to see with eyes unclouded

My neighborhood in America

A neighborhood in Syria that we bombed

    "I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining "city on a hill," as were those long ago settlers ...
    "These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill." --- Ronald Reagan

"A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden." --- Jesus, possibly

    In the second Urusei Yatsura movie, Ataru and the gang find themselves trapped in a nightmare version of their town of Tomobiki, reliving the same day over and over, unable to escape the city. Toward the end, they all pile onto the private harrier jet of their obscenely wealthy friend, Mendou. They fly up and away from Tomobiki, only to discover that the whole town rests on the back of a giant sea turtle floating through space.
    As I've spent more of my life away from home, away from the Western world, and learned from those much more well-informed than I, I've come to see my own town in the same way. Except that Bloomington (or at least the version of my experience) is more a pleasant dream than a nightmare, and instead of a giant turtle, it sits on the backs of the rest of humanity. It's not the fault of the town, or the people who live in the town. Bloomington is a nice place full of mostly nice, even socially conscious, people. I live in a quiet, pleasant, affluent neighborhood. I bike down the road to see rows of identically pleasing houses and apartments. Everything is quiet. Bombs never fall from the sky. No one is killed by a drone strike. There are no political assassinations that I'm aware of. Yet I cannot help but wonder who had to be killed or exploited to make it this way.
    American politicians love to talk about American exceptionalism, that we are a 'city on a hill', yet I can't help but think that our city only reached this height by being built on top of the corpses of countless generations of slaves, displaced natives, sweatshop workers, murdered freedom fighters, and marginalized peoples around the world. I can't help but think that the 'globalization' that now rules the flow of wealth is still just imperialism rebranded.
    And who is to blame for it? I cannot blame my family and friends. They are hard-working, kind people in an imperfect world. I can blame the system, 'The Machine', but this machine is made up of my family and friends, and their families and friends. Where does the abstraction stop and personal responsibility begin?
    I can blame our government, but that's just a different word for the same thing. I can throw vitriol at our president and his cronies all I want, but the truth is that he is just the latest in a long line of figureheads atop of a vast structure of exploitation that has existed longer than the country itself, an apparatus that continues to run every time I buy a book about humanism on Amazon, or an organic coffee at our local store; or every time I pay my taxes while keeping silent about the latest police shootings, or our massive prison population, or the extrajudicial murder of who knows how many innocents abroad. Every time I take a look at Facebook politics, or see a Republican raging at Democrats, or a Democrat raging at Republicans, all I can think about is Erich Fromm's ever-prescient analysis of modern society. A society so beyond the action or comprehension of most individuals that a person gives up their will, even their identity, to a collective. To, in a sense, regain their self-worth by abdicating responsibility. In this morass of humanity, how could I single out anyone?
    No, the only one I can blame without equivocation is myself. When I sit down for a nice meal, I think of those who can't and blame myself. When I sleep in my climate-controlled bedroom, I think of the lean-tos in Rangoon housing whole families and blame myself. When I choose to teach rich kids because poor kids can't pay me enough, I blame myself. And when I can only respond to these thoughts with resentment instead of action, either constructive or destructive, I blame myself. And above all, I blame myself because while many people are born into their only lifestyle, I have had the opportunity to choose something else if I wish to. Yet I still live like this.
    The old stereotype is to finish your meal because somewhere else people are starving. And gratitude is a nice sentiment, I suppose. But is it really what I should be feeling? Is it true that I'm just fortunate and someone else isn't, so I should enjoy what they can't? Or is it more true that I have, in fact, taken the food they were going to eat, though I have too much already?

    The words that Reagan was referring to in that quote were from a lecture Winthrop gave called "A Model of Christian Charity". An ironic place from which to glorify ourselves. The city is on a hill not as a measure of superiority, but because everyone is watching them. And when I look at America from the outside, I wonder what the world sees. Because I see a nation that hoards wealth above all else in a world of poverty and strife, a nation that is willing to lash out to protect itself or take what it wants; I see a dragon in its mountain cavern, grown fat atop its treasure while the world outside burns.