Wednesday, 16 March 2016
WW: Spruce Warrior
(During World War I so many hale young men were removed from our forests by the US military that the Army Air Corps had to raise "Spruce Squadrons" to cut down the trees our boys were no longer felling because they were in France and the military needed wood for aircraft.
I know, I know. Don't say it.
Most of these kids came from the East and Midwest and other places where they don't know what a real tree is. So they died like flies -- logging, especially in the day, was as deadly as warfare. Interesting aside: many of the Spruce Warriors were conscientious objectors, assigned this as alternative service. So a kind of patriotic censure hung over these units, despite the fact that they served steadfastly in a vital, extremely dangerous [if faintly ridiculous] duty.
My great grandmother used to photograph their military funeral parades down Main Street -- about one a week -- and send prints to the families. Fortunately the Littlejohns never received one of her envelopes; their son Calvin, of 60 Spruce Squadron, died in 1951.)
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