We Are At War with Ourselves, and Not in a Good Way

I don't like tobacco smoke. It makes me sick. I complain under my breath when someone near me lights up. But I do not pull out a gun to threaten him over it, and I don't go shooting people over it.

I could almost justify myself in doing so. It can make me that sick, sick enough that I can't function, can't think straight, can't stay awake, have trouble getting where I'm going on the train, can't work and put food on the table. (Tobacco smoke was the cause of my losing at least three good jobs, and losing those jobs is part of why I have trouble getting a good job now.)

If I thought it would solve problems, I could almost justify myself.

Instead, I try physically moving myself away from the smoke, or asking the smoker(s), politely, to respect my health if I can't move away. They usually do, these days.

There was a time some would complain, what about their right to smoke? But understanding is much more common now.

Truth about tobacco is winning out. It takes time, and reasoned discussion, and experiments and such, but truth is winning out.

Alcohol has similar issues, but social expectations have shifted.

Japan, for instance, has come from being a world where drinking was quite literally required of most people, to a world in which not drinking is recognized as a reasoned option. Twenty years ago, the social expectations practically required you to participate in office parties and meetings held in bars where, if you wanted to succeed, if you wanted to move ahead in the office, you had to participate in the drinking.

That still exists to a certain extent. It's hard for a new employee to work out his or her place in the pecking order without filling the boss's glass. If the smell itself undoes you, makes it hard to process what's happening around you, you can be at a disadvantage. And you do still stick out.

But the boss now recognizes that abstaining from alcohol is a reasoned and reasonable decision. And many co-workers do, as well, so that the soreheads (Sorry, but that's the most polite way to put it.) who complain about the non-comformist realize that they are putting themselves outside the pale of conformism when they complain about alcohol.

Alcohol is beginning to be recognized as the recreational drug it is.

Japanese society is beginning to discover ways to help each other to natural highs, natural ways to encourage each other, that don't involve fueling the high with drugs.

Beginning.

Prohibition, the way we tried it a hundred years ago in the US, was fuel for organized crime. Abondoning it the way we did back then was also a bad move. It caused violence both ways.

But the truth about alcohol is winning out now, to a large extent, because those who abstain are patiently discussing the problems with those who don't.

We have come to the point where a person can reasonably expect to be able to work in a tobacco-free environment, not by going to war over it, but by talking about it and admitting, socially, that it isn't nice to force others to smoke second hand.

We have come to the point where a person can hope to expect to be able to work on equal footing without having to indulge in beer, wine, whiskey, etc.

I grew up in a town in west Texas that was known at times as the murder capital of the US, and sometimes even the world.

The majority of people worked in the oilfield, and got together for beer to unwind after 72 hour (average) workweeks. It also happened to be on one of the main illicit drug supply routes from Mexico to Chicago and New York.

It was a violent town in many ways. People died on the job if the team was not clicking, and they died in the bars if arguments flared. And they died on the highway, in drug cartel wars.

We did not have KKK issues. The Klan was not approved in general, although there were some soreheads who complained about race instead of other reasons life was hard.

We did have racism in the town. There was an apartheid-like approach that put a lot of effort into getting funding and other help for the south-side schools. But there was separation.

Blacks were welcome in the northside school if they played sports well. Sometimes academically excellent blacks were recognized and got help.

When the courts said it was not enough and closed the south-side high school, resulting in busing students to the central and north-side high schools, there was grumbling, but there were no hangings.

The racial mix in residential areas has improved a lot in the forty-plus years since. There are still huge problems, especially related to football. (Great game, but we still go overboard with it, and good players often don't get the help they need to get balanced academic guidance.)

The town is a much less violent town now, but not because guns were banned. Guns were not the problem, they were just one of the ways the violence expressed itself.

This is what we need to talk about, rather than gun control, and rather than war on drugs. We need to work on solving the root problems.

We have to find a better way than trying to kill or otherwise force the other guy down, when we need a little relief from the stress of living in this world.

We need to quit living in an us-versus-them world.

(Started this about a year ago, when the shootings in the US began to become commonplace. Reminds me a little of the town where I grew up.) 

(And I need to write another post about how no true believer in the right to keep and bear arms is going to be putting his or her weapons on public display at inappropriate places like the discount store, much less spraying bullets around in public places where people die from the explosive expression of violence. But these kinds of posts take time to write reasonably clearly.)

[JMR201909021248: I ranted a bit more, but a bit less cogently on this topic after the late August shootings in and around Odessa: https://reiisi.blogspot.com/2019/09/war-and-where-i-grew-up-west-texas.html.]

Knee Jerk Gun Control?

I guess I'm getting cantankerous in my old age. I want to solve the real problems, not just the symptoms.

And the spate of "Oh! NO! WE MUST HAVE GUN CONTROL!" posts, articles, letters to the editor, and on and on gets to me.

What has changed?

What will change if we enact gun control legislation? Seriously.

Some kids somewhere whose parents want them to get an early start in flash-mob politics say, "Let's walk out of school! Yeah! That'll fix the problem!"

Actually, it might. Schools are a part of the system that heats the pot that boils over in violence.

(I've got nothing against Armalite shutting down production of the AR-16, by the way, and I have nothing against lots of people asking them to do so. But the guns are not the real source of the problem, they just exarcerbate the problems.)

I was gratified that there were students responding with, "Let's make a real change. Instead of walking out of school, let's remember 17 children who were victims of violence by reaching out to 17 children who need a friend."

That's a better approach.

Remember the 17 children sacrificed to the violent society by reaching out to 17 children who need a friend. Or even just one, if you and all your friends will pick different children to reach out to.

Make new friends. Don't ask them to be the same as you. Don't ask them to play the same games, go to the same parties, were the same clothes, listen to the same songs, put the same posters on their bedroom walls.

Talk to them anyway. Maybe listen to a song they like. Maybe tell them their clothes are just fine. Maybe play their games sometimes.

Remember the victims of violence by reaching out to 17 teenagers who aren't figuring out how to make good enough grades to get into college. Offer to help even one student who's having a problem with a subject you know.

But don't be too proud to make sure your help doesn't just confuse them. It's okay to discover that different schools and different generations sometimes teach to different standards.

Remember the victims of violence by reaching out to 17 adults who are having trouble finding work they can do to support themselves, and any children who depend on them. Talk to the homeless, the unemployed, the hungry, and listen.

Even just one.

If you run a business and make over $100,000 a year, you can forego that new yacht you want to buy, to hire one more employee. Or you might have a friend who knows a friend that could use an employee.

Maybe you have a friend who is good at paiting pictures but not so good at sacking groceries. You could buy one of her pictures and she could put food on the table for a week or a month. And you could get your friends to help, too. The more she sells, the more people know of her work, and the more people can reach out to help her.

Or if you can't find anyone nearby who needs help, go to the crowd-sourcing sites and help fund a project that isn't making it yet.

You don't want people to convert to a radical religion or other philosophy that teaches them to react to hidden oppression with open violence? Those philosophies and religions aren't new. Been around for a long time. What's the problem?

This current society has more people who face problems they can't solve on their own.

So. Reach out.

Find the people who need help. Don't make them be just like you before you help them.

Help them find solutions before the purveyors of crime and violence find them.

That's how to put a real end to the violence.

Burying your own weapons of war is okay.

Forcing others to bury theirs and at the same time refusing to help them feed their families is not.