A dark turn

I don't know why. But the world has taken a dark turn in the last few years.

Actually I do know why.

Because people are busy rationalizing their fears, their insecurities, their cowardliness, and their unwillingness to be bigger and more thoughtful.

We have convinced ourselves that shedding our compassion is a virtue. That it's a sign of progress.

And we are reaping the consequences from that effort.

And no matter how bad it gets, we just keep telling ourselves, "This is better." No matter how bad it gets.

When did compassion become a vice? When did mean-spiritedness and aggression in the form of "accountability" become a virtue?

Not in my lifetime. I don't care how many times you try to sell me that bottle of snake oil, I'm not buying.

People can bullshit themselves and one another all they want to on this one. I'm not buying it. You treat people like shit, you're not the harbinger of progress. You're an asshole.

Progress is treating people better, no matter which way you cut it.

And pretending differently just makes us assholes until we face up.

When President Franklin Roosevelt forcibly removed 120,000 Japanese-Americans from their homes during World War II, Americans did not see, at the time, what a dark turn the country had taken in the name of its fears. But they had taken a dark turn, clearly, with the light of historical hindsight. And no matter how much Americans clung to the banner of progress, a regressive, repressive, and mean-spirited policy removed hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens from their homes in the name of that dark turn.

Let's hope we face up to this dark turn sooner rather than later.

Love,
Ben