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January/February 2003 Editor's Blog
From the Editor: "They" Are Us

Miriam Knight

A friend who used to teach children with learning disabilities was telling me why she stopped and now does only substitute teaching. It seems that when she was teaching full-time, she spent most of her time filling out federally mandated paperwork. As a substitute teacher, she could do what she really loves—teach! It put me in mind of similar conversations I have had with nurses and even doctors, especially GPs. Too many people with the spirit of compassion and an ethos of service are worn down by the system and leave their profession out of frustration.

What is it about our "system" that makes it necessary to regulate the heart out of such professions in the name of "protecting" the public? I suspect it is as much fear of blame if something goes wrong as it is concern for the weak and helpless--one big backside covering exercise. We are a society that seems to need to find someone to "blame" when something goes wrong rather than to acknowledge any responsibility we might have had. Once we have ritually sacrificed a scapegoat, we are excused from having to look too closely at our own behavior.

Take the resignation of Sen. Trent Lott--it had some really interesting aspects. One was that it seems to be perfectly alright to be a segregationist, as long as you do not say so within earshot of the media. Another was the ensuing feeding frenzy, with people falling over themselves to repudiate racism, segregation, the whole Lott. To top that, Lott basically repudiated his whole voting record in an effort to hold on to power. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, did he have an instant conversion to the brotherhood of man? Or was he cynically, if ineptly, saying whatever he thought had to be said, in order to hang on to his position. Of course the most fascinating aspect of all was that once we had the ritual sacrifice of Lott, we could take pride in the justice of our nation and get back to our day to day prejudices.

I remember once hearing that the difference between the English legal system, on which US law is based, and the European system, is that the latter also takes into account the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law seems irrelevant in corporate America, where we see callous and cynical businessmen taking tens and hundreds of millions out of companies going down the pan and claiming that they have done nothing wrong! It doesn’t matter that the employees and small shareholders (the inner circle having already gotten out) were wiped out; they were acting legally, and the only thing that mattered was "winning," that is, taking as much as possible from those not strong enough or smart enough or informed enough to protect themselves.

Maybe the regulators and legislators are right in trying to cover every loophole; maybe we the people are stupid and not to be trusted; maybe we do need to be kept in line by restricting our civil liberties. At least we seem to think so, since we elected people to govern us who are bent on eliminating them. Ah, but that would make us responsible, either through action or inaction, for getting ourselves into this mess; for the economy and for the war looming down on us; for unemployment and homelessness; for crime and hunger and violence.

There was an old Pogo cartoon that showed him returning, tattered from the fray, in full battle gear and saying, "We have met the enemy, and they are us."

It is easy to be filled with righteous indignation at the deeds of ________(you fill in the blank). Indignation is a strangely comforting emotion, especially when expressed in a supportive group, but it is ultimately futile. There may well be a big, dark "them" out there—but we have created them. "They" are aspects of ourselves that we have allowed to grow out of control through apathy, political correctness and fear. It is time that we took back our power and find the courage to start creating, day by day, the kind of world that we want to live in and leave to our children.