Image Poisoning

These are times of extraordinary polarization. In its final days, our election is deteriorating into vicious slander and purposeful manipulation that aims to convince us, not of the other’s poor policy positions, but of their evilness.

Undecided Americans are being baited into believing that Barack Obama is positioning himself to destroy what they hold valuable. As an Obama supporter, I can’t help but believe that the McCain camp is using slander, innuendo, and the most transparent playground antics imaginable to convince us to take refuge in fear as the basis for giving their ticket our vote. These tactics are vile. They are meant to draw out the worst in each of us. Ultimately, they are a shocking expression of cowardice.

I can point to dozens of examples of McCain’s deceit, flip-flopping, and, worst of all, attempts to distract Americans from the issues that will impact us for generations. Instead of convincing us to vote for him based on his wisdom, statesmanship, commitment to our country, and devotion to its citizens, he is trying to portray himself as a “maverick” who will “shake things up” because he is a Washington “outsider” who has chosen a “hockey mom” who is “just like you and me” and between the two of them, they’ll clean up all the messes we find ourselves in. None of these labels mean anything. Anyone who calls himself a maverick is automatically disqualified as one, just as anyone who says they are spiritually enlightened is not. These are sickeningly shallow gambits meant to reinforce the image of a human being rather than the substance of one.

People of sanity! Yes, I’m talking to you! We suffer from image-poisoning. We have become dangerously confused about what is an image of substance and what is actual substance, to the point that we believe that how things appear is how they are. Our election right now is a case of dueling brands, not dueling human beings. We are therefore subject to manipulation by slogans, posturing, and emotionality. It is understandable. There is far too much complexity to wade through to comprehend who and what we are voting for, and from a collective sense of exhaustion and an inability to fight contrived media messages, we crave simplicity: This guy is bad. This guy loves terrorists. You can tell by his lapel pin. It’s simple.

People who play upon this exhaustion to achieve their ends (even if they truly believe it’s in our best interest) are exhibiting exceptional degradation of the human condition. They are cowards.

And it makes me angry. It’s so tempting to either attack back with equally sleazy means; become emotionally unhinged and try to out-scream “them;” or avoid the whole thing by throwing up my hands or pretending that because I’m a Buddhist I’m all Ms. Equanimity. (Hello? Bullshit.) If I respond in any of these ways, I am a coward too.

So what to do instead?

One solution is to look at what is underneath the anger because no matter how angry I am, what lurks just below the surface is tremendous sadness. I ache for the confusion that creates fundamentalism. I mourn the dissolution of our education system that produces shallow thinkers. I cry for anyone who would hope to help our country but has to fight so hard to do so honestly. And on my good days, I even try to feel a little sad for John McCain and Sarah Palin even though I always, always fail because, well, I don’t have to explain why.

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. There are so many more ways to respond to sadness than there are to anger. Anger makes me dangerous to myself and others. It narrows my scope of responses down to a few very sorry possibilities. Sadness opens me up. It makes me look at what’s going on honestly, even though it is SO PAINFUL. Still, there are options. For example:

“The best thing for sadness is to learn something,” says Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, “that is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. –T.H. White from The Book of Merlyn

I will remain a human being who cherishes other people and life itself, no matter how confusing it all becomes. I will hold my mind to this world and its sorrows and never give up. But I need your help. All of you.

Starting with Barack Obama.

categorized in: dharma