Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes 17

We get the government we deserve. I have long played solitary ping-pong with this idea. I first really gave thought to the notion early in my social and political activism. I was a green twenty-seven and our province was being rocked by political controversy. Some of the early neoliberal reforms (sorry about misusing the word "reforms") were being implemented by our centre-right government, the Social Credit, or Socreds. There are many contenders for the origins of the quote, Alexis de Tocqueville, among them. It was 1983 and I really wanted to know what was going on in our legislature in Victoria, the provincial capital of British Columbia, the province where I live. The legislature was in session so I came in and sat in the viewing gallery. I was appalled. The simple rudeness and lack of even the most basic civility and respect between the legislators and the opposition were, to say the least, disheartening and I walked away in disbelief, thinking that since enough people in this province voted those clowns into power to justify the maxim, then, yes indeed, we really do get the government we deserve. But do we all deserve this kind of government, the many who don't vote for them, even if we don't constitute the majority? I don't think so. But this is one of the huge flaws in our democratic process and system. There is also Sir Winston Churchill's famous quote : 'Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…’ Churchill, like all good conservatives (if there is such a thing) was very backward looking. He wouldn't have been particularly interested in trying anything new. If it ain't broke, don't fix it (though I think he might have said that rather differently). Democracy isn't bad, and yes it is an improvement over...totalitarianism?...absolute monarchy?...Shariah law implemented by a fundamentalist theocracy? I think it's wonderful that everyone gets to vote. Even the most ignorant and backward, even the most hateful and bigoted, even the least educated and most likely to think with their reptilian brain. Which is precisely how the Great Deplorable got to stuff his orange face with Big Macs inside the Oval Office. And it goes without saying that one year later, after all the atrocious misgovernment of the Dump Administration, those same ignorant, backward dumbasses who voted him into power have reported that they think he is doing a good, if not great job. What's wrong here? I think that our deficit of real democracy says a lot about what a mess we are as human beings. This isn't, by the way, to insinuate that everyone who voted for Hillary Clinton, or here in Canada for Justin Trudeau, are shining examples of perfected humanity, either. But what is it that motivates us to misuse what small power we have so that it works not only against the better interests of society and of the condition of our planet, but our own individual needs and concerns as well? I think that the critical flaw in the democratic process is that this tends to empower also those who should not be trusted with that kind of power, even if it's the power of but one solitary vote. We are not ready to govern ourselves. We are still too damaged, too ignorant, and too half-formed to be entrusted with this privilege. But I also have to agree with Churchill, that as awful as democracy is, all its antecedents are even worse. I can think of only one solution, Gentle Reader. No, I am not going to propose that we install a benevolent dictatorship with Yours Truly at the helm, unless we really want to exploit our collective death wish. Rather, might it not be better to think of ourselves as well as our various forms of government as being a work in progress? We are flawed and damaged as human beings. Every last one of us. We tend to use mental illness much as some of our ancestors pilloried witches and heretics: as scapegoats on which we can all dump our collective sins, darkness, garbage and brokenness and banish them to the outer darkness, be it the dungeon and the stake, or the mental health wing of the local hospital. Our choices are all going to be formed and informed by our life experience, and coloured, stained and warped by our collective fear and self-hatred. There will always be governments being elected that we disagree with or even hate. There will always be plenty of ignorant, fear-hobbled citizens around ready to do this. But we also share a huge collective responsibility: we have to make ourselves teachable, and we have to be willing to learn: other ways, new ways of living, of doing things, of governing ourselves, of living together. I have long believed that so much depends on our ability to see that we are really all in this together, and that whether we rise or fall, we are going to rise and fall together. I say, take the chance of casting your vote, and living with the results. And regardless of which set of dumbasses ends up ruining our country for the next four years or so, we still have to live and work together, and whatever is done with our scant resources, there surely must be ways of multiplying our scant loaves and fishes into a beautiful feast that all can share in (vegetarians like me can eat tofu). I think it is possible to be motivated by love, which alone will conquer the hate and fear that is running roughshod across our earth, and I think that there are good people doing wonderful things, and all we need to do is find these people, focus on them, learn from them and imitate them.