Perhaps the greatest threat to all of humanity is how heavily invested we are in the mythologies that shape our culture. We allow our mythologies to supersede law. We allow mythologies to shape our political views. We even allow mythologies to tell us what love is and who deserves it. Mythologies have such a heavy place in world culture that I wonder if we have the slightest grasp on reality at all.
I’m in an argumentative mood this morning as I’m trying to solve for myself what is the appropriate response to world events. Normally, that might result in an incredibly long missive, but I slept on my left hand some strange sort of way and the pain of moving my fingers to type is offputting. It’s also trash day and I don’t have ours out by the curb yet, so I can’t spend too much time in explanations.
Sitting in my inbox this morning was an email from the Social Security Administration letting me know that I will automatically be enrolled in Medicare on my 65th birthday. The email attempts to encourage me to learn about the program now so that I can make an informed decision when the time comes. That almost sounds reasonable, and I certainly will be taking a closer look at the program.
The problem is that I keep seeing headlines about Musk and Ramaswamy wanting to gut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. What’s going on here? Mythology. The two DOGE members are creating a mythology for their non-existent organization to push the illegal concept that they have any power at all. They don’t. They aren’t a real government department. They don’t have government funding. They are simply two rich guys throwing around an acronym trying to get their way. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Mythology.
[NOTE: AT THIS POINT, EVERYTHING I’D WRITTEN BLOW THIS POINT WAS DELETED BY AN AUTOSAVE ATTEMPT. I’M NOT SURE I’LL REMEMBER EVERYTHING I’D PREVIOUSLY TYPED.]
Unfortunately, the world has been conditioned to believe in mythology. From our earliest forms of existence, humanity has looked to myths and legends to explain what was unexplainable. When the mythologies of one group conflicted with the mythologies of another group then they fought each other for dominance. This backward and unreasonable means of justifying violence against each other has been part of our teaching for so long that we can’t imagine what reality is without them. We’ve allowed mythology to determine our ideas of governance, community, justice, personal responsibility, and medicine. We are so far removed from reality that many are unable to recognize it when its harshness slaps them in the face.
Here’s some reality for you. God is not love. Love is love. Love does not require a sacrifice. Love does not come from any third party. Love does not condemn one to eternal punishment. Love is not eternal. Love is not conditional. No deity is going to grow your crops more abundantly. No deity is going to deny you rain based on your faithfulness. The only ‘race’ is human. There are more than two genders. Earth is not the center of the universe. The universe is expanding more rapidly than we ever thought. Creation does not have an endpoint. This is just a touch of all the mythologies that reality has to dismantle.
Ingrained mythologies cause us to have a warped sense of morality. I found this present in an opinion piece in the New York Times that attempts to argue against vigilante justice. The author’s premise is that murder is always wrong. Therefore, if the person who killed an insurance CEO murdered that individual, then what they did was immoral. This is a mythology-based argument, though, that goes back to the Code of Hammurabi, circa 1750 BCE. That is where the whole “thou shall not commit murder” thing originated.
There are some problems with this form of thought. First, Luigi Mangione is being charged with second-degree murder. If we can assign varying degrees of murder, then not all murder is the same which allows for some forms of killing to not be murder. The School of Law at Cornell University defines second-degree murder as “typically murder with malicious intent but not premeditated. The mens rea of the defendant is intent to kill, intent to inflict serious bodily harm, or act with an abandoned heart (e.g., reckless conduct lacking concern for human life or having a high risk of death).” This requires a judge or jury to imply a state of mind on the part of the defendant even if there is no confession to the act. I’m sorry, but who among you is a mind reader of thoughts that have already passed? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Secondly, if murder is always wrong, then how do we justify war? Is not war nothing more than the corporate murder of one people group for the alleged benefit of another people group? How is killing one person immoral but killing hundreds or thousands of people, such as those in Gaza or Ukraine not grotesquely more immorally murderous than a single death? If we are going to justify the greater loss of life then how do we not justify the individual loss of life? There has to be a balance here or everything is meaningless.
Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” Embracing human rights at this level requires setting aside mythology. The origin of life is no longer debatable because it is irrelevant. Everyone has the right to life. By definition, that means you have the right to breathe in and out. Everyone has the right to liberty, to be free of all incumbrance, servitude, or involuntary subjugation. Everyone has the right to ‘security of person,’ to not live under the threat of pain or death for any reason.
Putting a bullet through someone’s head violates their right to life. Denying a person necessary and appropriate medical care violates their ‘security of person.’ Which is worse? Are they not both equal? What about the encumbrance of debt from medical care? Certainly, that violates one’s right to liberty, does it not? Therefore, if ending the life of one prevents that one from ending, by proxy, the lives of thousands, is that not an acceptable outcome? Or, are we willing to charge both with murder? If Congress cuts funding for poor and elderly people, resulting in the deaths of those people, is not Congress also guilty of murder? If a president sends the army off to do battle, is not the blood of everyone killed on the hands of that president?
Mythology has led us to a grotesque and ill-formed illusion of individuality. The one is not greater, nor more valuable than the whole. There are no ‘bootstraps’ by which one must pull themselves up. We are now, as always, reliant on community. From the beginning of time, women have helped other women deliver their babies and care for their young. From the beginning of time, food was shared with those who needed it with no cost imposed on anyone. From the beginning of time, humankind has relied on the community to provide safety, shelter, and clothing. Humanity is not a collection of individuals, for individuals on their own cannot sustain life beyond themselves. Community is requisite for the propagation of the species.
I have grown tired of hearing people, including the president, state that “violence is not American.” Bullshit. From the moment the first Europeans set foot on this continent, violence has been at the heart of their actions and philosophies because of their belief in mythologies. Mythologies told them that the indigenous people were “savages” that needed to be exterminated. Mythologies told them that people of color were not human and could therefore be rightfully enslaved. The American Revolution required the justification of violence against troops representing King George III. For our entire existence, we have lurched from war to war, relying on it to shore up our economy and further our dominance over others. Violence is American.
Mythology leads us to believe that our system of checks and balances is sufficient to ensure justice. Yet, corruption has been present from the very beginning. That system of checks and balances becomes inept as each branch of government passes and enforces laws that further enshrine the powers of the others. Should “we the people” object to the crimes of government, punishment for such is too cumbersome, timely, costly, and unwieldy to yield any effect. There is no justice for those harmed by the actions of this government or any other. There is no justice for those harmed by the actions of corporations or the oligarchs they create.
Void of justice, what choice does one have but to commit acts of violence in order to protect the life, liberty, and security of person for us all? Do we dare claim that one’s good deeds outweigh the lives they’ve taken? How do we justify prosecuting the crimes of one when we ignore the more numerous crimes of others?
If we are going to survive as a people, we must accept the fact that in the absence of justice, violence against the unjust becomes necessary. Giving insurance companies the right to deny care for others is patently unjust. Giving the government the ability to remove funding for or add barriers to healthcare is inherently unjust. Allowing police to kill without justification is uniquely unjust.
If we cannot have justice, then we must embrace violence to protect our lives, our liberty, and our sense of person.
Don’t argue with me until you’ve brought me more coffee. And food. I’m not in the fucking mood.
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