Conversion
There is a concept I have been struggling with for some time. The concept is the concept of conversion. It’s a struggle because the term itself has a negative connotation for those that are wary of the heavy handed nature of faith. However, if we remove the religious connotation we can see the same hope for those that have become locked in a silo of hate, grievance, and expectation. The key word here is the word: deserve. It is a nasty word that has trapped millions into this silo of their own making. Others get stuff they don’t deserve. They didn’t earn it. It was taken from me. They took it. I need to take it back.
My wife and I started watching a series of videos called “What if…”. Essentially, it is a collection of videos of what would happen if (insert disaster here). The end result was almost always a horrible death. Pay attention long enough and you realize if you change this molecule, move or change the sun, add or change the moon, or change the rotation of the planets and we all die. It can turn you into an environmental fanatic or simply readjust our perspective. We don’t deserve to breathe. We get to breathe. We are lucky. Whatever cosmic force (or natural laws) we choose to believe in has allowed us to live. Suddenly, what we deserve doesn’t matter all that much.
A travelling priest brought this home last night. The key to conversion was the notion of gratitude. It is the same conversion that will move people from a position of grievance to a position of gratitude. It is the conversion that readjust our thinking from wondering why anyone lesser than us deserves to get something or someone greater than us that doesn’t need anything deserves to get something. In other words, deserve is a dirty word.
The question isn’t whether kids deserve to have their student loans forgiven. The question isn’t whether large banks or corporations deserve a bailout. The question isn’t whether we deserve to pay for services and benefits that we don’t personally benefit from. The question is whether any expenditure of our tax dollars provides the most benefit for the most amount of people. How do we collectively benefit from bailouts? How do we collectively benefit when others are provided with services and benefits? If we disagree then can we find something else that would benefit us all more?
The world of racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and every form of prejudice comes from the same source. That hatred all comes from the same source. It comes from a place of grievance. It comes from a mistaken belief that we live in a zero sum world where the stuff I deserve has somehow gone to someone else. It comes when I ignore the good fortune that I do have and instead guard whatever stuff I have with every inch of its life. It comes when I believe that someone else’s good fortune means I somehow must get less. The forces of evil do this to us. The forces of hate do this to us. We don’t need a conversion to a particular faith or creed. We need a conversion to gratitude. We need a conversion to the simple idea that we really don’t deserve anything, so we shouldn’t begrudge someone else getting a little help along the way.
I find myself, often, agreeing with Marcus Cole–
I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, ‘wouldn’t it be much worse if life *were* fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them?’. So now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
Babylon 5
1@thatotherjean #1 – I’m enjoying re-watching Babylon 5 for the nth time! Thanks for the quote!
2PS.
Ivanova is god. I will listen to Ivanova.
3My dad used to tell me it’s better to pray for mercy than Justice. Specially from my Mom.
4Whenever I hear someone start to talk about what he or she “deserves” I cannot help but be reminded by Robert Frost’s
5take on that: “There’s no connection man can reason out Between his just deserts and what he gets.”
(From: A Masque of Reason, 1945)
Nick, this post sounds all but perfectly reasonable to reasonable people. But whom we’re talking about simply aren’t. The programming runs deep. They’ve been trained, because facts regularly rebuke their bullshit stories, to refuse even to acknowledge them. They’ve been programmed with cynical projection, assuming their foes of the same moral failings and malignant motives for which their own consciences won’t relieve them. Consideration for others cannot be found in their lexicon.
Consequence, schmonsequence, they want what they want and they don’t care. Hypocrisy has been forcibly excised – something else they won’t acknowledge.
This makes David Atkins’ question* all the more salient: how do we deprogram a nation-wide cult?
The answer is we don’t. We will not reach them because they’ve declared with one voice that they will not be reached. Their grievances and persecution complexes will not die until they do. So this is me, Pontius Pilate, washing my hands, even of my own kin. Our only hope is that social forces shape their children into better people than they would have themselves. In the meantime . . . god help us.
*https://washingtonmonthly.com/2020/12/06/how-do-you-deradicalize-the-republican-party/
(sorry, momma. sometimes no other word will do. Ask Robin Weathers. (Googly won’t help, search for the movie “From The Hip”))
6The political problems in this country boil down to the fact that in recent years the Republicans are trapped in a zero sum mentality.
7This is usually when I mention the notion of what I might call the 95/5 rule. Most people are too far gone. I’d completely agree. To borrow from the same Biblical reading, but a different part of the story, this is where the shepherd goes after the one lost sheep and rejoices when he finds him. We should rejoice when we convert one or two out of 100. When we bring back that one friend or loved one from the abyss it is a win. If you think of it in electoral terms, getting one or two percent to see the light can be the difference in some very close races. So, I’m not optimistic to think even some would convert. Conversion may be rare, but we should celebrate those cases.
8With you there, Nick. Never leave a brother on the battlefield. But I maintain that nothing less than casting conservatism into the political wilderness for a generation will cure what ails us. Unfortunately the American attention span is pathologically deficient, and popular media have no desire to help. And tragically, we NEED conservatives to temper our medicines to better remedy our ills. But that social-medicine-as-legislation just doesn’t matter to them – NOTHING matters but transgressions against us they can get away with.
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