Lest I ever be charged with not caring about the world, humanity, society, and politics or of being some kind of navel-gazing waster without any impulse to change the state of world affairs for the better, I would like to offer this, my sincere political entreaty to all.
Our basic unity as one mortal species on this one living planet needs to be recognised. Then is needed only the removal from the global commons of ephemeral- if not completely non-existent- divisions of race, nationality, cultural or religious sectarianism, gender, sexuality to act as the necessary condition to save life and end, or at the very least, ease suffering.
This is not idealism or pie-in-the-sky sentimentalism. It's simply recognising a fact of the basic experience of this life. This world is covered over by mountains of accumulated fabrications and excuses for why war, poverty, cruelty, hatred and greed are to be accepted as 'just how it needs to be'. Mountains that rise as accepted delusions within the already illusive nature of existence.
With regards to this latter, all sorts of things can be said to exist relatively- not merely bare matter. Systems, beliefs, measurements, even ‘pure’ ideas exist relatively. However, what they all share is that they are abstracts from and relative to the immediate, present, world of experience, the world of living and dying. It is not that there is body, mind, and a world of other bodies and minds that are ultimately separate, independent, discrete entities. Rather, there is boundless experience taking relatively individuated forms and instances, that there is particular presence emerging from absence (of particularity) in one creative, formless tissue of being and time. A many that are one, a one that is many, like thoughts and consciousness
And so, bringing this to political relevance, I would say that any political movement that seeks to reify ephemeral fault-lines in humanity, to feed off deluded and misdirected rage, to yoke to it’s service anti-realistic, destructive and misleading fantasy, to cultivate hatred and to shun recognition of the basic fact of our common human life on our common home- that political movement is profoundly reactionary if not homicidal.
The unity achieved in past political movements in the creating of states which transcended ethnicity needs to be (swiftly) built upon towards greater unity involving greater unions of states and towards the goal of a united (not necessarily monopolar) humanity. This itself, almost impossible as it seems right now, will simply be a recognition of what was always the case if only we had removed the cataracts of illusion that presented the world as otherwise.
All social, cultural forms, identities, characteristics are derivative of
one common form, common identity, common characteristic.
The identity that is (or can be) named is not the real identity.
without the conditions necessary for living, the common fate for all is
one great dying.
Thank you! When we recognize the common source of our humanity, the common origins of our dreams and longings, our hopes and fears, we are able to see that we are all joined together in the great miracle of existence. 🪷