It was his thing
Fighting exclusively
Battles he could win
His crowning I deal
Never finding himself
On-the-cide of losers
Whirled why’d
Naught ails
But win
Filling his sales
Whatever
He could bye
A captain of destiny
In habiting the same owed ship
Where awe is lost
Save hope
For another class
This poem is about doing most anything to win, and where pragmatism provides cover for sociopathy. What one will not do, that sacred “NO”, defines the boundaries and character of one’s ethical system and ultimate values. Without “no,” there is only sociopathy, boundless amorality. This is synonymous with “winning is everything.” The ability to lose, suffering loss, making sacrifices for a greater good, is at the heart of any mature system of values. This is not saying that suffering is intrinsically good, but some suffering is a necessary part of any process which seeks to trade up to greater goods. Our capitalistic culture provides easy cover for amorality, a mysterious “invisible hand” that will turn our selfishness, shortsightedness, and greed into durable goods. This makes nonsense of literally any system of ethics and human values. Capitalism is a meat-grinder of all that is human and humane.
In our contemporary context, Donald Trump is the consummate example of “winning is everything,” willing to trample anything and anyone to satisfy his rapacious appetite and infantile desires. His staggering indifference to coherency is perhaps the best testament to his sociopathy and megalomania. As his collection of infantile desires churn about from crying to be fed by others, being lulled by the prospect of absolute security, and to poop and have others clean it up, momentary contradictions are twittered away. During his campaign, Donald Trump illustrated well the height of his foolishness by claiming that he would regulate himself when he was president, even though he considered it his sociopathic duty to behave with no self-regulation in his shady business dealings, his defining “success.” The fact that so many Americans ate up this pablum attests to the worshipful status of the mythical “invisible hand” at the center of capitalism that will magically fix our bad behavior while encouraging bad behavior (sic).
Though it is any easy target to point out Donald Trump’s extraordinary stockpile of character defects, “winning is everything” is essentially a corollary of electoral politics. Losers don’t govern. The threat of apparent helplessness induced by electoral defeat is enough for most politically active human beings to habitually subjugate their highest ideals and dreams. Ideals and dreams are easy prey in the capitalistic meat-grinder of democracy for sale and ensuing plutocracy/oligarchy/kleptocracy. The nonnegotiable principals of “losers” are better served outside electoral politics where this different class of human (“losers”) can demonstrate the true winds of change needed for equality and justice for all. Losers, in terms of electoral politics, are simply those whose basic needs and human rights are not met by the governance of the current rulers in power. There are a lot of losers! When the many “losers” unite in solidarity against the fewer privileged elites, the electoral “winners,” justice is expanded. You may correctly note that in this equation the truest source and force for justice for all resides with the “losers.”
When people with “skin in the game,” whether from involuntary disenfranchisement or in voluntary solidarity, confront those with soothing privilege, truth and justice favor the side off the oppressed. May all of the “losers” of the world unite!
What Are Conservatives Conserving?
What Exactly Are Conservatives Conserving (Earth) POLITICAL BUTTON
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What exactly are conservatives conserving? This is a great question! Of course, I love the play on the similar root of the words conservative and conserving. Conservatives love talking about freedom. However it seems that if we listen to conservatives we would be free to live in a world that is being consumed by all of its so-called free human beings, and all these human beings would be competing to no end against one another. Sounds like a crappy version of freedom to me. Freedom without understanding and honoring the limits of the natural world seems to me to be simply a license to ignorantly destroy the planet and all of its inhabitants. Of course, the shared reality of the natural world, if it is going to be protected for the benefit of humanity, must put demands and limitations on human freedom. Human beings, though seen as the pinnacle of reality by many, are certainly not exempt from the feedback or karma that the rest of reality causes in response to our actions. Oftentimes, when I hear conservative speaking of freedom, it sounds to me like some immature fantasy of being free from anything and everything (or anyone). However, I believe that true human wisdom lies in discerning what we should do, not simply what we can do (or get away with). Reality gives plenty of good feedback about what we actually can’t do, so the obsession with freedom seems to me to be a sort of moot question. Like the existentialist philosopher John Paul Sartre says, “we are condemned to be free.” Freedom actually isn’t even a choice; we are born free. Certainly, living in community with other human beings is a complicated and difficult thing. However, it strikes me as foolish to ignore or greatly discount all the great things that we get from community as somehow too fuzzy or somehow reducible to some individualistic form of math (the whole equals the sum of the parts, not more) that need rely only on some “invisible hand” to do the difficult and messy work of creating and maintaining a healthy and functional community. In the end, it seems to me that what conservatives are conserving is the right to be selfish – more of an excuse than a human right. Then, to get out of this amoral or evil conundrum, they claim that selfishness is the highest form of selflessness or benefit to the common good. I suppose it’s very difficult to argue against an ideology that creates both its central tenet in its exact opposite. Let them eat cake and keep their cake to. What could be more conserving than that?
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