[Oe List ...] What is going on?

[John Epps]

Dick posed an insightful question about the prevalence of violence these 
days. Seems to me that the belligerence that you can find breaking out all 
over is an escape from the existential question, "What can I trust?" that 
has emerged since all our stabilizing structures have collapsed as sources 
of security. And, of course, it's the question of God all over again: Who 
or what is that One who takes out of being all the structures that provide 
a measure of economic, political and/or cultural security? Can we dare 
regard that One as God? Or is that One demon (or Osama)? It makes a 
profound difference.

As to the question of where to find the peacemakers, that's a good one. It 
can't be those who gloss over or deny (or justify) the collapses that are 
going on. It's got to be on the other side of wrestling deeply with those 
losses. Anyway this list serve seems full of such people. The ones without 
a community such as this are lonely, indeed. They're the ones we need to 
address. and hopefully the JWM book will be a means of spreading the word. 
But this isn't intended to be a commercial.

For a bit longer statement of this theme, read on:

We once analyzed the spirit mood of the times through these categories: An 
External Situation creates and Internal Crisis, which raises an Existential 
Question from which we try to Escape.

For me in the 80s the External Situation was the collapse of boundaries 
which created the Internal Crisis of inescapable diversity which raised the 
Existential Question of Where do I stand? We escaped through mindless 
relativism.

It seems to me the 90s were a time in which the External Situation featured 
an emphasis on the intangibles, which raised the Internal Crisis of meaning 
which raised the Existential Question of "What is my worth? We escaped 
through spiritualism.

Now we're into the 00s. The External Situation is a collapse of stabilizing 
structures (economic, political and cultural  perhaps 9-11 is a symbol of a 
much wider collapse). The economic structures collapsed when the dot-com 
bubble burst, the recession hit, jobs were lost, and the Enron/Dot-Com 
scandal occurred. That has even hit Martha Stewart. Economic structures 
clearly showed their vulnerability. The political collapse came with the 
elections of 2000 and was confirmed with the pullout from global treaties, 
and the unilateral invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Political structures, 
including the UN, just don't seem to work very well. For the 
cultural,  perhaps the RCC disclosure of pedophilia in the priesthood can 
symbolize that, but you can also find collapse in even the Superbowl's 
halftime show! And baseball, the national sport, is being portrayed as 
fraught with drug-enhanced players. Cultural structures, even the "pops" 
ones, just don't seem to hold noble values any more. What's happening is 
not that the structures collapse literally, but rather that their 
trustworthiness has been radically called into question. They're still 
around, but not providing us any stability or security.

Our Internal Crisis in all this is security. All the structures that 
provided a measure of stability and predictability are coming un-glued. We 
don't have anything reliable to count on as a shield against chaos. So we 
hawk security, as though a new cabinet post or new airport inspections 
could protect us from  what? This is a serious internal crisis. When all 
our security structures fall apart, we see chaos everywhere. Our latest 
name for it is "terrorism," and it's something greatly feared. To posit a 
perspective, note that there are more deaths from traffic accidents on a 
holiday weekend than there have been from terrorism in the USA in the past 
10 years; but our traffic system still works, so it doesn't occasion fear. 
But our security systems, be they economic, political or cultural, seem not 
to work and leave us fearful.

  And this raises the Existential Question of "What can I trust?"

We escape that question through belligerence. When our sacred cows get hit, 
we yell bloody murder! I'm quite amazed at the level of anger that has come 
into the political scene in the USA. But you see it in other realms as 
well  the hatred thinly disguised as religious fundamentalism and the 
malevolence of virus-creators and spam mongers. The riots at sporting 
events are further examples of belligerence as a prevalent style.  This 
doesn't even mention the explicitly belligerent views of the "hawks" in the 
international scene who are not simply limited to the present 
administration in Washington.

While these illustrations are heavily Western, I believe you can find the 
same dynamics operating elsewhere. Take the Palestinians, for example. 
Obviously their economy has collapsed. Their political structure, as soon 
as it's set up, is taken apart again, either because of internal struggles 
or by the Israelis. Their culture seems devoid of significating power. So 
with the crisis of security and no answer to "What can I trust?" there is a 
turn to suicide bombings. Which, of course, work only to exaggerate the 
conditions that caused them in the first place. I'd be willing to content 
that terrorism is a manifestation of this spirit mood in its escape mode.

What would it mean to trust that which takes out of being all those 
structures that provide some measure of security against the lurking chaos 
in which we live? That's the question of God in our time.

Your additions, corrections, suggestions and recommendations would be most 
welcome as we try to keep tabs on what is going on in the world these days.




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