Joshua Kreig's Fourteenth Annual Christmas Message

"Peace on Earth, can it be
Years from now, perhaps we'll see
See the day of glory
See the day, when men of good will
Live in peace, live in peace again
Peace on Earth,
Can it be

Every child must be made aware
Every child must be made to care
Care enough for his fellow man
To give all the love that he can"

(from Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy – David Bowie/Bing Crosbie 1977)

Still, despite all, there is hope...

Most politically/socially conscious boomers in North America point to 1968 as the year they lost the socio-ideological war. The assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy killed the spirit of change within the machinations of change. Throughout the world, unrest was peaking. There were victories and defeats. However, the historical evaluation of 44 years ago is that the greater social consciousness movements missed their tipping point in guiding the zeitgeist of North America and perhaps the planet.

This is not a discounting of the victories in civil rights during that period. The world is a better place for the battle fought hard. In Canada the period from 1967-69 was the unwrapping of Justice Minister Trudeau’s Bill C-150 which decriminalised homosexuality, made abortion possible, and legalized contraception. It is here we get the famous, “there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”

As the 1970’s unfolded, a shift to greater and greater consumerism was sweeping the world. As wealth increased, the world became hushed to sleep within its comfortable beds of consumer domesticity. At some point, the idea that we were designed to accumulate more and more for ourselves crossed three generations' consciousness. Consumerism has become ideologically embedded in the young. This is an important thing to accept. We are programmed to consume. High levels of wealth in North America and other countries have been sustained since the 1950’s without catastrophic interruption. Sure, there have been shortages and crashes and a war or three, but the majority weathered these with relative ease when compared with previous generations.

If we go back to pre-WWI the world map was not as connected. Our isolation and fragmentation had an insulating and protectiveness to it. WWI is the beginning of a global alignment of resources for a single purpose. However, the safety loop was, war reminded humans that there is more to life than financial wealth and individual concerns.  There are great communal goods and causes. After WWI came the crash of 1929 and the Great Depression. These are more great equalizers that reminded people that there is more to life than wealth. WWII was the next great mass alignment of economic resources for a single purpose. It is WWII and the business and political agreements made post war that has arranged the map of the world as we see it today.

From 1945 – 1968 there was unprecedented wealth in North America. In addition, global resources were feeding it and the world was getting overall richer in goods and cash. With the deaths of King and Kennedy, and the spirit inside the machine broken, the consumer capitalist nature of the machine took over. Profits over people.

From the Korean War and Vietnam War forward, wars have been contained to do minimum damage globally while supplying great profit to people outside those places of war. When it is in someone else’s backyard, we can turn up the music and enjoy our BBQ. With the de-escalation of the Cold War by 1991, this further averted a catastrophe that would have shocked us into realizing there was more to life than listening to Nirvana, watching the Terminator return, and playing Sonic the Hedgehog.

The 1990s and 2000s have played witness to gross exaggerations of global consumerism. The complex economic and political machinations that keep it going are geared for a single purpose -growth through profit. We are strip-mining the resources of the planet bare at such a rate that we risk never being able to sustain life as is. All signs say we cannot keep living the way we live today. The math does not lie. The person doing the math chooses to ignore the reality on the page and manipulate the variables.

How did we lose our way? Actually, this is the wrong question. The more accurate question, “How did our way become one of individual consumer satisfaction?” When did we move from communal thinking to individual thinking?

Once upon a time, we respected the power of business to help us be human. Once upon a time, we respected the power of government to help us be human. Once upon a time, we respected the power of science to help us be human. Once upon a time, we respected the power of law to help us be human. Once upon a time, we respected the power of education to help us be human. Once upon a time, we respected the power of religion to help us be human. - This is where every child was made aware, every child made to care, care enough for his or her fellow human, to give all the love that they can. There was a delicate checks and balance between all institutions maintaining a dynamic tension in the system. Allowing it to advance but not get too ahead of itself. This dynamic tension held the reins on the machines of consumer capitalist ideologies.

As we gained more and more knowledge of our systems, our curiosity could not handle the human realities found within those systems. We panicked. We did not know how to handle imperfect institutions. We slowly lost faith. Pick all these institutions and you will find them riddle with scandals, corruption, and human tragedy. We reacted by dismantling or abandoning institutions, leaving those who believe in them to become a tribe of their own.

Without our institutions working collectively on a common definition of our collective goals, we are aimless ships at sea without a command crew. Consumerism without a master runs wild directionless as we glide unawares. If we continue to place less and less faith in our systems what do we have left? What are the new thought paradigms we need to explore to create a global definition of communal humanity?

Over the last 44 years, half of us have lost faith in big business, government, science, law, education, and religion. The suspicion and distrust of institutions has been passed on to two generations. After the loss of social institutions that teach us how to be more than me and mine, the only thing left is looking out for me and mine. There is no big picture. We are then left to the voices of getting more for me and mine as cheaply and efficiently as possible – consumerism the oil of business.

Consumerism is not evil. It is a system requiring checks and balances outside itself to be sure the machinations of business are serving a purpose and never become THE purpose. Consumerism requires a complex business structure to maintain itself. The more we feed it the more it grows all encompassing to the point it is impossible to extricate one from it without retiring to the woods with a Swiss Army Knife and some dry sticks. To give us more as cheaply as possible and as efficiently as possible, we have put in place systems that are now maintaining that ideology. How often have you encountered a human being with a request and after checking something in a machine they say, “Sorry, we cannot do that.” Those interested in the business of consumerism have put in place a system that looks after combating checks and balances.

That is the real purpose of the remnants of Occupy Wherever. The machines of business have to be reoriented. The firmware needs an update. Business has always been with us and we have always been consuming. Business has the infrastructure to facilitate any course corrections we humans request of it. We just need to be reminded that we can live life based on more than our consumer desires and appetites. It used to be the complex role of and synergy between our institutions that informed our decisions.

Our modern explorations with atheism and buddhism to yoga and zen, says the modern human is looking for a way to structure their relationship to the world. They are looking for an ideological framework from which to act.

The world is pondering what's next without a communal framework to ponder the question.

As I look back on 2012, I see patterns in history repeating. The scale of civil unrest around the world is at an all time high. Clashes of ideologies and institutions are at an all time high. The struggle to define how humans are to be with humans is at an all time high. The East continues to be in turmoil with civil unrest, the West flirts with financial collapse with politics getting uglier, and Tibetans are setting themselves on fire. 

Can we have systemic change?

Is it even possible to step outside of our consumer domestication? Can we course correct an ideology that is almost three generations embedded? Has the system taken over to the point that it does not allow change? If that is the case then only a collapse within the system can evoke change. Without the collapse, the system self-perpetuates and sets in motion all regulation for such perpetuations. If we have no faith in a unity of vision, shared by all, then we can never agree upon what to correct. There is no core ideology to guide correction.

There is a battle of ideologies brewing before us that can only be played out and not avoided. The war of memes is the third world war. If we allow it, ideological tribalism will be the downfall of modern life as we know it. This is an easy assertion when you look at the amount of noise and the intensity of noise as ideologies battle for territory. We fight dirty. We manipulate truths. We skew realities. We lie. All tribes do this to defend and validate their truth.

As a gay man and a former Catholic seminarian, I find myself in such a war. Gay rights throughout the world have grown over the last 44 years. The recent news from the USA on gay marriage is an indication of shifting ideologies. However, the counter voices are growing even louder. The recent papal message said gay marriage will be the end of society. The pope believes it must be fought on all fronts. There are 1.2 billion Catholics on the planet. How many do you think are waiting to hear something like that to justify more hate? I studied Catholic theology for three years. Nowhere is the church given the right to instigate such hate. What I find sad is that there is such beauty and truth within the Christian story. The religious rites around the stages of life give comfort, structure, and ceremony and these run the risk of being lost.

All the tribes everywhere are fighting their ideological battles. Whether it is economics or education, guns or government all are defending their tribal ideologies.

Yet beneath all the tribal truths, there exist all the same truths. Everyone is trying to get enough resources to look after themselves and theirs. Can we not accept that we can do that communally with peace and goodwill towards all? We are as removed from being our neighbour’s keeper as any time in history. Yet we have so many ideals we strive for: justice, fairness, equality, universal respect, kindness, and perhaps compassion.

As I reflect on the year and all the micro and macro struggles and suffering that surrounds us I cannot say I know how there will be peace in all that mess. Perhaps our accumulative karma is unfolding before us. Will those of us amidst our struggles for a greater world consciousness look back on these years and say we seized our tipping point? Will we look back as the generation before us did and say, we lost the war despite our spotted victories? On the other hand perhaps neither this nor that.

Despite the struggles, I believe there is a great sense of hope in the world. There has to be. I have to believe that an informed person spending time with another informed person of different colours and creeds can sit and care for each other as part of the human family. I believe that peace on earth and goodwill towards all is possible. I believe we can awaken to a new sense of communal human purpose. I believe that one day I will be able to walk in any city in the world with my lover in hand and nobody will give a shit.

I think we once knew that we can be all these things but we have fallen asleep. It was our institutions keeping us somewhat awake to our greater good. Now we have our iPhone. Some days I think we are rousing from our slumber and some days I think we have slipped into a spiritual coma. Maybe we are just hitting the snooze button too often.

Nevertheless, hope remains. Now if we could figure out faith and charity.
 
Love and peace always,
 
Joshua

Merry Christmas 2012