I saw a picture at one of the demonstrations in Spain today. A kid holding up a sign which said, in Spanish, “We were all on that train.”<\/p>\n
I feel that way today with the people of Spain. I felt that way when the massacre happened in Bali.<\/p>\n
We do not know yet who committed this atrocity in Spain. It is not for me to speculate.<\/p>\n
But in terms of the larger picture – I am with Samuel Huntington, in some respects – and I agree with his theory that what we are seeing now is a “clash of civilizations”. World wars will never be the same, where one clear-cut country wages war against another clear-cut country. This is an entire civilization attacking another civilization. Because of its IDEAS. It is much more amorphous, harder to pin down. The “root causes” float about, sticking together, coming apart, like mercury. Nobody can even agree on what the hell is going on.<\/p>\n
I talked with my friend David about this the other night.<\/p>\n
Change, adapt, or die out. A civilization that cannot adapt will not survive.<\/p>\n
Western civilization has had its ups and downs. It has not been an ever-increasing road uphill, to greater and greater heights of glory and perfection. There is no such thing as a Utopia. The journey has been a mess. Chaotic. Only with the long perspective of centuries can you look back on it and figure out what happened, how certain things came to be, how certain movements or certain pamphlets or certain philosophers helped shape our world. The Age of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason transformed our civilization. Separation of church and state, rendering Caesar’s stuff to Caesar and God’s stuff to God – This is a new concept. It is RADICAL. Revolutionary.<\/p>\n
It took us a long time to get there, and we still (obviously), (in this country and in others), struggle with what exactly that means. Separation of church and state. Separation of powers. Power-sharing. Bloodless transfers of power. This shit continues to blow my mind, when I look at the bloody chaos of so much of the rest of the world.<\/p>\n
It has taken centuries of philosphers, theologians, writers, poets to formulate these ideas, to fight things out, hash things out, to argue, debate, find the checks, find the balances, learn the value of giving UP some of your individual power for the good of the GROUP …<\/p>\n
This shit is hard stuff. It requires vigilance, restraint, and debate.<\/p>\n
I don’t care who you are in the world, or what nation you belong to. If you also feel that you were on that train in Spain – if you also feel that the values of this civilization (liberty, equality, freedom of religion, separate the Caesar from God) – then you are my kin.<\/p>\n
We are the same. We were all on that train.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I saw a picture at one of the demonstrations in Spain today. A kid holding up a sign which said, in Spanish, “We were all on that train.” I feel that way today with the people of Spain. I felt … Continue reading